Response to Rupert Sheldrake's criticisms of Analytic Idealism

06-Dec-2024 update: Rupert's rejoinder to the response below has now been published and can be found here.

Over the past several days, multiple people have commented in my blog and social media spaces about criticisms of Analytic Idealism made by Dr. Rupert Sheldrake in the Theories of Everything podcast/YouTube channel. Before today, I hadn't seen the video and thus had largely dismissed most of those comments as probably exaggerated, as I've known Rupert for years, and know him to be a careful, nuanced thinker and an impeccable gentleman. Today, however, after receiving yet another comment, I looked up the segment in question, which I link to below (see time stamp 8:14 min).

I confess to have been taken aback by this video. I shall try to respond to Rupert's criticisms as objectively as I can, but I will likely fail at times. For I have read, respected, and admired Rupert's work for years before I even started publishing my own. His attack comes as an entirely unexpected curveball from someone quite close to my philosophical (and even personal) heart, and thus brings up emotions that are best left out of analytic discourse.

Here are my responses, in the same chronological order with which Rupert's criticisms are laid out in the video above.

FOR SCIENCE, IT'S BUSINESS AS USUAL

Rupert seems to consider it a weakness of Analytic Idealism that it doesn't contradict science. I, on the other hand, consider it not as much a virtue as a prerequisite for any tenable metaphysics. For science has worked phenomenally well in attempting to model and predict the behavior of nature for the past four centuries. Any metaphysics implying that science should not work is thus simply wrong, on overwhelming empirical grounds. Science surely doesn't replace level-headed metaphysics, as some scientists have naively maintained, but as a modelling and predictive method it obviously works. And Rupert, as a scientist, surely knows this.

I have never been anti-science, much to the contrary. To my dismay, more and more I realize that a significant minority of my readers thought of me, for some reason, as being in some kind of anti-science crusade. I even expressed my befuddlement about this recently, as I don't understand where this vastly mistaken impression comes from. It has never been correct. Anyone paying attention to my output will definitely have noticed that I ground much of what I say in scientific results, and have done so from the outset.

Perhaps Rupert's point is that Analytic Idealism doesn't sufficiently open new degrees of freedom or avenues of investigation for science. But if so, that is simply wrong. Over the years, I have tirelessly emphasized precisely these new avenues for scientific investigation; so often, in fact, that I don't even know where to start quoting from my corpus.

In general lines, because, under Analytic Idealism, our minds are simply dissociated from the cognitive space that constitutes the rest of nature, it is entirely conceivable that factors that weaken the dissociation could lead to phenomena such as forms of telepathy and clairvoyance. I never elaborated at length on this merely because I am not an expert in parapsychology and do not have the background required to say something of distinguished value here. I am also not personally very interested in extraordinary phenomena because I find the ordinary mysterious and confusing enough. I say this with no prejudice or judgment; it's just how I feel. Either way, if Rupert's point was that Analytic Idealism doesn't open the doors to new avenues of investigation in science, such as those explored in his own work, then that is false.

Rupert highlights that Analytic Idealism is still naturalist and reductionist. That is entirely correct. I think the world unfolds spontaneously, according to its own inherent dispositions (i.e., the observed regularities we call the 'laws of nature'), and without supernatural intervention from an outside agent beyond the boundaries of nature itself. I am promoting an analytic ontology, not a religion. And I think reductionism, if interpreted correctly (namely, that complex things can be explained in terms of simpler ones, as opposed to the vulgar view of reductionism according to which big things must be reducible to small things), is more than likely true; or should at the very least be the operationally preferred avenue for modeling nature, since it has worked well for a few centuries now. The only view my naturalism and reductionism contradict is some form of Abrahamic theism, literally interpreted. But if Rupert's criticism is motivated by his theistic views, I think they are inappropriate in the context of science and philosophy; that is, his criticisms don't count. What he sees as a liability, I see as a strength.

ANALYTIC IDEALISM IS JUST A FORM OF PHYSICALISM

Prior to today, I could never have imagined that such a superficial misunderstanding could come from a nuanced and careful thinker and communicator as I have known Rupert to be. It is an in-your-face misrepresentation of Analytic Idealism, a vulgar straw man, conveyed in a confusingly enthusiastic, authoritative, and definitive tone. I'd have expected him to, at the very least, have preambled his unfortunate mischaracterization with words like, "as far as I understand it," or "insofar as I know from briefly looking at it," or something to that effect. That would have been a bare minimum, for the sake of transparency, caution, and honesty. But he presented himself, in both tone and demeanour, as an expert thoroughly acquainted with the thing he was liberally mischaracterizing.

The only metaphysical equivalence between Analytic Idealism and mainstream Physicalism is that both acknowledge the existence of an external world beyond our individual minds. But this is surely hard to contest, short of some form of solipsism. Even the emerging physics of first-person perspective (see video below, for instance) indirectly acknowledges some ontological ground common to different observers, and wherein observers appear to one another, even if such common ground isn't strictly physical. Under Analytic Idealism, it is mental, what we call 'physicality' being simply how we cognitively represent this common ontological ground upon observations. In other words, physicality is a dashboard representation, upon measurement, of the real and mental world that is measured. But this mental world measured is really real; it is really out there and doesn't depend on observation. After all, there is something that is measured. Why would Rupert expect anything else? How could anything else be defended in an analytically or empirically viable manner?

Beyond this, Analytic Idealism is entirely distinct from mainstream Physicalism, to such a vast and obvious degree it seems pointless to explain further to anyone who has ever become modestly acquainted with my output. Yet, I do acknowledge that thinking of Analytic Idealism as in some sense equivalent to Physicalism is a common misconception among superficial and careless 'social media pundits.' But I know Rupert not to be one of those. Be that as it may, I responded to this misconception in many places, most notably in my new book, Analytic Idealism in a Nutshell. I quote the relevant passage below:

“Well, Bernardo, if all science is still valid under Analytic Idealism, and there is still a world out there independent of us, then Analytic Idealism is basically Physicalism under a different label; it all boils down to the same thing.”

This astonishingly shortsighted perspective is surprisingly common. If you identified with it, don’t blame yourself too harshly. The reason why the perspective is shortsighted is that it wholly ignores the colossal differences in the implications of Analytic Idealism when compared to mainstream Physicalism. But our culture rewards quick judgment calls and, therefore, discourages the depth of thinking required to explore the implications of new ideas.

Under Analytic Idealism, your life, your metabolism, is not the cause or generator of your consciousness, but merely what your private mentation looks like from the outside; i.e., from across your dissociative boundary. Life is what the dissociation looks like. Therefore, the end of life is the end of the dissociation, not the end of consciousness.

The end of a dissociative process is also not the end of the mental states held within the dissociative boundary; it is merely the end of the dissociative boundary. This means that the mental states previously held by the alter—your lifetime of memories and insights—are released into the broader cognitive context of nature-at-large upon death. Our hard-earned memories and insights—typically the result of much suffering—are not lost upon death but, instead, become available to nature-at- large. Contrast this with the physicalist view: when you die, all your memories and insights are just lost forever, and all that suffering was for nothing. Clearly, these two scenarios aren’t even remotely similar, and their differences are of great relevance to our values, to how we make our life choices, and generally experience our lives.

In addition, although Analytic Idealism preserves— arguably even strengthens—the rationale for drugs and surgery in medicine, it opens an additional avenue for the treatment of organic ailments: talk therapy and related practices. For under Analytic Idealism, the body is not a mere mechanism distinct from mind, but the extrinsic appearance of mental processes. Therefore, any organic ailment is, at root, a mental ailment. This doesn’t mean that you can cure cancer with positive thinking—as we’ve discussed before, the ego complex is naturally dissociated from autonomous functions, and thus has limited causal influence on them. But it does mean that it’s sensible to research whether we can reach further down into our physiology through psychological means, so to address some ‘physical’ ailments. This, in fact, could be the missing account of the so-called placebo effect, which under Physicalism is just a vexing anomaly. Can we deliberately induce the effect through psychological methods, now that a coherent metaphysical framework validates and accounts for it?

I have already explored the implications of Analytic Idealism at length in previous writings, so won’t repeat all that here. It suffices to mention—as I did above—what I believe to be two of the more important ones. The invitation to you— especially if you feel tempted to regard Analytic Idealism as equivalent to Physicalism in any important sense—is to think about the different implications of these very different views. What changes for you if you understand yourself to be not a physical mechanism, but a mental being, whose mental contents and core subjectivity will never be lost to nature?

 

ANALYTIC IDEALISM MAKES NO EXPERIMENTAL PREDICTIONS THAT DISTINGUISH IT FROM PHYSICALISM

This is another rather crass and patently false misrepresentation, despite having been communicated with a tone of authority and definiteness. Again, I recently tackled this common but remarkably superficial straw man in my latest book. Here is the relevant passage:

“Isn’t Analytic Idealism unfalsifiable?”

Before directly answering this question, it’s important to notice that, when Karl Popper proposed falsifiability as a requirement for scientific theories, he was talking about, well, scientific theories—i.e., theories that model and predict the behavior of nature, not what nature is. A scientific theory must be falsifiable in the sense that it must make predictions about nature’s future behavior that can be checked against experimental outcomes. If this is not the case, the theory is unfalsifiable and, therefore, not a proper scientific theory.

But when it comes to Analytic Idealism—and mainstream Physicalism too—we’re not talking about a scientific theory that predicts nature’s future behavior; instead, we’re talking about metaphysical statements about what nature is. The criteria for choosing the best theory in this case is more diverse than falsifiability: they entail internal logical consistency, contextual coherence, conceptual parsimony, explanatory power, and empirical adequacy. The latter criterion means that the implications of a proper metaphysical theory must not contradict established science. And insofar as established science is falsifiable, a metaphysical theory must indeed relate to falsifiability, but only in an indirect way.

The applicable question is thus whether Analytic Idealism is consistent with established science. And the answer is an overwhelming ‘yes.’ As we have discussed earlier, established science has shown that—short of unfalsifiable theoretical fantasies for which there is no positive evidence—physical entities do not have standalone existence, being instead a product of measurement. This is exactly what Analytic Idealism maintains, since all ‘physical’ entities are dashboard representations of measurements, which only endure while a measurement is being performed. And it directly contradicts mainstream Physicalism, which presupposes precisely that physical entities, for being fundamental, must have standalone existence independent of observation.

Established science has also shown that there are cases— such as during the psychedelic state, as discussed earlier— in which brain activity decreases, while the richness and intensity of experience increases. This is at least very hard to make sense of under mainstream Physicalism, according to which there is nothing to experience but brain activity. But it can be comfortably accommodated by Analytic Idealism, according to which brain activity is just what inner experience looks like, from an external perspective; i.e., it is but an image of inner experience. And unlike causes, images don’t need to be complete: they don’t need to reveal everything there is to know about the phenomenon they represent. In the case of psychedelics, the images leave quite a bit out.

Moreover, psychedelics are only one case in which, contrary to physicalist expectations, brain function and the richness of experience are inversely correlated. As we have seen above, constriction of blood flow to the brain due to strangulation or G-forces—which reduce brain metabolism due to oxygen deprivation, or hypoxia—can lead to psychedelic-like trances and “memorable dreams.” Hyperventilation—which also constricts blood flow to the brain because it induces high blood alkalinity levels—can lead to life-transforming insights, a phenomenon leveraged by some therapeutic breathwork techniques. Even outright brain damage can lead, in some specific cases, to richer inner experience. In a condition called ‘acquired savant syndrome’ (look it up), some people who have suffered brain damage because of head trauma incurred during car accidents, lightning strikes, and even bullet wounds to the head, suddenly manifest extraordinary cognitive skills such as artistic talents, the ability to perform complex calculations almost instantaneously, and perfect memory. A large group of Vietnam war veterans who suffered damage to the frontal or parietal lobes has also been shown to have a higher propensity to life-transforming religious experiences (see: “Neural correlates of mystical experience,” by Irene Cristofori et al., published in Neuropsychologia, 2016). Even patients who suffered brain damage because of surgery for the removal of tumors experience significantly higher “self-transcendence” (see: “The spiritual brain: Selective cortical lesions modulate human self- transcendence,” by Cosimo Urgesi et al., published in Neuron, 2010). Moreover, a group of so-called ‘trance mediums’ displayed significantly reduced activity in areas of the brain related to reasoning and language processing, precisely when engaged in activities that require high reasoning and language processing (see: “Neuroimaging during trance state: A contribution to the study of dissociation,” by Julio Fernando Peres et al., published in PLoS ONE, 2012).

I could go on and on, but you get the picture. Although most of the times brain activity directly correlates with the richness of inner experience, in some specific but broad and consistent cases the opposite is true. These cases are the black swans that disprove Physicalism and substantiate Analytic Idealism.

The scientific evidence discussed above not only addresses the question of falsifiability for Analytic Idealism and mainstream Physicalism, it also provides positive empirical confirmation for Analytic Idealism across very different fields of science.

Clearly, Analytic Idealism is one of the most empirically-substantiated metaphysical hypotheses out there. It has 50 years of experimental evidence in Foundations of Physics going for it and, insofar as it lines up with, and provides metaphysical ground to, Integrated Information Theory, also decades in Neuroscience of Consciousness. Remarkably, Rupert's criticism here is the very opposite of the truth; a truth he has been overwhelmingly in a position to know for the past many years.

ANALYTIC IDEALISM IS AN ARMCHAIR THEORY

The use of the "armchair theory" stick has historically been meant to be derogatory and insulting, in both science and philosophy, which Rupert is very well aware of. It is entirely unnecessary in the context of argument-based, constructive exchanges meant to advance a debate between people who respect each other and each other's work. In short, it is the equivalent of a low blow. Why Rupert would choose to deliberately, and utterly unnecessarily, insult me is beyond my comprehension, for I have never been anything but kind and supportive of his work, and of him as a person (think of his TEDx censorship debacle, during which I came out in his defense to the point of vowing to never again give a TEDx talk). If I have offended Rupert at some point since the last time we were together (during a dinner in the fall of 2018, if I recall), I have done so wholly unknowingly. Our tone towards each other, and each other's work, had always been cordial and respectful. I simply do not know where this change comes from.

Be that as it may, his accusation immediately raises the question of how, precisely, Rupert's own trinitarian, theist ontology of transcendence (which he enthusiastically discusses in the second half of the video above, along overtly biblical lines) isn't armchair theory itself. How does Rupert ground a transcendent but deliberate, interventionist, almighty deity, along with its triune nature, objectively and empirically? What experiments has he proposed to verify this non-trivial hypothesis? By his own criteria, and short of shameless hypocrisy, these are critical, potentially disqualifying questions for evaluating any metaphysical theory, including his own.

THE TROUBLE WITH ANALYTIC IDEALISM IS THAT IT CAN'T EXPLAIN MATTER

This is the most vulgar and ostensibly bad-faith misrepresentation of my work in the entire criticism. Rupert creates an outrageous straw man by overtly suggesting that my attempt to account for matter is limited to the "ripples on the ocean" metaphor. He also seems to misuse his personal acquaintance with me to project the authority of being privy to my private thinking on the matter. Obviously, he is not. His criticisms make it clear to me that Rupert either has no scholarly-level understanding of Analytic Idealism (let alone a privileged one), or has chosen to make statements that are contrary to such an understanding. I sincerely comprehend neither scenario.

I do use the "ripples on the ocean" metaphor, but only after having delineated an explicit, precise, and elaborate account of matter under Analytic Idealism. Rupert must know this, just as anyone who has ever taken a more than casual interest in my work does. For goodness' sake, I've written an entire PhD thesis on this very subject, plus a bunch of peer-reviewed papers. How plausible is it that I got all those publications and a second doctorate by limiting my case to "ripples on the ocean"? And just so I point to something accessible to non-academics, here is a free online video course in which I, for more than six hours (!), elaborate on how Analytic Idealism accounts for matter.

Rupert is outrageously misrepresenting my attempt to make my work accessible to the general public through metaphor as lack of substance, rigour, and precision; and he knows it. That he, as a scholar, would choose to do so is beyond me. In my opinion, his statements here come dangerously close to a deliberate attempt to misinform by creating straw men, which is unbecoming of any scholar, let alone Rupert Sheldrake. And if his defence here is that he simply wasn't aware of the depth of my output (which I'd find totally implausible, as I know that he knows better than that), then the authoritative tone he chose to adopt, and the definitive statements of fact he chose to make, are questionable in precisely the same manner. When you know that you aren't necessarily familiar with what you are talking about, you just don't talk the way he does in the video above.

ANALYTIC IDEALISM IS WRONG BECAUSE IT STOPS AT VERSE 2 OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS

It is obvious to anyone how I am going to defend myself from this particular criticism. But before I do so, allow me to say this: I profoundly respect religious writings and intuitions. I believe they hint at aspects of reality that cannot be captured in language, Aristotelian logic, or conceptual models. I wrote extensively about this in my book More Than Allegory. As such, I am open to the possibility that Analytic Idealism is indeed incomplete; as a matter of fact, I'm downright sure of it, for how can bipedal apes come up with accurate and complete models of nature? So I do not pooh-pooh religion-based criticisms of Analytic Idealism. I've had no religious upbringing myself, but this also means that I have no axe to grind against religion.

However, I do not think that views based on religious intuition count as analytic or empirical arguments. And this is precisely what Rupert is ostensibly attempting to do here: to denounce Analytic Idealism as an inadequate philosophy on analytic and scientific grounds. This is obviously bad form, insofar as it misleadingly veils religious motivations with the veneer of rational argument. And it certainly doesn't justify the vast straw men, misrepresentations and misleading statements made with an equally misleading tone of authority.

GOD IS THE BASIC GROUND OF CONSCIOUSNESS, THEREFORE ANALYTIC IDEALISM IS WRONG

I shall leave this one unanswered, even though it's the part of his criticism where he spends by far the most time on, and seems to be emotionally invested in the most. I highlight it here simply because it seems to confirm a feeling I had throughout Rupert's activist manifesto against Analytic Idealism: I suspect that he, because of his religious dispositions, feels offended by Analytic Idealism's naturalist, reductionist ethos. Perhaps he sees the purely rational, dry, empirically-grounded articulation in my latest book as a betrayal of some tacit, implicit, unspoken pact of trust between us, of which I was unaware. Perhaps he sees my renewed emphasis on the complete and unreserved compatibility between science and Analytic Idealism, which I've always taken for granted to be self-evident, as a similar betrayal. But it is useless to speculate further on his motivations, as I have no direct access to Rupert's inner state when he chose to say what he said. All I am left with is my bafflement and disappointment in face of what he did say, and of how he said it.

Personally, I don't see any fundamental contradiction between naturalism and reductionism on the one hand, and religious faith on the other, provided that one isn't a literalist. I regard nature as a vast ocean of subjectivity, which says enough about how these things could be reconciled. But I don't think it is appropriate for a scholar to misrepresent and attack another's analytic views because of religious convictions. Neither is the attack appropriate if it is motivated not by level-headed argument, but an emotional reaction to a perceived religious offence or betrayal instead.

I profoundly regret this episode, as it has robbed me of my dearly-held respect for someone I have overtly admired and regarded as a role model for many years. My disappointment is bitter, and the criticism, invalid as it is, did sting at a very personal level. But onwards we go, in the spirit of honesty and openness.