Crazy Wisdom
What is the Meaning Crisis? - John Vervaeke
- Consciousness & Philosophy
- awakening
- religion
- philosophy
- psychology
- spirituality
- insight
- meaning
- cognition
About this episode
John Vervaeke is a professor of philosophy and cognitive science. He’s the mastermind behind the lecture series: ‘Awakening from the meaning crises.’ We explore, in this episode, the wonder of the human cognitive system; why our greatest strengths are our greatest weaknesses and how we’ve lost the society-wide ability to resolve this. You can find John on Twitter @vervaeke_john, check his ‘diologos’ series, called ‘Voices With Vervaeke,’ out, join his ‘Cultivation of Wisdom’ course, and community, or join his Discord community server.
(4:07) Do you pass through deserts often? Does it feel like they play tricks on your cognition when you pass through?
(5:26) Why the world feels alien to us.
(11:12) The potential role of the virtual world (social media and internet culture) in bringing an axial age about.
(16:22) Why everyone is actually seeking wisdom, even though it seems our society sees wisdom as irrelevant.
(19:51 – 27:25) The most exhaustive description of wisdom, from a sensemaking perspective, you’ll hear this week
(28:00) The mythos of crazy wisdom: what neural network techniques and transformational psychotechnology have in common.
(38:41) The relationship between psychedelics and insight.
(40:40) Why drugs should be decriminalized and yet treated with sacred respect.
(43:27) Psychedelics and cognition cannot be reduced to the reductionist view that life is just the movement of atoms; how having an open mind towards the mechanics of these phenomena honors the ideals of science.
(51:58) How do most people get postmodernism wrong?
(57:52) Opponent processing: Why you always appear to be at war with yourself and why this is a good thing. Contradictory acceptance of self and others.
(1:02:54) Spirituality is not just about the inside; inside and outside are one and the same; minds are group efforts
Episode transcript
Welcome to the Crazy Wisdom Podcast. This podcast doesn't really have a specific theme. It covers a lot of my interests. It covers a lot of other people's interests. It goes into philosophy, spirituality, business, how to live a good life, many different things. Ultimately, I don't believe in having themes for the things that we do. We can categorize the things, and obviously we categorize things all the time, but I like to keep things open ended a continuous process of discovering the truth as it is. And the truth is tricky because we can't really get to the truth exactly, because the truth is nonlinear. It is, in the words of John Vervaeke, combinatorially explosive. Even the truth of this window that I'm looking at, the window itself, the glass that makes up the window, is combinatorially explosive. The cup that holds your water is combinatorially explosive. You cannot model that cup totally in your head. You're only getting an image of it with your eyes and your brain. That's not the actual cup itself. So this show is a discovery of truth wherever it may appear. By talking to people from various different fields. I've talked to artists, engineers, entrepreneurs, investors, refugees, just talking to anybody who has a glimpse into the truth. And through this conversation, through this mutual inquiry into what is true, what is real, hopefully we get to something that is helpful for to you
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