Toward the Reality of the External/Material World

On the drink table, there were clear plastic cups full of ice and either Coke or tea. The ice had been melting in the Coke for awhile, making it pale, so that the drinks were pretty much visually indistinguishable. Thirsty, you take a big gulp of what you think is sweet tea, only to almost gag on watered-down cola.

On a Friday evening, after a hard week at work, you decide to watch a Netflix show in order to relax, only to quickly fall asleep on the couch. You wake up and decide to go on to bed. Still groggy, you reach for the wall to turn off the living room light, but then realize that you reached for the wrong wall; you had misremembered the geography of the room, thinking of where the switch had been in your previous apartment.

Walking through the basement as a young child, your older brother jumps out of the closet yelling, which makes you scream aloud. Your brother considers this a hilarious joke. You are not amused.

Though the scientific/intellectual community may be largely populated by materialists, denying (at least for any practical consideration) the non-physical soul, there are people who entertain theories about the non-reality of the external or material world. The types of miscues/surprises mentioned above, which we all experience, may not—in themselves—provide irrefutable evidence for the external/material, but they do seem to point in that direction. We must also consider the fact that those doubting the external/material world must still practically function at every moment as if the material other exists.