We can change material reality!

But does that mean that thoughts, feelings, pain and suffering, ideas, discourse, happiness, love, peace, compassion, beauty, learning, fun, joy or desire don't exist?  After all, they're not material!    

Is a "royal flush" real when you draw it at the poker-table?  Of course it is!  But, only as a relationship ("dynamic") between the material cards, the rules of the game, the players, the chips or money on the table, etc. This very same way, feelings, thoughts, spirit, love, and desire, are all either states or situations of material people (you and/or someone else), or relationships between material things and people.  Just like our "royal flush," that vanishes (stops "existing") when we shuffle the deck, change the rules of the game, decide to play cribbage instead, or leave the poker-table, all these things "exist" only inside, among or between material realities (people or other material objects).

But what does materialism have to do with changing the world?  Don't we all want the best? Aren't we all idealists at heart?

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Owen M. Williamson     

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