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Episode

#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
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2:35:49
Published: Thu Feb 23 2023
Description

Brought to you by Wealthfront high-yield savings account, Basecamp refreshingly simple project management, and Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating.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.’Please enjoy!This episode is brought to you by Basecamp! Basecamp combines everything you need to manage your team and projects into one simple platform. Optimize your business with Basecamp and cut your inboxes and calendars in half. You can save time and money. Right now, Basecamp is offering a free 30-day trial. Plus, listeners of The Tim Ferriss Show get an exclusive discount: get 10% off your first year’s annual subscription when you sign up at Basecamp.com/Tim. *This episode is also brought to you by Wealthfront! Wealthfront is an app that helps you save and invest your money. Right now, you can earn 4.05% APY—that’s the Annual Percentage Yield—with the Wealthfront Cash Account. That’s more than twelve times more interest than if you left your money in a savings account at the average bank, according to FDIC.gov. It takes just a few minutes to sign up, and then you’ll immediately start earning 3.8% interest on your savings. And when you open an account today, you’ll get an extra fifty-dollar bonus with a deposit of five hundred dollars or more.  Visit Wealthfront.com/Tim to get started.*This episode is also brought to you by Eight Sleep! Eight Sleep’s Pod Cover is the easiest and fastest way to sleep at the perfect temperature. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking to offer the most advanced (and user-friendly) solution on the market. Simply add the Pod Cover to your current mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. It also splits your bed in half, so your partner can choose a totally different temperature.Go to EightSleep.com/Tim and save $250 on the Eight Sleep Pod Cover. Eight Sleep currently ships within the USA, Canada, the UK, select countries in the EU, and Australia.*[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.*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim’s email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, Margaret Atwood, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Dr. Gabor Maté, Anne Lamott, Sarah Silverman, Dr. Andrew Huberman, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Chapters
The 8sleep PodCover and Basecamp offer products that can help improve your sleep quality through temperature adjustments and organizational tools respectively.
00:00 - 03:09 (03:09)
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Sleep
Summary

The 8sleep PodCover and Basecamp offer products that can help improve your sleep quality through temperature adjustments and organizational tools respectively.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show
In this episode, host Shane Parrish talks with Keith Stanovich, a leading researcher in the field of rationality and cognitive science, about the different types of knowledge, their defining characteristics, and associated memory types.
03:10 - 08:08 (04:58)
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Knowledge
Summary

In this episode, host Shane Parrish talks with Keith Stanovich, a leading researcher in the field of rationality and cognitive science, about the different types of knowledge, their defining characteristics, and associated memory types.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show
The concept of participatory knowing involves knowing by being, resulting from how an individual and reality have been co-shaped to generate certain affordances.
08:08 - 14:30 (06:21)
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Participatory Knowing
Summary

The concept of participatory knowing involves knowing by being, resulting from how an individual and reality have been co-shaped to generate certain affordances. This type of knowing prioritizes the procedural, the perspectival, and the participatory over the propositional.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show
The flow state enhances one's cognitive abilities, and it may also offer some transferable skills outside of video games, such as improved focus in daily tasks.
14:30 - 20:33 (06:02)
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Video games
Summary

The flow state enhances one's cognitive abilities, and it may also offer some transferable skills outside of video games, such as improved focus in daily tasks.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show
listen on SpotifyListen on Youtube
Drama
Summary

I look at the script and I look at the script and I look at the script and I look at the script and I look at the script and I look at the script and I look at the script and I look at the script.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show
The guest shares his experience of losing his faith in Christianity and the impact it had on his family, relationships and personal growth.
27:17 - 35:20 (08:02)
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Self-Transcendence
Summary

The guest shares his experience of losing his faith in Christianity and the impact it had on his family, relationships and personal growth. He also explores the concept of wisdom and self-transcendence.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show
The same processes that make us intelligent problem-solvers, also make us prone to self-deceptive and self-destructive behaviors.
35:20 - 42:10 (06:49)
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Self-deception
Summary

The same processes that make us intelligent problem-solvers, also make us prone to self-deceptive and self-destructive behaviors. It requires both intelligence and rationality to deal with the self-deception that emerges in problem-solving.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show
In this episode, the speakers discuss the limitations of using similarity as a logical tool and instead rely on psychological similarity.
42:10 - 47:15 (05:04)
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Intuition
Summary

In this episode, the speakers discuss the limitations of using similarity as a logical tool and instead rely on psychological similarity. They also explore the powers and perils of intuition and Hogarth's proposal to educate intuition using relevant properties.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show
The podcast explores the concept of flow state and how it is an evolutionary marker for gaining insight and making sense of real patterns through the process of implicit learning.
47:15 - 56:48 (09:33)
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Flow State
Summary

The podcast explores the concept of flow state and how it is an evolutionary marker for gaining insight and making sense of real patterns through the process of implicit learning.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show
In this podcast, Jonathan Haidt discusses his techniques for cultivating active open-mindedness, which include various contemplation, circling, and paraphrasing practices, as well as shared Lectio Divina.
56:48 - 1:03:37 (06:48)
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Open-Mindedness
Summary

In this podcast, Jonathan Haidt discusses his techniques for cultivating active open-mindedness, which include various contemplation, circling, and paraphrasing practices, as well as shared Lectio Divina. He stresses the importance of internalizing Socrates and surrounding oneself with people who will challenge and criticize in the right ways, and not just wiping our glasses or biases clean without putting them to the test.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show
In this podcast, the host discusses the intimacy that can be achieved through mindfulness without sexual connotations, allowing for two individuals' identities to be born anew at the present moment.
1:03:37 - 1:08:54 (05:16)
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Mindfulness
Summary

In this podcast, the host discusses the intimacy that can be achieved through mindfulness without sexual connotations, allowing for two individuals' identities to be born anew at the present moment. The podcast also touches on the North American interpretation of metta and its differences from the Christian notion of forgiveness.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show
This conversation revolves around the concept of the order of causes, specifically how the mind and body must fundamentally be in contact to map onto each other.
1:08:54 - 1:16:01 (07:06)
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Philosophy
Summary

This conversation revolves around the concept of the order of causes, specifically how the mind and body must fundamentally be in contact to map onto each other. Also discussed is the difference between an atheist and non-theist's view on ultimate reality.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show
In this episode, David Nichtern discusses the sacred and the profane, and shares his perspective on finding experiences that provoke a sense of timelessness in order to reconnect with ourselves and the depths of reality.
1:16:01 - 1:26:53 (10:51)
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Sacred
Summary

In this episode, David Nichtern discusses the sacred and the profane, and shares his perspective on finding experiences that provoke a sense of timelessness in order to reconnect with ourselves and the depths of reality.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show
John Vervaeke talks about wisdom traditions, the grand unified field theory of ancient philosophy, and how philosophy should be embraced as a way of life for the cultivation of wisdom, meaning, and virtue.
1:26:53 - 1:37:41 (10:48)
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Philosophy
Summary

John Vervaeke talks about wisdom traditions, the grand unified field theory of ancient philosophy, and how philosophy should be embraced as a way of life for the cultivation of wisdom, meaning, and virtue.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show
The human mind is a self-organizing entity that relies heavily on the environment and other people to navigate through the combinatorial explosion of available information.
1:37:41 - 1:43:35 (05:53)
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Psychology
Summary

The human mind is a self-organizing entity that relies heavily on the environment and other people to navigate through the combinatorial explosion of available information.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show
A convergence is occurring about what the function of consciousness is, and paying attention to it can give us the machinery for explaining the nature of consciousness.
1:43:35 - 1:49:14 (05:38)
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Consciousness
Summary

A convergence is occurring about what the function of consciousness is, and paying attention to it can give us the machinery for explaining the nature of consciousness. While many are focused on the question of how consciousness can exist in a physical world, finding an answer to the function of consciousness is just as important.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show
In this podcast episode, the concept of adverbial qualia is discussed and how consciousness heightens relevance realization.
1:49:14 - 1:55:08 (05:54)
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Consciousness
Summary

In this podcast episode, the concept of adverbial qualia is discussed and how consciousness heightens relevance realization. The guest aims to explain the two types of qualia and how they come into play in a consciousness state.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show
John Vervaeke and Chris Mastropietro discuss the deep continuity between the principles of consciousness, cognition, life, self-organization, and some fundamental ways in which reality unfolds for us; they introduce the three intimacies people experience through their consciousness.
1:55:08 - 2:03:56 (08:47)
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Consciousness
Summary

John Vervaeke and Chris Mastropietro discuss the deep continuity between the principles of consciousness, cognition, life, self-organization, and some fundamental ways in which reality unfolds for us; they introduce the three intimacies people experience through their consciousness.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show
John Vervaeke and Jonathan Pageau discuss the importance of narrative in understanding reality, acknowledging its significance while recognizing that ways of connecting to reality exist beyond narrative.
2:03:56 - 2:08:40 (04:44)
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Narrative
Summary

John Vervaeke and Jonathan Pageau discuss the importance of narrative in understanding reality, acknowledging its significance while recognizing that ways of connecting to reality exist beyond narrative.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show
The podcast discusses the importance of opponent processing in democracy and how it has been degenerated into adversarial.
2:08:40 - 2:19:37 (10:56)
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Democracy, community building, opponent processing
Summary

The podcast discusses the importance of opponent processing in democracy and how it has been degenerated into adversarial. It also talks about how to cultivate a meaningful life in community and the importance of practicing it with a group of people.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show
This podcast episode explores how the labels and frameworks we use in Western culture, such as subjective-objective, transjective and philosophy, can shape our perception of reality.
2:19:37 - 2:26:11 (06:34)
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Perception
Summary

This podcast episode explores how the labels and frameworks we use in Western culture, such as subjective-objective, transjective and philosophy, can shape our perception of reality. The guest also discusses how his study of cognitive science has impacted his personal perception of reality.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show
The idea of experiencing mental connectedness has become increasingly prominent in cities and is being revisited as a way of understanding deeper connections in human relationships.
2:26:11 - 2:32:11 (05:59)
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Mental Connectedness
Summary

The idea of experiencing mental connectedness has become increasingly prominent in cities and is being revisited as a way of understanding deeper connections in human relationships. It raises questions about whether this is an older way of knowing or a newer way that underlies various concepts.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show
Get a discount of $250 on the 8Sleep Pod Cover at 8sleep.com/Tim and subscribe to Tim's Friday newsletter at tim.blog/Friday to receive updates on his favorite gadgets, books, and more.
2:32:11 - 2:35:43 (03:32)
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Technology
Summary

Get a discount of $250 on the 8Sleep Pod Cover at 8sleep.com/Tim and subscribe to Tim's Friday newsletter at tim.blog/Friday to receive updates on his favorite gadgets, books, and more.

Episode
#657: Professor John Vervaeke — How to Build a Life of Wisdom, Flow, and Contemplation
Podcast
The Tim Ferriss Show