Mind at Large vs Universal Consciousness

Following on naturally from the last week's discussion on dissociation, Tues 11th of Feb focused on Mind at Large.

The recording is at the bottom of this page.

This isn't true everywhere, but in our meetings, Bernardo makes a careful distinction between 'Mind at Large' and Universal Consciousness.

This is really important to understand or a lot of the conversation won't make sense!

For a quick recap, you can read below watch this, or both!

In this session we covered:

• Clarifying Mind at Large vs Universal Consciousness and the hierarchies of dissociation
• “The physical universe” as an abstraction: a model based on many experiences
• Momentary vs self-sustaining dissociations
• Is the boundary or our alters the skin or the central nervous system?
• What does beauty signify in Mind at Large? 
• Why are we conscious but not a rock? (what is a thing?)
• Is the microbiome a part of us, or a separate alter?

Mind at Large vs Universal Consciousness

Universal Consciousness is the ultimate substrate, pure being, consciousness itself.

As a the potential to have experience, metaphorically, you can think of it like an ocean which is totally still - pure being. When it starts to move, some waves (proto-thoughts/ideas/emotions) appear. The excitation of Universal Consciousness is experience. Just like a wave is not separate from the ocean in which it moves, the experience that shows up in Universal Consciousness is not separate from it either.

Now imagine each wave rises and falls seamlessly in response to movements of the whole ocean.

But some of these experiences, instead of waves seamlessly rising and falling within the whole, turn around themselves, like a whirlpool.

The activity within the whirlpool is seemingly cut off from the activity of the rest of the ocean. It is still an activity of the ocean. But compared to the waves, it is 'doing its own thing.'

This whirlpool is what Bernardo calls an 'alter.' A dissociated part of the whole. Bernardo believes that alters correspond to what we identify as living beings. It is the reason that although there is just one consciousness, you seem to have thoughts that are private to you, and I seem to have thoughts that are private to me.

The remaining "larger" part of the ocean outside the whirlpools is what we are calling Mind at Large. It corresponds to the physical world: the mountains, the stars, the galaxies.

But remember, both alter and Mind at Large are appearances within Universal Consciousness.

The whirlpool is a movement of the ocean.

The waves are a movement of the ocean.

Whirlpools are "dissociated" from waves, but not dissociated from the ocean. So Alters are dissociated from Mind at Large, but neither are dissociated from Universal Consciousness.

A whirlpool is universal consciousness whirlpooling.

A wave is universal consciousness waving.

Universal Consciousness = Mind at Large + All Alters.

Perception and Action:

Although a whirlpool seems to do its own thing, the activity of the waves will impinge on the whirlpool - this is what we call perception.

The world brushing up against the boundary of dissociation becomes represented on the screen of perception as colours, sounds, smells representing the activity of Mind at Large.

Equally, the activity of the whirlpools will in small ways affect the surrounding waves - this is how we affect the world around us.

So we also perceive the many ways in which other whirlpools, other beings, have impinged upon the world and make their presence felt:

To repeat, Mind at Large refers to all the experiences of Universal Consciousness that are not within the alters. It is the shared world we experience as the mountains, the planets and the stars.

So you could think of Mind at Large almost like an entity itself, like an alter.

Universal consciousness is the substrate that underlies all alters. The substrate in which all the activity we call living beings and the universe take place.

Remember, the waves and whirlpools are an imperfect metaphor, but hopefully one that helps to understand the terminology.

I'm sure this generates lots of questions for you, which is why we are so lucky to have these meetings with Bernardo!

Amir

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 →