Overview: Analytic Idealism in a Nutshell: A straightforward summary of the 21st century’s only plausible metaphysics by author Bernardo Kastrup is a no-nonsense, science-based argument that flips our worldview on its head and finds a fundamental role for mind in nature.

Verdict: As the failures of physicalism begin to shake the confidence of even the most biased of its supporters, a new view on the nature of reality is establishing itself as the only tenable alternative: Analytic Idealism.

According to it, there is a world out there independent of our individual minds, but such world is - just like ourselves - also mental or experiential. While being a realist, naturalist, rationalist, and even reductionist view, Analytic Idealism flips our culture-bound intuitions on their head, revealing that only through understanding our own inner nature can we understand the nature of the world.

This book embodies its author’s years-long experience on how best to explain Analytic Idealism to someone who has never studied it before, and has no background in the technical fields involved.

It meets the readers where they are, holding their hand as they are shown - through a series of evocative metaphors - how to see through their own unexamined assumptions, so to realize how the impossible dilemmas of physicalism disappear when nature is regarded from a slightly different slant.

As is made clear from the very off, Analytic Idealism — the subject of this book — represents a correction of our known metaphysical mistakes; a step forward. Kastrup argues it offers the most plausible and parsimonious hypothesis we have today about the nature of reality. Herein lies the value of what you are about to read from the man himself.

He has written ten earlier books and a PhD thesis on the subject, not to mention a number of technical papers in academic journals, blog posts, and popular science & philosophy essays in major publications. So, what is new in this particular volume? As the title of this book indicates, here he attempts to summarize, in an informal but direct manner, the key salient points of Analytic Idealism and the argument that substantiates it.

Ideas from several of his previous writings are revisited here, but often in a new form, from a different slant. And they are brought together so to give you the briefest and most compelling overview of Analytic Idealism he could muster.

In addition, as he found himself having to explain and defend Analytic Idealism in countless interviews, Q&A sessions, panels, debates, courses, and other public events over the years, he had to distill a more optimal way to bring forth the core ideas. Indeed, he has learned over time what the main difficulties are that different people have with Analytic Idealism, and refined ways to explain it so to meet people where they are, honoring their intuitions and tackling their hidden assumptions more explicitly. All these learnings and refinements are built into the present volume.

Thus, this book is meant to be as close as possible to a verbal discussion of Analytic Idealism, as if he were explaining it to you in person. The tone adopted deliberately reveals more aspects of his own humanity and emotional state to the reader, which can be contrasted to the drier and more objective character of his technical writings.

In short, the conclusions have tremendous implications for our values and way of life, as well as our understanding of purpose, self, identity, and death.

About the Author - Bernardo Kastrup has a Ph.D. in philosophy and another in computer engineering. He has been a scientist in some of the world’s foremost scientific laboratories. His main interests are metaphysics and philosophy of mind. He lives in Veldhoven, Netherlands.

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