 | By Bernardo Kastrup. An opinion piece about the unusual patents the US Navy filed for about gravity drives, inertial mass inhibitors, and other eyebrow-raising claims evocative of the performance of UAPs.
|
| By Bernardo Kastrup. A speculative terrestrial account of nuts-and-bolts Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs), based on the Silurian Hypothesis. This essay has been motivated by recent acknowledgments of the phenomenon, official and leaked, by government instances and officials.
|
 | By Bernardo Kastrup. I defend the merits of IIT as a theory of the contents and dynamics of consciousness, and highlight how it dovetails so well with Analytic Idealism. Combined, these two theories could lead to our first model of the Kantian noumena, or nature as it is in itself, as opposed to how it presents itself to perception.
|
 | Materialism as a political weapon. The Institute of Art and Ideas (2023)
By Bernardo Kastrup. In this essay, I argue that materialism, at its historical conception during the Enlightenment, was meant as a political weapon, not as a serious metaphysical hypothesis based on reason and evidence.
|
| By Bernardo Kastrup. Here I argue that, under Analytic Idealism, the question of free will is nonsensical. To ask whether or not there is free will is akin to asking whether or not the number 5 is married.
|
| Brain noise doesn't explain consciousness. The Institute of Art and Ideas (2023)
By Bernardo Kastrup. This is a criticism of the so-called 'entropic brain hypothesis,' according to which minute increases in brain noise account for the psychedelic experience under physicalist premises. I consider this a ludicrous hypothesis, and explain why here.
|
| Solving the mystery of time. The Institute of Art and Ideas (2023)
By Bernardo Kastrup. Here I speculate that a deeper, truer understanding of time is the key to solving the decomposition problem of idealism: how can one universal subject appear to be multiple, seemingly disjoint centers of awareness? If we understand time as multidimensional and nonlinear, the answer is intuitive and elegant.
|
| The lunacy of 'machine consciousness.' The Institute of Art and Ideas (2023)
By Bernardo Kastrup. An extensive argument for why silicon computers, artificially intelligent as they may be or become, will never be sentient, in the sense of having private conscious inner life of their own.
|
| Why panpsychism is baloney. The Institute of Art and Ideas (2022)
By Bernardo Kastrup. Here I argue that not only does panpsychism have questionable value as a philosophical hypothesis; not only is it flat-out refuted by empirical science; but even the very intuitions that motivate panpsychists turn out to be based on unexamined assumptions mistaken for facts.
|
| Reality is not what it seems. The Institute of Art and Ideas (2022)
By Bernardo Kastrup. It's becoming increasingly clear that idealism is the only plausible metaphysics: the world is mental in essence. But this does not mean that the world is made of the qualities of our perceptions; to be is most definitely not to be perceived.
|
| By Bernardo Kastrup. An effort to bring intuition to bear on the hypothesis that all minds are expressions of only one field of subjectivity underlying all nature.
|
| By Bernardo Kastrup. A critique of the many implausible, incoherent, inflationary nad empirically unsubstantiated theoretical hypotheses put forward to safeguard the metaphysics of materialism.
|
| By Bernardo Kastrup. A criticism of YouTuber physicist Sabine Hossenfelder's local-hidden variables 'theory' of quantum measurement.
|
| By Bernardo Kastrup. An analysis of how reality can have complexity and structure even in the absence of spacetime extension.
|
 |
Yes, Free Will Exists. Scientific American (2020).
By Bernardo Kastrup.
Despite its editorially-chosen title, this essay argues that the concept of free will is incoherent, as it presupposes non-existing semantic space between determination and randomness.
|
|
A strange perspective on the practice of science. The Institute of Art and Ideas (2020).
By Bernardo Kastrup.
This is a response to a peculiar attacking piece by one Peter Vickers, in which he portrays the practice of science as a subjective exercise driven by majority opinions, prejudices and vulgar associations. It is almost embarrassing to have to respond to such a piece, but here it is, nonetheless.
|
|
The Universal Mind: Idealism vs Panpsychism. The Institute of Art and Ideas (2020).
By Bernardo Kastrup.
My response to Philip Goff's criticism of analytic idealism, as well as my rejoinder to Philip's defense of panpsychism from my original criticisms.
|
 |
Metaphysics and Woo: An outsider’s perspective on academic philosophy’s social role. Blog of the American Philosophical Association (2020).
By Bernardo Kastrup.
I argue that academic metaphysicians have an indispensable social role in today's society, where ad hoc, idiosyncratic, uninformed metaphysical views proliferate like mushrooms. But, crucially, to do that they must change their ways.
|
 |
Arthur Schopenhauer: The West’s nondual sage. Science and Nonduality (2020).
By Bernardo Kastrup.
An attempt to show that Schopenhauer's much misunderstood and misrepresented metaphysics is the West's own nonduality philosophy; a manifestation of our own spiritual roots.
|
|
The conceivability trap: Analytic philosophy's Achilles Heel. Blog of the American Philosophical Association (2020).
By Bernardo Kastrup.
Here I argue that philosophers of mind must be able to metacognitively introspect and know their own mind in depth, if they are to do proper philosophy. The ostensible objectivity of philosophy of mind is, therefore, illusory.
|
|
The unexpected origin of matter: The external world is constituted by transpersonal experiential states. The Institute of Art and Ideas (2020).
By Bernardo Kastrup.
Here I explain why the 'hard problem of consciousness' is merely an internal contradiction of metaphysical materialism, not a problem that needs to be solved.
|
|
Vindicating Schopenhauer: Undoing misunderstandings of his metaphysics, Blog of the American Philosophical Association (2020).
By Bernardo Kastrup.
A summary of key points made about Arthur Schopenhauer's metaphysics in my book Decoding Schopenhauer's Metaphysics, particularly regarding Schopenhauer's vastly misunderstood concept of 'Will.'
|
|
The Meaning and Destiny of Western Culture. Science and Nonduality (2020).
By Bernardo Kastrup.
Reflections on the primordial origin, identity and telos of Western civilization, under the light of Peter Kingsley's remarkable work.
|
|
Every generation scorns the picture of ‘reality’ which came before. And the next generation will be no different. The Institute of Art and Ideas (2020).
By Bernardo Kastrup.
The psychology of 'intelligent' nonsense that manufactures plausibility for absurdities such as metaphysical materialism.
|
|
Schopenhauer's Sense of Self: Can Our Core Subjectivity Survive Bodily Death? The Institute of Art and Ideas (2020).
By Bernardo Kastrup.
An attempt to rehabilitate Schopenhauer's profound notion of identity, the West's own insight into the impersonal nature of the self.
|
|
Consciousness Cannot Have Evolved. The Institute of Art and Ideas (2020).
By Bernardo Kastrup.
An exposition of why, under joint materialist and neo-Darwinian premises, phenomenal consciousness should not exist at all. So something has got to give.
|
|
The Mysterious Reappearance of Consciousness. The Institute of Art and Ideas (2020).
By Bernardo Kastrup.
My rejoinder to Princeton neuroscientist Michael Graziano, following his reply to my exposé of his incoherent and outright absurd argument that consciousness does not exist.
|
|
The Mysterious Disappearance of Consciousness: What makes materialists deny the undeniable? The Institute of Art and Ideas (2020).
By Bernardo Kastrup.
An exposé of philosophy's most toxic and pernicious charade of all time: the notion that consciousness doesn't exist, is an illusion.
|
|
Will we ever Understand Consciousness? Why compromises like panpsychism aren't the way forward, The Institute of Art and Ideas (2020).
By Bernardo Kastrup.
On why the most popular version of panpsychism (technically called 'constitutive micropsychism') is both physically incoherent and philosophically weak.
|
|
The Universe as Cosmic Dashboard. Scientific American (2019). By Bernardo Kastrup.
Quantum theory is telling us that the physical world is merely a 'dashboard representation,' upon measurement, of a deeper nonphysical reality.
|
|
Physics Is Pointing Inexorably to Mind. Scientific American (2019). By Bernardo Kastrup.
While some physicists reject that there is anything to matter but information, an information cosmos is necessarily a mental cosmos, for information is never a thing unto itself.
|
|
Why Materialism is a Dead-End: How misunderstanding matter has led us astray, The Institute of Art and Ideas (2019).
By Bernardo Kastrup.
A thorough take-down of metaphysical materialism, elaborating on the reasons why it is untenable. It also suggests idealism as the optimal alternative.
|
|
Recently Published Book Spotlight: The Idea of the World, Blog of the American Philosophical Association (2019).
By Bernardo Kastrup and Nathan Eckstrand.
This written interview contains an extensive and accurate summary of my philosophical positions.
|
|
Do We Actually Experience the Flow of Time? Scientific American (2018). By Bernardo Kastrup.
We experience something we call the 'flow of time,' but this something definitely doesn't flow.
|
|
Misreporting and Confirmation Bias in Psychedelic Research. Scientific American (2018). By Bernardo Kastrup and Edward F. Kelly.
Contrary to physicalist expectations, psychedelics expand consciousness while only reducing brain activity. But confirmation bias and appaling misreporting obscure this clear result.
|
|
Could Multiple Personality Disorder Explain Life, the Universe and Everything? Scientific American (2018). By Bernardo Kastrup, Adam Crabtree and Edward F. Kelly.
The empirical fact of dissociative identity disorder gives us a clue for solving the decomposition problem of idealism.
|
|
Coming to Grips with the Implications of Quantum Mechanics. Scientific American (2018). By Bernardo Kastrup, Henry P. Stapp and Menas C. Kafatos.
Laboratory results in quantum mechanics refute physical realism, the notion that physical entities have standalone reality.
|
|
Should Quantum Anomalies Make Us Rethink Reality? Scientific American (2018). By Bernardo Kastrup.
A discussion of how experimental results in quantum mechanics force us to regard reality under a different paradigm.
|
|
Sentient Robots, Conscious Spoons and Other Cheerful Follies. Scientific American (2018). By Bernardo Kastrup.
An argument against constitutive pansychism, the absurd metaphysics that postulates particles to be conscious.
|
|
Thinking Outside the Quantum Box. Scientific American (2018). By Bernardo Kastrup.
An interpretation of quantum mechanics, particularly of Relational Quantum Mechanics, informed by objective idealism.
|
|
Consciousness Goes Deeper Than You Think. Scientific American (2017). By Bernardo Kastrup.
The hypothesis is argued that mental processes usually considered unconscious may, in fact, be phenomenally conscious but simply unreportable.
|
|
Transcending the Brain. Scientific American (2017). By Bernardo Kastrup.
Surprisingly, some cases of reduced or impaired brain function consistently correlate with expanded consciousness.
|
More to come!
