DR. BERNARDO KASTRUP Analytic Idealism: A consciousness-only · 529173-L-os-Kastrup Processed on: 18-2-2019 Analytic Idealism: A consciousness-only Analytic Idealism: A consciousness-only

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Analytic Idealism: A consciousness-only

ontology

Analytic Idealism

: A consciousness-only ontology

DR. BERNARDO KASTRUP

DR. BERN

ARD

O KA

STRUP


ontology

Analytic Idealism



DR. BERN

ARD

O KA

STRUP


ontology

Analytic Idealism



DR. BERN

ARD

O KA

STRUP

529173-L-bw-Kastrup529173-L-bw-Kastrup529173-L-bw-Kastrup529173-L-bw-KastrupProcessed on: 18-2-2019Processed on: 18-2-2019Processed on: 18-2-2019Processed on: 18-2-2019 PDF page: 1PDF page: 1PDF page: 1PDF page: 1

AnalyticIdealism:Aconsciousness-onlyontology

dr.BernardoKastrup


Kastrup,Bernardo

AnalyticIdealism:Aconsciousness-onlyontology

ISBN/EAN:978-94-028-1400-2

Copyright©2016-2019byBernardoKastrup.Allrightsreserved.


AnalytischeIdealisme:Eenontologiemetalleenbewustzijn

Proefschrift

terverkrijgingvandegraadvandoctoraandeRadboudUniversiteitNijmegen

opgezagvanderectormagnificusprof.dr.J.H.J.M.vanKriekenvolgensbesluitvanhetcollegevandecanenteverdedigenopmaandag29april2019

om14.30uurprecies

door

dr.BernardoKastrupgeborenop21oktober1974

teNiterói,RiodeJaneiro,Brazilië.


Promotiecommissie

Promotor:prof.dr.M.V.P.Slors

Copromotor:dr.ing.L.C.deBruin

Manuscriptcommissie:

prof.dr.P.J.J.M.Bakker

Prof.B.J.Carr,MA,PhDQueenMaryUniversityofLondon,VerenigdKoninkrijk

Dr.S.ColemanUniversityofHertfordshire,VerenigdKoninkrijk

dr.V.A.GijsbersUniversiteitLeiden,Nederland

dr.D.W.Strijbos


TableofContentsAcknowledgments..............................................................................................................................71. Introduction.................................................................................................................................91.1 Inanutshell........................................................................................................................................91.2 Thebigpicture.................................................................................................................................101.3 Theappendices...............................................................................................................................141.4 Preemptingmisunderstandings..............................................................................................15

2. ConflatingAbstractionwithEmpiricalObservation:TheFalseMind-MatterDichotomy..................................................................................19

2.1 Abstract..............................................................................................................................................192.2 Introduction......................................................................................................................................192.3 Theepistemiccostofexplanationbyabstraction............................................................222.4 Levelsofexplanatoryabstraction...........................................................................................262.5 Dispellingthemind-matterdichotomy................................................................................282.6 Conclusion.........................................................................................................................................31

3. TheUniverseinConsciousness.........................................................................................333.1 Abstract..............................................................................................................................................333.2 Briefintroduction...........................................................................................................................333.3 Themainstreamphysicalistontologyanditsproblems...............................................333.4 Consciousnessasanirreduciblepropertyofmatter......................................................353.5 Thequestionablelogicalbridgeinbottom-uppanpsychism......................................383.6 Whatcountsasafundamentalconcreteentity?...............................................................393.7 Thewholeuniverseasaunitaryconsciousentity...........................................................403.8 Thekeyquestionstobeanswered.........................................................................................443.9 Experiencesasexcitationsofcosmicconsciousness......................................................443.10 Tacklingthedecombinationproblem................................................................................453.11 Atwhatleveldoescosmicdissociationoccur?...............................................................483.12 Reducingtherevealedtotheconcealedorder...............................................................503.13 Explainingthecorrelationsbetweenbrainfunctionandinnerexperience......533.14 Explainingoursharedworld..................................................................................................553.15 Conclusions....................................................................................................................................56

4. OnthePlausibilityofIdealism:RefutingCriticisms.................................................574.1 Abstract..............................................................................................................................................574.2 Introduction......................................................................................................................................574.3 Thefeltconcretenessobjection...............................................................................................584.4 Theprivatemindsobjection......................................................................................................594.5 Thestand-aloneworldobjection............................................................................................614.6 Theautonomyofnatureobjection.........................................................................................634.7 Thesharedworldobjection.......................................................................................................634.8 Thenaturalorderobjection.......................................................................................................644.9 Theequivalenceobjection..........................................................................................................654.10 Theprimacyofbrainfunctionobjection..........................................................................664.11 Theunconsciousmentationobjection...............................................................................674.12 Theunconsciousnessobjection............................................................................................684.13 Thesolipsismobjection............................................................................................................694.14 Thecosmologicalhistoryobjection....................................................................................704.15 Theimplausibilityofcosmicinnerlifeobjection..........................................................704.16 Conclusions....................................................................................................................................71


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5. ThereIsan‘Unconscious,’butItMayWellBeConscious......................................735.1 Abstract..............................................................................................................................................735.2 Introduction......................................................................................................................................735.3 Definingandgaugingconsciousness.....................................................................................755.4 Non-self-reflectiveexperiences...............................................................................................775.5 Dissociatedexperiences..............................................................................................................795.6 Amodelofdissociation................................................................................................................815.7 Discussion..........................................................................................................................................84

6. Self-TranscendenceCorrelateswithBrainFunctionImpairment.....................876.1 Abstract..............................................................................................................................................876.2 Introduction......................................................................................................................................876.3 Cerebralhypoxia.............................................................................................................................886.4 Generalizedphysiologicalstress.............................................................................................886.5 Electromagneticimpairment....................................................................................................896.6 Trance-inducedimpairment.....................................................................................................896.7 Chemicalimpairment...................................................................................................................896.8 Physicaldamage.............................................................................................................................906.9 Discussion..........................................................................................................................................90

7. ConcludingRemarks..............................................................................................................937.1 Matterastheouterappearanceofinnerexperience......................................................937.2 Alternativeformulationsofdissociation-basedidealism.............................................937.3 Therearenoumena,buttheyareexperiential..................................................................957.4 Theconundrumofspacetime...................................................................................................967.5 Visualizingtheontologicalprimitive..................................................................................1007.6 Futurework...................................................................................................................................100

AppendixA. NotItsOwnMeaning:AHermeneuticoftheWorld.......................103A.1 Abstract...........................................................................................................................................103A.2 Introduction..................................................................................................................................103A.3 Theontologicalstatusoftheworld.....................................................................................105A.4 Thecontinuityofmindandworld.......................................................................................109A.5 Theimplicationsofamentalworld....................................................................................110A.6 Whattheworld’straditionshavetosay...........................................................................111A.7 Discussion......................................................................................................................................112

AppendixB. ThePhysicalistWorldviewasNeuroticEgo-DefenseMechanism........................................................................................................115

B.1 Abstract...........................................................................................................................................115B.2 Introduction..................................................................................................................................115B.3 Egoprotectionthroughprojection......................................................................................117B.4 Egoiccontrol.................................................................................................................................120B.5 Thequestionofmeaning.........................................................................................................121B.6 Conclusion......................................................................................................................................124

Bibliography.....................................................................................................................................127

Summary............................................................................................................................................141

Samenvatting...................................................................................................................................143


Acknowledgments Iwould like to thank, firstofall,mysupervisors,prof.dr.MarcSlorsanddr.LéondeBruin,fortheirguidanceandtheproductivediscussionswehavehadintherun-uptothecompletionofthisdissertation.

The critical feedback and suggestions of anonymous reviewers havesignificantlyimprovedthepapersthatconstitutethecoreofthisdissertation.

ThegracioussupportofProf.DavidChalmershasalsobeeninstrumental.NotonlyhasDavidcritically reviewedkeypartsofmymaterial,hehasalsogivenmetheopportunitytoparticipate—withfundingfromtheGlobalInstituteforAdvancedStudiesofNewYorkUniversity,whichIgratefullyacknowledge—inaworkshopfocusedonidealism,inShanghai,lateinthespringof2017.

Discussionswith,andcriticalfeedbackfrom,Prof.GalenStrawsonhavehelpedsharpenkeypointsmade in this dissertation, forwhich I amvery grateful toGalen.

Discussionswithmanyothercolleagueshavealsobeenvaluable.Withtheriskof leaving importantnamesout, Iwould like to explicitly thankphilosophersItay Shani, Daniel Stoljar,Miri Albahari,Michael Pelczar, BarryDainton andPhilipGoff.

The feedback and encouragement I received from researchers of theDepartmentofPsychiatryandNeurobehavioralSciences,UniversityofVirginiaSchoolofMedicine,duringmyvisitthereinthespringof2016—forwhichIalsogratefully acknowledge funding—have been key to the effort that eventuallyresultedinthisdissertation.IamparticularlygratefultoProf.EdwardF.Kellyforhiscontinuingencouragementandguidance.

Neuroscientist Anil Seth has been of much help by pointing out to me therelativelyrecentliteratureonso-called ‘no-reportparadigms’ inconsciousnessresearch.

Forthepast fiveyears, Ihavealsobeenvery fortunatetobeabletocountontheinformalguidanceofMenasC.Kafatos,theFletcherJonesEndowedChairProfessorofComputationalPhysics,ChapmanUniversity.

WithoutthecontinuingtrustofMichaelD.Lemonick,ChiefOpinionEditoratScientificAmerican,theideasdiscussedinthisdissertationwouldnothavehadthelevelofmainstreammediaexposuretheynowhave.

Lastbutnot least,without the lovingand reassuringpresenceofmypartner,ClaudiaDamian,thisdissertationwouldneverhavecometrue.



1. Introduction

1.1 InanutshellThis dissertation elaborates on amodern, analytic version of the ontology ofidealism,accordingtowhich(a)phenomenalconsciousness,asanontologicalcategory, is fundamental; and (b) everything else innature canultimately bereduced to, or grounded in, patterns of excitation of phenomenalconsciousness. It posits a reduction base consisting of a single element:spatially unbound, universal phenomenal consciousness. Its key challenge isthentoexplainhowtheseeminglydistinctphenomenalinnerlivesofdifferentsubjectsofexperiencecanarisewithinthisfundamentallyunitaryphenomenalfield. This is sometimes called the “decomposition problem” in the literature(Chalmers2016a)anditisthecoreproblemthisdissertationattemptstotackle.Alongtheway,avarietyofotherchallengesareaddressed,suchas:howwecanreconcile idealismwiththe fact thatweall inhabitacommonexternalworld;whythisworldunfoldsindependentlyofourpersonalvolitionorimagination;why there are such tight correlations between measured patterns of brainactivityandreportsofexperience;etc.

Idealismhashad itsheyday inWesternphilosophy in the 18th (Berkeley) andearly 19th (Hegel) centuries. Though it has enjoyed popularity amongstcontinental philosophers, analytic philosophers have, by and large, failed totake idealism seriously, perhaps because of its association with religioustraditionsinbothEastandWest.Withthisdissertation,Ihopetohelpchangethisbyofferingastrictlyanalytic,conceptuallycleararticulationofidealism.Ialsohope to offer empirical neuroscientific evidence suggesting that idealismmaybebettersuitedtomakesenseofthedatathanmainstreamphysicalismorconstitutivepanpsychism.

Thecoreofthisdissertationconsistsoffivepapers—eachapieceofthelargerjigsawpuzzleassembledinthisvolume—publishedinacademicjournals.Theyarereproducedherewithoutanychangeofsubstance.Theorderinwhichtheyare presented is meant to help more effectively convey the overarchingargumentofwhicheachindividualpaperisapart.InthisIntroduction,Ishallsummarizethisoverarchingargumentsotohelpreadersplaceeachpaperinitsbroader context, as they make their way through the dissertation. In otherwords,hereIshallattempttosketchthefinal,completedpictureofthejigsawpuzzlebeforeeachpieceisexploredinmoredetail.

For this reason, however, readers should not expect the highly summarizedargument presented in this Introduction to be strictly rigorous or complete.The goal is to first convey the general idea behind this dissertation, beforeelaborating on it with the rigor of the subsequent chapters. The appropriateliterature reviews, as well as discussions on how the work presented here issituatedinthecontextofpriorefforts,arealsocomprisedinthepapersahead(chapter2to6),notinthisIntroduction.


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1.2 ThebigpictureIthasnowbecometritetopointoutthatmainstreamphysicalismfails—unlessonesubscribestoitseliminativeformulation,aviewwhoseabsurdityIshallnotbother to argue for here1—to account for the sole given fact of reality: theexistence of experience (e.g. Chalmers 2003). Physicalism is also arguablyirreconcilable—insofar as it presupposes physical realism—with resultsemerging from physics laboratories around the world (e.g. Kim et al. 2000,Gröblacheretal.2007,Romeroetal.2010,Lapkiewiczetal.2011,Maetal.2013,Manningetal.2015,Hensenetal.2015,etc.),aselaborateduponinSectionA.3ofAppendixA.2Soboth intermsof itsexplanatorypowerand itsconsistencywithempiricalobservations,ourmainstreamontologyisfoundwanting.

Imentionthismerelytohighlighttheneedforanalternativeontology,suchasthatofferedinthisdissertation.Otherthanabriefreviewofthe‘hardproblemofconsciousness’inChapter3,Ishallnotfocusondiscussingtheuntenabilityofmainstreamphysicalism.This has alreadybeendone in the literature (e.g.Levine1983,Chalmers1996,Rosenberg2004:13-30,Strawsonetal.2006:2-30,etc.).What I shall attempt in the next chapter is somethingmore ambitiousand—hopefully—more constructive: to point out the failures and internalcontradictions of the very thought processes that underlie mainstreamphysicalism and related ontologies. Only by understanding these implicit,unexamined failures and contradictions can we hope to reform our thinkingandeventuallysolve(orcircumvent)theassociateddilemmasandparadoxes.

Inthiscontext,Chapter2discusseswhatisperhapstherootofkeyunresolvedproblems in contemporary analytic philosophy: the tendency to try to makesense of nature by replacing concrete observations with theoreticalabstractions. Such attempts often consist of mere word games, played inthoughtwitharichandshiftingphantasmagoriaofconcepts.Theprocesstendstounfold so implicitly thatmanydon’t seem to evennoticehowmany stepsof—epistemically unreliable—conceptual abstraction their reasoning entails.Chapter 2 attempts tomake thesewordgames explicit. It also suggestsmoreepistemically reliable lines of reasoning that avoid unnecessary conceptualabstractions.

Bypursuingthesemorereliablelinesofreasoning,Chapter3—thecoreofthisdissertation—elaboratesonananalytic formulationof idealism. Itargues thatthebestcategoricalexplanation for the factsofnatureentails that these facts

1Interestedreaderscanperuse, instead,anexcellentrecentessaybyGalenStrawson,who has put it best: https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/03/13/the-consciousness-deniers/.

2 For a less technical approach, see two of my essays on Scientific American’sObservations blog: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/should-quantum-anomalies-make-us-rethink-reality/ andhttps://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/coming-to-grips-with-the-implications-of-quantum-mechanics/.


DoctoralDissertation RadboudUniversityNijmegen dr.BernardoKastrup

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are essentially phenomenal. All of existence consists, it is claimed, solely ofideas—thoughts, emotions, perceptions, intuitions, imagination, etc.—eventhoughnotone’spersonalideasalone.

The ontology articulated inChapter 3 canbe summarized thus: there is onlyuniversalphenomenalconsciousness.We,aswellasallotherlivingorganisms,are dissociated alters of this universal consciousness, analogously to how aperson with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) manifests multiple disjointcentersofsubjectivityalsocalled‘alters.’We,andallotherlivingorganisms,aresurrounded by the transpersonal phenomenal activity of universalconsciousness, which unfolds beyond the dissociative boundary of ourrespective alter. The inanimateworld3we perceive aroundus is the ‘extrinsicappearance’—i.e.thephenomenalimageimprintedfromacrossourdissociativeboundary—of this activity.The livingorganismswe share theworldwith aretheextrinsicappearancesofotheralters.

Instead of the mainstream physicalist postulate of an ontological categoryfundamentallyoutside and independentofmind,4Chapter 3offers adifferentcategorical interpretationofwhatwecall ‘matter.’ Indeed,according to it thelivingbrain ismerely aphenomenalappearance of aperson’s conscious innerlife—herthoughts,feelings,fantasies,beliefs,etc.—aspresentedonthescreenofperceptionofe.g.anotherperson.Andsincethebrainismadeofmatter,thisiswhatthematterinalivingbrain is.Chapter3thengoesfurtherand,inthespirit of parsimony that underlies this entire dissertation, argues that this isalso what all matter is: the phenomenal appearance of equally phenomenalactivityunfoldingacrossadissociativeboundary.Thematter constituting theinanimateuniverse is, thus,what transpersonalexperiencesunfoldingoutsidethealters look like from thepointof viewof analter, just asa livingbrain iswhat personal experiences look like. By construing all matter to be aphenomenal appearance of equally phenomenal activity, analytic idealismrequires nothing more than phenomenality to offer a coherent categoricalinterpretationofnature.

Manycriticismscanbe—andhavebeen—madeagainstsuchaconsciousness-onlyontology. Indeed,becauseof the formidable culturalmomentumbehindthenotionofanobjectivephysicalworlddistinctfrommind,onecanpromptlyleverageaready-made,culturallysanctionedlistofobjectionsagainstidealism.Chapter 4 lists many of these objections and tackles them one by one. Itattemptstoshowthattheyareoftenbasedonlogicalfallaciessuchasquestion-begging, unexamined assumptions, misunderstandings of the implications ofanalyticidealism,etc.

3Throughout thisdissertation, I use theword ‘inanimate’ in the senseofnon-living;i.e.asthatwhichisnotbiology.

4Throughout this dissertation—except in Chapter 5, where they are defined in adifferentway—Iuse thewords ‘mind’ and ‘mentation’ as synonymsofphenomenalconsciousnessandphenomenalactivity,respectively.


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One objection is exceptional because it poses some legitimate difficulties: anecessary implication of the ontology proposed in Chapter 3 is that anorganism’smetabolism—allofit—istheextrinsicappearanceoftheorganism’sconscious inner life. This is reasonable enough for certain patterns of brainactivityknowntocorrelatewithexperiencesaccessible through introspection,but what about metabolism beyond the brain, such as e.g. liver and kidneyfunction?Andwhataboutthemetabolicactivitytakingplacein,say,aperson’sleftbigtoe?IftheontologyproposedinChapter3iscorrect,thenliver,kidneyandeventoefunctionmustallcorrespondtoexperiencesaswell.Yet,tryaswemight,theseexperiencesdonotseemtobeaccessiblethroughintrospection.

Moreover,evenifweweretolookatthebrainalone,ignoringthemetabolismin the rest of the body, recent studies in psychology suggest the presence ofseeminglyunconsciousmentalprocessesinthebrain(e.g.Hassin2013).This,iftrue,wouldalreadycontradictanalyticidealism.

Chapter 5 bites these bullets and argues that, despite appearances to thecontrary, there is no clear reason to believe that anymental process is trulyunconscious. Instead, it attempts to show that there are, in fact, very goodreasons to think that what we regard as unconscious mental processescorrespond merely to an illusion of unconsciousness, which results fromdissociativestatesorlackofmetacognition.Andoncethesetwomechanisms—dissociativestatesand lackofmetacognition—are identified, theycanexplainwhyexperiencescorrespondingtoareasofthelivingbodybeyondthenervoussystemcan’tbeaccessedthroughintrospection.

The lastpieceof thepuzzle is thatofempiricalevidence.Chapter6compilesand discusses a broad list of instances of brain function impairment that areaccompaniedbyenrichment of conscious inner life andanexpansion ofone’ssense of identity. The list includes cases as varied as asphyxiation, physicaltraumatothehead,theconsumptionofpsychoactivesubstancesthatdampenbrainactivity,etc.

Such correlations between impaired brain function and enriched consciousinnerlifeareatleastcounterintuitiveunderthemainstreamphysicalistnotionthat conscious inner life is constituted or generated by brain activity. Underanalytic idealism,ontheotherhand, theyare tobeexpected: ifnormalbrainfunction is part of the extrinsic appearance of adissociated alter of universalconsciousness, then some forms of reduction or impairment of normal brainfunctionshouldbetheextrinsicappearanceofareductionorimpairmentofthedissociation. And, of course, from a first-person perspective a reduction ofdissociation must be experienced as an enrichment of conscious inner life:reintegratedmemories,therecoveryofabroadersenseidentity,renewedaccessto previously dissociated insights and emotions, reintegration of previouslydissociated skills, etc.Contrary tophysicalism, analytic idealismcan thusnotonlyaccommodate,butalsomakesenseof,theevidencediscussedinChapter6.

Naturally, the argument in Chapter 6 is not that all impairment of brainfunctionshouldbeaccompaniedbyenrichedinnerlife.Otherwise,thesmartest



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andmostcreativepeoplewouldbethosewiththemostdamagedbrains.Thisisclearlynotthecase.Butneitherdoesanalyticidealismrequireittobethecase.Allowmetoelaborate.

AsdiscussedinChapter3,alivingorganismcorrespondstoadissociatedalterofuniversalconsciousness.Assuch,eachpersoncanberegardedasasegmentof universal consciousness—meant here generically, without implying thatuniversalconsciousnessnecessarilyhasspatiotemporalextension—comprisingits own dissociated phenomenal states. Segments comprising manyphenomenal states can be referred to as ‘big alters,’ whereas segmentscomprising few phenomenal states can be referred to as ‘small alters.’ It isreasonabletosay,forinstance,thathumanbeingscorrespondtobiggeraltersthan,say,insects.

Notice that, in principle, both big and small alters can be equally welldissociated. In other words, the relative amount of phenomenal statesencompassedbyanalterdoesnotbearrelevancetohowwelldissociatedthesephenomenal states are from the rest of universal consciousness. It is entirelycoherent,withinthelogicofanalyticidealism,thatasmallaltercouldbemorestronglydissociatedfromuniversalconsciousnessthanabigalter,ortheotherwayaround.

Now, since brain activity is part of the extrinsic appearance of an alter’sdissociated phenomenal states, it stands to reason that some—evenmost—typesofbrainfunctionimpairmentshouldcorrespondsimplytoareductionofthephenomenal statesof thealter.These typesofbrain function impairmentwillnotdisruptthedissociationitself,butonlystiflewhateveriscircumscribedby the dissociative boundary. The alter will become smaller, cognitivelycompromised, but still equally well dissociated. This is why, under analyticidealism,many or evenmost types of brain function impairment should stillcomeaccompaniedbycognitivedeficit,notawarenessexpansion.

Onlysomespecifictypesofbrainfunctionimpairment,whichsomehowaffectthedissociativemechanismsthemselves—asopposedtothephenomenalstatesencompassedby the alter—should correlatewith an enrichmentof consciousinner life. They make the dissociative boundary ‘porous,’ so to speak. Atpresent, however, it is not yet knownwhat precise aspects of brain functioncorrespond to these dissociative mechanisms, even though some tantalizingindications are discussed in Chapter 6. For this reason, it is currentlyimpossible topredictwith accuracywhat types of brain function impairmentshouldleadtowhattypeofeffect:awarenessexpansionorcognitivedeficit.

What distinguishes the predictions of analytic idealism from those ofmainstream physicalism is this: under analytic idealism, some types of brainfunctionimpairmentshould,inprinciple,leadtoenrichedconsciousinnerlife.Undermainstreamphysicalism,however,thisismuchmoredifficulttoargue,aselaboratedupon inChapter6.More rigorouslyput,myclaim is this: thereare some types of brain function impairment—which under mainstreamphysicalism should correlate with cognitive deficit and under analytic idealism


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with enriched inner life—thathave been shown to be accompaniedby enrichedinnerlife.

Noticethat,becauseoftheinherentlimitationsofgaugingconsciousnessfromasecond-orthird-personperspective,theplayingfieldisn’tlevel:manytypesofbrain function impairmentmaycausebothanenrichmentof conscious innerlife and compromise the subjects’ ability to report this enrichment. Forinstance, language ormotor centers,memory pathways or a variety of othercommunication-critical functions in thebrainmaybecompromised,harmingor eliminating the subjects’ ability to speak orwrite. For all we know,manysubjects could be lying in hospital with severe head trauma or other brainailments,havingunfathomableinnerexperiences,andyetbeutterlyincapableof relating any of it to family or medical staff. If brain areas essential tometacognitionarecompromised,subjectsmaynotevenbeabletoreporttheirexperiences to themselves, as discussed in Chapter 5. Consequently, thepotential for evidence that corroborates analytic idealism is restricted byconflicting requirements: the corresponding brain function impairmentmustbe sufficient to affect dissociative mechanisms—not just dampen thephenomenal states encompassed by the alter—whilst preserving enoughcognitive function so subjects can report their expanded awareness. Theseconflicting requirements aren’t trivial to meet concurrently. It is, thus, ifanything,surprisingthatsomanycasereportsexistintheliteraturethatseemtocorroborateanalyticidealism,asdiscussedinChapter6.

Chapter 7 then discusses some important issues related to, but leftinsufficientlyaddressedby,chapters2to6.Italsopointstopotentialareasoffutureinvestigation.

1.3 TheappendicesTheanalyticcaseforidealismislaidoutinchapters2to6.Nonetheless,thereare two topics that, despite not being part of the core argument of thisdissertation, arise so forcefully from it that it would have been negligent toleave them unaddressed. I have thus added two papers—also originallypublishedinacademicjournals—thattacklethesetopicsintwoappendices,AandB,respectively.

AppendixAaddressesthefollowingquestion:Ifanalyticidealismistrue,whatareitsimplications?Inotherwords,howdoesitchangethewaywelookuponlife and the world? Indeed, whereas mainstream physicalism denies themeaningoftheworldbyconstruingittobeamechanicalcontraptiongovernedby blind laws and mere chance, analytic idealism regards the world as theextrinsic appearanceof intrinsic, universal phenomenal activity.According toit,natureholdshiddenbut inherentsemanticmeaning: itpointssymbolicallytosomethingbeyonditsface-valueappearance.This isunpackedinAppendixA,inanattempttohighlighttherelevanceofidealismtolife.

Because it was originally published as a self-contained paper, Appendix A—morespecifically,SectionA.3—includesanempiricalargumenttosubstantiate



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its startinghypothesis that theworld is essentially phenomenal. It elaboratesupontheexperimentalevidenceforwhatistechnicallycalled‘contextuality’inphysics: the notion that physical quantities are fundamentally dependent onobservation and have no definite existence before being observed. The linkbetweencontextualityandidealismisalsomadeexplicitinAppendixA.

Attentive readers will notice that, throughout Appendix A, I use the word‘meaning’todenote‘sense’(asinthesenseofawordorphrase), ‘significance’(asinthesignificanceofahistoricalmoment)and‘purpose’(asinthepurposeof an action), freely conflating all three usages. This conflation is intentionalandimplicitlyreflectstheveryconclusionoftheappendix:thatthepurposeoflifeistounveilthesenseandsignificanceoftheworld.Thusthemeaningoflifein the world is simultaneously life’s purpose and the world’s sense andsignificance. Indeed, the very linguistic versatility of the word ‘meaning’amplifiestheargumentinAppendixA:‘purpose’isintrinsicallyconnectedwith‘sense’and‘significance.’Perhapslanguagecapturesandpreserves—likeatimecapsule—ancientintuitionswehavesinceallowedtoescapeus.

Thesecondquestionthatnaturallyarisesifonefindstheargumentforanalyticidealismcompellingisthis:Whatdrovetheformidablemomentumbehindthemainstream adoption of physicalism over the past 200 years or so, if amoreplausibleandviablealternative—unaffectedbyfundamentalproblems,suchasthe‘hardproblemofconsciousness’—hasexistedallalong?

AppendixBarguesthatakeymotivationforthedevelopmentandmainstreamadoption of physicalism has beenpsychological, as opposed to philosophical.Thismaycomeasasurprisingassertion,forphysicalismisoftenregardedasapurely fact-based interpretationof reality,untarnishedbysubjectivebiasesorcovert wish-fulfillment maneuvers. Appendix B argues that this may not betrue,fortherearecompellingreasonstobelievethatthephysicalistworldviewprotectsandvalidatestheego,eveninviewofformidablethreatssuchasdeath.Perhaps even more surprisingly, behind physicalism’s apparent denial ofmeaning there operate—it is argued—psychologicalmechanisms that seek toenhanceone’ssenseofmeaninginlife.

Forthesereasons,Iarguethatitisnotsurprisingthatphysicalism,despiteitsinherent problems, has come to amass the formidable level of support it hastoday among the intellectual elites, particularly in academia. As is often thecasewith views that come to define a culture, there ismore to physicalism’ssuccessthanitsphilosophicalmerits.

1.4 PreemptingmisunderstandingsWhile discussing the ideas presented in this dissertation with otherphilosophers,ithasbecomecleartomethatafewobservationsshouldbemadeupfront, in order to facilitate the correct understanding—and, perhapsmoreimportantly, preempt misunderstandings—of what is claimed in the papersahead.


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A claimmade already in the title of Chapter 3 is that, according to analyticidealism, the universe is in consciousness. This is liable tomisinterpretation:insofarasanalyticidealismentailsthatconsciousnessisthecategoricalbasis—theunderlyingessence—ofall thatexists, shouldn’tonesay, instead, that theuniverseisconsciousness?

Thiswould indeed be so if I took theword ‘universe’ to denote ‘all there is.’Afterall,iftheuniverseisallthereisanditis‘madeof’consciousness,thentosay that the universe is in consciousness would amount to saying thatconsciousnessisinconsciousness.

However, throughout this dissertation, I take the word ‘universe’ to denotewhat we perceive and measure. In other words, I am using the operationaldefinitionof‘universe’inphysics,asopposedtoametaphysicalone.Theclaimis then that this perceived universe is in consciousness since, according toanalytic idealism, it consists of particular patterns of excitation of universalconsciousness.Theuniverseisthusinconsciousnessforthesamereasonthatripplesareinwater.

A second point prone to misunderstanding is the following: as discussed inChapter 3, an important contribution of this dissertation is the notion thatdissociation—at a universal scale—is what creates the appearance offragmentation of universal consciousness into multiple disjoint centers ofexperience, such as you andme. Yet, at a human scale, dissociation is oftenthought of as presupposing intentionality, or ‘aboutness.’ Allow me toelaborate.

Many of our human phenomenal states entail intentionality: we think aboutbuyingthecarwesawatthedealership;wefeelbadabout thenewsweheardontheradio;etc.Thesethoughtsandfeelingsarethusaboutthingsoreventsinthe ‘world out there’: they are anchored in some content of sense perceptionaccessible through episodic memory (Chalmers 1996: 19). When dissociationhappensat thehuman level, it isoftenepisodicmemoryaccess thatbecomescompromised as a reaction to trauma: traumatic memories are no longeraccessiblethroughthechainsofcognitiveassociationthatcharacterizeregularpsychiclife(AmericanPsychiatricAssociation2013).

The possible misunderstanding is then this: if dissociation presupposedintentionality,thentheargumentinChapter3wouldfailbecauseitpositsthatdissociation—atauniversalscale—iswhatenablesintentionalitytobeginwith,by creating a boundary between an alter and its surrounding environment.Withoutthisboundarytherewouldbe—itisargued—nosenseperception,no‘worldoutthere’aboutwhichwecouldthinkorfeel.

Themisunderstandinglies inassumingthatdissociationisdefined in termsofintentionalcontent,simplybecauseitoftenhappens,inhumans,inconnectionwithintentionalcontent.However,dissociationentailsmerelythecessationofan otherwise normal cognitive association between two phenomenal states—say, a thought and a feeling—regardless of whether these states haveintentionalcontentornot.



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Athoughtexperiment shouldmake this clear: it ispossible toconceiveof aninfantkeptfrombirthinanidealsensory-depravationchamber.Suchaninfantwould not only have abstract thoughts and feelings, but therewould also benatural cognitive associations across these thoughts and feelings. If some ofthesecognitiveassociationswere tocease,onewouldstillbeable tospeakofdissociation, even though the infant would have never experienced senseperception.Inotherwords,itseemsperfectlypossiblethatphenomenalstatescouldbecomedissociatedfromeachother,eveniftheydon’thavephenomenalcontent.Therefore,theargumentinChapter3holds.

Thefinalpointofpossiblemisunderstandinghastodowiththeargumentlaidout inChapter 2. There, I attempt to show that the notion of an ontologicalcategoryoutsideand independentofphenomenalconsciousness isnotonlyatheoreticalabstraction—asopposed toanempiricalobservation—it isalsoanepistemically unreliable abstraction. Readers of that paper have, however,tendedtoassumethatIwasseekingtomakeanaffirmativemetaphysicalpointbased on this epistemic basis (see the Open Peer Commentaries in Kastrup2018b).Thisisincorrect.

So let me be clear upfront: what Chapter 2 attempts is to highlight thatdifferent ontologies inherently carry different epistemic costs—i.e. degrees ofepistemic confidence—even if these ontologies are both internally consistentandconsistentwithempiricalobservations.Andwhereasthisisadmittedlynotametaphysicalargument,itundoubtedlyhasgreatrelevanceininformingone’schoice ofmetaphysics, since all that is available formaking such a choice isone’sknowledge.Thedegreetowhichone’sknowledgeisreliableshouldbeafactor—perhapsevenadefiningfactor—inthechoice.

Havingmadetheseupfrontclarifications,Iamnowreadytobeginelaboratingonanalytic idealismby, first, layingout its epistemicbasis andmotivation inthenextchapter.



2. ConflatingAbstractionwithEmpiricalObservation:TheFalseMind-MatterDichotomy

ThispaperfirstappearedinConstructivistFoundations,ISSN1782-348X,Vol.13,No.3,inJuly2018.

2.1 AbstractTheallegeddichotomybetweenmindandmatter ispervasive.Therefore, theattempt to explainmatter in terms of mind (idealism) is often considered amirror image of that of explaining mind in terms of matter (mainstreamphysicalism), in the sense of being structurally equivalent despite beingreverselyarranged.Iarguethatthisisanerrorarisingfromlanguageartifacts,for dichotomiesmust reside in the same level of abstraction. Becausematteroutsidemindisnotanempiricalobservationbutratheranexplanatorymodel,theepistemicsymmetrybetweenthetwoisbroken.Consequently,matterandmindcannotresideinthesamelevelofabstraction.Itthenbecomesclearthatattemptingtoexplainmindintermsofmatterisepistemicallymorecostlythanattempting to explain matter in terms of mind. The paper highlights theprimacy of perceptual constructs over explanatory abstraction on bothepistemicandonticlevels.

2.2 IntroductionThe(unexamined)assumptionthatmindandmatterarejointlyexhaustiveandmutuallyexclusiveconcepts ispervasivetoday.Inotherwords,manyscholarsimplicitly take every aspect of existence to be either mental (e.g. thoughts,emotions, hallucinations) or physical (e.g. tables and chairs), mentality andphysicality being polar opposites in some sense. Originating with RenéDescartes and Immanuel Kant (Walls 2003: 130), this dichotomy has beenfirmly entrenched in Western thought since at least the early nineteenthcentury. Eminent scholarly publications of the time, such as The BritishCyclopædia of Natural History, lay it out unambiguously: “as mind is theopposite of matter in definition, the perfection of its exercise must be theoppositeofthatoftheexerciseofmatter”(Partington1837:161).Fromtheearlytwentiethcenturyonwards,morenuancedformulationsofthedichotomywereproposed.AlfredNorthWhitehead (1947), for instance, consideredmind andmatter co-dependent opposites. EvenHenri Bergson, whose conception of anélanvitalwasmeanttodilutetheCartesiansplit,wascarefulnottocompletelyeradicatethedichotomy(Catani2013:94).

Indeed, this trend towards more nuanced formulations endures to this day.PhilosopherDavidChalmers,forinstance,wrotethatthe“failureofmaterialismleadstoakindofdualism:therearebothphysicalandnonphysical[i.e.mental]featuresoftheworld”(1996:124).Hespeaksofpropertydualism(ibid.: 125)to


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distinguish it from the discredited substance dualism of Descartes.Nonetheless,theessenceofthedichotomypersistsintact.Publicendorsementsofpropertydualismbyinfluentialsciencespokespeople,suchasneuroscientistsChristof Koch (2012a: 152) and Sam Harris,1lend academic legitimacy to it.Harris, for instance, claims that mind and matter each represent “half ofreality,”makingthe implicitassumptionthat theyhavecomparableepistemicstatus(thatis,thatmatterisasconfidentlyknowableasmind).Sopervasiveisthisassumptionthatithasbecomeintegraltooursharedculturalintuitions.

Whilstafundamentaldichotomybetweenmindandmatterisreadilyacceptedby large segments of the population—perhaps for psychological reasons(Heflick et al. 2015)—in philosophical circles the corresponding dualism isproperly regarded as unparsimonious. For this reason, philosophy hashistorically attempted to explain one member of the alleged dichotomy intermsof theother.Theontologyof idealism, for instance,attemptstoreduce“all sense data to mental contents” (Tarnas 2010: 335), whereas mainstreamphysicalism—perhaps better labelled as ‘materialism,’ but which I shallcontinue to refer to as ‘mainstream physicalism’ for the sake of consistencywithsomeoftherelevantliterature—attemptstoreduceallmentalcontentstomaterialarrangements(Stoljar2016).Tobemorespecific,idealismentailsthatmind is nature’s fundamental ontological ground, everything else beingreducible to, or grounded in, mind, whereas mainstream physicalism positsthat nature’s fundamental ontological ground is matter outside andindependent of mind, everything else being reducible to, or grounded in,matter.

Theproblemisthattheingrainedculturalintuitionthatmindandmatterhavecomparable epistemic status tends to creep—unexamined—even intophilosophical thought, leading to the tacit conclusion that idealism andmainstreamphysicalismaremirrorimagesofeachother,inthesenseofbeingstructurallyequivalentdespitebeingreverselyarranged.Inthepresentessay,Icontend that this tacit conclusion is false because it overlooks importantepistemicconsiderations:wedonot—andfundamentallycannot—knowmatterasconfidentlyasweknowmind.Byincorrectlypositingthatidealismincursanepistemiccostcomparabletothatofmainstreamphysicalisminat leastsomeimportant sense, the tacit conclusion undervalues idealism and overvaluesphysicalism. This confusionmay be a key enabler of physicalism’s success inunderpinning our present-day mainstream worldview. Once the tacitconclusion is properly examined and rectified, as attempted in this essay,idealism may emerge as a more plausible ontology than mainstreamphysicalism,atleastintermsofitsepistemiccost.

Like Gilbert Ryle (2009), I argue that mind and matter do not form adichotomy.Myargument,however,doesnotdepend—asRyle’scontroversially

1SeeHarris’svideotitled“YouAreMoreThanYourBrain”onBigThink,4September2016, available athttps://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom/videos/10153879575418527/.



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does (Webster 1995: 483)—on equating mind with behaviours. Indeed, Ryleattemptstorefutetheallegeddichotomybyeffectivelyrelegatingmindtothestatus ofmere illusion (ibid: 461).My argument, instead, rests on the notionthat mind and matter are not epistemically symmetrical—a concept I shallformallydefine in section2.5—asmembersofadichotomymustbe. Idonotdeny mind, because it is epistemically primary: all knowledge presupposesmind.

That the notion of physically objective matter—that is, matter outside andindependent of mind—is now largely taken for granted suggests culturalacclimatization to what is a mere hypothesis. After all, physically objectivematter is not empirically observable, but a conceptual explanatory deviceabstractedfromthepatternsandregularitiesofempiricalobservations—thatis,an explanatory abstraction (Glasersfeld 1987; more on this in section 2.4).Indeed, there seems to be a growing tendency in science today to mistakeexplanatory abstraction forwhat is available to us empirically. This has beenextensively documented before, but mostly in regard to clearly speculativeideas such as superstring theory and multiverse cosmologies (Smolin 2007).Whenitcomestotheeverydaynotionofphysicallyobjectivematter,however,manyfailtoseethesameconflationatwork.

Toillustrateandhighlighttheconflationwithanadmittedlyextremeexample,the next section briefly reviews the ontology of pancomputationalism,whichpositsungroundedcomputationastheprimaryelementofexistence(Piccinini2015). Indeed, the idea of replacing physicalism with onticpancomputationalismshouldprovideavisceraldemonstrationoftheepistemiccost of substituting explanatory abstraction for empirical observation. In thiscontext,mysuggestionisthatananalogousepistemicdisparityexistsbetweenidealismandmainstreamphysicalism.Inotherwords,ifoneisconvincedthatonticpancomputationalismisabsurdincomparisontophysicalism,then—andonthesamebasis—onehasreasontoquestiontheplausibilityofmainstreamphysicalismincomparisontoidealism.

Section 2.4 then elaborates more systematically on the different planes ofabstractexplanationsusedinscienceandphilosophy.Itprovidesthebasisfortherefutationoftheallegeddichotomybetweenmindandmatterlatercarriedout in section2.5,which forms thecoreof this essay.Finally, theConclusionsumsitallup.

Before we start, however, some terminology clarifications are needed.Throughout this essay, I use the word ‘mind’ in the sense of phenomenalconsciousness. Following Thomas Nagel’s (1974) original definition of thelatter—whichhassincebeenfurtherpopularizedbyChalmers(1996,2003)—Istipulatethat,ifthereisanythingitisliketobeacertainentity,thentheentityisminded.Assuch,mind—asthewordisusedhere—isepistemicallyprimary,anassertion furthersubstantiated insection2.4. In thissense,minddoesnotnecessarily entail higher-level functions such as metacognition—that is, theknowledgeofone’sknowledge(Schooler2002:340)—orevenaconscioussenseof self as distinct from the world. It necessarily entails only the presence of


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phenomenal properties, in that it is defined as the substrate or ground ofexperience. Moreover, insofar as what we call ‘concreteness’ is itself aphenomenal property associated with the degree of clarity or vividness ofexperience,mind is the solegroundof concreteness.Anythingallegedlynon-mentalcannot,bydefinition,beconcrete,butisabstractinstead,inthesenseoflackingphenomenalproperties.

Iamwellawarethattheword ‘mind’ isusedinentirelydifferentways—oftendecoupled fromexperience—inother contexts, such as philosophyof biology(Godfrey-Smith 2014) and artificial intelligence (Franklin 1997). Yet, I believetheusageIamdefininghereisadequateforthecontextofthepresentpaper.Andgiventhisusage,experiencecanbecoherentlyregardedasanexcitationofmind,whereasmindcanbecoherentlyregardedasthesubstrateorgroundofexperience.

2.3 TheepistemiccostofexplanationbyabstractionBy postulating a material world outside mind and obeying laws of physics,physicalism can accommodate the patterns and regularities of perceptualexperience.Butitfailstoaccommodateexperienceitself.Thisiscalledthe‘hardproblemofconsciousness’andthere isnowavast literatureon it (e.g.Levine1983,Rosenberg2004: 13-30andStrawsonet al.2006:2-30). Inanutshell, thequalities of experience are irreducible to the parameters of materialarrangements—whateverthearrangementis—inthesensethatitisimpossible,even inprinciple, todeduce thosequalities from theseparameters (Chalmers2003).

As I elaborate in section 2.5, the “hard problem” is not merely hard, butfundamentally insoluble,arisingas itdoesfromtheveryfailuretodistinguishexplanatoryabstractionfromempiricalobservationdiscussedinthispaper.Assuch, it implies that we cannot, even in principle, explain mind in terms ofmatter. But because the contemporary cultural ethos entails the notion thatmind andmatter constitute a dichotomy, onemay feel tempted to concludethatthereshouldalsobeasymmetrical‘hardproblemofmatter’—thatis,thatwe shouldnot, even inprinciple,beable toexplainmatter in termsofmind.The natural next step in this flawed line of reasoning is to look for morefundamental ontological ground preceding both mind and matter; a thirdsubstratetowhichmatterandmindcouldbothbereduced.

A good example of this line of reasoning is brought by onticpancomputationalism,whichpositsthatungroundedinformationprocessingiswhatmakesup theuniverseat itsmost fundamental level (Fredkin2003).Assuch, ontic pancomputationalism entails that computation precedes matterontologically.But “if computationsarenotconfigurationsofphysicalentities,themost obvious alternative is that computations are abstract,mathematicalentities, like numbers and sets” (Piccinini 2015). According to ontic



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pancomputationalism, even mind itself—psyche, soul—is a derivativephenomenonofpurelyabstractinformationprocessing.2

To gain a sense of the epistemic cost of this line of reasoning, consider thepositionofphysicistMaxTegmark (2014).According tohim, “protons,atoms,molecules, cells and stars” are all redundant “baggage” (ibid: 255). Only themathematicalparametersusedtodescribethebehaviourofmatterarereal.Inother words, Tegmark posits that the universe consists purely of numbers—ungrounded information—but nothing to attach these numbers to. Theuniversesupposedlyisa“setofabstractentitieswithrelationsbetweenthem,”which “can be described in a baggage-independent way” (ibid: 267). Heattributesallontologicalvaluetoadescriptionwhile—paradoxically—denyingtheexistenceoftheverythingthatisdescribedinthefirstplace.

Clearly, ontic pancomputationalism represents total commitment to abstractmathematical concepts as the foundation of existence. According to it, thereareonlynumbersandsets.Butwhatarenumbersandsetswithoutthemindormatter where they could reside? It is one thing to state in language thatnumbers and sets can existwithoutmindandmatter, but it is another thingentirely to explicitly and coherently conceive ofwhat—if anything—thismaymean.Bywayofanalogy,itispossibletowrite—asLewisCarroldid—thattheCheshire Cat’s grin remains after the cat disappears, but it is another thingentirelytoconceiveexplicitlyandcoherentlyofwhatthismeans.

Ontic pancomputationalism appeals to ungrounded information—purenumbers,mathematicaldescriptions—asontologicalprimitive, i.e.,asthesolefundamentalaspectofexistence.Butwhatexactlyisinformation?OurintuitiveunderstandingoftheconcepthasbeencogentlycapturedandmadeexplicitbyClaudeShannon(1948):informationisgivenbystatedifferencesdiscernibleina system. As such, it is a propertyof a system—associatedwith the system’spossible configurations—not an entity or ontological class unto itself. Undermainstream physicalism—that is, materialism—the system whoseconfigurations constitute information is a material arrangement, such as acomputer. Under idealism, it is mind, for experience entails differentphenomenal states that can be qualitatively discerned from one another.Hence,informationrequiresamentalormaterialsubstrateinordertobeevenconceivedofexplicitlyandcoherently.Tosaythatinformationexistsinandofitselfisakintospeakingofspinwithoutthetop,ofrippleswithoutwater,ofadancewithoutthedancer,oroftheCheshireCat’sgrinwithoutthecat.Itisagrammaticallyvalidstatementdevoidofanysemanticvalue:a languagegamelessmeaningful than fantasy, for internally consistent fantasy can at least beexplicitlyandcoherentlyconceivedofand,thereby,knownassuch.Butinwhatwaycanweknowinformationuncouchedinmindormatter?

One assumes that serious proponents of ontic pancomputationalism arewellawareofthis lineofcriticism.Howdotheythenreconciletheirpositionwith 2 See Fredkin’s online draft paper titled “On the Soul,” available at:http://www.digitalphilosophy.org//wp-content/uploads/2015/07/on_the_soul.pdf.


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it? A passage by Luciano Floridi—well-known advocate of information asontological primitive—may provide a clue. In a section titled “The nature ofinformation,”hestates:

Information is notoriously a polymorphic phenomenon and apolysemantic concept so, as an explicandum, it canbe associatedwithseveralexplanations,dependingonthelevelofabstractionadoptedandthe cluster of requirements and desiderata orientating a theory. …Information remains an elusive concept. (Floridi 2008: 117, emphasisadded)

Suchambiguitylendsonticpancomputationalismakindofconceptualfluiditythat renders it impossible to pin down. After all, if the choice of ontologicalprimitiveisgivenby“anelusiveconcept,”howcanonedefinitelyestablishthatthe choice iswrong? In admitting the possibility that informationmay be “anetworkof logically interdependentbutmutually irreducible concepts” (ibid.:120),Floridiseemstosuggest,even,thatsuchelusivenessmaybeunresolvable.

While vaguenessmay be defensible in regard to natural entities conceivablybeyondthehumanabilitytoapprehend,itisatleastdifficulttojustifywhenitcomestoahumanconceptsuchasinformation.Weinventedtheconcept,soweeitherspecifyclearlywhatwemeanbyitorourconceptualizationremainstooambiguous tobeontologicallymeaningful. In the latter case, there is literallyno sense in attributing ontological value to information and, hence, onticpancomputationalismis—onceagain—strictlymeaningless.

Although ontic pancomputationalism is an admittedly extreme example, ananalogous attempt to reduce concreteness—that is, the felt presence ofconscious perception (Merleau-Ponty 1964)—tomere explanatory abstractionlies behind both mainstream physicalism and the alleged mind-matterdichotomy,asIshallargueinthenextsection.Attherootofthisconcerningstate of affairs is a generalized failure to recognize that every step ofexplanatory abstraction away from the concreteness of conscious perceptionimplies a reduction in epistemic confidence: we do not know that abstractconceptualobjectsexistwiththesamelevelofconfidencethatwedoknowthatour perceptions—whatever their source or underlying ontic naturemay be—exist.IdonotknowthatsubatomicparticlesoutsideandindependentofmindexistwiththesamelevelofconfidencethatIdoknowthatthechairIamsittingon,whichIamdirectlyacquaintedwiththroughconsciousperception,exists.Worsestill,withwhatconfidencecanweknowthatalooselydefined,possiblyincoherentconcept suchasungrounded information liesat the foundationofexistence?Assuch,stepsofexplanatoryabstractioncanonlybejustifiediftherelevant empirical observations cannot be explained without them, lest weconflate scienceandphilosophywithmeaningless languagegames.This is animportantclaim,soallowmetodwellonitalittlelongerbeforeproceedingtothenextsection.

It could be argued that the existence of perceptual illusions indicates thatconscious perception entails less epistemic confidence than abstract formalsystems.Forinstance,inthewell-known“checkershadow”illusioncreatedby



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the Perceptual Science Group of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,two identically coloured squares—A and B—of a checkerboard are initiallyperceivedtobeofoppositecoloursbecauseofthedifferentcontexts inwhichthey are perceived (see Figure 2.1). Should we then declare that consciousperception is fundamentally unreliable?Well, notice that it is also consciousperceptionthateventuallydispels the illusion:bylookingatoneofthesquaresasitismovedtotheother’scontext,oneseesthatitindeedhasthesamecolourastheothersquare.Soeveninthecaseofperceptualillusions,itisstilldirect,concreteexperience thatprovidesuswith theepistemicconfidencenecessarytorecognizetheillusionforwhatitis.

Figure2.1:The“checkershadow”illusion.Despiteappearancestothecontrary,squaresAandBarethesameshadeofgrey.

Further supporting the claim that abstracting away from direct experienceimplies a reduction in epistemic confidence is the anti-realist view inphilosophy of science. According to it, abstract theoretical entities—such assubatomicparticles,invisiblefieldsandanyotherpostulatedentitythatescapesourability todirectlyperceive—arebut“convenient fictions,designedtohelppredictthebehaviourofthingsintheobservableworld”(Okasha2002:61;seealsovanFraassen1990). Inotherwords, thebestwecansayaboutsubatomicparticlesandotherabstractentities is that theobservableworldbehavesas ifthese abstract entities existed. This does not entail or imply that the entitiesexistassuch,whichwecannotbecertainofeitherway(vanFraassen1980).Inthis sense, explanatory abstraction again implies reduction in epistemicconfidence, insofar aswe donot know that subatomic particles and invisiblefieldsexistwiththesamelevelofconfidencethatwedoknowthattheworldweconsciouslyperceiveexists.


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2.4 LevelsofexplanatoryabstractionLikeonticpancomputationalism,mainstreamphysicalismisnostrangertotheepistemic cost of explanatory abstraction: the existence of a material worldoutside and independent of mind is a theoretical inference arising frominterpretationofsenseperceptionswithinaframeworkofcomplexthought,notan empirical observation. After all, what we call the world is available to ussolely as ‘images’—defined here broadly, so as to include any sensorymodality—on the screen of perception,which is itselfmental. Even physicistAndrei Linde, one of the founders of the theory of cosmic inflation,acknowledged this in a 1998 talk titled “Universe, Life, Consciousness,”delivered at the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS),Berkeley,California:3

Let us remember that our knowledge of the world begins not withmatter but with perceptions. I know for sure thatmy pain exists, my‘green’exists,andmy ‘sweet’ exists…everythingelse isa theory.Laterwe find out that our perceptions obey some laws, which can bemostconveniently formulated if we assume that there is some underlyingreality beyond our perceptions. Thismodel ofmaterial world obeyinglaws of physics is so successful that soonwe forget about our startingpoint and say thatmatter is the only reality, andperceptions are onlyhelpfulforitsdescription.

Now,weknow thatmind is capableof autonomouslygenerating the imagerywe associate with matter: dreams and hallucinations, for instance, are oftenqualitatively indistinguishable from the so-called ‘real world.’ Therefore, themotivation for postulating an objective material world must go beyond themereexistenceofthisimagery.Andindeed,whatthenotionofobjectivematterattemptstomakesenseofarecertainpatternsandregularitiesobservableintheimagery,suchas:

• Thecorrelationsbetweenobservedbrainactivityandreportedinnerlife(see, e.g. Koch 2004 for a scientific take on the neural correlates ofconsciousness, but consider also the obvious effects of e.g. alcoholconsumption and head trauma—both of which disrupt regular brainactivity—oninnerexperience);

• Theobservationthatweallseemtoinhabitthesameworld;and• Theobservationthatthedynamicsofthisworldunfoldindependentlyof

ourpersonalvolition.

Afterall,ifmindisnotaproductofobjectivearrangementsofmatter,howcantherebe such tight correlationsbetweenbrainactivity andexperience? If theworldisnotmadeofmatteroutsideourindividualminds,howcanweallsharethesameworldbeyondourselves?Iftheworldisnotindependentofmind,whycanwenotchangethelawsofnaturesimplybyimaginingthemtobedifferent? 3At the time of this writing the transcript of this talk was available online at:http://web.stanford.edu/~alinde/SpirQuest.doc.



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Clearly, thus, the non-mental world posited by physicalism is largely anattempt to make sense of these three basic observations. As such, it is anexplanatory abstraction, not itself an observation. We conceptually imaginethat there is a non-mental world underlying our perceptions—and in somesense isomorphic to these perceptions—because doing so helps explain thebasic observations (seeFigure 2.2).Nonetheless,whatever ontological class ispointed to by this conceptual abstraction remains perforce epistemicallyinaccessible,arecognitionalreadypresentinImmanuelKant’sCritiqueofPureReason.

Figure2.2:Levelsofexplanatoryabstraction.Greyanddottedpartsrepresentstepsofabstraction.

Explanatoryabstractiondoesnotstopatthisfirstlevel.Afterimagininganon-mental world isomorphic to our perceptions, we are left with the task ofexplaininghowandwhythisworldbehavesthewayitdoes.Whydoobjectsfallwhendropped?Whydoes a piece of amber attract chaffwhen rubbed?Howcan certain metals magnetically attract other metals? To answer thesequestions,wemust attribute to thematerialworld certain properties that gobeyond perceptual isomorphism. We say, for instance, that matter has thepropertiesofmass,chargeandspin.Thesepropertiesconstituteasecond-levelofexplanatoryabstractionbeyonddirectexperience(seeFigure2.2again).

Naturally, there can be evenmore levels of explanatory abstraction involved.Superstring theory, for instance, attempts to explain the properties ofmatterthrough the particular modes of vibration of imagined hyper-dimensionalstrings(Greene2003).ButthetwolevelsillustratedinFigure2.2aresufficientforthediscussionthatfollows.

The defining characteristic of explanation by abstraction is a progressivemovement away from Edmund Husserl’s (1970) “life-world,” from theconcretenessofdirectexperience.First,onepositsaworlddevoidofqualities(Varela,ThompsonandRosch 1993)and,assuch,devoidofconcreteness too,

Mind Materialworld

Proper.esofthematerialworld

First-levelofabstrac.on(perceptualisomorphism)

Second-levelofabstrac.on(extraproper.esa>ributed)

Explainsbehaviorofthematerialworld

Explainsbasicobserva.onsonthescreenofpercep.on


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for concreteness is aqualityof experience.Then,oneprogressively loads thisworld with properties that entail no direct isomorphism to experience. Forinstance,wedonot see electric charge or spin;weonly see thebehaviour ofmatterthattheseabstractpropertiessupposedlyexplain,suchasattractionandrepulsion.Similarly,wedonotfeelmass;weonlyfeeltheweightandinertiaofobjects,whichthepropertyofhavingmasssupposedlyexplains(Okasha2002:58-76).

Becauseconcretenessistheintuitivefoundationofwhatweconsiderreal,eachstepinthismovementawayfromconcretenesstakesusfartherfromwhatweintuitivelysensetobereal(Merleau-Ponty1964).Onemaythenbecomelostina forestof intellectuallyappealingbutultimatelyarbitraryconceptualizations.This,again,istheepistemiccostofexplanationbyabstraction.

2.5 Dispellingthemind-matterdichotomyBy definition, the two members of a dichotomy are jointly exhaustive andmutually exclusive.Ontologically, thismeans that if onemember is the case,then theother isnecessarilynot thecase,andvice-versa.For instance, in thecontextofbiologicalorganisms,iflifeisnotthecase,thendeathisnecessarilythe case. In the context of a job application, if success is the case (i.e. theapplicantgetsthejob),thenfailureisnotthecase.Andsoon.Assuch,asingletestsufficestoacquireknowledgeabouttheontologicalstatusofbothmembersofadichotomy.IfIcanperformatesttodetermineifapersonisalive,thenIwillautomaticallyknowwhetherthepersonisdead,withouthavingtotestfordeathseparately.IfIcansetacriterionforsuccess,thenthatsamecriterionwillautomaticallydeterminewhetherfailureisthecase,withoutmyhavingtosetaseparatecriterionforfailure.Andsoon.Ishallcallthispropertyofadichotomyepistemic symmetry. When two concepts are epistemically symmetrical,knowledgeofoneimpliesknowledgeoftheother.

Nownoticethatepistemicsymmetrycanonlyhold forconcepts residing in thesamelevelofexplanatoryabstraction.Iftheydonot,thentherenecessarilyisatleastoneextrainferentialstepnecessarytoknowwhetheroneoftheconceptsobtains.This breaks the symmetry, for thenwe cannot acquire knowledgeoftheontologicalstatusofbothconceptswithasingletest.

Hereisanexample:thepresenceofanegativefeelingcanbetestedfordirectlythroughintrospection—thusentailingnoinferentialsteps—whereastestingforthepresenceofapositiveelectricchargerequiresaninferencebyobservationof the associated behaviour of matter. Because of this need for an extrainferential step, knowing thenegative feeling cannot imply knowledge of thepositiveelectriccharge.Thenegativefeelingandthepositiveelectricchargearenot,therefore,epistemicallysymmetricalandcannotconstituteadichotomy.

Conversely,positiveandnegativeelectricchargesarebothpropertiesofmatter,residinginthesecondlevelofexplanatoryabstractionillustratedinFigure2.2.As such, they are epistemically symmetrical and can constitute a dichotomy.Indeed,everylevelofexplanatoryabstractioncanencompassdichotomies.For



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instance, thesizeofmaterialobjects is isomorphictoperceptualqualities:wecan subjectively testwhether an object is big or small in relation to anotherobject. As such, bigness and smallness both reside in the first level ofexplanatoryabstractionandareepistemicallysymmetrical;theycanconstituteadichotomy(seeFigure2.3).

Figure2.3:Dichotomiesintheirrespectivelevelsofexplanatoryabstraction.

But—andhereisthekeypoint—mindandmatterdonotresideinthesamelevelof explanatory abstraction. Mind—as defined in Section 2.2—is the groundwithinwhich, andoutofwhich, abstractionsaremade.Matter, in turn, is anabstractionofmind(seeFigure2.2again).Thisbreakstheepistemicsymmetrybetween them:wedonotknowmatter in the sameway thatweknowmind,for—ascogentlyarguedbyLinde in theearlierquote—matter is an inferenceand mind a given. Consequently, although mind can encompass polaropposites—such as the feelings of love and fear in the context of a situationwhere someone feels passionate about a particular aspect of someone else(assumingthatotherpassions, suchashate,which isarguablya formof fear,areparticularinstancesofloveorfear)—itcannotitselfbethepolaroppositeofmatter ormatter’s properties. It follows that we have no reason to concludethatreducingmattertomindisaschallengingasreducingmindtomatter,andthere is thus no substantiation for a ‘hard problem of mind.’ Stronger still,insofar as what we call ‘matter’ can be parsimoniously construed asphenomenalpatternsofexcitationofmind,matterisonanepistemicparwithmindandcan,inprinciple,bereducedtothelatter,forbothalreadyresideinthesameontologicaldomain.Thismovetakesminditselftobeanontologicalprimitive and eliminates any conceivable ‘hardproblemofmind,’ sincemindnowdoesnotneedtobereduced.

Thenotionofadichotomybetweenmindandmatterarisesfromlanguage.Inordertospeakof thesubstrateofexperiencewemustgive itaname,suchas‘mind’or ‘consciousness,’ thereby linguisticallyobjectifying the subject.Then,we conflate language with what language attempts to describe, implicitlyassumingthatmindisanobjectjustasmatterallegedlyis.Weforgetthatthereisnoepistemicsymmetrybetweenthetwo.

Materialworld

Proper.esofthematerialworldMind

Posi.vechargevs.

Nega.vecharge

Bigvs.

Small

Lovevs.Fear


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Indeed, because the concept ofmind-independentmatter, as an explanatoryabstraction, arises inmind, as an ‘excitation’ of mind, to say that mind andmatter constitute a dichotomy is akin to saying that ripples and waterconstituteadichotomy.4Dichotomiescanexistonlybetweendifferentkindsofripples—say,thosethatflowmostlytotherightversusthosethatflowmostlyto the left—notbetweenripplesand thesubstratewhere they ripple.Mind isthesubstrateoftheexplanatoryabstractionwecallmatter,sowhenwespeakofamind-matterdichotomywefall intoafundamental“categorymistake,”asRyle(2009)putit.However,contrarytowhatRylesuggests, it ismatterthatistheabstraction,notmind.

The notion that idealism and mainstream physicalism are mirror images ofeach other arises from a failure to grasp this point. Lucid contemplation ofthese ontologies shows that idealism attempts to reduce an explanatoryabstraction(physicallyobjectivematter)tothatwhicharticulatesandhoststheabstractioninthefirstplace(mind).Thisisprima facieeminentlyreasonable.Mainstream physicalism, in turn, attempts to reduce mind to mind’s ownexplanatory abstractions, an obvious paradox that constitutes the crux of the‘hardproblem.’

There would be no ‘hard problem’ if one did not conflate explanatoryabstractions with concrete ontological primitives, if one did not attempt toparadoxically reducemind toabstractionsofmind.The ‘hardproblem’ isnotsomethingempiricallyobservedbutthesalientresultofinternalcontradictionsinalogico-conceptualschema;contradictionsthatIhopetohavehelpedmakeexplicitwiththepresentpaper.

Naturally, circumventing the ‘hard problem’ in the way suggested aboveultimately forces us tomake dowithmind alone as an ontological primitiveand thereby entertain some form of idealism—more specifically, a form ofidealismwhereinmind is the experientially givengroundof existence,whosemanifestations comprise the concrete phenomenality you and I undergo ineveryday life. And whereas idealism in the West has had its heyday in theeighteenth(e.g.Berkeley)andearlynineteenth(e.g.Hegel)centuries,itisnowenjoying renewed interest (Chalmers 2018) for having been updated andrevitalizedwith compelling new formulations (e.g. Kastrup 2017b and 2017e,5Yetter-Chappell 2018, aswell as Fields et al. 2017, insofar as the latter canbeconstrued as a form of idealism). These are sometimes proposed under newnames, suchas ‘cosmopsychism’ (e.g.Shani2015,NagasawaandWager2016),which, as thename suggests, posits that the cosmos as awhole is essentially

4AllowmetoinsistonanobservationalreadymadeinSection1.4:thisisanepistemicpoint.Mind-independentmattercanonlybeknownasaconceptthatarisesinmind,forwe have no direct access to the hypothesized ontological category the conceptdenotes. Therefore, insofar as we can know it, mind-independent matter is anexcitationofmindand, as such, cannot formadichotomywithmind for the samereasonthatripplescannotformadichotomywithwater.

5SeealsoChapter3ofthisdissertation.



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phenomenal. Even ‘radical constructivism’ can be construed as a form ofidealism, insofar as its claims are not merely epistemic, but ontic: “Radicalconstructivism…developsatheoryofknowledgeinwhichknowledgedoesnotreflect an ‘objective’ ontological reality, but exclusively an ordering andorganization of a world constituted by our experience” (Glasersfeld 1987: 24,emphasis added). Finally, the strongest objections usually leveraged againstidealismhaverecentlyalsobeentackled(Kastrup2017c6).

Having said all this, it should be noted that, in and of itself, the argumentprovided in this paper, despite being supportive of idealism, does notnecessarilyimplyidealism.Ihavefocusedonepistemiccostconsiderationsanddidnot showwhether orhow idealismcan account for all relevant empiricalobservationswemakeofnature.Indeed,anarticulationofanidealistontologyisnotwithinthescopeofthispaper.Butifitisdemonstrated—assomeofthepapers cited above claim to do—that idealism can account for all empiricalobservations that mainstream physicalism allegedly accounts for, thenepistemic cost considerations certainly tilt the balance in favour of idealism,due to the latter’s lack of reliance on inflationary, epistemically unreliable,paradoxicalabstractions.As such, thecoreclaimof thisessay isnot somuchthe validity of idealism as that physically objective matter is a doubtfulcognitiveconstruct,inthestrictconstructivistsense:insofaraswebelievetoseematter outside and independent ofmindwhenwe look at theworld aroundourselves, we are conflating a rational-linguistic construction with what isempiricallyobserved.

2.6 ConclusionThepervasivebutunexaminedassumptionthatmindandmatterconstituteadichotomyisanerrorarisingfromlanguageartifacts.Membersofdichotomiesmust be epistemically symmetrical and, therefore, reside in the same level ofabstraction. Physically objective matter—as an explanatory model—is anabstractionofmind.Wedonotknowmatter in the sameway thatwe knowmind, formatter is an inferenceandmindagiven.Thisbreaks theepistemicsymmetry between the two and implies that mainstream physicalism andidealismcannotbemirrorimagesofeachother.

Failuretorecognizethatdifferentlevelsofepistemicconfidenceareintrinsictodifferent levelsofexplanatoryabstractionliesattherootnotonlyofthefalsemind-matter dichotomy, but also of attempts to make sense of the worldthrough increasingly ungrounded explanatory abstractions. Lest we conflatescienceandphilosophywithhollowlanguagegames,wemustneverlosesightof the difference between an abstract inference and a direct observation.Keepingthisdistinctioninmindallowsustoconstructusefulpredictivemodelsof nature’s behaviour—which ultimately is what science is meant to do—without restrictive and ultimately fallacious inferences about what nature is.

6SeeChapter4ofthisdissertation.


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This, inturn, liberatesusfromthoughtartifactssuchasthe“hardproblemofconsciousness”andopensupwholenewavenuesformakingsenseofselfandworld.


3. TheUniverseinConsciousness

This paper first appeared in the Journal of Consciousness Studies, ISSN 1355-8250(print),Vol.25,No.5-6,pp. 125-155, in June2018.Asummaryof itscoreideahasappearedinScientificAmericanon18June2018.1

3.1 AbstractI propose an idealist ontology that makes sense of reality in a moreparsimonious and empirically rigorousmanner thanmainstreamphysicalism,bottom-up panpsychism and cosmopsychism. The proposed ontology alsooffersmoreexplanatorypowerthanthesethreealternatives,inthatitdoesnotfallpreytothehardproblemofconsciousness,thecombinationproblemorthedecombinationproblem,respectively.Itcanbesummarizedasfollows:thereisonly cosmic consciousness.We, aswell as all other living organisms, are butdissociated alters of cosmic consciousness, surrounded by its thoughts. Theinanimate world we see around us is the extrinsic appearance of thesethoughts. The living organisms we share the world with are the extrinsicappearancesofotherdissociatedalters.

3.2 BriefintroductionThis paper seeks to articulate an ontology that overcomes the principallimitations of the most popular alternatives. The first half of the papercomprisesadetailedanalysisofrelevantliterature,highlightingwhatadvanceshave been made and what problems have been created or left unsolved byrecentdevelopments inanalyticphilosophy. In the secondhalf, starting fromwhatIconsidertobethemostpromisingcurrentplatform,Iproposeanidealistframeworkthatmayopenviablenewavenuesforaddressingthekeyquestionsleftunansweredbythiscurrentplatform.Attheend,Ihopetoofferacoherentview of the nature of reality that accounts for all relevant facts withoutincurringanyfundamentalproblem.

3.3 ThemainstreamphysicalistontologyanditsproblemsThemainstream ontology of physicalism posits that reality is constituted byirreducible entities—which, like Galen Strawson (2006: 9), I shall call‘ultimates’—outside and independent of phenomenal consciousness. Theseultimates, in and of themselves, do not instantiate phenomenal properties:there is nothing it is like to be an ultimate, the capacity for experience

1Atthetimeofthiswriting,theScientificAmericanessaywasfreelyavailableonlineat:https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/could-multiple-personality-disorder-explain-life-the-universe-and-everything/.


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emergingonlyatthelevelofcomplexarrangementsofultimates.Theyarealsosometimesheldtolackobjectivequalities:inandofthemselves,ultimatesmayhavenocolor, flavor,smell,etc.Indeed,accordingtomainstreamphysicalismqualitiesmayexistonly in thephenomenal fieldof theexperiencer,which inturnisaproductoftheoperationofasufficientlycomplexnervoussystem.Itisthe specific arrangement of ultimates in a nervous system that, allegedly,somehowconstitutesorgeneratesitsphenomenalproperties.

The key problem of mainstream physicalism centers on how our subjectiveexperienceofqualities—whatitisliketofeelthewarmthoffire,therednessofan apple, the bitterness of disappointment, etc.—can arise from merearrangements of ultimates. These ultimates do possess abstract relationalproperties such as mass, spin, momentum and charge, but there is nothingabout mass, spin, momentum or charge, or the relative positions andinteractions across ultimates, in terms of which one could deduce what thewarmthoffire,therednessofanappleorthebitternessofdisappointmentfeellike, subjectively. As long as they fit with the broadly observed correlationsbetweenneuralactivityandreportedexperience,mappingsbetweenthesetwodomainsareentirelyarbitrary:inprinciple,itisas(in)validtostatethatspinupconstitutes or generates the phenomenal property ‘coldness’ and spin down‘warmth’ as it is to say the exact opposite. There is nothing intrinsic aboutspin—oraboutanyotherpropertyofultimatesorarrangementsthereof—thatwouldallowustomakethedistinction.

This central—and arguably insoluble—problem has been referred to bydifferentnames,suchasthe‘explanatorygap’(Levine1983)and,morerecently,the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ (Chalmers 1996, 2003): the qualities ofexperience are irreducible to the observable parameters of physicalarrangements—whatever the arrangement may be—in the sense that it isimpossibleeven inprinciple todeduce thosequalities fromtheseparameters.More generally, the argument here is that there is no entailment from factsaboutultimatestofactsaboutexperience:thereisnofactaboutultimatesthatimpliesaprioriafactaboutexperience.

GregRosenberg(2004:13–30)articulatedwhatisperhapsthebestrefutationofentailmentfromfactsaboutultimatestofactsaboutexperience.Hisargumentbeginswiththerecognitionthatallfactsaboutultimatesaremerelypatternsofbaredifferences.This echoesBertrandRussell’s point (2009) that science canonlycharacterizethingsandphenomenaintermsofhowtheydifferfromotherthingsandphenomena.Forinstance,anultimatewithpositiveelectricchargeis characterized in terms of how its relevant behavior differs from that of anegativelychargedultimate.Chargeisthusarelationalpropertydefinedonthebasis of bare differences. Nothing can be scientifically stated about what acharge,inandofitself,intrinsicallyis.Thesamecanbearguedaboutallotherfactsaboutultimates.

Rosenberg then proceeds to show that facts about experience—phenomenalproperties—cannot be entailed by patterns of bare differences, even thoughqualitative differences between experiences can admittedly instantiate a



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structure of bare differences. Therefore, phenomenal properties cannot bereducedtofactsaboutultimates.Allowmetounpackthis.

Therearequalitativedifferencesacrossourexperiencesofvariouscolors:whatit is like to see yellow is different from what it is like to see red. Thesequalitative differences can even be graded along relevant dimensions: thequalitative difference between seeing yellow and red seems bigger than thequalitativedifferencebetweenseeingyellowandorange.Ifoneweretoassignanumbertorepresenteachofthesedegreesofdifference,onecouldabstractoutapurelyquantitative—thatis,bare—differencestructurefromtheexperiencesof seeing various colors. However, that a bare difference structure can beabstracted out fromphenomenal properties does not imply that phenomenalpropertiesareentailedbybaredifferencestructures.Maintainingsoinvertsthelogicofthesituation: it isphenomenalpropertiesthatgroundbaredifferencestructuresinthefirstplace.

Tobringthispointhome,Rosenbergoffersthefollowingthoughtexperiment:imagineafieldoftightlypackedyellowandreddots.Ifoneobservesthisfieldfroma sufficientdistance,one sees thecolororange. It could thenbearguedthatthephenomenalproperty‘orange’arisesfromapatternofbaredifferencesassociated with the delta in wavelength between yellow and red photons, aswell as the relative sizeanddistributionof thedots.However, ifonewere tochooseanotherpairof colorswith the samedelta inwavelength—say,yellowand green—and otherwise maintain the same relative structure of dots, aphenomenalpropertydifferentfrom‘orange’wouldresult.Inotherwords,thesamepatternofbaredifferenceswouldyieldadifferentphenomenalproperty.Hence,phenomenalpropertiesarenotentailedbypatternsofbaredifferencesandcannotbereducedtopropertiesandarrangementsofultimates.

This and other arguments along similar lines rendermainstreamphysicalismarguablyuntenable.

3.4 ConsciousnessasanirreduciblepropertyofmatterAtleastsincethetimeofRenéDescartes,themostrecognizablealternativetophysicalism has been ‘substance dualism’: if one cannot reduce phenomenalpropertiestophysicalelements,thenthephenomenalandthephysicalmaybetwo distinct, fundamental ontological classes. There are different versions ofsubstancedualism,butthemostintuitiveoneisarguably‘interactionism’:sincephenomenaleventsseemtocausephysicalevents(asinwhenfeltpaincausesme to movemy arm) and vice versa (as in when a needle piercingmy armcausesmetofeelpain),thenthephenomenalandthephysicalmustbecausallyconnected. However, a problem with interactionism is summarized byChalmers(2016b:23): ifthephysicaldomainiscausallyclosed—asitseemstobeinsofaraswehavebeenabletoascertainthroughthescientificmethod—thencausalinfluencesweintuitivelyattributetothephenomenaldomainmustultimately be, in fact, physical. There is arguably no place for phenomenalproperties in the causal nexus. Possible dualist answers to this have been


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proposedbut,asacknowledgedbyChalmershimself(whoadmitstosympathytowards dualism), “there is at least a prima facie case against dualism here”(ibid.: 24). Chalmers then posits an “Hegelian synthesis” (ibid.) betweenmainstreamphysicalismandsubstancedualism,intheformofthenotionthatultimatesthemselvesmaybefundamentallyconscious.

Indeed, under mainstream physicalism, ultimates are elementary subatomicparticles—quarks, leptons, gauge bosons and scalar boson(s)—with certainfundamental properties. These properties are relational and abstract, such asmass,charge,spinandmomentum.Mainstreamphysicalism’skeyproblem,aswehaveseen,isitsinabilitytoaccountforphenomenalproperties.Sothemoststraightforwardwayoutistopositthatatleastsomeelementaryparticlesalsohave fundamental phenomenal properties. In Strawson’s words, “Assuming,then,thatthereisapluralityofphysicalultimates,someofthematleastmustbeintrinsicallyexperiential,intrinsicallyexperience-involving”(2006:24).

I shall call these experiencing elementary particles ‘phenomenal ultimates’. Ishall also generally refer to thebroadontological outlookdescribed above as‘bottom-up panpsychism,’ even though I am aware that there are manyvariationsof it thatwouldbebetterdiscriminated fromoneanother (suchas‘panexperientialism,’ ‘constitutive micropsychism,’ ‘panprotopsychism,’‘deferentialmonadicpanpsychism,’etc.).Bethatasitmay,thekeygeneralideahereisthat,bypositingphenomenalpropertiestobefundamental,bottom-uppanpsychismevadestheneedtoreducethesepropertiesandtherebyavoidsthehardproblemaltogether.Moreover,bottom-uppanpsychismplacesthesenewfundamental properties seamlessly alongside existing abstract relationalproperties, as the categorical basis of the latter. This neatly integratesphenomenal properties in the framework of scientific thinking, for they nowoccupyaproperplacewithinthecausalnexus.

To see why this seemingly elegant approach nonetheless fails, notice that,accordingtobottom-uppanpsychism,theunitaryphenomenallifeofahumanbeing is supposedly constituted by micro-level phenomenal parts. At somepointintheremotepastphenomenalultimates

organized into increasingly complex forms, both experiential andnon-experiential,bymanyprocessesincludingevolutionbynaturalselection.And justas therewasspectacularenlargementand fine-tuningofnon-experiential forms (the bodies of living things), so too there wasspectacularenlargementandfine-tuningofexperientialforms.(ibid.:27)

However, the idea that micro-level phenomenal states can combine to formunitary macro-level phenomenal states is arguably incoherent. It leads to avariety of ‘combination problems’ (Chalmers 2016a), at least one of which isarguably as insoluble as the hard problem itself (Carruthers and Schechter2006,Goff2006,2009).

Thebestargumentagainstbottom-uppanpsychismisperhapsSamColeman’s(2014). As bottom-up panpsychists themselves seem to agree, “‘experience isimpossiblewithoutanexperiencer,’asubjectofexperience”(Strawson2006:26,



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emphasis added). Therefore, bottom-up panpsychism implies that eachphenomenalultimate,byvirtueofbearingphenomenalproperties,instantiatesa micro-level subject. Moreover, it implies that macro-level subjects with aseemingly unitary perspective, such as you and me, must somehow arisethroughsomeformofbottom-upcombinationofmicro-levelsubjects.This iscalledthe‘subjectcombinationproblem.’

Colemanconnects subjectivitywith thepresenceof aperspective, orpoint ofview:

Thatagivensubjecthasaparticularphenomenologicalpointofviewcanbe taken as saying that there exists a discrete ‘sphere’ of consciousexperiential goings-on corresponding to this subject, with regard towhichothersubjectsaredistinctinrespectofthephenomenalqualitiestheyexperience,and theyhavenodirect (i.e. experiential) access to thequalitative field enjoyed by the first subject. A subject, then, can bethought of as a point of view annexed to a private qualitative field.(Coleman2014:30,emphasisadded)

Notice Coleman’s emphasis on the private character of the qualitative fieldannexedtoasubject.Ishallreturntothispointlater.

Bottom-up panpsychism attempts to model the combination of phenomenalstatesafterthewayultimatescombinephysico-chemically.Afterall, the forceand appeal of its argument rests on the analogous treatment of phenomenalproperties and standard physical properties such as mass, spin and charge.Therefore, Coleman also makes explicit what combination means in thisphysico-chemicalsense:

Combination,thus,istheformationofawholefromcomponentswherethe components continue to exist in the whole, but are intrinsicallyalteredbycombiningwithoneanother.(ibid.)

For instance, an oxygen and two hydrogen atoms combine to form a watermolecule:theybecomeintrinsicallyalteredintheprocessof formingcovalentbonds with one another, but continue nonetheless to exist in the resultingmolecule.

In this framework, bottom-up panpsychism implies that the private point ofview of each phenomenal ultimate that constitutes you becomes intrinsicallyalteredintheprocessofcombiningtoformtheprivatepointofviewyouenjoyrightnow—that is, your “uniqueexperientialportal to reality,” asputby ItayShani (2015: 399).But eachmust nonetheless continue to exist in you, just asquarkscontinuetoexistinprotons,protonscontinuetoexistinoxygenatoms,andoxygenatomscontinuetoexistinwatermolecules.

However, Coleman argues, “points of view cannot combine” in this manner(2014: 32). If a first constituent lower-level subject sees, say, only blue, and asecond sees only red, then only the qualitative contents of their respectiveperspectives can conceivably survive—possibly in altered form—as combinedingredientsoftheresultinghigher-levelsubject’sphenomenal field(e.g. if thelatter seespurple).But theoriginal constituentpoints of view cannot survive,


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for theyentail seeingonly redandonly blue, respectively. Since the resultinghigher-level subject has, ex hypothesi, a single compound portal to reality, itcannotbothseeonlyredandonlyblue.Atleastoneoftheconstituentlower-levelpointsofviewwillthusnecessarilydisappear—infact,bothwilldisappearif the higher-level subject sees purple—which is not consistent withcombinationinthephysico-chemicalsense.

Onemayarguethatwhathappensinsteadisthatthephenomenalstateofthehigher-levelsubject“isanovelstatewhichinsomeway‘absorbs’orsupersedesthe mental states of the constituents” (Seager 2010: 179). In this so-called“combinatorialinfusion”(ibid.)scenario,thelower-levelpointsofviewceasetoexistintheprocessofformingthecompoundhigher-levelone.Bypartingwithcombinationinthephysico-chemicalsense,thisscenarionegatesmuchoftheforceandappealofthebottom-uppanpsychistargument.Butthepanpsychistcanbesparedthisregret,for—asColemanargues—thescenariodoesnotworkanyway.

Coleman’sreasoningisthat,toavoidtheappealtomagicentailedbybruteorstrong emergence, “lower-level properties must contribute to their novelproduct in virtue of their metaphysical nature, or, otherwise put, whileremaining true to what they are” (2014: 35, original emphasis). But “a set ofpointsofviewhavenothingtocontributeassuchtoasingle,unifiedsuccessorpointofview.Theiressentialpropertydefinesthemagainstit:insofarastheyare points of view they are experientially distinct and isolated” (ibid.: 37,original emphasis). So the resulting higher-level point of view cannot beexplicatedintermsofthelower-levelconstituentpointsofview.

In conclusion, bottom-up panpsychism fails because there is no explicit andcoherent way to ground the existence of macro-level subjects in micro-levelphenomenal ultimates. Subject combination arguably requires—just asmainstreamphysicalismdoes—theappealtomagicentailedbybruteorstrongemergence. Yet, it was precisely this requirement that, in the case ofmainstreamphysicalism,motivatedtheconceptionofbottom-uppanpsychismasanalternativeinthefirstplace.

3.5 Thequestionablelogicalbridgeinbottom-uppanpsychismBottom-up panpsychism is motivated by the idea that, since physics onlymodelsthebehaviorofphysicalentitiesandsaysnothingabouttheir intrinsicnature(Russell2009),phenomenalconsciousnessmaybethisintrinsicnature.This iseminentlyreasonable,sincetheonlyphysicalentityweareacquaintedwith ‘from within’ is our own nervous system, whose intrinsic nature surelyseems tobephenomenal (Eddington 1928).Butbottom-uppanpsychismthenmakesanextraclaim:thatphenomenalconsciousnesshasthesamefragmentedstructurethatmatterhasonthescreenofperception.Inotherwords,sinceourbodyisconstitutedbymyriadelementaryparticlesinsofaraswecanperceiveit,our phenomenal inner-life must itself be constituted by micro-levelphenomenalparts—orsotheargumentgoes.



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This extra claim rests on a questionable logical bridge: it attributes to thatwhichexperiencesastructurediscernibleonlyintheexperienceitself.Allowmetoelaborate.

The concept of elementary particles—ultimates—arises from experimentswhoseoutcomesareaccessibletousonlyintheformofconsciousperception(even when delicate instrumentation is used, the output of thisinstrumentation is only available to us as conscious perception). Suchexperimentsshowthattheimagesonthescreenofperceptioncanbedividedupintoever-smallerelements,untilwereachalimit.Atthislimit,wefindthesmallestdiscernibleconstituentsof the images,whichare thusakin topixels.As such, ultimates are the ‘pixels’ of experience, not necessarily of theexperiencer.Thelattersimplydoesnotfollowfromtheformer.

Therefore, that human bodies are made of elementary particles does notnecessarilysayanythingaboutthestructureoftheexperiencer:ahumanbodyis itself an image on the screen of perception, and so will necessarily be‘pixelated’ insofaras it isperceived.Suchpixelationreflects the idiosyncrasiesof the screenof perception,notnecessarilythestructureofthehumansubjectitself. As an analogy, the pixelated image of a person on a television screenreflects the idiosyncrasies of the television screen; it does notmean that thepersonherselfismadeupofpixels.

As suggestive as itmay be, the hypothesis that phenomenal consciousness isthe intrinsic nature of the physical does not imply that the fragmentedstructureofmatteronthescreenofperceptionisthefundamentalstructureofphenomenalconsciousnessitself.

3.6 Whatcountsasafundamentalconcreteentity?Wehaveseenintheprevioussectionthatelementaryparticlesarethebuildingblocks or ‘pixels’ of what is perceived, not necessarily of the subject thatperceives. But we can ask a yet deeper question: Are elementary particlesfundamental concrete entities on their own merit? Both mainstreamphysicalismandbottom-uppanpsychism,intakingultimatestobethediscretebuildingblocksofnature,seemtoassumeso.

Thereare,however,strongreasonstobelievethatatleasttheentireinanimateuniverseisoneintegratedwholewithoutultimateparts.JonathanSchaffer,forinstance,pointsoutthat,

physically, there is good evidence that the cosmos forms an entangledsystem and good reason to treat entangled systems as irreduciblewholes.Modally,mereologyallowsforthepossibilityofatomless gunk,withnoultimatepartsforthepluralisttoinvokeasthegroundofbeing.(2010:32,originalemphasis)

TerryHorganandMatjažPotrč(2000)alsocontendedthatonlytheuniverseasawholecanbeconsideredaconcreteentityonitsownmerit,whichtheycalledthe‘blobject.’


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Thephysicalsubstantiationforthislineofthoughtisnotrecent.Asearlyasinthe 1930s, John von Neumann (1996) reasoned that, when two inanimatequantumsystemsinteract,nomeasurementisactuallyperformedbut,instead,the two systems become entangled with one another, forming an indivisiblewhole. If the resulting whole then interacts with a third system, they, too,becomeentangled,forminganewandlargerwhole;andsoforth.Thesearetheso-called‘vonNeumannchains’and,sinceeverythingintheuniverseultimatelyisaquantumsystem,theentireinanimateuniversemustconstituteonesinglevon Neumann chain—that is, one indivisible whole (von Neumann alsoremarked that observation by a conscious, living humanbeing clearly breaksthe chain, since living humans demonstrably can perform a quantummeasurement.Therefore,consciouslivingbeingsmustbeleftoutofthepresentargument).

The implication is that, physically, there are arguably no such things asfundamental microscopic ultimates. Although this may violate popularassumptionsandintuitions,italsopointsthewaytoathirdavenueofenquirythatholdssomepromiseasanalternativetobothmainstreamphysicalismandbottom-uppanpsychism.

3.7 ThewholeuniverseasaunitaryconsciousentityTheideathatthe(inanimate)universemaybeanindivisiblewholehasproventempting to those seeking an alternative to bottom-up panpsychism, so toavoidthesubjectcombinationproblem:theypositthat“thecosmosasawholeis the only ontological ultimate there is, and that it isconscious” (Shani 2015:408,originalemphasis).Withthis,thereisnolongeranyneedtoexplicatehowlower-level subjects combine to form higher-level subjects, for the highest-possible-levelsubjectisalreadythestartingpoint.

This general outlook is called ‘cosmopsychism’ (Mathews 2011, Jaskolla andBuck 2012, Shani 2015, Nagasawa andWager 2016). The seminal insight thatfreed cosmopsychism from the limitations of bottom-up panpsychism wasarguably that of Freya Mathews (2011): she realized that, even under thehypothesis that phenomenal consciousness is the intrinsic aspect of thephysical, there is no need to attribute the fragmented structure ofmatter tophenomenalconsciousnessitself.Inherwords,“anextensionofsubjectivitytophysicalrealitygenerally[i.e.“forcefieldsandevenspaceitself”],ratherthanitsrestrictionmerelytomatter,doesseemtoberequired”(ibid.:144).

Now the problem cosmopsychists face is the ‘decombination problem’ (alsocalled the ‘decomposition problem’ in Chalmers 2016a): How do seeminglyseparate lower-levelsubjects—which, fromnowon, I shall followShani (2015:415)inreferringtoas‘relativesubjects’—formwithintheconsciouscosmos?ToparaphraseColeman(2014:30),howdotheyacquiretheirprivatepointofview,whose associatedqualitative fieldother relative subjectshavenodirect—thatis, experiential—access to? After all, I cannot read your thoughts and,presumably,neithercanyoumine.



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Before we address this problem, however, notice that there are at least twopossibleinterpretationsofcosmopsychism.Thefirstonestickstothebottom-up panpsychist view that a phenomenal ultimate has both phenomenal andnon-phenomenalproperties.Thisway,whereas it takesthecosmosasawholetobethesolephenomenalultimatethereis,thisinterpretationgrantsthattheabstract relational properties of the cosmos are not phenomenal. For thisreason, I shall call this interpretation ‘dual-aspectcosmopsychism.’Accordingto it, the intrinsic aspect of the cosmos is phenomenal, but its extrinsicaspect—the physical structure we can objectively measure in a scientificsense—isnon-phenomenalandcircumscribes thecosmos’sphenomenal field.In a sense, the extrinsic, physical aspect of the cosmos bears phenomenalitywithinin.

Another interpretation of cosmopsychism entails that the sole ontologicalprimitive there is is cosmic phenomenal consciousness—or simply ‘cosmicconsciousness’ foreaseof reference.Nothingexistsoutsideor independentofcosmic consciousness.As such, under this interpretation one should say thatthe cosmos is constituted by phenomenality, as opposed to bearingphenomenality. In other words, here the perceivable cosmos is inconsciousness,asopposedtobeingconscious.

ThelatterinterpretationisShani’s(2015)position.Indeed,accordingtohimtheexternal, physical aspect of the cosmos is ‘its appearance as an exteriorcomplementto...subjectiverealities’(ibid.:412,emphasisadded).Appearancesare, of course, phenomenal in nature. I shall thus call this interpretation‘idealistcosmopsychism,’sinceitsreductionbaseispurelyphenomenal.

Shanidoesstillpostulateadualityincosmicconsciousnesstoaccountfortheclear qualitative differences between the outerworldwe, as relative subjects,perceive andmeasure and the inner world of our thoughts and feelings. Hecallsitthe‘lateraldualityprinciple’(ibid.:410)anddescribesitthus:

[Cosmicconsciousness]exemplifiesadualnature:ithasaconcealed(orenfolded,orimplicit)sidetoitsbeing,aswellasarevealed(orunfolded,or explicit) side; the former is an intrinsicdynamicdomainof creativeactivity,whilethelatterisidentifiedastheouter,observableexpressionofthatactivity.(ibid.,originalemphasis)

Whatisimportanttoemphasize,though,isthatthisdualitydoesnotentailorimplytwodistinctontologicalclasses.Everythingisstillphenomenal.

Now, one must ultimately ground the revealed side of the cosmos in itsconcealed side, not only to eliminate what would otherwise be an arbitraryboundary, but also to accommodate the empirically undeniable causal linksbetweentherevealedorderofthephysicalworldweperceiveandtheconcealedorder of thoughts and feelings. After all, revealed physical things andphenomena—think of psychoactive drugs, bodily trauma, electromagneticfields, etc.—causally affect our concealed thoughts and feelings. Causal linksoperatingtheotherwayaroundarealsoundeniable:ourthoughtsandfeelingscan lead to physical manifestations in the form of bodily behaviors. If the


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revealedorderwerenotgroundedintheconcealed,butconstitutedaseparatephenomenal domain instead, how could these cross-influences take place?Indeed,Shaniacknowledgesasmuchwhenhewritesthat“therevealedorderofrealityisgroundedintheconcealed”(ibid.:416).

Yet,Shaniisnotexplicitinregardstohowthisgroundingworks.Hestatesthatthephysicalworldweperceiveisthewaythestructuralpatternsofthecreativeactivity of cosmic consciousness are represented in relative subjects, such asyou andme (ibid.: 412). This is fair enough as far as it goes, butwhat is themechanism of representation whereby concealed phenomenal activitytranslates into revealed order from the perspective of relative subjects?Howdoes the formation of a relative subject lead to such a significant qualitativetransitionastherepresentationofthoughtsandfeelings(theconcealedorder)intheformofperception(therevealedorder)?

To tackle the decombination problem, Shani posits that the consciousperspectiveorpointofviewofeach relative subjecthasbotha specificandagenericcharacter(ibid.:423).Sincearelativesubjectcorrespondstoasegmentofcosmicconsciousness,itsspecificcharacterisderivedfromthelocalpatternof phenomenal activity taking place in that segment. Its generic character, inturn, isderived fromthe intrinsically subjective, perspectival natureof cosmicconsciousnessasawhole.Letmeunpackthis.

Shaniposits two intrinsic features of cosmic consciousness as constituents ofthe generic character of each relative subject: sentience and core-subjectivity(ibid.:426).Inotherwords,eachrelativesubjectisphenomenallyconsciousbyvirtue of the fact that cosmic consciousness is itself intrinsically capable ofexperience.Also,eachrelativesubjecthas‘ipseity,orI-ness,bywhichismeantanimplicitsenseofselfwhichservesasthedative...ofexperience,namely,asthat towhomthingsaregiven,ordisclosed,fromaperspective’(ibid.,originalemphasis).TheclaimisthenthatthesenseofI-nessofeachrelativesubjectisthe sense of I-ness intrinsic to cosmic consciousness as a whole. One couldarguethatsentienceandcore-subjectivity,sodefined,areinextricablefromoneanother.Buteveninthiscase,itisstillusefultodistinguishbetweenthesetwocognitively salient aspects of what would admittedly be a single intrinsicfeatureofcosmicconsciousness.SoIshallcontinuetospeakofsentienceandcore-subjectivity.

In summary, according to Shani a relative subject is grounded, on the onehand, in the intrinsic sentienceandcore-subjectivityof cosmicconsciousnessasawholeand,ontheotherhand,inthelocalpatternsofphenomenalactivitytakingplaceintheparticularsegmentofcosmicconsciousnessassociatedwiththe relative subject. The question now is: What are these local patterns ofphenomenalactivitythatgiverisetoaprivatequalitative field, inaccessible tootherrelativesubjects,asrequiredbyColeman(2014)?

Shani posits that the smallest cohesive elements of nature correspond to therevealed appearance of micro-level relative subjects (2015: 415-16). In otherwords,he returns to the bottom-up panpsychist view that elementary particlesaresubjects.Shanimotivatesthiswithametaphor:



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Arelative[subject]isa‘vortex’surgingfromtheoceanicbackground[ofcosmicconsciousness].Itisacohesivesystem.(ibid.)

Heusestheimageofavortextorefertolocalizationofphenomenalactivity.

Consider ... the most elementary ‘vortices’. [Their corresponding]localizationprocess consists, then, in the intensificationof experience,as well as in the concentration of focus, within limited and relativelywell-definedboundaries ...which serves to separate the system’s innerrealityfromtheinnerrealityoftheoceansurroundingit...Theresultisan individual self (however primitive) engulfed in its own experiencesandconcernswhilebeingignorantofthedeeperlayerswhichbindittothegroundofallthings...[T]hetheoryimpliesthatsimple[vortices]areveritablesubjects.(ibid.:418,emphasisadded)

Having effectively returned to the idea ofmicro-level phenomenal ultimates,Shani thenargues thatmacro-level relative subjects, suchasyouandme,areformed by micro-level relative subjects coming together. The rather technicalcoreofhisargument—whichIshallnotreproducehere,foritisnotrelevanttothis paper—is that, by grounding themicro-level relative subjects in cosmicconsciousness, he circumvents Coleman’s (2014) attack on bottom-uppanpsychism.

Evenif the latterpoint isvalid—andIhavenoreasontobelieveotherwise—Iseemultiple problemswith thismove. For one, once one starts from cosmicconsciousness, it seemsunnecessaryandratherconvoluted todescendall theway down to micro-level subjects, just to turn around again and go up tomacro-level subjects. The only motivation I see for doing so is the arguablyflawed notion, discussed earlier, that the ‘pixels’ discernible on the screen ofperceptionmustbe thebuildingblocksof theexperiencer, asopposed to theexperience. Bymaking a concession to this physicalist intuition, Shani forcestwo problems upon himself: he has to explain (a) how the cosmic subjectseeminglybreaksupintomyriadmicro-levelrelativesubjects,andthen(b)howthese micro-level relative subjects come together again to form macro-levelrelativesubjects.

Moreover, recall that, as per Coleman’s definition, subjects entail “a point ofviewannexedtoaprivatequalitativefield”(Coleman2014:30).Somicro-levelrelative subjects must have private phenomenal fields inaccessible to othersubjects. To tackle the decombination problem, onemust explain how theseprivatefieldsformwithintheoceanofcosmicconsciousness.ButShaniseemsto address this only in a vague, tangentialmanner. For starters, it is unclearhoworwhyamere“localizationprocess”intheoceanofcosmicconsciousnesswouldleadtolocal“intensificationofexperience”and“concentrationoffocus”(Shani2015:418).Butevenifwegrantthatitsomehowdoes,a“concentrationof focuswithin limitedandrelativelywell-definedboundaries”doesnot seemsufficient “to separate the system’s inner reality from the inner reality of theocean surrounding it” (ibid.). By way of analogy, whilemy visual focus rightnowrestsonthecharactersIamwriting,Iamnotunawareof,orseparatefrom,thecontentsofmyperipheralvision;Istillhavedirect—thatis,experiential—


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access to them.Moreover, it is hard to imagine that an electron could havesufficiently rich phenomenal properties to become “engulfed in its ownexperiencesandconcerns”(ibid.).Itseemshighlyunlikelythatthereisenoughcognitivecomplexity—iftherecanbecognitionatall—atthatmicroscopicleveltojustifysuchanappealtomereself-absorptionasthemechanismbehindtheseparationoftheelectron’sinnerreality.

I do think Shani is on the correct general path here, but a more elaborate,explicit and precise case, with stronger empirical substantiation, seems to benecessarytotacklethedecombinationproblem.

3.8 ThekeyquestionstobeansweredThe principle of parsimony implies that, of the two interpretations ofcosmopsychism discussed above, idealist cosmopsychism ismore economicaland,therefore,shouldbepreferredifitcanaccountforallrelevantfacts.Ishallthus take idealist cosmopsychism as my starting point and then attempt toaddress each of its problems and limitations. The goal is to account for allrelevantfactswithcosmicconsciousnessaloneinthereductionbase.BecauseIdo not feel the need to invent new names for ideas that have historicallyestablishednames,Ishallcalltheresultingontologysimplyidealism.

Specifically, here are the key problems of, and questions not sufficiently orexplicitlyaddressedby,idealistcosmopsychismthatInowsetouttotackle:

a) Grounding experience in cosmic consciousness: How do myriad,ephemeral experiential qualities arise in one enduring cosmicconsciousness?

b) The decombination problem: How do private phenomenal fields formwithin cosmic consciousness? Why can I not read your thoughts bysimplyshiftingthefocusofmyattention?

c) Reducingperception:Howcantherevealedorderofnature(thephysicalworld we measure) be explained in terms of its concealed order (itsunderlyingthoughts)?Whyaretherespectivequalitiessodifferent?

d) Explainingthecorrelationsbetweenbrain functionand innerexperience:Ifbrainfunctiondoesnotconstituteorgeneratephenomenality,whydotheycorrelatesowell?

e) Explaining a seemingly shared, autonomous world: If the world isimaginedinconsciousness,howcanweallbeimaginingessentiallythesameworldoutsidethecontrolofourpersonalvolition?

3.9 ExperiencesasexcitationsofcosmicconsciousnessThe first step is to clarify the relationshipbetweencosmicconsciousnessandexperience.Afterall,thetwoarenotinterchangeable:cosmicconsciousnessis,exhypothesi,somethingrelativelyenduringandstable,whereasexperiencesarerelatively ephemeral and dynamic. Yet, idealism posits that cosmic



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consciousnessisnature’ssoleontologicalprimitive,sohowdoesthevarietyanddynamismofexperiencecomeintothepicture?

I submit that (a) experiences are patterns of self-excitation of cosmicconsciousnessand that (b)cosmicconsciousnesshas the inherentdispositionto self-excitation. As such, experiences are not ontologically distinct fromcosmicconsciousness,justasadanceisnotdistinctfromthedancer.Thereisnothing to a dance but the dancer inmotion. In an analogous way, there isnothingtoexperiencebutcosmicconsciousness‘inmotion.’

Particular experiences correspond to particular patterns of self-excitation ofcosmic consciousness, just as particular choreographies correspond toparticularpatternsofself-excitationofthedancer.Thesepatternscanevolveintime and differ across different segments of cosmic consciousness. It is thevarietyanddynamicsofexcitationsacrosstheunderlying‘medium’thatleadtodifferentexperientialqualities.(Onemustbecarefulatthispoint:byreferringto cosmic consciousness as a ‘medium’ I may appear to be objectifying it.Languageforcesmeintothisdilemma.Butcosmicconsciousnessissubjectivityitself,notanobject.)Thisway,evenifthe‘medium’iseternalandimmutable,itsself-excitationscancomeandgoinmyriadpatterns.

Thisnotionisentirelyanalogousto,andconsistentwith,howmodernphysicsattempts to reduce the variety and dynamics of natural phenomena to anenduringprimarysubstrate:quantumfieldtheory, for instance,posits thatallfundamental particles are particular modes of self-excitation of a quantumfield,whichisinherentlydisposedtoself-excitation.Superstringtheoriespositessentially the same, but now the self-excited substrate is hyper-dimensionalstrings.Finally,accordingtoM-theorythepatternsofnatureconsistofmodesof self-excitation of a hyper-dimensional membrane. Idealism, as I amformulating it here, essentially entails porting the evolving mathematicalapparatusofmodernphysics tocosmicconsciousness itself, asopposed toanabstract conceptual object. This should require but a straightforward andseamlesstransposition,implyingnolossofpredictivepower.

3.10 TacklingthedecombinationproblemCosmic consciousness comprises a variety of phenomenal contents—experiences, patterns of self-excitation—such as thoughts and feelings. If wetakethehumanpsycheasarepresentativesampleofhowcosmicconsciousnessoperates—which is the best we can do, really—we can infer that, ordinarily,these phenomenal contents are internally integrated through cognitiveassociations:afeelingevokesanabstractidea,whichtriggersamemory,whichinspires a thought, etc. These associations are logical, in the sense that, forinstance, thememory inspires the thoughtbecauseof a certain implicit logiclinking the two. Ordinary phenomenal activity in cosmic consciousness canthusbemodeledasaconnecteddirectedgraph.SeeFigure3.1a.Eachvertexinthe graph represents a particular phenomenal content and each edge acognitive association logically linking contents together. Every phenomenal


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contentinthegraphofFigure3.1acanbereachedfromanyotherphenomenalcontentthroughachainofcognitiveassociations.

Figure3.1:Aconnectedgraph(a)illustratingnormalintegrationofphenomenalcontents,andadisconnectedgraph(b)illustratingdissociationandthe

correspondingformationofanalter(innersubgraphingrey).

Each vertex in Figure 3.1 represents a particular pattern of self-excitation ofcosmic consciousness. Each edge represents thus an associationbetween twopatterns of self-excitation, each pattern with its particular constituentharmonics.Whenthetwopatternsofself-excitationareconcurrentlypresent—that is, when the two associated phenomenal contents are experiencedtogether—the association can be seen as a combination of the respectiveharmonics, like in amusical chordwhereinmultiple notes are played at thesametime.Whentheassociationunfoldsintemporalsequence—ase.g.inthecase of a thought that fades away to make room for the experience of thememory it evokes—it can be visualized as a transition from the first to thesecondpatternofself-excitation,likenotesplayedinsequenceinamelody.

However,weknowfromthepsychiatricliteraturethatsometimes“adisruptionofand/ordiscontinuityinthenormalintegration”ofphenomenalcontentscanoccur in the human psyche (Black and Grant 2014: 191). This is calleddissociation and iswell recognized in psychiatry today (AmericanPsychiatricAssociation2013).Dissociationentailsthatsomephenomenalcontentsceasetobeable toevokeothers.Apersonsuffering fromaparticularlysevere formofdissociation, called Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), exhibits multiple“discrete centers of self-awareness” (Braude 1995: 67) calledalters. Each altercorrespondsthustoaparticularsegmentofthepsychicspacewhereinitforms.

Dissociationcanbevisualizedaswhathappenswhenthegraph inFigure3.1abecomes disconnected, such as shown in Figure 3.1b. Some phenomenalcontents can then no longer be reached from others. The inner subgraph isthusarepresentationofanalter,correspondingtoaparticularsegmentoftheoriginallyintegratedpsychicspace.

a b



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There is compelling empirical evidence that different alters can remainconcurrently conscious. In Morton Prince’s well-known study of the "MissBeauchamp’caseofDID,oneofthealters“wasaco-consciouspersonalityinadeeper sense. When she was not interacting with the world, she did notbecomedormant,butpersistedandwasactive”(Kellyetal.2009:318).Braude’smorerecentwork(1995)corroboratestheviewthatalterscanbeco-conscious.Hepoints to the struggle of different alters for executive control of thebodyandthefactthatalters“mightinterveneinthelivesofothers[i.e.,otheralters],intentionally interferingwith their interests and activities, or at least playingmischief on them” (ibid.: 68). It thus appears that alters can not only beconcurrently conscious, but that they can also vie for dominance with eachother.

Clearly, the evidence indicates that different alters entail—to paraphraseColeman(2014)again—differentco-consciouspointsofviewannexedtoprivatequalitative fields, theseprivatequalitative fieldsbeingcarvedoutbyvirtueofdissociation. In other words, different alters are different subjects. Theconnected subgraph of phenomenal contents associated with an alter (seeFigure 3.1b again) represents its private qualitative or phenomenal field.Moreover, alters form within a single overarching psyche, so the process oftheir formation entails a decomposition of an original subject into multiplelower-levelsubjects.

Isubmitthatdissociationincosmicconsciousnessiswhatleadstotheformationof relative subjects. Each relative subject is thus an alter of cosmicconsciousness, its private qualitative field corresponding to a segment of thelatter’sself-excitatory‘medium.’

By virtue of corresponding to a segment of cosmic consciousness, each alterretains—as Shani (2015) posited—the intrinsic features of sentience and core-subjectivity. But the local pattern of dissociative phenomenal activity in itsrespective segment is what bestows an alter its specific character, its uniqueperspective. Inotherwords, theprimarysenseof I-nessofallalters is thatofcosmic consciousness itself; the very consciousness of the alters, as anontological ‘medium,’ iscosmicconsciousness.Buttheparticularphenomenalfieldofanalter,whichdefinesitsidentityasaseeminglyseparateindividual,isdemarcated by a local dissociative process—analogous to DID—in thecorresponding segment of the ‘medium.’ Naturally, because alters are fullygrounded in cosmic consciousness, it is incoherent to say that they becomeseparated from it; only an illusion of separation arises as a particularphenomenalcontentinthealter’sdissociatedqualitativefield.

The key to my argument is the notion that dissociation can demarcate andcarveoutaprivatephenomenalfield.Thisway,altersmustbecomeblindtoallphenomenalitytakingplaceoutsidetheirrespectivefield,whichthenexplainswhy I cannot read your thoughts. And indeed, there is strong empiricalevidence for the literally blinding power of dissociation: in 2015, doctorsreported on the case of a German woman who exhibited a variety of alters(StrasburgerandWaldvogel2015).Peculiarly,someofheraltersclaimedtobe


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blindwhileotherscouldseenormally.ThroughEEGs,thedoctorswereabletoascertain that thebrainactivitynormallyassociatedwithsightwasn’tpresentwhileablindalterwas incontrolof thewoman’sbody,eventhoughhereyeswere open. When a sighted alter assumed control, the usual brain activityreturned. Clearly thus—if nothing else, for sheer empirical reasons—dissociation isa sufficientlypowerfulpotential solution to thedecombinationproblem.

3.11 Atwhatleveldoescosmicdissociationoccur?The challenge we must now address is the so-called “boundary problem forexperiencingsubjects”(Rosenberg2004:77-90):Whatmeasurablestructuresinnaturecorrespondto—thatis,aretherevealedappearanceof—altersofcosmicconsciousness?Aswehave seen,Shani (2015)posits thatelementaryparticlesareakintomicro-levelalters,whichinturncometogethertocomposehigher-level relative subjects.However, as alreadymentioned, Ibelieve this tobeanunnecessarily convoluted notion. Instead, I submit that cosmic dissociationhappenspreciselyattheleveloflivingbeingswithunitaryconsciousness,suchasyouandme.YouandIarealtersofcosmicconsciousness.

Thereareseveralargumentsforthis.Thefirsthasalreadybeenhintedat:giventhatweordinarilyexperienceanintegratedphenomenalfield,thereisnodirectreasontoconjecturethatthisfieldisacompositeoflower-levelconstituents.

Secondly, we have seen that von Neumann’s reasoning regarding quantummeasurement (1996) implies that the entire inanimate universemust be oneunfathomable‘vonNeumannchain’—thatis,anentangledindivisiblewhole.Assuch, it is arbitrary—physically speaking—to carve out any segment of theinanimateuniverseandpositittobetherevealedappearanceofanalter.VonNeumanndid,however,excludeconsciouslivingorganismsfromtheembraceofvonNeumannchains,sinceatleastwe,conscioushumanbeings,clearlycanperform quantum measurements. On this basis, only conscious livingorganisms can correspond to alters of cosmic consciousness, not elementaryparticlesoranyothersubsetoftheinanimateuniverse.

Thirdly,asobservedbyMathews,“theindividuationof[inanimate]objects...isnotconsistentlyobjectivelydetermined...manyofourindividuations—ofrocksandmountains, for instance—have basically nominal status” (2011: 144). Takewhatwecalla ‘car’: thoughbasedonstructuralandfunctionalreasoningthathelps the business of transportation, its delineation is ultimately arbitrary. Ifone argues that, say, the spark plugs are integral to the car becausewithoutthem the car cannot function, by the same token one would also have toinclude the fuel that makes its engine run, the environment air that allowscombustionandcoolstheengine,theroadgrippedbythetires,thegroundthatsustains the road, the gravity that enables grip, and so on. The decision ofwhere tostop ismotivatedbyconvenience.Ananalogousrationaleapplies towhetherwedistinguishthehandlefromthemug,thehoodfromthejacket,theriver from the ocean, etc. This relative arbitrariness in the way we delineate



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their boundaries renders inanimate objects problematic candidates for therevealed appearance of alters of cosmic consciousness. After all, inMathews’words,“theboundariesbetweensubjectsarenotnominal.Theindividuationofsubjects,orcentersofsubjectivity,isobjectivelydetermined”(ibid.).

Mathews is giving us an important clue here. Indeed, the boundaries of ourownbody are not nominal.Our ability toperceive ends at the surface of thebody:our skin, retinas, eardrums, tongueand themucous liningofournose.Wecannotperceivephotonshittingawallorairpressureoscillationsbouncingoff a window, but we can perceive those impinging on our retinas andeardrums,respectively.Moreover,ourabilitytoactthroughdirectphenomenalintentionalsoendsatthesurfaceofthebody:wecanmoveourarmsandlegssimply by consciously intending to move them. However, we cannot do thesamewith tables and chairs. Clearly, thus, the delineation of our body is anempirical fact.IcannotjustdecidethatthechairIamsittingonisintegraltomybody,inthewayIcandecidethatthehandleisintegraltothemug.NeithercanIdecidethatapatchofmyskinisnotintegraltomybody,inthewayIcandecide that the hood is not integral to the jacket. The criterion here is notmerelyafunctionalorstructuralone,buttherangeofphenomenality—sensoryperception, intention—intrinsically associated with our body. Based on thisobjectivecriterion,thereisnofreedomtomoveboundariesatwill.

Whattheseconsiderationssuggestisclear:thephysicalboundaryofthebodyisthe revealed appearance of the dissociative boundary of our phenomenal field.Andinsofaraswecanassumethatalllivingorganismshavephenomenalinnerlife in some way akin to our own, the conclusion can be generalized: livingorganismsaretherevealedappearanceofaltersofuniversalconsciousness;theyarecarvedoutoftheircontextbyvirtueofcosmicdissociation.

But can we assume that all living creatures have phenomenal inner life? Ibelievewe can: insofar as it resembles our own, the extrinsic behavior of allmetabolizing organisms is suggestive of their having dissociated phenomenalfields analogous to ours in some sense. This is obvious enough for cats anddogs, but what about plants and single-celled organisms such as amoebae?Well, consider this: “many typesofamoebaconstructglassy shellsbypickingupsandgrainsfromthemudinwhichtheylive.ThetypicalDifflugiashell,forexample,isshapedlikeavase,andhasaremarkablesymmetry”(Ford2010:26).As for plants, many recent studies have reported on their surprisinglysophisticatedbehavior, leadingeventoaproposal foranewfieldof scientificenquiryboldlycalled“plantneurobiology”(Brenneretal.2006).Clearly,thus,even plants and single-celled organisms exhibit extrinsic behavior somewhatanalogous to our own, further suggesting that they, too, have dissociatedphenomenalfields.Ofcourse,thesamecannotbesaidofanyinanimateobjector phenomenon (those that have been engineered by humans to merelysimulate the behavior of living beings, such as robots, natural languageinterfaces,etc.,naturallydon’tcount).

Finally,wehavegoodempirical reasons tobelieve thatnormalmetabolism isessentialforthemaintenanceofourdissociatedphenomenalfields,forwhenit


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slowsdownorstopsthedissociativeboundaryseemstobecomephenomenallyporous (Kastrup 2017a 2 ). So metabolism—the shared and differentiatingcharacteristic of all living organisms—seems, again, to be the revealedappearance of alters of cosmic consciousness. The unique features ofmetabolism—think of DNA, morphogenesis, transcription, protein folding,mitosis, etc.—unify all life into a unique, clearly distinct natural category,despite thewidelydifferent formsorganismscan take.Thiscategoryprovidesthe unambiguously demarcated “something in nature” that Rosenberg waslookingfor(2004:77–90).

Inconclusion,Ipositthatcosmicdissociationhappenspreciselyatthelevelofindividual living organisms. Each living organism is an alter of cosmicconsciousness.

3.12 ReducingtherevealedtotheconcealedorderNotice that the revealed side of nature relative to any given alter consists ofimagesonthescreenofthealter’sconsciousperception.Therefore, ifonecanreduce perceptions at the level of individual alters to non-perceptualphenomenalcontentsatthelevelofcosmicconsciousnessasawhole,onewillhavereducednature’srevealedtoitsconcealedorder.

Beforeweaddressthischallenge,however,weneedsomefurtherbackgroundon dissociation. By definition, phenomenal contents inside an alter cannotevokephenomenalcontentsoutsidethealter,andviceversa.Buttheycanstillinfluence each other. Indeed, phenomenal impingement across a dissociativeboundary is empirically known. John Lynch andChristopherKilmartin (2013:100), for instance, report that dissociated feelings can dramatically affectthoughtsandcorrespondingbehaviors,whereasDavidEagleman (2011: 20-54)shows that dissociated expectations routinely mold our perceptions. Indeed,the entire clinical field of depth psychology is based on the notion thatdissociatedphenomenal contents indeeper layersof thepsyche continuouslyimpingeontheexecutiveego(Kellyetal.2009:301–34).Wecanvisualizethisas inFigure3.2a,wherein thepartialoverlapofadjacentvertices internalandexternaltoanalterrepresentsimpingementacrossitsdissociativeboundary.

Figure3.2b illustrates thesamethingaccordingtoasimplifiedrepresentationunrelatedtographtheory:thebroaderpsychicspaceisrepresentedasawhitecircle,withanalterrepresentedasagreycirclewithinit.Thesecirclesarenolongergraphverticesbut represent setsofphenomenal contents.Thedashedarrows represent the impingement of external and internal phenomenalcontents—notexplicitlyshown—oneachother,acrossthealter’sboundary.Forthe avoidance of doubt, notice that these dashed arrows no longer representcognitive associations. I shall use this simplified representation henceforth.




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Moreover, for simplicity’s sake, from now on I shall also refer to all non-perceptualphenomenalcontentssimplyas‘thoughts.’

Figure3.2:Phenomenalcontentsimpingingonthedissociativeboundaryofanalter,illustratedintwodifferentbutequivalentways,(a)and(b).

Isubmitthat,beforeitsfirstaltereverformed,theonlyphenomenalcontentsof cosmic consciousness were thoughts. There were no perceptions. Theformationofthefirstalterthendemarcatedaboundaryseparatingphenomenalcontents within the alter from those outside the alter. This newly formedboundaryiswhatenabledperceptionstoariserelativetoanalter:thethoughtssurroundingthealterimpingedonitsdissociativeboundaryfromtheoutside.And since phenomenal contents are particular patterns of self-excitation ofcosmic consciousness, this impingement can be regarded as an interferencepattern between excitations within and outside the dissociative boundary,respectively (see Figure 3.2a again).Whatwe call perception, or the revealedsideofnature,isthealter’sexperienceofthisinterferencepattern(cf.Kastrup2017e). It follows that the revealed side of nature can be grounded in itsconcealed side: the former arises from excitatory interference betweendissociated but mutually impinging thoughts. Indeed, I submit that theformation of dissociative boundaries is what partitioned the cosmos intorevealedandconcealedsides.SeeFigure3.3.

Thethoughtsofanaltercanalsoimpingeonitsdissociativeboundaryfromtheinside and thereby influence the surrounding phenomenal activity of cosmicconsciousness(notshowninFigure3.3).Thiscorrespondstotheeffectsontheworldofthepresenceandactionsofalivingorganismwithinit.

a b


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Figure3.3:Thoughtsincosmicconsciousnesscauseperceptionsinanalter.

The revealed or extrinsic appearance of an alter’s boundary is an organism’ssense organs. In our case, these are our skin, eyes, ears, nose and tongue.Therefore,eveniftheoutsidestimulationisveryfaintandsubtle,evolutionhashadbillionsofyearstooptimizethesensitivityofoursenseorgans—ouralter’sboundary—topickuponthesefaintsignals.

Buthowcanameredissociativeboundarygiverise toaqualitatively differentcategory of experience? If you recall, this is a question I raised earlier,motivated by the fact that perceptions feel undoubtedly very distinct fromthoughts.

To answer it, let us first consider Donald Hoffman’s interface theory ofperception (2009): it asserts that evolution emphasizes perceptual qualitiesconducivetofitness,nottotruth.Inotherwords,wehaveevolvedtoperceivenot the phenomenal contents that are really out there—that is, outside ouralter—but justaphenomenalrepresentation thereof thathelpsussurviveandreproduce. Hoffman uses the analogy of a computer desktop: although acomputerfileisrepresentedinitas,forinstance,abluerectangle,thisdoesnotmean that the file itself has the qualities of beingblue and rectangular.As amatteroffact,theactualfiledoesnothavethosequalitiesatall:itisapatternofopenandclosedmicroscopicswitchesinasiliconchip.Inananalogousway,myhypothesisisthatthequalitiesweexperienceonthescreenofperception—colors,sounds,flavors,textures,etc.—arenotthequalitiesexperiencedbythesegmentof cosmic consciousness that surroundsour alter, but their ‘desktoprepresentation’instead.Ourperceptionsdonotfeellikethethoughtsofcosmicconsciousness because aqualitative transition between these two experientialcategorieshashelpedourancestorssurviveandreproduce.

ThoughtsThoughts(correspondingtothephysical

world)

Cosmicconsciousness

Alter



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TheworkofFriston,SenguptaandAuletta(2014)hassimilarimplicationsbut,significantly, is derived from an entirely different line of reasoning. Theirresults arebasedonabstractmathematical considerationsand, therefore, canin principle be leveraged under any ontology. They show that whenever aMarkovblanket (Pearl 1988)defines theboundary of an individual organism,internalstatesoftheorganismwillevolvetooptimizefortwoconflictinggoals:(a)toreflectexternalstatesoftheworldbeyondtheMarkovblanket;and(b)tominimize their own entropy or dispersion. Goal (a) is about allowing theorganismtoknowwhatisgoingonintheworldoutside,soitcantakesuitableactionstosurviveinthatworld.Goal(b)isaboutpreventingtheorganismfromlosingitsinternalstructuralanddynamicalintegritybecauseofthesecondlawof thermodynamics. In our case, the dissociative boundary of an alter is theMarkovblanket,whoserevealedappearanceisourskinandothersenseorgans.

ThekeyinsightofFriston,SenguptaandAulettacanbeparaphrasedasfollows:a hypothetical organism with perfect perception—that is, able to perfectlymirrorthephenomenalstatesofthesurroundingexternalworldinitsinternalstates—would not have an upper bound on its own internal entropy, whichwould then increase indefinitely. Such an organism would dissolve into anentropicsoup.Tosurvive,organismsmust,instead,usetheirinternalstatestoactively represent relevant states of the outsideworld in a compressed, codedform,sotoknowasmuchaspossibleabouttheirenvironmentwhileremainingwithin entropic constraints compatible with their structural and dynamicalintegrity. This way, my hypothesis is that the qualities of perceptionexperienced by an alter are just compressed, coded representations of howsurrounding thoughts of cosmic consciousness are experienced from theconcealedperspective.Assuch,whiletheremustbeacorrespondencebetweenperception and surrounding thoughts, the respective experiential qualities donotneedtobethesame.Infact,theywillbeverydifferentifithelpsorganismsresist entropy. Our perceptions do not feel like thoughts because they arecodedrepresentationsthereof.

3.13 ExplainingthecorrelationsbetweenbrainfunctionandinnerexperienceAprincipalargumentforthemainstreamphysicalistpositionthatthematerialbrain somehow constitutes or generates consciousness is the empiricallyundeniable correlation between measurable brain function and innerexperience (e.g. Koch 2004). The way the idealist ontology proposed hereaccommodates this fact was already implicit in the previous section: ametabolizing body—which includes a functioning brain—is simply the revealedappearanceofthedissociatedphenomenalfieldofanalter.Theformercorrelateswith the latter simply because the former is what the latter looks like fromacrossadissociativeboundary.Indeed,thiscanbeempiricallysubstantiatedinaratherdirectmanner.


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Ina2014studyofdissociation(Schlumpfetal.),doctorsperformedfunctionalbrainscansonbothDIDpatientsandactorssimulatingDID.Thescansoftheactual patients displayed clear differences when compared to those of theactors, showing that dissociation has an identifiable extrinsic appearance. Inother words, there is something rather particular that dissociative processeslook like. This further substantiates the notion that living organisms such asyouandmearetherevealedappearanceofcosmic-leveldissociativeprocesses.After all, we now know empirically that dissociation is identifiable whenobserved from across the dissociative boundary. Metabolizing bodies are todissociationincosmicconsciousnessascertainpatternsofbrainactivityaretoDIDpatients.

Let me elaborate further on this important point. For any given alter A1 ofcosmicconsciousness,itisthephenomenalcontentssurroundingA1thatcauseits perceptions of the world around it. Dissociated phenomenal contentscorrespondingtoanotheralterA2canbepartofthephenomenalenvironmentsurrounding A1. As such, the inner experiences of A2 can also indirectlystimulate A1’s boundary—by impinging on their shared phenomenalenvironment—and thereby causeA1’s perceptions ofA2. This iswhat givesA1accesstotherevealedappearanceoftheinnerexperiencesofA2intheformofA2’smetabolizing body. See Figure 3.4. And sinceA2’s brain is integral to itsbody, it follows thatA2’s inner experiences cause the perception byA1 of theactivity inA2’sbrain.This causal linkexplains thecorrelationsbetween innerexperienceandcorrespondingpatternsofbrainactivity.

Figure3.4:Ametabolizingbodyistherevealedappearanceofanalter’sdissociatedphenomenalfield.

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Inessence,theclaimhere is thatthere isnothingtoametabolizingbodybuttherevealedside—theextrinsicappearance—ofthecorrespondingalter’sinnerexperiences.Yet,onemayobjecttothisbyarguingthatmanypartsofthebodyseementirelyunrelatedto innerexperience:whereascertainpatternsofbrainactivitycorrelatewithsubjectivereportsofexperience,alotseemstogooninthebrain that subjectshaveno introspective access to (Westen 1999,Hassin,Ulleman and Bargh 2005, Dijksterhuis and Nordgren 2006, Augusto 2010,Hassin2013).Moreover,whatkindofinnerexperiencedoes,say,liverfunctioncorrespondto?Whataboutbig-toefunction?

The answer to this objection is precise and compelling, but elaborate andspecialized enough to have required its own paper (Kastrup 2017d3). Here, Ishallsimplyremindthereaderthatasubject’s lackofmetacognitive access toanexperienceprecludesreportingoftheexperiencetoselforothers,butdoesnot implyabsence of the experience from the subject’squalitative field.Withtheemergenceofno-reportparadigms inneuroscience(Vandenbrouckeet al.2014,Tsuchiyaetal.2015),wenowknowthatmuchisexperiencedthatcannotbereportedeventoself,forsubjectsareoftennotawarethattheyhavecertainexperiences. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, there are normal internaldissociations in the human psyche—the foundational claim of depthpsychology—thatrendermuchof itsphenomenalcontents inaccessibletothereportingego(Kellyetal.2009:301-34).SothehypothesisIampositinghereisnotdefeatedby theobjection: all bodilymetabolism—yes, even liver and toefunction—canstillcorrespondtoconcealedphenomenalcontents,eventhoughthesecontentsmaynotbeintrospectivelyaccessible.

3.14 ExplainingoursharedworldThe final explanatory burden that needs to be addressed is the undeniableempiricalfactthatweallinhabitseeminglythesameenvironment,andthatthelaws that govern the dynamics of this environment operate independently ofour personal volition. After all, if the world is imagined—as implied byidealism—how come we are all imagining seemingly the same autonomousworld?

Notice that the existence of a phenomenal environment wherein allmetabolizingorganismsareimmersed—asharedworld—isadirectimplicationoftheargumentalreadydeveloped.Tobringthisout,wesimplyneedtoextendFigure3.3tomultiplealters,asillustratedinFigure3.5.Allaltersareimmersed,likeislandsofasingleocean,inthethoughtsthatconstitutetheconcealedsideof the inanimate cosmos. These thoughts surround all alters and cause theirmutually-consistent perceptions by impinging on their respective dissociativeboundaries. And since the volition of an alter is a phenomenal content alsodissociatedfromtherestofcosmicconsciousness,itfollowsthatalterscannot



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changethelawsofnature.Fromthedissociatedperspectiveofalters,theworldisthusautonomous.

Figure3.5:Altersareimmersedinacommonphenomenalenvironment.

3.15 ConclusionsIhave elaboratedon an idealist ontology that canbe summarized as follows.There isonlycosmicconsciousness.We,aswellasallother livingorganisms,arebutdissociatedaltersofcosmicconsciousness,surroundedbyitsthoughts.The inanimate world we see around us is the revealed appearance of thesethoughts. The living organisms we share the world with are the revealedappearancesof otherdissociated alters.This idealist ontologymakes senseofreality in a more parsimonious and empirically rigorous manner thanmainstreamphysicalism,bottom-uppanpsychismandcosmopsychism. It alsooffersmoreexplanatorypowerthanthesethreealternatives,inthatitdoesnotfallpreytothehardproblemofconsciousness,thecombinationproblemorthedecombinationproblem,respectively.

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4. OnthePlausibilityofIdealism:RefutingCriticisms

This paper first appeared inDisputatio: International Journal of Philosophy,ISSN:0873-626X,Vol.9,No.44,pp.13-34,inMay2017.

4.1 AbstractSeveral alternatives vie today for recognition as themost plausible ontology,from physicalism to panpsychism. By and large, these ontologies entail thatphysical structures circumscribe consciousness by bearing phenomenalpropertieswithin their physical boundaries. Theontology of idealism, on theother hand, entails that all physical structures are circumscribed byconsciousness in that they exist solely as phenomenality in the first place.Unliketheotheralternatives,however,idealismisoftenconsideredimplausibletoday, particularly by analytic philosophers. A reason for this is the strongintuitionthatanobjectiveworldtranscendingphenomenality isaself-evidentfact.Otherarguments—suchasthedependencyofphenomenalexperienceonbrainfunction,theevidencefortheexistenceoftheuniversebeforetheoriginofconsciouslife,etc.—arealsooftencited.Inthisessay,Iwillarguethattheseobjectionsagainsttheplausibilityofidealismarefalse.Assuch,thisessayseekstoshowthatidealismisanentirelyplausibleontology.

4.2 IntroductionThe mainstream physicalist ontology posits that reality is constituted byirreduciblephysicalentities—whichStrawson(2006:9)hascalled“ultimates”—outside and independent of phenomenality. According to physicalism, theseultimates, inandof themselves,donot instantiatephenomenalproperties. Inother words, there is nothing it is like to be an ultimate, phenomenalitysomehowemergingonlyatthelevelofcomplexarrangementsofultimates.Assuch, under physicalism phenomenality is not fundamental, but insteadreducibletophysicalparametersofarrangementsofultimates.

What I will call ‘microexperientialism,’ in turn, posits that there is alreadysomethingitisliketobeatleastsomeultimates(Strawsonetal.2006:24-29),combinations of these experiencing ultimates somehow leading to morecomplex experience. As such, under microexperientialism phenomenality isseen as an irreducible aspect of at least some ultimates. The ontology ofpanexperientialism(Griffin 1998:77-116,Rosenberg2004:91-103,Skrbina2007:21-22) is analogous tomicroexperientialism, except in that the former entailsthestrongerclaimthatallultimatesinstantiatephenomenalproperties.

Micropsychism(Strawsonet al. 2006: 24-29)andpanpsychism(Skrbina2007:15-22) are analogous—maybe even identical—to microexperientialism andpanexperientialism, respectively, exceptperhaps in that some formulationsof


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theformeradmitcognition—amorecomplexformofphenomenality—alreadyatthelevelofultimates,asanirreducibleaspectoftheseultimates.

While microexperientialism, panexperientialism, micropsychism andpanpsychismentailthatbottom-upcombinationsofsimplesubjectsgiverisetomore complex ones, such as human beings, cosmopsychism (Nagasawa andWager 2016) takes the opposite route. Indeed, “the first postulate ofcosmopsychism is that the cosmos as awhole is the only ontological ultimatethereis,andthatitisconscious”(Shani2015:408,originalemphasis).

Finally, the ontology of idealism is characterized by a combination of twopropositions: (a)phenomenal consciousness is irreducible;and (b) everythingelse—thewholeofnature—isreducibletoaunitaryanduniversalphenomenalconsciousness(henceforth,Ishallrefertophenomenalconsciousnesssimplyas‘consciousness’).

Idealismmaybeconsistentwith—evenidenticalto—certaininterpretationsofcosmopsychism.AccordingtoShani, for instance,cosmopsychismentails that“anomnipresentcosmicconsciousness isthesingleontologicalultimatethereis”(2015:390).Thisperfectlyembodiesthedefiningtenetofidealisminsofarasit implies that everything—including the physical—can be reduced to thephenomenal.Shanialsowritesthatmatteristhecosmos“initsappearanceasexterior complement to the subjective realities of created selves” (2015: 412,emphasis added). The notion that matter is the phenomenal appearance ofequally phenomenal dynamics is also eminently idealist. Therefore, theseinterpretations of cosmopsychism are essentially indistinguishable fromidealismandIshall,henceforth,refertothemsimplyasidealism.

Other possible interpretations of cosmopsychism entail that the cosmos as awhole bears phenomenal properties—that is, has inner life—but also has anaspect—the physical universe we can measure—that is irreducible to thesephenomenalproperties.Naturally,thisimpliesaformofdual-aspectmonism,alaSpinoza(Skrbina2007:88).Indeed,undertheseviewsthecosmoscanstillbesaidtobeconscious,butnot in consciousness.Intheformercase,thecosmosbears phenomenality; in the latter—which is the idealist view—thecosmos isconstituted by phenomenality. Interpretations of cosmopsychism that arenotconsistentwithidealismshallnotbefurtheraddressedinthispaper.

In what follows, I will attempt to rebut themost common objections to theplausibilityof idealism.Iwillseektoshowthattheseobjectionsarebasedoncircular reasoning, conflation, unexamined assumptions and several othermisconceptions.

4.3 ThefeltconcretenessobjectionEnglishwriterSamuelJohnsonissaidtohavearguedagainstBishopBerkeley’sidealismbykickinga largestonewhileexclaiming: “I refute it thus!” (Boswell1820:218).Johnsonwasclearlyappealingtothefeltconcretenessofthestonetosuggest that it could not be just a figment of imagination. Indeed, the felt



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concretenessof theworld isprobably themain reasonwhypeople intuitivelyrejectthenotionthatrealityunfoldsinconsciousness.Ifatruckhitsyou,youwillhurt,evenifyouareanidealist.

However, notice that appeals to concreteness, solidity, palpability and anyotherqualitythatwehavecometoassociatewiththingsoutsideconsciousnessare still appeals to phenomenality. After all, concreteness, solidity andpalpability are qualities of experience. What else? A stone allegedly outsideconsciousness, in and by itself, is entirely abstract and has no qualities. Ifanything, by pointing to the felt concreteness of the stone Johnson wasimplicitly suggesting the primacy of experience over abstraction, which iseminentlyidealist.

Wehavecometoautomatically interpret thefeltconcretenessoftheworldasevidence that the world is outside consciousness. But this is an unexaminedartifactofsubliminalthought-models.Ouronlyaccesstotheworldisthroughsenseperception,whichisitselfphenomenal.Thenotionthatthereisaworldoutside and independent of the phenomenal is an explanatorymodel, not anempiricalfact.Nophenomenalqualitycanbeconstruedasdirectevidenceforsomethingoutsidephenomenality.

4.4 TheprivatemindsobjectionAs discussed in Section 4.2, under idealism there is only one universalconsciousness. Yet, at a personal level, our mental lives are clearly separatefrom one another. I do not have direct access to your thoughts and feelingsand,presumably,neitherdoyoutomine.Moreover,Idonotseemtobeawareofwhatishappeningacrossthegalaxyand,presumably,neitherareyou.So,ifall reality is reducible to one universal consciousness, how can there beseparateprivatemindssuchasyoursandmine?

Tomake sense of this under idealism,weneed to review amental conditioncalleddissociation(Braude1995,Kellyetal.2009:167-174&348-352,Schlumpfetal.2014,StrasburgerandWaldvogel2015).Indeed,itisnowwellestablishedin psychiatry that mental contents can undergo “a disruption of and/ordiscontinuity in [their] normal integration” (Black and Grant 2014: 191). Thisnormalintegrationofmentalcontentstakesplacethroughchainsofcognitiveassociations: a perception may evoke an abstract idea, which may trigger amemory,whichmayinspireathought,etc.Theseassociationsarelogical,inthesense that e.g. thememory inspires the thought because of a certain implicitlogic linking the two. Integratedmentation can thus bemodeled, for ease ofvisualization,asaconnecteddirectedgraph.SeeFigure4.1a.Eachvertexinthegraph represents a particular mental content and each edge a cognitiveassociationlogicallylinkingmentalcontentstogether.EverymentalcontentinthegraphofFigure4.1acanbereachedfromanyothermentalcontentthrougha chain of cognitive associations. Dissociation, in turn, can be visualized aswhathappenswhenthegraphbecomesdisconnected,suchasshowninFigure4.1b. Some mental contents can then no longer be reached from others.


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Following the psychiatric convention, I shall refer to the subgraphwith greyverticesasa(dissociated)alter.

Figure4.1:Aconnectedgraph(a)illustratingnormalintegrationofmentalcontents,andadisconnectedgraph(b)illustratingdissociationandthe

correspondingformationofanalter(subgraphingrey).

Because cognitive associations are essentially logical, as opposed to spatio-temporal, the scheme of representation in Figure 4.1 allows for thesimultaneous experience of multiple mental contents linked together in aconnected subgraph.This is empirically justifiable: aperception, for instance,canbeexperiencedatthesametimeasthethoughtsitevokesandtheemotionsevoked by these thoughts. Moreover—and by the same token—the twodisconnected subgraphs in Figure 4.1b can also represent two concurrentlyconscioussubjectsofexperience.Thesubstantiationforthisisagainempirical:thereiscompellingevidencethatdifferentaltersofthesamepsychecanbeco-conscious(Kellyetal.2009:317-322,Braude1995:67-68).

An alter loses direct access to mental contents surrounding it, but remainsintegral to theunderlying consciousness that constitutes it.Thedisconnectionbetweenanalterandsurroundingmentalcontents is logical,notontic.Asananalogy, a databasemay contain entries that are not indexed and, therefore,cannotbereached,butthisdoesnotphysicallyseparatethoseentriesfromtherestofthedatabase.

Dissociation can coherently explainhow seemingly separatebut concurrentlyconscious subjects of experience—such as you and me—can form underidealism: each is an alter of universal consciousness. And because each alterbecomesunabletoevokethementalcontentsofanother,theirrespectiveinnerlivesacquireaseeminglyprivatecharacter,eventhoughtheyremainintegraltotheunderlyingconsciousnessthatconstitutesthem.

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4.5 Thestand-aloneworldobjectionIf all there is is consciousness, does the world continue to exist when notconsciously observed by a living being? A negative answer to this questionseems extremely implausible yet difficult to avoid under idealism. BishopBerkeleyhasfamouslyattemptedtocircumventitbyappealingtoadivinity,ascapturedinRonaldKnox’slimerick,GodintheQuad:

Therewasayoungmanwhosaid“GodMustfinditexceedinglyoddTothinkthatthetreeShouldcontinuetobeWhenthere’snooneaboutinthequad.”

Reply:

“DearSir:Yourastonishment’sodd;Iamalwaysaboutinthequad.Andthat’swhythetreeWillcontinuetobeSinceobservedby,Yoursfaithfully,God.”

LegitimateasanappealtoadivinitymighthavebeeninBerkeley’stime,todaymorerigorisexpectedfromaviableontology.Sohowdowesolvetheproblemofastand-aloneworldunderidealism?

With reference to the discussion in the preceding section, notice that, bydefinition,mental contents inside an alter of universal consciousness cannotdirectlyevokementalcontentsoutsidethealter,orvice-versa.Buttheycanstillinfluence or impinge on each other. Indeed, mental impingement across adissociativeboundaryisempiricallyknown.LynchandKilmartin(2013:100),forinstance,reportthatdissociatedfeelingscandramaticallyaffectourthoughts,while Eagleman (2011: 20-54) shows that dissociated expectations routinelymold our perceptions. We can visualize this as in Figure 4.2a, wherein thepartialoverlapofadjacentverticesinternalandexternaltothealter(cf.Figure4.1b)representsmentalimpingementacrossitsdissociativeboundary.

Figure 4.2b illustrates the exact same thing according to a simplifiedrepresentation:thebroaderconsciousnessisrepresentedasawhitecirclewithanalterrepresentedasagreycirclewithinit.Thedashedarrowsrepresenttheimpingement of external and internalmental contents on each other, acrossthealter’sboundary.Iwillhenceforthusethissimplifiedrepresentation.

Now notice thatmental contents of universal consciousness that surround—butremainexternalto—analtercanimpingeonthealter’sboundaryfromtheoutside.Underidealism,itcanbecoherentlyarguedthatthisiswhatgivesrisetosenseperceptions:thephysicalworldaroundusistheextrinsicappearanceonthescreenofperceptionofphenomenalitysurroundingourrespectivealter.SeeFigure4.3.


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Figure4.2:Mentalcontentsimpingingonthedissociativeboundaryofanalter,illustratedintwodifferentways(a)and(b).

Figure4.3:Mentalcontentsofuniversalconsciousnesssurroundinganaltercancausethealter’ssenseperceptionsbyimpingingonitsdissociativeboundary.

The stand-alonecharacterof theworldcan thusbecoherentlyexplained: theworld is a perceptual representation of phenomenality dissociated from ourpersonal psyche and, as such, independent of our personal inner life. Thatwhichunderliesthephysicalworldweperceivecontinuestoexist—intheformofphenomenalityoutsideourrespectivealter—evenaswesleep.

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4.6 TheautonomyofnatureobjectionA closely related objection is this: nature unfolds according to patterns andregularities—the ‘laws of nature’—independent of our personal volition.Human beings cannot change these laws. But if nature is in consciousness,shouldthatnotbepossiblebyamereactofimagination?

This objection can be rebutted along the same lines as the previous one.However, there is a more direct and intuitive refutation. Notice that theimplicit assumptionhere is that allmental activity is acquiescent to volition,whichispatentlyfalseeveninourownpersonalpsyche.Afterall,byandlargewe cannot control our dreams, nightmares, emotions and evenmany of ourthoughts. They come, develop and go on their own terms. At a pathologicallevel, schizophrenics cannot control their visions and people suffering fromobsessive-compulsive disorder are constantly at the mercy of oppressivethoughts.Therearenumerousexamplesofconsciousactivitythatescapesthecontrolof volition.Often,wedonot even recognize this activity asourown;thatis,wedonotidentifywithit.Itunfoldsasautonomous,seeminglyexternalphenomena, such as dreams and schizophrenic hallucinations. Yet, all thisactivity is unquestionably within consciousness. We perceive it as separatefromourselvesbecausethesegmentofourpsychethatgivesrisetothisactivityisdissociatedfromtheego,thesegmentwithwhichwedoidentify.

Sothatthereisactivityinuniversalconsciousnessthatwedonotidentifywithandcannotcontrol isentirelyconsistentwith idealism.Thisactivity issimplydissociatedfromouregoanditssenseofvolition.

4.7 ThesharedworldobjectionIf all reality is in consciousness, then theworld is akin to a dream.As such,idealismimpliesthatweareallpartakinginroughlythesamedream.Yet,sinceourbodiesareseparate,wecannotbesharingadream;orsotheobjectiongoes.

The objection begs the question by implicitly assuming that the bodycircumscribes dreaming consciousness, as opposed to the other way around.Onlyunder this assumptiondoes the impossibility of sharing adream followfromthefactthatbodiesareseparate.Butunderidealism,itisthebodythatisinuniversalconsciousness,notconsciousnessinthebody.Oncethisisproperlyunderstood according to the framework developed in the preceding sections,the rebuttal of this objection becomes rather straightforward:we all seem toinhabit the same world because our respective alters are surrounded by thesameuniversal fieldofphenomenality, likewhirlpools ina single stream.SeeFigure4.4,whichsimplyextendsFigure4.3tomultiplealters.


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Figure4.4:Altersofuniversalconsciousnessandtheirsharedworld.

4.8 ThenaturalorderobjectionThe world we perceive around ourselves is governed by stable and orderlynatural laws. Therefore, if the contents of perception are a representation ofphenomenality in universal consciousness, then this phenomenality must bestable and orderly at root. But our own personal thoughts and emotions arenotoriouslyunstableanddisorderly.Sohowplausible is it that theorderandstability we discern in the laws of nature represent thoughts or emotions inuniversalconsciousness?

The misconception here, of course, is that of anthropomorphization: toattributetouniversalconsciousnessasawholecognitivecharacteristicsknownonly in small dissociated segments of it, such as human beings. Nothing inidealism precludes the possibility that phenomenality in universalconsciousness unfolds according to very stable and orderly patterns andregularities,whoseextrinsicappearancecorrespondstothelawsofnature.Thatour human thoughts and emotions seem rather reactive and unstable is aproductofevolutionunderthepressuresofnaturalselectionwithinaparticularplanetary ecosystem. At a universal level, consciousness has not undergonesuchevolutionarypressures.

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Under physicalism, the laws of nature are seen as irreducible causal patternssomehow built into the fabric of the cosmos. It is the dynamic unfolding ofthesepatternsthatleadstotheorderandcomplexityweseearoundourselves.Under idealism, such irreducible causal patterns are posited to be somehowbuilt into universal consciousness itself, instead of an objective fabric ofspacetime. Yet, beyond this distinction, they are the same patterns thatphysicalismentails,asinherenttoconsciousnessasphysicallawsareallegedlyinherent to the fabric of spacetime. Idealism poses no extra difficulty thanphysicalisminthisregard.

Thiscanbebetterunderstoodwithasimpleterminologymove.Certainschoolsof psychology speak of ‘psychological archetypes’: innate, built-in templatesaccording towhichmental dynamics unfold (Jung 1991).As such,we can saythat, under idealism, the laws of nature are the archetypes of universalconsciousness.Theyarebuilt-in templatesaccording towhich the ‘vibrations’of universal consciousness—that is, phenomenality—develop, analogously tohowthephysicalconstraintsofavibratingsurfacedetermineitsnaturalmodesofvibration.

4.9 TheequivalenceobjectionAswehave seen inSections4.5 to4.7, idealismacknowledges that there is aworld outside personal psyches, since personal psyches are but dissociatedsegmentsofabroaderuniversalconsciousness.Theobjection,then,isthatthenotion of a broad stream of phenomenality outside personal psyches isequivalenttothephysicalistpostulateofaworldoutsideconsciousness.

Except for solipsism, any viable ontology must entail at least one inferencebeyonddirectexperience.Thisisnecessarytomakesenseofthefactthatweallinhabit the same world beyond ourselves and are unable to change itsgoverning laws.For this reason,physicalism infers theexistenceofauniverseoutsideconsciousness,whichweallinhabit.Idealism,ontheotherhand,inferssimply that consciousness itself extends beyond its face-value personalboundaries. This way, while physicalism postulates a fundamentally newontological class next to experience, idealism simply extrapolates theboundaries of consciousness—the sole undeniable ontological class andprimary datum of existence—beyond those we can probe directly. To put itmetaphorically, while idealism makes sense of reality by inferring that theEarthextendsbeyondthevisiblehorizon,physicalismdoessobyinferringtheexistence of an isomorphic but ontologically distinct ‘shadow’ Earth. Clearly,theformerisamoreparsimoniousinferenceand,assuch,notequivalenttothelatter.

More importantly, the implications of idealism are radically different fromthose of physicalism. For instance, while physicalism implies thatconsciousness ends upon the death of the body, idealism impliesmerely theend of the corresponding dissociation, not of consciousness proper. I have


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elaboratedonfurtherdifferencesinimplicationselsewhere(Kastrup2015:185-198).

4.10 TheprimacyofbrainfunctionobjectionNot only are there (a) clear correlations between specific patterns of brainactivityandreportedinnerexperience(Koch2004),weknowthat(b)physicalinterferencewiththebrain—suchasheadtraumaandtheuseofpsychoactivedrugs—can influence one’s inner life rather dramatically. This may seem tosuggest an arrow of causation pointing from a physical body outsideconsciousnesstophenomenality,whichwouldcontradictidealism.

To make sense of observation (a), we need to briefly recapitulate earlierdiscussions. As we have seen in Section 4.4, under idealism privateminds—such as our own human psyche—can be explained as dissociated alters ofuniversalconsciousness.WehavealsoseeninSection4.5thatthestandaloneworldarounduscanbeexplainedastheextrinsicappearanceofphenomenalitysurrounding—butoutside—ourrespectivealter.Now,fromthepointofviewofagivenalterA,nothingprevents thedissociatedmental activityof analterBfrombeingpartofthephenomenalitysurroundingA.BisthenpartofA’sworldand, as such, must also have an extrinsic appearance on A’s screen ofperception. In other words, theremust be something alters look like from asecond-personpointof view.And sinceweknow fromdirect experience thatour private inner life extends only to the boundaries of our metabolizingbody—afterall,wecannotperceivethingsthatdonotimpingeonourskinorother sense organs, or move anything beyond our own body through directintention—metabolizingbodiesseemprimafacietobetheextrinsicappearanceofdissociatedaltersofuniversalconsciousness.Ifso,thismeansthatalllivingbeingshaveprivate inner lives in somewayanalogous toourown,but tablesand chairs do not. The latter are simply aspects of the inanimate universe,which, as a whole, is the extrinsic appearance of phenomenality outside allalters.

Brainactivity,ofcourse, is integraltoametabolizinghumanbody.Therefore,under idealism, brain activity is simply part of what one’s private innerexperiences—self-reflectiveandotherwise,asIwillelaborateuponinthenextsection—look like fromacrossadissociativeboundary.Toput itanotherway,one’sbrainactivity ispartofaphenomenal representationofone’s inner life.Andofcourse,arepresentationmustcorrelatewiththephenomenalprocessitis the appearance of, without requiring anything ontologically distinct fromconsciousness. That this correlation is empirically observed is thus entirelyconsistentwithidealism.

Apossiblecounterargumenthereisthis:thepatternsofneuralactivityonecanmeasurewithfunctionalbrainscannerscanbeenormouslycomplexintermsofinformationcontent;perhapsmorecomplexthanthecontentsofconsciousnesswe have introspective access to. What does the extra complexity thencorrespond to? The key to answering this question is in the next section,



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whereinadistinctionwillbemadebetweencontentsofconsciousnesswehaveintrospective access to—that is, can self-reflect upon—and contents ofconsciousness that, despite still being experienced, fall outside the reach ofintrospection. The extra complexity, insofar as it indeed is the case,correspondstothelatter.

Regardingobservation(b)oftheobjection,thesuggestedarrowofcausationisbasedonanunexaminedbutpervasiveassumption:thatthephysicalisinsomesense distinct from, yet causally effective upon, the phenomenal. This isprecisely what idealism denies. Under idealism, the physical is simply thecontentsofperception, aparticular typeofphenomenality.As such,whatwecall ‘physical interference with the brain’ is the extrinsic appearance ofphenomenality external to an alter that disrupts the inner experiences of thealterfromacrossitsdissociativeboundary.Thedisruption‘piercesthrough’theboundary,sotospeak.Andthatcertaintypesofphenomenalitydisruptothertypes of phenomenality is not only entailed by idealism, but also empiricallytrivial. After all, our thoughts disrupt our emotions—and vice-versa—everyday.Forthesamereasonthatthoughtsdisruptemotions,‘physicalinterferencewith the brain’ disrupts an organism’s inner life. None of this contradictsidealism.

4.11 TheunconsciousmentationobjectionInLibet’snowfamousexperiments(1985),neuroscientistswereabletorecord,a fraction of a second before subjects reported making a decision to act,mounting brain activity associated with the initiation of a simple voluntaryaction.Atfirstsight,thiswouldseemtoindicatethatdecisionsaremadeinaneural substrate outside consciousness, thereby contradicting idealism. I useLibet’s experiments heremerely as an example, for today we know of manyotherinstancesofseeminglyunconsciousmentation,suchasmovingone’sfoothalfway to the brake pedal before one becomes aware of danger ahead(Eagleman2011:5).Underidealism,sinceeverythingisinconsciousness,therecannotbesuchathingasunconsciousmentation.Sowhatisgoingon?

The misconception here is a conflation of consciousness proper with aparticular configuration of consciousness. Indeed, to report an experience—such as making a decision to act or seeing danger ahead—to another or tooneself,onehastoboth(a)havetheexperienceand(b)knowthatonehastheexperience,whichSchooler(2002)calleda“re-representation.”Inotherwords,one can only report phenomenality that one is self-reflectively aware of at ametacognitive level. But self-reflection is just a particular configuration ofconsciousness, whereby consciousness turns in upon itself to experienceknowledgeofitsownphenomenality(Kastrup2014:104-110).Nothingprecludesthe possibility that phenomenality takes place outside the field of self-


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reflection. In this case, we cannot report the phenomenality—not even toourselves—becausewedonotknowthatweexperienceit.1

The argument above is not idiosyncratic, for the existence of unreportablephenomenality iswellestablished inneurosciencetoday(Tsuchiyaet al.2015,Vandenbroucke et al. 2014). Indeed, as elaborated upon by Schooler (2002),reportability is an extra function at a metacognitive level, on top ofphenomenality proper. So the possibility that presents itself to us is that allmentationisactuallyconscious,eventhoughwecannotreportmuchof it.Assuch, the decisions made by Libet’s subjects could well have been made inconsciousness, but outside the field of self-reflection. The correspondingphenomenality then entered this field a fraction of a second later, therebybecoming reportable. Analogously, driversmay consciously see danger aheadbeforetheycantellthemselvesthat theyseedangerahead.Theappearanceofunconsciousmentationduetounreportabilitydoesnotcontradictidealism.

4.12 TheunconsciousnessobjectionAlongsimilarlines,theideahereisthat,whenwee.g.faintorundergogeneralanesthesia, we become seemingly unconscious. Yet, we do not cease to existbecauseofit,whichmayseemtocontradicttheidealisttenetthatourbodyistheextrinsicappearanceofconsciousinnerlife.

Letusconsiderthismorecarefully.Imaginethatyouwakeupinthemorningafterhoursofdeepsleep.Youmayremembernothingofwhathappenedduringthoseprecedinghours,concludingthatyouwereunconsciousallnight.Then,later in theday,yousuddenly remember thatyouactuallyhadavery intensedream.Soyouwerenotunconsciousallnight,yousimplycouldnotrememberyourexperiences.

Indeed,allwecanassertwithconfidenceuponcomingroundfromepisodesofseemingunconsciousnessisthatwecannotrememberphenomenalityoccurringduring those episodes. The actual absence of phenomenality is impossible toassertwithconfidence.Asamatterof fact,manythingswehavetraditionallyassociatedwithunconsciousnessarenowknowntoentailintenseexperiences.For instance, fainting caused by e.g. asphyxiation, strangulation orhyperventilationisknowntocorrelatewitheuphoria,insightsandvisions(Neal2008:310-315,RhinewineandWilliams2007,Retz2007).G-force-induced lossofconsciousness(G-LOC)isalsoknowntocorrelatewith“memorabledreams”(Whinnery and Whinnery 1990). There is even evidence for “implicitperception”duringgeneralanesthesia(KihlstromandCork2007).

Sleep,ofcourse,isknowntocorrelatewithdreams.Butevenduringphasesofsleep wherein electroencephalogram readings show no dream-related neuralactivity,thereareothertypesofactivitythatmaycorrelatewithnon-recallablephenomenality distinct from dreams. Indeed, this is precisely what a recent

1ThisiselaborateduponinmuchmoredetailinChapter5ofthisdissertation.



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studypointsout: “therearegoodempiricaland theoretical reasons for sayingthata rangeofdifferent typesof sleepexperience, someofwhicharedistinctfromdreaming,canoccurinallstagesofsleep”(Windt,NielsenandThompson2016: 871, emphasis added). The authors identify three different categories ofsleepexperiencesdistinct fromdreams: (a)non-immersive imageryand sleepthinking, (b) perceptions and bodily sensations, and (c) ‘selfless’ states andcontentless sleep experiences that may be similar to those reported byexperiencedmeditators.

As such, what the empirical data shows is that episodes of seemingunconsciousnessareassociatedwithanimpairmentofmemoryaccess,butnotnecessarilywithabsenceofphenomenality.Asamatteroffact,therearestrongindications,asmentionedabove,thattheoppositeistrue.

4.13 ThesolipsismobjectionSome conflate idealism with solipsism, the notion that the world is one’spersonaldream,allotherlivingcreaturesbeingjustfigmentsofone’spersonalimagination.Undersolipsism,thereisnothingitisliketobeotherpeople;theyhavenoinnerlife;theyexistonlyasappearancesinthepersonalpsycheofthedreamer.Assuch,whateverempiricalevidenceonebringstobearandwhateveronesaystoasolipsistmustberegardedbythesolipsistasfigmentsofhisorherownimagination,whichrenderssolipsismunfalsifiable.Sotheobjectionhereisthat, by being unfalsifiable, solipsism—and therefore idealism—is beneathphilosophicaldebate.

Naturally,idealismisnotsolipsism.Underidealism,thereissomethingitisliketobeotherlivingcreatures;theyalsohaveprivateinnerlives.Soidealiststakeotherpeopleseriouslyaslegitimatesourcesofreportedexperiencesandviews,notjustasfigmentsofone’sownimagination.Moreover,idealistsacknowledgethat there is a world outside and independent of their personal (dissociated)psyche,asdiscussedinSections4.5to4.7.Theysimplydonotacknowledgethatthis world is ontologically distinct from consciousness itself. Indeed, byacknowledging that dissociation in universal consciousness implies a worldoutsidetheirownpersonalmentation, idealists lookuponthisworldinawayentirelycompatiblewithnaturalismandscientificinquiry.

Unlikesolipsism,idealismhastheburdentoexplainobservationsnon-trivially.Considerthreebasicfactsthatareoftenusedtojustifyphysicalism:(a)thelawsofnatureare independentofourpersonalvolition; (b)weall seemto inhabitthesameworld;and(c) thereare tightcorrelationsbetweenobservablebrainactivity and reported inner life. Solipsism trivializes all three facts in lieu ofactually making sense of them: the solipsist allegedly dreams them all up,ratherarbitrarily.Theidealist,ontheotherhand,byacknowledgingtheinnerlivesofotherpeopleandtheautonomousnatureoftheworld,hastheburdento reconcile these three facts with the notion that reality unfolds inconsciousness.Ifidealismiscorrect,(a)howcomewecannotsimplyimagineadifferentandbetterworld?Iftheworldisakintoadreaminconsciousness,(b)


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howcomeweareallhavingthesamedream?Ifconsciousnessisnotgeneratedby the brain, (c) how come there are such tight correlations between brainactivityandinnerexperience?ThesequestionshavealreadybeenansweredinSections 4.6, 4.7 and 4.10, respectively. The important point here is this:idealismis falsifiable in that, if itcannotanswer theseandotherquestions intermsofuniversalconsciousnessalone,itmustbediscarded.

4.14 ThecosmologicalhistoryobjectionThere is overwhelming evidence for the existence of the universe beforeconsciouslifearose.Therefore—orsotheobjectiongoes—itisuntenabletosaythat the universe exists in consciousness. This may strike some readers asobviouslyquestion-begging—which,of course, it is—butpleasebearwithmeforthesakeofcompleteness.

Theimplicitassumptionhereisthatconsciousnessarisesonlywithbiology,asa product of biology.Naturally, this is preciselywhat idealismdenies.Underidealism, biology is merely the extrinsic appearance of dissociated, localdifferentiations of consciousness (that is, alters), not the constituent orgenerator of consciousness. There was universal consciousness before suchdissociated, local differentiations arose.And therewas phenomenality in thisuniversal consciousness corresponding to the inanimateuniverseprior to theoriginoflife.

4.15 TheimplausibilityofcosmicinnerlifeobjectionThelastobjectionIwilladdressinthisessayis,likethefirst,purelyintuitive.Itasksrhetorically:Howplausibleisitthattheinanimateuniverseasawholeisthe extrinsic appearance of some kind of universal inner life? The intuitiveappealofthequestionisunderstandable.Afterall,weonlyhaveintrospectiveaccesstoourown(dissociated)personalinnerlife,sotogaugethepresenceofother or broader inner life we depend on perceivable external indicators. Inother people and animals, these indicators are their behavior. Butwithin theextremelysmallrangeofspaceandtimeinwhichweliveourlives—andeveninwhichhumanhistoryasawholehasunfolded—wesimplycannotperceiveanyintuitively-appealingindicatorofuniversalinnerlife.

Yet, we can approach the question from a different angle. Consider a livingbrainexposedbysurgeonsduringanoperation.Itisaveryconcreteobjectthatcanbeseen,touched,cut,cauterized,etc.Itiscomposedofthesametypesofatomsandforcefieldsthatmakeuptheuniverseasawhole.Thereisnothingmagicalaboutabraininsofaraswecangaugeonthescreenofperception.Andneither can we discern any intuitively-appealing indicator of inner life bysimplylookingatanexposedbrain.

Nonetheless,weallknowthat‘behind’thelivingbrainliestheentireinnerlifeofaperson,withloveaffairsandheartbreaks,successesanddisappointments,great adventures and quiet introspective insights, great joy and indescribable



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suffering. ‘Behind’ that very concreteobjectunder the surgeon’s scalpel thereliesaworldofphenomenality.Counterintuitiveornot,thisisthewaynatureis:what we call physical structures—such as living brains—can correspond insomewaytorichphenomenality.Wemaynotknowhow thisisso,butwedoknowthatitisso.

Therefore,unlesswesolvethe‘hardproblemofconsciousness’(Chalmers2003)and explain what makes brains different from the inanimate universe as awholeinthisregard,ifbrainscorrespondtoinnerlifeitisnotatallimplausiblethattheinanimateuniverseasawholecouldaswell.Afterall,brainsaremadeofthesame‘stuff’thattherestoftheuniverseisalsomadeof.

One could argue at this point that only particular structural and functionalorganizations of this ‘stuff,’ as found in brains, are conducive to the kind ofinformationprocessingassociatedwithhumaninnerlife.Forinstance,Tononi(2004) has shown that reportable experiences correlate only with complexnetworksofinformationintegrationinthebrain.Althoughithasrecentlybeenshownthattherearestructuralsimilaritiesbetweenbrainsandtheuniverseatits largest scales (Krioukov et al. 2012), 2 it is implausible that analogousinformation integration takes place at a universal level. The distances andsignalpropagationtimesinvolveddonotpermitit(Siegel2016).

However, thehypothesisofferedhere isnot that theuniversehashuman-likecognition and associated information integration. As a matter of fact, thehypothesisisnoteventhattheuniversehascognition,definedasthecapacitytoacquireknowledgeorunderstanding.Instead,theclaimissimplythatthereisraw experience—qualia,pureandsimple—associatedwith theuniverseasawhole,whichdoesnotrequireanythinglikethekindofinformationintegrationunderlyinghumanself-reflection.

4.16 ConclusionsIdealism isauniqueontology in that,unlikephysicalismandpanpsychism, itassertsthatphysicalstructuresarecircumscribedbyconsciousness,asopposedtotheotherwayaround.Yet,analyticphilosophyhastraditionallyconsideredidealismimplausible.Inthisessay,Ihavearguedthattheallegedimplausibilityofidealismisbasedonmisconceptions,suchas:

• Unfounded intuition—e.g. taking the concreteness of the world toindicate its independence from consciousness, or asserting theimplausibilityofuniversalinnerlife;

• Lackofphilosophical imagination—e.g. assuming thatmultipleprivatemindsandastand-aloneworldcannotbecoherentlyreducedtoasingleuniversalconsciousness;

2This conclusionhasbeenconfirmedandamplifiedbya later studydonebyFrancoVazzaandAlbertoFeletti(2017).


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• Demonstrably wrong assumptions—e.g. that all mental activity isacquiescenttovolition;

• Question-begging—e.g. arguing that different people cannot share adreambecausetheirbodiesareseparate,andarguingthattheuniversecannotbeinconsciousnessbecauseitexistedbeforeconsciouslifefirstarose;

• Anthropomorphization—e.g. taking all conceivable processes inconsciousnesstonecessarilybeunstableanddisorderly;

• Failuretounderstandtheimplicationsofidealism—e.g.assertingthatafield of phenomenality outside personal psyches is equivalent to aphysicalworldoutsidephenomenality;

• Unexamined assumptions—e.g. that the physical is in some sensedistinctfrom,yetcausallyeffectiveupon,thephenomenal;

• Conflation—e.g. conflating consciousness proper with self-reflection,conflating unconsciousness with failure to recall phenomenality, andconflatingidealismwithsolipsism.

As such, idealism is an entirely plausible ontology that may offer the mostparsimoniousandexplanatorilypowerfuloptionyettomakesenseofreality.


5. ThereIsan‘Unconscious,’butItMayWellBeConscious

ThispaperfirstappearedinEurope’sJournalofPsychology,ISSN:1841-0413,Vol.13, No. 3, pp. 559-572, in August 2017. A summary of this paper has alsoappearedinScientificAmericanon19September2017.1

5.1 AbstractDepthpsychologyfindsempiricalvalidationtodayinavarietyofobservationsthat suggest the presence of causally effective mental processes outsideconscious experience. I submit that this is due to misinterpretation of theobservations: the subset of consciousness called ‘meta-consciousness’ in theliterature is often mistaken for consciousness proper, thereby artificiallycreating space for an ‘unconscious.’The impliedhypothesis is thatallmentalprocessesmayinfactbeconscious,theappearanceofunconsciousnessarisingfrom our dependence on self-reflective introspection for gauging awareness.Afterre-interpretingtheempiricaldataaccordingtoaphilosophicallyrigorousdefinition of consciousness, I show that two well-known phenomenacorroborate this hypothesis: (a) experiences that, despite being conscious,aren’t re-represented during introspection; and (b) dissociated experiencesinaccessibletotheexecutiveego.Ifconsciousnessisinherenttoallmentation,itmaybefundamentalinnature,asopposedtoaproductofparticulartypesofbrainfunction.

5.2 IntroductionThe foundational theoretical inference of the clinical approach called ‘depthpsychology’—whoseoriginscanbetracedbacktotheworksofFredericMyers,PierreJanet,WilliamJames,SigmundFreudandCarlJung—isthatthehumanpsyche comprises two main subdivisions: a conscious and an unconscioussegment(Kellyetal.2009:301-334).Theconscioussegmentcomprisesmentalactivity to which one has introspective access. The so-called ‘ego’ is the feltsense of personal self that arises in association with a subset of thisintrospectively-accessible activity—e.g. some bodily sensations, images,thoughts, beliefs, etc.—and it is in this sense that I use the word ‘ego’throughoutthispaper.Incontrast,theunconscioussegmentcomprisesmentalactivity to which one has no introspective access. Inaccessible as it may be,depthpsychologistscontendthatmentalactivityinthe ‘unconscious’—atermoftenused as a noun—still can anddoes influence one’s conscious thoughts,feelingsandbehaviors.Amoremodernarticulationof thenotionofamentalunconscious—as opposed to what has historically been called “unconscious 1Atthetimeofthiswriting,theScientificAmericanessaywasfreelyavailableonlineat:https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/consciousness-goes-deeper-than-you-think/.


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cerebration” (Kelly et al. 2009: 340-352)—can be found in the writings ofKihlstrom(1997),forexample.2

Recent empirical results seem to corroborate the hypothesis of a mentalunconscious by revealing the presence of mental activity individuals cannotaccess through introspection, but which nonetheless causally conditions theindividuals’ conscious thoughts, feelings and behaviors (e.g. Westen 1999,Augusto 2010, Eagleman 2011). Hassin goes as far as insisting, “unconsciousprocesses can carryout every fundamentalhigh-level function that consciousprocesses can perform” (2013: 196). He reviews empirical evidence indicatingthat the unconscious is capable of cognitive control, the pursuit of goals,information broadcasting and even reasoning (Hassin 2013: 197-200). Thisechoes Dijksterhuis and Nordgren, whose experiments indicate that theunconscious can encompass “all psychological phenomena associated withthought, such as choice, decision making, attitude formation and attitudechange, impression formation, diagnosticity, problem solving, and creativity”(2006: 96). Even practitioners of cognitive therapy, who have traditionallyignored the unconscious, have more recently found clinical value ininterpretingpossible indirectmanifestationsof inaccessiblemental activity inthe form of dreams (Rosner, Lyddon and Freeman 2004). This new scientificapproach to the hypothesis of an unconscious has been called “the newunconscious”(Hassin,UlemanandBargh2005).

Clearly, there is significant evidence for the presence of causally-effectivemental activity that we ordinarily cannot access through introspection. Thequestion, however, is whether mental activity inaccessible throughintrospectionisnecessarilyunconscious.Itistruethat,fromtheperspectiveofclinical psychology, these two modalities are operationally indistinguishable,since theclinicians’ solegaugeof theirpatients’ rangeofconsciousness is thepatients’ownintrospectivereports.However,fromatheoreticalstandpoint, itisconceivablethatmentalactivitytheegocannotaccessthroughintrospectioncould still be conscious, in the sense of being phenomenally experiencedsomewhere in the psyche. If so, this has significant implications for ourunderstandingofthenatureofconsciousness—andofitsrelationshiptobrainfunction—in the fields of neuropsychology, neuroscience and philosophy ofmind.

Indeed,althoughtheconflationbetweenlackofintrospectiveaccessandlackofconsciousness is operationally justifiable in a clinical setting, the widespreaduseofthequalifier ‘unconscious’todaysuggestsanintrinsicdichotomyinthe

2Throughoutthisdissertation,Iusetheword‘mental’asasynonymof‘phenomenal’;exceptinthischapter.Becausethischapterwasoriginallypublishedasanarticleinapsychology journal, here the word ‘mental’ is associated with cognitive activity,instead of qualia. According to this definition, mental processes aren’t necessarilyconscious, for cognition can conceivably take place unconsciously. And if they areconscious, mental processes then entail the acquisition of knowledge and/orunderstanding,whichimpliesmorethanjustthepresenceofphenomenality.



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natureofmentalprocesses:somesupposedlyaren’texperiencedwhilstothers,somehow, are. This implies that consciousness is not fundamental tomentation, but a property that emerges from particular arrangements orconfigurations of neurons. Primed and driven by this assumption, significantresourcesarespentinneuropsychologyandneurosciencetodayinanefforttofigureoutwhatthesearrangementsorconfigurationsare.Hypothesescurrentlyunderinvestigationvaryfromvasttopologiesofinformationintegrationacrossneurons (Tononi 2004) to microscopic quantum processes within neuralmicrotubules(Hameroff2006).

Thepresentpaper,ontheotherhand,elaboratesonthepossibilitythattheseefforts are misguided, for introspectively-inaccessible mental processes maystillbeconscious:theymaybephenomenallyexperiencedinamanner—orinasegmentofthepsyche—thatescapesegoicintrospection.Thisway,thenotionofanunconscious,despite thebroaduseand influenceof thetermintoday’spsychology, may at root be a linguistic inaccuracy originating from mereoperationalconvenience. If so, thenconsciousnessmaynotbe theproductofspecific arrangements or configurations of neural activity, but a fundamentalproperty of all mentation. The implications of this possibility forneuropsychology, neuroscience and philosophy of mind are hard tooverestimate.

5.3 DefiningandgaugingconsciousnessBefore we can meaningfully discuss unconsciousness—the alleged lack ofconsciousness—wemust,ofcourse,haveclarityregardingthemeaningoftheword ‘consciousness.’ What does it mean to say that a mental process isconscious? In this paper, I shall use a rigorous definition well-accepted inneuropsychology, neuroscience and philosophy of mind: mental activity isconscious if,andonlyif,thereissomething—anything—itisliketohavesuchmentalactivityinandofitself(Nagel1974,Chalmers2003).(Alessrigorousbutmore easily understandable formulation of this definition is this: mentalactivity is conscious if there is something it feels like to have such mentalactivityinandofitself.Theverb‘tofeel,’however,istooambiguoustobeusedin a rigorous definition, so philosophers of mind have reached consensusaround the formulation I originally proposed above.) This way, if mentalactivity isunconscious,thenthere isnothingit is liketohavesuchactivity inandof itself,evenif it, inturn,causesor influencesconsciousactivity.Noticethatthisdefinitionofconsciousnesshonorsourintuitiveunderstandingoftheword: you only consider yourself conscious right now because there issomethingitisliketobeyouwhileyoureadthispaper.Otherwise,youwouldnecessarilybeunconscious.

Toremainconsistentwithourintuitiveunderstandingofwords,Ishallalsosaythatmental activity corresponds to experience if, and only if, it is conscious.Youexperiencereadingthispaperbecauseyouareconsciousofitrightnow.Ifyouwerenot,whatsensewouldtherebeinsayingthatyouexperienceit?


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According to these definitions, higher-order thought (as defined in Schooler2002: 340) is unnecessary for there to be consciousness. The presence of themerequalitiesof rawexperience—whichphilosophersofmindcallqualia—isalready sufficient for a mental process to be considered conscious. In thiscontext, the categorization proposed by Schooler is helpful: he distinguishesbetween “non-conscious (unexperienced), conscious (experienced), andmeta-conscious (re-represented)” mental processes (2002: 339). Only the latterentailshigher-orderthought.

Nownoticethatdirectinsightintoone’sconsciousinnerlifeislimitedtothoseexperiencesone’segocanaccessthroughintrospectionandthenreporttoselfor others. In the words of Klein, “It is only in virtue of knowledge byacquaintance that we know our mental states. … Accordingly, the use ofintrospectivereportsasareliableandinformativesourceofinformationaboutmental states has seen a resurgence over the past few decades” (2015: 361,original emphasis). For this reason, the study of the Neural Correlates ofConsciousness (NCCs) still largely consists in correlating objectivemeasurements of neural activitywith introspective assessments (Koch 2004):patternsofneuralactivityaccompaniedbyreportedexperienceareconsideredNCCs. Indeed, as Newell and Shanks recently wrote, “Whereas issues abouthow to define and measure awareness were once highly prominent andcontroversial,itnowseemstobegenerallyacceptedthatawarenessshouldbeoperationallydefinedasreportableknowledge”(2014:15).

Theproblemis that,as I shall shortlyelaborateupon, for thesubject’segotoaccessandreportanexperiencetheremustbe:(a)anassociativelinkbetweentheegoandtheexperience;and(b)ameta-consciousre-representationoftheexperience. Therefore, while subjects can report non-dissociated meta-conscious processes, they fundamentally cannot distinguish between trulyunconscious processes and conscious processes that simply aren’t meta-conscious,forbothtypesareequallyunreportabletoselfandothers.Thisisanalarming conclusion, for much of the work indicating the presence of anunconscious isbasedon(the lackof) introspectivereportsofexperience.Thenexttwosectionsexpandonallthis.

In what follows, I shall assume that introspective reports are as good as“reliable,relevant,immediate,andsensitive”(NewellandShanks2014:3).Thisis charitable towards the hypothesis of an unconscious, for—as Newell andShanks argued (2014)—much of the evidence behind this hypothesis can beattributed to methodological artifacts: delayed introspective assessmentsleading to impairedrecall,experimentersnotprovidingsufficientopportunityfor subjects to report the introspective insights they actually have, cross-taskconfusion,etc.Mygoal is toshowthat,even if theresearchunderpinningtheexistenceofanunconsciouswerefreeofmethodologicalartifacts,therewouldstill be compelling reasons to posit thatmental processes unaccompanied byintrospectivereportsofexperiencecanbeconsciousnonetheless.



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5.4 Non-self-reflectiveexperiencesTogain introspectiveaccess toanexperience it isnotenoughtomerelyhavetheexperience;wemustalsoconsciouslyknowthatwehaveit.Afterall,whatintrospective insight couldwe gain about an experience ofwhichwe are notexplicitlyaware?Schoolerelaborates:

Critical to both the centrality of the conscious/non-consciousdistinction, and its equationwith reportability, is the assumption thatpeopleareexplicitlyawareoftheirconsciousexperiences.However,thisassumptionischallengedwhensubjectiveexperienceisdissociatedfromthe explicit awareness of that experience. Such dissociationsdemonstrate the importance of distinguishing between consciousnessand‘meta-consciousness.’(2002:339.)

The conscious knowledgeof the experience—which comes in addition to theexperienceitself—iswhatSchoolercallsa“re-representation”:

Periodically attention is directed towards explicitly assessing thecontents of experience. The resulting meta-consciousness involves anexplicit re-representation of consciousness in which one interprets,describes,orotherwisecharacterizesthestateofone’smind.(2002:339-340,emphasisadded.)

Although re-representation is necessary for introspection, it is largely absent,for instance, in dreams (Windt and Metzinger 2007). This demonstratescompellinglythatmentalactivitydoesnotneedtobere-representedinordertobe experienced—after all, who can seriously doubt that dreams areexperienced?—butonlytobeintrospectivelyaccessed.Duringordinarydreamswesimplyexperience,withoutconsciouslyknowingthatweexperience.

More formally, suppose that one has an experienceX. To gain introspectiveaccess to X one must have conscious knowledge N of X. But N—the “re-representation”—isaseparateexperienceinitsownright.OneexperiencestheknowingofXasaqualitycloselyrelatedto,butdistinctfrom,X itself.Nisnotencompassed, entailed or implied byX. Indeed, Schooler highlights the factthatre-representationscanevenmisrepresenttheoriginalexperiences:

Once meta-consciousness is triggered, translation dissociations canoccur if the re-representation process misrepresents the originalexperience.Suchdissociationsareparticularly likelywhenoneverballyreflects on non-verbal experiences or attempts to take stock ofambiguous or subtle perceptual experiences. (2002: 340, emphasisadded.)

Tomaketheseabstractconsiderationsmoreconcrete,consideryourbreathingrightnow:thesensationofairflowingthroughyournostrils,themovementsofyour diaphragm, the inflation anddeflation of your lungs, etc.Were younotexperiencing thesesensationsamomentago,before Idirectedyourattention


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tothem?3Orwereyoujustunawarethatyouwereexperiencingthemallalong?Bydirectingyourattentiontothesesensations,didImakethemconsciousordid I simply cause you to experience the extra quality of knowing that thesensationswereconscious?Clearly,evenwakingexperiencescanoccurwithoutre-representation.

Re-representations are the product of a self-reflective configuration ofconsciousness,whereby the latter turns in upon itself so to objectify its owncontents(Kastrup2014:104-110).Inhumans,thisusuallyoccursthroughtheuseof“semioticmediation”(Valsiner1998),whichisourabilitytore-representourexperiencesbynamingthemexplicitlyorimplicitly.Gillespiegivesanexample:“Inordertoobtaindinneronemustfirstname…one’shunger…Thisnaming,whichisamomentofself-reflection,isthefirststepinbeginningtoconstruct,semiotically,apathofactionthatwillleadtodinner”(2007:678).

Naturally,nothingpreventsexperiencesfromoccurringoutsidethefieldofself-reflection—that is, occurring without being explicitly or implicitly named.Nixon,forinstance,callsthese“unconsciousexperiences”(2010:216),whichinmyviewisanoxymoronbutillustratesthesubtletyofthepoint.Helistsseveralexamples: blindsight (Stoerig and Cowey 1997), prosopagnosia (Sacks 1985),sleepwalking,post-hypnoticsuggestion,etc.Indeed,theemergenceofso-called“no-report paradigms” in contemporary neuroscience attests to the abundantpresenceofwakingexperiencesthatareunreportablebecausetheyfalloutsidethefieldofself-reflection(Tsuchiyaetal.2015,Vandenbrouckeetal.2014).

Moreover, the neural activity patterns of the NCCs themselves suggestcircumstantially—yet compellingly—thatmanyNCCs correspondmerely to aself-reflectiveconfigurationof consciousness.To see this,notice first that theconsciousknowledgeNofanexperienceXistriggeredbytheoccurrenceofX.For instance, it is the occurrence of a sense perception that triggers therealizationthatoneisperceivingsomething.N, inturn,evokesXbydirectingattentionbacktoit:therealizationthatoneisperceivingsomethingnaturallyshiftsone’smentalfocusbacktotheoriginalperception.Soweendupwithaback-and-forthcycleofevocationswherebyXtriggersN,whichinturnevokesX,whichagaintriggersN,andsoforth.SeeFigure5.1foranillustration.

3 Notice that attention is required to explicitly assess an experience at ametacognitive—thatis,self-reflective—level.



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Figure5.1:Illustrativecaricatureofoscillatoryevocationsbetweenanexperience(X)andthemeta-consciousknowledgeoftheexperience(N).

Asitturnsout,recentcharacterizationsoftheNCCsshowpreciselythispatternof reverberating back-and-forth communications between different brainregions (Dehaene and Changeux 2011, Boly et al. 2011, van Gaal et al. 2011).When damage to the primary visual cortex presumably interrupts thisreverberation,patientsdisplayblindsight(PallerandSuzuki2014:387)—thatis,the ability to correctly discriminate moving objects despite the reportedinability to see them. This is precisely what one would expect if thereverberation in questionwere the oscillations betweenX andN: the objectsare consciously perceived—therefore explaining how the patients candiscriminate them—but the patients do not know that they consciouslyperceivetheobjects.

IthussubmitthatmanyNCCsare, infact,thecorrelatesonlyofapotentiallyvery small subset of consciousness—namely, meta-consciousness or self-reflection—instead of consciousness proper. The introspectively inaccessiblecharacter of experience that isn’t re-represented constitutes the firstmechanismthroughwhichseeminglyunconsciousmentalactivitymay,infact,be conscious.There is yet anothermechanism,whichwill be explored in thenextsection.

5.5 DissociatedexperiencesDissociative states are well recognized in psychiatry today, featuringprominently in the DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association 2013). Theirhallmark is “adisruptionofand/ordiscontinuity in thenormal integrationofconsciousness, memory, identity, emotion, perception, body representation,motor control, and behavior” (Black and Grant 2014: 191). In other words,dissociationentailsfragmentationofthecontentsofconsciousness.

Therearedifferentformsofdissociation.Klein(2015),forinstance,discussesaform inwhich the subject’s ego loses the sense of ownership of some of thesubject’s own mental states. This occurs when consciousness can no longer

NX


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“relate to its object in a particular, self-referential way” (Klein 2015: 362).Helistsseveralexamples,suchasthecaseofamanwho,afteranaccident,couldaccurately report the content of hismemories but “was unable to experiencethatcontentashisown”(Klein2015:368).Notice,however,thattheman’segocouldstillaccessthecontent;justnotidentifywithit.

Inwhatfollows,Ishallfocusonastrongformofdissociationinwhichtheegocannot even access certain contents of consciousness. In its pathologicalvariations, this is known as Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). A personsuffering fromDID exhibitsmultiple, disjoint centers of consciousness calledalters.Eachalterexperiencestheworldasadistinctpersonality(Braude1995).

AlthoughtherehasbeendebateabouttheauthenticityofDIDasapsychiatriccondition—afterall, it isconceivablethatpatientscouldfakeit—researchhasconfirmedDID’s legitimacy (Kellyet al. 2009: 167-174& 348-352).Two recentstudiesareparticularlyinterestingtohighlight.In2015,doctorsreportedonthecase of a German woman who exhibited a variety of alters (Strasburger andWaldvogel). Peculiarly, some of her alters claimed to be blind while otherscouldseenormally.ThroughEEGs,thedoctorswereabletoascertainthatthebrainactivitynormallyassociatedwithsightwasn’tpresentwhileablindalterwasincontrolofthewoman’sbody,eventhoughhereyeswereopen.Whenasightedalterassumedexecutivecontrol,theusualbrainactivityreturned.Thisis a sobering result that shows the literallyblinding power of dissociation. Inanother study (Schlumpf et al. 2014), investigators performed functionalmagnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans on both DID patients andactors simulating DID. The scans of the actual patients displayed clear andsignificant differences when compared to those of the actors. Undoubtedly,thus,DIDisreal.

Normally,onlyoneofthealtershasexecutivecontrolofthebodyatanygivenmoment.Theimportantquestionforthepurposesofthepresentpaperisthenthis:Cantheotheralters,whoarenotincontrolofthebody,remainconsciousordotheysimplyfadeintounconsciousness?Iftheycanremainconscious,theimplication is that a person can have multiple concurrent but dissociatedcenters of consciousness, as originally hypothesized by Frederic Myers andPierre Janet (Kellyet al. 2009: 305-317).Presumably, then, eachcenterhas itsownprivate,parallelstreamofexperiences.

Occasionally,however,thedissociationisn’tbilateral:afirstalterisabletogainpartial access to the experiences of a second,without the second alter beingable to access the experiences of the first. This rare kind of unilateraldissociation provides tantalizing indications that alters can remain consciousevenwhennotincontrolofthebody.InMortonPrince’swell-knownstudyofthe ‘MissBeauchampcase’ofDID,oneof thealters—calledSally—“wasaco-consciouspersonalityinadeepersense.Whenshewasnotinteractingwiththeworld,shedidnotbecomedormant,butpersistedandwasactive”(Kellyetal.2009:318).Sallymaintainedthatsheknew

everything Miss Beauchamp … does at the time she does it,—knowswhat she thinks, hearswhat she says, readswhat shewrites, and sees



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whatshedoes;thatsheknowsallthisasaseparateco-self,andthatherknowledgedoesnotcometoherafterwards…intheformofamemory.(Prince,asquotedinKellyetal.2009:318)

StephenBraude’smore recentwork reinforces theview thatalterscanbeco-conscious “discrete centers of self-awareness” (1995: 67). He points—asevidence for this hypothesis—at the struggle of different alters for executivecontrol of the body and the fact that alters “might intervene in the lives ofothers [i.e. other alters], intentionally interfering with their interests andactivities, or at least playing mischief on them” (Braude 1995: 68). It thusappears thatalters cannotonlybeconcurrently conscious,but that theycanalsoviefordominancewitheachother.

Strong dissociation is not restricted to DID—its extreme form—or topathology, for that matter. Indeed, the foundational hypothesis of depthpsychology entails a form of natural dissociation between the conscious egoand the so-called ‘unconscious.’ As such, it is plausible—in fact, there isoverwhelmingclinicalevidence for it intheannalsofdepthpsychology—thatwe all have at least one dissociatedmental subsystem thatwe cannot accessthrough introspection. Ernest Hilgard (1977) conceived of these dissociatedsubsystemsasconscious,muchasMyers,JanetandBraudedid.

Thus, the possibility that presents itself to us is thatwemay all have one ormoreconscious‘others’withinourselves,dissociatedfromourego.Ifthisisso,then (a) our ego ordinarily has no introspective access to the experiences ofthese ‘others’;and,consequently,(b)thestudyoftheNCCsis largelyblindtothepotentially idiosyncraticpatternsofneural activity corresponding to suchdissociated experiences. This is the second mechanism through whichapparentlyunconsciousmentalactivitymay,afterall,beconscious.

5.6 AmodelofdissociationWegner (2002) proposes an analogy for explaining alters: different operatingsystems running on the same hardware. This way, the transfer of executivecontrol from one alter to another would be analogous to shutting downWindows and rebooting the computer with Linux. This, of course, onlyaccountsforstrictlyalternatingpersonalitiesandthusfailstoexplainmuchoftheclinicaldatacitedabove.Nonetheless,itstillsuggestsastartingpointforaplausiblemodelofdissociation.

Ifwedefineanexperiential frameasthesetofallqualitiesweexperienceatagivenmoment—encompassingourconsciousperceptions,thoughts,emotions,bodilysensations,imagination,etc.—consciouslifecanbemodeledasachainof experiential frames. This is graphically illustrated in Figure 5.2, whereinexperiential framesF1 toFn are shown.Each frame isevokedby thepreviousframe through cognitive associations, in the sense that e.g. our particularthoughts in the present moment largely determine which emotions weexperience in thenextmoment;or thatouremotions in thepresentmomentlargely determine our actions—and therefore perceptions—in the next


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moment;andsoon.ThesecognitiveassociationsarerepresentedbythearrowslinkingframestogetherinFigure5.2.

Figure5.2:Consciouslifeasachainofexperientialframesconnectedthroughcognitiveassociations.

Wegner’s suggestion can then be visualized as in Figure 5.3. The chain ofexperientialframes—denotedF—correspondingtoafirstalterisinterruptedbyexperiential frames—denoted F’—corresponding to a second alter. The keypointisthat,onceexecutivecontrolisassumedbytheexperientialframesF’ofthesecondalter,thecorrespondingexperientialframesFofthefirstalterceasetoexist.Thereisnoparallelismofexperience:eitherthementalcontentsofthefirst alter are experienced or those of the second alter; never those of bothconcurrently.As such, this is a sequentialmodel of dissociation and, aswe’veseen,itisn’tsufficienttoexplaintheclinicaldatacited.

Figure5.3:ThesequentialmodelofdissociationinthecontextofDID.

Alternatively,wecanhypothesizethatthechainsofexperientialframesofbothaltersarealwayspresent,concurrentlyandinparallel.Executivecontrolofthebodysimplyswitchesbetweenthetwoparallelchains,asshowninFigure5.4.Experiential frames drawn in grey represent thosewithout executive control,butstillconscious.Thisisthusaparallelmodelofdissociation,whichillustratesthe hypothesis of “co-consciousness” (a term originally coined by MortonPrince,asdiscussedbyKellyetal.2009:317).

F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 Fn…

F1 F2

F’3 F’4

F5 Fn…Alter1

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Figure5.4:TheparallelmodelofdissociationinthecontextofDID.

WehaveseenthatDIDisapathologicalformofdissociation,butthatwemayallnaturallyhave stronglydissociatedmental subsystems thatnever—orveryseldom—vieforexecutivecontrolofthebody.Thesewouldconstitutetheso-called ‘unconscious’ of depth psychology. Figure 5.5 illustrates how suchstrongly dissociatedmental subsystems can bemodeled under the proposedframework. For simplicity, only the ego and one dissociated subsystem areshown. The ‘other’ in this case—represented by the dissociated chain ofexperiential frames F’—is content to live its inner life in the background ofegoicactivity.Itonlymanifestsitspresencethroughindirect,subtleinfluencesonegoicexperiences,asrepresentedbythedashedarrowsverticallylinkingthetwochains.Thesesubtle influencescantakemanyforms,suchas:dissociatedemotions influencingouregoic thoughtsandbehaviors (LynchandKilmartin2013: 100); dissociated beliefs and expectations influencing our egoicperceptions (Eagleman2011: 20-54);dissociateddrivesmanifesting themselvessymbolicallyintheformofdreams(vonFranzandBoa1994,Jung2002,Fonagyetal.2012);etc.

Figure5.5:Theparallelmodelofdissociationinadepth-psychologicalcontext.

Admittedly,limitationsinourabilitytogaugeconsciousnesscurrentlypreventusfromassertingwithcertainty,onanempiricalbasis,thattheparallelmodelofdissociation iscorrect.However,bythesametoken,wecanalsonotassertthat it isn’t. The brain seems to have sufficient resources for this kind of

…

…

Alter1

Alter2

F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 Fn

F’3 F’4 F’5 F’nF’1 F’2

…

…

Egochain

Dissociatedchain

F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 Fn

F’3 F’4 F’5 F’nF’1 F’2


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parallelismand,ifanything,theclinicaldataissuggestiveofitsvalidity(again,Kelly et al. 2009: 305-322 and Braude 1995). The parallel model should,therefore,beconsiderednotonlyplausiblebutperhapsevenprobable,inwhichcase it furthersubstantiatesthenotionthatthe ‘unconscious’maybe—well—conscious.

5.7 DiscussionIhave elaboratedon thehypothesis that theremaybeno sucha thingas anunconscious mental process. All mental processes may be conscious, in thesensethattheremaybesomething it is liketohavesuchmentalprocesses inandofthemselves.Ourimpressionthatsomementalprocessesareunconsciousmay arise from (a) their consisting in non-self-reflective experiences notamenable to introspection or (b) their being strongly dissociated from theexecutiveegoand,therefore,inaccessibletoit.

Underlying this entire paper is the differentiation between consciousnessproper and particular configurations of consciousness, such as self-reflectionand dissociative states. It is rather disturbing how often these notions areconflated not only in general psychology, but also in neuroscience andphilosophy ofmind. For instance, a relatively recent article (Gabrielsen 2013)talks about the emergence of consciousness in human babies when what isdiscussed is—as per the argument developed in this paper—likely to be theemergenceofmeta-consciousness.4

DijksterhuisandNordgrenalso“defineconsciousthoughtasobject-relevantortask-relevant cognitive or affective thought processes that occur while theobject or task is the focus of one’s conscious attention” (2006: 96, emphasisadded).Theyinsist,“it isveryimportanttorealizethatattention is thekeytodistinguish [sic] between unconscious thought and conscious thought.Consciousthoughtisthoughtwithattention”(DijksterhuisandNordgren2006,emphasisadded).Inappealingtoattention,asopposedtoexperienceorqualia,they are implicitly associating consciousness with self-reflection or re-representation,asdiscussedinSection5.4.

Evenmorestrikingly,Cleeremans(2011)explicitlydefinesconsciousnessasself-reflection. He overtly conflates experience with meta-consciousness andreportability:

Awareness, on the other hand, always seems to minimally entail theabilityofknowingthatoneknows.Thisability,afterall,formsthebasisfor the verbal reports we take to be the most direct indication ofawareness.Andwhenweobservetheabsenceofsuchabilitytoreportontheknowledgeinvolvedinourdecisions,werightfullyconcludethatthedecisionwasbasedonunconsciousknowledge.Thus,itiswhenanagent

4For clarity, by “emergence of meta-consciousness” I mean here the early, or evenprecursor,stagesofmeta-consciousness.



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exhibitsknowledgeofthefactthatheissensitivetosomestateofaffairsthat we take this agent to be a conscious agent. This second-orderknowledge, I argue, critically depends on learned systems of metarepresentations, and forms the basis for conscious experience.(Cleeremans2011:3)

Thisisn’tarecentproblem.Whenonereadstheoriginaltextsofthefoundersofdepthpsychologywhilstholdingthedistinctionbetweenconsciousnessandmeta-consciousness in mind, one quickly realizes that, when they spoke ofunconsciousness,thefoundersoftenmeantalackofmeta-consciousness—notof experience proper. This is abundantly evident, for instance, in an essaywrittenbyCarlJunginthe1920sorearly1930s,called“TheStagesofLife”(Jung2001:97-116).

It could be argued that the distinction between experience and meta-consciousnessismerelyasemanticpoint.However,considerthis:byconflatingconsciousness proper with self-reflective consciousness, we also indirectlyequate non-self-reflective consciousness with unconsciousness; we absurdlyimply that dreams—which largely lack self-reflection (Windt and Metzinger2007)—aren’t experienced. Instead of the three categories proposed bySchooler—namely, “non-conscious (unexperienced), conscious (experienced),andmeta-conscious (re-represented)” (2002: 339)—we are leftwith only two:non-consciousandmeta-conscious.Consequently,weareforcedtocollapsetheconsciousontothenon-consciousand,intheprocess,endupdisregardingtheextraordinaryphenomenonofqualitiesofexperience.5Clearly,thisisn’tmerelysemantic.

Most importantly, the philosophical implications of mistaking consciousnessformeta-consciousness are significant. If some mental processes were trulyunconsciouswhileothersareconscious, itwould follow thatconsciousness isthe product of some specific anatomical and/or functional arrangements ofbrainactivity.Inotherwords,consciousnesswouldbederivative,asopposedtofundamental. Philosophically, this would corroborate the ontology ofphysicalism (Stoljar 2016) while contradicting alternatives like panpsychism(Strawson et al. 2006), cosmopsychism (Shani 2015) and idealism (Kastrup2017b). It would leave us with no way to circumvent the arguably insoluble‘hardproblemofconsciousness’(Chalmers2003).

On theotherhand, if consciousness is inherent to allmentalprocesses, thenthe specific anatomical and/or functional parameters of different processescorrespond merely to different contents and/or configurations ofconsciousness—thatis,totheparticularqualitiesthatareexperienced—butdonotdeterminethepresenceorabsenceofconsciousnessitself.Thisallowsustocircumvent the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ altogether, by inferring thatconsciousnessisprimary.Whileit’snotmyintentinthispapertoarguefororagainst any particular ontology ofmind, it is significant that a lucid, critical 5That is, we end up sweeping the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ (Chalmers 2003)undertherug.


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interpretation of the available empirical data leaves more avenues ofphilosophicalinquiryopen.

Ifwearetruetothespiritofthewords‘consciousness’and‘experience,’diligentin our interpretation of empirical observations—both experimental andclinical—and rigorous in our use of concepts, we are led not only to theconclusionthatallmentalprocessesmaybeconscious,butthatconsciousnessitselfmaybefundamental.


6. Self-TranscendenceCorrelateswithBrainFunctionImpairment

This paper first appeared in the Journal of Cognition and Neuroethics, ISSN:2166-5087,Vol.4,No.3,pp.33-42,inJanuary2017.AsummaryofthispaperhasalsoappearedinScientificAmericanon29March2017.1

6.1 AbstractA broad pattern of correlations between mechanisms of brain functionimpairment and self-transcendence is shown. The pattern includes suchmechanisms as cerebral hypoxia, physiological stress, transcranial magneticstimulation, trance-induced physiological effects, the action of psychoactivesubstances andevenphysical trauma to thebrain. In all these cases, subjectsreport self-transcending experiences often described as “mystical” and“awareness-expanding,” as well as self-transcending skills often described as“savant.”Theideathatthesecorrelationscouldberathertriviallyaccountedforon the basis of disruptions to inhibitory neural processes is reviewed andshown to be implausible. Instead, this paper suggests that an as-of-yetunrecognizedcausalprincipleunderlyingtheentirepatternmightbeatwork,whose further elucidation through systematic research could hold greatpromise.

6.2 IntroductionInthispaper,‘self-transcendence’isdefinedastheabrupt—thusnotgradual—broadeningofone’s senseof self throughastep-functionenrichmentofone’ssubjectiveinnerlife.Thiscanhappen,forinstance,whenonesuddenlyacquires(a)afeelingthatoneisnolongerconfinedtothespatio-temporallocusofthephysicalbody; (b)entirelynewmental skills thatonehasneverattempted todevelop through learning or training; or (c) unfamiliar emotions, insights orinnerimagery.Thisessayattemptstoshowthatthereisaconsistentpatternofcorrelations between self-transcendence—so defined—and a broad variety ofbrainfunctionimpairmentmechanisms.Inotherwords,severaltypesofbrainfunction impairmentareconsistentlyaccompaniedbyricher inner life.This iscounterintuitiveandsuggestsacommonunderlyingcausalprincipleyettobeunderstoodinitsfullscope.

Inthenextsections,severalmechanismsofbrainfunctionimpairmentandtheresultingself-transcendenceeffectswillbereviewed.Thegoalistoestablishabroad pattern by highlighting the similarities of the mechanisms and theireffects.

1Atthetimeofthiswriting,theScientificAmericanessaywasfreelyavailableonlineat:https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/transcending-the-brain/.


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6.3 CerebralhypoxiaFaintingornear-faintingcausedbyrestrictionsofoxygensupplytothebrainisknown to induce liberating feelings of self-transcendence. For instance, thepotentiallyfatal‘chokinggame’playedbyteenagersworldwide(Macnab2009)isanattempttoinducesuchfeelingsthroughpartialstrangulation(Neal2008:310-315). The psychotherapeutic technique of holotropic breathwork(Rhinewine andWilliams 2007), as well as more traditional yogic breathingpractices, use hyperventilation to achieve similar effects: by increasing bloodalkalinity levels, they interfere with normal oxygen uptake in the brain andultimately lead to what is described as an expansion of ordinary awareness(Taylor 1994). Even straightforward hyperventilation outside a therapeuticcontext can lead to self-transcending experiences, such as described in thisanecdotal—thoughrepresentative—report:

Oneofusstoodagainstatreeandbreatheddeeplyforawhileandthentook a very deep breath.Another pusheddownhard onhis ribcage…Thisrenderedthesubjectimmediatelyunconscious…WhenItriedit,Ididn’tthinkitwouldwork,butthensuddenlyIwasinameadowwhichglowedinyellowandred,everythingwasextremelybeautifulandfunny.Thisseemedtolastforages.ImustsaythatIhaveneverfeltsuchblisseveragain.(Retz2007)

Finally, pilots undergoing G-force induced Loss of Consciousness (G-LOC)—wherebybloodisforcedoutofthebrain,causinghypoxia—report“memorabledreams”phenomenologicallysimilartonear-deathexperiences(WhinneryandWhinnery1990),whicharenotoriouslyself-transcendingincharacter.

6.4 GeneralizedphysiologicalstressNear-DeathExperiences(NDEs)aretheprimeexamplesofself-transcendenceassociatedwithdramatically reducedbrain functiondue toe.g. cardiacarrest(vanLommel2001).They reportedlyentail life-transformingphenomenality—encompassing insights, emotions and rich inner imagery—far surpassing theenvelop of ordinary experiences (Kelly et al. 2009: 367-421), despiteoverwhelming disruption to the brain’s ability to operate.A recent andwell-publicizedNDE,whichoccurredwhilethepatientwasunderclosesupervisionofmedicalstaff,capturesthisself-transcendentdimension.Inthepatient’sownwords:

Icertainlydon’t feel reducedorsmaller inanyway.Onthecontrary, Ihaven’t everbeen thishuge, thispowerful,or thisall-encompassing.…[I]feltgreaterandmoreintenseandexpansivethanmyphysicalbeing.(Moorjani2012:69)

Inarelatedmanner,traditionalinitiatoryritualsinpre-literateculturessoughtto reveal the true nature of self and world through physical ordeals (Eliade2009).It isreasonabletoimaginethattheseordeals—suchaslongsessionsinsweatlodges,exposuretotheelements,extremeexertionandevenpoisoning—



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physically compromised brain function through generalized physiologicalstress,therebyinducingself-transcendingexperiences.

6.5 ElectromagneticimpairmentThe use of transcranialmagnetic stimulation can inhibit activity in localizedareas of the brain by impairing the associated electromagnetic fields. Asreported in a study (Blanke et al. 2002), when neural activity in the angulargyrusofapatientwithepilepsywasinhibitedinthisway,self-transcendingout-of-bodyexperienceswereinduced.

6.6 Trance-inducedimpairmentDuring the practice of so-called ‘psychography,’ an allegedmedium enters atrance state and writes down information allegedly originating from atranscendentsourcebeyondthemedium’sordinaryself.Aneuroimagingstudy(Peres2012)revealedthatexperiencedmediumsdisplayedmarkedreductionofactivity in key brain regions—such as the frontal lobes and hippocampus—whencomparedtoregular,non-trancewriting.Despitethis,textwrittenundertrance scored consistently higher in a measure of complexity than materialproducedwithout trance. As an observant science journalist remarked,morecomplexwriting

typicallywouldrequiremoreactivityinthefrontalandtemporallobes—but that’s precisely the opposite of what was observed. To put thisanother way, the low level of activity in the experienced mediums’frontal lobes should have resulted in vague, unfocused, obtuse garble.Instead,itresultedinmorecomplexwritingsamplesthantheywereabletoproducewhilenotentranced.Why?Noone’ssure.(DiSalvo2012)

6.7 ChemicalimpairmentPsychedelicsubstanceshavebeenknowntoinducepowerfulself-transcendingexperiences(Strassman2001,Griffithsetal.2006,Strassmanetal.2008).Ithadbeen assumed that they did so by exciting parts of the brain. Yet, recentneuroimaging studies have shown that psychedelics do largely the opposite(Carhart-Harris et al. 2012, Palhano-Fontes et al. 2015, Carhart-Harris et al.2016). 2 In an article he wrote for Scientific American Mind, neuroscientistChristof Koch (2012b) expressed his surprise at these results. Carhart-Harris(2012:2138),forinstance,reported“onlydecreasesincerebralbloodflow”undertheinfluenceofapsychedelic.Perhapsevenmoresignificantly,“themagnitude 2A later study performed at the University of Zürich has confirmed this further,showingthatapsychedeliccauses“significantlyreducedabsoluteperfusion”(thatis,blood flow) in just about every region of the brain, whilst leading to “profoundsubjectivedrugeffects”(Lewisetal.2017).


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of this decrease [in brain activity] predicted the intensity of the subjectiveeffects” of the psychedelic (ibid.). As such, the significant self-transcendingexperiences that follow psychedelic intake are—counterintuitively—accompaniedbyreductionsofbrainactivity.

6.8 PhysicaldamageIfthetrendaboveisconsistent,weshouldexpectsometypesofphysicalbraindamage toalsocorrelatewith self-transcendingexperiences.And indeed, thishasbeen reported. Ina recent study (Cristofori 2016),CTscansofmore thanone hundred VietnamWar veterans showed that damage to the frontal andparietal lobes increased the likelihood of self-transcending “mysticalexperiences.” In aprevious study (Urgesiet al. 2010),patientswere evaluatedbefore and after brain surgery for the removal of tumors, which causedcollateral damage in surrounding tissue. Statistically significant increases infeelingsofself-transcendencewerereportedafterthesurgery.

Theself-transcendingcharacterofexperiencesthataccompanycertaintypesofbraininjuryhasbeenevocativelydescribedbyneuroanatomistJillBolteTaylor,followingastrokethatdamagedherbrain’slefthemisphere:

myperceptionofmyphysicalboundarieswasnolongerlimitedtowheremyskinmetair.Ifeltlikeagenieliberatedfromitsbottle.Theenergyofmyspiritseemedtoflowlikeagreatwhaleglidingthroughaseaofsilenteuphoria.(Taylor2009:67)

The similarity to Moorjani’s experience quoted earlier (2012: 69) is striking,despitethelatterhavingbeencausedbygeneralizedphysiologicalstress,notaleft-hemispherestroke.

Not only ‘mystical experiences’ correlate with brain damage, but also theemergenceofnewmentalskills.Theliteraturereportsmanycasesofso-called‘acquired savant syndrome,’ wherein an accident or disease leading to braininjury gives rise to genius-level abilities (Lythgoe et al. 2005, Treffert 2006,Treffert2009:1354,Piore2013).Thereareexamplesofsuchabilitiesarisingaftermeningitis, bullet wounds to the head and even with the progression ofdementia(Milleretal.1998,2000).

6.9 DiscussionAswe’veseen,thereisabroadpatternassociatingavarietyofbrainimpairmentmechanisms with self-transcending experiences. A potential explanation forthisisthatbrainfunctionimpairmentcoulddisproportionallyaffectinhibitoryneural processes, thereby generating or bringing into awareness other neuralprocesses associated with self-transcending experiences. There are, however,problemswiththisexplanation.

Under the physicalist assumption that experience is constituted or generatedbybrainactivity,anincreaseintherichnessofexperience—asoftenentailedby



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self-transcendence—must be accompanied by an increase in themetabolismassociatedwiththeneuralcorrelatesofexperience(Kastrup2016b).This issobecause(a)theresupposedlyisnothingtoexperiencebutitsneuralcorrelates;and(b)richerexperiencespansabroaderinformationspaceinawarenessthatonly increasedmetabolism can create in the physical substrate of the brain.Any other alternative would decouple experience from the workings of thelivingbraininformation-wise,contradictingphysicalism.Assuch,itisdifficulttoseewhyareductionofoxygensupplytothebrainasawhole—asinpartialstrangulation,hyperventilation,G-LOC,cardiacarrest, etc.—would selectivelyaffectinhibitoryneuralprocesses,whilemaintainingenoughoxygensupplytofeedanincreaseintheneuralcorrelatesofexperience.

Alternatively,onecouldspeculatethatself-transcendingexperiencesoccuronlyafternormalbrain functionresumes, subsequent toe.g. restorationofoxygensupply.This,however,cannotaccountforseveralofthecasesreviewedabove.For instance, during the neuroimaging studies of the psychedelic state (e.g.Carhart-Harris et al. 2012) researchers collected subjective reports of self-transcendence while concurrently monitoring the subjects’ reduced brainactivity levels. The same holds for the neuroimaging study of psychography(Peres 2012). Similarly, in the case of acquired savant (e.g. Treffert 2006,Treffert2009:1354)newmentalskillsarealsoconcomitantwiththepresenceofphysical damage in the brain. And even in the case of NDEs, there arearguments for why confabulation after resumption of normal brain functioncannotaccountforsomeofthereportedexperiences(Kellyetal.2009:419-421).

Appeals to impairment of inhibitory processes to explain acquired savantsyndrome are particularly difficult to defend.Theynecessarily entail that thesavant skills are pre-developed in the brain but remain inhibited. Brainfunctionimpairmentoccasionedbye.g.traumathensupposedlyunlocksthesedormant skills by shutting down inhibitory processes. One must wonder,however,howthebraincouldhavedevelopedextraordinaryskills,suchase.g.prodigiousaptitudeforcalculations,withoutanytraining.Andiftheseskills—manyofwhichareadvantageousforsurvival—werelatentinusall,whywouldthebrainhaveevolvedtokeeptheminhibitedinthefirstplace?

It is conceivable that individual cases of self-transcendence could have theirownidiosyncraticexplanation,unrelatedtotheothercases,andthattheoverallpattern suggested in this paper is a red herring. For instance, one couldtentativelyexplain(a)theeuphoriceffectsofhypoxiabyspeculatingthatite.g.somehow triggers the brain’s reward system, while accounting for (b) theexpansionofone’ssenseofidentitybeyondthephysicalbody—asreportedbyTaylor (2009:67)—throughe.g.damage to theorientationassociationareaoftheleftbrainhemisphere.Butgiventhesometimes-strikingsimilarities inthephenomenalityreportedacrossthecasesreviewedandthefactthatallcases—despite their different mechanisms of action—entail impairment of brainfunction, the question is whether it is plausible that no common causalprincipleisatwork.


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The current data is at least suggestive of a single, yet-unrecognized causalprincipleunderlyingallcases.Moresystematicstudiesofthesubjectiveeffectsof brain function impairment—leveraging e.g. psychedelic compounds andtrans-cranialmagneticstimulation—inspecificbrainregionscouldhelpunveilthis principle. Could one e.g. reliably trigger savant skills or mysticalexperiences by inhibiting neural activity in particular areas under controlledconditions?Whatwouldtheimplicationsofsuchascenariobe?Questionssuchastheseholdnotonlygreatpublicinterest,butalsohighsignificanceforbothneuroscienceandneurophilosophy.


7. ConcludingRemarks

7.1 MatterastheouterappearanceofinnerexperienceTheontologydiscussedinthisdissertationhasatitsfoundationanobservationassimpleasitisfar-reaching:matteristheouterappearanceofinnerexperience.This,andonly this,iswhatmatteris.Naturegenerouslyteachesusthislessoneverytimewelookatalivingorganism’sbrain:theneuralactivitywediscernispartofwhattheorganism’sinnerlifelookslikewhenregisteredfromasecond-person perspective; that is, from across a dissociative boundary. Thematterconstituting those neurons is the extrinsic appearance of feeling, emotion,thought, imagination, etc. And since this is what matter is, the inanimateuniverse—also made of matter—must itself be the extrinsic appearance ofuniversalinnerlife.Afterall,whywouldmatterbeonethingunderonesetofcircumstances—namely,whenconstitutingalivingbrain—andthensomethingelse under another set of circumstances—namely, when constituting theinanimateuniverseofrocks,cloudsandstars?Thisindicatesthattheinanimateuniverseasawholemustbe,inacertainsense,akintoabrain.Andindeed,thenetwork topologyof theuniverse at its largest scalesdoes resemble that of abrain (Krioukovet al. 2012); somuchso thatastrophysicistFrancoVazzaandneuroscientistAlbertoFeletticonsideredthesimilarity“trulyremarkable”and“striking”:

It is trulyaremarkable fact thatthecosmicweb ismoresimilar tothehumanbrain than it is to the interiorofagalaxy;or that theneuronalnetworkismoresimilartothecosmicwebthanitistotheinteriorofaneuronal body.Despite extraordinary differences in substrate, physicalmechanisms,andsize,thehumanneuronalnetworkandthecosmicwebof galaxies,when consideredwith the tools of information theory, arestrikinglysimilar.(2017)

Allowmetoreiteratemypoint,inthehopethatrepetitionhelpsrevealitsfullforce: ‘matter’ is merely the name we give to the extrinsic appearance ofconsciousexperience,asperceivedfromacrossadissociativeboundary.Thereisnothingmoretoit.Thispainfullysimpleinsight,repeatedlyintimatedinnature,isalloneneedstocometoacategorical interpretationofnaturalphenomenathatanswersall fundamentalquestionsandavoidsall fundamentalproblems,such as the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ and the ‘subject combinationproblem.’

7.2 Alternativeformulationsofdissociation-basedidealismTheformulationof idealismdevelopedinthisdissertationrestsonthenotionof dissociation—a localized blockage in the excitatory dynamics of universalconsciousness—as a primary causal phenomenon inherent to the possiblebehaviorsofnature’ssoleontologicalprimitive.Inotherwords,dissociationisthoughttoexplainlifeandtheworld,asopposedtobeingexplainedbythem.


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ButtheformulationpresentedChapter3is,inprinciple,nottheonlyonethatcouldbewovenaroundthisground-levelnotionofdissociation.Onecould,forinstance,conceiveofanalternativeformulationbasedontheobservationthatregulardreamimagesaredirectlygeneratedbyourdreamingpsyche—throughself-excitation—already in the very form that they are experienced. In otherwords,dreamimagesaren’tcodedphenomenalrepresentationsofsomeotherphenomenal dynamics; they aren’t extrinsic appearances of qualitativelydifferent intrinsicviews. Instead, theyarea self-containedmoviedirectlyandautonomously generated by our dreaming psyche. So an alternativeformulation of idealism could be this: instead of thinking of the inanimateuniverse as the extrinsic appearance of the states of a transpersonalphenomenal field, the corresponding images could be generated at a level ofuniversalconsciousnesspriorto,orunderlying,dissociationalreadyintheformweexperiencethem.

Tovisualizethis,imaginethataltersofuniversalconsciousness—thatis,livingorganisms such as you and me—are analogous to the seemingly separatebranches of a shrub,which ultimately come together at the hidden rhizome.This way, dissociation is the process that creates branches by seeminglyseparating segments of the shrub. But this process operates somewhatsuperficially, in that itdoesn’taffect theunitary rhizome. In thisanalogy, theinanimateuniverseweallseemtoco-inhabitisacollectivedreamgeneratedbythe rhizome and then broadcast—after some perspectival filtering andadaptation—toallbranchesalreadyintheformit isexperienced.TheJungiannotionofa‘collectiveunconscious’(Jung1991)capableofproducingarchetypaldreamsfitsnicelywiththehypothesisIamtryingtodescribehere:accordingtoit,theworldisthewakingdreamgeneratedbythe‘collectiveunconscious’andthenbroadcasttoeachofourindividualpsyches.

Thisisn’tasfar-fetchedasitmaysoundatfirst.Indeed,asdiscussedinChapter5, there is an empirically known form of dissociation according to whichsubjects lose the sense of ownership of their own phenomenal states (Klein2015).Inthiscontext,itisnotunreasonabletoimaginethatempiricalrealityisa collective stream of imagination that we lose our sense of ownership of,thereby mistakenly concluding that it corresponds to a world outside andindependentofconsciousness.

Nonetheless, such a seemingly elegant formulation of idealism fails because,whereasitcanparsimoniouslyexplaintheinanimateuniverse,itcannotexplainthepresenceofotherconsciousorganisms in it.Ifthecollectivedreamwecall‘theworld’werebroadcastfromtherhizometotheindividualbranches,whyorhow would one branch experience the presence of other branches—that is,other people and living organisms—in its dream?After all, two TV receiverstunedtothesamechannelcandisplaythesamemovie,butnotimagesofeachotherwithinthatmovie.

For the same reason that this alternative formulation of idealism does awaywithatranspersonalphenomenal fieldsurroundingthealters, itmustalsodoawaywith the conscious inner life of other living organisms. This effectively



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reducesittosolipsismandrendersredundanttheveryneedtoexplainasharedworldtobeginwith.

The key difference between this alternative formulation and the analyticidealismelaboratedinChapter3isthis:theformerentailsthattheimagesonourpersonalscreenofperceptionarethemselvesirreducible.Thelatter,ontheotherhand,positsthatpersonalperceptionsaregroundedinthephenomenalstates of a transpersonal field, which in turn are qualitatively different frompersonalperceptions.

BishopBerkeley’sformulationofidealismissimilartothealternativediscussedhere, insofar as it also entails that personal perceptions are irreducible. AsexplainedbyBarfield,“Berkeleyheldthat…therepresentationsassuch[thatis,personalperceptions], are sustainedbyGod in theabsenceofhumanbeings”(2011: 36, original emphasis). Even some present-day academic philosopherscontinue to entertain the idea that the contents or qualities of personalperception are themselves irreducible: “In perception, our finite unities ofconsciousnesscometoliterallyoverlapwiththeunityofconsciousnessthatisreality”(Yetter-Chappell2018).Sothephenomenalstatesoneexperienceswhenoneseestheworldaresupposedlythesamephenomenalstatesencompassedby“theunitofconsciousnessthat isreality,”withwhichoneoverlapsduringtheactofperceiving.

I believe that all formulations of idealism entailing such irreducibility ofpersonal perceptions fail, either because of the difficulties discussed in theprevioussectionoratleastbecauseoftheconsequencesoftryingtocircumventthesedifficulties.

7.3 Therearenoumena,buttheyareexperientialBymaintainingthatpersonalperceptionsarepartiallygroundedinsomethingoutside thepersonal self—that is,outsidealtersofuniversalconsciousness—Iam positing something at least analogous to what Barfield called the“unrepresented”(2011)andKantthe“noumenal.”Indeed,Iammaintainingthatthere is a shared reality beyond the alters—namely, the experiential statesbeyond our respective dissociative boundaries—underlying our personalperceptionsoftheworld.Thissharedrealitywouldstillexistevenifweandallother livingbeingsceased tobe.So thenoumenaldoesexist,mypointbeingsimply that its essentialnature is experiential; thenoumenal itself consistsofexperiences, even though these experiences are qualitatively different frompersonalperceptions.Insummary,accordingtotheontologydefendedinthisdissertation,therearenoumenabuttheyareexperiential.1

1 Here I am deliberately avoiding the word ‘phenomenal’—using the qualifier‘experiential’ instead—to avoid confusion: Kant uses the term ‘phenomenal’exclusivelyinconnectionwithintentionalcontent,whereasIuseit,throughoutthisdissertation, in its modern analytic sense. According to Ned Block, for instance,“Phenomenal consciousness is experience; the phenomenally conscious aspect of a


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Indeed,KantandBarfieldexpresslydidnotspecifytheontologicalcharacterofthe noumenal and the unrepresented, respectively, so neither is necessarilydichotomous with the experiential. The experiential states thatmake up thenoumena are not perceptual states of alters, but constitute a transpersonalqualitativefieldsurroundingthealters.

7.4 TheconundrumofspacetimeSpaceandtimearebuiltintolanguage:anystatementaboutwhatnatureisorhowitworkspresupposesaspacetimescaffolding.Withoutextensioninatleastone dimension, the various states of nature would overlap and becomeindistinguishable fromoneanother. Informationaboutnature—asdefinedbyShannon(1948)—would thusvanishand therewould remain literallynothingtobesaidaboutit.

Myearlieranalogybetweenexperiencesandvibrationsofconsciousnessseemstoalsopresupposeaspacetimescaffoldingcircumscribingconsciousness.Afterall, vibrations entail some form of movement in space and time (think of aguitarstringplayingamusicalnote:itmovesupanddownastimepasses).Soitcould be argued that analytic idealism, in addition to consciousness itself,assumes a spacetime scaffolding as extra ontological primitive, whereinconsciousnesscanthen‘move’sotohaveorproduceparticularexperiences.Butthiswouldcontradictmycoreclaimthatuniversalphenomenalconsciousnessisthesoleontologicalprimitive.

For this core claim toobtain, both space and timemust, instead, benothingmorethanqualitiesofexperience.Timemustexistonlyinsofaraswhatwecall‘past’ is an experiential quality characteristic of memory and ‘future’ anexperiential quality characteristic of imagined possibilities or expectations.Space, in turn, must exist only insofar as it is the experiential quality of acertain relationship between perceived objects. This way, spacetimemust beonlyanamalgamationofqualities—amenabletomathematicalmodeling—thatthemselves exist only in universal consciousness. This is only plausible if (a)physicsremainsviablewithoutafundamentalspacetimescaffoldingand(b)thefeltsenseoftemporalflowassociatedwithexperienceisanillusion.

Starting with (a), Einstein’s relativity theory arguably implies a static ‘blockuniverse’whereinthepassageoftimeisillusory.Thisrealizationhasmotivatedattemptsbyphysiciststorecastthelawsofphysicswithouttime(Barbour1999,Rovelli 2018) or space (Smolin 2013). Now,modern quantum gravity theoriesposit that both space and time—spacetime—are emergent from morefundamental quantum processes (Crowther 2014). Clearly, thus, physicsremains viable without the postulate that the spacetime scaffolding isfundamental;itmayevenrequirethatitnotbeso.

state iswhat it is like to be inthatstate”(1995:227,emphasisadded).Accordingtothis modern definition—and unlike Kant’s usage—even purely endogenousexperiences,withnointentionalcontent,arephenomenalstates.



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However,thismayseemtoposeaproblemforanalyticidealism,asarguedbyphilosopherSusanSchneider:

Suppose that our ordinary sense of duration is just an illusion, andreality is timeless. If this is the case, the point shouldn’t be that thefundamentallayerofrealityisexperiential.Thepointshouldbe,instead,thatfundamentalrealityisnonexperiential.2

TheconclusionisderivedfromSchneider’sintuitionthat,

if there is no time … how could there be experience? Consciousexperience has a felt quality that involves flow; thoughts seem to bepresent in the “now,” and they change from moment to moment.Timelessexperienceisanoxymoron.3

So if time is not fundamental, then neither can experience be—or so herargumentgoes.

To secure the plausibility of analytic idealism I must, therefore, show thatSchneider’s intuition here is flawed. Indeed, whereas demonstrating thatspacetime is an illusion would likely require multiple doctoral dissertationsacross a variety of fields, I believe it is possible to show—rather easily—that,insofarasSchneiderisappealingtophenomenalintrospection,herassertionthat“timelessexperienceisanoxymoron”isfalse.4

Toseeit,considerthesequestions:Where'sthepast?Isitanywhere‘outthere’?Canyoupointatit?Clearlynot.Whatmakesyouconceiveoftheideaofapastis the fact thatyouhaveepisodicmemories.But thesememories canonlybereferencedinsofarastheyareexperiencednow,asmemories.Therehasneverbeenapointinyourentirelifeinwhichthepasthasbeenanythingmorethanmemoriesexperiencednow.

Thesameappliestothefuture:Where'sthefuture?Isitanywhere‘outthere’?Can you point at it and say “there is the future”? Clearly not. Our idea of afuturearises fromexpectationsand imaginingsexperiencednow, alwaysnow,as expectations and imaginings. There has never been a point in your life inwhich the future has been anythingmore than expectations and imaginingsexperiencednow.

Therefore, as far as careful phenomenal introspection can reveal, experiencelacksanytruetemporalflow.Itonlyeverhappensnow.Timelessnessseemstobepreciselyanintrinsicpropertyofexperience.Time,ontheotherhand,seems 2 See Schneider’s essay on Scientific American’s Observations blog at:https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/spacetime-emergence-panpsychism-and-the-nature-of-consciousness/.

3ibid.4Ihavepublishedaslightlymoreelaborateversionoftheargumentthatfollowsalsoon Scientific American’s Observations blog, which is available at:https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/do-we-actually-experience-the-flow-of-time/.


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tobemerelyaparticularphenomenalstateexperiencedtimelessly;acognitiveconstructorstorywetellourselvesnow,alwaysnow.Asamatteroffact,thereis compelling empirical evidence supporting thenotion that time is indeed acognitiveconstruct(e.g.Buonomano2018,Eagleman2009).

Toavoidconfusion,allowmetoexplicitlyrelatetheseideastotheontologicalthesesofpresentism(thenotionthatonlypresentthingsexists,notthepastorthefuture)andeternalism(thenotionthatpast,presentandfuturethingsallexist):withpresentism,myclaim is thatonly thenow canbeknowntoexist;there is nothing other than thenow insofar aswe can introspectively access;pastandfuture,asontological entities outside thenow,aremerelytheoreticalabstractions. However, with eternalism, I also claim that the experientialcontents we label as ‘past’ and ‘future’—and which motivate the theoreticalabstractionsofapastandafutureontologicallydistinctfromthenow—areasreal as what we call the ‘present,’ in thatall three exist solely as phenomenalstates experienced in thenow.Inthislattersense,past,presentandfutureareontologically equivalent. Indeed, the partitioning of the salient conceptualspacebetweenpresentismandeternalism isnot themostappropriate for theideas I am attempting to convey here, and hence should be regarded withcaution.

To sum itup, it seems tobe the case that (a)physics remains entirely viablewithoutafundamentalspacetimescaffoldingand(b)thefeltsenseoftemporalflow associatedwith experience is—at least insofar aswe can assess throughcareful introspection—an illusion, a story we tell ourselves timelessly. Theplausibility of analytic idealism is thus preserved: there is currently norefutationofthenotionthatspacetimeismerelyanamalgamationofqualitiesof experience. On the contrary: there are tantalizing signs that spacetimeemergesasacognitiveconstructwithinconsciousness.

Butinthiscase,Imustsomehowreconcilethehypothesisthatspacetimeisn’tfundamental with the earlier analogy between experiences and vibrations ofconsciousness.ThisiswhatInowsetouttodo.

Tobeginwith,theanalogymustberegardedsolelyassuch:asananalogy.Thisway,experiencesarelikevibrationsofconsciousness.Theintentoftheanalogyistohelponevisualizehowvariousexperiencescanbedistinctfromeachotherwithoutrequiringthattherebeanythingtothembutconsciousnessitself.Asamatter of fact, I defined experiences as excitations—as opposed to outrightvibrations—of consciousness in the hope that the term ‘excitation’ wouldn’tcommitmeasmuchtodimensionalextension.

Theproblemisthat,ifonewantstotalkaboutthenatureofreality,onemustpresuppose a metaphorical spacetime scaffolding. This is an unavoidableconcession to the limitations of language.5Nonetheless, acknowledging that 5 It could be argued here that Kant wrote about the noumena, the things-in-themselves,withoutusingspatiotemporal terms.Notice,however, thatKantmerelypostulatedtheexistenceofthenoumena—merelypointed to them—whilstinsisting,at the same time, that they are fundamentally unknowable and cannot be



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thisdimensionalscaffoldingissimplyakindofillusioninherentlyimposedbythe structure of our cognition doesn’t change the practical problem at hand:whatever realityprecedes spacetimeontologically isunreachableby linguisticreasoning. At best, one can articulate projections of this otherwise ineffablerealityontothecognitivescaffoldingofspacetime.

HereisananalogytoillustratewhatImean:onecannotreadaletterwritteninapieceofpaper thathasbeen foldedmultiple timesover intoasmall,nearlydimensionless crumple. The characters overlap and the information theycontainbecomes indiscernible.Onlybyunfoldingthecrumple—i.e.extendingthepieceofpaper—canonemakesenseofthemessageitbears.Realitypriortospacetime is, ina sense, like thepapercrumple:oneneeds tounfold it alongthe dimensions of space and time to render it amenable to linguisticarticulation.

Doesthismeanthatspacetime-boundlanguagecanneverarticulatevalidandmeaningfulconclusions?No.All itmeansisthattheconceptualsystemsbuiltwithin the framework of spacetime cannot be ultimately true. After all, exhypothesi, spacetime is merely a cognitive construction. However, thoseconceptual systems can still bepenultimately true in the sense that they canaccuratelycorrespondtosomethingontologicallypriortodimensionality.Validspacetime-bound conclusions can thus be regarded as projected images ofultimate truths, adapted to the requirements and limitations of humanreasoningbydimensionalextension.

This way, to say that experiences are vibrations of universal phenomenalconsciousnessadmittedlycannotbeultimatelytrue,forconsciousness—assoleontologicalprimitive—doesnotoccupyaspacetimescaffoldingprior to itself.But it can stillbe true in thepenultimate sense thatvibrationscorrespond tosomething true—though ineffable—about consciousness prior todimensionalextension; that vibrations are akin to an accurate projected image of whatultimatelyhappensinconsciousnesswhenitexperiences.

Thatonecannotdirectlysaysomethingcoherentaboutanultimatetruthdoesnot invalidate penultimate conceptual constructs. They can still tell onesomethingindirectlytrueaboutwhatrealityisandhowworks.

characterized.Healsodidnot approach theproblemof explaininghowperceptionarisesfromthenoumena.IfKanthadmadeanyattempttosaysomethingaboutthenoumena,hewouldhaveimmediatelyfacedthelinguisticlimitationsindicatedhere,and would have had to adopt spatiotemporal terms. As a matter of fact, in anincoherentmovealreadycriticizedbyArthurSchopenhauerinTheWorldasWillandRepresentation (1818),Kanttalksofthenoumenaascausesofperception.Causality,of course, presupposes spacetime extension, so here we have Kant implicitlycharacterizingthenoumenainspatiotemporalterms,eventhoughtheyaresupposedtoexistoutsidespacetime.


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7.5 VisualizingtheontologicalprimitiveAs amatter of fact, space itself can be coherently regarded as the quality ofhuman experience that corresponds most closely to universal phenomenalconsciousness, different segments of the latter corresponding to differentregionsofspace.Indeed,thattwolivingorganisms—theextrinsicappearancesof alters—never occupy the same volume of space reflects the notion thatdifferentaltersarelocatedindifferentsegmentsofuniversalconsciousness,asdiscussedinChapter3.

Moreover,thatwethinkofemptyspaceasavoid,anothing,reflectsthenotionthat unexcited universal consciousness cannot, by definition, be experienced.Even the idea thatunexciteduniversal consciousnessmust stillhave intrinsicproperties—otherwisetherewouldbenothingtoeventuallygetexcited—findsacorrespondenceinhowwethinkofspaceatleastsincetheearly20thcentury:emptyspace,too,isbelievedtobeavoidwithintrinsicproperties.

Thecorrespondenceshereareclear:thereisastrongsenseinwhich,asfarashuman cognition is concerned, empty space is universal consciousness, thecontentsofspacebeingexcitationsofuniversalconsciousness.Moreover,sincespace is simplya facetof spacetime, I suggest that it is closer to the truth tothinkofspacetimeasuniversalconsciousnessthanasascaffoldingoccupiedbyuniversalconsciousness.

If one is tomake and talk aboutphilosophy, it isunavoidable to frameone’sthoughtsanddiscourse in termsofspacetimeextension.For thetrueanalyticidealist, this is admittedly a concession, for spacetime is not in the idealist’sreductionbase.Theassertionsmadeshouldthusnotberegardedasultimate.Buttheyarestilltrueandmeaningfulasfarastheygo.

7.6 FutureworkThis dissertation is perhaps a first step in reviving idealism in the context ofcontemporary analytic philosophy. As such, it opens up more avenues ofinquirythanitcloses.Here,IshallmentiontwoimportanttopicsthatIbelievedeservemorethoroughanalysis.

The first is the philosophical understanding of dissociative processes in thehumanpsycheandtheapplicationofDissociativeIdentityDisorder(DID)asananalogy for universal-level dissociation. An often-repeated criticism againstanalyticidealismis,forinstance,thatalthoughaltersofuniversalconsciousnesscanclearlyexperienceoneanotherfromasecond-personperspective—thewayapersoncanseeandevenshakehandswithanother—thesameallegedlyisn’tthe case for the alters of aDID patient. In otherwords, there allegedly isn’tanything a first dissociated personality of a DID patient looks like from theperspectiveofaseconddissociatedpersonalityofthesamepatient.

The most straightforward answer to this criticism is, of course, that DID ismerelyananalogy:theclaimisnotthatuniversalconsciousnessliterallysuffersfromDID,butthatsomethinglikeDIDhappensatauniversallevel.Theredoes



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not need to be a complete correspondence between human-level DID anduniversal-leveldissociationfortheargumenttobevalid.

Having said that, there are tantalizing indications that the correspondence ismore far-reaching than hitherto suggested in this dissertation. For instance,researchhasshownthatdifferentaltersofaDIDpatientcan—anddo—appearas characters in the dreams of the patient (Barrett 1994: 170-171). So thereactuallyissomethingotherdissociatedpersonalitieslooklikefromthepointofviewofthehostpersonalityhavingthedream.

Moresignificantly, thesameresearchhasalsoshownthatdifferent alters of aDID patient can experience the same dream concurrently, each from its ownsubjective point of view within the dream. This is so significant that oneillustrativeexampledeservesextensivequoting:

Thehostpersonality,Sarah,rememberedonlythatherdreamfromthepreviousnight involvedhearing a girl screaming forhelp.AlterAnnie,agefour,rememberedanightmareofbeingtieddownnakedandunabletocryoutasamanbegantocuthervagina.Ann,agenine,dreamedofwatchingthissceneandscreamingdesperatelyforhelp(apparentlythevoice in the host's dream). Teenage Jo dreamed of coming upon thissceneandclubbingthelittlegirl'sattackeroverthehead;inherdreamhefelltothegrounddeadandsheleft.InthedreamsofAnnandAnnie,theteenagerwiththeclubappeared,struckthemantothegroundbuthearoseand renewedhis attackagain.FouryearoldSallydreamedofplaying with her dolls happily and nothing else. Both Annie and Annreportedalittlegirlplayingobliviouslyinthecorneroftheroomintheirdreams. Although there was no definite abuser-identified altermanifesting at this time, the presence at times of a hallucinated voicesimilar to Sarah's uncle suggested there might be yet another alterexperiencingthedreamfromtheattacker'svantage.(ibid.:171)

Taking this at face value for the sake of argument,what it seems to show isthat, while dreaming, a dissociated human psyche can manifest multiple,concurrentlyconsciousaltersthatexperienceeachotherfromasecond-personperspective,justasapersonseesandshakeshandswithanotherinwakinglife.Thealters’experiencesarealsomutuallyconsistent,inthesensethatthealtersallseemtoexperiencethesameseriesofevents,eachfromitsownsubjectiveperspective.Thecorrespondencewithwhatisarguedtohappeninthecaseofuniversal-leveldissociationisuncanny.

Onemaynonetheless object to this correspondence by pointing out that thealtersofaDIDpatientcanonlyexperienceoneanotherfromasecond-personperspective if the host is in a particular state of consciousness—namely,dreaming. But notice that, since universal consciousness is, ex hypothesi, allthere is, there is no ‘outside world’ at its level. So the only state ofconsciousness conceivably available to it is one entailing self-generatedexperiences analogous to dreaming. Might we then be alters of universalconsciousnessexperiencingoneanotherwithinauniversal ‘dream,’ justasthealtersofaDIDpatientexperienceoneanotherduringthepatient’sdream?


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It is important to point out, however, that, despite decades of clinical work,researchonDIDisstillinitsinfancy.Indeed,onlyinthepastfewyearshastheexistence of DID been scientifically established. Our understanding of thepsychic processes underlying dissociation is still fairly limited; particularlywhen itcomes to thedream-lifeofDIDpatients.Asresearchonhuman-leveldissociationadvances,weshouldbeinabetterpositiontounderstandthetrueextenttowhichDIDservesasananalogyforuniversal-leveldissociation.

Thesecondtopicoffutureworkthatdeservesattentionisourunderstandingofmeta-consciousness and its modeling under the excitation metaphor ofexperience. I’ve described this metaphor in Chapter 3: experiences can beregarded as self-excitations of universal phenomenal consciousness. I’ve alsoclaimedinChapter5thatmeta-consciousnessreflectsaparticularconfigurationofconsciousness.Bringingthesetwometaphorstogetheriscertainlyfeasible:ifwe imagine universal phenomenal consciousness as amembrane—just asM-theorists imagine their ‘branes’—experiences canbe regardedas vibrationsofthis membrane and meta-consciousness as a particular topologicalconfigurationof themembrane.More specifically,meta-consciousness canbevisualizedasthemembranefoldinginonitself,sothatthepatternsofvibrationin a first segment of the membrane induce corresponding vibrations in asecondsegmentfoldedontopofthefirst.Thepatternsofvibrationinthefirstsegmentconstitutea rawexperience,whereas thepatternsofvibration in thesecond segment constitute themeta-conscious realization that one is havingtherawexperience.

However, since there are many nuances inherent to the notion of meta-consciousness that were not explored in this dissertation, more work isrequired here. For instance, does meta-consciousness presuppose, entail orimplyaHeideggeriansenseofaseparateself inhabitingtheworld?Ifso,howcouldthissensebeaccommodatedbythetopologicalanalogydiscussedabove?Whatare thequalitativedifferencesbetweena rawexperienceand themeta-conscious realization that one is having the raw experience? How do thesedifferencesariseandhowcanthecorrespondingmentalprocessesbemodeledaccordingtothetopologicalmetaphor?Andsoforth.

It remainsmy hope that this dissertationmotivates analytic philosophers toreconsideridealismnotonlyasaviable,butperhapseventhemostpromising,avenueforcircumventingthefundamentalproblemsfacedtodayinontology.Ihope the ideas presented here are but the seeds for a wave of newdevelopments in thecomingyearsanddecades,whichwillpursuewithmoredepthanddetailthemanyavenuesofreasoningopenedupbythisdissertation.


AppendixA. NotItsOwnMeaning:AHermeneuticoftheWorld

ThispaperfirstappearedinHumanities,ISSN:2076-0787,Vol.6,No.3,ArticleNo.55,inAugust2017.

A.1 AbstractThe contemporary cultural mindset posits that the world has no intrinsicsemantic value. The meaning we see in it is supposedly projected onto theworld by ourselves. Underpinning this view is the mainstream physicalistontology,accordingtowhichmindisanemergentpropertyorepiphenomenonofbrains.Assuch,sincetheworldbeyondbrainsisn’tmental,itcannotapriorievoke anything beyond itself. But a consistent series of recent experimentalresults suggests strongly that the world may in fact be mental in nature, ahypothesisopenlydiscussedinthefieldoffoundationsofphysics.Inthisessay,these experimental results are reviewed and their hermeneutic implicationsdiscussed.If theworld ismental, itpointstosomethingbeyondits face-valueappearancesandisamenabletointerpretation,justasordinarydreams.Inthiscase,theprojectofaHermeneuticofEverythingismetaphysicallyjustifiable.

A.2 IntroductionTobeamenable to interpretation, things andphenomenamustpointbeyondthemselves, thereby embodying semantic value or sense. For instance, thesesquigglesofinkonpaper—whichwecallwrittenwords—meanmorethanjustsquiggles of ink on paper: they point to something beyond themselves.Similarly, the inner imagery we experience in dreams points to somethingbeyondtheirface-valueappearances,whichhasmotivateddepthpsychologiststodevelopextensivehermeneuticsofdreams(e.g.Ackroyd1993,vonFranzandBoa 1994, Jung 2002, Fonagy et al. 2012). Finally, the symbolisms of religiousmyths point to something that transcends the face-value appearances of thesymbolsthemselvesandengagespeopleatanemotionallevel(Kastrup2016a).

Influenced by twentieth century positivism and existentialism, thecontemporary cultural mindset posits that things and phenomena only havesemantic value insofar as we project this value onto them. Summarizing theessenceofthismindset,Sartrewrote:“thereexistconcretelyalarmclocks…But… then I discover myself suddenly as the one who gives its meaning to thealarm clock … the one who finally makes the values exist” (1992: 77).Analogously,squigglesof inkmeanmorethansquigglesof inkonlyinsofaraswestipulatebyconventionthattheydoso.Totheextentthatalarmclocksandwrittenwords are inventions of humanbeings, it is reasonable to assert thattheirmeaningconsistsinwhatweprojectontothem.


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However, thecontemporaryculturalmindsetextends thisnotionofprojectedmeaningtonatureitself.Fireonlyrepresents“theinseminatingfuryofsexandtheardoroftheascetic”(RonnenbergandMartin2010:84)insofarasweprojectpassionontoit.Stonesonlyrepresenteternity(ibid.:106)insofarasweprojecttimelessnessontothem.Withoutourprojections,stonesmeanjuststones;firemeans just fire. In and of itself, theworld supposedly is its ownmeaning. Itdoesnotinherentlypointtoanythingbeyonditsownappearanceonthescreenofperception.Whateversensewemayseeinafactoftheworldissupposedlyaconfabulationofhumancognition,notintrinsictothefactitself.“Inthiscase,”asZemachput it, “onemaysayeither that this facthasno sense,or that theonlysenseithasisprovidedbyitsform”(2006:363).Inotherwords,“Thesenseof theworld is identicalwith its form” (ibid.: 367).Ortiz-Osés put it perhapsmostsimply:“Whentaken‘existentially,’existenceseemstolacksense,whereassensetaken‘essentially’wouldappeartolackexistence”(2008:65).

Asaresult,ourculturebelievesthatthesemanticvalueoftheworldissimplyanartifactofhumanminds.Theworlddoesn’thaveastorytotell,asuggestionto make or an insight to convey. It isn’t saying anything. There is nothingmeaningful to be gleaned from the world, just utilitarian predictions to bemade about its behavior. Under such ethos, projects such as Ortiz-Osés’—meant to formulate a symbolic hermeneutic of the world premised on thenotion that “thewholeof existencecontainsanalmost secret essence” (2008:1)—becomemetaphysicallyprecarious,whichOrtiz-Oséshimselfseemstohaveacknowledged(ibid.:65).

At the root of this state of affairs is the split betweenmind and world thatcharacterizes our present worldview. Indeed, according to the mainstreamphysicalist ontology, the fundamental building blocks of reality are physicalelementsthatexistindependentlyofmind(Stoljar2016).Thelatter,inturn,issupposedlyconstitutedorgeneratedbyparticular localarrangementsofthesephysicalelements,suchasbrainsinsideskulls.Consequently,mindisinsulatedfromtheexternalworldsurroundingitbeyondtheskull.

Theproblem,ofcourse,isthatonlymindcanhostintrinsicsemanticvalue,forthe latter consists of cognitive associations: the intrinsic meaning of anexperienceistheemotions,insightsandinnerimageryitevokes.Forinstance,thefeelingofhungermayevokeinnerimageryrelatedtofoodbecausethereisa cognitive associationbetween the feeling and the imagery.Amemory fromchildhoodmay evoke the emotion of happiness because there is a cognitiveassociationbetweenthememoryandtheemotion.Theseassociative linksareanexclusivefeatureofmentation.

Soifsemanticvalueisessentiallymentalandmindisinsulatedfromtheworldbeyondtheskull,thensemanticvaluecannotexistintheworld.Anon-mentalworldcanbeevoked,butitcannotintrinsicallyevokeanything.Suchseparationbetweenmeaning and world is what motivates our contemporary culture toconsidertheworldsemanticallymute. “Thehumanmindhasabstracted fromthewholeall…meaning,andclaimed[it]exclusively for itself,”wroteTarnas(2010:432).



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Withinmind,cognitiveassociationscangoonindefinitely,asendlesschainsofevocations:adaydreammay leadtoa thought,whichmayevokeanemotion,whichmay trigger amemory,whichmay lead to another thought, and soon(Karunamuni 2015: 2-3). But once we leave the inner space of mentation byevoking an external fact in the world, the chainmust end. Theworld is thechain’sfinaldestination,foritcannotapriorievokeanythingelseinturn.Thissemanticendpointiswhatwecalla‘literalfact.’Everythingpriortoitissign,simile or allegory—roundabout, indirect ways to arrive at the destination.According to our contemporary cultural mindset, the value of theseindirections is entirely conditioned upon their ability to ultimately point atliteralfacts.Anythingshortofitisconsidereddelusion,foritallegedlycan’tbeanchoredintruth.

Butdoesour current scientificunderstandingof reality truly corroborate thissplitbetweenmindandworld,insideandoutside?Arewejustifiedintakingforgrantedthattheworld‘outthere’isfundamentallydistinctorseparatefromthemind ‘in here’? If not, could theworld carry intrinsic semantic value and beamenable to interpretation, just as dreams are? Could there be a validhermeneutic of theworld, a visionof it as symbolic, suggestiveof somethingbeyond its own face-value appearances on the screen of perception? Whatwouldtheimplicationsofthispossibilitybeforthewaywerelatetotheworld?Thesearethequestionsaddressedinthisessay.

In Section A.3, the latest experimental results emerging from the field ofquantumphysicswillbebrieflyreviewed.Theyempiricallyindicatethatmindandworldaren’t,afterall, fundamentallydistinctorseparate.SectionA.4willshowhowthiscontinuitybetweenmindandworldcanexplainwhytheaxiomsof rational thoughtdescribeandmodel theworld souncannily accurately. InSectionA.5,thehermeneuticimplicationsofthementalworldhypothesiswillbediscussed.SectionA.6thencomparestheanalysisinSectionA.5withwhatsomeoftheworld’sphilosophicalandspiritualtraditionshavetosayaboutthenatureandmeaningoftheworld.Finally,SectionA.7concludesthisessaywithabriefdiscussion.

A.3 TheontologicalstatusoftheworldThemainstreamphysicalistnotionthat theworld isoutsideand independentof mind is an abstract explanatory model constructed in thought, not anempiricalobservation.Afterall,whatwecall‘theworld’isavailabletoussolelyas‘images’—definedherebroadly,sotoincludeanysensorymodality—onthescreen of perception, which is itself mental. We interpret the contents ofperceptionascomingfromaworldoutsidemindbecausethisseemstoexplainthefactthatweallsharethesameworldbeyondtheboundaryofourskin,aswell as the fact that the laws that govern this world do not depend on ourpersonal volition. Stanford physicist Prof. Andrei Linde, well known for histheoriesofcosmologicalinflation,summarizeditthus:


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Let us remember that our knowledge of the world begins not withmatter but with perceptions. I know for sure thatmy pain exists, my“green” exists, andmy “sweet” exists. I do not need any proof of theirexistence, because these events are a part of me; everything else is atheory. Laterwe find out that our perceptions obey some laws,whichcan bemost conveniently formulated if we assume that there is someunderlyingrealitybeyondourperceptions.Thismodelofmaterialworldobeying laws of physics is so successful that soonwe forget about ourstartingpointandsaythatmatteristheonlyreality,andperceptionsareonly helpful for its description. This assumption is almost as natural(andmaybe as false) as our previous assumption that space is only amathematical tool for the description of matter. But in fact we aresubstitutingrealityofourfeelingsbyasuccessfullyworkingtheoryofanindependently existingmaterialworld.And the theory is so successfulthatwealmostnever thinkabout its limitationsuntilwemustaddresssomereallydeepissues,whichdonotfitintoourmodelofreality.(1998:12)

Thismodelof realityhas intuitive implicationsamenabletoconfirmation—orrefutation—throughsubtleexperimentalarrangements,whichLindealludedtowhen he spoke of “some really deep issues.” Indeed, the properties of aphysicalistworldshouldexistandhavedefinitevaluesevenwhenthisworldisnotbeingobserved: themoon shouldexist andhavewhateverweight, shape,size and color it has even if nobody is looking at it.Moreover, amere act ofobservation should not change the values of these properties: the weight,shape,sizeandcolorofthemoonshouldnotbecomedifferentsimplybecausesomeonehappenedtolookatit.

Operationally, these intuitive tenets of physicalism are translated into thenotionof‘non-contextuality’:theoutcomeofanobservationshouldnotdependonthewayother,separatebutsimultaneousobservationsareperformed.Afterall, the properties being observed are supposed to be independent ofobservation.WhatIperceivewhenIlookatthenightskyshouldnotdependonthewayotherpeoplelookatthenightskyalongwithme,forthepropertiesofthe night sky uncovered by my observation should not depend on theirs.Clearly—and in line with physicalism—non-contextuality implies that theworld is independent of perception, insofar as perception constitutesobservation.My perceptions should simply reveal what the properties of theworldareinandofthemselves.

The problem is that, according to quantum theory, the outcome of anobservation can depend on the way another, separate but simultaneousobservationisperformed.Forinstance,iftwoparticlesAandBarepreparedina special way, the properties of particle A as seen by a first observer—say,Alice—are predicted to correlate with the way another observer—say, Bob—simultaneously looks at particle B. This is so even when A and B—and,therefore, Alice and Bob—are separated by arbitrarily long distances. Forinstance,whatAliceseeswhenshelooksatparticleAin,say,London,dependsonthewayBobconcurrentlylooksatparticleBin,say,Sydney.Iftheproperties



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oftheworldwereoutsideandindependentofAlice’sandBob’sminds—thatis,outside and independent of their perceptions—this clearly shouldn’t be thecase; unless there is someobservation-independenthiddenproperty, covertlysharedbyAandBandentirelymissedbyquantumtheory,whichcouldaccountforthecorrelations.ThiswasEinstein’spointwhenhe(in)famouslysuggestedthat quantum theory was incomplete (Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen 1935).However, as mathematically proven by John Bell (1964), the correlationspredicted by quantum theory cannot be accounted for by these kinds ofobservation-independenthiddenproperties.

Consequently, quantum theory appears to contradict non-contextuality andrenderphysicalismuntenable.AconceivablewaytoavoidthisconclusionwhileacceptingquantumtheorywouldbetopositthatparticlesAandB,orAliceandBob themselves, somehow ‘tip each other off’ during observation,instantaneously and at a distance, so tocoordinate theiractionsandproducethe predicted correlations. This, however, would require faster-than-lightcommunicationandflyinthefaceoftheoverwhelminglyconfirmedtheoryofspecialrelativity.

Alternatively,aphysicalistcouldattempttosalvagenon-contextualityandthenotion of a world outside and independent of mind by rejecting quantumtheory itself. Yet, as it turns out, since Alain Aspect’s seminal experiments(Aspect, Grangier and Roger 1981, Aspect, Dalibard and Roger 1982, Aspect,GrangierandRoger1982)thepredictionsofquantumtheoryinthisregardhavebeen repeatedly confirmed, with ever-increasing rigor. For instance, in anexperiment performed in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1998 (Tittel et al.), theparticlesA andBwere separated bymore than 10 km—as opposed to the 12meters of Aspect’s original experiment (1981)—reducing the already lowlikelihood that they couldbe creating the correlationspredictedbyquantumtheorythroughsomekindofsignalexchange.Despitethisgreaterseparation,thepredictionsofquantumtheorywereagainconfirmed.

Then, still in 1998 but this time in Innsbruck, Austria, another experiment(Weihs et al.) was done to eliminate another far-fetched possibility: that, inadvance of the preparation of particlesA andB, ‘Alice,’ ‘Bob’ and the systemresponsible for thepreparationcould somehowbe ‘pre-agreeing’onahiddenplanofaction,sotolatercreatethecorrelationswithoutneedforfaster-than-light communication (‘Alice’ and ‘Bob,’ in this case, were automatedmeasurement apparatuses). To close this unlikely ‘conspiracy’ loophole, thebehaviors of ‘Alice’ and ‘Bob’ were programmed randomly and only afterparticles A and B had already been prepared. Nonetheless, the correlationspredictedbyquantumtheorywereyetagainconfirmed.

Critics continued to speculate about other far-fetched loopholes in theseexperiments.Inanefforttoaddressandcloseallconceivableloopholes,Dutchresearchers have recently performed an even more tightly controlled test,which—unsurprisinglybynow—echoedtheearlierresults(Hensenetal.2015).ThislattereffortwasconsideredbytheperiodicalNaturethe“toughesttestyet”


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(Merali 2015). Given all this, it seems now untenable to argue against theveracityofquantumtheory.

The only alternative left for physicalists is to try to circumvent the need forfaster-than-light signalexchangesby imaginingandpostulatingsome formofnon-locality: nature must have—or so they speculate—observation-independent hidden properties that arenot confined to particular regions ofspacetime,suchasparticlesAandB.Inotherwords,theargumentisthattheobservation-independent hidden properties allegedly missed by quantumtheoryare‘smearedout’acrossspaceandtime.Itisthisomnipresent,invisiblebut objective background that supposedly orchestrates the correlationspredictedbyquantummechanics.Non-contextualityandphysicalismcanthusbesalvaged;orcanthey?

Theproblem,ofcourse, isthatnon-localhiddenpropertiesarearbitrary:theyproduce no predictions beyond those already made by standard quantumtheory. As such, it could be argued that they represent an effort “tomodifyquantummechanicstomakeitconsistentwith[one’s]viewoftheworld,”sotoavoidtheneed“tomodify[one’s]viewoftheworldtomakeitconsistentwithquantummechanics”(Rovelli2008:16).

Be it as it may, it turns out that certain specific correlations predicted byquantumtheoryareincompatiblewithnon-contextualityevenfor largeclassesofnon-localhiddenproperties(Leggett2003).Studieshavenowexperimentallyconfirmedthesecorrelations(Gröblacheretal.2007,Romeroetal.2010),thusputting non-contextuality in even more serious jeopardy. To reconcile theseresults with physicalism would require a profoundly counterintuitiveredefinitionofwhatwecall ‘objectivity.’Andsinceourcontemporaryculturalmindsethas come toassociateobjectivitywith reality itself, the sciencepressfelt compelled to reporton someof these resultsbypronouncing, “Quantumphysicssaysgoodbyetoreality”(Cartwright2007).

More recent experiments have again contradicted non-contextuality andconfirmed that, unlike what one would expect if the world were separate ordistinctfrommind,theobservedpropertiesoftheworldindeedcannotbesaidtoexistpriortobeingobserved(Lapkiewiczetal.2011,Manningetal.2015).Forall intents and purposes, the world we perceive is a product of observation.Commentingonthis,physicistAntonZeilingerhasbeenquotedassayingthat“thereisnosenseinassumingthatwhatwedonotmeasure[thatis,observe]aboutasystemhas[anindependent]reality”(Ananthaswamy2011).

So the question now is: Can some form of physicalism survive the failure ofnon-contextuality?Wehaveseenearlierthattheintuitivetenetsofphysicalismare: (a) there exists a world outsidemind; and (b)mere observation doesn’tchange this independently existing world. The failure of non-contextualityclearlyrulesout(b).Can(a)stillmakeanysenseintheabsenceof(b)?Ifitcan,thentheworldoutsidemindmustsomehowphysicallychange,instantaneously,everytimeit isobserved.Theplausibilityofthisnotionaside,noticethatonenevergetstoseetheobservation-independentworld,foritsupposedlychangesinstantly, in an observation-dependent manner, the moment one looks at it.



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Clearly, theonlymotivation toentertain thisnotion is to try to salvage someratherartificialandcounterintuitive formofphysicalism.Andeven ifsuchanattempt were to succeed, the world we actually experience would still beconditioned by mind, insofar as it would be an outcome of consciousperception. For the purposes of this paper, therefore, the result would beindistinguishablefromatrulymentalworld.

Already in2005, JohnsHopkinsphysicist andastronomerProf.RichardConnHenryhad seen enough. In an essayhepenned forNature, he claimed, “Theuniverseisentirelymental.…Therehavebeenserious[theoretical]attemptstopreserveamaterialworld—buttheyproducenonewphysics,andserveonlytopreserveanillusion”(Henry2005:29).Theillusionhewasreferringtowas,ofcourse,thatofaworldoutsidemind.

Naturally, Conn Henry’s position is controversial and debate around itcontinues tounfold.Nonetheless, theexperimentsdoshowthat the ideaofamentalworldmustbetakenseriously,ifnothingelseforthesheerpoweroftheempirical evidence now accumulated. Moreover, philosophers have recentlyproposed coherent ontologies that can, at least in principle, make sense ofreality without the need to postulate anything distinct from mind itself(Kastrup 2017e, Nagasawa and Wager 2016, Shani 2015). These ontologiesprovidecoherentframeworksinwhichtheexperimentalresultscanbeplacedandinterpreted.

Finally,notice that, although theargument in this sectionhasbeenbasedonquantummechanical experiments carried out onmicroscopic particles underlaboratoryconditions,weknowthattheimplicationsofquantumtheoryapplytoourmacroscopicworldoftablesandchairsaswell.Indeed,quantumeffectshave been experimentally demonstrated for macroscopic objects at roomtemperature (Lee et al. 2011, Klimov et al. 2015). As such, the failure of non-contextualityindicatesthattheseeminglyobjectiveworldweliveinisaresultof mental process at work and, as such, akin to a transpersonal dream: thetables,chairs,starsandgalaxiesweperceivewithinitdonothaveanexistenceindependentofourminds.

A.4 ThecontinuityofmindandworldInafamouspapertitled“TheUnreasonableEffectivenessofMathematicsintheNaturalSciences,”physicistEugeneWigner(1960)discussed“themiracleoftheappropriatenessofthelanguageofmathematicsfortheformulationofthelawsofphysics.”Indeed,abstractmethodsandresultsdevelopedpurelyinthoughthave,againandagain,succeededinpreciselydescribingconcretephenomena.Thataxiomaticintuitionsturnouttocorrectlypredictandmodelthestructureand dynamics of the world at large is difficult to make sense of underphysicalism,thisprobablybeingthereasonwhyWignerusedtheword‘miracle’twelve times in his paper. After all, lest we incur the fallacy of circularreasoning,underphysicalismwecannotlogicallyargueforthevalidityoflogic


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beyondourownminds,sotheworldcouldverywellbeabsurd(Albert 1985).ThatitisnotisWigner’s“miracle.”

If the world is mental, however, the correspondence between the intuitivefoundations of rational thought and the way the world works is perfectlynatural. That we take the basic tenets of logic and mathematics to be self-evidenttruthsbetraystheirarchetypalnatureintheJungiansense:theyreflectdeeply ingrainedmental templates according towhich thoughtunfolds (Jung1991).Asamatteroffact,psychologistMarie-LouisevonFranzwentasfarastoargue that the natural numbers themselves are archetypal (1974). Then—andhere is the key point—the fact that these archetypes extend into the worldclearlyindicatesthattheworlditselfismentalandcontinuouswithourminds.Ifthere is no intrinsic separation between our minds and the objects ofperception, naturally these objects should comport themselves in a wayconsistentwithmentalarchetypes.Perceptualobjectsshouldbeanexpressionof archetypal patterns in just the same way that thoughts are, so the worldshouldbeconsistent—asit is—withourlogicandmathematics.TheapparenteerinessofWigner’s“miracle”meltsaway.

To visualize all this consider the following analogy: if mind is like a guitarstring, then particular conscious experiences are like particular notes orpatternsofvibrationofthestring.Inthiscase,thementalarchetypesdiscussedabove are analogous to the elasticity, mass and length of the string, whichdetermine its normalmodes of vibration. Some of the archetypically-definednormalmodesofmindthuscorrespondtothelawsofnature,whichwediscernas regularitieson the screenofperception: they reflect someof the ‘notes’ inwhichmindnaturally‘plays’intheworldatlarge.

Wigner’s “miracle” is not only explainable by, but also constitutes furtherevidence for, the mental world hypothesis. As such, it is high time weconsideredtheimplicationsofthishypothesisforhowbesttoliveourlives.

A.5 TheimplicationsofamentalworldStrong empirical evidence pointing to the conclusion that the world weexperienceisaresultoftranspersonalmentalprocessesatworkhasnowbeenreviewed. There is no fundamental separation between mind ‘in here’ andworld ‘out there,’ which explains why the archetypes of rational thoughtdescribe nature so well. Yet, the latter point is not the sole implication of amentalworld: if ourminds are continuouswith the environmentwe inhabit,nothingpreventstheworldfromintrinsicallyevokingmentalcontentsbeyondperception,suchasinsightsandemotions.

Indeed, according toanalyticalpsychology,ournightlydreamscarry intrinsicsemantic value because they are manifestations of deeply ingrainedpsychological archetypes seeking to express themselves (Jung 1991). Byinterpretingthearchetypalmessagesourdreamspresenttousinsymbolicformwecan,therefore,achievemeaningfulinsightsthatescapethereachofordinarywakingintrospection(Ackroyd1993,vonFranzandBoa1994,Jung2002).Now,



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iftheworldisakintoacollectivedreamalsoproducedbymentalarchetypes,asdiscussedintheprevioussection,then the same rationale shouldapply toourwakinglives.Themeaningswethinktodiscernintheworldmaynot,afterall,bemerepersonalprojections,butactualpropertiesof theworld.Allempiricalfacts may be archetypal symbols: extrinsic appearances of immanent mentaldynamics. The entire cosmicnarrativemaybehinting at something prior to,andbeyond,itself.

Inamentalworld, the imagesweperceiveon the screenofperceptionaren’tessentially different fromour own imagination, except in that the former areshared across observers. This collective ‘world dream’ symbolically points tounderlyingtranspersonalmentaldynamics,justasregulardreamssymbolicallypointtounderlyingpersonalmentaldynamics.Assuch,theworldisamenabletohermeneutics: itmeans something; itpoints to somethingbeyond its face-valueappearances;itevokessomethingapriori;itisnotitsownmeaning.

A.6 Whattheworld’straditionshavetosayCuriously,despite empirical evidence for thementalworldhypothesishavingbecome available only in relatively recent times, philosophical and spiritualtraditions have been hinting at the intrinsic semantic value of the world formillennia. For instance, based on his in-depth study of ancient Islamicmysticism,HenryCorbinsuggestedthatthepurposeof life is to interprettheworldasametaphoroftranscendentmeaning.Hewrote:

Tocomeintothisworld…means…topass intotheplaneofexistencewhichinrelationto[Paradise]ismerelyametaphoricexistence.…Thuscoming into this world hasmeaning only with a view to leading thatwhichismetaphoricbacktotruebeing.(AsquotedinCheetham2012:59,emphasisadded.)

That theworld isn’t literalbutmetaphorical implies that it isn’t the endof achainofcognitiveassociations.Instead,itsverypurposeistoevoke,topointtocognitionbeyonditsface-valueappearances.

Analogously,inaclearsuggestionthatthethingsandphenomenaoftheworldare symbols of transpersonal mental patterns, Hong Zicheng wrote in thesixteenthcentury:

Thechirpingofbirdsandtwitteringofinsectsareallmurmuringsofthemind.ThebrillianceofflowersandcolorsofgrassesarenoneotherthanthepatternsoftheDao.(2006:105,emphasisadded.)

Still along similar lines, the Hermetic tradition suggests that the world is amentalcreationinatranspersonalmind:

ThatLight,He said, am I, thyGod,Mind…Mind is Father-God.…He[God]thinkethall thingsmanifest…[and]manifeststhroughall thingsandinall.(Mead2010:3,23,emphasisadded.)


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It then proceeds to suggest that the world is the symbolic image of theseimmanent,transpersonalmentalprocesses:

HolyartThou,OGod…ofwhomAll-naturehathbeenmadean image.(Mead2010:11,emphasisadded.)

IntheWest,theinceptionofthesenotionsgoes,ofcourse,allthewaybacktoPlato andhis ‘Theoryof Ideas,’ according towhich theontological groundofreality is archetypal thoughts in a transpersonalmind (Ross 1951).Thevisibleworldaroundus is supposedlymodeledafter thepatternsof thesearchetypalthoughts,whichitthussymbolicallypointsto.

Echoing all this, Nisargadatta Maharaj, a twentieth-century exponent of theAdvaitaVedantatraditioninIndia,said:

WhenyouseetheworldyouseeGod.ThereisnoseeingGodapartfromtheworld.BeyondtheworldtoseeGodistobeGod.(1973:58)

Thus,ouronlyaccesstoGodisthroughtheimagesonthescreenofperceptionthat we call the world. These images are the extrinsic appearance of God’sconsciousinnerlife.Beyondthem,theonlywaytoknowGodistogaindirectaccesstoGod’sinnerlife—thatis,tobeGod.

Iwillmentionjustonemoreexample,sinceanexhaustivereviewofhowtheseideasarerepresentedintheworld’straditionsisbeyondthescopeofthisbriefessay.ChristianmysticandscientistEmanuelSwedenborgwroteextensivelyofthe “correspondences” between the natural and spiritual worlds (2007: 63).These correspondences imply that the things and phenomena of the naturalworld are symbolic images of deeper, transcendent truths. The“correspondences”were Swedenborg’s attempt to formulate a hermeneutic oftheworld.1

A.7 DiscussionPhysicalism has served important practical purposes over the past couple ofcenturies. It has provided scientists and engineers with an effective—ifsimplistic and ultimately wrong—picture of the world, conducive to thedevelopmentof technology.Bythinkingofobjectsandnaturalphenomenaashavingstandalonerealityindependentoftheirownminds,practitionerscouldachievethedegreeofdetachmentandobjectivitynecessary fordescribingtheworld without bias. The predictivemodels of nature’s behavior that resultedfromthiseffortnowlieatthefoundationofourtechnologicalcivilization.

1Here it would have been interesting to mention the vast literature of medievalscholasticism in Europe that resonates directly with the ideas presented in thisdissertation.Forinstance,inhisanalysisofthethoughtofmedievalscholars,OwenBarfield, basedmostlyon thewritingsofThomasAquinas, says that, to them, “theworldisthethoughtofGod”(2011:95).Allowingforsomeleewayregardingtheuseoftheword‘God,’thisispreciselyaconclusionofChapter3.



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Butwhilst valuable in a utilitarian sense, this focus on nature’s behavior—asopposed tonature’smeaning—is extraordinarily limiting to thehuman spirit.We are meaning-seeking animals (Frankl 1991, Tillich 1952). A long andproductive life enabled by continuous advances in technology is ultimatelyvacuous and sterile if devoid of meaning. And the same worldview thatfacilitates the advancement of technology precludes us from finding andappreciating themeaningof life in theworld.This, inessence, isperhaps thegreatestdilemmaofthecontemporaryzeitgeist.

In such a context, the alternative notion that theworld points to somethingbeyond its face-valueappearancesoffersenrichingnewperspectives.Afterall,theworldweinhabitnowcarriesintrinsicsemanticvalue;amessage.LiketheVoynichmanuscript(ReddyandKnight2011), it isakintoabookwritteninayet-undeciphered language,clamoring fora suitablehermeneutic.Ortiz-Osés’project (2008) turns out to rest on solid metaphysical foundations after all.Eachofus, as individuals, cannowgiveourselvespermission todedicateourlives to finding meaning in the world, reassured by the knowledge that thismeaningisreallythereevenifwecan’timmediatelyapprehendit.Andwhereastheworld’smeaningwon’tdisappearifwerefusetolookforit,thepointisthattheoptiontolookisgivenlegitimacy.

Because of its preoccupation with measurement and predictive modeling,contemporarycultureisforgettingtoreadtheletterforthesakeofdescribingthe envelope. The physical universe we canmeasure ismerely the carrier ofsomething implied. Exaggerated focus on the predictive models of science,crucial as they are for the development of technology, may distract us fromfulfillingwhatmaybeournatural and innate telos. In thewordsofOrtegayGasset,“Scientifictruthisanexacttruth,butincompleteandpenultimate,thatis forcedly integrated in another kind of truth, ultimate and complete yetinexact”(asquotedinOrtiz-Osés2008:30).

Looking upon the world interpretatively, as a scholar looks upon an ancienttext while trying to decipher its meaning, is not only metaphysically andteleologically sound, it can also make life more wholesome. PsychotherapistThomasMooreoffersusanexample:by lookinguponour familymembersascharacters andour family stories as episodesof a great saga,meant to subtlyevokesomethingaboveandbeyonditspedestrianliteralappearances,weopenourselves up to the deeper archetypal sense they express (2012: 32). Byextrapolatingthispowerful idea further,wecan lookuponourentire lifeasasmall but crucial element of an unfathomable, symbolic cosmic drama. Theexperiences we go through are no longer literal and pedestrian, but carrydeeper,hiddensignificance.Indeed,inamentalworlditisasunreasonabletointerpretlifeliterallyasitistointerpretdreamsliterally.Whoeverthinksthatadreamisexactlywhatitappearstobeatfacevalue?Mostpeople’sinstinctuponhavinganintensedreamistoimmediatelyaskthemselves:Whatdoesitmean?Lookinguponlifeinthesameway—andaskingoneselfthesamequestion—canbestowonitamuchmorespacious,openandwholesomeoutlook.


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With its focus on closed, literal explanations, the physicalist ontology thatinforms the contemporary zeitgeist decrees that the world has no intrinsicmeaning. Insteadof anopenbookwaiting tobedecipheredandgrasped, theworld becomes just pixels to be measured; an endless string of quantifiableparameterscarryingnomessage.Insteadofthestartingpointofanopen,epicjourney along endless cognitive associations, wherein the meanings evokedconstituteandultimately reveal theuncanny reflectionof theobserver in theobserved,theworldbecomestheendpointofabotchedquestthatneverevengets started. By doing this, the physicalist ontology gives us permission toprocrastinateinsemanticnihilismandanengineeredsenseofclosure.ItstopsusfrompursuingwhattheIslamicmysticsstudiedbyCorbinthoughttobethepurposeoflife.Fortheultimatemeaningofitallmaynotbediscernibleinanyparticularendpointorconclusion,butonlyinthecognitivegestaltentailedbya circumambulation—to use a handy Jungian term—of associative threads. Itmay be discernible only in a “galaxy” of semantic fields that “are intimatelyconnected, and their significations influence one another, so that the mostimportant sense is founddiffuse in itswhole” (Ortega yGasset, as quoted inOrtiz-Osés2008:28).

Historicallyspeaking,thedenialoftheintrinsicsymbolicmeaningoftheworldis a recent aberration (Tarnas 2010). The antidote for this aberration is anextensionoftheapplicationofhermeneuticsbeyondalldiscernibleboundaries.What we need is a hermeneutic of the entire cosmos; a Hermeneutic ofEverything.


AppendixB. ThePhysicalistWorldviewasNeuroticEgo-DefenseMechanism

This paper first appeared in SAGE Open, ISSN: 2158-2440, Vol. 6,No. 4, doi:10.1177/2158244016674515,inOctober2016.

B.1 AbstractThephysicalistworldviewisoftenportrayedasadispassionateinterpretationofrealitymotivatedpurelybyobservablefacts.Inthisarticle,ideasofbothdepthandsocialpsychologyareusedtoshowthatthisportrayalmaynotbeaccurate.Physicalism—whether it ultimately turns out to be philosophically correct ornot1—is hypothesized to be partly motivated by the neurotic endeavor toproject onto the world attributes that help one avoid confrontingunacknowledged aspects of one’s own inner life.Moreover, contrary towhatmost people assume, physicalism creates an opportunity for the intellectualeliteswhodevelopandpromoteittomaintainasenseofmeaningintheirownlives through fluid compensation. However, because this compensatorystrategydoesnotapplytoalargesegmentofsociety,itcreatesaschism—withcorresponding tensions—that may help explain the contemporary conflictbetweenneo-atheismandreligiousbelief.

B.2 IntroductionAworldviewisanarrativeintermsofwhichwerelatetoourselvesandrealityatlarge.Itisakindofculturaloperatingsystemthatgivesustentativeanswerstofoundationalquestionssuchas‘Whatarewe?’‘Whatisthenatureofreality?’‘Whatisthepurposeoflife?’andsoon(Kastrup2014).Althoughmanydifferentworldviews vie for dominance today, the academically endorsed physicalistnarrative defines themainstream, despite itsmany difficulties (Kastrup 2014,2015,Nagel2012).Thisreigningworldviewpositsthatphysicalentitiesoutsideconsciousness are the building blocks of reality. Consciousness, in turn, issupposedly an epiphenomenon or emergent property of certain complexarrangementsoftheseentities.Assuch,underphysicalism,consciousnessmustbereducible tophysicalarrangementsoutsideand independentofexperience(Stoljar2016).

Physicalismisoftenportrayedasaworldviewthat,incontrastto,forexample,religion or spirituality, is based solely on objective facts. The present article,however, hypothesizes that the formative principles and motivations

1As I have extensively articulated earlier in this dissertation, my position is thatphysicalism is demonstrably inferior to idealism on both logical and empiricalgrounds.Yet,sincethescopeofthisparticularpaperisrestrictedtopsychology,mytonehadtobeneutralregardingphilosophicalmatters.


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underpinning thephysicalistnarrative—whether it ultimately turnsout tobephilosophically correct or not—are partly subjective, reflecting neurotic ego-defensemaneuversmeant,asdescribedbyVaillant, to “protect the individualfrompainful emotions, ideas, and drives” (1992: 3). This becomes clearwhenoneliftscoreconceptsofdepthpsychologytothesocialandculturalspheres.However, as a mostly clinical approach, depth psychology requires someelaborationbeforebeingappliedatatheoreticallevel.

Themodernunderstandingofdepthpsychologycanbetracedbacktothelate19th and early 20th centuries, in the works of Frederic Myers, Pierre Janet,William James, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung (Kelly et al. 2009). Itsfoundational inference is that the human psyche comprises two mainsubdivisions: a conscious and an ‘unconscious’ segment. The conscioussegmentofthepsychecomprisesexperiencesapersonhasintrospectiveaccesstoandcanreport.Accordingtotheanalyticalschoolofdepthpsychology,the“ego”isdefinedastheexperientialcenterofthissegment(vonFranz1964:161),anditisinthisspecificsensethatIusetheword‘ego’throughoutthepresentarticle.Incontrast,theso-called‘unconscious’segmentofthepsychecomprisesmental contents thepersonhasno introspectiveaccess toandcannot report.Nonetheless,depthpsychologistsassertthat‘unconscious’mentalcontentscan,anddo,influencetheperson’smanifestthoughts,feelingsandbehaviors.

Becausetheabilitytoreportanexperienceisametacognitivecapacityontopofthe experience itself (Schooler 2002), a more rigorous articulation of thedifferencebetweentheconsciousand ‘unconscious’segmentsof thepsyche isthis:consciousmentalcontentsarethoseapersonbothexperiencesandknowsthatheorsheexperiencesthem. ‘Unconscious’mentalcontents,ontheotherhand,arethosethepersoneitherdoesnotexperienceordoesnotknowthatheor she experiences them (Kastrup 2014: 104-110). In other words, consciousmentalcontentsfallwithinthefieldofegoicself-reflectionand,therefore,canbe reported, whereas ‘unconscious’ mental contents escape this field and,therefore,cannotbereported.Indeed,theexistenceofmentalcontentsthatareexperiencedbutcannotbereported—eventooneself—isnowwellestablishedin neuroscience, which has prompted the emergence of so-called “no-reportparadigms”(Tsuchiyaetal.2015).

However,asclinicalpsychologistscanonlygaugeconsciousnessbasedonwhattheir patients report, anything outside the field of self-reflection isindistinguishable from true unconsciousness. This explains the somewhatinaccurateterminologychoiceofthefoundersofdepthpsychology.2

Somecriticshavequestionedtheexistenceofan‘unconscious’segmentofthepsyche on philosophical grounds (Stannard 1980: 51-81). However, recent 2 See Chapter 5 for a much more extensive elaboration on the nature of the‘unconscious,’ including the roleofdissociation,which Ihavenotdiscussed in thisparticulararticle.Inanutshell,mypositionisthatthereisnoactualunconscious,butsimplyconsciousmental processes inaccessible to egoic introspectionbecause they(a)escapethefieldofself-reflectionor(b)arestronglydissociatedfromtheego.



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empiricalresultsinneuroscienceshowthepresenceofbroadcognitiveactivitythat individuals cannot report,butwhichnonetheless causally conditions theindividuals’manifest thoughts, feelingsorbehaviors (Augusto2010,Eagleman2011,Westen1999).Recentneuroimagingstudiesofthepsychedelicstatehavealso corroborated the depth-psychological view that ego suppression—in theform of reduction of neural activity in the brain’s default mode network—bringsotherwise‘unconscious’mentalcontentsintoawareness(Carhart-Harrisetal.2012,Carhart-Harrisetal.2016,Palhano-Fontesetal.2015).

Onthebasisoftheseempiricalresults,thecoreideaofdepthpsychology—thatis, that a segment of the psyche that escapes self-reflective introspection cancausallyconditionourthoughts,feelingsandbehaviors—cannotbedismissed.Andbecauseculturalnarrativesarethecompoundresultofanaggregationofthe thoughts, feelings and behaviors of individuals, depth-psychologicalinsights are valid starting points for an analysis of the psychologicalunderpinningsofourculture’smainstreamworldview.

InSectionsB.3andB.4,Ireviewwaysinwhichthephysicalistnarrativecangiveus permission to avoid confronting unwanted affects in the ‘unconscious’segment of our psyche. In Section B.5, I elaborate on how physicalism canconceivably evennurture its proponents’ sense ofmeaning in life. This lattersectionisbasedontheoriesofsocialpsychology,ratherthandepthpsychology,but it still leverages the notion of an ‘unconscious’: in hypothesizing thatphysicalism is an expression of fluid compensation, it presupposes thatcognitive processes outside the field of self-reflection influence the feelings,thoughtsandopinionssubjectsexpress.Finally,SectionB.6brieflysumsupthekeyideasdefendedinthisarticle.

B.3 EgoprotectionthroughprojectionAccordingtodepthpsychology,aneurosisistheexpressionofaninnerpsychicconflict caused by the ego’s refusal to acknowledge, confront and ultimatelyintegrate unwanted affects rising from the ‘unconscious’ (Jung 2014: 137). Tokeeptheseaffectsatbay,theegousesavarietyofdefensemechanisms,amongwhichdenial, distortion, dissociation, repression and so on (Vaillant 1992).Aparticularly common defense mechanism is projection (ibid.), whereby onecircumvents the need to confront ego-threatening forces within oneself byascribing the corresponding attributes to the outer environment. As such,projectionscanbesaidtopartlyhijackandmanipulateone’sworldviewinanattempt to prevent short-term suffering. My hypothesis is that, throughprojection,thephysicalistworldviewgivesuspermissiontoavoidconfrontingsomeofwhatwefinddisagreeablewithinourselves.Thiscanbeachievedinavarietyofsubtleways.

For instance, we all have a sense of our own existence and identity. Lucidintrospection reveals that the root of this sense is our consciousness—ourcapacitytobesubjectsofexperience.Afterall, ifwewerenotconscious,whatcould we know of ourselves? How could we even assert our own existence?


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Beingconsciousiswhatitmeanstobeus.Inanimportantsense—perhapseventheonly important sense—we are first and foremost consciousness itself, therestofourself-imagearisingafterward,asthoughtsandimagesconstructedinconsciousness.

From this perspective, the physicalist narrative’s attempt to reduceconsciousnesstophysicalentitiesoutsidesubjectivityiscounterintuitive,foritdivorcestheallegednatureofconsciousnessfromourfeltsenseofidentity.Wedonot feelas thoughwewereabunchofphysicalparticlesbouncingaroundinsideourskull.Instead,wefeelthatwearethesubjective‘space’whereinourexperiencesunfold,includingourideasaboutphysicalparticles.Hence,thereisasenseinwhichthephysicalistnarrativecanbesaidtoprojectthefeltessenceofourselvesontosomethingdistinctlyother.Accordingtoit,wearenotreally‘here,’groundedinoursubjectivesenseofbeing,butsomewhere‘overthere,’inanabstractworldfundamentallybeyondthefeltconcretenessofourinnerlives.Assuch,thephysicalistnarrativeentailsanemptyingoutofwhatitmeanstobeus; a kind of secular kenosis. “I am no ghost, just a shell,” laments the artcharacterAnnlee(HuygheandParreno2003:35),whosepredicamentisthatofmanyofusincontemporarysociety.

Thekenosisentailedbythephysicalistnarrativecanexonerate itsproponentsfromresponsibilityfortheirchoicesandactions.ConsiderthispassagebySamHarris:“DidIconsciouslychoosecoffeeovertea?No.Thechoicewasmadeforme by events inmy brain that I… could not inspect or influence” (2012: 7-8,emphasis added). The projection of responsibility here is clear and thecorrespondingreleasedescribedbyHarrishimself:“Losingabelief infreewillhasnotmademefatalistic—infact,ithasincreasedmyfeelingsoffreedom.Myhopes, fears, and neuroses seem less personal” (2012: 46, emphasis added).Indeed,under the ethosof such aworldview, there isno concrete reason forguiltorregret,forweallegedlyarenotwhatweexperienceourselvestobe.Wearenotresponsibleforwhathappensherebecausewearenot—andhaveneverbeen—reallyhere.Wearenotghostsinthemachinebutghostsconjuredupbythemachine.Inasignificantsense,wedonotreallyexist.

Asamatteroffact,someproponentsofthephysicalistnarrativegoasfarastodenythatconsciousnessexists.“Consciousnessdoesn’thappen.It’samistakenconstruct.”ThesewordsofneuroscientistMichaelGraziano(2016)shouldgiveanyone pause for thought. Here we have consciousness—whatever it mayintrinsicallybe—denyingthatconsciousnessexists.PhilosopherDanielDennett(1991) also claimed that consciousness is an illusion, a claim that seems toimmediately contradict itself. After all, where do illusions occur if not inconsciousness? 3 By appealing to metaphysical abstractions fundamentally 3InthewordsofDavidBentleyHart,“Theentirenotionofconsciousnessasanillusionis, of course, rather silly. Dennett has been making the argument for most of hiscareer,anditisjustabrasivelycounterintuitiveenoughtocreatethestrongsuspicioninmanythatitmustbemorephilosophicallycogentthanitseems,becausesurelynoone would say such a thing if there were not some subtle and penetrating truthhidden behind its apparent absurdity. But there is none. The simple truth of the



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beyondexperience,suchdenialsofourfeltselvesachieveaformofdeliverancesomewhatanalogoustoreligiousabsolution.Surprisingly,aswewill latersee,theyevenhelprestoreasenseofmeaningfulness in life, followingwhat Iwillcall‘ontologicaltrauma.’

The structure of these denials is fairly clear: first, consciousness weaves theconceptual notion that certain aspects of its own dynamics somehow existoutside itself; then, it projects its own essence onto these aspects. Thecorresponding dislocation of identity is apparent—and its neurotic charactereasytograsp—withananalogy: imagineapainterwho,havingpaintedaself-portrait,pointsatitanddeclareshimselftobetheportrait.This,inessence,iswhat physicalists do, whether it is philosophically justifiable or not.4Theirconsciousnessconceptualizesself-portraitswithinitself.Sometimestheseself-portraitstaketheformofelectrical impulsesandneurotransmitterreleases inthebrain(Koch2004).Othertimes,theytaketheshapeofquantumtransitionsor potentials (Tarlaci and Pregnolato 2016). Whatever the case, theirconsciousnessalwayspoints toaconceptualentity it createswithin itselfandthendeclares itself tobe thisentity. Itdismisses itsownprimary, first-personpoint of view in favor of an abstract third-person perspective. ConsiderDennett’swords:“Thewaytoanswerthese‘first-personpointofview’stumpersistoignorethefirst-personpointofviewandexaminewhatcanbelearnedfromthethird-personpointofview”(1991:336,emphasisadded).Thecontemptforthesubjectofexperience—theprimarydatumofexistenceandone’sown feltidentity—ispalpablehere;thekenosisnearlytotal.

The physicalist narrative may also give us permission to carve out anddismiss—againthroughthekenosisofprojection—themostdifficultaspectsofourinnerlives:ourfeltemotions.Accordingtoit,thefeelingofanemotionisthe internal perception of an “action program” triggered by certain stimuli(Damasio 2011). Although the action program itself is important insofar as ithelpsus survive and reproduce, the accompanying feelingof emotion is, in asense,ameresideeffectoftheprogram’sexecution.Forinstance,thesightofanotherhumanbeing facingapredicament isa stimulus that triggersactionsmeant tohelp thevictimand, consequently, increase the social cachetof theactiontaker.Thefeelingofcompassion,inturn,issupposedlynothingbuttheinner perception of this evolutionarily useful reactive schema (Immordino-Yang et al. 2009); it allegedly has no primary or fundamental significance.Undersuchanarrative,itiseasiertogointodenialaboutouremotionalliveswhenthegoinggetstough.Wefeeljustifiedtodismissorrepressourtraumasanddemons,avoidingtheoften-painfulworkofpsychologicalintegration.The

matteristhatDennettisafanatic:Hebelievessofiercelyintheuniqueauthorityandabsolutelycomprehensivecompetencyofthethird-personscientificperspectivethatheiswillingtodenynotonlytheanalyticauthority,butalsotheactualexistence,ofthefirst-personvantage”(2017).

4For clarity, and at the cost of repeating myself, my position is that this is notphilosophicallyjustifiable,asIhaveextensivelyarguedearlierinthisdissertation.


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physicalistnarrativeprovidesafoundationforrationalizingthechoiceoflivinganunexamined, superficial life.Toapersondesperate toavoid the specterofimmediateandpungent suffering, thebenefitsof this stancemayseemto faroutweighitspotentiallong-termimplications.

Surprisingly, the physicalist narrative can even offer us reassurance aboutdeath. According to it, there is literally nothing to fear about death itself,because it is allegedly the end of all experience, including the experiences offearandpain.Allofourproblemsandsufferingareguaranteedtoendatthatpoint.Thegreatandscaryunknownoftheexperientialrealmbeyondphysicalexistence vanishes in one fell swoop; the greatest angst of humankind isconquered.Thepsychologicalallureofthisideaispowerful,yetmostpeopledonot seem to ever stop to consider it.We have come to take for granted thecomfortsthatourmainstreamworldviewgrantsus.

Tosumitup,bydenyingourfeltsenseofexistenceandidentity,thephysicalistnarrativecreatesanopportunitytocleartheegoofultimateresponsibility.Bydenying the fundamental reality of emotions, it creates an opportunity toprotect the ego from a confrontation with farmore powerful forces. And byprojectingourontologicalessenceontoephemeralarrangementsofmatter, itcreatesanopportunity toprotect theego fromwhathashistoricallybeenthegreatestangstofhumankind:theexperientialunknownoftheafter-deathstate.

B.4 EgoiccontrolIthasbeen shown that religiosity can reflect a formof compensatory control(Kay et al. 2010): by believing that transcendent forces aligned with one’sconvictions govern the world, the ego avoids the anxiety associated with itsown inability to overcome uncertainty. This way, religiosity creates anopportunityforcontrolbyproxy:althoughtheegocannotdeterminethecourseof nature, an external agency far superior to it is believed to do so in awayconsistent with the ego’s preferences. The ego’s need to avoid anxiety byexertingcontrolisthusindirectlyfulfilled.

Going beyond religiosity, the physicalist narrative enables a sense of directegoic control over nature. Indeed, a recent empirical study has shown that“believingthatscienceisorwillprospectivelygrant…masteryofnatureimbuesindividuals with the belief that they are in control of their lives” (Stavrova,Ehlebracht and Fetchenhauer 2016: 234).Of course, by associating itselfwithscience—in a philosophically questionable move that is nonetheless widelyaccepted—the physicalist narrative has become the enabler and ontologicalfoundationofthisbelief.Andbecausedirectcontrol—thenotionthatonecanpersonallysteeroratleastpredictwhatisgoingtohappen—isknowntobeakeycontributortomentalwell-being(LangerandRodin1976,Lucketal.1999),itstandstoreasonthattheallureofphysicalisminthisregardcouldpotentiallybeevenstrongerthanthatofreligiouscontrol-by-proxy.

Theopportunity fordirectcontrolofferedby thephysicalistnarrativegoesasfar as conquering death itself: if consciousness is just an epiphenomenon or



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emergent property of physical arrangements outside experience, it becomesconceivablethat,throughsmartengineering,wecouldcreatemeanstouploadour consciousness into more durable substrates such as silicon computers(Kurzweil2005).Somephysicalistsevenofferdetailedroadmapsforachievingthis(SandbergandBoström2008).Thepossibilityofeternallifethusseemstoopen up, provided that consciousness can be instantiated in a computer byprogramming the computerwith thepatterns of information flow found in aperson’sbrain.

This, however, is premised on the notion that a simulation of a mentalphenomenon is equivalent, in essence, to the phenomenon itself. There aremany compelling arguments against this notion in philosophy of mind, themost well known of which is perhaps John Searle’s (2004). To gain someintuition about what these arguments generally entail, consider this: Do wehaveanyreasontobelievethat,byperformingaperfectlyaccuratesimulationof kidney function in a computer, the computer will begin urinating on itsdesk? Clearly not. There is an essential difference between a computersimulationandthephenomenonitsimulates;theyarenotthesamething,nomatter how accurate the simulation. Yet, those hoping to ‘uploadconsciousness’underthephysicalistnarrativeseemtobecomesoengrossedinabstraction that they lose touch with basic intuitions of plausibility. Theirneurosisis,inthissense,comparablewithreligiousdogmatism.

Althoughboththereligiousandphysicalistnarrativescreateanopportunityforconqueringdeath,thePrometheandoortoimmortalityopenedbyphysicalisminveststheego—notdeities—withthepowertocontroltranscendencethroughtechnology. This is seductively more direct, its only weakness—from apsychological standpoint—being that it ispromissory: atpresent,nobodyhasevermanaged touploadconsciousness.Yet, somepopularphysicalist authorsarguethatconsciousnessuploadingmaybeachievablestill inourown lifetime(Kurzweil 2005, Sandberg and Boström 2008), which actualizes the potentialallureoftheirworldview.

As seen in Section B.3 and this section, the implications of the physicalistnarrativeconsistentlyhelpprotectandinvesttheegowithauthority.Thisisnotto say that physicalism is entirely motivated by neurotic ego-defensemaneuvers, for there is a philosophical argument behind it that cannot bedismissed. Nonetheless, the question is whether it is plausible thatphysicalism’ssignificantego-defensepotentialhasnotbeen,tosomedegree,anunexaminedmotivationforitsdevelopment,promotionandadoption.

B.5 ThequestionofmeaningMeaning—in the sense of significance and purpose—is probably the greatestassetanyhumanbeingcanpossess.PsychotherapistVictorFrankl(1991),whopracticedandledgroupswhiledetainedinaconcentrationcampduringWorldWarII,assertedthatthewill-to-meaningisthemostdominanthumandrive,incontrast toNietzsche’swill-to-power andFreud’swill-to-pleasure.Meaning is


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sopowerfulthat,asJungremarked,it“makesagreatmanythingsendurable—perhapseverything”(1995:373).PhilipK.Dick’salteregoHorseloverFat,inthenovel Valis, embodies the essence of this drive: “Fat had no concept ofenjoyment;heunderstoodonlymeaning,”wroteDick(2001:92).LikeFat,manyofusseemeaningasahighervaluethanpowerorpleasure.Ourmotivationtolive rests in therebeingmeaning inour lives.Today,weneedmeaningmorethanever, for asPaulTillich (1952) lucidlyobserved, thegreatest anxietiesofourculturearepreciselythoseofdoubtandmeaninglessness.

And here is where an argument is often made for the impartiality ofphysicalism: as a worldview that, by turning the universe into a mechanicalcontraption fueled bymere chance, drains themeaning out of life, it cannotpossibly be a neurotic ego-defense mechanism—or so the argument goes.Instead, the physicalist narrative must represent a courageous admission by“toughpeoplewho face thebleak facts” (Watts 1989:65). Itmustembodyanobjective assessment of reality, not an emotional, irrational wish-fulfillmentmaneuver akin to religion.Compelling as itmay seemat first, this argumentfailscarefulscrutiny,foritspremiseisfalse.

Indeed, according to the Meaning Maintenance Model (MMM) of socialpsychology(Heine,ProulxandVohs2006)—whichisperhapsbetterseeninthecontextofabroadertheoryofpsychologicaldefense(Hart2013)—wecanderiveasenseofmeaningfromfourdifferentsources:self-esteem,closure,belonging,andsymbolicimmortality.Inotherwords,wecanfindmeaninginlifethrough(a)cultivatingafeelingofpersonalworth,(b)resolvingdoubtsandambiguities,(c)beingpart of somethingbigger and longer-lasting thanourselves, and (d)leavingsomethingofsignificancebehind—suchasprofessionalachievements—in the form of which we can ‘live on’ after physical death. A society’smainstream cultural narrative conditions howmeaning can be derived fromeachofthesefoursources.

ThekeyideabehindtheMMMisthatoffluidcompensationasanego-defensemechanism:Ifoneofthefoursourcesofmeaningisthreatened,anindividualwilltendtoautomaticallycompensatebyseekingextrameaningfromtheotherthreesources.Forinstance,threatstoself-esteemmaycausetheindividualtoreaffirmhisorhermodelofreality,therebybolsteringclosure.

As van Tongeren and Green (2010) have shown, a transcendent source ofmeaning, such as religion, plays the same role in fluid compensation as theother four sources. For instance, individuals tend to reaffirm their religiousbeliefsfollowingdisruptiontotheirmeaningsystem,inanefforttoprotectthelatter. Van Tongeren’s and Green’s experiments have not only empiricallysubstantiatedtheMMM,theyhavealsoshownthatevensubliminal threatstomeaningtriggerfluidcompensation,stronglyindicatingthatthe‘unconscious’isintegraltotheprocess.



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With this as background, my suggestion is that the physicalist narrative, inadditiontobeingarationalhypothesisformakingsenseoftheworld,5maybean expression of fluid compensation by intellectual elites. In other words,insteadofathreattomeaning,thephysicalistnarrativemayactuallyreflectanattemptby theseelites toprotectandrestore theirsenseofmeaningthroughbolstering closure, self-esteemand symbolic immortality.Thedisruption thatmayhaveoriginally ledtothiscompensatorymoveoccurredaroundthemid-tolate-19thcentury.

Indeed, itwasat that time thatwe lostourability to spontaneously relate toreligiousmythswithoutlinearintellectualscrutiny.“WithDescartesandKant,thephilosophicalrelationbetweenChristianbeliefandhumanrationalityhadgrown ever more attenuated. By the late nineteenth century, with fewexceptions, that relationwas effectively absent,”wroteTarnas (2010: 311).Themyths that had hitherto offered us meaning through the promise of literalimmortalityandmetaphysical teleologybecameuntenable.Taylor,whorichlychronicled this historical transition, characterized the corresponding loss ofmeaning rather broadly and generally as “a wide sense of malaise at thedisenchantedworld,asenseofitasflat,empty”(2007:302).Heevenhintedatfluid compensation when speaking of “a multiform search for somethingwithin, or beyond [theworld],which could compensate for themeaning lostwithtranscendence”(ibid.).

While acknowledging that this generalized malaise was the matrix of whatfollowed,Isubmitthatamorespecific,forcefulandpersonalthreattomeaningwasnecessarytomobilizetheextraordinarylevelofacademicandintellectualendorsement amassed by physicalism. After all—as Taylor himself describedthroughwhathecalled“thenovaeffect”—themalaise,inandbyitself,fosterednotonlyphysicalismbutalsoanexplosionofmyriadotherworldviews.

Ihypothesizethataprofoundanddisturbingchange inthe intellectualelites’understanding of the nature of their own being—that is, an ontologicaltrauma—wasthespecific,forcefulandpersonaltriggerthathelpedcongealthephysicalistnarrative.Havinglostreligion,theeliteswereleftwiththeprospectofphysicaldeteriorationwithoutthepathtotranscendencepreviouslyofferedbyanimmortalsoul.Hence,theywereforcedtofacetheinexorabilityoftheirown approaching death. And as we know from Terror Management Theory,mortality salience is a formidable threat tomeaning (Pyszczynski,Greenbergand Solomon 1997) empirically shown to motivate investment in palliativeworldviews(Burke,MartensandFaucher2010).Ontological traumamayhavethustriggered fluidcompensationandultimately ledtothe intellectualelites’championingofthephysicalistnarrative.

Indeed,manystudieshaveshownthatmortalitysalienceleadstoaheightenedneed for closure (Landau et al. 2004). This is fluid compensation in action. 5Again,hereIammakingacharitableconcessiontophysicalismbecausethelimitedscopeofthisparticulararticle—focused,asitis,onpsychology—preventedmefromarguingagainstitphilosophically.


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Noticealsothatthephysicalistnarrativeishumanity’smostsignificantattemptyettoachieveclosureinourworldview.Asmultibillion-dollarexperimentsliketheLargeHadronCollider—whoseprimarypurpose is to ‘close’ the StandardModelofparticlephysics,withnoimmediatepracticalapplications—illustrate,physicalismembodiesanunprecedentedefforttoproduceacausallycomplete,unambiguousmodelof reality.Nothingelse inmillenniaofprecedinghistoryhas come anywhere near it. I suggest that this is not coincidental: thephysicalist narrative may reflect the elites’ ego’s attempt to regain, throughheightened closure, themeaning it lost along with religion.Moreover, othermodalitiesoffluidcompensationmaybeatplayhereaswell:bydistinguishingthemselvesasasegmentofsocietyuniquelycapableofunderstandingfactsandconceptsbeyondthecognitivecapacityofothers,thescientistsandacademicswho promote the physicalist narrative stand to gain in self-esteem. Thecosmologicalscopeofthescientificworktheyproduceandleavebehindupontheirdeathscanalsobeseenasaboosttosymbolicimmortality.Finally,recallTillich’sobservation:doubtandmeaninglessnessanxietydominateourculture’smindset. Is it humanly plausible that our mainstream narrative would haveevolvedtotackleonlydoubtandleavemeaninglessnessanxietyunaddressed?

All inall, thephysicalistnarrativedoesnotnecessarily representanet lossofmeaning for the intellectualeliteswhoproducedandcontinue topromote it.Thetranscendentmeaninglostalongwithreligionmaybecompensatedforbyan increase in closure, self-esteem and symbolic immortality. Unfortunately,however,thiscompensatorystrategycannotworkformostordinarypeople:themen and women on the streets do not have enough grasp of contemporaryscientifictheoriestoexperienceanincreaseintheirsenseofclosure.Neitherdotheygain inself-esteem,becausetheyarenotpartof thedistinguishedelites.Finally,insofarasordinarypeopledonotproducescientificworkoftheirown,noparticulargaininsymbolicimmortalityistobeexpectedeither.

Inconclusion, thephysicalistnarrativemayserve theegoicmeaningneedsoftheintellectualeliteswhodevelopandpromoteit,butconstitutesasignificantthreattothesenseofmeaningoftheaveragepersononthestreets.Perhapsforthis reason, a large segment of society seeks meaning through alternativeontologiesconsideredoutdatedanduntenablebytheintellectualelites,suchasreligious dualism (Heflick et al. 2015). This creates a schism—withcorresponding tensions—between different segments of society, which mayhelp explain the contemporary conflict between neo-atheism and religiousbelief.

B.6 ConclusionThephysicalistnarrative, incontrast totheway it isnormallyportrayed,maynot be dispassionate. It may be partly driven by the neurotic endeavor toproject onto the world attributes that help us avoid confrontingunacknowledged aspects of our own inner lives.Moreover, contrary to whatmost people assume, physicalism creates an opportunity for the intellectualeliteswhodevelopandpromoteittomaintainasenseofmeaningintheirown



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lives through fluid compensation. However, because this compensatorystrategydoesnotapplytoalargesegmentofsociety,itcreatesaschism—withcorresponding tensions—that may help explain the contemporary conflictbetweenneo-atheismandreligiousbelief.



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SummaryThis dissertation elaborates on amodern, analytic version of the ontology ofidealism,accordingtowhich(a)phenomenalconsciousness,asanontologicalcategory, is fundamental; and (b) everything else innature canultimately bereduced to, or grounded in, patterns of excitation of phenomenalconsciousness. It posits a reduction base consisting of a single element:spatially unbound, universal phenomenal consciousness. Its key challenge isthentoexplainhowtheseeminglydistinctphenomenalinnerlivesofdifferentsubjectsofexperiencecanarisewithinthisfundamentallyunitaryphenomenalfield. This is sometimes called the “decomposition problem” in the literatureanditisthecoreproblemthisdissertationattemptstotackle.Alongtheway,avariety of other challenges are addressed, such as: how we can reconcileidealismwith the fact thatweall inhabit a commonexternalworld;why thisworldunfoldsindependentlyofourpersonalvolitionorimagination;whythereare such tight correlations between measured patterns of brain activity andreportsofexperience;etc.

The core of this dissertation consists of five papers published in academicjournals. They are reproduced here, in chapters 2 through 6, without anychangeofsubstance.

Chapter 2 discusses what is perhaps the root of key unresolved problems incontemporaryanalyticphilosophy:thetendencytotrytomakesenseofnaturebyreplacingconcreteobservationswiththeoreticalabstractions.Suchattemptsoftenconsistofmerewordgames,played in thoughtwitha richandshiftingphantasmagoria of concepts. Chapter 2 attempts to make these word gamesexplicit. It also suggests more epistemically reliable lines of reasoning thatavoidunnecessaryconceptualabstractions.

Bypursuingthesemorereliablelinesofreasoning,Chapter3—thecoreofthisdissertation—elaborates on an analytic formulation of idealism. It can besummarized thus: there is only universal phenomenal consciousness.We, aswell as all other living organisms, are dissociated alters of this universalconsciousness,analogouslytohowapersonwithDissociativeIdentityDisorder(DID)manifestsmultipledisjointcentersofsubjectivityalsocalled‘alters.’We,and all other living organisms, are surrounded by the transpersonalphenomenal activity of universal consciousness, which unfolds beyond thedissociativeboundaryofourrespectivealter.Theinanimateworldweperceivearoundus is the ‘extrinsicappearance’—i.e. thephenomenal image imprintedfromacross our dissociative boundary—of this activity. The living organismswesharetheworldwitharetheextrinsicappearancesofotheralters.

Chapter4 listspossibleobjectionsagainstsuchaconsciousness-onlyontologyandtacklesthemonebyone.Itattemptstoshowthattheyareoftenbasedonlogical fallacies such as question-begging, unexamined assumptions,misunderstandingsoftheimplicationsofanalyticidealism,etc.

One objection is exceptional because it poses some legitimate difficulties: anecessary implication of the ontology proposed in Chapter 3 is that an


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organism’smetabolism—allofit—istheextrinsicappearanceoftheorganism’sconscious inner life. This is reasonable enough for certain patterns of brainactivityknowntocorrelatewithexperiencesaccessible through introspection,but what about so-called ‘unconscious’ mental processes and metabolismbeyondthebrain,suchase.g.liverandkidneyfunction?

Chapter 5 argues that, despite appearances to the contrary, there is no clearreason to believe that any mental process is truly unconscious. Instead, itattemptstoshowthatthereare, infact,verygoodreasonstothinkthatwhatweregardasunconsciousmentalprocessescorrespondmerelytoanillusionofunconsciousness, which results from dissociative states or lack ofmetacognition.Andonce these twomechanisms—dissociative statesand lackof metacognition—are identified, they can explain why experiencescorrespondingtoareasof the livingbodybeyondthenervoussystemcan’tbeaccessedthroughintrospection.

Finally, Chapter 6 compiles and discusses a broad list of instances of brainfunction impairment that are accompanied by enrichment of conscious innerlifeandanexpansionofone’ssenseofidentity.Thelistincludescasesasvariedasasphyxiation,physicaltraumatothehead,theconsumptionofpsychoactivesubstancesthatdampenbrainactivity,etc.Suchcorrelationsbetweenimpairedbrain function and enriched conscious inner life are at least counterintuitiveunderthemainstreamphysicalistnotionthatconsciousinnerlifeisconstitutedorgeneratedbybrainactivity.Underanalyticidealism,ontheotherhand,theyaretobeexpected:ifnormalbrainfunctionispartoftheextrinsicappearanceofadissociatedalterofuniversalconsciousness,thensomeformsofreductionorimpairmentofnormalbrainfunctionshouldbetheextrinsicappearanceofareductionorimpairmentofthedissociation.And,ofcourse,fromafirst-personperspectiveareductionofdissociationmustbeexperiencedasanenrichmentofconsciousinnerlife:reintegratedmemories,therecoveryofabroadersenseidentity, renewed access to previously dissociated insights and emotions,reintegration of previously dissociated skills, etc. Contrary to physicalism,analyticidealismcanthusnotonlyaccommodate,butalsomakesenseof,theevidencediscussedinChapter6.


SamenvattingDitproefschriftsteltvooreenmoderne,analytischeversievandeontologievanidealisme. Volgens deze zo genoemde ‘analytische idealisme,’ (a) fenomenaalbewustzijn, als een ontologische categorie, is fundamenteel; en (b) elkwaarneembaaraspectvandenatuurkanuiteindelijkwordengereduceerd tot,ofgeaardin,patronenvanopwindingvanfenomenaalbewustzijn.Hetponeerteen reductiebasis bestaande uit een enkel element: ruimtelijk ongebonden,universeelfenomenaalbewustzijn.Debelangrijksteuitdagingisdanomuitteleggen hoe de schijnbare gescheiden fenomenale innerlijke levens vanverschillende subjecten zich kunnen voordoen binnen dit fundamenteeleenvormige fenomenale veld. Dit wordt in de literatuur soms het‘decompositieprobleem’ genoemd en het is het kernprobleem dat ditproefschrift probeert aan te pakken. Onderweg komen er een aantal andereuitdagingenaandeorde,zoals:hoeweanalytischeidealismekunnenverzoenenmethetfeitdatweallemaaleengemeenschappelijkeexternewereldbewonen;waaromdezewereldzichontvouwtonafhankelijkvanonzepersoonlijkewilofverbeeldingskracht; waarom er zulke strakke correlaties zijn tussen gemetenpatronenvanhersenactiviteitenervaringsrapporten;enz.

Dekernvanditproefschriftbestaatuitvijfpapersgepubliceerdinacademischetijdschriften. Ze worden hier weergegeven, in hoofdstukken 2 tot en met 6,zonderenigeveranderingvaninhoud.

Hoofdstuk 2 bespreekt wat misschien de oorzaak is van de belangrijksteonopgelosteproblemenindehedendaagseanalytischefilosofie:deneigingomteproberendenatuurtoetelichtendoorconcretewaarnemingentevervangendoor theoretische abstracties. Zulke pogingen bestaan vaak uit louterwoordspelletjes, gespeeld in gedachten met een rijke en veranderendefantasmagorie van concepten. Hoofdstuk 2 probeert deze woordspelletjesexpliciet temaken.Het suggereertookmeerepistemischebetrouwbare lijnenvanredenatiedieonnodigeconceptueleabstractiesvermijden.

Door dezemeer betrouwbare redenaties na te streven, gaatHoofdstuk 3—dekernvanditproefschrift—inopeenanalytischeformuleringvanidealisme.Hetkan als volgt worden samengevat: er is alleen universeel fenomenaalbewustzijn.Wij, evenals alle andere levende organismen, zijn gedissocieerde‘alters’ van dit universeel bewustzijn, analoog aan hoe een persoon metDissociatieve Identiteitsstoornis meerdere disjuncte centra van subjectiviteitmanifesteert,ookwel‘alters’genoemd.Wij,enalleanderelevendeorganismen,wordenomringddoordetranspersoonlijkefenomenaleactiviteitvanuniverseelbewustzijn, die zich ontvouwt voorbij de dissociatieve grens van onsrespectieve alter. De levenlozewereld diewe om ons heenwaarnemen is de‘extrinsiekeverschijning’—d.w.z.hetfenomenalebeelddatisafgedruktvanuitonzedissociatievegrens—vandezeactiviteit.De levendewezenswaarmeewedewerelddelenzijndeextrinsiekeverschijningenvananderealters.

Hoofdstuk 4 somtmogelijke bezwaren op tegen zo een ontologiemet alleenbewustzijn en pakt ze een voor een aan. Het probeert te laten zien dat debezwarenvaakgebaseerdzijnoplogischedrogredenenzoalscirkelredenering,


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foutieve impliciete veronderstellingen,misverstanden over de implicaties vananalytischeidealisme,enz.

Eén bezwaar is uitzonderlijk omdat het enkele legitieme moeilijkhedenoplevert: een noodzakelijke implicatie van de in Hoofdstuk 3 voorgesteldeontologie is dat de hele metabolisme van een organisme de extrinsiekeverschijning is van de bewuste innerlijke leven van het organisme. Dit isredelijkvoorbepaaldepatronenvanhersenactiviteitwaarvanbekendisdatzecorrelerenmet ervaringen die toegankelijk zijn via introspectie,maar hoe zithet met de zogenaamde ‘onbewuste’ mentale processen en het metabolismebuitendehersenen,zoalsb.v.lever-ennierfunctie?

Hoofdstuk5steltdater,ondankshetschijnvanhettegendeel,geenduidelijkeredenisomtegelovendateenmentaalprocesooitechtonbewustis.Inplaatsdaarvanprobeerthettelatenziendaterinfeitezeergoederedenenzijnomtedenkendatwatwebeschouwenalsonbewustementaleprocessenalleenmaarovereenkomen met een illusie van onbewustzijn, die het gevolg is vandissociatieve toestanden of gebrek aan metacognitie. En zodra deze tweemechanismen—dissociatievetoestandenengebrekaanmetacognitie—wordengeïdentificeerd, kunnen ze verklaren waarom ervaringen die corresponderenmet gebieden van het levende lichaam voorbij het zenuwstelsel niettoegankelijkzijnviaintrospectie.

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Analytic Idealism



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ontology

Analytic Idealism



DR. BERN

ARD

O KA

STRUP


ontology

Analytic Idealism



DR. BERN

ARD

O KA

STRUP

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DR. BERNARDO KASTRUP Analytic Idealism: A consciousness-only · 529173-L-os-Kastrup Processed on: 18-2-2019 Analytic Idealism: A consciousness-only Analytic Idealism: A consciousness-only