Russian Dolls
Most of us who have grown up in modern science-oriented cultures are deeply conditioned by materialist assumptions. Our relationship to a materialist world-view is like a fish’s relationship to water: It’s so all-pervasive and taken-for-granted that we hardly notice it.
If we’re committed to intellectual honesty and deep inquiry, it behooves us to uncover this level of our conditioning, and to challenge it – i.e.
to really see if the materialist assumptions that we’ve been making are justified, or not.
Now this sort of investigation will likely lead you into some deep waters, emotionally as well as philosophically. It can become quite complex, particularly at a conceptual level. And some sticky mental-emotional resistances may arise.
What may be useful, as a starting-point – and something to come back to, as a guiding image – is the following characterization of two alternatives, described in relation to a Russian doll set. In the same way that, in a Russian doll set, the largest doll contains progressively smaller dolls, with the smaller dolls all "nesting within" (or we might say "symbolic of") the largest doll ...
In a materialist world-view, the largest doll is believed to be material reality or the material world. This material world includes the physical body. Held within the physical body (as part of the material world) is the physical brain that is more-or-less equated with mind. Held within or generated by brain/mind is consciousness.
In other words, in a materialist view, the largest of the Russian dolls is material-world/physical-body; the second-largest doll is brain/mind; and the third-largest doll is consciousness. What’s most important in the sense of being most fundamental or most real (symbolized by the largest Russian doll) is the material world.
In an idealist world-view, the situation is – as illustrated by our Russian doll metaphor – basically reversed: The largest doll is believed to be consciousness. Held within consciousness are apparently-individual minds. And within or via mind is the appearance of the physical world (including the physical body). What’s most important in the sense of being most fundamental or most real (symbolized by the largest Russian doll) is consciousness.
So then, the question to ask is: which of these two world-views – these two conceptual maps – accords most closely with our direct experience? Which of the two can be most rigorously justified, philosophically?
These are questions that can take a lifetime (or more) to answer – so don’t worry if it all seems a bit impenetrable – just let yourself start to become curious. You might also “try on” each of the two world-views, in turn – i.e. adopting their assumptions for a given amount of time (a day, a week, a month) – to see how they feel, and to notice what sorts of perceptions, thoughts and actions emerge from that particular set of assumptions. Such experiments can be quite fun and interesting.
Given that most of us have heavy -- and largely unconscious -- biases in the direction of a materialist world-view, analyses such as Bernardo Kastrup’s Top 10 Materialist Fallacies can be of great help in starting to unveil some of these hidden assumptions. I'm not saying that you will or should agree with everything that Mr. Kastrup suggests, just that it's well worth considering. Enjoy!
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