Levels of Intelligibility: Neoplatonism and 4E Cognitive Science
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ธ.ค. 2022
- Note : I mistakenly say "prokaryotic cell" when I meant to say "eukaryotic". I apologize for this error.
This talk was given at Ralston College which offers and amazing MA program in the humanities. I was there addressing their theme for that year: the nature of the self.
This video is part of an extensive collaboration on neoplatonism.
Links to other videos in the collaboration:
Filip Holm @LetsTalkReligion : What is Neoplatonism? (followed by Neoplatonism and Islam):
• What is Neoplatonism?
Dr. Justin Sledge @TheEsotericaChannel : The Neoplatonic Attack on Gnosticism, Plotinus vs the Gnostics: • The Ancient Neo-Platon...
Dr Angela Puca @drangelapuca : Plotinus and Iamblichus on Theurgy and Magic: • Plotinus & Iamblichus ...
Zevi Slavin @SeekersofUnity : From Neoplatonism to Kabbalah, A Mystical Journey: • From Neoplatonism to K...
Dr. Dan Attrell @TheModernHermeticist : The Platonic Philosophers' Creed by Thomas Taylor: • The Platonic Philosoph...
To anyone reading this, I've done John's course on Awakening from the meaning crisis, and I cannot reccomend it enough. No matter who you are, you will benefit from the course. I encourage you to enrich your life ❤️
I second that motion...
It really is one of the hidden treasures of TH-cam
Could not agree more. John is a rare gem.
thank you for mentioning!
I’ve come to have major problems with his project, yet it is still an amazing course that everyone should watch. It is also an inevitable project and I am glad he is the one doing it and that people like him, McgilChrist, Christopher, and Peterson are talking with Pageau and others along with the forthcoming conversation(s?)John is going to be having with an Orthodox bishop on this issue of Neoplatonism.
There are far worse people involved in these models with worse goals and models which we will see at net with the whole game B to Ken Wilbur spirit of the times, the way that will trickle down and the feedback loop with everything wrong on the right at net.
John, I've been following you for the past two years and I can safely say that you, along with Iain McGilchrist, are the most important thinker of this day and age. No matter how much I listen to you, every single discussion or lecture proves to be informative, novel and thought-provoking. You are truly one of the most insightful human beings I've ever come across. Thank you very much for your work, it's really mind-blowing ❤❤
Well said Ben! Totally agree 👏👏👏
Yes...they are the two minds of our time.
They're great, but they're not joscha bach
I wouldn’t have discovered either were it not for JBP’s conversations with them.
@@billbyrd5198 I'm mostly pro Peterson but his angry intensity wouldn't work on TOE, I don't think
I had the IMMENSE pleasure of attending this lecture in person. What a thrill it is to see it here as part of a collaboration with some of my favorite channels!! Thank you John for your incredible heart and dedication to the good. May your words find fertile soil all over the world.
It was great collaborating with you, John! Ad maiora semper. 🙂
Great and lowly are RELATIVE. 😉
Incidentally, Slave, are you VEGAN? 🌱
@@TheVeganVicar >.> Slave?
What a non-starter.
@@feruspriest, kindly repeat that in ENGLISH, Miss.☝️
Incidentally, Slave, are you VEGAN? 🌱
My first year college philosophy professor said if I believed in spirits or spiritual realities that indicated mental illness and he'd recommend being put in a mental institute. The other philosophy professors at college agreed with him so I stopped going to class, just took the tests, and started going to the gym instead. It was heartbreaking. So...nice to know there's folks like you out there...great video!!! Happy New Year.
I dream of Academy that teach meaningful philosophy, art, science and also takes care of physicality through deep martial arts and calisthenics practice. Calisthenics can also mean yoga. I value weightlifting as well but I think it will be more proper to start the education with bodyweight, develop all the parts properly and then move to weights. We could use it as metaphor with philosophy. Moving to the most abstracted and removed from human experience philosophies only after one is developed in communal philosophical practices and knows the basics.
@@filipo7703 agreed! I avoided weight lifting entirely til after I'd been practicing yoga for 11 years, personally. And the Academy is changing,,,these chats are proof of that.
Academic philosophy in North America has three problems 1) Physics envy; 2) Hubris; 3) Adversarialness. They combine to generate experiences like yours. I'm sorry you had to experience it so viscerally.
@@MattHabermehl cheers but I handled it fine. It just mean i only took tests as I found it hard to respect profs after that. Eventually i moved on to a grad studies and phd department that were better fits. Plus learning to lift weights was way more of a boon to my life than studying philosophy with professors who dislike Wisdom. :P
That sounds like an ethical complaint waiting to be filed. Or a TH-cam short naming names including the chancellor at the time.
Thank you John for this exquisite lecture. You not only talk but show and exemplify the way. It's a delight and a pleasure to be working alongside you. Your student and friend, Zevi
Man, what an honourable comment Zevi. I share the sentiment and celebrate all the way from down here. Keep truckin' brother.
Zevi, you rock! ❤🌎🙏🏻
John, you outrageous f***ing Magus! A thousand rattles and shamanic chants in your honor. Thank you for keeping the roads to the Sacred Fire open. Philosophy. Art. Science. The Sacred Triumvirate.
Brilliant and revelatory. Vervaeke is one of the great minds of our time but equally important, one of the great hearts. Thank you, Professor for walking the talk and having your life be for the possibility of humanity cultivating Wisdom.
That is very kind. Thank you.
That was the most profound lecture I've ever experienced. Thanks, John. My hope for humanity is that more of us will start to question the current collective psychological paradigm and gravitate to holy and generative perspectives and metaperspectives like these and feel a call to 'participate' in a more meaningful way
Possibly the most important video I've watched this year, which is saying something because it is now December 31st. I'm going to have to go back and take notes!
This has been such an incredible collaboration amongst wonderful free-thinkers. Y'all are doing Plato's (and Plotinus') work.
Recently my twenty year old son expressed an interest in philosophy. I am very happy to have been able to direct him to this lecture.
From The One, The Many.
From The Many, to The One.
It reminds me of breathing.
Cyclical, closed, perpetual.
This is a profoundly enlightening lecture. Simultaneously satisfying my desire for deep thoughts/revelations while increasing my appetite for reaching even greater depths of awareness in Self and of Others.
Thank you and to all who helped make this content available for us all. Such a blessed time we live in, despite how chaotic it may be.
Can’t describe how happy I am that you collaborated with this group. For those of us who are not new to these ideas it’s so great to have this perspective presented. Thanks!
For me, this was a wonderful refresher and sprucing up of some major themes of your work, as I don't have the greatest memory. I also really appreciated the questions. Feeling the Beauty!
I really liked the 'differentiating opening up' 'integrating narrowing into one' part. I thought it was a tiny homunculus inside me getting excited, but it must have been the tau erotica. :) It did feel spruced up and refreshed as well, like more suchness and such moreness. :)
Happy New Year, Rachel! Looking forward to '23 with you and everyone else!
Happy New Year, Robert!
Absolutely loving how all of this has been unfolding over the past few years and very excited to see all participants coming together to expound upon and expand unto both a re-understanding of dialogos and how to effectively re-implement this into practice.
This is SOOO good. I decided to watch in 3 separate sittings. There's too much here for me to take in all at one time. I'm so grateful that you made this video to share your knowledge and insight with others like me. Thank you, John.
Wow I was already excited for this but 3 hours?? You spoil us, John!
Beautiful lecture! Densely packed and informative. Put together a lot of things for me. I finally realized the distinction between Kantian view and the neo-platonic view.
Masterful and beautiful presentation. Thank you John 🙏
So So SO excited to see you working in the overlap of 4E Cog Sci and Esotericism!!! I feel like its really fertile ground for amazing scholarly collaborations like this!
Wow. An epic 3 hour journey. The Q&A is not to be missed.
Your transmission of the memory system was profound.
I was transported into participatory self knowledge:
The knot in my stomach felt seen and unwound.
Wonderful talk and absolutely beautiful Q&A!!!
Brilliant - both in the sense of ingenious and en-light-ening. I'm really glad you did this.
Just gets better after every viewing. A genuine Sacred lecture. Thank you John🙏
JV told JP....."oh what a speech at Ephesus, hold my beer..."
The concept of ascent and return is so fascinating to me right now. I feel like it explains the feeling of two steps forward and one step back when trying to work through trauma recovery.
John thank you again for your lecture and your closing was absolutely the best to end on .
This might be a blasphemy but it seems like this was a summary of the awakening from the meaning crysis series. I find it absolutely astonishing how you managed to introduce and talk about so many monstrous (complex) concepts and still kept it coherent while also introducing the concepts in an easy to digest way. This was a hell of a ride. Thank you for this and thank you for everything John ♥️ I found it (and you) strikingly beautiful ♥️
Thank you John. Superb lecture. Keep up the spectacular work.
What an amazing group - John knocked it out of the park as always!
Happy Holidays John 💝 Much love to you and the family.
This was such a great clear summary of neoplatonism, so much clearer than the AFTMC piece, although I am sure it helped to have the background provided there. Thank you John 🙏
What a titanic lecture that will only become more so with the passing of time. Utter respect for this man and his work.
Your lecture was amazing. Thank you very much John.
great collaboration! looking forward to watching all of this
This is the funniest and most rhetorical I’ve ever seen John and I love it.
Not watched this yet but I know it’s going to be amazing, so thanks in advance John 🙏
Thank you! Wonderful as always!
really happy to have found your channel, thanks!
John, this is wonderful. I'm feeling the dialogos between this video, my schema and my journal. Such a cool rich flow you got me in.
You have 'one' me over!
All this and I'm only 1/3 through.
Thanks is Kevin!
I had a breakdown in my first semester of college and managed to get onto this process of positive feedback clarity you discuss. Turned me from the most empty & grey cynic into a passionate & driven altruist. I hope to work with you one day and supplement the high minded portions of your work with a low minded cultural practical translation for the masses. What you’re dealing with could align us all 🤍
John,
My name is Matthew from small town BC.
Of all your presentations I found this one to be your strongest and clearest. I can't wait for your After Socrates.
I find the most difficulty I have with your work always comes down to your argument against purpose and against narrative. Thats where I struggled with the final episodes of AFTMC. Im trying to understand how that view doesnt dehibilitate me, since I am born and raised a western man.
I like what you said "meaning in life is not just your purpose. Its what you want to stay here when you are gone." I just reframe that as my purpose. My narrative purpose is to help those in need, serve my kids, serve the world - to serve love.
I can imagine if I were to lose my family tragically that I may need to come to your more eastern side. Maybe that means its more fundamental. Or maybe God could convince me how that was part of a larger narrative without destroying the warmth I have with him.. I don't know but I really care about getting this dispositionally and propositionally correct.
Been working through this for about a year, you've helped me a lot, thank you
Yes, a big thank you to John and to Ranston for making this a public lecture. I have been watching his 50 Video's .(I'm on 6 or 7) . it only took me 3 to 4 years to get bored with Dr. Petersons.."wink". I didn't know about John till Lex Freedman .. Another Toronto professor? . I thought to myself at first. ..Well makes sense to find both of such at Ranston now. Good Luck
What a magnificent start on 2023💓
I’ve just watched every other video in the collaboration and my first thought was “it seems daoist/buddist/eastern one worldism was the first thing to travel the silk road” and there it is the introduction of this video. That tickled me thank you.
Remarkable how this is readily available almost for free. Thank you. Huge fan.
Despite having seen the meaning crisis series, it's nice to see such a great summary after a while, to keep my internal John Vervaeke and his way of viewing the world alive.
John Neo Vervaeke. This was simply fantastic and crystal clear. Beautiful, really.
Brilliant!
I liked his definition of the self as the level to which the self attains. The self in relationship to reality itself. I also liked what he termed layers of ontology and that ontology isn't flat.
In my experience ontology is actually a circular layered thing with a strong center point.
Some however have been too dismissive of the ontology of materialism distinct from the logos. Practically most people don't have to worry about what they say all the time due to ontological restraints. It's a socialization process of maturity. Social skills can be defined as normative communication of one body with other bodies atomically speaking. That doesn't mean that other layered ontologies don't exist, but that they'd be necessarily unintelligible without this first principle of material ontology.
Lucretius noted how spirituality with priests tends to lead to fear and cowardice and ignorance. That people would tend to accept any type of suffering as long as the goals were clear. And that the circular ontology of the religious that would privilege priests at the expense of the courage and character of the people. A circular ontology isn't meant to "spin out" and privilege only a select outer few. That would be at odds of the irreducible material simplicity of atomic knowledge as a thing irreducible except to itself.
Roman ethos was that the nobles and military men and women respected the will of the people first as to mirror their actions to the ways of thinking of the people.
In the show Rome Cicero, in negotiation with Octavian said "the people would not look kindly on a triumph not with your army at the walls of the city. A little unsavory perhaps."
In that ethic a sense of dignity was connected to material drives, specifically hunger in its ontological language, "unsavory." Being able to be loose as a human being and being able to satisfy ones own hunger and respect the hunger of others is a first principle of socialization. Otherwise a religious elite would be an unknowable and circular outer tyrant.
That's the normative socialization principle that is a first principle of ontology. That means, contrary to what Dr. Peterson has to say, that materialism is the true ontological root of a sacred individual. The only root then of ontology could be found in the deceptive nature of Dr. Peterson's appeals. That religion is supposed to be some "restraining" influence as a use of sophistry to try to convince some people to violate ones intuitive ontological conscience for the sake of social order and a sense of dependency on the inability of most to express this very normative first principle due to the fact that normative language doesn't use ontological language as much as respecting ones own hunger and the hunger of others to justify itself. It's the most basic mode of being from which all other principles are derived.
The outer layer can't spin out to privilege an outer few at the expense of specific "creators" without violating this first principle which is how creators and elites tend to both isolate themselves from the first ethical principle of hunger most evident to common socialization taken for granted by the people developed through common experience.
Neither race nor gender could ever be a first principle because it would violate the first principle of ontological truth that the center is the most basic truth within circular ontology that implies philosophical materialism that emphasizes that normative socialization is the hunger of ones self being respected first and that tends to recognize and respect the hunger of others.
I adore this. Thankyou John.
Thank you ❤ this is was amazing
Everything I heard was relatable and explained clearly and productively. Learning so much and so greatful.
Such a wonderful and important presentation
This is great. I have learned so much from John and Jordan. Thank you Canada.
That answer was so long it gave him a 5 o’clock shadow hahaha i only jest! Much love JV ❤️ appreciate your time.
Emanating feedback systems. My God, what a revelation. Thank you for this upload🙏
John, this is so profound.
Hey John updated his profile picture!!
Yum! What a delicious way to break a week-long screen fast. Thanks so much John! ❤️🙏🏽💋
Good on you for taking that break when you needed it, Alexandra! I gotta do that soon...
@@KalebPeters99 Well unfortunately I couldn’t shave my head and go to the cave for 3 years … but a week off screens helped a bit. Actually… spose I could go to the cave….
@@alexandrazachary.musician here's to more caving and less hair in 2023
Happy new year, ms Zachary!
@@KalebPeters99 Hoopy Nu Yar to you too me mate on the West Coast.
Thanks John!
(Misspelling in thumnbail "Neoplatanism") Look forward to watching this. :)
Great to hear this lecture...
Liked to hear about the hermeneutics of suspicion and how 'negativity' (in its broadest sense, including scepticism, scholasticism, even art ) is parasitic on the positive
one area i think John's understanding of Plato could be deepened is actually in a neoplatonic direction in a way...
The three level theory of mind is Plato's thumbnail sketch of his deeper theory ... he understood many more levels of the human (as most serious theories do, e.g. yoga, Piaget, Maslov) - the skeleton sketch of this deeper theory is in the nine deductions (different levels of approach to any question) in the second half of the Parmenides. The Neo-platonist knew this but the works that expound it are lost.
Tarot took me down this rabbit hole and I’ve grown in more ways than I ever imagined possible 🙏❤️
sheesh... this was rather good -- thanks!
There are truths that are only disclosed after profound transformation.
I would add one thing: the first of these disclosed truths must be: humility. I believe that my beliefs and many or all of the infinite implications may be wrong. I remember crossing this membrane and trying to hang onto both perspectives so that I could build a bridge between worlds or epistemes (in the Foucault sense). The greater degrees are not available until you acknowledge the fundamental errors in the previous phase of "you." Also, an important caveat: you will forget for a time. Then, you will remember but differently. This causes dissonance and alienation which carries a not insignificant risk.
Hi John. I love your work. Ive been following closely your collaborations online. I had an idea that I would like to place before you -- We talk a lot about 'Wisdom Traditions' but isnt the nature of Wisdom that it is actually before us -- calling us forth? Is wisdom in a timeless space and thus ahead of us looking back on our lives and letting us know -- its ok, It's going to work out alright. Like an ever present and caring father to their child who has fallen over -- and willing them to stand and find their feet again.
Sounds like you are describing what most people would call God.
That was incredible!
Thank you for your kind comment and your continued support of my work, Muhmud Ahmad! Please consider joining my Patreon, if you have yet to do so, in order to help the Vervaeke Foundation continue to increase our capacity to make a meaningful difference in the world :)
This was excellent! Thank you for your time as always!
Bravo
I am having a bit of an existential crisis being that I work in social media marketing and truly and deeply value your work
Thank you 🙏
Very deep insights along a beautiful throughline, presented didactically. True selflessness. I wish there were more John Vervaekes.
Very interesting discussion..
Ive only recently started to break my own chains. I was watching jordan petersons exodus that happened to have Jonathan pageau and stephen blackwood in its cast. That lead me to pageaus youtube where i saw a discussion with john vervaeke. That then lead me to here with vervaeke and blackwood. Im very blessed to be exposed to this and fate seems to be guiding me along the way. Im going to be watching the awakening series next. I wish i could somehow return the blessing to these men. Thank you so much. Its terrible to be stuck watching shadows and not know it but for me it was worse to know that ive been watching shadows and didnt know how to break the chains. John has come to loosen them for me.
Really enjoyed the talk and I want to check myself. Is the distinction between Adversarial and opponent processing the same as the distinction between philo-nike and philo-sophia?
New subscriber - Dr Angela Puca sent me 🙌
Dynamical Systems. Exactly. Coupled mapping to multiplicities as the input for the Topology of organization
Please, John, leave the title at "Neo-platanism". We all love it.
The ancients knew how to amuse themselves.
Wisdom also knows how to have fun at the expense of intellect.
Hahha. Im trying to get people to watch it and it puts them off
5th time through this lecture and I always learn something new
1:59:07 wow here it is! I think this is The piece needed when discussing the meaning crisis with JBP, VanderKlay and Pageau. Meaning isn’t just about purpose but ‘fittedness’ also
We must enable and support those who would walk the path.
Even though much of this got over the top of my head, I think I will try try to understand this man's work, it's fascinating.
hey heyyyyy this is great. good stuff.
Been watching you @johnvervaeke for many years, and this talk is probably your best. I also get much inspiration from your dialogues with @JonathanPageau.
I am curious about your opinion on intelectual property. ( If you have addressed it before please point me to it ) The context is the idea that we participate in the making of a freindship, a project, a book, a dsicovery, etc; we do not will it into existente by ourselves. There are always others who participate in bringing the project into existence and then there are many who will use it, and in so, modifying it and changing it beyond anything what the "autor" intended. This is similar to the idea that Adam coparcticipates in Creation by naming the animals and by being the steward of the Earth. ... So who is the author ? What is your opinion on intelectual property laws, patents, free and open source, the relation between private and public, charGPT and DALL-E ?
Great video but the volume level seems really inconsistent. Could just be my sound system, though. I’m interested to know if anyone else noticed
This idea of psychontological "levels" which are more or less "in conformity with reality" is lovely.
Neoplatonism was fully imported into Sufi cosmology. God in Sufism is referred to as "the Real" , what is, and ultimately demands surrender of all illusion, resistance (in contrast to Responsivity/ fittedness/ adab) and self-delusion. Deepening contact with this phenomenological unfolding is the telos. No more grasping for identity.
Descent, ascent...
Is there a non-vertical metaphor for dropping fully into this spatiotemporal moment? Fully "inhabiting" the eternal now? Abiding? Moving in and out of ontological "presence"?
"The depths of the world" ❤
In Sufism the human being is the threshold between the manifest and the unmanifest. And the threshold is in the heart. The job of the intellect ('aql) is both instrumental and a ray of awareness to witness the turning of the heart (qalb, from same triconsonantal root as "turn"). To orient towards the Real, to turn towards truth, goodness. Accounting. Monitoring. Witnessing the heart's intention.
The Real is every atom presented to the self, inviting ongoing re-alignment, response, fittedness. 3R, in other words. But not just logos. Pathos. Ethos.
The soul moves through wonderfully described levels from being enslaved, to at war with itself, to at ease, through many more, towards ultimate self-knowledge, which is ego-annihilation.
John is an intellectual shaman. A great communicator and spokesperson for our shared need to come back into community with each other in a profound way. We've forgotten fellowship. Thank you for deeply reminding us. I hope you continue in your path and wish you the best. Thanks again for everything you're doing 🙏🏼
Wonderful
The emanation of a thing from something else: When does a thing gain identity if it is an emanation?
When does a process gain expression if it is emerging from a collective principle of organization?
There is a fractal quality to transcendence. The macro world emanating out of the micro world.
Perhaps the quantum is the string on which beads of 6 to 8 second attention spans can circle within themselves, and this is related to probability clouds of changing, flowing matter by describing and comparing two forms of action. One that I speculate is QCD expansion and contraction, the other described by Feynmann diagrams of short segments joining "objects". If the quantum interaction in the brain is allowed by a microtubule, that interface would have awareness lining the wall of that conduit observing the flow within, and possibly interacting by assigning vector pennants in that probability cloud. This could be seen as a person (6 seconds of persons) inside one of those street festival Dragons, manipulating the form by interaction, also following the street as undulating dragon, and on the side of the street looking on as a child.
@John Vervaeke - Have you written some kind of article on this topic?
Thank you!
dialogue , participation , dynamic reavalueation , trinity of focus inclusive of rational, spirited and appetitive , schema , meta introspection /perspective , cognitive co-participation , connection to an external reality beyond onesself/ego .( thank you John). Could a 'Neuro Linguistic Programming script' work within a suggestive state to anchor the above concept's ?
I liked his definition. Is what I put in front. The word "I" is necessarily essential to materialism. "I want" is essential to relationship of ones self to ones hunger in relationship to the hunger of others.
I want that book or I want that lasagna while speaking the nuance of socialization is the root of relationship of the word "I" in relationship to ones self and others.
That's my most basic ethic.
just thank you John. wow
Perception is a controlled illusion/hallucination.
True enough to be useful or valuable.
Truth, in context, is combinatorially explosive.
The mind creates the meaning it is able to process.
Are you a fan of Anil Seth? I love that hypothesis by him as well. I think it fits with John's opponent processing of relevance realisation.
@@KalebPeters99 Have to look him up.
@@RickDelmonico he has a fantastic book on consciousness called Being You. He's a big proponent of "perception as controlled hallucination", big recommend!
Amazing.
53:39 use of imagery reminds me of Lakoff's Metaphors We Live By
Best part is "neo-Platotonic grammar" re-invigorated in this 4E reading and rescued from a contemporary pomo reductive (and contemptuous tbh) attribution of a necessary essentialism/ metaphysics. Its a wonderful phenomenological cog sci zenification of Plato. 🥳