Bernardo Kastrup Analytic Idealism
Thoughts?
I think he stands head and shoulders above all these greatest minds that have come before him.
I'm reading his "Nutshells of Analytical Idealism." In it he seems to attribute the standard physicalism to a conspiracy rather than to an obvious (if simplified or even in error) take on experience. I can't see that as reasonable yet.
His interpretation of things is fascinating for sure, and understandable. But it's just so pat, so canned, so sure, with so many instant answers ... all hallmarks of a bluff, or a con, or a dogma, or an egomaniac, or a reactionary, or a reputation seeker. Of course there are the small minority of such instances which are actually right. Odds are odds for a reason. Good stuff. Too pat. I guess he wouldn't object to the idea that some of it will stand.
Does this format really work for people itt? A 4 hour youtube, a title of the idea but no description nor detail and we're expected to do our own research on this? And this thread picked up some steam at one point?
It doesn't work for me. I greatly enjoy this sort of philosophy, recontextualising, analogising, borrowing frames, zooming in and out, looking for synergy, but I'll be honest, this sounds a lot more to me like handwavy pineal gland stuff. I'd be very interested in someone explaining why I'm wrong about that perception. Stuff like this feels like a precursor to god or simulation theory, the semi-coherent stoned ramblings of an institutionalised pothead who's maybe stumbled onto something but the way they're saying it sounds like every other intelligent pothead.
I'm continuing with his "Nutshells" book. Some strong statements of his position: "By reifying Physicalism to the position of necessary, a priori truth ..." and "Short of theoretical fantasies, we must accept, on hard empirical grounds, that the 'physical' world is created upon observation and measurement" ... and that the only physical world is the specter on the dashboard of perception.
By this he doesn't mean there is no external phenomenon which the brain is transducing, but that it creates whole cloth an interpretation of it, which itself is only (my words) quantum foam, swirling plasma, etc. I'm in line with this general idea that our brain creating out of the quanta an apparition-like "physical reality" which exists nowhere but via our senses and in our mind.
I'm continuing with his "Nutshells" book. Some strong statements of his position: "By reifying Physicalism to the position of necessary, a priori truth ..." and "Short of theoretical fantasies, we must accept, on hard empirical grounds, that the 'physical' world is created upon observation and measurement" ... and that the only physical world is the specter on the dashboard of perception.
By this he doesn't mean there is no external phenomenon which the brain is transducing, but that it creates
Afaik that's the meta take right now with regards to metaphysics but I'm pretty sure that's not his original idea, I've been aware of this take for quite a while.
The more I read of it the more it sounds like a bluff. Though he does a good job of establishing the knee jerk, presuppositionalist mindset of Physicalists, he does so in a way that also seems an insincere ad hominem attack on them. He then goes on to argue even more deviously against what I'll call "Physicalist orthodoxy."
He comes off sounding as if he has a pet theory, of course highly speculative, and he's all-in on it acting not only too cocksure but also dismissive and derisive toward opposing ideas and their proponents. His theory has a huge good hook, but from there he bluffs his way to a system.
Whoever titles a book "Why Materialism is Baloney" is not really appealing to serious discourse but making more like a New Age type of splash into the market (not into academic debate). So I'm reading bluff. He's got a big pair in there somewhere (this idea that our brain is transducing/creating a "reality" out of we don't know what ... the quantum foam, plasma, quarks, anti-quarks, etc.) but he married it and went all-in mentally on it way too soon.
I still love the material and the subject.
The more I read of it the more it sounds like a bluff. Though he does a good job of establishing the knee jerk, presuppositionalist mindset of Physicalists, he does so in a way that also seems an insincere ad hominem attack on them. He then goes on to argue even more deviously against what I'll call "Physicalist orthodoxy."
He comes off sounding as if he has a pet theory, of course highly speculative, and he's all-in on it acting not only too cocksure but also dismissive and derisive toward opp
Seems like a good take to me. As if this is an overreaction to our failure to square away Cartesian Dualism neatly. This whole denial of the physical world shtick just prima facie doesn't track well when our physical-world-observing-apparatus is of the physical world itself. We have both a physical world that is undeniably there in some fashion on the basis we observe it, and then we have a separate world of human ideas and culture and thought and words and concepts. They don't work in the same way, and they can't be said to exist in the same way, but they both clearly exist, and any attempt to resolve reality into either one or the other clearly fails on the basis that we can observe reality to exist along both.
Seems like a good take to me. As if this is an overreaction to our failure to square away Cartesian Dualism neatly. This whole denial of the physical world shtick just prima facie doesn't track well when our physical-world-observing-apparatus is of the physical world itself. We have both a physical world that is undeniably there in some fashion on the basis we observe it, and then we have a separate world of human ideas and culture and thought and words and concepts.
I stumbled across this yesterday after my sister asked me for my thoughts on Wolfgang Pauli. Her daughter is reading a book about him. I'm unfamiliar with his work, but after reading that he was a theoretical physicist and pioneer of quantum physics who collaborated with Carl Jung, I was interested. Anyway, the Pauli-Jung conjecture linked below appears to address this. I have nothing to add at the moment since I just learned of the theory but thought it was worth sharing here.
The short first video gives imo a very good run down of questionable parts of Kastrup's theory. Places where I've also felt uncomfortable when Bernardo goes over them. In the much longer second video, Kastrup is given a chance to explain in more detail his thinking on those points. I found Bernardo's explanations a bit confusing but that could just be me.
Kastrup's goal is to provide a solution to the hard problem of consciousness by treating subjective experience as fundamental rather than being caused by the physical. By analogy, he borrows from quantum field theory to postulate a universal Field of Subjectivity. He borrows from psychology with the analogy of Dissociative Identity Disorder (aka split personalities) to explain how each of us is an "Alter" of "Mind at Large". He also borrows from Hoffman (I think) to talk about a Markov Blanket that separates us from the rest of the Field of Subjectivity. We are excitations of the Field of Subjectivity with the Markov Blanket keeping our excitations in and other excitations out.
I think Kastrup gets a lot of milage out of the word "Appearance". He says that Mental States are all that exists and the physical is how those Mental States appear to us across the Markov Blanket. He uses the metaphor of dials on instruments in an airplane's cockpit to describe how we perceive the world outside of us. That world is nothing like the dials on the cockpit instruments but the instruments provide us with information we need to navigate in that world.
Kastrup doesn't claim Mind at Large is "god". He is strongly anti-theist in terms of a 3-Omni god, calling such a god a sadist vis a vie the problem of evil-suffering. But he accommodates those who want to speak of Mind at Large as god by claiming it would be a god of nature - proceeding by instinct according to what it is and not being aware of its subjectivity. It would not be "Meta-Cognizant". So a diminished god that's not morally responsible any more than Nature is.
One thing I'd like to hear Bernardo speak to is Cause and Effect. Where and how is it happening?
PairTheBoard
I stumbled across this yesterday after my sister asked me for my thoughts on Wolfgang Pauli. Her daughter is reading a book about him. I'm unfamiliar with his work, but after reading that he was a theoretical physicist and pioneer of quantum physics who collaborated with Carl Jung, I was interested. Anyway, the Pauli-Jung conjecture linked below appears to address this. I have nothing to add at the moment since I just learned of the theory but thought it was worth sharing here.
Double aspect theory is yet another inappropriate attempt to resolve a problem that is not even a problem to begin with.
Constructing a philosophy about how the material world doesn't exist will probably get a mention in ~DSMVIII.
I stumbled across this yesterday after my sister asked me for my thoughts on Wolfgang Pauli. Her daughter is reading a book about him. I'm unfamiliar with his work, but after reading that he was a theoretical physicist and pioneer of quantum physics who collaborated with Carl Jung, I was interested. Anyway, the Pauli-Jung conjecture linked below appears to address this. I have nothing to add at the moment since I just learned of the theory but thought it was worth sharing here.
I'm a Jung fan and have written on synchronicity, so when I came across the Pauli/Jung discourse it was enthralling. The book title containing those letters between the physicist and the psychologist is one of my all-time favorites in terms of titles: "Atom and Archetype." Wow. It was thrilling to see in the letters that Pauli questioned Jung on exactly two points that I was questioning concerning his synchronicity idea. One of them was that it is a bit of a misnomer in that time/simultaneity is not necessarily a key element of a given synchronicity. I forget the other one right now but will find it. The conjecture you cite is surely fertile ground for synchronicity ... similar to David Bohm's implicate and explicate order, one arising from another in a reality in which the physical and mental are not nearly so distinct as commonly believed. Great subject.
It's sounding more and more like a spin meister, internet mouthpiece "expert" pied piper type. There's an idea in it, but the presentation seems biased and dissembling, slanting reality unfairly. That's a burgeoning category, of course. Slipper seems to fit.
The absurdity of any position denying the material reality of reality is highlighted by the whole 'and is this material reality in the room with us right now' joke
This is the follow-up interview of Kastrup to the one in the second link above. Much the better one imo. See my comments in post #18 above. Bernardo answers my question about how causality works in the final 20 minutes. All causality happens at the mental level. What we view as physical cause and effect amounts to thinking the movement of some dials on the instruments in the cockpit dashboard analogy are what's causing the movements of other dials on the instruments. We never see that it's really the conditions outside the airplane that are the real source of causation for what appears to us (the dials). But our mistaken view of causation is still good enough for us to navigate by.
Early in the interview, Kastrup also explains more generally how it is Jungian type Archetypes that act as guidelines for the mental world.
The Second interview of Bernardo Kastrup by Absolute Philosophy
PairTheBoard
Seems like a good take to me. As if this is an overreaction to our failure to square away Cartesian Dualism neatly. This whole denial of the physical world shtick just prima facie doesn't track well when our physical-world-observing-apparatus is of the physical world itself. We have both a physical world that is undeniably there in some fashion on the basis we observe it, and then we have a separate world of human ideas and culture and thought and words and concepts. They don't work in the same
This seems like begging the question against idealism. Don't you find the realness of dreams upon waking up to be at least SOME evidence in favor of mind first ontologies? I'm not an idealist but I don't think it's easy to defeat. Anything true of the reliability of our sense perception given external world realism can easily be explained by purely mental stimulation, at least in principle.
I do think idealism, if true, could fill some massive holes in physicalism and to a lesser extent atheism more generally. Determinism, hard problem, as well as 'identity over time' issues. Idealism also just seems really really false.
This seems like begging the question against idealism. Don't you find the realness of dreams upon waking up to be at least SOME evidence in favor of mind first ontologies? I'm not an idealist but I don't think it's easy to defeat. Anything true of the reliability of our sense perception given external world realism can easily be explained by purely mental stimulation, at least in principle.
I do think idealism, if true, could fill some massive holes in physicalism and to a lesser extent atheism m
How or why could dreams be evidence of anything other than some of the inner workings of my brain? No, having studied a decent amount of psychology and neuroscience and seeing the myriad ways in which the human brain withholds information from and deceives itself, I do not put much stock in dreams, nor in much sense data.
There is a lot of false dichotomizing going on around here, as well as some need to simplify. The world of physics is obsessed with reducing our understanding of reality to the simplest possible form, or find the smallest particle. The idea that there is one equation to rule them all. Thus we get this confusion around the material and ideal worlds, this desire to resolve them both into this one, simple thing. 'Oh, when you look at the material world, it resolves itself into ideal, and vice-versa'. It's more useful to point out that these worlds interact with each other. Resolving this confusion by saying something as laughable as 'this material reality that we can all experience in so many ways doesn't exist' is like saying 'the colour purple doesn't exist in real life' and whipping out some justification (there is some out there for this specific idea). So what is it that I'm seeing and experiencing right now? Is it an illusion?
Ultimately, Cartesian logic does not prove what it sets out to prove. But it highlights the absdurdity of trying to make any claim adjacent to or resembling 'material reality does not exist'. It borders on philosophical gaslighting. The mind wouldn't exist without a material reality to house it. An idea, before the big bang? What could house that idea? What idea could that be? Is the big bang a product of ideas? At this point we've left the realm of philosophy undergraduate stoners and entered the realm of preteen stoners who've just abandoned their 'why? why? why?' phase.
Ideas like this, or simulation theory, are just the human need for some form of god, some higher power, some explanation for the incredible beauty and complexity of the real world. A dissatisfaction with with the way science approaches these problems. It's like the way modern economists avoid reality in favour of some imagined theoretical economics. This sort of philosophy is distinctly unscientific, not just because none of it can be tested, but because it is denying science and the scientific method and the results of this science. Look, when you throw a ball, it throws a parabolic path. 'No, a parabolic path is just a figment of your imagination!' It's just trying to be an edgyboi and hoping that people pick up on the level of provocativeness with such a spicy meatball hot take. You know why the kids these days are saying 'go touch grass'? Because grass is real, it's a part of nature, it's our connection to material reality, teeming with life, where those that don't touch grass are just living in a delusory world of their own making.
Ideas like this, or simulation theory, are just the human need for some form of god, some higher power, some explanation for the incredible beauty and complexity of the real world. A dissatisfaction with with the way science approaches these problems. It's like the way modern economists avoid reality in favour of some imagined theoretical economics. This sort of philosophy is distinctly unscientific, not just because none of it can be tested, but because it is denying science and the scientific
You're just assigning your interlocutors bad motives and reasoning from there. That's fine but it's textbook Bulverism.
This is the follow-up interview of Kastrup to the one in the second link above. Much the better one imo. See my comments in post #18 above. Bernardo answers my question about how causality works in the final 20 minutes. All causality happens at the mental level. What we view as physical cause and effect amounts to thinking the movement of some dials on the instruments in the cockpit dashboard analogy are what's causing the movements of other dials on the instruments. We never see that it's reall
At 2:02:04 the interviewer finally gets there. That you are. With regards to the whole convo one might just say
'Neti Neti' instead of what they are.
Lines between philosophy and what you might call theology are a little blurry at this point in this.
You're just assigning your interlocutors bad motives and reasoning from there. That's fine but it's textbook Bulverism.
'A rhetorical fallacy in which a speaker assumes that their opponent's argument is wrong'
Other way round. I'm assigning the idea as 'not even wrong' and then trying to contextualise it with other similar ideas in order to work out what psychological need this theory fills. I don't decide people are wrong and then work out what their ideas are. I don't know who this Kastrup fella is and have no personal or ideological problems with anyone who likes this idea. I'm pretty happy with the arguments I've made against it. Bulverism might be a valid point if I hadn't made any arguments, or my arguments were bad. If you think my arguments are bad, I'm very open to hearing where and how they're wrong. But an accusation of bad faith - and Bulverism is certainly that - is, in itself, bad faith, unless you back it up.
'A rhetorical fallacy in which a speaker assumes that their opponent's argument is wrong'
Other way round. I'm assigning the idea as 'not even wrong' and then trying to contextualise it with other similar ideas in order to work out what psychological need this theory fills. I don't decide people are wrong and then work out what their ideas are. I don't know who this Kastrup fella is and have no personal or ideological problems with anyone who likes this idea. I'm pretty happy with the arguments I
Without appealing to the motives of idealists or psychoanalyzing them more generally can you provide a defeater for idealism? Is it any worse than the hard problem? I doubt it.
Without appealing to the motives idealists or psychoanalyzing them more generally can you provide a defeater for idealism?
Sure.
While we know from neuroscience that the mind constructs a model of reality, that in no way implies that reality doesn't exist. While we know that that model is rarely accurate, that also does not imply that reality doesn't exist.
Ideas also exist. Concepts, like philosophy, or economics. Some of those have correlates in the material world. Money is a great example - where does its value come from? It doesn't come from the metal or paper itself, it comes from what it represents - we as a society agree that these pieces of paper have value, and thus they have value. Most concepts we discuss will have some material correlate, or some material impact on the world - it could be argued that if a concept does not have any correlate, it's meaningless.
Where do these ideas and concepts come from? They come from our brains, which are in the material world. They cannot exist independently of material reality. Was economics a thing before the big bang? These arrangements are products of consciousness. Just because we struggle to tie down exactly what consciousness exists, again, we don't say it doesn't exist.
The alternative is a bit confusing. What's happening when we run scientific experiments, and the results are what we predicted, on the basis we've done them before? If we measure gravity to be 9.8 m/s^2 consistently, what does that mean for a purely idealistic universe? What is the mechanism by which these things arrange themselves into the order we perceive? What is being deceived, and how? That's all happening on a purely idealistic level? This all seems like adding an unnecessary layer of explanation.
On a separate, but related note, I have what seems to me a reasonable solution to the hard problem of consciousness. If pain weren't so painful, we'd die. If love weren't so overwhelming, we wouldn't f***. The alternative - that we're automata - would mean we'd just always accept our fate. Things have to be as intense as they in order for us to carry on through the trials and tribulations and pain and heartbreak of life. It's the same categorical biological imperative as the urge to have children. If a tribe lost the genes that coded for them to want to have children strongly, that tribe would likely die out. So the genes for consciousness arise as an evolutionary mechanism.
The absurdity of any position denying the material reality of reality is highlighted by the whole 'and is this material reality in the room with us right now' joke
The suspicions, hypotheses, beliefs and interpretations of those on the ground floor of the quantum revolution do in fact call the naive or crude materialist model of reality into question. Of course they were laughed at as absurd. Now 100 years later, more and more experiments have borne out the non-materialist hypothesis. It seems to be somewhere in between and the dismissal of non-standard models now is archaic.
The suspicions, hypotheses, beliefs and interpretations of those on the ground floor of the quantum revolution do in fact call the naive or crude materialist model of reality into question. Of course they were laughed at as absurd. Now 100 years later, more and more experiments have borne out the non-materialist hypothesis. It seems to be somewhere in between and the dismissal of non-standard models now is archaic.
Quantum physics does not bear out the idea that material reality doesn't exist, it simply points at the counter-intuitive nature of the micro scale. All our human cognition and perception is based on classical physics, which doesn't follow the same rules, so it makes sense that one of the reactions to the weirdness of the micro scale is to say 'nope, doesn't exist'. I don't understand the thought process. The electron went throught the slit as a wave when it went through the slit, therefore material reality is a lie? That's a pretty wild conclusion and I'd love to know the steps inbetween.
