I'm so happy you waited a while to do this. For me these lectures come at a perfect time, and I think it's the sort of thing people will naturally go to after they are "done" with Jordan Peterson's material. Your material acts as such a great complement but also deepening of things that JP could not go into because he is so involved in the culture wars. Your lectures in this way remain purely about improvement and insight. These lectures are all very dense and not easy to watch -- but well worth the effort. The fact that you made it free is a great service to humanity. These lecture will serve to truly transform peoples lives in a way I dont think any other speaker prior to this could do. And the book images are a great touch as well as the listing of the key concepts in text. It's like you took the JP model and improved upon it. Bravo and Many Thanks
Although some say the Jordan Peterson is the gateway drug to the “alt-right”, I’d say he’s the gateway drug to John Vervaeke. Ditto all the other commenters here, but I’d also say that JP awakened me to the culture wars which I was fairly oblivious of and he helped me to clarify my positions
@@tonychapman5753 yes very astute I too find myself going through a similar transition to Johns works after having watched everything JBP put out 3 or 4 or more times. They had a conversation and it was very interesting.
Haha holy crap, same. I watched all of JP's MoM/biblical/personality lectures, journalism appearances so many times, I have them pretty much memorized. And now I'm transitioning to Vervaeke. I feel like Vervaeke is the "cool, eccentric uncle" to Petersons "darkly eccentric dad"
@@TheKingWhoWins Pause and rewind any parts that you missed or are fuzzy on. Replay lectures you don't understand the next day with the freedom to let your mind wander and not miss the info you were daydreaming through... If I had video recordings of my professors lectures, I would have done much better in university. Every professor owes it to their field to record their lectures for future upload.
@@jamesbarlow6423 He actually does, but you would know that if you'd read any of the books he's discussing. This specific lecture is on Plato's Republic, but even having read it, there is much to be learned that cannot be absorbed in one reading, as, of course, you already know.
🌊 I'm riding an escooter from West Hollywood to my studio in downtown LA and back every day primarily as an excuse to listen to this (relatively) undistracted... what an absolute masterpiece it is and what an absolute wonder to be alive to experience it all. 🌊
Seriously, this is lecture is so ingenoius I have to cry. I have an epiphany like every 5 minutes 🥹 awesome how you connect the dots, I bow to you man.
The way you broke down temporal discounting and the continuous rediscovery of Plato’s theory of soul was marvelous. I’m loving this series, thank you John.
This was the most insightful lecture on Plato's allegory of the cave that I've come across. Amazing. Also, I found this lecture series yesterday and I don't think I'll stop before its completion. Your enthusiasm for the subject is infectious, not to mention the inherent content of it. Thank you so much.
As a U of T alumni and former student of Prof. Vervaeke, I cannot express how glad I am that Prof. Vervaeke has moved and continues to move into this space.
I'm a scientist that has always been interested in the esoteric. I like the way you bring together science, wisdom, and spirituality in these lecture series. Thank you very much for these lectures! I hope to make it all the way through the series.
I remember being absolutely blown away by the conversation John had with Jordan Peterson a few years ago, where you had some great back and fourths and came to a mutual understanding in many points. A series of conversations between you guys would be bloody amazing.
You have utterly enflamed my love for learning and teaching, at the same time. The desire I have to provoke into 'unknown' and to push and evolve the questions, to dance in life with it. I am in a state of wonder and I never want to leave it. Thank you.
@ 29:10 "meaning and wisdom have to wrestle with unavoidable reality". That is, wrestle with God. Failure to wrestle with God is to miss the proper course: to sin. Thank you Dr. Vervaeke. The insight of these lectures is profound.
In addition, there is something about this "wrestling" that compels me to think of Iain McGilcrist's work on the brain's hemispheres. He argues each hemisphere "apprehends" the world in an importantly unique manner. One understands metaphor, implicit meaning, and allows for a multitude of interpretation, specialized for guarding against all possibilities, including how death might approach, while the other categorizes, concretizes, and seals itself off from new interpretation, a kind of tunnel vision, specialized for grabbing hold and making use of things. What's important here is that our brain's two hemisphere's are connected, and there is an interplay between the two ways of apprehending, a wrestling, that MUST take place. Not one, or the other, but both, together. Too much of one, and you are bombarded with information, a sort of chaos, sensory overload. Too much of the other, and you see only the parts, and cannot make sense of the whole. This process described by McGilcrist is not a conscious process, but in a sense, we in fact engage in a conscious version of this interplay. That is, to "wrestle with God" is to imitate one of our brains most fundamental unconscious processes.
every episode is completely NEW UNKNOWN information, things and concepts I never could have guessed existed, it is an incredible discovery every time. I sit with my note book and treat this as a uni course. The previous episode about Socratic thinking really raised my consciousness.
This such a relevant lecture. The inner conflict part really spoke to me. It’s truly majestic to watch how all these perennial problems got brilliant minds of the past to think about them and today we still battle with so many of these issues. It’s a great wake up call for everyone. Truly universal teachings.
Thank you John, This is a lecturer masterpiece. This is truly a life giving, life affirming work you are doing. I feel intimately linked to the story of humanity and consciousness in a way I’ve never experienced.
I’m more interested in connecting with all the epic humans in this chat! Out of all the shit you could’ve and could be watching.. you’re here.. I salute you all!
Every time I rewatch the series I understand so many new things and I realize that I didn’t even truly understand half of it during my last watch Worth every rewatch 👍 Can’t believe I have access to this series for free
Kudos! This lecture was the best elucidation of the Allegory of the Cave, I have ever heard! The pith, which is too often overlooked, is that we need to resolve our own internal conflicts to be able to clearly see reality and notice the salient patterns, before we can climb out of the cave of illusion and help others see as well. The problem with our society (and universities) today is that too many young people are being indoctrinated and succumb to the indoctrination out of peer pressure and keep themselves prisoners to illusion. The herd morality... Universities are no longer about teaching free and critical thinking... That’s why we have people starting riots and throwing cities into chaos over fake patterns, over false narratives that are being promulgated by sophists. We must resolve the internal conflict and take responsibility for our own lives and actions to really see clearly and make a positive change in the world. That comes from having moral strength and conviction to stand for individual freedom; the freedom to think for oneself and not be scared to challenge the herdspeople. “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
What a great presentation. I love it. I mean I'm no smart person and have an extensive share of mistakes but this here, this helps me process information in life better. And so, thank you mister. Is humans like you that save lives like mine and catapult it into a better state of being. Thanks. I hope you have an awesome life.
Awesome talk John! As a Dharma bum who quit the corporate world your series is speaking to me on so many levels. This is the course I always wanted to take in school! Keep up the good fight 👊
I really like your work John. I usually don't understand everything the first time, but I really enjoy rewatching your lectures after a couple of days of letting it sink in. It's really "flow-state-inducing-material". Thank you
This has been so wonderful so far. I keep getting hung up on philosophy, because of the static nature of most interpretations. You're bringing to light the flux and movement of our being. The cyclical transformation you describe feels closer to Truth. I'm not sure I've heard Plato interpreted quite like this.
Dr. Vervaeke, I’ve heard people translate the Gestalt idea as “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” but I’ve also heard it rendered… “the whole is other, than the sum of its parts”. I think it helps me with the concepts you present to think of it in the latter, as the whole being something “other” than the sum of its parts. I’m loving this series hard!!! Thank you 🙏🏼.
The thing which scared me most about life, knowing human history, is how I understand what people are saying at such a deep cosmic level when they don’t. What is the reason for that? What would you do as a child to deal with that? By being here fully, without full method to deal with the chaos that exists in people, everything would be destroyed. My life is a balancing act on the stage of spacetime in this regard. Anyway this was very helpful and enlightening. So far, the second video is my favorite. Thus my extremely long comment on that, 😂 🥰 I can’t wait to watch the rest. Thank you so much for being you and caring about people. Also, Thales nailed it. What he doesn’t understand about what he is saying is that the Greeks did not look at the world like we do. He misses the meaning of the lodestone because of this. Looks at it too instrumentally. “Moving things” is not the reason he said that. That is the scientific view talking. He says himself that Thales was inventing science. So he was just BEGINNING to make the bridge. Look at the North American Indians and their “Manitou” in things… You have to look at it that way. This is what I mean. Sometimes I feel like a human “Rosetta Stone” because I can tell what people mean and are saying without even their speaking. Just from their pottery shards. 😂 Anyway, I loved this. LOVED this!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ I don’t make critical comments where they are not worth making. Just saying ❤️👍🏻💌 But can you imagine what it is like to live in an entire world where people bullshit themselves at the highest levels? I would without question have been able to answer every single one of Socrates questions, ad Infinitum. I’m not being facetious or cute. I am completely serious. Thanks 🙏🏻 ❤️ again. Freaking awesome. BTW, I was listening to this while putting on my cosmetics 😂 I never learned much about Socrates because I didn’t like the whole “Hemlock” incident. But now I realize that basically, after a career in psychology to self-verify and scrutinize my own mind, and several personality tests, along with several different IQ tests… that we had the EXACT SAME PERSONALITY. And YES they ABSOLUTELY should have done everything they could have done to support him, but in their defense-Socrates should not have been trying to make everyone be like him or destroy who they were. What he did not realize in his self/righteousness is that they were already him. He was supposed to hear them and see the larger collective message of a larger god, draw a circle to include them. So yeah it’s a paradox that he could see their ills, but not properly interface. He was sacrificing his entire life for timeless wisdom beyond his own life FOR THEM. This is also a message from Christianity. Your sins and ignorance are the destruction of the world. How much is that worth? This is the burden of all awakened beings who can no longer live a normal life and we OURSELVES as a society are suicidal to the extent we MAKE NO PLACE FOR THESE PEOPLE. Now try to imagine how messed up things are when a church burns a philosopher at the stake! The people who sacrificed to bring wisdom, the only source of life, destroyed by those people only wanting bread and circuses, or so authorized by the style of higher truth that the substance can lapse enough to destroy the very thing that gave rise to religion in the first place! These are symbolic things we need to fully understand because they point to the death of humanity. So from a larger view, perhaps enabled by the Information Age, we can see what the problem IS on BOTH SIDES! Blind cave fish. Losing their eyes. Illusion doesn’t require eyes. And don’t point your finger. Unless you are standing in front of a mirror. We need to help each other get through the night. I’m all about that. I may have the personality of Socrates but I also love the beauty of the world, and I didn’t get the ego from having an insight that he apparently did 😂 we need to take each other seriously. Every single person has important things to do and say. Every single person. You could stand in front of a tree and ask questions all day long and never get an answer… doesn’t mean that the tree doesn’t have something beautiful to teach you. The personality of Socrates is a test for society that way too. Can you value Truth above pleasure? A fundamentally religious concept.
The older I get the more I m grateful to have learnt English by surviving abroad though at late stage of my life . Year by Year I m trying to unfold my mind and brighten up that family-institional cave in which my provincial and Italian University had kept me in for so long as to almost suffocating me and killing me for real by the lies, biases, silly talk and bad habits . I m grateful to my masters Seneca, Kierkargaard, Hegel , to Alexandros, Hume, Thomas Paine and many wisemen to encourage my solitary path towards a better life and understanding of my true self..I've read about Socrates by Plato's books and as he says in The Symposium " " " we need to search restlessly our self , we need to understand how poor we are to love and only by accidents and trials by meaningful actions, by mortal thoughts and pitiful sacrifices we get to be in love with true and being truthful in love " " "
Even though I’m familiar with most of the literature that he is discussing, I find so much new meaning and understanding from John’s approach and explanations. This lectures are brilliant. Will not only see them all, but will definitely get some of his books…
Oh man this is just pure gold. What I'm personally finding is that I have been attracted to everything you're talking about and embodying in practice but had none of the language. You are helping me update, interconnect, pull apart, burn off, and grow so much. Thank you so much for being you, listening and challenging yourself to go where you have been going. Your journey is enriching and aiding so many, me included.
I really noticed how easy it is to fiddle with people's salience detectors while watching this. Even though he only mentioned Hamilton (where I live) as an arbitray example I immediately perked up and felt happy to be very indirectly acknowledged. I guess that's a pretty obvious example since they do exactly that at concerts and political rallies all the time. But it was interesting to notice when it was happening to me.
20:47 "I can get together with a bunch of other human beings and we can get some pointy sticks and some dogs and then we can kill EVERYTHING on the planet" Vibes! LoL!
Good to just touch on Kant, my favourite philosopher (my focus in undergraduate and graduate school). Like him or not, one cannot understand the modern western tradition without grasping Kant's basic ideas on epistemology, ontology, and metaphysics.
Ah the answers! No bullshit policy works magic. Kudos, professor ❤️ 28:55 nobody is perfect. Mind needs to be trained. Adaptive mechanism of brain can also misinterpret and self-deceive. 53:30 what binds content and behaviour? Structural-fuctional organization. The whole is greater than its parts. Enter the Gestalt from German, or Logos from Greek. Pattern recognition under the hood. Form leads to name. Children have no name for bird when they see it first time.
Oral traditions of Upanishads in India existed long long time before the Axial revolution came about in many parts of the world. Plato's cave analogy and the idea of self-transcendence, transformation, liberation from self-deception that clouds us from recognizing the true nature of our reality... all these were expressed with such intense rational rigor in the Upanishads. The idea of "mithya", the apparent reality, that which is neither existent nor non-existent (sad asad vilakshaNa), the very basis of empirical world that conditions us so much to hide the truth of immutable nature of Absolute Reality, were later expressed by many great minds across many different civilizations in their own ways. Vedantic wisdom is the highest wisdom that reveals the "sAdhak", a true practitioner, to the true nature of reality.
What you mentioned about the bird at the end of the video sounds a lot like Aristotle's ἐντελέχεια - how do it's components participate in it's aim to be (towards an end)? A bird's end (telos) is to fly, a chair's end is provide a place to sit. But I'm sure you'll talk about that in the next lecture. Really enjoying this whole series. What a gem. The world needs more of this.
I thought you ought to know i've been taking brief notes of these lectures and they're up on my pin board. It's important that you know because you clearly have a passion to educate and by consequence, I hope your purpose is fulfilled!
We enjoyed John and gang...Thank you ever so much for helping in an organized fashion. This is my observation, most likely senseless to many, but to many so important. In reference to your Socrates: I agree with him, and Plato, who was another evolving Psycho- technology in a different time of evolution,and yet the same in particles, standard models of physics, because that does not change. "The real patterns are making something be what it really is: Space/time continuum and survival of human kind," and the Universal Law: Love thy neighbor as thy self.....These are such different worlds of Psycho-technology. Plus: Mortality is just a blimp in the psyche of humans, when the Quantum world becomes relevant. May peace always be with you John and gang...I so appreciate all of you for this work you are doing to help us all resort, re frame, and turn this corner. Science is beautiful and should be known by all, but responsibly, however because of psycho technology this might be a problem from brains in a jar....through no fault but greed....CD Hogarthx2
When John elaborates on the cave analogy and explains how the individual frees himself from the chains in the cave and starts to see the light entering the cave from its opening; his vision has to readjust to allow more light in, which in turn requires further adjustment of the vision and the mechanisms of perception (a slow and tentative process). This makes me think of how the human unit is somewhat like an organ of perception in itself (like the eye) which through large spans of time evolves to better perceive and physiologically, emotionally and mentally incorporate the principles of light into his being and bring them into the lived experience; thus, man becomes attuned to the more sophisticated and universal principles of light. The physical eye for example already physiologically responds to light, but it seems what is being shown here is that the mind also has the potential to become mentally receptive and participatory to light. With more and more sophistication physical, emotional and mental material is able to participate with the reality in which it finds itself. This very much reminds me of one of Jordan Petersons lectures in which he talks about Piaget’s theory that the human needs to first know how to perceive and then how to act in order to better get what he wants (Jordan explains this brilliantly in 2016 Personality Lecture 04: Piaget Constructivism). In a sense, to master life one needs to be able to accurately perceive, then know how to act and then he can in John’s example fulfil the deep desire of being more in touch with reality, which is perhaps, on a meta level, what Piaget meant by ‘getting what one wants'. Thanks John!
Thanks for putting this up - I've been reading Plato on and off since I was ten, and this just shows that there's always more to see in it! I thought it interesting that you chose a bird to exemplify the problem of concepts. Back when I was doing my dissertation on categorisation, it struck me that while traditional semantics is very Aristotelean (as many have pointed out), Rosch's prototype theory is incredibly Platonic, and of course "bird" is the example she famously uses to demonstrate it.
I'm not formally diagnosed so take this with a grain of salt, but I have some amount of unwarranted generalised anxiety and this is a perfect description of how I think 24:16. I have literally drawn a probability tree to explain to inquiring loved ones how I think and what I feel. I had never thought of it from the perspective that my mechanism for discounting future low-probability events isn't discounting as much as it probably should be. Thank you.
I'd forgotten about the damn cake on my counter until you delved into the platonic triptych of our inner workings. Tonight, the monster won. But that's okay. My abstract knowledge of the potential of becoming an unhealthy blimp will surely enable to me steer clear of that siren call tomorrow. Well, okay, it probably helps that I just finished the damn thing, so there's no temptation remaining. Thanks for a fabulous series. It's truly an honor to learn from you.
I'm so happy you waited a while to do this. For me these lectures come at a perfect time, and I think it's the sort of thing people will naturally go to after they are "done" with Jordan Peterson's material. Your material acts as such a great complement but also deepening of things that JP could not go into because he is so involved in the culture wars. Your lectures in this way remain purely about improvement and insight. These lectures are all very dense and not easy to watch -- but well worth the effort. The fact that you made it free is a great service to humanity. These lecture will serve to truly transform peoples lives in a way I dont think any other speaker prior to this could do. And the book images are a great touch as well as the listing of the key concepts in text. It's like you took the JP model and improved upon it. Bravo and Many Thanks
How astute! I myself got into these after passing through my Peterson phase, and thought the same as you.
They are colleagues in the same department at the same university! (University of Toronto)
Although some say the Jordan Peterson is the gateway drug to the “alt-right”, I’d say he’s the gateway drug to John Vervaeke. Ditto all the other commenters here, but I’d also say that JP awakened me to the culture wars which I was fairly oblivious of and he helped me to clarify my positions
@@tonychapman5753 yes very astute I too find myself going through a similar transition to Johns works after having watched everything JBP put out 3 or 4 or more times. They had a conversation and it was very interesting.
Haha holy crap, same. I watched all of JP's MoM/biblical/personality lectures, journalism appearances so many times, I have them pretty much memorized. And now I'm transitioning to Vervaeke. I feel like Vervaeke is the "cool, eccentric uncle" to Petersons "darkly eccentric dad"
It’s unbelievable that such information is free on the internet. Thank you so much!
This is what the internet is for!
@@atlasfeynman1039 Say it louder for the folks in the back !!!
@@TheKingWhoWins Pause and rewind any parts that you missed or are fuzzy on. Replay lectures you don't understand the next day with the freedom to let your mind wander and not miss the info you were daydreaming through... If I had video recordings of my professors lectures, I would have done much better in university.
Every professor owes it to their field to record their lectures for future upload.
Why? If he were saying anything beyond what he's read I'd agree.
@@jamesbarlow6423 He actually does, but you would know that if you'd read any of the books he's discussing. This specific lecture is on Plato's Republic, but even having read it, there is much to be learned that cannot be absorbed in one reading, as, of course, you already know.
🌊 I'm riding an escooter from West Hollywood to my studio in downtown LA and back every day primarily as an excuse to listen to this (relatively) undistracted... what an absolute masterpiece it is and what an absolute wonder to be alive to experience it all. 🌊
MEANINGWAVE 🌊❤🌍
Meaningwave and meaning crisis and chill! cant wait for the remix of this!
@@ThePathOfEudaimonia great nickname and profile pic 😃 I use the same on social media
@@gridcoregilry666 Thank you, brother!
What a sick way to experience this material, stay safe out there on your escooter trips!!
Just when I thought this series couldn't get any better, chocolate cake sound effects!
Seriously, this is lecture is so ingenoius I have to cry. I have an epiphany like every 5 minutes 🥹 awesome how you connect the dots, I bow to you man.
What a gift John Vervaeke 💪 thank you very much
This is the most engaging podcast I’ve committed to.
The way you broke down temporal discounting and the continuous rediscovery of Plato’s theory of soul was marvelous. I’m loving this series, thank you John.
This was the most insightful lecture on Plato's allegory of the cave that I've come across. Amazing.
Also, I found this lecture series yesterday and I don't think I'll stop before its completion. Your enthusiasm for the subject is infectious, not to mention the inherent content of it. Thank you so much.
As a U of T alumni and former student of Prof. Vervaeke, I cannot express how glad I am that Prof. Vervaeke has moved and continues to move into this space.
Canadian Professors sharing the wisdom for free with humanity will forever be a fascinating sign of love. Thank you so much ♡
This lecture, or story, or myth, whatever it should be called, is like the sunlight in the parable-- to me at least.
The smell of victory
The cave metaphor is awe inspiring. I want to remember it forever. It feels like a description of a psychedelic experience.
I'm a scientist that has always been interested in the esoteric. I like the way you bring together science, wisdom, and spirituality in these lecture series. Thank you very much for these lectures! I hope to make it all the way through the series.
I remember being absolutely blown away by the conversation John had with Jordan Peterson a few years ago, where you had some great back and fourths and came to a mutual understanding in many points. A series of conversations between you guys would be bloody amazing.
Seconded!
Oh yes indeed.
There was a new one recently.
I look forward to this every Friday. Thank you for your lectures John, both online and offline
John you are an intellectual titan and I’ve greatly enjoyed these lectures. I keep coming back to them, each time I find new insights
This is what the Internet was meant for. Thank you so much for these lectures, sir.
You have utterly enflamed my love for learning and teaching, at the same time. The desire I have to provoke into 'unknown' and to push and evolve the questions, to dance in life with it. I am in a state of wonder and I never want to leave it. Thank you.
@ 29:10 "meaning and wisdom have to wrestle with unavoidable reality". That is, wrestle with God. Failure to wrestle with God is to miss the proper course: to sin.
Thank you Dr. Vervaeke. The insight of these lectures is profound.
In addition, there is something about this "wrestling" that compels me to think of Iain McGilcrist's work on the brain's hemispheres. He argues each hemisphere "apprehends" the world in an importantly unique manner. One understands metaphor, implicit meaning, and allows for a multitude of interpretation, specialized for guarding against all possibilities, including how death might approach, while the other categorizes, concretizes, and seals itself off from new interpretation, a kind of tunnel vision, specialized for grabbing hold and making use of things. What's important here is that our brain's two hemisphere's are connected, and there is an interplay between the two ways of apprehending, a wrestling, that MUST take place. Not one, or the other, but both, together. Too much of one, and you are bombarded with information, a sort of chaos, sensory overload. Too much of the other, and you see only the parts, and cannot make sense of the whole.
This process described by McGilcrist is not a conscious process, but in a sense, we in fact engage in a conscious version of this interplay. That is, to "wrestle with God" is to imitate one of our brains most fundamental unconscious processes.
These videos are sacred to me.
every episode is completely NEW UNKNOWN information, things and concepts I never could have guessed existed, it is an incredible discovery every time. I sit with my note book and treat this as a uni course. The previous episode about Socratic thinking really raised my consciousness.
Thank you prof. Vervaeke ♥️ this is life-changing
Thank you John. I also want to share that these lectures pair incredibly well with Ian McGilchrist’s Book, The Master and His Emissary.
This such a relevant lecture. The inner conflict part really spoke to me. It’s truly majestic to watch how all these perennial problems got brilliant minds of the past to think about them and today we still battle with so many of these issues. It’s a great wake up call for everyone. Truly universal teachings.
I have at this point, gained a new insight, realization and perspective. Thank you.
Thank you John, This is a lecturer masterpiece. This is truly a life giving, life affirming work you are doing. I feel intimately linked to the story of humanity and consciousness in a way I’ve never experienced.
I’m more interested in connecting with all the epic humans in this chat! Out of all the shit you could’ve and could be watching.. you’re here..
I salute you all!
🫡
@@James-ys3um 🫡
A mind hungry for wisdom and reason feasts until bursting from this bounty.
Tried watching this 3 years ago. When I was 21-22. I turned 25 in February and it did not speak the way it just did to me. Thank you John.
54:18 Absolutely amazing. The whole transcends the constituent parts.
Every time I rewatch the series I understand so many new things and
I realize that I didn’t even truly understand half of it during my last watch
Worth every rewatch 👍
Can’t believe I have access to this series for free
Professor you are fantastic! Thank you.
This is so powerful John. Great lecture. Looking forward to the next lectures.
Kudos! This lecture was the best elucidation of the Allegory of the Cave, I have ever heard! The pith, which is too often overlooked, is that we need to resolve our own internal conflicts to be able to clearly see reality and notice the salient patterns, before we can climb out of the cave of illusion and help others see as well. The problem with our society (and universities) today is that too many young people are being indoctrinated and succumb to the indoctrination out of peer pressure and keep themselves prisoners to illusion. The herd morality... Universities are no longer about teaching free and critical thinking... That’s why we have people starting riots and throwing cities into chaos over fake patterns, over false narratives that are being promulgated by sophists. We must resolve the internal conflict and take responsibility for our own lives and actions to really see clearly and make a positive change in the world. That comes from having moral strength and conviction to stand for individual freedom; the freedom to think for oneself and not be scared to challenge the herdspeople. “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
What a great presentation. I love it. I mean I'm no smart person and have an extensive share of mistakes but this here, this helps me process information in life better. And so, thank you mister. Is humans like you that save lives like mine and catapult it into a better state of being. Thanks. I hope you have an awesome life.
Thank you, Dr. Vervaeke, for this wonderful gift you've decided to share with us all.
I appreciate YOUR time JV ❤️🍄
Thank you John. I am learning more about Ancient Greek philosophers in your lectures, than I ever did as a young man attending a Greek school.
Awesome talk John! As a Dharma bum who quit the corporate world your series is speaking to me on so many levels. This is the course I always wanted to take in school! Keep up the good fight 👊
I really like your work John. I usually don't understand everything the first time, but I really enjoy rewatching your lectures after a couple of days of letting it sink in. It's really "flow-state-inducing-material". Thank you
This has been so wonderful so far. I keep getting hung up on philosophy, because of the static nature of most interpretations. You're bringing to light the flux and movement of our being. The cyclical transformation you describe feels closer to Truth. I'm not sure I've heard Plato interpreted quite like this.
Dr. Vervaeke, I’ve heard people translate the Gestalt idea as “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” but I’ve also heard it rendered… “the whole is other, than the sum of its parts”. I think it helps me with the concepts you present to think of it in the latter, as the whole being something “other” than the sum of its parts.
I’m loving this series hard!!! Thank you 🙏🏼.
Participatory knowing. Aka being open to revision.
This concept has helped me tremendously.
I got many insides from this one, thank you so much, John!
You're an eminently intelligent man. May the universe continue to inspire you with fecund wisdom.
I gasped earlier when I realized that today is Friday. Thank you, John Vervaeke!
This series just gets better and better. This is the most valuable content on the internet. I'm dreading the final ep. Thank you so much Mr. Vervaeke.
The thing which scared me most about life, knowing human history, is how I understand what people are saying at such a deep cosmic level when they don’t. What is the reason for that? What would you do as a child to deal with that? By being here fully, without full method to deal with the chaos that exists in people, everything would be destroyed. My life is a balancing act on the stage of spacetime in this regard. Anyway this was very helpful and enlightening. So far, the second video is my favorite. Thus my extremely long comment on that, 😂 🥰 I can’t wait to watch the rest. Thank you so much for being you and caring about people.
Also, Thales nailed it. What he doesn’t understand about what he is saying is that the Greeks did not look at the world like we do. He misses the meaning of the lodestone because of this. Looks at it too instrumentally. “Moving things” is not the reason he said that. That is the scientific view talking. He says himself that Thales was inventing science. So he was just BEGINNING to make the bridge. Look at the North American Indians and their “Manitou” in things… You have to look at it that way. This is what I mean. Sometimes I feel like a human “Rosetta Stone” because I can tell what people mean and are saying without even their speaking. Just from their pottery shards. 😂 Anyway, I loved this. LOVED this!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
I don’t make critical comments where they are not worth making. Just saying ❤️👍🏻💌
But can you imagine what it is like to live in an entire world where people bullshit themselves at the highest levels? I would without question have been able to answer every single one of Socrates questions, ad Infinitum. I’m not being facetious or cute. I am completely serious. Thanks 🙏🏻 ❤️ again. Freaking awesome.
BTW, I was listening to this while putting on my cosmetics 😂
I never learned much about Socrates because I didn’t like the whole “Hemlock” incident. But now I realize that basically, after a career in psychology to self-verify and scrutinize my own mind, and several personality tests, along with several different IQ tests… that we had the EXACT SAME PERSONALITY. And YES they ABSOLUTELY should have done everything they could have done to support him, but in their defense-Socrates should not have been trying to make everyone be like him or destroy who they were. What he did not realize in his self/righteousness is that they were already him. He was supposed to hear them and see the larger collective message of a larger god, draw a circle to include them.
So yeah it’s a paradox that he could see their ills, but not properly interface. He was sacrificing his entire life for timeless wisdom beyond his own life FOR THEM. This is also a message from Christianity. Your sins and ignorance are the destruction of the world. How much is that worth? This is the burden of all awakened beings who can no longer live a normal life and we OURSELVES as a society are suicidal to the extent we MAKE NO PLACE FOR THESE PEOPLE. Now try to imagine how messed up things are when a church burns a philosopher at the stake! The people who sacrificed to bring wisdom, the only source of life, destroyed by those people only wanting bread and circuses, or so authorized by the style of higher truth that the substance can lapse enough to destroy the very thing that gave rise to religion in the first place! These are symbolic things we need to fully understand because they point to the death of humanity. So from a larger view, perhaps enabled by the Information Age, we can see what the problem IS on BOTH SIDES!
Blind cave fish. Losing their eyes. Illusion doesn’t require eyes. And don’t point your finger. Unless you are standing in front of a mirror. We need to help each other get through the night. I’m all about that. I may have the personality of Socrates but I also love the beauty of the world, and I didn’t get the ego from having an insight that he apparently did 😂 we need to take each other seriously. Every single person has important things to do and say. Every single person.
You could stand in front of a tree and ask questions all day long and never get an answer… doesn’t mean that the tree doesn’t have something beautiful to teach you. The personality of Socrates is a test for society that way too. Can you value Truth above pleasure? A fundamentally religious concept.
Beautiful Work
20:48-21:30.... Wow. What a soundbyte. I’m in a near-constant state of wonder listening to these lectures, but this is an awesome moment.
The older I get the more I m grateful to have learnt English by surviving abroad though at late stage of my life . Year by Year I m trying to unfold my mind and brighten up that family-institional cave in which my provincial and Italian University had kept me in for so long as to almost suffocating me and killing me for real by the lies, biases, silly talk and bad habits . I m grateful to my masters Seneca, Kierkargaard, Hegel , to Alexandros, Hume, Thomas Paine and many wisemen to encourage my solitary path towards a better life and understanding of my true self..I've read about Socrates by Plato's books and as he says in The Symposium " " " we need to search restlessly our self , we need to understand how poor we are to love and only by accidents and trials by meaningful actions, by mortal thoughts and pitiful sacrifices we get to be in love with true and being truthful in love " " "
Train the Lion to tame the Monster.
My new favorite quote of all time. Well done sir. Absolute beauty in your words.
Thank you Mr Vervaeke, this stuff is life changing
I’m so grateful and thankful for this series forever indebted to Dr Vervaeke 🙏. This is gold
Thank You John Vervaeke, for helping me value human pursuit of world within
Setup a way to donate to you, listening to your lecture makes me feel cheated from the philosophy classes I've taken
I am immensely grateful for your generosity my dear fellow traveler. Blessings
Even though I’m familiar with most of the literature that he is discussing, I find so much new meaning and understanding from John’s approach and explanations. This lectures are brilliant. Will not only see them all, but will definitely get some of his books…
Brilliant. So grateful
I love the explanation of head, lion & monster, as well as the entire episode, it is really good. Thank you a lot from Argentina .😊
47:47
The movie "The Matrix" is the perfect metaphor for "Plato and the cave".
🌠Excellent work Dr. Vervaeke!
Phenomenal job so far.
These lectures are beautifully crafted art-thank you.
Fascinating Information . . . Thank You!
Thank you, Ol'Teacher
Oh man this is just pure gold. What I'm personally finding is that I have been attracted to everything you're talking about and embodying in practice but had none of the language. You are helping me update, interconnect, pull apart, burn off, and grow so much. Thank you so much for being you, listening and challenging yourself to go where you have been going. Your journey is enriching and aiding so many, me included.
The way he talks about his relationship with chocolate is incredibly endearing.
And relatable :/
Fellow chocolate addict here as well
Absolutely fantastic. Can't wait for next installment...
I really noticed how easy it is to fiddle with people's salience detectors while watching this. Even though he only mentioned Hamilton (where I live) as an arbitray example I immediately perked up and felt happy to be very indirectly acknowledged.
I guess that's a pretty obvious example since they do exactly that at concerts and political rallies all the time. But it was interesting to notice when it was happening to me.
Exceptionally interesting series sir. Expressing all my gratitude from Morocco !
So fantastic! Gestalt has been on my mind lately so that was quite the shock! Much love and thanks John. This work is so important.
This series could literally be called "A History of the Human Mind" 🤯🤯🤯
20:47 "I can get together with a bunch of other human beings and we can get some pointy sticks and some dogs and then we can kill EVERYTHING on the planet" Vibes! LoL!
25:38 "You can't really get married to a lamp" LMAOOO
Good to just touch on Kant, my favourite philosopher (my focus in undergraduate and graduate school). Like him or not, one cannot understand the modern western tradition without grasping Kant's basic ideas on epistemology, ontology, and metaphysics.
Reason is for expression, emotion is for experience.
Head is for action, heart is for feeling.
Ah the answers! No bullshit policy works magic. Kudos, professor ❤️
28:55 nobody is perfect. Mind needs to be trained. Adaptive mechanism of brain can also misinterpret and self-deceive.
53:30 what binds content and behaviour? Structural-fuctional organization. The whole is greater than its parts.
Enter the Gestalt from German, or Logos from Greek. Pattern recognition under the hood. Form leads to name. Children have no name for bird when they see it first time.
Thank you, John, for such powerful teaching.
Thank You Very Much 🙏
Oral traditions of Upanishads in India existed long long time before the Axial revolution came about in many parts of the world. Plato's cave analogy and the idea of self-transcendence, transformation, liberation from self-deception that clouds us from recognizing the true nature of our reality... all these were expressed with such intense rational rigor in the Upanishads. The idea of "mithya", the apparent reality, that which is neither existent nor non-existent (sad asad vilakshaNa), the very basis of empirical world that conditions us so much to hide the truth of immutable nature of Absolute Reality, were later expressed by many great minds across many different civilizations in their own ways. Vedantic wisdom is the highest wisdom that reveals the "sAdhak", a true practitioner, to the true nature of reality.
I find it quite interesting that someone can go through this kind of subject without mentioning vedanta
I cannot believe it took me this long to hear such a clear explanation of logos!
What you mentioned about the bird at the end of the video sounds a lot like Aristotle's ἐντελέχεια - how do it's components participate in it's aim to be (towards an end)? A bird's end (telos) is to fly, a chair's end is provide a place to sit. But I'm sure you'll talk about that in the next lecture.
Really enjoying this whole series. What a gem. The world needs more of this.
I thought you ought to know i've been taking brief notes of these lectures and they're up on my pin board. It's important that you know because you clearly have a passion to educate and by consequence, I hope your purpose is fulfilled!
Thank You!♥🙏
Fantastic, illuminating lectures. Thanks so much for sharing so widely.
Thank you so much Professor V’🙏🙏🙏🙏
God: Meta-desire
Man: Desire
Animal: Instinct
Monster: Meta-Instinct
2:40 what makes something sacred is that it is an inexhaustible fount of wisdom and intelligibility that's transformative of us
29:00 The very machinery that makes you adaptive makes you prey to self-deceptive self-destructive behavior
We enjoyed John and gang...Thank you ever so much for helping in an organized fashion. This is my observation, most likely senseless to many, but to many so important. In reference to your Socrates: I agree with him, and Plato, who was another evolving Psycho- technology in a different time of evolution,and yet the same in particles, standard models of physics, because that does not change. "The real patterns are making something be what it really is: Space/time continuum and survival of human kind," and the Universal Law: Love thy neighbor as thy self.....These are such different worlds of Psycho-technology. Plus: Mortality is just a blimp in the psyche of humans, when the Quantum world becomes relevant. May peace always be with you John and gang...I so appreciate all of you for this work you are doing to help us all resort, re frame, and turn this corner. Science is beautiful and should be known by all, but responsibly, however because of psycho technology this might be a problem from brains in a jar....through no fault but greed....CD Hogarthx2
Great talk, thanks for the upload
Love you John
Super grateful for these lectures
Great lecture:)😀from Niagara Region 🇨🇦
When John elaborates on the cave analogy and explains how the individual frees himself from the chains in the cave and starts to see the light entering the cave from its opening; his vision has to readjust to allow more light in, which in turn requires further adjustment of the vision and the mechanisms of perception (a slow and tentative process). This makes me think of how the human unit is somewhat like an organ of perception in itself (like the eye) which through large spans of time evolves to better perceive and physiologically, emotionally and mentally incorporate the principles of light into his being and bring them into the lived experience; thus, man becomes attuned to the more sophisticated and universal principles of light.
The physical eye for example already physiologically responds to light, but it seems what is being shown here is that the mind also has the potential to become mentally receptive and participatory to light. With more and more sophistication physical, emotional and mental material is able to participate with the reality in which it finds itself. This very much reminds me of one of Jordan Petersons lectures in which he talks about Piaget’s theory that the human needs to first know how to perceive and then how to act in order to better get what he wants (Jordan explains this brilliantly in 2016 Personality Lecture 04: Piaget Constructivism). In a sense, to master life one needs to be able to accurately perceive, then know how to act and then he can in John’s example fulfil the deep desire of being more in touch with reality, which is perhaps, on a meta level, what Piaget meant by ‘getting what one wants'. Thanks John!
Thanks for putting this up - I've been reading Plato on and off since I was ten, and this just shows that there's always more to see in it! I thought it interesting that you chose a bird to exemplify the problem of concepts. Back when I was doing my dissertation on categorisation, it struck me that while traditional semantics is very Aristotelean (as many have pointed out), Rosch's prototype theory is incredibly Platonic, and of course "bird" is the example she famously uses to demonstrate it.
I loved this! You presented this so clearly.
That procrastination reference hit hard, because I'm suppose to study for an exam in a statisical course at the moment, yet i'm drawn here. :D
I'm not formally diagnosed so take this with a grain of salt, but I have some amount of unwarranted generalised anxiety and this is a perfect description of how I think 24:16. I have literally drawn a probability tree to explain to inquiring loved ones how I think and what I feel. I had never thought of it from the perspective that my mechanism for discounting future low-probability events isn't discounting as much as it probably should be. Thank you.
Yes....love your distinction about what is actually sacred vs supernatural presence
I'd forgotten about the damn cake on my counter until you delved into the platonic triptych of our inner workings. Tonight, the monster won. But that's okay. My abstract knowledge of the potential of becoming an unhealthy blimp will surely enable to me steer clear of that siren call tomorrow. Well, okay, it probably helps that I just finished the damn thing, so there's no temptation remaining. Thanks for a fabulous series. It's truly an honor to learn from you.
You had me as soon as Eric Satie's Les gymnopedies started playing.