Bernardo Kastrup's

Presenting Inception Dialogues

2013-04-21T22:30:00.001+02:00

Today I am releasing my new project, Inception Dialogues, a series of conversations with some of the better and lesser-known right-brained thinkers, feelers, and visionaries of our age. Episode 1 is an overview of the project, its character, and purpose. Episode 2 is a fantastic interview with psychologist Rick Stuart, which I encourage you to watch and share with as many people as possible. Rick, in his uniquely open-hearted and authentic style, shares with us many valuable nuggets about the nature of life and the human psyche, the meaning of suffering, as well as his experience working with terminal patients.

While I am announcing the Inception Dialogues project here in this blog, I see it as separate from my on-going philosophy activity. The reasons for this are manyfold: For one, in Inception Dialogues the content is mostly not mine. Secondly, the series of dialogues represents my adventure into right-brained territory, which is not the usual hemisphere of my philosophy work. As a skeptic and analytical thinker, I do not want to mix up that adventure with my regular work. For this reason, Inception Dialogues has its own website, separate from Metaphysical Speculations. On YouTube, I will upload the episodes under my usual channel, but in a dedicated and clearly identified playlist.

I hope that Inception Dialogues complements my on-going work, and that you find value for yourself in the conversations!

'Why Materialism Is Baloney': An overview

2013-04-07T09:09:00.000+02:00

Bologna sausage, also known as 'Baloney.' Source: Wikipedia.

Today I want to share with you an overview of my upcoming fourth book, tentatively titled Why Materialism Is Baloney: How true skeptics know there is not death and fathom answers to life, the universe, and everything. The manuscript is currently complete and discussions with potential publishers are ongoing.

For far too long has the cultural debate been framed as materialism versus religion. Materialism has, unjustifiably, gone unchallenged as the only viable metaphysics as far as clear rational thinking. Why Materialism Is Baloney seeks to change this and reframe the cultural debate. It uncovers the internal contradictions and absurd implications of materialism, and then presents a hard-nosed, non-materialist metaphysics substantiated by hard empirical evidence and clear logical argumentation. In this, it is a unique and much needed work that closes a glaring hole in today’s cultural dialogue.

Why Materialism Is Baloney articulates a surprising and compelling way of looking at nature, the laws of physics, and our condition as conscious beings. From that basis, the book lays out a coherent and logical framework upon which one can model, interpret, and explain every natural phenomenon and physical law, as well as the modalities of human consciousness, without the unlikely assumptions of materialism.

If the hypotheses and formulations of the book are correct, consciousness does not end at death, the brain being merely the image of a process by which mind localizes its own flow. Physical death entails a de-clenching or delocalization of awareness. The brain is in mind, not mind in the brain. And there is no abstract, strongly-objective universe outside of mind.

Unique in the modern intellectual discourse, the book challenges materialism on the basis of reason, empirical evidence, and skeptical argumentation, articulating ideas in clear, matter-of-factly, and direct language, with no use of loaded spiritual or religious terminology and concepts.

The book starts by laying out the key premises and implications of materialism and highlights materialism’s influence in our culture and value systems. The following chapter discusses the mind-body problem, offering a coherent view of the relationship between mind and brain according to which the brain is merely a localization mechanism of mind, a view that is substantiated with abundant empirical evidence. Thereafter, the book presents a modern and powerful formulation of the philosophy of idealism, according to which all reality is fundamentally mental. A series of metaphors are then discussed, each with an increasing level of complexity and explanatory power, which seek to make sense of all natural phenomena in terms of an idealist framework. The metaphors explain the division of the medium of mind into conscious and ‘unconscious’ segments, the origin of the laws of nature, and why they feel so separate from us. They explain the relationship between different individual minds, the nature of altered states of consciousness, mystical experiences, and many other phenomena. These metaphors are the main contribution of the work, for they offer a compelling new way of thinking about reality, scientific discoveries, and personal identity. The book closes with a series of more speculative ideas regarding the afterlife state, psychic phenomena, and other subjects of general popular appeal.

These are the topics covered in Why Materialism Is Baloney:

The materialist worldview and its counter-intuitive, absurd implications.
The influence of materialism in the cultural zeitgeist.
The mind-body problem: the relationship between the brain and the mind.
A powerful explanation for the undeniable correlations between mind states and brain states that does not entail that the brain generates the mind.
A powerful and modern formulation of the philosophy of idealism, according to which all reality is an essentially mental phenomenon.
A compelling articulation of a metaphysics according to which the body is in the mind, not the mind in the body.
The relationship between the laws of physics and idealism.
An explanation for the division of mind between conscious and ‘unconscious’ segments, as well as an elaboration of the fundamental nature of the ‘unconscious.’
An explanation for how, if reality is a projection of mind, the world seems so separate from us and governed by seemingly objective laws.
Coherent and compelling explanations for altered states of consciousness, mystical experiences, psychic phenomena, near-death experiences, etc.
A coherent and compelling way of thinking about reality that is consistent with all empirical evidence and yet denies the key assumptions and inferences of materialist philosophy

Stay tuned!

Interview on idealism

2013-03-17T11:52:00.000+01:00

An interview I gave very recently to Et Vita has just been published. It contains a nice overview of topics I address in my upcoming book tentatively titled Why Materialism is Baloney and, as such, is somewhat of a preview of the book. I hope you enjoy it!

http://www.etvita.com/2013/03/making-case-for-idealism-et-vita.html

In Memoriam

2013-03-17T11:41:00.000+01:00

Today, breaking from the usual pattern, I want to share with you a very personal thing. As I neared the completion of the manuscript of my fourth book, late in 2012, my cat neared the completion of her life. As my surreptitious co-author, she sat next to me while I wrote most of the articles in this blog, and most of the words in my books. Her name was ‘Snoes,’ a Dutch word that means something like ‘darling’ and is pronounced ‘Snoos.’ My wife and I adopted her only a few months after we settled in our first real home. Unlike many cats – who tend to avoid direct eye contact – Snoes would always look us straight in the eyes. That was our way to communicate, which we refined into a language over time. For almost 15 years, Snoes was an integral part of our family and lives, filling voids we didn’t know existed until after she was no longer with us.

With an uncanny synchronicity, her little body failed bit-by-bit as I completed each chapter of my manuscript. Because I was her nurse – administering daily injections, giving her pills, helping her eat, cleaning her up, making her comfortable, etc. – we grew even closer to each other. My home life became split between birthing the book and trying to make Snoes’ remaining time worth living. Birth and death, hand in hand.

Although her body was becoming a very unyielding tool, Snoes never failed to be by my side, with a serenity that baffled me. Towards the end, her little heart already giving up, we would go together for short, slow walks around the neighborhood every evening. I was her companion and protector against the odd unleashed dog. Despite growing weakness, her interest in these little adventures increased significantly in the last few days of her life. Mind you, the whole thing was her initiative: She would call me, nose pointing unambiguously towards the door, and then drag her little body as we made our way to the quiet, dark streets. Hard as it must have been, she still took every step with a grace that made me feel small next to her. I, a 6’1” (1.85m) man, was tiny next to that enormous little creature. Walking by her side, I watched as she showed me how to live life fully, and with dignity.

Often she would need to sit for a few seconds and catch her breath. She always made these little breaks look like the only appropriate course of action, never a surrender to physical distress. As she rested, she held her head high. Her ears were always alert, scanning for the smallest noises as if they were of great and urgent import. She smelled the air with gusto, her head tilting backwards as though she wanted to take everything in. She was completely in the moment: Every odd vehicle that drove by deserved her unreserved attention; every bush was investigated with the curiosity of a newbie explorer; the cool evening breeze was savored as it caressed her face. Her eyes glistened with renewed openness and innocence. I sensed that she was somehow becoming young again, rushing to reencounter the wide-eyed kitten she once was. Her body was falling apart, but her spirit was untouched; as radiant and fresh as in the day she opened her eyes for the first time. Snoes was coming full circle.

In her last evening, already unable to eat or drink, she humbled me once again by taking me further up the road than ever before in her whole life. Her single-minded determination was surreal; her steps firm and decisive. Her gaze was pointed straight ahead, without the slightest hint of hesitation. Her entire body language was saying: ‘This time, I am not stopping.’ I had x-rays and blood tests asserting that none of that should be physically possible. Yet, there it was. Who was I to tell nature what could or could not happen?

At some point, she crossed a side street towards a little channel that ran along the edge of our neighborhood, past most houses. She had the lead, and I was following next to her. Together, we went past the former boundaries of her world. She had entered entirely new territory; blazing a new trail as though she were rehearsing for the big journey only a couple of hours ahead. She seemed possessed by an urge to go beyond, into the unknown. As she reached the edge of the channel, she sat – exhausted – and looked longingly at some distant houses across an open field on the other side, lit up and shimmering like a row of small Christmas trees. I believe to have seen her sigh. Yes, she had discovered that the world was bigger than she had ever imagined. I watched her in awe and quiet despair, my heart tearing open.

Snoes spent everything she had in that final walk; there was nothing left in her afterwards. Her epic journey of discovery was her final act in this world; and what a fine, grand act it was. I carried her back home in my arms. Later that evening, the vet came to our place to deliver her of her pain; one final time. She passed away serenely, cozy and warm, in my wife’s arms. As life slowly seeped away from her battered body, I looked straight into her eyes, our noses touching, and gave her a final loving stroke. What a magnificent being I had in front of me; so much stronger than me in so many ways; so inconceivably larger than the physical dimensions of her body. I was the last thing she saw as she embarked on another, bigger journey. But this time, to my agony, I couldn’t go and walk next to her…

Yes, Snoes was ‘just’ a cat, and I don’t mean to belittle the larger dramas of life by going overboard with her story. But that feline’s journey showed me what it really means to say that life is an evocative metaphor for something ineffable, a point of view I was defending as I wrote the last chapter of my manuscript. On multiple levels, her story mirrored back to me the essence of what I was writing, as if to show me the true significance of my own message. Book and life mingled together in a strange, tangled hierarchy. Was I really the author or were Snoes and I mere characters in the book? The richness and rawness of the unspeakable shone through Snoes’ final days in pungent imagery and synchronicities, whizzing past the intellect and lodging themselves firmly in the truest and deepest reaches of my being.

Snoes had no philosophy, no knowledge, no books, and no narratives. She lived most simply. Through her, I understood that there is little better we can really hope to accomplish. She never lost her grace – not for one moment – because she was grace. She lived fully while she was alive, never rebelling against what is. And she never allowed me to truly feel lonely. Her journey and passing forced me, in a pungent but loving manner, to put the intellectual rationalizations of my book in perspective even before it was completed. She was a fine teacher, all the way to the end.

Snoes
Spring 1998 - 2 January 2013

Modern Tales of the Dioscuri: The Quest for Truth

2013-02-10T11:24:00.000+01:00

Phineus with the Boreads. Source: Wikipedia.

Chapter 1: The seer

Pollux and Castor sailed far, to a distant island beyond the boundaries of maps, in search of Phineus, the seer. Upon arriving, exhausted but exultant, they immediately sought an audience with the famed prophet. Pollux, carefully trying to disguise his identity as son of Zeus ⎯ whose fit of jealousy had caused the blindness of Phineus ⎯ was the first to speak:

⎯ Greetings, wise seer. My brother Castor and I are on a quest for the ultimate Truth. But we know not which course to pursue. Bewildered as we are by the myriad myths of man, we humbly plea for your guidance.

Phineus looked over the two brothers with compassion. He knew the inevitability of what was to follow. After a long sigh, he replied:

⎯ There are only two authentic paths to truth, young seekers. Man has no shortage of myths at his disposal. If his true motivation is to find peace, he must search for the myth that resonates with his heart and make it his life and reality. This, the path of the heart, is authentic to man's deepest being.

He paused, knowing full well what he was about to do to the son of his nemesis:

⎯ The other path is one in which many seekers before you have found their demise. It is the path of the absolute: The rejection of every myth in the quest for a truth as pure and untarnished by the touch of man's mind as a buried jewel in the bowels of the Earth. This path requires the rigorous cleansing of raw experience from the narratives constantly woven and projected by mind. Behold, for he who finds and polishes this jewel will know the absolute truth!

Castor ⎯ whose mother, like Pollux's, was Leda, but whose father was the mortal king Tyndareus ⎯ interjected:

⎯ How do we know which path to choose, great seer?

Phineus:

⎯ Listen to your deepest, most uncritical, most sincere motivation, young seeker! What does your heart truly seek? Peace...?

And then, turning slightly to glance at Pollux, he continued:

⎯ ...or the absolute truth? Listen to your heart and, above all, be honest to yourself. This is the most personal of all quests. In its pursuit, you cannot deceive anyone but yourself.

Pollux and Castor, confused but resigned, thanked Phineus and returned to their ship. The darkness of the night had already descended upon them.

Chapter 2: The choices

On the deck of their ship, bathed by the light of many stars ⎯ Gemini particularly conspicuous above their heads ⎯ Castor shared his thoughts with his brother:

⎯ I must be honest to my most sincere motivations, brother. Truthfully, what I seek is peace. The confusion and doubts of life corrode my very soul. If I can find safe haven in a myth whose validity my heart can accept, there my quest will end.

Pollux:

⎯ I respect the sincerity of your choice, brother. But truthfully, no myth can sooth my heart. I must know what is, not the narratives woven by my own mind, or the minds of lesser men.

The brothers then parted ways, each pursuing the path dictated by his heart.

Chapter 3: Castor's quest

Having scoured the known world for the many myths and traditions of man, Castor failed to find the peace he so deeply craved. He did find a handful of myths that resonated with his heart. But how could he surrender to a myth while knowing that it was just a narrative? How could his heart be soothed by something his intellect knew not to be the absolute truth?

Castor, diligent as he was, could observe his own mind in the very process of weaving narratives whose true motivation was to sooth his pain and disquiet. The narratives were inventions. Castor knew that he was consciously trying to deceive himself; and that such attempt was ultimately futile. A man cannot be both trickster and audience at the same time. The trick has no power upon those who know how it is done.

Chapter 4: Pollux's quest

Having spent years in seclusion in some of the most isolated islands of the Adriatic, carefully observing the dynamics of his own mind, Pollux sought diligently to separate the jewel of immediate experience from the pollution of narratives. He saw through the many subtle layers of narrative-making: stories built on top of stories, all ultimately resting on unexamined assumptions. He realised that removing the narratives was like peeling an onion: there was always another, more subtle layer underneath.

In his quest, he tried to find the most basic, raw factors of reality: He had a body; that seemed free of narratives. His bodily sensations in the present moment seemed as close to an apprehension of the raw truth as he could get. The past and the future were just stories. Extrapolating this line of thinking, he concluded that only a newborn baby could experience the absolute truth, before any narratives had raised their ugly heads. As a grown man, such a state was not available to Pollux, but it suggested to him that an absolute truth did exist; his ultimate goal was there, just tantalizingly out of his reach.

Yet, upon further reflection, Pollux began to question his own conclusions. The possibility of narrative-free apprehension in a newborn was itself a narrative; a story constructed by his mind, since he could not experience the state of being a newborn in the present moment. Could there really be such a thing as raw perception without narratives? Was the mind of a newborn truly narrative-free, or was it simply in the process of weaving its first narratives as it perceived the world for the first time? Was perception fundamentally concurrent with narrative-making? Could anything ⎯ anything at all ⎯ be perceived without being couched in a narrative, chaotic and inconsistent as it might at first be? Pollux realised that he was forever locked into the narrative-making processes of his mind, which constructed the very reality of his search for the absolute truth. His search was itself a narrative. Whatever there could be outside of that narrative was fundamentally inaccessible to him and, as such, as good as unreal.

Pair of Roman statuettes (3rd century AD) depicting
Castor and Pollux. Source: Wikipedia.

Chapter 5: The meeting

After many years, the brothers met again on the deck of their trusted ship. As it floated gently on calm night seas, under the light of the new moon, Castor offered:

⎯ Brother, I have failed in my chosen path. The soothing power of myth needs permission from the intellect to be accepted as the truth. Without such permission, it is sterile. Knowing, as I do, that narratives are not the absolute truth, my intellect cannot give my heart permission to bask under the light of its chosen myth. I cannot find peace. For this reason, wise brother, I shall follow your example and pursue your path towards the absolute!

To which Pollux, in horror, replied:

⎯ Seek not through my path, brother! It is a hall of mirrors. Nothing absolute will you find there; only reflections of yourself, layered in exquisitely subtle veneers. The intellect is an unstoppable narrative-making machine of unfathomable power. It constructs all of our reality, like a cocoon which we inhabit. In my search for the intellectual ideal of an 'absolute,' I have only found my own limits.

The brothers sighed longly, as they starred at the moon. They remained in silence for a long time, until Castor offered in resignation:

⎯ The intellect... that is the common thread of our failures, brother. My intellect won't give me permission to surrender to my heart's chosen myth. Your intellect weaves an impenetrable wall of narratives that insulates you from the absolute, if there is any...

Pollux did not reply. He knew his brother was right, but he knew also that they were their intellects. What else could they be? Their quest was doomed to failure from its very beginning. He had nothing left in him anymore; he was defeated.

Chapter 6: The dreams

That night, they fell asleep on the deck of their ship, under the moon's light. Pollux dreamed of Phineus. In the dream, Phineus sat by a rich banquet table, indulging his appetite and laughing hysterically at Pollux's dilemma. Phineus had taken revenge on Zeus simply by telling the truth when requested to do so. What an ironic twist of fate, Pollux thought, as he descended into a domain of restless hopelessness. Orpheus had deserted him...

Castor, in turn, dreamed that he was swimming naked in the sea, under the moonlight. He swam effortlessly, drifting along as if one with the waves. He could feel the water caressing his skin. There were no thoughts in his mind... only the sea, the moon, and the fresh air, as if they were aspects of himself. In his dream, he found peace.

Zen Buddhism and Christianity

2013-02-03T16:45:00.000+01:00

Who am I to talk about religion? I am no theologian or religious scholar. Heck, I'm not even religious. So what compels me now to write something about two of the world's most significant religions? The sincere answer is: I am not really sure. Over the past weeks, after having finished the first draft of my fourth book – a very analytical, intellectual piece of work – I've found myself operating less at an intellectual level and more at an intuitive, heart-felt level. It is as though the completion of the draft freed me up to explore new avenues of being, and new ways to relate to myself and reality. In this process, it occurred to me that there is a striking similarity, even an equivalence, between Zen Buddhism and Christianity when it comes to the key manner in which these two religions help an individual relate more harmoniously to the world. This is what I'd like to talk about below.

Stained glass at St John the Baptist's
Anglican Church, Ashfield, New
South Wales. Source: Wikipedia.

Before you feel compelled to point out to me how these two religions differ dramatically in their respective worldviews and dogmas, let me emphasise what I said above: The equivalence I see is in the way they help an individual relate more harmoniously to reality; not in a similarity of dogmas. Moreover, I am aware that many scholars suggest that Christianity grew out of Buddhism as much as of Judaism, as the BBC documentary below suggests. But this is not what I want to talk about either. My point is completely agnostic of possible common origins. So let me get to it without further ado.

The source of all human suffering is the ego's inability, yet absolute need, to control how reality at large unfolds. This is a recipe for perennial frustration and anxiety since, deep inside, the ego is well-aware that it cannot control the world; that it cannot have everything it wants or stop bad things from happening. If you think carefully, you will notice that all suffering ultimately comes from this dilemma. If the ego could tell nature how to behave, what to do and what not to do, we would all be happy tirants. As a tiny, limited, but tireless aspect of nature, the ego is at war with what is, was, and can be. That's why we suffer.

Now, my key point is that both Zen Buddhism and Christianity help us tackle this fundamental cause of suffering in surprisingly analogous ways. To see it, one has to look past initial appearances.

Zen aims at stopping all suffering by disidentification with the ego. In other words, a Zen practitioner seeks to lose his or her identification with his or her own thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and persona. A successful Zen practitioner will identify him or herself with what they call pure awareness; a formless, narrative-free, neutral, but universal witness. The practitioner will still maintain an ego, but instead of believing him or herself to be the ego, he or she will use the ego as a tool for interacting with the world, without identifying with it. The moment this goal – often called 'enlightenment' – is achieved, all suffering stops: Only the ego suffers, and you are not the ego! The suffering of the ego is witnessed as the suffering of a character in a movie. In a strong sense, the ego is demoted from king of the hill to a small, limited, yet useful servant of impersonal awareness.

Now let's look at the essential manner in which Christianity reduces the suffering of the faithful. Christian believers also suffer because of the inability of their respective egos to control the world: They can't have all they want, they can't stop illness, and they can't avoid death. Their religion offers a way to deal with this dilemma through a form of surrender to a higher power: 'My destiny is in the hands of God,' they will say. By handing over its responsibility and struggles to a higher power, the ego withdraws from its war against reality. But as a consequence, it also finds itself demoted from king of the hill to a small, limited, yet useful servant of a higher power. Do you see the equivalence? At the level of inner feeling, the end result is precisely the same as that achieved by Zen practitioners: The tremendous lessening of a burden – as if a huge load were lifted off one's shoulders – and the cessation of futile struggles against what is.

Zen seeks to achieve this end result through an extremely skeptical and radically empirical path: It entails no narratives, dogmas, or theories of any kind. Its masters simply try to point the way for you to achieve a state of mind in which you no longer identify yourself with your ego. Instead of wasting time describing what 'enlightenment' is, they focus all their attention on helping you reach 'enlightenment' yourself. As such, Zen has enormous intellectual appeal to me as a skeptic empiricist. It soothes my instinctual fear of falling pray to fairytales: There are simply no tales in Zen, let alone fairy ones. For the same reason, I believe Zen to have enormous intellectual appeal to anyone involved in science or philosophy. The price, however, seems to be a kind of dryness that may come across as non-empathetic. When one is suffering, such detached approach may be difficult to embrace wholeheartedly. As humans, we crave empathy and reassurance, which is authentic and legitimate. Moreover, disidentification with all thought and emotion may end suffering, but how bland does it make life?

Christianity, on the other hand, achieves the exact same result through a plethora of narratives, symbols, and dogmas. Instead of the barren landscapes of Zen, it provides one with incredibly rich and meaningful images that speak directly to the unconscious (see Carl Jung's book Aion for a discussion of the psychology of the Christ figure and related topics). Empathy, compassion, and reassurance abound. Instead of the abstract concept of formless, universal awareness, Christianity offers the image of a divinity who is concurrently a flesh-and-blood man (Jesus the Christ) and a formless, universal potentiality (the Holy Spirit). The Holy Trinity can make a difficult abstraction such as the Holy Spirit directly accessible to any person, regardless of education or capacity for abstraction, in the form of a man who is also God himself. How much easier it is for the ego to surrender to such a concrete father figure, handing over its struggles to Him, instead of accepting itself to be a mere illusion! The price of this richness and accessibility, however, is the difficulty faced by any rational person to accept the narratives of Christianity uncritically. And make no mistake: The power of the narratives is entirely dependent on their being believed at some level, even if not literally! One must, somehow, muster enough faith in the Holy Trinity – most easily accessible in the form of Jesus the man – for it to be of any help in achieving the surrender of the ego. This isn't trivial in today's cynical and overly rational cultural context.

I could go on to explore the implications of everything I said above, and to relate it to the appalling state of religion in today's society. But I'll refrain from doing so for now. After all, my motivation for writing this article was simply to point out a similarity between faiths that, on the surface, are so radically different. Perhaps analogous similarities can be found across many other faiths. If that is so, they are all pointing to the same key for the end of suffering: The surrender of the ego in face of the wider reality of mind.

What is there to do?

2013-02-02T11:44:00.000+01:00

The other day I was discussing with a reader what can be done to prevent the growth of meaninglessness and isolation in the heart of our culture from crossing the point of no return. Although my conversation with her included more practical issues, like the alarming environmental deterioration and dangerous geopolitical trends we all bear witness to, I want to focus here on the psychological and 'spiritual' – a word I use with hesitation, since its meaning is so loose – health and wellbeing of humanity. On this specific point, my young reader felt strongly that vocal and decisive initiative should be taken by those with insight into the situation; that something must be done in the form of strong actions. It wasn't lost on me what she was trying to suggest regarding my responsibility in all this.

La Liberté guidant le peuple

Yet, I am not inclined to revolutions or attempts to change people on a mass scale. By and large, I don't think they are effective. I believe change comes from within the individual, not from without. Once the impulse for transformation has manifested itself from within, then people can help each other transform by sharing experiences, ideas, philosophies, worldviews, etc. My work consists precisely in such an attempt to share my own ideas and worldview with those who already have the nascent drive to look at alternatives to our current cultural madness. Such sharing helps provide validated grounding for a new way to relate to reality and each other. But it only works with those who are already rejecting the status quo.

My attitude here can be construed as too passive; as too-little-too-late, which I suspect is my reader's take on it. A big part of me even acknowledges this. Shouldn't I then do something more proactive? Shouldn't I take more responsibility, as an inhabitant of this planet and a member of humanity, for changing our presently suicidal course?

I pondered much about it this weekend and finally found a way to reconcile my conflicting attitudes: Instead of trying to do something I will, instead, suggest what we could stop doing in order to improve our own psychological and 'spiritual' circumstances. Indeed, I believe that much of the damage arises from our own misguided actions. We blindly go about life doing all kinds of things that ultimately harm us. As such, perhaps the best way to stop the downward spiral of madness is not to do yet more things, but to stop doing a few things. In fact, it is a symptom of the madness of Western culture – which now pervades the whole world – that all useful thinking must translate into actions. Ours is a culture of do, do, do. However, when someone is pounding his own head with a hammer, the right course is not to look for a helmet, but to stop the hammering.

So here are my three suggestions – only three! – of things we could all, individually, stop doing to help improve our collective sanity and wellbeing. None of the three entries in the list below requires effort, since they are not proactive but purely passive. Yet, if most of us would stop doing these three simple things, I am convinced that our psychological and 'spiritual' health would improve substantially, both individually and collectively. And as a direct result of that, we might even find our culture and civilisation on a path back to meaning.

Let us stop compulsively stupefying ourselves. We all feel, in the depths of our unconscious minds, that our ordinary lives are becoming increasingly empty and meaningless. The unconscious tries to correct the course of our lives through an array of signals, which we then diligently ignore through distractions: idiotic television shows, alcohol, shopping 'therapy,' compulsive money-making and status-chasing, compulsive dating, and what not. This is understandable in that nobody likes to remain exposed to the anguish and anxiety emerging from the unconscious in its attempts to force a change. But if those feelings are not allowed conscious room to be processed, acknowledged, and integrated, not only will they harm us even more from within – think of neuroses and even psychoses – we will not give ourselves any chance to find the meaning of our lives again. This tragic loss is unnecessary: The unconscious process often unfolds by itself when given the appropriate room in consciousness. All we need 'to do' is to stop stupefying ourselves and trust that the initial discomfort will be, in time, followed by a much richer and more harmonious life.
Let us stop eating so much meat. No, I am not saying that we should all turn into vegetarians, just that we could perhaps reduce meat consumption. Now, why am I saying this? Not for the usual reasons, like better health, less environmental impact, etc. These reasons may all be true and good, but my motivation here is different: The conditions under which animals are kept and 'processed' (like objects) for food are dreadful under the best of circumstances, and often outright unthinkable. Here are some videos (viewer discretion advised). If you have the stomach, try this (no, really, if you have the stomach). Many more higher animals are killed for food every day than the total number of human beings killed in the whole of World War II. The enormous volumes of animals involved mean that they aren't 'nicely put to sleep,' if you know what I mean. This unfathomable and excruciating orgy of torture, distress, and death is being carried out on our account as you read this, because we provide the demand for it. And if all minds are one at the level of the collective unconscious – a point I argue in my philosophy – imagine how much outrage, stress, fear, anxiety, dread, anguish, and sheer pain is being pumped every day into our unconscious minds? Do you really think that you, as an individual, is completely insulated from this? Can you even imagine the magnitude of what we are doing to ourselves?
Let us stop acting so much. Now, what do I mean with this one? Let's face it: We all act. We act at work, we act at home, we act at the gym, we act at the pub, etc. We act so consistently that we mistake the acting for living an ordinary life. We try to control the image of ourselves that we make available to others, motivated by a need to fit in, to appear strong, to look attractive, etc. In psychological terms, we all wear the mask of the persona. But since we know, deep inside, how much suffering, insecurity, and anxiety we actually live with, and since everybody else is acting too, each one of us ends up thinking that she or he is the weakest, most inappropriate and fear-ridden person on the planet. The acting causes us all unnecessary suffering. Show me a person who claims to have no significant fears or insecurities and I will show you a liar. We're all on the same boat; we are all suffering. But because we try to put up this image of strength and harmony, we add insult to injury by convincing ourselves that we are each alone in our suffering. This only increases our profound isolation and loneliness as individuals. We forget that the only real strength is the courage to present ourselves to the world as we really are, so we can live in authentic community and help each other out.

That's it. Three simple things we could stop doing today in order to change the world significantly.

Brain, Mind, and the Matrix of Innovation

2013-01-01T21:34:00.003+01:00

I have been busy writing my fourth book and, therefore, have not written much here lately. To try and compensate for it, I'd like to share with you a presentation I gave recently. In it, I discuss the nature of the creative process and its relationship to the mind-body problem. Are innovative ideas generated algorithmically by the brain? Or is brain activity, in fact, an obstacle to creative insight? An intriguing pattern in revealed: Creative insight correlates precisely with a reduction of brain activity. Many cases are reviewed to substantiate this pattern: accidental savants, psychedelic trances, brain damage, hyperventilation, meditation, acceleration- and strangulation-induced loss of consciousness, traditional ordeals and initiatory rituals, transcranial magnetic stimulation, etc. The presentation concludes with the surprising idea that, analogously to how lightning is merely the image of the process of electric discharge, the brain is not the cause of mind but an image of the process of mind constriction. As such, the path to creative insight is a de-clenching, a relaxation of brain activity, not its increase. The presentation is in video format, with accurate closed captions that I created manually.

I hope you find it enjoyable!

Here is the relevant bibliography alluded to in the video:

Bergson, H. (1912). Matter and Memory. London: George Allen & Co.
Blanke, O. et al. (2002). Stimulating illusory own-body perceptions: The part of the brain that can induce out-of-body experiences has been located. Nature, 419, pp. 269-270.
Carhart-Harris, R. L. et al. (2012). Neural correlates of the psychedelic state as determined by fMRI studies with psilocybin. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. [Online]. Available from: www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/01/17/1119598109 [Accessed 6 June 2012].
Huxley, Aldous (2004). The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell. London: Vintage Books, pp. 10-11.
Kelly, E. W., Greyson, B. and Kelly, E. D. (2009). Unusual Experiences Near Death and Related Phenomena. In: Kelly, E. D. et al. Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 367-421.
Neal, R. M. (2008). The choking game. In: The Path to Addiction: And Other Troubles We Are Born to Know. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, pp. 310-315.
Pascual-Leone, A. et al. eds. (2002). Handbook of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. London: Hodder Arnold.
Retz (2007). Tripping Without Drugs: experience with Hyperventilation (ID 14651). Erowid.org. [Online]. Available from: www.erowid.org/exp/14651 [Accessed 6 June 2012].
Rhinewine, J. P. and Williams, O. J. (2007). Holotropic Breathwork: The Potential Role of a Prolonged, Voluntary Hyperventilation Procedure as an Adjunct to Psychotherapy. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 13(7), pp. 771-776.
Taylor, K. (1994). The Breathwork Experience: Exploration and Healing in Nonordinary States of Consciousness. Santa Cruz, CA: Hanford Mead.
Urgesi, C. et al. (2010). The Spiritual Brain: Selective Cortical Lesions Modulate Human Self Transcendence. Neuron, 65, pp. 309-319.
Whinnery, J. and Whinnery, A. (1990). Acceleration-Induced Loss of Consciousness: A Review of 500 Episodes. Archives of Neurology, 47(7), 764-776.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Many, if not most, procedures aiming at reducing brain activity can be potentially dangerous and even fatal. This presentation is not meant to encourage anyone to carry out risky activities. I disclaim any and all responsibility, legal or otherwise, for any damage incurred by those choosing to run such risks, or as a consequence thereof.

Why life on Mars may help change the paradigm

2012-12-02T13:04:00.000+01:00

Source: Wikipedia.

See update notice at the bottom of the article for the latest.

There has been growing speculation this weekend that NASA has discovered complex organic molecules in the soil of Mars, or perhaps made an even more significant discovery. See this article on space.com. I've asked people around me whether they thought the possible confirmation of microbial life on Mars would be a paradigm-breaking event. The response was mostly on the 'no' camp. This is completely understandable, for scientists have been acknowledging for years that life may be common and widespread in the universe. So why would the discovery of life in a neighboring celestial body break any paradigms? Yet, I think we are missing something here. Below, I will argue that such a discovery would not only be extraordinary, it would also pose difficult questions to our reigning scientific paradigm.

Our culture's mainstream view is that life is a mechanistic phenomenon explainable entirely by the known laws of physics. In other words, life is not a fundamental aspect of nature, but an epiphenomenon of dead matter. There is supposedly nothing to life but the movements of subatomic particles; the same kind of movements behind erosion, crystallization, the weather, etc. As such, life is supposedly no different from erosion or crystallization, except in that metabolism operates a little faster. Biological organisms are supposedly mere 'robots,' entirely analogous to the computer or handheld electronic device you are using to read this. Life supposedly arose by mere chance, through the random collisions of atoms and molecules in a primordial chemical soup on primitive Earth. So the question is: If life were to be discovered in a planet next door, would that raise new and difficult questions for such a mechanistic view of life? I think it would.

Nobody knows today how life could have emerged from dead matter. There are dozens of theories and even more avenues of speculation, but no one has ever managed to create life from dead matter in a laboratory. Therefore, there isn't even proof-of-principle that life could arise from non-life through purely mechanistic means – so-called 'abiogenesis' – let alone proof that abiogenesis actually happened in the remote past. Yet, abiogenesis is essential for the paradigmatic view that life is merely a mechanistic epiphenomenon of physics. Otherwise, the implication would be that there must necessarily be something extra – something fundamental, irreducible – behind the phenomenon of life.

The problem is that not only all the structures absolutely necessary for the processes of life – like metabolism – need to arise together in an organism, but very complicated mechanisms for the replication of all these structures – that is, reproduction – need to arise along with them. Otherwise, life would arise and disappear within one generation. Francis Crick, the Nobel Prize laureate and co-discoverer of DNA, once thought it impossible for the self-replication mechanisms essential to life to arise spontaneously, by chance, from a chemical soup on primitive Earth. He thought the complexity required was just too great. Although Crick later felt that he had been a little too pessimistic in his original assessment, the key point stands: Abiogenesis, if at all possible, is extraordinarily unlikely by pure chance. Anyone willing to disagree with this statement has an enormous burden of justification, worth of a Nobel Prize.

Now, how does all this tie in with our story about the possible discovery of microbial life on Mars? Well, if we were to find independently-arisen life on our immediate cosmic neighbor – right here, next door – the obvious implication would be that the rise of life is a very common occurrence in the cosmos. After all, what are the chances that a hugely unlikely event would happen, independently, twice within the distance between the sun and the asteroid belt? This would make it yet more difficult to defend the notion that life is merely a chance, mechanistic epiphenomenon of matter, for all scenarios behind such notion require exceedingly unlikely circumstances on Earth, let alone on Mars. It would just compound an already excruciatingly difficult problem. As such, if the independent rise of life is indeed a common affair in nature, one would be forced to take seriously the possibility that life isn't merely an epiphenomenon of mechanistic physics, but is itself built into the fabric of nature as a primary, fundamental aspect of the cosmos. This, by any measure, would be a paradigm-breaking notion.

Naturally, a possible way out would be if it could be shown that life on both Mars and Earth had a common origin. This is not unthinkable, for planetary impact could theoretically have thrown life-infested rocks into space, seeding life from one planet into the other. But such scenario would itself be yet another layer of speculation and contrivance necessary in order to argue for the validity of the current paradigm. As it is today, the argument seems to have enough layers of speculation and contrivance already.

This article is, in a way, jumping the gun: There is no official discovery yet of microbial life on Mars. As such, I am just speculating about the implications of possible future developments. Be it as it may, if the independent rise of life can eventually be shown to be commonplace in the universe, it will certainly pose yet more serious challenges to the reigning view that life is but a chance, mechanistic organization of dead matter. For this reason, I believe that a possible announcement in the coming weeks or months may indeed bear significance to the question of whether a new scientific paradigm may be imminently required.

UPDATE 3-Dec-2012 ~19:00h CET: I am watching the live broadcast of the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco, where NASA is announcing the much-hyped 'historical discovery on Mars,' as I write this. As most people, I had expected at least a conclusive measurement of various, complex organic compounds in multiple soil samples. Instead, they announced inconclusive trace measurements of very simple carbon compounds, whose origin they can't even determine to be really Mars yet. These results aren't even interesting, for we knew from previous missions that simple organics exist on Mars (as well as in many other places in the solar system). Now, I understand that what a scientist considers amazing is not necessarily what lay people would find even interesting. I also understand that scientists get carried away in their enthusiasm sometimes. But even taking all this into account, I cannot wrap my ahead around why lead investigator John Grotzinger would have described these results as 'one for the history books,' as he did in an earlier interview a few days ago. If the results presented today are all there is, there is just no conceivable reason for Grotzinger's original assessment. He has just been confronted by a journalist about this and his answer was, frankly, more evasive and hollow than political rhetoric. He looks uncomfortable and awkward on that podium. I am at a loss, but will stop here not to get carried away myself into a kind of speculation that I don't like to touch even with a ten-foot pole...

Space.com just released their own update here.

Pragmatism, applications, and the meaning of life

2012-12-01T11:54:00.002+01:00

When talking to people about my ideas and writings, be them friends, radio hosts, or event managers prior to a talk, I often hear the following question at the end of the conversation: 'OK, but now, how can people apply all this in practice?' In the beginning, the question struck me as very reasonable and legitimate, so I felt a little guilty and embarrassed for having to think about the answer. But as I stepped back to ponder about the motivations behind the question, a whole new avenue of insight regarding our culture opened up before me. To anticipate the conclusion of this article, and without for a moment meaning to blame or criticise anyone who has ever asked me this, I think the question reflects a generalized state of psychic imbalance in our culture; so generalized that it comes across not only as perfectly normal, but appropriate and even smart.

Ultimately, all human reality is an internal phenomenon unfolding in mind. Even if there were indeed an outside world independent of mind, all of our experiences of that world would still be entirely in mind. Without the dynamics of mind, the whole universe might as well not exist. Therefore, any interaction we may have with the 'outside world' in the form of pragmatic applications or actions ultimately only has any meaning insofar as it translates back into something unfolding in mind. For instance, as a technology marketer, if I apply a new marketing technique that leads to more revenues for my company, such result will have human reality only insofar as it is experienced in my and other people's minds. At the end of the day, it all comes back to an internal phenomenon in the medium of mind. The 'outside world' is just an intermediary step; a means to an end. Only the internal reality of mind can confer any meaning to human life.

Now, my work is an expedition into the land of understanding, whether valid or not. It seeks to address the question: 'What the heck is going on?' And understanding is already an internal reality; a gestalt unfolding in the human psyche, not in the so-called 'outside world.' As such, my own journey, which I invite others to join through my writings and talks, is already a journey in mind. It requires no 'applications' for it is not a means to an end, but addresses the end-goal directly. It enriches life (or so I hope) not in a round-about, indirect way, but by nurturing the very matrix of life itself: the psyche. Asking about the 'applications' of what I do is akin to asking how to get the bus home when you are already at home. Why did you get an education? To be able to work. Why do you work? To make money. Why do you want to make money? To buy things. Why do you want to buy things? To live and be able to have certain experiences. Yes, exactly! At the end of the day, it's all about experience; that is, what unfolds in mind. Everything else are means to arriving at experiences. And since understanding is a primary experience that frames, shapes, and colors most – if not all – other experiences, why wonder about its applications as far as people's actions in the world 'outside?' We're already dealing with the core issue; already sitting comfortably on the couch at home. So why ask about the bus?

Even after reading the above, I bet you still feel that something is off with my argument; that everything should have some kind of concrete, pragmatic application in order to have any value or meaning. There is a kind of uneasiness associated to embarking on an intellectual journey when the journey's guide tells you upfront that he doesn't care at all whether the journey will have any practical application. But fear not, you aren't alone in this feeling. It is shared by our entire Western culture; a culture that has now infected the entire world, the East included, like a virus.

The problem is that we, Westerners, project all meaning onto the outside. We stopped living the inner-life of human beings and begun living the 'outer life' of things and mechanisms. The answers to all why's must lie somewhere without and never within. I even dare venture an explanation for how this came to pass: Because of Western materialism, we believe we are finite beings who will, unavoidably, eventually cease to exist. Only the 'outside world' will endure and have continuity. As I argue in my fourth book, which I am now writing, this is nothing but a fairytale. But fairytale or not, it causes us to project all the meaning of life onto the 'outside world,' for only things that endure can have any significance. The world within, though remaining the only carrier of reality we can ever know, is seen as ephemeral and, therefore, meaningless. Such is the unsustainable imbalance of our way to relate to life. We emptied ourselves of all meaning and placed it all outside. Yet, even that 'outside world' is, ultimately, an abstraction of mind; an abstraction of the world within.

When people talk to me about my ideas and their own philosophical speculations, I sense that, intuitively and deep inside, they know that life, ultimately, is a journey in mind and nowhere else. They know that what we are talking about is already it; it's already all that matters. But towards the end of the conversation, when the enchantment of the discussion wanes and concedes ground to the analytical ego, they seek the reassurance the ego requires in terms of finding 'practical applications.' It is as though they needed to cover that ground for completeness sake, even though their intuitive minds know that everything of real importance has already been covered. They need to tick the box, like a compulsion or obsession that endures despite lacking any substance.

Life is a laboratory for exploration along only two paths: feeling (as in love and fear) and understanding. Nothing else exists but as evocative devices; 'tricks' to evoke feeling and understanding. All meaning resides in the emotions and comprehension unfolding within. While I, as a human being, also walk the path of feeling like the rest of us, my writing focuses on the path of understanding. Are there practical applications for my philosophy? Probably there are many. However, in my current phase, I can't care to elaborate on them, because I see them as means to an end that I am already tackling directly. So if you are looking for recipes, techniques, and other pragmatic procedures to apply to the world 'outside,' I am not your man. But if you think the world can only change when human beings make peace with, and nurture, their feelings while advancing their understanding of self and reality, then let's have a beer.

Chemotherapy and self-transcendence: an informal survey

2012-11-25T23:09:00.000+01:00

Source: Wikipedia.

A common, if anecdotal, side-effect of chemotherapy is what people commonly refer to as 'chemo brain,' a kind of loss of concentration and mental fog following chemotherapy sessions. Now, there is finally scientific evidence that 'chemo brain' is not a merely psychological phenomenon, but is correlated to physical changes in brain activity. A study presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America shows that "there are specific areas of the brain that use less energy following chemotherapy." In other words, chemotherapy can lead to reduced brain activity.

A friend of mine, who has indirect experience with 'chemo brain' symptoms in a close family member, raised an interesting hypothesis. He suggested that only patients who experience negative effects report it to their oncologists or general practitioners. Patients who experience a positive psychological change after chemotherapy, as his own family member did, are unlikely to report.

According to the 'filter' hypothesis of the mind-body problem, which I extensively discussed in this peer-reviewed paper, certain reductions of brain activity should allow for a de-localisation of consciousness and an expansion of awareness. Patients experiencing this usually report increased feelings of self-transcendence and spirituality, heightened creativity, psychic phenomena, and a host of other symptoms associated to non-local awareness. The question, of course, is whether, under certain (potentially rare) circumstances, 'chemo brain' couldn't lead to similar phenomenology. If it does, then we potentially have a huge population to study mind de-localisation through reduction of brain activity. Perhaps enormous volumes of data in this direction are out there, currently unreported.

It is not within the scope of this blog to launch any scientific study. But I thought I would try and do a little informal survey just to get an initial feeling for how promising a formal study in this direction might be. For this, I'd like to ask for your help in filling out the very short, multiple-choices-only form below, in case you have direct or indirect experience with 'chemo brain.' It won't cost more than a couple of minutes of your time. The partial results will be visible after you fill it out.

Though this survey is informal and non-scientific, I ask for your cooperation to keep the results as clean as possible:

Please do not fill out the form more than once (unless you know multiple patients who have undergone chemotherapy);
Please fill it out only if you have direct or indirect experience with 'chemo brain;'
I will publish the final results for everyone to see once there are enough responses. Please don't fill out bogus answers just to see the partial results. Have a little patience.

If you know people who have had direct or indirect experience with chemotherapy, please forward this article to them, asking them to consider filling out the survey below. This entire exercise will only make sense if we collect at least a couple of dozen responses. I count on your help to spread the word and mobilize people. Think of cancer boards, facebook cancer groups, twitter, and other social fora. I think the results, though anecdotal, could be interesting and help motivate a serious study at some point. There is a chance this effort could unlock significant new insights, so all help is welcome!

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If, in addition to filling out the form above, you'd like to share your experiences with 'chemo brain' in more detail and nuance, please leave a comment below. Anonymous comments are permitted.

Lost posts!

2012-11-17T20:46:00.004+01:00

John Greenleaf Whittier's fictional heroine
Maud Muller gazes into the distance,
regretting her inaction and thinking
about what might have been.
Source: Wikipedia.

UPDATE 18-Nov-2012: I managed to redirect the older URLs to the new links, so there should be no broken links anymore!

Today I was applying some adjustments to the formatting of my posts, so as to make them look nicer in the new blog template I am now using. Accidentally, I deleted the two most recent posts in that process, because somehow the blogger interface mixed their names up with a draft test post I was playing with. Naturally, I am fuming, but it doesn't help to get upset at this point.

I did have a back-up of the text of those posts and, as you can see, I've republished the original content. I've also redirected the older URLs so there should be no broken links. However, there were about 100 comments, combined from both posts, that I still see in my interface but am not sure I can 'move over' to the newly published posts. I am trying to find a way, but am not sure I will succeed. I contemplate with dread the possibility that all those comments, which you used your time and energy to write, may be lost.

I regret this accident enormously, particularly the potential loss of your comments. I consider it a privilege that you take the time and energy to contribute to my blog with your thoughts, and it grieves me to have failed to live up to your trust in this regard. I will continue to try to find a way to 'move' the comments over to the new posts. If you have suggestions to help me do this, please send me a note. I use blogger.

I will keep this short, because I am working hard to find a way to remedy the situation, if there is one. I will update you in the coming hours and days.

I offer you my heart-felt apologies for this. This will not happen again. Please do not stop commenting.

Bernardo.

PS: Let me take the opportunity to clarify a few things that some of you found confusing with the new blog format:

The blog is compatible with Internet Explorer 8 or later, Firefox 3.5 or later, Chrome, or Safari. Older browsers are not supported. You are better off with Chrome;
After a certain number of comments per post is reached, you have to click on "load more" at the bottom of the page to view newer comments. It might happen that you write a comment and don't see it published because you forget to "load more."

Sam Harris: proud and prejudiced?

2012-11-13T20:10:00.000+01:00

Illustration from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.
Source: Wikipedia.

UPDATE 17 Nov 2012: I accidentally deleted the original post and recovered it here. But the 74+ original comments have probably been lost! See more here. I sincerely apologize for this. An addendum was also added at the bottom of this post as a reply to Sam Harris' own addendum.

Sam Harris is at it again. Not content to have carried out what I see as a cheap 'drive-by shooting' of a neurosurgeon in his previous blog post, which I commented on here, he is now taking his act to a whole new level. Have a look here. Below, I intend to deconstruct Harris' argument, showing it for the display of intellectual blindness and misleading prejudice that I believe it is.

Here is the first segment that caught my attention. Harris is referring to Near-Death Experiences (NDEs):

"Unfortunately, these experiences vary across cultures, and no single feature is common to them all. One would think that if a nonphysical domain were truly being explored, some universal characteristics would stand out. Hindus and Christians would not substantially disagree—and one certainly wouldn’t expect the after-death state of South Indians to diverge from that of North Indians, as has been reported."

Here Harris is committing what I call the 'conclusion-by-inability-to-think-of-alternatives fallacy.' He is projecting onto all conceivable realities a particular aspect of one known reality; namely, the apparent objectivity of phenomena in ordinary consensus reality. But it is fallacious to infer, without further reasoning, this same characteristic for all conceivable realities. I extensively discussed this in an NDE article I wrote earlier, which I encourage you to read and which I make integral part of this commentary. Moreover, as I also discussed in my NDE article, there are indeed many commonalities across NDEs, regardless of the cultural background of the experiencer. This is elaborated upon in the very book Harris quotes from.

Harris' thinking seems to be the following: 'Since the phenomenology of NDEs is such that I can eliminate all other theoretical possibilities that I can think of, then NDEs are delusions and confabulations, despite all evidence to the contrary.' Well, this thinking doesn't say much about NDEs; though it says a lot about Harris' ability to devise theoretical alternatives.

He goes on:

"And those who have reported leaving their bodies during a true medical emergency—after cardiac arrest, for instance—did not suffer the complete loss of brain activity.⁠"

This is ridiculous. Harris is suggesting that a patient, after minutes of cardiac arrest and no blood flow, may still have sufficient, and sufficiently coherent, brain activity to confabulate unfathomable journeys into other realms; complex, coherent, peak experiences that change people for life and which they consider the most significant they've ever had. If the brain can do that with a few firing neurons hidden somewhere, what the heck do we need a fully-functional brain for? This is akin to claiming that if you damage every component of a car, except for, say, the spark plugs, the car can drive even faster than when everything is working in perfect order!

Harris has to decide whether he thinks human conscious life needs the brain or not. If he thinks it does, he must be self-consistent and acknowledge the obvious fact that a few neurons firing somewhere deep inside the brain, even if they are there, cannot possibly explain peak experiences like NDEs. After all, we seem to 'need' measurable neocortical activity even to dream of the clenching of a hand, as this study shows; let alone to dream of lifetimes in parallel universes. And if Harris doesn't think the brain is needed, then he has to bite the bullet and acknowledge the obvious implications. Harris cannot have if both ways: 'The brain is everything! Oh, wait... but in these cases we hardly need a brain at all.'

Unfortunately, Harris is not alone in this tendentious dance of contradiction in modern neuroscience, as I discussed before here.

Next:

"There is also a rumor circulating online that, after attacking Alexander from the safety of my blog, I have refused to debate him in public. This is untrue. I merely declined the privilege of appearing with him on a parapsychology podcast, in the company of an irritating and unscrupulous host."

This is not a rumor; it is a public fact that Harris refused to debate, when he was given the chance to do so, the man he had earlier taken the initiative to attack in an intellectual drive-by shooting. The record of his refusal is publicly available online in this page. And the email exchange that leads him now to characterise podcast host Alex Tsakiris as 'irritating and unscrupulous' is also publicly available online here, so you can judge for yourself.

Now a pearl:

"The very fact that Alexander remembers his NDE suggests that the cortical and subcortical structures necessary for memory formation were active at the time. How else could he recall the experience?"

Here Harris seems to be casually taking for granted that memories are encoded as physical traces in the brain, just like files stored in a flash card. Yet, decades and decades of research have failed to find these physical traces. Modest recent progress in that direction is self-contradictory, as a cursory comparison of this and this article shows. The fact that brain damage can impair memory only establishes that one can physically impair access to information, but doesn't establish at all where this information comes from. I discussed some of my thoughts on memory in an earlier article and in a related discussion thread of this blog. I could write pages on this, but someone else already summarised the key points cogently. So I invite you to read chapter 7 of biologist Rupert Sheldrake's book Science Set Free: 10 Paths to New Discovery.

Memory formation is a mystery, as Harris must know. We don't know enough about it to use it either to dismiss or substantiate accounts of NDEs. Harris' argument is, thus, illegitimate. Moreover, that he so casually passes theoretical speculation for established scientific fact seems, to me at least, suspiciously tendentious.

Now, let's see what is perhaps the very 'best' part of Harris' comments. Pay attention to this:

"If the brain merely serves to limit human experience and understanding, one would expect most forms of brain damage to unmask extraordinary scientific, artistic, and spiritual insights—and, provided that a person’s language centers could be spared, the graver the injury the better. A few hammer blows or a well-placed bullet should render a person of even the shallowest intellect a spiritual genius. Is this the world we are living in?"

Yes, it is! Harris seems to ignore the vast literature on so-called 'acquired savant' cases. For a cogent overview, see this article from the Wisconsin Medical Society. It shows countless cases of people who developed genius-level skills in arts, maths, and many other areas of intellectual activity as a consequence of bullet wounds to the head, stroke, concussion, and even the progression of dementia. Nearly every conceivable source of brain injury can potentially trigger a savant. (Update: Popular Science magazine recently did a great feature on acquired savant syndrome).

Harris also asks why spiritual insight isn't triggered as a result of brain damage. Well, it is! Let's forget the anecdotal evidence and focus on controlled studies. A 2010 study published in Neuron shows precisely a correlation between surgery-induced brain damage and spiritual insight. Moreover, most, if not all, techniques for the attainment of spiritual insight seem to operate by causing a reduction of brain activity—think of ordeals, hyper-ventilation, sensory deprivation, psychedelics, meditation, and even prayer—which is entirely consistent with the hypothesis that the brain limits conscious experience. I elaborated extensively on this before, in the article linked here.

Again, Harris seems to be, at best, confused and ignorant of the facts; or, at worse, wilfully biased in his appraisal of the available data. His quote above describes precisely the facts as we know them, even though he uses it rhetorically, as if it were all obviously untrue. The irony would be sweet if it weren't concerning as far as what it seems to say about Sam Harris. The only part of the quote that I think is false is Harris' statement that 'most forms of brain damage' should lead to new insights. We don't know whether this should be the case for 'most forms,' for we do not yet understand how the brain filters and limits conscious experience. All we can say is that, for at least some forms of brain damage, insights should be triggered. And that, as I argued, is empirical fact that Harris, as a neuroscientist, should be aware of.

As I said in a previous post, I used to have special respect for Sam Harris and what I perceived to be his unbiased attitude. I regret to admit that such special respect is gone now. Harris' last post, in my view, is disgraceful. It is intellectually weak and flawed, it ignores empirical fact, and embodies either a dangerous form of purposefully-misleading prejudice or an astonishing lack of ability to devise theoretical possibilities. In my view, given his latest writings, Harris is as blinded by fundamentalist beliefs as his fellow 'horsemen.' It is easy to make a sport of wiping the floor with soft targets like religious apologists and new-agers, but it is a whole other story to stand to proper intellectual scrutiny and empirical fact.

If Harris ever reads this article, here is a note for him: Yes, I am taking what I think is a fair shot at you. But if you like to debate this, in contrast to your refusal to debate Alexander, I am game. Take on a real debating opponent for a change, Sam.

ADDENDUM 17 Nov 2012:

Harris wrote an addendum to his post, which you can find here. In it, he equates the 'filter hypothesis' to what is known as the 'transmission hypothesis,' according to which consciousness is a kind of radio signal received by the brain. He then proceeds to correctly point out the problem with the transmission hypothesis, which is that we are supposedly the signal, not the radio.

However, although the transmission hypothesis entails the filter hypothesis, the filter hypothesis does not necessarily entail the transmission hypothesis. As a matter of fact, the filter hypothesis doesn't even entail dualism! My own metaphysical position, for instance, is not dualist. Yet, the filter hypothesis holds well under my views, as I wrote about in this earlier article, which I encourage you to read. According to this article, the brain is the partial image of a process by means of which mind localizes itself, 'filtering' everything else out. Notice how this solves Harris' question: Instead of being an external 'signal' that is no longer being received, but which we still are, in my formulation mind folds in on itself in the form of a vortex, limiting its own breadth. We are mind, and yet mind self-limits. Under this formulation, to say that electrochemical processes in the brain are the cause of consciousness is as illogical as to say that lightning is the cause of atmospheric electrical discharge; or clots the cause of coagulation; or fire the cause of combustion. Fire is the partial image of the process of combustion as viewed from the outside and, as such, correlates very well with the process it depicts; just as electrochemical processes in the brain correlate very well with conscious states.

Currently, I am 2/3 of the way through writing a new book that will explain all this in details, and very specifically. That book will be my ultimate reply to Sam Harris. So please bear with me while I finish and publish it. It should be available at some point in 2013.

It is true that even I have used the radio metaphor when discussing the filter hypothesis. After all, the analogy is a very handy, metaphorical device to convey certain ideas. For instance, I once wrote a fairly elaborate explanation of the filter hypothesis under an implicit dualist metaphor. The article is available from here. But my use of the radio metaphor does not mean that I believe consciousness to be literally some kind of external signal being received by the brain. I don't. Assuming that would amount to taking the metaphor way beyond its intended scope.

Overall, Harris' understanding of the filter hypothesis seems to be based on an extremely casual and limited reading of it. Huxley wrote two paragraphs about it in The Doors of Perception. When Bergson wrote about it in Matter and Memory, his point was to discuss memory. Before Harris can pass judgment on the hypothesis, he needs to, at the very least, acquaint himself with a proper articulation of it. For instance, he should read my paper on it, and then my idealist formulation of it.

Copyright © 2012 by Bernardo Kastrup. All rights are reserved.

The membrane metaphor in images

2012-11-04T20:15:00.000+01:00

UPDATE 17 Nov 2012: I accidentally deleted the original post and recovered it here. But the 30+ original comments have probably been lost! See more here. I sincerely apologize for this.

Most of you know that I have been working on a metaphorical model of reality that looks upon mind as a kind of membrane, the vibrations of which give rise to all subjective perception and, as such, to all reality. I have discussed this in a number of previous posts in this blog, amongst which:

Mind as a Hyper-Dimensional Membrane;
Categories of Consciousness;
Subject, Object, and Instincts; and
The Brain as a Knot of Consciousness.

Now, a video has been produced where I discuss the ideas behind these articles in a, hopefully, more evocative manner:

Notice how the membrane metaphor described in the video provides a different, but perfectly coherent ontological framework upon which to interpret the mathematical formulations of M-theory, the leading edge of theoretical physics today: The hyper-membrane M-theory works with, in this case, is the medium of mind itself, not a strongly-objective entity outside of mind. I believe the entire mathematical formulation of M-theory could be seamlessly ported onto this ontological interpretation, leading to a much more parsimonious, clean worldview, where the 'hard problem of consciousness' disappears naturally.

This video, and the accompanying articles mentioned above, form a kind of preview of my fourth book, which I am working on now. I am working for it to be a thorough, well-substantiated, coherent, strong, and rather complete articulation of my idealist views and general philosophical system about the relationship between mind and reality. I hope for it to be a reference work in reviving the philosophy of idealism; that is, the notion that all reality is in mind.

Though I am quite satisfied with my current publishers, I want to take the opportunity to drop the following note here: I am interested in maximising the degree of exposure of my upcoming book, and would whole-heartedly entertain the possibility of switching to a bigger publisher, prepared to commit serious resources in promoting the book. If you have ideas on this regard, please contact me privately through the link provided here to the right.

Magic and Truth: A myth

2012-10-14T09:17:00.000+02:00

In my latest Story Time episode (see video below), I tell a little fantasy about the nature of magic and its relationship to the more subtle notions of truth that have been lost to our modern Western culture. As in other Story Time videos of mine, the attempt here is to give a new, more modern language to rather old ideas, so we can hear and appreciate the underlying notions without the knee-jerk reaction of dismissing them outright as superstition. For emphasis, I do not put this myth forward as literal truth, but as a kind of intellectual artwork aimed at stimulating the imagination; that most crucial part of what it means to be a human being. Now, while the myth, as told in the video, keeps things rather simple, I felt the need to go a little further with the audience of this blog; an audience that certainly 'can take it.'

Let me start with a summary of the key ideas behind the myth:

Fractals are efficient and economic ways to create variety of form out of very simple principles;
In a fractal, the principle of self-similarity rules: different parts of the fractal correspond to each other at different levels, and look like the whole fractal. The same 'themes' emerge over and over again, recursively;
The 'trick' behind Creation may be that nature is itself a fractal: Creation may have used fractals as an efficient and economic 'technique' to recursively create the variety of existence out of rather simple principles;
If nature is a fractal, then the principle of correspondence applies to nature: Objects, substances, and concepts may correspond in a fractal, rather non-trivial and non-causal way to other objects, substances, and concepts;
The fantasy is that operations on an object, substance, or concept have a non-local and non-causal effect, through some form of fractal resonance outside of space-time, on the other objects, substances, or concepts that correspond to it;
Moreover, if there are many different realities unfolding in the great medium of existence, the fantasy is that all of these realities ultimately arise from the unfolding of a kind of 'cosmic Source fractal.' Therefore, the principle of correspondence applies across realities as well. An operation on physical substances or objects may have a non-causal, fractal resonance with the dynamics of other 'realms;'
In our culture, we only lend validity to literal truth. To us, metaphorical truth is just an indirect way to refer to some literal truth at the end. But, according to this myth, there is a kind of actual truth that is not literal and not metaphorical in the way we normally mean: A statement formulated with words and concepts of our reality may ultimately refer to objects and ideas of another reality, which they correspond to through fractal correspondences. Since it is impossible to refer directly to another reality with language (we just don't have the words), this kind of non-literal truth-statement is the best that can be done as far as communicating a direct, transcendent experience. What is unfortunate is to mix it up with more ordinary, literal truth-statements.

Now the bit I'd like to add. When the myth says that there are non-trivial fractal correspondences across aspects of our reality, the correspondence here is meant to be more subtle than a mere similarity of spatial, three-dimensional shapes. The myth uses the word 'form' in a broader sense: 'Form' here refers not only to shape, but also sounds, textures, ideas, subjective gestalts, emotions, insights, impressions, intuitions, principles, algorithms, etc. All these are parts of Creation and, as such, given the myth, must also all be parts of the 'cosmic Source fractal.' The cosmic Source fractal generates shapes, sounds, textures, ideas, subjective gestalts, emotions, insights, impressions, intuitions, principles, algorithms, etc., in a kind of synergistic apotheosis of morphogenesis. Therefore, a correspondence of 'form' is meant as something much, much broader than a similarity of shape. It encompasses correspondences between, for instance, shape and feeling (round/whole), sound and insight (harmony/cohesion), texture and taste (rough/salty), color and passion (red/love), etc. It is naive, according to the myth, to believe that only correspondences of shape apply, or even that all correspondences of shape have some form of deeper fractal meaning regardless of other, more subtle aspects. It's not about pushing needles into look-alike dolls as in voodoo black magic. Things supposedly are a lot more subtle and elusive. According to the myth, only true 'alchemists' will see the correct correspondences and be able to operate on them.

If you were alert, you will have noticed my attempt to give new language to old concepts. The fractal correspondences, for instance, are new language for the old alchemical principle that states 'as above, so below.' Fractal resonance is new language for what the tradition has simply called 'correspondences,' without further explanation. The notion of a 'cosmic Source fractal' behind all Creation is analogous to what Plato has called the 'Ideal Forms,' as well as to the creation myth of Sacred Geometry. The idea of different realities as different segments of this cosmic Source fractal is modern language for the different 'realms' of existence, like physical, spiritual, ethereal, etc., which the ancients referred to.

Much lies in mere language... just mere language. The exact same idea can be correctly articulated in language in a form that will evoke immediate dismissal, or in a form that will be appealingly believable even in the absence of any direct evidence. Funny, isn't it? How much must we miss out on because of this peculiarity of the human ego in its current cultural milieu?

Many of the philosophical underpinnings of this myth are extensively elaborated upon in my book Dreamed up Reality.

Copyright © 2012 by Bernardo Kastrup. All rights are reserved.

Sam Harris' critique of Eben Alexander

2012-10-13T13:00:00.000+02:00

Newsweek Magazine's cover article this week is Eben Alexander's report and analysis of his own Near-Death Experience. Alexander is a neurosurgeon and Professor at Harvard School of Medicine who underwent an unfathomable NDE while suffering from acute bacterial meningites, which reportedly shut down his neocortex. His description of his NDE is rich and nuanced, with many Christian undertones. One might wonder how seriously one can take an experience that seems to be so much coloured by cultural idiosyncrasies but, as I agued here, I do not see this as contradictory to the reality of NDEs. As a matter of fact, my intuition is that Alexander's story is authentic; it certainly matches well with my own metaphysical model of consciousness and of what should happen upon cessation of brain activity, as I elaborate on in my books and many of my articles. But well-known atheist activist Sam Harris seems to disagree, and it is his critique of Alexander's case that I want to comment on below.

I believe there to be a couple of faulty assumptions and unfair, implicit suggestions in Harris' critique. The most glaring one is reflected in this segment of his post:

"His experience sounds so much like a DMT trip that we are not only in the right ballpark, we are talking about the stitching on the same ball."

Here the implicit suggestion is that, because of similarities between a psychedelic experience (DMT is an endogenous psychedelic) and Alexander's NDE, the latter was likely generated by brain chemistry and, therefore, had no reality to it. Underlying this suggestion is the completely unsubstantiated notion, or assumption, that no valid transcendent experience can be initiated by physical means like alterations of brain chemistry.

You see, it is a fact that there is such a physical entity as a brain, and that there are correlations between brain states and subjective conscious states. This is not in dispute by any serious commentator on NDEs. The question is: What is the relationship between physical brain states and subjective conscious states? This is what is in dispute. So Harris' assumption that a physical trigger cannot lead to a perfectly valid NDE seems to completely miss the point in contention. After all, most NDEs are initiated by physical events anyway. Yes, Alexander's NDE bears similarities with psychedelic trances, at least as far as descriptions go. But psychedelic experiences can, and probably are, entirely valid transcendent experiences not generated by the brain, as the latest research suggests. The comparison does not at all defeat the validity of Alexander's NDE.

The latest research indicates that psychedelics, just like hypoxia, hyperventilation, or brain injury, reduce brain activity. Harris is well-aware of this, for he even updated a much earlier post, where he discussed psychedelic experiences specifically, with a reference to this research. Here is the relevant passage of Harris' earlier post:

"Unfortunately, Huxley was operating under the erroneous assumption that psychedelics decrease brain activity. However, modern techniques of neuroimaging have shown that these drugs tend to increase activity in many regions of the cortex (and in subcortical structures as well) [Note 1/24/12: a recent study on psilocybin actually lends some support to Huxley’s view.—SH]." (my italics)

I wrote more extensively about this psychedelic research here, in case you are interested.

As I also argued before, there is a broad and striking pattern correlating transcendent, non-local experiences with reduction or even cessation of brain activity: G-force induced loss of consciousness, psychedelics, hyper-ventilation practices, strangulation, ordeals, certain forms of meditation, brain damage, cardiac arrest, etc., all lead, yes, to similar transcendent experiences. This strongly suggests that the brain is a localisation mechanism for consciousness, restricting it in space-time, but without generating it. Reduction or cessation of the right aspects of brain activity should then lead to a de-clenching, a de-localisation of consciousness, which thus expands and gains access to aspects of reality otherwise unavailable to ordinary egoic states. Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) once described the process of death as "removing a tight shoe," which makes the point here rather evocatively. This, in my view, is precisely what happened to Alexander. The potential similarities of his experience with a psychedelic trance, which Harris is hurrying to point to, rather corroborate the reality of Alexander's NDE.

Much of Harris criticism rests on an old materialist argument against NDEs: It cannot be shown that all of Alexander's brain functions were off, so it is conceivable that there was enough brain function left to confabulate an unfathomable dream. This is as promissory as it is unfalsifiable, for there might indeed always be a neuron firing somewhere. But that's not the point, is it? The point is whether the kind of brain function that ordinarily always correlates to the experience of complex dreams can be realistically expected to have been present in Alexander's case. If chaotic, impaired, residual cortical function could explain the confabulation of a complex and coherent trip to "heaven," then such residual cortical function would probably suffice ordinarily too, wouldn't it? Harris argument is analogous to claiming that a car should still drive normally when everything in it is broken except for the spark plugs. And to claim that a bacteria-infested neocortex, at the level verified in Alexander's case, retains enough coherent function to do this seems to stretch credulity under the materialist notion that experience is coherent brain activity. To dismiss Alexander's experience on the basis of warped speculation about residual neocortical function amounts to dismissing extremely interesting, anomalous data. Something extraordinary has happened, and true skeptics should take a critical look at it while retaining a healthy dose of skepticism towards the standard explanations too; that's how science historically has moved forward.

Studies on the neuronal correlates of consciousness (for instance, see this) have shown that neocortical activity correlates with the kind of experiences described by Alexander. Thus, to claim rather speculatively that such experiences could happen with a highly malfunctioning neocortex seems to entail a rather biased and contradictory interpretation of the evidence and to raise a deeper question: If Alexander could confabulate that kind of sharp, coherent, complex, ultra-realistic dream with a severely debilitated neocortex, what the heck do we need a healthy neocortex for? Even when we dream of something as trivial as the clenching of a hand, we see clear correlations with neocortical activity; so how come we can supposedly confabulate entire alternative realities, rich in landscapes, entities, and significance, with a highly impaired neocortex? Materialism cannot have it both ways, as I wrote before here; either you need the brain or you don't.

The more unfortunate aspect of Harris' criticism, which I personally believe is beneath him, is a subtle attempt to discredit Alexander's capacity to judge whether his NDE could be explained by traditional neuroscience. This is embedded in a quote Harris adds to his post; a quote from his UCLA thesis advisor. Here is the relevant part:

"Neurosurgeons, however, are rarely well-trained in brain function. Dr. Alexander cuts brains; he does not appear to study them."

Now pause for a moment and read this quote again. The notion here is that Alexander, a practicing neurosurgeon and Professor at Harvard Medical School (here is his resume), does not understand what part of the brain does what while he is hacking at people's brains every day. He supposedly does not understand what parts of the brain are correlated to confabulation, dreams, feelings, etc., yet he has a license to slice your brain if you so need. Maybe neurosurgeons are not doing research at the leading-edge of functional mapping, but Alexander is most certainly well qualified to understand what parts of the brain should correlate to what kinds of experience. It is ludicrous to suggest otherwise.

The bottom-line is this: Alexander not only has the scientific credentials required to interpret his experience properly, he also has the unique perspective of having had the experience himself, something Harris didn't. It is Alexander that is in the best position to judge the situation, both from an empirical and from an academic background perspective.

I will grant to Harris that the Newsweek article is written in a rather sensationalist tone, and with rather loose language. Personally, I also do not like that. But it is an article meant for lay people, not scientists or philosophers. Alexander is trying to reach people, which I do think is applaudable. In the process of doing so, he will inevitably have to sacrifice the more conservative and cautious tone that is usual in science.

I will go even further: Scientism activists (among which I do not count Harris, but do count some of his collaborators, like Richard Dawkins) casually take the liberty to throw all scientific caution to the wind when peddling the notion that consciousness ends at death, even though there is exactly zero direct evidence for that, and even though there are other coherent ontological approaches that seem to fit the data better and which do not entail the end of consciousness at death (as I myself attempted to do in a recent Paranthropology paper). Their activism flies in the face of philosophy, passing speculation and hypotheses for fact, and aims directly at influencing lay people. In this context, I find it perfectly legitimate that Alexander is attempting to do the exact same thing, just from another perspective. If anything, his attempt can help reduce the imbalance currently reigning in the more educated segments of society.

ADDENDUM 16 November 2012: A follow-up to this article is now available here.

Copyright © 2012 by Bernardo Kastrup. All rights are reserved.

Apparitions, ghosts, and mediumistic communications

2012-09-23T16:52:00.000+02:00

I have recently been asked by several people about my views on so-called apparitions, ghosts, and spirit communications through mediums. This is certainly a fascinating subject, so I think it is worthwhile to discuss how I map all this onto my philosophical views. I will organize the discussion below into five parts: a summary of my general philosophical views as they apply to this subject; what I think is true regarding the many theories advanced by those interested in the subject; what I think is not true; my own interpretation of the evidence; and then some final commentary.

My general philosophical views

As most of you know, I hold an Idealist stance: I believe the most logical and parsimonious interpretation of reality is that all of nature is in mind, including the human body; mind itself being the sole irreducible ontological primitive. I have argued elsewhere why I think there is sufficient empirical evidence to discard the notion that the brain somehow generates mind. As such, the dissolution of the body represents merely the dissolution of an image in mind, not of mind itself. Further, it is my position that space-time is a phenomenon of mind. Life in space-time, as such, is a kind of collective, consensus dream that multiple differentiated segments of the broader fabric of mind – that is, multiple individual conscious beings – partake in jointly, somewhat like in the movie Inception.

To me, the human body-brain system is the image of the process by means of which an individual conscious being partakes in the collective dream of space-time. Think of it in terms of some analogies: The image of the process of combustion is fire; the image of the process of blood coagulation is a clot; the image of the process of sudden high-energy electrical discharge is lightning. In an analogous way, I think of a live organic body as the image of the process of an individual consciousness partaking in the collective dream of space-time.

What I do believe regarding apparitions and mediumistic communication

Clearly, I believe that individual consciousness, in the form of a differentiated segment of the broader fabric of mind, persists upon physical death. Since the mind, as argued above, is not generated by the brain, the dissolution of the brain does not imply the end of mind. The dead body is merely an image that a particular segment of mind stopped imagining, and which persists as an 'echo' in the imagination of other segments of mind, as I discussed here. Further, I also think that an individual's consciousness does not dissolve into what many have come to call 'oceanic awareness,' but retains a form of differentiation upon physical death. I have argued this in my book Dreamed up Reality. Given all this, it is fair to say that I am an active proponent of what is commonly referred to as 'survival.'

Now, the most parsimonious notion is that there is only one, continuous fabric of mind, which differentiates itself so to create the appearance of individuality. I once tried to illustrate this with a topological metaphor, which you can find here. This avoids the inelegant, unreasonable, and inflationary notion that mind arose irreducibly countless times in nature. In this context, all differentiated segments of the fabric of mind – each one corresponding to an individual conscious being – are fundamentally one; in the same way that all the waves of an ocean are fundamentally one ocean in movement. This entails a complete interconnectedness at the most fundamental level of reality. It is thus conceivable that, through the broader fabric of mind that unites them, an individual consciousness that is no longer imaging a body (that is, a deceased person) can resonate in some way with another individual consciousness that is alive in space-time. Michael Larkin illustrated this cogently here. To put it in simpler and more direct terms, I believe it to be conceivable that the consciousness of a 'dead person' can, in some form, communicate with the consciousness of someone alive. This can be called mediumism and, as such, I grant potential validity to mediumism.

What I do not believe regarding apparitions and mediumistic communication

I do not think that the consciousness of a dead person can inhabit or otherwise interact physically within space-time, even if temporarily, as in the traditional conception of ghosts. The reasons for this are various. First, as I said above, I think the partaking of consciousness in space-time is a process that has an image; an image which we call a physical body. To expect consciousness to partake in space-time without a correlated physical body is like expecting combustion without fire; or coagulation without clots. The body simply is the image of the partaking. Second, the idea that there is a more subtle but fully-functional 'copy' of a physical body (that is, a ghost) that survives death and can pop into, and interact physically within, space-time seems to render the physical body entirely redundant. If we fundamentally are immortal ghosts that can watch sunsets, push tables around, and communicate in regular language, all without a biological body, then why the heck do we have a body to begin with? The notion that nature would come up with such unfathomably contrived redundancy seems illogical and beyond inelegant to me.

Based on a similar rationale, I do not think that disembodied consciousnesses (that is, 'discarnate spirits', 'dead people,' whatever term you prefer) can think or communicate in language. Language represents a very particular, linear way to organize the flow of thoughts; that is, the flow of the oscillations of mind. When mind organizes itself so as to think in language, I believe the image of such organization is what we call a human brain. Note that I am not as much saying that 'a human brain is necessary for language' (though that is a useful metaphor) as I am saying that, when mind organizes itself to flow according to the modality we call language, the result of that organization is what we call a human brain. Do you see the subtle difference?

Therefore, if an individual consciousness is not organized in the form of a human brain, I do not think that its thoughts (that is, its oscillations) can be articulated in language form. By definition, a disembodied consciousness is not organized in that way, so I do not think that it can communicate in language either. Nor does it need language to convey meaning, since locality constraints are more-than-likely not in effect in the after-death state, as I discussed here.

The phenomenology reports of some very observant and thoughtful people who claim to have had contact with disembodied consciousnesses (like dead relatives or friends) seem quite consistent with the view I expressed above. Consider, for instance, Anita Moorjani's very observant and precise commentary on her Near-Death Experience below:

At the 30:48-minute mark she says: "I encountered my [deceased] father..." At first sight, many people would think of this as a meeting with the 'ghost' of a dead person. But then she immediately goes on to qualify that encounter as something much more like what I am describing above: "...because it was as though I became his essence; I understood him." Clearly, she didn't meet a ghost inhabiting space-time; she became the essence of her father, in the way differentiated consciousnesses can 'tap' into each other's oscillations through the broad fabric of mind. Such encounter does not take place in space-time; it does not take place within the consensus dream we call physical reality.

At the 43:06-minute mark she goes on to say: "It's interesting because there is no language, you don't speak. It's like you just understand; there's just the knowledge." Again, this is consistent with my postulate above that a disembodied consciousness will not 'think' in language form, but communicate by a direct, largely unfiltered sharing of mental contents. Overall, Anita's description of her NDE seems to be entirely and precisely consistent with my philosophical positions on the nature of reality.

My interpretation of the evidence

A source often cited for evidence regarding the reality of apparitions and survival is Erlendur Haraldsson, an Icelandic academic who has investigated cases of apparitions and communications with the dead for over 40 years now. Haraldsson has amassed a file with thousands of reports of such cases, and publishes extensively. Although, taken individually, each of Haraldsson's cases is nothing more than anecdotal evidence (as he acklowledges), taken together they are very indicative of a real phenomenon taking place.

Haraldsson published a book this year, called The Departed Among the Living, which provides a comprehensive overview of his life's work in the field. It is, one could say, Haraldsson's most definitive pronouncement on the matter thus far. The book is bursting full of testimonies of people who appeared to have seen, heard, felt, or otherwise perceived ghosts of the departed. Most of the cases occurred when the witnesses were awake and performing daily routines, so many of the apparitions are very suggestive of ghosts interacting physically within space-time, even if temporarily. What do I make of this, given what I said above?

Well, as it turns out, Haraldsson himself has already worded my own views on the subject in a very cogent way. I will take the liberty to quote a passage below under non-commercial, fair educational use provisions. The passage is the very opening of Chapter 10, titled Who or What is the Source of the Apparitional Experience? Therefore, there is no sense in which this quote can be taken out of context. The emphasis is mine:

"We have mentioned two possible explanations for apparitions. Either encounters with the dead are created by the minds of the perceivers, or the dead are making us aware of them by creating a sensory image in the mind of living observers ... If the latter theory/explanation is true, ... it is easiest to imagine that the deceased person creates a perception in the mind of the perceiver. We find a similar phenomenon in hypnotism ... the perception can be so real that the perceiver experiences it as an outer physical stimulus ... There can hence only be a cognitive or telepathic connection between the living and the dead. The deceased moulds [sic] the perception in the mind of the living person. It appears that such a perception can range from sensing an invisible presence ... to the perception of an outer physical reality just as with any other sensory perception we know of."

Clearly, Haraldsson is not granting reality to quasi-material, ghost-like bodies inhabiting and interacting in space-time. He is stating that the apparition events occur in the mind of the perceivers, not in the so-called 'outer world' of consensus space-time. In other words, the apparitions are not part of the collective dream of consensus reality. Indeed, Haraldsson cannot escape this conclusion, for his files contain cases that directly contradict the ghost interpretation of apparitions: cases where the dead appear as a photograph on a wall (case no. 5033), or as a ball of fire (case no. 7003), or even as a floating jacket without a body (case no. 2210). Naturally, as a scientist, he will not selectively ignore evidence that does not conform to a particular interpretation of the data; he will, instead, seek the most economical interpretation that fits all validated data.

In all fairness, Haraldsson does go on to discuss what he calls the "third explanation": that, and I quote, "the deceased person creates or materializes in some inexplicable way a physical form." (p. 69) But he quickly concedes that his entire set of data provides no support for this alternative, and that one has to go back to the 19th or early 20th centuries to find case reports that suggest it. He acknowledges that "such material phenomenon have [sic] rarely been seen around mediums since then." (p. 69) Candidly, he also acknowledges that reports from this early era are difficult to consider valid, because "later some unscrupulous men managed to produce what appeared to be similar perceptions with tricks alone." (p. 69) My own view is that, if one needs to go back to the turn of the 20th century to find evidence supportive of a certain interpretation of a phenomenon that is supposedly happening all the time, then one simply does not have a case for such an interpretation.

Here is what I think is going on in authentic cases of apparitions and mediumistic communications, where the information conveyed is verified to be veridical: There is indeed a contact with a disembodied consciousness, but not a manifestation of that disembodied consciousness as a ghost in consensus space-time. The communication happens as a resonance of thought through the very medium of mind, the most fundamental level of reality. It takes place outside of space-time and is not in the form of language. Instead, it is in the form of a direct sharing of pure subjective ideas and feelings, as Anita Moorjani described in the video above. It is only after the communication that the perceiver's consciousness retroactively translates the subjective meaning perceived into a storyline and images that make some sense according to ordinary concepts and language. This can take place, for instance, as an overlay of the image of a dead person onto the actual physical scenery, or as a semi-automatic wording of an otherwise wordless intuition or feeling. In both cases, in my view, it is the perceiver's mind that architects the storyline, while the underlying meaning, or impression, or intuition may indeed be an authentic, veridical communication.

That the unconscious mind can seamlessly and autonomously convert pure meaning into recognizable and concrete images and words is well-established in depth-psychology since the time of Freud and Jung. Such process is entirely transparent to egoic awareness, which thinks that the images, words, and storylines created are literally true, in the sense of being actual physical stimuli. To say that the psychologists who came up with such notions are unaware of how concretely the phenomenon is experienced is naive: Jung himself used to 'see' and 'hear' an autonomous psychic complex of his unconscious mind, which manifested to his ego as a winged being ('Philemon') who used to 'walk' with him in his garden while they 'talked.' (See Jung's biography Memories, Dreams, Reflections). Yet, despite his own dramatic experiences with apparitions and communications with the dead (one of which Haraldsson makes a point of recounting in his book), Jung did not think those apparitions where actual ghostly manifestations in consensus space-time.

I think that any valid communication with a disembodied consciousness must necessarily entail a subtle (perhaps practically imperceptible) shift in the state of consciousness of the witness, which renders her more open to psychic influences. In other words, it is the embodied consciousness that must temporarily and partially free itself from the locality constraints of space-time so to gain access to a frame of reality that allows for the communication. It is us, metaphorically speaking, that 'need to go to the dead;' not the dead to us. They cannot 'come to us' without our (unconscious) cooperation because being in space-time entails taking upon ourselves a number of constraints and 'filters' that insulate us from the broader reality of mind. It's like putting on blinders. We isolated ourselves in the process of partaking in the consensus dream, so we cannot expect those who left the dream to come to us on their own (unless, of course, they rejoin the dream, a process that has the image we call 'birth'). Expecting otherwise is, in my view, as unreasonable as someone who puts on earplugs and proceeds to complain to his wife that he cannot hear what she says. "Dear, would you please speak up? I can't hear you!"

Some further commentary

When discussing the potential validity of a reality that transcends the physical, scientists and philosophers are often restricted to evidence in the form of phenomenological reports. In other words, they have to rely on what people say. In such cases, it is a sound practice not to patronize the witness. After all, it is the witness who is in the best position to describe what she witnessed, not the researcher who is interviewing her. Fundamentalist materialist scientists often commit the fallacy of thinking they know better than the witness what was actually witnessed; which is, of course, preposterous.

But it is also a naive fallacy to believe the witness to be in the best position to interpret what was witnessed. Interpretation requires a capability to model, something that depends on a deep understanding of science and philosophy. It is unreasonable to expect ordinary witnesses to do that. The problem is that witnesses often pass interpretation for observation. For instance, when a witness says "I've seen a ghost!" that is already an interpretation. It is up to judicious researchers to look past the haze of interpretations and extract from the witness what was actually observed (for instance: "What I've actually seen was a very realistic image that corresponds precisely to the looks of a dead relative of mine"). It is also up to qualified people to then interpret those observations according to a broader and logical framework.

When communications with apparitions are validated as far as the veracity of the information received, some argue that the simplest explanation is simply to take everything at face value: that is, that ghosts are real. For instance, imagine that someone reports to have heard the ghost of her dead mom tell her where some lost keys were. Imagine also that, thereafter, the lost keys are found exactly where described by the supposed ghost. Then, some people claim that the simplest explanation is simply to acknowledge the reality of mom's ghost (It knew where the keys were!).

The notion that the simplest explanation of a phenomenon is what it appears to be at face value is preposterous; it entails an embrace of intellectual laziness and lousiness. If such notion were valid, we would still believe that the sun orbits the Earth; after all, every human being on the planet will see that as the face-value explanation for the day-and-night cycles we all witness every day. Take that for consensus!

You see, it is true that the simplest explanation is preferred in science. But what constitutes the simplest explanation has nothing to do with what the phenomenon appears to be at face value, or even with what relates best to familiar concepts and notions. The idea of a ghost interacting in space-time sounds very familiar, for it is a verbatim copy of another very familiar notion: people and their behavior. Yet that has nothing to do with simplicity in the way it is meant in science and philosophy.

The simplest explanation is that which requires the lowest possible number of new ontological assumptions, while still explaining the observations. Postulating autonomous ghosts in space-time requires a mind-boggling number of new ontological assumptions: some kind of matter that can't be detected by normal means; some kind of energy that can't be detected by normal means; some kind of biology that is unknown; contrived laws of organization that are yet unknown; means of interaction with regular matter that can't be detected by normal means; etc. It is ludicrous to claim this as the 'simplest' explanation for apparitions.

Yet, none of the power and meaning of apparitions or mediumistic communications is lost if the explanatory framework proposed above is correct. Consciousness and individuality still survive death; communications with the deceased are still possible; information can still be validly received and verified. These are the key elements of meaning for those inspired by cases of apparitions and mediumistic communications in their spiritual journeys. And they are all not only preserved, but validated through a logical and internally-consistent explanatory framework that does not need to invoke ghosts interacting physically in space-time.

Note: If you would like to discuss the ideas in this post with me, please leave a comment in the comment section below or post a message in the discussion board of this site. I participate actively in both places.

Copyright © 2012 by Bernardo Kastrup. All rights are reserved.

Transcending Our Brain Created Reality

2012-09-22T10:19:00.001+02:00

An article I wrote for New Dawn Magazine, published in print a few weeks ago, is now freely available online thanks to the kindness of David Jones, the magazine's editor. I'd like to make it this week's blog post, since I believe the message in it is quite important. Below, you will find the first paragraph of the article and a link to the full text on New Dawn's website. Enjoy!

The study of non-ordinary states of consciousness is quickly becoming an established area of scientific and philosophical inquiry. Yet, all the enthusiasm about finding out what these non-ordinary states are somehow obfuscates much bigger, important, and urgent questions: What as-of-yet unknown aspects of reality do they give us access to? And what significance do those hold for the human adventure in space-time?

Continue reading on New Dawn's website...

Copyright © 2012 by Bernardo Kastrup. All rights are reserved.

The Great Cosmic Split: A myth

2012-09-09T21:11:00.000+02:00

What follows below is a myth, a story; not a philosophy, a model, or a theory. I share this myth here for the cultivation of what William Blake once called "The Divine Imagination." May the Divine Imagination not be forgotten in this age of misguided pragmatism and cynicism.

The "story time" video below tells the complete myth of the "Great Cosmic Split," in case you prefer to hear it instead of reading. The text that follows, however, does contain more substance.

At the beginning of time the cosmos was subject to a split: a deep slice across the core of existence. The universe became then divided into two very different halfs: the Physical Realm and the Mythical Realm. All the meaning of existence went into the Mythical Realm, while the Physical Realm retained all form.

In the Physical Realm the unfolding of existence became governed by laws of cause and effect, or 'causality.' These causal laws are blind, mechanical automatisms; there is no meaning in them. They operate based purely on relationships of form: Given the right configuration of circumstances, the laws kick in and certain events are automatically triggered regardless of their meaning. In the Mythical Realm, on the other hand, the unfolding of existence became governed by associations of meaning, instead of form. These associations are not mechanical, blind, or automatic, but link events with related meaning through corresponding evocations of emotion.

Some examples may help elucidate the above: In the Physical Realm events are governed by chains of causality. For instance, if you jump off a building (the cause) you will fall (the effect). Chains of causality operate dispassionately and purely according to form: You will fall because the configuration of circumstances is such that there is nothing stopping the law of gravity from pulling you down. You will fall whether you want to fall or not; whether the fall makes you scared or not; whether you are desperate or enthusiastic about life; whether the fall holds any significance for you or not. You will fall simply because there is a blind, mechanistic law whereby mass attracts mass at a distance.

In the Mythical Realm, on the other hand, events are governed by chains of associated meanings. For instance, if you see a baby crying, it may evoke in you the feeling of pain; this feeling, in turn, may unfold into the image of a medical doctor wearing a white jacket and approaching you with a flask of healing medicine; the image of the doctor may then evoke a soothing feeling that, in turn, may unfold into the image of your sitting at the edge of a beautiful waterfall, surrounded by the trees, immediately after having drunk from the flask; and so on, with endless associations of meaning leading to the unfolding of rich, fairytale-like mythologies that, in the Mythical Realm, are entirely and palpably real. Note that there is no relationship of formal cause-and-effect in the way events unfold there; only associations of meaning operating through evocations of emotion. The Mythical Realm is akin to dreams: it does not obey physics, reason, or logic. In a sense, meaning associations are the 'physics' of the Mythical Realm, while the evocation of affections is its 'logic.' Yet, both the Physical and the Mythical Realms are equally real and palpable. There is absolutely no sense in which any of the two Realms is any more or less abstract, 'gaseous,' ethereal, or concrete than the other.

Note how symmetrical and complementary these realms are. In the Physical Realm events unfold mechanically, according to form; in the Mythical Realm events unfold affectively, according to meaning. From the point-of-view of the Physical Realm, the Mythical Realm is absurd and illogical: there is no consistency of form in the way events unfold. From the point-of-view of the Mythical Realm, the Physical Realm is dead and vacuous: there is no significance in the way events mechanically cause other events. But there is a yet stronger relationship between these two realms; a historical secret that has been carefully guarded since the dawn of time.

And here it is: Every chain of causality in the Physical Realm has a twin chain of meaning in the Mythical Realm, like the two sides of the same coin. In other words, there is a chain of meaning in the Mythical Realm that corresponds closely, according to a certain 'translation function,' to each chain of causality in the Physical Realm. This correspondence between chains of causality and chains of meaning is not accidental; it is absolutely necessary for the flow of existence. Indeed, chains of causality cannot unfold without a form of input from the corresponding chain of meaning. Analogously, chains of meaning cannot unfold without a form of input from the corresponding chain of causality. No one chain can kick-start the process of unfolding without the other; they form what Douglas Hofstadter called a 'tangled hierarchy.'

Now you may be thinking: "Nonsense. The physical world is causally-closed; that is, it can run itself like a clock without any influence from other realms." In fact, that is not quite true. The laws of physics define merely envelops of probability about what events can, and are likely to, occur. But there are no laws in physics determining what specific event actually occurs. This is a mystery called the "collapse of the wave function." And this is where the input from the Mythical Realm enters the Physical: it is the evocation of a particular meaning in the corresponding chain of meaning that allows and chooses one specific event to materialize in the chain of causality. Without that input of meaning, nothing would ever materialize and unfold in the Physical Realm; it would forever remain a cloud of abstract possibilities.

An analogous dependence plays on the other side of the divide. As mentioned earlier, after the cosmic split all form has ended up in the Physical Realm. Without form to evoke emotion and meaning, no meaning associations can unfold in the Mythical Realm. In the example above, the crying baby, the doctor in a white jacket, the flask of medicine, and the waterfall were all images derived from the forms that unfold in the Physical Realm. Those images are necessary to evoke the corresponding affective states of meaning. Without images, no chain of meaning could ever unfold; the whole thing would grind to a halt. This is where the input from the Physical Realm enters the Mythical Realm.

The Physical and Mythical Realms are locked in a dance of co-dependence across a tangled hierarchy. The Physical feeds the forms required to evoke meaning in the Mythical. The Mythical, in turn, feeds the meaning required to collapse probabilities into matter and energy in the Physical, thereby creating new forms. And so the dance of existence unfolds, like the intertwined snakes of the caduceus, the double helix of DNA, or the Ayahuasca vine.

Caduceus

Ayahuasca vine

DNA double-helix

Living beings exist in both Physical and Mythical Realms simultaneously. Life is a bridge. The part of us that inhabits the Physical Realm has historically received the label "body." The part of us that inhabits the Mythical Realm has historically received the label "soul." These are just labels, and no meaning should be read into them other than what is described in this myth. The aspects of your life that relate to the Mythical are your emotions, dreams, creativity, intuition, heart-felt fantasies, and yes, even your very use of language. After all, what is language but a chain of evocative symbols associated to each other by meaning? Language is Mythical. Similarly, the aspects of your life that relate to the Physical are your sensations; the forms they create in your awareness; the consistency with which these forms are associated through cause-and-effect; your ability to model, explain, and predict their behavior; etc. Science is Physical when done, yet Mythical when communicated through language.

Body and soul are equally real and concrete. Attributions of 'gaseous' or ethereal qualities to the soul derive from historical misunderstandings about the nature of reality. Body and soul also correspond in form. After all, the soul imports forms from the body, while the body imports meaning from the soul. Soul and body are integral parts of one single system. You are both simultaneously; right now. Your soul isn't a separate entity with a separate consciousness; it is you in the same way that the multiple split-off personalities of a patient with Dissociative Identity Disorder are, despite their assertions to the contrary, the same person. You aren't a soul having a bodily experience any more than you are a body having a soul experience. The illusion of an asymmetry biased towards the Physical arises only from the amnesia and dissociation resulting from the split across Realms. As I write this, my soul is living her life in the Mythical Realm in as real and concrete a manner as my ego lives his life in the Physical Realm right now. My soul is also under the illusion that life is biased, but towards the Mythical! During our nightly dreams we can experience more of the world of the soul. Studying her dreams is the art of the seeker in search of her soul.

The life of your soul in the Mythical is constantly influencing your body's journey in the Physical through a steady input stream of meaning. When that influence is particularly noticed, due perhaps to sharpened sensitivity, one speaks of uncanny syncronicities. Similarly, your body is right now influencing your soul's journey in the Mythical through a constant output stream of images (forms). When those images, for whatever reason, begin to dry up, the influx of meaning from the Mythical is consequently reduced and one then speaks of loss of soul. To cultivate the life of the soul, one should pay attention to the images one provides to it; not only visuals, but 'images' of all sense categories: beautiful landscapes, uplifting music, enriching philosophy, etc. Images are the sustenance of the soul. Like fertilizer, with the right images added in one can later harvest a wealth of meaning. A meaningful life, in turn, is more conducive to unfolding into rich images, closing a positive and constructive feedback loop. But beware: negative feedback loops also lurk in the depths of the psyche, and I personally know only too well about them.

Indeed, since the chain of causality unfolds intrinsically in lock-step with the chain of meaning, one has two levers to influence the course of one's life: through influencing the chain of causality and through influencing the chain of meaning. Our culture is myopically obsessed with only one of these levers: the chain of causality. By thinking exclusively in terms of cause-and-effect, we prune our own freedom in half. We enter into a desert of images, which stunts the growth of the tree of meaning in the Mythical, thereby throwing our entire culture into a downward spiral of psychic misery. We're handicapped.

Our culture's myopia has other surprising consequences: since we only acknowledge the chain of causality, we've developed an arbitrarily restrictive logic whereby only one answer can be true at a time; a kind of mutual-exclusivity. Allow me to explain this with an example: A patient goes to a Chinese traditional medicine practice. There, the Chinese practitioner diagnoses her condition as a blockage of the Qi energy flowing in her body. The diagnosis is explained through elaborate, rich, and evocative images of energy lines, flows, congested junctures, etc. The images make the human body seem to light up with meaning. Later on, the same patient goes to a conventional doctor, who diagnoses her problem as a straight-forward, and very physical, backbone misalignment. The patient then thinks: "Either the Chinese practitioner is right, or my doctor is. Both cannot be simultaneously right, since there can be only one explanation for my condition. It's either Qi blockages or backbone misalignment!" This is a very logical line of thought in our culture; who would dare question it?

Yet it is wrong. The notion of mutual-exclusivity is arbitrary. The video below explains an alternative logic that does not entail mutual-exclusivity of explanations (keep watching past the introduction to computer architecture). The backbone misalignment may indeed be the way the chain of causality is unfolding, but let us not forget that there is necessarily an equivalent symbolic unfolding in the corresponding chain of meaning. There has to be a meaning behind the backbone misalignment, or it wouldn't have occurred. The unfolding of the chain of meaning can be understood and interacted with through images; Qi is one such image, or symbol. Many other images or symbols could be used to evoke similar meanings: Tao, cosmic energy, prana, etc.; or even 'loss of soul.' What matters is not the image per se (that is, it's not the form), but the feeling it evokes; there lies its true meaning.

This way, it may very well be the case that both the Chinese practitioner and the conventional doctor are simultaneously correct; they are simply talking about different chains: the former about the chain of meaning and the latter about the chain of causality. Influencing either chain will inevitably translate into a different unfolding of the other, and a potential cure to the diagnosed condition, since the chains are in lock-step. The more consistent with the laws of physics our actions in the Physical Realm are, the more effectively they will influence the chain of causality and change our lives. Similarly, the more evocative and meaningful our myths and imagery in the Mythical Realm are, the more effectively they will influence the chain of meaning and change our lives. Reason without myth, or myth without reason, leaves half the job undone.

It is ludicrous to believe that, because a very physical explanation has been found for a phenomenon, the earlier symbolic or mythological explanation is somehow invalidated. Both the chain of causality and the chain of meaning are always at play in a co-dependent manner; one cannot unfold without the other. As such, the Physical explanation merely complements the Mythical explanation. Traditional cultures around the world, in their many myths, have been biased towards the evocative symbolisms of the chain of meaning: Shamans talk about forest spirits and ancestors, pagans talk about Earth energies, etc. Modernity, however, has brought this one-sidedness all the way to the other extreme: we now only acknowledge the chain of causality. Both cultural approaches are imbalanced and miss the broader point. The meaning associations of the Mythical Realm – the world of myths and symbols – is no less, but also no more, real and concrete than the mechanical cause-and-effect relationships of the Physical Realm. Human beings span across both Realms. To live our lives to the fullest, we must acknowledge and embrace as real both the meanings of symbols and the forms of matter. Form and meaning.

This has been a myth; one which I hope will contribute to the cultivation of the Divine Imagination and to the fertilization of the Mythical Realm for the growth of the soul. May its images accelerate the unfolding of rich chains of meaning that find their way back into our empirical lives in the physical world. "But is this myth actually true?" I hear you ask. I can only answer this: probably not in the logical, causal sense prevailing in the Physical Realm! But then again, that's not the point, is it? ;-)

If you would like to read some more about the ideas behind this myth, I recommend three works to get you started:

Carl G. Jung, Syncronicity: An acausal connecting principle;
Patrick Harpur, The Philosopher's Secret Fire: A history of the imagination;
Bernardo Kastrup, Meaning in Absurdity: What bizarre phenomena can tell us about the nature of reality.

Of The Universe And Loops

2012-09-08T11:33:00.000+02:00

(The post below is authored by reader Michael Larkin, who retains the copyright of the text below and granted me permission to republish here. Michael did a beautiful job framing the ideas in a previous post of mine, "Mind as a hyper-dimensional membrane," in a poetic story form that can be much more appealing and understandable to many readers. This has emerged from a long discussion thread in a forum, which you can find here. I am glad to herewith open the precedent of publishing high-quality, original content in this blog that is not of my own authorship.)

Moebius strip, a one-sided loop. Source: Wikipedia.

Of The Universe And Loops
By Michael Larkin

I am one of the Cosmic Wanderers: I have observed many different universes, and am here to tell you the story of yours.

Think of it as an infinitely thin, infinitely flexible membrane that extends further than can ever be imagined. Picture yourself as that membrane at rest – perfectly flat, unperturbed: like being in a deep, dreamless sleep. At some minimum possible level, you are aware, but do not stir. All the potential that you have to be and to do (when you are awake) is there, but dormant.

The universe is never completely like that. Think more appropriately of yourself as being mostly in a dream state: you are more active, and I can see undulating patterns in the-membrane-that-is-you dance and interact in fascinating ways. You have been dreaming for countless eons. You have yet to fully awaken, but interestingly, I spy that some regions of your surface have formed into patterns that are like intricate standing waves that loop back on themselves, and have become aware that they are aware.

The awareness of which they are aware is of course that of the whole membrane-that-is-you, but each is limited in how much of your potential to be and to do it can activate. Some loops can activate more than others, be awake more than others, each according to its particular configuration, and how it perceives its environment.

Each is connected through the membrane to all other loops. It is easy for each to resonate with others at certain frequencies, and thus they can perceive and communicate amongst themselves, albeit often in distorted ways. It is harder for them to perceive or communicate at other frequencies, but some can do so.

Most loops imagine themselves to be separate entities, not realising that they are connected by the common ground, the-membrane-of-all-potential that is you. They are interacting in countless ways, thinking they are trying to achieve all sorts of things, but in the end, these are their distorted attempts to achieve your global awakening. The less the distortion, the better the attempts; the more subtle and intricate their folds, the more they can activate of your potential.

Gradually, ever so gradually, more and more of your potential is being realised, even though loops can sometimes, through misconceived attempts, become less subtle, less evolved. At some point, inevitably, you will be completely awake, completely activated potential. But not yet.

So now, my dear loop, I see you have questions:

What determines what is possible? Only that is possible which is inherent in the potential of the whole membrane. That potential always was and always will be. Only upon full awakening, upon universal awareness of awareness, will it be fully activated. How awesome that will be! It is even awesome to contemplate, as I know you do, what as-yet-unrealised potential there might be.

Will I be annihilated upon full activation of the membrane’s potential? No. You will be part of the fully actualised potential, in full and undistorted communication with all the other activated parts of that potential. There will be no part of which that can’t be said. You will have a genuine individuality of configuration, as will all the other parts, and you will all comprise an integrated whole that cannot dispense with you without being less than it is.

It is a very rough metaphor, but think of how a protein is formed in a cell. It is produced as a string of amino acids that spontaneously folds, and the folds may fold again and those yet again – primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary – producing a complicated three-dimensional structure that is the active protein. The universal membrane is already partially folded in places, which generates higher degrees of self-awareness. Eventually, the membrane will be completely folded, completely self-aware, completely active and awake.

How do the undulations and patterns that are not yet self-aware loops manifest themselves? In ways that are typically predictable and repetitive. You think of some of the most basic of them as fundamental particles and forces. You don’t yet know what they all are, nor all of their possible interactions.

At what point do patterns within the membrane become awake, that is, able to form a loop intricate enough to be self-aware? Remember, I said that only the membrane at complete rest is pure awareness. Where oscillations and patterns arise, however elementary, there is more than that, if not yet self-awareness. There is a gradient of awareness, until at some point, localised self-awareness is possible.

How close is this story to the truth? As close as you can currently comprehend; by no means completely accurate, but still useful. Think of a fuzzy image of something in a microscope or telescope. You get the general idea of its shape even at the lower resolutions. As the resolution gets better, you can discern more. As you evolve, you become like an instrument able to resolve more and more detail.

Mind as a hyper-dimensional membrane

2012-08-05T16:03:00.000+02:00

(Updated 9 September 2012: A long, instructive, and sometimes even contentious online discussion has emerged around the ideas in this post, which you can find here. From that discussion, reader Michael Larkin framed the ideas below in a beautiful story-form that I republished, with authorization, here.)

A representation of a hyper-dimensional
membrane. See discussion below. Source: Wikipedia.

As part of an online debate in a discussion forum last week, I posted an early articulation of some of the ideas I've been working on. I thought it would be interesting to re-post it here, with some more explanation. This is work-in-progress, so please keep that in mind. Also keep in mind my anti-realist stance: everything I will describe is supposed to be an 'as if' model. In other words, my claim is that nature may behave as if the model below were true, but not that the model is literally or ontologically true.

Here we go: Think of the entire universe as a phenomenon of mind. In other words, imagine that there is no world outside of mind modulating your subjective experiences. All there is are the subjective experiences themselves. These experiences entail certain patterns and regularities that can be described by what we call the 'laws of physics.' As such, the 'laws of physics' do not govern objects in a world 'out there,' independent and separate from your mind, but simply represent the patterns and regularities of the flow of your subjective experiences. Strictly speaking, nobody can ever prove that there is a world outside of experience, and/or independent of experience, since any attempt to do it would itself simply be (within) experience. We just like to infer that there is such a world out there because that seems to explain why different human beings report sharing similar and mutually-consistent experiences. I discussed this in a recent video, which I link below.

Now, if everything is in mind, it might as well be all in your mind. Yet, it is reasonable to accept, even though it can't be proven, that other people do have minds too (I discuss this point in the video above as well). So if the universe consists purely of experience, and nothing outside of experience, how can we model such a universe in such a way as to accommodate apparently different minds? And how come all these apparently different minds all seem to share the same reality, if there is no common 'outside world' modulating their experiences? How do we reconcile all this under one coherent model?

Think of the collection of all phenomena of reality as a dynamic painting unfolding on a certain kind of canvas. That canvas is the fabric of mind. Now think of the fabric of mind as a hyper-dimensional membrane (that is, a membrane in more than 3 dimensions of space) that supports unimaginably many and unimaginably complex modes of vibration. To visualize this, think of a 2-dimensional, flat membrane vibrating in different modes, as illustrated in the cymatics video below. All the patterns you see in the video are merely those supported by a pedestrian 2-dimensional membrane. A sufficiently hyper-dimensional membrane, in turn, can conceivably support countless more patterns than all those you have ever experienced, or will ever experience, in your entire life; more complex patterns than any landscape you've ever seen or any piece of music you've ever heard. Therefore, the exercise here is to imagine that the patterns of our experiences are the vibrations of a hyper-dimensional membrane. They are not produced by a world outside of mind, but are the fabric of mind itself vibrating in unfathomably complex modes. Do you see what I mean?

If the hyper-dimensional membrane that constitutes the fabric of mind is not vibrating, then there is no experience. You can visualize that as dreamless sleep. But even though there are no vibrations in that case, the fabric of mind is still there, so there are experiences in potentiality, given that the hyper-membrane can start vibrating. Don't let Realism creep in unnoticed: this hyper-membrane is not something outside of mind; It is mind itself. Its vibrations are subjective experience, of the kind you are having right now, as you read this.

Now assume that different parts of this hyper-membrane can 'fold in' on themselves, forming (partially) closed loops. Think of it as pinching a part of the fabric of your shirt and rolling it around your finger to form a loop. Suppose also that this can happen in several different parts of the hyper-membrane of mind, so you get many different 'local loops' of mind. Suppose, in addition, that loop formation can be recursive, or fractal: you may have loops on top of loops, on top of loops, etc.

The formation of a loop changes the natural modes of vibration within the loop, in the same way that you change the natural mode of vibration of a guitar string if you press on it to switch notes. After a loop is formed, only certain modes of vibration of the broader (that is, unfolded) hyper-membrane now resonate within it. This amounts to saying that only a subset of these broader vibrations 'get through' to a loop, while the rest is 'filtered out' because they don't resonate within. Even entirely new modes of oscillation, alien to the broader hyper-membrane, may be supported within a loop because of its specific topology. Similarly, peculiar oscillatory modes taking place within loops may also 'leak out' and influence the vibrations of the broader hyper-membrane. All this said, the vibrations of the broader hyper-membrane are still solely responsible for exciting the vibrations within the loops. The loops aren't autonomous. They modulate experience but do not generate it by themselves.

Given all this, think of the loops as areas of self-reflective awareness in mind, like our egos. In an earlier article, I have elaborated on this analogy between our ego-minds and a loop of consciousness. The hypothesis here is that there is only one universal fabric of mind, and the illusion of individuality arises from the formation of localized loops of self-reflective awareness on this universal fabric. You and I correspond to different loops, but we are fundamentally connected in the sense that we are made of the same continuous fabric of mind. Our respective experiences are still entirely due to the original vibrations of the broader hyper-membrane, but we also have our own modes of vibration that make the experience of 'being' a particular loop unique and dependent in part on our specific location within the broader fabric of mind.

The areas of the broader hyper-membrane that are not folded are the collective unconscious: there is experience there, in the sense that there are oscillations, but they are not self-reflective in the sense that they do not take place within a (semi-)closed loop. Some of the modes of vibration of the collective unconscious do not resonate within the loops and get ordinarily filtered out. Other modes get through either directly or by exciting some harmonic peculiar to the loops: they form a kind of shared 'data stream' from the collective unconscious that is largely responsible for our shared, consistent experience of reality. Similarly, our own egoic experiences (that is, the vibrations within our individual loops of mind) can potentially 'leak out' of the loop, through resonance, and influence the oscillations taking place in the collective unconscious.

The 'laws of physics' known to science capture certain regularities of the vibrations within the loops, since those are all that human beings can ordinarily perceive. But not all regularities are captured: only those that are shared by most loops, since science discards statistically-insignificant peculiarities. You see, every loop may close in a slightly different way, or assume a slightly different shape, so not everybody's experience of reality is identical (the supported harmonics may be slightly different). Science only captures the parts that are identical, however much that is. This way, the 'laws of nature' are merely descriptions of the commonalities of oscillation across loops.

Finally, the topology of a loop may fluctuate over a lifetime, because certain modes of vibration within a loop may interfere with its own structure, in the same way that a musical instrument can theoretically self-destruct if it plays its own natural frequency of vibration. This is what happens in altered states of consciousness: the topology of a loop is partly and/or temporarily altered, potentially allowing in more modes of vibration from the collective unconscious (that is, the broader hyper-membrane) and, thus, trans-personal, non-local experiences.

PS: The video below complements the discussion above, though it is less involved and uses different metaphors.

Hyper-dimensional fantasies...

2012-07-28T11:04:00.000+02:00

There seems to be a lot of talk in the New Age community these days about hyper-dimensional ideas, like "5D ascension," "higher-dimensional realms," and what not. Much of the stuff is either completely unsubstantiated or articulated in a way that flies in the face of science and reason. So although the fantasies are rich and appealing, their lack of any grounding is a complete turn-off. Yet, hyper-dimensionality, as a concept, can be explored in full accordance with materialism/physicalism to weave surprising possibilities about what it means to be a human being. Amazingly, it can even reconcile survival of consciousness, eternal life, and reincarnation with strict physicalism. Curious about how? Read on, and/or watch the short video below.

According to different versions of String Theory, and especially M-Theory, up to 10 dimensions of space are required for describing and explaining the behavior of matter. For years now popular culture has acknowledged this abstraction with a certain degree of wonder, thanks to the likes of Brian Greene and other science popularizers. Yet, there is one remarkable implication of these theories that seem to escape the attention of most of us: If matter exists in 10 spatial dimensions, then our bodies, which are made of matter, also fundamentally exist in 10 spatial dimensions. So the 3-dimensional body we see when we look down while dressing up each day is, in fact, a flattened projection of a 10-dimensional structure way beyond our ability to visualize spatially.

When we take a picture of a face, we are making a 2-dimensional projection of something that exists in 3 dimensions. A lot of information is lost in that process: A head-on picture of a face still shows a nose, but misses all the information about what the nose would look like in profile. Yet, at least there is a hint of the broader structure left: We still see the nose. In other cases, however, every hint of the presence of an entire structure in 3 dimensions can be lost in a 2-dimensional projection. For instance, if you have a mole on the side of your neck, there will be no sign of it in the head-on picture. By looking at the picture alone, nobody would be able to infer the presence of the mole, or of large parts of the structure of your ears. Now take this thinking several levels up: How many structures are lost when we project a 10-dimensional body onto only 3 dimensions? How many 'organ systems' become completely invisible? How many complex, vital structures inherent to the inner-workings of a living body disappear in the projection? Going from 3 to 2 dimensions, as we all know, implies significant loss of information; and that is just the loss of a single dimension. Imagine the loss of 7 dimensions.

If we had a closed causal explanation for human physiology today, all the way down to the molecular level, it would be fair to say that postulating invisible hyper-dimensional structures is totally unnecessary and gratuitous. In such case, we could still acknowledge that the visible human body is indeed a 3-dimensional projection of something in 10 dimensions but, just like the nose in our example, every structure in 10 dimensions is still hinted at, in some way, in the 3-dimensional projection we see; enough for us to construct said closed causal explanation. In other words, there would be no need to postulate moles or more complex structures that leave no hint in the projection. But we do not have a closed causal explanation for the inner-workings of the human body. Molecular biology is very, very far away from it. Most of the molecular-level details of life are still a profound mystery. Moreover, research has been generating more questions than answers, so it's hard to say even that we are getting closer. As such, we can still legitimately fantasize that there are bodily structures, inherent to life, existing in those 7 invisible dimensions, no hint of which is left in the 3-dimensional projection we normally call the human body. We can even fantasize that the difference between living and non-living structures in nature is precisely the presence of a hidden, hyper-dimensional core in living things, whose intrinsic dynamics becomes visible as the molecular physiology of life. According to this imagination, life is itself a 'protrusion' into our 3D world of something grounded in hidden dimensions.

Expanding on this fantasy now: Our 'regular' bodies (that is, the three-dimensional projection) have parts that grow, get older, and eventually get discarded: hair, nails, skin, teeth, etc. Nobody sits around in a gloomy mood because he or she has just shed a patch of dead skin; the core of what it means to be us remains intact. Now, imagine the visible human body as something analogous to that: It is a 'protrusion' into the regular 3 dimensions of our true hyper-dimensional bodies; a protrusion that grows and gets older throughout a lifetime, and eventually is discarded. The core of the structure, the thing it means to be a human being, albeit hidden, remains intact in those 7 invisible dimensions. Like the roots of garden plants, which survive underground throughout the winter even though their visible structures die and are discarded, the body we see may be just the glorified 'flowering' appendages that have their moments during the spring and summer. No need for a soul in this fantasy: Survival may be entirely physical.

A different, but ultimately equivalent, way to approach this is the following: Neuroscience today states that the entire reality we actually experience is a brain-constructed hallucination modulated by external electromagnetic signals coming from an outside world (for the sake of the fantasy, I will pretend I agree with this position, so we can explore its implications). In other words, you live your whole life locked into a kind of 'copy' of reality generated by your brain. But if that is so, then everything we think to know about our brains is itself part of that 'copy' of reality generated by the brain; a self-referential loop. What we call a 'brain' is, thus, merely what 'something' related to a brain looks like from within the reality this 'something' creates. To make description easier, let us define the following terminology: Let us call a 'hyper-brain' the true structure that actually generates our subjective reality; and let us call a 'brain' the way a hyper-brain looks from within the subjective reality it creates. Naturally, the hyper-brain fundamentally exists outside the reality we experience every day, for this everyday reality is itself created by the hyper-brain. Computer programmers can understand this with the following analogy: A 'brain' is an internal model, within a piece of software, of the computer that runs the piece of software. The internal model exists within the virtual reality of the software, while the machine itself exists in the same reality you and I inhabit. Clearly, despite important equivalences, a machine model running in software is not the actual machine, in the same way that your Facebook timeline is not your life, despite equivalences; one thing is just a representation of the other. The brain we see is merely a representation of a hyper-brain within the virtual reality created by the hyper-brain, in the same way that computer operating systems have virtual representations of the actual machines they run on.

Now the question, of course, is: How complete and accurate is this internal software model? How accurate a representation of the hyper-brain is the brain? How much about the hyper-brain is it safe to infer from observing a brain? Continuing on with our fantasy: The brain may be a faint, distorted, partial 'echo' of the real thing; of the hyper-brain. As such, making assertions of certainty about the beginning or the end of the hyper-brain based on observations made within the reality created by the hyper-brain is, at best, tricky. We cannot infer the end of the hyper-brain from the decomposition of a brain within the hallucinated reality, in the same way that we cannot infer the destruction of the computer from erasing its software. This way, even though this second fantasy is not literally a hyper-dimensionality one, it leads to a similar conclusion.

I hope you've enjoyed our little excursion into the unexplored spaces of the physicalist imagination!

Copyright © 2012 by Bernardo Kastrup. All rights are reserved.

Rational, evidence-based, non-materialist model of mind-brain interaction

2012-07-24T14:13:00.003+02:00

An article which embodies my best attempt thus far to explain my own non-materialist view on the relationship between the mind and the brain is finally out. The article is the first in the magazine, linked below. I refer to none of my books in it, so there's no marketing. I'd like to kindly urge you to pass this on to anyone you think may be interested; it's free. We need to divulge rational, evidence-based alternatives to the dominant materialist paradigm, which many people still hold to be the only model available that is reasonable and consistent with the empirical evidence. The person I was 4 years ago would much appreciate it if someone sent this link to him! So please pass it on as widely as possible. Here is a link to the magazine:

http://paranthropologyjournal.weebly.com/free-pdf.html.

Here is a direct link for a FREE download of the PDF:

http://paranthropologyjournal.weebly.com/uploads/7/7/5/3/7753171/paranthropology_vol_3_no_3.pdf.

Confessions of an honest truth-seeker

2012-07-22T11:02:00.000+02:00

Triumph of the Name of Jesus, by Giovanni Battista Gaulli. Source: Wikipedia.

"Having trodden the path for cycles uncountable,
Having crossed the ocean of mind from end to end,
Through all veils, its fountainhead have I finally seen.
To you, honest truth-seeker treading the path behind me,
I grant the gift of my legacy.

I have learned thus:

Only untruths can exist.

Truth is fundamentally incompatible with experience.

Having peeled away every layer of self-deception within me,

I have found myself to be like an onion:

Nothing is left.

All experience is a self-referential trick:

It arises from nothing, and is made of nothing.

If you dig deep enough within yourself,

You shall always find the layer of self-deception

Upon which any one of your passions, convictions, or perceptions ultimately rests.

One's reality rests fundamentally upon the first layer of self-deception

That escapes one's field of critical awareness.

The deeper this field, the more subtle the self-deception.

Those with little critical awareness thus live richer lives:

Their fiction is fancier.

All mental constructs can ultimately:

Be shown to be self-contradictory and, thus, self-defeating;

Be shown to be based on arbitrary, gratuitous axioms.

There exists nothing but mental constructs.

There thus exists nothing.

We are fictions, and so is our universe.

The honest search for truth annihilates its own subject;

Slowly, recursively, from within.

Truth-seeking is the path to self-annihilation,

And thus also the path to liberation.

All modeling and theorizing is the weaving of illusion.

Models and theories do not capture truth, for there is none to be captured;

They construct experience itself, and thus reality.

Like caterpillars weaving their cocoons,

We need models and theories to weave a deception we can inhabit.

All philosophical and scientific debates are ludicrous

Insofar as they purport to unveil the truth.

They are arbitrary, childish disputes about which untruth to choose.

No external references exist; no outside arbiters.

Philosophy and science are about invention, not discovery.

All statements about reality are self-deceptive,

Including my own words.

But beware:

To ignore my words because they negate themselves

Is simply to create yet another layer of wishful self-deception.

Rejoice, for your pains, fears, frustrations, and regrets

Are all untrue.

There is nothing to fear, nothing to strive for, nothing to regret.

You have no soul; that's just self-deception.

And you won't die; that's just self-deception.

May my legacy serve you as a warning, but also as encouragement.

The prize at the end of the path is handsome:

The freedom to make the conscious, deliberate, guiltless choice

Of which untruth to live.

Exercising this choice wisely is the art of living."

Meaningful evolution

2012-07-15T19:25:00.000+02:00

A few days ago I released a new video in which I discuss my thoughts on a neo-darwinist spin on the theory of evolution by natural selection. See the video below. Motivated by the comments I received on the video, I feel the need to elaborate a little more on what I am saying – and, perhaps more importantly, what I am not saying – in the video. In what follows, I'll assume that you have watched the video.

The first thing to highlight is that the main thrust of my argument is not a new hypothesis for the processes underlying genetic mutations, but, instead, to point out that there is no evidence for what neo-darwinists casually peddle as established truth: That the genetic mutations that get selected for – or not – by natural selection are random at origin; that is, entail no identifiable pattern. There is simply no evidence for this. In order to get such idea across, I contrast this with the obvious alternative possibility: That there is an underlying, as-of-yet undetected pattern in the mutations. The purpose of my discussing this alternative possibility is not the possibility itself, but solely to demonstrate, through an example, that there are other reasonable scenarios that neo-darwinists seem to lack sufficient scientific imagination to contemplate. Physicists are off talking about parallel universes, hidden dimensions, reverse causality and what not, while neo-darwinists seem stuck in 19th-century billiard-ball materialism.

Science is about finding the patterns underlying nature, and it is a fundamental premise of scientific activity that there may be patterns in natural processes where we currently cannot see one. To deny so amounts to arbitrarily decreeing an end to the process of scientific discovery. Indeed, openness to – and even an inner hope for – the possible presence of new and as-of-yet undetected patterns is integral to scientific thought. The conclusions of the discovery process in science should – and, fortunately, almost always do – focus on the patterns we do find, for these are the footprints of the laws of nature. In this context, neo-darwinism is unique in that it makes a direct, positive statement about there not possibly being a pattern, even though no evidence exists to substantiate such statement. There is a sense in which this is an aberration in modern scientific thought, and runs counter to the scientific spirit of discovery. The only evidence available that relates to such statement is the very richness and variety of nature, which ought to be construed, if anything, as suggestive precisely of the presence of an undetected pattern waiting to be discovered.

When we state that a process is 'random,' all we are stating is that we cannot identify a pattern in such process. This can say something about the process (i.e. it has no pattern) or about ourselves (i.e. we are not able to see the pattern). In the absence of objective evidence, it seems more appropriate to me that we remain cautious and state simply that, so far, we have been able to detect no pattern behind the genetic mutations at the basis of evolution, and that we currently do not see any strong-enough reason to believe there is one. This is accurate, cautious, fair, and leaves the appropriate doors open. To state – or worse, to teach in science classes in schools – that the mutations are random is, in a fundamental way, analogous to teaching religion: It's just a belief, no matter how reasonable and even necessary it may sound to neo-darwinist ears.

For clarity, the alternative hypothesis I mentioned in the video is this: There are phenomena in physics suggestive that the universe is, at a fundamental level, unified; in the sense that any event can potentially influence any other event across time and space limitations, at a quantum level. The phenomenon of quantum entanglement, when taken together with the Big Bang theory, is suggestive of this possibility. Some interpretations of quantum mechanics suggest the same, like David Bohm's Implicate Order. So it is not completely unreasonable to imagine that there could be some form of non-local feedback from the results of natural selection back into the probability envelops governing the quantum-level processes from which genetic mutations arise. After all, those mutations are probabilistic processes at a molecular level, governed by quantum wave functions.

If this is true, natural selection could conceivably not only preserve past mutations that provide a survival advantage; it could also tilt the probabilities of future mutations in favor of complementary ones. If anything, this would help the evolutionary algorithm avoid local minima – where it is notorious for getting stuck at, according to computer simulations – and reach a globally optimum result. The scenario here is one where a hypothetical, underlying intelligence interwoven in the fabric of the universe (or identical to the universe itself) is experimenting in the laboratory of nature, using natural selection as its evaluation function. In the process of experimentation, it does make many mistakes: Mutations that are useless or destructive are continuously tried out. But through such iterative trial-and-error, it learns and gets ever closer to its telos.

You may say that the hypothesis I discuss above is entirely gratuitous, in the sense that we have no strict evidence for it today. And you will be entirely correct to say that. But what I am doing here is not attempting to convince you that there is a telos behind evolution; I don't know for a fact that there is one. Instead, I am merely illustrating one conceivable scenario according to which mutations are not random, so to show that randomness cannot be taken for granted in the absence of evidence. Therefore, all I need to show is reasonable conceivability for my example hypothesis, not proof or even solid substantiation. And reasonable conceivability, I dare say, has been achieved in the discussion above.

In science, understanding what you do not know is often more important than understanding what you do know. I hope it is clear to you now that the core of my argument in the video is not to state positively that there is a telos behind evolution – for I do not have enough objective evidence to substantiate such hypothesis, even though I personally feel it is true – but to show that the hypothesis cannot be discarded on the basis of the available evidence, nor on the basis of hand-waving arguments about what is reasonable to conceive.

Copyright © 2012 by Bernardo Kastrup. All rights are reserved.