Dualism or idealist monism as the best model for survival after death data

I agree there need not be any consciousness to particles moving about randomly in the sense that each particle is conscious. And there need not be spirits for every individual domain - however we carve the world into such domains - of causal relations.

Or to say it succinctly, neither Panpsychism nor Animism has to be true.

I would object however to the idea that clock goes on a temporal sequence of cause-effect relations without any mentality involved. I think this runs into issues ->

- We know that, as per our current best evidence, that the matter which supposedly forms the clock is indeterministic. We also, as per our best current evidence, know the clock is subject to varied forces which will break it down over time.

- Even if the underlying foundation of physical reality were not indeterministic, and there were [no] "entropic" forces acting on the clock...why do the cause-effect relations hold over time?

- How does a Designer impart Its mental intention to the non-mental stuff such that these relations hold. This just leads us back into the apparent necessity for a "mother substance", as you aptly call it or at least some commonality in the substance of the Designer's mentality and the non-mental substance of the clock.

Now I do think one could potentially say a Designer set the cause-effect relations, but I also think said Designer has to hold these relations across time. In fact this is one of the key reasons I started to lean toward some kind of theism...

Some kind of anthropic design-centric theism seems to be inevitable here in order to explain such things, such aspects of our reality. The Designer simply designed into our reality the laws of entropy and the consequent inevitable breakdown over time of the clock and all other machines both inorganic and organic. The basic design requirement was that for various reasons having to do with habitability by intelligent creatures living in this environment, matter at the human level of size would basically have to behave deterministically, which included degradative forces of wear, damage and disorganization. If it didn't, complex organic creatures could not develop and thrive. The principles and rules and laws governing our reality included cause-effect relations, and again for various reasons related to habitability by intelligent creatures, this design of the fabric of our reality was designed to remain fixed over time. If it didn't, Man could not exist.