Uploaded April 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
Following the recent debate between Jay & Bernardo Kastrup, (youtu.be/m0nPTPLTlds?si=iN3xybyc0M510IcH) I followed up with Jay to better understand his objections to idealism, which are mostly rooted in Buddhist philosophy.
You can join the next event in this series life at https://dandelion.events/e/f4awz
To join all future events, newsletter and access ad-free event recordings go to:
adventuresinawareness.com
Your contributions support future content, and are greatly appreciated:
- adventuresinawareness.com/membership
- One-off PayPal donations: paypal.com/paypalme/adventuresin
Follow the Adventure:
- Subscribe to us on youtube: youtube.com/@adventuresinawareness
- Twitter: https://x.com/AdvInAwareness
- iTunes: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/adventures-in-awareness/id1535917754
- Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/2jiebSpdVu9YbpLOtWlKYU
- Facebook: facebook.com/adventuresinawareness
Banner art by instagram.com/jadewade
0:00: Intro: the very different views on reality and how to investigate it
0:01:20 PHILOSOPHY CAN BE TRANSFORMATIVE
0:03:00 ETHICAL OBJECTION TO IDEALISM
9:20 The THREE TYPES OF SUFFERING
14:30 Anything short of dislodging the illusion of autonomy leaves fundamental suffering in place
15:10 Idealism also negates personal self-hood
16:45 YOGACHARA vs ADVAITA vs MADHAYAMAKA
18:20 Advaita =a metaphysical claim about union with brahman
20:30 Yogacara = phenomenological claim we only have access to mind
24:40 Madhayamaka ‘don’t negate too much’ and reduce empathy
25:50 NON DUALITY IN MADHAYAMAKA / PRASANGIKA:
Metaphysical vs Phenomenological
28:55 All traditions, if handled with care, can reduce suffering
31:00 METAPHYSICAL OBJECTION TO IDEALISM: EVERYTHING CHANGES
33:40 Universal consciousness can’t have two contradictory qualities - unchangeable, yet manifesting as change
35:00 The Buddhist counter to the waves and water analogy: different moments of water means it isn’t indivisible.
40:20 In yogacara the same analogy is used to indicate how the deep mind isn’t accessible
41:30 classical (1st century) Buddhist logic: true / false / true & false / neither true or false (similar to modern paraconsistent logic
43:35 Medieval buddhist logic from 3rd century does not tolerate contradiction.
Medieval logic moves into tibet, paraconsistent logic moves to chan/zen buddhism in china
46:50 Those rejecting advaita claimed that advaita rejects contradiction, so cannot allow universal mind
47:13 Question: The water wave analogy doesn’t seem contradictory, if perceived as discussing two different aspects of the same entity (what it is vs what it does)
48:30 water/wave analogy ignores relational properties: if a thing has different attributes at different times
50:00 The self of a 5 year old can’t be the same as a 50 year old - to have different properties at different times is to change.
THE EMPTINESS OF TIME
52:00 Can change be real if time isn’t real?
52:40 Nagarjuna on the emptiness of time: its not independent and prior to events. It is a system of relations between phenomena
Existence is the wrong way to think about time - it is a structure of relations
56:00 understanding is both cognitive and somatic and spontaneous
56:30 Philosophers can feed ideas into society to improve it.
1:03:30 Interdependence can evoke forgiveness and equanimity
HOW THINGS DEPEND ON IMPUTATION YET EXIST OUTSIDE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
1:05:30 EXISTENCE ACCORDING TO BUDDHISM: interdependence of parts, conditions, designation
1:07:50 because conceptual imputation is required, doesn’t mean an entity only exists when being imputed.
1:09:00 What about a chair exists when no one is experiencing it
1:13:20 according to analytic idealism - chemistry and physics are what show up when an experience is measured in a certain way
SCIENCE IN BUDDHISM & IDEALISM
1:15:30 Jay believes idealism doesn't support science
1:16:50 AMIR: The regularities of nature captured by science could be the regularities of the mind of nature
1:18:40 a transcendent psychology could explain chairs popping into existence - but would you give up on science?
JAY ON THE HARD PROBLEM
1:20:00 Reducibility vs Supervenience
1:24:30 Financial transactions aren’t reducible
1:26:50 Bypassing the Hard Problem: you don’t need two kinds of stuff - all cognitive events are connected to physical events
1:38:40 There aren’t two things - there are physical or psychological descriptions of the same world, taking different perspectives on the same thing
1:43:00 the fact that are data are non continuous doesn’t mean they are data for a thing that isn’t continuous
1:46:30 The rubber hits the road in philosophy in ethics
Following the recent debate between Jay & Bernardo Kastrup, (youtu.be/m0nPTPLTlds?si=iN3xybyc0M510IcH) I followed up with Jay to better understand his objections to idealism, which are mostly rooted in Buddhist philosophy.
You can join the next event in this series life at https://dandelion.events/e/f4awz
To join all future events, newsletter and access ad-free event recordings go to:
adventuresinawareness.com
Your contributions support future content, and are greatly appreciated:
- adventuresinawareness.com/membership
- One-off PayPal donations: paypal.com/paypalme/adventuresin
Follow the Adventure:
- Subscribe to us on youtube: youtube.com/@adventuresinawareness
- Twitter: https://x.com/AdvInAwareness
- iTunes: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/adventures-in-awareness/id1535917754
- Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/2jiebSpdVu9YbpLOtWlKYU
- Facebook: facebook.com/adventuresinawareness
Banner art by instagram.com/jadewade
0:00: Intro: the very different views on reality and how to investigate it
0:01:20 PHILOSOPHY CAN BE TRANSFORMATIVE
0:03:00 ETHICAL OBJECTION TO IDEALISM
9:20 The THREE TYPES OF SUFFERING
14:30 Anything short of dislodging the illusion of autonomy leaves fundamental suffering in place
15:10 Idealism also negates personal self-hood
16:45 YOGACHARA vs ADVAITA vs MADHAYAMAKA
18:20 Advaita =a metaphysical claim about union with brahman
20:30 Yogacara = phenomenological claim we only have access to mind
24:40 Madhayamaka ‘don’t negate too much’ and reduce empathy
25:50 NON DUALITY IN MADHAYAMAKA / PRASANGIKA:
Metaphysical vs Phenomenological
28:55 All traditions, if handled with care, can reduce suffering
31:00 METAPHYSICAL OBJECTION TO IDEALISM: EVERYTHING CHANGES
33:40 Universal consciousness can’t have two contradictory qualities - unchangeable, yet manifesting as change
35:00 The Buddhist counter to the waves and water analogy: different moments of water means it isn’t indivisible.
40:20 In yogacara the same analogy is used to indicate how the deep mind isn’t accessible
41:30 classical (1st century) Buddhist logic: true / false / true & false / neither true or false (similar to modern paraconsistent logic
43:35 Medieval buddhist logic from 3rd century does not tolerate contradiction.
Medieval logic moves into tibet, paraconsistent logic moves to chan/zen buddhism in china
46:50 Those rejecting advaita claimed that advaita rejects contradiction, so cannot allow universal mind
47:13 Question: The water wave analogy doesn’t seem contradictory, if perceived as discussing two different aspects of the same entity (what it is vs what it does)
48:30 water/wave analogy ignores relational properties: if a thing has different attributes at different times
50:00 The self of a 5 year old can’t be the same as a 50 year old - to have different properties at different times is to change.
THE EMPTINESS OF TIME
52:00 Can change be real if time isn’t real?
52:40 Nagarjuna on the emptiness of time: its not independent and prior to events. It is a system of relations between phenomena
Existence is the wrong way to think about time - it is a structure of relations
56:00 understanding is both cognitive and somatic and spontaneous
56:30 Philosophers can feed ideas into society to improve it.
1:03:30 Interdependence can evoke forgiveness and equanimity
HOW THINGS DEPEND ON IMPUTATION YET EXIST OUTSIDE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
1:05:30 EXISTENCE ACCORDING TO BUDDHISM: interdependence of parts, conditions, designation
1:07:50 because conceptual imputation is required, doesn’t mean an entity only exists when being imputed.
1:09:00 What about a chair exists when no one is experiencing it
1:13:20 according to analytic idealism - chemistry and physics are what show up when an experience is measured in a certain way
SCIENCE IN BUDDHISM & IDEALISM
1:15:30 Jay believes idealism doesn't support science
1:16:50 AMIR: The regularities of nature captured by science could be the regularities of the mind of nature
1:18:40 a transcendent psychology could explain chairs popping into existence - but would you give up on science?
JAY ON THE HARD PROBLEM
1:20:00 Reducibility vs Supervenience
1:24:30 Financial transactions aren’t reducible
1:26:50 Bypassing the Hard Problem: you don’t need two kinds of stuff - all cognitive events are connected to physical events
1:38:40 There aren’t two things - there are physical or psychological descriptions of the same world, taking different perspectives on the same thing
1:43:00 the fact that are data are non continuous doesn’t mean they are data for a thing that isn’t continuous
1:46:30 The rubber hits the road in philosophy in ethics
