From: jimruttshow8596
John Vervaeke, a professor of psychology and cognitive science at the University of Toronto [00:00:41], emphasizes the importance of integrating mystical experiences and altered states of consciousness within a broader framework of practices. He argues that the focus should be on the functionality of these states rather than their altered phenomenology, as they offer an “increased capacity for insight” [00:05:56] and can lead to “altered traits of character” [00:07:05]. Fixating on the phenomenology can lead to spiritual narcissism or spiritual bypassing [00:07:11].
Key Concepts in Mental Process Management
Fluency and Insight
In a technical psychological sense, fluency refers to the brain’s ability to achieve an “optimal grip” on a particular situation, indicating that information is trustworthy and valuable [00:09:14]. An insight is characterized as a “fluency spike,” a sudden increase in gaining a better grasp on a problem [00:09:37]. When insights are chained together, they lead to a flow state, which is an “extended aha experience” [00:12:27]. Mystical experiences are described as flow states where one achieves an “optimal grip on the world” or reality, serving as a “meta stance towards the world” [00:14:03]. This progression is part of Vervaeke’s “Continuity Hypothesis,” suggesting that fluency, insight, flow, mystical experiences, and transformative experiences utilize the “same machinery” [00:10:05].
De-centering
A crucial effect of altered states of consciousness is de-centering, which lessens egocentrism and makes individuals more “world-centric” [00:17:02]. Just as a child is more egocentric than an adult, adults are “terrifically egocentric” compared to a sage [00:16:06]. Egocentrism contributes to many cognitive biases like confirmation bias [00:16:20]. De-centering allows one to perceive situations from different perspectives, often leading to insights, similar to the “Solomon effect” where redescribing a problem from a third-person perspective helps overcome egocentric biases [00:17:35]. This process weakens the “blinding glare of the ego” [00:17:54].
Complexification
The brain is viewed as a complex system that is simultaneously differentiating and integrating, a process called complexification [00:26:16]. This enables the system to “do many more things in a more and more coordinated manner,” leading to emergent functions [00:26:22]. The process of complexification in the brain can be coupled with the complexity of the world, allowing for a better fit to the world’s complexities [00:27:32]. This concept updates Plato’s notion of anagoge, or ascent [00:27:40].
Parasitic Processing
Parasitic processing refers to maladaptive self-organizing processes that feed on adaptive cognitive machinery, leading to self-deceptive and self-destructive behaviors [00:31:00]. Examples include anxiety and depression spirals, where cognitive heuristics like confirmation bias and availability heuristic mutually reinforce negative thought patterns [00:30:09]. These “adaptive” spirals are resistant to intervention because they “adapt to our attempt to get rid of themselves” [00:32:19].
Ecologies of Practices as Counteractive Dynamical Systems
To effectively manage complex mental processes like parasitic processing, Vervaeke proposes creating “counteractive dynamical systems of processes” [00:32:49]. These systems intervene at multiple points and levels in a parallel fashion, which is the effective way to disassemble a dynamical system [00:32:56]. This approach is exemplified by the Buddha’s eightfold path, which is designed to counteract such maladaptive systems [00:33:02].
This idea forms the “ontological basis” for cultivating ecologies of practices [00:34:34]. These ecologies of practices are precisely these counteractive dynamical systems [00:34:38]. The danger of engaging in mystical experiences or psychedelics on one’s own is the opening up of one’s salience landscape in a powerful way, which requires “regularly and reliably committed” subjection of personal revelations to the “witnessing and the critiquing of others” [00:22:02]. This is analogous to how science works through collective cognition, where individual biases are overcome by mutual correction within a community [00:20:47].
These communities can be existing traditions or new, emerging groups that establish their own “tradition” [00:21:30]. The self-correcting nature of communal practice is essential for validating and integrating insights gained from altered states, preventing issues like “spiritual narcissism” or “spiritual bypassing” [00:07:11].
Dukkha as Loss of Agency
In Buddhism, the concept of dukkha is often translated as suffering. However, Vervaeke offers an interpretation, drawing from parables and etymology, that dukkha primarily refers to a “loss of agency” [00:36:51]. The Buddha’s teachings emphasize “freedom” [00:36:44], which is an “agency word” related to the recovery and restoration of one’s capacity to act [00:36:48]. This reinterpretation makes sense in the context of parasitic processing, as these cognitive spirals lead to a loss of agency, with ignorance being a primary mark of dukkha [00:38:29].
Philosophical Responses to the Loss of Meaning
The “Age of Anxiety” following Alexander the Great’s conquests led to domicide, not just the loss of housing but the loss of a sense of being at home in one’s community or the world [00:43:54]. This loss of rootedness led philosophies like Stoicism to offer a “different way of being at home” [00:51:22] by internalizing Socratic dialogue and focusing on how one constantly homes the world through meaning-making, rather than external contingencies [00:52:51].
This philosophical therapeutic turn sought to relieve existential suffering [00:49:56]. Later, Augustine synthesized Neoplatonism with Christianity, providing a framework for Western civilization for over a millennium, offering massive coherence, purpose, and significance [01:05:03]. However, the reintroduction of Aristotle’s emphasis on this world, combined with later intellectual developments like nominalism and Galileo’s scientific revolution, fragmented this worldview. Galileo’s work led to the concept of inert matter and a universe without inherent purpose, effectively “killing the universe” of its meaning [01:18:41].
The Enlightenment, while offering a vision of progress through reason, science, and democracy, had flaws including a “naive Newtonianism” and a truncated view of reason [01:35:51], lacking an understanding of complex systems and the need for wisdom beyond propositional knowledge [01:37:50].
Romanticism emerged as a reaction, seeking to reconnect with the world and a “true self” by delving into the “irrational aspects of the mind” [01:41:56], rejecting the cultivation of virtue [01:46:16] and viewing the world as an “empty canvas” for self-expression [01:44:45]. This decadent romanticism [01:47:44] ultimately led to “pseudo-religious ideologies” and some of the “worst nightmares of the 20th century” [01:48:13], where a belief in an “inborn true self” can be tragically close to notions of racism [01:49:16].
Thus, the historical trajectory of philosophical and scientific thought demonstrates the continuous human struggle to understand and manage complex mental processes, often highlighting the need for comprehensive and communally supported ecologies of practices to cultivate wisdom and address existential challenges.