In recent decades, attempts to create and argue a new ontology of existence that could provide a robust alternative to the mainstream physicalist metaphysics have been made in science and philosophy. A new book by Bernardo Kastrup, a well-known specialist in the field of philosophy of mind and neuroscience of consciousness, offers the author's conceptually clear and rigorous formulation of the philosophical system. The author proves that appearance and reality in ontology are fundamentally experiential. A universal phenomenal consciousness is the (...) sole ontological primitive, which patterns of excitation constitute existence, and a human being is dissociated mental complexes of this universal consciousness, surrounded like islands by the ocean of its mentation. Kastrup’s idea of the World has an idealist ontological underpinning. The author contrasts his vision of the world with the existing ideas of the world perception, such as physicalism, microexperientialism and cosmopsychism. The quality of the argument, which is given in the book, suggests the revival of the philosophy of idealism as the next paradigm, according to which a form of universal mind will be viewed as nature's sole fundamental entity. (shrink)

This paper explores how process philosophy-and in particular an optimalism process philosophy that includes free will, such as Henry Stapp's realistically interpreted orthodox quantum theory-proves to be an excellent fit for quantum theory that answers the philosophical question "Why are things the way they are, instead of otherwise?" Viewing reality as a matter of optimalism is one of four practicable responses to this question, which requires linking Nature to existence. Henry Stapp's realistically interpreted orthodox quantum theory meets this requirement by (...) asserting that when a question is asked, "the thought itself is the thinker," in keeping with the views of James and Whitehead. In this process, an ensuing succession of questions arising in the minds of observers is received and responded to by Nature that chooses and implements responses in accordance with Born's Rule in a physically described universe represented by evolving quantum mechanics states. (shrink)

This thesis articulates an analytic version of the ontology of idealism, according to which universal phenomenal consciousness is all there ultimately is, everything else in nature being reducible to patterns of excitation of this consciousness. The thesis’ key challenge is to explain how the seemingly distinct conscious inner lives of different subjects—such as you and me—can arise within this fundamentally unitary phenomenal field. Along the way, a variety of other challenges are addressed, such as: how we can reconcile idealism with (...) the fact that we all inhabit a common external world; why this world unfolds independently of our personal volition or imagination; why there are such tight correlations between measured patterns of brain activity and reports of experience; etc. The core idea of this thesis can be summarized thus: we, as well as all other living organisms, are dissociated alters of universal phenomenal consciousness, analogously to how a person with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) manifests multiple disjoint centers of subjectivity also called ‘alters.’ We, and all other living organisms, are surrounded by the transpersonal phenomenal activity of universal consciousness, which unfolds beyond the dissociative boundary of our respective alter. The inanimate world we perceive around us is the extrinsic appearance—i.e. the phenomenal image imprinted from across our dissociative boundary—of this activity. The living organisms we share the world with are the extrinsic appearances of other alters. (shrink)