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Intro music: Beautiful Machines, by Andrew Sweeny

John Vervaeke is a professor at the University of Toronto and the creator of the popular online YouTube Series ‘Awakening from The Meaning Crisis’, which is a rich feast of cognitive science, philosophy, religion, and the history of ideas.  What makes Vervaeke special in my opinion is the breadth of his work, but his courage descend the ivory tower and talk to people ‘on the street’—and to exemplify his ideas.  His hero is Socrates, and he embodies the living dialogue and courage that Socrates represents.   

I’ve been writing about his series on Medium in an attempt to translate the heady stuff into plain English and converse and sometimes critique him, without dumbing him down—which is a difficult but rewarding task.    As well as being a remarkable thinker, John is a bodhisattva also a ‘real mensch’—or a person of great integrity and hospitality—and it was a huge pleasure to talk to him.     

Some topics we covered:  4 kinds of knowing and rationality; Folk psychology; Language of training and explaining; Memory Love and Rationality; Marrying rationality to wisdom;Ian MaGilchrist; Lingering and wandering; Being in time/Heidegger; Meditation, contemplation, and Dialogos; “But where the danger is also grows the saving power”; Critique of Empiricism and Romanticism; The meaning of science Enlightenment and the Bodhisattva; Binding the enlightenment project to humanity