John Vervaeke on Wisdom and the Meaning Crisis
Do scientists know how to make life meaningful?
For thousands of years, philosophers and theologians have talked about the meaning of life, yet we currently face a crisis of life’s apparent meaninglessness. Perhaps the tiller should be turned over to cognitive scientists so they can finally solve the problem.
Enter John Vervaeke, a cognitive scientist whose long YouTube video series, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis, competes with his colleague Jordan Peterson’s videos in showing the relevance of cognitive science to philosophical and religious issues. Recently, Vervaeke gave a talk at Lakehead University which provides an overview of his series, and there’s a telling moment in the talk, I think, which may point to a fundamental problem with his approach.
Vervaeke on the Meaning Crisis
In the overview video, Vervaeke lays out the meaning crisis as a pervasive feeling of alienation from the world and from each other. Suicide rates and loneliness, depression and anxiety are increasing even in affluent societies like the United States and the UK. Video games and social media exacerbate these “First World Problems” which were diagnosed as far back as Nietzsche, Freud, Marx, and Kafka.
