An Ontological Solution to the Mind-Body Problem
Bernardo Kastrup
Philosophies, Vol. 2, No. 2
Summary
Kastrup's core peer-reviewed statement of analytic idealism — arguing that spatially unbound consciousness is nature's sole ontological primitive and that all observable reality is its extrinsic manifestation. Humans and other organisms are dissociated alterations of this universal consciousness. The framework avoids both the hard problem of consciousness (which afflicts physicalism) and the subject combination problem (which afflicts panpsychism). Kastrup is the most prominent contemporary philosopher of idealism and is cross-referenced in multiple existing DECUR catalog papers.
Abstract
I argue for an idealist ontology consistent with empirical observations, which seeks to explain the facts of nature more parsimoniously than physicalism and bottom-up panpsychism. This ontology also attempts to offer more explanatory power than both physicalism and panpsychism, in that it does not fall prey to either the 'hard problem of consciousness' or the 'subject combination problem,' respectively. It can be summarized as follows: spatially unbound consciousness is posited as nature's sole ontological primitive. We, as well as all other living organisms, are dissociated alters of this unbound consciousness. The universe we see around us is the extrinsic appearance of phenomenality surrounding — but dissociated from — our alter. Other organisms we share the world with are appearances of other alters. As such, the challenge to artificially create individualized consciousness becomes synonymous with the challenge to induce abiogenesis.
Citation
Bernardo Kastrup. (2017). Philosophies. Vol. 2. No. 2. DOI: 10.3390/philosophies2020010
https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies2020010