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Can We Be Rational AND Spiritual? | Prof. John Vervaeke on Solutions to the Meaning Crisis

Essentia Foundation | October 4, 2024



For more than a decade Prof. John Vervaeke has been studying what he calls the meaning crisis: “Millions live disconnected and without a sense of home—anxiety within, alienation without, and a sense of absurdity with the world. The scientific world gives us tools for innovation, but it cannot tell us how to live. Few of us know where to turn to develop the transformative wisdom necessary to cultivate a meaningful life.”

Hans Busstra sat down with John Vervaeke to discuss the meaning crisis, the Zombie myth we’re in, and how it all relates to what Vervaeke calls “rabbit hole metaphysics”: the conspiratorial, outlandish and often absurd ideas people start believing in, in search of meaning. A characteristic of rabbit hole types of metaphysics is that they have a ‘thick’ description of reality: a constellation of ungrounded assumptions build up to a ‘once you get this, there’s no way back’ narrative, which repeats itself in online echo-chambers.

John Vervaeke’s YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/ @johnvervaeke

The Vervaeke Foundation:
https://vervaekefoundation.org/

Chapters
00:00 Intro edit with highlights
06:01 Is John Vervaeke a ‘Wounded Healer’?
09:53 The only modern myth is the myth of Zombies…
13:18 How to kill the Zombies?
15:25 What is the origin of the meaning crisis?
19:59 Metacognition and the Axial revolution
24:40 How we became locked into dualism
26:25 Hume’s empiricism and Newton’s attempt of integration
28:51 Unawareness of metaphysics: Vervaeke’s critique on Kant’s critique
32:51 Kant and ontology
34:20 Heidegger, Wittgenstein and the attempt to break out of the Cartesian split.
36:59 Quantum and a relationality ontology
39:57 Vervaeke’s ontology of transcendent naturalism
45:29 On what’s happening in psychedelic research 50:09 What about Buddhism and mindfullness without the ontology? 53:13 On the necessity of religion
56:59 Defining the sacred
1:00:46 Psychedelics and the advent of the sacred
1:03:52 On spiritual bypassing and rich ecologies of practices
1:08:20 Intelligence, rationality wisdom and relevance realization 1:16:39 The alignment problem
1:21:20 Where in your model do you fit phenomenal consciousness? 1:26:41 On the adverbial vs adjective quality of consciousness 1:28:12 Can machines be conscious and have relevance realization? 1:30:41 The library of Babel
1:34:03 On the syntax-semantics divide
1:37:29 Penrose’s argument about the non-computability of consciousness and quantum mechanics
1:43:11 A consciousness theory should be compatible with cognition first, not physics 1:44:47 The work of the Vervaeke foundation
1:47:20 All the thinking that goes into a ‘thin’ description… 1:48:07 John’s own ecology of practice
1:55:32 What was John’s last moment of STRONG transcendence?

Copyright © 2024 by Essentia Foundation. All rights reserved.

Written by Essentia Foundation

Comments

This post currently has 43 comments.

  1. @texastexas4541

    October 4, 2024 at 7:49 pm

    Are you saying that a prophet flew on a big white winged horse and split the moon into two? Are you saying that a prophet raised dead people? Are you saying that when you are enlightened, you know all knowledge in the universe? If all this world in my mind disappears, there is no world left in my mind.

  2. @childofkhem1.618

    October 4, 2024 at 7:49 pm

    The connection between physics and consciousness is the ether. This is how everything is connected and can account for all the anomalies. It's only in the last 100 years or so that this became woo woo nonsense but the ancient texts from all over the world talk about this. When we accept that tesla was right, then we will start making real breakthroughs in our understanding of metaphysics

  3. @A.new.begining1224

    October 4, 2024 at 7:49 pm

    But you are changing and affecting the world. Your experience of the world is created by you. Your particular perspective is totally unique. It adds to the collective consciousness, the collective experience. There is no "you', there is no world, except for whatever is unfolding before you, in front of your eyes be them your physical eyes or psychic eyes. As you expand your perspective by increasing your understanding based on your experience, you are now open to evermore lenses of perception to see the world through, thus allowing for evermore ways to experience the same thing. This world, in my firm understanding, is a place to be experienced. We have a unique opportunity to experience using our sensory system of taste, touch, sight, sound, emotions, and energetic body. It's almost like the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.So you just going about your business, experiencing things as you do, is literally shaping the world that not only you experience, but based on what rate of vibration your at, it shapes the collective experience as well. The meaning literally is the life we give to, what is otherwise, a lifeless meaningless neutral template. Our consciousness give life to everything, not the other way around as we have believed for a heck of a long time based on older scientific theories. Biocentrism is where I had first become subjected to this notion or concept. Science has come a long way in being able to explain a lot of which was unexplainable before in regards to spirituality and existence and consciousness. But at the bottom of the barrel it's a simple matter of that we're all energy we are energy we are bioelectric beings. When you break it down to the small small small as possible parts, we literally are no different from the cell phone you're holding or the computer screen you're looking at. We all just resonate at a different frequency. Dan Winters is phenomenal at explaining this.

    So so much love to everyone 🤍☄️🕊️
    Kathleen

  4. @godalmighty5331

    October 4, 2024 at 7:49 pm

    Hi , The Apocalypse is not a myth. It started on the 11th of December 2019, closed the Popes calendar in the start of the Holy Biblical Apocalypse of Christ 1742 days ago. Cheers all the same you heavenly brother Charles Andrew Oyedele Ososami. Peace

  5. @Xwrt532

    October 4, 2024 at 7:49 pm

    Yes we can and we will! Spirituality, if DONE RIGHT WITH THE LIGHT, rationalizes our otherwise irrationalities. It's main purpose is to make sense of the insensibilities of life and ultimately bring profound clarity to advance creation and to showcase the mighty hand of our great Creator.😅☝️

  6. @ABO-Destiny

    October 4, 2024 at 7:49 pm

    Believe in what you know is true, preach to others what you can prove as truth, do not believe in anything which you know is false , be aware unknowns are huge, infinite, and possibly could affect us or somebody else and through them us and remain alert, careful and so never believe we know everything, also be aware that probably time and/or situation might change what we believed in.

    Do not talk about future, do not say something will happen or will not happen , if you believe they will happen keep it to yourself and if you feel you need to tell your belief of that happening in future to help that person because you shouod help that other person then tell that other person keeping in mind there could always remain gap between what you wanted to say and what or how the person will understand your belief or whether the person will believe in what you are saying.

  7. @ili626

    October 4, 2024 at 7:49 pm

    I really don’t see why the question being asked in this video title is even necessary. The answer is an obvious “Yes” for me. I don’t understand why rationality and spirituality seem mutually exclusive to some people. I’m genuinely baffled

  8. @DanielPryor-jt5hn

    October 4, 2024 at 7:49 pm

    You may have searched long enough to find religion but so did the Pharisees. They had all kinds of knowledge but they never got deep enough to know the heart of Christ. So, just like they were still stuck in the things of this world. You can't have eyes to see and ears to hear without a change of heart. That's why you keep searching for answers.

  9. @sean2662

    October 4, 2024 at 7:49 pm

    1:22:32 Agape, perhaps. Perhaps there is a preparation the body needs to go through where it can house a particular experience for a sustained amount of time in order for one to exist blissfully ever after without it being suffering.

  10. @sean2662

    October 4, 2024 at 7:49 pm

    1:11:20 I was thinking about this recently as having the presence of mind to ask the best possible question and the presence of mind to receive the best possible answer when something unexpected happens. I wouldn't want to automate it or find a way for this asking and answering to take place on its own or to take place perfectly. Time would stop.

  11. @Mindsi

    October 4, 2024 at 7:49 pm

    What we are and what we seem is but a dream within a dream, Edgar Allan Poe. And that was way before u tube😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

  12. @joselopez-eb4lj

    October 4, 2024 at 7:49 pm

    Dang my atempt to write something smart and i closed chat box F'it..
    (Excuse the exprecion) in 20 wotds or less… since hes not accepted as equal, give the dog a bone and he might drop the package. Who said reality and real reality cant be fwends? 🐶❤

  13. @joselopez-eb4lj

    October 4, 2024 at 7:49 pm

    🐶My interpretation or perspective of his theary of concousenes as its "the 1st" would have a distinct characteristic, as the process of make break to carvethat posture path would llikelyshow signs of wear and tear, battle scars like uncertant or distrust because knoledge in the old or new hands each show flaws one was limiting and the other kinda did it but doesnt know what to do with it, i it should be like making a baby , split the genes both aportin its best at the same time, i would name her Sophia Lopez Z. And i wouldnt funcion well with out her because of alchemy and stuff you guys are better informed 🐶 lets see who tomorrow brings along😉
    Ps. Aplause to my buddy there who debated or posponed like a top wise man i fell the conection thanks for investing time

  14. @JamesGelok

    October 4, 2024 at 7:49 pm

    I hear John talk about an ecology of practices ALL THE TIME but this is the very first time I’ve ever heard of DIME (Diological, Imaginal, Mindfulness, Embodiment) and I really wish I could find this secret information more freely available

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