A short introduction
Hans Busstra is a journalist and filmmaker. He holds a MA degree in International Relations (University of Groningen) and graduated in documentary filmmaking at the Dutch Film Academy in Amsterdam. He has worked for numerous public broadcasters in The Netherlands (VPRO, KRO, NCRV, EO) with a special focus on science and technology and his documentaries are being screened on international festivals and platforms such as IDFA, and Amazon Prime. His VPRO Backlight documentary ‘Zero Days’ on the legal trade in security leaks led to parliamentary questions in The Netherlands, and his investigation on how ISIS recruits online, ‘Cyberjihad’, was the Dutch submission to the Emmy Awards in 2017. In 2020 he made ‘Technology as a religion’, a critical documentary on the materialist assumptions of the proponents of conscious AI. The documentary featured interviews with Roger Penrose, James Lovelock and Bernardo Kastrup. As a follow up to this documentary he is currently working in collaboration with Essentia Foundation to research a new documentary on the potential of idealism to replace materialism as our mainstream worldview. His research findings will be published as articles and a podcast series on the Essentia Foundation platform.Publications:
God’s dark side: A review of Jung’s ‘Answer to Job’
As part of our book club on YouTube, Hans Busstra has made a book review of ‘Answer to Job’ by Carl Gustav Jung. Regarded by Jung as his most important work, Answer to Job is a tour de force in which classical Christian doctrine is turned upside down: Jung argued that the incarnation of Christ was not to redeem humanity for its sins against God, but to redeem God for his sin against Job.
The heart and the mind: Our founding story
The Essentia Foundation’s origin story is the story of Dutch entrepreneur and humanitarian Fred Matser meeting philosopher Bernardo Kastrup. In this video, Hans Busstra narrates how the meeting of these two men stands for the connection between heart and mind, a connection that forms the basis of Essentia Foundation’s work.
The meaning of life, beyond the false free will vs determinism dichotomy
In this video, Bernardo shares with Hans his view that the free will vs determinism debate misses the point, because fundamentally there is no distinction between nature’s will and what nature is necessitated to do. If you can accept that, on a personal level, you don’t have free will, you realize that you are being ‘played’ by a universe that—due to computational irreducibility—cannot ‘see’ where it’s going before it goes. Instead of suffering as an effect of ‘bad’ free will decisions by human agents, suffering becomes part of the inevitable evolution of the universe.
The 10 books that will make it hard to believe in a physical universe
Hans and Bernardo discuss the 10 books that make it very hard to still believe in a fundamentally physical universe!
The danger of Idealism: A broad conversation with Bernardo Kastrup
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?
Model collapse in the psychedelic realm
Psychedelic experiences collapse our model of reality and thereby contradict materialism, argue Hans Busstra and Jussi Jylkkä, PhD, in this fascinating video essay.
The dizzying free fall of Quantum Bayesianism
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.
The physics of first-person perspective: An introduction
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.
Spacetime is just a headset: An interview with Donald Hoffman
Prof. Donald Hoffman talks to Essentia Foundation’s Hans Busstra about his theory of conscious agents, according to which space and time are cognitive constructs in consciousness, not an objective scaffolding of the world outside. The interview also touches on Prof. Hoffman’s personal history and life, bringing the warmth of his humanity to the academic rigor of his theories.
The Collapse
Hans Busstra and his guest, Dr. Markus Müller, make Quantum Mechanics intuitively understandable, while remaining true to it. They argue that we must start from a first-person perspective and predict what we will see next, as opposed to the metaphysical presupposition of an external, objective physical universe with standalone existence. If truly understood, as this episode attempts to help you do, his views are as compelling as its implications are world-changing.
Reality Reminded, a podcast like no other!
We’re launching the Reality Reminded podcast, with acclaimed Dutch documentary filmmaker Hans Busstra. Could it be that we have ‘un’minded reality and now need to ‘re’mind it? This is a show like no other, in that each episode covers a specific theme, as opposed to a specific interviewee; the listening experience has an almost visual feel to it; and the content covered is more akin to an ongoing television documentary than a podcast. And best of all, it’s all FREE.
This ‘zero-worlds’ theory might just be crazy enough to be true
Journalist Hans Busstra interviews physicist Dr. Markus Müller on his so-called ‘zero-worlds’ theory, which was not meant as a proof of idealism, but does ‘give you idealism for free.’
What’s out there when our brains quit telling us stories?
If the reality we think we inhabit is but a story confabulated by the brain’s ‘default mode network,’ what is the world ‘out there,’ and the self ‘in here,’ when the inner storytelling is subdued through meditation?
The flip, and the flipped: leaving materialism behind. An interview with Jeffrey J. Kripal.
Journalist and documentary filmmaker Hans Busstra interviews Prof. Jeffrey J. Kripal on ‘the flip’: the sudden change of worldview away from the materialist paradigm that is increasingly experienced by scientists, scholars and academics the world over.
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