The Meaning Crisis episode on Heidegger is here. — Quixodian
There seems to be a bit of a wave of this material about - an attempt at rebuilding a discourse on meaning from the wreckage of humanism/scientism/materialism towards transcendental matters. Is Vervaeke a Platonist? — Tom Storm
Some here seem to think of materialism, (better known now as physicalism or naturalism) as superficial and untenable nonsense. I don't hold a particular view of this since I am not a theoretical physicist, or a philosopher. I just live in the world I experience and get on with things. :wink:I think there's a lot of misconceptions about matierliasm - it's not the boogyman many of you seem to think it is, as Janus points out. — flannel jesus
some here seem to think of materialism, (better known now as physicalism or naturalism) as superficial and untenable nonsense — Tom Storm
We are in the midst of a mental health crisis. There are increases in anxiety disorders, depression, despair, and suicide rates are going up in North America, parts of Europe, and other parts of the world. This mental health crisis is itself due to, and engaged with, crises in the environment and the political system, those in turn are enmeshed within a deeper cultural historical crisis that John Vervaeke calls “The Meaning Crisis”. It’s more and more pervasive throughout our lives. And there’s a sense of drowning in this old ocean of bullshit. And we have to understand, why is this the case? And what can we do about it?
Today, there is an increase of people feeling very disconnected from themselves, from each other, from the world, and from a viable and foreseeable future. Let’s discuss this, let’s work on it together, let’s rationally reflect on it. Getting out of this problem is going to be tremendously difficult. It’s going to require significant transformations in our cognition, our culture, our communities. And in order to move forward in such a difficult manner, we have to reach more deeply into our past to salvage the resources we can for such an amazing challenge.
This series provides a historical genealogy – beginning 40,000 years ago – that explores the rise and fall of meaning in the West, and the philosophy, religion and science that nurtured it. Vervaeke examines how human beings evolved to be meaning-making creatures, and why this is so essential to our culture and cognition. The series explores how the decline of meaningful worldviews has paved the way for various modern ailments, such as our political, environmental and mental health crises, and the rising suicide rates in North America and around the world.
:wink: FWIW, here's a sentence:I can make no sense of "Transcendent Naturalism." Does anyone here have the ambition to try make some sense of the term in a sentence or two, or three? — tim wood
Today, there is an increase of people feeling very disconnected from themselves, from each other, from the world, and from a viable and foreseeable future. Let’s discuss this, let’s work on it together, let’s rationally reflect on it. Getting out of this problem is going to be tremendously difficult. It’s going to require significant transformations in our cognition, our culture, our communities. And in order to move forward in such a difficult manner, we have to reach more deeply into our past to salvage the resources we can for such an amazing challenge.
What happened to the hippies of '67? — Apustimelogist
I suspect Vervaeke sits with all those theorists and self-help folk who seek to offer a remedy for common anxiety. — Tom Storm
and he's a legitimate academic, he's not fringe or crank. — Wayfarer
the reason he's developed a following is because he's saying something that needs to be said, and that a lot of people needed to hear, shame folks here don't appreciate that, but nothing I can say is likely to change it. — Wayfarer
One of them started Apple Computer.. — Wayfarer
Anyway, I'm logging out for a while, posting here has become too much of a habit, and it profiteth nothing. I need to develop some other interests. — Wayfarer
That's some sentence — tim wood
Anyway, I'm logging out for a while, posting here has become too much of a habit, and it profiteth nothing. I need to develop some other interests — Wayfarer
And I think that's a very small-minded way of looking at it. Vervaeke’s opus is nearer my interests than most of what is written about here, and he's a legitimate academic, he's not fringe or crank. He dialogues with a lot of interesting people and they cover a lot of topics in depth. The reason he's developed a following is because he's saying something that needs to be said, and that a lot of people needed to hear, shame folks here don't appreciate that, but nothing I can say is likely to change it. — Wayfarer
Hope you dont log out too soon. — Joshs
Gallagher offers that Varela’s incorporation of buddhist themes of mindfulness gives enactivism a way to make skilled coping about more than cleverness. We can see it instead as directed by an ethical knowhow that achieves a benevolent posture through the giving up of egoistic habits of grasping. The awareness of the no self within the self leads to a compassionate stance toward others. This seems to be where spirituality comes into play for Varela and Thompson, and it illustrates how the progress of a science can come around to affirming what the spiritual disciplines knew. — Joshs
I understand "no self" - perhaps more accurately no-self - as the self "under bare poles." That is, not any sort of negation of self, but instead the self itself. This implies elemental, fundamental, primordial, original, even maybe primitive.The awareness of the no self within the self... illustrates how the progress of a science can come around to affirming what the spiritual disciplines knew. — Joshs
I understand "no self" - perhaps more accurately no-self - as the self "under bare poles." That is, not any sort of negation of self, but instead the self itself. This implies elemental, fundamental, primordial, original, even maybe primitive — tim wood
…the word self is a convenient way of referring to a series of mental and bodily events and formations, that have a degree of causal coherence and integrity through time. And the capitalized Self does exemplify our sense that hidden in these transitory formations is a real, unchanging essence that is the source of our identity and that we must protect. But this latter conviction may be unfounded and can actually be harmful. If there were a solid, really existing self hidden in or behind the aggregates, its unchangeableness would prevent any experience from occurring; its static nature would make the constant arising and subsiding of experience come to a screeching halt.
…cognition and experience do not appear to have a truly existing self, and the habitual belief in such an ego-self, the continual grasping to such a self, is the basis of the origin and continuation of human suffering and habitual patterns. In our culture, science has contributed to the awakening of this sense of the lack of a fixed self but has only described it from afar. Science has shown us that a fixed self is not necessary for mind but has not provided any way of dealing with the basic fact that this no-longer-needed self is precisely the ego-self that everyone clings to and holds most dear. By remaining at the level of description, has yet to awaken to the idea that the experience of mind, not merely without some impersonal, hypothetical, and theoretically constructed self but without ego-self, can be profoundly transformative.(Embodied Mind)
…the word self is a convenient way of referring to a series of mental and bodily events and formations, that have a degree of causal coherence and integrity through time. And the capitalized Self does exemplify our sense that hidden in these transitory formations is a real, unchanging essence that is the source of our identity and that we must protect. But this latter conviction may be unfounded and can actually be harmful. If there were a solid, really existing self hidden in or behind the aggregates, its unchangeableness would prevent any experience from occurring; its static nature would make the constant arising and subsiding of experience come to a screeching halt.
This seems an extreme and untenable claim.If there were a solid, really existing self hidden in or behind the aggregates, its unchangeableness would prevent any experience from occurring; its static nature would make the constant arising and subsiding of experience come to a screeching halt.
Then the wanderer Vacchagotta went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, exchanged courteous greetings with him. After an exchange of friendly greetings & courtesies, he sat to one side. As he was sitting there he asked the Blessed One: "Now then, Venerable Gotama, is there a self?"
When this was said, the Blessed One was silent.
"Then is there no self?"
A second time, the Blessed One was silent.
Then Vacchagotta the wanderer got up from his seat and left.
Then, not long after Vacchagotta the wanderer had left, Ven. Ananda said to the Blessed One, "Why, lord, did the Blessed One not answer when asked a question by Vacchagotta the wanderer?"
"Ananda, if I — being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is a self — were to answer that there is a self, that would be conforming with those brahmans & contemplatives who are exponents of eternalism [the view that there is an eternal, unchanging soul]. If I — being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is no self — were to answer that there is no self, that would be conforming with those brahmans & contemplatives who are exponents of annihilationism [the view that death is the annihilation of consciousness]. If I — being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is a self — were to answer that there is a self, would that be in keeping with the arising of knowledge that all phenomena are not-self?"
"No, lord."
"And if I — being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is no self — were to answer that there is no self, the bewildered Vacchagotta would become even more bewildered: 'Does the self I used to have now not exist?'"
The self and the world are eternal, barren, steadfast as a mountain peak, set firmly as a post. And though these beings rush around, circulate, pass away and re-arise, but this remains eternally. (DN1.1.32) 4
This is the self, this is the world; after death I shall be permanent, everlasting, not subject to change; I shall endure as long as eternity’ - this too he regards thus: ‘This is mine, this I am, this is my self’.
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