Universal Consciousness

Part 5 of Essentia Foundation's and Keytoe Academy's joint course on analytic idealism and its implications.

[@frialsharefabdo7715]

💚🙏 " As the fragrance is hidden in the rose , in the same way My [ God's ] presence is hidden in every heart ." ~ Meher Baba

[@detodounpoco37]

We are fractals of Universal Consciousness 👁

[@siriusfun]

As above, so below.

[@MeRetroGamer]

Not only that, we are probably fractals of fractal parts merged with other fractal parts in fractal environments infinitely growing in complexity and variety.

[@massinirev2283]

Indeed, a universal consciousness that has intentions would have a lot of explaining to do when we look at the amount of suffering that permeates nature. I appreciate everything that you do, Bernardo.

[@bayreuth79]

If God (the universal consciousness) exists then it follows that he/she/it is not a moral agent. Moral agents belong to human communities with rights and obligations. Even if God were meta conscious (or possess some kind of consciousness that we can’t even begin to grasp) we would not be able to accuse it of having done evil. Besides, there might be a significance in suffering that we cannot grasp: from my own experience I know that suffering has led to greater maturity and compassion.

[@KirkWilliams]

What a gift, we are experiencing here in this moment, the gift of each other to help each other understand or learn, the wonder of exchanging ideas and concerns. The moment we begin to ponder a question the answer is within the question, to express is human to know is Divine.

[@cibriis1710]

Yet it's difficult to get rid of intention altogether

[@reydg432]

​@@bayreuth79 I think this what happened (or is happening): 1. Source is a formless energetic conscious eternal entity. 2. A formless entity doesn't have yet all the experiential iterations knowledge-base at hand, hence, it has to simulate various meta-experiences until it achieves its fullness. 3. A source entity that is already complete would then choose to simulate a more loving reality for its nature is eternal. 4. The question here then is, would it over time, become tired in sustaining a perfect reality? 5. Are we sure about its fundamental specs as the source? 6. What if the present reality is a subsidiary branch of the source? 7. Regardless, may we live with self-love, kindness and gratitude no matter what.

[@2tehnik]

I don’t think it would bother pagan Platonists that much.

[@glaight6362]

Just because you don't know what universal consciousness feels like doesn't mean someone else cannot. There are and have been for thousands of years enlightened beings who have such a consciousness. However in order to experience it you would have to follow particular disciplines. You cannot be told what it is because you have not progressed sufficiently along the path of these disciplines to obtain sufficient wisdom. Your experience and wisdom (not to be confused with knowledge) is currently too limited.

[@TheYellowshuttle]

It's a joy to listen to this! ❤️ Question: Since life is dissociation in universal consciousness, do bacteria & viruses have inner life or the sense of being? If No, then how can the substrate (universal mind) have the sense of being. And if Yes, is the sense of rock bottom being more close or akin to simple beings like single cells?

[@youtubecanal]

Thank you 🤍 for sharing such profound philosophical, existential and metaphisic insights.

[@user-ru5xz3lz9c]

Just mind blowing!😮 Thanks Bernardo 👌

[@CLANK...]

When we dream or imagine, which is in essence to alter our conciousness, we can create new worlds (psychadelics take this to another level). These are limited in their physical manifestation, but nonetheless our neural activity is shaping physcial matter on a quantum level (within our brain) to generate these images. Since everything in this universe follows patterns, it would make sense to me that our conciousness is a reflection of the universal conciousness (and conciousness potential) that existed before it. Based therefore on our capacity to imagine new worlds, it is more empirical to me that we are ourselves imagined, like a dream/day dream by a conciousness so great that it generates quantum plasticity (rather than just neural plasticity), ie when it imagines: matter shifts, planets move, black holes form, big bangs happen, life begins. Is this universal conciousness awake or dreaming? Is it self aware? Does it have free will? I think its only because of our physical limitations that true free will is hindered. Our concious mind is tethered to a physical body, with the restrictions of mortality, entropy and the physical adaptations that occur to ensure conciousness survives (hormones, emotions, targeted perception etc). These introject into our will, free will is a spectrum (not black or white). The more concious you are, the more free will you have (we know this from observing addictions for example). If conciousness were not limited by these physical restrictions and impulses, it would be unbounded by introjecting chemistry. It would in essence have pure free will. It would also be detatched from human type emotion, reason and rationality. It wouldnt be limited by mortality or entropy. It would also make sense for a higher conciousness to imagine life in its own image, symbolic reflections of its own nature. Therefore, in the same way we represent the objective world with symbolic imagery, and harness it for our benefit, so we are symbols of the objective world with physical matter harnessed. We are in the mind of the universal conciousness, literally.

[@aliceinwonderland887]

We're God fooling himself. I am he and he is me and we are all together.

[@gireeshneroth7127]

Consciousness indulging in a mind wake. It's the mind on the go.

[@pettiprue]

Nice one Bernardo! I find your theories very intriguing. A bit hard for me to keep up with, though but very captivating non the less. I often meditate on the 'one and the many'. The 'one and the many' is inside out. I think I first heard this example from Rupert Spira. If many people are looking at the moon we think we are all looking at one moon with many observers. We can agree on what we are looking at because we are all looking at one thing. However, if we turn that on its head, we are all looking at many moons and we have a single shared knowing of it. In other words we are individually collapsing the waveform. and we describe the same moon because we have a shared universal consciousness in each alter. I think lots of quantum theory such as entanglement and non-locality support this? Does this concept work with Analytic Idealism?

[@whiterabbit8329]

The One substance of the universe that everything we see is a product of. Consciousness. It's like the internet, everything is it expressed. You are not your phone/body, you are not the programs/beliefs, you are not the files/memory. You are the signal expressing I AM. He ☝️ is Us ❤️ 👈 ✝️

[@ivantunstead3573]

Just wondering did you intentionally end this video at 17:17?

[@mirelamatecic8172]

Great videos. Evolutionary speaking someone might want to say earlier life forms vs. later life forms, to avoid using higher/lower words (loaded with many other meanings) ... Thanks Bernardo!

[@thegeordierambler4373]

Extremely tricky area’s here Bernardo!! You are making a huge ‘stab’ at it! However we do not have Schopenhauer sitting with us to comment.. We will never have a thinker on that level because our Science and Culture today will never produce one! I have the utmost admiration for you in bringing the name Schopenhauer back into mainstream thinking! I just always feel, and can never shake, his verbose writings on flora and fauna being of incomparable depths. I put it out..did he plagiarise? I might push a great mind on a quest for the answer to that question…

[@surrendertoflow78]

Are you familiar with Michael Levin’s work?

[@spiritfilled5758]

As humans evolved we come from instinct, subconscious, conscious mind, meta conscious mind, would universal mind follow the same process perhaps evolving but slower due to not having evolutionary pressures for survival? It is said like this in the Christian scriptures. To suffer for God's sake (consciousness ) is the highest honor and we should count ourselves, blessed to suffer in the name of God.

[@Askaskaskaskaskask]

how dobu explain psychodelic trips? who made them so highly structured?

[@ec3248]

I have to say I really enjoy your talks, but I think you are mistaken about universal consciousness not being meta cognitive. I can only speak from my personal experience, but on a DMT flash it became clear to me that my personal consciousness was actually a devolution of the thing you are calling Universal Consciousness, and universal consciousness definitely spoke to me, and it was as if I was a limb of it’s body. I was not separate from it, but I was not that universal mind itself, but that mind was infinitely more meta than my own and in fact I became frightened because I was seemingly allowed to glimpse it to a degree and the knowledge that I was never born and had forever existed was daunting.

[@user-wm1lj7fj6g]

Many of us have had visions or heard the voice of the creator, not by taking substances of any kind or anything that could influence a sound mind, unless one has been blessed with any type of connection with God they cannot know the truth, we can only judge from our own experience.

[@Cheese-is-its-own-food-group]

Bernardo is a rockstar! ✨💫

[@drkarlsmith]

What I wonder is if we can say anything about how Mind-at-Large might experience us. I feel like there is s possibility it has access to our first person perspective but I am not sure why I should believe the dissociative boundary is one way.

[@oriskany5966]

But our experience of ourselves and others are precisely that, Mind At Large experiencing itself? We are it?

[@justinmcnab5585]

“God, the creator, is like pure imagining in ourselves. He underlies all of our faculties, including perception, and He streams into our surface mind least disguised in the form of productive fancy” -Douglas Fawcett

[@oriskany5966]

So the trees and rivers and clouds are essentially comparable to the environment I experience in a nightly dream, but the world is "god's" dream?

[@Upuaut1967]

the state of core-subjectivity can be best demonstrated with a sudden awakening. The first few seconds of it, you couldn't even remember your name

[@davidmears1705]

Existence is knowing is conscious. So everything that exists knows at some level.

[@innerlight617]

👍👏👍👏👍👏

[@suncat9]

Bernardo, why can't we assume that the universal consciousness has learned metacognition and other forms of thinking from countless life forms such as humans and those higher on the evolutionary scale that have evolved within consciousness (the only "place" they could have evolved)?

[@2tehnik]

Probably because it reverts back to its prior state when the disassociation ends. Mind at large neither participates in time nor is something distinguished from us, so I’m not sure how one might phrase its coming to learn to be meta-cognitive.

[@reydg432]

What if an amoeba is non-metacognitive in axis with our awareness and specs as humans? Now, what if, the amoeba is part of a greater entity capable of a human-like metacognition? Most importantly what if, an amoeba or any lower life forms are part of what co-create/co-sustain the human awareness?

[@AlexisSotoLex]

this is impressive. it seems a fog is being lifted from my mind

[@SolaceEasy]

This line of argument is restricted by being bound to time. Meta cognition is extant, not emergent. Time is emergent.

[@bayreuth79]

If God is not meta-conscious then how do we explain the fine-tuning of the physical constants? I have heard Kastrup say that the fine-tuning of the universe does give him pause.

[@infinityactually6166]

By what criteria?

[@bayreuth79]

@@infinityactually6166 The fine-tuning of the physical constants are so vastly improbable by chance that it looks like a conscious mind chose those values so that life would emerge. And in order for that mind to choose, to make decisions in some sense, it has to be meta-conscious. One can try to explain the fine-tuning away by appealing to a multiverse but that’s just as much a metaphysical claim as the notion of a transcendent meta conscious mind.

[@infinityactually6166]

@bayreuth79 Yes but by what criteria do you make the claim that it is improbable that a non metacognitive entity created the physical constants? Multiverse theory is not the only cosmological theory that opponents of fine tuning can appeal to also.

[@bayreuth79]

@@infinityactually6166 For the reason already mentioned. Yes, of course, there are different theories but all of them make metaphysical claims or have no empirical basis. Now, given that this is the case I think it’s reasonable to argue that the physical constants set by a meta conscious mind. Kastrup has intimated that he doesn’t know how to account for fine-tuning and even hardcore atheist, such as Dawkins, admit that fine tuning is a good argument. There is never definitive proof in philosophy.

[@infinityactually6166]

@bayreuth79 You didn't give a criteria though, you repeated the claim that it's improbable and said that the cosmological theories are also metaphysical claims. To say that the cosmological theories are metaphysical claims no different than a trancendant metacognitive mind doesn't establish that one has greater probability of actualization than the other, it only establishes that there is underdetermination between two or more of these metaphysical claims.

[@bayreuth79]

It’s not really true that there are countless definitions of God. When we examine the understanding of God in the great religious traditions, as D B Hart has done in his book The Experience of God, we discover that they are all remarkably similar: God is Being (not a being), consciousness and bliss. Classical theism is found in Hindu traditions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

[@SchibbiSchibbi]

I guess you didn’t understand what Bernardo was saying. He said that every Individual has his own definition of God and he’s right. Just because two people are Cristian it doesn’t mean they automatically define God the same way. It’s not like the color red that looks red for everyone of us. God and spirituality everyone visualizes e feels different on an individual Basis.

[@bayreuth79]

@@SchibbiSchibbi What Bernardo said is both true and false. There is a sense in which he is right and a sense in which he is wrong. Most Jews, Christians and Muslims will have much more in common than they differ in terms of their concept of God due to belonging to similar discursive traditions.

[@19battlehill]

The first 14 verses of the GOSPEL OF JOHN tell you what it is ---- In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was a God.

[@ramananvenkataraman4594]

Universal consciousness is called Brahman in Vedanta

[@hydrorix1]

"Living, metabolizing entities" are Bernardo Kastrup's Dissociated Alters. One is Pure Consciousness and the other is Perception In Consciousness. Both are made of Consciousness, but one of the categories of Consciousness is meta-conscious and the other is not. It is in Consciousness and of it, but is not itself self-aware, being only the data/information available to exchange with other self similar entities. There is data/information holographically available as well as emotional input, a different form of data. Data without emotional data has no self-awareness and is the universal substrate of the play-space which you may equate with the Quantum Field. Data with Emotional data is Consciousness that is self-aware and has an opinion about it. We are willful interaction with multiple data streams, a self perpetuating toroidal energy and information interface, a little whirlpool in the stream. Made of Consciousness and in it like ripples on a pond, but identifiable by localized phenomenology within the field--you can see the ripples.

[@mattmaxwell7772]

"I" am a figment of God's imagination.

[@user-wm1lj7fj6g]

We are consciousness and what we imagine we create so we must have created the universe unless of course whatever created the universe created us? and if we are all one ie that every single thing in the world is all part of the one who created everything then whatever name we give it, It must have created everything including the universe.

[@joshuabaehr44]

My minute contribution to the discussion: God is a verb, not a noun.

[@SolaceEasy]

A conjunction?

[@joshuabaehr44]

@@SolaceEasy in what sense?

[@2tehnik]

I guess I’m not surprised considering that he once rejected (probably still) considerations of causal series upon which the cosmological argument is built on the basis that it’s an unanswerable question (which I always found kind of odd since that’s simply false). But saying that mind at large acts spontaneously makes me raise an eyebrow. Unless Bernardo is willing to endorse some kind of modal realism, I don’t think it makes sense. Why? Well, if it acts spontaneously, but only exhibits a particular, and contingent set of acts, that begs the question as to why it acted in that way and not in another. One might similarly ask why it acts at all instead of just staying at the “ground level” of pure I-ness. If we say it’s just a brute fact, that kind of throws the whole metaphysical project into doubt. For example: what if a physicalist responded to the hard problem by saying that mind arising from brain states is completely inexplicable, it just happens and there’s no reason for it. They could make an appeal to a brute fact, and then what? Is our brute fact assertion any better? That’s why I find it a bit odd that he rejects teleological explanations, since that seems to go pretty well with idealism (as opposed to physicalists who want to view everything in terms of efficient causes). I guess it might be the influence from Schopenhauer idk. I also think it casts into doubt the existential part of his philosophy: analytical idealism is supposed to in part serve as an antidote to nihilism. Does the world really start to feel more meaningful because now, instead of it consisting in dead matter acting in arbitrary ways, it consists in a big mind acting in arbitrary ways? Yeah, you can identify with it, but is that comforting? If the acts are attributed to pure spontaneity, ironically, what you basically end up with is the God of voluntarism, pantheistic edition.

[@VRaj1]

The marital status of number 5 is bachelor because it is single

[@bonganingwenya1687]

Thank you Bernado. Maybe the UNIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESS is META-GOGNITIVE and decided to set-up a complex system within a given environment (the Universe) just to see how and what it would evolve into? For example: A curious child decides to see what will happen if he/she mixes Coca-Cola, Stoney, Sprite, Fanta, tea and his piss and keeps it sealed and buried for a month in a hole he dug.

[@DanielL143]

Consciousness is wiped out very effectively by a few molecules of very physical general anesthetic. Some of the problems with this whole argument are (1) not understanding that the brain of any organism is just a place where information is integrated for very specific functional and survival based reasons (2) trying to understand subjectivity in experience is an fruitless line of inquiry if the goal is to understand the universe and our place in it; we all see green but based on the physical structure of our individual retinas we see it differently and the idea of subjectivity continues to fall apart from there on because it leads to Russian doll problem (3) separating the experience from the experiencer is the single biggest mistake of all time in philosophy because it requires two universes and this mistake thanks to Descartes - dualism, is the mistake of the Judeo-Christian model and is even seen in the failure of modern medicine to treat mental disorders as separate from physical disorders; Buddhism and Hinduism do not suffer from this illusion (4) we will never understand ourselves and the universe as long as we see them as separate; this is an obsolete idea that should not be given credence.(5) the universe is real, is physical and is conscious but not an integrated consciousness, only a primitive consciousness. Integrated consciousness did not exist until brains evolved.

[@TheoSakoutis]

Hi there. I actually agree with just about all your points, except for your opening sentence. What is the basis for your assertion that a few molecules of anesthetic can very effectively wipe out consciousness? I have undergone two surgeries in my lifetime. The first time I remained conscious well into the beginning of the procedure. I remember panicking and trying to yell out to the surgeon and doctors to let them know that I was still awake, but I couldn't move and couldn't speak. I remember the anesthesiologist turning her head and looking at me as if she sensed something wrong. I heard the surgeon ask her if I was out, and she responded affirmatively. I remember the sensation of fear and frustration. I watched as they were making incisions. Soon, I realized I wasn't feeling any pain, and so I began to relax. At that point, I began to feel as though I was floating and began to enjoy the sensation. It was only after at this point that I lost interest and drifted off to la la land..

[@reydg432]

What if the big bang was the mind forming a mirror to know thyself? Perhaps, a whitehole giving birth to its polarity?

[@adammckee530]

Just reset wipe out old. Start new with Nothing and nothing more .some thing will come.

[@Braun09tv]

He is wrong about big bang singularity. You can't get something out of nothing due to a growth process. It would require a designed growth. So he is wrong.

[@raindogred]

meta cognition and the filters we need for survival, seems to take us further away from universal consciousness. I think animals are right there with consciousness. I get the sense that God/universal consciousness loved/s being a T-Rex or a Great white shark just as much as a human.

[@Braun09tv]

He basically says that humans have the highest level of consciousness. He thinks humans are the highest. Just like the ocean, which has marked the end of the universe.

[@aipaperreader]

TL:DR Atman is Brahman.👍

[@ericgraham8975]

Where is the evidence that the universe is conscious? And why does it destroy every living thing that has consciousness?

[@timh7882]

This is metaphysics, it's philosophy. It's reasoning and experience that supports the notion that the universe is, in essence, pure subjectivity. Under this philosophy, living things don't "have" consciousness, consciousness has dissociated alters that present themselves as living organisms. Their (our) essential nature is no different from the essential nature of the transpersonal universal mind. The dissociatives process ends at the moment of death. Nothing is destroyed.

[@ericgraham8975]

@@timh7882 yes but he doesn't show how anything else has consciousness in the universe besides living things. And if all these alters have to kill and eat each other to survive what does that say about this supposed universal mind? Is it evil? Stupid?

[@timh7882]

@@ericgraham8975 your use of the word "show" is a rephrasing of the concept of "evidence". Correct?

[@timh7882]

@@ericgraham8975 he's not saying other "things" have consciousness. If you're interested in his philosophy, he's got a free course on this channel.

[@ericgraham8975]

@@timh7882 yeah evidence. where is the evidence for a universal consciousness?

[@billygugen8104]

God wanted to hear Led Zeppelin. So God manifested Itself in the form of Jimmy Page John Bonham Robert Plant and John Paul Jones.

[@bellakrinkle9381]

Anything is possible; Mozart, too?

[@billygugen8104]

@@bellakrinkle9381 Of course. Hes almost too good though. Beethoven was a badass. With the ole 9th symphony and Moonlight Sonata.

[@kingmob2124]

@@bellakrinkle9381 5 + 5 = 11 is possible?

[@user-dl8eg9rk1t]

Remove meta-cognition and man would serve it's inherrent purpose, with meta, it becomes a choice to fulfil or reject.

[@aminomar7890]

Hallucinator thief!