What if everything you see, touch, and believe to be real is nothing more than a shadow cast by your own mind?

Three centuries ago, an Irish bishop named George Berkeley made a claim so audacious that philosophers are still arguing about it: matter does not exist. There is no table when you leave the room. No moon when you look away. The universe, Berkeley insisted, is made entirely of perceptions—and without a mind to perceive it, there is simply nothing there.

In The War Between Mind and Matter: Berkeley and Idealism of Reality, Boris Kriger stages the ultimate philosophical showdown between idealism and materialism—and the results are far less predictable than you might expect. With wit, intellectual rigor, and an irreverent sense of humor, Kriger guides the listener through Berkeley's radical vision of a world made of ideas, pits it against the strongest objections materialism can muster, and reveals why every attempt to refute idealism only proves its point.

From Plato's cave to quantum physics, from Descartes' doubt to the simulation hypothesis, this book traces the history of humanity's struggle with a single unsettling question: is the world out there, or is it all in here? Along the way, it explores why bridges hold even if matter is an illusion, why pointing to the brain as the source of consciousness puts the cart before the horse, and why the most practical philosophy on Earth may rest on foundations it cannot prove.

Whether you are a lifelong student of philosophy or simply someone who has ever wondered whether reality is what it seems, this book will challenge everything you thought you knew—and leave you suspecting that the mirror has no back.