If not materialism, then what?
Continuing on with my series of brief essays on subjects covered more extensively in my latest book, Why Materialism Is Baloney, I'd like today to summarize my main argument. This article, thus, is a kind of overview of the book.
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The source of our bleak contemporary worldview is the materialist metaphysics: the notion that the real world exists outside subjective experience, and that experience itself is generated by particular arrangements of matter. This view entails that your entire experience of life unfolds within your head, for it is generated by your brain. The real world is supposedly a realm of pure abstraction, akin to mathematical equations, devoid of color, sound, flavor, fragrance or texture.
At first sight, materialism seems to make good sense. It seems to explain why we cannot control reality. After all, if matter is fundamentally outside mind, it’s natural that we cannot change things merely by wishing them to be different. Moreover, materialism seems to explain why we all share the same world: unlike a private dream, a reality outside mind can be observed concurrently by multiple witnesses.
Yet, materialism is not the only metaphysics that can make sense of things. In fact, among the alternatives, materialism is particularly cumbersome: since knowledge can only exist within subjective experience, a material realm outside experience is fundamentally unknowable. In the book, I explore a more parsimonious and logical metaphysics according to which reality is a kind of shared dream; according to which matter arises in mind, not mind in matter; a metaphysics that implies that consciousness doesn’t end upon physical death.
As readers of the book will see, materialism is based on two childishly flawed conclusions: it mistakes a world outside the control of our conscious wishes for a world outside consciousness itself; and it mistakes the visible image of a process for the cause of the process. The book argues that the brain is merely the visible image of a localization of the flow of consciousness, like a whirlpool is the visible image of a localization of the flow of water. For exactly the same reason that a whirlpool doesn’t generate water, the brain doesn’t generate consciousness!
Contemporary culture is extraordinarily biased toward the unprovable and clumsy materialist metaphysics. For instance, if I say that reality is a kind of shared dream, most people will take it to mean that reality is inside our heads. In fact, it is materialism that says that everything we experience is inside our heads: people, trees, stars and all! If reality is a shared dream, then it is our heads and bodies – as parts of reality – that are in the dream, not the dream in our heads. Somehow, our culture has come to attribute to materialism the intuitiveness of other worldviews, while attributing to other worldviews the absurdity of materialism.
In the book, I explore these questions in a rational, empirically sound manner. This isn’t a feel-good spiritual book, but a logical and rigorous exploration of reality. It looks past the cultural
fog that for so long has obscured our view and negatively influenced our lives. It unveils a reality much more conducive to hope than the bleak materialist view implies. It concludes that life is
pregnant with meaning and purpose, and that death is just a change in our state of consciousness. It is time we opened our eyes and dropped the insanity of materialism; 21st-century humanity demands
a more mature, adult worldview. So join me in this exciting exploration, one that may just change your entire outlook on life and reality.
http://youtu.be/2m7BxlWlvzc
Why Materialism Is Baloney - How true skeptics know there is no death and fathom answers to life, the universe, and everything
Bernardo Kastrup
The present framing of the cultural debate in terms of materialism versus religion has allowed materialism to go unchallenged as the only rationally-viable metaphysics. This book seeks to change
this. It uncovers the absurd implications of materialism and then, uniquely, presents a hard-nosed non-materialist metaphysics substantiated by skepticism, hard empirical evidence, and clear logical
argumentation. It lays out a coherent framework upon which one can interpret and make sense of every natural phenomenon and physical law, as well as the modalities of human consciousness, without
materialist assumptions. According to this framework, the brain is merely the image of a self-localization process of mind, analogously to how a whirlpool is the image of a self-localization process
of water. The brain doesn’t generate mind in the same way that a whirlpool doesn’t generate water. It is the brain that is in mind, not mind in the brain. Physical death is merely a de-clenching of
awareness. The book closes with a series of educated speculations regarding the afterlife, psychic phenomena, and other related subjects.
- eBook £6.99 || $9.99
- Apr 25, 2014. 978-1-78279-361-8.
- BUY | AMAZON US | AMAZON UK
- Paperback £12.99 || $22.95
- Apr 25, 2014. 978-1-78279-362-5.
- BUY | AMAZON US | AMAZON UK
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