S5E2 Realness
Having established that what is most meaningful to us is that which is experienced as the most real, this episode delves into ways of imagining the specifics of realness itself. Drawing again on the work of Dr. John Vervaeke, we discover that realness is experienced along four dimensions. The real is purposeful, coherent, significant, and it grounds our sense of what matters. In the absence of these four things, humans begin to sense that they are in the grip of illusion, and the yoga traditions have much to say about the prevalence of illusion in our lives. The discussion ends with a few thought experiments geared toward demonstrating that we prefer reality to illusion.
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Edited Transcript
Welcome everyone. Last time, we opened up a dialogue about the need for meaning in human life, and began to make connections between meaning and realness: that which is most meaningful is that which is most real.
And since this podcast is contextualized around the subject yoga, and particularly its core concern of awakening from ignorance and illusion via the cultivation of wisdom, we also made a connection between yoga, meaning, and realness: yoga writ large is the discipline of awakening via well fitted union, so its inherent epistemology and the methods that flow naturally from that cohere wonderfully with our blissful core. The yoga traditions assume that as we awaken, we become more real, and our lives can become more meaningful.
We talked about the possibility that the modern world is in a meaning crisis and something like a wisdom famine, and that a symptom of this is that it's getting harder and harder to intuit what is real, and therefore more difficult to experience meaning. From the perspective of the yoga tradition this stems from loss of contact with our essence, or, suffering from a kind of metabolic dysfunction of the process our essence performs. A symptom of this dysfunction is modal confusion: or mistaking our having needs and the ways they are met, with our being needs and the challenges they present in order to be realized. Simply put, because we have lost touch with our core essence, we don’t understand that simply having the materials for survival and a certain status are not sufficient to generate self transcendence and greater belonging: having will never substitute for becoming noble and wise, and our nature demands that we move in this direction.
Dr. John Vervaeke
In this discussion, we want to go deeper into this notion of realness. But before we do that, I want to introduce a thinker who is very, very important in the ongoing inquiry happening here at the Shala. His name is Dr. John Vervaeke. He is a cognitive scientist and a philosopher at the University of Toronto. I came across Dr. Vervaeke’s work on Youtube: while on sabbatical several years ago: he made a fifty two part series called Awakening from the Meaning Crisis, which was one of the most interesting and enlightening things that I have ever come across. It was immensely helpful in opening my mind through an elegant convergence of cognitive science, Western and Eastern philosophy, and Eastern and Western wisdom traditions. It’s just an amazing piece of work. I recommend that everyone seek that out and try to get into it.
He also has another series that has been ongoing after he finished awakening from the meaning crisis called After Socrates, which takes up some of those same issues. He has a foundation called the Vervaeke foundation where there are many, many dialogs and podcasts, and practices like meditation, movement, and community oriented activity, all centering around the cultivation of wisdom and meaning in life. Most of what I say about realness here directly comes from his work.
Realness is Assumed and Inherently Valued
Before we get into the technical specifics about realness, I want to suggest that if, philosophically for instance, you find the concept of the real to be problematic, you're in a self defeating position. For example, there is an idea that has been floating around for a while now that the world and everything associated with it may be a simulation, an illusion of sorts. To this assertion we might ask, “Can we know it’s a simulation?” And also, “Can we escape it?” If we can’t know it’s a simulation, then our experience is real because we can know nothing else. If we can know it’s a simulation, we are not trapped inside it, because our knowing transcends it in an important sense, and this means there is certainly something real, namely our knowing. Likewise, if we can’t escape the simulation, then it counts as real because there is no other possible relation to it. If we can escape it, then we are more real than the simulation: our being transcends it. So the assertion there is nothing really real is self defeating: we are - all of us - always already proceeding within the understanding that there is something real, and that it is a cornerstone of what matters most.
In support, let's take a look at our language, specifically at adjectival and adverbial concepts that point to the truth that we are always functioning within the context of the real. Adjectivally, realness is indicated by that which is actual or factual, material, tangible, concrete, palpable, corporeal, substantial, genuine, authentic, sincere, true or from the heart. So the concept of realness indicates something that's available to us, that we can touch, that that our senses can be in relationship with, something that is substantial, something that is moreover true or sincere, not false or fake, and deeply connected to the knowing that the human heart does.
Adverbially, realness is communicated through words like very, extremely, exceedingly, exceptionally, especially, tremendously, immensely, vastly, hugely, extraordinarily and excessively. So in these terms, realness is an amplifier of anything: it is the moreness of all things that matter most.
We can combine these two linguistic families: very actual, extremely tangible, exceedingly concrete, especially substantial, exceptionally from the heart, extraordinarily from the heart, excessively sincere. So given all of this together, you can kind of see that realness is sensed as something concrete, something I can be in physical, mental, and emotional relationship with.
Though it may transcend the senses, it can be apprehended via their activity. It's lasting, substantial. In terms of generating and applying knowledge, I'm willing to base future predictions on it, willing to risk action on it because its presence is intense enough to trust. It can increase in its meaning and intensity, and it emphasizes or accentuates the presence of any particular thing or event to which I am related. So regardless of what you may believe or think, we all live and respond to these kinds of notions all the time, and therefore we're operating in an assumed framework of realness.
Now, according to Dr. Vervaeke, you can drill down inside this idea that the most meaningful is the most real, and you can pull out four particular qualities that give us a sense of realness. When we don't experience these things, we sense that what we're doing, or what we're thinking about, or what has happened to us, is less real and therefore less meaningful. The four qualities of realness are: purpose, coherence, significance, and mattering, or ‘to matter’. Let's go through them one by one to get a sense of what they're like.
Purpose
Purpose could be called the for-the-sake-of-which, or we usually say the reason things are done or desired. All actions and desires have for-the-sake-of-which: actions are not done purposelessly, even when they're done in ignorance. According to Dr. Vervaeke, what's interesting about purpose is that it needs to be connected to non-instrumental ends, like goodness, truth and beauty, in order for it to ultimately contribute to our sense of realness. In this sense, the purpose that contributes to our sense of realness transcends the ordinary, mundane reasons fueling our desires and actions. In terms of our last discussion, purpose needs to transcend simple having needs, and ultimately be oriented by our being needs.
For example, the purpose of a knife is to cut; so cutting in general illustrates a knife's instrumental end. But one does not simply take any given knife and start cutting indiscriminately: you don't use a chef's knife to chop bricks. So knives can be used wisely or foolishly. To use a knife foolishly is to relegate it to the simple status of a tool. To use the knife wisely means to bring its virtue to bear in a specific context: chef’s knives are for cutting foods, and brick hammers - a form of knife, or cutting tool - are for bricks and construction sites. So each thing is related to a specific purpose wisely if it is fitted to the proper context. In the right context, the knife is more meaningful. More importantly, we value knives because of what they can give us. They are instruments serving other ends.
Human beings have purposes too, and like the knife, we can relate to the human being wisely or foolishly. It is easy to understand the purpose of a knife because of its primarily instrumental nature, but if we ask, “What is the purpose of a human being?” things immediately become more subtle: we do not value humans simply for what they can do, or do for us - as if they were mere instruments. We value them in themselves. So the purpose of a human being, its virtue, surpasses mere utility, and reaches in the direction of such things as truth, goodness, and beauty. These universals, like the humans who have experienced them and remembered their centrality in the good life, are not valued simply because of what they will give us. We engage in goodness, because it's good to do so. We seek the truth and tell the truth because that in itself is a virtuous endeavor. We love to experience beauty, not just because it will make us happy - it doesn't always make us happy; sometimes it makes us sad. We seek it and strive to express it because it is good in itself.
And so this purpose that contributes to our sense of realness has to transcend an instrumental relationship with reality, and aim for a non-instrumental, universal value, something ultimate, in order for it to push us toward what is most real.
Ultimately, we must feel that reality, and our sense of connectedness to it, are good in and of themselves. Interestingly enough, If we are incapable of this orientation, then we fall prey to a particular kind of irrationality: hyper focus on the goal of the process in which we are engaged. If this happens, intelligence is never directed to optimization of the process by which we are moving toward that goal. And most importantly for this discussion, turning intelligence onto the process is a crucial aspect of wisdom.
Coherence
Next, there's coherence. Coherence is the experience that things fit together well: “Co” means together. This is an expression of right relationship, the right ratio, or fitting of things. So life and our understanding of it cannot generate meaning if the world is incoherent. Another way to say that is: if the world constantly presents as chaotic, we can't find any meaning, and consequently, it doesn't seem real to us. It seems absurd.
So when the world is coherent, it is intelligible. When the world is intelligible, I have access to explanations: I feel like I know things that can explain parts of the world, and also, in turn, that the world itself explains the things that I know. In this scenario my understanding is in the right relationship with my experience. The more coherent things are, the more real they seem to us.
Significance
The third aspect of the real is significance. And this is an interesting one to define: to signify is to be a “sign of”. But we should also think of significance as something’s being important. Significance is the sense that the world is really real, or it's importantly real. This is the feeling that I'm connected in the deepest possible way to the sense making that I'm always engaged in. And when I'm connected to that capacity, things are experienced as more and more significant. I'm taken deeper and deeper in; things become more important. I understand more of them, and in turn, I understand more of myself in this reciprocal opening that's taking place.
Dr Vervaeke notes that significance is part of what he calls provability. We're always engaged in proving and disproving our experience, sort of making predictions about what will happen based on what has happened. Provability is the sense that my understanding is not only predictive of certain results in a way that is satisfactory, but that a deeper intelligibility is revealing itself. I'm beginning to be able to discover and interpret new patterns in the world, and spot counterfactuals that allow me to understand realities in ways that I couldn't before.
Mattering
The last piece is called mattering, like it matters what I'm doing. Mattering seems to me to be all of the others kind of rolled into one. When things matter, I feel like what I am, and what I'm doing, point toward contact with the real, and in particular, toward the fact that I am in a deepening relationship with that. So mattering is also a sense of being connected to something beyond myself that has a reality and a value independent of my own egocentric preferences.
As we close, let’s go back to the questions that I asked in the first section of the last episode. Remember: these questions are questions that one can ask when wondering what is most meaningful. In light of this discussion, they also assess what really matters, and all of this goes to realness. Number one, what do you want to exist, even when you no longer exist? Number two, how much of a difference do you make to that now? Or again, what are you doing now that contributes to the continued existence of this x that you want to continue after you?
Now, if you can only answer the first question - what do you want to exist even when you don't - then you are in the seeking phase of life because you're not doing anything to contribute to that end; you haven't drilled down, drawn your line in the sand and said, This is my contribution to purpose that is significant, and coherent, in my life. If you can't answer either of the questions, then that quality of mattering in your life is low, and consequently, meaning is low, and this is a dangerous situation.
According to Dr Vervaeke’s research, when mattering and meaning are low, realness is low, and this is predictive of many bad outcomes in life: poor physical health, bad financial outcomes, as in not making enough money, or carelessly wasting money. Low mattering and meaning also predict bad relational outcomes: many broken relationships, or no relationship, contributing to the sense of feeling alone. And finally, bad psychological health.
The Backside of Realness: Illusion
Now I want to finish with two powerful thought experiments. It is useful to understand that realness is a sense we have that is essentially a comparison with something else: illusion, so the backside of realness is illusion. Moreover, illusion is something that the yoga tradition has been very, very interested in for a long time. And there are many teachings that come out of the Upanishads, for instance, that talk about illusion and the transformative power inherent in the experience of waking up from illusion. This moment can be called the moment of realization, or samadhi, a moment of deep, stable attention in which the nagging egoic-centered sense of self is transcended. Said in another way, this is a moment when higher mind has broken through ignorance and has begun to direct the considerable perceptual capacities of the organism. These two thought experiments are interesting because though both are examples of awakening from an illusion, one has a negative valence, and the other positive.
#1
Imagine that on your 21st birthday, your parents sit you down and say, “listen, we have something that we have to tell you. Ever since you were a child, from well before you could remember, we've been engaged in a psycho- social experiment directed by the CIA. So we are not actually your biological parents. We are CIA agents that have lived here and raised you all of this time”.
They then take you into a secret room in the house that's an observation room with many TV screens and cameras that look into every room in the house. You realize you have been observed in this way your whole life. And they then say: “we have done well for you since you were born. We have treated you as if we loved you, told you as much. We have comforted you in your distress throughout your developmental period, fed you, and cared for you in all the ways expected of a parent. But now that you're 21 you’ve come of age, and we have to tell you what's actually going on. However, from here on out, we can continue to act in the capacity of your parents, but you're also free to leave and not be involved with this anymore.”
What do you do? Or even more importantly, does this information matter to you? Do you think: “well, it's been good so far. You have fed me, you acted as if you loved me, told me the things that parents are supposed to tell their kids. So, yeah, let's just keep going in the way that we have been, and I'll act as if you really are my parents: nothing important has happened here?”
The vast majority of students to whom I have told this story as a way of demonstrating suddenly awakening from an illusion feel that this changes everything. The feeling in the heart changes, which is the foundation for all action and all concern.
#2
The second experiment comes from the Upanishads. It is a classic teaching about waking up from illusion and being deeply transformed. It's known as the rope snake lesson. And so imagine this: you've been gone all day long, at work, doing whatever it is you do in Vedic society, and now you're on your way home, and it's dusk, so it's beginning to get dark. When you come to your home, you set your stuff down outside the door, take your shoes off, as is your habit, and walk into the house. After washing up, you begin to prepare dinner, when all of a sudden, over in the corner of the hut, you see a snake coiled up. Immediately you're gripped with fear. Cobras are very, very important in the literal history, and also mythology of India. Cobras are deadly, and responsible for many, many deaths, deaths of animals, deaths of people. So they are things for which one really has to watch out. Your heart rushes, your hair stands on up. Your mouth gets dry. You Back away, with fixed eyes on the snake. And then all of the sudden, because your eyes have better adjusted to the light:
it's not a snake, it's a rope. Immediately, signals of relief and safety begin to flood your body, and this is coincident with the relaxation of your muscles. You let out a deep sigh of realization: “ah, I was wrong; I saw an illusion. I can continue with what I was doing . . . I'm safe.”
Notice that each of these is an example of coming more and more into contact with the real. As such, each concerns purpose and coherence. Each illustrates coming apart, and then coming together again in greater clarity. Each also ultimately deals with what matters: about what I should care about, and about what I should I do now? So they're about meaning, and therefore the importance of realness, and the need to be in a true, good and beautiful relationship with it.
Summary
What is most meaningful is experienced as that which is most real. Realness has four main dimensions: it manifests purpose that transcends mere instrumentality; it manifests coherence, and as such is non-chaotic; it shows significance, or it connects me to my sense making function, and generates the feeling that I'm going deeper into reality through that function. And finally, realness matters: it tells me intuitively what I should care about, and therefore what I should do.
These four things all contribute to the experience of the real. And it's important to remember that any serious lack of them - any one of them in particular - or all of them in varying degrees is predictive of bad physical, financial, relational and psychological outcomes.
We have also seen that the experience of the real is often coincident with the shattering of illusion, and awakening to a new reality. Though this generally lands us closer to what is true, or to what is more real, it's not always a pleasant experience - but it's absolutely necessary in the quest for wisdom. This tells us so much about the profound depth, and intensity of experience that a wisdom tradition like yoga facilitates. Throughout the course of sincere practice, one will be guided through the shattering of many, many illusions: in relation to the external world, the true nature of identity or the self, in relation to intuition and revelation and their meaning in our lives, in relation to knowledge - - all of these areas will be taken through the grinder of purpose and coherence and significance and mattering, in the hopes that we come into deeper intimacy with what is real, so that we begin to avoid foolishness, self transcend, and overcome ignorance.
God bless you all, and I'll see you next time.
