John Vervaeke
John Vervaeke is an associate professor, teaching stream, in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto and director of its Cognitive Science program; he researches intelligence, rationality, wisdom and “relevance realization,” and is publicly known for the YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry lecture series Awakening from the Meaning Crisis and his account of the Western “meaning crisis.”
Contents14 sections
Key facts
1994Begins Teaching at the University of Toronto
Vervaeke holds an honours BA from McMaster University and a BSc, MA and PhD from the University of Toronto.[1]
He has taught at the University of Toronto since 1994, giving courses in the psychology department on thinking and reasoning, cognitive development, and higher cognitive processes including intelligence, rationality, mindfulness and the psychology of wisdom.[2]
2001Teaching Award
In 2001 he received the Students’ Administrative Council and Association of Part-time Undergraduate Students Teaching Award for the Humanities, and in 2012 the Ranjini Ghosh Excellence in Teaching Award.[3]
2012Begins Collaborating with Christopher Mastropietro
From 2012 Christopher Mastropietro, a University of Toronto graduate, worked with him to formulate and publish a response to the Western meaning crisis drawing on cognitive science, philosophy and other disciplines.[3]
June 15, 2017Publishes Zombies in Western Culture
On June 15, 2017, Open Book Publishers released Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis, written with Christopher Mastropietro and Filip Miscevic; the book asks why the zombie has become so pervasive in twenty-first-century popular culture and argues that aspects of the figure reflect a crisis in modern Western culture.[4]
June 2019Discusses the Awakening from the Meaning Crisis Lectures
In June 2019 the podcast Future Thinkers invited him for a two-part interview prompted by his YouTube lecture series Awakening From the Meaning Crisis, covering the causes of the meaning crisis, self-transformation and strategies for creating meaning, and the place of mindfulness, meditation and contemplative practice in the search for meaning.[5]
May 14, 2020Palladium Digital Salon
On May 14, 2020, he joined Wolf Tivy and Ash Milton in a Palladium digital salon on the contemporary crisis of social meaning, discussing the specter of death during the pandemic, how to surpass self-deception and the role of community in creating meaning.[6]
June 21, 2021Paper on Distributed Cognition in Mars Exploration
On June 21, 2021, he and Dan Chiappe published “Distributed Cognition and the Experience of Presence in the Mars Exploration Rover Mission” in Frontiers in Psychology, arguing from the Spirit and Opportunity rover mission that the team experienced a collective sense of presence grounded in shared agency.[7]
September 4, 2022Appears on the Lex Fridman Podcast
He appeared on episode 317 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, whose description calls him a psychologist and cognitive scientist at the University of Toronto; topics included meaning, consciousness, relevance realization, wisdom, truth and reality, the meaning crisis, religion and nontheism, distributed cognition, flow, psychedelics and evil.[8]
February 2024Mentoring the Machines with Shawn Coyne
He and the editor and publisher Shawn Coyne collaborated on Mentoring the Machines, a book on artificial intelligence issued as a series of four short parts, aiming to give readers a clear understanding of AI’s implications.[9]
The publisher says the first part, Orientation, urges readers not to surrender their influence over artificial intelligence to the marketplace or the state but to engage with its development.[10]
October 2024Publishes the Book Awakening From The Meaning Crisis
In October 2024 Story Grid Publishing released Awakening From The Meaning Crisis, written with Christopher Mastropietro, at 424 pages.[11]
The book is based on, and extends, the YouTube lecture series of the same name, which runs to some 50 hours.[12]
January 8, 2025Discusses the Meaning Crisis on The Great Simplification
In episode 158 of The Great Simplification, released on January 8, 2025, he discussed with host Nate Hagens the state of the meaning crisis and its social and cultural context, and the practices he considers most effective for regaining wisdom and direction in modern life.[13]
As of October 2026: Current Roles and Research
He is an associate professor, teaching stream, in the University of Toronto’s Department of Psychology and director of its Cognitive Science program, where he teaches introductory cognitive science with an emphasis on 4E (embodied, embedded, enacted and extended) models of cognition, and he directs the Consciousness and the Wisdom Studies Laboratory.[1]
He researches and publishes on intelligence, rationality, wisdom and meaning in life, emphasizing relevance realization, non-propositional kinds of knowing and 4E cognitive science, and serves on the board of the Vervaeke Foundation.[14]
He teaches an eight-hour Peterson Academy course, Intelligence, Rationality, Wisdom and Spirituality, on the core components of cognitive agency.[15]
Related Organizations, Websites, and Public Accounts
Personal website: Public link: https://johnvervaeke.com/ (opens in a new window)[8]
X: Public account: https://x.com/vervaeke_john (opens in a new window)[8]
YouTube: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/johnvervaeke (opens in a new window)[8]
University of Toronto: Official website: https://www.utoronto.ca/ (opens in a new window)[2]
Sources
- John Vervaeke (opens in a new window)
- John Vervaeke - Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture (opens in a new window)
- Authors (opens in a new window)
- Zombies in Western Culture: A Twenty-First Century Crisis (opens in a new window)
- FTP098, 099: John Vervaeke - Overcoming The Meaning Crisis · Future Thinkers (opens in a new window)
- Digital Salon with John Vervaeke: The Meaning Crisis (opens in a new window)
- Distributed Cognition and the Experience of Presence in the Mars Exploration Rover Mission - PMC (opens in a new window)
- #317 – John Vervaeke: Meaning Crisis, Atheism, Religion & the Search for Wisdom | Lex Fridman Podcast (opens in a new window)
- Understanding AI with John Vervaeke and Shawn Coyne: A Deep Dive into Mentoring The Machines (opens in a new window)
- Mentoring the Machines - Part 1: Orientation - Story Grid Store (opens in a new window)
- Awakening From The Meaning Crisis by Christopher Mastropietro (opens in a new window)
- The Meaning Crisis: Wisdom, Purpose, and AI in 2025 and Beyond - John Vervaeke | #38 (opens in a new window)
- The Meaning Crisis: Wisdom, Purpose, and the Search for Coherence (opens in a new window)
- John Vervaeke | Humanum Review (opens in a new window)
- Intelligence, Rationality, Wisdom and Spirituality | Peterson Academy | How to Think, Not What to Think. (opens in a new window)