Tuesday, 26 August 2025

A KSTRP X SHLDRAKE x yt is idealism enough

 A

IDEALISM , PANPSYCHISM, PANENTHEISM 

A

If Donald Hoffman, Federico Faggin and Carl Jung could be here on this panel, they would complete the core influencers of the of what has been an a mind opening, soul opening journey for me. I at 76, I have finally closed the circle of questions I have about us (conscious entities) that I've had since I started this journey so long ago. Idealism, in fact analytic idealism, is the right intellectual style for me. The language and domain it evolves from, fit my own life experience. I worked and did research in critical care medicine for decades and the language of science is comfortable to me. The apparent paradoxes in quantum physics, which resolve so effortlessly with an idealist worldview, are very clear to me. Idealism's intellectual vocabulary meld with my own life experience. This does not minimize the truth that Buddhism or other modes of understanding reveal, it's just not so clear to me. Thanks to all of You.

a

Having come to Bernardo and Rupert independently (through my research on the nature of play) and having felt resonance with both; this conversation highlighted that for someone more invested in advancing culture beyond Materialism's egoic foundation: it was heartwarming and hopeful to experience the grace of this conversation. Wonderful work by Alex and Pari - I am now "subscribed."

AMaurice Nicoll said: "Behind all the appearances and disappearances of the outward forms of religion, there has always been a broad, fully developed stream of Knowing—always the same and always directed toward the same goal: awakening, fostering inner growth, and evolving the human being to a higher level within himself. Humanity has not yet completed its evolution. Man is like an acorn that believes the entire teaching about the oak tree already applies to itself and imagines, as it is in its acorn state, that it is already a fully grown oak tree. This is the current state of the world, in which man attributes everything to himself and has no awareness of any other idea about the universe or the meaning of human existence on earth. He ascribes to himself spirit, thought, consciousness, feeling, will, and life—in short, everything—though he is tiil now incapable of explaining, and probably never will be able to explain, even a single one of these things. His only explanation of the universe is that it arose by chance and is meaningless. And I say: A philosophy of Truth, based on true Knowledge and Wisdom, in which every form of existence gets its rightful place—whether in the physical, subtle, or causal world—is the only correct approach to formulating a Theory of Everything. Whoever excludes any of this ends up with a pseudo-theory."
AThe rationale of Kastrup is “ square” difficult to swallow… contrary to Sheldrake witch is like a “ball” … easy to understand and agree… I am currentlly doing some research in mathematics using the concepts of morphic ressonance…
AI completely agree with Rupert that the existence of life requires the operation of organized fields beyond mere communication between particles or singularities. There is not a clearly recognizable boundary between what is a field and what is a particle.
AGreat observation at the end of the presentation about how objectivity in science can be seen as intersubjectivity. Maybe some science can be done from a subjective perspective, but then I think as was pointed out one has to be very skeptical and find valid ways of verifying the claims
AI am more persuaded by Kastrup's idealism than Rupert's entertainment of panpsychism. We often get confused by semantics and constitution within the world of appearances. The fist analogy was ace
Athink that there may be a mistake in something that came up in the Q&A. Rupert Sheldrake suggested that: "... what we normally think of a scientific objectivity involves collapsing things from three dimensions to two or even to one. That scientific evidence for something is represented, for example, in a graph or a chart, and it's two-dimensional because scientific papers are published on paper in journals and paper..." This does not align with my understanding of what information is. Information is correlation between states of collections of stuff - nothing more and nothing less. If a graph conveys the information (that is, if the state of the 2-d representation is shared with the state of the phenomena under investigation) then there is no loss due to the transformation. Thus, should not be conflated with coarse graining which is a loss of information (a lower fidelity representation of state) that is either choice (in order to focus on a point of interest), or necessity (due to limits of data acquisition or cognitive capacity)
A

Got it. You’d like a differential (DDX) style comparison of Sheldrake vs. Kastrup’s positions in table form. Here’s a clear side-by-side summary:

Aspect Rupert Sheldrake Bernardo Kastrup
Core Idea Morphic resonance – nature has “habits,” and memory is inherent in the universe. Analytic idealism – reality is fundamentally mental; matter emerges from consciousness.
Metaphysical Stance More pluralistic: accepts an evolving universe with embedded “fields” shaping organisms and minds. Monistic: consciousness is the single underlying reality; all else is derivative.
Approach to Science Experimental/parapsychological research (e.g., telepathy, animal behavior, morphic fields). Philosophical/analytic: critiques physicalism and argues from logic and phenomenology.
View on Mind & Brain Brain is more like a receiver or filter of memory/mental fields, not a producer. Brain is a dissociative process within universal consciousness; creates an “alter” perspective.
Relation to Evolution Evolution guided by habits/morphic fields, not just random mutation & natural selection. Evolution is a narrative within consciousness; organisms are appearances in mind.
Critique of Materialism Argues materialism cannot explain memory, habits, or psi phenomena. Argues materialism is logically incoherent; only consciousness is self-evident.
Style of Argument Empirical, experimental, natural-scientific language. Philosophical, metaphysical, influenced by Schopenhauer, Jung, and phenomenology.
Attitude to Religion/Spirituality Open to spiritual realities; sympathetic to mystical traditions but framed scientifically. Strongly influenced by idealist metaphysics; integrates spirituality with rigorous philosophy.
Key Works A New Science of Life, The Science Delusion, Morphic Resonance. The Idea of the World, Why Materialism Is Baloney, Analytic Idealism essays/books.
Criticism Received Accused of pseudoscience by materialist critics; controversial in mainstream science. Criticized as overly abstract or metaphysical by analytic philosophers.

👉 Do you want me to also include a “Convergence vs. Divergence” row (where their ideas overlap vs. sharply differ), or keep it strictly side-by-side?

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