All of this as well as the original text under critique were written without mentioning the singular truth that underlies all consciousness: God Consciousness. Everything ensues from the consciousness of God, even, and especially, consciousness itself.
“I AM” is the primordial conscious act. It is the first cause. As such it is uncaused. Consciousness is the essential nature of reality. There is no material reality. All materiality is phantasmagoric. It is the random ramblings of quarks and bliks bumping into each other. Without direction by consciousness nothing can possibly exist.
A purely materialistic interpretation of reality is simply Adam and Eve trying to hide from God.
Hart wrote an entire book asserting that very point. It is entitled The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss.