Beyond the Ideal World

Bernardo Kastrup

In 2005, an essay was published in Nature asserting that the universe is mental and that we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things. Since then, experiments have confirmed that — as predicted by quantum mechanics — reality is contextual, which contradicts at least intuitive formulations of realism and corroborates the hypothesis of a mental universe. Yet, to give this hypothesis a coherent rendering, one must explain how a mental universe can — at least in principle — accommodate (a) our experience of ourselves as distinct individual minds sharing a world beyond the control of our volition; and (b) the empirical fact that this world is contextual despite being seemingly shared. By combining a modern formulation of the ontology of idealism with the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics, the present paper attempts to provide a viable explanatory framework for both points. In the process of doing so, the paper also addresses key philosophical qualms of the relational interpretation.

Selçuk Ş. Bayın

Krzysztof Sienicki

Algorithmic idealism represents a transformative approach to understanding reality, emphasizing the informational structure of self-states and their algorithmic transitions over traditional notions of an external, objective universe. Rooted in algorithmic information theory, it redefines reality as a sequence of self-state transitions governed by principles such as Solomonoff induction. This framework offers a unified solution to longstanding challenges in quantum mechanics, cosmology, and metaphysics, addressing issues like the measurement problem, the Boltzmann brain paradox, and the simulation hypothesis. Algorithmic idealism shifts the focus from describing an independent external world to understanding first-person experiences, providing epistemic interpretations of physical theories and dissolving metaphysical divides between "real" and simulated realities. Beyond resolving these conceptual challenges, it raises profound ethical questions regarding the continuity, duplication, and termination of informational entities, reshaping discussions on identity, consciousness, and existence in the digital and quantum age. By offering a mathematically rigorous yet philosophically innovative framework, algorithmic idealism invites a rethinking of reality as an emergent property of informational dynamics rather than a static external construct.

Bernard d’Espagnat

Bernardo Kastrup

The contemporary cultural mindset posits that the world has no intrinsic semantic value. The meaning we see in it is supposedly projected onto the world by ourselves. Underpinning this view is the mainstream physicalist ontology, according to which mind is an emergent property or epiphenomenon of brains. As such, since the world beyond brains isn’t mental, it cannot a priori evoke anything beyond itself. But a consistent series of recent experimental results suggests strongly that the world may in fact be mental in nature, a hypothesis openly discussed in the field of foundations of physics. In this essay, these experimental results are reviewed and their hermeneutic implications discussed. If the world is mental, it points to something beyond its face-value appearances and is amenable to interpretation, just as ordinary dreams. In this case, the project of a Hermeneutic of Everything is metaphysically justifiable.