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?
I think the answer to that question is unknowable at our current level of scientific development. There is an argument to be made from Occam’s razor that the answer is “no”, because that’s the simplest explanation for the available data. Likewise, the “no” answer does afford us the greatest revolutionary potential. Believing it is beneficial to human welfare. On the other hand, Donalf Hoffman proposes a theory I find intriguing, called conscious realism, which says the answer is “yes”. I would be willing to entertain the idea that the answer is “yes” for purposes of smoother communication with people who aren’t quite ready for the level of revolutionary potential I propose.
I think you read my comment the wrong way around. I said Donald Hoffman proposes the answer is “yes”, as in “yes, the last human would see the works of humanity”.
Hoffman’s theory of conscious realism is summarised on Wikipedia like this:
Conscious Realism is described as a non-physicalist monism which holds that consciousness is the primary reality and the physical world emerges from that. The objective world consists of conscious agents and their experiences. “What exists in the objective world, independent of my perceptions, is a world of conscious agents, not a world of unconscious particles and fields. Those particles and fields are icons in the MUIs of conscious agents but are not themselves fundamental denizens of the objective world. Consciousness is fundamental.”[8][3]
