A Conversation So Intense it Might Transcend Time and Space \| John Vervaeke \| EP 321

Heuristics are useful in risk analysis due to the computation infeasibility of actually crunching the numbers.

Relevance realization

It's a mystery as to why some things draw our attention. John's work explores that mystery.

Professor in Cognitive Science.

Explores the relationship of science and spirituality.

Throughline, oneness.

Oneness - what does it take for something to be a single object, especially when it's made of multiple things.

│ What does it mean for two things to be similar or identical given that they

│ are separate.

Entropy is just as associable with positive as negative emotion.

Jordan may have been quoting Carl Friston:

│ You experience positive emotion when you see yourself moving towards a

│ positive valued goal.

Positive emotion occurs when you perceive yourself to be moving towards a valued goal. This falls in line with theories on the role of dopamine.

│ Entropy is the proclivity of things to move in multiple directions.

This is somehow related to entropy reduction. If you consider entropy to be related to the distance to the destination, you're reducing entropy. This is signaled by the positive emotion system. And the introduction of entropy is a combinatorial explosion of distance to that goal and associated with the negative emotion system.

John:

│ Cognitive science aims to overcome the fragmentation in psychology and the

│ fragmentation between various "mind" disciplines like Psychology and AI and

│ neuroscience.

This isn't central to what John was saying, he was saying he wanted to get back to the theme and stated this as the theme:

│ There's a shared grammar between cognition and reality.

│ Surprise reduction. Anticipation. The brain tries to predict the world.

│ It's easier to avoid the tiger than to confront the tiger.

The short term surprise of a birthday is a long term predictor of stable relationships.

Jordan mentions accidental surprises versus deliberate surprises, though some accidental surprises are also positive.

Voluntary surprise, rate of surprise.

Patterns of functional utility in relation to goals.

Discounts the empiricist view objects and impose meaning onto them. Instead, we impose the means by which we might use the object to obtain a goal.

John:

Concepts are lists of features. The purpose of a concept is to label the world and describe it.

Jordan:

(the fallacy) is that if two things share the same list of features they are identical.

John:

Concepts are generative models: features in hierarchical arrangements with specific relationships, especially with relationship to us.

Two things are similar if they have an ancestor generative model that is relatively close or are dissimilar if it the distance is greater or many transformations are required to close the distance.

TODO: resume here -- sadly, only a few minutes in, but frequent interruptions and not having enough time to watch the episode in whole is slowing me down.

Tags: yt, raw

created: 2023-01-14

updated: 2023-01-18 08:06:48

(re)generated: 2026-07-17