Bernardo's caution to young philosophers
Going with the flow isn't easy | Q&A with Bernardo Kastrup 30th June 2026
Recording thumbnail: Photo by Kris-Mikael Krister / Unsplash
Date: 30 June 2026
Title: Following your daimon can still be hard
Duration: 5:41
https://vimeo.com/1228064705/89041247f3
0:00:00 Opening: living with a changing climate
0:03:49 Inside Amsterdam’s Embassy of the Free Mind
0:07:29 Essentia’s new search tool and an AI Bernardo
0:10:30 If dreams and waking life share a source, why differ?
0:18:54 How the unconscious speaks through dreams
0:21:43 Synchronicity: Jung’s departure from Schopenhauer
0:24:19 When a recurring dream demands attention
0:28:06 Everything has meaning: which interpretation is true?
0:31:19 Beneath our separate islands, one unconscious
0:34:00 Fishing, diving and the pull of mystery
0:37:24 Carl Johan Calleman on Mayan symbolism
0:44:58 When life starts to feel like fiction
0:49:53 Following your daimon can still be hard
0:56:30 When a life-changing experience outruns your language
1:04:15 An insight can matter before it becomes a theory
1:11:13 Why the ego still has a job to do
1:12:57 The insight is the beginning, not the end
1:18:23 A young philosopher asks: what is information?
1:21:41 Why the philosophy of information is a minefield
1:24:19 Is information reality or its description?
1:31:45 Why more information can mean less meaning
1:35:57 What if you never remember your dreams?
1:40:46 Inviting a dream back into memory
1:52:43 Before lucid dreaming, start with one ordinary dream
1:58:02 Christina’s poem: from a beloved to the Beloved
In this meeting Bernardo warns two young philosophers as they embark on their perilous journey...
Doors will open for you on the Daimonic journey, but that doesn't diminish the sacrifice involved.
His own life is now like a movie - synchronicities stack up with such regularity that he now takes it for granted. But a life of meaning is not a life of ease.
Do share your thoughts in the comments below after watching!
With appreciation always,
Amir
Also discussed:
- how dreams differ from waking life
- why information confuses so many philosophers
- the symbolic depths of diving
- what it means if you don't dream...
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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