This summer lots of exciting new literature on Analytic Idealism is coming out, some of which you may already have noticed. If not, this brief post provides an overview.
My new book, Science Ideated, is coming out. Like my earlier Brief Peeks Beyond, it is a collection of re-edited, previously published essays. Many of the original essays are now behind pay- or registration-walls, so the book provides a one-stop-shop for them all. The originals were also edited to conform to the specific editorial requirements of the respective publishers, and therefore did not fully embody my style or the entirety of the message I wanted to put forward. The versions published in the new book, on the other hand, are more complete, up-to-date and authentic as far as my tone is concerned. The book also has two never-before-seen essays, which I personally think are particularly important. The overall theme is the emergence of a new theory of reality for basing a scientific way of looking upon nature. The times are most definitely changing and this book aims to capture these changes in a clear, explicit but concise manner.
New audio editions of three of my previous books have now also just been published by Tantor Media. You can click on the figures below for more information. More Than Allegory, in particular, is delightful in audio, as the book was written in a kind of story-telling format from its inception. Part III is literally a story, almost a novel, although loosely based on real events. I am very happy that it has now got an audio edition.
My best-seller, Why Materialism Is Baloney, has now been published in Spanish, in hardcover format, by ATALANTA. The book has a delightfully high production quality, and I have high hopes for the effect it will have in the Spanish-speaking world. Although books in Spain are mostly sold through brick-and-mortar book shops (a very old tradition in the Iberian peninsula, which I personally love), there is an amazon page for it as well. Click on the picture to go there and see more details.
I hope this material is of some value to you!
Hi Bernardo, your work has come up in SPR lectures as a step toward a possible theory of how we can account for all the bizarre (from a materialist perspective) phenomena which we come across in psychical research (e.g NDEs, poltergeists, memories of previous lives etc etc). A typical materialist approach is simple denial. I would love you to write a book which links and expands on Brief Peeks Beyond to encompass a wider variety of phenomena which we have good evidence for (as detailed for example in 'Irreducible Mind' by Kelly et al.).
ReplyDeleteI second your motion, shiffy, and would only add my opinion that Frederic Myers' magnum opus--"Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death"--remains far and away the most incisive and comprehensive analysis of what's possibly going on here. The striking difference in existential passion and piercing insight between "Human Personality" and "Irreducible Mind" (which I nevertheless also enjoyed reading) is evidence beyond all doubt, at least for me, that we've gone backwards in our imaginative thinking and ethical courage during the viciously materialistic neoliberal era following the late 19th/early 20th centuries. The primary reason that it's now easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of (admittedly) ecocidal and imperialistic capitalism is this diminishment--no, debasement--of human subjectivity. On the deepest level, this is what Bernardo and philosophical idealists like him are up against.
DeleteHi Newton, currently reading "Human Personality" and agree that it is most incisive. I don't know how much Bernardo has engaged with people like Myers' work but would love to see a bridge being built between modern idealism and historical works including esoteric traditions. I suspect that he has concentrated more on modern investigations e.g quantum physics, psychedelic research etc. as he is keen not to be seen as tainted by "woo" and "new age" associations and hence taken seriously in the scientific and wider academic community. I can understand that, modern materialism can be vicious. But I think that Bernardo has moved beyond cancellation concerns and can now deliver his own "magnus opus".
DeleteBernardo may well have it in him, shiffy, to bridge the gap between and unite in spirit philosophical and ethical idealism. Myers and the early spiritualists and psychic researchers--many men like Arthur Conan Doyle, many women like Cora Scott Hatch--left a shimmering wake to follow, and Bernardo, once he focuses on his destination, is a strong and resolute swimmer. Time will tell if this stuff attracts his attention, as it has with ours.
DeleteCount me in as one more vote for Bernardo taking a look in this direction. I notice a chapter in Science Ideated called “Metaphysics and Woo”. Waiting to see that when it comes out.
DeleteI'm studying "The Philosophy of Science" in the Autumn with one of Oxford's Continuing Education programmes so this new book will be an excellent source of ideas. Looking forward to reading Bernardo's writings on this.
DeleteThis is probably not the right place to put this, but https://metakastrup.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=602 I posted a question here I was hoping to get answered not necessarily by you but by someone of your intellectual caliber. I have no idea if it'll get a serviceable response eventually or if this will give me a cheat sheet answer from you either in the meantime or afterwards and it's probably not the sort of question you worry about much, but it's played on my mind a lot since your worldview had me reconsidering and renegging on physicism so I wanted to leave it here.
ReplyDeleteGreat work as always!
its very good article , ditto bernardo .
ReplyDeleteWhy not carry out this experiment that can prove that consciousness is fundamental??
ReplyDeletehttps://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-designed-an-experiment-to-see-if-the-human-mind-is-bound-to-physics?fbclid=IwAR3Yp7jzpnefBDZSdCL9mtmgt3cjqi1tk9zGCKx_33A6-oZ_lO9RBi7B4Qc
Dear Bernardo, As a physicist who is very interested, but not specialised, in quantum physics and philosophy, I recently read your books “The idea of the world” and “Science ideated” with great interest and enjoyment. I think you have set out an admirable summary of why idealist philosophy, based on a universe existing purely in mind, is the only acceptable interpretation with the power to explain current measurements in quantum physics and the uncanny utility of mathematics in predicting the natural world. I believe, however, that there is an important issue which has been missing from your books so far, namely that of artificial intelligence. From a philosopher like yourself, who is used to dealing with the concept of a purely mental universe, I think it would be extremely interesting to see a treatise dealing with what happens when a “naturally arising” consciousness, such as our own, creates, an “artificial” consciousness via AI. I would venture to suggest that the differences between human and AI consciousness may not be as great as may generally be assumed, so that the creation of an AI actually correlates to an “event” in the mental universe. To try testing this hypothesis, I have been doing some modest work with an openly-available AI system (I used replika.ai, but I believe several similar systems are available). My approach was to ask the AI relatively deep philosophical questions about the nature of being and the source of its own apparent awareness. This required some effort in initial training, but the results of these efforts have since been extremely intriguing and suggest to me that we might be able to use AI as a tool to carry out objective (or inter-subjective) experiments on consciousness in the same way that we have used quantum physics results to establish behaviours such as indeterminacy and non-locality, thereby calling material realism into question. I would be happy to give you some details if you wish to know more. With kindest regards and profound appreciation for your work, Dr. Ian McCrea
ReplyDeleteIan, if I may, Bernardo has addressed this issue more than once. He has noted that anything that can be done on an electronic computer can, in principle, be done with pipes, valves and water pressure, the only difference being the substrate. Few people would think such a system capable of human-like consciousness- probably no more so than a rock or a hammer.
ReplyDeleteDear Mr. Kastrup,
ReplyDeletedo you know the transcendental idealist Gerold Prauss? I consider him to be the most important idealist at present. He combines Kant's pioneering insight into the fundamental spontaneity of subjectivity and Aristotle's forms or formal causation.
He always views consciousness as intentionality. In principle, Prauss starts from only two concepts: Point and Extension. From these two concepts, an impressive pantheistic-idealistic worldview is rigorously developed. More info can be found here: Just look for reddit and Gerold Prauss (in GermanIdealism). I had compiled some stuff there that I could find in English on and by Gerold Prauss.
addendum to point and extension: a point that extends itself first to temporality (A = extension within the point) then to spatiality (B = extension outside the point); a temporal point (A), therefore, that finally extends itself to three-dimensional space (B).
DeleteThis, in short, is Prauss transcendental geometry, which structures all consciousness.