Ep. 31 - Awakening from the Meaning Crisis - Embodied-Embedded RR as Dynamical-Developmental GI

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Thirty-first episode of Dr. John Vervaeke's Awakening from the Meaning Crisis.

[@bigpicsoccer]

I say this carefully because at 31 episodes in you've obviously earned a lot of respect, but the standard cog-sci G factor and information processing stuff is starting to lose the feeling of relevance that the earlier episodes had. Would also like to see where you get the idea IQ predicts athletic performance. I have no problem with the fact that some people are clearly smarter than others but the psychometrics you're using are built upon many of the assumptions you've been trying to overcome. Would love to hear you interact with the work of hubert dreyfus or heidigger a bit more! Thanks for all you do!

[@johnvervaeke]

Yes, I understand your criticism. I ask for your patience. I will shortly start building back towards Heidegger, Dreyfus, Barfield and others. That final dialogue with the prophets of the meaning crisis is the culmination of the whole series in the last four episodes of the series. For example, later I will present an argument for deep connections between RR and Heidegger and Dreyfus and the meaning crisis. I have to do a lot of work to build a bridge between science and those thinkers.

[@bigpicsoccer]

@@johnvervaeke looking forward to it! You've done a brilliant job of synthesizing hundreds of concepts and viewpoints into something that is deeply meaningful to many people so thanks again!

[@robertarnold5725]

John Vervaeke Maybe another Inkling besides Barfield, C.S Lewis?

[@LinasVepstas]

Random anecdotal observation. Look at rowers (scullers) - not high-school, college-age rowers, but the masters -30-80 year olds. Boats are consistently composed of PhD's and engineers and a sprinkling of professions: lawyers, executives, military officers, architects, high achievers. Two reasons for this: (1) it requires high intelligence to master the skill-set. If you can't figure out how to do it, you will never go fast. (2) Its a power-endurance sport. You have to force yourself through the unpleasantness. And it is extremely unpleasant; forcing yourself requires will-power to "push through the pain". Most people are like "why would I want to do that when I could sit on the couch?" ... Back to (1) mastering the skill set means being attuned to extremely tiny variations in the environment: fractions of a centimeter, a few milliseconds timing, and correcting for these from a pallet of 120+ different techniques the coach taught (Yes I counted, there are 120+ things the coach wants you to do "exactly right" each rowing stroke, 30 times per minute) Constructing this sensory-perception-motor-reaction loop requires focus; and about 5-7 years before its automatic. The focus pushes this skill into your subconscious, automatic response subsystem (has to be, for millisecond response times; and also so that it can still operate when you are oxygen-deprived during a race.) Your brain has to be plastic enough to learn this stuff. Not just decode what the heck the coach is saying, but to then memorize it. Convert the "ah ha" moment into muscle memory. I imagine all sports are kind-of like this, including mastering musical instruments. You can't move to the elite level without huge amounts of brainpower to drive that engine.

[@bigpicsoccer]

@@LinasVepstas interesting stuff and I have no doubt that rowers are very dedicated people. That said, the connection between rowers and "successful high IQ types" likely has a lot more to do with the very specific cultural niche it occupies than any necessary brain function. Movements like the ones you mention are functional synergies, not programs generated by a central executive in the brain. Look at Bernstein, Haken, Kelso, Turvey, or Latash's work if you are not convinced. The implication of this is that an information processing approach typically used in cognitive science (and underpinning many concepts like IQ) is insufficient to explain complex multi-articular tasks. What is required is attunement to lawfully specifying information and mastery of redundant degrees of freedom. Neither of these bear much resemblance to paper and pencil tasks like tests.

[@arturolivares]

“So Relevance Realisation is your general intelligence... and your general intelligence can be understood as the dynamic developmental evolution of your sensory motor fittedness, that is regulated by virtual engines that are ultimately regulated by the logistical normativity of the opponent processing between efficiency and resiliency”. Sorry, needed to transcribe and share for some reason. I was impressed on how easy it was for John to say this.

[@stephen-torrence]

Epic. Earth-shaking.

[@Krasbin]

Thank you. I had to read that sentence 3 times, and watch the corresponding part of the video (53:51) 3 times. But I think I get it now.

[@dalibofurnell]

It's quite remarkable, the way he teaches

[@phrankenstein-wrongthinker1994]

Seriously needing , even after 30+ episodes, a Vervaeke dictionary. I'm unashamedly admitting each one of these is getting tougher to take in.

[@jonnekytola5513]

The summaries at the start of the lectures are becoming exhilarating instances of scientific poetry. Half of the time I'm thinking to myself "he's crazy to even attempt this", and the next moment I'm just getting excited "oh no, oh yes, oh God, he's doing it, he's putting it all together, what a feat!" For example, I'm starting to feel like the name of this current lecture starts to approach the condensed levels of thinking Nietzsche talked about, when he bragged about his sentences packing more meaning than the books of other people.

[@PixelatedAwesome]

We're at that point in the series where just understanding the title of the video requires watching the entire rest of the series

[@mattgumbley6080]

I agree. It's one of the things I appreciate about his youtube content - that it's an argument. Rather than a collection of related or similar things. It's really valuable.

[@philmessina476]

That's funny. It's somehow reassuring to know I'm not the only one who finds the lectures increasingly challenging. Understanding the argument(s) Prof. Vervaeke is developing definitely requires us to apply ourselves, study, and review. But I am still on board, and looking forward to the rest of the series, and looking forward to continually reviewing Prof. Vervaeke's content as long as it takes to "get it". I'm also concurrently reviewing the entire series, as I follow along with each new episode. So, now that I'm done viewing Episode 31 for the first time, I'm going back to watch Episode 4 for (at least) the second time. (I find it super encouraging to review the earlier episodes, as we get deeper into the second half.)

[@stephen-torrence]

I'm crushed that HERE, in the center, the Peak of the series, the moment of the Big Reveal... the video views are at their lowest. 😔

[@rockshowii]

@@stephen-torrence It's because not so many people have patience and resiliency to take a full "graduation" course, and it's ever coming complex and abstract as each episode comes forth. Sad for them to miss the awesome conclusion it seems to be culminating to. Luckily for us, we have this kind of "skill" haha, cheers!

[@polymathpark]

@@stephen-torrence I've been wondering about what factors contribute to the downfall of views myself. One is obviously time, people just haven't caught up to it yet, another is its inherent complexity, yet another disagreement. I think the main one is just time though.

[@joe1212166]

Link to Jordan Peterson’s teachings on how to become who you could be: The exploratory hero goes into the unknown and gets hurt by the dragon of chaos (Differentiation by letting the parts of him that are deadwood die). He then slays the dragon (Integration of new information with remaining parts of him generates transformation). Finally, he goes back to the village and shares the treasure with the community and rejuvenates the culture (Complexification gives rise to emergent functions making him into who he could be rather than who he was before the encounter with the unknown). This process is dynamical and developmental. It is deep participatory knowing. It is a positive feedback loop: The more you encounter the dragon of chaos and transform as a consequence, the bigger the dragon you are able to slay and therefore, the more profound the transformation (Self-transcendence).

[@Gongchime]

Don't forget most who go to slay the dragon are destroyed or severely mamed. Signed one of the walking wounded.

[@nicolaslg1421]

IT'S MEANING TIME

[@therunawayrascal]

Nicolas LG i heard Arnold Schwarzenegger as i read that haha

[@KalebPeters99]

@@therunawayrascal I pictured The Thing hahah "it's CLOBBERING TIME" 😆

[@elel2608]

Chaos and order and McGilchrist is all over this.

[@hollycamara8007]

If anyone needs a transcript we've made them for this & all episodes here: www.meaningcrisis.co/ep-31-awakening-from-the-meaning-crisis-embodied-embedded-rr-as-dynamical-developmental-gi/

[@mattgumbley6080]

Wow what a title

[@denizx11]

YOO!!! this episode was amazing!! this relationship is litterly everywhere! These lectures are god sendt! Thank you soo much John Vervaeke! Amazing work! and free!

[@WolfmanZach]

This is why I love improvisation. Improv is directly concerned with relevance realization. We use different language, but the dynamical systems line up with our processes. We are constantly deciding between expanding (exploiting) and advancing (exploring) in our storytelling based on what “feels” correct. We have a general set of “rules” that are not hard and fast, you have to be flexible and adaptive to the scene and the story unfolding. There are dynamic loops based on information we receive from the audience, the scene, and our partners that we are listening to and responding to as performers. This philosophy is boiled down into “Yes And” which is the accepting and receiving of information from the environment and skillful adding to it with the addition of detail, information, and action that drives the scene. We are ultimately trying to tell a good story that is satisfying to us as players and the audience.

[@camdencapps6894]

I wonder what the university of Toronto’s psychology department faculty meetings were like when both you and JBP were there at the same time

[@davidtaylor5034]

The first time that Dr. Vervaeke and Dr. Peterson presented at a conference together was about 10 years ago. They are both considered life-changing profs at UofT, and many students were eager to seem them at the same conference. Dr. V incorporated a description of combinatorial explosiveness into his talk. JBP spoke right after. During JBP's talk, he made use of the myth of the Hydra to describe (for the purposes of a different argument) a process of relentless chaos. After referencing the Hydra, he paused and looked at Dr. V and said, "Combinatorial explosion!" The room erupted into warm laughter at the convergence. They went on to present at a number of the same conferences at UofT.

[@danbark4603]

@@davidtaylor5034 that is so fckin awesome lmao

[@gomino14]

@@davidtaylor5034 Is there a recording of that conference?

[@davidtaylor5034]

@@gomino14 I don't believe so! Apologies, but I realize that I was imprecise in my description above. That first talk was more of a cog-sci "jam session" than a full-fledged conference! I don't recall seeing recording equipment there. But Dr. V and JBP did go on to present at later conferences. They both presented at a number of the UofT Mind Matters conferences, which were co-produced by the UofT Jungian Society and the BPSU (Buddhist Psychology Student Union). Here's a link to a more informal talk they did together on the meaning of life: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y4OmpYaprc2VaLM

[@yafz]

Yet another excellent lecture! Philosophy at its best.

[@pdchanged1]

Thank you for these illuminating talks. I have a simple theory about how meditation, yoga, hallucinatory drugs, flow states open us to higher states of consciousness. Something as simple as counting your breathes, for example, subverts or takes "off line" what you might call the "fear response" which limits thinking to survival or defense. Personality and/or ego seem to be based on this same response, carried out, I imagine, by the sympathetic nervous system and stress hormone, which I call "the deathly glue." (In bodywork, you can actually experience the accumulation of stress hormone around fixations break down.) Compulsive thinking tends to be about resentment or worry. What a miracle to break its hold by counting your breaths. Fear, which limits consciousness to the material factors that threaten us, also blinds us to a wider sense of existence in which we are not just contenders but participants. It seems the sympathetic nervous system controls our reality until we can see through it in a process of psychological development which you describe: character grows in its capacity to account for reality beyond our material interests. The child becomes adult.

[@dls78731]

Peter Littlefield, I’d be interested in talking more about your theory. I also have some thoughts about how this has come about historically, and a bit about where we may be headed that aligns with your intuition about moving into adulthood. Here is a basic outline of just some top points I consider: 1) Personality development theorists like Jean Gebser, Robert Kegan, Clare Graves and Abraham Maslow (among others) show distinct levels of development occur reliably, and while there are stair-step moments which appear to be rapid growth along the way, it is really mini-crises that reach resolution after some load bearing assumption of the previous mode breaks under stress (some last straw moment) that the new development crystallizes (this is represented beautifully in Pixar’s “Inside Out” animated movie, where Riley goes through such a crisis when adolescence and relocation coincide to tear down her previous models of self so that they can be rebuilt; similar to a snake shedding it’s skin, we lose or cognitive entro-skeleton). 2) Collectively, we as a species, with our power of Relevance Realization and abstract complexification, have created a simulated world with a simulated parent that allows us to stay in the pre-adult phase of development for a longer period of time. Similar to a caterpillar, this larval mode is all about consumption of resources to the extent possible. The prolonged stage means that we have to keep finding new niches to exploit in order to persist in consumptive growth model that comports with Capitalism (increasingly of the extractive variety) [Note: just as Schmachtenberger says in his recent Rebel Wisdom video The War on Sense-Making, just because I point out negative aspects of Capitalism does NOT mean I’m advocating for some worse economic system that has previously failed - the replacement for Capitalism hasn’t been invented yet, but this series and many others are starting to see the basic building blocks of a new system.] This larval mode of growth happens within a species, and also happens and the macro level of evolution (see Elizabet Sartouris’s Ted Talk on Embracing the Crisis). 3) The move into an adult phase for human beings as a species will come with a profound polar shift in awareness of co-authoring our existence rather than simply responding to the world. This will be Relevance Realization on a collective scale [Again, note, if you experience a knee-jerk reaction to the word “collective” as a liberal/Marxist idea, relax, I’m talking about a truly emergent collective in which your independent participation is a vital part, not some subservient resignation to the borg/state.] 4) With the shift into new adulthood, we’ll reclaim words that have been lost to us previously. Trust = embodied perception of integrity or lack thereof (not: blind, blanket faith in another). Integrity = structural soundness of relational dynamics between individuals and groups (not: the ability and history of obeying rules). Responsibility = the capacity to remain responsive to changing complex circumstances (not: the willingness to suffer the burdens of others expectations for external approval). Accountability = the capacity to track and correlate previous decisions to help identify breaches of integrity (not: keeping a marker on the one person to blame in case of errors). Authority = the capacity and wisdom to create (author) effective psycho-technologies of relevance realization; ie Sovereignty is Jordan Hall’s word (not: the external entities that we obey in the hopes of insuring our continued existence).

[@pdchanged1]

Wow, David! Thanks for that.

[@lacsativ1]

​@@dls78731 That's brilliant. I see you mention plenty of people I myself follow or am at least interested in learning more about their work. Do you have a blog or anything of the sort where I could follow your thoughts on matters similar to the comment you posted above?

[@WilliamMartin74]

This is the episode where I got lost last time through. 29 and 30 were increasingly difficult to take in. This time through, I have been listening to many episodes 2 & 3 times in a row to better comprehend the concepts and to not get stuck, but here I am. I really feel the need to understand this series. I feel that it is very important information and relevant now more than ever. Personally I have been stuck in an existential crisis increasing in the last 4 years. I have days/nights of crippling indifference, apathy and even nihilism. This episode feels like a wall that stands between me and the answers that I seek that might help me to get a grasp of reality gain.

[@janpetrykowski4794]

I'm replying to this because you remind me of myself, and to the extent you are like me, you may find the following advice helpful: there's no doubt that understanding helps, but if you want to live a meaningful life, seek not to understand you brain, but rather, to understand your Self. And specifically, seek to understand your emotions. When you figure out what makes you happy, sad, calm, angry, etc. then you will have the tools to guide your Self through a meaningful life. Learning about how the brain creates relavence might be a piece of the puzzle, but I doubt it will solve your problems. It sounds like you just don't care, and caring is not something that comes from knowledge but rather from getting in touch with feelings about yourself, the people in your life, and your life as a whole. Think of the smoker who's told about the dangers of smoking that never finds a way to care about them-more information probably won't cut it. What WILL cut it, likely, is an encounter with someone dying of lung cancer that reminds them of the value of their life, or a deep realization about the how important they are to the people around them, or getting in touch with the fear they carry around about their own mortality, etc.

[@WilliamMartin74]

@@janpetrykowski4794 Thanks Jan. I figured out that it was something in an earlier lecture that I missed that made these episodes not click. I have since listed to the whole series 4 times all the way through. My job does not require my mind so I like learning while working and have a lot of time to listen. Occasionally someone interrupts me before I can pause the lecture and I miss stuff. I highly value Vervaeke's work and recommend him to everyone, as I would argue that he is the most important living philosopher of our times. Unfortunately people are more into short shallow videos.

[@yuyurolfer]

I hope you're doing better now after getting through the series

[@polymathpark]

remember to take walks, take days off from the study. Existential philosophy inherently gets depressing and exacerbates apathy because we ultimately don't, and likely won't have a clear answer for it all. that realization strikes home hard, because it concerns our very being, and meaning in life. remember a big part of meaning making is making your own.

[@mosesgarcia9443]

Fantastic. Im honored to be one of your youtube Students.

[@nicolaslg1421]

Recently I read The Master and the Emissary and what John said from 43:00 onwards maps to that book very well. The functions in the upper row (compression, integration and assimilation) correspond, according to the book, to the left hemisphere. The right hemisphere corresponds to the lower functions (particularisation, differentiarion and accomodation).

[@brendantannam499]

I honestly would have thought it was the other way round. I'm thinking of how McGilchrist says the emissary (left brain) goes out to focus on events, gathers knowledge and then returns to the master (right brain) who assimilates the information into his store of knowledge.

[@julianw6604]

Yes, I think you have them backwards. Especially when he uses the word "brittle" to discribe what happens without assimilation.

[@jasetheacity]

Yes I concur with others it is the other way round. Did you see JV talk on Rebel Wisdom recently with Jordan Hall. They discuss McGilchrist around half way? kzbin.info/www/bejne/ipiTdJR5pdF7oNU

[@jamesgl]

I also think you might have it backwards

[@growgoodco]

“We are inherently self transcending”. Worth pondering on 🤔.

[@jeffr4475]

27:40 Generalization via Data Compression 42:20 Driving Development (Piaget) 48:20 General Intelligence (Spearman)

[@mikepieters3237]

Thanks John for your insight and wisdom! One quick comment: I think the main reason for people not following this episode, is that the notes on the whiteboard don't match the content of the presented material: "external interactive properties" instead of "external internal properties". Also, it feels a bit weird to comment on a series that is so profound and insightful (so far)! Many many thanks for this.

[@hazardousjazzgasm129]

Congrats on reaching 10K subs, John. You deserve many, many more

[@connordavey4422]

I’m an Fine Art student and I’d love hear you thoughts on transjectivity within the Arts, because I have never been satisfied with the notion of objectivity or more prominently subjectivity as a case for the Arts? Love the series it has helped me profoundly, I think your doing an incredible service to us and well hopefully the world at large, and I hope that doesn’t come across as flippant, I can not thank you enough John!

[@johnvervaeke]

Thank you Connor for kind an encouraging words. I have being doing a lot of work in the imaginal ritual and the hermeneutics of beauty in some of my more recent videos and talks. Perhaps you would find them relevant.

[@connordavey4422]

@@johnvervaeke I will definitely check them out! And thank you again 🙏🙏🙏

[@svs987]

Fourthly, I am close to someone who suffers very badly from complex PTSD. I have noticed that their sympathetic nervous system is always aroused and that in any given situation they will always imagine the worst possible outcome. It feels to me that this is a case of the connections being very strongly wired to produce a limited set of outcomes. In any situation, all that they are looking at and processing are the potential threats, to the extent that, in a situation that is unfamiliar but basically safe, they will come up with threats that are so far fetched to those around them that they appear comedic. This feels like the connections are very strongly wired to produce certain outcomes (that is highly resilient). They have become over specialised in threat detection to the extent that they detect patterns where there aren't any. This feels at odds with JV's explanation of the resilient versus the efficient networks and I wonder if anyone has a comment on this. Also, I just read recently a paper saying that people who have consistently have bad dreams are more likely to experience cognitive decline and also to be PTSD suffers. I remember JV saying that, when you lose consciousness, the connections between the different parts of the brain stop firing (my editorialising, excuse me if I've got this wrong). Could it be that in PTSD the connections between the different processing areas are so resilient that they persist when the person is asleep, thus producing the bad dreams? Further, could the cognitive decline be a result of these connections becoming so strong that the person's ability to adapt to new situations is compromised? Seems like a good area for some research to me.

[@josevanreyes]

Nice insight. Makes alot of sense.

[@polymathpark]

If you're concerned about being a GPS, remember, the full saying is "the jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one."

[@filipesimoesdasilva8190]

"When I was a zygote, I could not vote." -John Vervaeke

[@leedufour]

Thanks John.

[@johnvervaeke]

Thank you Lee 😊

[@polymathpark]

“You’re a relevance-realizing thing, which means you are inherently dynamical, self-organizing auto-poetic thing, which means you are an inherently developmental thing, which means you are inherently a self-transcending thing.” So let’s get transcending, ya’ll!

[@kindenebeker8250]

This is part where I jumped up, shouting YEEESSSS!!!!

[@polymathpark]

@@kindenebeker8250 watching this again, still stood out to me significantly. We have a duty to improve ourselves, as Kant put it.

[@jeoffreywortman]

I respect and appreciate big deal your work Dr. Looking back to follow your steps.

[@Beederda]

I appreciate YOUR time JV ❤️🍄 and a subtle nod to you pointing to the “minds eye” when using the eye as a cell development reference.

[@JohnRiver490]

Wait... were you about to say "a makening from the weaning crisis?"

[@nugzarkapanadze6867]

Thank You!

[@richardsantomauro6947]

“I could teach an entire course just on relevance realization.” -- PLEASE DO!!!! :-)

[@svs987]

I know I'm late to the party but there's a few thoughts I want to get out of my head and onto the page. I'll post as separate comments to make replying easier (should anyone want to) Firstly, in my professional life I help project teams (mostly in software development) become more productive. I frequently work with teams that are really struggling. They know they're off track, but they don't know where they are. They have lost sight of where they're going and they have no idea of how long it will take them. You could say they're having a meaning crisis in that they're working really hard but they don't know to what end. When I ask what the problems are I will often get an avalanche of stuff. You could say they are experiencing a combinatorial explosion and they don't have (or have lost) the skills to sort out what is relevant. Helping them out always has the same elements: Firstly, figuring out where they are. Of course their current position can be explained in terms of any number (a CE) of irrelevant things; it's my job to help them describe where they are in terms of things that are relevant. The next step is to figure out where they want to be (what success looks like). This is effectively a scaled out version of the same thing. I focus a lot on getting the team to answer the questions: what will it looks like? what will it feel like to use the solution? what will people be able to do that they couldn't before? what will you feel like to have achieved this? Again this is all about relevance. Then it's just (just!) a case of connecting where they are now to where they want to be. Those of you who have experienced modern software development will know that it proceeds by iterations of the finished product that are actually useful. By focusing on something real the team can ensure that what they are doing stays relevant to the task. I spend a lot of time linking they're current activities to the long-term vision. Again I am reinforcing the relevance of what they are doing. When someone comes up with a problem or an alternative, we can use the vision as a touchstone: I am very deliberately closing down the solution space to avoid combinatorial explosion. All of the above is to say that I find John's theory of Relevance Realization plausible (in the sense that John uses that word). From my experience working with teams, I find that it's a concept that scales from the personal, to the team to multiple teams.

[@dusanmilic1771]

Hi. If someone would be kind enough to help me with a part of the lecture I'm having trouble understanding. What confuses me is that efficiency is analogous to general purpose and resilience is analogous to special purpose. I'm confused by this because, to me, it makes more sense that the general purpose is more resilient (more resistant to change and more adaptable) while special purpose is more efficient (better suited to solve a particular issue). I'm not an English native speaker, so perhaps the nuances of the definitions of efficiency and resiliency escape me. I would be very grateful for any help on this. Thanks.

[@quickenbeam]

I think it was a slip. He must have accidentally mixed them. At least, I don't recall this mixup from one of the previous lectures.

[@huitian177]

Totally agree with you, I have been disturbed by the same question, it seems more logical to connect G.P. with resilience and S.P. with efficiency. I think he might slipped, as it happens sometimes, because just a minute before, he has said it himself that general purpose is more "resilient". So I took it as a slip of tongue, but I am not a hundred percept sure. Glad you posted your doubt. It was at 22:55, I believe, and what he said earlier can be heard from just a minute before.

[@huitian177]

After re-watching the 18-22 minutes, I got it. To him, the general purpose is more efficient than the specific purpose tool, before it can fits for various situations, it's more adoptative, and specific purpose machine is not efficient before it doesn't fits into as many situations, it is not adaptive and therefore inefficient to carry it around. So it seems that his definition of "efficiency" is based on from the perspective of adaptability, not on the actual result of usage. I guess that's why it is confusing at the first listening. We are understanding it as result-oriented. Hope this helps.

[@DeonDSilva]

@@huitian177 thank you kind sir. You answered my question.

[@dalibofurnell]

On point 👌🌿

[@lynnlavoy6778]

41:23 "i can teach an entire course on relevence recognition." Soooo what color is the sky? 😄😄 just want a smile!

[@ThePathOfEudaimonia]

Is it useful to see ethics also as transjective, neither subjective or objective, but as an emergent property out of the dynamical relationship between the objective and subjective (or multiple subjects in many cases)?

[@jameswebster2605]

36:05 It physically hurts to acknowledge how much of a problem this is for me. Thank you for providing such a deeply penetrating personal insight.

[@brisingr12]

How ?

[@yuyurolfer]

Despite the difficulty of the last few episodes, I feel like they keep getting more and more insightful. Thanks for this transformative series! 🙏 I have a (possibly hard) question for Dr. Vervaeke: when making the analogy with embryonic development, at some point you said "when I was a zygote...". Have your views on the abortion debate been influenced by all the ideas you've summarized, especially by the (correct me if I'm wrong) inseparability of development from self-transcendence?

[@ruhdandoujon6310]

I have discovered Mr. Vervaeke's work via his discussion with Clare Carlisle about her book on "Spinoza's Religion" being fascinated by Spinoza myself for a long time. This discovery was (is) very importent and very illuminating for me. I have learned a lot from these 31 episodes and from some wonderful books recommended. I am writing this commentary at the end of this episode and I am afraid to go on. I very sincerely am. I am afraid of this "deep connection between RR and Heidegger".I am familiar with the Heidegger of "Black Notebooks" and I just can't thing Heidegger and wisdom together whatever his philosophy. If I remember correctly in one of the episodes Mr Vervaeke mentions Wagner as being a"vicious anti-semite" This of course does not hinder us from appreciating his music. But, I don't know, it seems to me that philosophy is different. Of course there is controversy about the relation between Heidegger's philosophy and his nazisme. Perhaps an enlightening philosophy and a deluded man are compatible all the more so that Heidegger does not have a theory of ethics. In any case I hope I will have the courage to go on and get over being so destabilized.

[@MrMarktrumble]

"When I was a zygote I could not vote." Funny. The dynamic balance between differentiation of new knowledge and skills must be met with a strong integrative function that organizes the knowledge and skills or one is not adaptive. This is paralleled by data compression (finding the mean in the data points)(integration) and finding a more accurate function to capture the data points (focused more on the differentiation). If one is too one one should see the differences between things. If one is too fixed on a property of one thing, or one substance, one should focus on that which is common to the set of things (or to all things...). Each term in the one and the many (where the terms are one and many) are abstractions if one assumes the unity between the two, and it is the actual movement of moving from one abstraction to the other which is the most fundamental unity. The abstract one is not the prime term, nor is any of each of all the tokens ( the many). The prime term is the movement from one to the other. IS this an answer to Plato's Parmenides, and thus...I become a Hegelian? Or perhaps from a more existential, developmental point of view...is this how I have lived my life? I want to explore, and I want to understand. Thank you

[@ToriKo_]

8:45 The bottle being graspable is a property of the interaction of the parts as Complex Systems would say. A system is the Product of the Interaction of its Parts not the Sum of its parts.

[@danielmartines3859]

Professor Vervaeke, in this class you say you can teach a whole class on Relevance Realization? I would love to take it if you plan to teach it.

[@simigonzalez5704]

Good, good 💞

[@ErnestOfGaia]

This episode reminds me of the game Go

[@bigpicsoccer]

John, just read a paper by totsos et al. (Rapid visual categorization is not guided by early salience-based selection 2019) that seems to be calling Broadbent's early selection model of visual saliency into question. Is this relevant to your RR? Also how do you feel about Gibson's direct perception model? Thanks!

[@normfriesen]

Here's the money quote: 53:54 "relevance realization is your general intelligence and what I'm arguing ...that your general intelligence can be understood as a dynamic developmental evolution of your sensory motor fittedness is regulated by virtual engines that are ultimately regulated by the logistical normativity of the opponent processing between efficiency and resiliency." Vervaeke continues: "This is the lynchpin of the whole cognitive science side of the whole series" How will Vervaeke manage to get from this mechanistic ("machinery"), even Cartesian reduction to something like an "awakening"? He claims he as provided "A naturalistic account... of why you're inherently self-transcendent" and that it will somehow be existentially relevant.

[@danielfoliaco3873]

52:20 what's the difference between relevance realization and the relationship between mind and matter?

[@Jacob011]

So far so good. The "exploitation/exploration" terminology is often found in reinforcement learning and adaptive control theory. In machine learning there is the "bias/variance" trade-off. This is all very deep and insightful, but these are descriptions - not really explanations and to why a organism does what it does.

[@dominick358]

John would say resilience in the system has similarities to the Buddhist idea of non attachment?

[@Demosophist]

The subject/object relation doesn't come from an axial age grammar. It comes from Kant. There is a subject/object relation that is grounded in axial age grammar, but it's not the one you're presenting. It was an intention, or form, that had an effect on axial age thinkers but wasn't expressed formally until Augustine and wasn't defined *in its proper being* until John of St. Thomas in 1636. So when you use the Kantian subject/object construction to give tangibility to your theory you're using an incoherent percept. The way you appear to become angry when expressing it is a key that it's incoherent and that you actually perceive that incoherence on some level.

[@gggftgggft1635]

when you stand up- where does your lap go?

[@spiralsun1]

Embodied-embedded. 👍🏻 Data Compression 👍🏻 Super important concepts. However, we can get carried away stating in different ways the same things best said by nature. The Aztecs had an internally-consistent culture and developed that. But their fundamental assumptions about the basic foundation of reality were wrong. No matter how much they thought and theorized within that framework they were still wrong. However, we need to see what was right about it. Distill that. It can be extremely relevant and helpful to see why they did what they did and why. That’s my “parable of the Aztecs” 😂🤷‍♀️ And I did see your comment on the “last 4 episodes” so I am holding out for that, thanks. Also, being a zygote sucks. No rights. I remember that…. But it’s apparently necessary. 🤷‍♀️ 😂 Also, I wish you would do a whole video on the history of autopoeisis. 🥰🤔

[@Philomani]

Love without yearning is a useful virtual engine. Does that make sense?

[@paulvantongeren2780]

What I understand from this is that external properties/goals needed to adjust in the world are implemented by bio-economically driven opponent processes pairs. As I understand it there are many such opponent processing pairs. And you can see this as an implementation of Relevance Realization. You “decide” whether it is more relevant to use a hammer or a hand in the given context. Then it is made plausible that Relevance Realization is the same as General Intelligence, because both concepts explain the same human capacities. And since general intelligence is a unified concept, Relevance Realization also must be a unified concept. This is asking too much of me 😊. To find it plausible that Relevance Realization is a unified concept I would need some model about how the different opponent processing pairs fit into that unified concept. How do all these decentralised opponent processing pairs get the same quality in general intelligence/relevance Realization?

[@PhilosopherScholar]

Timothy Lillicrap is his former student, neuroscientist and AI researcher. 27:50

[@malcolm_ocean]

huh, I'm surprised by the comment at 22:40 "general purpose is more efficient, special purpose is more resilient". it makes sense in light of the description of the toolbox, but in the absence of the toolbox (ie if you only have one tool) it seems to me that the opposite is true (which is highlighted by the Tom/Jack example earlier). in other words, if you're in a situation where you have to choose "one tool" then you'll want a special purpose tool if you know the task to be done, as it will be more efficient, and a general purpose tool if you don't know the task to be done, as it will be more resilient". however, the choice between one general purpose tool and many special purpose tools is the reverse, as it's easier to carry one GP tool than many SP tools. ahh, maybe I'm thinking of "efficiency" as "speed at which the tool solves the task" but you're referring to "efficiency" as "cost of carrying it around" .

[@13Nicozurdo]

I'm kind of struggling with the "embedded" explanation. Didn't understand fully why the use of the word

[@svs987]

Secondly, I'd like to comment on Relevance Realization as an embedded phenomenon, especially as it relates to AI. I'm sure many of you will be aware of Sam Harris' argument for our consciousness arising as a consequence of the computational power of our brains. Basically his argument goes: We understand how an individual neuron works; if we replaced a single neuron in your brain with an electric circuit that did the same thing would you be able to tell the difference? People answer no. Ok, so what if we replace two neurons? a hundred? a million? He uses this to argue that in the limit you could replace all of the neurons in the brain with electric circuits and you would still have a conscious individual that would be you. Now, quite apart from this being one of Harris' quite common rhetorical techniques of arguing from one end to make a point at the other which I find methodologically suspect, I have a couple of serious objections to this argument that I won't go into here. However, I think that John's arguments that consciousness is an embedded process, that the agent-arena relationship (including mind-body) is critical to relevance realization, and that RR is a transjective operation blows a serious hole in Harris's argument. Even if you accept that it is possible to replace your biological brain with an electronic equivalent, I'd argue that the agent arena relationship has been changed so radically by this transformation that the electronic "you" would so quickly change that within a very short time (probably a matter of milliseconds) it would be unrecognisable as the same person. At the very least, the requirement to be permanently attached to a power station's worth of electricity would have a radically effect on what this creature found relevant. If this is true of replacing your biological brain with an electronic one, it must be much more true of "uploading" your brain to the cloud. I would suggest that all the billionaires that are trying to do this are wasting their money. The moment you activated the "you" that you had uploaded, it would change so radically that it wouldn't even have continuity of consciousness. "Your" memories would be, at best, like something that the new entity had seen on a screen.

[@svs987]

Thirdly, I was very struck by the Wittgenstein argument, that if a Lion could speak, we still would not be able to understand it. It made me wonder about the feasibility of trying to produce "explainable" AI. It seems plausible to me that the agent-arena relationship for AI is so different (and certainly the AI we have at the moment makes decisions in a very different way to us) that even if the AI could explain to us how it made the decision, we wouldn't understand the explanation. A trivial version of this is the "smart" contracts being touted as the latest thing that supposedly could be solved by cryptocurrency. The point about written contracts is that they are documents that are written by humans, for the consumption of humans. In the event of a dispute, a human will determine what is relevant and the rightful outcome of the contract will be realized (see what I did there?)

[@brendantannam499]

I thought for a moment John was going to say that RR (or an autopoietic system incorporating RR) originates in the zygote. I'm not sure whether what I'm going to say is true or not but I read that DNA only creates amino acids that create proteins and nobody knows how the proteins become all the different organs in the body. If there was a hint in John's talk that RR is incorporated right through the development of the body and then expresses itself mentally in how we live in our environment, that's a mighty idea.

[@nickcorrigan1995]

Brendan Tannam if you haven’t heard of David berlinski give him a look he talks specifically about this

[@brendantannam499]

@@nickcorrigan1995 Thanks a lot!

[@segasys1339]

19:56 Chuck Noland!!

[@5hydroxyT]

i can’t help but wonder what the connection is between relevance realization and trauma...if RR is driven by the opposing drives of efficiency and resiliency, does the capacity for RR predict ones response to traumatic experiences? does RR afford us the ability to re-write our past traumas and lead is towards growth and (re)connection? looking forward to what is next...

[@kindenebeker8250]

We gotta' define 'trauma' here. But in the case where some people are traumatized by a situation and others are not, could be possibly be because the former are biologically predisposed to data particularization, and the latter to data compression?

[@frncscbtncrt]

This is weird. I was feeling lost and somewhat frustrated in episodes 29 and 30 but this one, although challenging as it is, felt relevant and somewhat as a conversation (anecdote about Tim and AI was well placed to keep the interest). Check at the humming bird moth for a great example of adaptation, efficiency and resilience balance.

[@stephen-torrence]

44:00 Maximally Differentiated + Maximally Integrated = Bodhisattva?

[@waynelewis425]

At 28:00 are you mispeaking, you are associating generalizability by induction and extrapolation with efficiency, and specialization as resilience. Isn't it the other way around?

[@borial01]

I agree this is unclear. He seems to be saying that general purpose machinery is efficient because you use it many places (you don't have the burden of creating costly specialized machinery). But I agree with you that the more natural mapping is that specialized machinery is more efficient (it does the task better/more efficiently). And general purpose is more resilient (it can cope with a variety of tasks better).

[@waynelewis425]

@@borial01 I think he may have misspoken, was hoping John would clarify.

[@andyk2181]

@@borial01 Having a single general purpose tool is efficient in terms of maintenance, which would also make you more resiliant to changes in the environment and resource constraints. But, in a situation where the environment is stable and resources plentiful, other competing agents within that envrionment which are more specialised will be more performant, thus at this level you could say being general is less resiliant. There appears to be 3 factors: maintenance costs, performance costs, and applicable range (adaptability) that impact how a organism would fair against the two levels of environment and competing agent. I think I need to watch this again a couple of times to straighten it out in my head.

[@jasetheacity]

I thought he used the term "Interpolation" not induction. Interpolation is a method of constructing new data points within the range of a discrete set of known data points, while extrapolation is used to find data points outside the range of known data points.

[@waynelewis425]

@@jasetheacity not sure that makes a difference on the question I have...both are logically inductive processes. Generally, think Ford industrial process, if you are highly specialized you do a particular task such as tightening a bolt with great precision and accuracy but because of this, you aren't very good at say applying paint, or connecting hoses. So the more efficient you are at a very specific task...that is the more of your internal constraints set up to be locked into very narrow set of dynamic pathways, the less ability you have (dynamical freedom) to adapt to novel challenges.

[@normfriesen]

35:00 + - In reducing our awareness to economic and functionalist primitives--processes like (data) compression, particularization, integration, differentiation and Piaget's assimilation and accommodation, Vervaeke is arguably recreating what has reinforced any "contemporary crisis of meaning" rather than pointing to a way out of it. Marx described the meaning crisis as alienation--alienation from our labor, from others (classes), and from ourselves. In casting awareness and thought as "governed" through a set of indifferent, amoral processes, Vervaeke is in this sense alienating us from a range of possible understandings of ourselves--including everyday ones and legal ones, where we are seen engage in intentional, purposive, but changing behavior for which we are held culpable.

[@lockedfn-subpls]

the 2x thumbs dinners appear to enjoy every episode so far

[@raphaelmees3144]

21:08 That's actually really weird hahaahah (there are many things you're not supposed to "grasp", if you know what I mean 🤭)

[@normfriesen]

6:30-12:30: "The body is an autopoetic bioeconomy that makes cognition possible... Notice how anti-Cartesian this is... your mind NEEDs your body." This is not anti-cartesian. Descartes never makes the claim that the body, res extensa, is not "needed." In addition, cogsci (esp. as informed by Heidegger, that might speak of body-mind) does not see the body in this way. This body IS the mind for this cogsci. It is not a relation of dependency, but a relation of in which both "parts" play different roles in cognition. E.g., what is cognition without the body's biggest organism, the skin? Vervaeke is mis-representing cogsci as well as reproducing the fateful Cartesian dualism in his "philosophy."

[@DaveDude571]

I must say I've been greatly appreciating these lectures, but I did find this one to be particularly difficult to follow the details beyond the general gist.

[@johnvervaeke]

Yes I think that 31 is perhaps the hardest episode of the whole series. If you get the gist then 32 will make sense and then things move back towards more accessible material in the following episodes.

[@DaveDude571]

@@johnvervaeke That's encouraging! Thanks for sharing your hard work on KZbin. We're along for the whole ride haha

[@marklefebvre5758]

The measures for General Intelligence do not predict what you claim. Observable true and backed by statistics, more importantly, if you look at the outliers, you realize immediately that there is much missing from these measures. I suspect that outliers are under represented, but could be studied to find a better test for their success.

[@marklefebvre5758]

@NotACapitalist The idea that subjectivity is the issue is an assumption with no proof and lots of evidence indicating that it isn't a huge factor. Intelligence tests seem to work well at the low end (finding below average and measuring how far below) but less well as the intelligence of the subject increases. So while being above the average (for quite some way up) seems to correlate to above average useful performance, the smartest people are not the most successful. While I can get on board with 'some' predictive power (as that is clearly true) the accuracy and usefulness of this power seems to be less than the theory supports.

[@WaylonFlinn]

Rewarding error increase alone seems very suboptimal. Seems like you want to pair it with something like increased optionality.

[@vc6327]

It's all YING YANG.

[@forscherr2]

And dancing on the cutting edge between chaos and order is where meaning is realized.

[@jeddarcy3465]

Is there a summary of these lectures?

[@johnvervaeke]

They are being turned into two books. The draft of the first one is complete and we are seeking publication

[@jeddarcy3465]

@@johnvervaeke wonderful news! Thank you!!

[@ryansuche4998]

@@johnvervaeke Most excellent!

[@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

[@mcnallyaar]

17:45 Why can't we say "organism" instead of "machine"? Legitimately curious - what kind of connotations would he find problematic?

[@puma7171]

Isn't a hammer used as a tool in a given process highly efficient (for a specific set of tasks), but not resilient? If the environment changes, and the process of hammering nails gets less useful, the system breaks down, because it cannot do anything else, i.e. hammering in nails?

[@jasetheacity]

Is this transcript from the last section leading toward Friston's "free energy principle"? "Your General Intelligence can be understood as a dynamic developmental evolution of your sensory-motor “fittedness”, that is regulated by virtual engines that are ultimately regulated by the logistical normativity of the opponent processing between efficiency and resiliency " "The free energy principle is that systems-those that are defined by their enclosure in a Markov blanket-try to minimize the difference between their model of the world and their sense and associated perception. This difference can be described as "surprise" and is minimized by continuous correction of the world model of the system. As such, the principle is based on the Bayesian idea of the brain as an “inference engine" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_energy_principle

[@notmyrealpseudonym6702]

John V - is it transjective and/or metajective? I get it crosses the boundary/liminal of subjective and objective so has a Trans property or aspect. However is it potentially a meta property as well?

[@kgroen2005]

Wonderful series so far. I feel compelled to share a link to this presentation www.edge.org/conversation/peter_galison-epistemic-virtues where John - I think you should have been at the table for the ensuing discussion (how AI does clustering vs humans, neo platanism and more). I’m not sure why I realized that video was relevant, but I’ll stay tuned to this series to find out!

[@spiveeforever7093]

calling specialization resilient rather than efficient relies on a false dichotomy. Having just your hands or a toolbox full of tools are both resilient, specialized is having a single tool or mastering a single skill with your hands, which is clearly more efficient than a toolbox. I think this confirms the more intuitive association that specialization is efficient and generality is resilient.

[@robertarnold5725]

As far as I can tell, despite the first part of the series in which you examined Plato et al., you've moved into a naturalistic box. I don't see how that allows you to deal with meaning, which is something that exists outside of the box. The telos, the ground is transcendent to the box. The mechanism just describes a mechanism. It doesn't describe the meaning of the mechanism.

[@dadsonworldwide3238]

If the ultimate result is that your creating laws about how your brain rationalizes the world around you then how would you ever come to this conclusion if your physically & idealogically trying to avoid this evidence ? Just framing a very possible question that probably needs a goal post or a side note.

[@waynelewis425]

perhaps better to say with internal, since some folks are not that familliar with the work of Varela?thompson on autopoiesis an individuated ( by topological selectively permeable boundary of its own creation) and fully integrated structural fucntional self.

[@ATXfitness512]

40,000th view🎉

[@waynelewis425]

23:30 How does a cell (as a cognitive system) make such diverse use of only 5 second messenger molecules?

[@JakeEatsPizzaRolls]

Peterson would love this episode

[@tiagovasc]

19:00

[@waynelewis425]

32:00 this is what Varela called structural coupling i think...the work of hoffmeyer on biosemiotics among many other things elucidates some of the details on just how this is instntiated in the biosphere

[@julianw6604]

Is Vervaeke doing this to an empty classroom?

[@phiswe]

It's a classroom of 10.000 students.

[@classycompositions932]

Less views for every consecutive episode. How people can watch this series half-way through and then stop is beyond me. Definitely something wrong with their relevance realization...

[@waynelewis425]

Yes...at 1600 this is the objection i voiced on the idealized work of lietar?ulianowitz the ballance between efficiency and resillience cannot be optimized in a living system to a single value, it is a dynamic interplay what is best fitted si a function of prehended context and as such f(x1, x2,x3....xn...,T)

[@normfriesen]

18:00 - 55:00 + The model of the human (or computer, for that matter) as a rational, goal-pursuing general problem solver has been shown over and over again to be wrong. The version of it that was also held in economics ("rational actor") is also dead.

[@cooperating.systems]

at minute 22 you say that general purpose is more efficient, special purpose is more resilient. I think you mean the opposite. the fact that the hand is very general tool makes it resilient. Same with a computer.

[@johnvervaeke]

The problem with terms like efficiency and reiki envy is that the a relative to your measures of cost and reward. I remember Tim and I talking about this. Being general purpose is metabolically the most efficient because you only have to use one function to get so many results. I was thinking about resiliency as how evolvable the organism or it’s learning system is. It’s ability to change its competence as opposed to it applying its existing competence more widely. I hope this helps.

[@cooperating.systems]

@@johnvervaekeAh ok. Thanks for the feedback :-) Perhaps this is a phenomenon of duality, like syntax and semantics: the more sentences you use to describe the world, the smaller the set of possible worlds that fit the description becomes...

[@haroldtheescapist2865]

The series was very engaging up until we got to the cog-sci part I'm hanging in here in hopes of finding relevance again. It has been very difficult to follow since ep 25

[@_Erendis]

Did you just say life begins at the zygote? Careful or you might get canceled!

[@SuperMuuo]

Gonna have to rewatch this because wtf did this nigga just say?

[@Gongchime]

Just let it wash over you.

[@ruhdandoujon6310]

I would like to add something to my commentary as I am stuck with Heidegger and his potential relevance to the whole of this series. I have to make up my mind before I hear what Mr.Vervaeke says about his "philosophy" ( with these quotation marks because Heidegger is in war with many things like reason, rationality, logic,as well as philosophy). Contrary of what I have written before I am sure now that this is not at all an enlightening philosophy but an appalling one of extermination. Gnosticism at its worst is inherent to his work and I have yet not met any philosopher who is less "diological". So I refuse to be "metaphysically" thrilled by this esoteric , obscure, crypted language of Heidegger's (his "jargon of authenticity "as Adorno called it) which he himself claims is not open to argumentation. He writes in Black Notebooks that "une vrai pensée ne se laisse jamais contredire". Worst , since the publication of Black notebooks he is more and more the philosopher of international extreme right ideology . I will start reading "Thinking Being" by Perl soon so I really do hope that the thread from neoplatonism to us ne passe pas par Heidegger.