I don't understand Bodhi either. And I've long had Martillo on ignore... so I only read his incomprehensible blurbs when he appears in other posts.
I don't care rather materialism makes assumptions or not-- I just want to know what the hell someone else has proposed that is different and what are assumptions go with those. To me, non materialists discussing consciousness are like creationists discussing evolution. They are poking at something robust, hoping to kill it-- because they do not want it to be true, but they never offer anything better while implying that they secretly "know" of some better explanation.
I think they never propose their alternative, because they know it would stink next to the established mode. It's useless except as a meme to make them feel like they know something while knowing nothing at all.
Sorry if this has been answered already, but I'll take a quick shot.
I think your point is well taken, for there really isn't a terribly good alternative as far as explanations of our consciousness is concerned (unless one views our consciousness as part of some cosmic consciousness, which is an alternative) unless they invoke some form of property dualism.
Some idealists begin with Descartes' cogito and feel that thought is the origin. We are sure that thought exists because to question it involves using it (doubt being a form of thought). So, since we can be sure of the existence of thought, perhaps thought is the origin of all that is. That's fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't take you very far when examined critically. In fact it doesn't take you anywhere, just as radical doubt -- taking a materialist perspective -- leaves us bereft, by the same roadside.
The world obviously works on some basic principles. We examine those principles and call it science, but science itself doesn't particularly care whether or not the "stuff" out there is "material" or "ideal"; it just doesn't matter. Science does not ask the deep ontological questions because it hasn't a hope of answering them. You can start from a materialist perspective or an idealist perspective and you should see the same reality.
Now some idealists (but certainly not all) fudge a bit and pretend that whatever cosmic consciousness there is that creates what we experience as material reality somehow also participates in our consciousness in some special way (not just through brain function itself). Or they speak in a way that leads you to think that we can somehow tap into the cosmic consciousness, as though we act in some way that precludes the rules of the "material universe" (understood within idealism as the product of the cosmic consciousness, for want of a better term). But a very little thought should reveal that this is simply a form of property dualism. We appear to be material beings -- this includes our brain, which everyone agrees is the locus of thought (or, at the very least, the conduit for thought) -- so we must work according to whatever constraining principles are created by the cosmic consciousness, or the material realm. Any attempt to add something else to the equation outside the function of the brain, if any idealist concedes that the brain is somehow involved, invokes a different property of the ultimate substance (whatever it is).
Whether or not 'reality' is ultimately 'thought' or 'matter', it shouldn't matter one bit as far as what we can see through scientific or philosophical endeavor. We are the products of whatever this ultimate reality is.
The further step we must all take, regardless of your form of monism, is that there is no such thing as "me" or "us" properly speaking. "We" are merely constructed bits of ultimate reality. The only 'thing' that really "is" is reality itself.
The only real alternative is to believe that we are not individuals in any way, but merely reflections of the cosmic consciousness/ultimate reality.
thanks for that comment Ichneumonwasp. Maybe it is the way I entered this particular discussion.