John Vervaeke & Wolfgang Smith: a Dialogos on Science Grounded in Platonism

00:00 Intro

03:19 The difference between physical and corporeal, the solution to the quantum enigma

07:25 The corporeal enters into the measurement problem through the measuring device

08:50 John describes relevance realization, the 4 P’s of knowing, emanation and emergence

13:45 Reality is structured with things emerging (returning to the One) and emanating (coming from the One

15:50 If the corporeal is not real, we love conformity to Reality

17:05 We are both Platonists!

18:15 Studying Plato through the lens of the ancient thinkers

25:00 Why is James Gibson’s work important? How has it affected your work?

27:30 Wolfgang seeks to understand John’s ontology

32:00 Gibson and affordances - undermines nominalism. There are real relations

34:30 Opening the door to a new ontology

37:45 The vertical dimension cannot be excluded from the project of working out intelligibility

39:45 James Gibson’s reputation in the academic community is stellar among cognitive scientists but not among cognitive psychologists

44:00 Gibson’s breakthrough has still not penetrated into the physics world 51:00 Spinoza’s Religion

55:00 The undoing of nominalism and representationalism is epochal and we need to celebrate it.

1:01:30 The 1804 edition of Plato’s works with commentary by Thomas Taylor opens up a new way of understanding the ancient books. The Ptolemaic cosmology.

1:06:00 A quote from Cosmos and Transcendence

1:07:00 John discovering the Western wisdom tradition (convergence with Wolfgang)

1:20:15 Abandoning the view that all faiths look to the same source (Vedanta in the Light of Christian Wisdom)

1:28:50 John suggests we do this again!

Background material on Wolfgang Smith and John Vervaeke

A previous conversation with Wolfgang Smith Solving the Quantum: a Vertical Ascent: https://youtu.be/8NWHGX53agc

Wolfgang Smith (A sampling of his many books)

Vedanta in Light of Christian Wisdom

Physics: a Science in Quest of an Ontology

Vertical Ascent

Ancient Wisdom and Modern Misconceptions

Cosmos and Transcendence: Breaking through the Barrier of Scientistic Belief

The Quantum Enigma: Finding the Hidden Key

Theistic Evolution: The Teilhardian Heresy

Science and Myth: A Response to Stephen Hawking's The Grand Design

and many others

And a movie made about his life: The End of Quantum Reality, available on Amazon

An earlier discussion with physicist friend Glen on Wolfgang Smith's ideas about vertical causation as well as a bit about Stephen Wolfram.

Toy Story as Metaphor for Quantum Measurement Problem: https://youtu.be/dFqGjvocYPw

John Vervaeke

The full series of Awakening from The Meaning Crisis w John Vervaeke: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLND1JCRq8Vuh3f0P5qjrSdb5eC1ZfZwWJ

John Vervaeke's 4 P's of Knowing https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLND1JCRq8Vuit-ucfcXN8QDPMc6DXbTHq