The Physical Body, Internal Dissociation & Metacognition
Can we become less dissociated and follow our inner guidance? Is reality a lesson or research lab?
Recording thumbnail: Photo by AMIT UIKEY / Unsplash
Date: 4 March 2025
Duration: 2h 3m
0:00:00 The body, inner boundaries and self-awareness
0:10:06 Can an AI answer tell us what is true?
0:15:22 Are we assembled minds—or one life dividing within?
0:20:03 Gut bacteria and the boundaries of the self
0:25:13 Why the body’s cells are not simply independent organisms
0:30:35 Mitochondria: partners within us?
0:40:25 Two kinds of dissociative boundary
0:45:16 Can the ego maintain its own boundaries?
0:50:19 How can memories influence us without our knowing?
0:55:04 You are more than the part doing the talking
1:00:09 The body’s spectrum of autonomous processes
1:10:07 Why physics moved from particles to fields
1:15:04 Swedenborg and the meaning of appearances
1:20:35 Could some of nature’s mind be inaccessible to us?
1:25:22 What would survival filter out of perception?
1:30:12 Listening to the body’s sense of direction
1:35:17 Why decisions need feeling
1:40:22 Metacognition lets us build beyond one lifetime
1:50:18 What exists for an observer—and what exists for itself
1:55:26 A research laboratory without a teacher holding the answers?
2:00:25 When abstractions outweigh the suffering in front of us
This was a great session, exploring how our physical bodies relate to consciousness, including discussions about cells, bacteria, mitochondria, and whether they constitute separate alters or part of a unified system.
We also discussed the miracle of metacognition, it's evolutionary significance, and its potential dangers when disconnected from bodily experience.
Here are a couple of examples of questions asked. Check out the comments for more, and check out the schedule for other upcoming themes!
Are we multiple alters? - Aaron Day
Some base things before the actual question:
1) Alters of TWE have dissociated parts themselves, complexes in Jungian terminology.
2) Under AI biology is what dissociative processes look like from across another dissociative boundary.
So my question is around how we can make sense of a 'single' alter, a complex system, where our biology is set of nested ecosystems. The essentia foundation documentary on bacteria was fascinating on this count. Bacteria make up a massive part of a biology and is essential to our life and, therefore, the maintenance of our own dissociation. Bacteria are also there own biological systems making them simple alters themselves. Are we then comprised of millions of alters somehow maintained within one overarching alter? If so what is the mechanism of this and where do we draw the line between subjectivities?
ARE THERE INACCESSIBLE MENTAL PROCESSES IN MaL? - Dan
Are there mental processes in MAL that are, in principle, completely inaccessible to any alter’s screen of perception—not even faintly registered?
A reminder of how to ask questions:
Bernardo Kastrup
Analytic idealism
Bernardo Kastrup is the Executive Director of Essentia Foundation and Founder/CEO at AI systems company Euclyd BV. His work has set off the modern renaissance of metaphysical idealism. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy (ontology, philosophy of mind) and another in computer engineering (reconfigurable computing, artificial intelligence).
As a scientist, he has worked for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Philips Research Laboratories (where the ‘Casimir Effect’ of Quantum Field Theory was discovered). He has also been creatively active in the high-tech industry for almost 30 years, having founded parallel processor company Silicon Hive (acquired by Intel in 2011) and worked as a technology strategist for the geopolitically significant company ASML. Most recently, he has founded AI company Euclyd BV.
Formulated in detail in many academic papers and books, his ideas have been featured in Scientific American, the magazine of The Institute of Art and Ideas, the Blog of the American Philosophical Association and Big Think, among others. His most defining book is Analytic Idealism in a Nutshell: A straightforward summary of the 21st-century’s only plausible metaphysics.
Explore Bernardo’s work →Go deeper
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