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What does materialism have to do with communism? (hexbear.net)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I feel like I understand communist theory pretty well at a basic level, and I believe in it, but I just don't see what part of it requires belief in an objective world of matter. I don't believe in matter and I'm still a communist. And it seems that in the 21st century most people believe in materialism but not communism. What part of "people should have access to the stuff they need to live" requires believing that such stuff is real? After all, there are nonmaterial industries and they still need communism. Workers in the music industry are producing something that nearly everyone can agree only exists in our heads. And they're still exploited by capital, despite musical instruments being relatively cheap these days, because capital owns the system of distribution networks and access to consumers that is the means of profitability for music. Spotify isn't material, it's a computer program. It's information. It's a thoughtform. Yet it's still a means of production that ought to be seized for the liberation of the musician worker. What does materialism have to do with any of this?

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Together, MUI theory and Conscious Realism form the foundation for an overall theory that the physical world is not objective but is an epiphenomenon (secondary phenomenon) caused by consciousness. Hoffman has said that some form of reality may exist, but may be completely different from the reality our brains model and perceive.[9] Reality may not be made of space-time and physical objects.[3] Through supposing that consciousness is fundamental, Hoffman provides a possible solution to the hard problem of consciousness, which wrestles with the notion of why we seem to have conscious immediate experiences, and how sentient beings could arise from seemingly non-sentient matter. Hoffman argues that consciousness is more fundamental than the objects and patterns perceived by consciousness.[10][better source needed] We have conscious experiences because consciousness is posited as a fundamental aspect of reality. The problem of how sentient beings arise from seemingly non-sentient matter is also addressed because it alters the notion of non-sentient matter. Perceptions of non-sentient matter are mere byproducts of consciousness and don't necessarily reflect reality. This means the causal notion of non-sentient matter developing into sentient beings is open to question.

This stuff? I'm not convinced that consciousness is more fundamental than matter. There are certainly things we do in order to be able to parse the world by reducing things into discrete ideas, categories, etc. and this is necessarily imperfect. But if you want to engage with the world as we experience it, materialist tools are the best ones we have for understanding it with any reliability. In the context of a political project, what else are you going to use to inform your behavior besides observations of reality?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yep, that's a summary of the end of Hoffman's books. It's missing the middle and beginning, though, which explain the problems with realism and answer your question.

Hoffman says that we must take our perceptions seriously, but not literally. I know that my perceptions are a tool to help me survive and reproduce, because the theory of evolution holds true whether the world is material or ideal. So if I see a snake in the grass, I can trust my perceptions to tell me that my life may be in danger. I can trust them because that's what they're for, warning me about life threatening situations. But should I take the content literally? No. There's no such thing as a snake. There's something there, and it's something that could kill me, but it isn't a snake. It's a thing more complicated than a snake which my perceptions have simplified for my benefit. I trust my perceptions to help me with survival, but not with truth.