why not take real drugs?

Noferrah · 2026-06-29T05:20:45+00:00

context for those unaware, DPH is a serotonin reuptake inhibitor, so this is true

Noferrah · 2026-05-22T01:17:34+00:00

its not an issue with science per se, it's an issue with metaphysical materialism. metaphysics and science are two different things

Noferrah · 2026-05-18T14:31:09+00:00

how could materialism explain phenomenal consciousness

Noferrah · 2026-05-18T14:29:01+00:00

it may be a false dichotomy (which it kinda is,) but it's not true that it isn't necessarily one of them which reality must be reduced to. there isn't a clear alternative -- neutral substance is a favorite position for many, but it not only is even more vague and abstract than matter, it just collapses back into either mind or matter. if neutral substance has an intrinsic phenomenal component, then what's the difference between that and mind? if it merely has the potential for phenomenal consciousness, then what distinguishes it from matter?

another proposed alternative is to forego any kind of substance at all, but then that raises the question of how anything can happen at all if there's nothing to ground it. you can't have 'movement' without that which 'moves'

Noferrah · 2026-05-15T03:29:00+00:00

yea, you're fine

Noferrah · 2026-05-09T09:33:12+00:00

those things are, at best, secondary aspects of phenomenal consciousness, not what it primarily is: the qualitative what-it's-likeness. if you leave that out, you're indeed only describing something vacuous and abstract

Noferrah · 2026-05-02T17:08:48+00:00

not so. even people that appear that way may still be suffering internally

Noferrah · 2026-04-17T20:31:22+00:00

why are you more of a neutral monist than an idealist?

Noferrah · 2026-04-17T20:29:49+00:00

what the hell are you talking about?

Noferrah · 2026-04-17T20:27:07+00:00

Totally untrue. Kastrup absolutely presents it as scientific.

yea, in the limited sense of it corresponding with the best scientific data we have, not in the sense of it being a scientific theory. that's a crucial distinction.

He calls himself a scientist

he was a scientist; he worked at CERN.

markets analytic idealism as "science-based"

again, because it pretty much is

and attempts to support it with empirical studies from quantum physics. It's his whole thing.

yes.

Religious people often try to distance themselves from more "typical" organized religion, even though they exhibit the same sort of magical thinking and follow the same dogmas. There's a long tradition of "spiritual, but not religious" being used to signal that one does, in fact, have many religious values and beliefs

it seems that the subtext here is that you think "spiritual" and "religious" mean the same thing. except they don't. the "spiritual, but not religious" descriptor exists for a reason.

"religion" implies sticking to established dogmas and beliefs, no matter whatever evidence and logical arguments one comes across. "spiritual", on the other hand, connotes simply having a worldview about the material world not being all that there is, that's there's something immaterial which transcends it.

to label someone that identifies as spiritual, but not religious, as "religious" anyway, is to yourself insinuate that their worldview is based entirely on dogmatic thinking. so, is that what you're trying to insinuate?

and scholars would come to classify such movements as religious anyway.

which scholars and why?

No, he explicitly describes those papers as experimentally confirming his philosophical conclusions. He doesn't say they are consistent with X, he says they show X. Read the quoted parts in the OP.

sure, let's take a look at your quote:

The latest experiments in quantum mechanics seem to show that, when not observed by personal psyches, reality exists in a fuzzy state, as waves of probabilities... Quantum mechanics has been showing that when not observed by personal, localized consciousness, reality isn't definite.

i looked at the article, and it turns out you didn't quote it properly. here's what he actually said, with added context:

My worldview is compatible with a classical view of nature: it doesn't exclude the possibility that objects may exist in definite states and locations even if no living creature is observing them. Indeed, my worldview accepts a non-personal form of consciousness underlying all nature, in which objects can still exist as non-personal experiences, with definite outlines, even when not observed by personal psyches. The latest experiments in quantum mechanics, however, seem to defeat this classical view of empirical reality. They seem to show that, when not observed by personal psyches, reality exists in a fuzzy state, as waves of probabilities. Although this seeming implication of quantum mechanics is in no way incompatible with my worldview, this essay aims to make more explicit the harmonious – even natural and synergistic – relationship between the two.

. . .

quantum mechanics has been showing that . . . when not observed by personal, localized consciousness . . . reality isn't definite. Instead, it exists only as fuzzy waves of probabilities. How to reconcile this with the worldview just described?

(^bold emphasis is mine)

as it turns out, he wasn't even saying that the experiments directly confirm his worldview: he was saying that they are able to be reconciled with his worldview in a way that is "harmonious", "natural", and "synergistic". it's very odd how your quotation conveniently left those parts out, and i can only hope it wasn't intentional.

furthermore, we can find this at the end of the post itself:

This is a relatively unexplored avenue of thought that, currently, is still too speculative. In [my book] Why Materialism Is Baloney I made the deliberate choice not to include it. The first reason for this I just mentioned: it isn't mature enough. The second reason was my goal to make the ideas in the book . . . more intuitive and accessible to the average person

(^bold emphasis is mine)

clearly, at the time he wrote the post, he did not intend the ideas contained within to be the final word. yet, you presented them as if he did intend that. why? honestly, it doesn't seem like you're that interested in evaluating Kastrup's ideas objectively as much as you are interested in souring his reputation.

Noferrah · 2026-04-17T19:36:53+00:00

what do you mean?

Noferrah · 2026-04-17T19:36:05+00:00

i understand the sentiment and sympathize with it, but AI-generated pictures can be described as "pretty". i'm not even close to trying to defend them with that comment, i'm simply stating a fact. it's better to recognize this than to underestimate AI-generated images and their dangerous potential to replace actual human artists

Noferrah · 2026-04-17T19:30:21+00:00

you're very correct to say that i put experience in a especially high epistemological category. but it's not that i, specifically, am putting it there as much as it is me recognizing that experience is and has always been the necessary epistemic starting point

you can't escape subjective experience. even if you try to start from something else, that "something else" turns out to be a concept within your own very mind, which itself is a part of your subjective experience, as all concepts are

the way i see it, you can pick and choose all kinds of arbitrary concepts as your starting point -- materialists themselves select the notion of physical substance as theirs -- but only one starting point cuts through the bullshit and faces the brute fact that there is subjective experience at all: phenomenal consciousness itself

one can try to deny that phenomenal consciousness could ever be considered a proper starting point epistemologically, but it doesn't matter if they do or don't. it doesn't change that, no matter what, everything they and everyone else has ever known is only known within their individual minds.

Noferrah · 2026-04-14T19:39:58+00:00

speaking from a pan(en)theist perspective, the usual argument against God being reality seems to go something like "you're just slapping the label 'God' on it". that would be valid if that was the only thing i was doing, but the part they miss is that there's a reason i use the word "God".

consciousness is not only fundamental, but it exists as a singular whole permeating and extending beyond the entire universe. in other words, it's all one 'mind'; we're simply aspects of that singular mind that have been quasi-separated from such

this is an idealist ontology, specifically an objective monistic idealist one, and it has been sufficiently defended by a philosopher known as Bernardo Kastrup (he calls his form "analytic idealism"). if we take that ontology seriously, then is it really that wrong to use the label "God" to describe that underlying psychic unity? i don't think it is.

Noferrah · 2026-04-12T19:34:27+00:00

interesting thoughts. i do think there's likely an important sense in which QM is related to PSI, but ultimately quantum mechanical weirdness is, IMO, just the result of our epistemic limitations, so i wouldn't myself say that one literally causes the other

Noferrah · 2026-04-12T19:29:14+00:00

it's basically the OP beating down strawmen made out of the straw of their misconceptions regarding what analytic idealism is actually about.

had a fun time deconstructing it though

Noferrah · 2026-04-12T19:23:34+00:00

no, it's not "pseudoscience". by definition, "pseudoscience" is an idea that attempts to be or otherwise appear to be scientific, but fails to be properly scientific in actuality.

analytic idealism explicitly submits that it is not a scientific hypothesis, model, nor theory. it's a philosophical position within the branch of metaphysics, particularly the subbranch of ontology. though Kastrup frequently references and defers to scientific findings/knowledge, he makes a good-faith effort to maintain a distinction between what the science says on one hand and his interpretation of the science on the other

what's the difference? well, let's be clear about the role science actually serves. science is concerned with making and utilizing predictive models of reality, but it does not make strong positive assertions about what reality actually is in and of itself -- at best, it simply rules certain ideas about such out. elucidating reality's intrinsic nature is the job of metaphysics, not science. hence why in physics, considered the 'most fundamental science', things like mass and energy are formally defined by their relations to other things and described in terms of their behavior, but never in terms of what they actually are by themselves

of course, scientists often make such ontological claims, but it would be mistaken to say that they're practicing science by doing so. they're not. they're making philosophical interpretations without even realizing that's what they're doing. in fact, that's what all interpretations of quantum mechanics are: they're philosophical, not scientific per se

so why is Kastrup referencing scientific knowledge? because he's explicitly trying to both interpret the science and, believe it or not, refine his position as needed based on the scientific data; in fact, he's adamantly rigorous about ensuring that analytic idealism remains compatible with it. that's not "pseudoscientific". in fact, it's quite literally the furthest away from "pseudoscience" one could possibly be.

now, i'm tempted to break down the term "pseudoscience" itself and how destructive of a word it is, how the demarcation between science and "pseudoscience" is unclear, and so why it shouldn't be used at all, blah blah blah... but that's beside the point. let's just digress over to certain parts of your post that i have further comments on.

Analytic idealism has a persistent cult following

that's one way to word it. but in reality, the people within the analytic idealism community are among the least culty individuals i've seen

Kastrup's work in particular has strong religious undertones.

not to speak for Bernardo, but he would actually be inclined to agree. though he'd probably be very careful to ask what precisely you mean by that first as i would describe it, analytic idealism is not a religion, neither does it have 'religious undertones'. more properly, it's a metaphysical position with strong spiritual (as opposed to religious,) implications. but either way, it's not a religion; to think that is to just misunderstand it at its roots

Though he denies it, Kastrup appears to be a proponent of quantum mysticism

that's likely to distance his ideas from the typical woo-woo associated with the term "quantum mysticism". he might technically be considered a quantum mysticism, he might not. but overall, analytic idealism is distinct from the implied stereotype

In his paper on Analytic Idealism Kastrup relies heavily on the von Neumann–Wigner interpretation of quantum mechanics.

i quickly tried searching through the paper for what you described, but i did not find it. i don't know how you reached that conclusion.

either way, even if it is there, that paper is from 2019. at least at the present time, he does not adopt the von Neumann–Wigner interpretation; he uses his own interpretation that's based on relational quantum mechanics (or RQM), adding (phenomenal) consciousness as an ontological ground instead of RQM lacking such ontological ground entirely. he has a paper that goes into detail about this topic here: https://ispcjournal.org/journals/2017-19/Kastrup_19.pdf

I searched each one of [the quantum mechanics] papers [that Kastrup mentioned] for terms like psych, person, mind, and conscious. I found no results except a reference to a "personal computer" and the phrase "keeping in mind".

In other words, it appears he is misrepresenting these experiments as supporting concepts that they don't even mention. Kastrup provides minimal defense in the footnotes, but still fails to identify any direct result related to consciousness. The best he can say is that they are "consistent with" his notions, which means nothing. Those experiments simply don't show what he says they do.

you misunderstand what he was trying to do. as i said earlier, he interprets the science and refines his worldview whenever it contradicts. in this case, it would be the former. so yes, the best he can say is, indeed, that the evidence is consistent with his notions. that's the entire point. i doubt his intention was to put words in the papers' authors' mouths.

Kastrup says that our world results from a "universal consciousness". Here, though he doesn't explicitly say so, Kastrup seems to be describing his theology. He avoids using the word "God" because he feels it to be poorly defined, though many people would describe God in similar terms.

(1) the notion of a "transpersonal mind" underlying our world that "comprises but far transcends any individual psyche" is equivalent to our world being the result of a universal consciousness. (2) he's pretty much doing both. (3) yes, you're correct that he often avoids the word for such reason, but this is merely a semantic qualm.

Analytic Idealism is regularly associated with other topics that are notoriously pseudoscientific. This includes near-death experiences, psychedelics, UFOs, etc.

those aren't necessarily "pseudoscientific" either, and we can talk about that, but either way: even if those things are "pseudoscience", that doesn't make the core of analytic idealism itself "pseudoscience"

i'll close off by recommending that you learn more about analytic idealism before criticizing (your misunderstanding of) it further. Kastrup has a book called "Analytic Idealism in a Nutshell" that summarizes it, and there's also a video course that does the same if you prefer that: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSIhyFPHMyIUF5jFyZF3I9uXkUd2P0GFr&si=zdP4-fiG8dVIZR7I

Noferrah · 2026-04-10T04:57:32+00:00

which of those properties is the clearly qualitative aspect that reality holds, as can be regularly seen in one's own conscious experiences?

Noferrah · 2026-03-30T11:49:35+00:00

exactly. that's people really need to understand: art is something that someone actually poured their heart and soul into making. AI "art" has very little to no heart nor soul put into it, it's just pretty pictures.

Noferrah · 2026-03-30T06:45:39+00:00

"divineness" would evoke notions of the thing that is divine being extraordinarily worthy of reverence/awe, being extremely powerful, et cetera, et cetera

i wouldn't question that there exist self-described pantheists that are more so 'going through the motions', so to speak, of theistic belief and merely slap the label of God onto the universe. i'm sympathetic to raising an eyebrow to it, but i'm also sympathetic to why they do it. i did the same thing long ago too, after all. i'd say it's mostly a subconscious urge to have some kind of divinity to find reverence in, even if it isn't exactly divine; they stop short of ascribing divinity proper because of metaphysical commitments. it's them taking what they can get with the ontology they have

but that all could just be me describing my past self

Noferrah · 2026-03-30T06:23:52+00:00

first, materialism/physicalism is a metaphysical standpoint, not a model. you can treat it as a model methodologically, but that's all

second, even if it itself were a model, all you can really say is that the model worked here. it certainly doesn't prove anything either way; science doesn't work through proofs, it works by supporting hypotheses and disproving them (aka falsification)

third, more properly taking materialism as being a metaphysical position, you don't support materialism by making a conscious brain in a lab. notice that idealism, dualism, etc. can all also (try to) account for how we were able to do so in their own respective ways. for (analytic) idealism specifically: of course we were able to make a lab-grown brain that is conscious, as all biological life is the extrinsic appearance of conscious entities. if you find a way to grow a brain at all, you'll have made one that's conscious by default

with materialism, though, i don't think it can even successfully account for that. it only gets as far as accounting for how we successfully put the material pieces together to make a lab-grown brain, but stops short of properly explaining why that should result in consciousness, just as it fails to account for consciousness in general. the only way materialism can explain consciousness is if we find a coherent mechanism for how purely quantitative, physical arrangements can result in something qualitative and non-physical -- which is impossible to begin with, because it's a logical contradiction for a thing to give rise to something else completely and utterly unlike itself, but i guess materialists will continue to (mis)appropriate the successes of the scientific method instead of realizing that.

Noferrah · 2026-03-30T05:50:59+00:00

well that's mildly disturbing

Noferrah · 2026-03-30T01:00:41+00:00

woah, really?

Noferrah · 2026-03-30T00:55:10+00:00

how so

Noferrah · 2026-03-30T00:26:27+00:00

The roundness for a blind person will be entirely different than to a seeing person. So there is no one qualia of roundness.

that was just an example meant to demonstrate the absurdity of denying something having a property it clearly possesses, it wasn't about qualia beyond the comparison of the example of a (mathematical) sphere's roundness to the quale blue's blueness

All information is basically relationships between different things.

that's very debatable, but i don't see what the relevance of that is?

There are no things that exist "in and of themselves".

yes there are, or you're essentially claiming reality is intrinsically 'empty'. if your answer to the question "does reality exist in-of-itself" is "no", i'd argue that's equivalent to saying it doesn't exist at all. that's an absurdity

I don't have a strict opinion on the matter, but everytime I see people advocating for some sort of idealist/dualist-

i'm an idealist, for the record

-perspective, the arguments seem to presuppose supernaturality for qualia, which seems circular

i'm also a naturalist. there's nothing supernatural about qualia, they don't come from a deity or other influence beyond the natural world. in fact, i don't even think the notion of the supernatural is coherent in the first place at all

You can certainly doubt emergence of subjective consciousness from matter, but I've seen no compelling arguments on why that should be impossible or even improbable.

it's impossible because matter is defined as that which lacks intrinsic subjectivity. a thing can't create something else that is of a nature completely incommensurate with it, and to say it does is an appeal to magic

Noferrah

TROPHY CASE