Society Is Breaking — And It’s Already Started w/ John Vervaeke
Vervaeke Defines Voluntary Necessity
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.
Vervaeke: The One Enables Difference-Making
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.
Breedlove on Intelligibility as Affordance
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.
Vervaeke Differentiates Action and Activity
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.
Breedlove on Action as Goal-Directed Behavior
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.
Vervaeke on Process vs. Product Perennialism
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.
Vervaeke on Transjectivity
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.
Breedlove on Being and Intelligibility
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.
Vervaeke on Possibilizing
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.
Breedlove on Action as Transcendental
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.
Vervaeke on the Limits of Formal Systems
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.
Vervaeke on the Market as a Dynamical System
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.
Breedlove on the Animal That Makes Promises
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.
Vervaeke on Action as Problem Solving
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.
Breedlove on Action and Contact
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.
Vervaeke on Foundations vs. Presuppositions
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.
Vervaeke on Performative Contradiction
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.
Breedlove on Action and Meaning
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.
Vervaeke on the Limits of Knowledge
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.
