Can there be experience without an experiencer?

A multifaceted and succinct questioning of Analytic Idealism

If I'm not mistaken, one of Bernardo Kastrup's core theses is that Universal Consciousness experiences itself through living beings. Furthermore, these entities, in their dissociated state, are capable of recognizing their own consciousness; that is, they are metaconscious. Consequently, this is the only way in which Universal Consciousness is able to consciously recognize its own experience —as opposed to what occurs in the rest of inert nature, namely, Mind-at-Large.

However, it should be noticed that this argument contains a clear reflexive element in its construction, which implies the necessity of a subject. In other words, insofar as it is affirmed that Universal Consciousness experiences itself through us, this denotes the existence of a subject, for the experience is being objectified.

Despite the former, I believe that Bernardo asserts that Universal Consciousness stands beyond the subject-object dichotomy, since it is pure subjectivity, i.e., the ontological primitive that precedes, as a condition of possibility, any existence.

That being said, if we take this pure subjectivity —or "field of subjectivity," as Bernardo himself calls it— as absolute experience, we are accepting the viability of an experience in the absence of an experiencer, which contradicts the totality of empirical evidence found in the phenomenal world.

Thus, were we to concede that everything is processual —a character attributed to the very idiosyncrasy of the subjectivity that discovers itself as such—, that reality is composed of a cluster of subjective events devoid, then, of a subject, we would be doing so on the assumption that we ourselves are also process and not subject. This, delving further into the matter, would call into question not merely the very way in which we exist, but everything we can know about reality through that same essence to which we attribute "ontological absoluteness," namely, subjective experience.

On the other hand, the claim that ultimate reality is pure experience without an experiencer incurs an inconsistency of an epistemological nature.

In essence, the problem may stem from the use of categories that originate in an epistemic dimension defined by the contingency and conditioning to which we are subject as individualized beings or, following the terminology of idealism, as dissociated entities.

The crux of the matter is that this usage is not carried out in full with respect to the elements in question, but rather in a biased manner.

Thus, if we turn to the concept of experience, it is put forward as ontologically independent, and therefore devoid of the presence of a subject.

Consequently, instead of an analogous transfer taking place that respects the original epistemological structure, what crystallizes instead is the selective extraction of the element of experience from its sole context of reference, that is, the phenomenal, while nonetheless omitting the condition of possibility that accompanies it therein, namely, the subject.

It is precisely on this basis that, even if Bernardo could argue —as I believe he would— that this stems from a linguistic concession, given that we inescapably rely on a language configured under the subject-object ontological model, accepting the unfounded existence of an absolute experience without an experiencer constitutes a petitio principii —or begging the question—, insofar as it tacitly presupposes the very thing the theory sets out to deny, namely, the existence of a subject.

Now, if we contrast this with Bernardo's intention to align his theory in coherence with naturalism, it is especially striking that not only the absence but the very impossibility of empirical verification of an experience without an experiencer should be accepted, insofar as it introduces through the back door precisely what the theoretical framework itself purports to avoid.

In fact, this not only contradicts the presumably naturalist spirit of Bernardo's own theory, but would also amount to incurring the same flaw that materialism commits when arguing that mind emerges from the brain. That is, an unprovable premise is accepted as valid and, from there, the thesis it aims to sustain is subsequently built.

The foregoing might give rise to asking whether it would not be more congruent with the evidence, as well as more consistent with logic, to propose that the subject is a necessary context for experience —that is, the structural condition inseparable from its experiential correlate— rather than to advocate its dissolution. Indeed, if we eliminate the subject as a condition of possibility, to what extent could we continue speaking of experience at all? Would it not constitute a flagrant logical incoherence for a subject to speak of experience devoid of a subject, even if this were grounded not merely in inference or intellective intuition, but even in subjective evidence itself?

This critique does not seek to invalidate the philosophical worthiness of Analytic Idealism —which is, in fact, why I am part of the "With Reality in Mind" community— but rather to invite reflection on the possibility that it may contain some inconsistency, as happens with any theory, starting with my own.

[This translation into English —AI-assisted, using Claude Sonnet 5— derives from the original text in Spanish, "¿Cabe hablar de experiencia en ausencia de un experimentador? Una crítica sucinta y multifacética del Idealismo Analítico", which can also be found on this website.]

© Abraham Meghji Ramos 2026. This text is protected by copyright. Citation and partial use are permitted with full attribution to the author and a link to the source. Reproduction without credit or for purposes of appropriation is expressly prohibited.