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Lex Fridman Podcast

#317 – John Vervaeke: Meaning Crisis, Atheism, Religion & the Search for Wisdom

Lex Fridman Podcast

Lex Fridman

Technology, Society & Culture, Philosophy, Science

4.713.6K Ratings

🗓️ 4 September 2022

⏱️ 197 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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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EPISODE LINKS:
John’s YouTube: https://youtube.com/johnvervaeke
John’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/vervaeke_john
John’s Facebook: https://facebook.com/VervaekeJohn
John’s Website: https://johnvervaeke.com
Books mentioned:
Flow: https://amzn.to/3cQDby9
On Bullshit: https://amzn.to/3PZDvYW
The Denial of Death: https://amzn.to/3KsIctp

PODCAST INFO:
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YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips

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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

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

The following is a conversation with John Verveki, a psychologist and cognitive scientist

0:04.8

at University of Toronto.

0:06.6

I highly recommend his lecture series called Awakening from the Meaning Crisis, which

0:12.3

covers the history and future of humanity's search for meaning.

0:18.4

And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor.

0:20.9

Check them out in the description as the best way to support this podcast.

0:24.4

We got Ms. In a Main for Style, Inside Traco for Longevity, Aitslipe for

0:29.9

Napping, Athletic Greens for Performance, and On It for Supplements.

0:35.6

Choose wise and my friends.

0:37.4

And now onto the full ad reads.

0:39.0

As always, no ads in the middle.

0:40.7

I try to make this interesting, but if you skip them, please do check out our sponsors.

0:44.7

I enjoy their stuff.

0:46.2

Maybe you will too.

0:49.0

This show is brought to you by Ms. In and Main, the maker of comfortable style is dress

0:53.7

shirts and other menswear.

0:56.3

I wear their black dress shirt, I have a bunch of them and I love it.

1:01.6

It's comfortable, it fits great, it's light, but not too light because it still holds

1:07.8

the form as the flexibility of athletic wear.

1:10.9

So I feel pretty, you know, I'm pretty short on adjectives when I describe stuff.

1:17.3

Adjectives are tricky.

1:18.3

In fact, I try to avoid adjectives because I think that's a slippery slope that you

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