Idea · carried by 1 source
Cognitive Fluency to Mystical Experience
John Vervaeke describes his published paper in his talk on cognition and religion:
Where it comes from
John Vervaeke describes his published paper in his talk on cognition and religion: > “The paper is called 'From Fluency to Mystical Experience: Cognitive Continuum.' And the idea is the phenomenon of cognitive fluency, which is basically a processing measure not a product measure.” [~51:30]
How it works
- Beauty, truth, and trustworthiness are all processing measures — they're about how fluently you process something
- Mystical experience is not pathological; it's a natural extension of the same cognitive mechanism
- It has evolutionary adaptive value: “rapid broad and deep and insightful learning which might be needed in a terrifically volatile environment”