Cognitive Science and Mysticism with John Vervaeke

[@SeekersofUnity]

Round 1: kzbin.info/www/bejne/baexYYePocp6Z5Y Round 2: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nl7bZX98i8SDnLc Round 4: kzbin.info/www/bejne/r36WgYGPmqhjmc0

[@johnvervaeke]

Thank you Zevi!!! Looking forward to our fourth dia logos!!!

[@SeekersofUnity]

Thank you John, can't wait.

[@yosefzee7605]

stupendous stuff! doc are u familiar with the with Stanilov Grofs writings/work?

[@Tzimtzum26]

This was so good. Would love to see more dialogue between you guys. Blessings and success

[@betweenearthandsky4091]

These conversations are such a gift to stumble onto. I'm writing a research paper on perennialism which led me to the tension between mysticism and tradition

[@adriancioroianu1704]

John was on fire in this discussion, this deserve more exposure, the amount of substance in this conversation is outstanding and atypical even for John who is often very generous with his ideas.

[@transformations1]

Hyperbolic discounting and symbolic bundling. Such powerful transformative concepts. This is a mindblowing conversation (all four conversations) Thanks to Zevi & John for these conversations - incredible work vital for humanity

[@justinbirkholz]

Yet again, John gives me the vocabulary I've been searching for. Hyperbolic discounting. That's beautiful! I've spoken about that cognitive process before but did not have the right words to describe it. I cannot understate how epic and transformative his Awakening from the Meaning Crisis series has been and how much I enjoy these discussions. Watching the series has been an awakening experience in itself. Thank you again Zevi for introducing me to John, and, John, thank you for everything. This world is a little brighter with you in it.

[@Frauter]

So excited to get to be part of this as a viewer, the energy absolutely carries across! These comments are my small way of becoming more of an "active" participant. Does anyone have thoughts on what the research on third person self-reflection and reflection with the imagined presence of a sage might imply for the Active Imagination practice of multiple first-person journaling, i.e. in which you split yourself into multiple subjectivities, one of which you treat as a kind of outsider, as someone whose responses can and will surprise you?

[@mcnallyaar]

It is what it Is. "I will be what I will Be."

[@Jason-ms8bv]

Also very grateful for your amazing work.

[@SeekersofUnity]

Thank you Jason :)

[@yahwings7813]

I love the hook before the logo on this one! How could I not watch

[@SeekersofUnity]

Thank you Tom 🙏🏼

[@ThePathOfEudaimonia]

Thank you for posting this!

[@SeekersofUnity]

Our pleasure. Thank you.

[@chezispero3533]

What a fantastic conversation. Thank you.

[@SeekersofUnity]

Thank you Chezi. Glad you enjoyed it 🙏

[@heatherc1563]

I appreciate you both for sharing these ideas. As someone who has had difficulty integrating my experience into my life it helps to put the suffering in a place that feels less paralyzing. Having this experience in a place that is hostile to it was no less real but different I would imagine than in a place where support at any level was offered.

[@garrettvandenberg2031]

Great! Looking forward to watching this whole thing!

[@yosefzee7605]

this is so enriching.. i cant begin to explain. Another homerun Zevi!

[@SeekersofUnity]

Thank you Yosef 🙏🏼 I’m glad you found it so.

[@henriquecaldeira]

That was really stimulating! Thank you both. It's a lot to ruminate, but I can tell it's real food!

[@SeekersofUnity]

You’re so welcome. Thank you for joining us.

[@Jason-ms8bv]

So maybe I didn't take it all in (there was a lot of information in this one) but my basic takeaway from this was we should have more empathy and play if we want to be smarter, this seams so painfully obvious that it makes me want to cry for the current state of humanity.

[@SeekersofUnity]

We'll cry with you Jason.

[@mediocrates3416]

I've pointed out that the brain is a feeling machine; then i suggest, "feel it"! Is this not serious play? Yet people trying to awake from a meaning crisis seem to ignore me. I don't get people. It's easier to "do calculations" than to empathize, apparently. Honestly, i think it's politics.

[@karmayt8956]

What I love about Jews is that they don’t hound me and attempt to convert me. They answer my questions and don’t get mad at me for constantly questioning. I wish Christians and Muslims would let me be me without judging me.

[@robinboroda7909]

I keep thinking of Being, Belonging and Becoming- the title of the Australian National Early Framework of Early Childhood teaching and learning. I have personally seen, and studies have backed up, that toddlers who are aggressively protective, as they are supported to feel belonging, open up and even develop linguistically and social and emotional outcomes dramatically improve.

[@Jason-ms8bv]

Zevi I love your channel because you cover the greater human experience and not the 'woo woo'.

[@SeekersofUnity]

Thank you Jason. We hope to un-"woo woo" this vital and critical topic.

[@Jason-ms8bv]

@@SeekersofUnity Well this presentations certainly seams to be doing that! I find I am very drawn to the 'mystic experience' and it's outcomes as has been pointed out in this episode it does seam to produce real world positive effects, and while I am personally very open to the religious dimension to this I personally know people who have had this type of experience in very secular ways.

[@henriquecaldeira]

This ontonormativity idea (who I'm sure we've all met in person, btw) remembered me of the theologian-cum-mystic Hans Urs von Balthasar, whose theology flows from Beauty to Good and Truth, rather than the other way around (as was more conventional in regards to the ordering of the three transcendentals in the Catholic Tradition).

[@justinbirkholz]

Y'all reminded me of another James quote: "So long as egoistic worry of the sick soul guards the door, the expansive confidence of the soul of faith gains no presence. But let the former faint away, even for a moment, and the latter can profit by the opportunity, and, having once acquired possession, may retain it." -William James

[@yosefzee7605]

such an awesome quote!

[@justinbirkholz]

@@yosefzee7605 thanks! One of my favorite

[@mills8102]

I really enjoyed this dialogue. And that it was. Sometimes it's okay to point at something and watch John tear off, rooster tail of dirt in his wake, as far as his mind can take him in that direction. I really appreciated the point which was brought up regarding scaling and accessability for the lay person. I think the challenge is always telephone game versus a centrally proscribed doctrinal approach. Both ways are fraught. Is there a middle way?

[@mediocrates3416]

"Ontonormativity"; i like it!

[@SeekersofUnity]

Ya. It's a great term.

[@EternalIntelligence]

Hi Admin, is there a way I can get a bio of yours so I can understand your background? I think your content interesting but I'd also like to see where you studied (yeshiva and academia wise).

[@SeekersofUnity]

Hi El, I don't have a bio but i'm happy to answer any questions you may have. I studied in Chabad yeshivot, Ohr Elchanan in LA and Oholei Torah in NY. You might get a bit more info from this: judaicainthespotlight.com/meet-the-seeker-zevi-slavin/ Thanks for coming by, Zevi

[@SeekersofUnity]

Welcome brother. Good to have you join us. Yours, Zevi

[@ramkrishnadas4230]

Dear Seekers of Unity (including us all), Just yesterday I heard something from the foremost traditional authority on Advaita Vedanta which destroyed my self belief of being a somewhat below average student of Vedanta completely; and I realized I am not only illiterate in it; but I hold convictions which are hostile to things I was hearing. What I was hearing is extremely shocking to me; yet it is quite possible that for the serious and rigorous seekers like you, it might be so commonplace that my shock would appear ridiculous to you; so I present it to you with a conviction that my words might fail in conveying what I interpreted from what I heard; and though it is in my mother tongue, it is quite possible that I am misinterpreting it. However, if it makes sense to you; and if by greater coincidence, if you also have something to say about it (on your own or you can point to some texts accessible to the average or below average intellect) it will help me hugely. So this is what I think I heard: The essential of Vedanta is that it is only "chetana" (consciousness would come closest to describe it, with coveat that even consciousness does not have uniform conceptualizations among different experts) which exists; and almost ever process-everything/non-thing has a consciousness associated with it- even time is conscious-so much so conscious that it can incarnate as any creature; and even communicate with any creature by appearing as their own co-species and become accessible to their intellect. And it is not only time-months, lunar fortnights, days, -anything cyclical is conscious- and they can not only appear before us; but can be appeased and while there are allegations that appeasing them can influence events occuring in our lives but there is total unambiguity that they can certainly affect the influence these events will have on our psyche. I found it shocking but; are platonic forms conscious? Please refer to your video if you have talked about the consciousness of intervals of time, and the whole time as such, or just say few words in one of your videos. THanks.

[@mediocrates3416]

I suggest "spiritually enabled scientism."

[@darkbrandom]

I'm looking for the paper Dr. Vervaeke mentioned about exemplar journaling. Anyone know the source?

[@yosefzee7605]

you should really read Stanilov Gustav Grof. Seems like the doctor is saying a lot of what he said.

[@kerycktotebag8164]

i use ontologically & 4p4e3r cognitively-transparent, peer-reviewed grounded practices (well, ontonormative, highly applicable patterns I've realized through participating in various "disruptive" practices & learning) using "de"-woo'ified, emergentist-physicalist versions of Kabbalah to try and find a socially-supported ecology of practices in my zone of proximal learning and development. but, because most ppl i have access to in-person are primarily focused not on proximal development or ontology but on just recreating hot flow states they experienced in the past for a kind of immediate gratification, I have trouble crafting social groups around actually having rituals that challenge me in that "zone". without that, only having the ontological skills without places to aspire to transform and build practices, i find that i languish and am uninspired more often bc i don't have ppl i trust to learn and play with that doesn't just deteriorate into a bunch of ppl doing what they know, going into flow states but not calibrating their own comportment enough to actually cooperate and learn and internalize and generalize the skills gained by these flow states. idk how to explain it, but when my overlapping zones of proximal development aren't "afforded" a good balance of Prospect and Refuge, it becomes incredibly difficult to learn anything other than particularities about my friends that don't really generalize or even aspire to proleptic rationality like i basically need right now to avoid languishing & going into catatonia. the "wiser" i get, the more people-power and sharing and ritual i need to feel like I'm even developing at all. It hurts more. Not having an ecology of practices makes it so I'm not finding sociocultural coherence and support appropriate to the task of "containing" the level of self-transparency and ontoepistemological comprehensibility i can maintain by myself. It's dangerous when you don't have an sociocultural human ecosystem to plug into and practice with other ppl in ways that just can't be done alone. I've used these "propositional bridges" bc they're often the only things i have-i use metaphors, free association, imaginal and pretend, slow dancing alone, creating and memorizing highly metaphorical mandalas through an art practice, and trying to not just signify but also "presentify" little reminders of high-fluency phenomenological states I've already experienced, and I've even built little maps of correspondences that show all the connections between the languageing of wisdom and mystical traditions & 4p4e3r cognitive science & anthropology..... And all my mandalas use metonymy & synecdoche to pack more metaphor into symbols i draw or words i choose to chant internally... but there's still a limit to what i can do alone, and it hurts even more when i need the social spaces (and institutional infrastructure to materially afford them, driving or flying to events, etc) to learn more but they're just so hard to find. i agree with Vervaeke that when you need the ecology of practices, but the current legacies of wisdom traditions fall short of helping me to learn and adjust, when the participatory side isn't adequate, i start moving from passive thoughts of death into highly agitated states of catatonia despite my neuropsych tests showing that i "shouldn't" be feeling this way. Bc those tests don't measure how much supportive learning affordances available to me. Metamodernists tried to help me physically immigrate closer to their ecologies of practices in 2017, but they didn't have the capital resources to do so. So idrk what else to do other than distance myself from ppl who kind of tease me with their proclivity towards very fleeting flow states with a promise of being interested in deliberate development but don't even attempt to progressively involve rationality & deliberate shared growth. Otherwise, i fall into these catatonic spells of deep dejection. :(

[@SeekersofUnity]

Have you tried volunteering?

[@mediocrates3416]

"Reflective destablization"; now i know what to call it😂😂

[@kerycktotebag8164]

i call it "deterritorializing (enough) in order to comport"

[@bobkat8765]

Definitely the creation of a new religion. Once the series got into Church Fathers, philosophers, Teachers, and Saints, it became obvious that a narrative, rather than an analysis was being had. Clement of Alexandria (Theologian and Greek Father, 2nd century): “Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman…the consciousness of their own nature must evoke feelings of shame” --- Origen (Theologian and Greek Father, 2nd-3rd centuries) “Men should not sit and listen to a woman… even if she says admirable things, or even saintly things, that is of little consequence, since it came from the mouth of a woman.” Fragments on 1 Corinthians --- Tertullian (the Father of Latin Christianity, 155-245): ”And do you not know that you are (each) an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil’s gateway: you are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God’s image, man. On account of your desert- that is, death- even the Son of God had to die. And do you think about adorning yourself over and above your tunics of skins?” On the Apparel of Women, Chapter 1 --- Chrysostom (Archbishop of Constantinople and Doctor of the Church, 4th century) “God maintained the order of each sex by dividing the business of life into two parts, and assigned the more necessary and beneficial aspects to the man and the less important, inferior matter to the woman.” --- Augustine (Bishop of Hippo, Doctor of the Church and Latin Father, 354-430): “I don’t see what sort of help woman was created to provide man with, if one excludes procreation. If woman is not given to man for help in bearing children, for what help could she be? To till the earth together? If help were needed for that, man would have been a better help for man. The same goes for comfort in solitude. How much more pleasure is it for life and conversation when two friends live together than when a man and a woman cohabitate?” “. . . the woman together with her own husband is the image of God, so that that whole substance may be one image; but when she is referred separately to her quality of help-meet, which regards the woman herself alone, then she is not the image of God; but as regards the man alone, he is the image of God as fully and completely as when the woman too is joined with him in one.” On the Trinity Book 12 7.10 --- Jerome (Priest, Theologian, Doctor of the Church and Latin Father, 4th-5th centuries): “Woman is the root of all evil.” --- Thomas Aquinas (Doctor of the church, 13th century) As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active force in the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of woman comes from a defect in the active force or from some material indisposition, or even from some external influence. Summa Theologica, Vol. I, Q. 92, Art. 2: 489. --- Martin Luther (German priest, theologian and Protestant Reformer, 16th century) : “The woman certainly differs from the man, for she is weaker in body and intellect. Nevertheless Eve was an excellent creature and equal to Adam in so far as the divine image: that is, righteousness, wisdom and eternal salvation, is concerned. Still, she was only a woman. As the sun is much more glorious than the moon (though also the moon is glorious), so the woman was inferior to the man both in honour and dignity, though she, too, was a very excellent work of God.” From Luther’s Commentary on Genesis. --- John Calvin (French theologian, pastor and Protestant Reformer, 1509-1564), of the first post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to women rather than to men: “I consider this was done by way of reproach, because they [the men] had been so tardy and sluggish to believe. And indeed, they deserve not only to have women for their teachers, but even oxen and asses. . . Yet it pleased the Lord, by means of those weak and contemptible vessels, to give display of his power.” From Calvin’s Commentary on the Gospel of John. On this account, all women are born that they may acknowledge themselves as inferior in consequence to the superiority of the male sex. From Calvin’s Commentary on 1 Corinthians (Chapter 11) --- John Knox (Scottish clergyman and Protestant Reformer, 16th century: “[Women are] weake, fraile, impatient, feeble and foolish.” He also said women were “unconstant, variable, cruel and lacking the spirit of counsel and regiment” and “woman in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey man.” From his The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.

[@davidnagy1046]

i haven't finished watching, so it might be talked about later in the video, but it's starting to feel like a parallel between today and Hellenistic times; the state religions didn't satisfy people, so they turned to mystical cults... today there are people who aren't satisfied by the answers of either science or religions, and there's this rise in mysticism (especially i've been seeing more and more non-dualistic forms of thought pop up with any/every religious 'flavour') - am i just seeing things in my 'ecochamber' or is it really something that's happening?

[@kerycktotebag8164]

i see more ppl settle on what he calls hot flow states as a way to release stress, with maybe a glaze of non dual language. Not so many ppl doing contemplative, deliberative practices together to find "meta" optimal stuff. So, more hot and more flow, less cool and less mysticism.

[@noxot13]

why do so many humans assume that the main problem is themselves rather than the much larger part of reality such as society and the basic rules of nature? why must we fix ourselves and conform to all the outside authorities that might very well be poisoning us and making us depressed and yet that we don't consciously realize? does the answer always have to be to change the self? collectivism is just the other side of the coin of ego. personality is something greater and thus the larger collective has a greater of the mirror of the individual verses personality too. all the medicines used to aid depression are often used in a way leading to a dystopic nightmare. people tend to act like depression or anxiety is only a disease, they never seem to consider it to be a warning sign that something is wrong.

[@noxot13]

mystical experience is not only about the body though. all of reality is a flow. science can't reduce it to the biological. if one can't notice reality is a flow and harmonic connection of providence and overarching living spirits of various sorts behind the appearance of the mundane world then the scientific person stands outside with the ignorant religious person. by constantly accepting inferior spirits one won't allow themselves to see the greater reality. keep on rejecting proofs of near death experiences and never obtaining an understanding of the truths in them is the prerogative of the scientific skeptic that decided that reality is framed a certain way and that is how they will function - according to the beloved who keeps sleeping. everyone receives as much as they want though the doors can be more optimized yet there has always been a famine in the land of plenty.

[@mediocrates3416]

A transposable Cartesian theatre!

[@roselotusmystic]

🙏

[@tonym6566]

1:36:00 ish Epiphany cascade or flow Shrooms showed me that but after a while it got boring or it just didn’t make sense to stay in the flow once I saw it from above while it was happening somehow... still can’t figure it out xD

[@mediocrates3416]

2:11:32 Yeah but, we have to slough off the paralysis. The liturgical technology is neutering: it should be activating, actualizing.

[@mediocrates3416]

I think flow is about confidence; no surprises. Even surprises aren't devastating surprises; they're familiar and handleable. Insight to insight in the hot meditative flow, i think; those are the visions, i think. The first thing i said when my experience finished was, "nothing has changed"; to the one who said the cusping nothing that started it. I was angry, for a couple of reasons.

[@mediocrates3416]

Turns out my reaction time is quicker; that"s kinda neat.

[@mediocrates3416]

1:42 and finding truth: no shoehorns, no work.

[@mediocrates3416]

OK, shoehorns.

[@mediocrates3416]

The body is the symbolic metaphor: every self has a body; it's the universal grounding referent.

[@mediocrates3416]

Live by what you believe in your heart to be true: live by dharma.

[@robinboroda7909]

Do you know of the work of developmental educator, Kieran Egan?

[@SeekersofUnity]

John may very well. Zevi doesn’t.

[@robinboroda7909]

@@SeekersofUnity John was talking about child development in terms of the way in which humans open up a portal to explore the richness of reality and they are supported to suffuse this with meaning and make accommodations and expansions through a socio-cultural lens within community. He talked about putting distributive cognition within the Zone of Proximal Development. So far this is sonorous with Lev Vygotsky’s vision of Child Development. But another lens is through stages that Kieran Egan lays out. I’ll explain later…🙏🏻

[@fredericpeters1416]

Vervaeke maintains that mystical experience is real because (a) it changes the personality, and (b) developmental psychology shows that the cognitive system does change how it works and mysticism, presumably, is part of that developmental process. Both assertions are dead wrong. Enlightenment awakens conscious awareness to itself and does not change much less improve the personality. They are separate modules of the cognitive system. Secondly, if enlightenment were part of the normal human developmental process it would be easier to bring about, to activate. In reality it is profoundly difficult to do so. The success rate of tradition Zen training, for example is around 2%. Plotinus managed to attain the state only 4 times in his life. Moreover, it is temporary. Stop the training and it slides back into memory. The states are real, they do exist, but they are not part of some "next stage of consciouisness" nor do they automaticlly transform the personality into something more benign. Was Rajneesh a nice guy? He was an asshole.

[@Joeonline26]

Im afraid that's not quite right There is good evidence that mystical experience changes otherwise stable big5 traits on a long-term (usually greater than 12months) basis. This is important because the personality literature says that big5 traits are supposed to be more or less unchanged across the lifespan. The only other thing that apparently creates long-term change on some personality traits is psychedelic experiences. Also thinking about 'inproving personality' doesn't really make sense. Personality traits are just exactly that. They aren't virtues that are supposed to be cultivated or refined

[@zevilover3591]

so what does that actually mean?🤔

[@82472tclt]

God seizure all the way….

[@robinboroda7909]

It seems that Vervaeke knows Lev Vygotsky’s work-ZPD🌈

[@jameslangley2196]

First comment?!!!!??

[@SeekersofUnity]

Yes you are ;)

[@mediocrates3416]

Where to put truth and coherence? I'm pretty sure the brain is becoming a coherence detector: it's been a comfort finder since it started and just recently began becoming a coherence detector. I'm of the opinion that established structures have a way of pacifying dharma and popularizing karma. I don't see any wisdom in that.

[@ramkitty]

mysticism sadly will remain miasmic as experience is not an answer but a gnosis window.

[@SeekersofUnity]

Why mimasmic then?

[@ramkitty]

@@SeekersofUnity great question that I will answer with special relativity. Time is subjective to observation and state of observer. Neither observer interprets 'reality' universally. That is to say how we perceive is unique to our individual biological entity. Communication of expirience is subject to each others knowledge and ability to exchange information both depend on ability to relate senses though thought to words and back again. Like idea of serfirot and the keter malkut, anywhere in the thought or exchange can the information be muted from intended form. How do I even chose the words to represent my ideas, our brains do not think in lingua franka. Edit: I deliberately chose miasmic as a way collapse my thougt tree to a single word. How is that for a self referential answer.

[@ramkitty]

I don't know if that even answers the question. I believe that the distribution of people and that individual expirience will mean that there will never be true Unity as that is exclusionary of probability itself. Unity is aways there for those who seek it.

[@mediocrates3416]

@@ramkitty I think you've answered just fine! Notice, tho, that general relativity fixes special relativity and time and; magnetism fixes special relativity and charge from different *places* . It works! We are in this together. Look how binding energy makes inertial mass but, linear kenetic energy does not. ... Yeah, i can smell it; central to the driving function and eventually you get used to it.

[@mediocrates3416]

@@ramkitty Can you tell me anything about why keter malkut might not be something like keter shekhina...? I dunno, stupid question?