2min chapter

#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation

The Tim Ferriss Show

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CHAPTER

What's New and Old in Cognitive Science?

The thing that makes this act the way it does is identical to something in your mind and you're both sharing in that. You're mutually participating and so the relatedness and the connectedness is more primordial. And that's sort of an idea running through the whole neoplatonic tradition which I would argue following Arthur vs. Lewis is really the spiritual grammar of the West. In another sense it's very new because what's coming out of 4e cognitive science is exactly this kind of thing.

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John Vervaeke (@vervaeke_john) is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. He currently teaches courses on thinking and reasoning with an emphasis on cognitive development, intelligence, rationality, mindfulness, and the psychology of wisdom.

Vervaeke is the director of UToronto’s Consciousness and Wisdom Studies Laboratory and its Cognitive Science program, where he teaches Introduction to Cognitive Science and The Cognitive Science of Consciousness, emphasizing the 4E model, which contends that cognition and consciousness are embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended beyond the brain.

Vervaeke has taught courses on Buddhism and Cognitive Science in the Buddhism, Psychology, and Mental Health program for 15 years. He is the author and presenter of the YouTube series “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis” and his brand new series, ‘After Socrates.’

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[05:31] The four ways of knowing (4P).

[10:15] Affordances.

[13:04] Semantic memory.

[13:37] Flow.

[27:03] Did John find Tai Chi, or did Tai Chi find him?

[29:46] Leaving Christianity.

[34:42] Wisdom vs. knowledge.

[36:54] Self-deception.

[41:53] When is logic the illogical choice for solving a problem?

[46:05] The powers and perils of intuition.

[55:05] Spotting patterns that need breaking.

[59:18] Meditation vs. contemplation.