The Nature of Reality - Materialism v Idealism

Hugh Johnson

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Peat is a materialist, and I have never actually found any real arguments for materialism. Every materialist has simply demanded that they be recognized as correct and has categorically refused to defend their views, often relying on aggression and censorship to maintain their view. However, I do believe that Ray is a fundamentally honest person, so I was hoping someone here could offer me solid argument for the independent existence of a material reality.

I have the idealist position, aka nondualism or Advaita Vedanta. This is the simple idea that there can only be one fundamental reality. If there are two apparent realities, such as matter and thought, or the computer and the internet, these two must the part of an underlying reality, otherwise they could not interact and we could not perceive them both. I argue that the common reality to all things is consciousness. Ideas, feelings, matter, concepts, energy etc. are all unified by consciousness. It is then the underlying reality. If we were to assume that the Matrix is a documentary, the only real thing would be consciousness. And to take this a step further, there is not reason to assume that if we were plugged into a simulation that the other world would function on the same rules as our's, including things like matter or gravity. However, that world would necessarily be in consciousness should we wake up from the Matrix.

Bernardo Kastrup argues for the nondual position here:


He also has debated many academic philosophers, and AFAIK so far they have not countered his arguments. Some of these debated can be found on the Internet.

Thought is unreliable of course. So I would like to move onto empirical evidence. I am going to make the argument that empirical evidence show that consciousness affects the apparent material reality. The response to this from honest materialists has often been to resort to panpsyschism and other ideas that retain the existence of a material reality, while adding psychic reality on top of it. I find this a fundamentally incoherent position, as it requires there to be two realities that interact with while denying that there is an underlying reality that includes both of them.

Here is a very long discussion on empirical evidence by big brain people:


I will link shorter experiments here.

Dog telepathy:


Phone telepathy:


And a huge collection of research papers:

On the CIA remote viewing program:

I have personal experience with these things, as do billions of people. It is quite easy to experience after a few years in tantra, meditation or certain martial arts. Of course, free will is primary so very few will experience thing that would contradict their views.

That is my position. I invite any materialists to provide counterarguments, and I do not expect you to read all the studies or whatever.
 
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jimmy5493

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Not sure if Ray is actually a materialist. At least not in any dogmatic sense. I've never heard him stake out any definite metaphysical stances before, but I have heard/read him say things in interviews that led me to believe that he was very open to the idea of a supra-material substance (or whatever he he should call this), afterlife, even Kali Yuga. ...

I see how he might be said to be a materialist , because his work he certainly does put his focus on matter. (To give one example, his soviet brain science book is interesting in how it shows how Marxist ideology / dialectical concepts influenced and even propelled soviet scientists to do important work (and my takeaway is, that even a fundamentally false ideology can provide us with new perspectives that can help us understand the world better) But he's a biologist after all, so again matter will be his focus. ( And in addition much of his work goes to show that matter is far more marvelous than mainstream science would lead us to believe -- though perhaps this strengthens the materialist stance, because it gives matter more spiritual power; for example, I could easily reconcile materialism with the possibility of telepathy by saying that atoms can communicate from far distances -- and even the mainstream theory of quantum entanglement holds that they can) ... (this is all very complicated, and hopefully I'm still making sense)

Perhaps I'm mistaken in some of this... Do you have any quotes of him committing himself strongly to a materialist stance? Anyway, interesting post, not sure if it really needs to be filed as "Anti-Peat" though
 
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Hugh Johnson

Hugh Johnson

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Not sure if Ray is actually a materialist. At least not in any dogmatic sense. I've never heard him stake out any definite metaphysical stances before, but I have heard/read him say things in interviews that led me to believe that he was very open to the idea of a supra-material substance (or whatever he he should call this), afterlife, even Kali Yuga. ...

I see how he might be said to be a materialist , because his work he certainly does put his focus on matter. (To give one example, his soviet brain science book is interesting in how it shows how Marxist ideology / dialectical concepts influenced and even propelled soviet scientists to do important work (and my takeaway is, that even a fundamentally false ideology can provide us with new perspectives that can help us understand the world better) But he's a biologist after all, so again matter will be his focus. ( And in addition much of his work goes to show that matter is far more marvelous than mainstream science would lead us to believe -- though perhaps this strengthens the materialist stance, because it gives matter more spiritual power; for example, I could easily reconcile materialism with the possibility of telepathy by saying that atoms can communicate from far distances -- and even the mainstream theory of quantum entanglement holds that they can) ... (this is all very complicated, and hopefully I'm still making sense)

Perhaps I'm mistaken in some of this... Do you have any quotes of him committing himself strongly to a materialist stance? Anyway, interesting post, not sure if it really needs to be filed as "Anti-Peat" though
Peat clearly has sophisticated views on the matter, and I loved his books. That being said he has said in some interviews things that appear to imply disagreement with idealism. One of his problems with it seems to come from disagreeing with Plato, although I don't think it is fair to judge thousands of years of philosophical tradition based on one Greek dude.

I have unfortunately never found him articulating his views on the nature of reality. He likes William Blake, who Rupert Spira, a nondual teacher, often quotes.

In here he says the consciousness is a quality of matter. @haidut there quotes a what appears to be a Vedantic or Advaita Vedanta quote, but then moves on to turn the whole idea upside down, arguing that consciousness is a property of matter. Then Peat says "it is proper to think of consciousness as a substance" which in fairness is roughly my view. I can not quite pin down his view, but it does seem to consider matter primary and the cause of experience which is the opposite to my view.

 

Perry Staltic

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I don't like the materialist-idealist framing because idealists (which you characterize as non-dualists) can be dualists, For example gnostics are dualists who identify with the ideal by mentally dissociating from the material.
 
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Hugh Johnson

Hugh Johnson

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I don't like the materialist-idealist framing because idealists (which you characterize as non-dualists) can be dualists, For example gnostics are dualists who identify with the ideal by mentally dissociating from the material.
You are correct. I made a mistake in describing my position, which is a form of idealism, but not the only form.
 

RealNeat

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Peat clearly has sophisticated views on the matter, and I loved his books. That being said he has said in some interviews things that appear to imply disagreement with idealism. One of his problems with it seems to come from disagreeing with Plato, although I don't think it is fair to judge thousands of years of philosophical tradition based on one Greek dude.

I have unfortunately never found him articulating his views on the nature of reality. He likes William Blake, who Rupert Spira, a nondual teacher, often quotes.

In here he says the consciousness is a quality of matter. @haidut there quotes a what appears to be a Vedantic or Advaita Vedanta quote, but then moves on to turn the whole idea upside down, arguing that consciousness is a property of matter. Then Peat says "it is proper to think of consciousness as a substance" which in fairness is roughly my view. I can not quite pin down his view, but it does seem to consider matter primary and the cause of experience which is the opposite to my view.


Listen to the last hour of my new convo with Ray on primitive Initiative podcast. I assumed he was materialistic in some sense too but he pulses in and out of the idea to make it more wholesome and not dogmatic. It's like a hybrid.
 

Perry Staltic

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In here he says the consciousness is a quality of matter

Sounds like my dad. He used to speak with such certainty that consciousness was just a product of the mind. This was a guy on citalopram lol. If only he could see that matter is a quality of consciousness, or more accurately, sublime intelligence, then he could begin to heal.
 
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I wrote my first email to Dr. Ray Peat, after my mayhem on the forum. I was confused as to how a few in society (Ray Peat forum) saw things. And I wanted to get his take. I wasn’t sure how this would go, but it went like this:


I wrote: [this is after my introduction about 1/2 way through the email] “What is interesting to me is that you were introduced to me, and then a year later I started listening to Krishnamurti, especially Bohm’s dialogues with Krishnamurti. (So my eyes were opened 3 times.) I think they’re very valuable. I was wondering where you stood on all of that? If that’s overstepping, I don’t know....I have had glimpses me viewing the world without going through my mind first. I wanted to know is this a reality or is it a hopeful fantasy?....Is it possible, in your experience, to have a spiritual feeling (no religion, I don’t buy into any of that) without drugs. And do you think it is possible to go beyond the mind and it’s yoke?”


And he replied:

“Both Krishnamurti and David Bohm have been important for me. I think the real nature of being involves seeing the world without going through the mind. William Blake and Aldous Huxley are others who have talked about it—the “mind” as a “reducing valve” that lets in only a little reality at a time. I think the ideas of science, such as the physics that Bohm was opposed to, are a myth that causes people to look for knowledge in the wrong places.”

[then he added a quote from Bohm]

David Bohm: A change of meaning is a change of being.The being of matter is its meaning; the being of ourselves is meaning; the being of society is its meaning. The mechanistic view has created a rather crude and gross meaning which has created a crude and gross and confused society.


He does feel it is possible to see the world without going through the mind.
 
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@haidut


Hello dr. Peat,

I wanted to know what you think about Quantum Physics, Einstein's theories and mainstream physics theories, especially in the context of biophysics for the body and consciousness?

What do you think about the Orch Or theory from Penrose for example?

I think that I remember that you said that the Electric Universe Theory is better?

Thank you very much!

With an orientation of radical empiricism and process philosophy, I have some sympathy for Einstein’s project and his reluctance to accept quantum theory. I think the quantum theory was created by philosophically inadequate people.
Conventional views of electrons were built on just a few kinds of experiment, and I think new approaches to understanding matter will be found. While I think consciousness is electronic, I don’t think it’s appropriate to think of it as being just inside cells (much less simply a matter of synaptic interactions). Electricity’s space-filling property is relevant. The process (or background, that we call body or self) that gives continuity and meaning to our perceptions and actions is something that’s always happening, and people usually turn their attention away from it when they aren’t in some practical or objective activity. The organism has many potential intentions, and if we let our attention respond, they can appear as hypnagogic images or dreams. Ordinary metabolism, and its variations, are always producing these parallel spaces, and their quality varies under the influence of various metabolites and “dopants.” I think the electric universe is analogous to the electric organism.

[ moderator edit: related thread RP Email Advice Discussion: Consciousness Is Electronic / Dreaming ]
 
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Hugh Johnson

Hugh Johnson

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What does it mean to "go thru the mind" and what does "a societys meaning" mean?
I would assume it refers to projecting a story on perceptions. If that is the case, I would suggest a Radical Honesty exercise "I see... and I imagine". Typically done with pairs, but I suppose alone can work too. It's kind of an arbitrary distinction, but it gets you close. For example, you can see the hair on a person's head. You can not see that it is short. You can imagine that, since that is a story your mind generated.

So you might say "I see the hair on your head, and I imagine it is short." "I see your mouth and I imagine you are smiling." etc. This sort of practice will quickly develop the ability differentiate sense perceptions, and to bs you make up in your mind and project upon the world. Most of what you project has come from the society, conditioned since you were a kid.

That being said, your sense perceptions are also culturally influenced:
 

Cloudhands

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I would assume it refers to projecting a story on perceptions. If that is the case, I would suggest a Radical Honesty exercise "I see... and I imagine". Typically done with pairs, but I suppose alone can work too. It's kind of an arbitrary distinction, but it gets you close. For example, you can see the hair on a person's head. You can not see that it is short. You can imagine that, since that is a story your mind generated.

So you might say "I see the hair on your head, and I imagine it is short." "I see your mouth and I imagine you are smiling." etc. This sort of practice will quickly develop the ability differentiate sense perceptions, and to bs you make up in your mind and project upon the world. Most of what you project has come from the society, conditioned since you were a kid.

That being said, your sense perceptions are also culturally influenced:
Okay good response thanks!
 

rei

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Years ago i considered it woowoo but after being exposed to kastrup's philosophical/logical take of the argument i was intrigued as i did not find anything i could object to, the nail in the coffin was probably his doctor's dissertation where the opponents had absolutely no relevant counterarguments to present, and often did not even appear to grasp the full depth of Kastrup's argument. So i decided to start listening to the most relevant lectures "straight from the horse's mouth", the probably most popular current generation advaita teacher (at least online) swami sarvapriyananda and must say those people had it quite well figured out already 5000 years ago.

Simply put, i have not found a line of argument that would make materialism defendable. Only thing that can really be used is our "obvious experience" but that is not an argument at all, as it is obvious to us only because our society is completely sold on it and what we have been exposed to our whole life.

Here you can watch Kastrup's doctoral defense

 

Cloudhands

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After contemplating this concept, i came to a conclusion, and someone correct me if im not understanding the notions correctly. I feel like there cannot be a distinction made between matter and thought, seeing as they are two qualities of the same object. I think when he says that energy and structure are interdependant he means the same thing. Like yes we can describe one thing in an infinite number of ways, focusing on different aspects of its beingness, but they are all connected. Like i dont think consciousness is a quality of matter, as much as theyre the same thing, one doesnt stem from the other, they appear simultaneously as an infinite beingness.
 
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Hugh Johnson

Hugh Johnson

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After contemplating this concept, i came to a conclusion, and someone correct me if im not understanding the notions correctly. I feel like there cannot be a distinction made between matter and thought, seeing as they are two qualities of the same object. I think when he says that energy and structure are interdependant he means the same thing. Like yes we can describe one thing in an infinite number of ways, focusing on different aspects of its beingness, but they are all connected. Like i dont think consciousness is a quality of matter, as much as theyre the same thing, one doesnt stem from the other, they appear simultaneously as an infinite beingness.
Distinction can be made, and should be. Vanilla and chocolate are distinct after all. And at the same this consciousness it the common quality of thought, matter and energy. Nondual view is that all things are manifestations in consciousness, and matter is one of the forms taken by consciousness. The infinite beingness and consciousness are the same thing.
 

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