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The Tim Ferriss Show
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Feb 23, 2023
02:35:49
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Quick takeaways
- Implicit learning is crucial for problem-solving in complex situations, but intuition tends to detect correlations rather than true causation.
- Building an ecology of practices with complementary strengths and weaknesses promotes wisdom in decision-making.
- Avoid demonizing or deifying any cognitive faculty and adopt a nuanced approach to decision-making.
- Creating explicit conditions for good implicit learning enhances intuition's ability to track genuine causal patterns.
- Consciousness serves as a higher-order system for focusing on novel and complex information.
- Embracing the transjective perspective recognizes the interconnectedness between the mind and reality for a more comprehensive understanding of consciousness.
Deep dives
Implicit learning and the power of intuition
One key insight from the research on implicit learning and intuition is that our intuitive abilities allow us to pick up on complex patterns without explicit awareness or deliberate effort. This implicit learning is crucial for problem-solving in situations with combinatorially explosive search spaces, where explicit logical reasoning would be computationally intractable. However, the perils of intuition lie in its tendency to detect correlational patterns rather than true causal relationships. The challenge is to set up explicit situations that replicate the conditions for good implicit learning, which include clear feedback, tightly coupled information, and error sensitivity. By aligning the conditions for flow states, which enhance insight and intuition, with those proposed for good implicit learning, we can increase the likelihood of our intuitive abilities tracking real causal patterns rather than misleading correlations.
The need for an ecology of practices
To navigate the limitations and risks of different cognitive faculties, it is important to cultivate an ecology of practices. These practices should have complementary strengths and weaknesses and constantly check, call out, constrain, and point out errors in each other. Such an ecology can promote wisdom and virtue in decision-making and problem-solving. By employing a range of practices, we can avoid relying too heavily on any single cognitive faculty or approach, recognizing that no single approach holds all the answers. Designing an effective ecology of practices involves considering factors such as feedback, error sensitivity, and the ability to distinguish between correlation and causation.
Avoiding decadent romanticism and panacea thinking in decision-making
A key lesson is to resist the temptations of decadent romanticism or panacea thinking when it comes to decision-making. This means neither demonizing nor deifying any particular cognitive faculty, such as intuition or reason. Instead, recognizing the limitations and strengths of each faculty and adopting a more nuanced and balanced approach. By challenging the notion that any single faculty or approach is infallible, we can approach decision-making with greater humility and strive for a comprehensive understanding that draws on a diverse set of cognitive tools.
Cultivating wisdom through clear and explicit conditions
To harness intuition effectively, it is important to create explicit conditions that set the stage for good implicit learning. This involves providing clear and tightly coupled information, ensuring meaningful feedback, and creating an environment where errors carry consequences. By setting up these conditions, we can enhance our intuitive capabilities by encouraging them to track genuine causal patterns rather than misleading correlations. Combining this explicit approach with an ecology of practices offers a comprehensive framework for cultivating wisdom and making informed decisions.
The Role of Consciousness in Relevance Realization
Consciousness serves as a higher-order relevance realization system, helping us focus on novel, complex, and ill-defined information.
The Function of Qualia
Qualia can be divided into adjectival qualia (e.g., colors, tastes) and adverbial qualia (e.g., hereness, nowness). While adjectival qualia may not be present in certain states of consciousness, adverbial qualia like hereness and nowness persist.
Extending Consciousness to Non-Human Animals
The understanding of consciousness as relevance realization implies that other animals with fluid intelligence, working memory, and attention also possess some level of consciousness.
The Need for Integrated Solutions
An integrated approach that considers the nature and function of consciousness is necessary for a more comprehensive understanding of consciousness.
The Power of Connectedness
The traditional division between the subjective and the objective is deeply ingrained in our culture, but it is not a universally accepted way of understanding reality. There is a more fundamental connectedness that binds our inner experience and the external world together. This notion, rooted in ancient philosophy and neo-Platonism, highlights the idea of participation and mutual sharing in the way we relate to reality. It is a way of knowing that emphasizes the structural and functional organization of things and the interplay between the mind and the world. This understanding of connectedness has also found support in recent cognitive science, which suggests that the mind is not confined to the individual brain, but extends into the embodied interaction with the environment. Embracing this connectedness can transform our experience of love, perception, and our relationship with the world.
Redefining Words and Concepts
Our language and the concepts associated with it often shape the way we think and perceive reality. However, the meanings of words can change over time, leading us to forget their original definitions. For example, the terms subjective and objective have been dichotomized in our culture, presenting an exhaustive division of reality into internal mind stuff and external physical stuff. Yet, we forget that this division is not absolute and has been challenged throughout history. Another example is the word matter, which has evolved to mean actual stuff, while originally it denoted pure potentiality awaiting form and actualization. Recognizing these shifts in meaning allows us to question the fixed categories we use to understand the world and opens up new possibilities for interpreting our experience.
The Transjective Perspective
The concept of the transjective provides a framework that bridges the subjective and objective dichotomy. It reflects the deep interconnectedness between our inner life and the external environment. This perspective challenges the idea that the mind is isolated within the individual and suggests that the mind is better understood in the interaction between the embodied brain and the world. It draws on ancient philosophical traditions, such as neoplatonism, which emphasize participation and mutual sharing between the mind and reality. This understanding aligns with cutting-edge cognitive science, which explores the distributed nature of the mind and the ways in which cognition extends beyond the boundaries of the individual. Embracing the transjective perspective opens up new avenues for exploring our interconnectedness and transforming our experience of reality.
8.
Is Tai Chi Your Go to Break Glass in Case of Emergency Tool in the Department of Flow States?
3min
19.
How Have You Improved Your Ability to Spot Spurious Forms of Pattern Recognition?
4min
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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.
[1:05:30] Misunderstanding love.
[1:06:36] Circling.
[1:12:28] “God is related to the world the way the mind is related to the body.”
[1:14:34] A non-theist in the no-thingness.
[1:24:03] Responsive poiesis and Sufism.
[1:27:31] Neoplatonism.
[1:29:16] Seminal moments.
[1:31:36] Pierre Hadot.
[1:32:43] Two books.
[1:34:38] Potent poetry.
[1:37:40] The four Es.
[1:42:38] Two bonus Es.
[1:45:24] Heretical beliefs.
[1:54:12] Panpsychism.
[2:00:56] Most unusual modes of cognition.
[2:02:37] Jordan Peterson.
[2:10:27] Opponent processing.
[2:13:53] How to support friends endeavoring to lead meaningful lives.
[2:17:50] After Socrates.
[2:21:44] Western words.
[2:25:11] John’s changing perspective of experienced reality.
[2:28:01] Something old, something new.
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