What Do We Actually Know? — Bernardo Kastrup

you there is no experience without an experiencer so we know that we know that this thing that appears in our perception in which we call a brain with certain brain activity correlates with other types of experience namely in their life if I sit on a medal and I look at the flowers in the blue sky that an experience if a neuroscientist were sitting next to me and with instrumentation looking at my brain and its activity the perception of the neuro scientist which is also an experience would correlate with my view of the medals there would be a correlation between what I experienced and what the neuro scientist sees as far as my brain and its activity I'm not saying that one causes the other we do not know that but we know that they correlate independent of any theory we know that and we also know that whatever we call matter whatever matter is the brains a material system just like the rest of the universe we can imagine it as composed of atoms and force fields just like the rest of the cosmos there is no fundamental difference in stuff between a brain in a galaxy it's the same theory otic table the same elements arranged in different ways so we know these four things they are independent of theory or metaphysics yeah now what is the simplest explanation for what we know I will offer you three points the first one is that experience is the behavior of that which experiences like ripples are the behavior of water like the dance is the behavior of the dancer why is this the simplest approach to the problem because it avoids having to postulate the existence of anything else there is only that which experiences and it's behaviors account for the entire dynamics of the universe the variety of experiences there's nothing to experience but that but that which experiences in the same way that there is nothing to ripples other than water in the same way that there is nothing to advance other than the dancer in movement yeah everybody's do with me we have to grant that there are two perspectives to experience like two camera angles to the same phenomenon the first person and a second person perspective the brain is simply the second person perspective of experience mmm City if I'm sitting on the meadows looking at the flower and the neuroscientist is looking at my brain in its activity my experience of the flower is a first-person perspective this experience of the flower appears to the neuroscientist as the experience of my brain in its activity my brain in its activity is the second person perspective of the first-person experience of the flower and not saying one causes the other I'm saying they're 22 camera angles of the same event of the same phenomenon the neuro scientist sees acquires a second person perspective of my watching the flowers in my watching the flowers obviously is the first person perspective so far so good now it starts getting interesting we need for because of reason and because of empirical evidence we need to make an inference and that is what we might call the cosmic brain normally I wouldn't use expressions like this but in this place I feel safe enough to to talk about cosmic brains and all that you see because the brain is a material system like the rest of the universe made of the same atoms and force fields if the brain is the second person perspective of inner life then the universe as a whole must also be the second person perspective of cosmic level in their life unless we arbitrarily say that nature behaves differently on different scales which is entire arbitrary so the fact that the brain is the second person perspective of somebody's in their life suggests is very strongly to us that the universe as a whole is the second person perspective of gods in their life if if we might use that word in context here and using the G word in context please and it might say well is this crazy because the universe doesn't look at all like a brain guess what it does this is a picture of a mouse's brain showing a few neurons and their interconnects this is simulate this is a simulation of the universe at it at its largest scales and they look pretty much alike and it might say well image comparisons are misleading because you can ask drop it in a certain way and take a certain angle there have been mathematical studies done of the structure of interconnect and growth of the universe and the conclusion has been that it's surprisingly similar to the structure and patterns of growth of a brain as we published a couple of years ago but UC San Diego which they even make press releases about it there was a lot of hoopla back then so this is consistent entirely with the rationale we have been following so far now why do these two perspectives of experience emerge because you see if you have an integrated psyche a mind there is only one perspective there are ideas emotions other contents of consciousness associated with one another within that mind how does the second person perspective emerge my suggestion to you is that it it arises out of a process of dissociation have you ever heard of people with a multiple personality disorder with separate alters or separate personalities that sort of become dissociated from each other and don't identify with the whole of the psyche anymore but only with a subset this happens every day in psychiatric wards most of us have experienced some form of dissociation at some point in our lives not as dramatic as as as dissociative identity disorder but nonetheless so the idea is that certain subsets of ideas and emotions and other mental contents in that mind evoke each other in a cluster and stop evoking anything outside them so they become a sort of island that acquires a localized sense of identity illusory but it happens now the key point here is that this forms a psychic boundary around the altar it's a division an illusory division but the division that arises in mind the cognitive activity here around the outer the sea around the island is still active consciousness is still moving creating experiences ideas and emotions and that activity bounces off the boundary if you wish excite that boundary and becomes perceived from the point of view of the outer as what we call sense perception what are the boundaries of the alter my skin my eyes my nose my tongue my years these are the boundaries of my outer the activity in God's mind in the cosmic consciousness that is outside my alter not outside consciousness outside my outer bounces off those boundaries and excite the cognitive activity inside we register that as sense perception as watch what you see what you hear what you taste textures you feel with your skin so when i look at the medals that's the excitation of the boundaries of my outer the excitation of my sense organs of the cognitive activity the ideas and emotions in the mind of god in the part of mind of cosmic consciousness of infinite consciousness that are not dissociated it's a very simple interpretation and very parsimonious interpretation of what's going on that requires nothing but that which experiences nothing else is postulated here ha nizagara tamaha Raj already said this decades ago when you see the world you see God there is no single depart from the world beyond the world to see God is to be God I don't think this is some sophisticated metaphor for some abstract and spiritual reality I think he meant this quite literally I mean the man couldn't have been more clear right more straightforward let me paraphrase to you this so you understand what I think he meant when I see your body I see you there is no seeing you apart from your body beyond your body to see you is to be you the universe is the body of God the universe is to the inner life of God like your brain your body is to your inner life your brain is the second person perspective of your inner life the universe is the second person perspective of God in a life of cosmic cosmic consciousness mind at large infinite consciousness whatever name one wants to give to it yeah how much more clear could pour these are data and have been and we build all these obstructions around it and try to find some some secret meaning anyway the body is the perceptual image of an outer a dissociative outer in cause in the cosmic mind what I'm suggesting that cosmic mind has a form of dissociative identity disorder disorder between quotes I don't mean it negatively and I don't mean it as a bad thing and oh I'm sorry let me see where I come back to to where I was here and we are its authors we are dissociated alters not out ours alters the dissociated altars of God the split of personalities of God and the body is the image of that dissociative process remember I said that the cognitive activity surrounding an outer excites the boundaries of the outer and turns into perception if there is dissociation going on in this cognitive neighborhood of an outer an outer should see an image of that associative process just like everything else in nature has an image I claim that the image is a body of a person of a mosquito of a bacteria of a plant I don't know a living body is the image of a process of dissociation just next door actually the associative processes have image images last year there was this paper published they put people with dissociative identity disorder in a brain scanner and they could image this little this little dissociative process is going on in their brains it looks like something it has an image now what about God's brain the universe we don't need the scanner because we live inside it right there is no skull that we need to look through we are inside God's brain right here look around you what is the image of the dissociated altars in God's mind it's other people other living beings as above so below is this scientifically substantiated as a question that always comes back in 2005 I mean the projectors not very good but it's it's s2000 five-year nature magazine the world's most respected scientific journal professor richard conn Henry already said quite literally the universe is entirely mental on nature magazine and he based his assertion on experiments about quantum entanglement that had been going on since 1981 started with a long aspect in France and there were several other experiments in the late 90s in Switzerland and these experiments showed that the universe outside consciousness was very convoluted to defend it was very difficult to to admit possible and con Harry went as far as to call it a spiritual universe mental and spiritual live and enjoy is said in nature what happened since then it was ten years ago since then a bunch of more sophisticated experiments have been done and published two very important ones at this year one in Australia one in the Netherlands where I live basically corroborating Henry's conclusions why is this not more talked about in the media it beats me but it's it's there here the references if any one of you is curious go have a look now we've been talking about this one mind right one consciousness but then cyclists don't think like this scientific pen cyclist of the modern kind they think of mind as fragmented these little bits of minds associated to little bits of matter that then you can put together why that where does the error occur what is the motivation for that I'll tell you what I think and chris is here in half an hour he he will prove me wrong but this is what I think they assume the structure of the behavior of consciousness to be the structure of consciousness itself this is like dropping a pebble on a body of calm water and you see those concentric rings of ripples form it's like saying that the water is made of concentric rings concentric rings are the structure of the behavior of the water the ripples you're not the structure of water itself the water is not made of concentric rings when Penn cycads look at the world and they see matter fragmented all little bits of matter all over the place atoms and and accelerators and colliders that make that those particles event smaller they attribute that fragmentation to consciousness itself but what is matter but an expression a behavior and excitation of consciousness you can't attribute the structure of matter to that in which matter unfolds for the same reason that you contacted you to the structure of ripples to water a dancer doesn't take its anatomy from the choreography of the dance the structure of the dancer has nothing to do with the structure of the dance non-duality does not make this mistake so let's listen to how Rupert describes this if i can find the play button here which I'm not finding there we go your relationship to thoughts and perceptions is the same as the relationship between a screen and an image the screen doesn't derive its qualities from the image the water doesn't derive its qualities from the rings of ripples the dancer doesn't derive its Anatomy from the choreography consciousness doesn't derive its structure from the structure of matter it's just as simple artificial sanctions this idea this dream of internet amongst through this dream of engineers to create an artificial entity that has a private subjective in their life of its own this is not artificial intelligence intelligence does not require sanctions I'm talking about artificial sanctions here Allah ex machina this assumes and psychism they start from the assumptions of 10 cycles namely the idea is that since matter is fragmented bits of matter corresponds to bits of consciousness so if you put these bits of matter / consciousness together you can construct a complex mind from the bottom up by combination of minds that's the entire idea behind artificial sanctions artificial consciousness so the idea is that you start from something that is fundamentally fragmented then you put them together and somehow it becomes one combined integrated mind there are two problems with this one which I already mentioned this starting point is not justifiable there is no reason to believe that consciousness is fundamentally fragmented to begin with so this is already highly problematic but it gets worse this is an app you to magic it's like that that cartoon where there is a complex mathematical derivation and then in the middle of it it says and here a miracle happens well here a miracle happens what physical process can combine minds that are fundamentally separate electromagnetic fields we are all immersed in the same complex electromagnetic fields right now from the access points of the internet cell towers I don't feel I'm merging with the internet and with you through the internet right now physical contact we can touch each other as intimately as we want I don't think our minds really emerged as a matter of fact neurons don't touch where you would think that neurons would touch the synapse here if you look closely if you zoom in there is a gap called the synaptic cleft neurons don't touch to bridge that gap they throw balls at each other neurotransmitter molecules basically do you think that if I threw a ball at you and you threw the ball back at me our minds with merge it wouldn't what if we took seven billion people on the planet to throw and got them to throw gazillions of little balls at each other according to complex closed cycles of information integration if there any reason to believe that our minds would merge into a superhuman one superhuman lying on the planet no complexity and scale does not change the fact that the principles that apply do not justify that magic step of mind integration people who hide behind complexity and scale I dare to say are not being intellectually honest they are appealing to a mysterious miracle that happens at the scale that we can't imagine so this doesn't hold any water what does well go back to non-duality you don't need the magic of combination because it's already one to begin with it is one consciousness there is no magic it's the way nature is set up and the illusion of separation arises from a top-down process of dissociation within that cosmic mind this explains everything without any miracle and without anything that we don't know to exist dissociation is well known it's to some extent understood but it's certainly well known any psychiatric ward any person who does therapy will even be familiar with it first person it's a much better ontology for what's going on much more mature how do you restore sanity to the to this quest for artificial sanctions the first step is to recognize that this idea of creating consciousness is entirely nonsensical create what consciousness is that we're in creation happens it's already there what are you trying to create right when we talk about creating a sentient being artificially that has a private in their life subjective in a life of its own what we are talking about is an attempt to induce dissociation in cosmic mind by artificial means in other words not through normal biological reproduction that's what we're talking about is taking a piece of that consciousness that is already out there and dissociating it separating it in an ethylene illusory level from the rest so it acquires an illusory sense of separate personal identity computers and robots to the extent that they are not alive will not have private in their lives of their own because life is the image of dissociation if you are trying to induce the Association start from what you already know about it metabolism self-organization reproduction that's where you go that's what the universe that's what reality is telling you the phenomenon is so we may succeed in artificially inducing the association in cosmic mind I don't deny that we may succeed but if we do it will look much more like this than like that unfortunately I much prefer that one with them anyway summary we are bringing this to a close i still have three minutes there is experience we know that therefore there is that which experiences whatever it is i don't know what it is but it is their experiences are both the behavior of that which experiences or twe and the witnessing of that behavior by TW itself the behavior and the witnessing a one in the same process they are not separate it's one process called experience since the behavior of the w/e accounts for all experiences it accounts for all reality because a reality outside experience might as well not exist and what are we talking about therefore to explain the world we do not need to infer apostolate anything other than twe that which experiences beautifully parsimonious just like scientists like the inner life of each living being is a dissociated altar of the w/e in the image of that dissociation our living metabolizing bodies living organisms are what these authors look like them from a second person perspective through the screen of perception Ben psych is mistakenly attributes the structure of the behavior of the w/e the twe itself I don't think this is logically sound I think it's a Fault in thinking and to create a sentient being what one should try to do is to induce dissociation into the MTW we create life from non-life abiogenesis as it's called in science instead of trying to reproduce in a computer the information flow that one can measure in a human brain you see a simulation is not the phenomenon I can very accurately simulate the working of kidneys on my computer tomorrow my desktop very accurately simulate the working inner workings of kidneys but the computer will not be on my desk so sorry sorry about the this is very visual analogy a simulation of kidneys doesn't cause my computer to be the simulation is not the phenomenon to simulate information flow in a computer as it happens in a human brain will not cause the computer to be to have dissociated separate private conscious in their life of its own it's just as simple we should try to create life from non-life this brings me to the end there are more details of all this in this book it's available in the bookstore thanks