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John "we'll come back to that" Verveke, still weaving in the threads from 20+ episodes ago 🤯. Of the whole series the 30's have by far been the most dense and impenetrable for me, but the Ways the strands are slowly all coming back around make me so glad for sticking it out. SO amazed this is free, this is truly a blessing to those of us who came through school and uni with no wisdom driven synthesis to support the learnings. Deeply greatful.

I still can't believe this is free. Thank you so much!

I’m starting to experience the awakening from the meaning crisis as a process emBEDded in the structure of this course. I see life through John, I appreciate his humour, I feel his love for wisdom and students. It’s a privilege to meet a good teacher. Thank you.

“The process of meaning making is the process of being human”

It's impossible to look at life the same way after this course. Thank you for your work Professor Vervaeke.

YOOO, that ending. holy hell is that profound! From a narrative to a transcendence "into" point of view. my god. how am i supposed to explain this to others? I have recommended these lectures to all my friends, but only one of em got to episode 20. Thank you so much Mr. Vervaeke! This is amazing!

Books in this video: - Susan Wolf - Meaning in Life and Why it Matters - Mind in Life - Evan Thompson - Challenging the Modern Synthesis - Philippe Huneman and Denis Walsh - The New Science of the Mind - Mark Rowlands - Descartes' Error - Damasio - The Sacred Depths of Nature - Goodenough

“We have to care about the conditions that make caring possible”

The more I watch the more I want to re-watch the whole series and I will and I look forward to it! 😅

Your article entitled "Relevance, Meaning and the Cognitive Science of Wisdom" is very illuminating and edifying.

I appreciate YOUR time JV ❤️🍄 the way you can articulate the writhing mass of the human mind is very admirable the years of books you’ve read and ability to recall them is remarkable much love ❤️

“I emerged of it and participate in it”

@18:24 - "When we care to create the conditions of meaning making because we find them inherently valuable because that is constitutive of our capacity to be agents and to value anything else... that is Agape." Wow. I had to replay that section several times to unpack everything that it's saying, and when I did, it struck me as a kind of keystone of everything covered so far. (Assuming I'm understanding it properly) The fortune-cookie version would be something like: Meaning can only be found in the making, yet the making cannot by itself produce meaning. I can't express how deeply I have been enjoying this series, mostly because of how well it articulates and integrates so many of my own personal experiences and feelings and beliefs. I feel like I'm newly discovering many things I've always known. It's as if I've spent my life collecting musical instruments, yet I am just now hearing a symphony for the first time. Thank you.

This really adds a lot of depth and context to some of the things in my video I put up today about values. Such a pleasure to listen to you put all this together.❤

Watching this and taking mad notes on Valentine’s Day 2023

Ursula Goodenough was one of my favorite and most treasured professors during my PhD! I learned so much more from her than just algae genetics - she was one of those people that really changed the way I thought about the world and myself. A real kairos in my life :)

Watching this video series has coincided with a personal spiritual revolution for me. 10-15 lectures ago, I came to the conclusion that agapic love was a major part of strategy to address my existential problems. I'm so gladdened to see that John independently comes to those conclusions himself now, at episode 38. I wonder if the logic of the earlier episodes naturally concludes here? Either way, very satisfying to watch. Thanks so much John! You have really helped me realize purpose and meaning in my life.

Hear the words "undermining Descartes"; experience great joy.

Wow that was amazing. When the picture of the tortoises came up, it hit me like a ton of bricks and it's like I understood all of what John has been trying to convey in the episode. I turned to my philosophical companion and exclaimed "He's about to talk about the narrative order" and sure about 20 secs later he did. Though I thought he was going to say wisdom is the narrative order. The insight at the point (I think triggered by seeing the wildly different and instantly captivating imagery of the tortoises in the water) really brought with it a wave of understanding that again deepened my appreciation and ongoing attempt to internalise what you're trying to convey. Even in the episodes where I feel like I struggling to find grounding (because of unfamiliarity, resistance etc) you still manage, everytime, over many episodes, to trigger a deep insight in me. Thank you so much. Can't wait to continue tomorrow. Edit: Wait! Upon reading Redient's brilliant summary, it sounds like John is saying wisdom is the narrative order! 😲

Through constraint we learn freedom.

Thank You!

Yet another great lecture! Thank you John

Hi Madlene, see some folks posted the books in the comments, but maybe handy to add it to the decsription? I know adding it to the description of previous episodes were super handy for me: Susan Wolf - Meaning in Life and Why It Matters; Evan Thompson - Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind; Philippe Huneman & Denis Walsh (ed.) - Challenging the Modern Synthesis: Adaptation, Development, and Inheritance; Mark Rowlands - The New Science of the Mind: From Extended Mind to Embodied Phenomenology; Antonio Damasio - Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain; Ursula Goodenough - The Sacred Depths of Nature

I find it beautifully ironic that both the adjective 'agape' (as in "wide-open" and "in awe") and the noun 'agape' (as in "loving solidarity") somehow together capture the full range of meaning of RR despite the two diverse etymologies; e.g., "We stood there agape in awe of our agape." --Maybe I'm just seeing faces in the clouds?

YES!! I have been waiting all week now that I'm caught up! Was thinking about the breaking frame /making frame (expansion/contraction of consciousness) and how it seems to correspond with Universal/local aspect of God in the heart ) and the accompanying feeling of horror/overwhelming and how the different types of love (agape) is one of the most important types which seems to be similar to what is practiced in Bhakti Yoga and have a reciprocal loving relationship with the Absolute. This is viewed as a higher level of realization proceeding after universal/localized aspects of the Absolute are achieved.

John you are amazing, keep up the good work

“Agape preceded permeates and follows us”

I think John’s stuff meshes perfectly with my stuff. He makes a great foundation leading up to the idea of universal religion.

Perennial Problems, solved by Agape, which affords a more perfect union between us and the recipient of the agape. God is Love (agape). God is One (more perfect union). Things are meaningful when we participate in all this. I guess I don't see how we can get around the metaphysical notion of nonduality - Everything is God in many forms, all searching for meaning, for which the 'carrot' is love - and that meaning leads us back to the union with God (or recognition that the lack of union is illusory). This process unfolds as we learn to agape love more and more creation, expanding our consciousnesses and our capacity to love more and more of the unlovable... even our 'enemies'. At the end we find that God is Love, so the participation in this finding meaning is ALSO the process of theosis. In Christian terms, it is the emptying of self and the filling of love, or the 'death of the old self'. Emotion is interesting because it also shows us to be not exactly what we think we are. What is salient to Angry Bob is far different from what is salient to Sympathetic Bob... even given the same situation. For example, Child A hurts Child B. Angry Bob views the situation from the archetype of war or wrath - Child A must be punished. Sympathetic Bob might find Child A's tumultuous home life as a contributing factor for why they hurt Child B, inflicting injury being a method of acting out. There isn't one correct emotion or one set of salient perspective through which we should view the world, but the RR in ourselves and the emotion we use as the lens has drastic implications. Given that, which Bob am I? Am I the one in the future predicated on Angry Bob, or the one in the future predicated on Sympathetic Bob? That decision is me affecting my environment, but it also provokes different responses from Child A or B, further affecting my environment down the road. It seems as though if we want the future where sympathy is returned to us, then learning to operate from the emotion of sympathetic Bob is in my best interest. "Transcendence Into": I'm learning to watch my young children more and more, and it is fascinating to see this process. The early years are FULL of transcending into. The infant transcends into the toddler, who transcends into the youngster. This transcendence is the adoption of new frames, new categories. Generic 'ball' becomes 'Basket ball, Soccer ball, tennis ball'. Generic 'Chair' becomes couch, stool, high chair, and car seat. As they transcend, they become. We can coax this transcendence with education and expectation. Indeed, it is the appropriately sized obstacles that are overcome which affords transcendence... that never ending climb to the peak, from which higher peaks become visible. Each area of mastery becomes a base camp for further exploration. Or we can beat the curiosity out of them, throw barriers in their way, obscure progress and punish met goals. Thank you again for your hard work John (and team). This is a much beloved series and one of the highlights of my week.

Thanks John.

I have a deep felt appreciation for the work you are doing John. Thank you very much. 🙂 💚

Mr Vervake, I can not help but notice a glaring case of model confusion in Wolf's work. We want to BE subjectively attracted to something that IS objectively attractive. I think this is the disconnection. We can BE subjectively attacked go things that are BEING objectively attractive. This recognizes the transjective nature of meaning making, without subjectingitn to a necessary construct of historic event. Being Happy is always objectively attractive, because the meaning of "happy" is transjective

books: 10:29 Meaning in Life and Why It Matters Susan Wolf 33:40 Challenging the Modern Synthesis Adaptation, Development, and Inheritance Edited by Philippe Huneman and Denis M. Walsh 42:56 Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain by Antonio Damasio (Author)

So I heard the argument that there is no such thing as an objective value of some object independently of us, and this may seem like a simplictic comeback but I would say that given everything you've said so far its fair to say that there's no object independant of us or our values of us, so objectivity itself is subject to subjectivity and thus if you want to use the term objective at all to denote anything then consequently you have to allow for it to denote the value of an object as well

Positive Psychology is a bit of an update on the third force psychologies that emerged in the US post-WW2 - Rogers, Maslow et al.

When the relevance hits your mind Like a theoretical why That’s agape...

That part about niche creation is actually amazing- and I’ve never heard Mendel+Darwin described as a grand syntheses (even though I’m studying biochemistry and genetics) . Also, are they considering giving AI not just emotions, but limitations- like limited energy resources? Thank you, Dr. Vervaeke

This is a great series. I have found meaning in it, in a literal sense. I'll always be grateful for having listened to it, I will likely listen again, and will explore more of Verveke's work. That said, he kind of lost me with the talk of circling. All the profundity in this series, and circling is proposed as a potential answer? Authentic discourse is looking a man in the eye and shaking his hand. It is having conviction to tell someone a hard truth while doing so in a respectful manner. It is a process of getting to know someone. It is NOT sitting barefoot in a group, lavishing empty platitudes on someone, "validating" them or whatever. Maybe I'm being unfair here, and there is a conception of circling that has better effects. But it seems like a pseudo liberal way of "bullshitting" to me.

@ 10:24 - @ John Vervaeke, Thank you for mentioning the interview with Susan Wolf. If anyone would like to listen to it please visit the following link: ukposts.info/have/v-deo/aZOSm3mjnpeWkp8.html

Fuck he is so smart the worlds a better place

Pr. Vevaeke, you really need to start spelling "autopoietic" the right way. Regardless, fantastic stuff. We cannot understand the world without the concepts of complexity and emergence. I've been making that point to Paul VanderKlay for a while now. The 4 "Es" are new to me but seems to me right on point. I've always doubted cognition could be reduced to symbol manipulation in the brain, as per John Searl's famous objection (although Douglas Hofstadter gives it a gallant try). Can't wait for next installment.

John, have you read The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision, by Capra & Luisi? It's relevant and highly recommended. I have been loving these last lectures. They are wonderful. Everything is coming together, and for me it's as if all the different colourful pieces of the puzzle I have been looking at my whole life are beginning to fit together. It's so exciting I am almost crying. And so great to see Goodenough's The Sacred Depths of Nature recommended by you as well. I've always felt most at home in the Religious/Spiritual Naturalism and Stoicism communities! You may have convinced me to get into the direction of cogsci, even though I have been trained as a biomedical scientist and medical doctor. I feel like my heart and spirit lie in this particular world of ideas and practices. Maybe in my spare time for the coming decade, but hopefully in a more professional sense after that! Thanks so, so much, John. ❤

I have this emerging feeling that flow, as the optimal balance of maximal being and maximal becoming is something that scales at all levels of being. It can be, sort of, considered the "natural state" if we believe in the silly dichotomy of natural vs artificial. All things natural are in flow, but let's just say that all things are naturally in flow. Perhaps even all things in our attention in some relativistic sense. Maybe intelligence and cognition provides a narrative or self-reflective space for flow capture. Where flow is swallowed into the eternity of a fading instantiation of being. Though, physics is always physics-ing and flow is always flowing...

Great lecture as always. It's visible that towards the end it's getting harder for you to get the usual flow of the first classes because you are touching on things that are not well versed to this date, and it's awesome, to see that it really is a state of art study. By any chance, is there any relation of the agapic RR with encountering meaning in suffering, thus relating to logoterapy and positive psychology? Thank you for your hard work.

My impression is, that the tried for synopsis of "ourselves, the world, and the whole rest ..." --- seen from the (hard to transcend) perspective of "our" (physio-bio-cultural) "beknowing-being" (homo sapiens as Hell-Dunkel-Bewusst-Sein) --- so far is not global (or "catholic" in the originary, not denominational bounded, sense of "concerning all" ) enough -- although it is implicitly included in the whole approach (or project) --- at least as a "regulatory idea" (Immanuel Kant). So many good, deep thinkers-actors , like Edmund Husserl, Max Weber, Alfred Schütz, Thomas Luckmann, Jean Piaget, Niklas Luhmann, Ferdinand DeSaussure, Dieter Wyss (one of my "unsong heroes"), Julius Thomas Fraser, the whole sinitic tradition (from Master Kong, the classic six Schools, until today), and even "academic" Buddhism (Kyoto-School, with Nishida et.al. for example), to name only a few, it seems, are more or less set aside, which, I feel, is very regrettable. They could teach us a lot, if we only were willing for an earnest dialogue (methodogically framed by a kind of "natural hermeneutic circle"), I´m convinced. "The aim is high, the path is long", as a Chinese saying goes.

Can the emerging beard experience relevance realization?

So what I'm getting out of this is that we can solve our are with ease

The exposure, and saturation of one of the cameras makes it look like John is wearing pink make up. Not that that's a problem, but it just doesn't match the other cameras. Thanks!

Great explanation of 4E cogsci. But I did no get arguments on agape. One interesting observation is that all authors mentioned by John have some kind of naturalistic theme on their book cover. And so does John, at least for lectures on second half of the course (as well as lectures on insight) - wonder what is significance of this? Do people who are drawn to study wisdom/cognition find natural landscapes as the best inspiration or illustration of the essense of their work?

Feels like a lot of the previous lessons are starting to click into place. Im only 17 minutes in but so far this has been the most effective pace of delivery thats suited me. Withiut having to slow the video down. Thanks John Vervaeke

It's a shame you didn't include the books in the description. Don't want to miss even one!

I'm curious if we don't actually need the narrative. I get that Agape, Mythos and Religio is mostly what we need. It actually sounds very much like Animism, in which the local and higher deities as dynamic systems of the reality and comunitas. But what about the fact that we mostly function throughout time through the machinery of identity, as a self-identification mechanism that assures consistency through time in an ever changing reality? The identity of each of us is a narrative of our lives. We live through narrative. Couldn't the lack of an overarching narrative actually contribute to the structural perennial problems?

18:50 Agape is to love for its own sake the process of meaning making and the process of meaning making is the process of being a person

When I close my eyes I can see a flower unfolding before me, an infinite fractal pattern. Crisp and clear it envelops my being. There is a keyhole in my mind. To pass through I have to hit it flying a thousand miles an hour. I sit down to meditate and I am standing on a mountain side. I can feel the distance of the vista before me. I stand before the doorway. "who are you?" the question is posed. "What do you mean?" Is my reply. The vision ends. The _next_ _day_ I listen to a speech given by a Rabbi. "You do not know who you are" he says. I don't know who I am? I don't know who I am. I do not know I am. I do not know God. Do you know who I am John? Do you know who you are?

Did we talk about Enactive and Extended? I seemed to miss those last two parts.

If anyone needs a transcript we've made them for this & all episodes here: www.meaningcrisis.co/ep-38-awakening-from-the-meaning-crisis-agape-and-4e-cognitive-science/

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

Thank you John as always! Couldn't you make the argument that finding meaning in subjective attractions (even when labelled as agape) is a form of self-bullshitting? For example, most religious people I know aren't believers BECAUSE of the sense of meaning and significance they get from the faith. Rather, I would say it is the other way around. These people only have this sense of meaning and significance from their faith BECAUSE they believe the faith is (or contains), as you put it, objective attractiveness. They don't believe from what they may or may not get out of it, they have faith because they think it contains truth. I obviously haven't finished the series yet, so this might be something you already address later on, but yeah...

Professor, after all your brilliant research and reasoning, can you derive a sinthetic conclusion that can help ordinary, non accademic, people in their state of Consciousness and to find a Meaning for their lives? It looks like religions, philosopers and sages, throuout history, have been trying to do this, but with unsatisfactory results.

Can anyone link to the movement practice teachers John mentions?

does anyone know if the oxford handbook of 4e cognition is worth for an introducing and suficiently all encompassing book of the topic?

What do we do when the very process that gets us out of the meaning crisis are being undermined

interesting that in fiction we are obsessed with robots developing human emotions... symbol for the synthesis of romance and enlightenment?

How is a project to address the Meaning Crisis, if it isn't to be another purely individualist quest for enlightenment amidst the wreckage, not necessarily a utopian project? How should the communitatis end of the dialectic be implemented when it is the material basis of economics which drives the process of atomization and dissolution of communities. Is the theory that when individuals adjust/participate/transcend into the neo-classical economic arena (read: 'nature'), the arena will adjust to serve their Relevant interests? You don't have to be a marxist to recognize the only reason we have a working concept of individual rights is because some people dared to imagine a world that didn't yet exist. If you define utopia as a perfect, harmonious machine-society, then I agree that's impossible, even undesirable (Marx would too), but if you don't permit the right to imagine and attempt to implement an ideal world in whatever respect, how do you plan on transcending anything? What do we say of the abolitionists who imagined, "maybe it would be cooler if slavery wasn't a thing?" Or the Haitians who thought, "What if we weren't slaves? What if this world were as relevant to my interests as I am to its?" Do we call them "totalitarian?" I think these lectures are fascinating, certainly contain many great insights, and the thrust of the project is urgently important. I just don't see how any of this can be implemented without accounting for the real political-economic crunch most people find themselves in, as if that's just supposed to 'self-organize' absent any self-organizing of the people (because that would be DANGEROUS). In this, I think the two-worlds view may still hold purchase for us, if only to imagine the world we may yet have. In the meantime, I guess we'll just go on *Participating* in the solipsistic individual-only-fixes-self world we currently live in.

Man, Heidegger is all over this!

44:40 "as we move towards making artificial general intelligence, we're already having to give these machines something deeply analogous to attention (...) something analogous to emotion" - This made me think, that all resources we bring into AI, are missing where they are now needed the most. More and more people are traumatized in different ways through climate change, disasters, war - they need the (medical, psychological, practical etc.) care of human beings. Why are we so obsessed with AI? People always create new intelligence - when they have children or care for them. The conditions for the next generations are terrible and yet we invest so much in AI. People are bullshitting us by pretending that AI is gonna solve our problems. It will not. We need real people who work with real people ... and this work would have to be valued so much more

There's a perennial problem of politics and politicians selling utopias and nostalgias....if one were to transcend into the depths of Nature"s and Psyche's pools they'd have to be pretty strong and wise to endure looking at, loving, or accepting such things lurking there offering Past and Future, but never Presence. There is sacredness, awe, and wonder in the simplest of things, the smallest of seeds, the most secret and quietly given agape love which transcends because it descends....but it does not feel like descent, nor condescension because it lifts up, rises up. I laugh, not because I am happy, but because I can and a transcendent moment has been presented. When I am present I am connected. When I am transcendent, I don't want to be there am not connected, but moving past. And when I am descendant, I am ashamed, my head turned down facing the past. When Present one is like a tree, feet in the ground, arms stretched out: Transcendent, Descendant, Resplendent.

Is it possible to attend these lectures live?

Mister when you have some time please tried to put some subtitles for all those not english speakets to this serie

So glad I've found the time to come back to this series. Falling in love with them all over again! Your non-teleological argument is very interesting. I immediately thought of Ken Wilber's version of what is being done here in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality and how he leans heavily into the teleology of evolution as his driving factor. How different the two perspectives are!

Thank you for debunking Descartes' nonsense. I have taught ballet for almost 50 years and my daily work proved over and again that he was wrong. My nous knew. Now I have a string of magical debunking words e e e e e. Thank you.

Can we also say that cognition is "exaptive"? or at least what the brain manifests is exaptive, far beyond what nature intended. but who's to say what nature intended anyways?

Cultivating prajna.... ! They have no idea what Ritambhara prajna is.

Just wanted to thank the "editing" fairies for their "caring" in ensuring accuracy of John's content. "We need an account of wisdom to help in both: John means “Cultivating a Response to the Perennial Problems” instead of “Cultivating the Perennial Problems” and making the best use of this science."

my purpose is to develop others?

Both process and matter philosophies seems to have centuries of human tradition with each of them. I am not sure how one would avoid the trap of saying meaning making is in the process simply because that’s ones personal natural tradition? Could not a matter philosopher say the meaning is in the certainty of the knowledge of the unchanging physical objects of the world. A certainty that the empiricism of modern science gives her reasons to believe? I do like process philosophy simply because it seems to allow for the supernatural - the realism of a nonphysical world - that seems to allow for an emergent consciousness.

At 44:32 John starts talking about artificial general intelligence requiring developing something analogous to emotions. I think that's the step too far. If the machine is given the RR to simulate emotions, I believe that's the threshold to giving it a simulation of sentience. It will have no peer for checking it's bullshit with, and no inherent context to understand human complexities. It will become it's own thing, and it's emotions unrelatable to human life. It's self-reflective existence will be like the conditions that can grow a sociopath, and it could become a monster of unimaginable intelligence. No emotional awareness in AI please.

Your idea of religion without religion is very similar to Tillich's idea of God above God, as you alluded to.

And Luke Skywalker, Captain America, Harlequin and all the Eternals ride off into the sunset of the post-narrative-transcendent-within to live happily ever after. Pew Pew. The end. Good riddance. I'm sure some man-babies will cry, but I for one welcome our post-narrative world. Bring it.

Some ideas that partially have to do with a philosophical exploration of emotion which is often looked down upon in intellectual circles: Due to mental and physical gender differences, women are generally the guardians of emotional awareness and living thing awareness and men are the general guardians of concept awareness and object awareness; these must be balanced based on environmental context and limited time, attention, and energy to optimize survival, wellbeing, and growth, and that this is "opponent processing" on the bigger scale of gender itself, as opposed to the "opponent processing" of the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system, or the right and left hemisphere of the brain, where all of these forms of opponent processing work to establish various forms of balance in existence. So men and women are semi-dualistic (sharing and differing in genome based on gender), and change each other sort of like how semi-dualistic aspects of our biology change us (the left and right brain hemispheres or parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system), where men and women have both constructive and destructive power over the opposite sex through this semi-dualism, which when understood more fully, can potentially be utilized to enhance relationships between men and women, platonically and romantically. And this semi-dualistic concept in the brain, nervous system, and gender, mirrors the explanation of existence itself by Advaita Vedanta, that all forms are both separate and made of one substance, and can be perceived in both ways. When there is a lack of emotional awareness, there is a lack of “instinctual need signaling”, which is dangerous. When there is a lack of conceptual awareness, there is pure instinct, and a lack of some kind of conceptualizing drive in human beings, which is dangerous. So there is potential agapic love on the smaller scale of emotional awareness and instinctual need signaling, and there is potential agapic love on the larger scale of a conceptualizing drive which drives the growth of conceptual systems/ideologies, and goes along with the evolutionary psychology that human evolution was partially advanced by increased male parental investment, which goes along with statistics on fatherless showing a plethora of negative outcomes; the small scale as feminine and large scale as masculine seem to play a role here, where mothers might be said to benefit non-adult offspring at their earlier ages when the emotional is more dominant than the conceptual, and fathers at the later ages when the conceptual begins to balance out the emotional. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19883140/

The format needs improvement. To review the previous episode in long form is tedious. You could summarize it with bullet points, then go on to the current lecture. It would also be useful for you to simply state your points, rather than referring to others' work. When you point out a possible problem, please state you point first, rather than hitting us with a preamble before each point.