I don’t agree with the conclusion that Mickey makes. Yes, our senses can’t be fully trusted, but they are the only way we will ever get any empirical information. Arguing against a materialist worldview by noting that our senses can’t fully be trusted implies that the materialist worldview is flawed. My issue here is that any alternative has even more dubious foundations. (this is why I raised Occam’s razor in my original comment). Would any inherent cosmic meaning even be relevant if we can’t ever know about it? I doubt that Donald here would be reassured about the theoretical possibility of meaning existing somewhere beyond our senses. I am not.

The allegory of the cave, as I’m sure you know, came about in the context of Platonic idealism. That’s how I’ve been talking about here as well. The allegory becomes moot if the objects casting the shadows and the shadows themselves are essentially the same thing. You need a dichotomy between two completely different things for it to be relevant. If it’s matter casting metaphysical shadows which we perceve as matter, then Mickey has no argument and it’s just accurate observations with extra steps.