systematic assertion of a false reality

Towards a definition of Materialist Realism, following this and this. 

Materialist realism 1 is the systematic assertion of a false reality based on the idea that material substance is all that exists in the universe, and that questions about consciousness and sentience can be explained away by the action of "lifeless atoms subject to blind and purposeless forces"2. Materialist realism draws on, among other arguments, a limited reading of Darwinian evolution and scientific cosmology (the Big Bang theory), to normalise its worldview through institutional cultural saturation 3. It is opposed here by spiritual realism, a rational approach to understanding human consciousness, based on direct perception of its underlying essence 4. Materialist realism is so entrenched today, it actually provides the framework for most current religious and spiritual discourse, a dilution of the knowledge taught in the traditions that presents it as an accessory to a consumerist lifestyle. 

Notes:

1 As a concept, materialist realism stems from ideas about Capitalist Realism, a form of Marxist analysis, that suggests capitalism has been institutionalised in the same way that Socialist Realism was institutionalised under Stalin in the former USSR. 

2 The quote is from the award-winning popular science author, Paul Davies, in The Origins of Life, Penguin 1999

3 Scientific theories are necessarily limited to the perceptive abilities of their makers, and are always framed by the cultural conditions in which they arise. Spiritual realism is not opposed to scientific enquiry, and delights in the evidence of how the material universe operates as part of a wholly conscious singularity.

4 As discussed in the various traditions of self-enquiry like Vedanta, Buddhism, and the esoteric teachings of  Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

constellation of mechanisms

"Most of us believe that we possess a self - an internal individual who resides inside our bodies, making decisions, authoring actions and possessing free will. The feeling that a single, unified, enduring self inhabits the body - the 'me' inside me - is compelling and inescapable. This is how we interact as a social animal and judge each other's actions and deeds. But that sovereignty of the self is increasingly under threat from science as our understanding of the brain advances. Rather than a single entity, the self is really a constellation of mechanisms and experiences that create the illusion of the internal you. We only emerge as a product of those around us as part of the different storylines we inhabit from the cot to the grave. It is an every changing character, created by the brain to provide a coherent interface between the multitude of internal processes and the external world demands that require different selves." 

I discovered this blurb for The Self Illusion by Bruce Hood on Amazon. It's an interesting formulation of words, representing the slow nudging of material science towards an acceptance of the universality of self, the logical outcome of an acceptance of the social self  - which has enormous repercussion for notions of individual free will. It's nowhere near an acceptance of the transcendent self, the formless absolute of spiritual understanding, but it prompts questions about what constitutes sentience and consciousness that should challenge the notion that we are individual beings operating separately in space, somehow independent of the process that formed us. 

pic from here