The incoherence of mainstream physicalism (Part 2) | Analytic Idealism with Bernardo Kastrup

In part 2 of Essentia Foundation's Analytic Idealism Course, we discuss why mainstream physicalism fails on all key post-enlightenment values, such as coherence, internal consistency, parsimony and empirical adequacy. Subscribe to the channel: bit.ly/EssentiaYT
00:00 Recap part 1
04:28 Mainstream physicalism
16:50 Territory out of map
19:15 Physicalism in a nutshell
20:40 Hard problem of consciousness
24:20 Evaluating mainstream physicalism
39:14 Next part
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Watch part 3 here: • The incoherence of con...
Watch part 1 here: • The incoherence of our...
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Relevant literature:
constructivist.info/13/3/341....
sciendo.com/article/10.1515/s...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full...
iai.tv/articles/matter-is-not...
iai.tv/articles/why-materiali...
iai.tv/articles/the-mysteriou...
iai.tv/articles/the-mysteriou...
iai.tv/articles/consciousness...
iai.tv/articles/every-generat...
Links to papers substantiating the claim that recent empirical evidence contradicts mainstream physicalism will be provided in PART V. Stay tuned for that.
For Will Durant's summary of Denis Diderot's position on using an admittedly flawed materialism against the Church, see Chapter 5, sub-chapter VII of: Durant, W. (1926). The Story of Philosophy.
For an example of Jerry Coyne's contradicting mainstream physicalism while trying to defend it, see: www.bernardokastrup.com/2020/...
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Science of Consciousness conference | Essentia Foundation
The Science of Consciousness' conference 2021 is organized by the Sentience and Science Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Study of the University of Amsterdam and Essentia Foundation. During this conference thinkers came together to discuss consciousness and its various states and manifestations. Find all talks from the conference here: bit.ly/ConsciousnessConference
Analytic Idealism with Bernardo Kastrup | Essentia Foundation
In the playlist “Analystic Idealism with Bernardo Kastrup” you will find a carefully produced but free, online, video-based course on Analytic Idealism with over 6 hours of content, conducted by Essentia Foundation’s executive director, Bernardo Kastrup. Analytic Idealism is a theory of the nature of reality that maintains that the universe is experiential in essence. Find the course here: bit.ly/AnalyticIdealism
2020 Work Conference | Essentia Foundation
In the playlist “2020 Work Conference” you will find various talks given by scholars, thinkers, scientists, entrepeneurs, professors, authors and journalists during Essentia Foundation's 2020 online work conference. Find the talks here:
bit.ly/EFworkconference
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Welcome to the KZbin channel of Essentia foundation. Essentia Foundation is an information hub that aims at communicating the latest analytic and scientific indications that metaphysical materialism is fundamentally flawed. Our community of authors, including Bernardo Kastrup, lists a growing number of academics, scholars, philosophers, scientists and authors whose works are opening the way for a new, more functional and true understanding of ourselves and reality at large. By closing the communication gap Essentia Foundation hopes to communicate new evidence of metaphysical idealism to human culture at large.
And this is what our KZbin channel is perfectly suited to do. By posting interviews, discussions, lectures, informational video’s and other short formats we hope to share new developments in the quest to understand reality. Do you also wonder whether we actually live in a physical universe? Then be sure to check out our video’s and subscribe to our channel.
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#EssentiaFoundation #Physicalism #BernardoKastrup

[@sjavaid23]

I've been a student of consciousness for 70 years and have been trying to see it through the lens of science, literature, psychology, and philosophy but never experienced the aha moment of knowing until I listened to Bernardo. It finally dawned on me that we cannot know beyond the reading of instruments that evolution gave us. Thank you, Dr. Kastrup. Thank you for making this key understanding accessible.

[@scottnorvell2955]

It’s amazing to me that while Bernardo generally sidesteps spirituality, his ideas fit perfectly into many ancient mystical teachings. Fascinating. Always love listening to his teachings.

[@asdfgmnbvczxcv]

Funny how those who hold the most vulgar and fantastical philosophical view - physicalism - view themselves as the most profound and most logical

[@asdfgmnbvczxcv]

​@Apstore Login You can start looking at the commonalities between the world religions for a glimpse at the underlying truth.. I recommend "Perennial Philosophy" by Huxley

[@CampingforCool41]

I mean you could say that about the proponents of any philosophical view.

[@TravelingPhilosopher]

​@@CampingforCool41you could but when it is said about physicalism, it has a lot of epistemic value

[@inglestaemtudo]

A change of paradigm seems to be unvoidable now. It's getting harder and harder to see any serious thinker defending materialism

[@LS-qu7yc]

I agree. Bernardo does an amazing job explaining this logic. Whatever the implications are, I think he’s right (I had previously been unconvinced by any philosophy)

[@dan.meditarte]

Your work is great, man, with the translations of Kastrups videos. Thanks! If you need some help I am here.

[@adriancioroianu1704]

This is perfect to shatter your naive materialism into pieces.

[@julesm3576]

Thank you, Dr. Bernardo Kastrup for a lucid, clear, and brilliant presentation. Zero signs of any new age fluff. In fact, much of your view presented (in my simple understanding) is an integration of past orthodox philosophy. It's highly correlated with what Hume and Schopenhauer were saying along with many other philosophers. As well as scientists during 'moments of stepping back from their findings and doing some introspecting' on what did their findings mean. But then this odd mantra of 'shut up and calculate' became the dominant way of doing most of the hard sciences. As if the 'grants and funding' would stop if science introspected and worked with philosophy seriously. I'm told that back in Einstein's day most physicists (according to Prof. Don Howard's course on the philosophy of science) were well trained in areas of philosophy. Einstein read Arthur Schopenhauer's Parerga and Paralipomena. I'm told Einstein had a portrait of Schopenhauer on his wall. At some point in the 20th century philosophy and science had a divorce. That was not necessary. It may have been driven by a powerful materialist zeitgeist that drove humanity towards mass over consumption and planet-depleting consumerism. It's time for scientists and philosophers to get back together, in good faith, in order to rigorously advise world leaders on possible best ways forward for humanity that allows sustainable living and promotes sciences that are not obligated to wear blinders, in order to receive funding from 'powerful interests' that want to sell and acquire more stuff. I hope socially responsible corporates fund this cooperative work for the sake of the planet and all people. M.A.D. is not, today, what it was about during the cold war. Today, M.A.D. could be the unfortunate result of our planet 'not being able to sustain humanity's endless resource requirements'. Sustainability will never be seriously addressed if we allow science to be used by 'power' (whatever and whoever power is) towards the sole end of over-selling and depleting our small blue planet, ad infinitum. My apologies for the little rant. These videos have simply caused me to think about life and what might help the flourishing and success of future generations. Thank you again. I wish you the very best.

[@thitherword]

Well said.

[@user-xb6fl9ri6g]

This is so much more than just something interesting to know about, this is real fundamental understanding. The first time I heard Bernardo speak about idealism it clicked, felt so intuitively true it calmed my existential anxiety - more than any of the religions I looked into, more than learning about physics, or studying stoicism. It confirmed what I felt when taking psychedelics but could never find my own words to describe. Gratitude

[@amirkhan355]

Thanks for all the care you put in this. If we were sane, these videos would have acquired > 1 billion views.

[@risingspirit2229]

Thank God for you !!! I have never heard any one before in my life who knows the truth. You are a light in the darkness.Keep going.

[@gimlichan1391]

This information is absolutely life changing. Thank you, Professor Kastrup.

[@S.G.Wallner]

How do we get this 700,000 views instead of 700? Thank you for enlightening us Bernardo!

[@SimoneMancini1]

I am an brazilian psychiatry (Junguian therapist) and would like to thank you for these marvelous videos!!

[@kingmob2124]

Ele é brasileiro tbm, né?

[@SimoneMancini1]

@@kingmob2124 acho que sim, do RJ

[@kingmob2124]

@@SimoneMancini1 Caramba, isso é tao legal! É mt bom q um dos maiores filósofos da filosofia da mente atual seja br. Inclusive, ele venceu o Graham Oppy, um dos maiores fisicalistas atuais, num debate recentemente.

[@SimoneMancini1]

@@kingmob2124 Nossa é incrível mesmo!! Eu ja o vi falar que nasceu no RJ e viveu no Brasil ate os 10 anos. Eu sou apaixonada pelo assunto e ainda nao vi esse debate que vc citou! Obrigada por me informar!! Abraçao

[@martam4142]

@@kingmob2124 Take a look at Edward Feser (philosoper) :)

[@traviswadezinn]

Excellent as always, and very accessible - I'm enjoying your books as well, bravo sir!

[@Revalanga]

Finding Bernardo Kastrup's ideas and reflections - não se como mas o estava a procurar- was the best that has happened to me in a very long time, and not just in epistemic terms. I was looking for it.

[@r.t.vandenberg1833]

If the "multiverse vs matter is secondary" statement at 29:55 can't be challenged, then I'm obviously convinced. Looking forward to slowly sip in the next parts and contemplating all the possible consequences of the "dashboard" revelation. Bernardo makes me feel as if I found a friend.

[@LS-qu7yc]

I agree

[@Sciencehistorynerd]

Thank you Bernardo Kastrup. Your way of communicating your ideas are so digestable and convincing. You've opened a paradigm shifting frame of reference in my mind and the possibilities fill me with joy as I shake off the nihilism of materialism

[@krux121]

Your explanation is amazing, thank you very much

[@TravelingPhilosopher]

"But, in fact, materialism is among the most problematic of philosophical standpoints, the most impoverished in its explanatory range, and among the most willful and (for want of a better word) magical in its logic, even if it has been in fashion for a couple of centuries or more". -David Bentley Hart

[@guym458]

Thank you Bernardo, Incredible content as always.

[@marybarker4925]

Thank you. I've loved your books and other interviews, but these presentations bring things together so well. Thanks so much.

[@tcl5853]

I appreciate the time and effort you put into your presentations. It’s a wonderful experience to hear academics of your caliber share ideas about the nature of reality. It turns out that the internet really does have value outside of entertainment and commerce. Thank you!

[@youtubecanal]

Obrigado ao Bernardo e ao quadro científico de excelência por este curso, pela lição 2 e pelas profundas ideias aqui comunicadas e explanadas de forma intuitiva e razoavelmente simples. The maps are not the territory… the territory are not the maps.

[@75accamargo]

Sabe se tem alguma palestra ou entrevista do Bernardo Kastrup legendadas em português? Eu entendo inglês, já vi várias, e gostaria de mostrar para pessoas que não entendem inglês.

[@kingmob2124]

@@75accamargo Se tiver, até hj nunca vi. Mas tb queria.

[@Juanc09051]

Loving this content so much!

[@meiogordo]

Thanks you Bernardo. A much needed refletion. Take care 🙏

[@careforbunniesnot6075]

I love the way he cheerfully says ".. then your theory is pointless.." xD

[@msmacmac1000]

Thank you, Bernardo( I met you through Rupert)! I am happy to espouse my essential self- “I” am an idealist. “I” have always known this.❤❤

[@estherbenzaquen8120]

Kant already said that we could not know the noumena (the world). So it seems that we should consider that physicalism is just a practical matter that helps us survive?

[@GS-se1cp]

I have a similar question.

[@liamnewsom8583]

Well the categorizations and measurements are helpful and necesary for just that, survival and such. As a metaphysical interpretation of the world as it is, it falls apart, feels pessimistic and ungrounded and results in all kinds of issues. I think the issue is just taking the principles of the enlightenment such as reason, measurement and direct empiricsm and taking that on as an accurate reduced exact description of the world as it is. It's just not true! It puts the description and interpretation before the actual thing in and of itself

[@eskilevarsson2989]

In my mind, Bernardo Kastrup is one of the most importand philosophist of our time. A Mozart for reasoning and cuts to the core like an intellectual samurai sword.

[@martam4142]

Add Edward Feser :)

[@Shadowdaddy87]

Slice like a ninja, cut like a razor blade. So fast, other Doctors say, Damn! If truth was a drug he'd sell it by the gram!

[@thitherword]

This is extraordinary. I'd always viewed myself as an atheistic and "rational" person, one who tried to reduce into everything into biological components. I even took pleasure and pride in the sort of "degradation" that such a view provides, i.e. being just like any other animal and accepting decay, seeing everything as pure matter. That's an extremely limited and almost laughably juvenile viewpoint since we can only know what is in the current paradigm, of course, and we're highly limited in our perception of the world and the universe. Since then I've become much more interested in archetypes and transcendence. It seems I'm on a trajectory following the work of Scruton, Peterson, Tarnas, Kastrup, etc. I'm not sure what I believe now, but I have sympathy with a kind of pantheistic spirit or Hegelian meta narrative. Something... more. Whatever that might be. Finding the article entitled "Could Multiple Personality Disorder Explain Life, the Universe and Everything?" brought me here and I'm glad about that.

[@PorGaymer]

oh cool i didnt expect the next episode so quikly.

[@sleeperino3054]

You are doing the world a great service

[@panagiotisdrymousis6728]

Thank y very much

[@realcygnus]

Superb

[@robertoconnor8502]

Brilliant! These are awesome!

[@k-alphatech3442]

Thanks a lot!

[@canisronis2753]

Bravo!!

[@rolandhinnion3578]

Génial : "the territory arises from the map" !!!

[@Askaskaskaskaskask]

very insightful and in depth

[@quinnculver]

Thanks. Where can I find an example of physicalism defining matter as that which can be exhaustively described by measurement?

[@Brunofromaraguari]

I'm loving this course. I think this critique to physicalism is very similar to the one Michel Henry does at the first part of his work "Incarnation".

[@gavinhurlimann2910]

Nice job Dr Kastrup 😊

[@alcannistraro]

I am curious about specifically how Bernardo expresses in his daily life the Jungian values he appreciates - especially with respect to religion.

[@diodio520]

Very nice. 🤗

[@raycosmic9019]

The abstract called Love can be expressed concretely as a hug, etc.

[@kattemallo]

Would be cool to see you debate Sean Carrol!

[@thomashutcheson3343]

Perhaps experience beyond the screen of perception is possible. It would not be translatable, however, into the terms used for experience of the screen, except metaphorically. Such experience could not be "defined," or delimited, in terms of the screen (through, say, any verbal descriotion) because an experience of that which is, in itself, and as a whole, a unity (the most-encompassing mind), would be diiferent in kind to the experience of its parts, which what our experience of the various instruments on the screen is.

[@michaeldillon3113]

There was an interesting programme on the World Services of the BBC 1/7/22 called ' Faith in Science ' in the Heart of the Matter series . It was based at CERN . It will still be available on BBC Sounds. It badly lacked Bernardo's input . It was heartening to hear that there are scientists at CERN who are religious , but those religious scientists didn't seem to be aware of Idealism or a highly developed religion like advaita Vedanta ✌️🕉️

[@onebadfishtoo]

Illuminating 🌞 💭 🤔

[@clivelamond3488]

plato's cave expanded

[@inglestaemtudo]

True...Eye opening!

[@Marco-wq7nn]

So the whole problem is how can quantities lead to qualities, whereby the quantities we see are not the actual quantities that exist. So from abstraction it must lead to quantities that we percieve, and to the percieving ittself. So materialism leaves something behind at every step backwards and induces that it will come back from this reduction, but never will be able to see or measure this as any measurement is within perception and perception is the start of this kind of reasoning in the first place. So they start from perception reason it away and then try to come back to it, with no idea at all how that is suppossed to happen.

[@krzemyslav]

At first glance physicalism seems to be parsimonious, because initially an observer has no reason to believe that there's a difference between the screen of perception and the world as it is. So the observer intuitively assumes correspondence (at least quantitative) between them. I won't say that it's purely arbitrary - it may seem reasonable from some points of view.

[@Arjuna771]

There was a time when people intuitively assumed that the Earth was flat. It was logical since the entire horizon they saw was flat. This shows that intuition based on knowledge can be wrong since knowledge will always be incomplete.

[@Sam-hh3ry]

I disagree. For one, that wouldn't be physicalism, because it would mean that qualities, not just quantities, exist intrinsically in the world. Also, the existence of a physical world, which by definition exists outside and independent of experience, still requires an additional inference to be made. Other basic considerations that show why it's a problematic idea. Abnormal brain chemistry or trauma can alter a person's experiences without altering the world. Different species perceive the world in different ways. Which perspective tells us what the world really looks like? Clearly our perceptions have as much to do with what's happening in our heads as what's happening outside us.

[@Arjuna771]

@@Sam-hh3ry The physical world does not exist outside of experience, since that would be the same as saying that it exists outside of Consciousness. What is there is mental substance that requires the intervention of our field of attention to acquire the measurable material qualities that we all know. "Abnormal brain chemistry or trauma can alter a person's experiences without altering the world." The brain is just an image in the mind without its own reality and as such, any alteration in the mental process that gives rise to this image will affect the experience derived from it. "Different species perceive the world in different ways. Which perspective tells us what the world really looks like? Clearly our perceptions have as much to do with what's happening in our heads as what's happening outside us." Nobody knows what the Reality "out there" looks like because that Reality does not have a specific form or quality, so it can be almost anything depending on the point of view: mental configuration of the being or species that observes it. The world is how we are, not how we see it.

[@Sam-hh3ry]

@@Arjuna771 I was replying to the other guy

[@Arjuna771]

@@Sam-hh3ry Got it!

[@catchycatchy6167]

6:23 I always thought that proponents of physicalism support the idea that the content of perception is in some way related to the outisde world and that there is for example a close relationship in the retinic activation to outside stimuli (in terms of neighborhood and so on). this is - I think - not to claim that the dashboard and dials in the cockpit are very similar to the outside world but that there is some meaningful connection an similarity in information being represented

[@catchycatchy6167]

so I'm wondering if the useful description in our mind could be useful if they really were arbitrary and had no closer connection to "reality"

[@gavaniacono]

@@catchycatchy6167 quantities versus qualia. The former a poor representation of reality, even if functional.

[@tanjohnny6511]

From the subscribers numbers ,i can see that people who seek to understand ultimate truth are few compare to the general population.🙂

[@jcinaz]

At 22:21, you say, "for .... defines" and I cannot understand that word. You repeat several times, but I cannot figure out what the word is.

[@russellsharpe288]

"for matter is defined precisely as that which lacks all felt qualities"; the words are on the screen (quoting Chalmers) and Bernardo Kastrup is reading them out

[@nathanketsdever3150]

I've respected the various critiques of materialism from different perspectives, but I'm confused what the "dashboard of dials" is in terms of translating the metaphor or analogy. It seems pretty beholden to mechnistic assumptions and mechanistic thought. I'm not denying our mechanistic aspects, but they can't and shouldn't overshadow the other parts of the human experience. We need dualing metaphors which play off one another. Because without that, we lose the larger sense of context, complexity, and the insights of systems theory. In some sense consciousness and theatre of the mind are phenomenological experiences, existential experiences, and empirical experiences--I don't think about dials in any sense, because I don't get to say I'm 90% happy today. I don't dial that in. I perhaps choose my attitudes, my reactions, and my values--but to act like I'm a video game with respect to myself or that I'm not beset by the challenges that behavioral economics says we are. Think of the infamous elephant and rider metaphor. We lose something incredibly important about life--and something with important explanatory power and descriptive power. I'm wary to call my experience of humanity as "dashboard of dials"--which is certainly what happened in the Pixar version of life--but Pixar isn't reality but at best a funhouse mirror of reality. It's always once removed from reality in terms of it's descriptions thereof. Its good on dreams, desires, and longings, but perhaps less so with a fully coherent model of the consciousness or the mind. That itself was a metaphor in the movie. And that conceit was I think visible to all. I think making it visible elsewhere is important. Thanks for taking us deeper into philosophy and reality. Thank you for not forgetting the imporance of meaning in addition to matter. Thanks for recovering idealism. And thanks for recoving the invisible in the face of the reductionist picture (and narrative) of the world. It's time has well run out. The tick, tick, tick of it's collapse is imminent. But only if committed and passionate men and women of ideas and the creative arts are up to the task. This is our mission. This is at the very heart of what it means to be creative and a philosopher. I'm not sure the extent to which BK's later arguments clarify and/or answer my critique.

[@aitabefornes6237]

Did you see part 1 of this course? I would think it addresses your question. The dashboard of dials is simply a way to say that what we perceive is a representation of reality, not reality itself. And, he argues and gives evidence for the fact that we can never perceive reality as it is fundamentally, that we will always perceive it as a representation. The dashboard metaphor reinforces that we should not confuse our perception with fundamental reality.

[@nathanketsdever3150]

@@aitabefornes6237 Initially thanks for your answer. Perhaps you're missing the point of my inquiry. My point is the answer to the imperfection and imprecision of the metaphor of the dashboard with respect to reality means we need an additional metaphor. If materialism is flawed and dualism is correct, it suggests a need for something that takes account of the immaterial. And that seems to be more consistent with his overall view--as I see it with respect to the flaws of materialism. We are sense-making individuals. We certainly take in with the 5 senses, but our collective unconscious as well as our own consciousness serves as backdrop for all of that. So, we need more metaphors to take that into account and/or those other immaterial, non-physical realities. All of the following point to that immaterial reality: Love, values, ideas, free will, imagination, consciousness, along with self-sacrifice (see also love and virtue oriented courage--or really all virtue). To be fair, I'm returning to this without re-listening to the section I'm referring to. But I think my thoughts still apply.

[@nathanketsdever3150]

@Northern Soul Thanks for your reply. You're providing a justification for the metaphor. My take is we need additional metaphors, which supplement that metaphor to take into account the immaterial aspects of reality. It could be a visual model, it could be an allegory, it could be an analogy or metaphor. I think any of the above would be a step in the right direction. My claim is that Bernardo isn't going far enough. As I see it, this is taking his project even further. If you look at my reply for Aitabe Fornes, it has a lot of overlap with understanding my take and how I see this notion of telling a more comprehensive and bigger story with additional helpful frameworks to understand reality--not just a criticism per se of that model.

[@adminluca]

I think physicalism should just renounce at explaining consciousness, by explicitating that consciousness is the starting point, exactly as in idealism. Being the starting point, it cannot be reduced to something more basilar. This is true for idealism and should also be true for physicalism. So in my opinion what should really distinguish physicalism from idealism is the postulating of matter, which is not, of course, quantity by itself. Mathematics is just a language to describe reality. Ultimately matter is just something which is made of of atoms occupying a region of space in a certain configurations. We can't attribute qualities to matter, only quantities. This doesn't mean that matter = quantity, since the latter is just a language to describe the former. Or maybe is more accurate to say that what is really being described is the world perceived, not matter itself. Matter is only a limit concept, almost inconceivable, but still necessary to ground an external world. And why do we want to postulate a external world? Because otherwise we cannot: 1) Avoid solipsism (without postulating matter again but with a different name, for example "God") 2) Explain the coherence and ripetibility of experience 3) Explain inter-subjectivity For now I'm skeptics about the possibility to explain these things using idealism. I still have to finish the course, so I will see about that. Of course if analytic idealism succeed in explaining the things mentioned above without (and this is a really important poiny) postulating another noumenon like God or matter, then idealism is better than physicalism. If it can't, then I will continue to subscribe to physicalism, even If I know that I can't explain consciousness (but it's the same for idealism) and I have to postulate a noumenon. The important thing to understand is that it is just a postulate, a theory that we use to have more explanatory power, not because we have the certainty that there is an external world.

[@MeRetroGamer]

Oh well, idealism actually can explain those points without the need of postulating anything else. You just need to do some introspection to "see" that it is not "you" who is conscious, rather there's an experiential reality and the "you" is just one specific experience. The forms doesn't make the source, rather the source is what oscillate making forms of itself. Experiences are like waves on the sea. If you understand space and time as a symbol of, let's say "how this waves are related among themselves", then you avoid solipsism, you get memory, integration and ripetibility of information, and so you have inter-subjectivity as a result. I recommend you to learn about information theory. It gives a really good glimpse about how consciousness might work.

[@adminluca]

@@MeRetroGamer In the case of the "empirical" me, I agree that it is just one experience among many, that sometimes pops out, sometimes not. But there is another, more primitive and transcendental sense of "me" which is not just one specific experience, but rather what unifies experience. This unifying function is so fundamental that for Kant was the necessary condition even for experiencing a table or a chair the way we do it, and I pretty much agree with him. Hume also considered the subject as the collection of all experiential reality, and not just one specific experience. That would be only the empirical subject, e.g. the moments when I think about myself and I am conscious about myself. But even when I'm not conscious about myself, I am able to conceptualise a table only by unifying the manifold of experience. Now that being said, I don't know if information theory can explain why I should believe that there are other transcendental subjects, other "converging points" of the single experiences. I'm watching the video where Dr. Kastrup intorduce analytic idealism and he says there is only ONE consciousness, but divided into many disconnected subjective points of view. Currently I don't understand this explanation and the arguments behind it. And I don't understand your metaphor about waves. Without referring to an external reality I'm currently unable to avoid solipsism and to explain why experience is so consistent and predictable.

[@MeRetroGamer]

​@@adminluca You say that. "This unifying function", how can a function be fundamental? I agree that this unifying function is necessary to experience a table or a chair as we do, but it doesn't mean it's necessary for experiencing at all. Think carefully about it. What really is a "converging point"? Is it a function of mind? Is it some kind of "center" or "container"? Or is it just recursion? A recursive communication in-between with many pointers and variables... This function can become really deep and complex, but it can also remain pretty simple, and yet it is not "the source" of mind or consciousness, but just an aspect of them. I also think there is a conceptual problem in saying that there is one consciousness "divided" into many "disconnected" points of view. And I think it is legitimate to ask that if there is just one consciousness, why can't we access other's mind and experiences? This was the most difficult part for me when I tried to comprehend this kind of philosophy around 12 years ago, and I was struggling with it for months. Then somehow, one day, I suddenly realized and everything became so astoundingly obvious that I couldn't suppress laughting. If someone had seen me back then, they'd think I was crazy or drugged. It was pretty spontaneous, everything after that "eureka" made sense and it was incredibly evident. No more "hard problems", no more struggling... Now with that aside, I'll try my best to explain how do I understand all this subject. There is a deep, abstract bias formed very early in our days, which is the cause of the dualistic separation between "the observer" and "the observed". This dualism is also what creates the notion of "external" and "internal", and this abstraction is very problematic to our understanding of what we are. There *is* an objective reality, not external neither internal, but objective, which I like to reference as "the natural reality" or just "nature". And this nature is an *experiential* reality, but not in the sense that "it experiences", what do I mean by this? Nature and experience is the same thing, consciousness. In my previous metaphor, I visualize it as the sea. This nature is kind of "virtual" (in the sense that it is about potentiality) and has a natural will, which becomes probabilistic and kind of predictable when we enter recursive functions or functions with similar information. This kind of functions is what I visualized as the waves. Now from this, if you understand what I mean, you can deduce everything else (even the fractality which seems inmanent to the universe and especially to living organisms), and you don't need any external assumption, any god, any phisical realm... Just this natural, experiential, reality of willingness.

[@adminluca]

@@MeRetroGamer If the only reality you acknowledge is experiential, then you face the difficult task of making sense of predictability and regularity of experience. You say that this experiential reality called nature has a will. But the only thing I can understand having a will is a subject. So you're implying that not only reality is completely experiential, but it is also like a universal consciousness with his own will. Unfortunately I still don't understand how the analogies with information theory can help me to get an answer to the questions that I asked. If I use the dichotomy internal/external, then it becomes a trivial subject. But to say that reality is only experiential and objective, I can't follow, because the concept of "being objective" makes sense only when we start from an internal/external paradigma. Something can be objective (true for every subjective point of view) in opposition to what is subjective (true only for one or some subjective point of views). It seems to me that if you refuse to the internal and external categories, you also have to renounce to subjectivity and objectivity. You arrive at a point where there is so little you can tell about reality that I hardly imagine how you could avoid solipsism or find interesting answers to the question "Why experience is so consistent?". Can you explain to me, using your conception of reality, the reason why I experience always the same objects in my room, and always with the same spatial relations? And why touching my bed always feels the same?

[@MeRetroGamer]

​@@adminluca "if you refuse to the internal and external categories, you also have to renounce to subjectivity and objectivity" That's true, it's a difficult task to explain reality since every definition implies having to say what something is in contrast with what it is not. How can we define reality? Tell me, reality is meant to be all that is, but for a definition we must make discards. I still try pretty hard to explain in words what I ultimately comprehend beyond this dualistic kind of thought. The will, in the sense I tried to express it, does not belong to any subject, it *becomes* the subject. It is not meant to be considered as an abstract sense of desire or whatever, it is meant to be considered as a natural, instant, "force", if you like. Just try to think what should it be like to have subjectivity, but without a subject. Then you'll see that a subject is just "localized" subjectivity. This "localization" is a recursive process in-between "general" subjectivity. Subjectivity itself is *the thing,* not the "subject". The subject is the concrete experience, the form, but not the *thing.* Without meta-cognition or abstraction, you don't feel pain or love, you *are* the pain or love, and it is still not the *thing,* it is just an expression of *nature.* The reason why you experience always the same objects in your room, with the same spatial relation, etc. is the same reason why you maintain a sense of self and your body remains almost the same. It's recursion. The reality you experience is not fixed, rather it is maintained. And this btw is not just an idea of mine, it's what physics actually say about the world. All particles have some kind of an "inner clock" and have a probability of disintegration which is not zero.

[@pepedestroyer5974]

*26:01* Is it logically coherent? *27:03* Is it internally consistent? *28:01* Is it conceptually parsimonious? *29:38* Is it empirically adequate? *33:08* Is it explanatory powerful?

[@pepedestroyer5974]

*30:20* Only two options in the table

[@pepedestroyer5974]

*32:16* the neuroscience of consciousness

[@amit5talekar]

Can anyone answer..if brain is not creating experiences on basis of sensory stimulation from five senses, then why do we have different experiences at different stages of life? Why various creatures with different nervous system, perceive and experience smells, taste color etc in different ways?

[@Arjuna771]

What part of the video are you referring to?

[@adminluca]

And why I experience the Colosseum every time I go to Rome in the place where people tell me that I will experience the Colosseum? And why I experience my bed every time I go to my bedroom? How can we make accurate previsions on what we will experience using science or even by just using basic induction? The explanatory power of physicalism covers all this questions. Of course this comes with a cost: we are unable to explain consciousness and we are forced to postulate a noumenon called matter. Idealism too cannot explain consciousness (it is just assumed as the starting point, but I think this is true also of physicalism, so not a big difference between the two on this), but the good news is that you don't need to postulate a noumenon in the idealist conceptual framework. But what are the consequence of this on the explanatory power? Can idealism explain why I experience my bed every time I go to my bedroom? Can idealism explain me why scientists can anticipate experiences? And why I happen to experience Rome every time I travel to Rome? And why the wood becomes ash, smoke and cinder every time I put it in the fire? If it cannot, than by renouncing to matter you also renounce to an explanation of all these things and this is really BAD. If, instead, it can give a satisfying answer to all this questions, without postulating matter or another noumenon (like the God of Berkeley), then idealism is superior to physicalism without any doubt, because it is ontological more parsimonial while still having the same explanatory power.

[@justaguywithaturban6773]

@@adminluca idealism doesn’t reject "physical" explanations, you’ve misunderstood that. Of course as a Idealist you can understand molecules atoms etc. that’s not against idealism, however idealism says these things are included in consciousness, consciousness is fundamental.

[@foxtail7363]

Hmm I would see it as the brain is a filter to our experience, storing processing, it's important even though its not real in a real sense. Different tastes and smells.. well yeah pretty much I would go with mainstream science for that, and all of this doesn't mean we ignore the whole thing about biochemical processes as they are obviously important. But it doesn’t change the fact that things are constructs, abstractions of sorts, how we interpret that. It's a sensory construct but it's still a meaningful one. To clarify the brain and the mind are constructs map like, but I still see there is a sensory process there.

[@tommoody728]

This should be the main philosophy everyone is taught. Maybe it will be one day.

[@janklaas6885]

📍24:20

[@polymathpark]

Kastrup needs to talk with Sean carrol

[@MsJavaWolf]

Very few people would say that matter is the same as the mathematical equations that describe that matter. The territory from a map argument is therefore just a strawman and that contradiction never occurs in the actual physicalist position.

[@Marco-wq7nn]

No, but it will be consequence of going that line of thought. Remember you do not actually see quantities, they are also sensory perceptions. All that remains is an abstraction what is behind the qualitatitive experience of quantities. So it is not a strawman argument at all, but a logical consequence that many materialists do not grasp themselves, that is why they do not think like that, so this contradiction stays latent in their mind.

[@Meli.Just_be.]

🙏💜

[@gravitascascade5798]

I rewatched some segments several times and still don't understand what your beef with physicalism is. "It seeks to explain the mind in terms of its own abstractions" well, yes, what else do you explain it with. Is there anything other than contents of our minds and senses that we can use to explain anything at all? Even if we go full solipsist, how is that helpful? The whole argumentation doesn't make sense to me. How is physicalism contradictory? I'm not at all attached to materialism but that's just not helpful.

[@Nature_Consciousness]

He said that the abstractions are in themselves useful but go too far as considering them primary to reality.

[@odettehobbis3874]

I thought the dials were our perceptions (qualia), but you are saying that the dials are quantities? I thought it was the qualia that mislead us but you are saying this is more fundamental? help

[@sainikita9757]

See what he is saying when our sense organs sense the real world that real world appears as sound , colour , taste , images and forms called matter on our screen of perception but in real world there is no stand alone existence of matter but matter is only present on dash board not in real world but physicalist assume that matter have stand alone existence without observation. ❤

[@mindfulkayaker7737]

Even when I have a degree in Marine Biology and also in Math education. I feel very far from Dr Kastrup however I dare to prove what he is right: Either it is true and we act and behave in the world under the assumption that the world is mental and we all (including animals and plants) share the same being, or humanity disappears in a matter of a few years.

[@19battlehill]

Our 5 senses are the dials of our human dash board. I like Owen Barfield's rainbow analogy --- our vision dashboard says it exists, but we know in reality it is just a perception (light, moisture, and our eyes create it) and that it does not exist. Two people can see it and yet it doesn't exist. If someone was to tell you they saw a rainbow on a sunny day - you would know they are crazy or lying about something that doesn't even exist. Very funny.

[@dubbelkastrull]

6:14 bookmark

[@sawtoothiandi]

The phrase "objects in (the) mirror are closer than they appear" is a safety warning that is required[a] to be engraved on passenger side mirrors of motor vehicles in many places such as the United States, Canada, Nepal, India, and South Korea.

[@pepedestroyer5974]

*11:48* Materialism physicalism implies that the contours, as it is in itself, is pure abstraction.

[@pepedestroyer5974]

*13:13* so in reality what is really out there

[@pepedestroyer5974]

*13:36* the best you could do to visualize it

[@pepedestroyer5974]

*15:23* there is something abstract beyond your skull

[@edileuzaandrade410]

[@stevenconifer2676]

The inference from "qualities can't be perceived absent consciousness" to "the material world consists only of abstractions (lacking any and all qualities)" is invalid. Kastrup moves subtly and quickly from the former to the latter, not in order to bamboozle the viewer - I do not doubt his intellectual integrity - but certainly in a way that resembles sleight of hand, nevertheless. The invalidity of Kastrup's argument would become much clearer if he presented it as a formal argument, with numbered premises and conclusions.

[@avenreyl]

I feel like he was eating my ears the entire video, it was super distracting. I hope he fixed this in a later video

[@taylorhornby7475]

I don't think that this is an accurate description of physicalism. On physicalism, the territory is the real physical world that exists out there independent of our minds (whose existence, I'll grant, is an assumption). The quantitative description of the physical world, i.e. lengths, mass, particles, the laws of physics, etc. are a map we've made of the physical world through the process of scientific investigation. The abstract quantities and laws are not thought to be the physical world itself, just a description. The physical world is concrete, our brain is a concrete object within the physical world, and it is our brains that map out the world by creating abstractions. The idea that the abstractions are primary is of course nonsense, but that's not what physicalism says.

[@annaradzikowska8934]

Dear Bernardo, I'm sure you'd be seen in the future as genius of XX Century. I admire your work which will bring the most important social change for the future society (and I'm nobody). However, I do not agree with you that we can't change our surroundings by wishful thinking - just a simple example what was just a 'wishful thinking' in 14 hundreds was a reality in 19 hundreds. I'm glad though we can't manifest our wishes instantaneously, if each one of us could the world as we know it couldn't exist - we'd blow it apart in a second.

[@stefcas]

It is nice to see you enjoy yourself, having fun, with such a serious subject. But what's not so nice to see is you are not always respectful, use a lot of sarcasm, almost blaming others, here: the mainstream physicalists. I understand it is tempting, hard to resist. But it bears no fruit or only sour fruit. Nobody likes to be wrong. But we have to enable an environment where people feel free to be wrong, without the danger of being ridiculed, slandered, slaughtered. You clearly know your history. You know how the current ruling paradigma's came into being. A lot of great people contributed with hard work (and still do), from which we learned a lot. The progress we made is build on it. Many things turned out to be wrong. But they were more or less necessary steps to arrive at where we are right now. We cannot dismiss, disrespect all that. Although we might hate it by now. It is hard to break through a ruling paradigma. But ridiculing is not the right way. Your answer should be: "yes dad, wont do it again" ;-)

[@RH-wv4dx]

I think you are over-sensitive. It’s just passion.

[@dwai963]

Yeah, well, you know, that’s just like, your opinion, man (c)

[@Progenitor1979]

'the world'? So confused

[@Progenitor1979]

Surely 'the world as it actually is' is not only inconceivable but unspeakable?

[@Sam-hh3ry]

@@Progenitor1979 Kastrup's only claim about 'the world as it actually is' is that it's mental.

[@PClanner]

Gosh, I so wish I could have viewed this and taken it in, but my world is distorted by physicalism! What I mean of course is this medium is not anything that it seems so I cannot take it as real

[@SolaceEasy]

Blaming belief in Physicalism on the Western conflict between Science and the Catholic church is specious.

[@SolaceEasy]

Worse is that the speaker continues to hold these views in the face of expert contrary opinion.

[@SolaceEasy]

This speaker makes assumptions on his audience in his speaking style. It is a hindrance in presentation of this material to a wider audience.

[@SolaceEasy]

I don't need to take a day between each of these presentations. This man has inferior presentation skills and grasp of the material presented compared to me, and I feel he is speaking down to me. Presumptuous.

[@liamnewsom8583]

it was just an idea, nothing he held too strongly, it wasnt at all a bad point

[@liamnewsom8583]

@@SolaceEasy "Worse is that the speaker continues to hold these views in the face of expert contrary opinion." basic appeal to authority lol

[@e-t-y237]

The "definition" of matter being used here repeatedly, obviously because it seems to fly in the face of materialism, though doesn't really, is not the definition of matter offered by physics. Seems a cheat.

[@MsJavaWolf]

True, it seems like a strawman to me. Very few people would say that the math describing the material world is equivalent to the matter itself.

[@Sam-hh3ry]

What are the properties of matter that aren't quantities, then? They can't have qualitative properties under materialism, of course. So what's left?

[@e-t-y237]

"Untrue" and "not literal" are two different things. Seems badly conflated at times here.

[@ronjohnson4566]

I think therefore I am pure abstraction? I think not. If I see a cat on on my dashboard, I press "cat". It automatically goes into a variety of folders that my brain creates to note what I call a cat. That folder references all the other folders that my brain uses when I use the word cat. Even though another organism says "gato" my folders include foreign languages too. If everything was pure abstraction, there would be no life.we wouldn't be. We be. I am because I think. If we landed in a new universe by way of a worm hole we would use our brain to define what that world was. If it was pure abstraction we would be a part it and would not know hyde from hare. Pure abstraction is not a thing. Even abstraction needs to be something. It could be strings, quantum flux, imagination, or any word you would like to use. A painter gets out all his colors brushes, stretches his canvas and decides not t o make a mark. That becomes his mark.turns out even nothing is something.

[@Sam-hh3ry]

You are the one describing abstractions. Bernardo is talking about concrete, lived experience. The only thing that isn't an abstraction.

[@ronjohnson4566]

@@Sam-hh3ry if the only thing that is an abstraction is lived experience then there is no abstraction. If everybody does it then it is a constant and constants are abstraction or not. either way, everything is an abstraction or nothing is an abstraction. . He has just added words.

[@Sam-hh3ry]

​@@ronjohnson4566 no, abstractions are claims about the world beyond how it's experienced. experience is the reality and our ways of categorizing and interpreting our experiences are the abstractions.

[@ronjohnson4566]

@@Sam-hh3ry are you saying that concrete life living is reality but as soon as we see it, it becomes abstraction ? Spooky action at a distance.

[@Sam-hh3ry]

@@ronjohnson4566 "see" it? no, obviously not. the abstractions are the concepts we come to describing our experiences with words and numbers. we literally abstract these concepts out from our perceptions. this is why you have to make an inference to reject solipsism, accept realism, etc. it can't be know the same way we can know our own experiences.

[@h-z1218]

I think this is complete nonsense. "Experience", "qualities" and feelings are just the interplay of "quantities", in that language. E.g. "love" is just how we call some special arrangement of matter that makes a person meet another person more often according to the laws of physics. "Experience", "qualities", feelings and so on can of course be explained as the interplay of neurons in the brain in a way that makes us survive. I don't get where the contradiction is supposed to be, you can very well have a "lower resolution" image of a map as part of the map itself. Like when you put a camera on a screen that shows the image the camera is capturing.

[@royalton2166]

A map of a map? A decription of a description of a description and down the rabbit hole we go.

[@aasphaug]

How would you explain the research he refers to that shows decreased neuronal activity associated with increased intensity of experience?

[@Sam-hh3ry]

This is just wrong. Phenomenal experience is a different thing from its neural correlates. That’s why looking at a brain scan of someone in love tells you nothing about what it feels like to fall in love. You’re not closing the epistemic gap, you’re just redefining terms in a way that ignores it.

[@namero999]

"feelings and so on can of course be explained as the interplay of neurons in the brain". Gotta love the "of course". The problem with your view is that is begging the question. You are accepting your conclusions from the get-go when you claim that love is a special arrangement of matter. You are too a special arrangement of matter, yet I have no clue what it means being you. Even assuming matter has anything to with with ontological grounds, we would still be reaching that conclusion via observation, aka qualia/experience. Which would make it more fundamental than matter.

[@h-z1218]

@@royalton2166 Our brain holds only a very small/low resolution and inaccurate map of the world. Like a map has a lower resolution than the world it maps. So there is no problem, like, as i said, there is also no problem with pointing a camera on a screen that shows the image the camera is capturing.