Maybe I didn't make myself clear.

I DO believe there is an external reality, a "real world" that exists whether or not we exist, and regardless of what we think of it. I also believe it follows simple rules which we can learn. It is an impersonal world, it is not built around or for people, it just is. It has no intelligence, I guess the closest English word for it is "nature". This point of view was invented by the Greek Pre-Socratic philosophers. Prior to that, all peoples lived in a world of spirits and demons and forces that could be malevolent or benign, but rarely indifferent. Getting through life was primarily a struggle to keep these spirits happy,
which meant kissing their ass.

My favorite of the pre_Socratics was Democritus, who coined my favorite quote:

"Smell is by convention, color is by convention, taste is by convention. In reality, nothing really exists except atoms and the void."

For the pre-Socratics, even the Gods, although more powerful than mortals, still had to follow the rules of nature. After Socrates and Plato came along about 2400 years ago, the concepts of mind and spirit and reality-as-illusion were re-introduced into philosophy, which, when combined with Jewish mysticism, led directly to Christianity. It's been downhill ever since.

What is going on in our brain is electro-chemical reactions we call thoughts, memory, and consciouness. I don't believe our personality or our mind is separate from our brain. In other words, I don't believe in a soul or spirit which can exist independently of a physical substrate. either organic tissue or, perhaps, circuitry. I think of the mind as a form of software, but it needs hardware to run on.

This is not a new idea, but I really don't know who was first to come up with it. I think Descartes may have had something to do with it, everyone seems to hate him these days. But I've always felt this way, ever since I was a kid.

Our minds cannot affect the universe, and they cannot gather information about the universe. However, our hands can alter external reality, and our senses can perceive it. Tools and instruments extend the reach of our hands and senses. And we can communicate with others to help us do this. We can even communicate with the dead by reading their books, or with the unborn by writing books for them. The mind interacts with the universe solely through the body. Anything else would be magic, and I don't believe in magic. And calling it "energy" or "force" or "power" or "fields" or "waves" doesn't make it any less than magic. We already have a way of learning about and changing the universe, and we know without a doubt it works. Magic just sounds like wishful thinking to me, and I have yet to see even one convincing demonstration of it.

I don't think I've invented this way of thinking, I believe a lot, if not most, people see the world this way. And even those that don't act as if they do. But they use magic as a sort of backup plan.