My pragmatic realism overlaps with Hoffman's "user interface" view of perception and cognition. But I suspect the difference between materialism and metaphysical idealism is a word game. I doubt it's meaningful to say that all that really exists is "consciousness" or that the physical constructs studied by scientists and encountered in ordinary experience are so illusory as to be epiphenomena, with no causal power.

The pragmatist would say that the physical, objective constructs are real enough for materialistic explanations to be useful. Thus, Wheeler contradicts himself in the intro to that interview when he says, “Useful as it is under ordinary circumstances to say that the world exists ‘out there’ independent of us, that view can no longer be upheld.” If it's useful because that's how it is under ordinary circumstances, then it can indeed be upheld on pragmatic grounds. There can still be levels of explanation, but one of those levels will be the ordinary materialistic one.

As far as we know, consciousness is associated with life, and life evolved on this planet. Why suppose, then, that nonliving things are manifestations of consciousness? It's anthropocentric to project consciousness onto inhuman nature, because the kind of consciousness we're most acquainted with is our personal case.

What exactly is consciousness that has no content or neurological substrate? I understand that because of the hard problem of explaining consciousness, our self-awareness can alienate us from our bodies. But experiencing things is indeed different from explaining them. The question is whether metaphysical idealism makes any sense.

Still, for all my criticisms of this idealistic or monistic standpoint, I'm not as opposed to it as I am to theistic religions.