Navigating the Meaning Crisis With Dr. Vervaeke

There is nothing in physics, chemistry or anything else that can measure the relevance of something. Relevance is contextual and personal.

I grasp this bottle. Grapability is not an attribute of the bottle, as it can't be grassped by an ant. Nor an attribute of the hand since I can't grasp a car. The graspability is in the fitness of my hand to the bottle. It's in how the hand and the bottle belong to eachother, how they connect to eachother.

... are not the same, but somehow we got to treat them as synonyms. But you can be very well informed and foolish.

Wisdom is about avoiding our self deception, our innate ability to lie to ourselves. Too much information can act as amuntition for the deception more than its antidote.

Wisdom can be thought. But it's more of a practice than a simple information exchange. Socrates figured it out 2000 yrs ago with his dialectic method.

We are told meaning is purpose. It's actually more than that. Meaning has 4 components:

1. Coherence. Your experience needs to make sense. It can't be absurd.
2. Significance. How real is the experience. You may have the perfect relationship but if (s)he cheated ... was the love real?
3. Connectedness. Being part of something greater than yourself.
4. Purpose. Working towards something.

1. Aristotle famously said cultivating character is the most important thing one can do. How much time do you spend per week to cultivate yours?
2. What do you want to exist, even if you don't? Do you care about something that transcends your ego?
3. What do you do right now to impact that thing?

These questions don't have easy answers. It may take years to formulate them.