Need Help: Upcoming Interview w/ Bernardo Kastrup

would you be willing to listen to a couple of his vids and see what you can find?
https://www.youtube.com/user/bernardokastrup

Sorry Alex, I missed this request, but I am listening to his video right now.

As I have said before , I suspect Idealism does form the ultimate explanation.

However, I think Bernardo doesn't seem to fully recognise that ANY universe would be compatible with Idealism A universe containing no life, a Harry Potter type universe, absolutely anything! Just as we can all imagine such universes to some level of detail.

At 15.24 mins, he compares a picture of a brain with a picture of a universe. In addition to the problems that he raised, we have to remember that signals in the brain travel in a matter of milliseconds, whereas signals in the universe at large would take up to the age of the universe to make their journey! With Bernardo's metaphors I am never sure where to draw the line between valid criticism and nitpicking!

Near the end, he discusses artificial sentience. I would argue that anything truly intelligent must also be sentient - so this would also be true artificial intelligence. He argues (more or less) that real AS (I would claim real AI) would make all non-materialists waver in their beliefs, and I would agree that it would be potentially a way to disprove Idealism. However, in practice AS/AI seems to be a game of endlessly trying to fool someone else (as in the Turing test). I was fooled once when I was taken to see a computer for the first time on a school trip. It printed out "Welcome David", and I actually felt moved - even though the guy who was showing us the computer hastened to add that it was a trick! Even as a postgraduate, logging in to the university computer had an almost spiritual feel to it for a week or two!

I don't think that conventional science will ever sign up to a theory that could explain anything we could imagine, which is why I feel that we need some theory that is better than materialism (would encompass more phenomena) that could act as a bridge between science and a larger reality. BTW, I think Michael Patterson is making a rather similar point.

David
 
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thx to all of you for participating in this discussion. I just finished the interview with Bernardo -- he was outstanding... as usual :)
When would you expect the podcast to appear - i.e. what is the time lag between interview and downloading the podcast?

David
 
I have found lately, that when using "Occams Branded Razors", I get the closest shave with the one labelled Idealism :)

David earlier seemed to argue idealism is ultimately "untestable" by definition, in that consciousness allows for anything to be possible.

However, after reading Bernardo's book, I saw that in fact it was the reductive Materialist hypothesis that could be seen as an un-testable or unfalsifiable paradigm.

Experiments in quantum mechanics (double slit, non locality etc), Psi data, Mediumship research and a boat load of other wonderful Skeptiko fodder we have all enjoyed hearing about and delving into really highlight to us the limitations of the Materialist theory. These phenomena are the very Falsification of materialism, the boundaries of it's explanatory power i.e. "if materialism is true, then the simple act of observation will have no effect on the electron, or ... then I can't communicate with my dead ancestor, or ... then I can't remote view this submarine being secretly built by the ruskies etc....", therefore materialism cannot be true. Or maybe at least, it can only be true in a limited sense, just like the earth being flat IS true in a limited sense, if I am levelling a garden for example. Perfectly flat, but contained within a broader paradigm of the Globe.

Actually as I am writing this, I am starting to get lost in tangles lol. Perhaps as a scientific theory idealism is unfalsifiable in that the only thing which may falsify the notion of idealism would be to discover something which did not have consciousness as it's base, foundation or essence. I have no idea how one would find this out.

Actually maybe that is a good question to ask ... "Can Idealism be formulated as a testable and falsifiable theory of reality, what would that look like, and how important is it that idealism as a theory be falsifiable?"

After all, that other humans around me are conscious in the same way that I am is an unfalsifiable assumption that I operate under (ala Descartes).

However, idealsim is still the sharpest razor in my family pack of Occams Razors ... so far :)
 
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