This Quantum Physicist Redditor really hates Bernardo Kastrup

I've posted this on Bernardo's forum as well for discussion. Personally I have mixed thoughts on Bernardo given that I do think some criticisms of him, namely his claims about quantum physics/mechanics, are rather sketchy, but I am still inclined to listen to what he has to say. It seems that Kastrup has also came under fire for his statements on quantum mechanics.

I do not normally like the idea of making posts like this but I felt like getting it out of my system because of how frustrating this guy is.

For context, this guy ia apparently an undergraduate physicist, militant atheist and physicalist who constantly belittles and uses insulting terms against anyone who dares to use quantum physics to justify anything that isn't physicalism. He participates in various science-oreinted subreddits, including 'r/badscience', where he has criticised the works of Penrose and mainly Kastrup. He is also a fan of Sean Carroll (claiming that Carroll has disproved the existence of a soul), and possibly Jerry Coyne (explains a lot I know). He seems to be exceedingly arrogant and does not recognise the faults of his own logic or reasoning. He also does not seemingly know about the many criticisms that have been levelled against Carroll that have been discussed on here, primarily the one that Carroll is a victim of confirmation bias and anti-skepticism when it comes to evidence for post-mortem survival. 

He is also one of those physicalists who is humble enough to admit 'we don't have a theory of consciousness' and yet still insists we shouldn't abandon physicalism. In other words, he uses the 'materialism of the gaps' argument: "We can't explain consciousness and the mind-brain relationship properly but we totally will one day!'

The following are all statements made by this Redditor, called Vampyricon. I find them each rather interesting for discussion:

• 'Panpsychism is wrong because it cannot explain how fundamental particles, which must have the same quantum of experience for each type, combine to form human experience.'
  
• '(Telepathy via Quantum Entanglement is) bullsh*t. Entanglement simply means that two objects can only be described by one single quantum state.'
  
• 'Orch-OR is an objective collapse theory, which means it is acausal and nonunitary, which means it is wrong.'
  
• 'I've had a response to people who claim materialism cannot explain mind yet, therefore it should be abandoned: Neuroscience is still in its infancy, or if not, still in its childhood. We are nowhere near uncovering all the mysteries of the brain and the mind. So [i]of course[/i] we can't fully explain mind yet. We still don't understand its substrate.'
  
• 'Kastrup is a quack who isn't taken seriously by either physicists, whose work he often cites, or philosophers, whose territory he is wading into. He has serious, fatal misunderstandings of areas he claims expertise in.'
  
• 'Assuming an inflationary state, what you will get is patches spontaneously exiting the inflationary state. Our universe is one of these patches. Hence a multiverse.'
  
• 'As for something specific to the meme itself, souls. Souls don't exist. I will link to [color=var(--newCommunityTheme-linkText)]this excellent blog post by Sean Carroll, but the TL;DR is this: Any soul that one has cannot survive the death of the body, and that is no soul at all.'[/color]
  
• 'I will consider believing him (Kastrup) once he shows some attempt at understanding why dark matter exists. His intellectual sloppiness in that area is an exemplar of his sloppiness in other areas of physics.'
  
• (On an argument made by Donald Hoffman that we're not evolved to see the truth) 'I think everyone who forwards this argument either doesn't understand evolution or doesn't think truth confers an adaptive advantage at all. Not some abstract truth, truth in general, as in "eating this mushroom will kill me" truth.'
  

These statements make me wonder about the self-awareness of such people. He was once criticised for pushing that the 'many-worlds interpretation is the only right one for quantum mechanics', and when the critic brought up that there are several examples of physicists who disagreed with him, he then argued 'well the modern ones aren't as famous and don't understand quantum mechanics'. Hasn't this guy ever heard of the famous quote 'anyone who claims to understand quantum mechanics doesn't understand quantum mechanics'?

From what I've seen others say, quantum mechanics does not provide a common consensus and is neutral. The Many-Worlds Interpretation has its supporters and its critics. You cannot claim to be a better expert on quantum physics, imo, just because another quantum physicist doesn't believe in MWI.

Disclaimer:
As noted here there's a good reason to reject this is proof materialism/physicalism is true, given these skeptical parties that continue to doubt the physicalist/materialist faith.


Additionally, whatever is shown by parapsychology or neuroscience, here are four good reasons to reject the religion of physicalism/materialism.

Bernardo doesn't believe in life after death of the individual self either AFAICTell...

Perhaps more to the point, each of those claims would be a separate topic ->

Are objective collapse theories wrong at their base?

Is Panpsychism fundamentally flawed because of a lack of explanation though the same lack of explanation holds for materialism in a worse Something-from-Nothing way?

I don't think a thread on Vampyricon's thoughts re: different subjects is cohesive enough for discussion?

Bernardo doesn't believe in life after death of the individual self either AFAICTell...

Perhaps more to the point, each of those claims would be a separate topic ->

Are objective collapse theories wrong at their base?

Is Panpsychism fundamentally flawed because of a lack of explanation though the same lack of explanation holds for materialism in a worse Something-from-Nothing way?

I don't think a thread on Vampyricon's thoughts re: different subjects is cohesive enough for discussion?

Huh, that's odd, I thought he did. Ah well, he's entitled to that opinion, though as you know I disagree with it. 


Perhaps I did create to many options for discussiom here, so I might try and narrow them down if that's ok:

• Why does Inflationary Theory and MWI seem to be the 'best interpretation of quantum mechanics'?
  
• Why are objective collapse theories wrong? 
  
• Who is more guilty in using the 'of the gaps' approach to consciousness? 
  

Bernardo doesn't believe in life after death of the individual self either AFAICTell...

Perhaps more to the point, each of those claims would be a separate topic ->

Are objective collapse theories wrong at their base?

Is Panpsychism fundamentally flawed because of a lack of explanation though the same lack of explanation holds for materialism in a worse Something-from-Nothing way?

I don't think a thread on Vampyricon's thoughts re: different subjects is cohesive enough for discussion?

Regarding “Bernardo doesn't believe in life after death of the individual self either AFAICTell...”

I just listened to Kastrups interview with Jon Restorick and it does seem that he doesn't appear to believe in continuation of the individual after death. He seems to have gotten on board with Donald Hoffman where he regards one's perception of a spiritual dimension through nde's and psychedelics etc as just another fiction created by the mind similar but more distorted than the consensual reality we share in common. Although I never understood his model all that well I thought he was at least more open to the possibility of our individual consciousness continuing in some form. Both Hoffman and Kastrup seem to take some solace or inspiration from realizing that what we take to be this reality(anything we perceive) is an illusion which has supported our evolution but is merely a useful fiction relative to the true reality which we cannot know directly(at least not until we embrace this great insight). I guess what's exciting to them is the idea that if we can get the scientific community on board with this approach we can perhaps move in leaps and bounds from where we've been stuck for the past hundred years with QM.

Regarding “Bernardo doesn't believe in life after death of the individual self either AFAICTell...”

I just listened to Kastrups interview with Jon Restorick and it does seem that he doesn't appear to believe in continuation of the individual after death. He seems to have gotten on board with Donald Hoffman where he regards one's perception of a spiritual dimension through nde's and psychedelics etc as just another fiction created by the mind similar but more distorted than the consensual reality we share in common. Although I never understood his model all that well I thought he was at least more open to the possibility of our individual consciousness continuing in some form. Both Hoffman and Kastrup seem to take some solace or inspiration from realizing that what we take to be this reality(anything we perceive) is an illusion which has supported our evolution but is merely a useful fiction relative to the true reality which we cannot know directly(at least not until we embrace this great insight). I guess what's exciting to them is the idea that if we can get the scientific community on board with this approach we can perhaps move in leaps and bounds from where we've been stuck for the past hundred years with QM.

Does Kastrup actually mention NDEs as being fiction? It would be odd as IIRC he has in the past talked about NDEs as pointing toward the reality of our Oneness?

Does Kastrup actually mention NDEs as being fiction? It would be odd as IIRC he has in the past talked about NDEs as pointing toward the reality of our Oneness?

I believe he does but to the effect that it's all a fiction given that we are perceiving the interface and not the deeper reality. Another thing I found interesting and somewhat humorous is he mentioned the "fine tuning" of the universe as something he cannot account for and he wishes it would just "go away".

Anyways, I just noticed this Redditor worships Sean Carroll so blindly that he doesn't seem to question anything he says whatsoever. 

This Redditor asserts that there's no such thing as a soul based on that infamous blog post Carroll made in 2011 saying that we 'fully understand the laws of physics' (which I'm fairly certain is untrue given recent studies) and 'the only evidence we have are from a few sketchy witnesses and unreliable NDEs'. Such a statement is both amusing and enraging, but it definitely shows that Carroll definitely didn't bother looking into any possible evidence of life after death. I don't consider most scientists and philosophers to be an authority on consciousness unless they have actually looked into NDEs.

Also, I'm fairly certain I heard Donald Hoffman in an interview say that, in his model, life after death would be possible since dying is just 'like removing the VR headset.' He said that while your avatar ceases to exist, you yourself don't.

Anyways, I just noticed this Redditor worships Sean Carroll so blindly that he doesn't seem to question anything he says whatsoever. 

This Redditor asserts that there's no such thing as a soul based on that infamous blog post Carroll made in 2011 saying that we 'fully understand the laws of physics' (which I'm fairly certain is untrue given recent studies) and 'the only evidence we have are from a few sketchy witnesses and unreliable NDEs'. Such a statement is both amusing and enraging, but it definitely shows that Carroll definitely didn't bother looking into any possible evidence of life after death. I don't consider someone to be an authority on consciousness unless they have looked into NDEs properly. 

Also, I'm fairly certain I heard Donald Hoffman in an interview say that, in his model, life after death would be possible since dying is just 'like removing the VR headset.' He said that while your avatar ceases to exist, you yourself don't.

Do you know what he meant by "you yourself"? I don't recall him asserting that so directly - more that it was a possibility. I would be interested in any direct quote you might be aware of by Hoffman or Kastrup in this regard. Thanks

Do you know what he meant by "you yourself"? I don't recall him asserting that so directly - more that it was a possibility. I would be interested in any direct quote you might be aware of by Hoffman or Kastrup in this regard. Thanks

I might be misquoting but I'm not sure...I think the interview was posted on here before: 


Skip to 1:11:10. He uses the analogy of an avatar you create via a VR headset. He does say that he considers it a 'possibility' yes, but that's good enough for me. 

He basically says: 'In my theory/model, conscious agents would persist after what we call death. How much of the 'self', which is a part but not the entirety of a conscious agent, would continue is uncertain.'

One of the things I like about Hoffman is that he never claims to have all the answers and doesn't claim to have solved everything. But that doesn't stop pseudo-skeptics trying to 'debunk' him and say it's 'old cartesian dualism wrapped in a modern package':