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This is one of the most extraordinary and impactful essays we’ve published. It pokes our editorial sensitivities, challenges us to conjure up good reasons not to publish it. But after we softened our attention to discern its inherent qualities, as opposed to its mere existence as a fact, we realized that there is no editorial decision to be made here. And we trust you will agree with us at the end, if you stick with the read despite your own sensitivities. The essay relates directly to Idealism in a very Schopenhauerian sense.
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Today’s episode of the Essentia Readings podcast dives into the Western world’s history with consciousness and its still evolving relationship with this subject. It goes on to chart a seeming progression within this region towards Eastern idealist thought, while drawing what the author sees as key similarities and differences in these far-flung disciplines.
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Dr. Jacques Pienaar discusses the notion of an embodied agent in the context of Quantum Bayesianism (‘QBism,’ for short). QBism is an interpretation of quantum mechanics according to which the wave function represents simply what we know about reality—a kind of betting strategy about what we will see next—as opposed to reality itself.
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The ‘hard problem of consciousness’ demands an expansion of the naturalist understanding of reality that may allow for some form of reconciliation between science and theology, argues Rev. Dr. Joshua Farris.
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A panel discussion with Markus Müller, Caslav Brukner, Nuryia Nurgalieva and Eric Cavalcanti, closing the first day of ‘The Physics of First-Person Perspective’ conference.
Do we really live in a fundamentally physical universe? Are we essentially material beings? Essentia Foundation is a new force in the cultural dialogue about the nature of reality. Find out more about us.
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An introduction to the ‘physics of first-person perspective’ conference, highlighting the relevance of the topics addressed to our understanding of the nature of reality.
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In this episode of Essentia Readings, actress Nadia Hassan reads an article by Bernardo Kastrup, wherein he argues that time is what creates the illusion of personal identity in the framework of one universal mind.
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The repeated emergence of metaphysical idealism—the notion that reality is experiential in essence—across cultures, geographies and history should be explained not in terms of its cultural motivations, but its plausibility as a correct account of nature, argues Prof. Tartaglia in this scholarly but very accessible essay.
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On this Christmas day, when many of us think of departed loved ones, we have a holiday special for you: A frank conversation with neurosurgeon and near-death experiencer Dr. Eben Alexander, on the survival of consciousness beyond brain function. Buckle up, for this is an amazing journey (quite literally) where scientific reasoning and direct experience must somehow hold hands, despite seeming contradictions.
Would you like to submit an essay?
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The mental health professions may often play the role of enforcing social norms and conventions, as opposed—or in addition—to being methods for understanding and improving our mental lives, argue the authors. Essentia Foundation believes strongly in the scientific and clinical validity, as well as the critical importance, of psychology and psychiatry in reducing suffering in our society. As such, we may hold a different view than that of the authors. Nonetheless, we find this essay well argued and well documented, and believe it does offer thoughtful, valid points even to those who, like us, defend the validity and importance of the mental health professions.
Seeing
Videos
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An informal chat between Dr. Markus Müller (IQOIQ-Vienna, Austrian Academy of Sciences), Dr. Bernardo Kastrup and Hans Busstra (Essentia Foundation), recorded just after the online conference “The physics of first-person perspective.” The conversation provides a tantalizing preview of the themes discussed in the conference, as well as their relevance to how we view the nature of reality.
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In the mental health fields, there are two views towards psychiatric diagnostic categories: the realist and constructionist, which correspond somewhat to materialism and idealism. Arguing that the psychiatric diagnoses we create do not literally exist as discernible brain states, but are instead just helpful constructs, is critically aligned with idealism and offers a very different perspective to patients and their self-image.
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We’re releasing a new Analytic Idealism course, produced in a collaboration between Essentia Foundation and Keytoe Academy. Unlike our previous course, which was based on slides and more formal in nature, the present one is more informal and conversational. Our executive director, Bernardo Kastrup, simply talks to his audience without the use of formal visual aids. As such, the course is now easy to follow while you exercise, walk, or even lie in the bath!
From the archives
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Spinoza is wrongly considered a Pantheist for whom God is simply the physical world. Instead, a careful read of the Ethics reveals Spinoza to be an Idealist, argues Michael Asher.
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In his fascinating presentation during Essentia Foundation’s 2022 work conference, Prof. Caslav Brukner, PhD, discusses what it may be like to be Wigner’s friend, the famous character of an important thought experiment in foundations of quantum entanglement.
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Dr. Eric Cavalcanti, from Griffith University Center for Quantum Dynamics, discusses ways to inform metaphysics by leveraging laboratory experiments with quantum systems in a superposition.
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