John Vervaeke is a cognitive scientist, professor, and YouTube educator. Humans are meaning making machines. Even when we believe our lives lack meaning, we instinctively follow something; an idea, a goal, or a routine. So, how can we intentionally create more meaning in our lives, and what’s the best way to discover it when it feels absent? Expect to learn why humans need meaning and why having meaning is very important to humans, what creates meaning for an individual, why the word purpose is not the same as meaning, the relationship between affluence and meaning, how to avoid self-deception, how to think about meaning without embracing something outside of reality and much more... Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Get a 20% discount on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D, and more from AG1 at https://drinkag1.com/modernwisdom Get a Free Sample Pack of all LMNT Flavours with any purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: https://tinyurl.com/43hv6y59 #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: https://tinyurl.com/2rtz7avf #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: https://tinyurl.com/3ccn5vkp - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Why do humans need meaning in life?
given that we are biological creatures why do we need meaning why do humans need to do all this extra work in order to be satisfied with life well uh i have to tell you that um i've been going through a uh since the publication of the book i've been going through a serious reflection on this question again uh and going uh deeper into it um There's many levels of answering that question.
At one level, meaning has to do with sense-making. It has to do with how we properly pay attention to the right kind of information that can allow us to reliably solve a wide variety of problems in a wide variety of domains. And that's one aspect of meaning, that sort of agentic aspect.
But consonant with that is we need to be connected to other people because most of our problem solving is done in connection with other people. So there's an initial... Sense-making dimension, this is often talked about as sort of coherence in the meaning in life literature. It's your world. Is your sense-making making sense to you, is how I sometimes put it.
The sense-making is what you're doing sort of automatically, and when you reflect on it, you go, yeah, that makes sense. My world isn't absurd or things like that. And then, um, we need to feel connected to other people because most of our, um, problem solving, uh, is done via other people.
That's our great superpower individually, biologically, as you framed it, we're pretty pathetic animals, you know, a really angry dog can take us out. Um, and so our superpowers, we can coordinate together, um, and, uh, And train some of those dogs and sharpen some of those sticks and then kill anything on the planet. And so we need to be connected to other people.
And that brings with it its own special problem that my friend Greg Enriquez made sort of prevalent. We developed the superpower of connecting and coordinating called language. And language is something really, really powerful in helping us coordinate. But it also does something really novel. It makes the content of our minds accessible.
We're sort of exposed to each other in a way in which no other organism is exposed to its fellow creatures. And so we have to also develop this way of balancing between coordinating with other people but not being overexposed. So we have to develop relationships of trust and forgiveness and
and belonging, and we have to balance between being individuals and having an individual identity and a group identity. So that's all central to, uh, meaning. And then, uh, beyond that, uh, We fall prey in both of those domains to massive self-deception. I don't pay attention to the right things. I misframe you. I'm biased in my attitude towards you. And so we have to do a lot to correct that.
We have to try and ameliorate that. And what that means is we also have to be connected to standards by which we can – correct ourselves. Standards about what is most real, what is best, what is most beautiful. And that's a deeper kind of connectedness. That's kind of a connectedness to what we consider ultimacy. So I've tried to show you how all of these things are all important dimensions in
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Chapter 2: What role does social connection play in our sense of meaning?
And the villain, of course, Cypher, which means a symbol without any depth, he wants to go back to the Matrix. And we know that's why he's a villainous person, because he's betraying the commitment to reality and to his own humanity.
Just lingering on what you said before about the difference, a lot of people, I think, will use purpose and meaning almost interchangeably, even though when you think about it, it's not quite, but the two kind of come as a package pair. They're a twin pack of values that a lot of people talk about.
When you were mentioning about how if you use the word purpose, if you don't achieve it, your life is worthless. And once you do achieve it, if you do achieve it, what do you do next? It seems to me the difference between purpose and orientation is the same as between destination and journey. That one is moving you in a direction and it's kind of an endless game. It's an infinite game.
Whereas the other, by design, the purpose is this thing. Unless you do some jiggery-pokery with your purpose and create some sort of instrumental purpose. My purpose is to show up every day in a manner that's like, yeah, whatever. Don't litigate me out of what most people mean by purpose. Yeah, it feels like that. Attachment. Attachment to outcome.
Yeah, and I think when you, as soon as you talk, I think that's exactly right, journey rather than destination. I think, and playing the infinite game rather than the finite game, Kars's notion, I think that's exactly what I'm trying to convey. What also comes up when you get back to the notion of orientation is, You start to connect what can be isolated by the term purpose.
You start to connect back to, well, what ultimately orients you is what's true, what is good, what is beautiful. Whereas purpose can be very egocentric. It can be what I most want to have. Whereas orientation is reality-centric. What do I most need to be in order to be in touch with reality, to be deeply in touch with myself, with other people, with the world?
And see, a lot of people have kind of, and you see this in sort of the rampant rise of cynicism and nihilism in popular media, because of massive senses of burnout and betrayal and bullshit, people have sort of given up on the world in some ways. And the problem with that is that's not optional. Our model of who and what we are is inevitably bound up with our model of who and what the world is.
And so, So the degree to which we find the world an incredibly scary place is the degree to which we create sort of an insular model of ourselves. We withdraw, and we withdraw, and we withdraw, and we withdraw. The problem with that is that's the behavior ultimately of an organism in pain and in distress. And the fact that we don't recognize it as that behavior isn't of central importance.
We're withdrawing, and that's the move of pain and distress. That's the fundamental move of depression. So even if you don't feel depressed, you're already behaving in a depressive manner.
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Chapter 3: How is purpose different from meaning?
There's cross-referencing, there's diagrams, there's practices you can undertake to get a deeper understanding of the concepts. And so there's going to be these four tiers, and there's going to be like a narrative structure and an argumentative structure, right, and a reflective structure. It's going to be this.
And the hope is that that—and that a lot of the teaching will not go just in what I'm saying, but what I'm undergoing and how I'm being transformed. There's going to be people that are going to travel with me in various places and meet me in various places.
And the hope is to open people up to the advent of the sacred so they can properly orient to receiving it so that we can really transformatively trust each other in the way we need to in order to address the meeting crisis.
Well, I'm glad after taking on such a medium-sized topic, you're taking it a little bit smaller for the next one. Very reassuring that you're going to keep it nice and niche. John, I appreciate the heck out of you, mate. I can't wait until you get whatever you've got coming out next out. And I would love to bring you back on whenever you're ready.
I'll always come back and talk to you, Chris. Thank you very much. And thank you for allowing me to shamelessly plug my new book, which I really appreciate.
Everyone should go and check it out. I appreciate you, mate. Thank you. Thank you so much, Chris.
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