From: jimruttshow8596
The Jim Rutt Show frequently discusses theories of consciousness [01:10:00], with John Vervaeke’s “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis” series being a key resource [01:11:00]. A core idea presented is that higher states of consciousness (HSC) are perceived as “more real” than everyday reality [02:26:00].
Higher States of Consciousness vs. Dreams
Unlike dreams, which are often strange and incoherent and not integrated into our worldview [03:38:00], higher states of consciousness (HSC) lead people to believe they reveal what is “really real,” even if the experiences themselves are unique and ineffable [03:55:00]. This perception of reality is intriguing and raises questions about its justification [04:17:00].
While the “higher” in higher states of consciousness might imply a value judgment [04:25:00], “altered states of consciousness” (ASC) is a more neutral term [04:31:00]. The true value of these states, as highlighted by Dr. Vervaeke, lies not in their altered phenomenology but in their underlying functionality [05:52:00]. The focus should be on the profound insights and transformative potential they offer, rather than merely the subjective sensory experiences [06:03:03]. This distinction emphasizes that it’s “not altered states of consciousness that matters, it’s altered traits of character” [07:01:00].
Fluency, Insight, and Flow States
A critical component of understanding altered states of consciousness and insight is “fluency” [07:40:00]. In psychology, fluency refers to the brain’s use of processing ease to make judgments about information reliability [08:09:00]. A readable text, for example, is often judged as truer or more trustworthy [08:21:00].
Dr. Vervaeke argues that fluency is not just about ease, but about achieving an “optimal grip” on a situation [09:14:00]. This concept, derived from phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty [11:02:00], describes balancing different perspectives to best fit the task at hand [11:41:00].
When insights occur, there’s a “fluency spike”—a sudden increase in our grip on a problem, often accompanied by a “flash of vividness” or a “sense of more realness” [09:37:00]. Chaining these insights together leads to a flow state—an “extended aha experience” [12:25:00].
The Continuity Hypothesis
Dr. Vervaeke proposes the “continuity hypothesis,” suggesting that fluency, insight, flow states, and mystical experiences (and eventually transformative experiences) all utilize the same underlying cognitive machinery [10:05:00]. This idea is similar to proposals by Andrew Newberg [10:31:00].
A mystical experience is conceptualized as a flow state where the capacity being exercised is an “optimal grip” on the world or reality itself, rather than a specific object or situation [12:53:00]. This provides an orientation or “meta stance” towards the world, much like a martial artist’s foundational stance [13:57:00]. This value is not in the experience itself, but in the potential for a better fit between the agent and the comprehensive “arena” of the world [13:13:00].
De-Centering and Ego
One significant benefit of altered states of consciousness and mystical experiences is “de-centering” [15:11:00]. This concept suggests that just as children are more egocentric than adults, adults are egocentric compared to a “sage” [15:35:00]. Egocentrism contributes to many cognitive biases like confirmation bias [16:09:00].
Mystical experiences and flow states can weaken this egocentrism, making individuals more “world-centric” (onto-centric) by making reality and one’s connection to it more salient than the ego [16:51:00]. A practical example of de-centering is the “Solomon effect,” where people gain insight into a problem by describing it from a third-person perspective, as if a friend were observing it [17:15:00]. This shift in perspective can lead to breakthroughs [17:37:00].
Psychedelics, particularly strong doses, can also induce a temporary “ego death” state, demonstrating that the ego is not an essential part of one’s existence and that one can function without it, which can be a powerful realization [17:57:00]. The flow state also provides an “existential lesson” by showing that agency can be enhanced when the “nattering nanny manager ego” is quieted [18:47:00].
Collective Cognition and Tradition
Dr. Vervaeke emphasizes the importance of pursuing altered states of consciousness within a tradition or an “ecology of practices” embedded in a community [19:05:00]. This approach leverages the power of collective cognition, where mutual critique and diverse biases can lead to more robust understanding and overcome individual biases [20:20:00]. This “inter-subjective collective verification” [22:10:00] is crucial for curating spiritual experiences and avoiding the dangers of “autodidactism” [21:07:00] and “spiritual narcissism” [07:11:00].
Complexification and Emergence
“Complexification” describes a system that is simultaneously differentiating and integrating, leading to “emergence” [26:14:00]. The brain, for instance, is seen as a complex system that continuously integrates and differentiates, allowing it to perform many coordinated actions [26:38:00]. This process of complexification can couple with the complexity of the world, enabling an individual to better fit its intricate nature [27:32:00]. This concept updates Plato’s “anagoge” [27:40:00], suggesting that we should deal with complex phenomena using appropriately complex solutions, rather than oversimplifying with merely complicated ones [27:54:00].
Parasitic Processing and the Eightfold Path
Parasitic processing describes how individual adaptive cognitive shortcuts (like confirmation bias or availability heuristic) can mutually reinforce each other in a self-organizing way, leading to maladaptive spirals of anxiety or depression [30:08:00]. These “parasites” feed off adaptive machinery but take on a self-preserving life of their own, making them resistant to simple intervention [31:52:00].
The genius of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, was to articulate the need for a counteractive dynamical system [32:40:00] of processes that intervene at multiple points and levels in a parallel fashion to dismantle such maladaptive systems [32:49:00]. The Buddhist Eightfold Path is basically designed to achieve this [33:00:00]. This concept provides an ontological basis for cultivating “ecologies of practices” to address “foolishness” and cultivate wisdom [34:11:00].
Dukkha as Loss of Agency
Traditionally, Buddhism’s first noble truth is often translated as “everything is suffering” (dukkha) [34:48:00]. However, Dr. Vervaeke proposes a “heretical view” of dukkha: it refers not to pain or distress, but to a “loss of agency” [35:15:00]. The Buddha’s parables, such as the monkey stuck in pitch, emphasize self-entrapment and a loss of freedom, not just pain [35:41:00]. The Buddha himself stated that his teaching offers the “taste of freedom,” which is an agency word [36:44:00].
Historically, “suffering” meant to undergo something that overwhelms one’s agency, as in “suffer the little children to come unto me” (allow them) [36:58:00]. This reinterpretation suggests that dukkha encompasses situations where one loses agency, even through overwhelming pleasure [37:45:00]. Ignorance, a primary mark of dukkha, also leads to a profound loss of agency [38:29:00]. The etymology of dukkha meaning “off-center” or “out of joint” also aligns with this loss of functional agency [38:35:00].
Domicide and the Hellenistic Age
The term “domicide” refers to the “loss of home” [43:51:00]. This can mean a loss of physical housing, but more profoundly, it refers to losing the sense of being at home in one’s community, nation, or even the world [44:05:00]. The Greek “polis,” from which “politics” derives, represented a deep sense of being at home through shared religion, language, and ancestral roots [44:33:00]. Ostracization, a punishment worse than death, was a form of domicide [45:38:00].
The Hellenistic period, following Alexander the Great’s conquests, marked the rise of mega-empires where people were displaced, local communities disintegrated, and the seat of government was distant and disconnected [45:53:00]. This caused a widespread loss of belonging and rootedness, leading to an “age of anxiety” [46:36:00].
Modern society, particularly with globalization, faces a similar “age of anxiety” due to domicide [46:56:00]. The decline of the extended family, replaced by the abstract government and market, is a significant driver of this modern homelessness [47:17:00]. This cultural shift weakens the homing function that traditional institutions like the church and family once provided [48:38:00], leading to a longing for “extended groups of extended intimacy” [49:15:00].
Stoicism: Philosophy as Therapy for Domicide
In response to the domicide of the Hellenistic age, philosophy took a therapeutic turn, aiming to relieve suffering and cure existential anxiety [49:31:00]. Stoicism is a prime example of this, with modern cognitive behavioral therapies (CBT) directly citing Stoic practices as their forerunners [50:05:00].
Stoicism, heavily influenced by Socrates’ disciple Antisthenes, emphasizes “conversing with oneself” [50:40:00]. This isn’t rumination, but an internal Socratic dialogue to replace parasitic processing [50:56:00]. The Stoics introduced the term “cosmopolitan” – finding the cosmos as one’s polis or home [51:24:00].
They argued, following the Cynics, that suffering came from attempting to find “home” in contingent, human-made things like wealth, power, or fame [51:42:00]. Instead, true home is found in living in accordance with the laws of morality and nature [52:15:00]. Stoicism’s central tenet is prosoche (attention): paying careful attention to how one constantly “homes” the world through moment-to-moment thinking and perception [52:47:00]. The goal is to make this homing process resilient to contingencies and conventionalities, recognizing that life is always subject to fate [53:10:00].
The Two Worlds Model and the Meaning Crisis
The “Two Worlds Model” gained prominence in the Axial Age and is particularly significant in Christianity [54:16:00]. Jesus, seen as a “kairotic” figure [54:58:00], introduced the profound concept of agape – a creative love, akin to a parent’s love for a child, which transforms non-persons into persons [57:33:00]. This love is about creation and fostering independence, not consumption or cooperation [57:39:00]. Jesus’s genius was in seeing God’s creativity as agape [59:28:00], making people more “god-like” when they are more compassionate [59:35:00].
The Gospel of John integrates this agape with the Greek concept of logos (reason, intelligibility, order), seeing them as interpenetrating aspects of each other [01:00:10]. This view posits that humans are “dependent children” on logos and agape, finding meaning and continuity by participating in and creating more of them [01:01:01]. Christianity, through the “ecclesia” (gathering/church), provided a new way of homing oneself in a Roman Empire where many felt displaced, empowering individuals to create a sense of home anywhere [01:02:12].
Augustine of Hippo was a “titanic individual” who synthesized Neoplatonism (which unified Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics) with Christian agape and the idea of moral history [01:03:30]. He personalized this synthesis through his “Confessions,” creating the autobiographical self and a template for individual transformation (kairos) [01:04:22]. His “Augustine synthesis” provided the West with a massive sense of coherence (from logos), purpose (from moral history), and significance/connection (from agape) for over 1500 years [01:05:03].
The Crack in the Edifice: Aristotle and Aquinas
The rediscovery of Aristotle’s works in the Middle Ages created cracks in Augustine’s architecture. Aristotle’s emphasis on this world, known through senses and reason, challenged the prevalent extreme Platonism that prioritized an “upper world” as more real due to the harsh realities of the time [01:09:15].
Thomas Aquinas, a brilliant thinker, responded to this threat by solidifying the “Two Worlds Model” into a clear division between the natural and supernatural [01:10:33]. The “lower world” (natural) could be understood by science, reason, and observation, while the “upper world” (supernatural) was accessible only by faith, gifted by grace [01:10:54]. This effectively separated what we now call science and religion, making the supernatural “another world operating according to other principles,” inaccessible to reason [01:11:42].
While this saved the jobs of both theologians and nascent scientists [01:12:08], it unfortunately destroyed the Platonic concept of anagoge (ascent to wisdom) and the integration of the worlds [01:12:30]. Crucially, it made the “self-sufficiency of the natural world possible” [01:12:48], eventually leading to the supernatural world being seen as implausible and absurd [01:13:00]. This “Aquinas polish” on the Augustinian synthesis initiated the meaning crisis, as the foundational beliefs of Western civilization began to unravel [01:13:08].
The Death of the Universe: Galileo and the Enlightenment
Galileo, building on the revival of Platonism (with its emphasis on mathematics) and responding to nominalism (the idea that patterns are in the mind, not the world) [01:15:21], made a profound shift: he asserted that “mathematics is the language of the universe” [01:16:07]. This meant trusting mathematical descriptions of reality more than everyday sensory experience or spoken language, despite common experience suggesting otherwise [01:17:01].
This led to the discovery of inertial motion [01:17:49], challenging Aristotle’s view that everything moves “on purpose” to fulfill its inherent nature [01:17:57]. For Aristotle and the Christian narrative, the universe was purposeful and meaningful, part of a grand plan [01:18:08]. Galileo, by establishing that matter is “inert” [01:18:24] and things move not by purpose but by inertia, effectively “killed the universe” – stripping it of its inherent purpose, meaning, and biography [01:18:41].
Galileo’s work marked the beginning of modern science, rigorously separating scientific inquiry from theology and teleology [01:19:22]. This scientific method, while powerful, also led to a reduction of “knowing” (scientia) solely to propositional knowledge (justified true beliefs) [01:21:21]. This “propositional tyranny” [01:23:49] diminishes other forms of knowing, such as:
- Procedural knowledge (skills): judged as powerful/weak, not true/false [01:22:52].
- Perspectival knowledge (states of mind): provide a sense of presence and connectedness, not truth/falsity [01:22:57].
- Participatory knowledge (identities): open up affordances and provide a sense of belonging [01:23:01].
Losing these other senses of knowing and realness, particularly the sense of power, presence, and belonging, is seen as disastrous [01:23:18].
Luther, Descartes, and the Enlightenment Gap
Martin Luther and René Descartes, while seemingly disparate figures, shared a similar impact: their philosophies diminished the need for personal transformation to achieve meaning, particularly the idea of human participation in transformation [01:24:32].
- Luther’s extreme Augustinian view posited that transformation (conversion) was entirely “heteronomous” and driven by God [01:24:40], eliminating human participation and fostering radical individualism [01:25:01]. Calvin further reified this with an “absurd” and “irrelevant” God acting arbitrarily [01:26:09].
- Descartes believed no transformation was needed; a scientific, mathematical method of certainty was sufficient to connect with the world and alleviate the meaning crisis [01:26:51]. God’s role was reduced to merely guaranteeing the method’s validity [01:27:15].
Both inadvertently made God and the supernatural world “profoundly irrelevant” [01:27:36], contributing to the fragmentation of the Protestant church and the rise of secularism [01:27:46].
The Enlightenment, a subsequent phase, embraced reason (understood as logical-mathematical manipulation of propositions) plus evidence as the sole tools to alleviate human suffering [01:32:00]. This gave rise to the pillars of modernism: science, democracy, and the market, all seen as self-correcting processes driven by reason and evidence [01:33:51]. Secularism, the idea of the natural world running independently of the supernatural, became the primary justification for this [01:32:35].
However, the Enlightenment vision suffers from “naive Newtonianism” [01:35:51], lacking an understanding of complexity, relativity, and systems thinking. It mistakenly assumes the world is “complicated” (clockwork) rather than “complex” (self-organizing) [01:37:38], leading to systems of propositions inadequate for cultivating wisdom or dealing with parasitic processing [01:37:55]. It also presumes that standard adults possess all necessary tools to navigate the world, overlooking cognitive distortions and the need for deeper rationality [01:35:09].
Romanticism and its Decadent Form
Romanticism emerged as a reaction to the austere, disconnected worldview of the Enlightenment, particularly Immanuel Kant’s philosophy [01:38:51]. Kant’s idea that the mind is a “tremendous framing filtering device” [01:41:15], shaping experience in ways unrelated to “the thing in itself,” led to individuals feeling “locked inside of our heads” [01:40:06].
Romantics saw an escape hatch: by going backwards through the mind’s “irrational” and less processed layers, one could reconnect to the world and discover one’s “true self” [01:41:50]. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s concept of the “true self” before civilization’s filtering influenced this idea [01:42:06]. This search for wisdom involved strategies to access these earlier layers of processing to regain meaning [01:42:26].
However, Dr. Vervaeke objects to the notion of an inborn “true self” [01:43:15], proposing instead a self as a “complex recursive dynamical system” that is inherently “developmental and aspirational” [01:43:49], aligned with a Socratic view [01:44:10].
Romanticism also reversed John Locke’s empiricist view of the mind as a blank slate, instead viewing the world as an “empty canvas” [01:44:42] upon which the individual expresses and imposes their “authenticity” through an act of will [01:44:54]. This idea of the world being free of inherent properties or patterns is seen as a “genuinely stupid idea,” the “ultimate culmination of nominalism” [01:45:24].
This “decadent romanticism” [01:47:44], particularly its Rousseauvian branch, is argued to be the underlying philosophical basis of 20th-century authoritarian ideologies like fascism and Marxism [01:47:55]. The romantic glorification of the inner true self, and the willful expression and imposition of oneself on the world, links to concepts like the “will to power” and ultimately to dangerous ideas of inborn identity that have led to genocidal levels of political working out in the 20th century [01:48:08]. The romantic rejection of virtue ethics and the cultivation of character further illustrates its deviation from a more aspirational model of human development [01:46:16].