Dr. Vervaeke, an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto, where he has taught since 1994, and Bishop Maximus, a Visiting Instructor at Saint Photios Orthodox Theological Seminary, discuss the idea of symbol.
Here they work together to answer the question, "Is it possible that our ideas about the world are iconographical representations of the world that also allow symbolic representation in the Dionysian sense of symbol?"
DONATE: spots.edu/expansion
SAINT PHOTIOS ORTHODOX THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY (S.P.O.T.S.) WEBSITE: www.spots.edu
CHURCH OF THE GENUINE ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS OF AMERICA (GOC) WEBSITE:
www.hotca.org
Dr. Vervaeke Bio: Dr. John Vervaeke is an Associate Professor, in the teaching stream. He has been teaching at the University of Toronto since 1994. He currently teaches courses in the Psychology department on thinking and reasoning with an emphasis on insight problem solving, cognitive development with an emphasis on the dynamical nature of development, and higher cognitive processes with an emphasis on intelligence, rationality, mindfulness, and the Psychology of wisdom. He is the director of the Cognitive Science program where he also teaches courses on the introduction to Cognitive Science, and the Cognitive Science of consciousness wherein he emphasizes 4E (embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended) models of cognition and consciousness . In addition, he taught a course in the Buddhism, Psychology and Mental Health program on Buddhism and Cognitive Science for fifteen years. He is the director of the Consciousness and the Wisdom Studies Laboratory. He has won and been nominated for several teaching awards including the 2001 Students' Administrative Council and Association of Part-time Undergraduate Students Teaching Award for the Humanities, and the 2012 Ranjini Ghosh Excellence in Teaching Award. He has published articles on relevance realization, general intelligence, mindfulness, flow, metaphor, and wisdom. He is first author of the book Zombies in Western Culture: A 21st Century crisis which integrates Psychology and Cognitive Science to address the meaning crisis in Western society. He is the author and presenter of the KZfaq series, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis, and the series After Socrates.