Challenging Reality: The Philosophy Turning Materialism Upside Down

Dr. Bernardo Kastrup is a philosopher and computer scientist, active in some of the world's leading scientific laboratories. Kastrup has written several books on the philosophy of mind and consciousness, but his recent provocative work, "Why Materialism is Baloney", takes a bold stand.

Materialism posits that everything in the world is merely nature. Kastrup argues that this isn't just a mistaken view; it's a simplistic understanding of the world. He proposes that there's not only material, with spirit somewhere beyond, a concept known as "dualism". According to Kastrup, there's only spirit in the world. What appears as material is merely a manifestation of spirit. This perspective, known as "idealism", aligns closely with Jewish faith: "He who commanded the oil to burn can command the vinegar to do so."

This approach isn't popular in modern discourse, as people often mistakenly view it as a conspiracy theory or say "life is an illusion", like a matrix scenario. In truth, our sole interaction with reality is through our consciousness—our spirit—via abstract reality. Our knowledge of reality and matter is a form of secondary processing that we do.

Kastrup makes his argument with utmost clarity: our only gateway to reality is through consciousness, which is evidently non-material. Matter cannot contemplate itself, and even as it becomes more complex, like a space shuttle, it's still not capable of self-awareness. 

All our knowledge of the world is mediated by consciousness, which is a non-material system. Thus, there is ultimately no proof of matter's existence. The only reality we know is the experience of matter within our non-material consciousness. To be a materialist is to duplicate reality, while the default is an experience of the world by our non-material consciousness.

Even according to materialism, we don't directly perceive matter. What we supposedly see with our eyes is an image created within our brains. Light rays form a brain image, and theoretically, different people or creatures might perceive the same thing differently. Seeing is an act of creation, not "the thing itself." Judgment about sensory perception is a brain's judgment, and especially according to materialism, there's no reason to assume this judgment is accurate or reaches the real thing.

Consciousness, according to Kastrup, is part of a general consciousness. Our bodily limitations narrow consciousness to the body, but as one listens to their inner truth, they may connect to the general consciousness. This idea is akin to the "active intellect" discussed by Maimonides and others before us. Wisdom isn't a human creation; we access and attain it, but we don't create it. Just as mathematical rules existed before humans understood them—allowing different people to independently comprehend them—so do all abstract principles and wisdom, existing independently as a creation of Hashem.

When a person dies, Kastrup asserts, consciousness doesn't disappear or contract. On the contrary, it expands. Death is about releasing limitations and restraints, a notion consistent with Jewish thought.

The difference between idealism and theories of illusion or solipsism is that it doesn’t claim all reality is my imagination, nor that others don't exist. Rather, each person's consciousness exists independently, while matter resides in our consciousness. "Natural laws" are the rules shaping what we call "reality" as we experience it.

In essence, asking whether matter exists becomes meaningless because we have no concept of what matter is beyond the experience it gives us. When I see a table, what's occurring is the mental creation of a table image. I have no notion of "there is a table" beyond the image in my mind.

Therefore, Kastrup says, if materialists talk about skepticism, their worldview crumbles first in the face of any doubt.