Haunted by the ghosts of materialism

I like philosophy. Not all of it is profound — there are two dozen treatises on the ontology of holes — but the field is accessible and can be eye-opening. Alas, the only flavor of philosophy that’s popular with techies is what I’d call edgelord utilitarianism — a collection of materialist, pseudo-mathematical beliefs favored by the SF Bay Area rationalist community. The system is a dependable source of unconscionable ethical stances, middling essays about AI, and little else.To me, philosophy is more interesting when it exposes the limits of understanding. In some of the earlier articles, I touched on the bounds of mathematical knowledge, the taxonomy of paradoxes, and the meaning of consciousness. Today, let’s tackle two other lighthearted questions: does anything matter and does anything exist?The universe is your stageThe experience of free will is not up to serious debate. The idea can be rejected only speciously: argue what you like, but every waking hour, you’re in the driver…