all there is
If you think I am a "materialist," Richard, you have misunderstood my perspective. It's not either/or. I have no interest in either/or. This, regardless of what one believes, is it!
I am in no way a materialist. I am a non-dualist in this matter, by which I mean that what is, is, and does not require a "substrate" to exist.
The opinion that "Consciousness" (whatever that is) is the substrate of the material world begs—"beggars"—the question, impoverishes the question by simply assuming that the material world needs a non-physical cause. That view is outright dualism, no different from "God created the heavens and the earth."
Nonsense! Why must there be a creator? Why can't all this just be here without having been "created?" Without a cause. Without an explanation. Without even a possibility of explanation. Your view omits consideration of that idea.
That a material world exists is undeniable. In every waking moment we all live as if materiality were real--if you are cut, your first move is to stop the bleeding. That focus is sane and natural. To regard such naturalism as "materialism" seems to be a feature of the hypnotic trance of spirituality--a fascination with conjectures and questions that have no answers but many "teachers" offering answers regardless. That way, the philosophical idealism argument, which is largely about denial of impermanence and death, can continue indefinitely.
I am neither an idealist nor a materialist; I am an "I-don't-knowist." Conjecture and idle speculation hold no interest for me. There is only what is, I say, and for me, that is an insoluble mystery.
Hanging a name on a mystery, whether the name is "Consciousness" or "Jehovah," does nothing to clarify matters.
I wish you well.
Well said. In my limited perspective, it is unknowable whether there is a ‘cause’ or not and ultimately it does not matter because it does not change the aliveness found in experience of this-is-it. To find freedom is to see with a sense of clarity and let go of conjectures and beliefs that limit the mystery and try to define the unknowable. Be human for that is all we can be.
Yes, a don’t-know-ist, caught in the mystery, the “whole catastrophe.”