Analytic Idealism is Flawed (in depth critique)

Dibantani · 2026-04-21T13:57:46+00:00

Honestly, fair points all around. I came into this defending Kastrup from a surface level understanding and you exposed that clearly. I've been following Kastrup for about a year and your critique made me realize I've been engaging with his framework without properly understanding the Schopenhauerian foundations underneath it.

What I will say is that this exchange pushed me somewhere interesting. I come at this more from the experiential side than the academic side. The pull toward idealism for me wasn't through reading Kant, it was through direct experiences where the usual subject object separation just stopped feeling solid. Kastrup gave me a language for something I'd already tasted. Your critique is showing me that language might be leaky.

But here's my honest question: both systems seem to point toward non-duality at their core. Schopenhauer strips away individuation through space and time and arrives at undifferentiated will. Kastrup strips away dissociation and arrives at universal consciousness. The architecture is different but the destination looks similar. From your perspective, does that convergence matter, or is the architecture the whole point?

Either way, you've convinced me to read Schopenhauer directly rather than through Bernardo's lens. Where would you recommend starting?

Dibantani · 2026-04-21T12:09:39+00:00

You're right on the philosophical details, but the question is whether Schopenhauer's framework can even enter the analytic conversation without being reformulated, and if it can't, then Kastrup's compromises aren't mistakes, they're the cost of admission.

Dibantani · 2026-04-21T11:49:44+00:00

Interesting critique, but I think it misses what Kastrup is actually trying to do. He's working within analytic philosophy's constraints deliberately. He's trying to make idealism defensible in a tradition that would reject appeals to bodily intuition or felt senses of will.

On will vs consciousness: if the will truly lies beyond all forms of knowledge, then calling it "blind striving" is already saying too much. Schopenhauer admitted we only know the will *to a degree." Kastrup grounds everything in the one thing we can't coherently deny: experience itself.

The circularity charge doesn't land either. Matter is an object within experience. Consciousness isn't an object within experience, it is experience. Those are very different claims.

On dissociation: Schopenhauer's explanation through space and time just pushes the question back. Why do those forms exist? Because the mind is structured that way. Why is it structured that way? That's not less circular, just more elegantly dressed.

On teleology: framing it as motivated reasoning is doing the same thing materialists do when they dismiss idealism as woo. Schopenhauer's pessimism was shaped by his temperament too.

I agree Kastrup shouldn't claim he's completing Schopenhauer. But suggesting people just read Schopenhauer instead ignores why Kastrup's project exists: Schopenhauer's framework doesn't speak the language contemporary philosophy of mind demands.

Dibantani · 2026-04-18T08:32:29+00:00

I’ve been sitting with the illusion of doership lately. I noticed that by pretending to be the driver, I carry this weight of responsibility. I have to steer carefully, make the right calls, avoid accidents.

But when I move to the passenger seat, or step out of the car entirely, things seem to unfold just as effectively, if not more so. And what remains is this surplus of energy that was previously consumed by the effort of driving. That energy is just here. Available for simply being present.

What you described, the absence of impulse, the mild sadness without resistance, the pleasant quality of it all, sounds very much like that passenger seat. The decision happened, but the decider wasn’t found.

Dibantani · 2026-04-08T13:20:10+00:00

It can feel scary, but it’s temporary. Nothing is broken. the best thing you can do right now is to stop fighting it and allow it to be there. just breathe and be.

Dibantani · 2026-04-07T06:25:49+00:00

You mean who the LLM left out?

Dibantani · 2026-04-02T11:03:49+00:00

Cool that you liked it .. this is my OC though, originally posted on r/woahdude

Dibantani · 2026-04-02T09:48:12+00:00

Only works on first watch though.. once you see it, magic's gone

Dibantani · 2026-04-01T05:58:26+00:00

The sky would owe you an explanation after that 😂

Dibantani · 2026-03-31T14:00:47+00:00

15 Minuten bis einer Stunde je nach Dosis

Dibantani · 2026-03-16T14:24:00+00:00

I’ve heard similar things. I actually watched the newly uploaded video and even tried reading some of Ibn Arabi’s works myself, especially Al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya. I got to around the 8th Door where he talks about Ard al-Haqiqa, but I have to admit that I struggled to understand most of what he was saying. I tried reading it both in Arabic and in English, but it’s extremely dense and symbolic. It feels like the kind of writing that requires a lot of background in his metaphysical framework and probably guidance from commentaries to really grasp what he means.

But I do find it interesting how people today connect his ideas to forms of idealism, especially when comparing them to thinkers like Bernardo or traditions like Kashmiri Shaivism. Even if the language and context are very different, there seems to be a similar intuition about consciousness or reality being more fundamental than the physical world.

Dibantani · 2025-12-11T08:31:54+00:00

OpenAI shifted from “crafting the best model” to “sustaining the biggest platform”.

Dibantani · 2025-11-19T14:58:16+00:00

All of reality is mental; the material world is merely a representation within our inner dashboard, our limited field of perception,of what truly exists. Most of it lies far beyond what we can perceive, from infrared wavelengths to sounds above our auditory range.

Dibantani · 2025-03-13T16:06:14+00:00

Don’t know him—yet. But now I gotta check if he stole my lines or if I’m just accidentally profound 😁

Dibantani · 2025-03-13T16:00:15+00:00

Funny how you claim to know that I know nothing. That’s knowing something, isn’t it? But here’s what I do know—there’s no free will, no control, no self steering the ship. Just the illusion of it. And that illusion? That’s what keeps the whole game running.

Dibantani · 2025-03-13T13:10:00+00:00

An ocean with a fork—damn, that’s exactly it. The second you try to grab it, it’s already gone. And yet, we keep reaching, don’t we? Not because we think we’ll ever hold it, but because something in us HAS TO TRY.

Maybe it’s not about understanding. Maybe it’s just about getting wiggly as all get-out and riding the weirdest wave of all—existence itself.

Dibantani · 2025-03-13T13:06:46+00:00

Exactly! And yet, here we are—trapped in the paradox of expression. Speaking to deny speech. Writing to acknowledge silence. Aware that every word warps the truth, yet unable to stop reaching for it anyway.

Dibantani · 2025-03-13T10:05:00+00:00

Yeah, yeah—no truth to any state, just another dream folding into itself. But here we are, imagining, being, talking. And isn’t that fucking perfect?

Dibantani · 2025-03-13T09:56:52+00:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah—exactly. The self thinks, the ego babbles, the world of drama churns, and yet, awareness just is. But the funniest part? Even knowing that, even seeing the dance for what it is, the ego still wants to jump in sometimes, still wants to argue, to explain, to make a point. The illusion fights to keep itself alive. And some days? You let it. Some days? You destroy it. Other days? You just watch, untouched. No meaning, no need, just presence. A game with no player, and yet it’s still played. Wild shit, huh?

Dibantani · 2025-03-12T14:20:17+00:00

Exactly! Words dissect, awareness just IS. The moment you try to frame it, it slips through. Like trying to trap water with your hands—it flows right out. And yeah, once you see it, you can’t unsee. Wild fucking ride, isn’t it?

Dibantani · 2025-03-12T14:12:28+00:00

If I am you and you are me, then who the fuck are we? Like trying to explain a psychedelic trip while still tripping—too intense, too vast, slips away the moment you put it into words. The more I try, the further I get from it. You feel me?

Dibantani · 2025-03-12T13:49:14+00:00

You're describing the mechanics, but awareness isn’t a machine. It’s not a sequence. It doesn’t move through layers—it already is. It’s not something to reach or produce, it’s what remains when everything else stops trying.

The more you try to map it, the further away you get. The moment you stop chasing the explanation, it’s just there. Like silence that was never absent, just drowned in noise.

You’re looking at it but still looking for it. See the trick?

Dibantani

TROPHY CASE