Arguing For Idealism: The Greatest Arguments in Favor of the Kastrup Model

Dec 23, 2024

The debate which underlies the most fundamental positions in political and philosophical history has been that between idealism and materialism— Mind or matter. This topic has been tackled by nearly every philosopher of influence— Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Kant, Lenin, Gentile, and the list goes on. Unfortunately, the materialist philosophers, due to the famed “hard problem” of consciousness which their model has created (the question of why human beings have subjective experiences if all of reality is rooted in non-conscious matter), have failed to establish a useful explanatory model. This article will defend idealism as an explanatory model for reality on the basis of Bernardo Kastrup’s metaphysical theory and endeavor to examine the flaws and extreme limitations of physicalism/metaphysical materialism.

The Hard Problem of Consciousness

The hard problem of consciousness, also known as the “explanatory gap” of materialism, is that if all of reality is solely material (emergent from substance which lacks any subjective experience), then how does personal experience come to emerge? The materialist introduces (most frequently) the argument that perhaps qualia (a more jargony term for conscious experience) merely emerges from complex interactions of matter. To help better illustrate this argument, one might say that the descriptive property of “wetness” emerges from a multitude of water particles interacting. The case goes that interactions of matter can bring about emergent properties of matter, as the physicalist would posit that consciousness is a property of the brain. In otherwards, consciousness in the materialist worldview is generally a novel property which emerges when matter reaches a certain threshold of complexity.

This overlooks one crucial error: Subjective experiences and physical processes are fundamentally different phenomena. This is demonstrated by the very fact that physical processes are third-person occurrences, while qualia is definitionally first-person and subjective. And so, it is a false equivalence to state that material process (ie, water producing wetness) could possibly be compared to a physical object (the brain) creating a property which completely transcends matter by forming subjective experiences.

Complexity can reorganize or rearrange existing properties, this much is true, such as water molecules producing the property of “wetness” when an array of water molecules is arranged together. However, complexity cannot conjure fundamentally new categories of existence. No matter how complex a computer is, it will never conjure a completely new category of being. No arrangement of pebbles, no matter how intricate, will suddenly produce "redness" or "pain." By evoking the theory of the “emergence” of subjective experience without theorizing a new mechanism by which this occurs, they have merely offset the problem which their own metaphysical theory has invented all by itself.

Unfortunately, the materialist position is not even the most unjustifiable. Substance dualism has attempted to provide an answer to the hard problem by stating that qualia and matter must be two separate substances. The question then arises, how do these two substances possibly interact? The dualist then inserts a third mystery substance as an explanatory model. Now the question arises, “Through what medium does this secret third substance interact with the earlier two?”, and so an infinite regress occurs.

Addressing the Shared World Objection

“What of the objections to metaphysical idealism?”, the astute reader may ask. The primary criticisms of idealism will be laid out in full and addressed on the basis of the responses provided within Bernardo Kastrup’s “Refuting Criticisms”. The most important critique of idealism is the “Shared World Objection”, which goes something along the lines of: If reality is phenomenality itself, then the world is essentially akin to a dream. Therefore, all human beings are partaking in the same dream according to idealism. This cannot be the case, however, says the materialist, as we are all in separate bodies, and it is the mental state of bodies which creates dreams.

This is, as Bernardo Kastrup astutely points out, merely begging the question. It presupposes that the physical body’s brain state creates dreams. Under idealism, however, the physical body is within phenomenality, not phenomenality within the body. The refutation is, then, an easy one. Idealism as an explanatory model posits that we all share the same world because of the fact that individual psyches all exist within the same phenomenal reality.

Addressing the Stand-Alone World Objection

Another important criticism from the materialist is the “Stand-Alone World Objection” which posits that the cosmos cannot be generated by experience, as this would be inconsistent with the fact that if an object is not being actively observed by a subject (a person), it continues to exist all on its own. In otherwards, the world indeed does seem to stand on its own without the need for observation or experiential knowledge. Why is this the case if metaphysical idealism is true?

The answer is simple: Idealism posits that as all which “is”, is experiential, the universe itself must be experiential. In other words, the physical world is merely a perceptual representation of phenomenality which exists outside of the personal psyche, in “universal consciousness”. This maintains an explanation for the independence of the world from subjectivity while maintaining that everything unfolds within universal consciousness.

Addressing the Natural Order Objection

The “Natural Order Objection” goes something like this: How does the natural order work? If idealism is correct, laws of nature are simply thought patterns which the natural universe follows. How can this be, as within even our own subjective psyches, our thought patterns and emotions are so versatile and unpredictable? If the universe were composed of phenomenality, shouldn’t we expect the same pattern of unpredictability as seen in every being which has consciousness? The answer is no.

The unstable or unpredictable patterns of human behavior are simply products of evolution and the interaction of various species with nature in their hunt for survival. At a macro-level, we have no reason to believe the universe has undergone the same developments as biological species have. Under idealism and physicalism alike, nature’s laws are irreducible patterns which the universe must abide by to create coherency. Idealism posits that these laws, akin to the Jungian archetypes, are universal archetypes according to which being unfolds upon itself.

Addressing the Primacy of Brain Function Objection

But what about the clear relation between neurological activity and subjective experience? You can scan the brain, which is made of matter, and map specific feelings and experiences within it. Material substances or traumatic head injuries clearly can alter one’s experience rather dramatically. Surely this demonstrates the ‘primacy of brain function’, in otherwards, the primacy of matter. This is certainly a defeater for idealism… right? No.

As pointed out previously, idealism posits that personal psyches are simply integral parts of phenomenality, which is reality itself. The refutation against the ‘Stand-Alone World Objection’ demonstrates that the material world is easily explainable as the tangible appearance of a fundamental universe comprised of phenomenality. To make this rather nuanced subject as simple and short as possible: The physical, as previously covered, is a kind of phenomenality. Interference from the external, material world, is merely a form of phenomenality interfering with a subject’s experience, since idealism already posits the universe to be this phenomenal existence itself. A universe comprised of experience which disrupts or impinges upon an individual experience (such as drugs altering a mental state) is something which idealism not only accounts for, but is consistent with what occurs within the brain already, as your thoughts disrupt your emotions, your emotions disrupt your thoughts, dreams interfere with your processing, etc etc. Experiences interfere with each other all of the time. This doesn’t mean anything for materialism. As the world around us is indeed phenomenal according to idealism, what makes the interference of external phenomenal forces upon personal psyches incompatible with the notion that the world is fundamentality phenomenal? Nothing.

What Neuroimaging Tells Us About the Mind-Body Problem

As Kastrup points out in “What Neuroimaging of the Psychedelic State Tells Us about the Mind-Body Problem”, neuroimaging itself informs us that the mind-body problem cannot, and indeed does not, lean in favor of the materialist position. Two separate studies on the usage of psilocybin and LSD revealed to us that although individual psychological experience depicts rich, vivid experiences while on psychedelic drugs, material measurements of brain activity, on the other hand, such as cerebral blood flow, demonstrate reduced neural activity, meaning the brain must become less active during a psychedelic state. Materialism must assert that consciousness and experience is constituted by observable brain activity. Richer experience should correlate to increased brain activity. This, however, is blatantly false.

The greater informational content entailed by the experience of a psychedelic state simply does not map onto the decreased pattern of physical brain activity, which should (if the physicalist is correct) demonstrate more brain activity. This specific problem is not a defeater, but it is an important challenge which physicalists should put much more thought into answering.

What’s Next for Materialism?

As it appears, physicalism has failed not only to hold predictive power but holds no strength or even coherency as an explanatory model whatsoever. In its present condition it ought to be disregarded as one of the many failed philosophies of history such as sophism, pyrrhonism and solipsism, which while once considered of important significance, today find themselves laughed out of most philosophical circles or ignored altogether. Meanwhile, idealism has succeeded in establishing a useful explanatory model which also succeeds in filling in the gaps which have been left behind by materialism.