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Frank Visser, graduated as a psychologist of culture and religion, founded IntegralWorld in 1997. He worked as production manager for various publishing houses and as service manager for various internet companies and lives in Amsterdam. Books: Ken Wilber: Thought as Passion (SUNY, 2003), and The Corona Conspiracy: Combatting Disinformation about the Coronavirus (Kindle, 2020).

My Take on Bernardo Kastrup's Analytic Idealism

A Summary and Review Essay

Frank Visser / Grok

Introduction: The Clash of Metaphysical Visions

In the realm of contemporary philosophy of mind and metaphysics, few debates ignite as much fervor as the confrontation between idealism and realism. Bernardo Kastrup, a philosopher and computer scientist, has emerged as a leading proponent of analytic idealism—a view positing that reality is fundamentally a manifestation of universal consciousness, with the physical world as its "dashboard" or extrinsic appearance. Kastrup's framework, articulated in works like Why Materialism Is Baloney (2014) and The Idea of the World (2019), challenges physicalism by arguing that consciousness is ontologically primary, rendering matter illusory or derivative. This idealism is "non-theistic" in intent, avoiding Berkeleyan reliance on divine perception, yet it echoes ancient traditions like Advaita Vedanta.

Bernardo Kastrup: 'There is
only cosmic consciousness.'

Enter Frank Visser, a Dutch psychologist, integral theorist, and editor of Integral World, who has penned a trilogy of essays offering a scathing, psychologically inflected rebuttal to Kastrup's edifice. Published sequentially in 2019 on Integral World, these pieces—"Why Idealism is Bonkers: Some Reflections on the Philosophy of Bernardo Kastrup" (Part 1), "'Why the Tree Will Continue to Be': Further Musings on the Idealism of Bernardo Kastrup" (Part 2), and “'We Don't Know Whether Mutations Are Really Random or Not': Reflections on Randomness by Bernardo Kastrup" (Part 3)—form a cohesive critique. Visser, drawing from developmental psychology, evolutionary biology, and a skeptical realism akin to critical rationalism, portrays Kastrup's idealism as not merely unconvincing but psychologically regressive, empirically lax, and philosophically incoherent.

This essay undertakes a dual task: first, a comprehensive summary of Visser's arguments across the trilogy; second, an evaluation of their validity. In summarizing, I trace Visser's progression from broad ontological challenges to specific engagements with Kastrup's epistemology and evolutionary implications. In evaluating, I assess the strengths of Visser's critiques—his emphasis on empirical parsimony and psychological realism—against their weaknesses, such as occasional straw-manning and a potential underappreciation of idealism's explanatory power for phenomena like the hard problem of consciousness. Ultimately, while Visser's realism grounds his objections in accessible science, his dismissal of idealism risks overlooking its role as a viable antidote to reductive materialism.

Summary of Visser's Arguments: A Trilogy of Dismantling

Visser's essays build cumulatively, starting with foundational objections to idealism's metaphysics, deepening into epistemological puzzles, and culminating in an evolutionary critique. Each piece engages Kastrup's texts, videos, and public statements, quoting liberally to ensure fidelity while wielding irony and analogy as rhetorical scalpels.

Part 1: Ontological Incoherence and the "Bonkers" Cosmic Mind

The opening salvo, "Why Idealism is Bonkers," targets the core of Kastrup's ontology: the postulate of a singular "cosmic Mind" or universal consciousness from which all phenomena arise. Visser concedes Kastrup's eloquence and his critique of physicalism's explanatory gaps—e.g., how subjective experience emerges from objective matter—but argues that idealism merely displaces the problem. Why, Visser asks, would a cosmic idealism succeed where subjective idealism (e.g., Berkeley's esse est percipi) notoriously fails? He invokes the classic Berkeleyan conundrum: If a tree falls in the forest unobserved, does it make a sound? Kastrup's answer—that the tree persists as an "excitation" in the cosmic Mind—strikes Visser as a "sleight of hand" that multiplies entities unnecessarily, violating Occam's Razor.

Structurally, Visser dissects idealism's coherence through everyday examples, like the moon's existence. A realist posits the moon as an independent entity; an idealist, per Kastrup, sees it as a shared "image" in collective consciousness. Visser retorts: "How can you have sensations of a moon if there isn't a moon in the first place?" This leads to practical absurdities: If reality is mental, who authors the cosmos's details—every bacterium, galaxy, and quantum fluctuation? Kastrup's claim of parsimony (positing only consciousness, not matter) is dismissed as "simplicity on this side of complexity," quoting Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. to argue that true elegance emerges from grappling with the world's richness, not denying it.

Visser references David Chalmers' "hard problem" approvingly but asks: is it really overcome by stating "there is only cosmic consciousness"? Or is it simply by-passed? He notes skeptical reviews of Kastrup's work, suggesting the philosopher's ideas thrive in echo chambers like Essentia Foundation, detached from broader scrutiny. The essay closes with a psychological jab: Idealism's denial of an external world borders on derealization, a dissociative disorder.

Part 2: Epistemological Dead Ends and the Persistence of the Tree

Building on Part 1, "'Why the Tree Will Continue to Be'" engages Kastrup's 2014 YouTube video defending idealism against five common objections. Visser tabulates these—e.g., distinguishing reality from imagination, unperceived objects' existence—and finds Kastrup's replies evasive. For instance, against the imagination objection, Kastrup invokes "collective perceptions" as shareable, unlike private fantasies. Visser counters that trees and moons do exist independently, their continuity unmediated by any "cosmic dream." He mocks the notion of a Jungian collective unconscious generating mundane objects like chairs or planets: "The collective unconscious... is not suited for explaining tables, chairs, planets, and stars."

A pivotal critique targets Kastrup's analogy of personal reality as a "dissociated alter" of the cosmic Mind, akin to multiple personalities in Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Visser, drawing from psychology, deems this traumatic and anthropocentric, ill-suited for cosmic scales. On unperceived objects, Kastrup's "continuity in the collective unconscious" is likened to dream logic, but Visser insists dreams' privacy undermines the "shared dream" metaphor. The Apollo moon rocks exemplify his realism: Their tangibility demands an external referent, not psychic fabrication.

Visser weaves in developmental psychology, equating idealism to pre-object-permanence cognition in infants ("If I don't look, it isn't there"). Philosophically, he contrasts Kastrup's anti-causal regress (e.g., a vibrating string needing endless prior causes) with proximate explanations like gravity, arguing idealism's "no outside world" is "psychologically quite unbalanced." Echoing Berkeley's limerick, Visser affirms: The tree will continue because it is.

Part 3: Evolutionary Randomness and the Illusion of Purpose

The trilogy culminates in “'We Don't Know Whether Mutations Are Really Random or Not,'" shifting to Kastrup's "Reflections and Meditations" video on evolution. Here, Visser exposes idealism's overreach into biology, where Kastrup questions mutation randomness to imply a "creative agency" in nature—feedback loops experimenting like a "short-sighted watchmaker." Kastrup laments: "I find it very hard to see the variety and richness of nature as the result of purely mechanical, blind processes," suggesting patterns undetectable by materialist science.

Visser retorts that Kastrup conflates informational randomness (pattern absence) with biological randomness (lack of foresight relative to need). Evolutionary theory, per Dawkins and Mayr, is a two-step waltz: random variation filtered by non-random selection—not "blind chance." He tables the distinction for clarity:

Visser cites the Lederberg experiment, demonstrating mutations precede selection, and accuses Kastrup of projecting telos onto nature, echoing discredited Lamarckism. Idealism's "emergent agency" is vague, contrasting with materialist triumphs like epigenetics. Visser questions Kastrup's evolutionary epistemology—brains tuned for survival, not truth—applying it symmetrically: Why trust idealist intuitions over scientific rigor? The essay ends by affirming Darwin's "radical idea": Species arise sans Spirit, rendering Kastrup's musings "bonkers" in biology.

Across the trilogy, Visser's motifs recur: Idealism's parsimony is illusory, its psychology regressive, and its science tendentious. He positions himself as a defender of "critical realism," integrating consciousness without ontological primacy.

Evaluation: Strengths, Weaknesses, and Philosophical Stakes

Visser's critiques are formidable in their accessibility and interdisciplinary bite, yet their validity hinges on whether they fairly engage idealism's nuances. Let us dissect.

Strengths: Empirical Anchoring and Psychological Insight

Visser's greatest asset is his insistence on empirical adequacy, a virtue physicalism often lacks but which realism can claim. By grounding objections in tangible examples—moon rocks, falling trees, Lederberg plates—he exposes idealism's explanatory burdens. Kastrup's cosmic Mind, while elegant for the hard problem (why qualia at all?), falters on mundane continuity: Why posit a universal perceiver when local causes suffice? Visser's Occam invocation is apt; idealism, per Karl Popper's falsifiability, risks unfalsifiable ad hoc rescues (e.g., "the cosmic Mind ensures consistency").

Psychologically, Visser's developmental lens is incisive. Linking idealism to object impermanence or derealization humanizes the debate, suggesting metaphysical stances reflect cognitive stages. This aligns with integral theory's tiers (Visser being a Wilber critic), where idealism might represent a "subtle" but pre-rational realm. On evolution, Visser's clarification of randomness dismantles Kastrup's straw man, reinforcing that neo-Darwinism accommodates complexity without teleology—a point Dawkins echoes trenchantly.

These arguments are valid in highlighting idealism's descriptive, not explanatory, power. Kastrup solves why consciousness exists (it's fundamental) but begs how it generates stable regularities, deferring to mystery where realism iterates via science.

Weaknesses: Straw Men, Selective Engagement, and Ontological Oversight

Yet Visser's polemic occasionally veers into caricature. He imputes "God" to Kastrup's Mind despite protestations, ignoring analytic idealism's panpsychist leanings (consciousness as substrate, not deity). The DID analogy is stretched; Kastrup uses it metaphorically for dissociation, not pathology, akin to Dennett's multiple drafts without trauma. Visser's "bonkers" rhetoric, while punchy, risks ad hominem, alienating readers who see idealism as a bulwark against eliminativism (e.g., Churchland's denial of qualia).

On evolution, Visser underplays Kastrup's epistemic humility—"we don't know"—which echoes legitimate debates in evo-devo (e.g., Conrad Waddington's genetic assimilation). While Kastrup overreaches on patterns, Visser's dismissal ignores idealism's potential for non-local causation, testable via quantum biology (e.g., Orch-OR theory's orchestrated collapses). Philosophically, Visser conflates ontological realism (mind-independent world) with epistemological access, sidestepping Kastrup's parsimony metric: Idealism requires fewer primitives (one consciousness vs. matter + emergence laws).

Moreover, Visser's realism is not immune to critique. Critical realism admits strata (empirical, actual, real), but how does it fare against quantum observer effects or fine-tuning puzzles? Kastrup's idealism, while speculative, integrates these as mental excitations, offering coherence where realism fragments (e.g., wave-function collapse debates).

Validity Verdict: Persuasive but Incomplete

Visser's arguments hold substantial validity as a realist corrective, scoring high on coherence (8/10) and empirical fit (9/10), but lower on comprehensiveness (6/10) due to selective framing. They validly underscore idealism's regressive temptations—psychologically, a retreat from adult object permanence; scientifically, a romanticization of "purpose" over mechanism. Yet they falter in fully grappling with idealism's strengths: its dissolution of the mind-body problem and alignment with non-Western ontologies.

In sum, Visser's trilogy is a spirited defense of the "tree that continues to be," reminding us that metaphysics must earn its keep against the world's stubborn independence. For skeptics of physicalism, however, Kastrup's vision endures—not as bonkers, but as a bold wager on consciousness's primacy. The debate persists, a testament to philosophy's vitality: Neither idealism nor realism yields easily to critique, each illuminating the other's blind spots.

Conclusion: Toward a Balanced Metaphysics

Frank Visser's essays, though "critical" in the pejorative sense, enrich the discourse by forcing Kastrup's idealism to confront realism's hard-won ground. Their validity lies in demystifying cosmic solipsism, urging philosophers to prioritize testable claims over intuitive elegance. Yet true progress demands synthesis: Perhaps an integral realism, wedding Kastrup's phenomenal insights to Visser's empirical rigor, could transcend the bonkers. As Visser might concede, the tree falls—observed or not—inviting us to listen beyond our minds.