In today's podcast, it is a special one on the podcast to celebrate the completion of Joe's thesis. As returning listeners to the podcast, you will be familiar that Joe's been working on his thesis for the last year.
Joe's thesis is The Manifestation of Meaning: A Thesis on Meaning Making and Veterans. In this conversation, we get to unpack all of the research Joe's been working on to be able to put into the thesis, and it's a really interesting one, you'll hear for both me and Jordan it's a really interesting topic.
Having a platform that allows my friend to be able to share the things that he's been pouring himself into the last year and to give his thesis a home post-graduation so that it can exist outside of the academic world is a really special thing for me. And so this is co releasing with the thesis so you can go read it on the website, and you'll be able to listen to this long-form podcast. That's hopefully a little bit more accessible and not as much in the weeds in the technical sense as the actual thesis itself, but I highly recommend you both listen and read that the thesis, if you're really interested in this space of meaning-making because Joe pulls on a lot of threads from experts, both current and past, so with that everyone, please enjoy this conversation with Joe Jackowski and Jordan Criss.
Show Notes:
(00:05:52) People are blank slates
(00:09:19) Difference between values and goals
(00:11:59) Action Identification Theory
(00:15:13) How to organize values?
(00:17:52) Abstraction
(00:20:59) Global Meaning
(00:24:55) Sunday Scaries
(00:25:55) Why are values abstract?
(00:28:02) Example from philosophy and superordinate goals
(00:29:21) Religious Systems
(00:36:37) Does this hold true for atheists?
(00:37:52)The loss of belief and increase in suicidal ideation
(00:39:36) Jordan Peterson including a buffer against anxiety
(00:46:15) We are not blank slates
(00:48:19) Updating stories and cultural beliefs
(00:52:17) Shared Beliefs
(00:55:06) How does this explain the Crusades
(00:57:55) Do different meanings naturally come into conflict?
(01:00:17) Genghis Khan and Cultural Impact
(01:06:01) Situational Meaning and Meaning Violation
(01:13:03) Confronting meaninglessness
(01:15:46) Oscillating between Nihilism and Totalitarianism
(01:17:28) Existential Vacuum
(01:22:05) The search for objective meaning is absurd
(01:26:51) How You makes meaning
(01:36:41) Being in service of others
(01:39:12) Closing
(01:45:21) Books!
Read here https://feedingcuriosity.net/blog/the-manifestation-of-meaning
Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/feedingcuriosity/support