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Speaker 1: A proper part of being rational is the imperative to

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be more rational. So rationality is an inherently aspirational entity,

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which means at the heart of rationality is aspiration and

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transformative experience, which requires ritual, because ritual is imaginal. Serious way,

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It's just funny because just with that you completely undermine

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the entire, the entire project of rationalism.

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Speaker 2: That's true. I'd never thought about it that. Because you

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want to be reasonable, yes, reason becomes aspirational and therefore

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has to be you have to kind of imagine and

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project yourself into that space before you enter into it,

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because why would you desire it if you couldn't imagine

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yourself in a future state where you have to move

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towards that future state through imagination. This is Jonathan Pejel.

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Welcome to the Symbolic World. Hello everyone, I am back

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with John Vervaki. You know, we just put on a

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video with himself and with Jordan Hall and myself having

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a discussion. But today we are going to talk about

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John's upcoming class on ritual and cognitive science. I am

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extremely excited about this, you know, I can't wait to

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see and it's actually fitting in some of the work

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that John is doing all around for the university, but

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then also other projects. So John, yeah, I mean, let's

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start and tell us a little bit how this connects

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to your work in general.

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Speaker 1: Thanks Jonathan, it's great to be here. So in general,

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I've been doing a lot of work on the cognitive

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science of religion. I'm teaching a new course at the

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University of Toronto, fourth year course seminar course, you know,

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high level on the cognitive science of religion. And because

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I think the cognitive dimension of religion, how religion involves knowing,

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cultivating of wisdom, the transformation of the individual in ways

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that matter to it cognitively, I think is not adequately

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well developed. On the other hand, there's a bunch of

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books that have been coming out.

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Speaker 3: There was an.

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Speaker 1: Initial wave of books that were rather officially so that

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the cogsi of religion is hot right now. The first

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initial wave was somewhat hostile to religion, trying to explain

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it away as you may expect, very much in the

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Enlightenment framework and mold. And then that has been superseded

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by much more because a lot of the original proposals,

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I mean, to be fair of these individuals, they presented

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them as scientific hypotheses. You know that, for example, religion

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is about hyperactive agency detection, right, and that's where all

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comes from. And this has been subject to some pretty

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good criticism and demolished with it.

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Speaker 3: It's good science, right.

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Speaker 1: They present a hypothesis, people have criticized it, the empirical

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evidence doesn't support it. And so we've moved into a

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second wave where people are stepping back and trying to say,

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you know, maybe there's some deeper functionality at here at work.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: What happens is they're still largely not paying attention to

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all the decades of work in the anthropology of religion

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and the philosophy of religion. They're paying a little bit

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more attention now to the philosophy of religion, which is good,

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but they're not paying attention to sort of broader philosophy. So,

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for example, in the course I'm teaching at the university,

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I don't start talking about religion until I think lecture

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four or five.

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Speaker 3: I spend the first.

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Speaker 1: Three lectures demolishing the Enlightenment set of presupposed ecotomies, like

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there's a clean distinction between fact, cleaned to echotomy between

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fact and value is inn aught all this kind of stuff.

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So all of this is happening, and I thought, I thought,

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there's all these things, but they're not connecting, right, and

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they're not connecting. And what I like to do with

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my work is connect debt. And the reason why I

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think connecting it is important is because I think what's

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happening right now and what's most calling me most deeply,

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is I think there's an advent of the sacred happening

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right now in a response to the meaning crisis. And

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as you know from a lot of my work, I

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don't think this is primarily carried by propositional knowing. I

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think it's carried by procedural perspectivele and participatory. And the

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thing where the behavior that's a bad term, but the

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behavior where that gets most educated and expressed is in ritual.

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And hence the move to really understanding really trying to

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come up with a cognitive science of ritual, because I'll

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though there's lots of good work here and there about

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what might call the cognition in ritual by and large,

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that aspect the cognitive dimension how ritual might involve knowing

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or even give us a kind of metaphysics or a

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worldview has not been very deeply discussed. A lot of

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other important dimensions which I readily and will repeatedly admit

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are at work in ritual. There's socioeconomic there's cultural transmission right,

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there's social role taking. There's obviously symbolic and theological aspects

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of ritual. I am not trying to explain them away

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or reduce them. I'm saying all of that's the case.

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But it seems like to me that what's missing, and

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what even some of those other dimensions need is an

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account of, well, what's the cognition that's going on in

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ritual and how does it why should it matter.

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Speaker 3: To us more?

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Speaker 1: Because part of what the course is that we're always ritualistic.

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We just don't realize that a lot of the rituals

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are implicit. And by that I don't mean the Freudian

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sense that we have neurotic behaviors. I mean we do

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things that are properly understood as imaginal and inactive and

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as oriented aspirationally, et cetera.

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Speaker 2: Mm hmmm. Yeah. And so one of the things that

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I've been doing in in my work is in some

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ways trying to express or to help people see that

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there's a Let's say there's a link that it's there's

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a connection between ritual proper the way we understand it,

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either civic you know, civic rituals or really religious rituals.

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That there's a connection between that and ordered behavior in general. Right,

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that in order to do anything, you have to order

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behavior towards a purpose. And one of the things that

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distinguishes what we most usually properly call ritual in like

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in the sense of like raising a flag or something

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like that. You know that that now there there's something

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that's being in age in relationship to meaning, which you know,

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like when you're brushing your teeth, there is meaning there,

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but it's it's very it's very small. It's not about

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self understanding and about and about how we participate with others.

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Whereas the types of rituals that we usually call rituals,

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they those have to that's why they're they seem different

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to us, and they engage what you call talk about

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the kind of imaginal space as well.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the imaginal or there's overlapping ideas. Again, I'm trying

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to draw them together. There's the imaginal, there's conceptual metaphor

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we talk about do you see my point, do you

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get what I'm saying. There's fictive language. The fence went

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all the way up the mountain, what like, offenses aren't moving.

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And then you know the whole mind in motion that

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you know, Robert Tavski, you know that I you know,

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I'm abstracting and I'm moving through. I'm moving through my argument.

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And these ideas are closely related.

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Speaker 3: To each other.

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Speaker 1: So the imaginal is in gesture itself is pregnant in

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our cognition, and it's not ornamentation. It's a it's an

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indispensable vehicle by which we think. There's a really good

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anthology that I'm going to make use of in the

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course called Thinking through Ritual, great play on words. The

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thinkers are thinking through ritual, but they're thinking. They're arguing

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about how we think through ritual by means of it

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and beyond it.

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Speaker 2: Oh that's I mean, that's really interesting. And one of

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the things that we've noticed, I think we've noticed in

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let's say, in the twentieth century, there has been I

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see it in Quebec specifically because this is where I live.

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I've seen a desire to deritualize space. Yes, and it's

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and it's explicit and there's a sense in which, either

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consciously or unconsciously, people under seem to understand ritual as superstition,

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as also a kind of tyrannical imposition on reality of identity.

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And so for that reason, the festivities that my ancestors

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used to engage with are always kind of being pushed

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to the side. And now even like even though we

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had this nationalistic moment, you know, in the in the

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late twentieth century, even those national rituals are eroding. You know,

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everything is kind of eroding. And so I mean, i'd

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like to get your take on that, Like, what do

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you think why do you think that that is a

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tendency in the modern world to work against ritual. Let's say, so.

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Speaker 3: Part of it. And we'll touch a bit on this

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in the course.

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Speaker 1: I mean obviously not as deeply as a fourth year

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thirty six hour at the university course, but I mean

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we're caught up in, you know, the dimensions of the

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Enlightenment ecotomies that really by us how we try and

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look at the phenomena of ritual or any religious phenomena

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to put to put it more broadly, and so we think,

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for example, really easy notice the idea that somehow we

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could peel ritual away and put it and then leave

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this purely secular space. He supposes that we can sort

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of cleanly separate fact and value from each other.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: And the point is, and this isn't from romanticism or

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weird spooky you know, German idealism or something like that.

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This is the guts of you know, you know, seminal

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analytic philosophy, you know, Wine and Putnam and case Bit.

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That this distinction has been this dichotomy, the pragmatic distinction

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is useful, but the idea of it being a radical dichotomy,

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a deep division in reality itself, right, has been completely undermined.

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And this goes right to the heart of my work, Jonathan,

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because relevance is you can't relevance is simultaneously how we

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get facts while we're making evaluations like there there is

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no clean and there and there, and there is no

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access to facts.

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Speaker 3: Without relevance realization.

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Speaker 1: And so the just the idea that somehow we could

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put aside our valuation projects and then just give this

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clean secutors base where it's just the facts. May I'm

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just the facts, as they used to say in drag Man,

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is actually a ridiculous presupposition. And then when you and

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then the more aggressive side of this is, well, everything

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outside of this isn't connected to the facts, and therefore

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it must be superstition things like that. But if you realize, wait,

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at the corner of your cognitive agency is relevance realization,

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you realize, wait, that whole picture is radically false and

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it and it actually doesn't give you a home in

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which to do rationality or science itself.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny that that just the facts dragonet quote.

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I always fantasized about the person starting to list random

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facts of what's around the case. It's like, you know,

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she was wearing shoelaces and like her fingernails were on.

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It's like, oh no, no, no, not just the facts,

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actually the facts that are relevant to the case. Man. Yeah, yeah, anyway,

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so I was thought, but I think that's the list.

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After the success and the great reception of our first

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fairy tale book, Snow White and the Widow Queen, I

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am excited to announce the second book in our tales

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for once in ever series, called Jack and the Fallen Giants.

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You know, as an artist, one of the things that

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I've always wanted to do as an icon corver, but

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in anything that I'm involved in, what I care about

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is making beautiful and amazing things, and I am so

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excited to see the beautiful book coming out, Jack and

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the Fallen Giants. It is illustrated by Iluis Cherreer, a

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young French artist that has really captured the boisterousness and

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the joyful tone that made me fall in love with

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the story of Jack and the Beanstalk when I was

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a child, and so I cannot wait for you to

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get your hands on this. You can see a preview

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on the website. You'll see what it looks like. And

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in order to do this, we are launching a new

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store for the Symbolic World dot com. You can go

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to store doubt the Symbolic World dot com and there

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you will find a pre order for Jack and the

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Fallen Giants. We've decided not to do a kickstarter this time.

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The book is printed, it is being sent to our

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warehouse and so we're offering it on sale for people

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who want to get in early. And at the same time,

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there are also a very limited number of snow white

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copies still available on the website, and so you can

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go there you can get snow White, you can go

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get copies of Jack, but you can also pre order

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God's Dog two, the second book in the epic story

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of Saint Christopher. We are getting rave reviews coming in

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from the comic book industry, from the secular comic book industry,

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where people are really surprised and appreciating both the art

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and the epic story that is taking place. We are

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working right now on the third fairy Tale book, which

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is Rapunzel, and the third God's Dog book, and so

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we're well on our way to continuing to give you

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the opportunity to participate in these amazing stories. So please

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go to the Symbolic World store right now and help

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us reawaken powerful stories in our culture. One of the

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things we did see, it seems in the twentieth century,

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well actually since the Enlightenment, was a desire to replace

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religious ritual with civic ritual. And you see that obviously

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reaching insane levels in the fascists and communist eras, where

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we basically worship the state and everything, all the spaces

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are organized. But what's fascinating about that is that that

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also seems to have eroded, and there's suspicion right about

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celebrating our nation. We see in Canada, we see it

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almost I mean, especially with the liberal government, this liberal

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particularly liberal government, there's almost like a disdain of our

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nation and disdain of the ritual spaces and the flag

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and all these things. And so it's interesting to notice

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how this kind of tumble of ritual where and now

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ritual is under Some people might appreciate ritual, but they

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tend to see it as particular personal thing. Right, So

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if you say something like we do I do meditation,

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then that's acceptable. But if you say something like, you know,

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like we celebrated you know, Canada Day and saying the

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anthem and everything, then it's a little then it's suspicious.

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And so what do you think, why do you think

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ritual has been brought to this individual level?

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Speaker 1: Well, I think that's part and another part of the

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Enlightenment dimensionality. That was the space that was given to us,

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which is the hermonetics of suspicion.

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Speaker 3: I mean, and.

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Speaker 1: Don't forget you get you get that radical, tolitarian, vicious

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ritual in the French Revolution, the rate of error, right,

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So it's also there at the beginning. So it's there

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at the beginning gets there throughout it and it comes

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in culmination. And so but what you know, because of Freud,

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because of Marx, you know, because of Nietzsche. You've heard

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me make this argument before. We've adopted our hermonetics of suspicion.

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Now this goes to a point in the course. And

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you know, and this, you know, work I've been doing

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on the primacy of beauty I did, of course for

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the Peterson Academy.

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Speaker 3: On that based on DH. Schindler's work.

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Speaker 1: You know, the Hermitics of suspicion is based on a

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reality illusion judgment. You say, I'm suspicious that this isn't

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the reality. There's a hidden motive, there's a secret agenda, right,

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And that's you know, and of course that's sometimes the case.

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If it wasn't sometimes the case, we would just think

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the whole proposal was ridiculous. But from Plato through to

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Marl Ponti, people to point it out. But wait, right,

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that can't be that, that can't be the prior the

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foregrounded or prioritized thing, because any judgment of illusion depends

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on a deeper judgment of realness, and that judgment of

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realness cannot itself be subject to the harmonics of suspicion,

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or you fall away and you can't make any judgments

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at all. So where that shows up is people that

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do this right. And I do think, by the way,

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where we say appearances disclose rather than deceive about reality,

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that's beauty in the philosophical sense, not what we currently

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mean by beauty. Beauty just means sensual gratification. But the

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philosophical sense of beauty is that. So I call it

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the hermonotics of beauty, and I think part of what

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ritual is is an enactment of the hermonoutics of beauty,

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by the way, but what happens is because they don't

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fall into the abyss, we get the removal liberal government,

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we get the removal of the rituals, but we get

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replacement by other rituals, and we get right. So we

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have all the rituals around identity politics, and they are rituals.

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We tear down, we tear down statues, we wave flags,

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we make demonstration. These are all symbolic acts that everybody

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knows aren't directly changing anything.

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Speaker 3: What are they designing to do? What are they designed

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to do?

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Speaker 1: They're designed to reorientus, They're designed to point our attention.

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They're designed to try and give us a different origin,

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A stand where do we stand? What do we stand?

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Listen to the language, Where do we stand? What do

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we stand for?

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Speaker 3: Right?

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Speaker 1: And what stands out for us? And so contrary. I mean,

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I'm not disagreeing with you. I think these people think

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they're getting rid of all those superstitious rituals, but all

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they do is a surreptitious right replacement with a whole

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other set of rituals. Deeply, deeply, I would argue religious rituals.

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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, the flag is the most surprising of all.

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Think of it like that, it's that that.

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Speaker 3: That changing the symbol of.

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Speaker 2: Course, because it's a it's a symbol of it's a

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it's trying to ritualize fluidity, which is it's like it's

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a it's a weird it's like a tantric move or something.

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It's like trying to to to ritualize fluidity. And and

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so because of it, it always has to change. But

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every time it changes, it also has to capture. Right,

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So because you know your identity, let's say I don't

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know the national anthem or your flag, it captures you

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like it you know it command your attention. It asks

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you to honor it and to to to treat it

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with respect and everything. So now you have this thing

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which is constantly changing, but it's also constantly asking to

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keep up with it and to give it honor. And

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so although it's trying to be a celebration of change

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and diversity, it's like this weird tyranny of change. It's

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a it's an odd thing to watch.

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Speaker 3: Happen and that and that goes towards two points.

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Speaker 1: First is the these rituals are ultimately not satisfying because

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they are not for good for good arguments from cognitive science,

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they're not deeply uh you know, cognitively satisfying, cognitively transformative,

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and and therefore there's a hunger for more. And that's

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and then and when they're a framework, the only way

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to get the more is to intensify. Uh the that's

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an interesting idea.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So there's a constant intensification through the multiplication of

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the colors and the you know, and and also the

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accelera of the change and the also the increasing right,

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so you can see it, like you we used to

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have pride day than than week, than month. Then we

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were announced it was season, right, just since it's a season,

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and you can see it's like this, this this intensive,

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constant intensification kind of fill up the space of participation.

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Speaker 1: And a radicalization of membership, so it becomes more and

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more stringent. So this is a this is a typical ritual.

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So this is an anthropological theory costly marker. So a

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lot of rituals are very costly, like they demand a

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lot from people, and it's like why, Well, the point

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is the costly marker is a way of signaling to

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everybody you can trust me, because I wouldn't otherwise do

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this costly, useless behavior other than unless I was deeply,

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deeply committed. Now we talk about virtue signaling, but right,

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but I get it. Some of it is people just

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playing along because they want a quick ride. There's always

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a free rider problem. But the radicalization by the by

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the true believers, if I can call them, that is

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part again of a of a function of ritual, which

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is costly signaling, which is you can really really trust me.

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Speaker 3: And the thing is the costly signaling.

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Speaker 1: It needs to it needs to be bound to deeper, deeper,

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real transformations and educations, or else you're really sort of

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draining people.

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Speaker 3: And so this this form this is that's one argument, this.

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Speaker 1: Form of ritualization has a real possibility of burning out,

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like burnout. The other is it's propositional tyranny. It's all

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at the propositional level. There's procedural, but they don't they

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don't recognize the procedural and the perspectacle in their participatory

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So it's still all caught up in the level of

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beliefs and ideology and that's ultimately not reaching the meaning machinery.

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Speaker 2: Hmm. That's really interesting because I mean this idea of

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the costliness of the ritual, it can also help you

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understand initiation rituals in general.

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Speaker 3: Totally.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, like why Dole and and and and and

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and part of what's happened, you know. And by the way,

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you know, these critiques I'm making are not I can

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equally make critiques of the right and the and the

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Trump fault. Okay, we I just did that because you

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brought up the liberal government, right, this is so this

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is in fact, I would argue that what's happening the

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culture wars. But culture cultists right right, right right, The

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culture wars in America are really ritualized religious civil warfare.

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Speaker 3: That's what's good.

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Speaker 1: Everything is done, is almost almost everything now is a ritual.

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There's actual no everybody notices it. There's no content. It's

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all costly display about your your allegiance to a particular

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religious orientation. And so I want to make it clear

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that I'm not landing. I'm not I'm not trying to

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make an anti woke argument. I'm trying to point out

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that ritual is across at the political spectrum. Far from

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it being absent, it has become more pronounced. But I

401
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think in a way that is ultimately pathological because it's

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tied to the Hermeneutics' suspicion, it's tied to propositional tyranny,

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it's tied to the Enlightenment framework which is actually crumbling.

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Speaker 2: Mm hmm, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And so the

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I imagine one of the things also we're going to

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talk about in the class is related to if talking

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about cognition, the manner in which risual participates in identity

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formation right as much at the individual level as at

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higher levels or whatever. And so I mean, maybe you

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can say just a little bit about that, because obviously

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that interest interests me.

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Speaker 3: You know that excellent.

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Speaker 1: So one of the things I can do there, I mean,

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there's a lot that goes on in identity formation, right, uh.

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And I'm again only talking about the cognitive dimension of

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I'm going to keep emphasizing that, right because John Brevik

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he is not here saying your ritual doesn't have this

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theological meaning or it doesn't have this particular, you know,

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existential meaning to you. I am not not not saying that.

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But what I can talk about is, well, one of

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the things an important cognitive process in identity formation is

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what Agnes callart Caught calls aspiration. This is, uh, like

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I want I want to be other than I am.

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I want to be a person other than I am.

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That's a fundamental identity change. And it's based on La

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Paul's work on transformative experiences. We're going to talk about

427
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both of these women's important work in this book. And

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so what do you have to do to go through aspiration,

429
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to go through transformative experiences? Well, you can't reason your

430
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way through it. If what you mean by reason is

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making inferences, making using decision theory.

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Speaker 3: You have to use imaginal serious play.

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Speaker 1: You have to internalize the sage you have to internalize

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the role model. You have to do diological practices, right,

435
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and this I can all back. I can back this

436
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up with you know, both good theory and good empirical evidence, right,

437
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even some recently done by Well, he was my ras.

438
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Speaker 3: He's now got his PhD. He's now doctor Jensen Kim.

439
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Speaker 1: I'll talk a bit about his work about people doing

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aspirational projects in the university. Now here's here's the important

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point that I'm going to use Kunard to make the desire. Okay,

442
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So a proper part of being rational is the imperative

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to be more rational. Right, So, rationality is an inherently

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aspirational entity, which means at the heart of rationality is

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aspiration and transformative experience, which requires ritual because ritual is

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imaginal serious play, and this goes to it.

447
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Speaker 2: That's really, it's just funny because just with that, you

448
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completely undermined the entire, the entire project of rationalism, you know,

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because that's I'd never thought about it. That that because

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you because you want to be reasonable, yes, reason, reason,

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Reason becomes aspirational and therefore has to be you have

452
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to kind of imagine and project yourself into that space

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before you enter into it, because why would you desire

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it if you couldn't imagine yourself in a in a

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future state where you have to move towards that future

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state through imagination.

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Speaker 1: And notice, by the way, notice you're gesturing you're right,

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and you're and you're using prospectable and participatory knowing right.

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Speaker 3: What's what's it like to be that person? And who

460
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will I be? How will what.

461
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Speaker 1: Will the agent arena relationship be like when I am

462
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that person? And you know this goes to very formal

463
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arguments from people at the core of like computational uh psychology,

464
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like you can't but I won't get into the details.

465
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But if I'm in a weaker logic like uh like uh,

466
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predicate calculus, and I'm trying to get to a stronger

467
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logic modal logic, And what stronger means I can grasp

468
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more of reality with the logic I can represent more.

469
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There's nothing I can do and I can run all

470
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the possible logical permutations, and I can't get from predicate

471
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logic to.

472
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Speaker 3: To modal logic. I have to I have to leap.

473
00:27:21,079 --> 00:27:24,559
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's an imaginal leap, and I'm gonna So those

474
00:27:24,599 --> 00:27:27,119
are the kinds of arguments I bring into show again

475
00:27:27,319 --> 00:27:31,000
John's I'm not going to offer flakey romanticism. I'm going

476
00:27:31,079 --> 00:27:34,680
to say no, no, really, nuts and bolts arguments are

477
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:38,079
saying that the imaginal is in the heart of the rational.

478
00:27:38,359 --> 00:27:40,559
And then I'll also do the reverse, say can we

479
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:44,680
talk about a non propositional kind of rationality in ritual?

480
00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:49,279
Like Jennings and Shilbrick and others have been arguing, yes

481
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:49,799
we can.

482
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:53,880
Speaker 2: One of the things that has always interested in me

483
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:57,519
about ritual is in some ways the man in which

484
00:27:57,599 --> 00:28:04,000
ritual marks identity in in time and space. So what

485
00:28:04,039 --> 00:28:07,480
I imagine is a good example is like you study

486
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:12,039
in university, you do your exams, and you all you

487
00:28:12,079 --> 00:28:14,119
have all these exams, and you do all these things,

488
00:28:14,799 --> 00:28:18,920
and so now what like you you're done with your studies?

489
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:21,079
What does that? What does that mean? What? What are you?

490
00:28:21,079 --> 00:28:23,680
You're a master's now you're you're a doctor. And so

491
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:27,160
it's as if there's a there's an absolute need to

492
00:28:27,359 --> 00:28:32,599
mark the moment in in in time and with some

493
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:37,400
gesture of recognition, to say that now this person is

494
00:28:37,680 --> 00:28:39,640
now this person is a police officer. I'm going to

495
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:42,680
give him his badge. I'm gonna give him his uniform,

496
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:45,440
and and like and and it's the moment of that

497
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:48,599
transforms you from what you were before into what you are.

498
00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:52,119
And it seems like that is something that absolutely has

499
00:28:52,160 --> 00:28:55,039
to be ritualized, whether it's a signature or a handshake

500
00:28:55,240 --> 00:28:57,359
or whatever like, in order to mark.

501
00:28:57,319 --> 00:29:00,720
Speaker 1: Here's here's why. Yeah, go ahead, Well here's the cognitive

502
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:04,000
A part of why this goes to recent work I'm

503
00:29:04,039 --> 00:29:09,119
doing on consciousness. So look, it's increasingly becoming a plausible

504
00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:12,680
proposal that the function of consciousness. Consciousness evolved to give

505
00:29:12,759 --> 00:29:16,839
us episodic memory. So episodic memories when you remember episodes,

506
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:21,519
So you know you have semantic memory. Cats are mammals,

507
00:29:21,799 --> 00:29:23,480
or you have procedural memory. I know how to catch

508
00:29:23,519 --> 00:29:25,720
a ball, But do you remember what you had for

509
00:29:25,759 --> 00:29:28,400
breakfast this morning? And what you'll do is you'll create

510
00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:30,240
a little perspective and you'll run.

511
00:29:30,480 --> 00:29:31,359
Speaker 3: You'll relive it.

512
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:34,200
Speaker 1: You don't just recall it, you relive it. That's episodic

513
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:37,839
memory in it. And it looks like consciousness is for that.

514
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:41,559
And then you go, well why, But I won't get

515
00:29:41,599 --> 00:29:44,720
into details, because episodic memory allows you to solve problems

516
00:29:44,799 --> 00:29:47,880
you can't solve with just your beliefs and your skills.

517
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:54,880
And episodic memory is bound up with narrative, right. Narrative

518
00:29:54,920 --> 00:30:00,920
binds procedural especially think about a story, right, perspectable and

519
00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:04,839
participatory know in character development, the viewpoint right, and then

520
00:30:05,039 --> 00:30:08,640
all of that stuff and and and it binds insight

521
00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:09,599
into all of that.

522
00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:10,599
Speaker 3: There's transformation.

523
00:30:11,079 --> 00:30:15,319
Speaker 1: So we need narrative and episodic memory are actually integral

524
00:30:15,359 --> 00:30:19,559
to us, right, being conscious of the world. And so

525
00:30:19,759 --> 00:30:23,720
when we want to be conscious of something to ourselves

526
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:26,640
and other people, we were trying to create an episodic

527
00:30:26,799 --> 00:30:29,279
memory for it and a narrative around it.

528
00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:30,359
Speaker 3: What does ritual do?

529
00:30:31,200 --> 00:30:35,519
Speaker 1: Ritual takes you out of normal time and says this

530
00:30:35,599 --> 00:30:38,440
is a special episode. It carves it off for you

531
00:30:38,759 --> 00:30:41,759
and puts a narrative around it. So it goes deep

532
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:46,039
into episodic memory and therefore becomes something super salient to

533
00:30:46,079 --> 00:30:49,759
your consciousness and therefore becomes something that you can take

534
00:30:49,799 --> 00:30:52,640
into your autobiography in a powerful way.

535
00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:55,920
Speaker 2: Yeah. That, I mean, that makes that makes so much sense,

536
00:30:56,119 --> 00:30:59,480
because then you're then you're you're like you need this.

537
00:30:59,599 --> 00:31:03,079
You meet this girl, you start dating, you start you know,

538
00:31:03,119 --> 00:31:06,599
and then it's like it's just this flow of things

539
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:10,519
that happen, and then you get married, right, yeah, and

540
00:31:10,559 --> 00:31:14,079
then everything about the wedding takes your relationship and everything

541
00:31:14,119 --> 00:31:17,759
about it symbolizes it, crushes it together, brings everybody you

542
00:31:17,799 --> 00:31:20,519
know in one place, makes a ritual where you make

543
00:31:20,559 --> 00:31:23,359
promises to each other, which you've already done, like obviously

544
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:26,279
if you're there, you've already made those promises informally before,

545
00:31:26,599 --> 00:31:29,839
and you bring it together and then it crunches things

546
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:32,559
into it, like you said, a hyper episode, Yes, and

547
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:37,519
now becomes a marker for my identity going forward because

548
00:31:37,839 --> 00:31:40,039
it's something that I can go back to and refer

549
00:31:40,119 --> 00:31:41,119
to very easily.

550
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:41,599
Speaker 3: In my mind.

551
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:44,880
Speaker 2: It's likely a date we promised, we did this, it's

552
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:47,440
all together, whereas before it's like, oh, we met this,

553
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:50,079
you know, we started hanging out, we went on a

554
00:31:50,160 --> 00:31:52,720
few dates, we you know, and then it's like it's

555
00:31:52,839 --> 00:31:55,599
all these things that are maybe not as solid, right.

556
00:31:55,559 --> 00:31:58,119
Speaker 1: And so that's part of a broader thing that consciousness

557
00:31:58,119 --> 00:31:58,720
seems to be for.

558
00:31:58,799 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 3: It's called chunking.

559
00:32:00,039 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 1: Like when you're studying, if I give you like nine

560
00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:05,839
letters and they're just random, and I ask you what

561
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:07,200
were those letters?

562
00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:08,599
Speaker 3: Ten seconds later, I don't know.

563
00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:11,559
Speaker 1: But if I rearrange them to and they formul word,

564
00:32:12,319 --> 00:32:14,400
if I really arrange them at the words catpig, dog,

565
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:15,160
you can do it like that.

566
00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:16,440
Speaker 3: That's right.

567
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:21,240
Speaker 1: And so that's called chunking, right, And it's a mnemonic strategy.

568
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:24,960
And so doing the ritual is a form of chunking.

569
00:32:25,039 --> 00:32:26,720
Like you said, you bring it all together and you

570
00:32:26,799 --> 00:32:29,920
make this mnemonic thing that super salient and stands out.

571
00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:31,880
And what you're trying to do is you're trying to

572
00:32:32,039 --> 00:32:36,519
create a way in which your your relationship to your

573
00:32:36,559 --> 00:32:40,920
partner is now literally more memorable to you and therefore

574
00:32:41,359 --> 00:32:45,079
has you have a greater chance to reinforce your commitment

575
00:32:45,599 --> 00:32:46,240
things like that.

576
00:32:47,279 --> 00:32:49,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, And also it's a common moment, right because let's

577
00:32:49,880 --> 00:32:52,000
say just say, even with your partner, it's like I

578
00:32:52,079 --> 00:32:54,359
fall in love, she falls in love a little later,

579
00:32:54,519 --> 00:32:58,599
and each of us has these experiences that conversation that

580
00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:01,279
maybe we had is not that impressive to me, but Mark,

581
00:33:01,519 --> 00:33:04,359
but then we have this one moment you know where

582
00:33:05,079 --> 00:33:07,599
it's like this is this is the moment, right, we

583
00:33:07,759 --> 00:33:10,240
both agree that this is an important moment, that it's

584
00:33:10,279 --> 00:33:12,880
the moment of promise that brings it all together, that

585
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:15,160
makes sense, and so you can you can almost understand

586
00:33:16,519 --> 00:33:22,920
any type of identity forming ritual as and that that

587
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:27,720
would also explain you know, anything like a swearing in

588
00:33:27,759 --> 00:33:30,079
of a judge, for example, like all of these things,

589
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:32,359
and because the swearing in of the judge also now

590
00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:35,160
functions not just for the judge but also for all

591
00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:37,960
of us, it's like, is he a judge? Well, yeah,

592
00:33:38,039 --> 00:33:40,759
he's a judge because on this day, you know, he

593
00:33:40,799 --> 00:33:42,519
put his hand on the Bible or whatever, and prey

594
00:33:42,599 --> 00:33:44,960
made a promise and got his wig got it depending

595
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:48,400
which which, and then it was like you know, and

596
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:50,519
then from that on, from that on, we can all

597
00:33:50,559 --> 00:33:52,839
agree because we have an episode that we can refer

598
00:33:52,920 --> 00:33:57,160
to and find we all agree that that that that's yeah,

599
00:33:57,200 --> 00:33:58,000
that's super.

600
00:33:57,839 --> 00:33:59,920
Speaker 3: Super in So think about how this starts. It starts

601
00:34:00,119 --> 00:34:02,440
make sense of the overall proposal. In a way.

602
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:05,240
Speaker 1: The ritual is like what you do when you're studying.

603
00:34:05,599 --> 00:34:08,239
You're trying to make things. You're trying to chunk things

604
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:12,280
together and create episodic memories. Right that are like what

605
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:15,400
are called mnemonic strategies, ways of making things more memorable

606
00:34:15,679 --> 00:34:18,519
so you can recall them in a way. Right, that

607
00:34:18,599 --> 00:34:23,079
gives you much more access to them, perspectible and participatory access,

608
00:34:23,119 --> 00:34:26,400
not just propositional and that like when you're if you're

609
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:28,760
a good student, right when you're studying for a test,

610
00:34:28,800 --> 00:34:31,159
you try those are the kinds of strategies that you

611
00:34:31,199 --> 00:34:32,320
try and use when you're studying.

612
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:35,639
Speaker 3: And so what what this is a way of knowing?

613
00:34:36,079 --> 00:34:38,679
Speaker 1: This is a way of knowing, right, It's like if

614
00:34:38,679 --> 00:34:41,280
we think that studying is a way of learning and knowing,

615
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:42,960
this is a way of learning and knowing.

616
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:44,119
Speaker 3: It's a kind of studying.

617
00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:46,760
Speaker 1: Now, I don't want to push that analogy too far,

618
00:34:47,159 --> 00:34:49,760
but it's a good analogy for what I'm trying to

619
00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:51,360
propose is going on with ritual.

620
00:34:51,800 --> 00:34:54,159
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean I think I think that that

621
00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:56,840
that that is that is super interesting. I cannot wait

622
00:34:56,960 --> 00:34:59,559
to uh to take this class. And so for those

623
00:34:59,559 --> 00:35:02,519
who who don't know what we're gonna do, and this

624
00:35:02,559 --> 00:35:04,480
is going to be a new experiment, is that John

625
00:35:04,519 --> 00:35:06,440
is going to give the class and I'm going to

626
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:09,199
follow the class. Uh and at the end the very

627
00:35:09,280 --> 00:35:11,920
last episode, then we'll have a discussion about everything that

628
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:15,400
that that John talked about and so uh, and so

629
00:35:15,480 --> 00:35:18,079
I can't I can't wait, uh and One of the

630
00:35:18,079 --> 00:35:21,079
things we talked about is that this can get complicated, right, Like,

631
00:35:21,199 --> 00:35:23,760
this stuff can get getting very complicated. And John is

632
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:26,840
going to take you through, like at the beginning, kind

633
00:35:26,840 --> 00:35:29,000
of step by step, yeah, till by the end of

634
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:31,519
the class, and you will have all the all the

635
00:35:31,599 --> 00:35:34,639
concepts and all the language needed to to be able

636
00:35:34,679 --> 00:35:37,119
to interact with this this this content. And so I

637
00:35:37,159 --> 00:35:39,199
think it's going to be it's gonna be it's gonna

638
00:35:39,199 --> 00:35:43,039
be great. And how let's say, like, because you're doing

639
00:35:43,079 --> 00:35:45,920
this this called cyber religion in the university. And then,

640
00:35:46,199 --> 00:35:50,039
and this is more specifically about ritual are you going

641
00:35:50,079 --> 00:35:54,800
to talk about ritualization both in the religious and the secular, Like,

642
00:35:54,920 --> 00:35:55,480
are you going.

643
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:58,719
Speaker 1: To I'm going to prioritize the religious all big reference

644
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:01,760
to secular examples, just to give people a sense of continuity.

645
00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:05,079
I want to prioritize the religious precisely because what we

646
00:36:05,079 --> 00:36:07,880
were talking about at the beginning, which is this the

647
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:13,320
sort of the attempt to marginalize the superstitious, And so

648
00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:17,679
I'm going to foreground challenging in that right from the

649
00:36:17,760 --> 00:36:18,320
very beginning.

650
00:36:18,679 --> 00:36:21,559
Speaker 2: And so another question I had, because we often think

651
00:36:21,599 --> 00:36:25,760
of ritual as event, right but have you thought about

652
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:29,039
a little bit about the notion of ritual as space? Right, Also,

653
00:36:29,119 --> 00:36:30,920
because there seems to be something in the way we

654
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:33,559
organize space with this, the same as how we organize

655
00:36:33,559 --> 00:36:34,400
it in terms of.

656
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:40,280
Speaker 1: But that's a mnemonic strategy. So again, like, okay, so

657
00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:45,400
I give a bunch of people a test. No, sorry,

658
00:36:45,559 --> 00:36:48,320
I give them some material to learn in room A.

659
00:36:49,119 --> 00:36:51,599
I bring half of them back two weeks later to

660
00:36:51,639 --> 00:36:54,800
remember the material in room A, half of them back

661
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:55,400
in room B.

662
00:36:55,599 --> 00:36:58,840
Speaker 3: That's all I've done nothing else. Which group does better

663
00:36:58,880 --> 00:36:59,480
on average?

664
00:37:00,159 --> 00:37:03,840
Speaker 1: Yeah? It makes sense, right, because your memory is not

665
00:37:04,559 --> 00:37:09,760
just propositional content, it's perspectable, it's participatory. It does what's

666
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:12,920
called transfer appropriate processing. What was your perspective going into this,

667
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:16,000
what kind of processing were you doing? And encoding specificity,

668
00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:19,400
what state were you in your The brain binds those

669
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:22,880
all together because your brain is actually intelligent, more intelligent

670
00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:25,800
than Enlightenment ideology. Your brain is trying to figure out

671
00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:27,599
how to make you an agent in the world.

672
00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:30,239
Speaker 3: Wow, right, what a radical proposal.

673
00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:35,039
Speaker 1: And so it's understanding that you know, I need to

674
00:37:35,119 --> 00:37:39,000
constantly try to fit this person to a situation. That's

675
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:43,239
what the learning is for so, organizing space, organizing time

676
00:37:43,639 --> 00:37:47,119
are part of this deep mnemonic aspect, which is a

677
00:37:47,159 --> 00:37:48,000
cognitive aspect.

678
00:37:48,000 --> 00:37:48,920
Speaker 3: It's a way of learning.

679
00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:52,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it seems also that the organization of space

680
00:37:52,519 --> 00:37:55,480
is I mean, it sounds it sounds obvious when I say,

681
00:37:55,519 --> 00:37:57,760
but that it has to do with orientation.

682
00:37:58,199 --> 00:38:00,239
Speaker 1: Oh, of course, I'm going to talk a lot about

683
00:38:00,599 --> 00:38:03,000
We're going to talk a lot about orientation and the

684
00:38:03,039 --> 00:38:07,599
technical word for pointing a stension, how we point at things.

685
00:38:08,199 --> 00:38:12,599
And we forget how unique and embodied this is. For

686
00:38:12,679 --> 00:38:15,760
human beings. We use pointing in order to learn language.

687
00:38:16,159 --> 00:38:20,199
So pointing comes before, and there's a really good book

688
00:38:20,239 --> 00:38:21,599
out on it. I'll make a bit of reference to

689
00:38:21,639 --> 00:38:26,039
it in the course and orientation. All of these things

690
00:38:26,039 --> 00:38:29,360
come before and make our propositional knowing possible for us.

691
00:38:29,679 --> 00:38:32,039
But as far as we can tell, the only other

692
00:38:32,159 --> 00:38:35,559
organisms that get pointing, and that's because we've bred them

693
00:38:35,599 --> 00:38:38,199
to do this for fifty thousand years. Or dogs, you

694
00:38:38,280 --> 00:38:41,519
try to get any other we don't see pointing anywhere else.

695
00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:44,920
And dogs, dogs don't point for each other. They only

696
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:51,320
point for us, right, And so we forget how crucial

697
00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:55,119
pointing is and the organizing of time and space reorients

698
00:38:55,239 --> 00:38:58,559
us and gets us to repoint. Part of what it does,

699
00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:01,760
I'll get into that and the courses it decenters us.

700
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:04,880
It gets us to point away from that the ego

701
00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:09,480
and towards This is mac Namara's idea about ritual being

702
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:13,159
an active dcentric It turns the arrow of relevance from

703
00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:14,760
this way to that way.

704
00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:18,000
Speaker 2: Okay, so that's an interesting So basically, let's say if

705
00:39:18,039 --> 00:39:20,920
I put up a pole, right, I put up something,

706
00:39:21,199 --> 00:39:23,960
and then all of a sudden that reference point now

707
00:39:24,119 --> 00:39:27,280
brings me out of myself. Right, that's right, into this pole.

708
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:29,239
But what it also does it makes it possible for

709
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:30,159
others to do the same.

710
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:30,880
Speaker 3: That's right.

711
00:39:31,119 --> 00:39:35,679
Speaker 2: Where it makes it possible. It makes uh group participant

712
00:39:35,760 --> 00:39:39,960
group action more more plausible or more easier.

713
00:39:40,320 --> 00:39:40,840
Speaker 3: You got it.

714
00:39:41,360 --> 00:39:43,760
Speaker 2: M Yeah, that makes sense, and then you can understand

715
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:47,039
then from there. Once you understand that, then you can

716
00:39:47,159 --> 00:39:51,920
understand totemization. You can understand all kinds of more abstract processes.

717
00:39:52,039 --> 00:39:55,039
Speaker 3: Right, And it's not silly superstition.

718
00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:57,880
Speaker 1: Oh though, I mean I'm speaking in a racist fashion

719
00:39:57,880 --> 00:40:01,440
because I consider it racist. Please don't misquote me on this,

720
00:40:01,639 --> 00:40:04,599
but you know, oh, the silly savages with their superstitious

721
00:40:04,639 --> 00:40:06,039
totem poles.

722
00:40:05,719 --> 00:40:09,679
Speaker 2: Right organization, like even not just the poll but lean

723
00:40:09,639 --> 00:40:12,559
in a more abstract way of having some thing, you know,

724
00:40:12,679 --> 00:40:15,360
like in the native culture, like they would have a

725
00:40:15,400 --> 00:40:18,599
spirit animal, right, like spirit the spirit animal that binds

726
00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:20,920
and they have different tribes that have different animals that

727
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:21,360
bind them.

728
00:40:21,400 --> 00:40:23,159
Speaker 1: Okay, but I'm going to talk about I'm going to

729
00:40:23,199 --> 00:40:24,800
talk about that. I'm going to talk about that with

730
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:27,519
work I did with Joan Shappy. But the NASA scientists

731
00:40:27,559 --> 00:40:32,039
moving the rovers around on Mars and this isn't my word. VERTESSI,

732
00:40:32,119 --> 00:40:35,400
who did one of the best ethnography say said this

733
00:40:35,559 --> 00:40:36,079
is her term.

734
00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:38,480
Speaker 3: They turned the rover into a totem.

735
00:40:38,679 --> 00:40:41,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it had it acted that way. It had

736
00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:44,000
to kind of act that way. And I remember that

737
00:40:44,079 --> 00:40:45,840
when you have the examples of your game. Some of

738
00:40:45,880 --> 00:40:50,159
the examples almost went into the magical. Oh the heears

739
00:40:50,199 --> 00:40:52,159
that are not at all like you could explain it,

740
00:40:52,639 --> 00:40:55,119
you know, the basic reasonable idea of yeah, we work

741
00:40:55,159 --> 00:40:57,159
together towards the thing, so it kind of acts as

742
00:40:57,159 --> 00:40:59,800
a binder for our thoughts and action. But there were

743
00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:01,920
there were more, there were stranger things going. Well.

744
00:41:02,039 --> 00:41:05,599
Speaker 1: They were talking like sympathetic magic. These hard nosed engineered Yeah,

745
00:41:05,719 --> 00:41:08,679
very much, very much. And they were very worried that

746
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:11,519
they were talking that way, but they didn't have any

747
00:41:11,639 --> 00:41:14,800
because of the Enlightenment economies. They didn't have any other

748
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:17,679
language of talking about it. And they thought they were

749
00:41:17,719 --> 00:41:20,519
trying to be honest to their experience, and I give

750
00:41:20,519 --> 00:41:22,639
them credit for that, and so they were they were

751
00:41:22,639 --> 00:41:25,679
forced to use this language, and then they were very

752
00:41:25,719 --> 00:41:28,840
nervous about using it because right, well because of the

753
00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:29,960
Enlightenment economies.

754
00:41:30,199 --> 00:41:32,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, oh, this is going to be great, guys.

755
00:41:32,800 --> 00:41:35,440
I cannot wait. I am really excited about this. And

756
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:41,000
we said it is going to start on October seventh.

757
00:41:41,159 --> 00:41:44,119
That's right, October seventh, at two pm. That is when

758
00:41:44,159 --> 00:41:46,760
it starts. And then it's going to go for six weeks.

759
00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:49,079
We're going to have one week in there that's going

760
00:41:49,119 --> 00:41:53,400
to be a break, but it'll go from then. Look

761
00:41:53,559 --> 00:41:55,719
down in the description, we'll have a link for you

762
00:41:55,760 --> 00:41:58,519
to be able to sign up for the class, and

763
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:00,880
like if you show up a lot, there'll be a

764
00:42:00,920 --> 00:42:04,159
possibility of engaging. There'll be Q and a discussion. We'll

765
00:42:04,199 --> 00:42:06,800
have moderators that will be able to manage that and

766
00:42:06,840 --> 00:42:09,639
then on the last day, we'll have our final discussion

767
00:42:09,639 --> 00:42:12,039
and engage in Q and A. So this is I'm

768
00:42:12,079 --> 00:42:13,639
excited about this, can see me too.

769
00:42:13,639 --> 00:42:14,639
Speaker 3: I'm rather looking forward to it.

770
00:42:14,679 --> 00:42:18,360
Speaker 1: I think this topic is pertinent and has the potential

771
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:22,599
to be profound, and I welcome. I actually proposed to you,

772
00:42:22,639 --> 00:42:24,639
and you you were very generous about it, making this

773
00:42:24,679 --> 00:42:26,480
more diological, which I really wanted.

774
00:42:26,559 --> 00:42:27,400
Speaker 3: So thank you about that.

775
00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:30,320
Speaker 2: All right, and so everybody show up. I can't wait

776
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:33,000
to see you and John. Thanks again for all your insight.

777
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:35,360
Speaker 3: Well, thank you. I'm looking forward to this