Mod+ 248. BERNARDO KASTRUP SAYS MATERIALISM IS BALONEY

[Sciborg_S_Patel]

Two previously posted links suggestive of the idea that all minds stem from a collective unconscious:

The Unbroken Wholeness

Experiments in this field became increasingly sophisticated. In 2003, Jiri Wackerman, an EEG expert from Germany's University of Freiburg, attempted to eliminate all possible weaknesses in earlier studies and applied a refined method of analysis. After his successful experiment he concluded, "We are facing a phenomenon which is neither easy to dismiss as a methodological failure or a technical artifact nor understood as to its nature. No biophysical mechanism is presently known that could be responsible for the observed correlations between EEGs of two separated subjects."20

As functional magnetic resonance imaging brain-scanning techniques matured, these began to be used, with intriguing results. Psychologist Leanna Standish at Seattle's Bastyr University found that when one individual in one room was visually stimulated by a flickering light, there was a significant increase in brain activity in a person in a distant room.19

In 2004, three new independent replications were reported, all successful — from Standish's group at Bastyr University,18 from the University of Edinburgh,21 and from researcher Dean Radin and his team at the Institute of Noetic Sciences.22

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Synchronicity: The Key of Destiny

Synchronicity, coined by Carl Jung, is the term parapsychologists use for “meaningful coincidence.” As some measure of the magnitude of synchronous phenomena associated with a particular disaster, no less than 899 persons who initially booked passage for Titanic’s maiden voyage eventually refused to board her because of warnings they experienced in the forms of various omens, premonitions, dreams and precognitive events.

An additional 4,066 would-be passengers either missed the boat or canceled their reservations, usually under apparently normal circumstances, but sometimes through unusual coincidences that prevented them from sailing.

 

[Bruce Siegel]

if SC can be understood at all, it's likely that only SC can possess that understanding.

One of the advantages of deeply altered states (like an NDE or psychedelic journey) is that briefly, you may get to experience yourself as Source Consciousness. I know this is true because others speak of this experience again and again, and also because I've had it myself.

I don't want to get into an argument here, Michael -- I enjoy your posts a lot, and usually find myself agreeing with you. But you do often speak of the relative uselessness of altered states, specifically those reached through psychedelics. And I can't help but view that distaste in the context of your deep involvement with Bernardo's writings.

If you read Dreamed-Up reality, you'll come to understand that much of his insight has been derived from his own mystical journeys, and it seems pretty clear that they've been triggered through entheogens.

Have you read that book? The first half is structured around four separate journeys (as a scientist, he calls them experiments), and it's my favorite part.

You said:

"I can only think of what it's like to be SC by projection from my localised perspective, in which much is obfuscated. So I have no choice really but to start the other way round, which is an exercise seemingly doomed to failure"

I would never recommend entheogens to anybody, but I'm happy to discuss my own experiences and let others make their own decisions. And one of the advantages (and I've known the disadvantages, too) is that I've gotten to know SC more intimately than I ever dreamed possible. I may not remember much, but what I do remember helps to ease some of the frustration you describe.

 

[ghost]

I fundamentally disagree with your comment in here that Science has lost its way because it is not focusing on why questions. Why are we here? for example. If anything seeing scientists as anything other than a combination catalogers/engineering researchers is THE reason Dawkins and Hawking, etc.. think they can pontificate on philosophical questions.They actually believe at a level below even having to be conscience of it, that they now fill the roles of priests and philosophers in society. They have grown up in a paradigm that has evolved to the point where they think it is their DUTY to do this. They think, because we all have come to think that they are not just glorified engineers and librarians but The Keepers of All Reality. And this is where your statement that I'm addressing this paragraph at, comes from. If you want to check the spread of materialism you have to reinvigorate the earlier, healthier, and correct idea that Science has not replaced Theism or philosophy, it is a completely different realm of inquiry.

Bob

I would be very happy to go a few rounds with anyone who believes that physicists are the Keepers of All Reality. The problem is, I've been waiting around in the cosmic boxing ring for a while, but haven't been able to find any atheists who will defend their beliefs against me.

 

[Ian Thompson]

Let me very humbly give you my spin on what I think Bernardo is trying to get across to you. Its essentially this;' Regardless of whatever detailed beliefs you layer on top of base reality, base reality is EITHER materialist or idealist. Either Matter generates Mind or Mind generates Matter. This is not to say that the ontological details you fill in on top don't matter, (this is me talking) but that they have to come from personal, subjective spiritual journeying. Science isn't going to provide them which leads me to..

If we take (for example) that Mind generates Matter, then this is not pure idealism.
For then we have both Mind and Matter existing, and that is dualism of some kind (a 'mind-generative dualism' to be precise).

Pure idealism is that Mind generates the appearance of Matter. We have then a monism not dualism.

Personally, I hold to a mind-generative dualism. I take that both mind and matter exist. While mind is the 'base reality', matter still exists since it is generated by mind.

 

[Formal Dining Room Set]

If we take (for example) that Mind generates Matter, then this is not pure idealism.
For then we have both Mind and Matter existing, and that is dualism of some kind (a 'mind-generative dualism' to be precise).

Pure idealism is that Mind generates the appearance of Matter. We have then a monism not dualism.

Personally, I hold to a mind-generative dualism. I take that both mind and matter exist. While mind is the 'base reality', matter still exists since it is generated by mind.

What difference does it make?

 

[Sciborg_S_Patel]

What difference does it make?

Seems like it would avoid issues regarding the consistency and apparent physicality of the consensus reality?

 

[Ian Thompson]

What difference does it make?

Kastrup has to get into complicated stories about shared dreams, just to explain how two people in the same room can both agree that a chair is on the floor.
If matter actually exists (even if is generated by Mind), then the chair does actually exist. It is not just a shared dream!

 

[EthanT]

Very Alex enjoyable, thanks!
two thoughts.

Now I understand the origins of the pinned thread on Bernardo's forum. Let me very humbly give you my spin on what I think Bernardo is trying to get across to you. Its essentially this;' Regardless of whatever detailed beliefs you layer on top of base reality, base reality is EITHER materialist or idealist. Either Matter generates Mind or Mind generates Matter. This is not to say that the ontological details you fill in on top don't matter, (this is me talking) but that they have to come from personal, subjective spiritual journeying. Science isn't going to provide them which leads me to..

I fundamentally disagree with your comment in here that Science has lost its way because it is not focusing on why questions. Why are we here? for example. If anything seeing scientists as anything other than a combination catalogers/engineering researchers is THE reason Dawkins and Hawking, etc.. think they can pontificate on philosophical questions.They actually believe at a level below even having to be conscience of it, that they now fill the roles of priests and philosophers in society. They have grown up in a paradigm that has evolved to the point where they think it is their DUTY to do this. They think, because we all have come to think that they are not just glorified engineers and librarians but The Keepers of All Reality. And this is where your statement that I'm addressing this paragraph at, comes from. If you want to check the spread of materialism you have to reinvigorate the earlier, healthier, and correct idea that Science has not replaced Theism or philosophy, it is a completely different realm of inquiry.

Bob

Don't know if you guys watched the John Mack videos that K9 put up, but in relation to what I bolded above, John came up with the term "Ontological Totalitarianism" for that. Sums it up well! It's like a mental dictatorship.

By the way, great interview Alex. Always nice to hear Bernardo talk and I liked how you pushed him a little. Question is, when is Bernardo going to chime in here and liven up this thread some, hehe.

 

[Formal Dining Room Set]

I'd like to sit down in an idealist chair, then a dualist chair. Would the chair from idealism feel vague and ethereal on my buttocks? Would the dualist chair be more solid and firm?

 

[Ian Thompson]

If we take (for example) that Mind generates Matter, then this is not pure idealism.
For then we have both Mind and Matter existing, and that is dualism of some kind (a 'mind-generative dualism' to be precise).

Pure idealism is that Mind generates the appearance of Matter. We have then a monism not dualism.

Personally, I hold to a mind-generative dualism. I take that both mind and matter exist. While mind is the 'base reality', matter still exists since it is generated by mind.

The flip side of 'mind-generative dualism' is 'matter-generative dualism': commonly known as 'emergent materialism' (read William Hasker). It is strictly a dualism, but where matter is the 'base reality', but mind still exists since it is generated by matter.
The monistic case here is 'eliminative materialism' (read the Churchlands). There, only matter exists. It is the opposite of pure idealism.

So there are 4 views here:

1. Pure idealism = only mind actually exists [Kastrup]
2. Mind-generative dualism = 'matter emerges from mind and then actually exists' [my own view]
3. Matter-generative dualism = 'emergent materialism' [Hasker]
4. Pure materialism = 'eliminative materialism' [Churchlands]

 

[Ian Thompson]

I'd like to sit down in an idealist chair, then a dualist chair. Would the chair from idealism feel vague and ethereal on my buttocks? Would the dualist chair be more solid and firm?

In the idealist chair, you only think you are sitting down. You are not actually, since you do not have actual body.
In the dualist chair, you think correctly that your body is actually sitting down.

 

[Sciborg_S_Patel]

I can sort of get behind mind-generated-matter, but it's not clear how much that would differ from what Kastrup is talking about.

How does the Phenomenal generate the Material? Is it more like Neutral Monism, whether the firmament is some kind of substance unifying Mind and Matter....like we're in the Mind of God?

 

[Ian Thompson]

I can sort of get behind mind-generated-matter, but it's not clear how much that would differ from what Kastrup is talking about.

How does the Phenomenal generate the Material? Is it more like Neutral Monism, whether the firmament is some kind of substance unifying Mind and Matter....like we're in the Mind of God?

According to Kastrup, our bodies do not actually exist. There is no physical world. Only the varying appearances and images that change as if bodies and physical things actually existed. But in reality they do not.
The appearances are the same, only causes and existing are different.
Kastrup: "there is only one subject, and you are that subject, and I am that subject too."

Minds are not just 'phenomenal'. They are made of intention and ideas and love. Love is the substance of mind, and the power to do things (such as produce the material).

It is not neutral monism, because minds are where the causes are, not matter. Not neutral at all: Minds are the base reality of all causes.

Not exactly 'in the Mind of God', because that makes us as ideas in some kind of idealism. Rather, both Minds and Matter actually exist, but all the causal generation comes from Mind.

 

[Formal Dining Room Set]

In the idealist chair, you only think you are sitting down. You are not actually, since you do not have actual body.
In the dualist chair, you think correctly that your body is actually sitting down.

But if idealism is true, then our concept of what is actually real, and what it means to sit down in a chair 'for real' - well that idea is gotten out of the 'illusion', which to me renders the chair differences meaningless. Like, we can talk about a chair not having been real because its existence was in a nighttime dream, but if there was only the dream... oh now I'm getting all Matrix. I don't know. I mean, clearly the world is real. It's where our understanding of what it means for something to be real comes from. I just don't see the difference. You know what I'm saying?

 

[Ian Thompson]

But if idealism is true, then our concept of what is actually real, and what it means to sit down in a chair 'for real' - well that idea is gotten out of the 'illusion', which to me renders the chair differences meaningless. Like, we can talk about a chair not having been real because its existence was in a nighttime dream, but if there was only the dream... oh now I'm getting all Matrix. I don't know. I mean, clearly the world is real. It's where our understanding of what it means for something to be real comes from. I just don't see the difference. You know what I'm saying?

Does it not matter to you what actually exists?
Does it not matter to you if you are in a Matrix that is completely convincing?

 

[RHC]

If we take (for example) that Mind generates Matter, then this is not pure idealism.
For then we have both Mind and Matter existing, and that is dualism of some kind (a 'mind-generative dualism' to be precise).

Pure idealism is that Mind generates the appearance of Matter. We have then a monism not dualism.

This is the trouble one gets in when trying to represent someone else's views. Ian I think Bernardo would more typically say either Mind exists in Matter or Matter exists in Mind. He is NOT a dualist.

Kastrup has to get into complicated stories about shared dreams, just to explain how two people in the same room can both agree that a chair is on the floor.

Not true at all. Don't you think postulating an entire material realm outside of mind is ultimate "complicated story" if Idealism can account for reality without it? Bernardo actually posted a pretty good video recently on materialist objections to idealism

I'd like to sit down in an idealist chair, then a dualist chair. Would the chair from idealism feel vague and ethereal on my buttocks? Would the dualist chair be more solid and firm?

Do material objects in your dreams always felt vague and ethereal? They seen pretty solid to me.

According to Kastrup, our bodies do not actually exist. There is no physical world. Only the varying appearances and images that change as if bodies and physical things actually existed.

This may be a semantic difference but no, according to Kastrup our bodies DO actually exist in the only way everything exists, as subjective experiences in mind. Under materialism our experience of the world is as you say "varying appearances and images" as they exist only as models generated in our brains.

Ian I look forward to reading Hasker and your own link on Mind generated materialism. I can certainly understand the appeal of Dualism, however at this point in my musing the parsimony of idealism is very appealing.

Bob

 

[Ian Thompson]

This is the trouble one gets in when trying to represent someone else's views. Ian I think Bernardo would more typically say either Mind exists in Matter or Matter exists in Mind. He is NOT a dualist.



Not true at all. Don't you think postulating an entire material realm outside of mind is ultimate "complicated story" if Idealism can account for reality without it? Bernardo actually posted a pretty good video recently on materialist objections to idealism

Do material objects in your dreams always felt vague and ethereal? They seen pretty solid to me.



This may be a semantic difference but no, according to Kastrup our bodies DO actually exist in the only way everything exists, as subjective experiences in mind. Under materialism our experience of the world is as you say "varying appearances and images" as they exist only as models generated in our brains.

Ian I look forward to reading Hasker and your own link on Mind generated materialism. I can certainly understand the appeal of Dualism, however at this point in my musing the parsimony of idealism is very appealing.

Bob

It is me that is the dualist, certainly not Kastrup.

In a sense, his idealism is irrefutable! You say so, explicitly.

A good discussion of this is at http://www.newdualism.org/papers/U.Meixner/Meixner-BPG2012-ch1.pdf

 

[Formal Dining Room Set]

Do material objects in your dreams always felt vague and ethereal? They seen pretty solid to me.

I often inhale N20 cartridges in my dreams.

 

[chuck.drake]

As elegant as Bernardo's expressions can be, his is just one restatement among many of the idea of Advaita Vedanta from the Upanishads.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism)

As mentioned in the podcast, Rick Archer regularly interviews folks who abide in an ongoing experiential coexistence with the non-dual. Anyone who earnestly desires to understand the true nature of reality through experience and who craves a release from the constraints of conceptions and language could do worse than to listen through the entire catalog of Buddha at the Gas Pump with an open mind and a true sense of curiosity.

Few here will like the absolute destination as it leads to annihilation of identity, to a reality where good and evil become meaningless, and where even our cherished notion of free will is called into question.

 

[ghost]

As elegant as Bernardo's expressions can be, his is just one restatement among many of the idea of Advaita Vedanta from the Upanishads.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism)

As mentioned in the podcast, Rick Archer regularly interviews folks who abide in an ongoing experiential coexistence with the non-dual. Anyone who earnestly desires to understand the true nature of reality through experience and who craves a release from the constraints of conceptions and language could do worse than to listen through the entire catalog of Buddha at the Gas Pump with an open mind and a true sense of curiosity.

Few here will like the absolute destination as it leads to annihilation of identity, to a reality where good and evil become meaningless, and where even our cherished notion of free will is called into question.

I have another theory. Maybe the brain that we inhabit (as a soul) is taking us for a ride. Anyway, I found some video of poltergeists. It argues my point that we have souls and that we are not annihilated when we die. We are not "whirlpools" that cease to exist when the water is gone.