UAPs, NDEs, and foundations of physics: it all makes sense under Idealism
Seeing | Philosophy | 2023-12-10
Hans Busstra, MA
Bernardo Kastrup, PhD, PhD
Only a form of objective idealism can account for UAPs, NDEs, and the latest discoveries in foundations of physics and the neuroscience of consciousness, while remaining consistent with the whole of science and rational inquiry. Learn more in this discussion between Hans Busstra and Bernardo Kastrup.
Analytic Idealism is the new worldview that can make sense of anomalous phenomena—whether it is NDE’s, altered mental states or UAP’s—whilst remaining 100% compatible with our current understanding of physics.
In this video Hans Busstra discusses questions from viewers of our channel with Bernardo Kastrup (director of the Essentia Foundation).
Physicalism offered an equilibrium for around two hundred years. But if one closely looks in the fields of neuroscience, physics and philosophy, anomalies are piling up. The only way to still entertain the idea that physicalism can make sense of unexplainable empirical phenomena—ranging from loophole-free Bell inequality tests, to altered mental states, to undeniable new evidence around Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP’s)—is to literally ‘don’t look up,’ to paraphrase the hilarious Netflix film that actually was a painfully accurate cultural critique of our times.
In this Q&A Hans Busstra and Bernardo Kastrup discuss questions coming in around anomalies in the fields of NDE’s, UAP’s and fundamental physics. Though analytic idealism can’t offer clear-cut answers to most of these questions, it can—and this is a crucial difference with physicalism—in principle build testable theories around these phenomena. For instance, if nature consists of mental states, it is not unthinkable that when dissociative processes weaken—for instance, during NDE’s—that people can experience other people’s experiences. And if UAP’s in some cases seem to present themselves as mental phenomena, under idealism it doesn’t follow that they are imaginary.
If we want to continue the scientific endeavour of accurately describing and predicting the behaviour of nature, we need to ‘look up’ under all circumstances; analytic idealism offers us a new telescope to do so confidently. Our YouTube channel is the place where we look through the telescope playfully, allowing ourselves to be troubled as well as excited: a revolutionary shift in science seems ahead and we want to report it to you from the forefront.
Essentia Foundation communicates, in an accessible but rigorous manner, the latest results in science and philosophy that point to the mental nature of reality. We are committed to strict, academic-level curation of the material we publish.
Recently published
|
In this very personal, poignant essay, Moreira argues that our most primal fear isn’t death, but solitude. As he says, “A child does not cry because she understands mortality. She cries because no one comes.” Moreira is redefining Existentialism for the 21st century. He mines and distills the core questions of meaning in a world that is beginning to intuit the shallowness of its ways.
|
Dr. David Schmid, Dr. Lídia Del Rio and Hans Busstra explore a metaphysical shift that’s happening in the foundations of physics: the wave function is no longer regarded as something real, but just as a description of what we know about the world. In philosophical terms: the wave function is not ontic, but epistemic. And in more popular terms: the multiverse is science fiction, resting on a too-literal interpretation of a piece of mathematics called the Schrödinger equation.
From the archives
|
Dr. Edward Kelly, a professor of experimental psychology, talks about his many years of study of a variety of psi and anomalous phenomena. In this interview with Natalia Vorontsova, he candidly shares how phenomenological evidence has led him to re-examine his metaphysical views on the nature of reality. Are our minds confined to our brains? Do we survive our biological death? Is mind primary to matter? Why should we take anomalous phenomena seriously? These are some of the topics covered in this conversation.
|
Fredric Nord argues that knowing reality through language is fundamentally and inescapably a misunderstanding of reality. We misunderstand what language actually does and, thereby, misunderstand what life is. The key to understanding life is, he argues, a reframing of language and representation. This should end the paradigm of materialism and facilitate transcendence as a priori.
|
Physicist Dr. Lídia Del Rio, Essentia Foundation’s Research Fellow for Quantum Information Theory at the University of Zürich, explains to Hans Busstra one of the strangest quantum conundra confronting the foundations of physics: the Frauchiger-Renner (FR) thought experiment.
Reading
Essays
|
Hans Busstra talks to Dr. Bernardo Kastrup about the groundbreaking work of Professor Michael Levin and Dr. Christof Koch. Levin’s research into bio-electric fields reveals that cellular networks use electrical signals not just for immediate physiological tasks, but to coordinate complex patterning and memory across tissues—suggesting a kind of distributed intelligence in living systems. Christof Koch, meanwhile, champions Integrated Information Theory (IIT), which proposes that consciousness is an intrinsic property of certain physical systems with high levels of causal interconnectivity. Both lines of inquiry challenge the traditional reductionist view that mind is merely an emergent byproduct of neural activity. Instead, they point to a more holistic, perhaps even fundamental, role for information and consciousness in nature. Though Levin and Koch make no explicit metaphysical claims in their work, their empirical findings and views are very much in line with analytic idealism.
|
“If experience is all I have, I may be alone—but the essential emotional necessity of the other demands that I live as if I am not,” argues Dr. Moreira in this heart-felt essay. He embodies a long-overdue reemergence of existentialist thought in the 21st century and, as an active and successful AI scientist, in 21st century terms. We think both the worlds of philosophy and popular culture will be hearing a lot more from Dr. Moreira in the coming years…
|
Dr. Edward Kelly, a professor of experimental psychology, talks about his many years of study of a variety of psi and anomalous phenomena. In this interview with Natalia Vorontsova, he candidly shares how phenomenological evidence has led him to re-examine his metaphysical views on the nature of reality. Are our minds confined to our brains? Do we survive our biological death? Is mind primary to matter? Why should we take anomalous phenomena seriously? These are some of the topics covered in this conversation.
|
Fredric Nord argues that knowing reality through language is fundamentally and inescapably a misunderstanding of reality. We misunderstand what language actually does and, thereby, misunderstand what life is. The key to understanding life is, he argues, a reframing of language and representation. This should end the paradigm of materialism and facilitate transcendence as a priori.
|
Physicist Dr. Lídia Del Rio, Essentia Foundation’s Research Fellow for Quantum Information Theory at the University of Zürich, explains to Hans Busstra one of the strangest quantum conundra confronting the foundations of physics: the Frauchiger-Renner (FR) thought experiment.
Seeing
Videos
|
Dr. Dolezal invites us to consider the uncanny similarities between the ancient stories of creation, across many religious and philosophical traditions, and how the human imagination, when prompted or triggered by words, creates entire universes.
|
Hans Busstra interviews theoretical physicist and complexity scientist James Glattfelder on his new book: ‘The Sapient Cosmos: What a modern-day synthesis of science and philosophy teaches us about the emergence of information, consciousness, and meaning,’ published by Essentia Foundation. Glattfelder makes a plea for ‘syncretic idealism’: a worldview that synthesises ancient idealist texts and mystical experiences with physics, complexity science and analytic idealism.
|
With humanity at a crossroads, we are invited to ponder a novel vision of existence that inspires wonder and ethical accountability. A radical and groundbreaking perspective emerges, challenging conventional beliefs by placing consciousness at the foundation of reality. In this essay, Dr. Glattfelder delves into some ideas meticulously researched and carefully presented in his latest book, ‘The Sapient Cosmos: What a Modern-Day Synthesis of Science and Philosophy Teaches Us About the Emergence of Information, Consciousness, and Meaning,’ published by Essentia Books.
Let us build the future of our culture together
Essentia Foundation is a registered non-profit committed to making its content as accessible as possible. Therefore, we depend on contributions from people like you to continue to do our work. There are many ways to contribute.
