Ep. 36 - Awakening from the Meaning Crisis - Religio/Perennial Problems/Reverse Eng. Enlightenment

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Books in the Video:
- Thomas Nagel - The View From Nowhere
- Susan Wolf - Meaning in Life and Why it Matters
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Facebook: / vervaeke.john
Twitter: / vervaeke_john
Thirty-sixth episode of Dr. John Vervaeke's Awakening from the Meaning Crisis.

[@johnvervaeke]

I will be hosting a live Q&A here on KZbin today at 1600 EST. Please join me. You can also get priority question-asking access for $2/month by subscribing to my Patreon: www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke

[@heyhansen268]

One episode at a time this series is changing my life. Thank you so much!

[@mavoca-frngrk]

Throughout the series, I appreciate how the thumbnail images effectively symbolize the content of the lecture, capturing its essence in a visually symbolic manner.

[@5hydroxyT]

as someone who works in mental health, i can’t help but see how the perennial problems really just describe the main mental health diagnoses of our times (depression, anxiety, ADHD, etc.) not through the lens of biology and chemistry, but through the frame of cognitive science and philosophy. This offers a fantastic possibility for new ‘therapeutic ‘ approaches, which i’m excited to see explained in the next few episodes!

[@tanzilrahber9275]

I had a good laugh when you finally realized (notice the words I’m using) that «this marker is… no good!». Thank you so much for this «Wisdom of Life».

[@stephenlaswell4341]

Talk about a cliffhanger. Next week: how to achieve enlightenment.

[@NickRedmark]

On point!

[@Charles3x7]

Do I remember correctly that this series is in preparation for a book publication? I sure would like to get a copy of that if/when it comes out.

[@jonnekytola5513]

I dropped this series for several months, and this was the episode waiting next. The part about the perennial problems struck a chord, heavily. Good stuff.

[@angelcandelaria6728]

This series deserves more likes and shares

[@nugzarkapanadze6867]

Thank You!!!!

[@johnmadany9829]

Listening to your lectures has become a Friday ritual. I am an avid lifelong learner listening to more lectures, books and interviews every day than I did as a full-time college student. As a 60 y.o. student I have always been encouraged by the promise that the Holy Spirit would teach me “all things“. The Holy Spirit is teaching me through you. Thank you.

[@GingerDrums]

Certainly John's spirit is talking through him!

[@lukaslukaas5863]

Now finally I understand, Symbols are truly EPIC 😮

[@michaelromeo4623]

I cant help but symbolize the GI/RR 'machine' as a torus or hypercube 🙂 I'm really enjoying and getting a lot out of this series. Thank you very much John 💚

[@stephen-torrence]

Yeah! Trees -- with their Toroidal cycling of matter/energy -- are such deeply rooted (pun intended) symbols in our mythologies.

[@LaymansPursuit]

Torus is exactly my visualisation

[@lordbyron7918]

Why is that?

[@LaymansPursuit]

@@lordbyron7918 for me it's the recursion and the continual self-making, I think.

[@mencadotranforming4411]

I don't think of myself as generally being inclined towards comprehending any sort of high-level academic thinking. With this in mind, part of me is amazed at how much of the content of the videos in this series I have been able to understand even on a first listening. Another part of me realizes that it is the eloquence and clarity of your explanations that greatly contributes to affording me such an ability to understand what you mean. Well done!

[@MrMarktrumble]

Thank you.

[@lucasfabisiak9586]

John is doing a phenomenal job of analyzing the low resolution aspects of the meaning crisis in the perennial sense. I want to propose one higher resolution factor that seems to be less so perennial and more particular to a change in the specifics of our arena/agent relationship. This is totally speculative and anecdotally derived, so take it with a grain of salt. I claim that the so called meaning crisis is an emergent phenomenon that develops through time as the human agent/arena relationship transforms from primitive to industrial. As far as I know, there is some evidence that rates of suicide and depression are higher in industrialized countries. As our arena transforms from one that is-for lack of a better word-“natural”, we as agents also transform to fit into it. Whereas the primitive man in a natural setting finds himself perpetually confronted with objects that elicit “experiences of the inexhaustible”-the night sky, vast forests and deserts, wild animals, etc. (all things which are NOT manmade)-we modern folks sit in homes, offices, and cars surrounded by objects that seldom arouse feelings of awe precisely because they are graspable in ways that the infinite cosmos is not. Perhaps this is why so many seem to find relief and self transcendence by going out into the wilderness, or by turning awareness inward through meditation. I know this isn’t a new idea, but I wonder if we risk getting too caught up in reflection like Hamlet instead of being practical and proactive. What good is all this theorizing if it doesn’t lead to active solutions? Now, I may be speaking too soon, since the lectures will go on and I’m sure John will have more to say about this, but I just felt like raising this point anyway to potentially stir up some discussion. As a final point, I would stress the significance of the arena being manmade versus “natural” and what particular implications there are on the agent side. It seems to me, taken in this way, atheism and nihilistic tendencies are inevitable as we industrialize and modernize. In a world built by man, where does man encounter God?

[@dls78731]

Lucas Fabisiak, I believe you are thinking in a direction that is similar to my own, although it seems you also may reach conclusions different from my own. This is exciting precisely because of the possibility of perceiving finer gradations of nuance due to the distinctions. Something like complex interactions might afford human beings greater range in our “random walks.” We may be able to get further away from equilibrium states in the agent-arena relationship precisely because we are able to enact a participatory knowing independent of God’s will (Vanderklay readers, I’m using God in a metaphorical sense). This freedom of will allows us to explore possibilities beyond those reachable by conventional means, but also requires that the conjecture of separation itself be tested. Our agency is only a partial separation from nature; in the large scheme of things, it is still natural, but on the small scale it can look unnatural. The chaos of the meaning crisis would seem to fit perfectly with the testing of the boundary of this conditional naturalness. I like your thought about why the chaos of nature can create a kind of internal re-balancing. Too much graspability seems likely to promote nihilism because there isn’t enough novelty. Too little graspability might promote nihilism due to too much novelty (essentially random). We like just the right amount of randomness to keep things interesting, and occasionally that means macro-scale chaos.

[@lucasfabisiak9586]

amor vincit omnia I realize that the distinction between natural and man made is a bit flimsy, but that’s just because our language is insufficient for capturing the meaning. You know exactly what I mean when I say natural or unnatural. Just because technically everything is natural, that doesn’t mean that you fail to understand my meaning. That would be allowing the restrictions of language to dictate your understanding. Something man made is still natural but there is something qualitatively different about it on a phenomenological level from something that hasn’t been transformed by a person. We experience things like cars, buildings, and smartphones differently than rivers, trees, and mountains. So unless you are claiming that this categorical difference is null, then I’m not sure what the point of your remark was. Also, just a grammatical correction. It’s a common error to say “John is bias.” The word ‘bias’ is a noun. So someone can ‘have bias’ but cannot ‘be bias’. The word ‘biased’ is an adjective. Someone can ‘be biased’. So what you should have said was “scientists are...biased.” Don’t worry. It’s a common mistake even among native English speakers!

[@lenavoyles526]

Lucas, I definitely feel the categorical distinction that you are reaching for, such as that between a smartphone and a river. There is another layer of complexity to these categories, however, that I wish to add: your distinction between “man made” and “natural” is a very post-Industrial Western way of thinking. Most of the “natural” landscapes that we now spend our holidays hiking in are the result of thousands of years of very active management by indigenous peoples. Historical records combined with oral tradition seem to indicate that most indigenous cultures practiced landscape-scale management of what we would call “the natural world”. You could make a case that Native Americans were actually “farming” the herds of bison, deer, and antelope that European settlers perceived as “wild”. I find these findings absolutely fascinating and if you’re interested to learn more I would suggest “Nourishing Diets” by Sally Fallon Morrell as a starting point. So, when you ask yourself why your smartphone evokes a different feeling in you than a river does, the answer may not be so simple as “One is man made and the other is not.” There might be more to the distinction between these categories.

[@Meta-trope]

God can be found in the always emergent unknown. And clearly isn't the bearded man in the sky when we Know so complex stuff such as the multiverse.

[@cedcob]

Hallelujah!!! I found the last 3-4 episodes extremely hard to follow since they all built off of each other and used concepts and words (used in a specific manner) that was far in the memory hole. Now this one was light at the end of the tunnel. Let's bullet point that shit and give a big recap and put it all together in the most perfectly clear way. LOVED this one!

[@yafz]

I think the parts around 10:00 to 11:00 deserve special attention and deep concentration coupled with a critical perspective.

[@MsGardener77]

This one gets a second listen for sure.

[@marykochan8962]

I'm not expecting you to take the time to listen to my latest video, but I just wanted to share with you one point that I hit up on when I started organizing the material and see what you think of it. I was considering the different ways that organisms move through the environment and I was thinking about the way organisms move toward what appeals to them, their appetitive desires, and away from what disgusts them. I realize that when an organism is seeking that which appeals to it, most basically that would be food, the organism is seeking to be in the state of having eaten the food or perhaps to be in the state of eating it, thus the food itself becomes a mediating thing between the organism and the state it is seeking. Thus this third thing which stands between the organism and the desired state, can function as a symbol of the desired state. So I am wondering if it is possible the the cognitive apparatus for symbolism originates in the need for organisms to consume something in order to bring about a desired state? Speaking of food, thanks so much for all the food for thought you give all of us.

[@johnvervaeke]

Mary you can count on me watching your video and responding. Your comment here reflects something often discussed in 4E cognitive science, viz., how a paramecium tracks the sucrose molecule as food, and how it’s being food is already a primitive form of sense making. This is part of the deep continuity I discuss with JP. I think this affordance- sense making of that which is directly constitutively relevant to the being of the organism does serve as a primordial grounding for symbolism. Augustine picks up on this, perhaps too literally, when he posits connections between memory and digestion and hence the eating metaphors for learning. I look forward to watching your video. It certainly has a provocative title! Thanks Mary.

[@marykochan8962]

@@johnvervaeke thank you so much. JP and I are going to be talking soon. I don't think I'm down with his panpsychism, but I think the intuition that the other living creatures around us are perhaps more conscious than we have been giving them credit for since the dawn of modern science is definitely part of my thought process. When I hear you talkin about collective intelligence I want to jump in and say but we need to make the earth and the other living things on it part of our collective intelligence too. I think it used to be but we are cut off by Modern Life and it has not been good for us.

[@johnvervaeke]

Mary Kochan I am in full agreement with extending the attribution of consciousness much further than we have traditionally done. I also like your idea of having collective intelligence be a place that integrates the ecology of practices with the ecology of organisms. That is a cool idea.

[@lenavoyles526]

There could be a problem with the supposition that all needs of all organisms fit under the heading “consumptive”. Just one example - human infants need touch in the sense that they die without it. But touch is not an object that you can consume. If you factor non-consumptive needs into your theory of the origin of symbolism, does it still work?

[@zorga0001]

@@johnvervaeke we need to expand our in group to include all life and the planet as well. That is why if we were to be invaded by aliens, you would see humanity unify and come together in a way as never before. We need an external threat common to us all. Covid was the first such thing in the collective psyche that approached this level.

[@LaymansPursuit]

It has to be my fourth partial watch through (this time from luther onwards) and finally things are really settling in for me. I'm beginning to be able to aspectualise the different facets of my world experience as recursive relevance realisation. Formation, disintegration and transformation. Both of the agent and the arena. I'm beginning to not just mimic your own words, but taking baby steps into thinking through adjacent problems using this same framing. I feel liberated, to tell the truth. And by seeing it in all different facets I mean that. The centrality of this work is stunning. I still have so many questions, but I'm feeling more equipped to be able to explore them without becoming lost.

[@keyframe5806]

Reverse engineering enlightenment??? Ok now I see the level of greatness of these series.

[@lenavoyles526]

And the level of danger.

[@stephen-torrence]

32:06 "I HAVE FAILED if what I'm doing will not ultimately lead to ways in which YOU in your life can respond to the ways in which the perennial problems have been gnawing away at the fabric of meaning in your life." 😑 🙏

[@rdrzalexa]

The video work is getting slicker. Great work!

[@Beederda]

I appreciate YOUR time JV ❤️🍄 just blowing my mind how close this feels to me i am trying to hold my questions in cause the next episodes tend to answer them for the most part 😊

[@lucasfabisiak9586]

Finally am all caught up. Will be watching this one tomorrow morning. Thanks!

[@janurbanek1127]

Re-watching the series cause its worth it!!! And I mean we can really feel the effects of C19 and the response, in combination with social media playing exactly into this. Meta-Meaning divided into three - absurdity -> loss of sense, loss of connectedness to the world, which thanks to lockdowns resonates with all of us. Not being able to work, visit people, participate in the world other than via screens. - alienation -> the division of population thanks to media and clever play with data into two groups, the pro and the against and many of BOTH thinking they are morally superior. And this has more power because its not small tribes, like trans or even racial, because you dont know who your tribe is - in the sense that even in the most fundamental tribe = family you can be torn apart by this. Of course masking alienating us. Not being able to see peoples faces. At least for me its like seeing ghosts. When I go to buy groceries, there are no people, just empty faces, entities with no expression and in that with no substance. - Anxiaty -> this one doesnt need introduction. The constant scare. The constant comparison with unrealistic ideals that pretend to be reality. You start to be disconnected with your own judgement, your own thinking, you loose confidence in it, in yourself.

[@maximiliangarciaolsson9925]

Amen brother

[@chromaticgeckos3433]

Amazing! This is exactly what we need

[@GrzegorzBrysiewicz]

Some interesting conclusions emerging again. This cycle is amazing, thank you, what a difficult journey

[@MGHOoL5]

Five days ago I was looking for a paper called 'A Fractal Topology of Time: Implications for Consciousness and Cosmology' which I thought could be interesting because I was trying to construct a theory about the teleology of existence as going towards an expansive self-organization and how the maintenance of the organization (actuality of Logos against entropy, against death) and its expansion (handling more entropy, realizing the world) are the exact essences and telos of the organization and as such could be deemed the absolute meaning of life (both as in recognizing ourselves and what it means to be, and in the meaning of 'feeling alive' as in finding joy). I had been researching meaning for the last couple of years, and had went West and East, philosophy and science, and had many new theories like the philosophy of depression. Then, as I was doing this, an interview with a guy called 'John Varvaeke' appear to me (It was 3+ hours, but I always love those). So, I thought I would see what is it about. As I'm looking at the timeline and the to-be-discussed topics, I could see that this guy is really talking about all the good things I like to learn about. He is talking about self-transcendence, about religions, about relevant-realization whatever that means. So, I go to his channel and find a WHOLE series called 'Awakening from the Meaning Crisis'. And from the first episode I was astonished. I thought I would get some self-help guru talking about how you need to work on yourself or something. But, he is going 40,000 years in the past to talk about Shamans and perspectival changes! Now, five days later, I'm in episode 36 (I watch things on 2.5x and give you my total focus). I summarized the first 20 episodes and summarized their summarization into a paragraph each (for easier re-visitation and final collection). I didn't summarize the rest because I was too eager, too interested in what you were saying that I didn't want to waste time summarizing and taking notes mid-episode that I just went on a spree. A few weeks ago I was talking to my friend for two hours at how I was looking for a word that merges between care and dependent being as to encapsulate parts of what art and religions aspire to do and how I thought of the word 'est' from 'sic mundus creatus est' and reckoned It could be used and remembered the word 'inter-' which means in-between like 'inter-dependent' and It hit me how there is a ready word which is 'inter-est'! And also the same when I found out about Logos as I used to say 'essential, meaningful organization'. So, when I watched you and you were very delicate with your words, made me aware of many words that I confused (con-fused, under-stand, sub-stance, over-seeing, super-vision, uni-verse, act-uality, con-form, in-formation, be-cause, etc.), and used the same 'grammar' I love, I truly felt at-home, yet aware of my limitation of the things I was ignorant of (meta-meaning :)). This series is sacred to me, and I will need time to absorb it after I'm finished because I'm in a different world now because of your insight. You opened up world to me in a time where I felt I exhausted my current frame. Thank you so, so much Mr. Varvaeke, you have reached me in the Middle East and changed my first week of school. I am really eager to continue the series to its culmination. I hope one day we could see this series be in the millions of views, for that such a concentrated yet diverse material so accessible and easy-to-understand because of your fine skills is worthy of more attention and I am sure it is what many people need to hear. I hope this finds you, and excuse my rant because I'm trying to pour my heart on how although I had my own world I never thought I'd find someone like you how could expand it ever more and humiliate me :) Cheers.

[@JAMESKOURTIDES]

Sweet. All we have to do is become enlightened... Cant wait for me next week's episode.

[@peterbranagan1010]

Many, many thanks John for this wonderful series of lectures. I was on an Ayahuasca retreat last September. 3 ceremonies over 4 days. First ceremony I experienced mainly visual effects and little real bodily sensations. During the second ceremony my entire body seemed to go through a mangling machine - it was horrible. However as the time passed something even more horrible happened - I felt I was becoming immortal/eternal and that repeating silly 'stories' being played out before my mind's eye would never ever stop. It was beyond exhausting- it was the worst feeling/experience of my life. As the effects of the Ayahuasca wore off a PROFOUND thought emerged in my mind with incredible clarity: THERE ARE NO VALUES OF ANY KIND IN INFINITY. ALL VALUES ARE IN THE FINITE. Fits well with T. Nagle's points you raised in this episode. BTW during the third ceremony I experienced pure finite bliss in body and soul.

[@leedufour]

Thanks John.

[@johnvervaeke]

Thanks Lee.

[@floriansebastianfitz2697]

Man.. I have to say, I have been continuously facing pretty much all of the perennial problems you were talking about in this episode. Modal confusion, a major hamlet-style reflectiveness gap, absurdity, anxiety, some alienation, existential entrapment, etc. So you know.. I know the feeling. Can’t wait to hear your response to all of this throughout the next couple of episodes!

[@Bartisim0]

Encore!

[@KRGruner]

Yes. The distinction between indispensability (I would say practical indispensability) and metaphysical necessity is critical. Too few people understand that.

[@mathewhill5556]

There is a net around the building where my cellphone is made So the people cannot leap to their death There is a flower that grows from a crack in the sidewalk One that the weedkiller missed There is no hope in a new day if everything looks the same White washed a homogeneous gray The image of tomorrow is lost in today If there is no room for the hallowed in the dust and the clay

[@marykochan8962]

Yes. My husband and I have an acre and we have been working for several years to clean it of chemicals and this year the frogs are back. I cannot tell you the joy of seeing frogs. Because they are amphibians their skin is so sensitive to everything toxic, so seeing them means that we are really making good progress on this property.

[@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885]

blocked?

[@mathewhill5556]

@@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885 What's blocked?

[@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885]

@@mathewhill5556 I was trying to post quotes on the previous upload in this series - as a reply to someone interested in the music research in animals. But nothing showed up - so I was just testing on this new upload to see if I had been blocked from posting. Not sure why - at first my post showed up in the last vid but then it stopped showing up when I was posting quotes.

[@Gongchime]

Your own poem?

[@Sand831]

I see from your practice with Plato's work a systematic or religious way that people can experience that feeling.

[@marykochan8962]

Well at least you and Paul vanderklay did not drop your videos within the same hour today, thus eliminating a major source of distress to your Mutual fans.❤

[@911garebear]

Where should I start with Vanderklay? I've only seen a little from him

[@marykochan8962]

@@911garebear well you are in trouble because he puts out a video every day and you got a couple of years worth to catch up on. 😄 I guess it might depend upon your interests because if you scroll through the videos on his channel you will see that some of his earlier material is direct responses to Jordan Peterson material, and he begins bringing in other thinkers such as CS Lewis, John Walton, Charles Taylor and many more. He is really good about telling you in most of his titles what the topics are. He has also gotten some commentary on some of Peterson's biblical series, as well as responses to the Peterson versus Harris debates. Sprinkled in with that are many conversations with various people who started contacting him and just wanted to talk. These are more pastoral with him listening to people's stories and then answering their questions. He comes from a Christian Reformed tradition but has a very open attitude. I think you will enjoy his material regardless of where you are starting from.

[@marykochan8962]

Oh, and one other thing, every Saturday he puts out a video that is a rough draft of the sermon he will be preaching on Sunday.

[@911garebear]

Thanks!

[@mosesgarcia9443]

At the center of REALITY is Love/Logos. To experience the full blast of that Living REALITY would destroy us at this stage. We are not ready. So we create shelters of MEANING to protect and filter out what we want and can handle from Living REALITY. The shelters are called Civilaztions, Worldviews, Myth etc. Science is just one of these SHELTERS OF MEANING. It can only handle the dead parts of REALITY. The parts we have already killed with our SHELTERS OF MEANING. Thank you. Professer.

[@DeonDSilva]

37:25 When you let it hit you.... John Vervaeke just explained the symbolism of the Star Trek Logo.

[@MattWilkinsonwilkoteq]

Another great lecture. Does anyone know the Velman paper/book reference?

[@davidfost5777]

I'm always looking for new interesting lectures on Psychology/Philosophy, please let me know if you guys have any recommendations, would be highly appreciated

[@tompeel]

It seems that the use of language as John noted is an analogy worth exploring and developing in order to help understand RR. How a word like "sick" (I grew up in the 90's) changes meaning given the context and who is using it and with whom and referring to what seems to exhibit lots of Participatory knowing.

[@tompeel]

Maybe other people here could add to this: Lets take an English word like Cool I can have Propositional knowing about the word cool - its various definitions I can have procedural knowing about the word cool and know how to use it to say what I mean. "Put it in the fridge to keep it cool." I can have perspectival knowing about the word cool as to when to use which definition of it in which context, and to understand how others are using it. I can have participatory knowing with the word cool. I can use it and get feedback from how it has been heard by others and how others use it to update my other forms of knowing about it and integrate new definitions. For example if I had no idea that the word cool could be used to describe something as being trendy and I entered a situation where people were all saying cool yet it not being anything to do with temperature I’d have to start to dance with the meaning of the word, use it myself, make mistakes about it and reframe the meaning of it to integrate this new definition. Looking at this through an evolutionary lens, If the meaning of a word could be seen as a resource perhaps when it begins to lack meaning, or its meaning is too broad it results in a linguistic evolution in that new word(s) develop to fill the meaning or differentiate the meaning. We’ve seen how Greek evolved 3 words where we have 1 for Love and German evolved one word, Gestalt, as a more efficient way of conveying the Structural Functional Organisation of a thing. Are younger generations, when redefining words like cool, sick, wicked etc exapting them? It's usually done in a subversive way but I’m not sure what that highlights if anything.

[@RobinTurner]

56:00 I'll never look at the Starfleet symbol the same way again ;-)

[@michaelmorrisinfarsi]

Thank you for this, John. I am wondering if the processes and no-thingness you are alluding to is similar at all to Alfred Whitehead’s ideas about processes and how there are no things, only events. I’ve always enjoyed Whitehead, but have trouble fully grasping him.

[@hollycamara8007]

If anyone needs a transcript we've made them for this & all episodes here: www.meaningcrisis.co/ep-36-awakening-from-the-meaning-crisis-religio-perennial-problems-reverse-eng-enlightenment/

[@Ardlien]

Whenever you discuss the problem of two extremes and an insufficient middle ground, I am drawn to Socrates’ idea of the golden mean for courage. This time it brought images of the meaning of *ratio*nality, the twin visions of eyes that are positioned according to the same ratios etc.

[@philmessina476]

Enlightenment, defined: (c. 31:10) "In fact, that's what I'm going to take enlightenment to mean."

[@jiggybau]

In the previous episode we were given a marvelous account of the power of symbols. I feel like the suggestion to give up the two worlds mythology is not taking this into account. If the two worlds mythology is itself a symbol that affords self-transformation, how can a purely scientific, rational, propositional account replace this powerful participatory engagement?

[@Gongchime]

The pagan solution to our wantonness was to create a holiday of Carnivale ironically right after Vakentine's day where you can allow all the transgressions you normally hold back, because although the lust demon belongs in the corpse ground, it needs at least one day to leave the corpse ground per year and express itself. You can either do this consciously or unconsciously. If unconsciously, it will come out sideways in surprisingly unwanted behavior. If you do it consciously, it shows you've accepted that you have this part of yourself in you Buddhist purity and control be damned.

[@tensevo]

When you speak about relevance realization, it seems to be from a purely materialist pragmatist perspective. In my mind, "sacred" is meta-physical and transcendent of reality, though some items and symbols may be considered sacred if they represent that thing (or no thing).

[@macoeur1122]

Ok John...Absolutely loving the entire series here...but I think I'm going to have to watch this one again and see if you're actually saying what I think you're saying in regard to "the sacred". It almost sounds as if you're working out what "the sacred" might be as you speak...and maybe losing your way. It feels to me as if there's some very important thing just "missing" here. In one sentence I feel I'm following and I'm with you and the next sentence, I'm feeling "WHOA!...wait a minute!!!! That doesn't necessarily follow, dude!" I'll watch it again and give it my undivided attention this time and see if it comes across differently the second time around. I think I may have missed your definitions of "the supernatural" and "a two-worlds mythology" so it's tough to know what it is you're actually saying.

[@austinline2621]

Isn't the thingness vs no-thingness of reality actually a question of physics?

[@danielfoliaco3873]

56:00 Bueno, al menos me voy con la esperanza de dilucidar los problemas perennes para ganar conciencia de mi agencia. Sin embargo, no sé cómo es diferente del "pienso, luego existo" de René Decart

[@corruptcatalyst4141]

I'm very curious what you think of absurdist humor such as Eric Andre. Absurdist comedy achieves humor (at least to some people) without any resolution of the absurd, and even increases humor by making the absurd expirence even more absurd, I wonder if humor isn't necessarily the resolution to the absurd, but rather there is something within humor which helps us our "resolving" machine to work more optimally, and the resolutional punchline excites this, but so do certain applications of absurdism.

[@thelovedoctor8016]

What s parasitic processing ? This is significant to me personally.

[@Ardlien]

This might be a stretch, but i wonder if humour’s etymology is at all connected to humility and awe.

[@allenwarren1269]

Is someone going to explain to me the difference between narcissism and self-reflection?

[@Ardlien]

RR as a process doesn’t require absolute relevance, but what happens to the process if it encounters such a thing? I think it is implicitly seeking the absolute as an efficiency imperative to minimise biological cost of RR itself. It encounters something that seems like absolute relevance and the process can stop, the organism can then act efficiently on a crystalised relevance structure until something sufficiently critical occurs to break that structure and RR emerges again.

[@lenavoyles526]

Hm… Jung’s archetypes may not be sacred, but they are at least perennially meaningful. And they manifest themselves in individuals who have no conscious awareness of them. So there seems to be an aspect of meaning that is stable enough to manifest itself across many different cultures and across thousands of years of time and may even somehow have an existence outside the relevance realization of an individual. In fact, if we follow Jung as a clinician we can see that it is often precisely when a person ignores or fails to be aware of something relevant that the archetype manifests itself to him (or “possesses” him). Something about the archetype allows it to assert itself contrary to the conscious focus and sense of RR of the individual - that’s precisely how we get the notion of “an autonomous complex”. I don’t see the autonomous power of the archetype accounted for in this theory of relevance realization and sacredness - though the transformative nature of VOLUNTARILY interacting with the archetype could be accountable for by these theories - and that autonomy points to the possibility of something “intrinsically meaningful”.

[@peterbosma7246]

Vervaeke suggests here that we need to "get back that sense of deep connectedness" (Sacredness. @23:00 min). Has mankind ever been having 'this' though? In history?

[@peterbosma7246]

Or is this searching, in fact, one of te roots of a 'feeling of meaninglessness' or despair?

[@tonym6566]

19:00 39:00 50:00

[@categoryerror7]

The idea that certain symbols are indispensable to individuals because of how their religio evolved seems deeply plausible to me, but also deeply lonely. It seems to point to an advantage of traditional religions in their being able to share symbols and kairos with each other, in order to be in the ‘same place at the same time’ to some degree.

[@asselm2983]

Is horror the same as existential angst?

[@KingJorman]

First I want to say, great lecture! Now, certainly science as an abstract conceptual approach is different from the various religious mythoses, but how is it that our specific science of today does not have its own assumptions and forms of faith that it carries? Of course this is not a new critique on science. Many have judged the scientific enterprise as just another form of religion, with its own Gods so to speak. And don’t we all need some form of mythos in order to engage with the perennial issues? I don’t believe science simply dissolves religious mythos. I think it carries with it its own mythos. It must. We need a mythos in order to engage. It’s a kind of bridge and we need a bridge. Otherwise there is no sense making.

[@danielfoliaco3873]

16:12 I felt this part disturbing, it really took me to aporia. It makes my religion contingent to reality, a very impersonal universe, making Cosmos an illusion from the Demiurge and making me and everybody else just prisoners of an indispensable prison, and the only thing that can be done is to replace de Demiurge, to protect and promote our beings and avoid self deceptive self destructive behavior is just a mean to become ourselves de Demiurge again and again. My native language is Spanish, but I'm writing in English, can I change Religion just like I can change lenguage, is that it?. Nothing is revealed, just disclosed, and always looking to a mirror ball encapsulated in a mirror chamber. How can I hope a Logos is such a world view?

[@jeffr4475]

44:50 Absurdity, Humor & Horror

[@shwetasinghnm]

Such a convoluted understanding of sacredness being the inexhaustible and such. What about explaining sacredness to a child then? I guess all this is not so mental, its more intuitive. Something is very misguided here about the understanding of the sacred and enlightenment. Its not as mental, its more embodied, more like feeling pain or experiencing an orgasm.

[@Orthodoxi]

Dear John, I know you won’t necessarily understand why, but in my opinion you seem to be set up right now to go on your way directly back to God. You’ll find out why I say this as you keep doing your research. It is a process for us post modern, maturing, adult children to get back to God through retracing our history. You are at what may be called the Tao stage, your choice of word, but you will work your way forward. Eventually you will re-emerge within the God stage, which does not replace Tao but catalyzes us with it. And I hope you get there sooner than later as we need a mind like yours to help with the evolution of understanding God again for today and more so for tomorrow. But we can’t push the river, your arrival will happen when it can, otherwise we invite an untimely collision and the dangers few can navigate, with the Leviathan. 😉

[@daNihilism]

Momma Llama I can tell Vervaeke has a better relationship with the creator than most pastors I know.

[@Orthodoxi]

Scholar of Nihilism interesting....hmmm... I’d say he’s most likely closer than most. It’s a good thing.

[@stephen-torrence]

Yep, he's God-ing pretty fluidly in this series 👍

[@ichtube]

When a teacher (in this case a great teacher) raises their voice to emphasize a point, to me it just sounds annoying as if if the student needs stress signals to pay attention. Not a big deal but talking about emptiness shouldn't require this. Appreciate the lectures anyways.

[@stephenlaswell4341]

Itube personally, I like his passion

[@jasetheacity]

I think this is JVs lecture persona, a creation of his to deal with his introversion/social phobia

[@voidisyinyangvoidisyinyang885]

you can change the playback speed to change the frequency of his voice.