A symphony of intuition & reason

In our most personal and revealing conversation to date, we confront the lived experience of idealism as it shows up in human lives full of meaning and suffering.

We started with a dream analysis of images that arise in the transition to idealism (hidden rooms and reengineered basements) and ended with how to navigate chronic pain and toxic families, even as life bursts forth with its boundless creativity.

As a new foundation for life, idealism can be both liberating and destabilising. We discussed what responsibility we have when sharing this philosophy, how metaphysics could augment psychiatry, and why in the absence of materialism a culture would naturally tend towards animism.

Bernardo also shared the secret to his prolific output. (Hint: it involves synchronicity.)

Towards a very powerful mind

In Jungian psychology, the goal is to balance the many powers of the mind, including intuition, reason and observation. Whilst intuition has a speed and strength that reason could never match, it can also fool you. The intellect can offer scaffolding, context, and a plausibility check.

But it's not like they should take turns. Rather, "you switch all of them on, and you let them dialogue."

A symphony of intuition and reason

It's like many instruments playing in harmony, augmenting rather than subduing each other. Well conducted, every voice making a unique contribution.

When you have all of those voices speaking at the same time, but not in cacophony, in dialogue instead, then you really become a powerful mind.

A powerful, balanced mind.

Welcome to animalhood

The session ended with a compassionate dialogue on suffering at its worst, the kind that leads to exhaustion, despair, and even suicidal ideation.

Bernardo stayed an extra 40 minutes to share how he personally navigated these challenges, first focusing on small goals like just an extra hour of sleep and eventually discovering a deep surrender that cannot be forced.

The story we tell ourselves is "I will start living when I stop suffering" that is the most pernicious story a human mind can tell itself. Because now you compartmentalised your life.

Instead, relief came with a new relationship to suffering. The recognition that pain, limitation and struggle are not nature's mistakes, but part of our embodied animal nature.

No ethical reason to endure toxic relationships

That doesn't mean enduring toxic situations you can avoid. Without giving specific advice, (only each individual can know the intricacies and subtleties of their own life,) Bernardo was clear:

I don't think that there is any ethical or moral principle ever created by human beings or nature that tells you that you have to insist on what is toxic to you.

As such, the whole meeting was an interplay of intuition and intellect, surrender and synchronicity, poetry and practicality. A perfect harbinger for next week's session with Iain McGilchrist.

We also discussed:

• Georg Cantor’s work on infinity
• Why mathematicians go insane
• Beethoven's Ninth Symphony
• Khalil Gibran On Children

Support for Suicidal Ideation

Samaritans recommend open, non-judgemental, supportive conversation around suicidal ideation, which is more common than people realise. In the UK, roughly 1 in 4 adults report thoughts of taking their own life at some point.

Conversation helps reduce stigma and makes disclosure and seeking support more likely.

Anyone currently thinking about acting on suicidal thoughts should call or visit local emergency services.

For ongoing support, you can find local help through Befrienders Worldwide or IASP’s FindAHelpline directory.

Speakers

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 →