It’s like this whole series reflects our development since the Fall ~ that we’ve had to go through all this in order to realise just how our pride and arrogance has turned us away from Reality... that we’ve had to follow it to it’s bitter end in some sense in order to finally turn back, prodigal son-like, to our true home. I’m only half way through but I’m finding this series deeply thought provoking. Thank you for helping me/us see things in profound, more meaningful way.
A weird but fun idea that Terence McKenna had was that in his eyes, the fall was us going from being constantly high on psychedelic mushrooms, which completely removed our ego, and when we moved away from them, we lost our golden way of life (/the/ way, as in Dao, possibly) - and so our religion and the idea of the fall is us seeking back to those egoless glory days
One of my favourite lectures so far. John really nails this one. I felt like he was laying out all my intellectual/spiritual confusion of my last 30 years for me to understand better.
I'm okay with the possibility that this might be the best lecture series I'll ever see. Combined with the meditation course (Meditating with John Vervaeke) I've never felt knowledge, wisdom and practicality being combined like this.
I do research in AI and I'm publishing at the very top conferences. Also, I am working with people that consistently publish at the very top venues. As a reference, one of the profs with which I am collaborating right now has over 67000 citations. However: 1. I had no idea of this origin of AI and about the dialogue between Descartes and Hobbes. Also this is the most profound account of AI I have encountered. People I’ve encountered treat AI as just math (as did I) and only refer to the human brain sometimes for ideas but quickly go back to the math. 2. I’ve never been able to find meaning in my work even though my ideas were highly appreciated at the very top level. I’ve never been able to couple it with the rest of the work on meaning, I would spend my days thinking about the story of Marduk and finding meaning in that and then going back to finding ideas for research like I would go back to chopping wood. Because it was just work, just math, that I did because I need to survive and fit in society. I would get enthusiastic about my projects but never found meaning. It was very striking to me to: 1. Find out that the AI discussion has such an important role in the problem of meaning. 2. Find out how ignorant I am. Since I started my AI journey I was okay with and convinced of the fact that the brain is just a computational machine, and I would many times argue in favor of that and thought that mathematical clarity and consistency would bring the ultimate meaning. However, I was nowhere nearly aware of the implications of that. When you talked about the death of the universe, the death of the soul and how ‘nothing’ we are it really struck me and terrified me. I find now that I should have been completely terrified to death by my beliefs. Maybe inside myself I was, because I’ve been desperately searching for meaning for more than a decade now. Thank you for the amazing and constant insights throughout this lecture series. It has had and continues to have a tremendous impact on my life, more than anything else I have encountered, except for my girlfriend, and it profoundly and fundamentally changed my life. The way you tied together pretty much all of history and all disciplines in a cohesive and comprehensive argument is just beyond anything I have imagined. I want to very deeply thank you from the bottom of my soul for what you do for us. I’ve started watching this series because I’ve seen your podcast with Dr. Peterson and found meaning in loving life the way you described loving your wife and then found this mind-blowing complex argument. I am looking forward to seeing how your argument will unfold and where it leads to in the rest of the lectures. Thank you from the bottom of my being Dr. Vervaeke ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
P.S. After watching your lectures I've started to find meaning in my work and started to notice patterns such as the having vs being mode in AI and it makes everything work at another scale. Thank you very much for all these insights ❤️
@@johnvervaeke I deeply appreciate the fact that you've read the comments and responded Dr. Vervaeke ❤️ it means a lot to me. I am really glad you find them encouraging and I truly hope your projects will turn out the way you envisioned them 😊😊
I have been measuring my enjoyment of this course by my exponentially increasing enjoyment of the music that serves as intro and outro... man, the finesse of this particular outro... 'drenched the world in blood...' Incredibly moving A big gratitude to prof Vervaeke for this work (and the weak AI that has delivered it to the star trek computer in my hand)
It does not matter how many times l listen to these particular series, l get stretched, smarter, wiser and more purposeful in my work and more caring period.
I loved the historical overview, identifying patterns in human cognition, the individuals' incredible struggles with external resistances and internal conflicts and how they influenced human epistemology, culture etc... Now we are drawing near our time, this is getting even more exciting! Thank you, thank you!
thank you so much for mentioning this! I would never have found it otherwise. It's a pity that John released these lectures in a separate channel. He should definitely move them to this channel too.
No wonder we seem to be in zombieland… The Walking Dead is now. And not on the screen. So much knowledge in this series that my neurones keep popping. It’s like Xmas tree in there. Sincerest thanks to Mr. V. More power to you Sir!
@@johnvervaeke language insuffient... like it? I am watching it again it's so bang on. you may well have relieved me from a 30 year addiction to the promise of Romanticism! Perhaps I can now stop banging my head against those poems....
John, I sure hope you are enjoying this calm before the storm. Your talk with Jaimie on Rebel Wisdom was phenomenal. This crescendo of information is truly awesome. Thanks for being so straightforward with this information and your sources.
@Mr S I agree, Harris has some very obvious political blindspots with his American exceptionalism, and there is no reason to assume that he has the knowledge base outside of science to even keep up with Vervaeke
Im in stage of my life that the only meaning in my life is these podcasts Thank you professor for introducing a lot of concepts and the most important one for me was ideas within buddhism
Hi John, amazing so far, really life-changing. Have you considered turning on the setting to allow users to add captions/subtitles to expose your ideas to a wider audience? This allows community to contribute subtitles in other languages. You still get to approve them for publishing so retain full control. I'd like to contribute in this way.
What you said at around the 12 minute mark regarding Cartesian rationality and materialism is so important. It's something that has been bothering myself for quite a while. Thank you for speaking out on this, John
Book List: 7:16 - Antonio Damasio - Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain This is the best lecture yet, we're finally getting to the deeper substance of the problem!
Only recently discovered this absolutely riveting series. Having to pace myself. Just finished Ep 22 and found these episodes on Descartes, Hobbes and Pascal particularly powerful.
We were starved for this. Honor to be here with you all, hungry souls. And dont we already have it? (meaning). Or do we simply need "grandpa" to retell us this fairy tale as some intelligent story of 50 episodes so we can slowly drop the old bs skin. And oh the layers are deep! Taking each episode as one step forward. The goal is clear, the top of the mountain. Dropping all expectations and listening. Be happy and safe ❤️
40:30 really enjoying it now Talking about ‘how we know anything at all?’ stuff, and how rationality is used in argument to counter that, despite rationality (and those types of things, logic, etc) being tied up with all of this
John, will it make you (or your girlfriend) feel uneasy when I say I am addicted to you and your lectures? Wonderful work, sir. I am so thankful I found this series.
If anyone needs a transcript we've made them for this & all episodes here: www.meaningcrisis.co/ep-22-awakening-from-the-meaning-crisis-descartes-vs-hobbes/
Excellent presentation, on Descartes, now in the catholic church we say it is the same of Ignatius of Loyola's exercises but secular. Whit out the notion of God.
I'd be curious to hear how a cognitive scientist would explain "spirit" of anything. What was Pascal thinking when he used the term? Paul Vanderklay mentions how tricky the word "spirit" is even in religious circles. Since Plato and Aristotle seem to be the core of some of these systems should we stick with the ancient Greek idea of spirit ... the "life" or "animating" force? The motive, drive, or animating kernel of finesse as Pascal stated? I "know" what Vervaeke is saying when he uses the term "spirit" but I can't articulate why I "know". Another great video.
The word 'spirit' isn't operating in Pascal's statements. It's just a label. Even the geometry and finesse parts are just labels, though bound closer by being an -attempt- at resemblance to his meaning.
@@H0R5H0E Spirit has a spectrum of ideas and definitions. After thinking about ti, and reviewing the responses, I believe that Pascal simply meant "essential nature" or "essential quality". Doc Vervaeke is demonstrating how important our vocabulary is. Depending on our worldview it seems our words can block or open us to higher meaning. I'm trying to get away from materialism, and it's vocabulary, but its hard for me. Thanks for your response.
45:00 "...a completely empty, atomic Self, adrift in Infinity..." Definitely a disconcerting experience for anyone who hasn't done serious meditation. But it *is* a valid perception that whole branches of Buddhism take as a central tenet (Sunyata and all that). The mistake is in solipsistically inferring some sort of ontological implication of the perception.
Really excellent material, once more. Of course, Descartes (and his contemporaries) did not have any inkling about complexity theory and emergent phenomena yet, so they can be forgiven for their errors. Not so much when it comes to current "rationalists" like Sam Harris, who have no such excuses and ought to know better (ah, but human biases never cease to amaze!). Can't wait for the next lecture.
21:00 So Descartes is why the objective-subjective distinction exists. I was wrestling with the concept for years, and now I finally know who to blame for creating a categorization that doesn't work with reality.
I am just an ordinary man. My training was engineering and computer science. I have some interest in these kinds of subjects, though. But your lectures cause all kinds of questions, ideas, observations, to come into my mind. They are not disagreements, exactly. They are not questions that I would look to you for an answer necessarily. One of the many thoughts I had while listening to this is: You call A.G.I. a "problem". Why is it a problem? Why does it have to have a solution?
I hope there will be something about Jung in future videos. His synchronicity concept is his answer to the seemingly impossible interface of mind (governed by teleology) and matter (governed by causality). This is why he called it an "acausal connecting principle". He borrowed much from Eastern traditions (Tao) in his attempt to balanced what he saw as the Western obsession with causality. His Eastern studies also show in the characterization of synchronicity not as something to be grasped and wielded (as is the Western preference) but it is something which you can observe and something with which you can exist in harmony.
Polymath Park Notes! “If you don’t have a soul, then what is it to be true to your true self, and what is it that makes you unique and special from the meaningless cosmos?”
Matter is inert, has no purpose, meaningless. Science does not seek to describe things as they ought to be, but how they are. Descartes says “If waves on a shore happen to move pebbles to spell out “hi”, would you think the ocean is talking to you? It’s just random grooves cut in the water.” Platos “Forms” seem relevant here, Descartes is saying that objects and concepts are ideas, and ideas have meaning. (naming is real) 1. The idea that rationality is [always] just the logical manipulation of propositions is something we should question, it’s not always historically accurate. 2. Descartes realizes that rationality is caring about the truth on purpose according to normative standards and values, and none of these concepts can be found in the scientific model of matter. (The universe is indifferent, and under no obligation to make sense to you). Mathematics is the language of reality. There are properties which are measurable by math, with primary properties, these are objective. And there are those which are measurable only through sensory perception, secondary qualities, the subjective. “These qualities are part of the way my mind doesn’t touch the world.” This is called “qualia”, which is a central element of consciousness. IMO, the latter is those which are measurable only by consensus, the comparison of the subjective. This is the only way to arrive at rational conclusions in this agreed-upon reality, to agree upon it. To confirm what we think and see to reach a “participatory knowing” as well as a “perspectival”. And propositional? Matter does not possess this qualia, therefore there is no way to manipulate matter to generate this qualia, this consciousness. I feel much of this discussion is only 50-100 years away from being completely irrelevant, we’ll create conscious AI at some point, we just haven’t done it yet. It’s exciting to talk about because its so taboo, and it likely won’t be like us, likely far smarter and bodiless, but it’s comin’, ya’ll.
Descartes says “I will doubt everything I can doubt, to try to bring about psychological certainty into logical certainty”. What he was left with was himself. In order to be subject to an illusion, his mind must exist. Cogico ergo sum, “I think therefore I am”. This is where psychological becomes indistinguishable from logical certainty. “All the mind touches is itself. That’s what consciousness is.” In the AI world today, Searle examines two types of artificial intelligence; strong and weak. Strong AI would have, as vervaeke put, “purpose, meaning, normativity, consciousness and a contact with realness that descartes talked about” Vervaeke slams his hand violently upon his table and says “ow.” “Two pieces of matter slam into each other and the end result is pain.” This demonstration is actually quite profound, he instantiates the meaninglessness of matter with his own meaningful experience for a moment, through his hand. An unreal, inert mass has engaged in a real experience with the human. Vervaeke asks “How much does pain weigh? Chemically? “ Well, I would say we can indeed measure pain and many emotional experiences as they are wholly chemical in nature. This is the thing, often pivotal philosophic idioms fall victim to neurobiology. I encourage you to read the recent book by Lisa Feldman-Barret, “How Emotions are Made”. He asks, “what’s its electromagnetic nature? It’s chemical nature?” all one would need do is read adrenaline and endo-opioid receptor activity, theoretically in the next few decades we’d be able to get solid numbers with few experiments. “The relationship between your mind and body is [now] a complete and utter mystery” How do we know that anything is real if “the only thing our mind touches is itself”? “All that you have contact with is this moment of self-awareness right now, that moment which is completely isolated, contentless, [devoid of] all autobiography. Place that [state of being] into Pascal’s infinite spaces that terrify”. He expresses the sheer ineffable depth of space, so deeply examined by a species never evolved to be capable of fathoming it! Descartes proposes that the only thing the mind touches is itself, therefore we don’t know that everyone and everything else is not just a projection or simulated experience, it could be that everyone is just a zombie, a “philosophical zombie”, as it were. “We have these two perspectives; subjective consciousness and objective math, and our culture has historically careened back and forth between the two of them.” We shift between these two in our search for what’s real. The main problem in the west today: We need deep fundamental transformation, transformations of consciousness, cognition, culture and community, but we have lost the psycho-technologies, the traditions and institutions that afforded that. We lost religion.” SUMMARY: Descartes and Hobbes examine the current issues with AI and this radical disconnect between mind and body. All that’s left of reality is the pivotal, salient moments in which the mind touches itself. It’s so radical in its disconnect from mind, body, world, tradition, history culture, tradition, all that is left is this moment of self-awareness. “So all that’s left is the completely atomic, completely auto-biographically empty self, adrift in the terrifying empty spaces that Pascal talked about.”
Does this tie in with Terence Deacon's teleodynamic work who has overlapping views with previously mentioned Juarrero? As a physio, working with people to get processes in their body to allow therapeutic or symptomatic qualities, trying to get my head around how the overlap of mind body in a non dualistic manner occurs. JV lectures are helping a lot! Terrence Deacon - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrence_Deacon
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
This video raises very specific questions between the mind verses body paradox. I pose an answer to the problem from the Bible that I think answers this succinctly. It might be premature to provide this as I don't know where the discussion of this paradox will lead in the following videos, but regardless... There is a paradox because of an unclear idea of what the mind or consciousness is. This verse I think tells us clearly. 1Corinthians 2:11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. The spirit is not matter at all. The body is used by the spirit to interface with the material world around it. The mind is the activity of the spirit. The spirit is unlikely to be understood via material testing, so consciousness will never be defined until one can define the spirit. We could say that the spirit is the cause of consciousness because of the observations made in regards to precognition. As Chomsky says in his conversation with Krause on determinism, the areas of the brain responsible for moving ones hand are active an instant before the action takes place. This shows the spirit activating the necessary part of the brain for the movement to take place. I think both consciousness and precognition can be summed up as an aspect of the activity of "the spirit of man which is in him".
22.25- 'Matter does not possess these properties, the qualia (consciousness, empathy, creativity etc etc) , further, there is no way to manipulate matter to generate qualia.' This is the crux of the lecture and the devastating truth which blows scientific materialism out of the water. Dawkins, Dennett, Pinker et al will tell us that consciousness is merely an epiphenomenon that arises by chance out of matter. But they are categorically wrong because, as professor Vervaeke spells out here, no arrangement of matter will produce consciousness.
I don't know about that. I love the series but on this one thought I prefer to hold onto my skepticism. For example, think of a rainbow. The rainbow is an epiphenomenon and only a specific arrangement of matter can produce the rainbow. It's not like you haphazardly clump matter in order to create a rainbow You have to do specific things, almost like performing a ritual. Consciousness can be thought the same way. Everything in fact is a specific to even unique arrangements of what we call matter. Some arrangements are easy to replicate some are very difficult or impossible to replicate. The way I understand the subjective dimension of consciousness emerges in a similar way matter emerges from the quantum dimension. It's just this dimension of consciousness is the point from which we experience everything. It's hard to pinpoint it because, as John said, we are using it to observe everything. It's like trying to take your own eyes bulbs out to investigate your own eyes.
@@DenianArcoleo I used dimension in the sense of realm. If you are familiar with the quantum physics experiments and the weirdness of it all, then you'll understand that what works in the quantum realm does not apply into the macro realm, and vice versa. Yet the quantum is fundamental to macro realm. If quantum is level 0 and macro is level 1, then mental is level 2. Many people confuse or equate level 0 with level 2 but they are different levels in their essence. This is my current model of reality but I'm searching to find scientists or academicians that talk about it this way.
@@Adaerus When I read words or hear sounds, the person who is communicating with me through either speech or writing (and even these have differences among the differences) doubtless has different arrangements of matter within their body's 'machinery' (if we are to use that term); and yet we will (hope) that I am reading or hearing *THE SAME THING* as what they are writing or saying... And then of course you could also have an idea about 'paraphrasing' or 'translating'... by the way, the example here of language is deliberate, just as Vervaeke's use of the term 'cultural grammar' is deliberate. It demonstrates the *EXISTENCE* in as much a 'real' sense as anything of an 'upper register', where consciousness *ACTUALLY* is engaged--and it is not primarily defined or described or even categorised or correlated physically... and even if it is, it is only done so, again, by going into that higher register to *reason* and then by thinking and communicating (talking is basically thinking, accoding to Jordan Peterson) in language... And then you must accept that *all language is metaphorical* So hold onto your scepticism... but also... What intrinsically within this horse gives you the *RIGHT* to jump off arbitrarily before it causes you to doubt the 'rationality' of the very text you were typing to express it... Before the horse runs off the cliff?
@@scythermantis My doubt was referring to a previous poster saying " no arrangement of matter will produce consciousness". What scientifically is understood so far about consciousness is that it cannot exist without the material substrate. In my comments basically saying that even if consciousness looks different or strange from matter this is not unique to the dimension/realm of consciousness. We can observe the strangeness and differentiation of how things appear to us at quantum level. It looks like material reality is sandwiched between the quantum realm at its basis and the conscious realm on top. Of course the words "basis" and "top" are metaphors as there is no spatial dimension to the "structure". So even if matter does not poses qualities of consciousness like qualia it doesn't mean that matter is not fundamental to consciousness. For example wetness is a property of matter, liquid, that the quantum realm does not poses yet wet is it caused by how particles interact at quantum levels.
One thing I really question, and one thing that has interacted with your life John, is the idea of a ‘philosophic cannon’ (Plato, Descartes, Kant etc). To propel/interact with the idea of a ‘philosophical cannon’ is to make various important philosophical assertions in the first place - I really struggle with understanding this. A similar, but infinitely more pervasive idea is how Truth or Realness or Certainty seem like things that fundamentally beg the question (circular reasoning). This is so difficult to articulate because it underlies and penetrates every idea, and every sentence I type. When we understand that our previous Truths/Realities/Certainties were NOT True (Real/Certain etc), then it invokes, and bends, and crushes itself. Which is why Truth (etc) being circular is a problem. This is so pervasive man. If you look at *any* singular word from the above paragraph, you see how everything is so reliant of those ideas, and how much they are constantly breaking themselves. John, when these ideas stop being abstract, and become intimate with my experience, as they have for the last few years... they cause a lot of struggling and suffering for me man... John do you, or anyone in the comments, know where I am going wrong here? Can anyone help?
@@ToriKo_ It's fine ha ha... Is "Tori Ko" like a female bird I'm assuming? And I sure hope that at the end of your philosophical canon, you add Jean Baudrillard, and Jean Borella as well.
@@ToriKo_ Well Borella seems very fascinating given what's been said about him being the most important metaphysician of the 20th century and having such an influence on the meaning crisis; I was listening to a lecture from Wolfgang Smith where they mentioned him ruclips.net/video/8NWHGX53agc/видео.html I honestly haven't looked into it a whole lot though Baudrillard I have studied more and I don't know where to start to tell you; System of Objects, Simulation and Simulacra, Fatal Strategies, are all good... But in a youtube comment section it's a challenge, I suppose though I could give you the idea that nowadays we have moved from: USE VALUE EXCHANGE VALUE LABOUR THEORY OF VALUE to the next one which is SIGN VALUE (SYMBOLIC EXCHANGE) where it's not even so much about 'efficiency' as 'branding'; so this is in some ways 'post-Marxian' You could also read this article bestimmung.blogspot.com/2015/05/jean-baudrillard-precession-of-simulacra.html And the last in the series of 9 videos "The Self under Siege" by Rick Roderick is also about Baudrillard, Fatal Strategies, look it up on RUclips But Baudrillard is just SO relevant with his ideas that the hyper-real becomes more real than reality and replaces it, and the hyper-social becomes anti-social, etc. ...
I was surprised to see all the qualities attributed to reason: care, meaning, truth and purpose. I would have thought reason developed in a primitive way as working out how to get what you want. Is it a Platonic definition that Descartes believed in because it fits well with Catholic thinking? I wonder should ordinary reasoning be limited to getting instead of understanding things. I also wonder if Descartes’ definition of reason is correct, is rationality the correct word for just figuring out how to get what you want.
To highlight this separation in Cartesian ontology, which ultimately leads to the rationalists vs the Romanitics (as JV discussed), which also leads to (I think) to the rationalists vs the empiricists; "res extensa" means an "extended and unthinking thing" while res cogitans means a "thinking and unextended thing". Res extensa and res cogitans are mutually exclusive and this makes it possible to conceptualize the complete intellectual independence from the body. In the Cartesian view, the distinction between these two concepts is a methodological necessity driven by a distrust of the senses and the res extensa as it represents the entire material world. The categorical separation of these two, however, caused a problem, which can be demonstrated in this question: How can a wish (a mental event), cause an arm movement (a physical event)?" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Res_extensa
"In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge"[1] or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".[2] More formally, rationalism is defined as a methodology or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive".[3] In an old controversy, rationalism was opposed to empiricism, where the rationalists believed that reality has an intrinsically logical structure. Because of this, the rationalists argued that certain truths exist and that the intellect can directly grasp these truths. That is to say, rationalists asserted that certain rational principles exist in logic, mathematics, ethics, and metaphysics that are so fundamentally true that denying them causes one to fall into contradiction. The rationalists had such a high confidence in reason that empirical proof and physical evidence were regarded as unnecessary to ascertain certain truths - in other words, "there are significant ways in which our concepts and knowledge are gained independently of sense experience"" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism
One objection to a fundamental assumption here. We assume matter has (or demonstrates) no inherent value. That seems falsifiable via observation, and you've already pointed out the flaw. That flaw is this: matter values persistence. That is to say, matter is that which persists through time. You've already pointed out that this causes matter to resist us and noted the value of this phenomenon for limiting our own capriciousness. I submit that this inherent material valueing of persistence is one of the (and possibly the only) heads of the wellspring of human meaning.
this episode contains the cryptic clue to why strong AI has remained tantalizingly out of reach. i wonder if vervaeke senses his own existential embodiment of the limitation.
22:19 "Matter does not possess these properties... therefore there is no way to manipulate matter to generate [them]" is unsound. Counterexample: "clay does not possess a handle therefore there is no way to manipulate clay to generate a handle," which is obviously false. Therefore it is better to say, "matter does not possess consciousness and we don't know how to manipulate it to generate consciousness therefore it may be impossible."
Thanks for making this series John. It's a privilege to have this for free on youtube
Thanks for saying that.
This one guy is shouldering the burden of teaching the world the humanities.
. . . we drenched the world in blood. Thank you for your time.
Cliffhanger!
This series is better than Star Wars.
The force is strong in this ☝️ one. 🤔
This is very true
Brilliant.
Jajahahahahahahjajajajaja
Professor is your father!
“With my mind on my matter and my matter on my mind.” - John Vervaeke
lol
❤️ Summary of the human condition.
Best psychological thriller since Death Note .
Fr
hahahahahahaha, good one
It’s like this whole series reflects our development since the Fall ~ that we’ve had to go through all this in order to realise just how our pride and arrogance has turned us away from Reality... that we’ve had to follow it to it’s bitter end in some sense in order to finally turn back, prodigal son-like, to our true home. I’m only half way through but I’m finding this series deeply thought provoking. Thank you for helping me/us see things in profound, more meaningful way.
A weird but fun idea that Terence McKenna had was that in his eyes, the fall was us going from being constantly high on psychedelic mushrooms, which completely removed our ego, and when we moved away from them, we lost our golden way of life (/the/ way, as in Dao, possibly) - and so our religion and the idea of the fall is us seeking back to those egoless glory days
Never thought about it that way. Thanks for this comment.
Encredible content
One of my favourite lectures so far. John really nails this one. I felt like he was laying out all my intellectual/spiritual confusion of my last 30 years for me to understand better.
Bruh. Exactly, it’s satisfying to here even at least a portion of my confusion/experience being articulated here
I'm okay with the possibility that this might be the best lecture series I'll ever see. Combined with the meditation course (Meditating with John Vervaeke) I've never felt knowledge, wisdom and practicality being combined like this.
I do research in AI and I'm publishing at the very top conferences. Also, I am working with people that consistently publish at the very top venues. As a reference, one of the profs with which I am collaborating right now has over 67000 citations. However:
1. I had no idea of this origin of AI and about the dialogue between Descartes and Hobbes. Also this is the most profound account of AI I have encountered. People I’ve encountered treat AI as just math (as did I) and only refer to the human brain sometimes for ideas but quickly go back to the math.
2. I’ve never been able to find meaning in my work even though my ideas were highly appreciated at the very top level. I’ve never been able to couple it with the rest of the work on meaning, I would spend my days thinking about the story of Marduk and finding meaning in that and then going back to finding ideas for research like I would go back to chopping wood. Because it was just work, just math, that I did because I need to survive and fit in society. I would get enthusiastic about my projects but never found meaning.
It was very striking to me to:
1. Find out that the AI discussion has such an important role in the problem of meaning.
2. Find out how ignorant I am. Since I started my AI journey I was okay with and convinced of the fact that the brain is just a computational machine, and I would many times argue in favor of that and thought that mathematical clarity and consistency would bring the ultimate meaning. However, I was nowhere nearly aware of the implications of that. When you talked about the death of the universe, the death of the soul and how ‘nothing’ we are it really struck me and terrified me. I find now that I should have been completely terrified to death by my beliefs. Maybe inside myself I was, because I’ve been desperately searching for meaning for more than a decade now.
Thank you for the amazing and constant insights throughout this lecture series. It has had and continues to have a tremendous impact on my life, more than anything else I have encountered, except for my girlfriend, and it profoundly and fundamentally changed my life. The way you tied together pretty much all of history and all disciplines in a cohesive and comprehensive argument is just beyond anything I have imagined. I want to very deeply thank you from the bottom of my soul for what you do for us. I’ve started watching this series because I’ve seen your podcast with Dr. Peterson and found meaning in loving life the way you described loving your wife and then found this mind-blowing complex argument. I am looking forward to seeing how your argument will unfold and where it leads to in the rest of the lectures. Thank you from the bottom of my being Dr. Vervaeke ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
P.S. After watching your lectures I've started to find meaning in my work and started to notice patterns such as the having vs being mode in AI and it makes everything work at another scale. Thank you very much for all these insights ❤️
Thank you so much Antonio. Your words are very encouraging to me. 😊😊
@@johnvervaeke I deeply appreciate the fact that you've read the comments and responded Dr. Vervaeke ❤️ it means a lot to me. I am really glad you find them encouraging and I truly hope your projects will turn out the way you envisioned them 😊😊
Breaking to go up and out, John’s secret sause
I have been measuring my enjoyment of this course by my exponentially increasing enjoyment of the music that serves as intro and outro... man, the finesse of this particular outro... 'drenched the world in blood...'
Incredibly moving
A big gratitude to prof Vervaeke for this work (and the weak AI that has delivered it to the star trek computer in my hand)
ruclips.net/video/S-Xm7s9eGxU/видео.htmlsi=Xv4vLCODJ59SzIhf
“Tru neep neeeck bicky backa backa” is that true? ❤️😂👍🏻 John makes baby talk profound.
These just keep getting better. I used to wish he did more than 1 a week. Now I'm finding it takes several viewings to absorb everything so lol.
True...I couldn't agree with you more....
It does not matter how many times l listen to these particular series, l get stretched, smarter, wiser and more purposeful in my work and more caring period.
There you go John, putting Descartes before the Hobbes again...really, love the work!!!
Ahahahahaha what a beauty
I suffer lost of my religion. And im glad to hear someone wchich understands how serious that is.
I love your use of language. It's perfectly clear to me.
I found this lecture intellectually razor-sharp! Cutting into the essence of THE problem. Thank you so much!
I loved the historical overview, identifying patterns in human cognition, the individuals' incredible struggles with external resistances and internal conflicts and how they influenced human epistemology, culture etc... Now we are drawing near our time, this is getting even more exciting! Thank you, thank you!
Well put.....
Ongoingly phenomenal
Here i am in the middle of trying to watch Buddhism and Cognitive Science and you release this. You're taking up my Friday Vervaeke 👍
thank you so much for mentioning this! I would never have found it otherwise. It's a pity that John released these lectures in a separate channel. He should definitely move them to this channel too.
No wonder we seem to be in zombieland…
The Walking Dead is now. And not on the screen. So much knowledge in this series that my neurones keep popping. It’s like Xmas tree in there. Sincerest thanks to Mr. V.
More power to you Sir!
oh my god... this one made me cry. wow.
I must thank you for all your kind words and encouragement. It means a lot to me. Thank you.
@@johnvervaeke watching episode 23 now.
The Original Naked Blonde Writer I hope you like it.
@@johnvervaeke language insuffient... like it? I am watching it again it's so bang on. you may well have relieved me from a 30 year addiction to the promise of Romanticism! Perhaps I can now stop banging my head against those poems....
One of the best philosophy teachers out there. 52:47 minutes of this is enough to show how vacuous the new atheists intellectual movement is.
John, I sure hope you are enjoying this calm before the storm. Your talk with Jaimie on Rebel Wisdom was phenomenal. This crescendo of information is truly awesome. Thanks for being so straightforward with this information and your sources.
You mean Jordan? Yes, I agree. I hope we get to listen in on more of their conversations.
Scholar of Nihilism Which storm is coming?
Coming from a PhD student working on Machine Learning. Super refreshing and insightful!
I'd like to see John Vervaeke on the Making Sense podcast.
@Mr S
I think you are selling Harris short here. Sam and John could probably provide us with a wonderfully interesting and meaningful conversation.
@Mr S I agree, Harris has some very obvious political blindspots with his American exceptionalism, and there is no reason to assume that he has the knowledge base outside of science to even keep up with Vervaeke
I'm convinced that Sam would very much enjoy conversing with John. He even liked conversing with Jordan, who is much more hand-wavey than John.
Me too, please submit his name to samharris.org perhaps if enough of us do it will happen
Im in stage of my life that the only meaning in my life is these podcasts
Thank you professor for introducing a lot of concepts and the most important one for me was ideas within buddhism
Hi John, amazing so far, really life-changing. Have you considered turning on the setting to allow users to add captions/subtitles to expose your ideas to a wider audience? This allows community to contribute subtitles in other languages. You still get to approve them for publishing so retain full control. I'd like to contribute in this way.
Thanks John.
What you said at around the 12 minute mark regarding Cartesian rationality and materialism is so important. It's something that has been bothering myself for quite a while. Thank you for speaking out on this, John
I have so much more appreciation for Descartes after watching this lecture.
Book List:
7:16 - Antonio Damasio - Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain
This is the best lecture yet, we're finally getting to the deeper substance of the problem!
I feel like im internalising and spreading a chunk of the post modern gospel, watching this lecture series
Only recently discovered this absolutely riveting series. Having to pace myself. Just finished Ep 22 and found these episodes on Descartes, Hobbes and Pascal particularly powerful.
Thanks for taking the time to make and share these. I'd be willing to contribute to the running costs financially if there was a patreon.
wow, unbelievably amazing, touching, fundamental! Excellent John! Thank you so much, so clearly explained, yet still hard to grasp at first time
What a surprise, and what a thrill!
Thanks again. Love these Lectures.
Thank you John!
Some more nice threads brought together in this episode. Thank you and your team for your efforts....
You really professed in this one professor John Vervaeke, meaning "claim that one has (a quality or feeling)". 👏👏👏
I appreciate YOUR time JV ❤️🍄
Wonderful.....
it really is a gift! thanks so much for your work john!
“Meow meow creature!!” I love this!!!
We were starved for this. Honor to be here with you all, hungry souls.
And dont we already have it? (meaning). Or do we simply need "grandpa" to retell us this fairy tale as some intelligent story of 50 episodes so we can slowly drop the old bs skin. And oh the layers are deep! Taking each episode as one step forward. The goal is clear, the top of the mountain.
Dropping all expectations and listening. Be happy and safe ❤️
Thank you so much for your work, and for giving this to us for free. The whole world should watch this.
Sweetness is in the taste buds and the mind of the beholder
40:30 really enjoying it now
Talking about ‘how we know anything at all?’ stuff, and how rationality is used in argument to counter that, despite rationality (and those types of things, logic, etc) being tied up with all of this
You terrified me for a moment Prof. Thanks for a wonderful series.
It seems as though you are really striking at the heart of current matters in this lecture. "Heart of matters". On to the next one.
John, will it make you (or your girlfriend) feel uneasy when I say I am addicted to you and your lectures? Wonderful work, sir. I am so thankful I found this series.
You are just wonderful sir, all of my thanks
If anyone needs a transcript we've made them for this & all episodes here: www.meaningcrisis.co/ep-22-awakening-from-the-meaning-crisis-descartes-vs-hobbes/
thank u very much for your time and attention
Super heavy lecture, wow, thank you, John!
Thank You!
The passion in this lecture!
Excellent presentation, on Descartes, now in the catholic church we say it is the same of Ignatius of Loyola's exercises but secular. Whit out the notion of God.
This is the best one so far!
Wait... I've catched up to the series and now I have to wait until friday for the next one! NOOOOOO :(
Thank you for another amazing episode.
Brain wave time 😌
Thank you so much
I'd be curious to hear how a cognitive scientist would explain "spirit" of anything. What was Pascal thinking when he used the term? Paul Vanderklay mentions how tricky the word "spirit" is even in religious circles. Since Plato and Aristotle seem to be the core of some of these systems should we stick with the ancient Greek idea of spirit ... the "life" or "animating" force? The motive, drive, or animating kernel of finesse as Pascal stated? I "know" what Vervaeke is saying when he uses the term "spirit" but I can't articulate why I "know". Another great video.
The word 'spirit' isn't operating in Pascal's statements. It's just a label.
Even the geometry and finesse parts are just labels, though bound closer by being an -attempt- at resemblance to his meaning.
@@H0R5H0E Spirit has a spectrum of ideas and definitions. After thinking about ti, and reviewing the responses, I believe that Pascal simply meant "essential nature" or "essential quality". Doc Vervaeke is demonstrating how important our vocabulary is. Depending on our worldview it seems our words can block or open us to higher meaning. I'm trying to get away from materialism, and it's vocabulary, but its hard for me. Thanks for your response.
Wind moved a branch of a tree.
Unseen but felt
Moves the seen
@@benjaminlquinlan8702 :)
Spiritus in Latin means breath
I don't know why him misspelling 'finesse' bothers me so much. Anyway, love this series, John. Thank you for publishing this wonderful work.
45:00 "...a completely empty, atomic Self, adrift in Infinity..."
Definitely a disconcerting experience for anyone who hasn't done serious meditation. But it *is* a valid perception that whole branches of Buddhism take as a central tenet (Sunyata and all that). The mistake is in solipsistically inferring some sort of ontological implication of the perception.
The dominos keep falling! Can’t wait to see where this is going
Really excellent material, once more. Of course, Descartes (and his contemporaries) did not have any inkling about complexity theory and emergent phenomena yet, so they can be forgiven for their errors. Not so much when it comes to current "rationalists" like Sam Harris, who have no such excuses and ought to know better (ah, but human biases never cease to amaze!). Can't wait for the next lecture.
A takeaway from the last few episodes is the ontological idea that there is Stuff, what Stuff Does, and what Stuff Ought To Do.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: best vid yet
Thank you
I didn't expect AI to come up so quickly, but this is awesome! Hobbes is even cooler than I thought. Starts around 20:00.
21:00 So Descartes is why the objective-subjective distinction exists. I was wrestling with the concept for years, and now I finally know who to blame for creating a categorization that doesn't work with reality.
I am just an ordinary man. My training was engineering and computer science. I have some interest in these kinds of subjects, though. But your lectures cause all kinds of questions, ideas, observations, to come into my mind. They are not disagreements, exactly. They are not questions that I would look to you for an answer necessarily.
One of the many thoughts I had while listening to this is: You call A.G.I. a "problem". Why is it a problem? Why does it have to have a solution?
Thanks John. BTW am I the only truck driver watching this? Just curious 🤔
Excellent.
Calvin & Hobbes... I just got it. Why the favourite carton strip thus named. The kid with his toy tiger was such a philosopher..
I hope there will be something about Jung in future videos. His synchronicity concept is his answer to the seemingly impossible interface of mind (governed by teleology) and matter (governed by causality). This is why he called it an "acausal connecting principle". He borrowed much from Eastern traditions (Tao) in his attempt to balanced what he saw as the Western obsession with causality. His Eastern studies also show in the characterization of synchronicity not as something to be grasped and wielded (as is the Western preference) but it is something which you can observe and something with which you can exist in harmony.
Polymath Park Notes!
“If you don’t have a soul, then what is it to be true to your true self, and what is it that makes you unique and special from the meaningless cosmos?”
Matter is inert, has no purpose, meaningless. Science does not seek to describe things as they ought to be, but how they are.
Descartes says “If waves on a shore happen to move pebbles to spell out “hi”, would you think the ocean is talking to you? It’s just random grooves cut in the water.”
Platos “Forms” seem relevant here, Descartes is saying that objects and concepts are ideas, and ideas have meaning. (naming is real)
1. The idea that rationality is [always] just the logical manipulation of propositions is something we should question, it’s not always historically accurate.
2. Descartes realizes that rationality is caring about the truth on purpose according to normative standards and values, and none of these concepts can be found in the scientific model of matter. (The universe is indifferent, and under no obligation to make sense to you).
Mathematics is the language of reality. There are properties which are measurable by math, with primary properties, these are objective. And there are those which are measurable only through sensory perception, secondary qualities, the subjective.
“These qualities are part of the way my mind doesn’t touch the world.” This is called “qualia”, which is a central element of consciousness.
IMO, the latter is those which are measurable only by consensus, the comparison of the subjective. This is the only way to arrive at rational conclusions in this agreed-upon reality, to agree upon it. To confirm what we think and see to reach a “participatory knowing” as well as a “perspectival”. And propositional?
Matter does not possess this qualia, therefore there is no way to manipulate matter to generate this qualia, this consciousness.
I feel much of this discussion is only 50-100 years away from being completely irrelevant, we’ll create conscious AI at some point, we just haven’t done it yet. It’s exciting to talk about because its so taboo, and it likely won’t be like us, likely far smarter and bodiless, but it’s comin’, ya’ll.
Descartes says “I will doubt everything I can doubt, to try to bring about psychological certainty into logical certainty”. What he was left with was himself. In order to be subject to an illusion, his mind must exist. Cogico ergo sum, “I think therefore I am”.
This is where psychological becomes indistinguishable from logical certainty.
“All the mind touches is itself. That’s what consciousness is.”
In the AI world today, Searle examines two types of artificial intelligence; strong and weak. Strong AI would have, as vervaeke put, “purpose, meaning, normativity, consciousness and a contact with realness that descartes talked about”
Vervaeke slams his hand violently upon his table and says “ow.” “Two pieces of matter slam into each other and the end result is pain.” This demonstration is actually quite profound, he instantiates the meaninglessness of matter with his own meaningful experience for a moment, through his hand. An unreal, inert mass has engaged in a real experience with the human.
Vervaeke asks “How much does pain weigh? Chemically? “ Well, I would say we can indeed measure pain and many emotional experiences as they are wholly chemical in nature. This is the thing, often pivotal philosophic idioms fall victim to neurobiology. I encourage you to read the recent book by Lisa Feldman-Barret, “How Emotions are Made”. He asks, “what’s its electromagnetic nature? It’s chemical nature?” all one would need do is read adrenaline and endo-opioid receptor activity, theoretically in the next few decades we’d be able to get solid numbers with few experiments.
“The relationship between your mind and body is [now] a complete and utter mystery”
How do we know that anything is real if “the only thing our mind touches is itself”?
“All that you have contact with is this moment of self-awareness right now, that moment which is completely isolated, contentless, [devoid of] all autobiography. Place that [state of being] into Pascal’s infinite spaces that terrify”. He expresses the sheer ineffable depth of space, so deeply examined by a species never evolved to be capable of fathoming it!
Descartes proposes that the only thing the mind touches is itself, therefore we don’t know that everyone and everything else is not just a projection or simulated experience, it could be that everyone is just a zombie, a “philosophical zombie”, as it were.
“We have these two perspectives; subjective consciousness and objective math, and our culture has historically careened back and forth between the two of them.”
We shift between these two in our search for what’s real.
The main problem in the west today: We need deep fundamental transformation, transformations of consciousness, cognition, culture and community, but we have lost the psycho-technologies, the traditions and institutions that afforded that. We lost religion.”
SUMMARY:
Descartes and Hobbes examine the current issues with AI and this radical disconnect between mind and body.
All that’s left of reality is the pivotal, salient moments in which the mind touches itself.
It’s so radical in its disconnect from mind, body, world, tradition, history culture, tradition, all that is left is this moment of self-awareness. “So all that’s left is the completely atomic, completely auto-biographically empty self, adrift in the terrifying empty spaces that Pascal talked about.”
What sources on Artificial General Intelligence would you recommend, John?
Does this tie in with Terence Deacon's teleodynamic work who has overlapping views with previously mentioned Juarrero? As a physio, working with people to get processes in their body to allow therapeutic or symptomatic qualities, trying to get my head around how the overlap of mind body in a non dualistic manner occurs. JV lectures are helping a lot!
Terrence Deacon - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrence_Deacon
I think it must get back to the Axial age psychotech that reconceptualised history as linear, rather than circular as in the Bronze age.
I would like to see an elaboration of that point about irrationality @ 17:20 or so.
10:25 Little known fact, John is one of the Knights who say Ni.
I knew you were going to take my mind away from me at 43:30
and they drenched the world in blood....vervaeke has finnese in drama hahaha
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
Can someone remind me where John clarifies what Ockham's Razor means?
I don’t think he does actually - I picked up the same thing
This video raises very specific questions between the mind verses body paradox. I pose an answer to the problem from the Bible that I think answers this succinctly. It might be premature to provide this as I don't know where the discussion of this paradox will lead in the following videos, but regardless...
There is a paradox because of an unclear idea of what the mind or consciousness is. This verse I think tells us clearly.
1Corinthians 2:11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
The spirit is not matter at all. The body is used by the spirit to interface with the material world around it. The mind is the activity of the spirit. The spirit is unlikely to be understood via material testing, so consciousness will never be defined until one can define the spirit. We could say that the spirit is the cause of consciousness because of the observations made in regards to precognition. As Chomsky says in his conversation with Krause on determinism, the areas of the brain responsible for moving ones hand are active an instant before the action takes place. This shows the spirit activating the necessary part of the brain for the movement to take place. I think both consciousness and precognition can be summed up as an aspect of the activity of "the spirit of man which is in him".
22.25- 'Matter does not possess these properties, the qualia (consciousness, empathy, creativity etc etc) , further, there is no way to manipulate matter to generate qualia.'
This is the crux of the lecture and the devastating truth which blows scientific materialism out of the water.
Dawkins, Dennett, Pinker et al will tell us that consciousness is merely an epiphenomenon that arises by chance out of matter. But they are categorically wrong because, as professor Vervaeke spells out here, no arrangement of matter will produce consciousness.
I don't know about that. I love the series but on this one thought I prefer to hold onto my skepticism. For example, think of a rainbow. The rainbow is an epiphenomenon and only a specific arrangement of matter can produce the rainbow. It's not like you haphazardly clump matter in order to create a rainbow You have to do specific things, almost like performing a ritual. Consciousness can be thought the same way. Everything in fact is a specific to even unique arrangements of what we call matter. Some arrangements are easy to replicate some are very difficult or impossible to replicate. The way I understand the subjective dimension of consciousness emerges in a similar way matter emerges from the quantum dimension. It's just this dimension of consciousness is the point from which we experience everything. It's hard to pinpoint it because, as John said, we are using it to observe everything. It's like trying to take your own eyes bulbs out to investigate your own eyes.
@@Adaerus I have no idea what the quantum dimension is. Can you elaborate?
@@DenianArcoleo I used dimension in the sense of realm. If you are familiar with the quantum physics experiments and the weirdness of it all, then you'll understand that what works in the quantum realm does not apply into the macro realm, and vice versa. Yet the quantum is fundamental to macro realm. If quantum is level 0 and macro is level 1, then mental is level 2. Many people confuse or equate level 0 with level 2 but they are different levels in their essence. This is my current model of reality but I'm searching to find scientists or academicians that talk about it this way.
@@Adaerus When I read words or hear sounds, the person who is communicating with me through either speech or writing (and even these have differences among the differences) doubtless has different arrangements of matter within their body's 'machinery' (if we are to use that term); and yet we will (hope) that I am reading or hearing *THE SAME THING* as what they are writing or saying...
And then of course you could also have an idea about 'paraphrasing' or 'translating'... by the way, the example here of language is deliberate, just as Vervaeke's use of the term 'cultural grammar' is deliberate.
It demonstrates the *EXISTENCE* in as much a 'real' sense as anything of an 'upper register', where consciousness *ACTUALLY* is engaged--and it is not primarily defined or described or even categorised or correlated physically... and even if it is, it is only done so, again, by going into that higher register to *reason* and then by thinking and communicating (talking is basically thinking, accoding to Jordan Peterson) in language...
And then you must accept that *all language is metaphorical*
So hold onto your scepticism... but also...
What intrinsically within this horse gives you the *RIGHT* to jump off arbitrarily before it causes you to doubt the 'rationality' of the very text you were typing to express it...
Before the horse runs off the cliff?
@@scythermantis My doubt was referring to a previous poster saying " no arrangement of matter will produce consciousness". What scientifically is understood so far about consciousness is that it cannot exist without the material substrate. In my comments basically saying that even if consciousness looks different or strange from matter this is not unique to the dimension/realm of consciousness. We can observe the strangeness and differentiation of how things appear to us at quantum level. It looks like material reality is sandwiched between the quantum realm at its basis and the conscious realm on top. Of course the words "basis" and "top" are metaphors as there is no spatial dimension to the "structure". So even if matter does not poses qualities of consciousness like qualia it doesn't mean that matter is not fundamental to consciousness. For example wetness is a property of matter, liquid, that the quantum realm does not poses yet wet is it caused by how particles interact at quantum levels.
32:30 what people would you recommend for reading on AGI?
28:55 you can use Narrow vs General ai instead, i think it captures it better
Episode 23 - the post modern apocalypses...JK, great job!!!!
One thing I really question, and one thing that has interacted with your life John, is the idea of a ‘philosophic cannon’ (Plato, Descartes, Kant etc).
To propel/interact with the idea of a ‘philosophical cannon’ is to make various important philosophical assertions in the first place - I really struggle with understanding this.
A similar, but infinitely more pervasive idea is how Truth or Realness or Certainty seem like things that fundamentally beg the question (circular reasoning). This is so difficult to articulate because it underlies and penetrates every idea, and every sentence I type. When we understand that our previous Truths/Realities/Certainties were NOT True (Real/Certain etc), then it invokes, and bends, and crushes itself. Which is why Truth (etc) being circular is a problem.
This is so pervasive man. If you look at *any* singular word from the above paragraph, you see how everything is so reliant of those ideas, and how much they are constantly breaking themselves.
John, when these ideas stop being abstract, and become intimate with my experience, as they have for the last few years... they cause a lot of struggling and suffering for me man... John do you, or anyone in the comments, know where I am going wrong here? Can anyone help?
*CANNON* ha ha... a Freudian slip?
@@scythermantis no I’m just dumb. Didn’t even know canon was a different word tbh
@@ToriKo_ It's fine ha ha... Is "Tori Ko" like a female bird I'm assuming?
And I sure hope that at the end of your philosophical canon, you add Jean Baudrillard, and Jean Borella as well.
@@scythermantis what ideas from those two do you find relevant to you?
@@ToriKo_ Well Borella seems very fascinating given what's been said about him being the most important metaphysician of the 20th century and having such an influence on the meaning crisis; I was listening to a lecture from Wolfgang Smith where they mentioned him
ruclips.net/video/8NWHGX53agc/видео.html
I honestly haven't looked into it a whole lot though
Baudrillard I have studied more and I don't know where to start to tell you; System of Objects, Simulation and Simulacra, Fatal Strategies, are all good...
But in a youtube comment section it's a challenge, I suppose though I could give you the idea that nowadays we have moved from:
USE VALUE
EXCHANGE VALUE
LABOUR THEORY OF VALUE
to the next one which is
SIGN VALUE (SYMBOLIC EXCHANGE)
where it's not even so much about 'efficiency' as 'branding'; so this is in some ways 'post-Marxian'
You could also read this article
bestimmung.blogspot.com/2015/05/jean-baudrillard-precession-of-simulacra.html
And the last in the series of 9 videos "The Self under Siege" by Rick Roderick is also about Baudrillard, Fatal Strategies, look it up on RUclips
But Baudrillard is just SO relevant with his ideas that the hyper-real becomes more real than reality and replaces it, and the hyper-social becomes anti-social, etc. ...
I was surprised to see all the qualities attributed to reason: care, meaning, truth and purpose. I would have thought reason developed in a primitive way as working out how to get what you want. Is it a Platonic definition that Descartes believed in because it fits well with Catholic thinking? I wonder should ordinary reasoning be limited to getting instead of understanding things. I also wonder if Descartes’ definition of reason is correct, is rationality the correct word for just figuring out how to get what you want.
To highlight this separation in Cartesian ontology, which ultimately leads to the rationalists vs the Romanitics (as JV discussed), which also leads to (I think) to the rationalists vs the empiricists; "res extensa" means an "extended and unthinking thing" while res cogitans means a "thinking and unextended thing".
Res extensa and res cogitans are mutually exclusive and this makes it possible to conceptualize the complete intellectual independence from the body.
In the Cartesian view, the distinction between these two concepts is a methodological necessity driven by a distrust of the senses and the res extensa as it represents the entire material world. The categorical separation of these two, however, caused a problem, which can be demonstrated in this question: How can a wish (a mental event), cause an arm movement (a physical event)?" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Res_extensa
"In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge"[1] or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".[2] More formally, rationalism is defined as a methodology or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive".[3]
In an old controversy, rationalism was opposed to empiricism, where the rationalists believed that reality has an intrinsically logical structure. Because of this, the rationalists argued that certain truths exist and that the intellect can directly grasp these truths. That is to say, rationalists asserted that certain rational principles exist in logic, mathematics, ethics, and metaphysics that are so fundamentally true that denying them causes one to fall into contradiction. The rationalists had such a high confidence in reason that empirical proof and physical evidence were regarded as unnecessary to ascertain certain truths - in other words, "there are significant ways in which our concepts and knowledge are gained independently of sense experience"" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalism
What a cliffhanger!
You shall not pass!! John Gandolff Vervaeke shouting to Demon of Ignorance holding black permanent marker 😂
One objection to a fundamental assumption here. We assume matter has (or demonstrates) no inherent value. That seems falsifiable via observation, and you've already pointed out the flaw. That flaw is this: matter values persistence. That is to say, matter is that which persists through time.
You've already pointed out that this causes matter to resist us and noted the value of this phenomenon for limiting our own capriciousness.
I submit that this inherent material valueing of persistence is one of the (and possibly the only) heads of the wellspring of human meaning.
this episode contains the cryptic clue to why strong AI has remained tantalizingly out of reach. i wonder if vervaeke senses his own existential embodiment of the limitation.
22:19 "Matter does not possess these properties... therefore there is no way to manipulate matter to generate [them]" is unsound. Counterexample: "clay does not possess a handle therefore there is no way to manipulate clay to generate a handle," which is obviously false. Therefore it is better to say, "matter does not possess consciousness and we don't know how to manipulate it to generate consciousness therefore it may be impossible."