321. A Conversation So Intense It Might Transcend Time and Space | John Vervaeke

In this episode of The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson interviews Dr. John Vervaeke, a cognitive science professor at the University of Toronto, about relevance realization, meaning, and the meaning crisis. They discuss Carl Friston's work on categorization, AI, and entropy, relating negative emotion to an explosion of potential pathways and positive emotion to entropy reduction. Vervaeke connects this to surprise reduction and the brain's predictive processing. They explore how categories are not simple objects but tools related to goals, discussing generative models and evolutionary distance as measures of similarity. The conversation further delves into plausibility, the balance between convergence, elegance, and trustworthiness, and the importance of unifying theories. They also discuss the brain's self-organizing criticality, the relationship between consciousness and network organization, and the role of meaning as a signal of optimization. The discussion extends to the nature of nihilism, the importance of real relationships, and the concept of a universal spirit as an animating principle. They touch on the role of suffering and the potential for self-deception, as well as the practices for cultivating virtue. Vervaeke promotes his new YouTube series, "After Socrates," and Peterson promotes that Vervaeke will be recording a series of lectures for Peterson Academy.