If Materialism Is False, Death Is Nothing To Fear

Materialism is such a dominant perspective in today’s culture that we’ve almost forgotten that it is a perspective. The near-universal assumption is that consensual reality is a mindless collection of atoms and molecules, and of temperature and energy, and that the brain generates consciousness. This essay is a reminder that this perspective is just a perspective, and not necessarily the truth.

Thinking logically, it soon becomes apparent that there’s nothing especially rational about adopting the perspective of materialism, although doing so may be temporarily useful for anyone trying to run a scientific experiment.

From an existential perspective, the only thing you know for sure is that you’re conscious. That’s it. Existence precedes essence – this is another way of saying that consciousness precedes the contents of consciousness.

At this point, most people will protest that they are also aware of the material world. This conclusion follows naturally from the assumption that the brain generates consciousness, because once a person has made this assumption it seems natural to think that the brain has developed to become aware of the material world.

But no-one knows for sure that what they are aware of is a material world. A person might be conscious of a perspective that relates to some mental attempt to make sense of the stimuli that they have received from what appears to be a material world, but this is in no way evidence that such a material world exists – the map is not the territory.

Some might argue here that the sensory impressions that impact upon our consciousness are, nonetheless, impressions from the material world, and that we know that our sensory organs have made accurate impressions of this material world because of our successful adaptation to it.

But the worlds that we encounter in our dreams, which can be as real and as detailed as this material world, are evidently not creating impressions on our eyes, because those are closed and we are asleep. From this we can deduce that eyes are not necessary to create an illusion of a material world realistic enough for a consciousness to want to survive in it.

And from this it follows that a material world is itself entirely unnecessary, because consciousness could simply dream one up in its absence and would be unable to tell the difference.

At this point a materialist might continue to object, claiming that although the dreamworld that the dreamer experiences is evidently non-material (despite being equally as real from an existential perspective), the appearance of it is nonetheless created by the brain, wherein it resides.

But at this point the materialist has allowed themselves to become a magical thinker. The belief that consciousness resides in the brain does not follow from any logical process.

Usually the materialist will continue to profess that science will one day prove what the “origin” of consciousness is, and that when it does so this origin will doubtlessly be material, but this line of reasoning is just the mirror opposite of what materialists deride as “the god of the gaps”.

In other words, it’s magical thinking, not rational thinking.

Talking to a materialist about the idea that consciousness itself has generated the contents of consciousness (i.e. it has dreamed up the material world as a particularly convincing delusion) is like talking to a medieval theologian about the idea that man has generated the idea of the Christian god – their basic existential assumptions about reality make a conversation about it essentially impossible.

If one refuses to make the assumption that the brain generates consciousness, then there is no reason to believe that the death of the physical body and brain should affect the experience of being conscious. Therefore, it follows that, if the existence of consciousness is not predicated on temporal phenomena, consciousness must be eternal.

And if consciousness is eternal, then all the contents of consciousness are just forms – things that come and go. And your body, being nothing more than some of the contents of your consciousness, is one of those things that comes and goes – but it isn’t you.

Therefore, there is no significant difference between the death of the physical body and any other major change in the contents of consciousness. The death of the physical body might portend a great change in the contents of consciousness, but there is no logical reason to think that this necessitates a change in consciousness itself.

The Dualistic Perspective, Positive Thinking and the Lower Self

There is a tendency in society for people to praise so-called ‘positive thinking’, because it is believed to oppose negativity and negative thoughts. How do you oppose negativity? Opposition is not the same as allowing, and allowing is not the same as capitulating.

Fighting negativity is the equivalent of war on terrorism. You cannot cease aggravation with aggravation, and you cannot wrangle the world into a peaceful situation by insisting that your perspectives have raised you above it all. From the perspective of duality, you are always inextricably complicit in the world’s dysfunction.

While it may be true that the subject of your thoughts involves ‘nice’ things, say, generosity, or hope, or love, the upshot is that you are still dreaming the dream of duality. Reality is already here, and does not correspond to the thoughts and judgments we make about it.

Much of the motivation behind positive thinking, as with any other branch of dualistic thinking, is that it is crafted to oppose or ward off other kinds of thoughts or events, like a talisman. What appears to be loving and peaceful turns out to be an elaborate exercise in nonacceptance. Dualistic ways of thinking oppose accepting the way things appear at this moment at the cost of peace. Duality always has an agenda to push, whether it is destructive and wishes to make things ‘worse’, or constructive and wishes to make things ‘better’.

Things don’t ultimately get better in a dualistic world. This is the ‘bad news’ if you are intent on staying within that limited paradigm (in reality, this is neither ‘bad’, nor is it ‘new’). It means that all of your efforts to screen and filter incoming experience for both yourself and others will be doomed to failure.

This is not fatalistic, because this too is merely a perspective. This is a natural consequence of your insistence on seeing reality divided into fictional categories, including ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘holy’ and ‘unholy’, ‘beautiful’ and ‘ugly’, and most other polarized words you will come across in any dictionary. Things don’t get better in a world where you have designated the rules as dualistic and therefore inherently unstable and combatative.

From the viewpoint of unity, there is peace and deep acceptance of whatever comes to pass, because it is acknowledged deeply that everything is unified. This could be called many things, but essentially it means not minding what happens. This is not the same as apathy, or fatalism.

Apathy could be defined as not caring what happens because the world is seen as unsatisfactory, irrespective of what it should happen to contain. This is clearly an expression of duality.

Fatalism has two distinct philosophical meanings, the first is the belief that everything that happens is fated to happen. This may or not be true, and does not fall within the relevance of the present moment. How could anyone know this? What difference would it make to reality for you to believe it?

The second meaning is that of an extreme form of pessimism. This again is duality. Perspectives always see the world through a lens, which means they always imply an agenda – shoulds, should nots and endless efforts at negotiating with what is.

Reality has no agenda, it simply appears unfolding in the moment. Any notion of there needing to be something different to how it presently is occurs only within our cranial vaults. The view from beyond duality reveals the entire cosmos to be marvellous perfection. This can only happen when the false tyranny of the fragmentary mind has been deposed. When the conditioned structures which cloud your vision and prevent you from seeing clearly are removed or at least become transparent, you will see for yourself the breadth and perfection of the Divine.

People who despise the world, having mistaken part of the world for the whole and identifying suffering as essential to existence, are often some of the most vociferous. If you really don’t care, why is it that you care to have your opinions expressed to as many people as possible? Is it a sign of strength to want for others to know your opinion of not caring? What is the nature of the fleeting sense of satisfaction this expression offers you? Do you achieve a specialness from feeling more separate, do you feel adulated as a victim?

All cultures and subcultures, like all individuals, claim specialness, either overtly or implicitly.

It is ironic that there are even subcultures which claim their specialness by being indifferent to wider societal values. They are never so indifferent as to cease insisting that the society they wish to be seen opposing recognises them, even if only to push them away.

Even the most anarchistic and refractory of these subcultures insist on showing their open contempt for the rest of society and their rejection of its values and interests.

It is not enough for them to quietly keep their thoughts, beliefs and values to themselves. Like most egoic entities, they want you to either agree with them, or react against them. If they were truly indifferent and special in the way they would have us believe, why do they do they continue to insist that their differences be recognised by those whom they claim to be possessed of less wisdom?

Again, because all social divisions claiming special status or exclusion are ego based, it is that they want to be recognised as being different (and therefore special) by everyone else. Otherwise, ego would have no audience, and that is not a game that interests an entity whose only conception of being is based on perception of popular opinion – reflected image.

Within both society and individuals there is a strongly ingrained egoic yearning to appear special and to ‘stand out’. Advertising is built upon exploiting this self-induced fiction. The way that egos attempt to establish specialness and distinction is limitless, but they all derive from the same source, the same fictitious drive to appear in order to appropriate being or ‘realness’.

The compulsion to identify with unpopular or unconventional things is not indicative of freedom/authenticity or having somehow transcended the cycle of suffering, rather it is confirmation of the mind/ego’s insistence upon rating everything according to popularity and convention, even when expressed in ‘negative’ terms.

People are particularly aggrieved when something which they like which is relatively unpopular suddenly catches on as a craze. This is why there are bumper stickers and t-shirts which say “I liked (x) before it was popular”. Why should this happen? What is the relevance of this personal investment?

Liking something which is relatively unpopular confers a certain exclusivity. When this thing, whether it is a food, band, or a person, becomes widely appreciated, i.e. ‘popular’, then your claim to exclusivity is forfeit – a piece of life which you thought made you special is now lost, and there is a resulting pain.

This has curious effects. One might be that the thing which was previously identified with is rejected, and your attitude undergoes complete reversal in reaction to popularity – you become a ‘hater’. Otherwise, you might continue to enjoy it, but not feel the capacity to let go of your story about how at one point in your life you had the wisdom and refinement of taste to appreciate (x) before it gained popularity, hence the perceived need for the t-shirts and bumper stickers which congratulate your good taste.

There are people who reject popular films solely by virtue of their popularity alone and insist on praising the merits of less-popular films. This is where the terms ‘overrated’ and ‘underrated’ become especially relevant. You can be in chains by playing the role of the conformist, but you can be equally chained by playing the role of the dissident.

The lower self will happily work either way. One ego might see strength in crowds, popularity, and herd mentality, as in the case of most religions and global fads.

Another might reject the popular on the grounds that they would not be highlighted as sufficiently special, and adopt unconventional beliefs, dress, tastes, lifestyle in order to stand out. They see their implicit rejection of society as a show of force and a testament to their strength.

Ego will work with anything it has available in order to appear stronger. Going with the flow of society appears to have strength and momentum, and opposing it creates ripples. Either way, ego seeks confirmation of its relevance and specialness.

Awareness itself has no dog in the fight. It does not even register the conflict, since it does not arise from inherent duality as the lower self does. Mind is dualistic and therefore highly selective about the kinds of experience it would like to have and those it would rather avoid. It separates possible experience into categories and forms strategies for manipulating life in what it perceives to be its favour.

Awareness just watches. It does not discriminate between fictitious categories of experience or quality. It exists in radiant openness to this moment.

The more energy and ‘time’ that is invested in a life replete with mind, the more plans your mind will make for you, which means fabricated problems, disappointments, thrills and complications.

The more energy is withdrawn from mind and back into the source of that power, which is pre-reflective awareness, the more you live a life that is peaceful, ordinary, and free from the desperate need to stand out or ‘make it’. Identity is free to rest as itself in vibrant awareness.

From a higher perspective, none of this is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. It is just where you happen to be at this point in life. Not everyone’s relationship with this moment is dysfunctional, but most are. Some of the effects of this are stress, dissatisfaction, yearning for specialness and recognition, anxiety, depression and a persistent sense of disconnection from life as well as other people.

It isn’t surprising that people gravitate towards consciousness when their suffering increases. Some people feel that they are pleasurably lost in the complexities of life – that’s fine. That’s part of the game too, only sooner or later everyone will be reminded that all experiences are temporary.

*

Simon P. Murphy is the author of His Master’s Wretched Organ, a collection of short horror stories that deal with questions of transcendence, terror and spiritual absolution.

Te Reo With Mnemonics: Food Words

to bite – ngau(-a)

A man pulls up a pile of food from a hangi, and starts to gnaw on a meaty bone.

to eat – kai(-nga)

A man dressed as a king sits down in front of a hangi and starts eating the food there.

to chew – ngaungau(-a)

Watching through a pair of binoculars, a policeman sees a teenage girl put a piece of gum in her mouth and start chewing. The policeman picks up his radio and shouts “Now! Now!” as if orchestrating a hostage rescue.

bitter – pūkawa

A cow takes a bite of a flower and its facial expression shows intense bitterness; then it defecates. The bitter taste caused a poo cow.

sweet – reka

On a pile of junked cars and vans at a wrecker‘s yard, a young boy sits and eats sweets, ice-creams and chocolates.

to feed – kainga

Two boys are playing checkers. One moves a piece to the far side and says “King me!” His opponent picks up the board and feeds it to him.

The word ‘tower’ and the Maori word for flavour, tāwara, share a t-w-r- sound

Flavour – tāwara

A teenage boy walks up to a teetering tower made of salami. He takes a bite out of it, and then says “This tower is tower-flavoured.”

Food – kai

A woman walks into a grocery store to buy some food. Instead of regular food, the shelves are full of keys of all descriptions.

fresh – mata

A matador walks up to a table full of food. Under his breath, he mutters “Fresh? Is this food fresh? Fresh enough?”

hunger/hungry – hiakai

Hercules sit does in front of a meal with a rumbling stomach. He tucks into the food in a way that shows a striking level of hunger.

taste – rongo

A man watches as a woman takes a bite out of an apple. She says “It tastes like banana.” “Wrong!” the man replies.

thirst/thirsty – hiainu

Through the bars of a prison cell, a prisoner says to a guard “I’m dying of thirst in here.” The guard replies “A fitting punishment for your heinous crimes.”

*

The above is an excerpt from the upcoming ‘Learn Maori Vocabulary With Mnemonics‘, a book by Jeff Ngatai.

Trip Report: 100mg Methoxetamine

2100: I take a gelcap with 50mg methoxetamine. I am at home with only my mother and two cats for company. I have just had an excellent week on holiday with some good friends and so my mindset is optimal.

+0.30: I take a second gelcap with 50mg methoxetamine. This makes it a total of 100mg, which is a very heavy dose. The reader ought to note that I weigh 115kg, and so the vast majority of people would not need as strong a dose as 100mg to have a similar experience.

+1.00: It’s starting to come on for real. I turn my head to the side and it seems to take a while for my perception to catch up.

It’s not like how it usually is, where the turn of the head seems to take place at the same time as the change in focus. Somehow there is a sense of viewing everything though a camera.

It’s as if there is some kind of perceptual space in between the sensory action that is detecting the physical world and my consciousness that observes it.

As if my eyes have been removed and replaced with cameras, and these cameras feed input directly to my consciousness somehow.

+1.30: I’m enjoying watching myself do things. There is a strong sense of comedy, as my body appears to be doing things without an exercise of will on my part.

For example, I just went out of my house to go up the stairs to another house, and it’s more like watching an extremely boring movie (although the novelty of one’s life being observed second-hand like a movie makes it interesting).

I realise that I am in a state of dissociation, and there is a mild sense of alarm at the possibility that I might do something without being in control of myself, and come to regret it.

This alarm never becomes anything major, as my body fortunately rolls along without doing anything stupid.

+2.45: It’s interesting to pat a cat in this state because of the dissociation. The cat seemed to me as it usually does, except for one distinction.

I was happy for the cat because I knew the person patting it was a good person who meant no harm. Because this person was going to bring happiness to the cat, I was happy for the cat’s sake.

That it was my cat and that it was me patting it didn’t come into the picture, despite that this is the usual course of events.

I knew it was my cat and I knew that the cat being happy made me happy, it’s just that I was unable to comprehend that it was me making the cat happy. It was as if my consciousness just hung in physical space, a short distance from the man I was watching, and followed him around like a will-o-the-wisp.

+3.30: The dissociation has helped me to realise something. That the person I’m observing in this highly dissociated state is actually a decent fellow.

It’s an interesting state because I don’t usually feel this way about myself, a feature of having clinical depression. But the dissociation has allowed me to view myself as if through the eyes of another. It seems natural to assume that this is a more objective state, having been stripped of all the psychic flotsam that otherwise occupies the mind.

I realise that everyone’s opinion of themselves is, to a large extent, conditioned and therefore has been arrived at by involuntary means.

That I appear to be watching myself, and that this self that I am watching is a decent fellow who I don’t need to be afraid of, doesn’t seem particularly strange in this moment.

+4.00: It has occurred to me that methoxetamine is an excellent anti-depressant. I have not taken my anti-depressants for a week before this trip so as to avoid serotonin syndrome (methoxetamine, like my prescribed sertraline, is a serotonin reuptake inhibitor).

I am feeling pretty happy, but not in a high way. Methoxetamine doesn’t appear to be an especially giggly drug like the classical psychedelics.

The sense of joy rather comes from a removal of the cloud of ignorance that I had about myself. It’s as if I dared to peek behind a perceptual curtain and was rewarded by feeling better about myself.

+5.00: The trip is starting to wind down. One pleasant thing about dissociatives is that the comedown tends to return the user to their familiar, everyday state of doing things in a way that is a relief.

This contrasts with the feeling I get on psychedelics, in which the comedown to familiarity often comes with a sense of disappointment, of being stuck here again.

All in all, I’d highly recommend a solid dose of methoxetamine, however I would only do so under certain caveats.

In particular, this drug is probably a terrible choice for going out partying or in public, on account of that the dissociation makes normal human communication a bit of a crapshoot.

On the flipside, it seemed like an excellent choice for hanging out at home and getting to know yourself better. Thus I would suggest that using it more or less like psilocybin should work out okay.

Also, I get the feeling that methoxetamine should probably be avoided if a person has low self-esteem or hates themselves. This is because the dissociative effect might bring this lack of self-regard starkly to the fore.