I’m not just saying that it’s mediated by perception. I’m saying that our perception is calculated by an algorithm (designed by God) that is very like the matrix. In which case, everything would be just the same as if physical stuff were real.
I don’t know what that is supposed to mean. But I find the claim that “our perception is calculated by an algorithm” fishy at best. This would make perception the result of a mathematical equation; and I would think that it certainly is not. I don’t see how an equation could actually produce an act of perception.
The inherent existence of an unconscious thing is empty.
“Inherent existence… is empty”. We wonder how something that has something “inherent” manages notwithstanding to be described as “empty”. This would seem to require believing that existence itself is ‘emptiness’ or ‘meaningless’, but this has not been established.
Consciousness essentially means to be able to perceive anything.
I would agree that essentially it is a capacity to perceive or become aware of things in some way.
And if physical things can’t do that, their existence is meaningless.
Non-sequitur.
You are assuming that existence is itself meaningless or that only consciously existing beings can be meaningful ones. But I could think of a few reasons to doubt that claim.
Consider artificial things: although physical and not conscious, obviously they still have a meaningful existence since by our use of them we make their existence meaningful (and we produce them for meaningful ends or purposes): mere noises become meaningful words and mere blotches and scratches on paper can come to mean
Hamlet.
Again, something in a series that is intermediate between a starting-point and an end or goal to be achieved has meaning even if it is something only intermediary or ultimately for the sake of an end or goal.
E.g., a kitten that is becoming a full-fledged adult cat or the seed that is sprouting and now on its way to becoming a plant or a tree. I mean even things that are produced for the sake of some other thing (as,
e.g., tools) have a meaningful existence in relation to the purposeful activity that they are produced for.
Therefore, why should we assume that the course of nature - including even such grand and complex processes as evolution - is not the generation and production of various things that likewise all at least have some value even if only as an intermediary or a derivative one acquired by reference to something else? For nature both produces and generates things. Therefore it would at least seem nothing more than mere opinion to assert that all of this activity is necessarily meaningless.
Moreover I’m sure,* e.g.*, that a cat might think - that is if a cat could think - that small-talk, politeness, courtesies and the like were all meaningless wastes of time; after all, sleeping and eating are so much better ways of investing your time (presumably at least if you’re a cat); but - notwithstanding the apparent pointlessness of such things from the perspective of something that cannot understand the purpose of the activity - the activity
is purposeful, meaningful.
Most obviously, however, is the case of a man who happens to be knocked unconscious. He does not become “meaningless” as a consequence; and again, a mother does not think her child is “meaningless” because the child is probably not yet “conscious” in her womb.
The conclusions of psychologists would be caused by their subconscious and would be irrational - motivated by their fears, desires, likes and dislikes, dreams, fantasies, misfortunes, inhibitions, temptations, lust for power and other weaknesses. No one would trust persons who cannot control themselves…