The Idea of the World: A Multi-Disciplinary Argument for the Mental Nature of Reality

by Bernardo Kastrup

A rigorous case for the primacy of mind in nature, from philosophy to neuroscience, psychology and physics. The Idea of the World offers a grounded alternative to the frenzy of unrestrained abstractions and unexamined assumptions in philosophy and science today. This book examines what can be learned about the nature of reality based on conceptual parsimony, straightforward logic and empirical evidence from fields as diverse as physics and neuroscience. It compiles an overarching case for idealism - the notion that reality is essentially mental - from ten original articles the author has previously published in leading academic journals. The case begins with an exposition of the logical fallacies and internal contradictions of the reigning physicalist ontology and its popular alternatives, such as bottom-up panpsychism. It then advances a compelling formulation of idealism that elegantly makes sense of - and reconciles - classical and quantum worlds. The main objections to idealism are systematically refuted and empirical evidence is reviewed that corroborates the formulation presented here. The book closes with an analysis of the hidden psychological motivations behind mainstream physicalism and the implications of idealism for the way we relate to the world.

Genres: Philosophy, Science, Nonfiction, Psychology, Physics, Metaphysics, Audiobook

314 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 29, 2019

About the author

Bernardo Kastrup is the Executive Director of Essentia Foundation and Founder/CEO at AI systems company Euclyd BV. His work has set off the modern renaissance of metaphysical idealism. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy (ontology, philosophy of mind) and another in computer engineering (reconfigurable computing, artificial intelligence). As a scientist, Bernardo has worked for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Philips Research Laboratories (where the 'Casimir Effect' of Quantum Field Theory was discovered). He has also been creatively active in the high-tech industry for almost 30 years, having founded parallel processor company Silicon Hive (acquired by Intel in 2011) and worked as a technology strategist for the geopolitically significant company ASML. Most recently, he has founded AI hardware company Euclyd BV. Formulated in detail in many academic papers and books, Bernardo's ideas have been featured on 'Scientific American,' the magazine of 'The Institute of Art and Ideas,' the 'Blog of the American Philosophical Association' and 'Big Think,' among others. His most defining book is 'Analytic Idealism in a Nutshell: A straightforward summary of the 21st-century's only plausible metaphysics.' For more information, visit www.bernardokastrup.com.

Reviews

[James Madsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bravo for “Scientific American,” which has not been afraid to give author Bernardo Kastrup the opportunity to present his views on science and philosophy in a series of blogs in the magazine. That’s how I first heard of him, and I bought “The Idea of the World” as soon as it came out. The world needs big bold ideas, even though the ideas behind revolutions in both science and philosophy are usually ridiculed at first. The big idea here is a variety of monism (the idea that the universe is basically made of one kind of thing, as opposed to, for example, Cartesian dualism, which posits that mind and matter are two separate grounds of reality but which infamously has never successfully come up with a believable way for them to interact). Monism actually comes in three main flavors: materialism (the usual position of modern science, which commonly asserts that mass and energy are the building blocks of the cosmos and that consciousness either does not really exist or is composed of matter and its interactions), idealism (in its pure form, the idea that what we experience in and through our minds is the basic stuff of existence and that matter either does not exist or is a form of consciousness), and neutral monism, which posits that matter and consciousness both arise from a more fundamental ground. (Kastrup does not specifically address neutral monism.) Materialism has lately come under fire because quantum mechanics appears to require a world that does not exist independent of conscious observation. (See, for example, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/... .) It also has problems trying to explain how consciousness can arise from matter, a challenge called "the hard problem of consciousness." For these and other reasons, many serious philosophers are now reexamining the prospects of idealism. (The philosopher David Chalmers recounts the old graduate-school saw, "One starts as a materialist, then one becomes a dualist, then a panpsychist, and one ends up as an idealist.") “The Idea of the World” advocates a form of idealism that could be called top-down cosmopsychism, the notion that consciousness comes from (and is a property of) a single cosmic entity (the universe as a whole, which may or may not be construed as God) rather than from elements of, say, either subatomic particles (micro-idealism, which runs into the so-called combination problem, the challenge of explaining how microconsciousnesses can become consciousnesses at the human level) or thinking animals and humans (macro-idealism, which has its own problems). For Kastrup, this cosmic consciousness (or at least awareness) is “That Which Experiences (TWE)” (he also uses “mind-at-large"). According to Kastrup, all of what we perceive as matter in the universe is really the manifestation of the consciousness of this mind-at-large. What about our own consciousnesses? They are cognitive fragments, dissociated segments of the TWE, in the same way that “alters” of persons with dissociative identity disorder (DID, previously called multiple personality disorder) can experience the world separately from one another but still be a part of a single person. (See https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/... for a fair summary.) One reaction that I’ve encountered is that Kastrup thus believes that “the universe is nuts,” but this is unfair. There’s no reason that dissociation of the TWE has to be pathological; it could be a way for the TWE to experience what it’s like to have local, circumscribed consciousness. (I was also reminded that Robert Wright’s “Why Buddhism Is True” and the similar book “The Mind Illuminated” use neuroscience to explain modules in the mind in ways that could provide further illustration of cognitive fragmentation as part of the normal neuropsychology of each of us.) Kastrup carefully provides explanations and helpful diagrams to show how the indirect interactions of each alter with the external state (mind-at-large) of the TWE across a kind of boundary called a Markov blanket allow for each alter to perceive similar versions of a common experience that may look like an externally existing world of matter but that is really a manifestation of cosmic consciousness.

Kastrup carefully marshals arguments and especially a series of analogies (as he has reportedly done in previous books) to build up his case over a collection of several articles that he published in various peer-reviewed journals and that form chapters in this book. The more that I read, the less outlandish his DID version of cosmopyschism appeared to me, even though I admit that (perhaps mainly from my being a bear of Very Little Brain) I got hung up in some of his assumptions and some of his logic. They are obviously very clear and coherent to him, but I kept having questions that he glossed over. This is not to say that he’s wrong; I am, after all, a bear of Very Little Brain. But there’s room for reasonable disagreement here. Kastrup's arguments obviously make sense to him but don't always make sense to me (and others). Part of this is because of the writing. He tries his best to reason very closely and to guide the reader through every step of his thinking, but both his reasoning and also his writing are often dense and unclear (I should talk!). It seems to me that he often hangs heavy weights from slender threads, especially the thread of analogy, which is a powerful tool for introducing new perspectives and for painting conceptual pictures but a weak one for establishing proof.

I have another issue with this book and its author. Kastrup is on a mission to convince academia (where he rightly believes a paradigm shift has to take hold first) that materialism is false; moreover, he writes as if his version of idealism is not only one possible solution but in fact clearly the only rational reaction to the ever-increasing evidence that the universe at a basic quantum-mechanical level cannot be explained by materialism alone. Well, it may be crystal clear to him, but it’s not necessarily so to others (even to friends such as the science journalist John Horgan, who nevertheless thinks that some of his critics go too far; I agree here). (For a good example of a novel way of making sense of some of the apparent problems of quantum mechanics without resorting to idealism, see the excellent article “How to Teach Quantum Mechanics,” by David Albert, at http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/15584... ; just ignore the complexities of the math and focus on the big ideas here.) In his evangelism, Kastrup too often seems to go beyond mere polemics to self-righteousness and even diatribes against what he sees as elitism, impugning the intelligence of those who disagree with him and in one chapter accusing many of them of using psychological defense mechanisms to protect themselves against seeing the Real Truth. I read one online critique (“Idealism, Process and Mind-At-Large,” by Bill Meacham, a neutral monist; see http://www.bmeacham.com/blog/?p=1483 ) to which Kastrup responded with a tit-for-tat attempted rebuttal of several of the relatively minor points in the beginning of the article and then wrote, “With due respect, I don’t have the time or interest to read and react to the rest of your text.” Frankly, that’s appalling to me. The rest of the article was fascinating and not that long and held the real meat of the matter, including a thesis that was quite supportive of much of what Kastrup has proposed. Given the not-unexpected attacks on a new idea, I can understand and even sympathize with a certain amount of defensiveness, but I worry about Kastrup's tone in parts of this book and other books of his; one, for example, is titled, “Why Materialism Is Baloney: How True Skeptics Know There Is No Death and Fathom Answers to Life, the Universe, and Everything.” A certain level of self-confidence and assertiveness is needed to overturn longstanding paradigms, but there's a difference between attacking ideas and seeming to attack or demean those who hold them as being either willfully ignorant or irredeemably stupid (or both).

Ultimately, though, despite my finding Kastrup’s assumptions and reasoning unconvincing at times and his attitude sometimes off-putting, I also found his Big Idea challenging and invigorating. (The four of my review is largely for the boldness of the idea; the actual delivery would get, on balance, a three from me.) The notion that the fundamental stuff of reality is mental is not as outlandish as it may first appear, nor is Kastrup's version of it. In “Idealism and the Mind-Body Problem,” at http://consc.net/papers/idealism.pdf , Chalmers mentions Kastrup’s framework approvingly, despite its problems: “Still, identity cosmopsychism along with cognitive fragmentation seems a coherent view that is worth taking seriously.” Concerning cosmic idealism in general, he states, “I conclude that there is significant motivation for cosmic idealism. It shares the general motivations for panpsychism, which are strong, and has some extra motivation in addition. Compared to micro-idealism, it deals much better with the problems of space and of holism, and it at least has some extra promise in dealing with the problem of causation and the all-important constitution problem. Compared to non-idealist forms of panpsychism and panprotopsychism, it has some advantages in simplicity and comprehensibility, while it has both benefits and costs with respect to the constitution problem. . . . Overall, I think cosmic idealism is the most promising version of idealism, and is about as promising as any version of panpsychism. It should be on the list of the handful of promising approaches to the mind-body problem.” I would add that Kastrup’s concept of dissociation is a promising version of cosmic idealism.

But what do I know? In the end I agree with Chalmers’s final words: “I do not claim that idealism is plausible. No position on the mind-body problem is plausible. Materialism is implausible. Dualism is implausible. Idealism is implausible. Neutral monism is implausible. None-of-the-above is implausible. But the probabilities of all of these views get a boost from the fact that one of them must be true. Idealism is not greatly less plausible than its main competitors. So even though idealism is implausible, there is a non-negligible probability that it is true.”

[Anish Malpani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where do I begin?

Just when I thought nothing could really rattle my inner journey, this book came along and shook things up. It was recommended to me by one of my mentors who added, "don't just add it to your list, put it right at the top." For once, I paid heed to his advice, and this was quite a journey.

Kastrup logically and (almost) empirically debunks the prevailing theory of being. And yes, that makes you question reality if you haven't questioned it enough. For eons, the most prevalent belief was religion. Then we got smarter and the elites of the world replaced religion with "reason" or well physicalism.

Physicalism is essentially the separation of mind and matter. It posits that we and the world are made up of matter - atom, quarks, molecules. And our minds bear consciousness through the neurons in our head - neural correlates of consciousness. We don't know how exactly (the hard problem of consciousness), but it makes enough sense to make sense of the world. So when we die, our atoms, quarks, neurons become one with the earth and that's that.

Kastrup proves that Physicalism is basically bullshit. He argues that idealism is a lot more plausible instead. What is idealism? I am probably going to massacre this but idealism is a way of being that is entirely mental based on experiences with universal consciousness as the ultimate absolute. As proven by Disassociative Identity Disorder (DID), humans (or any other thing that metabolizes) are disassociated alters of universal consciousness. Spacetime only exists in the Markov blanket as the internal thoughts of an alter collide with the external thoughts of universal consciousness, where universal consciousness is also impacted by other alters, thus allowing for all living things to be able to share a "common" world.

A big piece of evidence that disproves Physicalism is the impact of psychoactive drugs on brain/neural activity. Magic Mushrooms should increase neural activity but "science" has recently proven that it reduces neural activity. Idealism explains it better - when you get high, your alter's level of disassociation from universal consciousness reduces, exposing you to real but unfamiliar experiences outside of your usual boundaries.

Why is this so important? Physicalism caters to nihilism rather easily. Besides the fact that logical fallacies and science disprove Physicalism, it also makes for a pretty dreary reality. We all die and that's that. We are all an evolutionary coincidence that mean jack shit. Idealism, on the other hand, opens the door to a lot more scientific enquiry into purpose and meaning. If we are not just some atoms colliding, what are we? If we are disassociated alters of universal consciousness, maybe there is somewhere to go after "death." Idealism, maybe, gives us more hope.

To be honest, even though I am sufficiently rattled, I don't know what to believe. And I don't know how important it is to believe in either theory. I am just fascinated by the strength of Kastrup's argument and the possibility that we don't really know as much as we do. Getting closer to the truth is always something that I have been fascinated with. A reason might be that if you understand the game, you can play it better. In the end, that's all that we seem to be here for.

This is not a casual read. It's complicated - the concepts, the language, the thought process. You probably will have to read each page multiple times to fully give it justice. I am not going to lie, it was a difficult read. But if you constantly seek the truth and are tickled by philosophy and the mind, then this is worth the ride.

If you just want to continue being delusional about life, don't worry about it.

[Eben · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Book for the Ages

Tremendous tension is building in the world of neuroscience over the relationship between mind and brain -- just what is the true nature of consciousness? A building consilience from the fields of psychology, physics and neuroscience supports the primacy of consciousness in the universe, or a top-down organizing principle at the heart of all reality. One of the strongest new elements of this bridge comes from the physics perspective of Bernardo Kastrup in support of the reality of ontological or metaphysical idealism. His revolutionary and insightful book, The Idea of the World, connects the dots brilliantly through a series of masterfully-woven articles, making an elegant case for the advantages of idealism over physicalism, especially in the face of contextuality in quantum physics, the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness, and the subject combination problem in philosophy of mind. The result is a must-read book for anyone seriously interested in the modern neuroscience of consciousness, and its broad implications for humanity. Bernardo's work is totally consistent with our position arguing for ontological materialism in "Living in a Mindful Universe." Bravo, Bernardo!

Eben Alexander, MD,  Neurosurgeon, author of Proof of Heaven, The Map of Heaven and Living in a Mindful Universe

[Nour Elhuda Zuraiki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, Bernardo if you’re reading this, I’m so grateful for you because no one has expanded my mind as much as you have done.

This was the last book I finished for Kastrup, after reading his other 6 books. I’m left with a whole new collection of ideas and thoughts about this world, I could certainly say that Kastrup has just transformed the way I used to look at the world. I was a convinced materialist (how little I knew) and now I’m starting to reformulate my worldview as an idealist person, I suppose, idealism has provided me with hope, meaning and the answers for many of the questions that have baffled me throughout my life, materialism seemed correct to me but I kept falling into those claustrophobic attacks that everything is an illusion and there’s no way to escape from this un-meaningless life.

Through this book, Kastrup argues for a coherent idealist ontology that explains reality in a more parsimonious and rigorous manner than mainstream physicalism and bottom-up panpsychism. I suppose the originality of Kastrup in this book comes from the way how he conceives individual minds as ‘’dissociated alters’’ on the model of ‘’Markov Blanket’’ of network theory and it is this dissociation that produces the ‘’inside’’ and ‘’outside’’ of our experience, together with the reality of an apparent physical world. It is so tempting to think throughout reading Kastrup that there isn’t a world out there but it’s not the case here, all what Kastrup is trying to prove is that the nature of our reality is all mental and everything we experience is nothing but a construction of mind.

If you want to make sense of Kastrup’s theory, then remember this ‘’ mind and matter do not reside in the same level of explanatory abstraction. In fact, mind is the ground within which, and out of which, abstractions are made. Matter, in turn, is an abstraction of mind’’ this is so deep and a not an easy idea to get your head around, I suppose that’s where I’m stuck in believing in idealism, it’s not that idealism is wrong but the idea itself is a complete contradiction to what’s is our ancestors (I suppose) as human being, we come into this world believing everything we see, hear and can detect using our senses/perceptions we then get to the realisation that those perceptions obey some laws and it’s there where we have to go back and examine this because we spend our whole life thinking that a world obeying physics law gives us the impression that matter is only reality, and perceptions are only helpful to make us unravel the mystery about this reality forgetting that we need to go back to the starting point which examining our perceptions instead of positing a theory of an independently existing material world from those feelings/perceptions (best explained in chapter 3).


For me, it seems that Kastrup has guided me to take the first step in what it seems to be a long road, I’m impressed by his thoughts and would love to truly believe it but I suppose this will take a lot of time.. well, I suppose, I went through all Kastrup’s work in a matter of three weeks, it became like addiction, his books are all part of a big whole story he seemed to have spent years and years to formulate his theory and from his writing it’s clear that it all started since childhood so I suppose me taking years to comprehend his ideas is decent and should not let me down.

[Ionia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an absolutely phenomenal book, broken down into bite-sized sections, based on original articles by the author. If you are someone who appreciates the sometimes difficult concepts of philosophy, this book will definitely interest you. I feel like I know a lot more about this subject now than I did before reading this book.

The idealism vs. Physicalism debate has been raging for some time, and it is interesting to watch from both sides. Whilst I consider myself to be somewhere in the middle of the two ideas, I certainly appreciated the author's arguments for idealism and thought he was making a good case for readers to look into it further.

You may struggle with this book a bit at first if you are not familiar with the terminology, but the author has written it in such a way as to make said terminology more accessible to the general reader by explaining without overexplaining, so after a while it becomes easier to read. This was highly thought-provoking (of course, what else could idealism entail?) Well worth the time to read.

I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in science and philosophy, or who just wants to push the limits of their understanding in a new direction.

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher, provided through Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

[Imaginarium · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is... an interesting book. It's not interesting due to the power of the arguments, but due to what the reader gets out of critically reading it. A critical reader will likely find various particular ways in which Kastrup's arguments fail — sometimes he reaches too far, sometimes he uses a specific (not generally accepted) interpretation of scientific results, etc.

The difficulty for the reader is in the book's reliance on a lot of fields of study — philosophy of mind (regarding the distinction between phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness/meta-cognition), psychiatry (dissociative identity disorder), neuroscience, quantum physics (non-locality, the problem of observation). Kastrup's presentation of snippets from these fields is biased and his interpretation of results is tendentious. A reader not familiar with disagreements and debates within these fields is lead to believe that Katrup's presentation is the common view, the consensus. It is not so. For example, the author repeats the idea that [human] observation leads to a "collapse" of a "quantum wave function", and this results in reality actualizing a particular state of the world (at least in a given small region). This is definitely not an accepted view as "observation" and "observer" in physics do not mean a human attached in a given point in space-time looking at something, it's just one system sending a signal (electromagnetic field, say) and receiving back some data (e.g. noticing how the electromagnetic field changes). A casual reader may not realize this.

One good thing about the book is Kastrup's anticipation of counter arguments that could be given to some of his ideas and addressing them. However, they are addressed in an unsatisfactory manner.

The book should have been better edited. There really was no point in repeating the same things (from introductions to the essays) over and over again.

To reiterate, the value in the book is not in how good the arguments are and how it leads to the conclusion, rather, the value is in the reader having an opportunity to critically evaluate bad arguments and in learning how these arguments fail.

[Oscar Pettersson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspiring, challenging, and possibly groundbreaking read. Kastrup presents a multidisciplinary ontology that draws from quantum physics, biology and psychology. I understand the framework to be consistent with the ontology presented by Buddhism.

In a nutshell it says that the primary building block of reality is consciousness. I understand this to be what Buddhism refers to as the impersonal ‘I’. He calls this consciousness ‘universal consciousness’ or ‘mind-at-large’. We share this same consciousness with all living entities. However, all entities with cognitive metabolism (conscious entities) differ in form, and are unable to see this reality, because ultimately, we’re dissociated from the essence of this consciousness. I understand him to explain this because evolution has forced us to develop our sensor organs to adapt to our environment, i.e., to that which is useful, and not truthful.

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The case for idealism is excellently presented here, with an analytical approach that will resonate with people who don't like woolly discourse but prefer a thorough treatment in compliance with science of what, at heart, is a metaphysical theory, or fundamental assumption about reality, that explains all the facts about reality, i.e. experience, better and more parsimonious than materialism.

Kastrup has become even more rigorous in his reasoning than in his earlier work. I'm happy to notice he's in touch with David Chalmers, and I could definitely detect Chalmers' influence in the writing style of this book. Hopefully he can reciprocally influence Chalmers to take idealism more seriously. Chalmers has always been reasoning from the assumption of materialism, then refuting it, and looking for an alternative while staying as close to materialism as possible. But idealism doesn't mean straying far out from materialism. It rather turns it inside out and upside down. It envelops materialism. Mind vs. matter is a false dichotomy, based on a category mistake. All matter is in mind. Physical reality (the whole universe, including organisms and brains) is perception. It's the part of conscious experience that behaves according to patterns (the laws of nature) and that we all share. Instead of assuming another, objective reality made of 'matter' behind it, independent of consciousness, and so creating the 'hard problem' of how this conjectured world of matter actually creates the consciousness that has conjectured it, idealism does not need such an extra hypothesis, and takes consciousness as a fundamental, which means there is no hard problem at all.

Of course we can still ask: what is consciousness? Well, we all know what our own consciousness is, because we are it. Kastrup says that our individual minds are dissociated alters in a primeval, cosmic consciousness, rather like little whirlpools in a body of water. Perception is the evolved, coded interface of the boundary of the dissociation. Consciousness is what it is like to be an organism. Organisms (including brains) are what conscious experience looks like 'from the outside', from a second person perspective. The universe is what cosmic consciousness looks like from the outside. This cosmic consciousness is fundamental. It's just there. It's the ground of reality. There is nothing wrong with this grounding. You have to ground on something. Materialism does the same with matter, but has less explanatory power as a theory, and matter is not what we once thought it was. In quantum physics it dissolves into probability waves. Into predictions about observations.

Actually the number of popular, scientifically savvy books that are published that support idealism steadily increases (Robert Lanza's Biocentrism comes to mind), and others that have all the arguments for idealism but shy away from taking that last step of realising that it's consciousness that is fundamental. This is because the doctrine of materialism has become culturally entrenched in recent times. Usually it's information that is taken to be fundamental, or mathematics, as in Max Tegmark's recent book. Or the question is left hanging in the balance, as in Amanda Gefter's book: Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn, which quite succesfully argues that both relativity theory and quantum theory show that every physical quantity that is often taken to be fundamental in physics actually depends on observation. Space, time, matter, energy, Everything is a matter of perspective. Absolute, objective physical reality does not exist. But the book ends with a cliffhanger: who then is the observer?

Up to now it takes independent, fearless thinkers like Kastrup to state the obvious, but I expect that to change in the near future. Kastrup is one of the trailblazers. A real scientist and Socratic philosopher, who asks fundamental questions and follows the evidence wherever it leads. He's also not afraid to tackle the question of what happens after death. Obviously idealism can explain why certain mystical or spiritual experiences have been a common occurrence all through history. Such experiences can also be induced by pychoactive drugs like LSD. It has been shown that these drugs reduce brain activity while expanding consciousness instead of impairing it. This could be a matter of partially cancelling the dissociation (as Aldous Huxley said: the unimpaired brain working as a filter). The same goes for near-death experiences of brain dead people. The life and death of the organism are part of perceived reality in consciousness, which is the boundary of dissociation between personal and cosmic consciousness. The dissolution of the body is what the end of the dissociation looks like from a second person viewpoint. If idealism is correct, consciousness itself does not end, because it's not part of its own perception. but is expanded into cosmic consciousness, which is without time, space and matter. What that is like we cannot know now. But we will all find out some time.

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strong mind expander. Written as a collections essays building and defending "idealism" as the best hypothesis of ontology (i.e. what is the nature of reality?). Accessible to anyone (though you may need a dictionary) yet wide ranging and multi-disciplinary.

The core of the argument is a philosophical hypothesis that consciousness is the "ontological primitive" - or the basic building block of reality - as opposed to atoms, strings, membranes, or whatever other physics constructs are the flavor of the month. He starts from a simple, yet profound point - the only thing we really know to be real is our own consciousness - and goes from there to build a whole explanation of reality that I find to be quite plausible.

At first glance, you probably think - this is crazy! If you think this, it's because the totality of the idea is not readily advanced in one paragraph (I will not try to fully summarize here). But give it a read if only to open your mind to the limits of the dominant ontology of physicalism (i.e. matter is the basis of everything and consciousness is an emergent property of that) or the secular humanism that has come to dominate the academics.

What this book really does well is to avoid the loose language and pseudoscience of the most new-age literature it abuts against. It is all based in science & philosophy and reflects very real conversations happening in some corners of the academy today. And in this way, the idea is by no means a rejection of science but rather is an attempted revolution in the understanding of our basic reality. The pace of culture change is slow, but this is the type of idea that could in 100 years become widely accepted as we look back on the impoverished, backwards beliefs of the physicalists.

With that in mind, there are certainly areas that appear weak and likely will need further work. The work seems to appeal to facts when it debunks physicalism (i.e. quantum physics results placing the actions of an observer as significant on the outcome of the event) but as a new idea is relatively untested by experimental scrutiny & a little vague around the edges.

To devolve in to an example that will only make sense if you've read the book: if my wife is but how I experience her as a disassociated consciousness (just as I am), how how should I consider her hair or toenails (i.e. dead parts of her body still attached)? They don't intuitively seem to be accurately considered an outward appearance of her own inner experience. Similarly, how would Kastrup reconcile the wide amount of biological literature elaborating the difficulties in separate life - e.g. are my gut microbia part of "me"? I would assume not. What about an implanted organ in my body - how is one to interpret that in this view? By not drawing lines, it becomes clear what parts of "me" are are me, vs separate alters, vs. part of the universal.

Regardless, I don't fault Kastrup as he's only trying to raise this as a hypothesis worth considering while ruthless tearing down other leading hypotheses. And to this end, he is quite effective. And rigorous. And entertaining. And thought provoking. Which makes for a pretty rare read

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

"You think string theory is unfalsifiable and simply an explanatory theory with predictive power lacking practicability? Hold my beer." That's what I imagine started the author on his quest.

I don't know why the author thinks it's important for us to know his papers were submitted and mostly published in reputable journals. The point of journals is to make dissemination of different ideas possible. It doesn't mean much else. Same reason I read this book till the end. People are curious, they want to learn from other peoples' ideas. The introduction shows some bizarre attitude where the author suggests he somehow fooled the journals into publishing material for his book. What?

It didn't convince me, in fact I'm not sure what exactly the author was trying to convince me of, other than that it's all in my mind and somehow findings of psychology of a particular species of creatures living on an insignificant little blue-green planet are in some way relevant to the nature of the universe. Metaphors can be an explanatory aid, not the definition of an idea.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

It all started with quantum physics’ contextuality.

Measuring something with different methods give different values in quantum physics. So we have a problem. Nothing has any ‘intrinsic value’.

We were brought up with the Realism school of scientific thought. That is, even when we are not looking at something, that something must exist with inherent properties. But that is contradicted by quantum physics.

Kastrup proposed Idealism: universal consciousness is the basis of all matter. Matter is a thing that we get when we make an observation of our surroundings. We are all part of a universal consciousness who are dissociated from each other.

This is in stark contrast with Realism, which states that matter is the fundamental thing and consciousness emerge from matter.

This is not a book of philosophy, and neither is it. book about religion. Kastrup illustrated his points with peer reviewed scientific journal papers. For example, functional MRI scans of the brain of people taking psychedelic drugs showed decreased brain activity. Yet subjects reported enhanced consciousness. This is similar to people with near death experiences who have reduced blood flow to the brain, yet describe increased consciousness, one-with-the-universe feelings.

It is going to mess with everyone who is brought up with the Realism paradigm of scientific thought. However, quantum physics just does that to us, doesn’t it?

[Douglas Macrae Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm glad I read the book - but its not really a book - its a collection of published papers that were mostly a hard incomprehensible slog. But I'm glad I read the book because : Idealism. Its fundamental tenants are undeniable - but if I understood anything its that we (philosophers like Kastrup) can still get carried away and make seemingly unfalsifiable conclusions about the world beyond experience.

[Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some quibbles here and there (e.g., undeveloped epistemology, simple interpretation of quantum mechanics), but overall a hypothesis worth considering and taking seriously. The expansion of the phenomenon of dissociation into a universal reality is the most innovative and interesting idea in the book, IMO. But there are several cool insights and proposals throughout.

[Owlseyes]

https://bigthink.com/robby-berman/are...

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the innovative and fascinating theory of mind and world it propounds, this gets five stars despite some underdeveloped features of the system. Minus one for its repetitious and under-edited format (the book is a collection of previously-published articles with overlapping content; alas, for this reason I can't in good conscience give it a full five stars as I would if it were cohesively constructed). So four stars total. :) Note: YOU SHOULD READ THIS BOOK, BUT NOT AS YOUR FIRST ACADEMIC PHIL OF MIND BOOK. For maximum results, you need to have at least a basic acquaintance with the core positions and arguments in analytic ontology and philosophy of mind before you read this book. But then, for the love of God, give Kastrup a fair hearing. If his work gets taken as seriously as it deserves, it has the potential to shake up the lazy-minded prejudices of the contemporary philosophical scene, and perhaps even to bring about the sea-change in Western thought that its author envisions.

Let me first note with satisfaction that Kastrup takes the Hard Problem of Consciousness (hereafter "the hard problem") extremely seriously. I take it extremely seriously too. Not everyone does. I don't claim to be able to argue compellingly for taking it that seriously. But notwithstanding that disclaimer, it just seems obvious to me that the hard problem is devastating to a standard physicalist view in which consciousness is not fundamental. It's not just an epistemic problem; it's a metaphysical problem, and it is insuperable. Physicalists who treat it as just a bullet to be bitten or something to be explained away, puzzling to be sure but potentially outweighed by the merits of physicalism, are simply failing to realize how huge a problem it is. The only way they could fail to see this is that they're emotionally, socially, and professionally attached to physicalism, or simply lack the mental clarity to reflect on their basic experiences without contortions of intellectual self-deceit. All extant physicalist lines on the hard problem are pure hand-waving; to think that new standard-physicalist solutions will do any better is to miss the point of the hard problem. Hence, either "the physical" is consciousness-involving, or consciousness is not physical. Kastrup, like me, finds panpsychism (he doesn't consider panprotopsychism) to be an unconvincing band-aid. Thus we are left with the conclusion that consciousness is not physical. Dualism is better than its reputation: the interaction problem is WAY less serious than the hard problem; the causal closure principle is just a principle; the paradoxes of epiphenomenalism could perhaps be resolved. But dualism is also messy and unparsimonious, and it's not the only or even the best non-physicalist game in town.

Where do we go from here? Kastrup opts to build a system that assigns ontological primacy what we apodictically know: conscious experience. He argues for a careful distinction between being conscious of something and KNOWING that you are conscious of that thing (bye-bye higher-order theories), another point whose obvious correctness could only be obscured by pure bias. He reminds us that the existence of "matter" outside us is not some unassailable, known fact (sorry, Moore), but rather a theoretical posit (or, I would amend, in some ways a pre-theoretical assumption, but no more justified for that). Kastrup's system, which is rough-hewn as yet but in some ways quite powerful, shows that belief in external "matter" is by no means abductively inescapable either.

The system itself is a form of idealism in which the one genuine existent is universal consciousness. The appearance of separate conscious subjects arises from a dissociation of some contents of universal consciousness from other contents; this is why I can't read your thoughts. Why did this dissociation occur? The book doesn't say, and Kastrup when questioned tends to favor a teleological explanation (as do I). I'm not sure what the explanation is in his mind, but perhaps it's along these lines: universal consciousness wanted to enrich its experience, explore its own essence, in some way that is only possible through dissociation. (Incidentally, this view offers a solution to the problem of evil. If I intentionally stub my toe and then ingest a drug that makes me lose my memory and experience myself AS that toe, the problem of evil might occur to this "thinking toe," but no one would be at fault.) But Kastrup is surely correct that much of the intuitive appeal of the "external, material world," and the intuitive mistrust of idealism, stems from cultural indoctrination into materialism. (My own experiences have suggested to me that materialism is, in a sense, the mouthpiece of the ego's fears and illusions; the materialist transmutes those fears into beliefs as a spurious defense against them, as though by allying himself with his destroyer he could avoid destruction. Kastrup has a different, also plausible explanation for why materialism is a defense mechanism.)

I believe it is a major point in favor of Kastrup's idealism that it harmonizes with the world's mystical traditions. It also offers explanations of empirical facts about mind-brain correlations, psychedelic drugs, and quantum mechanics, although I freely confess that I am unqualified to judge how successfully it copes with the last of these.

I also believe the system has some flaws. This is OK. Kastrup is swimming against the current here; although there is a revival of panpsychism going on, and some glimmerings of interest in idealism, his is practically a lone voice in the wilderness. He hasn't had the benefit of modern, analytic-philosophical debate, collaboration, and refinement of a fully sophisticated idealism (or, better yet, idealisms, plural). In a just world, Kastrup's efforts would form a starting point for a brand-new school of neo-idealism to hone and refine. The pessimist in me doubts that academic philosophy will get there anytime soon, but one has to hope!

To me the main weakness of the system is its account of the body. To Kastrup, the physical body is the visible form of dissociated consciousness, viewed from across a dissociative boundary. He thinks this for reasons similar to Schopenhauer's: our body is not just another "external" object, but one to which we have intimate access. The unifying principle of this body is metabolism, which surprisingly turns out to ground the dissociation itself. I think this is a strange view. First, the boundaries of the body actually are somewhat vague. Second, it's not clear to me why a paradigmatically non-"mental" process like metabolism can ground something as radical as mental dissociation. Perhaps it can, but Kastrup needs to do more work to show that this is plausible. I would suggest that cutting my finger is no more "internal" to my essential subjectivity than breaking the wine-glass I am holding. The former is sensed via nerve impulse, the latter by sight; why should one of these be more intimately "part of me" than the other?

I also believe that the problem of apparent unconsciousness deserves a more robust response, although one may not be possible at the current state of our knowledge. If I am essentially conscious, then why do I seem to go unconscious in deep sleep, under general anesthesia, or after a blow to the head? Yes, it is possible that these are not genuine instances of unconsciousness, but I'd like to see a better reply to this objection than a mere claim of possibility.

Finally, I am uncomfortable (intellectually and emotionally) with Kastrup's account of the mental life of God, or mind-at-large. It is a picture inflected by Schopenhauer's doctrine of the universal Will: an instinctive force without metacognition. Perhaps I've got this wrong, but this seems to suggest that God is a kind of dumb animal, and humans are smarter than It. In any case, the view that universal consciousness lacks metacognition is arguably contradicted by NDE reports and some mystical experiences. Or perhaps there is no metacognition in It, but mystics have consistently reported It to be characterized by an intelligence infinitely greater than the human mind. Finally, Kastrup's own preference for teleological explanations of Its actions would seem better harmonized with a metacognitively aware universal mind (albeit not impossible on a non-metacognitive version). So I think Kastrup could do better at harmonizing his picture of the universal mind with the available testimony. Simply put, it's hard to see how his God is worthy of our deepest reverence, let alone worship. Since he takes the restoration of meaning to the world to be one of the main payoffs of his system, this is an urgent problem.

I could say a lot more, but there's no need. I'll close by reiterating that you should absolutely read this book. It deserves attention. It deserves debate. It deserves not to be ignored by an unreflective, lazy materialist mainstream. It will expand your mind. You will see the world in a new way.

[Paul O'Connor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sociological reflection on the book.

This is a truly multi-disciplinary work that treads firm and deliberate steps across philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, quantum mechanics, and religion. Far from suffering from this mixture the book is lucid and thoughtfully planned. Kastrup has compiled ten previously published articles from highly regarded Open Access journals into an unfolding and progressive narrative that delineates his argument. As the foreword by Menas Kafatos acknowledges, this is both unusual and remarkable for its coherence. Kastrup’s intention is to lay out his thesis with veracity, using both the peer review system to legitimise his arguments from an interdisciplinary position, and Open Access to make his ideas widely available to readers. As he notes, anyone could freely download all 10 articles and piece together the narrative of the book. This format is also laudable because the subject matter is so dense, complex and counter intuitive that each essay revises the key tenets of his argument. Yes, there is a good deal of repetition in this volume. Yes, it is welcome and needed. This is not easy reading, but it is certainly rewarding. I struggled with one chapter in particular (Chapter 6) and restarted it on three occasions until I was confident enough to proceed.

The book lays out an argument against the material nature of the world and claims that reality is really simply consciousness. Our perception of the world is our primary data and we only register an exterior world through the lens of our conscious perception. For Kastrup, this exterior world is actually a disassociation, part of a universal consciousness, but one in which we are disassociated. Think of a dream. You conjure up a dream from your own mind, but the actors in your dream act independently of you. Universal consciousness is kin to this dynamic, we are all connected, but also disassociated.

“The inanimate universe we see around us is the extrinsic appearance of a possibly instinctual but certainly elaborate universal thought, much like a living brain is the extrinsic appearance of a person’s conscious inner life.”

The material world is simply our perception of thought process reflected from this universal consciousness. As Kastrup explains this allows us to make sense of how other individuals appear to experience the same reality as us, they are similarly a disassociated part of that universal consciousness. This is a simplification and one of the merits of this book is that it takes seriously the need to argue the case in respective fields of knowledge. Kastrup makes a series of increasingly sophisticated arguments that touch upon the relevance of quantum theory in validating an idealist ontology, the fallacy of the unconscious, and the incoherence of a physicalist world view. Kastrup argues that consciousness will never be explained in physical terms, it is, after all the primary data of life and it is qualitative not quantitative. These arguments strike at the heart of AI innovation and cast doubt of theories of singularity.

The Sociological Angle

The primary sociological message I got from this book was to champion qualitative methods. Kastrup repeatedly highlights that physicalism provides a flawed and incomplete vision of the world. Worse still it is a vision that compromises our perceptions. As many have argued, sociology has an Achilles heel, and that is its tie to mechanistic science. Kastrup’s thesis validates qualitative enquiry in which we look not at quantifiable elements, but qualitative experience. In Chapter 15 of the book he talks of the role of archetypes and the need to apply a hermeneutic in order to deconstruct the puzzle of the world. If Kastrup’s argument is taken in its fullest form then we need to imagine a sociology founded on the notion of an idealist ontology, in which reality is consciousness and individuals and all social interactions are between disassociated alters of this primary consciousness.

This is all valuable rhetoric because sociology has become somewhat lost in recent public debate. The emphasis on qualitative work hits hard at the neoliberal university that seeks to quantify all academic work by counting citations, ranking journals, and scrutinising knowledge transfer. The erosion of the Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities as valid academic disciplines worthy of investment and funding could be slowed and ultimately reversed with generous consideration to the points Kastrup makes. Hard science is treading a mobius loop that will only ever tell us of the abstracted world. It speaks to itself. The mantra one might read through Kastrup’s book is that of quality. Oddly enough the same concept that sends Pirsig insane in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Kastrup critiques culture as the vehicle of a redundant physicalist worldview, an argument that holds great anthropological interest. His target in this complaint is that the physicalist, material, mechanical view of the world has stripped life of meaning. If we are simply atoms bouncing around, what is the purpose or message of life? In the idealist view the world becomes enchanted once more with the message of life imbedded in everything we perceive.

The sociological implications of the book are vast. In one of the closing arguments Kastrup introduces the topical notion of pronouns, not as a political concept of identity, but purely in reflection of his ontology. What, in terms of an idealist philosophy, are the values of ‘I’ and ‘You’ ? If ‘I’ is a disassociated part of universal consciousness, and so is ‘You’, then we are at once unified and separated. What could this mean in terms of life after death? This expansive notion of identity points to our shared humanity and indicates that more must be done to cultivate our unity rather than individual divisions. The notion of unity is clearly analogous to elements of religious philosophy found in monotheistic religion and also Eastern philosophy. Thus, Kastrup opens further debate in the sociology of religion.

Kastrup’s book is a testament to the need for scholarship to be promiscuous and take seriously the responsibility to break down boundaries between academic worlds. The challenge to step outside of the mechanistic physical world and commit to an idealist ontology is both radical and full of promise.

[Marcus Norberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kastrup constructs a very well-founded, and (for the most part) easy to at least intellectually understand, argument for an idealist ontology. An ontology based on the assumption that mind is fundamental, not matter. He attacks the mainstream physicalist claim that matter and mind are separate, and that conciousness somehow emerges from matter constituted in a certain way.

An extremely interesting and revolutionary read, where you get to challenge your beliefs. Kastrup uses a lot of different fields of science to back up his case, and I like the way he arguments philosophically in that he reduces everything to its' core

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Provocatively disrespecting Kastrup’s book even though I largely agree in order to cause some friction and move the discourse forward****

Honestly though, if you’re familiar with a handful of articles from the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy this book offers nothing. https://plato.stanford.edu/

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

A revolutionary vision of the world, elaborated with unique clarity, precision, and rigor. Kastrup has long championed idealism—the metaphysical view that Reality is in consciousness—and in this book he hones his analytical argument with parsimony, logical consistency, and empirical adequacy. Fans of his previous work will appreciate the clear-headed precision as well as the thorough presentation of evidence from neuroscience, psychology, evolutionary biology, and physics. New readers are in for a treat: a convincing inversion of physicalism (the worldview we inherited and never thought to question) to unveil a formulation of Reality filled with meaning, the solution to the “hard problem” of consciousness, and the answers to all of our hardest questions like “What are we?” “What is the nature of reality?” and “What is the purpose of life?”

The book is essentially a compilation of articles previously published in Open Access journals and vetted by multidisciplinary peer review, but they flow together well according to the author’s design. The core metaphysic is repeated in each article, but the repetition serves us well as reinforcement rather than annoyance.

”A universal phenomenal consciousness is the sole ontological primitive, whose patterns of excitation constitute existence. We are dissociated mental complexes of this universal consciousness, surrounded like islands by the ocean of its mentation. The inanimate universe we see around us is the extrinsic appearance of a possibly instinctual but certainly elaborate universal thought, much like a living brain is the extrinsic appearance of a person’s conscious inner life.”

”We are all alters of one mind, surrounded like islands by the ocean of its thoughts (𝜓). Although each observer lives in its own physical world, this world is created by an interaction—perhaps an interference pattern—between 𝜓 and the observer’s own internal state r. Therefore, insofar as the internal state r is similar across observers—a reflection of our common humanity or even of the basic characteristics of life that we share with all organisms—such interaction should, at least in principle, lead to similar worlds.”

[Dee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ever so gradually the Wheel of Fortune turns. Very ancient lessons need to be learned over and over again, even though their essence remains the same. Modern science can empower ever more of us to attain infinite vision, but only if the sum of it's knowledge includes that of successful 'dreamers' from aeons ago. In "The Idea of the World" Bernardo does an admirable job of weaving the most recent and rigorous science, psychology and philosophy into that intricate cloth of transcendence espoused by mystics since.... forever. If you wonder at Bernardo's technical erudition and ability to construct a cogent philosophical argument you might refer to the forty five (Kindle) pages of Bibliography. Materialists, wake up! smell the roses! it's all good!

[Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Skipped around a bit, because much of this was repetitive. Kastrup makes a persuasive argument for idealism, but my imagination wasn't captured the way I was hoping it would be. In the final chapter, for instance, he essentially says, "I've shown why life is meaningful." And although by that point I was more or less convinced of "the mental nature of reality," it was entirely unclear to me how that knowledge should give my life meaning. I understand he was trying his hand at respectable analytic philosophy, but man, this was dry.

[Zarathustra Goertzel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Meh, The Idea of the World fails to fully describe Kastrup's own idea of the world: he does this more cogently in More Than Allegory: On Religious Myth, Truth and Belief, his book that isn't appealing to academics. In More Than Allegory, an "other" entity on a spirito-psychedelic journey explains the worldview to him: cosmogenesis from the aware void a la abstract thoughts that stumble upon self-stimulating loops, self-contained coherent meme-plexes (such as our physical matter reality), individuating units of consciousness ("alters"), etc. This seems close enough to Tom Campbell's view in My Big TOE - Awakening, Discovey, Inner Workings : The Complete Trilogy Unifying Philosophy, Physics, and Metaphysics, except less clear with a fixation on the role of 'dissociative alters'.

Kastrup's view is that of an unbounded cosmic mind in which we are patterns of excitation. Individuating entities are given the 'causal' explanation in terms of an analogy to the dissociations in Dissociative Identity Disorder.

What's left unmentioned is that this goes beyond "ontological idealism", which is a broader claim that reality is fundamentally "idea". However, very often (pre-quantum) "physicalism" is contrasted with "idealism" as if, by a false dichotomy, refuting physicalism then entails precisely Kastrup's interpretation of idealism. Thus he often argues in favor of "epistemic idealism", namely that we should take as ontologically primitive the fact that our empriical knowledge of the universe is via (phenomenal) awareness. I think this claim can be pretty sound, depending on how much "ontological primitive" is read into. Wikipedia notes that epistemic idealism can include "indirect realism", too, which seems lost on Kastrup as he immediately jumps from this claim to discussing cosmic mind.

A lot of focus goes into critiquing micro-experientialism (and other species of panpsychism), discussing how the combination problem is seen to be insurmountable, whereas Idealism has a workable model in his theory of our identity as dissociative alters of the one cosmic mind. My own judgment is that he's overly critical of micro-experientialism and seemingly satisfied with hand-waving to assume "it just works" in his worldview. The combination and separation problems seem like mathematical duals: how do we determine what will be found when reversing the dissociative separation (as he discusses in the chapter on consciousness after death)? [This trend may be more clear when reading More Than Allegory where Kastrup shows how he did not come to his ontology via analytic reasoning.]

This seemingly disingenuous asymettry of scrutiny also applies to critiques of "physicalism" for including unnecessary abstractions. Yet from a strictly epistemological idealist stance, positing a cosmic mind of which we are dissociative alters is also an abstraction that may not be logically implied (as far as I can tell at theh moment). I admit some arguments for a weak technical "non fundamental separation" of subsystems of the universe, a sort of "unity of the universe", yet it's not clear this is sufficient to make his desired extensions. If one claims to experience the cosmic mind's perspective, then the case is different (and I know that some people do make this claim). One is left inducing the existence of some larger reality, be it "physical quantum reality" or "cosmic mind" 🤷‍♂️. In my opinion, substance ontologies may not be substantiated by pure observational evidence alone. Thus in favor of parsimony, one should embrace a neutral/agnostic monism where one doesn't claim to know what the 'substance' is, only that it can be 'like this'.

Throughout the text, the author's claims cannot be trusted to be sound reasoning. The individual papers can be interesting enough and are 'published', yet 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️.

Chapter 9 on how "unconscious" parts of us might actually be "separately conscious" is fun. This is a cute specalitve topic I like to ponder and wonder how we could approach testing it 🤓.

How to interpret Near Death Experiences is also an interesting question.

A curious insight I had related to "dissociative views" is how virtual reality headsets, "materially constructed", can serve to lock one into a different world pretty well — especially given they don't cover our five senes yet!

While I may be in agreement with Kastrup on various points, I think his analytic philosophy needs a lot of work. I'd recommend easing off the psycho-analytic critique of "why people don't get my view". I recommend Tom Campbell's example of claiming that "first-hand experience" goes a long way to helping one explore these worldviews. Maybe it'd be good to work on exploring the core philosophy without trying to "win an argument" and including descriptions of his full worldview (insofar as it is clarified)?

If you'd like to learn more about "idealist philosophy", don't go to this book. If you enjoy reading (weak) arguments for under-specified worldviews, then it may be the book for you!

[Animesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant, elegant, outstanding...

Absolutely brilliant. It is rare to come across a such a book with unmatched profoundity, clarity, and sweeping breath of coverage. It offers a brilliant and elegant worldview echoed in mystic traditions throughout the ages. I have been a student of Adwaita Vedanta for 20 years, but this book clarified the few doubts I always struggled with.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

wish everyone could be open minded to read this book and open minded enough to consider it's concepts. this is one to re- read again and again. you know he's worth your attention if Rupert references him!

[George Fairs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Starting this book from quite a skeptical position, I have to admit that upon finishing it my worldview has been incredibly shaken. Fun!

[Thomson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredibly psychoactive book - Kastrup's thesis had my head spinning. Totally worth reading.

From a very young age I've obsessed over variants of the "hard problem of consciousness," namely: why is it that some clumps of matter (such as myself) have conscious experience and others seemingly don't? A dog is probably conscious, and a rock probably isn't, right? But what about a tree, or an oyster? Where do we draw the line, and most bafflingly, by what mechanism does conscious experience arise once that line is crossed?

In daily life, practically everyone tacitly accepts materialist philosophy: we think of physical matter as the fundamental "stuff" of reality and consciousness/experience as an emergent phenomenon ultimately caused by physical processes. Kastrup, however, argues that this ontology is fatally flawed, and instead proposes metaphysical idealism with a panpsychist bent: the physical universe, or rather, our perception of such, is causally downstream of consciousness, which we should consider as the true fundamental substrate of existence.

On its face this proposition probably sounds absurd (if matter isn't "real", then how come we always observe it obeying consistent, rigid physical laws?) or at least suspiciously hippy-dippy (we are the universe experiencing itself, maaaan!). But Kastrup approaches the topic with the rigor of an engineer-turned-analytic-philosopher, taking his time to construct a logical argument that idealism, although counterintuitive, outperforms materialism in explanatory power while also sidestepping critical contradictions/unparsimonious assumptions that the default materialist paradigm invites.

But if consciousness/phenomenal experience is supposedly the sole ontological primitive here, how do you explain, well, gestures vaguely at everything?

The crux of Kastrup's position, and the mechanism he proposes to explain our perceived reality, is fragmentation of consciousness, or dissociation. The universe, he claims, is fundamentally "That Which Experiences" (TWE), and our perceived reality is simply the "view from inside" TWE. And the reason we have "views" or an "inside" in the first place is that conscious life forms correspond to dissociated "alters" whose experiencing split off from universal TWE while remaining able to interact with the overall system. Life as we know it, then, is just the range of experiences generated when all these conscious fragments of TWE/"mind at large" smoosh up against each other in various ways.

Despite the unsettling implication that almost everything we think of as "reality" may be more or less illusory, this model responds incredibly elegantly to certain classic philosophical conundrums. For instance, the "subject combination problem" that plagues certain formulations of panpsychism or dualism: if all matter inherently can be subject to conscious experience, then why do I experience unitary consciousness and not, say, a pile of distinct organ-sized consciousnesses sharing a body, or even a horde of atom-sized consciousnesses? But if we apply Kastrup's model of consciousness as something that occasionally branches off from mind-at-large, rather than something that is assembled bottom-up, the mystery unravels itself. (Similarly, the reason we all appear to inhabit a single shared reality is that the entire non-living universe can be modeled as a single subject of experience, that is, universal mind-at-large minus all the chunks that fragmented off into individual consciousnesses.)

Of course, if we really accept such a metaphysics, our comfortable tacit-materialist conception of reality will be blown to pieces, and the door is left wide open to lines of speculation that, for better or worse, are quite "woo". It's impossible not to notice parallels between Kastrup's idealism and aspects of Buddhist philosophy as well as so-called New Age thought. (Just for starters: if "inanimate" matter is the manifested appearance of mind-at-large, which itself is the subject of some sort of phenomenal experience, then we can very reasonably wonder in what form an organism's consciousness persists after death...) I personally felt strangely intoxicated while digesting this philosophy, though I have a lot more thinking to do about whether I actually buy it (and what that would even mean)!

Finally, although Kastrup's writing is admirably lucid overall, I did detect an off-putting bitter note. It seems that Kastrup has a massive chip on his shoulder vis-a-vis "establishment" academic philosophy, and sometimes adopts a rather condescending or dogmatic tone that I found unbecoming for a scholar whose work is ultimately still unverifiable and heavily reliant on argument from analogy. I'd have hoped for better, especially given his intellectual project's far-reaching implications for spirituality, but I still think this is a stellar read if you discount the parts where Kastrup is blowing hot air.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

tl;dr: Kastrup argues for idealism as the ontology of reality.

In ten academic essays written with their publication as this book in mind, plus additional materials, Kastrup puts forth a systematic defense/advocacy for his case that the ontological primitive of reality is universal phenomenal consciousness. In five parts, he levels his critiques against physicalism – the currently predominant ontology of reality, builds out his idealist ontology, supports his ontology against common rebuttals, lays out the neuroscientific evidence in support of idealism, and finally takes a parting shot at physicalism while contemplating the potential significance of idealism to our lives.

While to grasp the full range of his argument, one should read the book, in short, Kastrup claims that “that which experiences” is universal conscious. Humans and all other forms of metabolic life are dissociations of that universal conscious who exist in our own worlds which are impinged upon by one another and universal consciousness. Most controversially, the result of this argument is that objective matter does not exist, phenomenal sense perception founded in consciousness is all that is, and what appears to be objective matter – including our own bodies and the device you are reading this on, are the extrinsic manifestational boundaries of the mind/consciousness.

Now, I am not widely read on the ontology of reality, I find the ontology of being to be a more fruitful endeavor, but my sympathies do tend to reside more with idealism than with physicalism. This is both as a result of personal experiences and scientific developments in cosmology and quantum mechanics. If I were forced at this moment to state what I thought the ontology of reality is, I would say cosmopsychism, which is closely related to idealism. Indeed, in reading Kastrup, I found echoes of thinkers whose work resonates with me, such as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Thomas Berry, and Brian Thomas Swimme, in addition to folks that Kastrup himself quotes, such as Carl Jung and Richard Tarnas.

As such, I enjoyed Kastrup’s text. Overall, I found his arguments compelling. The format of relying on academic essays was also helpful in that it led to the repetition of his arguments, making his line of thought easier to trace. My main reservation is the jump from universal consciousness to personal consciousness via dissociation. That seems like quite a leap to make. As well, I do wish there was more space dedicated to the significance of this ontology to us meaning-making beings. He does argue that idealism provides for a hermeneutics of the world, which is true, but expanding on that would have been beneficial, or at least of interest to me, when it comes to the question of, "OK, so now what?"

Ultimately, debates over the ontology of reality seem moot from a certain perspective. Regardless of if we’re in a computer simulation or a part of universal consciousness, I still have to get up every day, take care of the kid, figure out a way to make money, deal with life in general, etc. Knowing the nature of reality isn’t going to change one’s material circumstances. (I do concede that it may, however, enrich one’s inner life, which could lead to societal change as we reflect on ourselves as the consciousness of the universe folded onto itself and reflecting on itself. However, I am also skeptical of teleological claims.) Additionally, it strikes me as a combination of quaint hubris and curiosity to even attempt, as beings with the limited intellect which we have, to claim to know what the nature of reality is, especially as we are a simple product of that reality.

Having said all that, if discussion of the ontology of reality is of interest to you, especially if you have a sense that we’re more than just objective matter, this is a book – though challenging at times – that I’d recommend picking up.

[Jonathan Hockey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like with another of his books, I find his criticisms of physicalism to be accurate and on point, but his particular perspective on idealism seems to struggle to be formulated coherently. He tries to have something akin to Berkeley with an empirical idealism, of primacy of experience, yet at the same time trying to argue on logical grounds that this idealism is somehow absolute as an ontology. He says we are in consciousness, rather than consciousness being in the physical world, but any time he tries to explain his perspective he reaches for spatial and physical metaphors, talking of excitations and the like, which are strictly not in line with the perspective, as what is being excited if not some inert physical stuff? How can experience excite other experience as part of some amorphous blob of intangible experiences?

These things do not seem explainable the way that Kastrup has gone about presenting his version of idealism. The arguments about dissociation and this way of looking at why we only have a limited perspective despite being part of an overall experiential structure are interesting, and have some basis on Plato's views where he talks of the cave, and also where he talks of learning as remembering things we forgot from before birth.

Personally I think the way he tries to argue for idealism has being more parsimonious explanation means that he expounds a view of idealism that is weakened, but at the same time still cannot avoid setting up an abstract explanatory structure, despite his attempts to ground it on purely concrete experience. The reality is that even for consciousness to exist over time or for us to infer its existence in other people already involves massive conceptual leaps of abstraction, and so the purely concrete experiential approach will not get you much further than solipsism.

I would prefer to acknowledge it is an explanatory structure and it is simply a better and more accurate one, like we see in the rational idealisms of the past of Kant and Leibniz, rather than trying to pretend, like the empiricists, that it is some natural thing in our psychology not in need of explanation.

Still, the danger always with idealism is when it closes itself off to new things. I don't like it when people confound realism and physicalism and try to oppose realism to idealism, because you can have the primacy of ideas, but also have those ideas in connection with a surrounding reality. When you deny this you leave yourself trapped in a world of representations powerless to influence or properly understand or even care about your actual surroundings.

Some caveats and criticisms relative to my own distinct take on idealism. Another area I would point out is the relational interpretation of quantum theory. I don't find this perspective to be particularly useful or supportive of idealism like Kastrup thinks. I think Kastrups idealism is more likely to lend itself to the informational approach and possibly even the many worlds approach, because he disconnects ideas from a surrounding reality, ok he says that surrounding reality is also ideas, but still the disconnection is there and so you are liable to end up with self contained worlds of thought not interacting with each other, because the way he envisages interaction happening with excitations and the like, doesn't make any dynamic sense within his idealist framework.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

"We often discussed his notions on objective reality. I recall that during one walk Einstein suddenly stopped, turned to me and asked whether I really believed that the moon exists only when I look at it." (Abraham Pais)

Bernardo Kastrup in this book mounts a full scale assault on "physicalism" - the prevailing view that a physcial universe exists outside us - and constructs an elaborate argument in favour of idealism (that the world is purely mental). As such, this is maybe the most bullish idealist position since Bishop Berkeley in the 18th century.

Idealism runs so much against our intuitions that any well constructed exposition must be worth considering at least as a challenge. That Kastrup sustains a robust and logical argument for it is a substantial achievement. But it's an argument that can only be made with a great deal of work. My sense here was that Kastrup has had to find ways to deal with a wide range of objections, some of which are discussed, as well as others that I suspect are not raised. In the end, he constructs a narrow window through which idealism can clamber in.

This isn't the place for a full discussion of his arguments but I would note two points where I was left feeling unsatisfied.

First, the universe looks very much to us as though it does have a physical, objective existence. To call its consistency "regularities" is a bit of an understatement. It would seem that the cosmic consciousness that Kastrup calls "mind at large" is presenting us with something that is easily mistaken for an objective reality (even at very small or very large scales). Kastrup raises this difficulty but doesn't deal adequately with it, simply dismissing it as anthropomorphising mind at large. This leaves mind at large perilously close to being Descartes' demon.

Second, Kastrup makes the word "consciousness" do a lot of work. That includes "mind at large" as well as unconscious parts of the human mind (which have to be sort of conscious). These uses of the word seem to be rather different to the consciousness that we would usually think of and which Kastrup calls "meta-consciousness" and which, surely by definition, is what he points to as the one thing we know exists. I was left with the sense that there were some verbal gymnastics going on here.

Neither, as Kastrup likes to think, was I left with any feeling that the world would take on more meaning if we adopted an idealist mindset. Instead of a physical universe, I would need to accept a cosmic mind whose workings were entirely alien to humanity. If anything, I find that rather scary, almost Lovecraftian.

In the end, I suspect that most people will make the choice of their worldview based on emotion. For some, the idealist view might resonate but others will be happier with a physical world where the moon exists, regardless of whether one is looking at it or not.

[Kenneth Bachmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd have rated this book with 5 stars, except my thin knowledge of philosophical terminology prevented me from understanding some of the points that the author tried to make. Nevertheless, I am extremely happy that I selected this book by Bernardo Kastrup, read it, and added it to my library. About Kastrup: He holds two PhDs, one in computational physics and the other in philosophy where his focus is philosophy of mind. He writes articulately, though not necessarily simply, but that is understandable for the following reason: The Idea of the World is a collection of about a half-dozen papers he has published in recent years in scholarly, refereed journals. As such, one would expect that the language used would be the common language of philosophy. Each chapter is effectively a reprint of one of those papers. While I couldn't understand everything in the book as a philosopher might, I was able to capture enough meaning from each chapter and his Appendix to grasp, or at least get the major gist of, the ontology that he put forth in the book, namely Idealism. More than that I won't say in this review other than if you have an abiding interest in the nature of reality, consciousness, and experiences after death, then this book is for you. If you are skeptical about physicalism and what it means for life's meaning, particularly as proselytized by well-known contemporary physicists, then this book by Bernardo Kastrup is for you.