#317 – John Vervaeke: Meaning Crisis, Atheism, Religion & the Search for Wisdom

Lex Fridman Podcast

John Vervaeke is a psychologist and cognitive scientist at University of Toronto. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
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EPISODE LINKS:
John’s YouTube: https://youtube.com/johnvervaeke
John’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/vervaeke_john
John’s Facebook: https://facebook.com/VervaekeJohn
John’s Website: https://johnvervaeke.com
Books mentioned:
Flow: https://amzn.to/3cQDby9
On Bullshit: https://amzn.to/3PZDvYW
The Denial of Death: https://amzn.to/3KsIctp

PODCAST INFO:
Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast
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Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8
RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/
YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman
YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips

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OUTLINE:
Here’s the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) – Introduction
(07:03) – Meaning
(27:17) – Consciousness
(36:17) – Relevance realization
(47:40) – Wisdom
(54:54) – Truth
(59:38) – Reality
(1:11:59) – Meaning crisis
(1:35:27) – Religion
(1:43:17) – Nontheism
(1:58:26) – Distributed cognition
(2:16:37) – Flow
(2:36:35) – Psychedelics
(2:45:03) – Marxism and Nazism
(2:57:08) – Evil
(3:01:19) – Powerful ideas
(3:08:10) – Advice for young people