Dr. Bernardo Kastrup, What Split Personality Tells Us About Consciousness |461|

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Dr. Bernardo Kastrup, What Split Personality Tells Us About Consciousness |461|
by Alex Tsakiris | Aug 25 | Consciousness Science
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Dr. Bernardo Kastrup, opens up about extended consciousness, dissociative identity, and angels and demons.
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photo by: Skeptiko
[Clip 00:00:00 – 00:00:35]
That’s a scene from the movie Split, which portrays a very extreme case of dissociative identity disorder, but that’s just Hollywood, right?
Well consider today’s interview with Dr. Bernardo Kastrup.
Dr. Bernardo Kastrup: [00:00:34] Okay, suppose that universal consciousness has something akin to the DID. So it also forms alters. What would an altar look like from the point of view of another alter? I would say it will look like what we call life, a body, a metabolizing organism.
Alex Tsakiris: [00:00:52] Hold on, that isn’t exactly what I’m talking about, because you actually kind of pulled us into the water. So you just wrote a book on the metaphysics of Jung, right? Jungian metaphysics, something along those lines, right?
Dr. Bernardo Kastrup: [00:01:03] Correct, yeah.
Alex Tsakiris: [00:01:04] So Jung is talking about the shadow, he’s saying, “Well, I work with clients, and we can kind of treat them just like they’re separate, but they’re really not.” But then he switches over and he goes, “Yeah, but they are,” and he’s kind of saying both.
Dr. Bernardo Kastrup: [00:01:18] That’s right, yeah. I think if you study Jung’s corpus carefully, it’s pretty clear that that’s what he thought. So from that perspective, it aligns with what some religious traditions would call disconnected personalities. Jung explicitly associated these dissociated complexes with what in the tradition has been called angels and demons.
 
I believe there is an error in the transcript, Alex: [00:01:18] That’s right, yeah. I think if you study Jung’s corpus carefully, it’s pretty clear that that’s what he thought. So from that perspective, it aligns with what some religious traditions would call disconnected personalities. Jung explicitly associated these dissociated complexes with what in the tradition has been called angels and demons. The word disconnected should be disincarnate.
 
[ ...] suppose that universal consciousness has something akin to the DID. So it also forms alters. What would an altar look like from the point of view of another alter? I would say it will look like what we call life, a body, a metabolizing organism.

This is such a far out way of depicting creation it blows my mind. To be fair, I am sure he elaborates in his work, but I do not have time to read it. He may well just intend it as a thought experiment.

I actually find the statement empowering. Again, I am not a Chrisitian but in researching comparative religion I think the frontrunner creation story is that of Origen, who actually engaged more in metaphysics than in theology even though he was a (maverick) Christian. In my own writing I have been worried that presenting his views would sound strange to the general public. But they are pretty tame compared to Bernardo's statement!

Thanks as always, Alex.
 
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I believe there is an error in the transcript, Alex: [00:01:18] That’s right, yeah. I think if you study Jung’s corpus carefully, it’s pretty clear that that’s what he thought. So from that perspective, it aligns with what some religious traditions would call disconnected personalities. Jung explicitly associated these dissociated complexes with what in the tradition has been called angels and demons. The word disconnected should be disincarnate.
thx. fixed.
 
Thanks Alex for another fantastic choice for interviewing and the succinct editing to make this work much easier to understand.

Dr. Bernardo Kastrup's idea to crack the code which separates us into individuals is cutting edge research targeting.
Within 20 years is possible if the actual powers that be feel confident they will not be reduced in terms of their ability to participate with "reasonable comfort" in the resulting/resulted game.

I would think this would mean that structured ideas of right and wrong (significances associated to action categories) would be required.
Required fluidity of significances (possibly toward higher toned aesthetics) to show these powers that damaging significances will not grow a life of their own (no potential for gain from a greater life realm or have such an avenue for a greater life realm to give negative significances overwhelming effective statuses).
Currently this Earth playing field is theirs. So if we ponder the possibility of consciousness finding its secret code for individuating so drastically real, then we should expect the controllers of energy - money and such - will regulate the funding either for or against progress depending on their ideas of their own personal securities.
Sorry, but maybe not so sorry, if we want to know that code, we would also want assurances that things won't go out of control (again). And those assurances will be directly linked to fundamental agreements for what is "OK" to assign as right/wrong good/evil.
Are we right (all of us) are we good (all of us)? More basically, are we valid (all of us)?
And what assurances are there that some virus of a mind won't make us all sick again (some way invalid again)?
 
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Dr. Bernardo Kastrup's idea to crack the code which separates us into individuals is cutting edge research targeting.
Yes it is. But I doubt he will ever be successful. Such a revelation would be the end of individuality. There would be nothing that is not known by all of us. There would be no more taking advantage of anyone, which is essential to keeping corrupt society going *smoothly* (no pun intended). Certainly the powers that be would not at all be okay with it. An additional consequence would be that life in this world for the rest of us would lose its challenge and mystique.
 
I liked this podcast. I think we mostly agree that metaphysical physicalism(MP) is untenable, and all efforts to expose this to a larger audience - the readers of Scientific American, for example - are desirable. Science has battled in favour of MP for so long, that the evidence against the idea has become so overwhelming that the dam might break in a rush.

IMHO, Bernardo is at his best when he doesn't juggle metaphors, which simply muddy the waters. I like idea that the existence of MPD validates the idea that a universal consciousness containing 'us' as sub-consciousnesses. As opposed to the alternative concept of panpsychism.

I hope Bernardo will join in this discussion, because I would like to ask him this question:

Surely panpsychism is weaker even than he already claims, because it seems to me to be incompatible with QM. Every electron has to be identical, and that implies that any awareness that they might possess would have to be identical too. Now it seems to me that if you combine two or more identical awarenesses all you get is the same awareness. It is like combining multiple copies of Pythagorus' theorem - all you get is Pythagoras' theorem!

David
 
Yes it is. But I doubt he will ever be successful. Such a revelation would be the end of individuality.
As I understand it - which isn't well -Buddhist philosopy seems to come close to this revelation, but it hasn't caused society to collapse!

When I thought I understood the myself and the whole world in a purely physical way - as interacting particles - it didn't stop me falling in love with another collection of fundamental particles!

David
 
As I understand it - which isn't well -Buddhist philosopy seems to come close to this revelation, but it hasn't caused society to collapse!

When I thought I understood the myself and the whole world in a purely physical way - as interacting particles - it didn't stop me falling in love with another collection of fundamental particles!

David

cute.
 
I REALLY enjoyed Bernardo's interview b/c it fits right into Nisargadatta Maharaj's book, I Am That. He says all our casting about for peace, meaning, & so on rests on ignoring the only Reality there is & that is "I am." Prove it by negation: you're not your body, emotions, mind, gender, nationality, or any of the other ways that you can identify yourself. The ego (a collection of memories) & the pain body (recollections of emotional pain) do a great job of distracting us from the silent witness. So, we keep "splitting off", so to speak, & pay attention to self-created images of ourselves that are always fail us since we forget what they are: impermanent shadows that appear & disappear. I have to agree that bringing this simple idea to the general public is an uphill battle on a glass slope coated w/ olive oil . I am still amazed at how few people have had the experience of the silent watcher. The interview of a young Indian woman that I saw recently promotes bhakti yoga through diet & other means reported a study that showed people overwhelmingly preferred an electric shock to 10 minutes alone w/ their thoughts. Finally, the few that I can lure into the discussing the Absolute Reality at best acknowledge their awareness of it, but after a few minutes of discussion, it's obvious that that's only lip service.
 
So, we keep "splitting off", so to speak, & pay attention to self-created images of ourselves that are always fail us since we forget what they are: impermanent shadows that appear & disappear.
nice :)
 
He is just so solid, we’re talking multiple PhDs, one in philosophy, one in computer science, a high-level job in the tech world, used to work at CERN.


I don't doubt his intelligence, or his achievements, but he is not familiar with psychical research. He doesn't seem to know anything about this topic.

Richard Dawkins is an intelligent man as well and he is also a MA and Doctor of Philosophy etc. but it doesn't make him an all-knowing expert on all possible topics. Like Kastrup, he is ignorant of psychical research and therefore his opinions about these matters are utterly irrelevant.

And then the other alternative, which is a form of idealism, it’s the one I endorse, is that there is only one universal consciousness, so we don’t need to combine anything.


Kastrup criticizes materialism, but at the same time he preaches a far more detrimental philosophy: the doctrine of oneness. Like Dawkins, he ignores the evidence that supports personal survival after death, and instead promotes his own harmful ideology.
 
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I don't doubt his intelligence, or his achievements, but he is not familiar with psychical research. He doesn't seem to know anything about this topic.

Richard Dawkins is an intelligent man as well and he is also a MA and Doctor of Philosophy etc. but it doesn't make him an all-knowing expert on all possible topics. Like Kastrup, he is ignorant of psychical research and therefore his opinions about these matters are utterly irrelevant.




Kastrup criticizes materialism, but at the same time he preaches a far more detrimental philosophy: the doctrine of oneness. Like Dawkins, he ignores the evidence that supports personal survival after death, and instead promotes his own harmful ideology.
Hang on - surely you are assuming that consciousnesses merge back into the big daddy consciousness at death.

We may pass through many lifetimes (possibly with interludes without a physical body) before perhaps we merge back again.

OTH, I think this is part of the problem with Idealism - it is so permissive that it is easy to come to wrong conclusions.

David
 
Hang on - surely you are assuming that consciousnesses merge back into the big daddy consciousness at death.

We may pass through many lifetimes (possibly with interludes without a physical body) before perhaps we merge back again.

OTH, I think this is part of the problem with Idealism - it is so permissive that it is easy to come to wrong conclusions.

David


The end result would still be the same: total annihilation. It doesn't matter, if merging would happen sooner or later. It would still be the total destruction of individuality. Fortunately, that is merely a religious belief. There is zero evidence for that belief. Psychical research, on the other hand, has produced lots of evidence for personal survival, and this evidence refutes the belief in oneness/merging.
 
What are the chances that Bernardo will succeed in less than 20 years in changing the dominant paradigm from materialism to idealism?

I'd give it 50-50. The fly in the ointment is that physicalists are already retreating to panpsychism, which I see as a last ditch attempt to retain materialism. The prevalent version views consciousness as a property of matter, starting with subatomic particles, which in some vague and unspecified way are able to aggregate and complexify -- the combination problem.

Idealism, on the other hand, views matter as the appearance to dissociated entities (a.k.a. alters) of a transpersonal, cosmic consciousness (M@L) which is seen as being aware, but not aware that it's aware (or metaconscious). If it were metaconscious (the view of Abrahamic religions), then its consciousness would be like that of its alters, and the implication would be that in a way it purposely creates evil and suffering.

The postulate is that it doesn't: what creates them is the metaconscious, self-reflective minds of alters, or put another way, the very phenomenon of dissociation itself. This is more in line with non-Abrahamic religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism, which see evil and suffering ultimately as illusion, and the task of alters, through realising this, to escape the "wheel of Karma" by becoming "enlightened", i.e. by seeing the truth and realising that Atman is Brahman. We are not separate and distinct from M@L; in Abrahamic terms, we're all "divine sparks".

To me, dissociation isn't something that M@L purposely elects to do; it's entirely automatic or "instinctual" -- what it does, always has done and always will do (it can't help it because it's in its very nature). The idea that it does it as a metaconscious game to stave off cosmic boredom, though seductive, is in this view erroneous. It doesn't purposely forget itself to enjoy and be entertained by its self-rediscovery, as Alan Watts' charming story for children has it. Being purposive requires metaconsciousness rather than "simple" (not to be confused with powerless) pure consciousness/awareness.

M@L "creates" metaconsciousness through dissociation; only has access to metacognition through its alters, necessarily enabling only partial knowledge/understanding of the world. Were it complete, we'd be living in a world that would seem very different from what it currently appears to be. In Abrahamic terms, it might be heaven rather than seeming hell.

M@L is coming to know more about itself through the medium of its alters. I doubt it could ever come to know itself completely; however, one of its instinctive and innate drives would be to constantly "try" to do so. This could be what leads to the appearance of evolution, which is associated with the concept of memory. Organismal evolution is evidenced by the fossil record; cultural evolution by archeological evidence. Latterly, this includes written, in addition to other artifactual, evidence. At an individual level, people can metaconsciously recollect (and possibly act on the basis of) what has happened in their own lifetimes.

Anyway, enough for now. I'll just add that I have recently viewed a video about David Bohm and his "implicate order" that seems to gibe to some extent with all this and much else that concerns our discussions here at Skeptiko. Here it is:


Bohm tried for years to change the accepted paradigm, but met stiff resistance from the scientific establishment, which simply ignored ideas that to my mind overlap somewhat with those of Bernardo. Nonetheless, both videos like this and Bernardo's work can't any longer be considered peremptorily dismissible. Bernardo's views, after all, have been published in highly respected journals such as the Scientific American. There are definite signs that the dam is leaking, albeit not yet burst. At some point, and it could be quite soon, there might be revolutionary change...
 
The end result would still be the same: total annihilation. It doesn't matter, if merging would happen sooner or later. It would still be the total destruction of individuality. Fortunately, that is merely a religious belief. There is zero evidence for that belief. Psychical research, on the other hand, has produced lots of evidence for personal survival, and this evidence refutes the belief in oneness/merging.
Well is it possible to imagine what it would feel like to merge with another consciousness? You are assuming it would be oblivion, but that might not be true. In any case, who is to say that this merger ever takes place, or maybe only takes place if the sub-mind agrees to it.

It is interesting because I have long argued that scientific theories only make sense when ordered in time. GR only made sense after NG had matured for a few centuries, and evidence of flaws in the theory had been detected. GR and QM are actually incompatible, and yet both are used. In my view it is probably more useful to adopt Dualism for the time being, because it explains a lot but isn't as hopelessly permissive as Idealism.

David
 
There are definite signs that the dam is leaking, albeit not yet burst. At some point, and it could be quite soon, there could be revolutionary change...
There is also the ticking time bomb of the fact that evolution by natural selection is false, and scientists just fudge round the issue. ID more or less blows away materialism, except that the intelligent designers could in principle be another race of beings whose biology was compatible with RM+NS (if one is possible).

David
 
Well is it possible to imagine what it would feel like to merge with another consciousness? You are assuming it would be oblivion, but that might not be true. In any case, who is to say that this merger ever takes place, or maybe only takes place if the sub-mind agrees to it.

Fair enough. It would indeed be hard to imagine what it would feel like to merge with another consciousness.

I don't believe in merging, but the proponents of the doctrine of oneness certainly do:
Forfeiting your identity as a personality by willingly absorbing into the light of God
Psychic Sylvia Browne's Near-Death Experience Revelations

To me that sounds like total destruction of individuality, as I wrote in a previous post.
 
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