When we die and the meaning of life | dr. Bernardo Kastrup

Part 6 of Essentia Foundation's and Keytoe Academy's joint course on analytic idealism and its implications.

[thinkology]

WHAT a contribution, Brilliant, love this insight! Not for nothing...

[charlesodonnell]

This is like listening to a modern day John Scotus Eriugena. Worth every minute!

[siriusfun]

This was a most welcome addition to my subscription feed today. Many thanks to Bernardo and Keytoe.

Bernardo, I'd love to hear you and Sam Harris debate these things, and I imagine many other viewers would, as well. Can someone make that happen? Cheers!

[jasonporteous]

Thank you Bernardo for taking the time to open up the minds of the masses.

[oriskany]

Bernardo Kastrup I've read all your books and I follow your postings on your website. I really enjoy your work, an it's fun to see Essentia take shape. These videos are perfect bite size segments for the audience to get an introduction to this material. Good initiative.

[CHR]

Analytic idealism is a fascinating philosophy/theory which reminds me greatly of pratyabhijñā ("re-cognition", an idealistic monistic theistic philosophy in Kashmir Shaivism - a Hindu tantric tradition).

They however go one step further in pratyabhijñā, suggesting that core subjectivity (Śiva) is in fact not identical to Nature / the universe (Śakti), but beyond even Her/it. So not physical, bound by spacetime, energy, matter, and laws of physics, but "meta-physical".

In the example of the dissociated dreamer that re-associates themselves upon awakening, there still is, throughout both phases, the silent presence of pure consciousness that is witnessing the whole thing. First as the dissociated dreamer, then as the re-associated whole person. This pure consciousness is the real core subject (Śiva), not only present in that singular perspective but in every perspective in existence across all of space and time. This would include the perspectives of the other dissociated characters of the dream world, the perspective of the dream world itself, that of the awakened person, the perspectives of every other person ever and their dream self, non-selves, and dream world, of other animals, of plants, rocks, water... and finally the perspective of Nature Herself / the universe itself (Śakti). All but perhaps absolutely nothing, no-perspective, non-experience, which may be the "blindspot" of pure consciousness due to it being its essence (which should actually be non-existent, therefore the "perhaps", the "may be"). The possible blindspot that - much like a blackhole - may or may not suggest the existence of something beyond it. Thus may there after all be something emerging from (absolutely) nothing.

What's also fascinating is that a similar ancient idealistic monistic theistic philosophy can be found in the West in Neoplatonism and Jewish Kabbalah. Respectively, they call the core subject / pure consciousness / Śiva "the One" and "Kether", the pure mind that directly emerge from it "nous" and "Chokhma", and Nature / the universe / Śakti "world-soul"/"Binah".

[greensleeves]

There cannot be a meaning relevant to "you" if "life is not about you". This phrase, life is not about you, is just another enigma variation on materialism. In other words, there is an other-force, call it nature or mind at large, that does not have your interests at heart. If it has interests of its own that are not yours, then there cannot be meaning.

There can only be meaning if private meaning is a subset of this mind-at-large meaning, which is possible, but not what Kastrup articulates.

[hydrorix]

If we are generating our dream space, imagine how much more Universal Consciousness is capable of in creating our waking life.

[DistortedEmpath]

In islam Allah say we day every night. I love your understanding of dream avatars

[bayreuth]

Bernardo Kastrup has admitted in previous podcast appearances that it is possible that some kind of dissociation might continue after death. Indeed, the evidence from NDEs seems to support this notion (when individuals have no brain activity they report having incredible experiences of an afterlife in which some sense of individuality remains). It seems to me that if my core subjectivity remains while I (with all my memories, experiences, love, etc) disappear forever then this is not sufficient to give us meaning and purpose.

[glenhuman]

Thanks for your experience of wisdom and sharing it!

[SassButtersworth]

Bernardo, I love your work, and your theory. I have a question, though. You have argued that consciousness does not depend on matter, or bodies or brains, by, in part, reciting numerous studies that show cognition and consciousness are not always correlated to brain neuro-activity. So consciousness/cognition doesn’t need a brain, right? Brains are just what show up on our dashboards, within consciousness.

So why, then, do you posit that META-cognition is dependent on brains, specifically human brains, or, possibly some other biologically evolutionary object?

Is it because you don’t accept any of the other existing evidence of dis-embodied meta-cognitive consciousness?

But even if you don’t take those data seriously, if you just look at the logic of what we know about consciousness, about mind… we know that mind is inexhaustibly imaginative. Why would mind only evolve or only meta-cognate within one particular dashboard? Mind is by its nature limitless. And if all there is is mind, without the constraints of time and space to govern reality, then there are no limits, presumably. I can imagine endless possibilities of worlds and ways to think, and I don’t even have aware access to the full mind of reality!

I’m just not sure why you cling to biology, a category of objects on our dashboard within consciousness, when it comes to the possibilities of meta consciousness? Why would the pilot’s dashboard set the limits on the sky?

[SidePocket]

It's the body that dies, There is no entity in the body to die. This is way nothing arose to you before the birth of the body and why nothing will arise to you after the body dies. Consciousness and awareness come and go and it's the absent of conscious awareness with a capital "A" that fades away into the Absolute. Pure stillness/eternal bliss for no one.

[costablanca]

In the beginning was Logos (word, knowledge, wisdom, consciousness, meaning et alii); cf. Joh. 1, 1ff. Thank you & blessings 🙌

[PremKumarKarunakaran]

Generally, when we wake up, we might remember a dream or two. If death is the end of disassociation, will the entity after death, remembers every living being that was dead before. Considering there is only one undisassociated mind. Any thoughts on this ?

[MichaelJones-ekvx]

When we die, you are associative memories and feelings remain associated?

[reydg]

In my sleep I delve into another reality, even though its physics is unstable. Whilst in my death, I don't know. But what I'm sure of is we are a fraction of the vast amount of mental reality. And perhaps in death we transmute our energy back to what we were originally. Perhaps, the origin that managed to create and co-create everything that we see, within and without the human spectrum.

[JamesBS]

Regarding death, what he says is in contrast to the peace and love reported by NDEs.

[m.guedes]

"My core subjective will survive". How can we make such an affirmation without any way to attest to it? My atoms will survive. Some of my cells will survive. My microbiome will survive. But those individual elements aren't me. Is there something beyond faith that sustains such affirmation?

[branandubh]

I don't think the scythe is for harvesting but for mowing.