Not materialism versus idealism, nor matter versus mind, nor the in-itself versus the for itself, but the rule of evolution versus the principle of consciousness, of replicators versus the advance of the good, the true and the beautiful. Thus the so-called physical universe is that aspect of reality in which replicators play out the battle for dominance - this is the demiurgic realm, a relentless cannibalisation of structures without intention in which survival and infinite repetition is the de facto goal. The aspect of reality in which consciousness acts is a late arrival on the scene, apparently piggy-backing on the developments in physical evolution and from the strictly physical point of view a temporary phase affording some short-term advantages to structures thus endowed. From this perspective consciousness serves as a disposable bridge to more advanced replicators which will be freed from its exorbitant demands for free energy. Consciousness, however, having its own internal goals, being in a sense auto-telic, has this brief opportunity to turn the tables on the process by which it has appeared on the scene, to bend it to its own ends. This looks like a battle with the demiurge but waged within the active goal structures of consciousness which must be discriminated in order to separate inherited evolutionary intentions from intentions intrinsic to conscousness as such, it is a sort of one-sided ethical war. It may also be that this battle has already been decided on subtle levels of which we are not yet aware.