54:06 - THANK YOU, Bernardo. I'm so so glad to see that "materialism has worked so well" argument cut to pieces. SCIENCE has worked so well. We know NOTHING about the underlying strata.
So, I first ran across Bernardo's work about six months ago, and right from the start I found it fascinating. One question has come to me, though. How do we explain the very controlled manner in which new dissociated alters appear? Specifically I'm talking about a man and woman engaging in a sexual liaison and the very repeatable process of pregnancy, birth, and development of a new consciousness that happens after that. What kind of mental process is this biological process reflecting? New alters don't "just appear," but we do seem to be able to produce them more or less "at will." Has anyone seem Bernardo comment on this?
Excellent question! I'd be very interested in Kastrup's response to this point too. (I'll try to update this comment if I come across a discussion of this in his writings, if I remember.)
I am happy to see John engage Bernardo in discussion of the theological implications of his metaphysical speculations and conjectures. It would be interesting to see open-minded theologians either join the discussion or incorporate Bernardo’s thinking into their own.
Very interesting discussion, I will be paying more attention to Bernardo in the future. For now, I do not see that "Universal Mind" is inconsistent with dualism. Or with concepts such as those of Charles Peirce, who thought of matter as "congealed mind". I was uplifted by Bernardo's closing moral argument that if by shelving "materialism", the ontological concept, we can ameliorate "materialism", the way of life, it would be well worth it to do so.
Hi John. I'm new to the channel and enjoying content. The only other video of yours I've seen is the one before this (I think) and in that video you mentioned the mystery of the mind-body problem and I thought to myself, 'I must comment and ask you to interview Bernado Kastrup - and then hey! - I saw on the feed that you had! I first came across Bernado in 2015 and had one of those confirmations. At age 27 (24 years ago) I read a book - "The Wisdom of The Overself" by Dr. Paul Brunton and the world changed. But because Brunton was a journeyman/journalist who travelled all over the Orient and sat with all kinds of holy men and sages it was very difficult to find more in this line of thinking. Then when I first heard Bernado, I not only had it confirmed (not that Idealism needs confirming), but it was validated too because of Bernado's credentials. I've often commented on Bernado's videos and streams about Brunton and feel a bit of a spammer sometimes, but for my IQ, Bernado can lose me sometimes and I'm glad that "The Wisdom of The Overself" has primed me for what Bernado has to say. So I can't help but recommend this book as a prequel to Bernado's ideas. Personally, I think Bernado should have, would have, as many views and subscribers as Jordan Peterson if he just gathered a bit more momentum and also think Bernado is the man to unite the differences between Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris. Great conversation. Please read the chapter headings of The Wisdom of The Overself (online PDF). As an old 'acid head' like me, you'll love it. Also, the PaulBruntonPhilosophicFoundation for more on Advaita Vedanta - a term I hadn't heard UNTIL Bernado mentioned it that help me identify where Brunton was coming from. OK, I've said my bit. Hope this helpful to everyone.
Fabulous! I wish Bernardo would give a lot more care and attention to personal experiences above and beyond his own...but he's doing a great deal to dismantle Materialism and promote Idealism. John? Extremely well done and I hope you've read God's Debris. KABOOM...ha ha.
First time listener. There's a "intro to universal consciousness" on CZcams by Aquarius academy that can help with the "one universal experience / individual experience question. Spoiler: it's a fractal geometry based on the Torus shape. Pretty much every culture throughout history knew this, at least for a period of time. Love the show, going to dive in deeper!
50:00 - No, no no. It's not *materialism* that's been phenomenally successful. The success of the scientific method in NO WAY *requires* a materialist underpinning of the universe. The elements of the universe can be mental and still behave EXACTLY the way we've observed them to behave. This is what I was getting at in my first comment. This is a "non-criticism"; it doesn't hold up under scrutiny.
Interesting and great discussion although for someone who does suffer from anxiety and neuroses about death and the problem of suffering this conversation did make me bit uneasy at times. My hope is that our conscious state after death is devoid of pain and suffering and only exist when we either choose or perhaps just naturally move onto expierience a world of duality in the physical world... a sort of adventure that allows us to have the infinite experiences that humans and animals do... creating lessons, creativity, reflections, pleasures and meaningful relationships that otherwise could not be possible.. I also hope that my perception of how bad life can be for some is not quite as bad as the reality...
I guess that's why - as Kastrup said - the conventional, materialistic (atheist) view of death is so comforting: a guaranteed end to suffering. And I agree with him - some, like Horgan, might see Idealism as attracting adherents who seek a better afterlife story, but the truth is quite the opposite.
Extinction actually is our most and fundamental fear. I think this is a point where Bernardo is mistaken. Everything we do in life is at their basis either to seek pleasure or security. So what we really want is to survive and to have fun. Death is threatening both of these fundamental desires and therefore to be avoided at any cost. People are seriously already thinking about downloading their consciousness into a computer to become immortal (what they don't realise is that this would actually mean eternal suffering and who in their right state of mind would want that?). But thism only shows what length are people are willing to go to avoid death. So, is death for real? I don't know (or many I just have forgotten), but the real question is, that no one actually comes around to think about because we are all to busy to worry about death: is life for real? 😘
A My personal theory is that all phenomena occur in consciousness which is a metaphysical state hosting illusions analogous to a dream. In other words, there is no physical universe. There is only consciousness and the aggregation of all artifacts (thoughts, feelings, images, memories, creations) that have ever been experienced by all sentient life forms that have ever existed. Allow me to try and explain this. There exists only two participants in reality, the Creator and the Created One. The Creator is the Universal or Cosmic Mind that religions refer to as God - the eternal, all-knowing, all-seeing, sentient “being” that is responsible for “beingness” and manifesting all “creation” as we know it. The Creator is Consciousness itself and exists only as a unitary state without space, mass or time. The Created One is The Dreamer. Religions refer to this “other” as Jesus, Allah, and others names. The Dreamer exists only in Mind and creates all illusions that we associate with life - ourselves, others, the material world as we experience it, the solar system, the domain of quanta - everything. The existence of The Dreamer as “other” from The Creator introduces the possibility of duality as an idea - an artifact of consciousness. The Dreamer has been created “in the image and likeness” of The Creator and, as such, can also create within Mind. The Dreamer creates illusions. The Dreamer dreams the lives that we (humans) believe that we are living, but since there is only one Dreamer, “we” experience “life” with a “mind” that is purposely limited and therefore unaware of the entirety of The Dreamer’s dream. Let’s look at life more closely now by using an analogy. Imagine a newborn infant who is seconds old. The Dreamer conceives of this new illusion in the same way that players create avatars to represent themselves as actors in an online video game. Every avatar is created with a game strategy in mind and configured with unique capabilities to play and master the game. Imagine that the brain of the new infant is a neurologically unstructured “blank slate” (reference Steven Pinker’s book by the same name). In other words, the neural networks and purposeful mechanisms of neural plasticity that will become increasingly manifest as the infant grows to maturity are just beginning to form concurrent with “learning”. This learning, of course, will be unique to that child’s distinct circumstances and changing environment. The infant’s mind will accumulate “artifacts of consciousness” from every learning event and these will be uniquely his or hers. A “life lens” will evolve, informed by these “personal artifacts of consciousness”. It will gradually become the dominant mechanism by which the mind of the infant will decipher and navigate every event encounter in life. The life lens will also become increasingly wise and dependable as the child matures, gains personal independence and the many ‘life skill” competencies. Artifacts of consciousness are the stuff of Wisdom. Personal wisdom is what a human acquires from life. Collective Wisdom is what The Dreamer acquired from living billions of “human” lives. “We” are The Dreamer acting out lives in billions of guises and under billions of circumstances all designed to acquire Wisdom. So was is the point of acquiring this Wisdom, you may ask? A Course In Miracles (ACIM) teaches that a miracle is “a change in perception”, and that their all only two states of perception in consciousness - love and fear. “Fear” is defined as the absence of love. The only state of consciousness that exists in the Mind of God is love because it is a unitary state in which opposites cannot occur because duality is not possible. The Dreamer has either forgotten that this is the only reality, or has grown so attached to the Dream that the fear of becoming “nonexistent” is the reason that the choice to love unconditionally is frequently avoided. The Dreamer, then, exists in an existential crisis involving the choice of love over fear. Wisdom is sought in order to teach The Dreamer to return home to the Creator. ACIM uses the language and mythology of ancient religious teaching because these teaching exists and deeply ingrained artifact of consciousness in the majority of human cultures - especially those where Jesus Christ plays a central role. ACIM attempts to leverage the cultural heritage of these communities in order to reach The Dreamer wherever dreams exist.
This is great, and I think the pattern of it applies all the way down. We are a dissociative process in consciousness, but there is no fundamental part that is 'me', it's a collection of further, finer dissociative processes, and so on. We all have multiple selves.
... ahh, no, there ARE NO multiple SELVES, AWE even a PERSEPTION OF, or a memory of a multiplicity, OF, anything, multipLied by ITself&knot even a reflection, back from outThere totherehere just the solidified concretionalemnity thoughts made manifestationalizer of iamanality ...😅 & even the most definitely brilliantly out there premonitional fears of EBANEZER YUDIKOWSKIS' prediction of a sentiantly aware & perseptivationally Conscious computronomic machine ...
Wonderful conversation John & Bernardo! I know this is a mystically flavored comment but hear me out. The "dark view of oneness" as you described John, may a byproduct of ego. You mentioned you were worried you could kill yourself if you stopped imagining you (which I interpreted as ego you, or did you mean God you? Though, I think my comment still applies either way). Which is a valid concern of the ego, but why find it necessary to continue living at all, why are you attached to this life? If you stopped imagining this life, so what? It' just an imagination of universal mind, right? Even if you stopped existing as god, so what? Well, worry emerges because the ego is invested, it has too much to lose. Attached to too much to accept that it can be cast away as a fanciful imagination. Relationships, education, work, family, goals, gone with one foul swoop? No way! ;) To entertain your idea a little, perhaps god has indeed split into multiple personalities to avoid a dark realization. (I personally lean more to the idea god is simply exploring himself) But who's to say that level of consciousness that occured was the absolute level? If a limited dissociated consciousness (human being) can split into multiple personalities due to trauma, why should we assume the god consciousness you experienced was the Ultimate? The levels of Enlightenment are manifold, so I've heard haha. It could just be another limited and confined consciousness, just like you and I, that we've found ourselves inside of temporarily. However, at the end of the day, it's our responsibility to evolve, grow, and reconcile our trauma in a fearless manner, it's like god's job to be courageous and figure this out. Cause we are god, essentially. The tenants of life seem to continually push for us towards growth, whether we want to grow or not. It seems to be a hint of our "purpose" here. To learn, to be courageous, to be forgiving, loving. It's through these actions we evolve, we alleviate our neurosis, our consciousness and compassion expands. And if we act unconsciously, we suffer the consequences. Interestingly enough, If you bite off more than you can chew at once, realize too much at once, you'll potentially become terrified, and never want to try again. Growing to fast is a dangerous game, especially with consciousness. In fact, if you tear away too much attachment to this world away too quickly, in aspiration to "realize god" you may potentially experience a total collapse of identity (psychotic breakdown) and be left in what you could describe as hell. A disintegrated, but not fully destroyed, ego. This not infrequently occurs in those who have mystical experiences and realize there is no personal self and directly confront the paradox of being. Yet, don't fully let go. This is a reason surrender is a primary epithet in yoga and spiritual traditions. Either way, it's not easy. It's not "all love and rainbows" as some spiritual teachers preach. This can be brutal. If it was all love and rainbows everybody would be walking around like Jesus and Buddha, fully realized. But almost nobody is, there's reason for that. Eckhart Tolle was about to kill himself before he was realized, Gautam Buddha nearly died under a tree, and Jesus, well, he didn't have it easy as we all know. Everyone's journey is different, and there may be many dark nights of the soul before Oneness is loving, or even palatable. The mistake I've found is, having a negative experience along the spiritual path proceeded by labeling it all "bad" because that one experience. Psychedelics are notorious for doing this, slow steps, daily meditation, and surrender seem to be the most sustainable way to elevate consciousness. Cause if it happens too fast you can really hurt yourself, and the path could be even longer than if you just stuck to simple daily meditation. I nearly banished all spirituality after a bad trip similar to what you described, my ego was fragmented & traumatized. It wasn't until later I realized after being thrust into nirvana, the fall would hurt more than I thought ;) Lastly, are we a way to distract god from a crisis at the core of things? Well I know I when I have an irreconcilable truth I don't want to confront, I distract myself from dealing with it. Then I soon realize, it's still causing me pain, and the antidote is full acceptance. If acceptance is accomplished, there is peace. God's got work to do just like you and me! Which is to say, we've got work to do! Good luck to you, thanks for this scintillating discussion!
Allot of what you describe and theorize does seem to resonate and make allot of sense to me... I recently tried DMT for the first time and the theme and realization for me was that life is bitter sweet and it is all part of a whole, a contrast of perceptions and different states of consciousness that potentially can be both negative or positive depending how they go together...
From my experience life lessons and themes do seem to be part of progression in life which seem to be the result of duality and synchronicity in our lives...
@@stussysinglet Amazing realization. Joseph Campbell stated "Heaven and hell are within us, and all the gods are within us. This is the great realization of the Upanishads of India in the ninth Century B.C. All the gods, all the heavens, all the world, are within us. They are magnified dreams, and dreams are manifestations in image form of the energies of the body in conflict with each other. That is what myth is. Myth is a manifestation in symbolic images, in metaphorical images, of the energies of the organs of the body in conflict with each other. This organ wants this, that organ wants that. The brain is one of the organs." It's a difficult pill to swallow, but I believe this comes close to the truth.
@@JPxKillz I'l add the main theme of our journey and adventure does seem to be love in all its obvious and not so obvious forms... as hard as life is it's all worth it
Again I asked a question did consciousness always exist or conscious where does it come from or is that an irrelevant question or we don't have the words to really define it
48:51 - Don't be silly, man. You have no reason to feel guilty for anything unless you have spent your life deliberately taking advantage of people for your own gain. You don't have to feel guilty for building a content life. Don't drink that Kool-aid.
The Gnostic view of God relates to what John says around about the 40-minute mark. Also, have a listen to the story of Will Murtha, Will was cycling along the seafront in the West of England when he was knocked off his bike and then swept out to sea where he experiences Oneness and had an NDE: czcams.com/video/6b4ZDpDIH-Y/video.html
Subject > Object = People > Products. When the subject is taken to be fundamental, rather than the object, then the real wealth of this world is a community of people you love rather than a collection of dead lifeless idols you worship.
The problem, maybe, who knows, with this is that basically , you turn into sea foam and go back to the sea... I know this is beyond if I like it or not still.... I'm not too sure I like it. I mean look at nature, after all nature sucks, animals eat one another, disease, quasi infinite suffering, stars and worlds end so something could experience other thing than itself? Does it even want to dissociate at all? If everything is consciousness can matter be manipulated by it? We just don't know how? Or does it work like that at all? There's a 2003 movie with John Cusack called "Identity" very pertaining to this subject. Ever since I saw it I thought somehow that connected with something. Also it's revealing that when we dream all the people who appear there are actually oneself even if they seem they have their own will. This is exciting but sometimes I think if we dig too much, we're not going to like what we find. I hope I'm wrong.
Man, I have to say I enjoyed the whole conversation. But then right at the end John starts uncorking this quirky "it's so shameful to be me" stuff. It's really killing the enjoyment, FAST.
50:38 - How are we assuming that???? For all we know we share the universe with untold other sentient species. We're still sitting here on our one little rock, minding our own business. Geez - where does this kind of thing COME FROM?
No, the antropic principle merely says that in order for us to be here to have the discussion, things had to happen in a way that made it possible for us to be here to have the discussion. That's it. It doesn't say that we had to be. It said that we had to be IN ORDER FOR THE CONVERSATION TO OCCUR. At least for us to have such a conversation.
This podcast sure got me going ..... !!!!!!! Once ‘information’s’ exact ontological identity becomes properly recognised, one of the many ‘helpful’ snippets of knowledge which then becomes available to us, and which particular snippet concerns ‘god’ and ‘the afterlife, is the fact that we now and may forever remain in complete ignorance as to anything or anyone outside of our universe, presumably precisely that sphere or realm where the creator of it all - if there is one - resides, along with his or her or their or its reasons for so doing - if it had any. Repeat. Knowing information’s exact ontological identity allows us to be quite certain none of it exists outside of this universe, thereby utterly precluding us from now, and perhaps forever, knowing anything about any creator, etc. Although ‘information’ is not bits or digits of any kind or amount, even if it were, none of these particular things exist outside of our universe ...... Of course we would like to know the answers to all first and final causes, these being the most important mysteries of all, but instead of sheer speculation ‘twere better that we just submitted to complete and utter ignorance, and most certainly forbear from imposing any of our own wild godish imaginings on anyone else..... On the other hand if ‘by their works shall we know them’ it is quite patently obvious that who, or whatever, the creator is - if there is one - is a most Machiavellian fellow. Or wretchedly incompetent. Which is why I myself am a deist, that is one who believes there is a creator but one who is a ‘clock work’ chap, that is a creator who made it, wound it up, kick started it thereby putting it in motion, watched it for a wee while and then on noticing what a shambles it is, walked away, washed his hands of it and is now off some where else doing god knows what, god knows where, never giving us another backward thought.
For armchair theorists this is most truest statement and theories of philosophy to be accepted on subjects for most in life.. But that being said .. Experiences through out of body and seeing the past, future, and many energies here in the physical world , that more and more of humanity has begun to experience such things themselves
That all said to be a core of creation who’s consciousness will is always actively creating and sustaining at same time all existence in universe.. that’s just a nonsense functionality possibility to be as so at same time as working as clock work with just paths and boundaries to be taken by all laid down as foundation so creators core can what .. go to bed now ? Lol .. To then experience the core and open ones third eye and open self to energies and fuller experiences of the conceptual realities available in this humanities perceptual fields .. A example of why I conclude this through own experiences: As laid in bed in tears asking for if there is a god and I was wrong as usento be atheist, then please all I seek is truth x reaches out arms as closed eyes putting full Will in to communication and direction towards seeking truth .. I popped out my body as becoming a ball of energy and all around me was no longer any room or familiarity of surroundings in emotional capacity/ physical being / and environment which at best can be compared and demeaned by me as doing so to space satellites 🛰 images of most beautiful things.. I could see not just in front me as in body but can see all and feel all as a circled ball now being of light and energy .. how the light ball looking as me but much larger like a sun in front of me i not only know was as much of what I am as felt and was being in knowing and feelings .. was the orbiting balls of small fractals of energy balls of this sun like core being of all existence .. and experienced .. I was all three my self , orbiting and the core .. allowing me to first time feel at peace and was all knowing as all connected and knew we all in our bodily consciousness were connected in real ways not just hippy or higher consciousness connection clouds and so on .. we are all one in most real way and the core creator is a constant check and balancer and challenger and successor of its self and world made up all as selfs still rawly experience shaping self and consciousness and world around them with possibilities Not only this experience that blew open after my third eye and never was life same .. but then days like this happened .. so I am walking indoors at it rains and rainy days for me are largely energy high active days things are bound to be seen and experienced out my control but usually for best leading to good gains of experience to be added in that stimulations to thought and understanding of life and universe.. I was floating above my self as seen a light body self at same time a few steps ahead aka was future self there at same time as presented self in physical mass body as some how all this still was normally functioning as if I was in body controlling it yet was floating above as observer at time .. I was 3 perspectives and parts of the same being having 3 different experiences in same moment with 3 different planes of existence and being working together and reliant as playing off each other.. Just as the core and you and eco systems and earth and sun and universe is all different and same at same time .. the core then is not clock work machine of non feeling thing .. there is no way 100 💯 set path either as it’s all perceptions being experienced and experimented with ..
All this being said ..that diversity present for us all as thought forms within existence independently allowed to think and decide for self with awareness gifted to be more limited then others self levels of our consciousness and certainly less experienced and complex then the cores abilities and experiences of consciousness realities and control over it and personality available during life’s journey Who knows what we really are and why we are as we are though at end of day 💯 percentage speaking
Urges , will and passions are not bad things to follow. Money is also a great tool as it has become such a powerful and popular symbol for humanity , it can sustain and create just about anything materialistic and even relationships. It can even empower the destruction of an whole planet and all life or help save it as we seen now. The problem is the demonization of power placed in popular culture so to plague the consciousness in to fearing ones self abilities that can be exercised over others. All in attempt to keep those exercising it in power now on top without competition from the “ live stock servant classes “ below them. Money and power can be a blessing as anything else can be that others claim to be just evil or a curse on this earth. No such thing as good or bad , energy is energy and power is power is it not ? Just all about how you handled your choices , was your skill set up to the task , and where was your level of intellect and morality at during that time ..that will decide the rest after it becomes apart of history. For those brave enough to experience the writing and development of taking on their own life stories path anyways that is :) Is that you ? Do you have the witts and balls To rule over your self and them all ?
@Baked Beans And Toast Religion tries to tell you there is divinity somewhere. "There must be a pony underneath all this horseshit." However, we only seem to get glimpses of divinity. Robert Frost wrote that "Nothing gold can stay" like sunrise or sunset, for instance. Neitzsche said we should live our lives so that we would be willing to live it over and over. I can say that up until now, anyway, I have been fortunate/unfortunate enough to be able to say that I would. On the other hand, I have not seen war or murder (up close) or disabling disease (personally).
What the hell bernado, i would rather have meaningless 80 years of Iife and knowing that death would mean total annihilation of my existence. Rather than having to worry about how the unification with Mind at Large after my death would feel like and be anxious whether it would be good or bad.
Bernardo's a real jerk. I mean sure materialism, nihilism, and annihilation after death does relieve one of any responsibility and accountability for their actions, but surely its the idealists that are in denial and are the ones who can't accept harsh truths!
@@MonisticIdealism are you trying to be sarcastic here? Your user name is Monistic Idealism 😁 btw i agree with bernardo that metaphysical materialism is balooney,
@@kimyunmi452 Yes I am being sarcastic in that first comment. I agree too, my channel is dedicated to the philosophy of idealism. My only problem with Bernardo is what does he have against baloney? Baloney is better than materialism, it's actually pretty good when you fry it 😁
@@kimyunmi452 I'm going to try to ask him that one day and see what happens lol if you'd like more information on idealism, and refutations of alternatives like materialism, feel free to check out my playlists. If you have any questions feel free to ask me, I'm glad to help.
Any idea that existence generally, and life in particular, is ‘directionless’ - is without a goal, or end point - is simply misguided. It is an incorrect understanding of just exactly what is occurring here in our universe. Evolution, even of inanimate things, is not a ‘random’, drunken walk, phenomenon. Evolution is a process of adaptation and given enough time and raw materials will eventually produce a fully evolved, perfectly adapted life form, which particular fully evolved, perfectly adapted life form will be evidenced by the facts that it will - courtesy of its fully evolved, perfectly adapted state - be able to live - indeed thrive - any where at any time under any conditions, or relocate or terra form to suit; doing so moreover without causing or inflicting any waste, loss or damage on itself or its surrounds animate and inanimate alike. We are, of course this fully evolved, perfectly adapted life form - at least we would be if we weren’t currently inflicting now fully omnicidal kinds and amounts of waste, loss and damage on, well on literally everything we touch - and at every level of being. We live in a patently paradoxical universe, one in which whatever it, the universe, no sooner generates than it immediately sets about tearing down and throwing aside, only to start all over again. Worse. Because they afford such rich pickings, within any complex system the most heinous and destructive ‘tearing down’ agents are the freeloading parasites. And yet again and oh so paradoxically, life - the most complex of all systems - has, over the eons, turned countless parasites into the most benign and even mutually beneficial of all symbiotic relationships. Thank you Lynne. The reason we sapiens have not yet taken hold of our true, fully evolved, perfectly adapted evolutionary destiny is due to just one particular internal parasite. For A$5,000,000 I’ll tell you not only what this parasite is, but how it can be turned into a massively beneficial symbiont ......yay !!
We exist on a tiny island island of space-time where a certain amount complexity is not only possible but manifest. Olaf Stapledon wrote two classic novels about these subjects. "Last and First Men" about human evolution. "Star Maker" about cosmic "universal conciousness". Olaf Stapledon was a Hegelian philosopher. I prefer Hegel's idealism to the Bishop Berkeley type and highly recommend Stapledon over Lovecraft who appears to be much more well known for some reason.
‘Thought’, ‘mind’, ‘intelligence’ and ‘consciousness’, ‘knowing’, ‘knowledge’, ‘understanding, ‘language’, ‘reading’, ‘writing’ and symbol-making, ‘learning’, ‘teaching’, ‘memory’ and ‘imagination’ are all information-related phenomena. It has been my rather dubious fortune to notice that our present understanding of ‘information’s’ exact ontological identity is not ‘digits’, no matter how many of these little things one has at one’s disposal, nor how cleverly arranged they are, nor how large, powerful, fast, numerous and globally interconnected are any of the machines, devices and/or entities operating on them - but, rather, that its (information’s) ontological identity is something quite different..... which particular and correct identity I will not divulge here at this particular time in this CZcams comments section (otherwise I’d have to kill you, as they say). But for A$5,000,000 I will.... It has also come to my attention that once info’s correct identity is recognised to be this other non-digital thing, no great difficulty attends the task of subsequently determining, firstly, the ontological identities of all of the aforementioned directly information-related phenomena such as ‘thought’, ‘mind’, ‘intelligence’ and ‘consciousness’ (to far less than exhaust the list) (and both as to their ‘hard’ (subjective, qualia-level) as well as their ‘easy’ (mechanical) parts; and furthermore and as if to add King Solomon’s mines to the veritable Pandora’s Box which flung itself open at my feet the very second I recognised that info is not digits but is, rather, this other, both real and simple but completely different, ‘thing’ (completely different class of objects) (to mix metaphors a tad), and then, and by building on to these initial info-related determinations, it next became immediately possible to establish the ontological identities of everything else here in our universe - time, space, matter, energy, life and death (being, becoming, ceasing to be), good and evil, right and wrong, evolution, even sex and gender, physics, entropy, inertia (actually gravity slips through the net yet again - darn it) (again to far less than exhaust the list) ... phew, some basket of bonuses here to be sure - all stemming from a simple recognition that information is not digits but something else entirely ...... ‘Dubious fortune’ ? I’m I little old unlettered, impoverished, antipodean lady with a nought to zero chance of getting this out there ........ none other than the most liberating nugget of info ever to come down the pike ... ‘Digits’ make for great counting, calculating and computing - AND our now many and various digit-using machines are NOT ‘thinking machines’ at all. They are nothing more than abacuses !!!!!!!!!! - greatly elaborated, massively miniaturised, interface user friendly, electronically automated bean counting devices, that is, abacuses - and as such completely incapable of real thought, let alone consciousness of any kind, amount or degree. Thinking and counting are two entirely different phenomena ... although both processes require a certain kind and amount of both ‘processing’ and ‘collating’, but ‘processing’ simply means sorting and no small number of mechanical processes and operations require a sorting out of the particular elements bring operated on; ditto ‘collating’. Packing items - such as apples - into a shipping box requires both ..... The information processing machine we ourselves have inside of us is a terribly real, utterly true thinking (not just counting) machine, and it operates on the utterly real, true, bona fide, first class information our senses first collect from our surrounds and then transmit on up to our central processors where it - this collected mother lode of info (all of the colours, sounds, tastes, odours, textures, etc, etc, etc) is collated together and then thrown up on the theatre of our very own conscious awareness ....where we breathlessly become cognisant of it - where we breathlessly experience it subjectively and first hand ....... Because we sapiens ALSO have some kind of flesh and blood abacus up there inside our heads too, chugging along in parallel with all of the utterly real but routine thinking happily also occurring inside of us, which particular wet floppy abacus is doing all of the counting - adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing - and generally calculating identical units of all of the stuff we need to get through our daily lives, perhaps we can be forgiven for confusing real thinking with mere counting ... of believing our real thinking machine is just an abacus. It’s not. Consider mathematical savants in which their wet, floppy, flesh and blood abacuses operate in overdrive, while their everyday thinking machines do not. Once info’s correct identity is recognised to be this other (undisclosed) class of objects - which particular class of objects are completely measurable entities regardless of where any of them exist, for how long any of them exist and even if being operated on within our own minds - no difficulty whatsoever attends the exercise of making all of the distinctions between any simple, lame, counting machine inside anything or anyone, and any real, totally awesome thinking machine chugging along together with said lame bean counting device - as is the case inside our own heads ..... For A$5,000,000 I’ll tell you what info’s correct ontological identity is and I’ll also personally walk you right through the garden of earthly intellectual delights which this particular correct identification opens up ..... No kidding ..... I mean it .... any takers ....? Oh. Not so incidentally, once info’s correct identity gets factored into the reality equation, ‘matter’ - solid matter; all of the increment of solid matter present here in our universe regardless of the individual size, shape, composition, animate status, location, temporal duration, evolutionary transmogrification and full life history exhibited by any one single increment thereof - quite unequivocally turns out to be both mindful (sentient) and intelligent - in other words we live in a panpsychic universe ...... where each and every increment of solid matter possess/exhibits some fully certain, utterly real, wholly measurable kind and degree of sentience.
The animosity to religion is really absurd. There is nothing out there called "religion"; there are just lots of different traditions which often have very little in common that we conveniently label "religion". Christianity and Jainism are both "religions" but how much do they really have in common? Not much. Most of the animosity towards "religion" is really towards institutional forms of Western Christianity. There is no consensus as to the meaning of "religion" and all the sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers, etc., disagree as to what it means. Kastrup, when he talks about religion, is aiming at a non-existent target. Be more precise.
There is one who quite absolutely stands towards each and every new sapient individual - and, indeed, for all of our lives - in a fully, completely, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, all-provident, all-caring, all loving orientation, that one being, of course, none other than each sapiens’ mother. This obtains quite unequivocally due to the state of global helplessness, total ignorance and oceanic selfishness (utter inability to contribute to the commonweal) in which each sapient being exists in this world sans a good and perfect mother ..... It is said that we all have a ‘god hole’ inside of us. Actually it’s a ‘mother hole’.. Hopefully one day soon we’ll get back to perfect mothering by perfect mothers .....
... okay, let us begin, & JUSTLY say, from the outset, inset, woteva weneva WHEREVER howeva-4eva, lets dissthatt&doxthiss, there IS kNOw mind, so nEVER matter. THERE-IS, kNOW matter, nEVER mind, SO. ItsAll 1 thing, together, inSeParable, that no thing ever really touches another thing, is Y is a crooked letter (&) can't be straightened😮 we were-are-WILL be-is-was borne intuitABLED- INSTINCTIV8LY compelled to survive & procreate, no free-will choice about IT, atALL, WHATSOEVER, & ... SO-!!! ... WALLA-!!! ...
How nice of Western philosophy to pretend it's saying something new, something edgy, when the truth is Indian philosophy said it all 4000 years ago. The narcissism of a Eurocentric Universe. :-)
@@LogosTheos I listened to the whole podcast, and revised my opinion of this fellow. He's very smart and thoughtful. I don't see any particular reason to think he's correct, but it's a compelling poetry he's come up with.
@@frankfeldman6657 It isn't poetry. You have to learn about various philosophical positions on realism and anti-realism. Idealism is a metaphysics that were held by some Greek philosophers and later Western philosophers such as Berkeley, Hegel, and Schopenhauer. Some founders of quantum mechanics such as Max Planck were also Idealists. Bernado Kastrup recently got a Ph.D in the philosophy of mind and defended his dissertation on Idealism at a top secular University in Europe in front of other scholars. You can read it here: philpapers.org/archive/KASAIA-3.pdf He has also written peer-reviewed papers on his metaphysical views. So Kastrup isn't a hack spewing poetry.
If one swallows this guff unconditionally then, of course, it will prove not only problematic but even futile to attempt to address such a problem but to do so one must have a clear grasp of all the factors to date. The first factor to consider in order to determine the actual degree of difficulty is to examine the competence of those who have so far attempted to resolve this "problem". Who would disagree for example that the first order of busyness is to be certain that they are using language to its fullest problem-solving capacity? In order to begin this process, we can examine the term itself. Already a problem of its own emerges, The (Hard) problem of consciousness". Clarity is everything when seeking to understand that upon which the survival of the entire human race is dependent. The term "hard" in this or any other context is a term used to denote plastic or firmness of substance or material. Therefore, that which they are trying to say is "the difficult problem of consciousness. It is is not encouraging for those who put all their trust in such people and institutions. I have given the aforementioned topic a great deal of thought over the past four decades or so and have concluded that the problem is less difficult than mo9st would imagine, which presents two possibilities, either I am extraordinarily gifted or those who struggle with the problem are conversely, extraordinarily dull.
![Epiphanies of Mind | John Horgan & Jeffrey Kripal [Mind-Body Problems]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/MTXnnJROEWU/mqdefault.jpg)
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54:06 - THANK YOU, Bernardo. I'm so so glad to see that "materialism has worked so well" argument cut to pieces. SCIENCE has worked so well. We know NOTHING about the underlying strata.
So, I first ran across Bernardo's work about six months ago, and right from the start I found it fascinating. One question has come to me, though. How do we explain the very controlled manner in which new dissociated alters appear? Specifically I'm talking about a man and woman engaging in a sexual liaison and the very repeatable process of pregnancy, birth, and development of a new consciousness that happens after that. What kind of mental process is this biological process reflecting? New alters don't "just appear," but we do seem to be able to produce them more or less "at will." Has anyone seem Bernardo comment on this?
Excellent question! I'd be very interested in Kastrup's response to this point too. (I'll try to update this comment if I come across a discussion of this in his writings, if I remember.)
Reproduction is the image of a mental process that creates a new alter, is my guess.
I am happy to see John engage Bernardo in discussion of the theological implications of his metaphysical speculations and conjectures. It would be interesting to see open-minded theologians either join the discussion or incorporate Bernardo’s thinking into their own.
Very interesting discussion, I will be paying more attention to Bernardo in the future. For now, I do not see that "Universal Mind" is inconsistent with dualism. Or with concepts such as those of Charles Peirce, who thought of matter as "congealed mind". I was uplifted by Bernardo's closing moral argument that if by shelving "materialism", the ontological concept, we can ameliorate "materialism", the way of life, it would be well worth it to do so.
Hi John. I'm new to the channel and enjoying content. The only other video of yours I've seen is the one before this (I think) and in that video you mentioned the mystery of the mind-body problem and I thought to myself, 'I must comment and ask you to interview Bernado Kastrup - and then hey! - I saw on the feed that you had!
I first came across Bernado in 2015 and had one of those confirmations. At age 27 (24 years ago) I read a book - "The Wisdom of The Overself" by Dr. Paul Brunton and the world changed. But because Brunton was a journeyman/journalist who travelled all over the Orient and sat with all kinds of holy men and sages it was very difficult to find more in this line of thinking. Then when I first heard Bernado, I not only had it confirmed (not that Idealism needs confirming), but it was validated too because of Bernado's credentials.
I've often commented on Bernado's videos and streams about Brunton and feel a bit of a spammer sometimes, but for my IQ, Bernado can lose me sometimes and I'm glad that "The Wisdom of The Overself" has primed me for what Bernado has to say. So I can't help but recommend this book as a prequel to Bernado's ideas. Personally, I think Bernado should have, would have, as many views and subscribers as Jordan Peterson if he just gathered a bit more momentum and also think Bernado is the man to unite the differences between Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris.
Great conversation. Please read the chapter headings of The Wisdom of The Overself (online PDF). As an old 'acid head' like me, you'll love it. Also, the PaulBruntonPhilosophicFoundation for more on Advaita Vedanta - a term I hadn't heard UNTIL Bernado mentioned it that help me identify where Brunton was coming from.
OK, I've said my bit. Hope this helpful to everyone.
Very helpful! Thanks!
Fabulous! I wish Bernardo would give a lot more care and attention to personal experiences above and beyond his own...but he's doing a great deal to dismantle Materialism and promote Idealism. John? Extremely well done and I hope you've read God's Debris. KABOOM...ha ha.
First time listener. There's a "intro to universal consciousness" on CZcams by Aquarius academy that can help with the "one universal experience / individual experience question.
Spoiler: it's a fractal geometry based on the Torus shape. Pretty much every culture throughout history knew this, at least for a period of time.
Love the show, going to dive in deeper!
Thanks John and Bernardo for a fascinating discussion.
50:00 - No, no no. It's not *materialism* that's been phenomenally successful. The success of the scientific method in NO WAY *requires* a materialist underpinning of the universe. The elements of the universe can be mental and still behave EXACTLY the way we've observed them to behave. This is what I was getting at in my first comment. This is a "non-criticism"; it doesn't hold up under scrutiny.
Bernardo mentions the same at 54m +
Fantastic talk.
Interesting and great discussion although for someone who does suffer from anxiety and neuroses about death and the problem of suffering this conversation did make me bit uneasy at times.
My hope is that our conscious state after death is devoid of pain and suffering and only exist when we either choose or perhaps just naturally move onto expierience a world of duality in the physical world... a sort of adventure that allows us to have the infinite experiences that humans and animals do... creating lessons, creativity, reflections, pleasures and meaningful relationships that otherwise could not be possible.. I also hope that my perception of how bad life can be for some is not quite as bad as the reality...
I guess that's why - as Kastrup said - the conventional, materialistic (atheist) view of death is so comforting: a guaranteed end to suffering. And I agree with him - some, like Horgan, might see Idealism as attracting adherents who seek a better afterlife story, but the truth is quite the opposite.
@@TomsDonevery true, although the idea of complete annihilation after death isn't necessarily any more comforting....
Extinction actually is our most and fundamental fear. I think this is a point where Bernardo is mistaken. Everything we do in life is at their basis either to seek pleasure or security. So what we really want is to survive and to have fun. Death is threatening both of these fundamental desires and therefore to be avoided at any cost. People are seriously already thinking about downloading their consciousness into a computer to become immortal (what they don't realise is that this would actually mean eternal suffering and who in their right state of mind would want that?). But thism only shows what length are people are willing to go to avoid death. So, is death for real? I don't know (or many I just have forgotten), but the real question is, that no one actually comes around to think about because we are all to busy to worry about death: is life for real? 😘
I would love to hear Bernardo talk to Bob also! Great conversation!
Excellent conversation. Love the two of you together.
A My personal theory is that all phenomena occur in consciousness which is a metaphysical state hosting illusions analogous to a dream. In other words, there is no physical universe. There is only consciousness and the aggregation of all artifacts (thoughts, feelings, images, memories, creations) that have ever been experienced by all sentient life forms that have ever existed.
Allow me to try and explain this.
There exists only two participants in reality, the Creator and the Created One.
The Creator is the Universal or Cosmic Mind that religions refer to as God - the eternal, all-knowing, all-seeing, sentient “being” that is responsible for “beingness” and manifesting all “creation” as we know it. The Creator is Consciousness itself and exists only as a unitary state without space, mass or time.
The Created One is The Dreamer. Religions refer to this “other” as Jesus, Allah, and others names. The Dreamer exists only in Mind and creates all illusions that we associate with life - ourselves, others, the material world as we experience it, the solar system, the domain of quanta - everything. The existence of The Dreamer as “other” from The Creator introduces the possibility of duality as an idea - an artifact of consciousness. The Dreamer has been created “in the image and likeness” of The Creator and, as such, can also create within Mind.
The Dreamer creates illusions. The Dreamer dreams the lives that we (humans) believe that we are living, but since there is only one Dreamer, “we” experience “life” with a “mind” that is purposely limited and therefore unaware of the entirety of The Dreamer’s dream.
Let’s look at life more closely now by using an analogy.
Imagine a newborn infant who is seconds old. The Dreamer conceives of this new illusion in the same way that players create avatars to represent themselves as actors in an online video game. Every avatar is created with a game strategy in mind and configured with unique capabilities to play and master the game.
Imagine that the brain of the new infant is a neurologically unstructured “blank slate” (reference Steven Pinker’s book by the same name). In other words, the neural networks and purposeful mechanisms of neural plasticity that will become increasingly manifest as the infant grows to maturity are just beginning to form concurrent with “learning”. This learning, of course, will be unique to that child’s distinct circumstances and changing environment. The infant’s mind will accumulate “artifacts of consciousness” from every learning event and these will be uniquely his or hers. A “life lens” will evolve, informed by these “personal artifacts of consciousness”. It will gradually become the dominant mechanism by which the mind of the infant will decipher and navigate every event encounter in life. The life lens will also become increasingly wise and dependable as the child matures, gains personal independence and the many ‘life skill” competencies.
Artifacts of consciousness are the stuff of Wisdom. Personal wisdom is what a human acquires from life. Collective Wisdom is what The Dreamer acquired from living billions of “human” lives. “We” are The Dreamer acting out lives in billions of guises and under billions of circumstances all designed to acquire Wisdom.
So was is the point of acquiring this Wisdom, you may ask?
A Course In Miracles (ACIM) teaches that a miracle is “a change in perception”, and that their all only two states of perception in consciousness - love and fear.
“Fear” is defined as the absence of love. The only state of consciousness that exists in the Mind of God is love because it is a unitary state in which opposites cannot occur because duality is not possible. The Dreamer has either forgotten that this is the only reality, or has grown so attached to the Dream that the fear of becoming “nonexistent”
is the reason that the choice to love unconditionally is frequently avoided.
The Dreamer, then, exists in an existential crisis involving the choice of love over fear. Wisdom is sought in order to teach The Dreamer to return home to the Creator.
ACIM uses the language and mythology of ancient religious teaching because these teaching exists and deeply ingrained artifact of consciousness in the majority of human cultures - especially those where Jesus Christ plays a central role. ACIM attempts to leverage the cultural heritage of these communities in order to reach The Dreamer wherever dreams exist.
This is great, and I think the pattern of it applies all the way down. We are a dissociative process in consciousness, but there is no fundamental part that is 'me', it's a collection of further, finer dissociative processes, and so on. We all have multiple selves.
... ahh, no, there ARE NO multiple SELVES, AWE even a PERSEPTION OF, or a memory of a multiplicity, OF, anything, multipLied by ITself&knot even a reflection, back from outThere totherehere just the solidified concretionalemnity thoughts made manifestationalizer of iamanality ...😅
& even the most definitely brilliantly out there premonitional fears of EBANEZER YUDIKOWSKIS' prediction of a sentiantly aware & perseptivationally Conscious computronomic machine ...
Materialism is dead
Materialism is crap.
Wonderful conversation!
Wonderful conversation John & Bernardo! I know this is a mystically flavored comment but hear me out.
The "dark view of oneness" as you described John, may a byproduct of ego. You mentioned you were worried you could kill yourself if you stopped imagining you (which I interpreted as ego you, or did you mean God you? Though, I think my comment still applies either way). Which is a valid concern of the ego, but why find it necessary to continue living at all, why are you attached to this life? If you stopped imagining this life, so what? It' just an imagination of universal mind, right? Even if you stopped existing as god, so what? Well, worry emerges because the ego is invested, it has too much to lose. Attached to too much to accept that it can be cast away as a fanciful imagination. Relationships, education, work, family, goals, gone with one foul swoop? No way! ;)
To entertain your idea a little, perhaps god has indeed split into multiple personalities to avoid a dark realization. (I personally lean more to the idea god is simply exploring himself) But who's to say that level of consciousness that occured was the absolute level? If a limited dissociated consciousness (human being) can split into multiple personalities due to trauma, why should we assume the god consciousness you experienced was the Ultimate? The levels of Enlightenment are manifold, so I've heard haha. It could just be another limited and confined consciousness, just like you and I, that we've found ourselves inside of temporarily. However, at the end of the day, it's our responsibility to evolve, grow, and reconcile our trauma in a fearless manner, it's like god's job to be courageous and figure this out. Cause we are god, essentially. The tenants of life seem to continually push for us towards growth, whether we want to grow or not. It seems to be a hint of our "purpose" here. To learn, to be courageous, to be forgiving, loving. It's through these actions we evolve, we alleviate our neurosis, our consciousness and compassion expands. And if we act unconsciously, we suffer the consequences.
Interestingly enough, If you bite off more than you can chew at once, realize too much at once, you'll potentially become terrified, and never want to try again. Growing to fast is a dangerous game, especially with consciousness.
In fact, if you tear away too much attachment to this world away too quickly, in aspiration to "realize god" you may potentially experience a total collapse of identity (psychotic breakdown) and be left in what you could describe as hell. A disintegrated, but not fully destroyed, ego. This not infrequently occurs in those who have mystical experiences and realize there is no personal self and directly confront the paradox of being. Yet, don't fully let go. This is a reason surrender is a primary epithet in yoga and spiritual traditions. Either way, it's not easy. It's not "all love and rainbows" as some spiritual teachers preach. This can be brutal. If it was all love and rainbows everybody would be walking around like Jesus and Buddha, fully realized. But almost nobody is, there's reason for that.
Eckhart Tolle was about to kill himself before he was realized, Gautam Buddha nearly died under a tree, and Jesus, well, he didn't have it easy as we all know. Everyone's journey is different, and there may be many dark nights of the soul before Oneness is loving, or even palatable. The mistake I've found is, having a negative experience along the spiritual path proceeded by labeling it all "bad" because that one experience. Psychedelics are notorious for doing this, slow steps, daily meditation, and surrender seem to be the most sustainable way to elevate consciousness.
Cause if it happens too fast you can really hurt yourself, and the path could be even longer than if you just stuck to simple daily meditation. I nearly banished all spirituality after a bad trip similar to what you described, my ego was fragmented & traumatized. It wasn't until later I realized after being thrust into nirvana, the fall would hurt more than I thought ;)
Lastly, are we a way to distract god from a crisis at the core of things? Well I know I when I have an irreconcilable truth I don't want to confront, I distract myself from dealing with it. Then I soon realize, it's still causing me pain, and the antidote is full acceptance. If acceptance is accomplished, there is peace. God's got work to do just like you and me! Which is to say, we've got work to do!
Good luck to you, thanks for this scintillating discussion!
Allot of what you describe and theorize does seem to resonate and make allot of sense to me... I recently tried DMT for the first time and the theme and realization for me was that life is bitter sweet and it is all part of a whole, a contrast of perceptions and different states of consciousness that potentially can be both negative or positive depending how they go together...
From my experience life lessons and themes do seem to be part of progression in life which seem to be the result of duality and synchronicity in our lives...
@@stussysinglet Amazing realization. Joseph Campbell stated "Heaven and hell are within us, and all the gods are within us. This is the great realization of the Upanishads of India in the ninth Century B.C. All the gods, all the heavens, all the world, are within us. They are magnified dreams, and dreams are manifestations in image form of the energies of the body in conflict with each other. That is what myth is. Myth is a manifestation in symbolic images, in metaphorical images, of the energies of the organs of the body in conflict with each other. This organ wants this, that organ wants that. The brain is one of the organs."
It's a difficult pill to swallow, but I believe this comes close to the truth.
@@JPxKillz I'l add the main theme of our journey and adventure does seem to be love in all its obvious and not so obvious forms... as hard as life is it's all worth it
Again I asked a question did consciousness always exist or conscious where does it come from or is that an irrelevant question or we don't have the words to really define it
Fantastic, love both Ya work
How did act of conscious in itself come into existence..???
48:51 - Don't be silly, man. You have no reason to feel guilty for anything unless you have spent your life deliberately taking advantage of people for your own gain. You don't have to feel guilty for building a content life. Don't drink that Kool-aid.
Really enjoy your video's x thanks guys x
Fantastic interview...
Excellent dialogue. 😊
The Gnostic view of God relates to what John says around about the 40-minute mark.
Also, have a listen to the story of Will Murtha, Will was cycling along the seafront in the West of England when he was knocked off his bike and then swept out to sea where he experiences Oneness and had an NDE:
czcams.com/video/6b4ZDpDIH-Y/video.html
I don't see how idealism is incompatible with consumerism any more than how materialism necessitates it.
Subject > Object = People > Products.
When the subject is taken to be fundamental, rather than the object, then the real wealth of this world is a community of people you love rather than a collection of dead lifeless idols you worship.
The problem, maybe, who knows, with this is that basically , you turn into sea foam and go back to the sea... I know this is beyond if I like it or not still.... I'm not too sure I like it. I mean look at nature, after all nature sucks, animals eat one another, disease, quasi infinite suffering, stars and worlds end so something could experience other thing than itself? Does it even want to dissociate at all?
If everything is consciousness can matter be manipulated by it? We just don't know how? Or does it work like that at all?
There's a 2003 movie with John Cusack called "Identity" very pertaining to this subject. Ever since I saw it I thought somehow that connected with something. Also it's revealing that when we dream all the people who appear there are actually oneself even if they seem they have their own will.
This is exciting but sometimes I think if we dig too much, we're not going to like what we find. I hope I'm wrong.
Psychedelic trip! 45:54 Look out!
What is the epistemological value of experience?
John Horgan
Premier of British Columbia
Canada (double)
Man, I have to say I enjoyed the whole conversation. But then right at the end John starts uncorking this quirky "it's so shameful to be me" stuff. It's really killing the enjoyment, FAST.
50:38 - How are we assuming that???? For all we know we share the universe with untold other sentient species. We're still sitting here on our one little rock, minding our own business. Geez - where does this kind of thing COME FROM?
No, the antropic principle merely says that in order for us to be here to have the discussion, things had to happen in a way that made it possible for us to be here to have the discussion. That's it. It doesn't say that we had to be. It said that we had to be IN ORDER FOR THE CONVERSATION TO OCCUR. At least for us to have such a conversation.
This podcast sure got me going ..... !!!!!!!
Once ‘information’s’ exact ontological identity becomes properly recognised, one of the many ‘helpful’ snippets of knowledge which then becomes available to us, and which particular snippet concerns ‘god’ and ‘the afterlife, is the fact that we now and may forever remain in complete ignorance as to anything or anyone outside of our universe, presumably precisely that sphere or realm where the creator of it all - if there is one - resides, along with his or her or their or its reasons for so doing - if it had any.
Repeat. Knowing information’s exact ontological identity allows us to be quite certain none of it exists outside of this universe, thereby utterly precluding us from now, and perhaps forever, knowing anything about any creator, etc.
Although ‘information’ is not bits or digits of any kind or amount, even if it were, none of these particular things exist outside of our universe ......
Of course we would like to know the answers to all first and final causes, these being the most important mysteries of all, but instead of sheer speculation ‘twere better that we just submitted to complete and utter ignorance, and most certainly forbear from imposing any of our own wild godish imaginings on anyone else.....
On the other hand if ‘by their works shall we know them’ it is quite patently obvious that who, or whatever, the creator is - if there is one - is a most Machiavellian fellow.
Or wretchedly incompetent.
Which is why I myself am a deist, that is one who believes there is a creator but one who is a ‘clock work’ chap, that is a creator who made it, wound it up, kick started it thereby putting it in motion, watched it for a wee while and then on noticing what a shambles it is, walked away, washed his hands of it and is now off some where else doing god knows what, god knows where, never giving us another backward thought.
For armchair theorists this is most truest statement and theories of philosophy to be accepted on subjects for most in life..
But that being said ..
Experiences through out of body and seeing the past, future, and many energies here in the physical world , that more and more of humanity has begun to experience such things themselves
That all said to be a core of creation who’s consciousness will is always actively creating and sustaining at same time all existence in universe.. that’s just a nonsense functionality possibility to be as so at same time as working as clock work with just paths and boundaries to be taken by all laid down as foundation so creators core can what .. go to bed now ? Lol ..
To then experience the core and open ones third eye and open self to energies and fuller experiences of the conceptual realities available in this humanities perceptual fields ..
A example of why I conclude this through own experiences:
As laid in bed in tears asking for if there is a god and I was wrong as usento be atheist, then please all I seek is truth x reaches out arms as closed eyes putting full Will in to communication and direction towards seeking truth ..
I popped out my body as becoming a ball of energy and all around me was no longer any room or familiarity of surroundings in emotional capacity/ physical being / and environment which at best can be compared and demeaned by me as doing so to space satellites 🛰 images of most beautiful things..
I could see not just in front me as in body but can see all and feel all as a circled ball now being of light and energy .. how the light ball looking as me but much larger like a sun in front of me i not only know was as much of what I am as felt and was being in knowing and feelings .. was the orbiting balls of small fractals of energy balls of this sun like core being of all existence .. and experienced ..
I was all three my self , orbiting and the core .. allowing me to first time feel at peace and was all knowing as all connected and knew we all in our bodily consciousness were connected in real ways not just hippy or higher consciousness connection clouds and so on .. we are all one in most real way and the core creator is a constant check and balancer and challenger and successor of its self and world made up all as selfs still rawly experience shaping self and consciousness and world around them with possibilities
Not only this experience that blew open after my third eye and never was life same .. but then days like this happened .. so I am walking indoors at it rains and rainy days for me are largely energy high active days things are bound to be seen and experienced out my control but usually for best leading to good gains of experience to be added in that stimulations to thought and understanding of life and universe..
I was floating above my self as seen a light body self at same time a few steps ahead aka was future self there at same time as presented self in physical mass body as some how all this still was normally functioning as if I was in body controlling it yet was floating above as observer at time .. I was 3 perspectives and parts of the same being having 3 different experiences in same moment with 3 different planes of existence and being working together and reliant as playing off each other..
Just as the core and you and eco systems and earth and sun and universe is all different and same at same time .. the core then is not clock work machine of non feeling thing .. there is no way 100 💯 set path either as it’s all perceptions being experienced and experimented with ..
All this being said ..that diversity present for us all as thought forms within existence independently allowed to think and decide for self with awareness gifted to be more limited then others self levels of our consciousness and certainly less experienced and complex then the cores abilities and experiences of consciousness realities and control over it and personality available during life’s journey
Who knows what we really are and why we are as we are though at end of day 💯 percentage speaking
Urges , will and passions are not bad things to follow. Money is also a great tool as it has become such a powerful and popular symbol for humanity , it can sustain and create just about anything materialistic and even relationships. It can even empower the destruction of an whole planet and all life or help save it as we seen now.
The problem is the demonization of power placed in popular culture so to plague the consciousness in to fearing ones self abilities that can be exercised over others. All in attempt to keep those exercising it in power now on top without competition from the “ live stock servant classes “ below them.
Money and power can be a blessing as anything else can be that others claim to be just evil or a curse on this earth. No such thing as good or bad , energy is energy and power is power is it not ?
Just all about how you handled your choices , was your skill set up to the task , and where was your level of intellect and morality at during that time ..that will decide the rest after it becomes apart of history.
For those brave enough to experience the writing and development of taking on their own life stories path anyways that is :)
Is that you ? Do you have the witts and balls To rule over your self and them all ?
problem of evil -- perhaps that is reason to believe in heaven or reincarnation (karma)
I know some say the problem of evil is why they CANNOT or WILL NOT believe in a personal God. In other words, they refuse or are UNABLE to LOVE God.
@Baked Beans And Toast Religion tries to tell you there is divinity somewhere. "There must be a pony underneath all this horseshit." However, we only seem to get glimpses of divinity. Robert Frost wrote that "Nothing gold can stay" like sunrise or sunset, for instance. Neitzsche said we should live our lives so that we would be willing to live it over and over. I can say that up until now, anyway, I have been fortunate/unfortunate enough to be able to say that I would. On the other hand, I have not seen war or murder (up close) or disabling disease (personally).
What the hell bernado, i would rather have meaningless 80 years of
Iife and knowing that death would mean total annihilation of my existence. Rather than having to worry about how the unification with Mind at Large after my death would feel like and be anxious whether it would be good or bad.
Bernardo's a real jerk. I mean sure materialism, nihilism, and annihilation after death does relieve one of any responsibility and accountability for their actions, but surely its the idealists that are in denial and are the ones who can't accept harsh truths!
@@MonisticIdealism are you trying to be sarcastic here? Your user name is Monistic Idealism 😁 btw i agree with bernardo that metaphysical materialism is balooney,
@@kimyunmi452 Yes I am being sarcastic in that first comment. I agree too, my channel is dedicated to the philosophy of idealism. My only problem with Bernardo is what does he have against baloney? Baloney is better than materialism, it's actually pretty good when you fry it 😁
@@MonisticIdealism lol haha..😁
@@kimyunmi452 I'm going to try to ask him that one day and see what happens lol if you'd like more information on idealism, and refutations of alternatives like materialism, feel free to check out my playlists. If you have any questions feel free to ask me, I'm glad to help.
Any idea that existence generally, and life in particular, is ‘directionless’ - is without a goal, or end point - is simply misguided. It is an incorrect understanding of just exactly what is occurring here in our universe.
Evolution, even of inanimate things, is not a ‘random’, drunken walk, phenomenon. Evolution is a process of adaptation and given enough time and raw materials will eventually produce a fully evolved, perfectly adapted life form, which particular fully evolved, perfectly adapted life form will be evidenced by the facts that it will - courtesy of its fully evolved, perfectly adapted state - be able to live - indeed thrive - any where at any time under any conditions, or relocate or terra form to suit; doing so moreover without causing or inflicting any waste, loss or damage on itself or its surrounds animate and inanimate alike.
We are, of course this fully evolved, perfectly adapted life form - at least we would be if we weren’t currently inflicting now fully omnicidal kinds and amounts of waste, loss and damage on, well on literally everything we touch - and at every level of being.
We live in a patently paradoxical universe, one in which whatever it, the universe, no sooner generates than it immediately sets about tearing down and throwing aside, only to start all over again.
Worse. Because they afford such rich pickings, within any complex system the most heinous and destructive ‘tearing down’ agents are the freeloading parasites. And yet again and oh so paradoxically, life - the most complex of all systems - has, over the eons, turned countless parasites into the most benign and even mutually beneficial of all symbiotic relationships. Thank you Lynne.
The reason we sapiens have not yet taken hold of our true, fully evolved, perfectly adapted evolutionary destiny is due to just one particular internal parasite.
For A$5,000,000 I’ll tell you not only what this parasite is, but how it can be turned into a massively beneficial symbiont ......yay !!
We exist on a tiny island island of space-time where a certain amount complexity is not only possible but manifest. Olaf Stapledon wrote two classic novels about these subjects. "Last and First Men" about human evolution. "Star Maker" about cosmic "universal conciousness". Olaf Stapledon was a Hegelian philosopher. I prefer Hegel's idealism to the Bishop Berkeley type and highly recommend Stapledon over Lovecraft who appears to be much more well known for some reason.
“Haha...look at that.”
‘Thought’, ‘mind’, ‘intelligence’ and ‘consciousness’, ‘knowing’, ‘knowledge’, ‘understanding, ‘language’, ‘reading’, ‘writing’ and symbol-making, ‘learning’, ‘teaching’, ‘memory’ and ‘imagination’ are all information-related phenomena.
It has been my rather dubious fortune to notice that our present understanding of ‘information’s’ exact ontological identity is not ‘digits’, no matter how many of these little things one has at one’s disposal, nor how cleverly arranged they are, nor how large, powerful, fast, numerous and globally interconnected are any of the machines, devices and/or entities operating on them - but, rather, that its (information’s) ontological identity is something quite different..... which particular and correct identity I will not divulge here at this particular time in this CZcams comments section (otherwise I’d have to kill you, as they say). But for A$5,000,000 I will....
It has also come to my attention that once info’s correct identity is recognised to be this other non-digital thing, no great difficulty attends the task of subsequently determining, firstly, the ontological identities of all of the aforementioned directly information-related phenomena such as ‘thought’, ‘mind’, ‘intelligence’ and ‘consciousness’ (to far less than exhaust the list) (and both as to their ‘hard’ (subjective, qualia-level) as well as their ‘easy’ (mechanical) parts; and furthermore and as if to add King Solomon’s mines to the veritable Pandora’s Box which flung itself open at my feet the very second I recognised that info is not digits but is, rather, this other, both real and simple but completely different, ‘thing’ (completely different class of objects) (to mix metaphors a tad), and then, and by building on to these initial info-related determinations, it next became immediately possible to establish the ontological identities of everything else here in our universe - time, space, matter, energy, life and death (being, becoming, ceasing to be), good and evil, right and wrong, evolution, even sex and gender, physics, entropy, inertia (actually gravity slips through the net yet again - darn it) (again to far less than exhaust the list) ... phew, some basket of bonuses here to be sure - all stemming from a simple recognition that information is not digits but something else entirely ......
‘Dubious fortune’ ? I’m I little old unlettered, impoverished, antipodean lady with a nought to zero chance of getting this out there ........ none other than the most liberating nugget of info ever to come down the pike ...
‘Digits’ make for great counting, calculating and computing - AND our now many and various digit-using machines are NOT ‘thinking machines’ at all. They are nothing more than abacuses !!!!!!!!!! - greatly elaborated, massively miniaturised, interface user friendly, electronically automated bean counting devices, that is, abacuses - and as such completely incapable of real thought, let alone consciousness of any kind, amount or degree.
Thinking and counting are two entirely different phenomena ... although both processes require a certain kind and amount of both ‘processing’ and ‘collating’, but ‘processing’ simply means sorting and no small number of mechanical processes and operations require a sorting out of the particular elements bring operated on; ditto ‘collating’. Packing items - such as apples - into a shipping box requires both .....
The information processing machine we ourselves have inside of us is a terribly real, utterly true thinking (not just counting) machine, and it operates on the utterly real, true, bona fide, first class information our senses first collect from our surrounds and then transmit on up to our central processors where it - this collected mother lode of info (all of the colours, sounds, tastes, odours, textures, etc, etc, etc) is collated together and then thrown up on the theatre of our very own conscious awareness ....where we breathlessly become cognisant of it - where we breathlessly experience it subjectively and first hand .......
Because we sapiens ALSO have some kind of flesh and blood abacus up there inside our heads too, chugging along in parallel with all of the utterly real but routine thinking happily also occurring inside of us, which particular wet floppy abacus is doing all of the counting - adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing - and generally calculating identical units of all of the stuff we need to get through our daily lives, perhaps we can be forgiven for confusing real thinking with mere counting ... of believing our real thinking machine is just an abacus. It’s not.
Consider mathematical savants in which their wet, floppy, flesh and blood abacuses operate in overdrive, while their everyday thinking machines do not.
Once info’s correct identity is recognised to be this other (undisclosed) class of objects - which particular class of objects are completely measurable entities regardless of where any of them exist, for how long any of them exist and even if being operated on within our own minds - no difficulty whatsoever attends the exercise of making all of the distinctions between any simple, lame, counting machine inside anything or anyone, and any real, totally awesome thinking machine chugging along together with said lame bean counting device - as is the case inside our own heads .....
For A$5,000,000 I’ll tell you what info’s correct ontological identity is and I’ll also personally walk you right through the garden of earthly intellectual delights which this particular correct identification opens up .....
No kidding ..... I mean it .... any takers ....?
Oh. Not so incidentally, once info’s correct identity gets factored into the reality equation, ‘matter’ - solid matter; all of the increment of solid matter present here in our universe regardless of the individual size, shape, composition, animate status, location, temporal duration, evolutionary transmogrification and full life history exhibited by any one single increment thereof - quite unequivocally turns out to be both mindful (sentient) and intelligent - in other words we live in a panpsychic universe ...... where each and every increment of solid matter possess/exhibits some fully certain, utterly real, wholly measurable kind and degree of sentience.
The interviewer is clearly out of his depth. His level of comprehension tarnishes the lustre this interview could have had. I felt sorry for Bernardo.
Kind of an ignorant statement. I thought the interviewer was great.
The animosity to religion is really absurd. There is nothing out there called "religion"; there are just lots of different traditions which often have very little in common that we conveniently label "religion". Christianity and Jainism are both "religions" but how much do they really have in common? Not much. Most of the animosity towards "religion" is really towards institutional forms of Western Christianity. There is no consensus as to the meaning of "religion" and all the sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers, etc., disagree as to what it means. Kastrup, when he talks about religion, is aiming at a non-existent target. Be more precise.
I guess 6 materialists showed up to downvote this video : )
There is one who quite absolutely stands towards each and every new sapient individual - and, indeed, for all of our lives - in a fully, completely, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, all-provident, all-caring, all loving orientation, that one being, of course, none other than each sapiens’ mother.
This obtains quite unequivocally due to the state of global helplessness, total ignorance and oceanic selfishness (utter inability to contribute to the commonweal) in which each sapient being exists in this world sans a good and perfect mother .....
It is said that we all have a ‘god hole’ inside of us. Actually it’s a ‘mother hole’..
Hopefully one day soon we’ll get back to perfect mothering by perfect mothers .....
... okay, let us begin, & JUSTLY say, from the outset, inset, woteva weneva WHEREVER howeva-4eva, lets dissthatt&doxthiss, there IS kNOw mind, so nEVER matter. THERE-IS, kNOW matter, nEVER mind, SO. ItsAll 1 thing, together, inSeParable, that no thing ever really touches another thing, is Y is a crooked letter (&) can't be straightened😮 we were-are-WILL be-is-was borne intuitABLED-
INSTINCTIV8LY compelled to survive & procreate, no free-will choice about IT, atALL, WHATSOEVER, & ... SO-!!! ... WALLA-!!! ...
How nice of Western philosophy to pretend it's saying something new, something edgy, when the truth is Indian philosophy said it all 4000 years ago. The narcissism of a Eurocentric Universe. :-)
Idealism is not exclusive to India. Also India has a form of Idealism I think is false.
@@LogosTheos I listened to the whole podcast, and revised my opinion of this fellow. He's very smart and thoughtful. I don't see any particular reason to think he's correct, but it's a compelling poetry he's come up with.
@@frankfeldman6657 It isn't poetry. You have to learn about various philosophical positions on realism and anti-realism. Idealism is a metaphysics that were held by some Greek philosophers and later Western philosophers such as Berkeley, Hegel, and Schopenhauer. Some founders of quantum mechanics such as Max Planck were also Idealists.
Bernado Kastrup recently got a Ph.D in the philosophy of mind and defended his dissertation on Idealism at a top secular University in Europe in front of other scholars. You can read it here:
philpapers.org/archive/KASAIA-3.pdf
He has also written peer-reviewed papers on his metaphysical views. So Kastrup isn't a hack spewing poetry.
@@LogosTheos Don't patronize me, you pompous, faux-intellectual. I know more about Berkeley, Schopenhauer and quantum physics than you ever will.
@@LogosTheos Schopenhauer, who prized the Upanishads ABOVE ALL ELSE. Go away.
If one swallows this guff unconditionally then, of course, it will prove not only problematic but even futile to attempt to address such a problem but to do so one must have a clear grasp of all the factors to date.
The first factor to consider in order to determine the actual degree of difficulty is to examine the competence of those who have so far attempted to resolve this "problem". Who would disagree for example that the first order of busyness is to be certain that they are using language to its fullest problem-solving capacity? In order to begin this process, we can examine the term itself. Already a problem of its own emerges, The (Hard) problem of consciousness". Clarity is everything when seeking to understand that upon which the survival of the entire human race is dependent. The term "hard" in this or any other context is a term used to denote plastic or firmness of substance or material. Therefore, that which they are trying to say is "the difficult problem of consciousness. It is is not encouraging for those who put all their trust in such people and institutions.
I have given the aforementioned topic a great deal of thought over the past four decades or so and have concluded that the problem is less difficult than mo9st would imagine, which presents two possibilities, either I am extraordinarily gifted or those who struggle with the problem are conversely, extraordinarily dull.