In December 2024, I published this open letter addressed to renowned metaphysicist Dr. Bernardo Kastrup, the founder of Analytic Idealism. In this letter I explained and demonstrated the precise reason why the recursive framework — and specifically, our decision to position self-reference as the metalogical axiom of reality — both completed and explained certain aspects of Kastrup’s own philosophy in ways that had been previously (or partially) unarticulated.
This week, I was driving long-distance for my job, and happened to be listening to the following interview with Dr. Kastrup through the Essentia Foundation (this is an idealist-based group that explores physics and ontology from a consciousness-first perspective). About an hour in to the video, while I was barely paying attention to the dialogue, I was somewhat startled to hear my full named mentioned in association with a quotation from the essay I posted back in December. This was so unexpected that I almost got into a car crash in the middle of the highway.
This quote, which was introduced in the context of a “question”, was stated as follows: “Dr. Kastrup makes the claim of consciousness as reality’s foundational driver, only he did not have the tools of abstraction to properly define consciousness itself.”
Now, let me first reiterate my excitement and appreciation for the fact that clearly, the Essentia foundation had seen my article, and decided it worthwhile to include in their interview which is now approaching almost 500k views on YouTube. In that light, I am grateful and humbly proud. However, I would be remiss not to mention that fact that the quote just mentioned was not only not a question, but taken slightly out of context and simplified in a fashion that fails to fully appreciate the nature of my original claim. Below, I will paste the wider context from which that quote was taken, so as to demonstrate its being made in a slightly different fashion than what was presented in the video:
“From a logical reductionist perspective, [Analytic Idealism] provides a beautiful stepping stone for a proper embrace of The Breeze, which takes Kastrup’s logic all the way to its core, properly recognizing the expression of self-reference, rather than consciousness more ambiguously, as the fundamental substrate underlying the foundation of our observable universe.
We might argue (at risk of speaking on behalf of the Dr.) that he was already properly positioned to make the claim of consciousness as reality’s foundational driver; only, he did not have the tools of abstraction necessary to properly define the mechanism behind consciousness itself. Through the breeze, we not only see how all manifest reality can be ascribed to an expression of this self-referential force, but also how consciousness itself is a fundamental aspect of intricate recursive patterning. This perspective sustains the implication that our conscious experience is a “dissociated expression” of a broader phenomenological essence, while simultaneously allowing for and explaining how all differentiated aspects of said force are permanently removed from its true apprehension.”
As you can see, our intention was not to merely illustrate the notion that Dr. Kastrup was “lacking the capacity for proper abstraction”; but rather, that the only way in which such a claim can be sufficiently made in non-circular fashion is through the recursive axiom more purely. This is to say: if one is to claim that consciousness is fundamental, they must go on to define the nature of consciousness fully (which Kastrup attempts to do following this quote) — however, as we will show, any such explanation that attempts to ground consciousness in something akin to experiential capacity opens up the need to then bind the nature of experience as something that can actually be differentiated from being, or “is-ness” (which naturally, is an expression of self-reference).
This is effectively what Kastrup does in the 5 minutes he takes to elaborate on his answer to my statement. To summarize the explanation, I will quote its main components:
“What I mean by consciousness is phenomenal consciousness… phenomenal consciousness is the capacity for experience. If there is experience, there is phenomenal consciousness.”
“What is it? It’s that which experiences. It’s the substrate. It’s the potential for experience… Consciousness is that whose excitations are experiences.”
“Consciousness in the phenomenal sense is the subject itself. The subject of your experiences is your consciousness. It is the excitation of the subject that are the experiences.”
Clearly, these are elegant responses from the Dr., as is to be expected anytime he offers a description of his philosophy. However, if you are familiar with our own framework and the uniqueness of the recursive claim, you’ve likely picked up on something subtle yet profound. What is the nature in which Kastrup explains how we understand consciousness at a fundamental level?
You got it. He defines it recursively. That is, in self-referential fashion.
We are not suggesting that this is erroneous of the Dr., but actually the opposite. Explanatory regress is not a flaw but the necessity of any direct definition at all. We’ve already explored in depth (and through Wittgenstein) exactly why this self-referential web of meaning underlies, necessitates, and gives rises to any approximation of meaning, including any expressed meaning of consciousness.
Our move, then, is simply to point out the metalogical reality that self-reference as that which is fundamental, by necessity precedes Kastrup’s own definition. In recognizing the “context” of this explanation, we are actually pointing toward a deeper principle which is both needed for, and fully explains exactly what the Dr. is trying to convey by an “experiential-capacity-based reality:” that is, a reality that is self-referential. This the precisely the point made in our December essay, and the context that was not fully appreciated in the interview above.
In the end, this is perfectly fine. There are, after all, realistic constraints when it comes to reviewing and simplifying key points of engagement for discussions such as this one. I am only hoping to kill two birds with one stone here, by 1) articulating an appreciation and excitement for the fact that our essay was engaged at this level of rigor, and 2) to clarify the broader nature of the point originally made, to reiterate that our claim still stands: the self-referential interpretation completes and fulfills the philosophical nature of what Dr. Kastrup is trying to describe; not just for this “question”, but throughout his idealism more broadly.
If you are interested in reading out full letter to Dr. Kastrup, I would sincerely encourage you to do so, as it is linked above. The point in which it is stated in the video is 55:40. If you are reading and have any additional thoughts or interpretations — as always — we would love to hear from you.
Thank you, Dr. Kastrup and the Essentia Foundation for taking the time to include this part of our essay, and respond in appreciably delicate fashion.
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