It's just that our egos are too big to accept that we are nothing more than dirt.

I would think the objective reality in your explanation would be what your sensory organs are reacting to, not what you perceive.

The concept of "reality", of a physical universe, of a "you", of order and pattern, of an persistent objective reality outside of you, do not exist per se, but as simulation and models in your mind that you accrued throughout your life.

To be more specific, there is an underlying reality that is neither "objective" nor "subjective", but from which both of these realities emerge once a conscious being appears in it. We cannot directly know the true nature of this underlying reality, as it cannot be directly experienced. What we call objective reality is really the experience of the simulation in our mind synthesized from sensory data, as well as our model of this simulation (science), and not the underlying "true" reality.

From my understanding of the term, the "real" reality would be the same as the objective realm per definition;

What do you mean when you say "objective" as in "... the subjective or the objective realms"? Some sort of shared definition? If so, wouldn't this also be subjective to a certain degree?

I might just be post-hoc rationalizing my own interpretations here, but doesn't our subjective experiences of reality being based on our sensory organs' interpretation of stimuli from what is presumably the objective reality make fewer assumptions than a concept involving interconnected or "symbiotic" realities?

So yes. Math is also a material manifestation. Life is a material manifestation. Thought is a material manifestation. The problem is with you trying to separate yourself from matter, but the very thing you're using to create that separation is thought. It is the very thing you're trying to get away from, and so you cannot exist separate from thought by using thought. It is a futile and empty game.

Especially not when they can be independently rediscovered without having any trace of them stored anywhere.

About rediscovering, you can simply argue that ideas are matter properties so an intelligent being can recognize them.

Let's just get to the point:

If EVERYTHING in the universe, everything in reality is "matter"... then what does "matter" mean anymore?

It may as well be magic. Harry Potter material. No difference. Because this "matter" exists in nothing.

You are in a building, in a city, in a country, in a continent, on planet Earth, in solar system, itself floating in a galaxy, itself floating in the "universe" ... itself floating in ... what?

Nothing.

At which point you call it matter, I could call it "consciousness" (in the author Bernardo Kastrup's meaning then, as a underlying field to everything), some may call it "god". We can also just call it magic. Poof! Here we are.

PS: Also see

The mental Universe

http://deanradin.com/evidence/Henry2005Nature.pdf

The Physicalist Worldview as Neurotic Ego-Defense Mechanism https://www.instapaper.com/read/811142201

If matter is all there is, that means either you deny the existence of consciousness (which is an untenable position), or you believe that it arises out of nothing (which requires a "magical" mechanism).

There's nothing really spiritual about it. There's nothing really special about it. It's the value that you ascribe to it, through the knowledge that you have which makes it "special".

I don't know what it is. I'm open to multiple possibilities. Either way, you don't know.

Trying to ask 'when does a baby become conscious' is like trying to say 'when does a baby become tall'.

I still think consciousness is a real thing, and we definitely don't know what causes it, and maybe it is possible to find out. But I think the answer (if there is one) will come from AI - definitely not philosophers and probably not biologists.

We might have to wait until brain simulation becomes a reality, which I expect to happen eventually (assuming we don't manage to pull the plug on civilization).