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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?
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In this long-form book review, Prof. Edward Kelly argues that dual-aspect monism represents an unnecessary side path in the search for a successor to physicalism, and that idealism is a better option.
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Quantum physics forces us to recognize that consciousness is inherent to a unitary, semantic order at the foundational level of reality, which presents itself to us as matter, argues Grace Endries. Her approach brings together neuroscience (namely, Integrated Information Theory) and quantum mechanics (namely, David Bohm’s Implicate Order) and proposes a causal relationship between consciousness and wave function collapse.
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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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.
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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.
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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.
Seeing
Videos
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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.’
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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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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!
From the archives
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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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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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