You’ve Come a Long Way, Vervaeke

Jack White, the Buddha, and John Vervaeke's Four Ways of Knowing

This past week, Jack White from the White Stripes celebrated his 50th birthday. It somehow feels both older and younger than he should be. But I guess you split the difference - and unsurprisingly, it’s about right.

Milestones are good for thinking of a ‘legacy’. And seeing as the White Stripes are being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in November, its as good a time as any to pause on an early track: “Why Can’t You Be Nicer to Me?” to ask about its deeper meaning.

It’s not one of the hits. But it lands with that jagged intensity that makes early White Stripes stuff so good. It’s the sound of a bloke not quite understanding why life keeps kicking him in the guts.

Which is by way of introducing two individuals who would probably have opinions on life kicking you in the guts: the Buddha and John Vervaeke.

If asked, the Buddha might’ve waxed lyrical about the Four Noble Truths, while John Vervaeke - using his psychology and cognitive science background - would probably chip in with his Four Kinds of Knowing.

(left to right: cognitive scientist John Vervaeke, Siddhartha Gautama - or the Buddha, and Jack White III from the White Stripes. Picture generated by ChatGPT.)

Readers of this newsletter might guess that I’m about to suggest that both of these four-fold distinctions from the Buddha and Vervaeke are related. You’re correct! Thankfully it’s less of a stretch than how Jack White is related to the story, which is really more me being a fan of good music!

OK, well, firstly the claim is that each of the Four Truths and each of the Four Knowings converge on a different kind of question:

• What’s hurting?

• Why is it happening?

• How does peace arise?

• What helps it grow?

Each has a causal direction, a mode of understanding - and a high pitched ringing in the ears.

It might get loud.

1. Dukkha

Causal shape: One → One
Knowing type: Propositional

The Buddha starts at dukkha - life being unsatisfactoriness.

Which is the spiritual version of shouting: “Why can’t you be nicer to me?”

Dukkha isn’t a mystery. My preferred framing is that it’s a one-to-one cause, or loop.
To understand this, we’ll zoom out - just for a second - to my claim that each of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism has a different directional structure:

• One-to-one

• One-to-many

• Many-to-one

• Many-to-many

And dukkha - unsatisfactoriness - is the cleanest, the truth I call a one-to-one direction.

e.g. You wanted something → You didn’t get it → You’re in pain.
Maybe your guitar went out of tune. Your ex-girlfriend blocked you on Instagram. Your back hurts. This caused that.

I want to say that this one-to-one direction - a kind of a loop - maps directly onto what Vervaeke calls Propositional Knowing. This is knowing that something is true.

This caused that just is just telling it like it is.

It’s the truth you feel, the truth you can’t avoid.

2. Samudaya

Causal shape: One → Many
Knowing type: Procedural

So pain exists. But why?

You’d think the one-to-one mapping would be enough for the universe, and if it was… well everything would probably fit quite nicely! But no - as well as having a one-to-one direction, it makes sense that there is a one-to-many - leaving too much of a ‘many’ left over. A left over that, frankly, we can never hope to fill.

This leaves a constant craving.

And this, my friends, is the Second Noble Truth, being that craving is the cause of suffering.

This isn’t to say craving doesn’t get results. It puts you to work - and that’s the trap.
But both craving, and the work that chases that craving, generates this one-to-many relationship: you chase much and create much. Useful things at times, but also much anxiety, blame, jealousy, overthinking, and anger. The list goes on.

In Vervaeke’s terms, this is Procedural Knowing: the knowing of how of things unfold, usually after many attempts.

It’s also, arguably, the basic shape of science: isolate a cause, test it across contexts, and watch the effects accumulate.

That makes it powerful - but also dangerous.

Craving is procedural and generative. But so is the work to hunt the craving down.

3. Nirodha

Causal shape: Many → One
Knowing type: Perspectival

We usually listen to the notes in the music, but what if we flipped the script and thought of the music as the space in between the notes?

The Buddha says that peace is possible, and we can actually get off the treadmill if we like. But not by striving, and definitely not by doing more - but it may be the gaps that are important.

Because when you stop clinging, something experiential occurs. Not because you force it, but because you stop forcing.

Suddenly, instead of pushing out, the world comes in.

This turns the one-to-many to many-to-one causation. And it does feel like a flip or reversal - although its hard to describe how to get there. You might have felt it as a kid pondering the weirdness of how we came to be. Or maybe looking up into the Milky Way and just… being awestruck at how small our world is. I have a good friend who - at least by my interpretation - felt it in a vivid dream.

The ‘many’ of the world comes into a single point of concentration, an object perhaps, or even consciousness itself. And that’s what I take to be Perspectival Knowing for Vervaeke - not knowledge about, but knowledge as.

Buddhists know this as nirodha and it isn’t an achievement. It’s the ‘absence’ when your brain stops narrating, or the moments in between the notes.

When you get a glimpse of it, it’s called ‘awakening’. After that the direction is set - you know which way to go, even if getting there (or ‘stabilisation’) is hard graft or by some accounts, impossible!

And yes - this one’s normative. It’s the direction the whole practice is pointing toward.

4. Marga

Causal shape: Many → Many
Knowing type: Participatory

So how do you get to this ‘awakening’ I’m talking about… or just as importantly, how do you foster it when you’ve had a glimpse?

The Buddha gives you tools: the Eightfold Path - right speech, right effort, right mindfulness, and so on.

It’s not a single fix. It’s the habits to get you there.

You speak kindly → You stop telling white lies → People open up → You feel less defensive...

It builds.

This is many-to-many causation: dynamic, tangled, recursive. And I argue it’s Participatory Knowing to use the Vervaeken term - the kind of knowing that arises only when you’re in it.

You’re not following instructions. You’re becoming someone who walks a path.

And just like a great Jack White solo, the feedback loop is the point - it works on itself.

The Path isn’t about being good. It’s about changing the way you relate to causes so that you can flip the switch into nirodha.

It sounds esoteric, and I guess it is. Practical advice? Resolve never to tell another lie… but really ANY lie. Not suggesting you need to be brutally honest, or be some compulsive character in a Jim Carrey film. You can always say you don’t wish to answer something if it’s the truth. But start by cutting out white lies and see what happens. It might just be the first acorn in the big stack that will sustain you in winter.

Fade Out

If you’ve ever muttered “why can’t you be nicer to me?” to no one in particular - congratulations.

You’re already halfway there.

Because the Four Noble Truths - and by extension the Four Ways of Knowing - aren’t four thoughts. They’re four ways of seeing - indeed the only four directions you can go from ‘one’ to ‘many’.

The four moves your mind can make:

1. Admit the pain.

2. Trace the mechanism.

3. Let go and feel the shift.

4. Find the little acorns of change.

And like Jack White’s deep cuts - they might be a little messy.
But they’re real.
And a mixture of loudness and silence.
And sometimes, exactly what you need to hear.