The Evil of materialism

[AgnosticBoy]

I am not sure that minds can play tricks.

Rather, is it not a matter that we [consciousness] allow tricks to be played on us?
We allow ourselves to play tricks on our self and other selves.

Materialism is just us playing tricks on ourselves. We are in a game...one we created.

Sounds like the Matrix!

 

[William]

Yes. Such stories were created through human medium as a means of nudging seekers into realization...but is it that kind of game...or another kind of game? Perhaps the stories are distorted through the human experience and so take on a kind of warfare quality...so we are within a war-game...

 

[Swami V. Ānanda]

How do you know that your experience is reliable? For instance, many people report to experiencing many things, and they may misidentify it, their mind may play tricks, drugs can induce experiences, etc.

The experience is real for me. Everyone that has the experience, from the ordinary person to the scientist, all say that the experience is real. It leads them all to question materialism.

I can not prove it to you or for you.

 

[William]

That is the nature of the game-play.

The individual personality must place aside the need to be convinced by evidence others have to bring and do the science themselves.

One can only bear witness to ones own subjective experience as a kind of offering, not as any kind of proof.

The other can accept or reject as they will. I have not yet seen any great argument for why experiences happen, but reject the materialist view that everything is simply an emergent happening of the brain, in the same way I reject the religious view that I am being deceived by devils.

I think these explanations are more excuses used by those who have not yet come to the realization that they are occupied in a rather complex and exhilarating role-playing game which has been going on for a very, very long time...

 

[AgnosticBoy]

The experience is real for me. Everyone that has the experience, from the ordinary person to the scientist, all say that the experience is real. It leads them all to question materialism.

I can not prove it to you or for you.

I can tell you that I'm definitely open to the idea that consciousness is much more than the brain. I just don't associate any of that to something magical or spiritual. I would also hope that scientists start probing that line of thinking as I see some philosophers of mind already getting into it, namely David Chalmers and Philip Goff.