Thank you so much for this very honest and thoughtful insight into the repercussions of Luther’s thinking on the doctrines of the reformed church. As a Christian I have always struggled with this idea of self loathing in Christianity. It has somehow bound and gagged the creative process within individuals who adhere to it.....to the detriment of themselves and Christianity. It has strangled the ability for people to love themselves and therefore to love their neighbor. It seems to me that as time moved forward from this point that everything became less beautiful....as if, very slowly, the Life was sucked out of Christianity. I always imagined that God, as the Creator, would have been proud of his creation....with all its flaws. It’s always the flaws that make a work of art real. What you are saying makes so much sense to me and it is not what I have found demonstrated in the life of Jesus according to the gospels. I also love the whole idea of participatory knowing in relationship to God and the world. I had a conversation with Paul Vanderklay about these things not too long ago and wasn’t very good at articulating just exactly what or perhaps how these ideas have been so damaging to people. You have given me the words that failed me for so long. Thank you for that.

Kinda addicted to these at this point.

_John posts therefore I click._ - Descartes, probably

I’ve been an Engineer for 24 years and never before paid any attention to anything resembling a philological discussion like this. I’ve always read and listened to Feynman, Newton, Gleck, etc. Thank you so much. Every episode is so rewarding.

So by the episode 50 it will be clear that this whole series is in fact the most elaborate apologetic of Star Wars ever undertaken.

This series sets a record for most mindblows-per-hour with a whopping average of 12 mbph! Thank you for every minute of this great series. Best regards from an odd small island of meaning and purpose.

37:11 "You're a nothing that has to bear it all!" Exactly this. And when you're alone on the road, you turn off the music and there: suddenly you are aware of the weight on your shoulders and the emptiness inside of you. Like an empty can trying not to crush under a foot. This series is a gift and I was lucky to stumble upon it. Fantastic work. Greetings from Croatia

These lectures are So brilliant ...I am a 63 year old woman of very mediocre education .....but here I am finding your fluidity through history of thought to be spell binding and massively rewarding. Again I thank you for the gift of sharing ......

This is becoming deeper than anything I tought possible and the fact that you are incorporating pretty much all that humanity has produced in a comprehensive manner that non educated people can relate to is just out of this world. Thank you for leading us through this miraculous journey ♥️

It's absolutely amazing how you get this together and can make highly complex ideas meaningful for a laymen. John, thanks for openly sharing you hard earned knowledge. God bless you.

This is a devastating worldview analysis so deep and clear that I’m not entirely sure what to do with it right now. I’ve felt that way on several videos of this series so far. And yet, you communicate in an honest way, like you actually want to help us. Thank you John.

Fascinating account of the inevitable fragmentation of Protestantism. This lecture shed much needed light on my former views. I used to think: "Be true to yourself." Now, I prefer to think: "Be true to reality." So many thoughts and reactions. But the main thing I want to say is: Thank you, Professor Vervaeke!

If anyone needs a transcript we've made them for this & all episodes here: www.meaningcrisis.co/ep-21-awakening-from-the-meaning-crisis-martin-luther-and-descartes/

Maybe the best lecture yet in this outstanding series. Really well done. Thanks, Pr. Vervaeke.

I felt this analysis of Protestantism and self loathing in my soul. That cycle of existential dread and anxiety is exactly what drove me away from Protestantism after 24 years but only after sinking into a deep depression and struggle with anxiety that I’m still working my way out of. The whiplash between Protestant faith alone and Cartesian certainty is also a roller coaster that I got stuck on as well. You’ve described the last 5 years of my life experience to a t.

Shall I just keep repeating "wow" in my comments? This series is the best thing I have EVER encountered on UKposts. John Vervaeke; it is always an honour to experience your intellect, enthusiasm and perspective. Respect for your work grows exponentially here in Wales...

I am absorbing this lecture series for a third time now, and only now I feel as if I'm fully grasping all these concepts, their connections, and the implications for our meaning (crisis). I found the second part, the last 25 lectures, very challenging, but I'm excited to get to the point of grasping it all as a whole in the future! John, thanks for all the work you've done. Not meant to put you on a pedestal, but I just wanted to say that you have been pivotal in my development these last years. PS. Weird connection maybe, but this lecture made me think of the game "The Talos Principle". Philosophy of mind plays a huge role in the story of this puzzle game. Highly recommended!

This is really really clever, how you show the deeply deeply cynical path we have been on since turning our focus away from love of wisdom, onto politics.

Just wanted you to know that in Mexico you also have adepts to your amaising lectures. Thank you so much for them!

My favorite passages: 16:45 " ...being true to reality is superseded to being true to self ...training us in narcissism ..". I have never heard narcissism discussed in the context of Christian doctrine. A cognitive scientist commenting on theology is refreshing, and needed. It is explaining a great deal to me. As an engineer, Descartes is one of my heroes, and I look forward to his philosophical ideas verse his mathematical ideas that I was trained at. These videos get better with time. I'm addicted, and need my Friday Vervaeke fixes. A cognitive scientist, or therapist would be wary, and I'm not sure addiction is a solution to any meaning crises, but its doing it for me. I pray that a book, or at least notes from these videos will be published.

These lectures have been my muse. I’ve been a frustrated artist and I’ve found much inspiration through these. My logic mind and my feeling mind are coming together. My words fail me to explain (that’s why I am an artist), suffice it to say, I’m incredibly incredibly grateful for this amazing gift. Thank you 🙏🏼

This video helped me do some self reflection and i was able to see how some of the ways my own thought habits work are actually outrageously narcissistic. Thank you, Dr. Vervake!

“You’re a nothing that has to bear it all.” Deeply healing to hear how & why this pattern of thinking is so entrenched in my thinking. It has remained invisible to me through 12 years of therapy, mostly-haphazard use of medications & multiple diagnosis’. Thank you John. Your 4 P’s of knowing from the Buddhism & Cognitive Science series augments my understanding of Aquinas & Jacques Martian on poetic sense in very important ways.

These are absolutely fantastic. It feels like a special thing to have the opportunity to listen to such a series of lectures. I wish the philosophy course I did was more like this haha

So appreciative of this content, thank you for making this available to the world :)

John, I love these lectures! This one was so eye opening. I never new Luther in this way! It is amazing to me how much information you know about all of these people. How long did you study on Luther to embody it like that? Where did you get your research? When I research things I never get this deep rich information like you do. I really want to improve on my research skills. Thank you!

I’ve been wondering where he’s at when giving these lectures. After this lecture I know…..it’s a fortified bunker underground. Thank you for communicating this knowledge while it can still be communicated.

“Odd islands of meaning and purpose in a vast ocean of meaningless, purposeless material motion”. What an amazing phrase, and how truly it is the way we feel some days and especially some nights.

episodes 20 and 21 are where Vervaeke really lets the beat drop.

I can’t believe that how people still didn’t discover these podcasts

This lecture is the most powerful and meaningful from the whole series. Probably because it narrates a crucial point in world history when there was major upheaval in cognition and theory. It must also be noted that every human being at some point in life will probably go through some sort of Lutheranism, and that’s the main point I take regarding this lecture. Thank you and greetings from Albania Mr. Vervaeke.

“Unearned/unconditional positive regard” (i.e. narcissism) sounds like Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s criticism of “cheap grace”... I wonder if he, as a Lutheran, was trying to correct what became toxic in his tradition. “Grace” without any personal transformation. “Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession...Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer I loved this episode- I listened to it twice through in one sitting. I’ve been a Protestant all my life, and hearing this put SO many things into place for me, it was incredibly helpful. Makes me realize how much there is to grieve over, to correct, and to transform in my faith tradition.

Outstanding episode! Are there any Jordan Hall followers here? The shift from "knowledge" being linked with "wisdom", to knowledge now being linked with "politics" and the "state", provides a beautiful framework to view the last 500 years. This idea fits beautifully with Jordan's work. John and Jordan recently had a chat on the "Rebel WIsdom" channel. It was fantastic seeing them hang out; apparently it will not be the last either. ukposts.info/have/v-deo/maeepX-winxjqKc.html

Your words "You are NOTHING!.. that has to bear it all!" gave me chills... The only other time this happened were when you've said "(Meaning) ultimately is about being plugged in into a cultivation of wisdom, not just doing something morally correct..." I guess it is really hard to bear the responsibility for the world when you know how small you are.

I thought it was my mother's fault that I feel worthless and it was Martin Luther's fault all along...

10:00 narcissism training 20:00 Bacon “knowledge is power” & surge of political influence

This one was especially captivating, Professor-looking forward to the next part!

Still, it makes me sad when people use computers for deep learning and then they reject what is found because it doesn’t fit the political milieu or their previous conceptions of things. 😳😐 Which shows they don’t understand science, freedom, the grace of god, or basically anything. And they are determined to stay that way. The reason that’s bad is because it is the extinction mindset. BUT we have John. 🥰 And people still willing to spend their lives helping us see regardless. The opposite of that. There are no sweet sugary solutions that add life, despite the ad campaigns. John adds life. 👍🏻

Who disliked this video? Point them out, so I can feed them to the Hobbsean computational AI automaton!

Fascinating ! I never thought of Luther in these terms, and even though France was never a Protestant country it is clear that these changes have had repercussions in our culture. Thank you 🙏

Needs to be made into a new Jacob Bronowski style tv show. 50 episodes... wow can you imagine....

Man this only gets more exciting every time wow!!! I never knew all this about these larger social forces in our minds

Wow. I am truly being taken on a journey through this story. Early on in the series axial meaning seemed so natural, like we are fools to have given it up, but now i have been brought to modernity and seen the unresolvable problems that were put in front of those who killed the world and then the soul. It's confronting to see exactly how difficult the bind is that we are in, but so reassuring to know the precise places where that bind comes from

It's a strange time to be alive. I've been using AI to generate art references for work and in the evening I listen to John explain the first time AI was conceptualized. 10 years from now, who knows where we'll be. This series is really helping me appreciate that many things I take for granted are just a few ideas in a long history of wildly different ideas humanity has lived through. It was also an "ah ha" moment to realize that I grew up around many Protestant ideas that always felt intuitively wrong to me, but I didn't even realize they were Protestant ideas.

I would recommend a biography of Luther by Lyndal Roper (2017- 2018) but much additional info was here. It's amazing how rich is the history of this period, the printing press being the overwhelming NEW tech driving huge advancements as so many chose to learn to read and read many Bibles, with "delight in the law" the new door to a huge "reformation", also driving, as you mention, Max Weber to write The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism. Soberly, though, the 30 years war, as a result of revolutionary change, created massive number of deaths.

It's time to go deep. This represents a sort of axis of intersection-damn, there's Decartes right there-my reaching and exceeding this point that had been for some time the zenith of my progress in this series. Also, it was much as my mind had taken in. It has been fascinating to see my practices and life interacting with predicted rhythm of relevant meaning within the series itself, how about that, and, by the end of this last lecture, not predicted but maybe somehow prefigured a little, the immediate relevance of things-within this series-for me-now-and how I've surely set this up in some sense and yet in others I am a leaf on the breeze, not more and not less. It is nearly intoxicating. By the way I've spent a little time on drumming and, recently, throwing a bouncy ball around a room where I build and paint miniatures has demonstrated amazing things about intentionality, as in the phrase, "Surely I didn't do that by accident, but I couldn't have done it if I tried," or the phrase, "I'm playing a dangerous game." This has been the most wondrous journey. I better keep on stepping up my game. Some day, I hope to have a suitable opportunity to thank you properly for all of this. As I've taken to saying at the end of these lectures, thank you, John, have a wonderful day. By the by... new Peter Gabriel. I kept joking that listening to a lot of Peter is either really good or really bad. I think it's really just beautiful and painful. Whatever the case, the wheel keeps turning. I suspect that's all I can do. Anyway. I would be remiss not to share something of my own vigil from my listening post all the way out here. Ah. And this, apparently: I was going to drop the old Leslie Nielsen about good luck we're all counting on you, but when I looked it up the line is: I just want to tell you both, good luck, we're all counting on you. Both. And the line didn't feel quite right anyway, I didn't want to put any weight on your shoulders, you've done a lot and I wanted if anything to remind you that it is okay to rest sometimes, we got this. Both. No one. I think that might have been for me, which can't be for me, has to be for a certain us. The place of maybe I'm crazy but maybe I'm not remains. I'd better shut the hell up and get back to work before I start deceiving myself again. All the best. Beauty might be in the eye of the beholder, but the beholder's fucking real. I'm real.

Is the "unearned positive regard" that a narcissist wants, different from the agape and forgiveness that you talked about earlier?

And arriving at this point, where it starts to go downhill, in realising i will now have to listen to it all again from ep 1. And take more notes, because I know there is a good solution as i remember, but it was enunciated far back that i can't remember what it is lol.

I do appreciate this series. Working my way through it at about 4 episodes a week.

As this lecture was published 3 years ago (before the covid pandemic), I find very prophetic or at least telling that the purpose of knowledge is not wisdom anymore but politics instead. Also as a student of AI I’m getting excited about how it will be related to the crisis of meaning. I can only speculate but until now, I would disagree with Hobbes proposition that cognition is ONLY computation, especially if you consider there are many different kinds of computations and if you consider cognition may be a specter, as now we don’t regard animals only as biological automatons but as subjects with emotions and grades and diversities of intelligence. To me consciousness still may be an extremely complex and dynamic system of integrated computations, but I’m sure our knowledge of human computations (neuroscience, psychology, sociology, economics, ecology...) is still in its infancy.

It seems that this cultural grammar stemming from Luther was also to some extent adopted by Catholic culture. Could you explain how that happened?

I assume I'm off base here but could it be asserted that Luther was part of the re-emergence of the individuals concept of self vs authority while Descartes' goal was to create a central narrative from which we can all derive some form of cohesion? Maybe something like they both fit a role in the evolution of human thought through a metaphysical/emotional or subjective/moral vs a material/objective/definitive lens? One is mapping of the physical world while the other the "spiritual". Action vs object or (at the risk of sounding pretentious and ignorant) ontological vs phenomenological.

I’m looking forward to the online Monastery that will be founded as a response to your work. ;-) I’m guessing it’s already growing in Discord, but I’m hoping it’s more in line with The Stoa.

You have kindled and appeased my interest for history at the same time this lecture was quite a performance thank you

Damn, what the hell Martin Luther?!

12:50 this would be a good place for the story of Narcissus and Diana. 54:00 So the meaning crisis is or is a result of the axial revolution? Do I have to go back and start over? Or maybe my robot will help me understand.

Ahhh....alas poor Descartes , how might he feel a few centuries later ...after culturally transforming our minds to machines to the extent that many now believe that our experience is tantamount to computation that can be uploaded to a computational device...when Goedel comes along and dashes to bits the certainty of binary logic systems?

This episode made me think of Kleists "Michael Kohlhaas", there is a (fictional) encounter between Luther and Kohlhaas in it, which I always found deeply touching. Luther dismisses him. Kohlhaas has no access to religious for-giveness, has no inner home, neither spiritual nor institutional, he is the "nothing that has to bear it all", as you describe it here. Now I wonder if you will talk about Kleists Kohlhaas and Doctorows Coalhouse Walker when you soon will discuss literary figures of the meaning crisis ...

Ooff.... I have to let this sink in. Even more than the previous lectures.

The Mormons had intuitions about this back in 1830, and is one of the reasons why their Church became rapidly popular worldwide.

I am so thrilled I stumbled upon your lecture. So hungry for this type of deep thinking, learning and thought form.

Being "true to reality" is also a Buddhist value, if Robert Thurman's preferred translation of the first step on the eightfold path is correct-"realistic view." If that's the case, then "the cultural grammar training us in narcissism" is global, multicultural, and spans thousands of years.

43:00 well shit if my teachers described math like that I would have listened more😂

😭 This episode hits so hard wow mind blown

Good grief, we have hyper-individuality fused with cultural narcissism and no wisdom to guide it. No wonder we are effed up.

Was Luther against the traditions themselves or against traditionalism, in the sense given by Popper as stressing the authority of traditions?

Beloved what is Unfamiliar yet familiar to whom belongs?

I'm always looking for new interesting lectures on Psychology/Philosophy, please let me know if you guys have any recommendations, would be highly appreciated

While Luther may have stripped down Christianity to just "faith alone" with no priests or rituals, I would say that Protestant Christianity has seen a rebirth of rituals here in the U.S. The gospel churches are famous for their exciting music and even dancing, not to mention faith healing and the rituals of baptism and "altar calling." Whatever vacancy may have been left by Luther's reforms seems to have been quite well filled. Also, the Anglican/ Episcopalian churches have lost little of the Catholic rituals and sacraments. And in some countries, Lutherans have priests and in others pastors.

Omg, Luther, you fool - you created the modern world >

“You’re a nothing and you have to bear it all!” This sounds very kafkaesque to me; could this be what Kafka was picking up on in part?

Pure fascination with this material. Thank you for your clarity and enthusiasm!

Its unbelievable how much the discussions of people some 500 years ago reflect back on both my personal (protestant) family and current societal problems I see around me. Its a shame that school history focusses so much on dry facts, and not on the meaning and the philosophy behind historical events. You gain a much better understanding of current problems if you know what past decisions and idea's led to those problems.

What happens when the Jehova's Witnesses come to John's door? I need video.

21:00 "Now today you do not know where to go for Wisdom." This 100%. If only Universities were more like monasteries (or like the Mathes in Neal Stephenson's "Anathem"). There's something truly missing here.

Your work is a good genealogy of the meaning crisis.

Brilliant series. Affords so much intelligibility into the state of the world and the self today. Thank you.

For someone that doesn't believe in souls, then we humans are already a material machine that does computation (reasons). And through the Curry-Howard correspondence it has been shown that there is a relationship between logical reasoning and computation.

Thank you John for providing a much needed clarity to our historical journey.

How does arbitrary salvation fit in with universal atonement?

Why assume that the introduction of democracy here, into the faith by Luther, is a good? Didn't many of the thinkers we have already covered (eg Plato, Aristotle) give numerous powerful arguments against democracy?

Great cliffhanger, like watching a good tv show

13:50 yes, the participatory rol in the Roman Catholic church is worth re-descovering.

Most powerful lecture so far

I'm confused a little by Martin Luther. If what is required for salvation is faith, how is the salvation arbitrary?

Raised not in the Anglosphere, I always wonder why in the Anglosphere Luther is taken as a great intellectual. It was his ideology what ultimately was used to divide the west. A division that is pervasive to the date.

Boy, that was good! And it appears to only get better. Thanks again Mr.Veraeka

How many of these will be made? 25?

This is a fantastic episode!

I had not realised that Hobbes had the notion of mechanical intelligence - off to google him

I would say that he was a genius and bi-polar (Luther)

Wasn't the statement "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" from Jesus in the synoptic gospels the first attempt of separation of church and state? I see Luther as a Christian fundamentalist, so when he sided with the princes he was being consistent with his preaching.

Holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit hOly Shit holy SHIT holy shit holy shIt HOLY SHIT. Graphs. HOLY SHIT. I think that about sums up my experience watching this lecture. Edit: after letting it sink in for a few minutes… wow. Actually, I still have no words. Never mind.

48:08 My mind is blown, and my colon is barely holding.

The beginning of the rational thinking and belief in religion ? The celebration of individualism?

HELL YEAH KEEP EM COMIN

Idea: We can't think our way out of a meaning crisis.

Certainty does not require omniscience. Newton's laws to the context he said at his time (here on earth) is 100% correct and while on Earth are still valid.

The reformation was the first nail in the coffin of Christianity

I deeply appreciate YOUR time JV ❤️🍄