Is Idealism Enough? A dialogue between Bernardo Kastrup and Rupert Sheldrake

Is Idealism Enough? A dialogue between Bernardo Kastrup and Rupert Sheldrake

Rupert Sheldrake recently made a series of criticisms of Bernardo Kastrup’s Analytic Idealism on Curt Jaimungal’s Theories of Everything channel. Kastrup soon responded to Rupert’s points and subsequently Rupert sent Kastrup a rejoinder. Here, in a spirit of true collegiality and intellectual pursuit, we will turn this clash into an opportunity to better understand each other’s position and inquire further into the nature of reality itself. The trialogue between Kastrup, Sheldrake, and Gomez-Marin will be followed by Q&A from the audience.

Recorded on January 21, 2025.

Interesting discussion, some thoughts:

- It's nice to see someone as young as Gomez-Marin working in parapsychology, and being a friend of Sheldrake. One sometimes worries the Materialist faith, having failed in their Inquisition to repress/restrict Science, would just trying "waiting it out" once all the great proponent scientists died...but thankfully it seems younger people are coming up to carry the torch.

- Rupert also mentioned Persons-as-Monads, which Faggin did in his recent interview as well. Monadology wasn't something I expected to see getting this kind of revival...

- While I feel distant from Kastrup's Idealism, I did appreciate that his non-reflexive Mind@Large does give us another option between the Absolute as a Being whose intellect exceeds ours (God) and the Absolute as a Principle that might ground Beings but is not conscious in Itself.

- It's difficult for me to see what is the significant difference between Kastrup's Idealism and Physicalism. I get other Idealisms - such as the Christian Berkleyian Idealist revival - can have God / Afterlife / Angels / etc but Kastrup's version doesn't have an Afterlife nor are Persons really real. All mental volition is illusory at the Personal level b/c all volition is subordinate to the Will by which he , AFAICTell, means a non-conscious drive. Even our perceptions are limited to being part of a dashboard / interface, and he says our subjective reports - such as the witnesses in Parapsychology - cannot be trusted...

 I mean if Mind is just stuck into Physicalism, is there much point in this shift? Or is the hope that if skeptics can only go as far as Idealism we've shifted the discussion so much that it will inevitably move forward?

- Rupert also mentioned Persons-as-Monads, which Faggin did in his recent interview as well. Monadology wasn't something I expected to see getting this kind of revival...

What definition of "Monad" is Rupert using here? I doubt it's particular set in stone, as didn't, say, Plato have a different definition of Leibniz?

In it's simplest definition, a "Monad" is just an irreducible, eternal whole, I suppose? Eternal, in that it cannot degrade, be decomposed or be destroyed.

What definition of "Monad" is Rupert using here? I doubt it's particular set in stone, as didn't, say, Plato have a different definition of Leibniz?

In it's simplest definition, a "Monad" is just an irreducible, eternal whole, I suppose? Eternal, in that it cannot degrade, be decomposed or be destroyed.

It was very brief, I think he was drawing a distinction between his Panpsychism - where Consciousness is Everywhere - and the kind of Bottom Up or Top Down Panpsycism.

So for him each soul is an irreducible entity unto itself. Seemed like animism, so each Monad is an immortal spirit whether that’s the spirit of a human or a Sun or atom.

Thanks for finding that video, Sci!

Rupert sounded really good and sharp-witted, it is hard to realise that he is 82!

Rupert's work has always been guided by experimental considerations, and I think that is important. In particular, many of his experiments have been designed to detect phenomena that clearly break the rules of conventional science - psychic phenomena if you like.

All the most productive science has tried to find experiments that break existing laws of science. This is the way science has traditionally evolved. Once we had Ohms' law that the current flowing in a resistor is proportional to the voltage applied, the next step was to look for materials or conditions where that is not true. There are trivial reasons why that relationship isn't perfect - for example passing current through a resistor generates heat, and resistance usually increases with temperature, but semiconductors clearly break Ohm's law. Breaking that law has led to the enormous semiconductor industry.

RS has developed a number of experiments that clearly break existing scientific laws. One example is his various experiments that show that people interact to some extent in anomalous ways. For example he has shown that people can guess who is ringing them and they can detect that someone is staring at them - even when the staring is done via close circuit television - etc. He was an orthodox scientist at Cambridge University before he became unorthodox, and he clearly knows how to design experiments.

I think the fact that few scientists give him credit for his work illustrates an incredible reluctance by science to take such experiments seriously. Thus Kastrup began to explain that asking people what they feel or experienced is not a good way to proceed! I was glad that RS then pointed out that regular science is suffering a replication crisis (which is very widespread and troublesome) - at which point BK backed down in his own idiosyncratic fashion.

I think I'd go so far as to say that RS won the argument and was also much clearer to listen to.

David

I think I'd go so far as to say that RS won the argument and was also much clearer to listen to.

David

Yeah Sheldrake is better at communicating to the masses, though I do accept STEM academia might like Kastrup's "Physicalist-lite" version of Idealism...which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

If Panpsychism & Idealism become the new "ground floor" for STEM, with perhaps Integrated Information Theory as well, it would - IMO at least - only be a matter of time before Parapsychology was "brought in from the out of the cold". 

That said, Sheldrake's views IMO are among the best to fit all the data from Psi & Survival. Thinking of each Personal Soul as Cosmically Immense, extended to a vast if not infinite degree, allows an explanation for biological embodiment, apparitions, CORTs, NDEs, Mediumship. It also has the advantage of simple language & Dualist intuition with just one inversion really - the body is in the soul rather than the other way around.

Yeah Sheldrake is better at communicating to the masses, though I do accept STEM academia might like Kastrup's "Physicalist-lite" version of Idealism...which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

If Panpsychism & Idealism become the new "ground floor" for STEM, with perhaps Integrated Information Theory as well, it would - IMO at least - only be a matter of time before Parapsychology was "brought in from the out of the cold". 

That said, Sheldrake's views IMO are among the best to fit all the data from Psi & Survival. Thinking of each Personal Soul as Cosmically Immense, extended to a vast if not infinite degree, allows an explanation for biological embodiment, apparitions, CORTs, NDEs, Mediumship. It also has the advantage of simple language & Dualist intuition with just one inversion really - the body is in the soul rather than the other way around.

Thanks, and I guess at this point I would like to chip in with my argument that when theory gets way in advance of experiments you get a situation in which people are trying to split hairs regarding distinctions that can't be observed.

Dualism will be my favourite metaphysics at least until scientists start to get really worried that GR and QM are incompatible with each other!

David

Thanks, and I guess at this point I would like to chip in with my argument that when theory gets way in advance of experiments you get a situation in which people are trying to split hairs regarding distinctions that can't be observed.

Dualism will be my favourite metaphysics at least until scientists start to get really worried that GR and QM are incompatible with each other!

David

IMO it is more about marketing to laypersons and STEM Academics.

The first keep Psi & Survival research alive by showing interest, and possibly some younger people becoming researchers that are at least friendly and open to Parapsychology even if their STEM careers don't lead to actively studying the subject.

STEM Academics are the ones who might actually study parapsychology, or at least allow for others to study the subject without ruining their careers.

Sheldrake has metaphysics that work for both groups, if they are willing to accept Psi & Survival evidence is at least meeting the standard that further research should be done.