Kastrup’s scientific/philosophical opus is just one of several recent books criticizing the modern scientific paradigms of Darwinism and Materialism from within the methodology of science itself1. It begins as an analysis of weak-points in the current paradigm of Physicalism, and concludes by making a comprehensive case for Idealism as a viable scientific ontology2. In other words, it asserts that physical Reality is ultimately Ideality, and that Science must accept the “spooky” implications of Quantum theory as an undeniable fact of life3. In that sense, his thesis seems to be very close to my own Enformationism worldview. Both propose Mind Stuff as the “ontological primitive” ─ the fundamental element of the sensible world. Although he explicitly admits his debt to the historical philosophical precedents of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, etc, Kastrup doesn't specifically espouse any particular theological worldview, such as Judeo-Christian traditions, or Hindu-Buddhist philosophies.
Unfortunately, his use of the term “consciousness”4 to mean “spirituality” may give the impression that he leans toward Western Esotericism which blends Christian-Pagan-Oriental-Shamanistic traditions with modern globalism. However, in an unrelated article, he appears to dismiss New Age books as “an intriguing and recurring attempt to pass what seems to be outright fantasy for fact”. Nevertheless, he still allows that spiritual (i.e. idealistic or romantic?) humans need their tribal myths & literary (non-literal) fantasies to provide meaning & funsies. As a practical-minded scientist though, he doesn't want to base his model of reality on such ungrounded notions. Yet, until recently, people had no concept of “subconscious” mentation, so they assumed that focused awareness was all there was to consciousness. Any other mind-like behavior was spooky or spiritual5. But now, we know that most of our thinking, including our world model, occurs below the threshold of awareness in the form of automatic information processing6.
That’s why, wherever Kastrup refers to “Consciousness”, I prefer to substitute “Information”, or its various synonyms & corollaries. Aside from quibbles on terminology though, we seem to be on the same page in our attempts to reconcile pragmatic Science with idealistic Philosophy. However, Kastrup offends some scientists when he endeavors to demonstrate how our local human minds are related to the Cosmic Con-sciousness. His solution to the persistent Mind/Body problem, is to assume that Mind is prior to Matter, hence it’s the physical world that emerges from a meta-physical origin, in what he implies, but avoids saying outright, is the “Mind of God”. That’s exactly the premise of my own Enformationism thesis, which also evades the humanoid god-concept. But then, to show how our personal minds are related to the cosmic Mind, he draws on dubious psychological theories of what used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder. Yet, basing his metaphor on that rare diagnosis tends to associate his theory with sensational stories of one body with many minds. It’s an apt analogy, but the science is still ambiguous — the subjects could be simply acting-out. So, I personally wouldn’t rely too heavily on the notion of independent “alters” in one brain, as reliable evidence of how many souls can exist within a single universal Mind7. MPD is a good illustration, but not necessarily good evidence.
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Reality is an idea in the mind of the Realizer
3. Framing the facts : Scientists interpret their observations in terms of practical technical material-ism, which serves their needs well, until the subject matter is on the fringes of understanding, as in the quantum realm. Religious critics of Materialism & Darwinism tend to interpret the basic science data in view of their spiritual faith. The result is the Intelligent Design rendition of evolution. At first, Kastrup may sound like an ID advocate, but his philosophical frame seems to be closer to my layman’s theory of Intelligent Evolution. http://gnomon.enformationism.info/Essays/Intelligent.Evolution
4. Primal Information : “Consciousness”, in my view is a high-level emergent phenomenon, not the essential element of the universe. Kastrup calls it the “ontological primitive”, but then spends a lot of time trying to explain that atoms are not little sentient beings. I think those little blobs of matter are primitive forms of EnFormAction, which eventually evolve the collect-ive trait of consciousness in complex organic brains. It's all information from bottom to top. But since the “primitive” is Information, Conscious-ness is derivative. This is a key distinction in the thesis of Enformationism.
5. SubconsciousSpooks The ancients may have assumed that ideas coming unbidden from the sub-conscious in dreams & visions were messages from invisible deities. But, even though it’s still murky, we have more plausible & probable explanations today.
1. Critiques of Materialism Recent scientific books calling for an update of the modern paradigm of reality in terms of biological evolution and quantum theory:
Information and the Nature of Reality Paul Davies & N.H. Gregersen • Physics & Metaphysics
Heretic : One Scientist’s Journey From Darwin to Design Matti Leisola • Designing Intelligence
Quantum Evolution Johnjoe McFadden • Is there a force of will behind the universe?
How Consciousness Became the Universe Deepak Chopra, et al • A quantum cosmology of mind
Designed to Evolve Christopher Davis • Existence in the light of modern science
2. Ontology vs Epistemology “Onto” is about basic existence (what’s real), while “Epi” is about the limits of knowledge (what we can know). We can only know Reality, but we can speculate about Ideality. So Idealism is not factual, but only probable.
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