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An analysis of Bernardo Kastrup's semantic model of Analytic Idealism

On previous pages, I introduced my notion of clear semantic modelling, presented a mostly grounded clear semantic model of conscious reality, then assessed that model for conformance with my criteria for clarity, and contextualised various common ontologies from the perspective of that semantic model.

On this page, I analyse Bernardo Kastrup's semantic model of Analytic Idealism. I cover the following:

🔗Why this revisit of an already-revisited review?

I have, ever since first reading Why Materialism Is Baloney several years back, been gripped on and off by the notion that there is something paradoxical and even outright incoherent about Analytic Idealism. I finally took the time recently, after revisiting my initial review, to try to construct deductive arguments which rigorously expressed this intuition. In doing so - I made it through two of them - I realised that the one argument turned on questionable semantics, and the second had a hole in it which weakened it significantly.

I then realised that I needed to come to a greater degree of clarity on Analytic Idealism, why I perceived paradoxes in it, and whether they were really there or not. The previous pages in this series are my attempt to lay the groundwork for doing exactly that. This page builds on them to analyse Analytic Idealism as a semantic model which can be compared against the semantic model which I developed on a previous page. This is the penultimate page from the point of view of critique: the subsequent page builds on it again to present a rigorous argument against Analytic Idealism.

🔗The model of Analytic Idealism in summary

Bernardo's model of Analytic Idealism as expressed in his book Why Materialism Is Baloney is one in which everything is a single mind and its experiences. We individual persons - "psyches" in Bernardo's terminology - arise due to self-reflectivity in the structure of experience: metaphorically, a whirlpool, although more sophisticated metaphors are later provided. Because psyches are just "dissociations" of the single mind, all subjects of consciousness are identical. At a cosmological level, the medium of mind is that of which experience is an excitation; it is the fundament of reality insofar as it is a void which can nevertheless vibrate: "emptiness dancing" is the unavoidable paradox at the heart of existence.

🔗Problems and paradoxes

You might sense the problem I have with this model immediately given that description. There is only one mind, yet at the same time there are multiple persons - this seeming incoherence conveys the gist of why I find this model to be paradoxical, which I get at in other different ways below, initially finding resolutions to them, but ultimately encountering an enduring paradox post resolution. Leading up to that, though, I raise a couple of other problems.

Those two related problems can be expressed in terms of my criteria for clarity. The first problem is that the proposition that the semantic model of Analytic Idealism is piecewise distinct seems a little questionable: the definitions of "consciousness", "mind", and "experience" seem to overlap in a way which is not useful. This could be seen to be a waste of terms which could have been used for extra precision.

Secondly, it seems to lack some essential denotational consistency in that the meaning of "consciousness" in the model might be seen to fail to conform with the essence of its common definition. Essential to the common definition of "consciousness" is "being conscious", however, the model of Analytic Idealism theorises that chairs and tables, whilst "mind in motion", and thus "consciousness", are simultaneously not conscious. Thus, Bernardo's definition of "consciousness" allows for "non-conscious consciousness": a violation of the essential meaning of the word. I raised this issue in my initial review of Why Materialism Is Baloney, though not in the context of the criterion of essential denotational consistency, which I had not yet developed as part of my notion of clear semantic modelling.

These related problems can be resolved by defining "mind" and "consciousness" differently, as I have done in my model, and stipulating that consciousness is, rather than a phenomenon in itself, a property of that undifferentiated unity in which the subject of consciousness consists, the undifferentiated unity of which I justify for a similar reason as avoids the sort of problem (the second) noted above.

Now, the other struggle I have had with the semantic model of Analytic Idealism is that I have identified various apparent paradoxes within it. It thus appears to fail to conform to the criterion of consistency. The apparent paradoxes that I perceive in the model of Analytic Idealism are that:

  1. On my definitions, experience is contingent on the person, not the other way around. Thus, for one person (a "psyche") to come into existence (to become "dissociated") due to the experiences of another (the "whirlpool" of experiences had by the person which is "mind at large") is incoherent: it inverts the contingency of the relationship between person and experience. I justify the contingency of experience on person rather than the reverse as follows: by my definition, the subject of consciousness (the basis of the person) is independent of actual experience and predicated solely on an (actualised) capacity for experience, whereas, also by my definition, experience is dependent on the subject of consciousness: experiences are "had by" or "occur to" the subject of consciousness (again: the basis of the person).
  2. Even if a person were contingent on experience, it could be seen to be incoherent to conceptualise the subject of consciousness in which the person essentially consists, being an undifferentiated unity, "as" (identical to) the set of experiences of the universal mind which constitute or underlie that person's brain, insofar as that brain is a differentiated multiplicity (of neurons): plurality is an essential quality, and, thus, that the plurality of which is a unity cannot be identical to that the plurality of which is a multiplicity.
  3. Given a definition of the subject of consciousness - the essential identity of each person - as an undifferentiated unity, it is incoherent to propose that one person be "in" another, and, according to the semantic model of Analytic Idealism, all of our persons are "in" the universal person that is mind at large - which is especially incoherent given that on the Analytic Idealist model there is ultimately only one subject of experience, which would thus be "inside itself".
  4. Given that the experiences of mind at large encompass all of reality, they encompass, too, the experiences of individual persons, or psyches, and this could be seen to be incoherent in that it entails that one (set of) experience(s) is somehow "inside" another - this seems incoherent in the sense that a subjective experience is not the sort of thing with any sort of characteristics which would allow it to "host" another experience; for, say, the experience of the colour red to be "inside" the experience of the smell of a flower.

🔗Resolution of the paradoxes

These paradoxes seem to be resolvable with some insight. One important insight is that "experience" in the Analytic Idealist model is used in two senses: the subjective and the objective. An example of its use in the subjective sense (of that which is "had by" or which "occurs to" the subject of consciousness) is when Bernardo discusses the subjective experience of colours such as red. With respect to the objective sense, on the other hand, Bernardo explicitly defines experience as "a particular movement of mind", and variously uses it to refer to the (objective) "excitations" or "vibrations" of "the medium of mind". These - both the subjective and objective senses - are, I think, (intended to be) two different aspects of the one phenomenon.

Given this insight, it is possible to frame the Analytic Idealist model in terms of my own mostly grounded model:

In other words, the resolution I have found is to gently ignore Bernardo's injunction that experience is not "stuff" or energy of some sort. I find that this is necessary because I cannot otherwise integrate the objective aspect of experience which Bernardo presents. For me, that which is differentiated and dynamic simply is energetic - and thus a type of energy - by definition. Though Bernardo does not like the term "mind stuff", perhaps he would accept my use of "mental energy" as an alternative for "experience". As a term, "mental energy" would indicate that which has both an objective sense as energy (i.e., "excitations of the medium of mind") as well as a subjective sense as qualia (e.g., the experience of the colour red), but it would emphasise the objective aspect.

(As an aside, this, then, finally completes the suggestion that I put to Bernardo in my initial review, in which I wrote: "I think it could even be helpful to choose another more neutral word - that is, not "matter" either - with which to refer to the "experiences" of mind-at-large; that which I have framed neutrally as "the non-conscious, structured energy of shared reality". As Bernardo acknowledges, mind-at-large is not a conventional mind/consciousness, and nor is its experience conventional. Choosing a different word than "experience" - albeit that it would be compromising on nondual terminology - might help to avoid confusion." The word - term, in fact - that I finally suggest, then - having come to realise in the course of constructing my own model that to describe this structured energy as (entirely) "non-conscious" in an idealist context is not tenable - is "mental energy"; whilst this term encompasses both the subjective and objective aspects of experience, it emphasises the latter, which seems most appropriate for the experiences of mind-at-large which consist in "the external world").

One other correspondence between the models worth noting is that:

The Analytic Idealist model otherwise is compatible with mine in that it recognises consciousness as a grounded rather than an inferential fact, and thus avoids the error of materialism.

So, how, then, do I resolve the apparent paradoxes described above? Here are my resolutions with numbers corresponding to the originals:

  1. In this case, I recognise that it is mental energy in the objective sense whose structure effects new psyches, and not mental energy in the sense of subjective experience (qualia); that is to say that it is not in the sense of "occurring to" or "being had by" the subject of consciousness. It is not, for example, something like the subjective experience of the colour red which effects a new psyche, but rather it is the objective aspect of mental energy (the subjective aspect of which is something like the experience of the colour red) that effects a new psyche; it is that in which, in some sense, the subjective experience consists objectively that facilitates, through its potential for reflectivity given the right structure, the opening of a new portal through which the universal, undifferentiated subject of consciousness can "peer out and poke" at reality. Thus, there is no problem of contingency: subjective experience no longer need precede a new consciousness portal; rather objective structured energy with the property of mentality effects the new conscious portal and its subjective experiences.
  2. This comes down simply to what it means to be "identical". The identity between a psyche's basic self - as, in my terms, an undifferentiated unity - and the set of experiences - in my terms, mental energy - of the universal mind which constitute or underlie that person's brain - a differentiated multiplicity (of neurons) - is not in the strict sense but rather in a weaker and relational sense; the sort of sense in which I might say, too, that I "am" my body without meaning to strictly identify my body with my essential conscious self.
  3. I resolve this paradox simply by reframing it in terms of my grounded model: one person (as, in essence, an undifferentiated unity) is not in another person per se, but rather, it is "in" the mental energy which is all that exists; in other words, one person as, in essence, an undifferentiated unity, "peers out and pokes" at reality from within the universal mental energy, which is not an undifferentiated subject of consciousness itself but instead in its objective aspect facilitates (as per resolution #1 above), through its potential for reflectivity given the right structure, the opening of a portal through which the universal, undifferentiated subject of consciousness can "peer out and poke" at reality.
  4. Again, this comes down to the difference between experiences in the subjective and the objective sense. It is only in the objective sense of mental energy that one experience is within another: in the subjective sense, they are distinct. Thus, the contradiction of, for example, the experience of the colour red occurring "within" some other subjective experience such as an experience of the smell of a flower simply does not occur; instead, the mental energy which objectively comprises one subjective experience (as had by a psyche) lies within the mental energy which objectively comprises the subjective experience of mind at large which gives rise to that psyche - namely, the set of neurons (or that which underlies them) which constitutes its brain (but does this itself make sense? For an answer, see below).

🔗Potential responses

Before moving on to other parts of this analysis, I imagine a couple of ways in which Bernardo could respond to the preceding. But first, let's consider his objection to mental energy in the form of "mind stuff", which he expresses on page 66 of the Kindle edition of Why Materialism Is Baloney (footnote in the original):

Idealism proposes that all reality is in mind and, as such, one can say metaphorically that everything is ‘made of’ the substrate of mind. Many people then conclude that this implies the existence of some kind of literal ‘mind stuff.’ Several even asked me whether there was any empirical evidence for the existence of this ‘mind stuff’ that everything is supposedly made of. Well, there is no such stuff. Idealism does not entail that the substrate of mind is the stuff of existence, insofar as we define ‘stuff’ as something that exists independently, and outside, of subjective perception. Instead, what idealism is saying is precisely that there is no stuff. There is only subjective perception. The word ‘stuff’ is just a way to describe certain modalities and regularities of perception. When one asks about the ‘stuff’ of mind one is ‘subconsciously’ falling back into realist assumptions; into thinking that reality is ‘out there,’ even mind itself!
   According to idealism, all stuff – all materials, objects, etc. – exist only insofar as they are subjectively apprehended in mind. The substrate of mind itself is not stuff: it is the subject, not an object. It is the medium from which perceptions arise, but is itself not perceivable for exactly the same reason that the eye that sees cannot see itself without a mirror; or – as Alan Watts put it – that you can’t bite your own teeth.96 As such, the substrate of mind cannot be measured, detected, or analyzed like some kind of stuff, because it is that which measures, detects, and analyzes in the first place. The substrate of mind is not a material, but that which imagines all materials.

So, here are the two ways in which Bernardo might respond. One is to agree that, yes, either because it resolves certain paradoxes, or because it is implied as the objective aspect of experience, or because it is deducible from grounded facts, or for some set of these reasons, the concept of mental energy is, after all, a necessary one to include in his model. To the extent that Bernardo believes that it is not already included, any implications of its new inclusion could then be considered. One way of maintaining some sort of consistency with his objection as quoted above would be to stipulate that, yes, mental energy exists, however, it exists in or as mind rather than independently of mind.

The other is to reject the concept of mental energy outright. In that case, I would be curious to know how Bernardo responds to the sort of deductive reasoning that I expressed above, which, somewhat more formally, runs as follows:

  1. That which is both differentiated and dynamic consists in energy of some type.
  2. Our experience consists in that which is differentiated and dynamic.
  3. Therefore, energy of some sort exists.
  4. Since the energy at issue is that which is experience, it must be of the type "mental".
  5. Therefore, mental energy exists.

🔗Return of the paradox - this time unresolved

I proceed on the basis that the Analytic Idealist model entails that experience has both a subjective and an objective aspect, and that a more preferential term than "experience" which gets at this dual-aspect nature is "mental energy", which in its objective aspect can be "structured" (as "excitations" and/or "vibrations" and/or "mirrors" and/or "protrusions") so as to result in a psyche.

I now return to the Analytic Idealist assertion that chairs and tables are not conscious (psyches) whereas brains are. On our refined model, all three of these entities consist in mental energy which has a subjective aspect - it is just that the mental energy of our brains is also reflective; it is structured in such a way that the universal consciousness which is mind at large "recognises itself" in this energy and a new perspective is instantiated.

Now, given that the objective mental energy in which chairs and tables consist has, on the basis on which I am proceeding, a subjective aspect - that is, as a subjective experience - and that a subjective experience entails a subject of experience, then, we must posit that the experiences in which the mental energy of chairs and tables consist have a subject of experience which must be the same subject of experience as that of those experiences in which the mental energy of our brains consist, since there is, on the Analytic Idealist theory, only a single subject of experience. The subject of experience which subjectively experiences the mental energy which is chairs and tables must, then, be mind at large.

So, chairs and tables are what certain subjective experiences had by mind at large look like from the perspective of us psyches, and, since chairs and tables have the same ontological nature as brains - an experience had by mind at large with both a subjective and an objective aspect - except that brains are also associated with a psyche, then brains, too, are what certain subjective experiences had by mind at large look like from the perspective of us psyches.

Now, I find something interesting: one of the paradoxes that I resolved in the previous section returns in a new form. A psyche has its own subjective experiences, such as perceptions of objects in "the outside world", and, given that experiences on the Analytic Idealist view have both a subjective and an objective aspect, then these subjective experiences had by psyches must also from the objective perspective consist in mental energy - but psyches are already mental energy: that mental energy which is the objective aspect of the subjective experience had by mind at large which constitutes the psyche's brain. Thus, we arrive at the paradox of "mental energy inside mental energy". Can we resolve this paradox?

One potential resolution is to suggest that the mental energy of the psyche's subjective experiences is - rather than being "inside" - the same as the mental energy which is the objective aspect of mind at large's experience of (which is) its brain. Does this work though? Here is what it would have to take account of to work: on the law of identity, the subjective experiences to which objective mental energy corresponds must be the same for both the "outer" and "inner" experiences. Thus, whatever subjective experience had by mind at large the objective energy of the psyche's brain corresponds to must be the same as the subjective experiences had by that psyche.

Thus, at the outer level, the experience of mind at large which is the subjective aspect of the mental energy which is a brain would be the same as the experiences had by the psyche which "is" that brain. The problem with this is that at this same "outer" level, mind at large is simultaneously having these subjective experiences for all brains, and some of them contradict others: each psyche has a different subjective perspective which cannot be integrated with all of the other different perspectives as a unified subjective experience of mind at large. So, it seems that this potential resolution cannot work.

Another potential resolution is to suggest that the mental energy of the psyche's subjective experiences is, given that it cannot be the same as the mental energy which is the objective aspect of mind at large's experience of its brain, then merely a component of it. Thus, the mental energy of the psyche's experience is "inside" the mental energy of mind at large's experience (which constitutes its brain) not in an incoherent recursive sense but in the sense of being a subset of it. The problem with this is that, for similar reasons as for the first potential resolution, this does not work either: that subset of mental energy would still entail identical subjective experiences at both the "outer" and "inner" levels, and, again, would entail mind at large at the "outer" level having contradictory experiences from multiple subjective perspectives simultaneously.

Since I cannot see any other potential resolutions, I find that I am left with an unresolvable paradox after all.

🔗Where does the model of Analytic Idealist place on the axis of grounded versus theoretical semantic models?

Now, bracketing that unresolved paradox, and moving on to the next part of this analysis, the Analytic Idealist model is grounded other than its theories that:

It is thus mostly grounded, though not as grounded as my mostly grounded model in that it adds three theories to the single theory (the falsity of solipsism) of mine.

🔗To the extent that it is theoretical, to what extent are its theories testable or otherwise defensible?

🔗What are its implications, what does it miss or omit, and what can I learn from it?

One implication of this model given its theory of a universal mind in which empirical reality consists is that we are in a literal sense "playing with God's mind". This, it seems to me, is unnecessarily strange and even profane: better would be to postulate that God's mind is entirely beyond the empirical reality that we experience. (And Bernardo does posit that there is more to reality than we experience).

Some of the omissions of this model given its theorising are that it fails to adequately account for:

  1. The apparent fine-tuning of the universe: it proposes that mind at large is unreflective and non-self-aware, and it is hard to see how it could then be intelligent - which would seem to be required to design our universe.

  2. The existence and extent of evil in our reality. A monistic theory (single subject of consciousness; single ontological substance) somehow has to reconcile the bad and the good, whereas a dualistic theory (distinct subjects of consciousness with differing essential natures, both good and evil) assumes no need for reconciliation. The only meaningful attempt at such a reconciliation that I see in the Analytic Idealist model as expressed in Why Materialism Is Baloney is this, from page 175 (Kindle edition):

    Why is there evil? Why is there so much inequality and injustice? Maybe nobody really knows. Maybe we are all still running around, knocking things over clumsily in our struggle, as the dominoes fall all around us. And it is possible that we alone have a shot at making sense of it as we go through life.

    Here, we are the mind that is everything, knocking over our own dominoes. But if we are all a unity in the end, then why would aspects of ourselves fight against, torture, oppress, violate, and slaughter other aspects? Our essence is the same; a unity. I think that this question needs better addressing than it has been given here.

One lesson that I can learn from this model is that it is necessary to pay careful attention to the way in which others define their terms and what they mean by them, and that paying attention to apparent contradictions can lead one into interesting resolutions which have interesting implications.

🔗Conclusion

Analytic Idealism as Bernardo Kastrup presents it in his book Why Materialism Is Baloney initially presented some paradoxes to me which I resolved by constructing my own mostly grounded model of reality against which to contrast it and in the terms of which it could be cast. Having done that, one of the paradoxes returned in a new form which I am unable to resolve. I thus currently hold the view that Analytic Idealism is incoherent, however, I am open to potential resolutions to this paradox which might have escaped me.

On the next page, I develop this unresolved paradox into a rigorous argument against Analytic Idealism, which I call The argument against Analytic Idealism from conflicting perspectives.

Changelog (most recent first)

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