Cultivating a Map to Your Spiritual Home | Dr. John Vervaeke | Cognitive Science and Spirituality 

John Vervaeke you are a godsend & your presence has forever changed me. I'm a psychology undergrad, you have shaped my thinking for the better. Looking forward to my break - I will be going through 'Awakening from the Meaning Crisis' & I cannot wait :)

I would like to thank you, John, from the bottom of my being for all the work you do. It is your word, and not Buddha's, or Socrates', or Jesus', but your word that really transformed my way of seeing the world. As a scientist (I'm an astronomer), your word in this era gave me the necessary framework to understand what the ancient masters taught us. I found you when I was finishing my postdoc, in total quarantine and submerged in a deep depression due to a meaning crisis. I just wanted to send you some appreciation and love with this comment, I am forever grateful ❤️

Love the way you performatively enact the embodied wisdom and knowledge, John, firing the mirror neurons within my whole body on the other side of this extraordinary planet. I can feel a deep sense of "love" for what you are doing in the world.

Brilliant lecture. I am blown away. Thanks.

Amazing speaker, I like him the more I see read of him. And so animated I get totally drawn in. I really hope it’s not just cocaine.

John I'm about 8 months into my JiuJitsu journey, and having your COGSCI input running along side my learning has richly informed the experience. I'm sharing your knowledge with as many people as i can! ***STANCE! OPTIMAL GRIP! PARTICIPATORY KNOWING! SERIOUS PLAY TO ELIMINATE THE EXISTENTIAL MODE BABBBYYYYY!

I have to say, JV has often been too knowledge-rich and intellectual for me, but here, especially at the end, he evokes the Rest and Home and Refuge that we seek, while illuminating aspects of the path there, especially the relinquishing of grasping, in a poignant way. To understand the correct relation of subject to object as Belonging is especially beautiful.

Wow! Thank you, John. Meta-optimal ontological depth perception 🤯. This was such a primal and captivating lecture that reaches so far and so deep. You powerfully revealed our complex relationship with "homing" as something so ancient, precious, and worth preserving and protecting at every level.

Wow, Still waiting for the echos of your statements to relax, so I can share how beautiful that dance was. I am watching quite a lot of lectures, and it's been - a few years since I saw a lecture that grasped me at every statement and with multiple hands. and - I can only recall one other lecture that I would not change a word or an expression in it. and - This is the only lecture in my life that spoke so deeply to me. It's like you are speaking my thoughts in the right order, an order my mind is hunting for, for about 10 years. This was a dance by savior of loneliness. I have a prediction for you: Lonely people will watch this more than all sectors of the population, Lonely people will transform your ideas into practices creating the best map for inter-home reciprocity and home communal care, which will guide them into a strong wave of communion and extra pressure recycling, which will bring community trust to favor local small business networking over mass-effecting companies, which will bring us one step closer to knowing the right way to be a home for an AGI .

Sir, your way of talking, your wisdom, your carisma is sometning special. Thank you , a lot.

John Vervaeke you're in my head all day

Wow John, how brutally honest of you - the necessary end to relevance realization in our orientation and the ground of being, absolutely valid for the "mystical turn" necessary for participation in the non-graspable but meaningful. Thought we would have to get to this point and you've done it!! Simply excellent, Thank you! We participate in meaningfulness by absconding from propositional meanings.

Gratitude for everything you do

I enjoyed this thank you, I appreciate your time JV ❤🍄 i hold a deep breath that the universe tends unfold as it should. but the existential dread lingers in the air and im sorta just patiently waiting to see how it all pans out but that’s got its own predicament.

Thank you and everyone at the event for putting this together, a way to explore the world while knowing your place in it, your home, is a healthy perspective.

Love the that Vervaeke vernacular, as usual. Always walk away with few new spicy words.

Stunning. 😃🔥🙏

Thank you! You don’t stop to amaze me. I can’t begin to express the impact you had on my thinking, by refining my understanding of myself and the world. I am putting it to use on a daily basis, or at least trying. I love the “prospect and refuge” part ❤

one of my favorite lectures so profound and informative. So far it is my third time watching it. Thank you Love and peace

John, I’m glad to hear Brandom’s influence on your work! Greetings from Pittsburgh.

A lively lecture, Professor Vervake. Truly, the ‘Logos’ of Heraclitus created a great conflagration in western thinking. In response to your own reference to the hearth, I thought of the beautiful reflection by Aristotle : “There is a story of which tells how visitors wanted to meet Heraclitus. They entered, and saw him warming himself at the stove. As they stood there, he bade them be of good heart, saying, ‘There are gods even in this place!’ The parable of the Geese was one of Kierkegaard’s best ‘attacks on Christendom!’ More immanent critiques, as those practiced by Kierkegaard, are needed in our time.

Incredible. Awesome. Powerfully Pertinent. Thank you.

Thank you, John!

Brilliant! Thank you, John.

This is such a great nugget!!

Thankyou appreciate your work here. Again John grateful for your wonderfully animated and inspirational conversations. 💜

This man is the intellect of our own ages and insipriative hero for everyone who wants to have assistant pure sense of salvation and role model for young people in perplexed souls. The praise for the video he endeavored is not matter of shameness, but restoration of breathes as babies are brought into birth, as existential therapists concern about it. I come to this channel everytime video is updated. I am no longer young youth now, the ways he presents is gift for me too.

Amazing. Need to watch again, so dense. Thank you for sharing your insights, your wisdom.

Home ... thank you John.

Christmas retains a lot of Axis Mundi symbolism in the form of the Christmas tree 🎄(burning bush, world tree, tree of life), also the chimney that Santa travels up and down, and the North Pole where he lives.

On Point. Shine In!✨

So deep and profound!

I'm busy grieving Taylor Hawkins as a drummer and historical musician so inherently seeker of the dead and I do not have time for this at this moment but wanted to mention that this is a great question, you know, there's an album by LeBrock that asks this very thing. I actually wanted to touch on that for a second, thank you for the reminder.

Thank you, John

Thanks John for an entertaining and interesting talk.

Another fantastic lecture, thank you.

Great lecture. The cameraman deserves a raise.

Sweet! Thank you for your work and contributions to mankind it does not go unnoticed :)

Thank you

Appreciate you John

Awesome, thanks!

this is fantastic! ... 1/2 way thru and can see will need a 2nd viewing as well!

Got it John... thank you so much.

Brilliant!!

good for you John!

I really loved this John, Thank you. And oh yea you're absolutely internalized :)

From 38:00 about fire, that's so poetic and true, my man has to hear this sometime 😊🔥

Community and Co-orientation? I think an answer is rotating chef community restaurants. Amateur + professional chefs design a dinner, and sell tickets to their monthly night. People who all follow the same chefs naturally commune. All seating is at Tables for 12 or so. Chefs can do a 6:30 and 8:00 meals and then have follow-up programming such as salons, games or music. There is a revenue split with the house who provides kitchen help and table service.

Wow. Just wow.

Where can I view the conference in it's entirety?

Positing the existence of an ontological condition, a state that is capable of executing a multitude of cognitive operations-predominantly, the act of grasping-yet unable to seize or comprehend its own inherent nature, we navigate a metaphysical landscape of complex paradoxes. I say this in reference to a profound assertion: "God is inside of everything but not enclosed. God is beyond everything but not excluded." This intricate thought model resonates with the philosophical paradigm of monistic physical idealism, an ideology that proposes a unitary reality merging the physical and mental facets of existence. The proposed hypothesis could be perceived as a subtle reference to the nature of consciousness itself, a self-referential system. It is a system engaged in continual self-evaluation, ever seeking to comprehend its own nature, yet invariably falling short of achieving complete understanding. Despite its limitations, this self-referential system ponders the possibility of an overarching, more expansive entity or principle, signalling the presence of something greater, something that transcends our understanding. Such ontological behaviour is evident in religious dogmas across human culture. This 'greater something' aligns with Maximus' conceptualization of God, an entity that permeates all yet is confined by none, transcends all yet excludes none. Accordingly, the fundamental act of recognizing a "being state," or merely being cognizant of our cognitive grip on reality, constitutes a form of grasping, a primordial ontological clutch. This act of grasping may be considered the fundamental building block, an ontological primitive, that scaffolds our comprehension of existence. (Me letting go of 'trying to grasp that whatever', I realize that awareness unto 'letting go' is, within the boundaries of and, a form of attachment; therefore, I must 'let go' completely. That state, I would assert, is still graspable however, but cannot be reduce to anything other than itself. Ontological primitive state of being: Maximus's God.) Lastly, this subsequent form of grasping, which professor Vervaeke alluded to around 58's minute mark, emerging from Cartesian cognitive map - second in hierarchical metaphysical enumeration - I dub as 'subjective idealism, is deeply intertwined with the concept of existence and the nature of reality that is solipsistic and nihilistic due to directed skepticism towards objectivity; the external to one mind. It, as real as it seems to me--since I myself going through cognitive firmware update--is imbued with and, indeed, almost besieged by solipsistic inclinations, suggesting a philosophical viewpoint that our minds are the only certainties that exist or can be known. Fascinating talk as always professor Vervaeke.

Lovely John. PTF

As an architect I ferl sorry that my colleagues have actively destroyed the meaningfulness of homes in the last hundred years by neglecting the importance of cultural expression, sense of belonging and connection, first scraping all meaning from our homes except modernist function, and later on, replacing it with egocentric post modern self-expression. Now we live in boxes where we do not belong, and may seek for relieve in a box big enough if we can afford it, and fill it with lots of stuff hoping to make it meaningful again.

The end about "letting go of relevance realization" sounds like Gendo Ikari's goal, or at least the his initial proposal - Human instrumentality. Dissolving the barriers that divide us as Selves. I could be misunderstanding.

Half way through I was thinking: but what if all the maps one has ever known are so clearly out of touch with reality? And then that part of surrendering to the unknowing/ground of being. Letting go of grasping. I’ve experienced moments of being completely un-orientated (not just disorientated). But it is so human to start grasping again immediately (as soon as one's senses allows), and then very likely grasping at straws. A quest, yes, I like that. I’m still to find a sustainable worldview. Guess I’ll just have to cultivate one, it seems 😏

Amazing! We should have a community 😊

Personal notes: 6:00 Referenced questions: "What do you want to exist even if you don't and how connected, how much of a difference do you make to it?" 6:53 Recursive relevance realization. 7:26 Zombies in Western Culture, a 21st Century Crisis : in reference to world view attainment that may be a religio niche construction. This then related to Aristotelian world view.

I belong in the Milky Way💫

First! The rest of the Chino videos are good watches too

I have never felt oriented to my culture, being born in the US. I feel as though I have been watching a madhouse devolve into further madness, and every attempt at making sense of it was discouraged with ridicule and derision and ruthless competition. No love, no respect, no care ever. Just simple brutal stupidity and grinding relentless pointlessness. No job matters, no amount of money is enough to protect me from random utter ruin. I watch as everything I love is torn from the pedestal I had it on and twisted into a mockery of itself, only to curse me for being what I am and having the love for it that I did. The economy never made sense to me, and the only alternatives we are given mean millions dead. The government never made sense to me and the only alternative we are given is millions dead. Everything is a choice but we choose to beat our heads against the brick wall until we are dizzy and bloody, then pull everyone else who isn't doing the same and smash their heads against the same brick wall screaming at them that they are the problem and this wall won't break down itself.... I hate you people.

21:05 this is the problem in Dostoevsky's "Notes from the Underground". The main character's mind expends all of his energy arguing with itself and justifying itself, as opposed to "men of action" who just do and don't think. Is there a solution to this problem, other than practicing the art of not thinking?

In the realm of self-discovery, I shall embark, To fathom the depths of consciousness, so stark. As campbell wandered through nature's grace, I too shall explore the innermost space. Behold! The path that leads to truth untold, Where the self unfolds, a story yet bold. With every step, the layers peel away, Revealing insights, casting shadows at bay. In solitude's embrace, I delve within, To fathom the essence that lies therein. The whispering winds guide my introspection, As I seek unity, the ultimate connection. I delve into the recesses of my soul, Where hidden gems of wisdom find their role. Through introspection's lens, I gaze and ponder, Unearthing truths, the universe to wander. The self, a prism, reflects the cosmic dance, I merge with the cosmos, in a cosmic trance. With open eyes, I perceive the interplay, Between self and world, in harmony's sway.

💓

Volume's pretty low = \ Great talk though. Thanks for sharing! = D

Not all who wander are lost.

What would it take for me to be mentored and get into a profession similar to yours?

*tosses a comment to the algorithm*

Working out, is not ‘fitting in’ fitness is not a solo sport, it is to fit in ness. Out fitted or Olympic ends up with nowhere to go, because it can no longer ‘fit in’, so we cheer for the loneliness.

I mainly agree with Vervaeke about his analysis of the meaning crisis. But ironically, even though he is correct, it will not help at all, although it's useful knowledge. It's like he is perfectly describing a sick person. But someone will need to take this information to design new meaning. Knowing what meaning should look like, how it should function, how it connects people, how it forms communities, how it affects us, is still not the same as meaning itself. A new story can't be a story about what meaning should be, but what the meaning of our lives really is. It's why Platonism was defeated by Christianity. Participatory knowledge is real, but what are we going to be participating in?

We didn't "lose" our sense of orientation and our ritualistic relationship to the world. These things were purposefully destroyed because the Enlightenment tells us that what we cook up in our own heads is *way* better than anything we have inherited from the past. Vervaeke says he wouldn't want to have lived before the Enlightenment, an interesting counter-factual, but he doesn't consider the other counter-factual of continuous development of science and tradition without the iconoclasm of the Enlightenment.

This is wonderful, however every time John uses puns as anchors for developing an understanding, they seem to only work in English. Wandering and wondering, question and quest. I get the idea but if you use a single language as a mental bridge, I think you also need to build other bridges that will be more universal than that. And it becomes impossible to translate those ideas.

Impressessive prophecy

How does one have a way to belong when the ones I use to belong to monetarily benefit from my suffering. Family, friends, acquaintances and the suffering comes from smashing particles into my body and altering my DNA and then putting a pandemic label on it all through gaming. Being a social credit module, banking module disease module has made no place to be except exploited siophened in chains on the block. Why me? You wonder why I do what I do. The pain in me is too much to handle.i am labeled crazy child so they can do business and say I am a child who has been diagnosed crazy for their benefit..Try going thriugh this in your 4o's, you would go crazy too. I was an esthetician for 18 year's I loved my job, then all of this, all that I had to figure out by myself and the one you love knows nothing of it, the one who I use to love, who cheated in my home, is the one who took my son and in the background lives lavish and forgets his son is sick and blames me. I woul d have it all taken care of if they did not blow up my car and plant a life I was never introduced to until September 2019. I am sick of the hamster wheel. I never had issues with people, I love people, but people are incentivevized to my suffering. It is a catch 22.

very Heideggerian

24:22 but all of this doesn't explain why humans are the subject of culture and no others. Why are we the only subject who can be meta-nich constructors? It's rather arbitrary and meaningless without a Telos.

Apologies, i can't let go of how significant the "mystical turn" in your thinking is.For a time in development, your thinking is almost about relevance realization all the way down and for obvious reasons , making the salient point about the nature of human evolution. That goal is now exceeded. Philosophers who deal with epistemological issues alone don't get to embrace "whole life" thinking and therefore are seldom confronted with the need to re-situate central concepts of their argument.Hhere i don't want to accuse you of changing your mind, for this is not the case. RR is still a central driver until no loner relevant. This I take it is not just a clever ploy to avoid performative contradiction, but IS the case, truly, ontologically and about the nature of RR itself if it is to be about detecting relevance itself. Only in this understanding does RR prove to be a broadly co-operative function midst a conglomerate process that takes perspective seriously. This is the small moment, at the end of a presentation that constitutes an amazing philosophical achievement, Been waiting for this a long time. Great work!!!! However, how does this nuance logos? Does this mean that Agape and kenosis ultimately trumps .... even perspectival epistemology?,

🎃

All this brilliant exposition, and then the answers.....mindfulness et al. Always the mindfulness. Its so boring. Both the doing of it and the obsessing about it.

you are not socrates and you never will be

John S Allen? 🫢 I feel for ya, John 🤗