I'd say all questions were answered with coherence and integrity. Fair play in challenging Bernardo to explain aspects the interviewer didn't understand but in each case, a clear and rich response was given.
As someone who has watched almost all the content Bernardo is a part of, I will say this is one of the better interviews with him and I can’t wait for part 2.
One of the best if not the very best conversation with Kastrup I've seen. You challenged him in a way I haven't seen before but you also let him speak which is rare enough. Thank you!
Thank you for asking questions to Bernado which I've not seen him answer before! I love that you put in so much effort into learning his ideas, and I love how Bernado seemingly loves being asked questions that he hasn't encountered before. Great interview, can't wait for the next.
Bernardo, It took me 6 weeks to read "The idea of the world". I studied it. The same way I studied chemistry texts. It was worth. The p logical narrative is uniform across each paper. It's masterful. One criticism, organize lists visually.
Wow, BK has really chilled out haha. I understand him usually being on the defense because his serious scholarship is often approached in bad faith like it is a new age religion. It is important to be able to actually name the issues and address them head on. This is a fantastic discussion! Really good questions and answers. Can't wait for part 2!
Loved Kastrup's comments around the discussion about behaviorism and then bodies and corpses around 1:30:00-1:50:50. i felt that was the turning point for me when his explanations overcame most of my reasoned doubts. What a cool moment in philosophy this is.
This is great. Polite, well articulated and respectful points, despite some disagreement. This is how it should be done, rather than silly mediated debates that achieve nothing.
This was great, thank you! I have seen numerous conversations with Bernardo, and they usually deal with the question whether idealism is plausible at all. This, looking at his model more closely from the inside, brought many new things to light. Looking forward to part 2.
This was great. At first I was annoyed because the host said he had at least read Nutshell but then talked as if Bernardo claimed emprical research was enough. But, as the conversation rolled on, it became a delight to hear Bernardo asked specific questions and ready to elaborate from multiple points of view. I really hope that their next conversation does start as Bernardo requested, with the host making his argument for God would be meta-conscious. Bernardo is very fun to watch when he goes into question mode. Hopefully, they've recorded it and it's dropping tomorrow :)
Glad to see Bernardo engaging with another idealist, rather than just treading over the same old typical physicalist objections. A sentiment I've often seen here is that Bernardo does a bang up job of refuting materialism (which I think is true), but there have been some definite holes when it comes to his defense of his own position (which I also find true). I imagine conversations like these with other idealists will only help him evolve and sharpen his arguments even further. You raised some salient objections, which I think Bernardo handled well. Thank you for this video.
@@johnhausmann2391 Anybody can say that some arguments are ridiculous but if you want to disprove you are a very poor thinker explain why they are ridiculous.
@@johnhausmann2391Care to elaborate, or can you just fling insults? I have never seen anyone name something he is misrepresenting about physicalism. Would love to hear it.
Idealism and materialism are two ontological philosophical presuppositions that originated in the schools of ancient Greece. Idealists were typically associated with Plato, Aristotle, and materialism has its orgins with Democritus (founder of the atom theory) Thales of Miletus and Anaximander. Other notable European philosophers who have been defined as materialists include: John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and writer Francis Bacon.
At first, I thought this was a rudely dismissive comment, but after a brief tour below I can see you’re simply stating a fact. My god, and the confidence with which these folks make these pronouncements. Of course neither of these philosophical schools are well-defined to the degree of a consensus, but there are many misconceptions and wrong things people can and do say about each-and many of them are on display here. Cheers.
Thank you for this interview. I very much resonate with the ideas of Bernardo Kastrup and I am planning to get the book on analytic idealism. Great guest! I am also very much into Carl Jung. I would love to talk to Kastrup about Jung someday on my channel.
Wonderful and interesting conversation. I so much look forward to next part and would love to hear you challenge Bernardo on his view of Mind at Large in relation to his discussions with his friend Rupert Spira who insists that Consciousness is meta conscious and is in essense unconditional love. Bernardo agreed with Rupert in one of their last conversations on YT but it really still doesn’t sound like what Bernardo is telling us here. Thank you for making and sharing this 🙏
That's the plan! I think this, along with what I take to be a pure leap of epistemic faith beyond the dashboard, are the weakest points, philosophically, of his view. I pressed the first in this part, the next part will press the quality of consciousness present in mind at large. I think this part laid some good groundwork to really push it home and Kastrup has said I can begin the next part by presenting my arguments... so I'm working on formulating them.
@@AbsolutePhilosophy Thank you for your reply. I don't have an academic back ground and English is not my native language, so sometimes it was a bit difficult to follow your discussion, but I've also struggled somewhat regarding his dashboard metaphor. It's hard for me to put my finger on it but there is something unintuitive about it with the mix of a physical setting (airplane with no windows) to explain all being mental. On a side note I've often longed for Bernardo to offer alternative metaphors for this very theme. For a man that says "in other words" a lot it's a little "amusing" that he does this in that context :-) But I get that it's probably not that easy to come up with another well thought through metaphor for the same thing. It just puzzels me that no other interviewers have pressed him on this issue. Either way I think Bernardo has the most plausible TOE as it stands today. There is just something extremely appealing in it's elegant an non-convoluted parsimoni. I am really looking forward to your next conversation. If I had a chance to sit down and discuss the matter of Consciousness and science, I would certainly suggest that him and all his peers sat down in a filmed "world forum"/symposium over several days and hashed it out so to speak also with curious sceptics from the realm of materialists - all for the acceleration and benefit for mankind. You know as addition to the many discussions in "silos" like on yours and many other channel but in a larger forum of present and most relevant thinkers of our time. If I were a rich person I would set that up and invite a lot of interesting and relevant people :-)
@@skemsen an alternative metaphor to the dashboard is for example the desktop, graphical userinterface of windows, which displays maps or files/documents as icons on your screen, which is convenient for our understanding. but the reality behind it is, that there are no maps and no documents represented there, just 1s and 0s in the memory of your computer...
Actually, what Bernardo and Rupert discovered in that conversation is that they were using the term "meta" and "self-conscious" differently and that Rupert does not believe that fundamental reality is meta-conscious. When he says that it is self-conscious he means that it is, of course, the consciousens of The Self. So they ended up realizing that they both agree that fundamental reality is not meta-conscious. It was fascinating to listen to them get to that moment.
@@AbsolutePhilosophy Actually, what Bernardo and Rupert discovered in that conversation is that they were using the term "meta" and "self-conscious" differently and that Rupert does not believe that fundamental reality is meta-conscious. When he says that it is self-conscious he means that it is, of course, the consciousens of The Self. So they ended up realizing that they both agree that fundamental reality is not meta-conscious. It was fascinating to listen to them get to that moment.
Good interview 45:25 great question 1:07:00, 1:11:45 are good as well. The origin of mathematical qualia/physical descriptions is something Bernardo doesn't touch on too much, but it's very interesting. 1:26:25 Interesting question. It does seem like there need to be "conserved qualities" between Mind-at-large and the dashboard. Otherwise, what are we observing what we observe abstract properties? (Well, we are observing our own abstract thoughts, but where do these thoughts get their shape? From some qualitative interaction with Mind-at-large, through which some qualities should be conserved)
Great interview! I was hoping you'd press Kastrup a little more on the "How does meta-consciousness arise from phenomenal consciousness?" question, but hopefully you will do that next time. In particular, I think there are other hard problems of consciousness--the problems of intentionality and reason, at the very least, and maybe more--which, if these features of mind are also irreducible, force us by the same logic to accept these features of mind as being fundamental to reality alongside phenomenal consciousness. To appeal to "re-representation" you'd first need representation, which requires intentionality or "aboutness". And just like how I think it's impossible to get phenomenal consciousness from non-phenomenality, I think it's impossible to get intentionality from non-intentional building blocks, or rationality from non-rational building blocks. Insofar as pure phenomenality is non-intentional and non-rational, we don't get intentionality and reason for free by appealing to evolution, any more than physicalists can appeal to evolution to explain phenomenal consciousness. In other words, there's a constitutive problem, not just a "historical" one. If the underlying thing being appealed--matter, in the case of physicalism--cannot, even in principle, give rise to what we are trying to explain--phenomenal consciousness--evolution won't help us. But likewise, if pure phenomenality cannot in principle give rise to *real* intentionality or rationality, I don't think we can just say "evolution" and solve the problem. He'd first have show how phenomenality can constitute or ground intentionality/reason in the here and now, before being able to appeal to evolutionary processes. And I don't think that's possible. He could reject intentionality as an illusion and say that there's nothing more to intentional states than their phenomenality, but that brings with it a whole new set of problems (not least of all, that there is no genuine re-representation happening in meta-consciousness).
Excellent discussion Thanks❤ It seems the human dashboard is effectively a VR in which all our human qualia must exist. Do other species have different dashboards?
I was one that advocated this meet up between 2 obviously talented thinkers. Now obviously it takes something extra to drive someone to create a platform which invites criticism and if a part of that is arrogance or even being slightly unhinged we are all benefitting from it so don't knock these guys to harshly even if you disagree. For my part I think Nathan is right to challenge Bernardo on several grounds and like him I do not sit well with the use of metaphors used as evidence. Bernardo has the habit of referring to biblical stories as metaphors which on one hand they certainly could be used for but in doing so it gives the bible credence which by association undermines his very philosophy. It would be great at some time for Nathan and Bernardo to do something Thomas Hofweber fails to do and explain as if talking to a 6 year old his theory of conceptual idealism. I have spent a few moments on researching his work and can see the link between thoughts, language and our 'reality' certainly is metaphysical. Hofweber advocates thoughts constrain rather than construct, this may need straightening out to possibly filtering? All in all both Nathan and Bernardo have looked good in this interview. I have a lot of empathy with Bernardo being of similar temperament and know how hard it can be to hold your tongue as emotion takes its grip, something we both must work on. As a summary I am with Bernardo generally but always suspect of detail, Federico Faggin has to date stayed more crude in his theory but both taken together are where I am to date. Many thanks Guys
Here, go debate with ChatGPT : Bernardo Kastrup's Analytical Idealism is a sophisticated revival of philosophical idealism, positing that all reality is ultimately mental. While Kastrup offers compelling arguments against physicalism and for the primacy of consciousness, his framework isn't without its challenges. Below are several potential loopholes or criticisms: *1. The Hard Problem of Ontological Reduction* Kastrup’s Core Argument: He argues that everything reduces to a single, universal consciousness (monistic idealism). Individual consciousnesses are dissociated alters of this universal mind. Criticism: How does Kastrup account for the transition from the universal mind to individual experiences in a non-circular way? The mechanism of dissociation remains underexplained and, critics argue, is as mysterious as the materialist “hard problem” of consciousness. *2. Empirical Falsifiability* Challenge: Like other metaphysical frameworks, Analytical Idealism struggles with empirical falsifiability. Critics argue that it lacks the predictive power to be considered a scientific theory, reducing its status to a purely philosophical stance. Counterpoint from Kastrup: He might claim that idealism provides better explanatory coherence for phenomena such as near-death experiences, psi phenomena, and quantum mechanics. However, skeptics argue these interpretations are post hoc. *3. Mind-Independent Phenomena* Criticism: If reality is entirely mental, how does Kastrup account for the apparent consistency of the physical world independent of any individual’s perception? Why does a tree in the forest still fall when no one is there to observe it? Kastrup’s Response: He posits that the universal mind underpins the consistent "external" reality, but this raises a problem: How can the universal mind maintain this regularity without inadvertently slipping into a panpsychist or dualist framework? *4. Multiplicity of Consciousness* Dissociation as a Loophole: Critics often ask, "Why and how does the universal mind fragment into individual consciousnesses?" This fragmentation mechanism remains speculative and metaphorical (often compared to Dissociative Identity Disorder). This gap weakens its explanatory power. Analogy Breaks Down: Dissociation works as a psychological model within individuals, but when scaled up to universal metaphysics, the analogy becomes strained. There’s no empirical evidence of a "universal mind" exhibiting or necessitating dissociative behavior. *5. Parsimony and Complexity* Occam's Razor: Critics argue that Kastrup’s model introduces unnecessary complexity to explain phenomena that materialism or even panpsychism might handle more parsimoniously. Response: Kastrup counters that idealism simplifies the ontological landscape by reducing the multiplicity of entities to one (consciousness), but skeptics see this as a pseudo-simplicity that merely relocates the complexity. *6. Ethical and Existential Implications* Problem of Evil and Suffering: If the universal mind is ultimately responsible for all experiences, including suffering, why would it generate pain, evil, or meaningless existence? This leads to theological or existential challenges that Kastrup doesn't fully address. Potential Rebuttal: Kastrup might argue that suffering and evil are emergent properties of dissociation, but this risks portraying the universal mind as indifferent or even malevolent-a contradiction to the often implicitly benign nature attributed to it. *7. Quantum Mechanics Interpretation* Quantum Idealism: Kastrup aligns his view with interpretations of quantum mechanics, claiming that consciousness underlies quantum phenomena. However, interpretations like the Copenhagen or Many-Worlds don’t necessarily require idealism. Criticism: Some physicists argue that Kastrup misinterprets quantum mechanics by conflating observer effects with consciousness. The "observer" in quantum physics doesn’t need to be a conscious entity; measurement suffices. *8. The Problem of Other Minds* How Do We Verify Altered Consciousness?: If we are all dissociated parts of a single mind, what ensures the existence of other consciousnesses as real and distinct from mere mental simulations? How do we avoid solipsism? Analytical Gap: The framework lacks a robust mechanism to differentiate between real "alters" and purely solipsistic constructs. *Conclusion* While Bernardo Kastrup’s Analytical Idealism offers a rich, coherent metaphysical system challenging physicalist orthodoxy, its key loopholes revolve around the explanatory gaps in dissociation, lack of empirical testability, and philosophical parsimony. Nonetheless, his work provides fertile ground for metaphysical debate, appealing to those who feel physicalism inadequately captures the essence of consciousness and reality. Would you like to explore how these criticisms could be addressed or dive deeper into any specific area?
No realist living today thinks that our senses or intuition gives us direct, unmediated access to the world as it is. We just believe that there is a state of reality that exists independently from our existence, and it is a dynamic, entropic entity with real-patterns that is, to our best knowledge, made of quantum fields. I prefer the term “model-dependent realist.”
On the contrary, most realists are direct realists. That's because most people are unthinking. Among intellectuals who are realists, they are indirect realists because the idealists destroyed their previous illusions and made their position untenable.
oh wow, I listened to your original video, didn't understand it, looked at Bernardo's work, sort of understood it, and now I look forward to sort of not understanding this video.
Idealism: Metaphysical Idealism is the view that the objective, phenomenal world is the product of an IDEATION of the mind, whether that be the individual, discrete mind of a personal subject, or otherwise that of a Universal Conscious Mind (often case, a Supreme Deity), or perhaps more plausibly, in the latter form of Idealism, Impersonal Universal Consciousness Itself (“Nirguna Brahman”, in Sanskrit).
The former variety of Idealism (that the external world is merely the product of an individual mind) seems to be a form of solipsism. The latter kind of Idealism is far more plausible, yet it reduces the objective world to nothing but a figment in the “Mind of God”. Thus, BOTH these forms of Idealism can be used to justify all kinds of immoral behaviour, on the premise that life is just a sort of dream in the mind of an individual human, or else in the consciousness of the Universal Mind, and therefore, any action that is deemed by society to be immoral takes place purely in the imagination (and of course, those who favour this philosophy rarely speak of how non-human animals fit into this metaphysical world-view, at least under the former kind of Idealism, subjective Idealism). Idealism (especially Monistic Idealism), is invariably the metaphysical position proffered by neo-advaita teachers outside of India (Bhārata), almost definitely due to the promulgation of the teachings in the West of Indian (so-called) “gurus” such as Mister Venkataraman Iyer (normally referred to by his assumed name, Ramana Maharshi). See the Glossary entry “neo-advaita”. This may explain why such (bogus) teachers use the terms “Consciousness” and/or “Awareness”, instead of the Vedantic Sanskrit word “Brahman”, since with “Brahman” there is ultimately no distinction between matter and spirit (i.e. the object-subject duality). At the risk of sounding facetious, anyone can dress themselves in a white robe and go before a camera or a live audience and repeat the words “Consciousness” and “Awareness” ad-infinitum and it would seem INDISTINGUISHABLE from the so called “satsangs” (a Sanskrit term that refers to a guru preaching to a gathering of spiritual seekers) of those fools who belong to the cult of neo-advaita. Although it may seem that in a couple of places in this treatise, that a form of Monistic Idealism is presented to the reader, the metaphysical view postulated here is, in fact, a form of neutral monism known as “decompositional dual-aspect monism” (“advaita”, in Sanskrit), and is a far more complete perspective than the immaterialism proposed by Idealism, and is the one realized and taught by the most enlightened sages throughout history, especially in the most “SPIRITUAL” piece of land on earth, Bhārata. Cf. “monism”. N.B. The Idealism referred to in the above definition (and in the body of this book) is metaphysical Idealism, not the ethical or political idealism often mentioned in public discourse (e.g. “I believe everyone in society ought to be given a basic income”). Therefore, to distinguish between sociological idealism and philosophical Idealism, the initial letter of the latter term is CAPITALIZED.
@@JagadguruSvamiVegananda That's a decent analysis. Is that from a particular book? I know that Vedic schools are extremely diverse. The idealistic variety of advaita has become so widespread on Internet these days people don't even recognize it is just a miniscule variety among Vedic schools. Even advaita itself is merely a variety among many others.
@compellingpeople Best comment ever. It gave me a belly laugh. I think you are easily the smartest person here, and by far my friend. I don’t care if you’re a bot. You are funny :)
The Idealist difficulty: how does mind/experience/consciousness (maybe something like the dreamer and dreamworlds) produce the hard stuff of reality? The Physicalist: how does stuff produce mind/experience/consciousness (here they posit emergence or epiphenomenon)? Whatever the universe is, it is first a first-person experience: and that experience is what constitites reality...we only find later fields, particles, electrochemical neural firings, etc. So obviously physicalism pervades our everyday life but if we meditate or take certain drugs (i.e. Huxley's account in "The Portals of Perception"), we become idealists as we experience reality as just fluctuations of our own perspective. Hence, it seems that experientalism (the variety and range of our experiences) or perspectivism (reality is always 1st-person...always from the point if view of w. what's it like to be something...and we are looking at reality from the human, which is sensorily and cognitively limited and no guarantee reality IS or ISN'T just matter or just mind. There is a relationship between mind and matter which neither of these philisophies is able to imagine, let alone express without gaps. Great discussion and Q&A!
When I dream, I often experience the 'hard stuff of reality'. The other night, I was thrown into a brick wall and it felt like my back broke. The mind has no problem with generating intensities.
We created the airplane which does not have consciousness, so we gave it a dashboard form of sensors. In effect, a second hand artificial type of consciousness.
For my own notes, not useful to anyone. 18:29 “why i think empirical evidence is so neutral… it’s not completely neutral (as Kuhn explained) but it’s more neutral than a priori syllogisms.” Let’s not even get into whether such a thing as modal neutrality makes any sense (especially from an empiricist’s perspective which he presumably has). Let’s dive into this appeal to neutrality itself. Here’s Alenka Zupančič summarizing pretty neatly why certain kinds of people like to appeal to neutrality (modal or other): “In any social conflict, a “neutral” position is always and necessarily the position of the ruling class: it seems “neutral” because it has achieved the status of the dominant ideology, which always strikes us as self-evident. The criterion of objectivity in such a case is thus not neutrality, but the capacity of theory to occupy a singular, specific point of view within the situation. In this sense, the objectivity is linked here to the very capacity of being “partial” or “partisan.” In short, the appeal to neutrality is always a discursive ploy to elide-to mask-one’s partisanship which is to say the actual appeal (to status quo). It’s intellectually insincere.
27:23 now you’re cooking. Really wish Bernardo had seen your video critique. Big fan of both of you guys. Thanks for this. Looking forward to the next 2 hours.
Very good questions. Thx. I personally also sense MAL is metaconscious since we are and we are part of it, we are one of its sensors in order to invest itself. Anyway thx!
One question I have is why Kastrup seems to assume that our observations and models of the universe on the largest scales are an accurate reflection of “mind at large”. As he keeps pointing out, we are bipedal apes who evolved to perceive certain types of phenomena in detail, but we did not evolve to be able to accurately perceive the universe at a large scale. It holds no adaptive advantage to be able to do this, so I have doubts as to whether we can accurately infer anything about the age and size of the universe. Our observations of the cosmos may just be how it appears to us based on the specific nature of our minds. Of course, this applies to everything to some degree, but the further out we look and the larger the scale we try to conceptualise, the less likely it becomes that our observations have any reason to be accurate.
Thoroughly enjoyed this philosophically rigorous discussion. ... Bernado says that empirical evidence from altered states of consciousness shows that brain states may not able to adequately represent the richness of experience. I wonder whether such mental phenomenon is still represented or representable in some other dashboard. Is it that mental exitation is always represented or representable albeit not necessarily in our human dashboard. Some imprint somewhere, may be in nature, may be in some other plane of existence is still there.
I had problems with Bernardo before some years ago. Mainly with his attitudes and his way to converse with an interlocutor. But the Bernardo hear now is quite different and comes across as more willing to be understood and to understand. If so, it is a good change. Difficult to have such conversations without a presence of some common vision of a an underlying reality.
I think he said only because it was born out of the analytic tradition in which he was trained. A more descriptive name would be something like objective idealism.
Good interview and seems like he appreciated your understanding of his position. Looking forward to the next one. One bit of feedback: it felt a bit stiff in places (maybe nerves or concentration?) but it could do with some increased warmth in the interactions so it sounds a bit less like he's on trial. But otherwise wonderful.... Really. Very much looking forward to next one and you're the man for the job. Great stuff!
Thanks for the comment. Before we began he told me not to hold back or sugarcoat things. He didn't want me to be too 'British' as he was Dutch and would talk straight, haha :). But in all honesty, I'm used to productive cut and thrust like this, its very Cambridge.
More or less 1:31:30 "mental states can't be measured by numbers therefore there are states in the universe that cannot be quantified". I don't get that. If our subjective experience of our mental states is a correlate of physical states of our brains, which are describable by quantities, then why only consider the emergent behaviour?
If MAL is the only thing that exists, and nothing exists outside of of it, then the only thing it can be conscious or aware of is itself. It has to think of itself, because there is nothing else to be thought of. Thus it is necessearily self aware , self conscious.
Yup. The reality of moral and value-oriented considerations are also a strong indicator of this. If MAL is just a field of mentation, where does the orientation around which we base these considerations come from?
I wonder if MAL is alone. There could be other "MAL" that don't know about each other, like multiple universes which are ontologically mental, but separate.
30:00 It is ironic that Kastrup identifies theoretical entities as convenient fictions when his “mind at large” concept, too, is a theoretical entity, cannot be given in a possible experience, and eo ipso is a convenient fiction. Kastrup’s position is more than naive, it is inconsistent. Furthermore, Kastrup’s insistence that representations definitely correspond to a thing-in-itself tacitly implies the very same transcendental realism that Kant showed inevitably is vulnerable to Cartesian skepticism (hence, why Kant developed empirical realism), to say nothing of the fact that insisting that representations definitely correspond to things-in-themselves involves circular reasoning. Nor can Kastrup appeal to representations to substantiate his transcendental realist hypothesis that representations definitely correspond to things-in-themselves (e.g., a mind at large), since this would amount to Johnsonian stone-kicking.
I like your criticism. Seems like you can spot inconsistencies, contradictions and circular reasoning. All netaphysics is pure imagination imo. I have never seen any functional argument for an external world (beyond his socalled dashboard) neither from BK. He just takes it for granted. it does not matter whatever funny stuff one can come up with if there is no argument for an external world in the first place
A yoga teacher once told me - that to search for consistencies - is the method for fools - in a life of meditation - this has sometimes exasperated me and yet helped to understand that ideally - we have to live and think - flexibly - until the end. Fare thee well - on life's journey
@@theostapel The point is not necessarily to seek consistencies so much as to respect the limits of possible knowledge, and accept with humility that some things we can know (appearances) and other things we cannot know (alleged transcendent entities, e.g., some alleged transcendent mind-at-large). Although “we had contemplated building a tower which should reach to the heavens, the supply of materials suffices only for a dwelling-house, just sufficiently commodious for our business on the level of experience, and just sufficiently high to allow of our overlooking it” (Kant, KrV, A 707). “All metaphysicians are therefore solemnly and legally suspended from their occupations till they shall have answered in a satisfactory manner the question, ‘How are synthetic cognitions a priori possible?’, For in this answer alone consists the credential which they must present if they have anything to offer in the name of pure reason. But if they do not possess these credentials, they can expect nothing else of reasonable people, who have been deceived so often, than to be dismissed without further ado” (Kant, Prolegomena, §5). Kant’s insight that we might desire to “build a tower which should reach to the heavens” though we possess materials sufficient only for a dwelling-house at the level of experience remains powerfully relevant. Far from representing a mere restriction, this limitation provides the necessary foundation for genuine philosophical progress by establishing clear boundaries for human knowledge and understanding. My critique of Kastrup’s analytic idealism serves as a crucial reminder of these boundaries and the lamentable consequences of attempting to transgress them.
@@OuroboricIdealism Thank you for all this undeserved effort. You philosophers - are words smiths. And here am I - meditating on the heart - trying for experience - in silence - that is .. Fare the well - in life's journey
I think the stuff about the universe seeming disorganized sounds like it could easily put pressure on his monism. Sure, he can say that mind at large is in some kind of delirium, but I think that then makes it mysterious how or why there is any order in Nature (as perceived by us) at all. The singleness of mind at large explains the commonality of the world (quite neatly to be fair) but I’m not sure the same idea would explain its order/lawfulness. A pluralistic idealism wouldn’t have this issue because it doesn’t say there is any mind for the whole world (not yet at least).
@50: BK is hanging way too much there on "quantum fields". Does he even realize they are fictional accounting tools? (He should, since he denies scientific concepts reality before, no?) QFT is a lovely theory, but it is not fundamental. Hilbert space is also a fiction, another "accounting tool" (Has massive irremovable gauge redundancy, so cannot be physical). The spinor fields are mathematical objects, not physical objects, we use them in QM and QFT to transform (rotate, boost and dilate mostly) the frame defining the observables to the co-moving frame of an elementary particle. The elementary particles are what are real, and they're not fields. We describe them using fields. The only real field needed in physics (to date) is 4D spacetime. If you want, also fibre bundles attached, but we don't even need fibre bundles, since 4D nontrivial topology is sufficient to account for the fibers in at least the Standard Model, and account for non-local effects as needed in entangled systems. If there really is supersymmetry, or strings, than yeah, we'd need more than 4D Riemannian spacetime.
It is ironic that Kastrup identifies theoretical entities as convenient fictions when his “mind at large” concept, too, is a theoretical entity, cannot be given in a possible experience, and eo ipso is a convenient fiction. Kastrup’s position is more than naive, it is inconsistent.
@@rooruffneck As I wrote in my critique of analytic idealism: “Nor can Kastrup insist on the mere regulative validity of the mind at large-a regulative principle is in no position to dissociate into alters-such that Kastrupian analytic idealism is dogmatic or nothing at all”.
I adhere to Bernardo's metaphysics but my main gripe is regarding the Markov blanket - it's not clear to me where it really is. Imagine that I study your brain and I see the neural correlates of different experiences. I can then remove your brain from your body and stimulate the brain exactly like that body was doing and your experiences would be the same. So the body is also a sort of "external" thing to you - it's also a representation, and the same are your inner feelings - they are representations of the state of the body, but "you" can exist without your body (by keeping the brain alive metabolically and feeding the same signals artificially, in a brain-in-a-vat fashion). And even if I mess around with the brain, "you" are not changed - the narrative, the context of experience changes, but you don't. That's why I think there's a single Self experiencing all of our lives, so here I think Bernardo is right. I just think that the body is not necessary, it's just how evolution sculpted minds on this planet but mentality can exist without them, in principle. So it's not clear where the Markov blanket is - is it at the periphery of the nervous system? Is it just the next synapse away from whatever the metacognitive structure is (say, the Default Mode Network)? And so on.
Interesting. I am curious about your definition of "you" that does not change. ...I wonder because I am not the same person I was when I was 5, 25, 45, and so on. So the idea of "you" not changing even though the experiences change seems a derivative of a spiritual teaching, like the concept of a soul. Unless the "you" refers to the process of the mind that incorporates all the various sense data, memory, and current prediction to create an updated prediction that it then uses to make changes in the body to deal with that prediction. Either way, I would be interested in knowing.
@@rodcameron7140 The real "you" is the Self of Nature. Basically, the only Subject. Call it "Self", "Subject", "Nature", "God", it doesn't matter. It's the same subject just as it's the same subject when you dream each night - it's always "you" witnessing and living each dream, each night. In this case, it's the same Self in me and you and every living being that ever existed, it's just that the narrative is different - the Self has a different context of experiences and memories and reference frames in what we call spacetime (where spacetime is the relationship with all the other dissociated alters). It's this dissociation that Bernardo is talking about the reason why we think we are separate individuals, but it's the same Self in each and every one of us, we are the same being. So nobody really dies, you're indestructible. The narrative of this particular self dissapears but that is all. In fact, I think the Self lives all of its dissociations at the present tense of all of them - in the "present" moment for all of them, in a superposition. As it makes observations from each of its dissociations, it observes classical worlds with energy, positions, momenta, curvature of spacetime and so on, but these are all perceptions of the self in the "dream" of dissociation. Fundamentally, Mind-at-Large (including its dissociations) lives in a superposition which can be mathematically modeled as the wave function of the universe.
@@rodcameron7140 The real "you" is the Self of Nature. Basically, the only Subject. Call it "Self," "Subject," "Nature," "God," it doesn't matter. It's the same subject just as it's the same subject when you dream each night - it's always "you" witnessing and living each dream, each night. In this case, it's the same Self in me and you and every living being that ever existed, it's just that the narrative is different - the Self has a different context of experiences and memories and reference frames in what we call spacetime (where spacetime is the relationship with all the other dissociated alters). It's this dissociation that Bernardo is talking about, the reason why we think we are separate individuals, but it's the same Self in each and every one of us; we are the same being. So nobody really dies, you're indestructible. The narrative of this particular self disappears, but that is all. In fact, I think the Self lives all of its dissociations at the present tense of all of them - in the "present" moment for all of them, in a superposition. As it makes observations from each of its dissociations, it observes classical worlds with energy, positions, momenta, curvature of spacetime, and so on, but these are all perceptions of the Self in the "dream" of dissociation. Fundamentally, Mind-at-Large (including its dissociations) lives in a superposition which can be mathematically modeled as the wave function of the universe.
@@Raptorel you’re thinking about it like a physicalist. The question isn’t where the markov blanket is. First of all, the markov blanket is a MODEL for the dissociative boundary. And the question still isn’t “where is the dissociative boundary?” The dissociative boundary is a mental complex; a mental process. The question I *think* you’re getting at is what does the boundary look like? Yes, it looks like the surface of the skin, eyes, tongue, nasal airways, etc. Now.. Where are you getting this idea that you could have a brain in a vat would have the results you’re claiming it would? That seems like ungrounded speculation. But even if I grant you that, you must remember that “removing the brain from the body” is what a certain mental process (of altering/changing the boundary) *looks like!* If the surface of the body is the boundary, and you remove it… then you’ve removed, or at least changed the process that represents the boundary. So I don’t see how that’s a problem for analytic idealism.
@@BrettRosenfeld Yes, that sounds correct. I think it's pretty safe to speculate that if I were to remove your central nervous system but artificially continued to stimulate it just like the regular body does then your perception wouldn't change - you would still think you have a body. So the body can't be the Markov blanket, that was the point, even if you adopt analytic idealism and the body is just the image of a mental process. Yes, you have replaced the body with artificial neuronal signaling, but this only shows that it was the central nervous system (or a part of it, its periphery) that was the whole deal, that's the Markov blanket which delineates between your dissociation and Mind-at-Large.
@34:00 our _physical body_ has an upper bound on information processing capacity. Not our soul, at least not if you understand the human soul is non-physical. The _physical expression_ of the soul's Mind is what is limited, not necessarily the Mind itself. There is no theory of the limits of the mind (imagination, insight, creativity) that anyone knows of, since there is no information theoretic theory of subjective mind. Friston's is not a theory of mind, his is a theory of brain, or brain+, which is only the _physical_ expressive power of the mind. The brain has already extraordinary capacity to express our Mind's thoughts, our souls are not spiritually aware enough yet to really saturate our brain capacity, plus we have hard drives these days. Pretty useful when the brain gets too hot.
I really like Bernardo, but he did not give sufficiently satisfying answers to some of your worries. Nonetheless it is amazing to see an exchange of sharp questions and answers.
2:03:00 I wonder if this lack of communication between phenomenal consciousness and meta-conciousnrss might also explain how one could be an eliminativist. Its like blind-sight but with concious experience as a whole!
@Jakelefleur wonderful what imagination can achieve, right? I guess Materialism is boring, too real and too factual, just like a nagging mom lecturing her couch potato 34 years old son.
I don't know if Bernardo answered Nathan's question on why the same emotion in a human or an octopus would have such different appearences in the brain and metabolism of a human versus the brain and metabolism of an octopus! Thanks for this great discussion I am struggling to understand! 🌿
1:24:24 It is ironic that Kastrup insists that his position does not involve a contradiction when it specifically does. As Hume wrote, “To begin with the senses, ’tis evident these faculties are incapable of giving rise to the notion of the continu’d existence of their objects, after they no longer appear to the senses. For that is a contradiction in terms, and supposes that the senses continue to operate, even after they have ceas’d all manner of operation”. And Kastrup is not only presupposing the continued existence of objects after they no longer appear to the senses (a contradiction in terms) but he is going further and presupposing that the hypothetical compositum of sensible qualities (besides having continued existence when not longer apparent to the senses, a contradiction in terms) involves a mind at large (petitio principii). Appealing to the transcendental reality (reality beyond my empirical consciousness) of a mind at large in attempt to defend the transcendental realist hypothesis of a mind at large and the continued existence of sensible qualities after these no longer appear to my empirical consciousness is blatant question-begging-and an appeal to any appearances in attempted defense of the transcendental reality of a mind at large or the continued existence of objects after these no longer appear to the senses amounts to nothing more than Johnsonian stone-kicking (appearances are representations in me). Kastrup’s position does not avoid contradiction but inherently involves it.
@Mandibil What do you mean by “external” world? Do you mean external in the transcendental sense or in the empirical sense (cf. Kant’s Critique of the Fourth Paralogism)?
No, Kastrup does not think that perceptual objects have a persistent existence outside of perception. This is an extremely basic misunderstanding of his position. He is not a realist with respect to the physical, perceived world. He’s written about this extensively.
@@Sam-hh3ry Mr. Kastrup, whether he insists on the transcendental reality of sensible qualities or on the transcendental reality of non-sensible qualities, is nevertheless begging the question and taking for granted transcendental realism (although he tacitly does take for granted the transcendental reality of sensible qualities by virtue of insisting on the transcendental reality of other minds with their own respective representations beyond my own individual mind)-eo ipso leaving his position wide open to all the classical skeptical objections (ranging from doubts about our ability to know that our representations correspond to an alleged transcendental reality to doubts about whether there even is a transcendental reality at all, since the solipsist may point out that it is logically possible that there is nothing more to reality besides himself and his thoughts). Viz., regardless of what species of transcendental realism Mr. Kastrup upholds, his analytic idealism is far from assertoric, even further from apodeictic, and at best problematic. Ironically, Mr. Kastrup-insofar as he insists on the transcendental reality of other minds or of a mind-at-large-does tactitly presuppose the transcendental reality of sensible qualities (sensible qualities beyond my own individual consciousnesses). You can say that “Kastrup does not think that perceptual objects have a persistent existence outside of perception”-but Kastrup still does beg the question against solipsism when he takes for granted what the solipsist doubts or denies: namely, the transcendental reality of other minds or a mind-at-large.
@@Sam-hh3ry Nevertheless, Kastrup begs the question against solipsism insofar as he takes for granted that other minds (“alters” of a mind at large) have transcendental reality beyond individual consciousnesses. Whether one affirms a mental or non-mental transcendental reality beyond individual consciousnesses, one begs the question.
Physical properties don't exist because the very concept of what it means to be "physical" is itself utterly incoherent ad a matter of course. People throw that word around, but the concept itself is utterly bereft of actual substance - therefore even presuming it deserving of being proven or disproven is a step too far. People literally have no idea what they're even talking about here.
It's unfair to call Bohmian mechanics "a theoretical fantasy", as Kastrup does. He uses unreasonable arguments to throw out interpretations which don't suit his idealism. He was told something similar by Maudlin, but that conservation lasted a bit shorter than this one.
It seemed an embarrassed bluff to defend his sci-fi speculation. I like the dashboard idea to describe the incredible extent to which our brain transduces/interprets/creates a "reality" out of the quantum soup, but I think he's making a cult out of it. Interesting that last question, hashed out and hashed out then seemingly resolved as definitional to his model, whether correct or not. It was great the way Kastrup approached that. Hmmm.
Kudos to Bernardo for engaging with someone who seems to lack the intellectual ability to fully understand what this is about, and produced some pretty silly "criticisms" in an earlier video. I mean, this so-called philosopher apparently hadn't even realized that Bernardo is a convinced monist !
54:37 my issue here is that idealism just seems sementic at this point. If MAL is just cosmos and we are on just pale blue dot. Calling it "mental in essence" but same as empty space is just desk thumping without any difference. My pragmatist radar is way off the charts in this dialectic what different inferences can we make here (excluding all the in essence stuff)?
Obviously not. Idealism says there’s something it’s like to be the universe. It’s not any more semantic than the claims "there is something it’s like to be me and probably nothing it’s like to be my chair."
Appreciate the detailed breakdown! A bit off-topic, but I wanted to ask: My OKX wallet holds some USDT, and I have the seed phrase. (alarm fetch churn bridge exercise tape speak race clerk couch crater letter). Could you explain how to move them to Binance?
14:00 Mr. Kastrup is inherently confused and demonstrates his pre-critical dogmatism insofar as he appeals in any fashion whatsoever to empirical facts in defense of his metaphysical position: “as concerns the sources of metaphysical cognition, its very concept implies that they cannot be empirical. Its principles (including not only its maxims but its basic notions) must never be derived from experience. It must not be physical but metaphysical knowledge, viz., knowledge lying beyond experience. It can therefore have for its basis neither external experience, which is the source of physics proper, nor internal, which is the basis of empirical psychology. It is therefore a priori knowledge, coming from pure Understanding and pure Reason” (Kant, Prolegomena, §1). Furthermore, as Hume wrote, “That our senses offer not their impressions as the images of something distinct, or independent, and external, is evident; because they convey to us nothing but a single perception, and never give us the least intimation of any thing beyond [e.g., a mind at large or other minds]. A single perception can never produce the idea of a double existence, but by some inference either of the reason or imagination. When the mind looks farther than what immediately appears to it, its conclusions can never be put to the account of the senses; and it certainly looks farther, when from a single perception it infers a double existence, and supposes the relations of resemblance and causation betwixt them”. Kastrup is not moving beyond the philosohers of the past, he is going back to Scholasticism and pre-critical dogmatism. As a philosopher, Mr. Kastrup should be intimately familiar with Kant’s critical turn and its decisive demonstration of the limits of human knowledge. Mr. Kastrup’s failure to observe the boundaries of legitimate philosophical enquiry and his reversion to pre-critical dogmatism represents not mere ignorance but a fundamental failure of philosophical responsibility. What makes this particularly tragic is that Mr. Kastrup, as a professional philosopher, has presumably encountered these critical arguments yet either failed to truly understand them or chosen to ignore their implications. Mr. Kastrup’s analytic idealism thus represents not an innocent misunderstanding but a regression to precisely the kind of dogmatic metaphysics that Kant showed to be philosophically untenable. The fact that Mr. Kastrup’s approach is essentially dogmatic explains this failure but does not excuse it. Kastrup’s appeal to apparent immanent intersubjective agreement in attempt to defend his transcendental realism reveals a deep internal contradiction in his method: he needs to establish something about transcendental reality (namely, the existence of mind at large and its alters), but his argumentative strategy can only ever establish facts about immanent appearances. This is not merely a weakness in his argument-it represents a fundamental impossibility in his project. No amount of evidence from within the sphere of immanent representations can ever establish the transcendental claims his system requires. His appeal to apparent intersubjectivity thus represents not just a failed argument but an impossible argumentative strategy. The problem here goes beyond mere logical error: it reveals how Kastrup’s entire approach to metaphysics remains trapped in pre-critical thinking, unable to properly distinguish between claims about appearances and claims about transcendental reality. This confusion leads him to attempt impossible argumentative moves, trying to establish transcendental claims through evidence that can only ever speak to immanent appearances (immanent representations). The fact that Mr. Kastrup seems to argue that the a priori entails prejudices, even when the a priori by definition must entail universality and necessity, only confirms Kastrup’s being in a pre-critical dogmatic slumber.
Well said. I think your various comments on this video do a good job in revealing an extremely important point: Kastrup is a third-rate philosopher at best. By training he is a scientist, and I think that helps to explain his dogmatism to some degree. What helps to explain his popularity is not any argumentative rigour and is certainly not his philosophical depth, but rather the fact that he's tapped into the current zeitgeist which celebrates woo phenomena like NDEs, OBEs, the consciousness link to UFOs etc. and which are used to prop up arguments like his.
Your argument is akin to saying that the desktop of a computer could never indicate anything about the behavior of the CPU which is just comically incorrect.
@@Sam-hh3ry Your statement-that my position “is akin to saying that the desktop of a computer could never indicate anything about the behavior of the CPU”-entails ignoratio elenchi: you are conflating the very orders of reality that I specifically distinguish between in my critique, and then you are basing your defense of Kastrup on this conflation move of yours (which conflation, sophisma figurae dictionis, is implicit in Kastrup’s analytic idealism as it is implicit in your attempted counterargument here). I specifically distinguish between empirical and transcendental reality-reality which is conditioned by space and time and the categories of the understanding (empirical reality), and an alleged reality which is independent of space and time and not definable in terms of the categories of the understanding (transcendental reality)-hence, your attempted counterargument, which attempted counterargument relies on a sophisma figurae dictionis conflation between these two orders of reality, involves inherently ignoratio elenchi.
1:25:14 i think i am just stupid to not get this but this is just sounds plain incoherent like hoffman stuff which is not a "bonafide" theory. I really liked your objection here as well. If you can know that dashboard is of "monkey" well then you know something outside the dashboard. So the claims of evolution are either outside or inside the dashboard and if it is inside why doesn't it simply undercut the initial justification motivating the dashboard metaphor.
The "dashboard" is still a representation of something that exists in reality, therefore evolution can be used to figure out things about reality. Just because it is a dashboard or a representation doesn't mean it has no correlation to an objective reality, if it was the other way around, we would be dreaming and the laws of physics would be inconsistent
@ElMois872 i am afraid in the MAL framework you are not entitled to make claims about things in the objective reality. Don't forget space and time itself are dials on the dashboard. I see this as a fork: if you have a standard representationalist picture where representations are giving us an approximate picture of reality then physical representations are also giving us an accurate picture (unless you just want to be arbitrary) so why go idealism over physicalism. On the other hand, objective reality is completely different from our representations, then it undercuts the empirical justifications like evolution.
@@ElMois872Also, if you can appeal to laws of physics, i can do the same and that just is physicalism ( ie being committed to the claims/theory of natural sciences).
I wonder why, at 1h12m0s, something was cut from the video. I can't help but wonder if maybe Kastrup was fumbling and stumbling for an initial answer and then insisted it be cut.
No, nothing sinister. Kastrup didn't have an OS that could handle my usual platform so we had to do it on zoom and restart the meeting/recording every 40 minutes.
@@Sam-hh3ry My assumption was wrong, but I stand by it, as I based it on Kastrup's sometimes fragile ego, often palpable need to be right and obvious anger issues.
Around 1:25:00 the objection you put forward absolutely rocks. The dude is caught in a self referentially defeating position, as he cannot validate his metaphysics. All goes back to Kantian assumptions which suffer from the problem of self-refutation because they exclude the possibility of knowledge about things in themselves, including your own cognitive faculties. Kant himself later shored up his theory in a non-epistemic way to avoid such unpalatable effects. He makes an exception to self-knowledge but that's totally an arbitrary exception. After all, wouldn't his alleged self-knowledge be a dashboard as well? The Kantian assumptions under which he operates don't allow that. Only by learning about the world as it truly is can we validate those faculties that allow us to learn in the first place, and thus it is theories that allow for this kind of knowledge that we must concern ourselves with.
Indeed. Although I would submit such a problem is entirely one of Kastrup's own making, not one intrinsic to Idealism itself. For instance, one can entirely circumvent it by simply regarding one's experiences as genuine without appealing to an unverifiable metaphysics like Materialism. Simply regarding this particular world as a dream (in other words a mental creation) is much simpler and doesn't require us to invalidate the reality of our own experiences
@@ryanashfyre464 I think that's possible, but with the cost of being a solipsist. For you to know reality as it truly is and for reality to be a mental creation, the only option is for reality to be your mental creation/your dream. Since solipsism is false (I think we all agree on that), and we know reality as it truly is, then reality is not a mental creation.
For me, the major takeaway from this discussion, is that Kastrup has no solid arguments (only suggestions) for why MAL is not metaconscious. (They discuss this topic around the 50 minute mark). An interesting observation is that this doesn't diminish the level of certainty with which Kastrup speaks. I think I would have appreciated it, if he had prefaced or concluded his take on this topic by saying he simply doesn't KNOW if the universe is metaconscious or not. And that solid arguments that it is, can also be made. Admittedly, he professes being cautious on the topic, but if he were to just follow the logic he holds so dear, he'd have to be on the fence about it, at minimum.
What would your objection be to the assertion that MAL is not metaconscious because if it were every instance of consciousness would necessarily be metaconscious. This is clearly not the case since we can think of examples of conscious entities that do not possess metaconsciousness like bacteria or plants. Therefore MAL cannot be metaconscious.
@@thomaswilliams6337 You fall in the same trap as Kastrup, in pretending that a suggestion is an actual argument. What makes you conclude that if the universe is metaconscious, everything in it MUST be metaconscious too? That is just an unfounded assertion. I am metaconscious, yet I can have thoughts or create things that are not metaconscious. If I can, why wouldn't MAL be able to? I could also argue the exact opposite of what you claim: that the universe MUST be metaconscious, because WE are. Apparently metacognition is (or has become) a property of the universe. But you see, this is not a true argument either. I haven't heard, in this discussion, any real arguments for why the universe is or isn't metaconscious. This is why I'd have liked to see in Kastrup the same care and modesty as I observed in the host. But I think we CAN argue this: If we choose to believe that the things that people report after heroic doses of psychedelics (e.g. meeting entities) and NDE's (e.g seeing angel like beings and dead relatives) are true, than we'd have to conclude that whatever mind transcends ours, is metaconscious.
@extavwudda his postion is that the universe isn't metaconcious because it doesn't have a brain that causes the dissociation required for our kind of metaconcioisness But the universe is consciousness
2:15:15 Mr. Kastrup begs the question, and engages in contradiction in terms too, when he tells us that “There are gazillions of excitations in China right now, [though] they are not creating perceptual excitations in us”-furthermore, Kastrup is engaging in the fallacy of hypostasis here too, hypoststizing outer appearances (to say nothing of the fact that he is appealing to the stone à la Dr. Samuel Johnson by appealing to appearances as an argument for transcendental reality [viz., excitations in China right now]). As wrote Hume, “To begin with the senses, ’tis evident these faculties are incapable of giving rise to the notion of the continu’d existence of their objects, after they no longer appear to the senses. For that is a contradiction in terms, and supposes that the senses continue to operate, even after they have ceas’d all manner of operation”. And, as Kant remarked, “we hypostatise outer appearances … [when we] come to regard them not as representations but as things existing by themselves outside us, with the same quality as that with which they exist in us”.
Hey I watched some of videos on your idealism what do you think of the noble prize that was just won that disputes local realism. does science affect your philosophy
@shaanchaudhry541 I have a a few videos that discuss the notion of local realism-especially the one titled “Transcendental Solipsism”. Basically, my view is that the objects I perceive-for example, houses, mountains, rivers, etc.-are not remote from me. Rather, they are immediately in my own thoughts, just like dream images are in my own thoughts. In the words of Immanuel Kant: “All bodies, together with the space in which they are, must be considered nothing but mere representations in us, and exist nowhere but in our thoughts”.
I’ve started to watch some of your videos, so forgive me if it’s addressed there and I haven’t gotten to it, but how does your idealism account for non-perceptual (or non-representational) experiences, such as endogenous desires, appetites, drives, instincts.
@@CJ-kq3oh Thanks for engaging with my videos; I really appreciate that. However, I recently deleted the majority of my videos on UA-cam-not because I want to permanently remove the content from UA-cam, but because I am in the process of doing updated versions of the deleted videos (“updated”, not in the sense that I have updated/modified my position, but in the sense that I want to change the video style/presentation moving forward). As it pertains to your question concerning “non-perceptual” experiences, I do tacitly address this in my most recent video on “Transcendental Solipsism”: namely, I state there that “Transcendental solipsism must be apodeictic: the very concept of mind transcending its sphere of immanent representations is self-contradictory, and even any conception or judgment of such transcendence would itself be an immanent representation in mind; in fact, any perception, idea, judgment, belief, conviction, feeling, sensation, and literally everything that constitutes one’s mental life [including ‘endogenous desires, appetites, drives, instincts’] is an immanent representation, such that transcendental (or critical) solipsism is inescapably apodeictic. There is no mental content or activity whatsoever that escapes being an immanent representation. The very concept of mind transcending its sphere of immanent representations is therefore necessarily self-contradictory: any attempt to even conceive of such transcendence would itself be an immanent representation”. I am using the term “representation” in a very broad sense-as Kant used the word “Vorstellung”-to refer, not only to perceptions, but to all aspects of mental activity.
I have the distinct impression that Bernie makes Analytic Idealism on the spot, and I have the feeling that he thinks that whatever his mind imagines, must be true in the real world.
I'm not entirely sure why Kastrup is taking Jonathan Schooler's work (good as it sounds for its limited scope) and projecting it onto the universe at large. After all, presumably there has to be some orienting mechanism by which our minds do this at all, otherwise it seems like one is just grasping at straws to explain how it is that this occurs in the first place. If that mechanism isn't Mind-at-Large, (which is to say that it itself is meta-conscious), then how has one not ventured into outright absurd territory? How is it that our minds know how to do this in the first place? And why would evolution be structured in such a way as to allow this to occur when Kastrup himself, as you noted in your original critique, has openly leaned strongly towards the idea that Mind-at-Large doesn't itself evolve? You were far kinder to Kastrup than I would've been on this issue. I found his explanation here quite weak.
If physical reality and our minds are aspects of a 'mind at large' - then the insights of 'mind' about physical reality are the insights of 'mind-at-large'. Therefore, things like mathematics, patterns, and geometry are in fact true representations (albeit 'isomorphic') of mind-at-large
Do you know who you're messin with kid? Thats Bernardo fn Kastrup You do see all those books and computers, right? His water bottle is bigger than you and his phd has a phd..he's about to go strait idealist on your ass
Nathan went far too easy and gentle with Bernardo, not really a critique ! What on earth is Bernardo Kastrup talking about "Mind at Large" as anything to do with consciousness or "solving" the so called "hard problem of consciousness" ??? Bernardo evades, dodges and does not solve anything whatsoever. Bernardo conceptualizes "mind at large" (the ultimate reality) as having dispersed mental states, unlike the coherent, integrated minds of human beings. These dispersed states do not form unified experiences but are still experiential...??? What ??? Firstly - how possibly could know "mind at large" is experiential ? We know HUMAN MINDS are not experiential when incoherent, unintegrated (more "dispersed") with examples during anesthesia, deep Coma and deep dreamless sleep and presumably at infancy - (at some point from Zygote - its a development process) Even Bernardo admits as such during the "higher entropy" delirium mental states - although delerium still has phenomenological properties....to an extent. I personally treated a patient for three months in intensive care with some low level limited conscious phenomenology - and in rehab a few months later has literally zero recollection of any events, its as if the three months do not exist. We know human organisms can therefore be alive, *really alive* - fully functional metabolism, without phenomenological consciousness....we know this directly, every day, since we awake from deep dreamless sleep. How could Bernardo then extrapolate "Mind at large" is Experiential ? - When wee know even human minds experience can disappear during various dispersion type events (drugs, anesthesia) Even most of out physiological processes do not require conscious phenomenology eg insulin glycolysis regulation, pH buffer homeostasis and thousands of other processes no one new about 100yrs ago (do not depend on Empirical knowledge of a "dashboard" metaphor but discoveries) Bernardo has not solved any Hard problem of consciousness but created the harder problem of unconsciousness !!! Yeh, Bernardo created a mythic story about dissociation of an Avatar borrowing analogies from dissociated identity disorder (controversial case studies to start with) - also based on Empirical scientific research - that is itself derived from an anti-realist dissociated mental state from Bernardo's own idealism ! (its self refuting internal self reference) Its gets much worse, since Bernardo then says we cannot really say much about "mind at large" properties, since we are evolved apes on Planet Earth with limited minds, so "mind at large" is just incomprehensible, but Bernardo still says its experiential ! A phenomenological mind ! This is pure magic, not metaphysics and certainly not science. Its as if Bernardo adopted some Gnostic Omniscience now. When pushed further regarding properties of "mind at large" - with ideas such as the body being a part of dissociated mind, Bernardo's notion of this "dissociated mind" sound more like smuggling physicalism with equivocation ! Just think about it - Bernardo himself says "we are evolved apes on Planet Earth" with limited phenomenological integrated minds.....but "planet Earth" is allegedly dissociated mind too, as are the zygote, sperm and eggs - not realist entities, but "dissociated mind" - whatever that means, since has no clue what the ontology is, but still claims its "Experience phenomenology" i listened to some 8hrs of Bernardo talk with John Vervekae dance around this topic, and it seems that whatever Bernardo is referring to as this "mind at large" begins to sound much like the dualist and physicalists notions - not phenomenology ! (This problem is also shared by Panpsychists, which I also don't think explain anything but add mystery to mystery with pseudo sounding explanation) On a side note - from my reading of Schopenhauer, his description of "Will" is not conscious, experiential or phenomenological whatsoever and on the contrary, blind and unconscious. Bernardo misrepresents Schopenhauer on multiple occasions and whilst Schopenhauer is categorized under idealism, its really little to do with anything like minds and agents. To solve/discuss hard problem of consciousness one must be using the same language i.e its a problem of phenomenal conscious experience "what its like to be" issue as Thomas Nagel used the term. Bernardo Kastrup simply creates a dualism of the phenomenal conscious experience and the so called dissociated consciousness. This dissociated consciousness IS NOT phenomenal conscious experience !!! DON'T CALL IT CONSCIOUSNESS !!! Don't equivocate and smuggle dualism or presupposed physicalism. I say presupposed physicalism because much of Bernardo Kastrup critique of physicalism is a straw man low hanging fruit version of the most reductionist physicalism (eg Eliminativism & Churchland sort of materialism - which is riddiculous). There are numerous more sophisticated non-reductionist versions of physicalism that make vastly more sense that Bernardo's analytical idealism, including many versions of Embodied cognition that couldn't possible make sense from this dissociated consciousness and phenomenology dichotomy Bernardo sets up - which is really another mind/body dichotomy expressed differently.
To elaborate further (yeah, last post went on rambling a bit too long) Kastrup distinguishes between "real states" of the world [whatever that is "mind at large"] and their representation on a perceptual dashboard - our phenomenology. However, his explanation of how the real states relate causally or structurally to the dashboard is vague - perhaps incoherent and self refuting self reference. If "real states" [whatever that means "mind at large"] are entirely "non-physical," how do they causally interact with the dashboard to generate perceptual states? (or the dashboard **IS** the phenomenology. This ambiguity is blatantly smuggling in a dualistic interactionist framework under the guise of idealism, contradicting Bernardo claim of monism. Without a clear account of how "non-physical real states" influence perceptual experiences, the theory becomes incoherent. What would it even mean for "dissociated non-physical real states" to cause representation on the perceptual phenomenological dashboard - without presupposing dualism and not solving anything whatsoever, just renaming "physicalist real states of affairs" to "dissociated non-physical real states" If the "dissociated non-physical real states" are experiential, then they is no need to call them dissociated and "conscious experience is causing conscious representations" Why then do we have eyes ? Optic nerves ? Retina's ? Opsin proteins ? Rods & Cones ? .........a very long and complicated perceptual story. Bernardo whats to say that eyes, Optic nerves, Retina's, Opsin proteins, Rods & Cones etc are all "dissociated mind" - and on the one hand wants to be an anti-realist on various entities and on the other realist, Rods and cones are "real entities" - but mental. What does adding "mental" to this explain anything ? It doesn't ! What does it even mean to say the Rods & Cones or optic nerve electrical impulses are phenomenology on a dashboard, when clearly these are discovered and 99.9% of human history completely unaware of their existence in the role of perception. On the other hand - Rods & Cones or optic nerve electrical impulses are discovered on a dashboard of phenomenology, it is empirical science after all. Its just the functioning of the perceptual system does not require or depend on perception itself, its discovered using perception as a realist would say. If the "real states" are non-physical mentality (whatever that is, its not phenomenology because its "dissociated" and distinct from the dashboard (phenomenological experience), how do they causally interact? For interaction to occur, there must be a shared medium or bridge. Kastrup offers no mechanism or metaphysical account for this, leaving a critical gap in the theory, contradictions and refutations - worse than physicalist accounts. The Physicalist can at least invoke a non-reductionist account that makes metaphysical sense, even if dont know the entire causal chains. Also - why the Complexity? If the perceptual dashboard is modulated by "non-physical real mental states", why has evolution developed such intricate biological machinery for perception? The existence of eyes, rods, cones, and optic nerves implies a physical substrate that processes sensory input-contradicting the claim that perceptual experience is entirely dissociated from a physical medium. Basically Bernardo is smuggling dualism and no explanatory power. Physicalism has vastly greater explanatory power - consider that perception story with rods, cones & retina's. I dont see why calling rods, cones & retina's "non-physical dissociated mental states" add anything or explains anything whatsoever. To be blunt, I think Bernardo is a charlatan, but that maybe too harsh. Perhaps Bernardo thinks this dissociation avatar story creates more parsimony - but at the expense of not really explaining anything and leading to a skeptical anti-realism. As for the discussion on direct realism - I don't think anyone familiar with philosophy and science is a direct realist, I gather we all are aware mind shapes perception as active inference models and somewhat Kantian notion that we are limited by our minds filters and evolved capabilities. Not accepting direct realism doesn't mean we automatically become anti-realist, global external skeptics or need to fall into idealism. Its quite reasonable that lets say X-Rays are realist phenomena but not directly experienced, only indirect effects eg on photographic plate. We cannot see ultraviolet light but infer some birds do - and we can detect the effects (sun burn). Likewise, we don't directly see even the perceptual dashboard equivocated to reality as a whole, around 620 to 750 nm light wavelength isnt "red experience" without interaction with a mind, reflections, refractions, retina's & brains....there is no "red" outside of human (or animal) perception. What on earth would it even mean for 620 to 750 nm light wavelength to be "mental stuff" ???? Conscious ??? Dissociative mind ??? What ??? Bernardo is talking nonesense. ........but perfectly fine not to straw man physicalism and accept that "light wavelengths" are not **Physical** in some pseudo Democratus atomism particles bouncing in the void but the notions of energy fields or whatever perhaps unknown ontology but does not mean phenomenological minds and experiences...thats a false equivocation. [i.e in all this i'm not claiming to know what ultimate fundamental ontology is - and frankly don't care, since a multi-layered emergent ontology is more important depending on resolution operating under. Eg, to study aerodynamics, I dont need to know the quantum ontology or atomic theory but study wing shapes, air pressure and velocity of aeroplane.....the ontology of "lower levels" is frankly irrelevant.
Nice response. BK is just an inverted reductive physicalist. This is just a complete negation of reductive physicalism that has the same problems. The only justification for reduction being that it has worked in the history of science (a flimsy claim that is only plausible if you have a very simplistic view of history of science) while being anti realist about science. Make it make sense lol
@@ReflectiveJourney I agree, BK is just as an inverted reductive physicalism. Hence my point about "The harder problem of unconsciousness" as a flip of the "hard problem of consciousness" NO, Analytical idealism is not satisfying as explanatory power or coming up with anything other than some fancy preaching against reductive physicalism. ....in fact, good old fashioned dualism makes more sense than analytical idealism. I have more sympathy to Roger Penrose tripartite ontology or/and numerous variations on emergence for nested ontological layers with being agnostic to the ultimate "lowest" layers, but not claiming it has anything to do with phenomenology consciousness/experience, which makes no sense whatsoever. It maybe just a brute fact that we cannot know the most primitive ontological layer because of resolution limitations such as the very act of measurement interferes with what measuring, especially when get to notions of Plank Length/Plank Time. A crude example, if i'm trying to measure an Onion by observation at cellular level under a microscope, I cannot do that in situ, but going to have to rip it out the ground, slice it, peal of layers and place dyes - basically the measuring act itself alters the substrate....That doesn't mean the measurement is illusion or fake, but does mean that cannot know the reality directly as it is, but the very act of measuring alters what is measured. Nothing strange about this notion, its abundant all over physical science's and social sciences** and applies to micro world and "bridging principles between ontological layers/domains" Obviously, one can make abductive inferences if for example they understand how the measuring tool has damaged or altered what is being measured. eg with the onion, now can see more detail due to the dye under microscope - one knows they added a dye and without it, perhaps they could not see details (phenomenology on dashboard) - clearly, the original onion had those "invisible" details prior to being discovered using a dye. Its not like the dye "created" perception in some constructivist solipsism. However, guess the skeptic may still say - "Well, you cannot **REALLY** know those details on onion cells existed prior to adding the dye ! How could you know ! There is no phenomenology of the Onion details in perception prior to adding the dye" (in some weird way, this is true...but really just good old story if a tree falls in the forest without anyone around to hear does the tree still vibrate the air - yes, of course there is no phenomenological sound.........maybe trees dont fall in forests when people are not around, but the forests magically appear only when observed - slippery slope to radical global skepticism and nihillism) **Maybe not possible to do certain social surveys without altering what is being surveyed, if the survey itself alters opinions by making suggestions (eg think of those happiness rating surveys, when may have never occurred for someone to do a self rating, the rating question itself alters perception).
@@philosophicalinquirer312 i mostly agree. Free energy principle is a nice scale free version is a nice way to model it. I am fully relation pilled and currently exploring hegel, pierce, whitehead. I already did somewhat a deep dive into plato canon till proclus. If folks go to it with an open mind a lot of these questions were hotly debated and have very satisfactory answers. Like the one being beyond intelligibility but ground of it. Reality is relational and open so to have a final conceptual scheme itself is an impossibility. I find this response at least as an antidote towards not wanting a final theory of everything.
Very nice conversation. I still think that Kastrup is wrong about mind at large merely being phenomenally conscious as far as we can infer and extrapolate from empirical evidence and philosophical reasoning. I also don’t agree with him that the universe is all that exists. I think it’s embedded within a transcendent mind which might be characterised as hyper-conscious and the absolute source of the universe and its multidimensional modalities. For all its impressive technical sophistication (as evidenced in ‘The Idea of the World’), I get the strong impression that there is a streak of nihilism and purposelessness running through Kastrup’s idealist metaphysic.
@JA-gz6cj Just saying one finds meaning doesn't, in and of itself, mean the claim has any substance. For Kastrup, the logical consequence of his view if all sentient entities are, frankly, slaves to a conscious reality that itself doesn't even know you exist and merely feeds on your mental contents when you die. I mean my goodness, how is that any different from a mindless parasite?
He has admitted to some bias in that regard. I can't remember the video but I remember he said he finds the idea of a purposeful, intentional MAL deeply uncomfortable, because of the callousness required to deliberately create such a bloody, messy universe. "Nature red in tooth and claw" and all that. Personally I don't mind. I like the idea of all my suffering being somehow useful to a higher being - that I am just a part of. It instantly turns it all into a duty, one I can shoulder happily because it serves something greater. Rather than it all just being billiard balls bouncing around. But, that's just me.
@@discordlexia2429 I remember that conversation and I wonder if Kastrup honestly believes that. One the one hand he tends to shy away from projecting too much onto MAL and yet on the other he's all too eager to ascribe human-esque callousness in the case of a self-reflective Mind? In fairness, as you said, Kastrup has openly admitted to a personal bias on the issue (and credit where it's due there), but still this seems like an issue where he's trying to have his cake and eat it too.
Nice of Bernie mentioning pilots. When a fighter jet pilot accelerates and gets to 7 Gs, instantly their Consciousness gets reduced like a shrinking violet. Why? Instantaneous blood flow reduction. Why Bernie doesn't explain to the Airforce that these effects are JUST neourocorrelates of consciousness and that consciousness does NOT REALLY depend on blood flow? It would be groundbreaking for training, technology, and military advantage. Why not? Please tell me in medical jargon, why not?
The point, I think, is that intentional consciousness depends on blood flow, which is all that matters to the Airforce. They need have no concern for more profound states of consciousness. It is a problem that philosophers often, and scientists usually, use the word 'consciousness' to refer only to intentional subject-object consciousness. This causes extensive confusion when they come into contact with mysticism. .
@peterjones6507 Without blood flow all types and levels of consciousness are affected. If the physical cause for that reduction takes longer than a few seconds, the person passes out, and if it lasts minutes, passes away. That, I think, is one of the least confusing effects for anyone. Observers can confirm, and the subject, well, is not present (mentally) to opine on the matter.
@peterjones6507 Bernie and other Panpsychists would assert that Consciousness is primordial, therefore independent, than blood flow. Physicalism predicts what happens without blood flow and Panpsychism and Idealism are defeated because they cannot explain that and many other phenomena unless Bernie makes excuses.
ua-cam.com/video/ib9jDiHIsC4/v-deo.html I am under the impression that 'philosophy' means something like "the practice or activity of embodying doubt".
18:44 So he basically does not answer either of the questions. 1. "What allows you to draw answers to metaphysical questions from science" and 2. "what methodology are you using" ... what a parody of a philosopher
1:18:00 Mathematics applies to nature specifically because, as wrote Kant, “we can know a priori of things only what we ourselves put into them” (KrV, B xviii); viz., mathematics and geometry refer to the a priori forms of sensibility (space and time), and hence have synthetic a priori objectivity. Kastrup appears to be ignoring the distinction between the “quid juris?” and the “quid facti?” here (as Hawkins tacitly implies when he refers to Frege’s wanting to “jump out and smash the screen” and psychologism)-viz., Kastrup is further reinforcing his pre-critical dogmatism.
@@clivejenkins4033 Clearly you think that. You've been deceived. Think about how in just a few sentences he claims to disprove scientific realism/physicalism, which people have been contending with since Kant. Now go to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and look up physicalism, then look up structural realism to see what real thought looks like. Then look for an entry on Kastrup. You may be surprised to find nothing anywhere in the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy about him. And yet he's disproven physicalism. lol. That would be fine, whatever he wants to say about philosophy is fine, but he literally scoffs and dismisses people as ridiculous, which is where someone needs to put him (and his fanboys) in their place
I'd say all questions were answered with coherence and integrity. Fair play in challenging Bernardo to explain aspects the interviewer didn't understand but in each case, a clear and rich response was given.
As someone who has watched almost all the content Bernardo is a part of, I will say this is one of the better interviews with him and I can’t wait for part 2.
One of the best if not the very best conversation with Kastrup I've seen. You challenged him in a way I haven't seen before but you also let him speak which is rare enough. Thank you!
Thank you for asking questions to Bernado which I've not seen him answer before! I love that you put in so much effort into learning his ideas, and I love how Bernado seemingly loves being asked questions that he hasn't encountered before. Great interview, can't wait for the next.
Thanks!
My highest respect to BK for his willingness to engage with good-faith criticism.
me too, that's very rare. shows intellectual and moral integrity to do so
Yeah, I thought he was great. And he clearly enjoyed it and we have more scheduled to come.
great to see academic discourse that’s civil and productive
@@AbsolutePhilosophy Thank you, the whole exchange was great!
Bernardo, It took me 6 weeks to read "The idea of the world". I studied it. The same way I studied chemistry texts. It was worth. The p logical narrative is uniform across each paper. It's masterful. One criticism, organize lists visually.
Very few public intellectuals are balanced enough to integrate negative feedback. Props to both of you
Wow, BK has really chilled out haha. I understand him usually being on the defense because his serious scholarship is often approached in bad faith like it is a new age religion. It is important to be able to actually name the issues and address them head on. This is a fantastic discussion! Really good questions and answers. Can't wait for part 2!
Loved Kastrup's comments around the discussion about behaviorism and then bodies and corpses around 1:30:00-1:50:50. i felt that was the turning point for me when his explanations overcame most of my reasoned doubts. What a cool moment in philosophy this is.
This is really fantastic. Thank you to both of you for making this happen.
Our pleasure!
Thanks for this great conversation , it says something that idealism is making a comeback in philosophy imo.
This is great. Polite, well articulated and respectful points, despite some disagreement. This is how it should be done, rather than silly mediated debates that achieve nothing.
This was great, thank you! I have seen numerous conversations with Bernardo, and they usually deal with the question whether idealism is plausible at all. This, looking at his model more closely from the inside, brought many new things to light. Looking forward to part 2.
The clarity BK holds is akin to what philisophers hold. Really enjoyed this conversation 😊
Well, he does have a PH.D. in philosophy (as well as a one in computer engineering) 😊
He is a philosopher.
He is one 💀
Maybe that is because he is a philosopher? Lol
This was great. At first I was annoyed because the host said he had at least read Nutshell but then talked as if Bernardo claimed emprical research was enough. But, as the conversation rolled on, it became a delight to hear Bernardo asked specific questions and ready to elaborate from multiple points of view.
I really hope that their next conversation does start as Bernardo requested, with the host making his argument for God would be meta-conscious. Bernardo is very fun to watch when he goes into question mode. Hopefully, they've recorded it and it's dropping tomorrow :)
Glad to see Bernardo engaging with another idealist, rather than just treading over the same old typical physicalist objections. A sentiment I've often seen here is that Bernardo does a bang up job of refuting materialism (which I think is true), but there have been some definite holes when it comes to his defense of his own position (which I also find true).
I imagine conversations like these with other idealists will only help him evolve and sharpen his arguments even further. You raised some salient objections, which I think Bernardo handled well. Thank you for this video.
I think Bernardo defended his positions excellently.
Kastrup makes ridiculous arguments against physicalism. He's either intentionally mis-representing physicalism, or he is just a very poor thinker.
@@johnhausmann2391 Anybody can say that some arguments are ridiculous but if you want to disprove you are a very poor thinker explain why they are ridiculous.
@@grzegkania I'm also very curious to know what he misrepresents about physicalism.
@@johnhausmann2391Care to elaborate, or can you just fling insults? I have never seen anyone name something he is misrepresenting about physicalism. Would love to hear it.
The amount of people in this comment section who don’t have the foggiest idea as to what Idealism OR materialism actually entail is quite alarming
Idealism and materialism are two ontological philosophical presuppositions that originated in the schools of ancient Greece. Idealists were typically associated with Plato, Aristotle, and materialism has its orgins with Democritus (founder of the atom theory) Thales of Miletus and Anaximander. Other notable European philosophers who have been defined as materialists include: John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and writer Francis Bacon.
At first, I thought this was a rudely dismissive comment, but after a brief tour below I can see you’re simply stating a fact. My god, and the confidence with which these folks make these pronouncements. Of course neither of these philosophical schools are well-defined to the degree of a consensus, but there are many misconceptions and wrong things people can and do say about each-and many of them are on display here. Cheers.
@@george5464 what is your take on idealism and materialism?
That's because Kastrup does his best to mis-represent modern physicalism so that he can easily cast it aside.
@@johnhausmann2391 how does he misinterpret modern physicalism , give me a physicalist philosopher you think he misinterpreted?
By far the best BK interview/debate. Can’t wait for part II.
Thank you for this interview. I very much resonate with the ideas of Bernardo Kastrup and I am planning to get the book on analytic idealism. Great guest! I am also very much into Carl Jung. I would love to talk to Kastrup about Jung someday on my channel.
He visto casi todos los vídeos de BK y hacía falta una entrevista como esta. Excelente
I love that Bernardo is willing to engage with small YT channels.
Yes. That is a policy of his, for which I am grateful.
Wonderful and interesting conversation. I so much look forward to next part and would love to hear you challenge Bernardo on his view of Mind at Large in relation to his discussions with his friend Rupert Spira who insists that Consciousness is meta conscious and is in essense unconditional love. Bernardo agreed with Rupert in one of their last conversations on YT but it really still doesn’t sound like what Bernardo is telling us here. Thank you for making and sharing this 🙏
That's the plan! I think this, along with what I take to be a pure leap of epistemic faith beyond the dashboard, are the weakest points, philosophically, of his view. I pressed the first in this part, the next part will press the quality of consciousness present in mind at large. I think this part laid some good groundwork to really push it home and Kastrup has said I can begin the next part by presenting my arguments... so I'm working on formulating them.
@@AbsolutePhilosophy Thank you for your reply. I don't have an academic back ground and English is not my native language, so sometimes it was a bit difficult to follow your discussion, but I've also struggled somewhat regarding his dashboard metaphor. It's hard for me to put my finger on it but there is something unintuitive about it with the mix of a physical setting (airplane with no windows) to explain all being mental. On a side note I've often longed for Bernardo to offer alternative metaphors for this very theme. For a man that says "in other words" a lot it's a little "amusing" that he does this in that context :-) But I get that it's probably not that easy to come up with another well thought through metaphor for the same thing. It just puzzels me that no other interviewers have pressed him on this issue. Either way I think Bernardo has the most plausible TOE as it stands today. There is just something extremely appealing in it's elegant an non-convoluted parsimoni.
I am really looking forward to your next conversation. If I had a chance to sit down and discuss the matter of Consciousness and science, I would certainly suggest that him and all his peers sat down in a filmed "world forum"/symposium over several days and hashed it out so to speak also with curious sceptics from the realm of materialists - all for the acceleration and benefit for mankind. You know as addition to the many discussions in "silos" like on yours and many other channel but in a larger forum of present and most relevant thinkers of our time. If I were a rich person I would set that up and invite a lot of interesting and relevant people :-)
@@skemsen an alternative metaphor to the dashboard is for example the desktop, graphical userinterface of windows, which displays maps or files/documents as icons on your screen, which is convenient for our understanding. but the reality behind it is, that there are no maps and no documents represented there, just 1s and 0s in the memory of your computer...
Actually, what Bernardo and Rupert discovered in that conversation is that they were using the term "meta" and "self-conscious" differently and that Rupert does not believe that fundamental reality is meta-conscious. When he says that it is self-conscious he means that it is, of course, the consciousens of The Self. So they ended up realizing that they both agree that fundamental reality is not meta-conscious. It was fascinating to listen to them get to that moment.
@@AbsolutePhilosophy
Actually, what Bernardo and Rupert discovered in that conversation is that they were using the term "meta" and "self-conscious" differently and that Rupert does not believe that fundamental reality is meta-conscious. When he says that it is self-conscious he means that it is, of course, the consciousens of The Self. So they ended up realizing that they both agree that fundamental reality is not meta-conscious. It was fascinating to listen to them get to that moment.
Crossing my fingers that Part 2 drops tomorrow
Amazing that you got him on!
Time stamps would be amazing for this long format 🙏
would be totally amazing and increase the usability tenfold
Done! I always intended to and then forgot (it takes a while!).
@@AbsolutePhilosophy u're awesome!
@ thanks a lot! 🙏🏼
You did it. Congratulations.
Yay!
Another masterclass from bernardo 💯👌
Great interview, really insightful questions
Firstly, your pod should have 500,000+ followers. Excellent inquiry into BK's a-Idealism; very much enjoyed the converstation!
So grateful, you brought this🎉
Good interview
45:25 great question
1:07:00, 1:11:45 are good as well. The origin of mathematical qualia/physical descriptions is something Bernardo doesn't touch on too much, but it's very interesting.
1:26:25 Interesting question. It does seem like there need to be "conserved qualities" between Mind-at-large and the dashboard. Otherwise, what are we observing what we observe abstract properties? (Well, we are observing our own abstract thoughts, but where do these thoughts get their shape? From some qualitative interaction with Mind-at-large, through which some qualities should be conserved)
I enjoyed the back and forth, thank you ❤
ayo
Thanks!
Wow, that is exceptionally generous of you! Thanks a lot.
Great interview! I was hoping you'd press Kastrup a little more on the "How does meta-consciousness arise from phenomenal consciousness?" question, but hopefully you will do that next time. In particular, I think there are other hard problems of consciousness--the problems of intentionality and reason, at the very least, and maybe more--which, if these features of mind are also irreducible, force us by the same logic to accept these features of mind as being fundamental to reality alongside phenomenal consciousness. To appeal to "re-representation" you'd first need representation, which requires intentionality or "aboutness". And just like how I think it's impossible to get phenomenal consciousness from non-phenomenality, I think it's impossible to get intentionality from non-intentional building blocks, or rationality from non-rational building blocks. Insofar as pure phenomenality is non-intentional and non-rational, we don't get intentionality and reason for free by appealing to evolution, any more than physicalists can appeal to evolution to explain phenomenal consciousness. In other words, there's a constitutive problem, not just a "historical" one. If the underlying thing being appealed--matter, in the case of physicalism--cannot, even in principle, give rise to what we are trying to explain--phenomenal consciousness--evolution won't help us. But likewise, if pure phenomenality cannot in principle give rise to *real* intentionality or rationality, I don't think we can just say "evolution" and solve the problem. He'd first have show how phenomenality can constitute or ground intentionality/reason in the here and now, before being able to appeal to evolutionary processes. And I don't think that's possible. He could reject intentionality as an illusion and say that there's nothing more to intentional states than their phenomenality, but that brings with it a whole new set of problems (not least of all, that there is no genuine re-representation happening in meta-consciousness).
Agreed. Will press this next time.
Hooray for Absolute Philosophy!
Excellent discussion Thanks❤
It seems the human dashboard is effectively a VR in which all our human qualia must exist. Do other species have different dashboards?
This makes me so happy ❤
Great conversation!
I was one that advocated this meet up between 2 obviously talented thinkers. Now obviously it takes something extra to drive someone to create a platform which invites criticism and if a part of that is arrogance or even being slightly unhinged we are all benefitting from it so don't knock these guys to harshly even if you disagree. For my part I think Nathan is right to challenge Bernardo on several grounds and like him I do not sit well with the use of metaphors used as evidence. Bernardo has the habit of referring to biblical stories as metaphors which on one hand they certainly could be used for but in doing so it gives the bible credence which by association undermines his very philosophy. It would be great at some time for Nathan and Bernardo to do something Thomas Hofweber fails to do and explain as if talking to a 6 year old his theory of conceptual idealism. I have spent a few moments on researching his work and can see the link between thoughts, language and our 'reality' certainly is metaphysical. Hofweber advocates thoughts constrain rather than construct, this may need straightening out to possibly filtering?
All in all both Nathan and Bernardo have looked good in this interview. I have a lot of empathy with Bernardo being of similar temperament and know how hard it can be to hold your tongue as emotion takes its grip, something we both must work on.
As a summary I am with Bernardo generally but always suspect of detail, Federico Faggin has to date stayed more crude in his theory but both taken together are where I am to date.
Many thanks Guys
Here, go debate with ChatGPT :
Bernardo Kastrup's Analytical Idealism is a sophisticated revival of philosophical idealism, positing that all reality is ultimately mental. While Kastrup offers compelling arguments against physicalism and for the primacy of consciousness, his framework isn't without its challenges. Below are several potential loopholes or criticisms:
*1. The Hard Problem of Ontological Reduction*
Kastrup’s Core Argument: He argues that everything reduces to a single, universal consciousness (monistic idealism). Individual consciousnesses are dissociated alters of this universal mind.
Criticism: How does Kastrup account for the transition from the universal mind to individual experiences in a non-circular way? The mechanism of dissociation remains underexplained and, critics argue, is as mysterious as the materialist “hard problem” of consciousness.
*2. Empirical Falsifiability*
Challenge: Like other metaphysical frameworks, Analytical Idealism struggles with empirical falsifiability. Critics argue that it lacks the predictive power to be considered a scientific theory, reducing its status to a purely philosophical stance.
Counterpoint from Kastrup: He might claim that idealism provides better explanatory coherence for phenomena such as near-death experiences, psi phenomena, and quantum mechanics. However, skeptics argue these interpretations are post hoc.
*3. Mind-Independent Phenomena*
Criticism: If reality is entirely mental, how does Kastrup account for the apparent consistency of the physical world independent of any individual’s perception? Why does a tree in the forest still fall when no one is there to observe it?
Kastrup’s Response: He posits that the universal mind underpins the consistent "external" reality, but this raises a problem: How can the universal mind maintain this regularity without inadvertently slipping into a panpsychist or dualist framework?
*4. Multiplicity of Consciousness*
Dissociation as a Loophole: Critics often ask, "Why and how does the universal mind fragment into individual consciousnesses?" This fragmentation mechanism remains speculative and metaphorical (often compared to Dissociative Identity Disorder). This gap weakens its explanatory power.
Analogy Breaks Down: Dissociation works as a psychological model within individuals, but when scaled up to universal metaphysics, the analogy becomes strained. There’s no empirical evidence of a "universal mind" exhibiting or necessitating dissociative behavior.
*5. Parsimony and Complexity*
Occam's Razor: Critics argue that Kastrup’s model introduces unnecessary complexity to explain phenomena that materialism or even panpsychism might handle more parsimoniously.
Response: Kastrup counters that idealism simplifies the ontological landscape by reducing the multiplicity of entities to one (consciousness), but skeptics see this as a pseudo-simplicity that merely relocates the complexity.
*6. Ethical and Existential Implications*
Problem of Evil and Suffering: If the universal mind is ultimately responsible for all experiences, including suffering, why would it generate pain, evil, or meaningless existence? This leads to theological or existential challenges that Kastrup doesn't fully address.
Potential Rebuttal: Kastrup might argue that suffering and evil are emergent properties of dissociation, but this risks portraying the universal mind as indifferent or even malevolent-a contradiction to the often implicitly benign nature attributed to it.
*7. Quantum Mechanics Interpretation*
Quantum Idealism: Kastrup aligns his view with interpretations of quantum mechanics, claiming that consciousness underlies quantum phenomena. However, interpretations like the Copenhagen or Many-Worlds don’t necessarily require idealism.
Criticism: Some physicists argue that Kastrup misinterprets quantum mechanics by conflating observer effects with consciousness. The "observer" in quantum physics doesn’t need to be a conscious entity; measurement suffices.
*8. The Problem of Other Minds*
How Do We Verify Altered Consciousness?: If we are all dissociated parts of a single mind, what ensures the existence of other consciousnesses as real and distinct from mere mental simulations? How do we avoid solipsism?
Analytical Gap: The framework lacks a robust mechanism to differentiate between real "alters" and purely solipsistic constructs.
*Conclusion*
While Bernardo Kastrup’s Analytical Idealism offers a rich, coherent metaphysical system challenging physicalist orthodoxy, its key loopholes revolve around the explanatory gaps in dissociation, lack of empirical testability, and philosophical parsimony.
Nonetheless, his work provides fertile ground for metaphysical debate, appealing to those who feel physicalism inadequately captures the essence of consciousness and reality.
Would you like to explore how these criticisms could be addressed or dive deeper into any specific area?
No realist living today thinks that our senses or intuition gives us direct, unmediated access to the world as it is. We just believe that there is a state of reality that exists independently from our existence, and it is a dynamic, entropic entity with real-patterns that is, to our best knowledge, made of quantum fields. I prefer the term “model-dependent realist.”
On the contrary, most realists are direct realists. That's because most people are unthinking. Among intellectuals who are realists, they are indirect realists because the idealists destroyed their previous illusions and made their position untenable.
I say there is a fact to this matter and it won't go away.
oh wow, I listened to your original video, didn't understand it, looked at Bernardo's work, sort of understood it, and now I look forward to sort of not understanding this video.
Idealism:
Metaphysical Idealism is the view that the objective, phenomenal world is the product of an IDEATION of the mind, whether that be the individual, discrete mind of a personal subject, or otherwise that of a Universal Conscious Mind (often case, a Supreme Deity), or perhaps more plausibly, in the latter form of Idealism, Impersonal Universal Consciousness Itself (“Nirguna Brahman”, in Sanskrit).
The former variety of Idealism (that the external world is merely the product of an individual mind) seems to be a form of solipsism.
The latter kind of Idealism is far more plausible, yet it reduces the objective world to nothing but a figment in the “Mind of God”.
Thus, BOTH these forms of Idealism can be used to justify all kinds of immoral behaviour, on the premise that life is just a sort of dream in the mind of an individual human, or else in the consciousness of the Universal Mind, and therefore, any action that is deemed by society to be immoral takes place purely in the imagination (and of course, those who favour this philosophy rarely speak of how non-human animals fit into this metaphysical world-view, at least under the former kind of Idealism, subjective Idealism).
Idealism (especially Monistic Idealism), is invariably the metaphysical position proffered by neo-advaita teachers outside of India (Bhārata), almost definitely due to the promulgation of the teachings in the West of Indian (so-called) “gurus” such as Mister Venkataraman Iyer (normally referred to by his assumed name, Ramana Maharshi). See the Glossary entry “neo-advaita”.
This may explain why such (bogus) teachers use the terms “Consciousness” and/or “Awareness”, instead of the Vedantic Sanskrit word “Brahman”, since with “Brahman” there is ultimately no distinction between matter and spirit (i.e. the object-subject duality).
At the risk of sounding facetious, anyone can dress themselves in a white robe and go before a camera or a live audience and repeat the words “Consciousness” and “Awareness” ad-infinitum and it would seem INDISTINGUISHABLE from the so called “satsangs” (a Sanskrit term that refers to a guru preaching to a gathering of spiritual seekers) of those fools who belong to the cult of neo-advaita.
Although it may seem that in a couple of places in this treatise, that a form of Monistic Idealism is presented to the reader, the metaphysical view postulated here is, in fact, a form of neutral monism known as “decompositional dual-aspect monism” (“advaita”, in Sanskrit), and is a far more complete perspective than the immaterialism proposed by Idealism, and is the one realized and taught by the most enlightened sages throughout history, especially in the most “SPIRITUAL” piece of land on earth, Bhārata. Cf. “monism”.
N.B. The Idealism referred to in the above definition (and in the body of this book) is metaphysical Idealism, not the ethical or political idealism often mentioned in public discourse (e.g. “I believe everyone in society ought to be given a basic income”).
Therefore, to distinguish between sociological idealism and philosophical Idealism, the initial letter of the latter term is CAPITALIZED.
@@JagadguruSvamiVegananda That's a decent analysis. Is that from a particular book?
I know that Vedic schools are extremely diverse.
The idealistic variety of advaita has become so widespread on Internet these days people don't even recognize it is just a miniscule variety among Vedic schools. Even advaita itself is merely a variety among many others.
@compellingpeople Best comment ever. It gave me a belly laugh. I think you are easily the smartest person here, and by far my friend. I don’t care if you’re a bot. You are funny :)
@@RelationalismWeavingALoveStory I'm not a bot , and not that smart
@@JagadguruSvamiVeganandatalking shit on maharshi is absurd
I have seen many discussions, i still have no idea what Kastrup is talking about😅
The Idealist difficulty: how does mind/experience/consciousness (maybe something like the dreamer and dreamworlds) produce the hard stuff of reality? The Physicalist: how does stuff produce mind/experience/consciousness (here they posit emergence or epiphenomenon)? Whatever the universe is, it is first a first-person experience: and that experience is what constitites reality...we only find later fields, particles, electrochemical neural firings, etc. So obviously physicalism pervades our everyday life but if we meditate or take certain drugs (i.e. Huxley's account in "The Portals of Perception"), we become idealists as we experience reality as just fluctuations of our own perspective. Hence, it seems that experientalism (the variety and range of our experiences) or perspectivism (reality is always 1st-person...always from the point if view of w.
what's it like to be something...and we are looking at reality from the human, which is sensorily and cognitively limited and no guarantee reality IS or ISN'T just matter or just mind. There is a relationship between mind and matter which neither of these philisophies is able to imagine, let alone express without gaps.
Great discussion and Q&A!
When I dream, I often experience the 'hard stuff of reality'. The other night, I was thrown into a brick wall and it felt like my back broke. The mind has no problem with generating intensities.
We created the airplane which does not have consciousness, so we gave it a dashboard form of sensors. In effect, a second hand artificial type of consciousness.
For my own notes, not useful to anyone.
18:29 “why i think empirical evidence is so neutral… it’s not completely neutral (as Kuhn explained) but it’s more neutral than a priori syllogisms.”
Let’s not even get into whether such a thing as modal neutrality makes any sense (especially from an empiricist’s perspective which he presumably has). Let’s dive into this appeal to neutrality itself. Here’s Alenka Zupančič summarizing pretty neatly why certain kinds of people like to appeal to neutrality (modal or other):
“In any social conflict, a “neutral” position is always and necessarily the position of the ruling class: it seems “neutral” because it has achieved the status of the dominant ideology, which always strikes us as self-evident. The criterion of objectivity in such a case is thus not neutrality, but the capacity of theory to occupy a singular, specific point of view within the situation. In this sense, the objectivity is linked here to the very capacity of being “partial” or “partisan.”
In short, the appeal to neutrality is always a discursive ploy to elide-to mask-one’s partisanship which is to say the actual appeal (to status quo). It’s intellectually insincere.
"Consciousness is the canvas on which the material universe is painted"
Schrodinger.
27:23 now you’re cooking.
Really wish Bernardo had seen your video critique. Big fan of both of you guys. Thanks for this. Looking forward to the next 2 hours.
Why? Did they not cover the criticism from that video?
Very good questions. Thx. I personally also sense MAL is metaconscious since we are and we are part of it, we are one of its sensors in order to invest itself. Anyway thx!
One question I have is why Kastrup seems to assume that our observations and models of the universe on the largest scales are an accurate reflection of “mind at large”. As he keeps pointing out, we are bipedal apes who evolved to perceive certain types of phenomena in detail, but we did not evolve to be able to accurately perceive the universe at a large scale. It holds no adaptive advantage to be able to do this, so I have doubts as to whether we can accurately infer anything about the age and size of the universe. Our observations of the cosmos may just be how it appears to us based on the specific nature of our minds. Of course, this applies to everything to some degree, but the further out we look and the larger the scale we try to conceptualise, the less likely it becomes that our observations have any reason to be accurate.
Thoroughly enjoyed this philosophically rigorous discussion. ... Bernado says that empirical evidence from altered states of consciousness shows that brain states may not able to adequately represent the richness of experience. I wonder whether such mental phenomenon is still represented or representable in some other dashboard. Is it that mental exitation is always represented or representable albeit not necessarily in our human dashboard. Some imprint somewhere, may be in nature, may be in some other plane of existence is still there.
empirical evidens of altered states of conciousness is just that, it doesnt say anything about anything else.
I had problems with Bernardo before some years ago. Mainly with his attitudes and his way to converse with an interlocutor. But the Bernardo hear now is quite different and comes across as more willing to be understood and to understand. If so, it is a good change.
Difficult to have such conversations without a presence of some common vision of a an underlying reality.
I wonder if Rupert Spira chilled him out
@@attic42mushrooms...
@@attic42or maybe his interlocutor here is just respectful and not condescending. Makes a big difference.
Does not change validity of arguments whether one likes or dislike the fashion
Does he address why calls his system of thought specifically "analytic" idealism as opposed to other types of idealism?
I think he said only because it was born out of the analytic tradition in which he was trained. A more descriptive name would be something like objective idealism.
I think it’s to do with Jung being a big influence on his thinking
It is a combination of the two commenters above: analytic tradition + Jungian psychology
@@le_rayon_vert no, it refers to analytic philosophy. Not jungian analysis
Because his/its methodology is rooted in the analytic philosophical tradition; it does not directly describe the framework itself
Frustrating amount of adds on this but thanks to you both for discussion.
Good interview and seems like he appreciated your understanding of his position. Looking forward to the next one. One bit of feedback: it felt a bit stiff in places (maybe nerves or concentration?) but it could do with some increased warmth in the interactions so it sounds a bit less like he's on trial. But otherwise wonderful.... Really. Very much looking forward to next one and you're the man for the job. Great stuff!
Thanks for the comment. Before we began he told me not to hold back or sugarcoat things. He didn't want me to be too 'British' as he was Dutch and would talk straight, haha :). But in all honesty, I'm used to productive cut and thrust like this, its very Cambridge.
@@AbsolutePhilosophy Oh really! How funny. Yes the Dutch are direct. Your challenge for next time: make BK laugh out loud ;)
@@transcendentpsych124 Haha, I'll try. I got him to chuckle once in this video :).
More or less 1:31:30 "mental states can't be measured by numbers therefore there are states in the universe that cannot be quantified". I don't get that. If our subjective experience of our mental states is a correlate of physical states of our brains, which are describable by quantities, then why only consider the emergent behaviour?
When is this he second part coming?
If MAL is the only thing that exists, and nothing exists outside of of it, then the only thing it can be conscious or aware of is itself. It has to think of itself, because there is nothing else to be thought of. Thus it is necessearily self aware , self conscious.
Sounds right to me. I'll press this in the next part, along with other similar arguments. Thanks!
Yup. The reality of moral and value-oriented considerations are also a strong indicator of this. If MAL is just a field of mentation, where does the orientation around which we base these considerations come from?
I wonder if MAL is alone. There could be other "MAL" that don't know about each other, like multiple universes which are ontologically mental, but separate.
Is there something beyond mind at large ?
That is not what meta cognition is.
Are you familiar at all with non-dualism? That will have a dramatic effect on how you see/what you get out of the idea of MAL.
30:00 It is ironic that Kastrup identifies theoretical entities as convenient fictions when his “mind at large” concept, too, is a theoretical entity, cannot be given in a possible experience, and eo ipso is a convenient fiction. Kastrup’s position is more than naive, it is inconsistent.
Furthermore, Kastrup’s insistence that representations definitely correspond to a thing-in-itself tacitly implies the very same transcendental realism that Kant showed inevitably is vulnerable to Cartesian skepticism (hence, why Kant developed empirical realism), to say nothing of the fact that insisting that representations definitely correspond to things-in-themselves involves circular reasoning. Nor can Kastrup appeal to representations to substantiate his transcendental realist hypothesis that representations definitely correspond to things-in-themselves (e.g., a mind at large), since this would amount to Johnsonian stone-kicking.
I like your criticism. Seems like you can spot inconsistencies, contradictions and circular reasoning. All netaphysics is pure imagination imo. I have never seen any functional argument for an external world (beyond his socalled dashboard) neither from BK. He just takes it for granted. it does not matter whatever funny stuff one can come up with if there is no argument for an external world in the first place
BS
A yoga teacher once told me - that to search for consistencies - is the method for fools - in a life of meditation - this has sometimes exasperated me and yet helped to understand that ideally - we have to live and think - flexibly - until the end.
Fare thee well - on life's journey
@@theostapel The point is not necessarily to seek consistencies so much as to respect the limits of possible knowledge, and accept with humility that some things we can know (appearances) and other things we cannot know (alleged transcendent entities, e.g., some alleged transcendent mind-at-large).
Although “we had contemplated building a tower which should reach to the heavens, the supply of materials suffices only for a dwelling-house, just sufficiently commodious for our business on the level of experience, and just sufficiently high to allow of our overlooking it” (Kant, KrV, A 707). “All metaphysicians are therefore solemnly and legally suspended from their occupations till they shall have answered in a satisfactory manner the question, ‘How are synthetic cognitions a priori possible?’, For in this answer alone consists the credential which they must present if they have anything to offer in the name of pure reason. But if they do not possess these credentials, they can expect nothing else of reasonable people, who have been deceived so often, than to be dismissed without further ado” (Kant, Prolegomena, §5). Kant’s insight that we might desire to “build a tower which should reach to the heavens” though we possess materials sufficient only for a dwelling-house at the level of experience remains powerfully relevant. Far from representing a mere restriction, this limitation provides the necessary foundation for genuine philosophical progress by establishing clear boundaries for human knowledge and understanding. My critique of Kastrup’s analytic idealism serves as a crucial reminder of these boundaries and the lamentable consequences of attempting to transgress them.
@@OuroboricIdealism Thank you for all this undeserved effort.
You philosophers - are words smiths.
And here am I - meditating on the heart - trying for experience - in silence - that is ..
Fare the well - in life's journey
there are like 20 commercials in the video? wtf?
The life of an academic ain’t easy these days.
Buy an ad free subscription😊 ….so worth it.
@sebation a azar use “Brave” browser
they're all in your mind
Get an adblocker.
I think the stuff about the universe seeming disorganized sounds like it could easily put pressure on his monism.
Sure, he can say that mind at large is in some kind of delirium, but I think that then makes it mysterious how or why there is any order in Nature (as perceived by us) at all. The singleness of mind at large explains the commonality of the world (quite neatly to be fair) but I’m not sure the same idea would explain its order/lawfulness.
A pluralistic idealism wouldn’t have this issue because it doesn’t say there is any mind for the whole world (not yet at least).
Excellent comment as usual. I expect nothing less from you sir.
@50: BK is hanging way too much there on "quantum fields". Does he even realize they are fictional accounting tools? (He should, since he denies scientific concepts reality before, no?) QFT is a lovely theory, but it is not fundamental. Hilbert space is also a fiction, another "accounting tool" (Has massive irremovable gauge redundancy, so cannot be physical). The spinor fields are mathematical objects, not physical objects, we use them in QM and QFT to transform (rotate, boost and dilate mostly) the frame defining the observables to the co-moving frame of an elementary particle. The elementary particles are what are real, and they're not fields. We describe them using fields.
The only real field needed in physics (to date) is 4D spacetime. If you want, also fibre bundles attached, but we don't even need fibre bundles, since 4D nontrivial topology is sufficient to account for the fibers in at least the Standard Model, and account for non-local effects as needed in entangled systems. If there really is supersymmetry, or strings, than yeah, we'd need more than 4D Riemannian spacetime.
It is ironic that Kastrup identifies theoretical entities as convenient fictions when his “mind at large” concept, too, is a theoretical entity, cannot be given in a possible experience, and eo ipso is a convenient fiction. Kastrup’s position is more than naive, it is inconsistent.
Yes, he realizes they are temporary fictions, but useful ones for now, good analogies.
@@rooruffneck
As I wrote in my critique of analytic idealism: “Nor can Kastrup insist on the mere regulative validity of the mind at large-a regulative principle is in no position to dissociate into alters-such that Kastrupian analytic idealism is dogmatic or nothing at all”.
I adhere to Bernardo's metaphysics but my main gripe is regarding the Markov blanket - it's not clear to me where it really is. Imagine that I study your brain and I see the neural correlates of different experiences. I can then remove your brain from your body and stimulate the brain exactly like that body was doing and your experiences would be the same. So the body is also a sort of "external" thing to you - it's also a representation, and the same are your inner feelings - they are representations of the state of the body, but "you" can exist without your body (by keeping the brain alive metabolically and feeding the same signals artificially, in a brain-in-a-vat fashion).
And even if I mess around with the brain, "you" are not changed - the narrative, the context of experience changes, but you don't. That's why I think there's a single Self experiencing all of our lives, so here I think Bernardo is right. I just think that the body is not necessary, it's just how evolution sculpted minds on this planet but mentality can exist without them, in principle. So it's not clear where the Markov blanket is - is it at the periphery of the nervous system? Is it just the next synapse away from whatever the metacognitive structure is (say, the Default Mode Network)? And so on.
Interesting. I am curious about your definition of "you" that does not change. ...I wonder because I am not the same person I was when I was 5, 25, 45, and so on. So the idea of "you" not changing even though the experiences change seems a derivative of a spiritual teaching, like the concept of a soul.
Unless the "you" refers to the process of the mind that incorporates all the various sense data, memory, and current prediction to create an updated prediction that it then uses to make changes in the body to deal with that prediction.
Either way, I would be interested in knowing.
@@rodcameron7140 The real "you" is the Self of Nature. Basically, the only Subject. Call it "Self", "Subject", "Nature", "God", it doesn't matter. It's the same subject just as it's the same subject when you dream each night - it's always "you" witnessing and living each dream, each night.
In this case, it's the same Self in me and you and every living being that ever existed, it's just that the narrative is different - the Self has a different context of experiences and memories and reference frames in what we call spacetime (where spacetime is the relationship with all the other dissociated alters). It's this dissociation that Bernardo is talking about the reason why we think we are separate individuals, but it's the same Self in each and every one of us, we are the same being. So nobody really dies, you're indestructible. The narrative of this particular self dissapears but that is all.
In fact, I think the Self lives all of its dissociations at the present tense of all of them - in the "present" moment for all of them, in a superposition. As it makes observations from each of its dissociations, it observes classical worlds with energy, positions, momenta, curvature of spacetime and so on, but these are all perceptions of the self in the "dream" of dissociation. Fundamentally, Mind-at-Large (including its dissociations) lives in a superposition which can be mathematically modeled as the wave function of the universe.
@@rodcameron7140 The real "you" is the Self of Nature. Basically, the only Subject. Call it "Self," "Subject," "Nature," "God," it doesn't matter. It's the same subject just as it's the same subject when you dream each night - it's always "you" witnessing and living each dream, each night.
In this case, it's the same Self in me and you and every living being that ever existed, it's just that the narrative is different - the Self has a different context of experiences and memories and reference frames in what we call spacetime (where spacetime is the relationship with all the other dissociated alters). It's this dissociation that Bernardo is talking about, the reason why we think we are separate individuals, but it's the same Self in each and every one of us; we are the same being. So nobody really dies, you're indestructible. The narrative of this particular self disappears, but that is all.
In fact, I think the Self lives all of its dissociations at the present tense of all of them - in the "present" moment for all of them, in a superposition. As it makes observations from each of its dissociations, it observes classical worlds with energy, positions, momenta, curvature of spacetime, and so on, but these are all perceptions of the Self in the "dream" of dissociation. Fundamentally, Mind-at-Large (including its dissociations) lives in a superposition which can be mathematically modeled as the wave function of the universe.
@@Raptorel you’re thinking about it like a physicalist. The question isn’t where the markov blanket is. First of all, the markov blanket is a MODEL for the dissociative boundary. And the question still isn’t “where is the dissociative boundary?” The dissociative boundary is a mental complex; a mental process. The question I *think* you’re getting at is what does the boundary look like? Yes, it looks like the surface of the skin, eyes, tongue, nasal airways, etc.
Now.. Where are you getting this idea that you could have a brain in a vat would have the results you’re claiming it would? That seems like ungrounded speculation. But even if I grant you that, you must remember that “removing the brain from the body” is what a certain mental process (of altering/changing the boundary) *looks like!* If the surface of the body is the boundary, and you remove it… then you’ve removed, or at least changed the process that represents the boundary. So I don’t see how that’s a problem for analytic idealism.
@@BrettRosenfeld Yes, that sounds correct. I think it's pretty safe to speculate that if I were to remove your central nervous system but artificially continued to stimulate it just like the regular body does then your perception wouldn't change - you would still think you have a body. So the body can't be the Markov blanket, that was the point, even if you adopt analytic idealism and the body is just the image of a mental process. Yes, you have replaced the body with artificial neuronal signaling, but this only shows that it was the central nervous system (or a part of it, its periphery) that was the whole deal, that's the Markov blanket which delineates between your dissociation and Mind-at-Large.
I feel if you are going to have such an ostensibly critical perspective of someone’s work, you should have read more than two of his books
@34:00 our _physical body_ has an upper bound on information processing capacity. Not our soul, at least not if you understand the human soul is non-physical. The _physical expression_ of the soul's Mind is what is limited, not necessarily the Mind itself. There is no theory of the limits of the mind (imagination, insight, creativity) that anyone knows of, since there is no information theoretic theory of subjective mind. Friston's is not a theory of mind, his is a theory of brain, or brain+, which is only the _physical_ expressive power of the mind. The brain has already extraordinary capacity to express our Mind's thoughts, our souls are not spiritually aware enough yet to really saturate our brain capacity, plus we have hard drives these days. Pretty useful when the brain gets too hot.
I really like Bernardo, but he did not give sufficiently satisfying answers to some of your worries. Nonetheless it is amazing to see an exchange of sharp questions and answers.
Plato's dialogue's didnt have this many adverts 😢
2:03:00 I wonder if this lack of communication between phenomenal consciousness and meta-conciousnrss might also explain how one could be an eliminativist. Its like blind-sight but with concious experience as a whole!
@Jakelefleur wonderful what imagination can achieve, right? I guess Materialism is boring, too real and too factual, just like a nagging mom lecturing her couch potato 34 years old son.
I don't know if Bernardo answered Nathan's question on why the same emotion in a human or an octopus would have such different appearences in the brain and metabolism of a human versus the brain and metabolism of an octopus! Thanks for this great discussion I am struggling to understand! 🌿
1:24:24 It is ironic that Kastrup insists that his position does not involve a contradiction when it specifically does. As Hume wrote, “To begin with the senses, ’tis evident these faculties are incapable of giving rise to the notion of the continu’d existence of their objects, after they no longer appear to the senses. For that is a contradiction in terms, and supposes that the senses continue to operate, even after they have ceas’d all manner of operation”. And Kastrup is not only presupposing the continued existence of objects after they no longer appear to the senses (a contradiction in terms) but he is going further and presupposing that the hypothetical compositum of sensible qualities (besides having continued existence when not longer apparent to the senses, a contradiction in terms) involves a mind at large (petitio principii). Appealing to the transcendental reality (reality beyond my empirical consciousness) of a mind at large in attempt to defend the transcendental realist hypothesis of a mind at large and the continued existence of sensible qualities after these no longer appear to my empirical consciousness is blatant question-begging-and an appeal to any appearances in attempted defense of the transcendental reality of a mind at large or the continued existence of objects after these no longer appear to the senses amounts to nothing more than Johnsonian stone-kicking (appearances are representations in me).
Kastrup’s position does not avoid contradiction but inherently involves it.
Is this not the same as asking for an argument for how he gets to an external world?
@Mandibil What do you mean by “external” world? Do you mean external in the transcendental sense or in the empirical sense (cf. Kant’s Critique of the Fourth Paralogism)?
No, Kastrup does not think that perceptual objects have a persistent existence outside of perception. This is an extremely basic misunderstanding of his position. He is not a realist with respect to the physical, perceived world. He’s written about this extensively.
@@Sam-hh3ry Mr. Kastrup, whether he insists on the transcendental reality of sensible qualities or on the transcendental reality of non-sensible qualities, is nevertheless begging the question and taking for granted transcendental realism (although he tacitly does take for granted the transcendental reality of sensible qualities by virtue of insisting on the transcendental reality of other minds with their own respective representations beyond my own individual mind)-eo ipso leaving his position wide open to all the classical skeptical objections (ranging from doubts about our ability to know that our representations correspond to an alleged transcendental reality to doubts about whether there even is a transcendental reality at all, since the solipsist may point out that it is logically possible that there is nothing more to reality besides himself and his thoughts). Viz., regardless of what species of transcendental realism Mr. Kastrup upholds, his analytic idealism is far from assertoric, even further from apodeictic, and at best problematic.
Ironically, Mr. Kastrup-insofar as he insists on the transcendental reality of other minds or of a mind-at-large-does tactitly presuppose the transcendental reality of sensible qualities (sensible qualities beyond my own individual consciousnesses).
You can say that “Kastrup does not think that perceptual objects have a persistent existence outside of perception”-but Kastrup still does beg the question against solipsism when he takes for granted what the solipsist doubts or denies: namely, the transcendental reality of other minds or a mind-at-large.
@@Sam-hh3ry Nevertheless, Kastrup begs the question against solipsism insofar as he takes for granted that other minds (“alters” of a mind at large) have transcendental reality beyond individual consciousnesses. Whether one affirms a mental or non-mental transcendental reality beyond individual consciousnesses, one begs the question.
@23:00
Physical properties don't exist because the very concept of what it means to be "physical" is itself utterly incoherent ad a matter of course.
People throw that word around, but the concept itself is utterly bereft of actual substance - therefore even presuming it deserving of being proven or disproven is a step too far. People literally have no idea what they're even talking about here.
It's unfair to call Bohmian mechanics "a theoretical fantasy", as Kastrup does. He uses unreasonable arguments to throw out interpretations which don't suit his idealism.
He was told something similar by Maudlin, but that conservation lasted a bit shorter than this one.
It seemed an embarrassed bluff to defend his sci-fi speculation. I like the dashboard idea to describe the incredible extent to which our brain transduces/interprets/creates a "reality" out of the quantum soup, but I think he's making a cult out of it. Interesting that last question, hashed out and hashed out then seemingly resolved as definitional to his model, whether correct or not. It was great the way Kastrup approached that. Hmmm.
what it's like to bbb like mind at large.... mystery....
what am i doing? ....
Man i really respect BK but holy shit he didnt answer alot of questions.
Kudos to Bernardo for engaging with someone who seems to lack the intellectual ability to fully understand what this is about, and produced some pretty silly "criticisms" in an earlier video. I mean, this so-called philosopher apparently hadn't even realized that Bernardo is a convinced monist !
54:37 my issue here is that idealism just seems sementic at this point. If MAL is just cosmos and we are on just pale blue dot. Calling it "mental in essence" but same as empty space is just desk thumping without any difference. My pragmatist radar is way off the charts in this dialectic what different inferences can we make here (excluding all the in essence stuff)?
Obviously not. Idealism says there’s something it’s like to be the universe. It’s not any more semantic than the claims "there is something it’s like to be me and probably nothing it’s like to be my chair."
Appreciate the detailed breakdown! A bit off-topic, but I wanted to ask: My OKX wallet holds some USDT, and I have the seed phrase. (alarm fetch churn bridge exercise tape speak race clerk couch crater letter). Could you explain how to move them to Binance?
14:00 Mr. Kastrup is inherently confused and demonstrates his pre-critical dogmatism insofar as he appeals in any fashion whatsoever to empirical facts in defense of his metaphysical position: “as concerns the sources of metaphysical cognition, its very concept implies that they cannot be empirical. Its principles (including not only its maxims but its basic notions) must never be derived from experience. It must not be physical but metaphysical knowledge, viz., knowledge lying beyond experience. It can therefore have for its basis neither external experience, which is the source of physics proper, nor internal, which is the basis of empirical psychology. It is therefore a priori knowledge, coming from pure Understanding and pure Reason” (Kant, Prolegomena, §1).
Furthermore, as Hume wrote, “That our senses offer not their impressions as the images of something distinct, or independent, and external, is evident; because they convey to us nothing but a single perception, and never give us the least intimation of any thing beyond [e.g., a mind at large or other minds]. A single perception can never produce the idea of a double existence, but by some inference either of the reason or imagination. When the mind looks farther than what immediately appears to it, its conclusions can never be put to the account of the senses; and it certainly looks farther, when from a single perception it infers a double existence, and supposes the relations of resemblance and causation betwixt them”.
Kastrup is not moving beyond the philosohers of the past, he is going back to Scholasticism and pre-critical dogmatism.
As a philosopher, Mr. Kastrup should be intimately familiar with Kant’s critical turn and its decisive demonstration of the limits of human knowledge. Mr. Kastrup’s failure to observe the boundaries of legitimate philosophical enquiry and his reversion to pre-critical dogmatism represents not mere ignorance but a fundamental failure of philosophical responsibility. What makes this particularly tragic is that Mr. Kastrup, as a professional philosopher, has presumably encountered these critical arguments yet either failed to truly understand them or chosen to ignore their implications. Mr. Kastrup’s analytic idealism thus represents not an innocent misunderstanding but a regression to precisely the kind of dogmatic metaphysics that Kant showed to be philosophically untenable. The fact that Mr. Kastrup’s approach is essentially dogmatic explains this failure but does not excuse it. Kastrup’s appeal to apparent immanent intersubjective agreement in attempt to defend his transcendental realism reveals a deep internal contradiction in his method: he needs to establish something about transcendental reality (namely, the existence of mind at large and its alters), but his argumentative strategy can only ever establish facts about immanent appearances. This is not merely a weakness in his argument-it represents a fundamental impossibility in his project. No amount of evidence from within the sphere of immanent representations can ever establish the transcendental claims his system requires. His appeal to apparent intersubjectivity thus represents not just a failed argument but an impossible argumentative strategy. The problem here goes beyond mere logical error: it reveals how Kastrup’s entire approach to metaphysics remains trapped in pre-critical thinking, unable to properly distinguish between claims about appearances and claims about transcendental reality. This confusion leads him to attempt impossible argumentative moves, trying to establish transcendental claims through evidence that can only ever speak to immanent appearances (immanent representations).
The fact that Mr. Kastrup seems to argue that the a priori entails prejudices, even when the a priori by definition must entail universality and necessity, only confirms Kastrup’s being in a pre-critical dogmatic slumber.
Well said. I think your various comments on this video do a good job in revealing an extremely important point: Kastrup is a third-rate philosopher at best. By training he is a scientist, and I think that helps to explain his dogmatism to some degree. What helps to explain his popularity is not any argumentative rigour and is certainly not his philosophical depth, but rather the fact that he's tapped into the current zeitgeist which celebrates woo phenomena like NDEs, OBEs, the consciousness link to UFOs etc. and which are used to prop up arguments like his.
Your argument is akin to saying that the desktop of a computer could never indicate anything about the behavior of the CPU which is just comically incorrect.
@@Sam-hh3ry Your statement-that my position “is akin to saying that the desktop of a computer could never indicate anything about the behavior of the CPU”-entails ignoratio elenchi: you are conflating the very orders of reality that I specifically distinguish between in my critique, and then you are basing your defense of Kastrup on this conflation move of yours (which conflation, sophisma figurae dictionis, is implicit in Kastrup’s analytic idealism as it is implicit in your attempted counterargument here). I specifically distinguish between empirical and transcendental reality-reality which is conditioned by space and time and the categories of the understanding (empirical reality), and an alleged reality which is independent of space and time and not definable in terms of the categories of the understanding (transcendental reality)-hence, your attempted counterargument, which attempted counterargument relies on a sophisma figurae dictionis conflation between these two orders of reality, involves inherently ignoratio elenchi.
No.
@@beherenowspace1863 thank god for you, eh?
1:25:14 i think i am just stupid to not get this but this is just sounds plain incoherent like hoffman stuff which is not a "bonafide" theory. I really liked your objection here as well.
If you can know that dashboard is of "monkey" well then you know something outside the dashboard. So the claims of evolution are either outside or inside the dashboard and if it is inside why doesn't it simply undercut the initial justification motivating the dashboard metaphor.
The "dashboard" is still a representation of something that exists in reality, therefore evolution can be used to figure out things about reality. Just because it is a dashboard or a representation doesn't mean it has no correlation to an objective reality, if it was the other way around, we would be dreaming and the laws of physics would be inconsistent
@ElMois872 i am afraid in the MAL framework you are not entitled to make claims about things in the objective reality. Don't forget space and time itself are dials on the dashboard.
I see this as a fork: if you have a standard representationalist picture where representations are giving us an approximate picture of reality then physical representations are also giving us an accurate picture (unless you just want to be arbitrary) so why go idealism over physicalism. On the other hand, objective reality is completely different from our representations, then it undercuts the empirical justifications like evolution.
@@ElMois872Also, if you can appeal to laws of physics, i can do the same and that just is physicalism ( ie being committed to the claims/theory of natural sciences).
At least you're aware that you're not capable
@@ReflectiveJourneywhat is the object reality beyond the dashboard? Kinda begging the question
finally!!
1:16:00 again on mathematics
I wonder why, at 1h12m0s, something was cut from the video. I can't help but wonder if maybe Kastrup was fumbling and stumbling for an initial answer and then insisted it be cut.
No, nothing sinister. Kastrup didn't have an OS that could handle my usual platform so we had to do it on zoom and restart the meeting/recording every 40 minutes.
What a strange conclusion to jump to based on nothing
@@Sam-hh3ry My assumption was wrong, but I stand by it, as I based it on Kastrup's sometimes fragile ego, often palpable need to be right and obvious anger issues.
@@extavwudda sounds like projection to me
Around 1:25:00 the objection you put forward absolutely rocks. The dude is caught in a self referentially defeating position, as he cannot validate his metaphysics. All goes back to Kantian assumptions which suffer from the problem of self-refutation because they exclude the possibility of knowledge about things in themselves, including your own cognitive faculties.
Kant himself later shored up his theory in a non-epistemic way to avoid such unpalatable effects.
He makes an exception to self-knowledge but that's totally an arbitrary exception. After all, wouldn't his alleged self-knowledge be a dashboard as well? The Kantian assumptions under which he operates don't allow that.
Only by learning about the world as it truly is can we validate those faculties that allow us to learn in the first place, and thus it is theories that allow for this kind of knowledge that we must concern ourselves with.
All axioms are de-facto self-referential and are necessitated for ANY truth claims.
Indeed. Although I would submit such a problem is entirely one of Kastrup's own making, not one intrinsic to Idealism itself.
For instance, one can entirely circumvent it by simply regarding one's experiences as genuine without appealing to an unverifiable metaphysics like Materialism. Simply regarding this particular world as a dream (in other words a mental creation) is much simpler and doesn't require us to invalidate the reality of our own experiences
Why would the dashboard metaphor apply to self knowledge? It only applies to perception under kastrups metaphysics
@@ryanashfyre464 I think that's possible, but with the cost of being a solipsist. For you to know reality as it truly is and for reality to be a mental creation, the only option is for reality to be your mental creation/your dream.
Since solipsism is false (I think we all agree on that), and we know reality as it truly is, then reality is not a mental creation.
@@pandawandas He is not consistent.
For me, the major takeaway from this discussion, is that Kastrup has no solid arguments (only suggestions) for why MAL is not metaconscious. (They discuss this topic around the 50 minute mark). An interesting observation is that this doesn't diminish the level of certainty with which Kastrup speaks. I think I would have appreciated it, if he had prefaced or concluded his take on this topic by saying he simply doesn't KNOW if the universe is metaconscious or not. And that solid arguments that it is, can also be made. Admittedly, he professes being cautious on the topic, but if he were to just follow the logic he holds so dear, he'd have to be on the fence about it, at minimum.
What would your objection be to the assertion that MAL is not metaconscious because if it were every instance of consciousness would necessarily be metaconscious. This is clearly not the case since we can think of examples of conscious entities that do not possess metaconsciousness like bacteria or plants. Therefore MAL cannot be metaconscious.
@@thomaswilliams6337how do you know that?
@@thomaswilliams6337 You fall in the same trap as Kastrup, in pretending that a suggestion is an actual argument. What makes you conclude that if the universe is metaconscious, everything in it MUST be metaconscious too? That is just an unfounded assertion.
I am metaconscious, yet I can have thoughts or create things that are not metaconscious. If I can, why wouldn't MAL be able to?
I could also argue the exact opposite of what you claim: that the universe MUST be metaconscious, because WE are. Apparently metacognition is (or has become) a property of the universe.
But you see, this is not a true argument either. I haven't heard, in this discussion, any real arguments for why the universe is or isn't metaconscious.
This is why I'd have liked to see in Kastrup the same care and modesty as I observed in the host.
But I think we CAN argue this: If we choose to believe that the things that people report after heroic doses of psychedelics (e.g. meeting entities) and NDE's (e.g seeing angel like beings and dead relatives) are true, than we'd have to conclude that whatever mind transcends ours, is metaconscious.
@extavwudda his postion is that the universe isn't metaconcious because it doesn't have a brain that causes the dissociation required for our kind of metaconcioisness
But the universe is consciousness
@@crushinnihilismThat is certainly not one of Kastrup's arguments.
2:15:15 Mr. Kastrup begs the question, and engages in contradiction in terms too, when he tells us that “There are gazillions of excitations in China right now, [though] they are not creating perceptual excitations in us”-furthermore, Kastrup is engaging in the fallacy of hypostasis here too, hypoststizing outer appearances (to say nothing of the fact that he is appealing to the stone à la Dr. Samuel Johnson by appealing to appearances as an argument for transcendental reality [viz., excitations in China right now]).
As wrote Hume, “To begin with the senses, ’tis evident these faculties are incapable of giving rise to the notion of the continu’d existence of their objects, after they no longer appear to the senses. For that is a contradiction in terms, and supposes that the senses continue to operate, even after they have ceas’d all manner of operation”. And, as Kant remarked, “we hypostatise outer appearances … [when we] come to regard them not as representations but as things existing by themselves outside us, with the same quality as that with which they exist in us”.
Hey I watched some of videos on your idealism what do you think of the noble prize that was just won that disputes local realism. does science affect your philosophy
@shaanchaudhry541 I have a a few videos that discuss the notion of local realism-especially the one titled “Transcendental Solipsism”. Basically, my view is that the objects I perceive-for example, houses, mountains, rivers, etc.-are not remote from me. Rather, they are immediately in my own thoughts, just like dream images are in my own thoughts.
In the words of Immanuel Kant: “All bodies, together with the space in which they are, must be considered nothing but mere representations in us, and exist nowhere but in our thoughts”.
I’ve started to watch some of your videos, so forgive me if it’s addressed there and I haven’t gotten to it, but how does your idealism account for non-perceptual (or non-representational) experiences, such as endogenous desires, appetites, drives, instincts.
@@CJ-kq3oh Thanks for engaging with my videos; I really appreciate that. However, I recently deleted the majority of my videos on UA-cam-not because I want to permanently remove the content from UA-cam, but because I am in the process of doing updated versions of the deleted videos (“updated”, not in the sense that I have updated/modified my position, but in the sense that I want to change the video style/presentation moving forward).
As it pertains to your question concerning “non-perceptual” experiences, I do tacitly address this in my most recent video on “Transcendental Solipsism”: namely, I state there that “Transcendental solipsism must be apodeictic: the very concept of mind transcending its sphere of immanent representations is self-contradictory, and even any conception or judgment of such transcendence would itself be an immanent representation in mind; in fact, any perception, idea, judgment, belief, conviction, feeling, sensation, and literally everything that constitutes one’s mental life [including ‘endogenous desires, appetites, drives, instincts’] is an immanent representation, such that transcendental (or critical) solipsism is inescapably apodeictic. There is no mental content or activity whatsoever that escapes being an immanent representation. The very concept of mind transcending its sphere of immanent representations is therefore necessarily self-contradictory: any attempt to even conceive of such transcendence would itself be an immanent representation”.
I am using the term “representation” in a very broad sense-as Kant used the word “Vorstellung”-to refer, not only to perceptions, but to all aspects of mental activity.
@@OuroboricIdealismah ok, I look forward to the updated versions. So how do you account for the representational arising from the noumena?
I have the distinct impression that Bernie makes Analytic Idealism on the spot, and I have the feeling that he thinks that whatever his mind imagines, must be true in the real world.
I'm not entirely sure why Kastrup is taking Jonathan Schooler's work (good as it sounds for its limited scope) and projecting it onto the universe at large. After all, presumably there has to be some orienting mechanism by which our minds do this at all, otherwise it seems like one is just grasping at straws to explain how it is that this occurs in the first place. If that mechanism isn't Mind-at-Large, (which is to say that it itself is meta-conscious), then how has one not ventured into outright absurd territory?
How is it that our minds know how to do this in the first place? And why would evolution be structured in such a way as to allow this to occur when Kastrup himself, as you noted in your original critique, has openly leaned strongly towards the idea that Mind-at-Large doesn't itself evolve?
You were far kinder to Kastrup than I would've been on this issue. I found his explanation here quite weak.
If physical reality and our minds are aspects of a 'mind at large' - then the insights of 'mind' about physical reality are the insights of 'mind-at-large'. Therefore, things like mathematics, patterns, and geometry are in fact true representations (albeit 'isomorphic') of mind-at-large
Do you know who you're messin with kid? Thats Bernardo fn Kastrup You do see all those books and computers, right? His water bottle is bigger than you and his phd has a phd..he's about to go strait idealist on your ass
Nathan went far too easy and gentle with Bernardo, not really a critique !
What on earth is Bernardo Kastrup talking about "Mind at Large" as anything to do with consciousness or "solving" the so called "hard problem of consciousness" ???
Bernardo evades, dodges and does not solve anything whatsoever.
Bernardo conceptualizes "mind at large" (the ultimate reality) as having dispersed mental states, unlike the coherent, integrated minds of human beings. These dispersed states do not form unified experiences but are still experiential...??? What ???
Firstly - how possibly could know "mind at large" is experiential ?
We know HUMAN MINDS are not experiential when incoherent, unintegrated (more "dispersed") with examples during anesthesia, deep Coma and deep dreamless sleep and presumably at infancy - (at some point from Zygote - its a development process)
Even Bernardo admits as such during the "higher entropy" delirium mental states - although delerium still has phenomenological properties....to an extent. I personally treated a patient for three months in intensive care with some low level limited conscious phenomenology - and in rehab a few months later has literally zero recollection of any events, its as if the three months do not exist.
We know human organisms can therefore be alive, *really alive* - fully functional metabolism, without phenomenological consciousness....we know this directly, every day, since we awake from deep dreamless sleep.
How could Bernardo then extrapolate "Mind at large" is Experiential ? - When wee know even human minds experience can disappear during various dispersion type events (drugs, anesthesia)
Even most of out physiological processes do not require conscious phenomenology eg insulin glycolysis regulation, pH buffer homeostasis and thousands of other processes no one new about 100yrs ago (do not depend on Empirical knowledge of a "dashboard" metaphor but discoveries)
Bernardo has not solved any Hard problem of consciousness but created the harder problem of unconsciousness !!!
Yeh, Bernardo created a mythic story about dissociation of an Avatar borrowing analogies from dissociated identity disorder (controversial case studies to start with) - also based on Empirical scientific research - that is itself derived from an anti-realist dissociated mental state from Bernardo's own idealism ! (its self refuting internal self reference)
Its gets much worse, since Bernardo then says we cannot really say much about "mind at large" properties, since we are evolved apes on Planet Earth with limited minds, so "mind at large" is just incomprehensible, but Bernardo still says its experiential ! A phenomenological mind !
This is pure magic, not metaphysics and certainly not science. Its as if Bernardo adopted some Gnostic Omniscience now.
When pushed further regarding properties of "mind at large" - with ideas such as the body being a part of dissociated mind, Bernardo's notion of this "dissociated mind" sound more like smuggling physicalism with equivocation !
Just think about it - Bernardo himself says "we are evolved apes on Planet Earth" with limited phenomenological integrated minds.....but "planet Earth" is allegedly dissociated mind too, as are the zygote, sperm and eggs - not realist entities, but "dissociated mind" - whatever that means, since has no clue what the ontology is, but still claims its "Experience phenomenology"
i listened to some 8hrs of Bernardo talk with John Vervekae dance around this topic, and it seems that whatever Bernardo is referring to as this "mind at large" begins to sound much like the dualist and physicalists notions - not phenomenology !
(This problem is also shared by Panpsychists, which I also don't think explain anything but add mystery to mystery with pseudo sounding explanation)
On a side note - from my reading of Schopenhauer, his description of "Will" is not conscious, experiential or phenomenological whatsoever and on the contrary, blind and unconscious. Bernardo misrepresents Schopenhauer on multiple occasions and whilst Schopenhauer is categorized under idealism, its really little to do with anything like minds and agents.
To solve/discuss hard problem of consciousness one must be using the same language i.e its a problem of phenomenal conscious experience "what its like to be" issue as Thomas Nagel used the term.
Bernardo Kastrup simply creates a dualism of the phenomenal conscious experience and the so called dissociated consciousness. This dissociated consciousness IS NOT phenomenal conscious experience !!! DON'T CALL IT CONSCIOUSNESS !!! Don't equivocate and smuggle dualism or presupposed physicalism.
I say presupposed physicalism because much of Bernardo Kastrup critique of physicalism is a straw man low hanging fruit version of the most reductionist physicalism (eg Eliminativism & Churchland sort of materialism - which is riddiculous).
There are numerous more sophisticated non-reductionist versions of physicalism that make vastly more sense that Bernardo's analytical idealism, including many versions of Embodied cognition that couldn't possible make sense from this dissociated consciousness and phenomenology dichotomy Bernardo sets up - which is really another mind/body dichotomy expressed differently.
To elaborate further (yeah, last post went on rambling a bit too long)
Kastrup distinguishes between "real states" of the world [whatever that is "mind at large"] and their representation on a perceptual dashboard - our phenomenology.
However, his explanation of how the real states relate causally or structurally to the dashboard is vague - perhaps incoherent and self refuting self reference.
If "real states" [whatever that means "mind at large"] are entirely "non-physical," how do they causally interact with the dashboard to generate perceptual states? (or the dashboard **IS** the phenomenology.
This ambiguity is blatantly smuggling in a dualistic interactionist framework under the guise of idealism, contradicting Bernardo claim of monism.
Without a clear account of how "non-physical real states" influence perceptual experiences, the theory becomes incoherent.
What would it even mean for "dissociated non-physical real states" to cause representation on the perceptual phenomenological dashboard - without presupposing dualism and not solving anything whatsoever, just renaming "physicalist real states of affairs" to "dissociated non-physical real states"
If the "dissociated non-physical real states" are experiential, then they is no need to call them dissociated and "conscious experience is causing conscious representations"
Why then do we have eyes ? Optic nerves ? Retina's ? Opsin proteins ? Rods & Cones ?
.........a very long and complicated perceptual story.
Bernardo whats to say that eyes, Optic nerves, Retina's, Opsin proteins, Rods & Cones etc are all "dissociated mind" - and on the one hand wants to be an anti-realist on various entities and on the other realist, Rods and cones are "real entities" - but mental. What does adding "mental" to this explain anything ? It doesn't !
What does it even mean to say the Rods & Cones or optic nerve electrical impulses are phenomenology on a dashboard, when clearly these are discovered and 99.9% of human history completely unaware of their existence in the role of perception.
On the other hand - Rods & Cones or optic nerve electrical impulses are discovered on a dashboard of phenomenology, it is empirical science after all.
Its just the functioning of the perceptual system does not require or depend on perception itself, its discovered using perception as a realist would say.
If the "real states" are non-physical mentality (whatever that is, its not phenomenology because its "dissociated" and distinct from the dashboard (phenomenological experience), how do they causally interact? For interaction to occur, there must be a shared medium or bridge. Kastrup offers no mechanism or metaphysical account for this, leaving a critical gap in the theory, contradictions and refutations - worse than physicalist accounts. The Physicalist can at least invoke a non-reductionist account that makes metaphysical sense, even if dont know the entire causal chains.
Also - why the Complexity? If the perceptual dashboard is modulated by "non-physical real mental states", why has evolution developed such intricate biological machinery for perception? The existence of eyes, rods, cones, and optic nerves implies a physical substrate that processes sensory input-contradicting the claim that perceptual experience is entirely dissociated from a physical medium.
Basically Bernardo is smuggling dualism and no explanatory power. Physicalism has vastly greater explanatory power - consider that perception story with rods, cones & retina's. I dont see why calling rods, cones & retina's "non-physical dissociated mental states" add anything or explains anything whatsoever.
To be blunt, I think Bernardo is a charlatan, but that maybe too harsh.
Perhaps Bernardo thinks this dissociation avatar story creates more parsimony - but at the expense of not really explaining anything and leading to a skeptical anti-realism.
As for the discussion on direct realism - I don't think anyone familiar with philosophy and science is a direct realist, I gather we all are aware mind shapes perception as active inference models and somewhat Kantian notion that we are limited by our minds filters and evolved capabilities. Not accepting direct realism doesn't mean we automatically become anti-realist, global external skeptics or need to fall into idealism. Its quite reasonable that lets say X-Rays are realist phenomena but not directly experienced, only indirect effects eg on photographic plate. We cannot see ultraviolet light but infer some birds do - and we can detect the effects (sun burn).
Likewise, we don't directly see even the perceptual dashboard equivocated to reality as a whole, around 620 to 750 nm light wavelength isnt "red experience" without interaction with a mind, reflections, refractions, retina's & brains....there is no "red" outside of human (or animal) perception. What on earth would it even mean for 620 to 750 nm light wavelength to be "mental stuff" ???? Conscious ??? Dissociative mind ??? What ??? Bernardo is talking nonesense.
........but perfectly fine not to straw man physicalism and accept that "light wavelengths" are not **Physical** in some pseudo Democratus atomism particles bouncing in the void but the notions of energy fields or whatever perhaps unknown ontology but does not mean phenomenological minds and experiences...thats a false equivocation. [i.e in all this i'm not claiming to know what ultimate fundamental ontology is - and frankly don't care, since a multi-layered emergent ontology is more important depending on resolution operating under. Eg, to study aerodynamics, I dont need to know the quantum ontology or atomic theory but study wing shapes, air pressure and velocity of aeroplane.....the ontology of "lower levels" is frankly irrelevant.
Nice response. BK is just an inverted reductive physicalist. This is just a complete negation of reductive physicalism that has the same problems. The only justification for reduction being that it has worked in the history of science (a flimsy claim that is only plausible if you have a very simplistic view of history of science) while being anti realist about science. Make it make sense lol
@@ReflectiveJourney
I agree, BK is just as an inverted reductive physicalism.
Hence my point about "The harder problem of unconsciousness" as a flip of the "hard problem of consciousness"
NO, Analytical idealism is not satisfying as explanatory power or coming up with anything other than some fancy preaching against reductive physicalism.
....in fact, good old fashioned dualism makes more sense than analytical idealism.
I have more sympathy to Roger Penrose tripartite ontology or/and numerous variations on emergence for nested ontological layers with being agnostic to the ultimate "lowest" layers, but not claiming it has anything to do with phenomenology consciousness/experience, which makes no sense whatsoever.
It maybe just a brute fact that we cannot know the most primitive ontological layer because of resolution limitations such as the very act of measurement interferes with what measuring, especially when get to notions of Plank Length/Plank Time.
A crude example, if i'm trying to measure an Onion by observation at cellular level under a microscope, I cannot do that in situ, but going to have to rip it out the ground, slice it, peal of layers and place dyes - basically the measuring act itself alters the substrate....That doesn't mean the measurement is illusion or fake, but does mean that cannot know the reality directly as it is, but the very act of measuring alters what is measured.
Nothing strange about this notion, its abundant all over physical science's and social sciences** and applies to micro world and "bridging principles between ontological layers/domains"
Obviously, one can make abductive inferences if for example they understand how the measuring tool has damaged or altered what is being measured.
eg with the onion, now can see more detail due to the dye under microscope - one knows they added a dye and without it, perhaps they could not see details (phenomenology on dashboard) - clearly, the original onion had those "invisible" details prior to being discovered using a dye. Its not like the dye "created" perception in some constructivist solipsism.
However, guess the skeptic may still say - "Well, you cannot **REALLY** know those details on onion cells existed prior to adding the dye ! How could you know ! There is no phenomenology of the Onion details in perception prior to adding the dye"
(in some weird way, this is true...but really just good old story if a tree falls in the forest without anyone around to hear does the tree still vibrate the air - yes, of course there is no phenomenological sound.........maybe trees dont fall in forests when people are not around, but the forests magically appear only when observed - slippery slope to radical global skepticism and nihillism)
**Maybe not possible to do certain social surveys without altering what is being surveyed, if the survey itself alters opinions by making suggestions (eg think of those happiness rating surveys, when may have never occurred for someone to do a self rating, the rating question itself alters perception).
@@philosophicalinquirer312 i mostly agree. Free energy principle is a nice scale free version is a nice way to model it. I am fully relation pilled and currently exploring hegel, pierce, whitehead. I already did somewhat a deep dive into plato canon till proclus. If folks go to it with an open mind a lot of these questions were hotly debated and have very satisfactory answers.
Like the one being beyond intelligibility but ground of it. Reality is relational and open so to have a final conceptual scheme itself is an impossibility. I find this response at least as an antidote towards not wanting a final theory of everything.
Where can I read more about your metaphysical theory?
Very nice conversation. I still think that Kastrup is wrong about mind at large merely being phenomenally conscious as far as we can infer and extrapolate from empirical evidence and philosophical reasoning. I also don’t agree with him that the universe is all that exists. I think it’s embedded within a transcendent mind which might be characterised as hyper-conscious and the absolute source of the universe and its multidimensional modalities. For all its impressive technical sophistication (as evidenced in ‘The Idea of the World’), I get the strong impression that there is a streak of nihilism and purposelessness running through Kastrup’s idealist metaphysic.
kastrup has said that he finds meaning in everything, so his philosophy is the exact opposite of nihilism
@JA-gz6cj Just saying one finds meaning doesn't, in and of itself, mean the claim has any substance.
For Kastrup, the logical consequence of his view if all sentient entities are, frankly, slaves to a conscious reality that itself doesn't even know you exist and merely feeds on your mental contents when you die. I mean my goodness, how is that any different from a mindless parasite?
He has admitted to some bias in that regard. I can't remember the video but I remember he said he finds the idea of a purposeful, intentional MAL deeply uncomfortable, because of the callousness required to deliberately create such a bloody, messy universe. "Nature red in tooth and claw" and all that.
Personally I don't mind. I like the idea of all my suffering being somehow useful to a higher being - that I am just a part of. It instantly turns it all into a duty, one I can shoulder happily because it serves something greater. Rather than it all just being billiard balls bouncing around. But, that's just me.
You just want there to be a theistic god.
@@discordlexia2429 I remember that conversation and I wonder if Kastrup honestly believes that. One the one hand he tends to shy away from projecting too much onto MAL and yet on the other he's all too eager to ascribe human-esque callousness in the case of a self-reflective Mind?
In fairness, as you said, Kastrup has openly admitted to a personal bias on the issue (and credit where it's due there), but still this seems like an issue where he's trying to have his cake and eat it too.
Kastrup's recent interview on [his] Daemonic possession OMG
ua-cam.com/video/DsP0C6tdQIA/v-deo.html
😱
Nice of Bernie mentioning pilots. When a fighter jet pilot accelerates and gets to 7 Gs, instantly their Consciousness gets reduced like a shrinking violet. Why? Instantaneous blood flow reduction.
Why Bernie doesn't explain to the Airforce that these effects are JUST neourocorrelates of consciousness and that consciousness does NOT REALLY depend on blood flow? It would be groundbreaking for training, technology, and military advantage. Why not? Please tell me in medical jargon, why not?
The point, I think, is that intentional consciousness depends on blood flow, which is all that matters to the Airforce. They need have no concern for more profound states of consciousness. It is a problem that philosophers often, and scientists usually, use the word 'consciousness' to refer only to intentional subject-object consciousness. This causes extensive confusion when they come into contact with mysticism. .
@peterjones6507 Without blood flow all types and levels of consciousness are affected. If the physical cause for that reduction takes longer than a few seconds, the person passes out, and if it lasts minutes, passes away.
That, I think, is one of the least confusing effects for anyone. Observers can confirm, and the subject, well, is not present (mentally) to opine on the matter.
@@goodquestion7915 Yes. We all know this. What is your point?
@peterjones6507 Bernie and other Panpsychists would assert that Consciousness is primordial, therefore independent, than blood flow.
Physicalism predicts what happens without blood flow and Panpsychism and Idealism are defeated because they cannot explain that and many other phenomena unless Bernie makes excuses.
Would you say this loss of consciousness is qualitative, quantitative or both?
You are wrong, bernardo kastrup idealism holds up 100%
ua-cam.com/video/ib9jDiHIsC4/v-deo.html I am under the impression that 'philosophy' means something like "the practice or activity of embodying doubt".
Humans always walking in circles about the parts and the whole…
18:44 So he basically does not answer either of the questions. 1. "What allows you to draw answers to metaphysical questions from science" and 2. "what methodology are you using" ... what a parody of a philosopher
Because 1 is an absolutely idiotic question and 2 derives from 1
1:18:00 Mathematics applies to nature specifically because, as wrote Kant, “we can know a priori of things only what we ourselves put into them” (KrV, B xviii); viz., mathematics and geometry refer to the a priori forms of sensibility (space and time), and hence have synthetic a priori objectivity. Kastrup appears to be ignoring the distinction between the “quid juris?” and the “quid facti?” here (as Hawkins tacitly implies when he refers to Frege’s wanting to “jump out and smash the screen” and psychologism)-viz., Kastrup is further reinforcing his pre-critical dogmatism.
Ok, bright boy, would love to see you debate bernardo lol😅
Agree here. Kastrup is just a story-teller. He doesn't want to engage real criticisms and will only fight the straw figures he himself assembles.
@@clivejenkins4033 I'd like that too. But Kastrup only goes on softball interviews.
I think bernardo knows what he's talking about even if you can't understand
@@clivejenkins4033 Clearly you think that. You've been deceived. Think about how in just a few sentences he claims to disprove scientific realism/physicalism, which people have been contending with since Kant. Now go to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and look up physicalism, then look up structural realism to see what real thought looks like. Then look for an entry on Kastrup. You may be surprised to find nothing anywhere in the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy about him. And yet he's disproven physicalism. lol. That would be fine, whatever he wants to say about philosophy is fine, but he literally scoffs and dismisses people as ridiculous, which is where someone needs to put him (and his fanboys) in their place
Is this book baloney too?
Math is a metaphysical discipline, it works only with abstractions, that's why they can predict some things