Who is Bernardo Kastrup?

Dr. Bernardo Kastrup earned a PhD in computer engineering in his early 20s. He then moved on to his “dream” job as a computer scientist at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. After leaving CERN, he joined Philips Electronics, one of the largest tech companies in Europe. He became the youngest division head in the history of Phillips Electronics.

After leaving Phillips, he became a tech entrepreneur and started his own company. That company was bought by Intel from him. He then became a consultant to technology firms, some of which were involved in AI research. He has also worked on research projects directed at creating artificial consciousness. This research required him to consider the nature of consciousness and how it might be simulated. This investigation led him to earn a PhD in the philosophy of mind.

He is currently the Director of the Essentia Foundation. This position was offered to him by a friend (Fred Matser) who wanted to fund a foundation to promote the philosophy of idealism. After declining this invitation several times, he agreed to take over the organization and management of the foundation.

Kastrup is the author of over a dozen books, including two I suggest as a starting point for anyone who wants to read his work. They are Rationalist Spirituality and Why Materialism is Baloney. He has also written many academic papers and magazine articles, and has made public appearances for interviews and debates. I am familiar with most of what he has written and said. However, I do not and cannot speak for him. I speak only from my understanding of his position.

Recently, he partnered with Dr. Federico Faggin to start a manufacturing firm to design and build computer hardware for AI applications. They did this for two reasons. First, to give Europe some independence from American companies, and second, to be part of the AI community and to have a voice therein. They believe the only way to communicate their views on AI, especially conscious AI, to the AI community is to be part of it.

Federico Faggin is a quantum physicist noted for inventing the microchip and the touchscreen interface. He also began several tech companies after inventing the microchip. He, too, worked on “conscious” AI and concluded that it was not possible. He, too, became very interested in the nature of consciousness and started a foundation to fund research on consciousness. He and Kastrup hold very similar positions on the nature of consciousness. You can read about his views in his book Irreducible.

How did Kastrup become interested in the question of God?

As previously mentioned, while working on artificial consciousness research, Kastrup became convinced that artificial consciousness was not possible and became a critic of that belief in others. He rejects the complexity hypothesis put forward by many AI developers, which attributes consciousness to complexity. The belief is that to create consciousness in a computer, the simulation’s complexity needs only surpass some undefined threshold.

Kastrup says, for example, that an assembly of pipes and valves with water running through the assembly can function just like a digital computer. He asks, does it make sense that one could create a system of pipes, valves, and water complex enough to become conscious?

When discussing the limits of simulation on a computer, he says that one can simulate a kidney down to the molecular level. He asserts, however, that there is one characteristic of a kidney that it will never achieve. It will never be able to urinate on your desk.

Kastrup’s rejection of the possibility of artificial consciousness led to a thoughtful examination of his default metaphysics, namely, physicalism, a philosophical position on the nature of reality. Physicalism holds that matter is fundamental, and the material brain generates consciousness. He says that he was a physicalist by default.

After he carefully evaluated the assumptions of his default metaphysics, he concluded that physicalism was indefensible.

He rejected physicalism for several reasons, but first and foremost because there is no scientific evidence that there is any such thing as matter as that word is generally understood. Second, there is no viable hypothesis about how consciousness could arise from something that is not conscious; i.e., matter. For more details on why he concluded physicalism was indefensible, read Why Materialism is Baloney.

Contemporary physics finds no “hard kernel” of matter in an atom. According to quantum theory, an atom is a point of excitation in a quantum field that occupies almost no space in the field. The field itself is empty of anything but potential, except for the energized state within it.               

For example, it has been reported that if one removed all the empty space in all the atoms comprising the bodies of all living humans, the remainder would fit inside a sugar cube.

The neuropsychiatrist and philosopher Dr. Ian McGilchrist argues that “matter” is a state of consciousness. He illustrates this by analogy: ice is to water as matter is to consciousness. For example, imagine you have an ice sculpture floating in a lake. Once the ice melts, it no longer maintains its form and returns to the water from which it came. Thus, he suggests that matter arises from consciousness and ultimately returns to its source. McGilchrist is not referring to individuated or personal consciousness when he speaks of matter arising from consciousness. Rather he is speaking of a fundamental consciousness similar to Universal Consciousness.

What is the foundation for Kastrup’s metaphysics?

Like all metaphysics, Kastrup’s requires a root assumption (an ontological primitive in philosophical jargon). As you probably have already inferred, this is Universal Consciousness (UC). He says he is okay with referring to UC as “God” but prefers not to use the word himself because it has too many contradictory connotations. I also often use the word “Source” as an equivalent term.

He says he settled on Universal Consciousness because it appears irreducible and can explain more phenomena than any other such assumption. For Kastrup, Universal Consciousness is the ground of all being. Anything that exists has its origins and manifestation in Universal Consciousness.

He argues that the universe is contained within God, Source, or Universal Consciousness. God, however, is not synonymous with the universe itself, which is pantheism. He means that everything is, so to speak, in the mind of God. Theologically, this position is known as panentheism. This includes you and every other living and non-living thing in the universe, but God is not limited to the universe. Some theists suggest that God is dreaming the universe. Some physicists compare the universe to a virtual reality.

Everything living is a vehicle for expressing Universal Consciousness — the more complex the neural system, the greater the share of Universal Consciousness it can potentially express. Kastrup says each individuated consciousness is similar to a dissociative state. He uses a dissociative state because it is a real phenomenon in psychiatry known as Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Dissociative states are what used to be called personalities. Thus, metaphorically speaking, Kastrup says individuated consciousnesses or alters are like dissociated aspects of Universal Consciousness or God. He is not, however, suggesting that Source has a psychological disorder.

He also uses a whirlpool as a metaphor. He says think of a river as a stream of consciousness, and a whirlpool in the river as a dissociated state. The whirlpool has its own form and activity within the river, but it is just part of the river and is as much water as the rest of the river. I have, elsewhere, compared an alter to a virtual drive in a computer’s RAM. In such a setup, a portion of the RAM memory is partitioned to be dissociated from the rest. Such a partition can be used like a separate drive on the computer, e.g., you can install and run software on the virtual drive. It is, for all practical purposes, a separate drive. However, once the computer is turned off, the RAM memory is terminated, and everything on the virtual drive is lost.

Kastrup calls his metaphysical position Analytic Idealism. Analytic because it relies on logic, reason, and scientific support where available. And Idealism, because it is wholly mental. There are several versions of philosophical idealism, each with its own label. So, “Analytic” in the name differentiates it from other versions of idealism.

What is the nature of God according to Kastrup?

God is unlimited and beyond space and time. As Einstein has said, “Time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live.” It is only through the filters of space and time that we can follow what is happening in the universe and deduce useful cause-and-effect sequences.

Kastrup reasons that God is not perfect but does have the potential to be perfect. Kastrup’s argument for God’s imperfection is simply that it stands to reason: if God were perfect, there would have been no need to create the universe, and if a perfect God did create the universe, the universe would be perfect. He argues that the fact that the universe exists and that it is imperfect logically supports the claim that God is not perfect.

What is Kastrup’s view on the nature of reality?

What we think of as real is all mental or in consciousness. Can you think of anything that is demonstrably outside of consciousness? For example, you can ask someone to report to you the existence of something that you do not presently have conscious awareness of. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t in consciousness. It is in the consciousness of the person you asked to confirm it. And, both that person’s and your consciousness are in Universal Consciousness. Should you become aware of it again, it would only be the result of it being in your consciousness.

Further, UC or God has unlimited, unrealized potential. For that potential to be realized, there must be a context capable of activating potential. The context must contain sufficient diversity to provide for instructive experiences. Thus, the duality underlying the physical world.

Niels Bohr’s principle of complementary pairs or opposites explains why pairs of opposites are so common in the world. It is the variability between opposites that makes experience possible. For example, consider the duality of hot and cold relative to the experience of temperature. Or, consider the duality of male and female and the extent of diversity possible between the anchors of that duality. Finally, there must be agents operating in decision spaces capable of making choices. These choices then determine the nature of what is experienced.

Thus, UC imagined the beginning of a universe within its mind. The universe then began unfolding, leading to the evolution of life forms capable of being conscious agents. The more complex life forms became, the greater their potential for experience and learning. For example, Kastrup’s metaphysics suggests that God has not realized its potential for metacognition. To realize this ability and others, there must be contrasting experiences to bring the potential to fruition. This isn’t possible when no body of relevant experiences is available. The universe and the life within it provide the contrasting experiences that permit that potential to be realized.

Kastrup often says that only in the past 30 to 50,000 years has humanity developed the ability to employ metacognition; i.e., thinking about thinking. This is what allows one to recall an abstract representation of an experience, examine it, compare it to other experiences, and draw implications from it. Through agents such as ourselves, God receives the experiences necessary to realize its potential for metacognition and other potentials.

What is Kastrup’s take on the purpose of one’s life?

Kastrup argues that your life is not about you. The universe and you in it were created for the purpose of creating experiences for Universal Consciousness. Source is somewhat like a pilot in training learning to fly an airplane through a simulation. When you die, your consciousness and all of the things it has experienced, as an agent, are folded back into Universal Consciousness. This is the process by which God acquires experiences that allow it to realize its potential; i.e., to evolve. This is your purpose.

A few implications of Analytic Idealism:

1. Agents, especially once aware of their role in the process, should strive to follow their passions, fill their lives with meaningful experiences, grow and mature, and contribute experiences useful to the evolution of Universal Consciousness.

2. Evolution requires diversity. Since we cannot know which experiences will be useful to UC, everyone needs to be free to live their lives as they see fit. They should only be interfered with when they impinge on others’ ability to pursue their lives and spiritually evolve.

3. Once understood, Analytic Idealism makes clear that humanity and all other life forms are multifaceted expressions of a unified and singular Source. We are indeed, at root, all from One Source.

4. Since we are ALL dissociations of Universal Consciousness, we are unconditionally accepted by UC. For UC to reject you, it would have to be willing to reject itself. Thus, you are putting yourself above Source by rejecting another alter.

5. This also makes clear that the act of murder is not only a violation of the person killed but also the elimination of a body of unrealized experience intended for God or Universal Consciousness. This implication can also be extended to the exploitation of animals. Especially, higher animals such as mammals. They, too, collect and make available to Source a unique set of experiences and perspectives, including a perspective on you and your decisions.

6. It is possible that one’s usefulness as an agent for experiences only comes to an end when one achieves transcendence of the self. This is the path from ignorance of Source to enlightenment by direct experience of Source. This might also be thought of as Self-realization, or, as some might say, becoming God-realized. For this journey from spiritual ignorance to Self-realization to fully unfold for each agent, it may require drawing on the experiences of many lifetimes – some would say it requires reincarnation.

Analytic Idealism Course

This is a carefully produced but free, online, video-based course on Analytic Idealism, with over 6 hours of content, conducted by Essentia Foundation’s executive director, Bernardo Kastrup. Whereas the course has been designed to be accessible to a non-specialist audience, it makes very few concessions in terms of the substance and thoroughness of the material discussed. As such, the discussions aren’t breezy, requiring instead focused attention and engagement on the part of the audience.

Click the hot link above this description to go to the course.