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Brief Peeks Beyond

Critical Essays on Metaphysics, Neuroscience, Free Will, Skepticism and Culture

John Hunt Publishing Ltd.

Introduction

This is probably the most important book I've written. The original idea for it seemed easy enough: my publisher and I discussed creating an anthology of essays I had previously written for webzines, blogs and magazines. The intent was to update the essays and organize them into a coherent structure. Once I embarked on the project, however, something within me saw an opportunity and I became determined to take it way beyond its original scope. The result, which you now hold in your hands, could no longer be honestly described as just an anthology. It has turned into an experiment in 'nonlinear philosophy,' with a new, unifying message of its own. Allow me to elaborate.

As I reviewed my original essays, I noticed for the first time that they were pieces of a larger jigsaw puzzle. Only with the benefit of hindsight did I realize this; the overall picture in the puzzle had eluded me up to that moment. It became clear that much of the material consisted in explorations of different angles of a single motif: an idea gestalt – an organized cognitive whole beyond the mere sum of its parts – about the human condition as it is presently manifested. It has various facets related to science, philosophy of mind, the underlying nature of reality, the state of our society and culture, the influence of the mainstream media, etc. Because of this apparent disparity of facets, the gestalt that links them together can't be conveyed through a linear narrative. There are just too many important nuances to capture that way. It can only be conveyed by tackling each of its facets within its own context so that you, dear reader, can combine the pieces of the puzzle and reconstruct the gestalt in your own mind. This is precisely what this book attempts to achieve. The essay format turns out to have been critical in that it allowed me to approach the target motif through several different angles, helping you build an overall picture of it facet by facet. If the book succeeds in its endeavor, at the end of it you will be looking upon the present nexus of the human story in a very different way.

I've attempted to make each essay in this book suggestive of, and conducive to, this global cognitive gestalt. Each contributes an important angle to it. Yet, when putting the original material together, it became clear to me that there were gaps; important pieces of the puzzle were missing. For this reason, many of the essays here are entirely new, having never before been published. They are meant to cover the gaps. All previously published material was also updated and in many ways improved. Several essays were largely rewritten to reflect new, more complete insights I've had since I first wrote them, or to make their message crisper and clearer. Most were also adapted so as to complement each other in suggesting the subtleties and nuances of the global motif that is the message of this book. Even among the essays that were least changed in terms of the number of words edited, the importance of the changes is disproportionate to the space they occupy.

Overall, this work is characterized by a new readiness on my part to go all out with my points of view. In my previous works, I've held myself back in the interest of striking a more moderate note with broader appeal. It is, however, unclear whether that was effective. What is sure is that it pruned the full expression of my views. Now, having turned 40 and witnessed my life take turns I'd never expected, I feel less motivated to compromise on my discourse. Life is just too short for that. Therefore, this book tackles, head-on, subjects I have hitherto kept out of bounds: God, 'conspiracies,' the obvious flaws of science as practiced today, the often insidious role of the media and a number of other polemical topics. You be the judge of whether my uncensored views still hold up to reason and the available evidence.

This book can be read in two ways: in sequence, from beginning to end; or by picking a different essay at each sitting. The essays have been organized in a logical and coherent sequence, optimized for insinuating the subtle bridges and relationships between the various different topics. This way, readers who are willing to read this book from cover to cover will probably develop a better grasp of the ideas in it. That said, I am well aware that many readers will prefer to pick their favorite topic from the table of contents, depending on their mood and disposition of the day, and go straight to it. I confess to often preferring this approach myself, especially when reading in bed before sleep. Therefore, I also made sure that each essay is self-contained and can be read independently of the others. The majority can be read in well under an hour. When appropriate, I refer to other essays where certain topics mentioned are covered in more depth. The price for this modularity, however, is some redundancy: many of the essays contain summaries of my metaphysics, which is necessary to give context to the ideas they express. I've endeavored to strike an optimal balance between redundancy and modularity, so readers neither feel bored with repeated content, nor miss essential context for understanding each essay.

Whichever way you prefer to read this book, I do suggest that you always start with essays 2.1 and 2.2. They provide context that underlies what is discussed in most other essays. Although the key contextual points are, as mentioned above, repeated each time, readers will derive more value from the rest of the book if they have more extensive prior grasp of those two initial texts.

A couple of observations should be made at this point. This is largely a critical work: it criticizes today's science, philosophy, media, culture and society. It is also largely a body of – hopefully well-substantiated –opinions. Yet, the criticisms it contains are not always preceded by a disclaimer asserting that what follows is an expression of opinion. Doing so would be highly detrimental to flow and readability. Let this be the general disclaimer, thus: unless stated otherwise, you should assume that what you will find in the following pages is an expression of my opinions. The extensive substantiation of my arguments does not change this fact.

Another important observation: I use the words 'mind' and 'consciousness' interchangeably. The meaning I lend to the word 'consciousness' – and thus 'mind' – is defined early in essay 2.1. I use the term 'psyche' when I mean personal consciousness, or personal mind. This terminology may be confusing to some: in non-duality circles, the word 'mind' has come to be associated with 'thoughts;' that is, with a particular type of contents of consciousness. Yet, my use of the terms is more consistent with their traditional meaning in Western philosophy.

Finally, this book contains a high concentration of ideas. Very few words are wasted. I go quickly to the point and don't ramble around. While this will probably feed the enthusiasm of some readers, it may prove a little too intense to others. I apologize to the latter: my approach here reflects my surrender to what comes more naturally to me, rather than a deliberate attempt to favor a particular segment of my readership.

So if you're ready, buckle up and join me in a multi-faceted, fast-paced, nonlinear exploration of the human condition in the early 21st century. Here we go!

On metaphysics and cosmology

Our culture takes for granted that reality exists 'out there' and is fundamentally independent of consciousness. This postulate seems to explain a number of things that we, otherwise, would allegedly be unable to make sense of: the continuity of events while we are asleep, the undeniable correlations between brain states and experience, the fact that we all seem to share the same reality, etc. For this reason, we've allowed our values, economic and political systems, ways of relating to nature and each other, psychology, medicine, social dynamics, etc., to be all subtly colored – if not outright determined – by such a postulate. But does it stand to reason and evidence? In this chapter, we will explore the underlying nature of reality and our condition as conscious entities within it.

Essay 2.1 summarizes the metaphysics more extensively described in my earlier book Why Materialism Is Baloney. But beyond a mere summary, it also extends and refines that metaphysics, elaborating on it in a more direct, sharper, explicit, less metaphor-loaded manner. Essay 2.2 then lists and addresses each of the key materialist counter-arguments against the ideas in essay 2.1, refuting them one by one. It is not only the longest essay of this book, but probably one of its most important and original contributions as well. Essay 2.3 takes the form of a short story. It seeks to illustrate a different way of seeing and interpreting the ancient ideas of an immortal soul and an afterlife from the perspective of the metaphysics described in essay 2.1. Essay 2.4 discusses how the survival of consciousness beyond physical death is, in fact, a direct implication of our most basic common sense. Essay 2.5 confronts a distinction that materialism has difficulties with: the obvious difference between living beings and inanimate objects. It also explains why the notion that all reality is in consciousness does not imply that inanimate objects are themselves conscious. Essay 2.6 then bites a big bullet: God. It argues that the existence of a conscious, omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent agency is, surprisingly, a direct implication of metaphysical parsimony. This is profoundly counterintuitive from a materialist perspective, which holds precisely that the existence of a deity defies parsimony. The essay further maintains that evidence for God is literally all around us. Finally, essay 2.7 grapples with one of the biggest mysteries in science today: the measurement problem of quantum mechanics. It argues that the explanation for that conundrum is, in fact, the very same phenomenon that explains how our ordinary awareness arises from seemingly unconscious mental activity. In the process of making its case, the essay ends up bringing together the Copenhagen and the Many-Worlds interpretations of quantum mechanics, which materialism deems irreconcilable.

2.1. A more parsimonious, logical, non-materialist worldview

The mainstream metaphysics of our culture – materialism – states that the world is fundamentally outside consciousness. Reality supposedly consists of an unfathomably complex assemblage of stand-alone material particles, all of which would still exist in the absence of any subjective experience. It's not difficult to see why so many of us buy into this view: reality is clearly outside our heads and undoubtedly shared by different individuals. When I go to a stadium to watch a football match, the other thousands of people in the stadium apparently experience the same match. The obvious explanation for this sharing of experience is that the match exists outside the personal consciousness of the spectators, so they can all simultaneously observe it. If reality were just a kind of subjective dream, how could separate people share the same dream? Moreover, there are correlations between the material activity of brains and subjective experience: through brain-imaging technology, neuroscientists have demonstrated these correlations beyond any doubt. Therefore, materialism seems to be entirely justified in extracting one additional conclusion: not only does matter exist outside consciousness, specific arrangements of matter in the form of active brains generate consciousness. All this seems to make perfect sense.

There are, however, two major problems with it: first, the seemingly persuasive argument behind materialism is ridden with circular logic; second, since consciousness is the only carrier of reality anyone can ever know for sure, inferring an entire universe outside consciousness comes at a very steep price in terms of parsimony. Let us explore all this.

To begin with, we need to define more precisely what we mean by the word 'consciousness.' Although everybody has an intuitive understanding of it, the word itself is often overloaded with metaphysical assumptions. A materialist might define 'consciousness' as the result of certain types of brain activity, while a religious person might define it as the essential attribute of an immaterial soul. In both cases, the word is overloaded with a particular explanation. To avoid these explanatory biases, it's useful to define 'consciousness' in a purely operational manner. In this spirit, I use the following definition in this book: consciousness is that whose excitations are subjective experiences. In other words, every subjective experience is a particular excitation of consciousness – whatever consciousness may intrinsically be – just like ripples are excitations of water. This operational definition is precise and metaphysically neutral.

Now notice that, in exactly the same way that there is nothing to ripples but water, there is nothing to subjective experience but consciousness. There's nothing to an excitation but that which is excited. Therefore, there is a sense in which we can also say that consciousness is raw subjective experience itself. This is an admittedly more restrictive version of the definition above: after all, we don't say that water is ripples; ripples are just a behavior of water. Water continues to exist even when it's not rippling. However, it is extremely difficult – if not impossible – to find semantic room for the word 'consciousness' without experience. What sense is there in saying that one is conscious without being conscious of something? I am not saying that there can't be intrinsic consciousness without experience; in fact, my definition of consciousness in the previous paragraph implies that there is. Eastern spiritual traditions have also spoken for centuries of 'pure consciousness' without experience. What I am trying to point out here is merely the impossibility to coherently articulate this pure consciousness in language. As such, whatever consciousness may intrinsically be in the absence of experience – in the absence of ripples – is fundamentally beyond our ability to talk about or make sense of. Hence, defining consciousness rather restrictively as its own behavior – that is, defining water as ripples – seems fair enough for discussion purposes, as long as we understand what we are doing.

With all this in mind, we can assert that consciousness – whatever it may intrinsically be –is the only carrier of reality anyone can ever know for sure. It is the one undeniable empirical fact of existence. After all, what can we really know that isn't experienced in some form, even if only through instrumentation or the reports of others? If something is fundamentally beyond all forms of experience, direct or indirect, it might as well not exist. Because all knowledge resides in consciousness, we cannot know what is supposedly outside consciousness; we can only infer it through our capacity for abstraction.

Now, because of the principle of parsimony (which I elaborate upon in essay 4.7), we are only justified in inferring an abstract universe outside consciousness if it is necessary to make sense of things. For instance, if we cannot otherwise make sense of the fact that thousands of people can experience the same football match concurrently, then – and only then – are we justified in inferring that there is a match outside experience. But notice what a great demand this is: it is enough that we find one coherent explanation for reality on the basis of excitations of consciousness alone for a postulated universe outside consciousness to become akin to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Like the Spaghetti Monster, we cannot prove that isn't there; but it would be entirely unnecessary – and flat-out ridiculous – to postulate its existence.

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Excerpted from Brief Peeks Beyond by Bernardo Kastrup. Copyright © 2015 Bernardo Kastrup. Excerpted by permission of John Hunt Publishing Ltd..
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