> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.withrealityinmind.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Is love fundamental? (and is there a plan?) - URL: https://www.withrealityinmind.com/recording-is-love-fundamental-and-is-there-a-plan/ - Published: 2025-12-16T22:52:23.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-20T16:22:14.000Z - Description: Does nature have plan, and is love fundamental to it? - Author: Amir Giles - Tags: recording Recording details Date: 16 December 2025 Duration: 1h 59m Free preview Chapters *Courtesy of Rita Conde* 00:00:00 Introductions 00:05:07 **Is love fundamental?** 00:05:17 psychedelics and the overwhelming feeling of love after ego dissolution 00:07:00 the mystical experience of love in different spiritual traditions; love as the ontological glue 00:08:24 under analytic idealism, there is only one field of subjectivity, and love is an excitation of that field 00:10:20 nature’s consciousness is never at rest; it is always in excitation 00:11:46 does love take precedence? 00:12:12 Bernardo’s experience with psychedelics 00:15:48 5-MeO-DMT: direct experience of non-duality 00:20:55 **the ontological status of love** 00:23:53 an illusory experience is still an experience 00:25:51 facing the insurmountable scale of the universe with alarm and confusion lies at the very core of the human condition 00:27:00 **Do western philosophers propose love is fundamental?** 00:28:31 Nietzsche: philosophy must be an act of passion 00:30:40 Jungian German mystic Ludwig Binswanger: “love is the substrate of reality” 00:33:54 what is the field of subjectivity 00:37:30 what happens when we **pray** 00:39:39 Bernardo’s prayer 00:45:00 why nature doesn’t always act according to the precedence of love 00:50:00 the cruelty and suffering inherent in nature 00:53:00 two options: love isn't fundamental / nature doesn’t know what it’s doing 00:56:53 not knowing consequence does not contradict omniscience 00:58:40 the **fine-tuning** of the universe implies **metacognition** 01:02:10 the perspective of first-person physics 01:04:30 the simulation hypothesis 01:05:45 there might be a demiurge; this is not incoherent under analytic idealism 01:00:50 Plato’s Republic: we volunteer to enter the game and enter it amnesic (Myth of Er) 01:07:30 Australian Aboriginal mythology 01:10:00 why nature doesn’t know what it’s doing, even though it is omniscient 01:10:50 Nature doesn't need Occam’s razor 01:12:00 are religious mythologies nonsense? 01:15:50 **Bernardo shares private intuitions about dualism, hierarchies of mind, divinity and the purpose of nature** 01:24:40 the exact and precise fine-tuning of the universe and the *a priori* rules and forces of nature 01:29:22 Martin Rees, astronomer, book *Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe* 01:33:33 would the naturalistic hypothesis pass Occam’s razor, given the extraordinary degree of fine-tuning required? 01:34:40 fine-tuning and the Big Bang 01:42:00 Qur’an: “I am as My servant thinks of Me” 01:44:50 **divinity appears in the form that we are capable of cognizing** 01:47:32 truth revealed has to be symbolic 01:49:00 transcendence must take a distinct form depending on the individual who is apprehending it, so that the same meaning is conveyed (Christians see Christ, Hindus see Krishna) 01:50:00 when we dream, we use our personal life dictionary 01:54:00 book *The World as Icon* by Douglas Hedley 01:55:28 Shiite and Sunni traditions in Islam 01:57:10 F. H. Bradley, British idealist philosopher 01:57:50 Bernardo recommends Gemini 3 Pro as the best AI bot today "***all creatures are maintained in existence by love***" - Meister Ekhart It is one of the great privileges of these meetings that Bernardo is willing to discuss his more private intuitions. Whilst careful to delineate exactly where analysis ends and speculation begins, in this session he shares both. - Is love fundamental? - What is the nature of prayer? - Does creation have a plan? - Considering religious myths Mystics worldwide and across time have attested to love as a fundamental property of existence. Can this be defended from an analytic idealist perspective? Strictly speaking, no. There is no technical reason to elevate love above any other experience. But there are many ideas that aren't *necessary* under analytic idealism but are *compatible* with it. Bernardo takes anecdotal evidence seriously when it is consistent, such as reports of love being fundamental from non-dual 5-meo DMT experiences, Near Death Experiences and the revelations of mystics across traditions. Consider an old-fashioned amplitude modulated radio station. The broadcast is done via a carrier wave of a certain frequency, for example, 800 kilohertz. That's what you tune into to hear a the station. The music, the voices of that radio station are the excitations on top of that carrier wave. So it's coherent to speculate that nature's frequency is never at complete rest, and whilst the fabric of reality could manifest in many forms, love might be the underlying tone that carries these experiences and is present even when other experiences subside. It might not be fundamental to it's *being*, but could be fundamental to how it is *known*. ### Does nature have a plan? Publicly, Bernardo has repeatedly indicated the reasons why nature is likely not metaconscious - not able to self-reflect and plan. It may 'know' everything it is doing, but not anticipate the consequences. This is implied by the incredible suffering woven into nature, which under idealism would be suffering inflicted by nature onto itself. In contrast, some have argued that the incredible fine tuning of the universe implies that creation is planned. Even one microscopic changes to the universal constants (such as gravity) would prevent life, galaxies, and stars from existing. Some of these are detailed in Martin Rees' book *Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe.* ***"if they were not exactly what they are, there would be no life, there would be no galaxies, no stars, no planets, no complexity.... there would be no form arising, or if it did arise, it would come to an end immediately."*** There *are* ways to explain this without needing to assume a metacognitive creator. For example, it could be our dashboard representation that is finely tuned, not existence itself. Or the black hole-based universal evolution theory: When a massive star collapses into a black hole, the matter inside doesn't just crush into nothing. Instead, it "bounces" and expands into a brand-new "baby" universe on the other side of the singularity, inheriting the laws of physics but with slight variations, until finely tuned universes like ours evolves. But this theory relies on countless postulates. Meanwhile, "there is nothing incoherent in the hypothesis that there maybe be a very deliberate, very self-aware, conscious entity at some level of reality that has set this up for some kind of deliberate purpose." A kind of hierarchy of nested dreams, in which the dreamer pops into its own creation and forgets she had set up the dream. Many world mythologies indicate something similar - from Plato's Republic to the Kabballah to Native American account of reincarnation and Australian aboriginal conceptions of creation. Bernardo was again willing to share some personal perspectives that he doesn't make public, and has asked not to share. I encourage you to watch, at around half-way through the meeting, and to share your own reflections on telegram. I hope you enjoy, and I look forward to seeing you next week! Amir Speakers ![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c5/20/c520bbe6-927b-460d-bf38-d4f48d5dc338/content/images/2026/09/Bernardo-Kastrup-profile.jpg) 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 →](https://www.bernardokastrup.com/?ref=withrealityinmind.com)