Relevance realization, predictive processing, Peterson, and myth w/ Brett Andersen

Brett Andersen is a co-author with myself and Mark Miller on work that integrates relevance realization theory with predictive processing. Brett uses that bridge to share a brilliant reading of Peterson's account of myth, and an integration with some of my work on myth.
This is part of my series Voices with Vervaeke: Science, Spirituality, and the Meaning Crisis. You can support my work on Patreon, with the proceeds going into the research I do at the University of Toronto on the Meaning Crisis and the cultivation of wisdom here: / johnvervaeke
Join the Discord Server to discuss and reflect upon my work: / discord

[@tracywilliamsliterature]

This guy is brilliant! Wonderful, fascinating, exciting conversation and a great combination of minds... "A wise person knows what to do when they don't know what to do..." - I'm writing that down! Best wishes as always from Wales.

[@cattoes1609]

So many wonderful nuggets to digest. I am incredibly intrigued. Looking forward to future discussions. Thank you John and Brett

[@alexiscao8749]

Brett is so brilliant here! Thank you both for this excellent conversation!

[@Juhziz]

22:22 Autism and positive schizotypy. Weight on different types of input and relevance realization. Overfitting and underfitting. Comprehensiveness and consistency of data. 38:33 Narrative isn't set of propositional beliefs, it's a mode of being in the world. 41:15 Connecting to the larger reality, making you more in sync with the world. 56:30 Flow, criticality, fluency, insight and reliability. Relation between real patterns within and real patterns without. 59:25 Transjective, non-zero sum games, metastability. Infinite games. Status, power, prestige. Agape and logos. 1:06:13 Agapic arena. Trying to help other to become what one can be. 1:09:20 Zen, Dharma and Logos.

[@DaemonLlama]

TY, sir

[@j.p.marceau5146]

Thanks guys! I especially liked the part about the inevitability of complexification, and the distinction between productive and conducive teleology. It's super useful for folks like me who think that conducive teleology is what classical theism was getting at in the first place, before deism took over and reduced teleology to efficient causality in reverse, i.e., productive teleology. Looking forward to the next one, and to Brett's upcoming series! JP

[@Ac-ip5hd]

That’s a great insightful way of making a very complex statement concisely.

[@JasenRobillard]

It's always a great pleasure returning to a favourite episode. Double-dipped today with the first episode with Mark Miller (Aug 30, 2021) and now this one. So good back to back! I'm looking forward to discovering more of their work, as well as future dialogos with both of them.

[@dalibofurnell]

I have truly been enjoying Brett's Series, Intimations of a New WorldView ❤ Thanks for the Reccomendation, John!

[@Ac-ip5hd]

Great conversation Brett and Dr. Vervaeke. I can’t wait to see you talk to Dr. Peterson again. I think a discussion between you two of the same length as he and Dr. Harris’s had is just as important and necessary, and could also bring your great content, discussions AFTMC series, and meditation course more into the public consciousness. Thanks again for all the helpful discourse!

[@phiswe]

Peterson / Vervaeke is the dream team, lol. The “Jordan Peterson & John Vervaeke discuss the Meaning of Life - Master Minds I” talk between Peterson and Vervaeke is the best conversation I’ve heard between Peterson and anyone. Peterson and Vervaeke need to have a live audience small cozy theater limited series of 3 hours talks (similar to Peterson’s biblical series), and that’s then published on youtube for the whole world to see and hear. _That_ would be pure gold.

[@Ac-ip5hd]

@@phiswe Definitely! That talk was great, I think having it continue would be of historical significance, even if alot of people don't know it yet.

[@ryanhenneberger2679]

Without striking offense or misinformed (I’m a big fan of Peterson and it’s how I came across Vervaeke’s work), I really think Vervaeke’s input is crucially balancing to Peterson’s perspectives on myth and psychological functioning. To the idea of realizing what is relevant, I have come to perceive that Peterson is almost sinfully distracted by what might be generally called “culture wars” … prior to his negative media attention, he had an enchanting focus on understanding how we all work with deep empathy and inisght- since then, he’s fallen deep into the expulsion of perceived evil and to be frank, I hear him repeating himself far too often to believe that he’s still actively growing and nuancing his understanding of universal human nature

[@Ac-ip5hd]

@@ryanhenneberger2679 I’ve come to disagree and do not think the culture wars can be ignored, nor the technocracy behind them and they drive a darker version of Vervaeke’s spirituality into the religions and culture through NGO’s, schools, media, the CIA and it’s work on anthropology and state blackmail. I think Peterson is still caught in dialectics and some of this spirituality but wether or not he repeats himself or is on Twitter too much is irrelevant to wether or not the butchering and trafficking of children and social engineering to control speech, the UN and WEF are actually evil and happening as well as a soft bio weapon being unleashed for a medicalized soft dictatorship of the experts, the stirring of race riots etc. I think Vervaeke taking two years to get an ought from and is and call lockdowns bad and trying to skirt the culture war is wrong. I also think the religiosity in these spaces after close to a decade in them tends towards Gnosticism, occultism, and sexualizing religiosity, as well as being left to libertine leaning even when taking that position without actually taking it and refusing to critique things needed to force progress and admit the spiritual overlap with transhumanism to woke. I also went through, Jung, Hillman, Neojungians, a very big chunk of Vervaeke’s philosophers, his AFTMC and meditation courses to Wisdom of Hypatia and first four cognitive science shows and practiced, his prophets of the meaning crisis, Tao, Buddhism, Henry Corbin and more. It always fails to cohere, and there is a reason he was massively problematized by Bishop Marretta: because Orthodoxy is better and true. The issue then becomes wether man will accept it or not over a Gnostic and personalized god concept, which is not the same as the presuppositions truth claim of God, and the actual evidences in outcomes, works and practices of RATNAR and it’s gnostic aesthetics and open sourced religion vs. the church, warts and all on both sides.

[@rachelhayden2586]

Wow, yes, this one is out of the park! Very excited for part two.

[@gettingtogive]

Wow gents, absolutely fantastic conversation . @Brett, very much looking forward to your series . Thank you both 🙏

[@somesecret]

Fantastic conversation. Thank you both!

[@stairway11]

This was SO much fun. Ending with Agape and the Logos, a wonderful way to tie of a solid discussion. John, you were a wonderful listener. And Brett, you did really well. Thank you both for sharing this wonderful jam.

[@JAMESKOURTIDES]

Very good distillation and integration of Jordan and John's work. Well done

[@the_nouz]

Love this! Very excited for your series

[@Andrew.baltazar]

Goosebumps. I was JUST talking about this with a friend. It's actually mind boggling how much my thinking converges with Brett's.

[@Joeonline26]

Loved this conversation. Brett is excellent

[@WackyConundrum]

I enjoyed listening to this conversation so much!

[@repete79]

"It means that Meaning is real (tapping table) and pursuing it is adaptive (hard tap), not only is it adaptive, you know, right, it has utility for one but it's not only that ..." 57:28 Jordan Peterson enters the conversation. :)

[@forecast_hinderer]

Wow, not only are you both excited about the prospect of continuing to work together, I’m guessing I speak for many of the audience in saying, we are too.

[@kjekelle96]

Wonderful!!! I knew it all was sort of pointing in this direction xD This is definitely one to save and rewind! :D

[@yankous]

I am super excited with John Vervaeke working on predictive processing, looking forward to more conversations on this topic! 😃

[@82472tclt]

This is AWSOME!!

[@leedufour]

Thanks Brett and John!

[@johnvervaeke]

Thanks Lee.

[@filipdroszcz1073]

Thank you so much! This was very helpful.

[@Jacob011]

Mindeffed! In a good way. Brett is great analogical thinker. I kinda envy his job. 😃

[@Matterful]

This was just fantastic.

[@MrTTnTT]

On Brett's monologue at the start, I think I wrote some comments in this direction under some of the episodes of Awakening from the Meaning Crisis, though I can't remember which ones. First I see of Brett, so that's nice, since he's clearly done a lot of homework. Reading Maps of Meaning twice is more than I have! The point about logos as an infinitely scaleable non-zero-sum game is great, and fits well with my own conception of logosupremacy as what our cultures are trying (and often failing) to be, since everybody wants it.

[@forscherr2]

Wow, that was great! I'd love see you both of you sit down with Jordan.

[@ransetruman2984]

YES

[@50palmyra]

It’s actually ironic. About 2 years ago I was taking copious notes on Johns lecture series awakening from the meaning Crisis as well as taking copious notes on Maps of Meaning, because I had the intuition just as Brett does, that Jordan’s meta-mythological theory of epistemology and johns relevance realization were integrally linked in some important way. Never ended up seeing it through due to lack of time and resources. Glad someone else had the same intuition and is perusing it.

[@Jimmy-el2gh]

Am also excited to be working with you

[@alextilley8323]

Thank you for this fascinating dialogue John and Brett - this was really illuminating. I've also been thinking about the diametric autism/schizotypy model in relation to your work, John, on serious play, the imaginal and ritual. I was wondering about the implications in terms of developmental deficits related to a lower ability for imaginative play. Typically, autistic children don't dress up and play-act as characters. This could relate to the point made by Brett from the predictive processing model that autism is an over-fit of the real world data, and less top down imagination/mental projection. It would seem that imaginal play involves a flexibility and manipulation of that top down imposition of the imagination on the world (pretending to be Zorro/Superman and imagining the world from their perspective). So, this would connect with the theory of mind deficit in autism as there is less understanding or grasp of other people's minds which would be needed to play as that person (or of one's own mind in order to project a transformed version of oneself). John you've talked at length about the importance and benefit of serious play for personal growth, development and transformation - I'm wondering if this is an area in which additional support could provide significant benefits to people on the autism spectrum. Thanks again.

[@Ac-ip5hd]

Now do specialists round out the group by pushing the development of specialization and conscientiousness, while the generalists can expand openness? Could the psychotechnologies that are geared for systems more heavily influenced/created by the specialists, and psych technologies of meditation and psychedelic ritual more heavily made by the generalists? What about when specialists have positive schizotypal experiences, such as Tesla’s visions, or some of the disciplined scientists who made discoveries after psychedelic use?

[@mediocrates3416]

22:50 I call it "teleological tennis", between self and world. I'm seeing relevance realization and predictive processing as flash and visions respectively. I've a lot to study, tho: good stuff!

[@Binyamin.Tsadik]

Really cool chat guys The convergence of machine learning and cognition is a fascinating field. I'm trying to do something similar with typological cognition. So cool how much of an overlap this stuff all has with each other. I wonder how much the model I'm working with lines up with yours.

[@Binyamin.Tsadik]

The talk on emergence vs integration is interesting, it seems like this relates to the order vs chaos idea too.

[@thevulgarhegelian4676]

Yall play nice, music to my ears

[@user-mw3rx6mg5n]

It will be very help for us if you share link of those research papers in description...please Thanks.👌

[@mediocrates3416]

27:30 Yes! That's the other input.

[@fraserpaterson4046]

WOW! I’m so incredibly greatful for the work you, Brett and others are doing in Predictive Processing, Active Inference and Relevance Realization. I have searched long and hard for the paper you and Brett mentioned as constituting an elaborated investigation on these matters. If anyone can point me to where I might find it, I would be very grateful. Many thanks!

[@johnvervaeke]

It is in revision right now. Hopefully published soon.

[@fraserpaterson4046]

@@johnvervaeke Wonderful! I can't wait. Many thanks Professor.

[@phiswe]

When is the _After Socrates_ lecture series coming out? Wasn’t this supposed to come out more than a year ago?

[@johnvervaeke]

Yes but I have delayed filming because of COVID. I also have raising funds and doing further research.

[@MrMosis]

So guuuuuuud! 🙏

[@MrMosis]

I would love a link to more of Brett's work and ideas. He's brilliant. I'll be searching for more when I get to a computer.

[@BrettPAndersen]

@@MrMosis Thank you Matthew. I don't have much content available at the moment, but if you subscribe to my channel you'll be notified when my series comes out (hopefully by the end of the summer).

[@kaveinthran368]

Where to watch Brett's mentioned series?

[@mediocrates3416]

I'm thinking consciousness grows from a qualitative aspect of homeostasis: the energy that challenges stability is turned around by stability; there's some qualitative aspect to that. The question is then, what kind of particle am "i"? I suggest a quasi-2D electrotonic pseudo-particle between the surface of the cortex (and maybe at nucleo-ventral surfaces for more primal states?) and the Pia Mater.

[@taylorbarratt]

Yes, dharma! Amazing to me how I didn’t connect these two before even though I had been relating to logos the same as I relate to dharma.

[@alkexr5298]

Is there a way to temporarily (or permanently) tune how much weight one assigns to sensory experience? Are there any psychotechnologies related to this?

[@BrettPAndersen]

I suspect that Adderall and other stimulants like it temporarily increase the weight given to sensory input (making you more focused, etc.) and that psychedelics generally decrease the weight given to sensory input (drawing you into the imagination). Also, different forms of meditation seem to be ways of playing with this.

[@_ARCATEC_]

I think mythos is a methos of giving meaning to natural functions who's form is yet to be defined.

[@jgarciajr82]

I hope you and Bernardo come to a consensus on this non duality he speaks of.

[@mediocrates3416]

There is a cognitive functionality in experiencing the logos that's being missed here. In my experience, the hallucinations were not generated by "me" but, i was not inhibited outwardly. Stuart Hameroff says the cerebellum is notoriously non-conscious: what if it's otherwise conscious? It makes the moves: maybe i was watching it's moves? Whatever the case; i suspect there was a measurable doubling of frequency components.

[@mediocrates3416]

It lasted one full week, like Judas' 'secret' experience with Jesus. Interesting point; catholicism is a great deception, a mountain that must move. Ralph Ellis has uncovered the historical Jesus Barabbas.

[@kjekelle96]

How do I learn this stuff??? :)

[@davidbates9358]

Dear Brett, as a fellow 'experiencer' of so-called psychosis, I applaud your valiant effort to synchronize the hero myth cycle with your life-experience. It begs the existential question of whether psychotic experience has purpose from an evolutionary perspective, as you say. In my journey, I believe its purpose as a personal trial is to differentiate what human consciousness is and in consideration of our love of amplifying imagination, what consciousness is not. From John's perspective, I no longer anticipate knowing the world by naming it and have embodied the meaningful notion that my language map is not the territory. Like the personal experience of psychosis, myth and parable are subject to interpretation and Jonathan Pageau sees the parable of the sower as a meta-parable and interprets its personal meaning here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/rXrOeIyOmbh5hK8

[@mediocrates3416]

39:00 I postulate that truth might be a person: scientifically speaking, we in community might be the body of Truth.

[@mediocrates3416]

Examine your history if you wish; that is your culture's contrition.

[@grail.squire]

What is the name of Brett’s youtube channel?

[@fraser372]

QUESTION….is consciousness like a quantum state? Where the driving forces are mechanical but consequences occur upon a computational level as raised order of magnitude as like a 4th dimension arising from a 3 dimensional stimulus . Also I have read that microtubules might be able to achieve a quantum state to that could the emotions then be the “massage” that quantum computational researchers suggest, which then induce a collapse of the quantum computer and following then reorganises? I write with a lot naïvety on board so if I have missed the mark and you see it I don’t mind you pointing out my error as I expect I will be making too many contradictions. If you respond great, if not I appreciate your prolly busy . Regardless I’m enjoying your many videos. Thank you …

[@_ARCATEC_]

I wonder how coherent a relationship people on extreme ends of the Spectrum have with organic pedagogy? •(♾️)•

[@sonofclay]

I'd really really like it if I could download these talks somehow. So I could listen to them offline.

[@JaxBespoked]

You can convert/download them to mp3. Plenty of free programs online. I download them on my computer and then send them to my phone for audio listen.

[@lawrencedavid9728]

Clipgrap

[@lawrencedavid9728]

I meant CLIPGRAB

[@kjekelle96]

Yes there are good applications for that, a Google can help you.

[@sonofclay]

Thank you! 😃🙏

[@mediocrates3416]

32:20 OK, maybe now's a good time to mention meteor or similar disaster: collective effort in service of long term thinking and living.

[@ellensontos337]

Hot damn...bright lights! I think the Pocono Mountains is a good meeting point for you guys. Come to my campground (Cranberry Run Campground) - let's reenact some old-school Philosophy circles. It can be free for everyone if it's during the week...very Covid-friendly. BYO food, drink, whatever gets you where you want to be. Everyone is craving communion...I have the land, why not??

[@strugglingathome]

Brett Andersen has (probably subconsciously) adopted a sort of JBP-plausible mannerism. Definitely a lot of subtle cognitive influence going on there. Someone write a paper on that!

[@dr.paulj.watson4582]

My view is that the brain (body-mind) is not coming to a "correct," as in objective, CONSCIOUS model. That only is happening on a nonconscious level. The conscious model is one that is full of a dynamic cocktail of objective, subjective, unverifiable, even counterfactual material, "information." The conscious model is expected to WORK, based on nonconscious information processing and "relevance realization," with maximal effectiveness and efficiency within a specific socioecological context. The main purpose of the conscious model is the individual's ability to present it to social partners, to obtain help in executing a reality-anticipating action plan, post-hoc rationalization of actions, or to perform post-hoc social damage control, etc. There may be great divergence between the conscious and nonconscious model of reality, even tough the former is informed in its moment-to-moment updating and reconstruction by the latter. // A flash of insight occurs, on a conscious level, only when and in form that is engineered, to be socially-efficacious.

[@Roan7995]

Guess I'm going to have to follow these guys until I understand something they say.

[@mediocrates3416]

Is self-organized criticality equal homeostasis?

[@EskeAndersen]

Dear Brett, I think your thoughts are very interesting and I will be watching your new series, but could you perhaps slow down a little? You're talking very fast, and it makes it harder to get the concepts. Thanks!

[@mediocrates3416]

We are caretakers of our ecos.

[@RightInChrist]

I can switch between systemetizing and imagination.

[@mediocrates3416]

25:58 Yes but, not *all* input: i think dreams are what happens with absolutely no input.

[@jondesousa]

Can Brett share his KZbin channel?

[@BrettPAndersen]

There’s no content yet, but you can subscribe to be notified when my series comes out.

[@jondesousa]

@@BrettPAndersen thanks Brett!!

[@_ARCATEC_]

47:40

[@valariemgutierrexa.k.a.map6085]

To continue from the chat...so is evil illogical and therefore irrelevant ? And when you intend to push what is illogical...does that make your nature and your thinking evil and therefore irrelevant? And if there are different types of infinities, then your mathematics is nothing but a narrative...which means that in pursuit of being logical in the maths, sciences and also philosophy, you are only doing the opposite of what you claim you are doing...I don't understand, where is the meaning in this?

[@valariemgutierrexa.k.a.map6085]

And just to add to this...if there are multiple realities...then who is a regulated professional, like a physician or psychiatrist, to say someone has psychosis because he or she does not know what is real and what is not real?(as stated in wiki..I' ll assume that's what the DSM states as well). Then why are they in a position to give a diagnosis and thus prescribe medication? I'm no genius but doesn't chemistry involve mathematics?

[@shamanverse]

Heraclitus' polis via Heidegger is the philosophical ontology for your jam, gentleman. Not Hegel. Go Deleuzian.

[@prodesign8189]

Does the fact I have to play all my videos on 1.5x speed and above, mean I'm on the Autistic side? I get so impatient waiting for people to complete a thought and speak and it gets me in trouble in life sometimes. I've been told to "hold on and listen" by bosses or teachers or acquaintances when I already know where they are going in the conversation. I find it unbearable to listen to vids like these without speeding them up. Weird huh?

[@_ARCATEC_]

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