Could meaning be healing? Bernardo Kastrup on suffering, purpose & ethics

If the body "isn’t merely a lump of matter," but rather, the image of your deep psyche, then mental and physical health become one. The psychological. The biological. The meaning you give your life. These become many perspectives on the same thing.

'Physical health' would be what the deepest layers of your mental health look like from a third-person perspective. For those who know to read it, the body becomes a map, a representation of unconscious thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and dreams.

Your mental health would be the reality, the territory this map seeks to reveal.

Importantly, this "mental health" includes the process by which universal mind reflects back on itself - the temporary dissociation that is "you." Maintaining this cognitive dissociation looks like metabolic processes - digestion, elimination and the immune system. The ways in which the body maintains a barrier between you and the world. The symbol for how universal mind spirals around itself to take a particular vantage point on its own activity.

When this breaks down, we experience pain.

But under Analytic Idealism, the suffering experienced by living beings is suffering inflicted by Universal Consciousness onto itself. So, is this suffering intentional, or some horrific mistake?

In this short excerpt (from our meeting on ethics two weeks ago,) Bernardo explores these potential implications. Tomorrow, we will draw on Jung's 'Answer to Job' in our enquiry. How might medicine broaden its scope, and how might philosophy tend to the wounds of the physical...

You're invited to join the conversation, and to add your voice in the comments here.

I hope you can make it,

Best wishes,

Amir