Human civilization is facing a meaning crisis | John Vervaeke and Lex Fridman

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GUEST BIO:
John Vervaeke is a psychologist and cognitive scientist at University of Toronto.

PODCAST INFO:

SOCIAL:

[jasonrench]

Lex this is you, you have found yourself early in life you just haven't realized it yet. You stand out from everyone else based on your conversation your calmness and willing to be in the conversation and search for everything your doing awesome man you are you the true self . Be one more with natural events.

[dinismantas]

John Vervaeke is a man of exceptional erudition. Also helps that he is also an extremely generous and well meaning person.

[johndoe]

Love Vervaeke! His series on the meaining crisis is superb!

[johndoe]

15:15 - "The search for Reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings, for it destroys the world in which you live." - Nisargadatta Maharaj

[Horsediqdotmpeg]

I've been thinking a lot about the erosion of culture lately and I think it's at the heart of this conversation. There is almost no real life culture beyond work and school now. It's why people are so divided politically. The missing in person experience has created a vacuum of people trying to find it online and mental illness, misinformation and short sided logic runs rampant going unchecked because of it. Most just fall in line to one side or the other and mob mentality takes over. When you get people together all the bullshit tends to vanish or the illness becomes amplified and looks comically childish. It's so weird to think back to the 80's and 90's when absolutely every relationship with another person was completely founded on real life experience aside from maybe a landline call. But even that was more intimate than a call today.

[OneLine]

Yes, he is correct. His words are a bit difficult to follow because he made his own probably for technical reasons, but religion is a relationship between the self and the environment. It's a practical wisdom which can only come from other people and from training, not from thoughts or beliefs. And relationships are built through regular attendance. It also in a way creates the environment, and it's in those two ways that it can create meaning. One by shaping the environment, and then making the individual participate in it. It's the last part that is the most important, although the first also is needed obviously. He focus on the latter because it is participatory and overall it is what people miss. So they can't create a consistent self, nor can they find meaning for said self. People should listen to this guy. It's more important than they think.

[smokeface]

If the US can handle this issue humanly and stay together it would raise the bar worldwide

[scossar]

Finding meaning through play and movement wasn't where I was expecting this to go :)

[ibmor]

Aww shit, another worthwhile substantive conversation! Lex strikes again.

[usmc]

Lex can you please have someone on that speaks in depth regarding the benefits of Stoicism. I love the philosophy and have benefited greatly living by it. Between that and the words from Jordan Peterson i have changed my life exponentially for the better.

[redmoonfilms]

The secular world attempts to extract transcendent meaning, without usurping the self, which is practically impossible, if the highest standard you regard is the self. You leave no humility to be open to wisdom. This is what I believe is the difference he speaks of between those of religious and non-religious persons.

[jeffcameron]

"which question? I already forgot everything." lol

[darklich]

I believe Dr. Vervaeke touches on this from a different perspective in the sorts of belonging and memory and many other terms he describes (loved Lex's laughing about that):

meditation/prayer/whateveryouwannacallit, is something deeply profound in religions that I believe often has various stigmas attached to it from nonreligious perspectives. I wonder how this filters in to this schema.

[arevelation]

I am not sure if Lex was just tired for this one, but for such a compelling guest that gets to the heart of so much of what Lex seems most interested in philosophically, he didn’t engage in this conversation as I would have expected. It seemed like work for him, or perhaps like he was put off by him. I kept getting the feeling that Lex was being told things he didn’t particularly want to hear. Of course this was only a segment of the entire conversation, but I assume a key part of it. I hope he has him back on.

[Badkhela]

I dont think wisdom comes from anywhere external like school or anyone particular. I believe it comes from you from what you see and experience.

[patrickconnor]

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

[AndogaSpock]

"It doesn't matter!"

That's all the wisdom you will ever need.

[freethinker]

"Those who have not known themselves have known nothing, but those who have known themselves already have acquired knowledge about the depth of The All."

--Book of Thomas the Contender (NHL, Gnostic Text)

[Nathan-bpzx]

We stopped doing everything for ourselves. Things like making pottery and hunting and there is meaning in a life that's SUPPOSED to be hard. We became comfortable in our surroundings. That's one of our problems imo

[jamesruscheinski]

Christ ministry of forgiveness overcomes sin, resurrection overcomes death from human rule