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In what may come as a surprise to many, our Executive Director highlights the careful, scientifically laudable metaphysical agnosticism of IIT—the leading neuroscientific theory of the structure of consciousness—as well as its superiority to alternative theories and synergy with Analytic Idealism.
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Entropy is linked to the computational bounds of conscious experience, rather than being a property of objective systems, argues Dr. Proulx in this intriguing essay. Increasing entropy is but an artifact of an observer’s inability to keep track of information, resulting from a serial downsampling of an infinitely complex reality. This essay synthesizes seemingly disparate ideas to offer a coherent and promising perspective on one of the greatest mysteries of science—the second law of thermodynamics—linking it to fundamental consciousness.
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Hans and Bernardo discuss the 10 books that make it very hard to still believe in a fundamentally physical universe!
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The metaphysics of materialism is a belief system held in large swathes of academia in the same manner, and often for the same reasons, that religious beliefs are held in fundamentalist organizations, argues Dr. Quinn, with 30 years of academic experience to substantiate her views.
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A conversation ranging from the consciousness of bacteria, to our minds being ‘time traveling machines,’ to Hans asking Bernardo if Eve performed the first quantum measurement when she ate the apple. Also: why is meditation, literally speaking, an egoistic thing to do? Did Job suffer more than Jesus? And, this one is personal for Bernardo: what is the real danger of idealism if life hits you really hard?
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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In his ground-breaking prospective study on Near Death Experiences (NDEs), cardiologist Dr. van Lommel concluded that merely physiological explanations are inadequate. In this in-depth interview, Essentia Foundation’s Natalia Vorontsova discusses the philosophical implications on these findings with Dr. van Lommel.
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Today we are proud to announce the launch of Essentia Books, a new imprint. Through it, we will be publishing scholarly works relevant to metaphysical idealism, the notion that nature is essentially experiential. Among many other leading authors, we will publish the latest book by Federico Faggin, inventor of the microprocessor and MOS silicon gate technology, recipient of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation from U.S. President Barack Obama, and probably the most well-rounded idealist alive.
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The world we think we live in is but a projected tiling of our own concepts onto the scaffolding of external reality, and our personal selves mere illusions, argues Felix Haas. But does this essay go far enough in addressing the very doubts it raises? Does it consistently and consequently pursue its own premises and conclusions to their ultimate implications?
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In this courageous and very personal essay, UC San Diego neuroscientist Dr. Laleh Quinn shares with us her journey from materialism to opening up to the possibility of acausal, transpersonal, mind-like organizing principles in nature. The events that led to this opening-up will amaze you. We salute Dr. Quinn for her sincerity, integrity, and commitment to truth.
Would you like to submit an essay?
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In conversation with Prof. Christopher A. Fuchs, Essentia Foundation’s Hans Busstra explores QBism: an interpretation of quantum mechanics that puts the agent right at the centre. It suggests that pure experience is fundamental in nature.
Seeing
Videos
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Once we accept that experiential qualities are irreducible to physicality, we become logically committed to subjectivity itself as the fundamental substance at the foundation of reality, distinct from physicality.
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To advance, theoretical physics must stop thinking in terms of points and, instead, think in terms of the configurations and fluctuations of strands constituting the underlying fabric of reality, argues Dr. Schiller. We believe his argument represents a step forward towards a holistic understanding of nature as the behavior of an extended substrate, as opposed to the dynamics of discrete, point-like things.
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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.’
From the archives
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This essay interrogates the relations between mind and matter through the lens of children’s unexplained experiences and medical conditions. Conditions that can affect regions of the body through inflammation, such as epilepsy, PANS/PANDAS and narcolepsy, are examined against reports of increased extra sensory experiencing in children. Epigenetics is used as an example to show how ancestors, in the form of great grandparents, may be the true progenitors of children’s psychic contents, fused within a participation mystique (Jung).
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At the level of universal subjectivity, the question of free will is a meaningless red herring, argues our executive director. The meaning of life has nothing to do with making free choices, but bearing witness and paying attention to the dance of existence. Only when one truly grasps this, can one be free in the only true way: the freedom to allow oneself to be what one cannot help but be, and to choose to do what nature demands.
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Psychedelic experiences collapse our model of reality and thereby contradict materialism, argue Hans Busstra and Jussi Jylkkä, PhD, in this fascinating video essay.
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