The Meaning of Life

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I often ask people on this podcast or at a bar or to imaginary people I talk to in a room when I'm all by myself, the question of the meaning of life. Do you think this is a useful question? No, I think it's like the question, what's north of the North Pole or what time is it on the Sun. It sounds like a question, but it's actually not really a question because it has a presupposition in it that I think is fundamentally flawed. There were times when people thought they had a worldview that legitimated it, like God is running the universe and therefore, and God cares about you and there's a plan, etc. But I

John Vervaeke is a psychologist and cognitive scientist at University of Toronto. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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Books mentioned:
Flow: https://amzn.to/3cQDby9
On Bullshit: https://amzn.to/3PZDvYW
The Denial of Death: https://amzn.to/3KsIctp

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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(07:03) – Meaning
(27:17) – Consciousness
(36:17) – Relevance realization
(47:40) – Wisdom
(54:54) – Truth
(59:38) – Reality
(1:11:59) – Meaning crisis
(1:35:27) – Religion
(1:43:17) – Nontheism
(1:58:26) – Distributed cognition
(2:16:37) – Flow
(2:36:35) – Psychedelics
(2:45:03) – Marxism and Nazism
(2:57:08) – Evil
(3:01:19) – Powerful ideas
(3:08:10) – Advice for young people