Metaphysical Idealism with Bernardo Kastrup

In this video, rebooted from 2018, he explains his own nuanced brand of philosophical idealism. He distinguishes his perspective from that of the British empiricist, Bishop George Berkeley, and notes that he draws inspiration from the German idealist, Arthur Schopenhauer. He claims that the logical contradictions ensuing from materialism can all be resolved. He also describes a series of findings in different areas of brain science that he finds consistent with an idealistic perspective.

New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in "parapsychology" ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He is Co-Director of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science.

(Recorded on November 13, 2018)

LINKS TO OTHER BOOKS BY BERNARDO KASTRUP:

[NewThinkingAllowed]

Statement of Comment Etiquette for New Thinking Allowed

[progressivelibertarian]

So cool that he's watched you since the old days Jeff!

[saxassaxas]

Mishlove and BK…: what a way to start my morning. ❤️❤️

[progressivelibertarian]

Love his work! And Donald Hoffman too!

[robbennett]

Thank you Jeffrey & Bernardo. I'm not an academic, yet this is the most enjoyable podcast.

[spiralsun]

I’m not very into philosophy, but by the average standard of that I am very well versed. Even the philosophers I never read, because I thought through those stages. I think through them. What happens is I have a brain which absolutely explodes the tiniest thing into extremely coherently interconnected wholes in motion. So I already understand things when I learn them—I learn another way of speaking, an application of the meaning and knowledge. Nietzsche said “it takes thunder and heavenly fireworks to speak to feeble and dormant senses, but the voice of beauty speaks softly—it steals into only the most awakened souls” and that always resonated with me. Something seen in childhood—normally out of the corner of a child’s eye, as Pink Floyd sings in “the wall” is something that forever slams into my being, explodes forever in my mind, god speaking in all things, a never ending river as wide as an infinite ocean. I understand poetry as technical descriptions of the wedding of a human mind with god. The eversion of the topology of a perfect sphere, an eye in vision perceiving the world upside down inside. The hollow earth theory in flesh. The world in a grain of sand. ❤ I lapse into poetry to describe the world, the one I love, and my joy being in it.❤Thank you both so very much. ❤
That’s what I notice about the universe—the built in volitional states. I see it in all evolutionary forms, in the technology of humans, in the geometry of things, in gravity, everything. I
Loved when Bernardo talked about that. ❤

[leahlincoln]

I really enjoyed this video one of my two favorite people I especially like the way Ketsrup and Levin have dissolved the ego in their work their honesty has resulted in much truth that I really appreciate thank you❤GEM ❤ I think this is an appropriate place to reveal my signature to all of my writing none of which is published or known is the acronym that I signed in this post the acronym is defined as Great Endless Mind this is the first place that I have written this I'm too unknown for anybody to be interested I just think this is a great place to announce I've been using this acronym for over 60 years I started using it at about 11 years old❤GEM ❤

[S.G.Wallner]

I've always wondered, why Bernardo, and admittedly myself, tend to underestimate or discount the potential richness of (mind at large)'s phenomenal states. We do this to other living beings that are a mystery to us as well, and even to ourselves.

The quality and nature of time, in the phenomena of mind at large could be an interesting point to contemplate.

[sci-fiblog]

That's so interesting... I can totally understand that Jeff couldn't stop the interview... 👍😁🙌✨

[grantlawrence]

I am a dualist along the Sankhya yoga Indian Philosophy. In that my thoughts and inner world as well as the outer world is separate from spirit or higher self that exist in relation to each other but that the soul or higher self doesn't have to be bound to it but illuminates it as pure being.

[tobiasgunning]

Always start with a deffo, love it, creative imagination, continuity of intent, and experienceal knowledge, in both the literal sense as well as metaphorically speaking. Committed patience to playing out the tape, right?

[solarpoweredafricanvegansp]

Oh wow!

You still do this show!?

I remember when you did U.G. Krishnamurti back in the 80’s lol

[OuroboricIdealism]

Dr. Samuel Johnson famously appealed to the stone in an attempt to show, against Berkeley’s subjective idealism, the transcendental reality of mind-independent matter. But, of course, Johnson’s appeal to the stone inevitably fails because Berkeley does not deny that there is the perception of stones or pain—Berkeley only denies the transcendental reality of sensible qualities, which transcendental reality Johnson’s appeal to the stone egregiously fails to establish. In the same way, Kastrupian analytic idealism entails an appeal to the stone against solipsism (Kastrup insists that, on the basis of apparent intersubjective agreement, “There is an objective world out there beyond our individual minds”): the solipsist does not deny that there is the appearance of intersubjective agreement (and appearances are representations in me), he only either denies (dogmatic solipsism) or doubts (problematic solipsism) the transcendental reality of other minds or a mind at large. Appealing to the stone against solipsism, Kastrup tells us that “There is an objective world out there beyond our individual minds” because of the appearance of intersubjective agreement. But, of course, appealing to apparent intersubjective agreement (appearances are immanent representations in me) in attempt to defend the transcendental reality of mind at large or other minds is, besides begging the question, a blatant appeal to the stone against solipsism: the solipsist, whether he is a dogmatic or problematic solipsist, does not deny the immanent apparent intersubjective agreement that Kastrup is appealing to; the solipsist only denies (dogmatic solipsism) or doubts (problematic solipsism) the transcendental reality of mind at large or other minds that Kastrup cannot possibly sufficiently substantiate a priori or a posteriori. Kastrup makes the same category error as Johnson: he attempts to refute a position which either denies or doubts transcendental reality (dogmatic and problematic solipsism respectively) by appealing to immanent representations, when the very question at issue is the relationship between these immanent representations and any purported transcendental reality. Not only does Kastrup’s system begin by assuming what it needs to prove, but what it needs to prove is, by its very nature, impossible to prove sufficiently a priori or a posteriori. Analytic idealism thus reveals itself as doubly flawed: it both begs the question and the question it begs is one that cannot be answered within the constraints of possible knowledge.

Of course, just because the transcendental reality of a mind at large or other minds cannot possibly be sufficiently substantiated a priori or a posteriori, it does not follow that one cannot uphold the regulative validity of the idea of other minds on the basis of practical reason—while the pre-critical dogmatist like Kastrup may get caught up in what Kant called “transcendental illusion” and illegitimately confuse what can only ever be regulative ideas for constitutive, the mature critical philosopher will be aware that knowledge is limited to experience and that the ideas of reason (including the Kastrupian idea of a mind at large) function as regulative principles that guide our inquiry but cannot provide constitutive knowledge. As Kant noted in his third Kritik, teleological judgments about ends have regulative validity only, such that although one may think of apparent living beings acting volitionally for ends it does not necessarily follow that they therefore really do so. The distinction between regulative and constitutive principles is precisely what distinguishes critical from pre-critical philosophy, and Kastrup’s failure to grasp this distinction places him squarely in the pre-critical camp. Kastrup may appeal to the stone all he pleases, but no amount of appealing to immanent apparent intersubjective agreement will ever be sufficient to substantiate his metaphysical claim of the transcendental reality of mind at large or other minds—to say nothing of the fact that, not only can Mr. Kastrup not at all appeal to experience in defense of his metaphysical idealism (for “as concerns the sources of metaphysical cognition, its very concept implies that they cannot be empirical”), but the transcendental reality of mind at large and other minds cannot even possibly be sufficiently substantiated a priori or a posteriori to begin with (Kastrupian analytic idealism inescapably is groundless and inescapably is pre-critical dogmatism).

[greenleaf]

When you talk about perception, you're referring to only physical perception and limiting yourself. We have inner senses that perceive the non-physical. For example, one day I perceived unexpectedly, by way of inner senses, my step ladder in non-physical form standing in my room. It was a milky white form.

[greenleaf]

Many of these ideas are the same as those in the Seth books, channeled by Jane Roberts in the '60s and '70s. Answers to Bernardo's questions can be found in those books.