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Simple code in the mind of God

Insofar as the activity of the mind of nature can be modeled as computation, the complexity of our physical universe is an inevitable, emergent outcome of the basic, simple ‘thoughts’ of ‘God,’ argues River Kanies by leveraging Stephen Wolfram’s notion of ‘ruliad.’

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The subject beyond the ‘I’: On structural psychoanalysis

A careful investigation of our phenomenal inner life reveals a self indistinguishable from the world and others, and yet impossibly beyond both, argues Dr. Sachs. This realization constitutes a challenge to our need to self-actualize as individuals, with significant psychological (and perhaps even metaphysical) implications.

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Panel discussion: the role of the observer, the double-slit experiment, the reality of physical laws, etc.

The participants of Essentia Foundation’s 2022 work conference, on the physics of first-person perspective, discuss whether there are objective physical laws out there in nature, whether the double-slit and similar experiments capture the essence of quantum mechanics, whether the scientific method demands inter-subjective confirmation, and what constitutes an observing agent under Quantum Bayesianism. This video completes our coverage of the 2022 conference. Stay tuned for news about the upcoming 2023 conference, which promises to be even more exciting!

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Spinoza versus humanism (The Return of Metaphysics)

Now that metaphysics has been rehabilitated, Spinoza’s thought can help us overcome our last idol of delusion: humanism, the notion that humans are in some innate sense special and separate from the rest of nature.

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The double-slit experiment doesn’t reveal the essence of quantum weirdness

Dr. Lorenzo Catani argues that interference phenomena, such as observed in the famous double-slit experiment, in fact do not capture the essence of quantum theory.

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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.

Reading

Essays

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The source of ought

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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The march towards Eastern idealism

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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Quantum Bayesianism and the embodied agent

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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Fitting theism in the natural frame

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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Panel discussion, the physics of first-person perspective (day 1)

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.

Seeing

Videos

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Metaphysics without fantasy (The Return of Metaphysics)

What defined much of 20th-century philosophy was an attempt to overcome metaphysics and replace it with science. But those attempts failed. From the Logical Positivists and Wittgenstein to Derrida and Heidegger, metaphysics found its way back into the very theories that were trying to get rid of it. But even if metaphysics is inescapable, we cannot simply return to speculative theorizing about the ultimate nature of reality. Instead, we need to recognize that all theories have limits and are merely attempts to find better ways to navigate our way in the world, not to discover ‘the mind of God,’ argues Hilary Lawson.

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Thought experiments on a quantum computer

In this presentation on Quantum Information Theory, ETH-Zürich’s Nuriya Nurgalieva discusses the ontological implications of thought experiments on a quantum computer.

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Spinoza was an Idealist

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.

From the archives

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There are no physical laws in the world

Physicist Dr. Daniele Oriti, from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, defends the view that physical laws are epistemic in nature, having no independent ontological status.

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Does science need intersubjective confirmation?

In this fascinating presentation about the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics, Dr. Emily Adlam discusses the problem of confirmation in orthodox interpretations.

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Imagination as the ground of reality, with Patrick Harpur

In this wide-ranging interview, one of our favorite scholars, Patrick Harpur, discusses the fundamental role of the imagination in human history, the human mind, and reality at large. He also discusses the daimons, those elusive, contradictory figures who inhabit minds and the world, but who appear only to those with the eyes to see. Harpur’s extensive, extraordinary, life-transforming body of work is one of the most criminally underrated in modern scholarship.

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