What are the chances that Bernardo will succeed in less than 20 years in changing the dominant paradigm from materialism to idealism?
I'd give it 50-50. The fly in the ointment is that physicalists are already retreating to panpsychism, which I see as a last ditch attempt to retain materialism. The prevalent version views consciousness as a
property of matter, starting with subatomic particles, which in some vague and unspecified way are able to aggregate and complexify -- the combination problem.
Idealism, on the other hand, views matter as the
appearance to dissociated entities (a.k.a. alters) of a transpersonal, cosmic consciousness (M@L) which is seen as being aware, but not aware that it's aware (or
metaconscious). If it
were metaconscious (the view of Abrahamic religions), then its consciousness would be like that of its alters, and the implication would be that in a way it purposely creates evil and suffering.
The postulate is that it doesn't: what creates them is the metaconscious, self-reflective minds of alters, or put another way, the very phenomenon of dissociation itself. This is more in line with non-Abrahamic religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism, which see evil and suffering ultimately as illusion, and the task of alters, through realising this, to escape the "wheel of Karma" by becoming "enlightened", i.e. by seeing the truth and realising that
Atman is Brahman. We are not separate and distinct from M@L; in Abrahamic terms, we're all "divine sparks".
To me, dissociation isn't something that M@L purposely elects to do; it's entirely automatic or "instinctual" -- what it does, always has done and always will do (it can't help it because it's in its very nature). The idea that it does it as a metaconscious game to stave off cosmic boredom, though seductive, is in this view erroneous. It doesn't
purposely forget itself to enjoy and be entertained by its self-rediscovery, as
Alan Watts' charming story for children has it. Being purposive requires metaconsciousness rather than "simple" (not to be confused with powerless) pure consciousness/awareness.
M@L "creates" metaconsciousness through dissociation; only has access to metacognition through its alters, necessarily enabling only partial knowledge/understanding of the world. Were it complete, we'd be living in a world that would seem very different from what it currently appears to be. In Abrahamic terms, it might be heaven rather than seeming hell.
M@L is coming to know more about itself through the medium of its alters. I doubt it could ever come to know itself completely; however, one of its instinctive and innate drives would be to constantly "try" to do so. This could be what leads to the appearance of evolution, which is associated with the concept of memory. Organismal evolution is evidenced by the fossil record; cultural evolution by archeological evidence. Latterly, this includes written, in addition to other artifactual, evidence. At an individual level, people can metaconsciously recollect (and possibly act on the basis of) what has happened in their own lifetimes.
Anyway, enough for now. I'll just add that I have recently viewed a video about David Bohm and his "implicate order" that seems to gibe to some extent with all this and much else that concerns our discussions here at Skeptiko. Here it is:
Bohm tried for years to change the accepted paradigm, but met stiff resistance from the scientific establishment, which simply ignored ideas that to my mind overlap somewhat with those of Bernardo. Nonetheless, both videos like this and Bernardo's work can't any longer be considered peremptorily dismissible. Bernardo's views, after all, have been published in highly respected journals such as the
Scientific American. There are definite signs that the dam is leaking, albeit not yet burst. At some point, and it could be quite soon, there might be revolutionary change...