Summary of Awakening from the Meaning Crisis by John Vervaeke, Chapter 1: Introduction
Meaning is essential to human well being. Vervaeke proposes that we are in the midst of a meaning crisis in Western society, as the unifying explanation for a number of converging factors.
On the light side, there is a growing public interest in wisdom and mindfulness, both ancient and modern. Buddhism, Stoicism, and psychedelics are undergoing a renaissance in academia as well as the public consciousness (psychedelics are showing remarkable success in otherwise treatment-resistant mental disorders).
On the dark side, there has been a deterioration of mental health (measured by suicide and depression rates), increased distrust in public institutions, and a general rise in feelings of nihilism, cynicism, and futility.
What is meaning? Why do we hunger for it? How do we cultivate wisdom (which we define as the ability to realize meaning in life)? Answering this question is complex: we will need to examine historical factors influencing our quest for wisdom, rationality, and self-transcendence; understand the mechanisms of consciousness, knowledge, and self-deception; and eventually attempt a scientific account of enlightenment. What we should understand now is that meaning is a metaphor we use to express that our lives “make sense” in the same way that a sentence makes sense (or not), i.e. it’s internally coherent and contributes to some larger purpose.
A crucial development period in the history of human evolution was the Upper Paleolithic transition, when humans began to live together in tribes and make use of art and symbolic representation. Cognitive ability also increased, manifesting notably in the use of projectile weaponry and timekeeping technologies. As humans developed new technologies, their ability to manipulate and make sense of the world also expanded.
The early humans responded to the survival challenges of the time with a sociocognitive approach, developing various rituals to expand their social capabilities, including trading and initiation rituals. These rituals expanded (and demanded) the ability of mindsight and emotional regulation, allowing individuals to thrive as a group. In an integral way, human cognition became distributed, networked by our culture.
Two key concepts:
A psychotechnology is a tool that extends and shapes the capabilities of the mind the same way that a physical technology does for the body. These include literacy and numeracy.
Exaptation is an evolutionary mechanism whereby traits / abilities evolved for one purpose are adapted for other uses, e.g. the tongue was exapted for speech.
Shamanism is an early example of a psychotechnology, for which mindsight and emotional regulation were exapted. Shamans made use of rituals to change the way they see patterns in the world, similar to what’s needed to solve a lateral thinking problem (i.e. “thinking outside the box”). They had unique abilities of tracking and healing, often by altering consciousness. How did these abilities arise, and what accounts for their success in hunter-gatherer society?