Materialism is baloney? Getting to the meat of it

Throughout recent history and before there have been many mystics, philosophers, and scientists concluding that the nature of reality is immaterial, and based in mind instead. Erwin Schrödinger, the physicist known for the thought experiment with the cat in the box ("Schrödinger's cat"), was also very interested in the Indian philosophical and mystical tradition of Advaita Vedanta. In Advaita Vedanta, as well as in the Buddhism that arose from similar roots in India, the 'empty' nature of all things and the fundamental consciousness underlying our reality is emphasized. More recently, philosopher and computer scientist Bernardo Kastrup has shaken up the world of ontology and epistemology (the areas of philosophy that concern themselves with how we understand reality and what we can know as human beings) with his analytic idealism. With rigorous logic he comes to similar conclusions as Advaita Vedanta, Zen, and Dzogchen -- specifically showing how a materialist ontology requires more assumptions than his more parsimonious ('simple' or 'sparing') analytical idealism, and the less we have to assume, usually the better (Occam's razor). Another book that I have run into - but not yet read - on this topic that is supposed to be good, is The Flip: Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge by Jeffrey J. Kripal.

For our discussion today, we will consider these "idealist" worldviews. Idealist worldviews having nothing to do with being idealistic in the colloquial sense. It refers to the mind-nature of experience, i.e. that reality and our experience of it is a form of "idea". The aim is of course not to indoctrinate; we will investigate such perspectives and reflect, critically question, and see which different sources of knowledge everyone in our group can contribute to reflect on this topic -- from spiritual to scientific to philosophical. Some sources that might be of interest:

Bernardo Kastrup's Youtube course on analytic idealism, and his books, like "Why Materialism is Baloney", "The Idea of the World", or "Analytic Idealism in a Nutshell"
Rupert Spira's Youtube channel on Advaita Vedanta and his books like "Being Aware of Being Aware" and "The Nature of Consciousness"
Jeffrey Kripal's "The Flip: Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge"
Erwin Schrödinger's "What is Life" and other books
Bisschop Berkeley's "Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in opposition to Sceptics and Atheists" (as historical reference; idealism pretty much began with him in its Western form)