The Idea of the World: A Multi-Disciplinary Argument for the Mental Nature of Reality Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

So our minds are creating the world? And this all works because we each are semi-independent “alters” (self contained personalities like those of a multiple personality disorder patient) of the great One Consciousness. (Brahman?) This is “scientifically validated” by quantum mechanics which has shown the effect of the observer upon the phenomenon (wave or particle depending if you’re watching or not), and thus further explains all possible states as being in probabilistic superpositions, see Schrodinger’s dead & alive cat-in-box experiment for further reference). Thus, having seen through the delusion of physicalism (defined ontologically as supposing a reality or entity *of any kind* to exist outside of C/consciousness) thereby the “Hard (non-parsimonious, to use his adjective) problem of consciousness” - that pesky gulf between physical structure (the brain) and qualia (what anything is like to be) - need no longer trouble us. once we embrace the ontology of idealism.That’s what you’re going to get in this book. The problem I find with this book, and why I’m giving it a poor rating, is that the author uses many fanciful inventions of thought to balance his equations. This discourse is thus outside the proper playing field of philosophy though he strives to remain within. He sets up a binary argument at the beginning of the book stating that reality must either be fully “idealistic” (as Berkeley set out to show) or not. No third alternatives. No “we dont know yet’s”, no pondering. Rather, and insistent declaration that the gig is up for physicalism, the core substrate of all reality is Consciousness, whether or not the phenomenon in question can be self-referenced or not, by the way [one can begin getting annoyed with this right here: if something cannot be self referenced it is possibly, arguably, NOT within any realm of consciousness. One could say that self-reference, sentient awareness, is requisite of consciousness. It is not in some way oxymoronic to conceive of an entity with no experiential equipment nor capacity for self reference to be conscious? I think it is a requirement, this being the very big difference between you and me and a pair of scissors. In order to render such as claim plausible he would be to tell us why rocks and stones and rivers and galaxies and metabolic processes are possessing of consciousness. And he does go to great lengths to get this across, by allowing for a meta-consciousness. Matter is a mentally generated entity therefore, time and space are “illusions”, and there continuation of consciousness after death. All this in 300 pages! The new Galileo? Well, I’m unconvinced that he has managed the alternative suggestions fairly, nor has he addressed the refutations adequately.Rather, what you’ll find as he confronts the various logical obstacles to this, is a kind of Harry Potteresque fantasy story about reality - the Universal Mind - which then frees him to add any embellishment or device he likes to support the initial ludicrous premise.This is pseudo-philosophical “work around” of the as yet confounding perplexities of the mental-physical dichotomies rather than a valid metaphysical system.I’d advise anyone committed to this topic to first read Schopenhauer’s World as Will and Representation, a true masterpiece, also do their best to grasp Kant’s main ideas in Critique of Pure Reason (probably best to read a synopsis of that before reading Schopenhauer).....then spend some time with the phenomenology specialists (Heidegger Being and Time if you possibly can), then work your way through some quantum mechanics, then some biology so you know what’s going on inside living systems behind the scenes....and then, finally, see if you come away appreciating this author.I do not. I think he is confusing advaita logic - which posits a non-dualistic cosmic consciousness as the basis for truth leading to liberation from suffering, actually a reasonable and worthy claim, though terribly hard to internalize, with nut job flights of invention (ie split personalities to account for multiple subjects experiencing the One all differently. Nice for a episode of Dark Mirror). Not OK for scholarly philosophy.

Dr. Bernardo Kastup’s book “The Idea of the World” is a work that ties together several of his previous papers into one very strong and coherent defense of idealism. Dr. Kastrup not only presents a powerful argument for idealism, but also presents the most prevalent arguments against the idealist ontology and takes them on one at a time. Kastrup is a very clear thinker and articulate communicator who carefully chooses his words and allegories to make his case. This could be one of the greatest works of philosophy in our generation and is sure to persuade a reexamination of our fundamental assumptions about reality.

Critically important topics dissected with razor-sharp precision. Kastrup is such a clear thinker, and the ideas he espouses deserve much more mainstream recognition than they currently get. It will be fascinating to see if physicalists can generate compelling rebuttals while taking into account the totality of Kastrup’s meticulously-constructed case.

It's been a strange trip, to travel through Bernardo Kastrup's idea of the world. Along with many familiar views turned somewhat askew, I encountered a few new ones. In several cases -- "Relational Quantum Mechanics," "Idealism," "Berkeley," "Dualism" -- I found SEP articles helpful backgrounders, though even then pulling them in line with the text was a somewhat strenuous gymnastic. But I soldiered on, and think I grasped the broad outlines if not many of the details of Bernardo's new adventure in ontological idealism. It is an unforgettable vision for sure.With the logical progression and force of the argument, there is one overarching perspective which may be overlooked: much of the majestic tapestry woven together here is largely speculative. Kastrup is open about this. For example, about his presentation of relational quantum mechanics he declares, "The interpretation suggested above shall remain a matter of philosophical speculation until somebody writes down the wave function for the thoughts of a conscious human being (r) and formalizes the interaction dynamics between it and ψ." Did you get it? A philosophical speculation. But a grand one, and quite plausible, or at least an intuitively satisfying foundation for building a view that reality is pure mind.Making everything mental, it's an exhilarating adventure of the mind as we know it. Take the dive, plunge in, explore the way everything may be different than we ordinarily think.

I bought this book because I've long thought that the world (as we perceive it) is infused with consciousness and a primal desire for self-expression of . . . something. This book brought me no closer to any answers. While perhaps setting a world record for use of forms of the words "epistemology" and "ontology," I can make very little sense of it. I gave up plowing through the jargon before halfway finished. I found the writing impossibly dull, the arguments self-referential and think the whole thing may be a subconscious effort by the author to be taken as a legitimate scientist. But this is definitely not science.

With "The Idea of the World", Bernardo Kastrup has not only penned the first full-fledged masterstroke in the long overdue take down of the still reigning Materialist world view, he has also outlined a rigorously coherent case for the legitimacy and need for a New Idealism, a new ontological paradigm befitting of the 21st Century and beyond. Oh, and he also solves (or rather, dismantles) the "hard problem of consciousness" in this book as well. A Must Read!

When I saw this book was a compilation of ten papers I thought that they might have been rewritten in order to provide a flowing, coherent narrative. This is not the case. After a self-indulgent slew of acknowledgements, forewords, notes, preambles, overviews and prefaces (I'm not exaggerating, they're all in there) the papers are simply copy-pasted and presented as chapters.The writing is a chore. The prose is tortured philosophy speak and not suited whatsoever to a mass market paperback. It's rare to go two sentences without reading the words 'ontological' or 'epistemically' at least once. We are told prior to the first paper that:'The paper highlights the primacy of perceptual constructs over explanatory abstraction on both epistemic and ontic levels'I bet you can't wait.You need to put so much effort into parsing the sentences, which invariably describe concepts at such a high level as to be futile anyway, that it's difficult to make any significant progress. It certainly isn't enjoyable.So unless this manner of presentation fits with your 'logico-conceptual schema' then I'd advise you to give this book a miss.

This book is truly exceptional. The author draws upon an impressive range of authentic and credible sources to articulate a range of arguments that prove beyond any doubt that the true nature of reality is non-dual consciousness. The extraordinary breadth of the bibliography includes the latest thinking in philosophy, physics, neuroscience and psychology. He has clearly undertaken an immense amount of research and he draws upon the very latest experiments in a variety of fields to provide concise explanations as to what is really happening. I had to make extensive use of a dictionary as the writing is necessarily academic in nature and contains many words that were initially unfamiliar to me. Once the terminology gradually became familiar, the power and precision of the rationale emerged to reveal a picture of beautiful simplicity. As well as being intellectually satisfying, the book also provides a framework for understanding life and death, evolution, spirituality and the history of mankind so far. We can spend a lifetime searching for pieces of the jigsaw to make sense of life, but this book provides the whole picture in a single viewing. As a writer myself who has attempted to explore this subject, I stand in awe and with gratitutute for what Bernado Kastrup has achieved with this book. It really is pure genius.

Having been fascinated with metaphysics and consciousness for as long as I can remember, I’ve had the pleasure of reading many enlightening books on the subject matter - most notably from Shimon Malin, Ervin Laszlo, Pim Van Lommel, Amit Goswami, Robert Lanza and Bernard Haisch. Having come across Bernardo Kastrup fairly recently through ‘Why Materialism Is Baloney’, I’ve found he produces a clear, concise, compelling and intuitive case for idealism. ‘The Idea of the World’ brings together his ideas in what for me is a smack down to the prevailing materialist (or physicalist) paradigm - one where they struggle to solve the hard problem of consciousness, the subject-combination problem and the need to invoke multiple universes and other outlandish theories in order to satisfy their outdated model. The idea that mind is the ontological primitive, is a simple and powerful one - and given that is the only thing we know, seems a logical deduction. As Bernardo says... “The existence of a physical world outside and independent of consciousness is a theoretical inference arising from interpretation of sense perceptions, not an empirical fact. After all our only access to the physical is through the screen of perception, which is itself a phenomenon of and in consciousness”. Great book, which I hope fosters more open discussion into the materialism vs idealism debate (especially between Bernardo and his critics).

The form of Idealism described in this book seems the most plausible of its variations. The author describes it straightforwardly and explains that its relationship with the scientific data and everyday experience is unproblematic. With the skill and precision of a surgeon he identifies and disposes of almost all competing theories.The topics are approached from the direction of the sciences. A professional background and expert understanding allows the author to make it quite clear that in the natural sciences Idealism is an excellent theory easily able to accommodate all the data.The case for Idealism as presented leaves the metaphysical details for another discussion. It describes a general idea of Idealism by which all that exists are ideas, as this enough for the author’s purposes, and does not explore its implications for the ‘problems of philosophy’ or make an onward connection to the metaphysical doctrine of the Perennial philosophy. Thus even if we concede the soundness of his arguments we need not believe the author’s Idealism is entirely correct. What we would have to concede is that this form of Idealism must at worst be a close approximation to ‘what is the case’.Idealism is well championed in the sciences by this author for he is terse and precise, wasting no words and taking no prisoners as he disposes of almost all other metaphysical and pseudo-metaphysical theories. The discussion puts an end to the idea that Idealism is ‘unscientific’ or in conflict with the natural sciences. Rather, it may lead a scientifically-minded person to the view that almost all other theories are implausibly naïve.

We are witnessing a shift in worldview that is now slowly but steadily advancing. Three of my favorite writers tackling this much needed transformation are the terrific scientific thinkers Robert Lanza ('Biocentrism') and Donald Hoffman ('The Case Against Reality') and philosopher Bernardo Kastrup. 'The Idea of the World' is his seventh book about idealism, the philosophical system that proposes that everything is in consciousness.Firstly, his latest and most rigorous book yet, exposes the fallacies of physicalism (or materialism) that is currently the reigning metaphysics. Physicalism posits that an objective world exists independent of our minds. Then it goes even further by claiming that this world outside experience somehow created our consciousness in the first place! By turning the subject into object, materialism creates the insoluble ‘hard problem of consciousness’. Idealism avoids this major error in logic by positing that what we experience IS reality.But also in idealism, there are objections to overcome which Bernardo does very eloquently in subsequent chapters. Questions such as why there is a relationship between brain activity and reported inner life, why we all seem to experience the same world, and why we are unable to alter the laws of physics with our minds. He also explains why the latest findings in quantum mechanics and neuroscience inexorably point to mind as primary reality.Because of terminology, it takes some experience in philosophic reading to (fully) comprehend) this work. So if this a new territory for you, then probably better start with one of Kastrup’s earlier books, such as the excellent 'Why Materialism is Baloney'. However, I found this work much easier to read than other philosophy-of mind-books by for example Nagel or Chalmers. Bernardo’s writing style is very pleasant and his arguments are extremely clear.The mental model of reality is currently the best way we have for looking at the world. I am convinced that this will be the new common worldview, and that we’ll look back at some of today’s mainstream ideas, such as billions of microscopic robots in our brain forming our integrated minds, and that we’ll be really amazed at the delusions of today’s scientific culture. We’re not there yet, but great thinkers like Bernardo Kastrup are bravely paving the way.