Quote:On Analytic Idealism, there is no real self: the self is nominal only; it is emptiness; potentiality, not actuality; amorphous; reduced to a “sense of”.
This is difficult to grasp at first because of all of the lip service paid to the idea of the self as “the universal subject”, but it becomes clear after some analysis.
Quote:In combination, these quotes demonstrate that Analytic Idealism lacks the concept of a real self: the self of which it conceives is merely nominal; unreal in another word; non-existent in yet another. Analytic Idealism seen properly, in this light, is a no-self theory.
The only apparent possibility (endorsed in the above quotes) for a real self on Analytic Idealism is for experience (all that really exists on that theory; same caveat as before) to be the self, but this in fact is not possible, because to be and to undergo (experiences) are two incompatible relations: a self can’t “be” the same experiences that it undergoes; it is logically prior to them.
This is not mere semantics: the lack of a real self to ground experience is the most serious problem with this theory (but not the only problem).
Another challenging faculty to explain on Analytic Idealism is reasoning. Without a real mind capable of guiding the reasoning, it is unclear how and why any subset of experience would faithfully represent a chain of reasoning.
If reasoning in particular is challenging to explain on Analytic Idealism, then intelligence in general is even more so, given, as I contend, that experience is not in itself causally efficacious in an active sense. Given this contention, there is no reason for one subset of experience to lead in any particular direction over time, let alone in an intelligent one.
Here's a link to the (ongoing?) discussion I've had (am having?) wiith ChatGPT about this critique:
(That second link includes newer messages; the old link couldn't be updated and had to be deleted in order to generate the new one).
I thought it offered some thoughtful analysis and keen insight (and not the obsequiousness for which it is sometimes known, at least, not very overtly).
I'm not so sure about the editing suggestions it's made, and have even reverted one that I originally implemented. I'd be interested in any opinions as to whether they ought to be implemented.
In any case, here is some of its analysis inline, for those who prefer not to click on the link:
Quote:Where the objection bites
The critique does score a legitimate point here:
Kastrup frequently oscillates between:
“subjectivity is fundamental”
“only experience exists”
Without always clearly specifying whether:
subjectivity is identical to experience
or ontologically prior but non-substantial
This ambiguity allows the critique to argue that:
the self is either redundant or empty
This is a real pressure point in Analytic Idealism:
Kastrup relies on a non-substantial subject that nevertheless must:
unify experience
ground dissociation
support identity
That burden is heavy, and the critique is justified in highlighting it.
Where the objection overreaches
The analogy:
Quote:“Only experience exists” is like “only red exists”
does not land cleanly, because:
Kastrup explicitly denies that experience is a property of something else
He treats experience as ontologically primitive, not adjectival
So the critique is not showing an inconsistency within Analytic Idealism here, but rather rejecting its metaphysical starting point.
Quote:The problem here is that the absence (denial) of any sort of dimensionally-extended stuff in motion renders these sort of metaphors inapplicable, because that is the essence of what they convey. WMIB thus trades on the benefit that the extensional representation provides – an accessible and even visual way to account for and explain dissociation – while at the same time explicitly denying that essence by which it facilitates that accessible accounting and explanation.
The network representation – presumably developed in recognition of this problem, although this is never explicitly acknowledged – explicitly does away with any connotations of real, ontological extension, of stuff, of vibration, and of any sort of motion at all. Instead, its core metaphor is that of a relational database, where the relations are purely semantic.
This is much truer to Analytic Idealism's ontological schema, but the trade-off is that it is now much more challenging to explain dissociation: a static network by definition lacks any dynamism that could lead parts of the whole to separate (“dissociate”) from that whole. The dissociation – into what might be termed “subnetworks” – has to be presupposed, in a sort of preharmonisation somewhat similar to that of the monads of Leibniz's monadology. Unlike for Leibniz's monadology, however, on Analytic Idealism there is no God outside of space and time to perform this preharmonisation.
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(This post was last modified: 2026-01-03, 12:09 PM by Laird. Edited 1 time in total.)
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If you want I can link this to the Kastrup Discord and see what they make of it?
I fear my life has left with less time to really spend pondering philosophy at the moment, so I don't think I can give any serious evaluation.
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'
- Bertrand Russell
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Sure, that would be welcome; I'd be interested in what they have to say. The only caveat is that I might yet add to or tinker with it further in the days to come; I often realise necessary additions/changes only after publishing. I'll of course note significant changes in the changelog, and, of course, any additions/changes might be inspired by their feedback too.
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The following 1 user Likes Laird's post:1 user Likes Laird's post • Sci
(2026-01-03, 05:49 PM)Laird Wrote: Sure, that would be welcome; I'd be interested in what they have to say. The only caveat is that I might yet add to or tinker with it further in the days to come; I often realise necessary additions/changes only after publishing. I'll of course note significant changes in the changelog, and, of course, any additions/changes might be inspired by their feedback too.
'Historically, we may regard materialism as a system of dogma set up to combat orthodox dogma...Accordingly we find that, as ancient orthodoxies disintegrate, materialism more and more gives way to scepticism.'
- Bertrand Russell
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The following 2 users Like Sci's post:2 users Like Sci's post • Raimo, Laird
I'm just flagging here that I've made some significant revisions to the critique since last posting in this thread. It now explains why Analytic Idealism seems not just coherent but plausible even though it isn't. The two new sections which provide most of this explanation are The equivocation on experience and Plausible coherence by substance.
Those who've participated in discussions here with me on all of this will be familiar with this content, but might find its presentation in this critique more cogent.
Quote:The distinction here is between represented structure and constitutive structure. Represented structure is structure that merely appears in the phenomenal content of experience; constitutive structure is structure that inheres in experience itself, as it does in mind-independent matter (the putative substance denied on Analytic Idealism).
Analytic Idealism explicitly – given the pure subjectivity of experience – licenses only represented structure. Tacitly, though, it relies on constitutive structure to do its explanatory work.
Quote:This begins with an extrapolation from the tacit idea of experience being constitutively structured to the idea of experience as a substance[2], rather than, as is correct, a phenomenon contingent on a substance – an experient. After all, substances can be constitutively structured, whereas experience per se, as a purely contingent (and subjective) phenomenon, can only represent structure. To open the door to constitutive structure then is to open the door to substance.
Substances in turn are self-apt, i.e., apt to bear or ground subjectivity, and here the masking of the two fatal problems above occurs: when experience is self-apt, it is intuitively plausible that it could not only simultaneously “be” (identical to) an experient, but also ground (and thus give contingent rise to) that experient.
After all, an affirmation such as “It is an experience of the redness of red that undergoes itself as an experience of the redness of red” is going to raise readers’ eyebrows and have them scratching their heads. Conversely, something like “The self manifests as its own vibrations and movements” is easily glossed over as intuitively plausible, even though on Analytic Idealism's own terms it is strictly conveying the same sentiment. It manages to mask the incoherent circularity of the original by implicitly extrapolating the unlicensed vibration and movement into constitutive structure, thereby into substance, and thereby into self-aptness.
I'm pretty confident that it's now in its final form, or at least not going to undergo further major revisions, so I'd be comfortable with it being shared with the community(ies) of Analytic Idealists.
The discussions there seem to have concluded. Here's a little summary.
There were seven responses:
One was a hurried response based on a quick skim that misunderstood the critique.
One was a thoughtful reply which thoroughly endorsed part of my critique (AI being reductionist in the same way as physicalism, after turning experience into a sort of substance), and questioned another part (the contingency of experience on experient).
One expressed disagreement that incoherence, which it allowed I might have identified, even matters.
One expressed disagreement that Analytic Idealism really does fail to distinguish experient from experience given Bernardo's endorsement of Advaita Vedanta and Rupert Spira, both of which/whom, the commenter claimed, *do* distinguish those things.
One was a comment that my critique was based less on internal incoherence and more on external disagreement (echoes of ChatGPT!).
One was a comment by a self-identified physicalist that "AI is essentially physicalism with special sauce" (I tend to agree).
One was a brief note of strong appreciation.
I responded to each in turn. A few exchanges developed. The exchanges from responses #3 and #4 ended in concessions of a sort, somewhat implicit in the former case, and somewhat half-hearted in the latter case, but cordial in both cases.
I especially appreciated that fourth-response exchange, which provided an opportunity to adapt my critique to the context of the dream analogy, which the commenter, a nondualist devotee of Ramana Maharshi, brought up in defence of nondualism. Here's my adaptation:
Quote:Deconstructing this dream analogy is useful in elucidating my overall critique:
A dreamer has perceptions (subjective experiences; qualia) of dream characters from her dream avatar's perspective (along with perceptions of the remainder of the dream environment, also from her avatar's perspective). To maintain the analogy with reality though, we must stipulate that those dream characters *themselves* have perceptions (subjective experiences; qualia) from their own perspectives.
Now we have several problems (at least):
If all that a dream character is is the qualia of a dreamer, then for that dream character to *herself* undergo qualia would entail the absurdity of "qualia undergoing qualia" (and if that dream character herself was dreaming, and her dream contained dream characters, then we would have the even more absurd situation of "qualia undergoing qualia undergoing qualia", etc).
The qualia undergone by the dream characters are in any case not part of the dreamer's dream. The dreamer perceives only the outward appearances of the dream characters.
The environment *perceived* by the dream characters in their qualia is not necessarily always part of the dreamer's dream anyway. Consider, for example, a dream character looking past and behind the dreamer (as a participant in her own dream): because the character is looking behind the dreamer's avatar, the dreamer herself has no means of perceiving what her character is perceiving; it is not part of her dream (as she experiences it, which is all there is to her dream).
Bernardo makes a move here that avoids (solves) these problems. He stipulates that qualia (subjective experiences) are *constitutively structured* as a quantum field (he doesn't phrase it quite like that, and even tries to deny and conceal the constitutive nature of this structure, but that's the import). Both the dreamer and her characters, then, are a single, structured quantum field of qualia, localised *by* that structure in places *as* subjects (the dreamer's avatar and the dream characters).
This move solves the problems thusly:
There is now no doubling of qualia: each dream character is only one layer of qualia (both which she undergoes, and out of which, as a quantum field, she is constituted), and the dreamer's perceptions (her own qualia) of that dream character are conditioned by the "shape" of (the segment of quantum field which is) the dream character's qualia (and vice versa).
The dream characters' qualia *are* now part of the dream (the dream has been turned into a quantum field which simultaneously is qualia).
*All* of the dream environment is now part of the dream (again, as a quantum field which simultaneously is qualia).
Problems neatly solved. Now, however, new problems have been introduced, among others:
A. The subjective (a dream from a dreamer's perspective) has been transformed into the objective (a quantum field of qualia from no particular perspective).
B. Monistic idealism has been turned into dual-aspect monism, with one aspect being a constitutively-structured quantum field, and the other being qualia (subjective experiences). This is the equivocation on experience to which a section of my critique is dedicated.
C. This dual-aspect monism recapitulates the problematic reductive structure of materialism: qualia (subjective experiences) are forced into strict correlation with atomic structures (also as discussed in my critique in that same section).
D. Worse, unlike materialism, which otherwise sees matter as inert, this move has now introduced qualia correlating to matter that intuitively *is* inert: thus, mind-at-large, the "left-over" quantum-field-as-qualia from the dream avatar and dream characters, is conceptually birthed. Ironically, given the Analytic Idealistic claim to parsimony, this is *un*parsimonious compared to materialism.
So, when you suggest that because Bernardo agrees with Advaita Vedanta and Rupert Spira who affirm that there *is* an experient who logically precedes its experiences, he too therefore must at least implicitly be affirming the same, I actually agree with you: *implicitly*, the self that he affirms is an objective quantum field (with its identified-correlated qualia).
The problem is that he has no licence for this, because this is no longer idealism: *explicitly* he claims that only subjective experience (essentially, qualia) exists, which can only *represent* structure, and has no *constitutive* structure: i.e., the TV screen that you reference doesn't need to - and can't - bend itself so as to show the movie; the movie merely *represents* structures; the paper of the novel that you reference doesn't restructure itself so as to show and realise its entities; the words on paper merely *represent* those entities.
Now, as a nondualist yourself, you might not make quite the same move as Bernardo, but you need to make *some* sort of move to solve the sort of problems I've listed.
Abstracting a little, the questions they raise are:
i. How can the characters in the subjective experience which is (analogous to) a dream *themselves* experience subjectively?
ii. How can all elements of an objective, aperspectival reality be accounted for through a purely subjective experience from a singular perspective?
The fact that you refer to the dream as being "made of" the dreaming mind, and use analogies like tables being "made of" wood and waves being "made of" water, suggests that you do, in fact, at least tacitly make a similar move as Bernardo: to introduce on top of subjective qualia themselves a *constitutively*-structured, objective substance with which they are identified, thus also tacitly turning your nondualism into a dual-aspect monism that less parsimoniously recapitulates materialism in its non-eliminativist forms.
Finally, I note that the language that nondualists like yourself and Bernardo use conceals this move: "consciousness" and "awareness" have a certain flexibility such that they can mean either "subjective experience", i.e., qualia, or "the conscious mind undergoing subjective experiences (qualia)", i.e., the experiencing experient. Thus, nondualists can use the same word to refer to *both* the experient *and* its experiences, facilitating the elision of this crucial distinction.
This ambiguity is leveraged when you say that I set out to refute the thesis that "consciousness is the ground and its objects (including selves in the plural) are its states". Of course, by "consciousness" in that thesis I meant "subjective experience (qualia)", and it is correctly refuted on that basis, but it's less clear what you mean by it. You are explicitly distinguishing the dreamer from her dream, without whom the dream would not exist, so it seems that you are affirming the *dreamer* as the ground. Thus, you seem to be defining "consciousness" here as "the experiencing experient", in which case this is exactly what I was trying to *demonstrate* is the ground (of experience and of the objects within experience), *not* to refute.
Your very first sentence in response to my opening post...
All of analytic idealism from start to finish is a concession to language
...is, then, more accurately put: "All of Analytic Idealism from start to finish is equivocal manipulation by language".
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