John Vervaeke: Rituals are rational
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 พ.ค. 2024
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All around us are signs of crisis. UnHerd’s Flo Read and philosopher and cognitive scientist John Vervaeke sat down at the UnHerd Club to diagnose the alienation and anxiety that pervades our contemporary culture. Is a “meaning crisis” at the root of all the other crises we face - environmental, political, spiritual?
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// TIMECODES //
00:00 - 00:45 - Introduction
00:45 - 05:45 - Understanding the West’s meaning crisis
05:45 - 08:22 - By setting aside religious ‘delusions’, have we become more deluded in other ways?
08:22 - 13:02 - What do ‘realness’, ‘meaning’ and ‘mattering’ mean?
13:02 - 18:45 - Are we at the peak of the meaning crisis?
18:45 - 28:45 - Artificial intelligence and the meaning crisis
28:45 - 36:00 - Have we made identity groups, social concepts and science, sacred?
36:00 - 40:40 - How do we recover the true meaning of the sacred?
40:40 - 53:20 - Losing the notion of soul, and horror as epiphany
53:20 - 01:00:05 - Have we lost the sense of the sacred because we’ve lost the notion of the sacred place?
01:00:05 - 01:04:30 - We’re still performing rituals, even if we don’t realise it
01:04:30 - 01:18:54 - Debunking the mental potential myth, and the role of art in the idea of the sacred
01:18:54 - 01:19:17 - Concluding thoughts
#UnHerd #JohnVervaeke #Rituals
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Vervaeke is unquestionably an international treasure.
John sum nuntius
This has to be one of the best talks i've heard. Vervaeke is a certified genius, Flo is an amazing interviewer. Thankyou UnHerd for this conversation.
Generous praise but is anything different for you having listened? I ask that sincerely because many times I listen to what are impressive sounding talks but am left with nothing substantial.
@@paulrankin8578 did you listen to this talk?
I thought his diagnosis of the problem was spot on. And knowing what the problem is is already halfway to solving it. The solutions to the problems he’s addressing requires you to make the effort in your own life to solve them, no one else can do it for you, and there’s no easy way out, incase that’s what you’re looking for.
Caught some earlier and am about to watch the rest now.
Appreciate you taking the time to give your thoughts.
I feel the same!!
@@paulrankin8578, I come away from some conversations with a similar feeling to yours here.
But this one introduced me to some concepts and philosophers' works that were absent from my education. And even more significant, Vervaeke's approach to framing various concepts might be new to many listeners, and could prompt some to consider old problems and questions from a new perspective.
Plato never realized his name would be turned into Playdough
I had a cat with a prominent extra toe. I named him Playtoe
I own an exceptionally round china dish. I call it Plate-O.
Vervaeke sometimes *activates God mode* with his explanations, he's essentially a better Cognitive Scientist than most single-discipline Scientists in the field, as a result of incorporating plenty of Liberal Arts topics and observations.
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas to you, too!
or, if you want to be politically correct like that smoke-show of a host, "adequate non-denominational season that identifies as Winter to you!"
And to you.
John, your wisdom and your teaching skill inspire me. I am a Naturopathic Physician. I find myself wondering if you worked with a person who has MS, how much their MS would improve under your guidance and instruction. I believe the patient would improve greatly. I see great overlap between what you do and what I do and, more importantly, between how you do what you do and how I do what I do.
I admire and appreciate you, John.
*"happy non-denominational winter festival"* is the most sterile greeting I've ever heard.
In the West we celebrate Christmas.
Now, British Christians will be a minority by 2066 or earlier, but until then; it's Merry Christmas.
Agreed. No one celebrates winter. Merry Christmas all. Keep warm, keep cheerful.
I presumed it was meant as a joke.
@@ukbloke5740 No, it was too deadpan. I think she genuinely didnt want to offend people who dont celebrate Christmas
I don’t believe you’ve seen a British comedy, otherwise, you might’ve chuckled like everyone else.
@@ukbloke5740 Could be. Just so used to that kind of stuff being treated seriously, I'm never far from defensive mode😀
Merry Christmas!
Thank yoy. And to you.
Happy Christmas
Thank you. And to you.
May John's floors remain walkable in 2024!
I simply love how John can dispel an urban myth, still understand the hidden meaning inside the questioner's mind and deliver a thoughtful, rational and meaningful answer that yields significance to many, not only who questioned it.
Effortlesly doing it; That's John. :)
Love it.
"It is not pleasure," I think the distinction between eudaimonic and hedonistic pleasure is useful here. Because flow is pleasurable, but it is deeper than the shallow pleasure of hedonism. Rock climbing is eudaimonically pleasurable because it involves virtues such as courage.
Heavenly Father, only you know the burdens I face please bless me and my children this Christmas. As a single mom it can be hard to have everything on your shoulders. Especially because both of my sons are autistic. It’s difficult to raise children alone but despite the challenges I face I keep faith in you Lord. As I struggle to pay rent and as I struggle to buy groceries for my children. Jesus deliver me from my anxieties, and my troubles. Give me strength. Since suffering a heart attack two years ago and my on going battle with lupus I’m overwhelmed. Help me to find strength when I am weak, And hope when I am afraid. I will keep faith no matter what I face. 😢
Best wishes and a Merry Christmas to you and all your family.
X
God bless you and guide you.
I m gonna pray for you.
God bless you!
God bless! ❤!
All the best 🙏
Thanks for this content, for a minute I took for granted thst its free, its on tap any time i want, much in keeping woth John's points about everything we do, our learning and our mind, is done in communion with others and because of others contributions. It astounds me how much I forget that I am a recipient of the efforts of others and therefore connected to them. Constantly overcoming the feeling that I am sepearate and disconnected. My journey is helped by this kind of content, and the ideas of Vervaeke and his work which is fantastic. Flo (think thats her name) is also brilliant in her role, its clear she understands all the ideas too. Great work everyone. Looking forward to more and hope also to attend an event!
Dr. Vervaeke, I must say, is an excellent relevance realizer; he makes relevant points regarding wisdom, meaning, and the sacred that are much needed in this existence.
Flo is so good at this! Thank you UnHerd for this conversation.
Such a great gift! John Vervake is such a brilliant thinker. Thank you UnHeard 🙏 Merry Christmas to y'all 🎄
been following him since 2015, his lectures are simply mind blowing. Especally his "a rationalistic explanation of chi"
Thanks so much Flo. Your interview skills are probing and insightful.
And thanks John for helping us to work through the meaning crisis
Wonderful conversation again! Thank you.
Only thing I completely disagree with:
AI is not artificial intelligence but, as Iain McGilchrist points out, artificial information processing. It is no threat to any aspect of our lives, unless we believe it is more intelligent than ourselves, and we fail to apply our full mental, psychological, social, emotional and spiritual capacities, then our anxieties would be warranted. Otherwise, it is literally just a tool.
To fully, consciously, and appreciatively reclaim our lives, attention, relationships, knowledge, wisdom and connection to the sacred, there is absolutely nothing to fear at all.
So Unherd finally heard of John!
Great interview and really great and interesting deductions and questions from the interviewer, really like your chanel, keep up the great work ❤
Fantastic, thank you. Puts normal media to shame.
I can see why Jordan Peterson picks John Vervake's mind-brain for insights to pursue meaning. Wish I was more competent myself. Great to listen to and hope I really comprehend his thinking.
It has taken me a while but I'm understanding Vervake better. He understands our minds and how they actually work. Love the Horror of it, way beyond angst . Wisdom is hard earned.
Thank You! Fantastic lecture.
Excellent dialogue, thank you
A fascinating video, thank you for sharing it.
Here's a ChatGPT summary:
- The speaker discusses the struggle between rational and spiritual aspects during the festive season.
- A conversation with psychology professor John Voveki is mentioned, covering topics like rituals, artificial intelligence, and the meaning of life.
- Professor Voveki's TH-cam series "Awakening from the Meaning Crisis" is mentioned, which is 50 hours long and broken into one-hour segments.
- The speaker and Voveki discuss the Western world's meaning crisis, including issues of purpose, self-actualization, and identity.
- Voveki explains that intelligent adaptivity can lead to susceptibility to self-deception and self-destructive behavior.
- He suggests that overcoming self-deception requires a complex system of practices, which he refers to as an "ecology of practices."
- The historical loss of wisdom cultivation frameworks, typically provided by religion, is discussed as a contributing factor to the meaning crisis.
- Voveki points out that our culture lacks guidance on where to seek wisdom, leading to a loss of a "sacred canopy" or worldview.
- The conversation touches on the role of artificial intelligence and its potential impact on humanity's future.
- Voveki argues that AI is currently highly intelligent but also highly irrational, lacking concern for truth or wisdom.
- The speaker and Voveki discuss the possibility of creating wise agents and the challenges associated with raising AI in an age of absurdity.
- Voveki emphasizes the importance of understanding the functionality of meaning in life and the adaptive importance of cultivating wisdom.
- The speaker and Voveki explore the concept of meaning, including the dimensions of purpose, coherence, significance, and mattering.
- Voveki explains that the experience of realness is intertwined with intelligibility and the realization of meaning in life.
- The conversation covers the potential for a scientific theory of meaning and the distinction between knowledge and wisdom.
- Voveki highlights the need for a new ecology of practices and communities to address the meaning crisis.
- Main message: The Western world is experiencing a meaning crisis, and understanding the functionality of meaning and the cultivation of wisdom is crucial for addressing it. The rise of artificial intelligence poses new challenges and opportunities for humanity's future, and a reevaluation of our approach to wisdom and rationality is necessary.
Love this!
Folk
Family
Faith
What a lesson ! And what a teacher !!!!!!!!!!❤ly
What a treat😁❤
A beautiful treat.
She has no business looking that majestic.
Oh dear I just answered Mr Vervaeke's question 11:51 "What do you want to exist even if you are not here & what are you doing to help it". And my answers were a) my descendents b) the english people c) European civilisation. I think I might have to become an ethno-nationalist
Vervaeke needs to clarify his use of "irrational". There's so much negatively implied in that term. The opposite of rational is not irrational. In fact, irrationality is a key factor in scie tific discoveries and breakthroughs not reasoned logic.
I would say that variation selection process assumes a selector which would have to be the agent. This does apply to the here and now.
Brilliant.
“Melody is in decline..”
Merry Christmas!
"Plato Not Prozac" for the meaning crisis.
I knew he would respond fully to the first questioner sooner or later. Preach John! Jk, I think he's amazing.
He is explaining the cause of the conspiracy theory kind of world view. Purpose, coherence. (Some conspiracies are true, i didnt take the vaccine 😂)
From my own research and observations, so far I'd say around 90% of conspiracy theories turn out to be true. Almost everything is not what it seems. I didn't take the jab either by the way because I was told it was on the way. Alan Watt, David Icke and Alex Jones were warning us about it as far back as 2009.
Sublime! Thank God this exist 🌞🙏
Became a subscriber to Unherd this year. Valuable source for review and occasional provocation from a strong stable of writers. Wishing everyone a very happy Christmas and may 2024 bring all you wish for yourselves
His last name suggest his ancestors came from Flanders. The historian Jacques Pauwels is another super Canadian academic that came from our humble, little plot of land. 🙂
There may be value in ritual, but never forget:
Ritual is the husk of true faith; the beginning of chaos.
Prof. John, u R almost ready for prime time, Netflix, and the TH-cam channels that do these topical short video episodes. In SUCH channels as After Skool, The Well, etc. THIS is, thus far, your most concise, clear, easily comprehended (comprehensible?) Without losing the plot, meaning, and message... Except for a few words, WHICH BTW, try'n bracket those $50 Words with a quick brief definition in just a few words WHEN you're on a roll. Almost there, AND it's exciting... Just a few more runs at IT, getting it down to at least 10th if not 8th or 6th grade reading/listening levels. BOTH in content AND possibilities. I'd love to help, AND I've already signed up to volunteer at the VF. Cheers 🥂. Peace 🕊️. Luck 🍀. Gaia ♾️✨🪄☯️🎇🚀🌴💥.
When Ai reaches the extraordinary debating excellence of UnHerd hosts, might be when us herds grovel to its superiority.
Happy holidays and Merry Christmas 🎅. Hohoho moral values are out the door for now...but all is changing.
Dr. Karl Menninger, a renowned American Psychiatrist, believed that religion was the psychiatrist for the world. Here religion seems to mean that frame reference that provided meaning for people.
About music, it is an interesting 'imaginal' distinction how english, italian and french "plays" music whlie the other romance languages "touch" music.
There is a "haptic" quality to reality. Even our sight in the ancient world was a form of "touching". The term "Imaginal" by Corbin is being misused here. Imaginal is a "place" between sensory world and world of ideas---better to use imagination.
The last bit about music is fascinating! I'd love to hear more about this!
As an Atheist raised sort of Catholic, the fact that ppl are kind of proving Protestant ritual practice to be adaptive nowadays, is weirdly fine with me. Because, sounds like they pretty much never believed in most of our literal Catholic pseudo pagan shit anyway.
What a nasty little person you are
@@rons.9678 Some ppl don't understand YT comment sections.
Inspiring. Thanks!
21:10 hashtag, "uncanny valley".
I loved this conversation. Fabulous!
Those straws are so cute!
I hope they aren’t paper.
I am not so sure whether Freud detected the unconscious because I must have heard hat some romantic writers talked about the unconscious.
Imagine Jordan Peterson didn’t go nuts.
Yeah, no kidding, lol. What even happened to him???
@@randomgeneration-gu8dw I can’t help thinking the drugs he was taking must have had some role in it.
What's the Turing test? Should this interview only have been directed to those who know what it is?
Found this a very interesting talk, on boxing day were of to cull and dress a sheep for the family, in a way I hope there will be a certain amount of ritual to the event, whereas my children will learn from the experience. Great talk, great hosts.
15:00 point about material wealth's effects plateauing off repeatedly takes me back to John Calhoun's Universe 25 mouse utopia experiments of the 1970s.
"The beautiful ones" and the mib violence and dysfunctional sex life, (not to mention the hair dye) all seems so familiar.
If you are not familiar will Calhoun's work, here's an inteoductory video;
th-cam.com/video/7CXj0AGuh4c/w-d-xo.htmlsi=zfyJsTqysXohkGdI
@27:00 the speaker conflates Vervaeke's thesis with a different one. Vervaeke doesn't accept the notion that we're a post-rational age and that since the enlightenment we've fallen and become irrational and emotional -- Vervaeke posits that enlightenment's version of rationality (as 'intelligence') is the problem.
He's not part of the 'postmodernism is destroying our intellectual traditions!' groupthink at all
I think that Freud not even detected the thripartit soul. In fact it was Plato who introduced this conceptn with different words.
I once read that the Sanskrit word for God originally meant "The changes caused by performing certain rituals upon the experience of individuals and communities" The idea that a supernatural anthropomorphic being brought about these changes came later.
The crisis is that of cooperation turning to competition as a result of overpoplation going back to the enlightenment
Wait a minute… “MORE than the amount of atomic particles in the Universe”?
How can that be the case if the Universe is INFINITE? Is this just rhetorical hyperbole?
he meant the observable universe.
Hey Flo, I'm not a blank slatist. At all. What are you doing Saturday?
There are reasons that rituals exist, otherwise they wouldn’t exist.
And some rituals have frankly been hijacked and corrupted to and by other motives/purposes.
I like Dr Robert Sapolsky take that many rituals seem to come from OCD
Ritual can be represented by a fraction of two natural numbers?
...except some conspiracy theories have proven themselves to be conspiracy fact ... + we shouldn't discount a 'bad feeling about the world' as inherently irrational - there's plenty of observably bad things that give pause to consider the trajectory of the world and the probable causes / forces at play
35:00 "fixation on the outcome, and complete disregard for the process" has enabled people to support Wokism. Superficial adherence to procedural issues (diversity and inclusion) satisfies the superficial reflex of liberalism to censorship!
Liberalism is inculcated into Western culture by the Christian sense of the holiness of self sacrifice.
But the sly insertion of Equity (of outcome) in place of Equality (of opportunity) allows total disregard of the integrity of the process followed trying to achieve "Justice" as defined by liberalism.
Diversity and Inclusion haven't "really" been attended to, instead they have just being paid lip service to.
Cain's sacrifice was ever tainted in this way. He took life from the living and expected reward for self denial of the flesh of his sacrificed.
I've always looked at the way people keep animals and derive pleasure from them during the act of abuse.
Treating animals as trophies and tools without giving the animal respect of its true nature.
This is the big moral problem human's have with eating animals.
They see the numinous and defile it to feed the body - where is the honour in that?
Same with Woke, there is no honour and there is a lot of anger because they are unconsciously cognoscent of the unsatisfying nature of revenge and performing to a formula, not a sense of "flow".
Wisdom? I think Colin Wilson's book need rediscovering. Joseph Campbell is another one.
What Colin Wilson book do you recommend in regards to wisdom ?
@@bertiebassat5545 Super Consciousness is good. Beyond the Occult as well. There are many I think that give the reader a better grasp of the phenomenology of the world and what informs it.
@@gnupf Thanks, Ive never read Super Consciousness, will pick it up. I have Beyond the Occult, which I found rather fascinating, though I was never sure of its Validity.
Winter festival? Was that satire? Or was she being serious with that greeting during the intro?
I have always had a healthy disrespect for authority and now have developed a healthy respect for conspiracy. I guess that makes me insane... ah well.
there´s science and there´s zionce
Flo might have a crush lol
Florence makes me weak in the knees.
Gee, no wonder Jesus said ... "He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:2-3
8
Rituals are an enemy to the imagination.
Professor talks so much leading to a meaning crisis …
The agnostic attempt here to describe meaning and purpose really amounts to very little, as it allows almost anything to be validated under its roof, even the Hamas atrocities committed against innocent Jews on Oct 7th. For those perpetrators, their actions were full of meaning and purpose.
It seems to me that a society built on a specific understanding of God and the universe and God’s redemptive action within that universe has everything to lose if they then completely ditch that belief. All manner of delusions will fill the vacuum, including pseudo-scientific ones.
I’m afraid you’re reading too much into certain things you seem to be misunderstanding here.
@@christopherhamilton3621 - Like what? What am I reading too much into? What certain things have I appeared to ‘misunderstand’?
Please be specific.
Could listen to Flo all day...
Articulates beautifully - in contrast to her incoherent rambling guest...
John sum nuntius
The Bible! The Bible is where we go for wisdom.
Your mom! Your mom is where we get wisdom from, and Eros.
Not this ‘we’….
Rituals, and the religion that goes along with rituals, are irrational........
Why are these channels so posh? 😂 Loved the talk though.
25:11 tries to describe AI, ends up describing people?
He is actually describring the exact theological definition of angels.
I recommend his book on AI.
He's deeply committed to the problem, and I think his proposal to guide AI towards becoming like sages is very insightful and important.
AI is trained on human forms, in service of human prompts. Its an extension of human ability. I see no scenario where AI will not have a human director.
The technocrats dont have these metaphysical qualities and neither can the AI they produce
Why hope for a non-denominational holiday? Sounds sterile and meaningless, to me, as much of modernity.
I want to help steal the culture.
florence take appendage ?
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Save yourself an hour.
This fellow is a psychologist from Toronto. It makes me wonder if he is a member of the professional society there persecuting Jordan Peterson? Enquiring minds such as myself would like to know.
I believe Vervaeke is a cognitive scientist, not a psychologist.
Don't know if he's a member of that organization, though I do know that they are former colleagues and I'm quite sure they've done work together and are friends.
I'm not aware of any public statement from Vervaeke re Petersons persecution, but from everything I know about John, I'd be seriously surprised if he's in any way taking part in that despicable show trial.
@@andreedelslund2138 Thank you very much for your information. I'm currently unaware what the next juncture in that administrative procedure might be.
@@scottwatrous7649 you're welcome. Yeah, me neither. The whole thing is ridiculous I think. But I guess it serves as a good example of how moral objections from a 'controversial' person are dealt with in those places..
He was a colleague of Peterson. No: this persecution you speak of is a nonsensical conspiracy just like the rest of them. John and his colleagues give Jordan credit for a lot of what he says.
@@christopherhamilton3621 Thanks for clarifying.
I can give you a scientific meaning of life very easily
Well, that's quite a bold statement.
I think you kinda missed the whole point, but I'm actually curious to know what a scientific meaning of life is😁
Well, science is all about proof, so what is the meaning of life then?
@@andreedelslund2138 do you consider evolution by natural selection to be proven?
@@andreedelslund2138 also, I'm curious, do you consider that you have free will and if so do you consider I have the burden to prove that you don't have free will or that you have the burden to prove that you do have free will?
John Vervaeke is a footnote thinker who often fails to acknowledge the source of the more original thinking to which he is indebted. Around 80 years ago Wittgenstein had already mapped out four aspects of meaning that provide a type of epistemic compass for navigating life: meaning as custom (ritual practices), meaning as rule-following (practices that operate by or distinguish procedural validity), meaning as use (how language and other cultural practices are best understood in their social and cultural setting as opposed to, say, cognitive processes as revealed going on inside somebody's brain), and meaning as physiognomy (the significance of the human capacity to read faces, and, by extension, to read the face of the world, music, art, architecture, etc. Vervaeke should know this but prefers to promote his own thinking as detached from the much more important insights that Wittgenstein provided several decades ago, which, in one sense, is just to retrieve older insights. The breakdown of such thinking is what Wittgenstein referred to 'as a sickness of a time'.
He mentioned him in his 50 hours meaning crisis series but nothing suggests that he's drawing attention to the originality of his work more than what it can do to transform. Kind of an unnecessary salience to follow.
@@badreddine.elfejer Thank you for responding. I know from personal correspondence that John Vervaeke does not understand the breadth and depth of Wittgenstein's work. When an undergraduate he attended a course on Wittgenstein taught by Peter Hacker, the brilliant Wittgensteinian philosopher of mind, but seems not to have done any wider reading of W's work and that of alternative Wittgensteinian philosophers. As for W's lasting importance and status, Vervaeke, again, gets him wrong. In 1999, a poll was conducted among US professional philosophers to identify which philosophical work they considered to be the most important of the 20th century. Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations came out top. Furthermore, W. thought he was doing philosophy for a future age as in his own time he would only be misunderstood. It has always struck me that Vervaeke is one such person; he is out of his depth when making any remarks about Wittgenstein.
I disagree. JV is open, humble and respectful.
It is hard to believe that students of this guy failed to mention the riches of philosophy in regard to ''meaning', from Stoicism to Kant and further. Also there are tons of studies of happiness and related stuff over the last decades. It is astonishing to hear that science cannot be applied here at least to some extent. Failing to mention al of these points and moving straight to religion... I find it very hard to continue listening to this guy after first 10 minutes. Tons of red flags already.
Rationality, caring for the truth. Rationality and intelligence are not the same thing. Sounds like Wokeism Faking both. Woke is not a true religion, it is an intelligible but irrational cult.
Listen, lady: the terms "conspiracy theory" and "conspiracy" are not synonyms. Stop speaking gibberish.