Society Is Breaking — And It’s Already Started w/ John Vervaeke

1. Vervaeke on 'The One' as a Verb

Timestamp: 00:02:27 to 00:04:27 - watch this moment on skim

John Vervaeke explains that neoplatonism describes the first principle as 'the One,' not as a numerical entity but as an ontological priority. He suggests it's better understood as a verb, 'oneing,' representing the act of drawing properties and relations together. This 'oneing' culminates in a principle of wanting, the ground of all acts of knowing and self-organization, fitting together being, knowing, and being known.

Significance (High): This reframing of 'the One' offers a dynamic perspective on understanding fundamental principles.

Sources in support: John Vervaeke (Guest)

Neutral sources: Robert Breedlove (Host)

2. Vervaeke Defines Voluntary Necessity

Timestamp: 00:05:59 to 00:06:39 - watch this moment on skim

Vervaeke introduces the concept of 'voluntary necessity,' akin to the feeling in love or compelling arguments, where one is bound yet enlivened, not enslaved. He argues that this voluntary necessity is how we participate in the primordial process of knowing, contrasting it with faith as blind belief. This participation is the ground of both necessity and voluntary action, a key aspect of our knowing.

Significance (Medium): This concept offers a nuanced understanding of how we engage with fundamental truths and values.

Sources in support: John Vervaeke (Guest)

Neutral sources: Robert Breedlove (Host)

3. Vervaeke: The One Enables Difference-Making

Timestamp: 00:09:06 to 00:12:03 - watch this moment on skim

Vervaeke describes 'the One' not as a physical entity but as the place that makes all difference-making possible. He uses the analogy of a place rather than a thing, suggesting that the One is the ground for how cognition and being participate in the same principle. This principle makes the grammars of cognition and being fit together, culminating in the One, also called the Good, which underlies all normative judgments.

Significance (High): This analogy provides a framework for understanding the One's role in enabling both knowledge and existence.

Sources in support: John Vervaeke (Guest)

Neutral sources: Robert Breedlove (Host)

4. Breedlove on Intelligibility as Affordance

Timestamp: 00:14:07 to 00:15:20 - watch this moment on skim

Breedlove asks if intelligibility is an affordance, prompting Vervaeke to elaborate on the real relationship of fittedness between intelligence and reality. Vervaeke explains that intelligibility is the way the world reaches towards intelligence, and vice versa, creating a real relation of fittedness. This fittedness allows relevance realization to couple with how reality is realizing itself, suggesting a deep connection between mind and world.

Significance (Medium): This exploration highlights the reciprocal relationship between intelligence and the world, emphasizing their inherent interconnectedness.

Sources in support: Robert Breedlove (Host), John Vervaeke (Guest)

5. Vervaeke Differentiates Action and Activity

Timestamp: 00:16:16 to 00:17:19 - watch this moment on skim

Vervaeke distinguishes between action and activity, defining action as goal-directed behavior where an agent can change its behavior to reach a desired goal. He contrasts this with activity, like a rock rolling down a hill, which lacks intentionality and prioritization. Vervaeke argues that attention is key to action; without caring or prioritization, there is no true action, concluding that if it doesn't have attention, it's not engaging in action.

Significance (Medium): This distinction clarifies the role of intentionality and attention in defining meaningful action.

Sources in support: John Vervaeke (Guest)

Neutral sources: Robert Breedlove (Host)

6. Breedlove on Action as Goal-Directed Behavior

Timestamp: 00:19:08 to 00:20:31 - watch this moment on skim

Breedlove introduces Mises's perspective on action as goal-directed behavior, the purposeful use of means to pursue ends. Vervaeke adds that it's about the fit between subjectivity and objectivity, a unity prior to the split. They discuss adaptivity and problem-solving as inherently transjective, existing in the between, which is more of a one than either the subjective or the objective, explaining how they self-organize and fit together.

Significance (Medium): This perspective emphasizes the inherent unity and purposefulness in human action.

Sources in support: Robert Breedlove (Host), John Vervaeke (Guest)

7. Vervaeke on Process vs. Product Perennialism

Timestamp: 00:22:24 to 00:24:35 - watch this moment on skim

Vervaeke distinguishes between product and process perennialism, arguing that while traditions may not say the same thing (product), they converge on universal processes (process). He uses evolution as an analogy: it's a perennial process, but the products are not identical. He suggests that practices like Daoism, Zen, and Neoplatonism converge on a 'no place' where all thinging happens, adapting us to our biological ecology and cultural history, ultimately orienting us differently.

Significance (Medium): This distinction offers a nuanced view of perennialism, emphasizing the importance of underlying processes.

Sources in support: John Vervaeke (Guest)

Neutral sources: Robert Breedlove (Host)

8. Vervaeke on Transjectivity

Timestamp: 00:27:40 to 00:31:01 - watch this moment on skim

Vervaeke explains transjectivity using examples like adaptivity and problems, which are neither purely objective nor subjective. He argues that adaptivity is the addressing of problems, and affordances like graspability are also transjective. He suggests that Gibson was struggling with this concept and that Gibson would like the term transjective. Transjectivity involves deconstructing dichotomies to perceive and participate in the world in a fundamentally different way, a practice offered by various traditions.

Significance (Medium): This explanation clarifies transjectivity as a way to move beyond traditional subject-object divisions.

Sources in support: John Vervaeke (Guest)

Neutral sources: Robert Breedlove (Host)

9. Breedlove on Being and Intelligibility

Timestamp: 00:35:24 to 00:36:36 - watch this moment on skim

Breedlove paraphrases Pearl, stating that to be is to be intelligible, identifying being and intelligibility. Vervaeke elaborates that to think of something unintelligible is a performative contradiction, as it negates the very act of thinking. He explains that a performative contradiction occurs when a statement contradicts the state from which it's made, highlighting the inherent intelligibility required for any statement.

Significance (Medium): This discussion underscores the fundamental connection between existence and intelligibility.

Sources in support: Robert Breedlove (Host), John Vervaeke (Guest)

10. Vervaeke on Possibilizing

Timestamp: 00:39:15 to 00:40:21 - watch this moment on skim

Vervaeke describes reality as realizing itself, making relevance realization continually possible for us. He emphasizes that this possibility is real, like potential energy, and that information is the ruling out of possibilities. He connects this to affordances, which are the possibilities for action, given to us by the way reality unfolds, making us and the world fit together, so our relevance realization can realize how reality is realizing itself.

Significance (Medium): This perspective highlights the dynamic and interconnected nature of reality and our ability to understand it.

Sources in support: John Vervaeke (Guest)

Neutral sources: Robert Breedlove (Host)

11. Breedlove on Action as Transcendental

Timestamp: 00:44:00 to 00:45:25 - watch this moment on skim

Breedlove suggests that action is a transcendental, like consciousness or embodiment, always presupposed whenever we make claims about what we know or what reality is. Vervaeke agrees, distinguishing between saying that whenever we're thinking, we must be performing an act, and saying that whatever we're thinking about must be an act. He emphasizes that relevance is undefinable in a formal or scientific sense, but this doesn't negate the value of studying relevance realization.

Significance (Medium): This discussion explores the fundamental role of action in shaping our understanding of reality.

Sources in support: Robert Breedlove (Host), John Vervaeke (Guest)

12. Vervaeke on the Limits of Formal Systems

Timestamp: 00:45:25 to 00:46:29 - watch this moment on skim

Vervaeke explains that relevance is undefinable because formal systems require a 'small world' with clear information and certainty, while reality is a 'large world' with genuine uncertainty. He argues that the act of formalization cannot be done by a formal system, leading to a vicious infinite regress. Similarly, a scientific definition requires an essence, which relevance lacks, making it impossible to give a formal definition or scientific essence for it.

Significance (Medium): This explanation highlights the inherent limitations of formal systems in capturing the complexities of reality.

Sources in support: John Vervaeke (Guest)

Neutral sources: Robert Breedlove (Host)

13. Vervaeke on the Market as a Dynamical System

Timestamp: 00:50:45 to 00:51:48 - watch this moment on skim

Vervaeke argues that the market is a multi-levelled complex dynamic system with feedback cycles, self-organizing and self-correcting. He emphasizes the presence of enabling constraints and variation, novelty, and selective criteria that reshape how the market reproduces itself. He concludes that the most plausible description of the market is as a dynamical system with bottom-up causes and top-down constraints, emergence and emanation.

Significance (Medium): This perspective provides a framework for understanding the market as a complex, self-organizing system.

Sources in support: John Vervaeke (Guest)

Neutral sources: Robert Breedlove (Host)

14. Breedlove on the Animal That Makes Promises

Timestamp: 00:56:04 to 00:57:13 - watch this moment on skim

Breedlove highlights the animal that makes promises, closely allied to agreements, as key to literacy, numeracy, and money. He suggests that these are all agreements, where we agree on the meaning of terms. Vervaeke adds that promises depend on normativity interacting with how selves mutually recognize each other, leading to a renegotiation of terms and a mutual agreement to use terms in a specific way.

Significance (Medium): This discussion emphasizes the role of promises and agreements in shaping human interaction and culture.

Sources in support: Robert Breedlove (Host), John Vervaeke (Guest)

15. Vervaeke on Action as Problem Solving

Timestamp: 00:59:57 to 01:01:17 - watch this moment on skim

Vervaeke suggests that action is problem-solving, requiring a space between the goal and the actor, with some challenge to crossing that space. He connects this to predictive processing and active inference. Breedlove adds that Mises uses the term 'uneasiness' to describe this space, the gap between the goal and where you are. This uneasiness is the longing that drives action, making problem-solving a fundamental aspect of being alive.

Significance (Medium): This perspective emphasizes the role of problems and challenges in driving action and shaping our experience.

Sources in support: John Vervaeke (Guest)

Neutral sources: Robert Breedlove (Host)

16. Breedlove on Action and Contact

Timestamp: 01:01:58 to 01:06:58 - watch this moment on skim

Breedlove cites Hapa, stating that it is only through action that mind and reality can come into contact. Vervaeke connects this to contact epistemology, emphasizing that whenever we're touching, we're always being touched. He argues that touch is the sense in which realizing and being realized are always co-present, using contact metaphors for our most intimate relationship to reality, emphasizing that the action of intelligence is as much changing the world as being changed by it.

Significance (Medium): This discussion highlights the reciprocal nature of action and the importance of contact in shaping our understanding of reality.

Sources in support: Robert Breedlove (Host), John Vervaeke (Guest)

17. Vervaeke on Foundations vs. Presuppositions

Timestamp: 01:09:08 to 01:11:11 - watch this moment on skim

Vervaeke distinguishes between a foundation and a primordial presupposition. A foundation claims there's no way it can be wrong, while a presupposition acknowledges it could be wrong but is relied upon in any act of correction. He argues against foundationalism, stating it leads to self-contradiction, and suggests that action is a primordial presupposition, always necessary when making claims about what we know or what reality is.

Significance (Medium): This distinction offers a nuanced view of knowledge and the limits of certainty.

Sources in support: John Vervaeke (Guest)

Neutral sources: Robert Breedlove (Host)

18. Vervaeke on Performative Contradiction

Timestamp: 01:11:12 to 01:12:22 - watch this moment on skim

Vervaeke explains that a performative contradiction occurs when a statement contradicts the state from which it's made. He argues that the axiom of action is protected by performative contradiction, as any attempt to deny it is itself an act. He suggests that performative contradictions are more important than propositional contradictions, leading to non-propositional knowing and a deeper understanding of reality.

Significance (Medium): This discussion highlights the importance of performative consistency in philosophical inquiry.

Sources in support: John Vervaeke (Guest)

Neutral sources: Robert Breedlove (Host)

19. Breedlove on Action and Meaning

Timestamp: 01:15:50 to 01:17:08 - watch this moment on skim

Breedlove argues that it is only through action that mind and reality can come into contact, making action the unity prior to subject and object. He suggests that action is axiomatic, and any attempt to refute it is itself an act. Vervaeke agrees, stating that the denial of action is purposeful behavior, oriented towards a norm, and that we are always trying to speak the truth.

Significance (Medium): This perspective emphasizes the fundamental role of action in connecting us to reality and shaping our understanding of it.

Sources in support: Robert Breedlove (Host), John Vervaeke (Guest)

20. Vervaeke on the Limits of Knowledge

Timestamp: 01:17:19 to 01:18:18 - watch this moment on skim

Vervaeke emphasizes the importance of humility, remembering that however much our small world is working for us, it is necessarily not the large world. He suggests that there are other logically valid small worlds, and that Socratic humility involves remembering this. He argues that the axiom of action is a primordial presupposition, and that the violation of it would be a performative contradiction.

Significance (Medium): This discussion highlights the importance of humility and recognizing the limits of our knowledge.

Sources in support: John Vervaeke (Guest)

Neutral sources: Robert Breedlove (Host)

Breedlove's Bitcoin Advocacy (Medium severity)

Type: Commercial

Robert Breedlove is a known advocate for Bitcoin. This raises questions about whether his philosophical interpretations are influenced by his financial stake in cryptocurrency.

Significance: The audience is left to wonder if Breedlove's enthusiasm for Bitcoin colors his broader philosophical outlook, potentially compromising objectivity.