In this wide-ranging interview with Natalia Vorontsova, Professor Marjorie Woollacott draws remarkable parallels between 9th-10th century Kashmiri Shaivism and modern idealism, pointing to the fundamental and irreducible nature of consciousness. Moreover, her study of near-death experiences empirically supports this very hypothesis of the existence of a fundamental consciousness without neurons and beyond our five senses. This is an open conversation about life, death, and who we really are as ‘points of consciousness.’
Tag: analytic idealism
What Came Before the Big Bang? | Theory of Embedded Intelligence, Bill Mensch & Bernardo Kastrup
Could it be a coincidence that two founding fathers of modern day computing, independently from each other, are both coming with theories of consciousness that are idealist in nature? Or does a deep understanding of what computation is—and what it is not—inevitably lead away from physicalist ideas on consciousness? Previously Essentia Foundation presented the work of Federico Faggin, and now a legendary contemporary of his, computer engineer Bill Mensch, presents his Theory of Embedded Intelligence (TEI) to us. Mensch was a major contributor to the Motorola 6800 and became famous for his work on the MOS Technology 6502 CPU, a chip that, because of it’s efficiency, completely revolutionized computing in the 80’s. From Arcade halls to the Apple II and Nintendo 8 bit consoles, 6502s could be found everywhere. Even to this day the chip is still used in children’s toys and even in pacemakers and satellites. Looking back at his career, Mensch realizes that building computer chips is in essence a form of ‘embedding’ intelligence in technology, just as nature has embedded intelligence in biological systems, like humans. In his TEI model intelligence is fundamental. This raises the philosophical question of how consciousness relates to intelligence, and for this reason Bernardo Kastrup joined in on the conversation Mensch and Hans Busstra had. The value of a theory like Mensch’s is perhaps exactly that it is not philosophically fine-tuned to the terminology commonly used in philosophy of mind. By not taking the human mind and phenomenal consciousness as its departure point, but intelligence instead, Mensch arrives at a position in which the distinction between living beings and abiotic systems is less distinct. Mensch’s slides can be downloaded here: https://www.essentiafoundation.o…
Groundbreaking Consciousness Theory By CPU inventor Federico Faggin & Bernardo Kastrup
A new theory of consciousness proposes that qualia — for instance, the scent of a rose — reside in quantum fields. Federico Faggin is one of the greatest luminaries of high technology alive today. A physicist by education, he is the inventor of the microprocessor and the MOS silicon gate technology, both of which underlie the modern world’s entire information technology. With the knowledge and experience of a lifetime in cutting-edge fields, Federico now turns his attention to consciousness and the nature of reality, sharing with us his profound insights on the classical and quantum worlds, artificial intelligence, life and the human mind. In this discussion, he elaborates on an idealist model of reality, produced after years of careful thought and direct experience, according to which nature’s most fundamental level is that of consciousness as a quantum phenomenon, while the classical physical world consists merely of evocative symbols of a deeper reality.
Michael Levin: Consciousness, Cognition, Biology, Emergence
Michael Levin is an American developmental and synthetic biologist at Tufts University, where he is the Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor. Levin is a director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University and Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology. He is also co-director of the Institute for Computationally Designed Organisms with Josh Bongard.
Imagination as the ground of reality, with Patrick Harpur
In this wide-ranging interview, one of our favorite scholars, Patrick Harpur, discusses the fundamental role of the imagination in human history, the human mind, and reality at large. He also discusses the daimons, those elusive, contradictory figures who inhabit minds and the world, but who appear only to those with the eyes to see. Harpur’s extensive, extraordinary, life-transforming body of work is one of the most criminally underrated in modern scholarship.
This video has human-created English subtitles, so don’t forget to click on the ‘CC’ button below the video to enable them.
Books by Patrick Harpur:
Always Already: The Brilliant Clarity of Ever-Present Awareness-by Ken Wilber
Reality Plus | David Chalmers & Swami Sarvapriyananda
Dr. David J. Chalmers is the Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science and co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at the New York University. He is the author of several books including his latest publication: Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy. In this engaging conversation, Swami Sarvapriyananda and Dr. Chalmers discuss ancient and modern perspectives on consciousness.
This text about Analytic Idealism was generated by OpenAI’s chatGPT:
Analytic idealism is a philosophical perspective that combines elements of idealism, a traditional philosophical position that holds that reality is fundamentally mental or spiritual in nature, with the rigor and clarity of analytic philosophy, a modern movement that emphasizes logical and linguistic analysis.
Analytic idealism argues that the fundamental nature of reality is mental or spiritual, rather than material or physical. According to this perspective, the material world and the physical objects we perceive are ultimately reducible to mental or spiritual entities, and it is these mental or spiritual entities that are the fundamental building blocks of reality.
One of the key figures in the development of analytic idealism is the philosopher David Chalmers, who has written extensively on the subject. In his book “The Character of Consciousness,” Chalmers argues that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of reality, and that it cannot be reduced to or explained by material or physical processes. He suggests that the most plausible explanation for consciousness is that it is a fundamental aspect of reality, akin to space, time, and mass.
Overall, analytic idealism is a philosophical perspective that offers a unique and thought-provoking perspective on the nature of reality and consciousness. It challenges traditional materialist assumptions about the nature of reality and suggests that consciousness and the mental may be more fundamental than the physical. By considering this perspective, we can gain a deeper understanding of the nature of reality and the place of consciousness within it.
Who’s Driving the Dreambus? (FULL DOCUMENTARY)
This radical and challenging documentary ventures into the heart of the mystery of identity, flipping the idea of spiritual endeavour on its head, revealing a message so profound and yet so simple that it might just end the search.
Experimental metaphysics with first-person perspectives, by Dr. Eric Cavalcanti
The Nobel Prize in physics in 2022 went to scientists who, for over 40 years, have carried out a series of experiments indicating that, contrary to materialist expectations, physical entities do not have standalone existence but are, in fact, products of observation. This result is extraordinarily relevant to our understanding of the nature of reality, and so Essentia Foundation, in collaboration with the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information, Vienna, of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (home to Prof. Anton Zeilinger, one of this year’s Nobel Laureates in physics), organized a conference discussing the implications of this result. The conference was hosted by IQOQI-Vienna’s Dr. Markus Müller and featured seven other speakers. In this presentation, Dr. Eric Cavalcanti, from Griffith University Center for Quantum Dynamics, discusses experimental metaphysics with first-person perspectives.
DEBATE: Materialism vs. Anti-Materialism
Bryan is joined by Dr. David Papineau, a materialist, and Dr. Bernardo Kastrup, an anti-materialist, for a debate on the matter of things.