Why Reason Needs Spirit | John Vervaeke

John Vervaeke presents a framework for understanding cognition, rationality, and spirit, arguing for a shift away from the Enlightenment's model of disengagement towards a "porous participation" with reality. He introduces predictive processing and relevance realization as key cognitive functions, emphasizing the role of the "imaginal" in rational thought. Vervaeke suggests that our relationship with the world is not a dichotomous separation but a porous interaction, where the modeling of the world and the self bleed into each other. He explores the concept of "voluntary necessity" as a sensed presence of reason, love, beauty, and relevance, linking it to Spinoza's idea that truth is its own standard. He also touches on the multi-leveled nature of human existence, from agency to selfhood to personhood, and how these levels interact through porous participation.