1. Meaning in Absurdity by Bernardo Kastrup
The latest book from Dr Bernardo Kastrup, in the words of G K Chesterton, the English writer and
critic, is indeed 'absurd good news'. Chesterton was talking about the flash of illumination which can
suddenly put the soul in touch with ultimate truth. Kastrup's Meaning in Absurdity suggests how
pointers to the nature of that truth might be found through quantum science and the depth
psychology of Carl Gustav Jung.
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As in his two previous mind-stretching books, Rationalist Spirituality and Dreamed-Up Reality,
Kastrup pursues a speculative but credible cosmology in which he creates a practicable cohesion of
seemingly disparate disciplines and phenomena, and confirms his status as one of the most original
and far-sighted thinkers in science and philosophy today.
He begins Meaning in Absurdity by discussing some typical 'calls of the absurd', including the
Hessdalen lights in Norway, the Hudson Valley, USA, UFO sightings in the 1980s, the 'Miracle of the
Sun' at Fatima, Portugal, in 1917, results of a clinical experiment with the powerful psychoactive
DMT, and visions received by Jung while exploring his own unconscious.
A Shift in Human Consciousness and Our Conception of Reality
Calls of the absurd - anomalous phenomena - can be physical and measurable in nature, says
Kastrup, even if elusive, and can also be objective in the sense that multiple and independent
observers often report events in the same way. Puzzlingly, they can also trigger introspection and
intuitive insights.
Kastrup recalls how Jacques Vallée, the French UFO investigator, concluded that calls of the absurd
were leading to a shift in human consciousness and our conception of reality. I tend to see it the
other way round: that it is an accelerating shift in consciousness since the 1940s (when modern UFO
2. flaps began) that accounts for the tremendous increase in reports http://privatetutoring.us/ of
anomalous phenomena since that time.
The notion of consensus reality is destroyed by the concept of entanglement in quantum physics,
Kastrup points out. Two sub-atomic particles separated http://www.sdmathtutor.com/ by great
distance, so far apart even that there is no longer any physical force between them, still retain
information about one another; if one particle moves in a certain way, so will the other - they are
'entangled'.
But a scientific study has shown as untenable the materialistic idea that hidden properties in the
quantum substrate cause entanglement; the hypothesis that physical properties in the particles
themselves caused it has also been ruled out. As sub-atomic particles are regarded as foundational
to nature, entanglement means the idea of 'reality', as we normally understand it in everyday terms,
must be abandoned.
Unconscious Meta-Realities in Which We All Participate
Since our minds have multiple levels, some of them unconscious, the unavoidable implication is that
there are unconscious meta-realities in which we all participate, with different degrees of
awareness, all the time. Our ordinary waking experiences, says Kastrup, 'may be merely islands
forming part of an unfathomable underwater mountain chain of meta-realities'. So our ego-
consciousness may be 'a mere viewpoint in the many levels of unfolding storytelling, all of them
equally real'.
Kastrup sees Jung's empirical observations of the contradictoriness of the unconscious as consistent
with this - the metaphorical language of the unconscious finds uncanny correspondence with the
symbolical character of the calls of the absurd. The depths of the unconscious, although inhabited by
chaos and absurdity, are replete with meaning.
Meaning in Absurdity leaves us with a world-view where logic is itself a construction of the mind,
and rationality a veneer over an 'unfathomable core of the unformed', the meaningful non-rational,
the domain of the imagination. Coming to terms with this might be the greatest existential challenge
the human race has ever faced, but one that Kastrup believes could represent the greatest
opportunity ever to shape our own existence, an opportunity to 'remould the very fabric of reality
and truth'.
Kastrup, who lives in Holland, has a PhD in computer engineering and, as a scientist, has worked in
some of the world's foremost research laboratories, including the European Organization for
Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Philips Research Laboratories. The author of many scientific
papers, he has also been an entrepreneur and founder of two high-tech businesses. Today, he holds
3. a managerial position in the high-tech industry.
Kastrup, Bernardo, Meaning in Absurdity: What Bizarre Phenomena Can Tell Us About the Nature of
Reality. Iff Books, UK £9.99 / US $16.95. ISBN 978-1-84694-859-6.
