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Does intelligence calculate? No. Does intelligence compute? No. Does intelligence build logic? No. Does intelligence solve problems? No.
Explores the nature of human intelligence, cognition, and understanding beyond logic and computation, contrasting with AI and animal intelligence.
Key Takeaways
- Human intelligence transcends mere computation and logic by involving cognition and subjective understanding.
- AI can outperform humans in data processing but cannot experience or create meaning.
- Understanding is a creative, subjective process that connects us to the essence of things, unlike objective cognition.
- Ancient wisdom and traditions highlight a lost intellectual faculty ('nous') essential for true insight.
- Modern reductionist science overlooks this faculty, contributing to a loss of deeper understanding and meaning.
What the video covers
- Intelligence is not merely about calculation, logic, or problem-solving but centers on cognition and understanding.
- Humans are distinguished from animals by their developed intelligence, which is largely quantitative but also qualitative in cognition.
- Cognition involves collecting and structuring information to form descriptive models, while understanding is a subjective, creative interpretation.
- Artificial intelligence excels at data processing and calculation but lacks the capacity for true understanding or meaning.
- The video discusses the philosophical and scientific challenges of defining and localizing understanding in the brain.
- Meaning is subjective and arises from individual interpretation, unlike objective knowledge or truth.
- Ancient and religious traditions recognize a deeper intellectual capacity called 'nous' or direct vision of meaning, distinct from discursive thinking.
- Modern science often reduces mental functions to brain activity, neglecting the essential level of reality and intellectual contemplation.
- The loss of this deeper intellectual faculty leads to difficulties in grasping objective goals and true understanding.
- The video encourages rediscovering and healing this faculty to reconnect with truth and meaning beyond mere information processing.
Chapters
- 00:00What Intelligence Is Not
- 03:06Emotions and Deeper Realities
- 06:13The Nature of Meaning and Truth
- 12:32Understanding Art and Subjectivity
- 19:32Knowing vs. Understanding Nature
- 22:46Mathematical Truths and Objective Reality
- 25:47The Role of Nous in Understanding
- 29:18Instincts and Basic Reactions
- 32:16Using and Healing the Intellect
- 35:22Seeing Beyond the Biological Object
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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No. So, what does it actually do? That is what we will talk about today. About long-lost knowledge, about your forgotten intelligence. And believe me, this is not about esotericism or secret knowledge, this is about a human being.
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So, what does it actually do? That is what we will talk about today. About long-lost knowledge, about your forgotten intelligence. And believe me, this is not about esotericism or secret knowledge, this is about a human being.
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There are many options, but still, one of the main contenders for the correct answer is, undoubtedly, cognition. A human is a cognizing being. He possesses developed intelligence, which strongly distinguishes him from any other animal. Even if we say, for
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What is the most important feature of humans as a biological species? In general, it is quite difficult to answer this question unequivocally.
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Different leagues, and the difference lies precisely in the presence of developed intelligence. So, man has always been aimed at cognition in the broadest sense. Everything interests him from a young age. From the question of what this interesting thing is.
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There are many options, but still, one of the main contenders for the correct answer is, undoubtedly, cognition. A human is a cognizing being. He possesses developed intelligence, which strongly distinguishes him from any other animal. Even if we say, for
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Most scientists would agree that many animals possess developed intelligence. Moreover, it is believed that the difference between humans and animals in this sense is mainly quantitative.
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example, that dolphins are very intelligent animals, we still cannot put them on par with Homo sapiens.
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mind. It also calculates and processes information, analyzing trillions of terabytes of data. It finds statistical patterns and, based on a colossal mathematical base, provides you with the most likely answer. If intelligence is just the ability to process data
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Different leagues, and the difference lies precisely in the presence of developed intelligence. So, man has always been aimed at cognition in the broadest sense. Everything interests him from a young age. From the question of what this interesting thing is.
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itself about the meaning of existence and the true nature of things, unless you ask it to. But why, and why do we even debate, for example, whether AI understands the text it works with?
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We are doomed. We are doomed. To such frightening questions, like what the world is, why I live, as well as who is to blame and where my glasses are. But here is the question. Do animals have intelligence? Hmm.
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Indignation, fear, curiosity? Perhaps, but in reality, something completely different and much more fundamental is happening. Keep watching and you will understand what I am talking about.
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Most scientists would agree that many animals possess developed intelligence. Moreover, it is believed that the difference between humans and animals in this sense is mainly quantitative.
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According to modern views, cognition is the collection of information about an object, structuring it, and forming a descriptive model. Ultimately, it is the answer to the question of how something works. Understanding, however , is a creative process of translating
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The human brain is simply capable of processing more information, building more complex models, and solving more complex problems. Today, besides animals and humans, we also have artificial intelligence. It seems to us that we have finally created a digital
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culture, cognition is objective, while understanding and meaning are subjective. For example, rain is atmospheric precipitation falling from clouds in the form of liquid droplets.
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mind. It also calculates and processes information, analyzing trillions of terabytes of data. It finds statistical patterns and, based on a colossal mathematical base, provides you with the most likely answer. If intelligence is just the ability to process data
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to go for a barbecue, the meaning of that same rain is that it ruins your day off. In other words, meaning is the result of subjective understanding.
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quickly, build logical chains, and find solutions, then AI has already surpassed us. A human, as a computing machine, is deeply secondary and hopelessly outdated. We will never outcalculate a supercomputer. But at the same time, AI also never asks
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Neuroscience describes brain processes well, but it cannot capture or localize understanding itself. This is somewhat similar to the "Explanatory Gap" problem, highlighted back in 1983 by American philosopher Joseph Levine. Are you a deer, Levine?
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itself about the meaning of existence and the true nature of things, unless you ask it to. But why, and why do we even debate, for example, whether AI understands the text it works with?
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while Chalmers looks at this from the perspective of the question: "Who is experiencing this meaningful experience ?" Here we encounter another aspect of the same problem. What does "meaningful " mean? What is meaning? And what is understanding meaning? Take any
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What does "understand" mean? How to distinguish understanding from information processing? Imagine that you are walking down the street and see a fight. What do you feel during this?
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consciousness, delivering you a result. A ready-made understanding, let's say. But what if you feed a dozen paintings into a neural network? It contains infinitely more patterns than you could accumulate in your entire lifetime. It, too, will very quickly determine which
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Indignation, fear, curiosity? Perhaps, but in reality, something completely different and much more fundamental is happening. Keep watching and you will understand what I am talking about.
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You aren't just recognizing figures, colors, and faces. At some point, you begin to grasp the painting. But what is this understanding? It is as if you are living through the depicted story, connecting with the essence of the situation, as if entering the meaning
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Modern cognitive science distinguishes the concepts of cognition and understanding. And this is where the puzzles and oddities immediately begin.
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intellect comes in, not the discursive logical mind of today, but an entirely different capacity. The ancient Greeks knew about it; the medieval scholastics knew about it. The Orthodox Church Fathers know about it. Eastern traditions know about it as well.
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According to modern views, cognition is the collection of information about an object, structuring it, and forming a descriptive model. Ultimately, it is the answer to the question of how something works. Understanding, however, is a creative process of translating
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Many thoughts might seem simplified or not fully developed. That is natural. We are touching on things that are, in principle, difficult to fit into verbal definitions. My goal is not to explain everything as it is, but merely to
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information into the language of one’s own experience. Roughly speaking, cognition is a description of an objective reality, while understanding is a subjective interpretation of that picture by an individual, which forms the meaning of the phenomenon. That is, in modern
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I only offer to know the truth, nothing more. For modern man, his inner world generally consists of several main components. Thinking. Well, it's clear: that's when you think, solve problems, and calculate actions. Feelings, emotions, that's also clear.
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culture, cognition is objective, while understanding and meaning are subjective. For example, rain is atmospheric precipitation falling from clouds in the form of liquid droplets.
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Although, if Aristotle or Shankara, Maximus the Confessor or Thomas Aquinas saw this list, they would surely say that the most important thing is missing. Modern science links absolutely all these functions to brain activity. They are all the result of
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Science has grasped this. This is objective knowledge, but rain itself has no inherent meaning. It has significance as a natural phenomenon, but not meaning. If you are a farmer, the meaning of rain for you is that it waters your crops. But if you planned
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the way, it also remembers and forms a series of side effects, such as emotions, for example, or imagination.
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to go for a barbecue, the meaning of that same rain is that it ruins your day off. In other words, meaning is the result of subjective understanding.
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and there is no objective meaning. There is only calculation in the brain. Truth is objective knowledge about the world, and everyone has their own meaning. In modern science, this is quite a trend. There is no truth, no subject of experience, no meaning;
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That is what science thinks. This is a current modern model, but it has holes in it. The thing is, nobody knows exactly how understanding and the formation of meaning occur.
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Phenomena such as intuition, conscience , contemplation, insight, and aesthetic experience truly exist, and no one disputes that. The question is how these phenomena are explained. At first glance, science has no trouble with this. For instance, intuition is explained by a massive collection of
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Neuroscience describes brain processes well, but it cannot capture or localize understanding itself. This is somewhat similar to the "Explanatory Gap" problem, highlighted back in 1983 by American philosopher Joseph Levine. Are you a deer, Levine?
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the work of System 1. If we look at Daniel Kahneman’s dual-process theory , it is fast, automatic, and unconscious, unlike System 2, which is slow, sequential, and conscious. Or take conscience—it is a completely objectively existing phenomenon. Do you
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No, not that Levine, a different one. It complements Chalmers' "Hard Problem of Consciousness" quite organically and lies in the fact that one can describe the brain's information processing in detail, yet the question remains: how does meaningful experience arise? And
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wonder that beauty, conscience, and meaning. For modern culture, all of these are relative and subjective in nature.
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while Chalmers looks at this from the perspective of the question: "Who is experiencing this meaningful experience?" Here we encounter another aspect of the same problem. What does "meaningful" mean? What is meaning? And what is understanding meaning? Take any
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You cannot deny their existence, so they are classified as subjective manifestations of the human psyche, locked inside the skull. Everything is logical. But the trouble is that such a model leaves fundamentally significant human questions unanswered. After all, if we don't know the true meaning of
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painting, for instance. Your brain recognizes faces, objects, and reconstructs the situation. But how do you understand that this painting is tragic? Science has an answer. Again, the brain processes patterns, compares, and analyzes. All of this happens instantly and imperceptibly to
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actions are good and which are bad—if all these categories are purely subjective—then that is a serious existential problem with very far-reaching consequences. As the English philosopher Aldous Huxley wrote , our metaphysical beliefs are by no means inconsequential. It is in light
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consciousness, delivering you a result. A ready-made understanding, let's say. But what if you feed a dozen paintings into a neural network? It contains infinitely more patterns than you could accumulate in your entire lifetime. It, too, will very quickly determine which
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Throughout its history, up until the Modern era, humanity lived in an entirely different model of reality.
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painting is tragic, which is peaceful, which is cheerful. But does it understand the meaning of these definitions? Because when you understand it, what actually happens?
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meanings and qualities, but I don't like the word "space" here. It sounds too material. Let's call it, instead, an essential level of reality. This is a non-local mode of being that permeates the entire nature of the universe, but is not physically
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You aren't just recognizing figures, colors, and faces. At some point, you begin to grasp the painting. But what is this understanding? It is as if you are living through the depicted story, connecting with the essence of the situation, as if entering the meaning
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ideas. For the Neoplatonists, the world of the divine mind. In Christianity, the Logos of creation. In Islam, the divine names. In Hinduism, Rita and Dharma, the objective cosmic order. In Mahayana Buddhism, Dharmata. The true nature of reality, free from illusions.
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with your consciousness. How does this happen and could it happen in a neural network? As the saying goes, it may sound funny, but the modern scientific worldview provides no clear answer to these questions. And this is where your
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intuitions in world intellectual history. It is interesting that in the subconscious of the average person, this essential level of reality continues to exist. If you ask a modern person whether evil is objective, they will think and answer no. Evil is just
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intellect comes in, not the discursive logical mind of today, but an entirely different capacity. The ancient Greeks knew about it; the medieval scholastics knew about it. The Orthodox Church Fathers know about it. Eastern traditions know about it as well.
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To betray in time is not to betray, it is to foresee. Well, all right, not anyone, but I hope the majority at least. Where does this understanding come from? Neuroscience can describe well how a person perceives a situation, which brain
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Everyone knows about it, except for modern man. But first things first. Here I must make an important disclaimer. In this video, I dare to touch upon a massive topic that couldn't be fully explored in a lifetime. So, please be understanding.
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Of course, cognitive science will provide its own answer. It will explain that condemning a behavior pattern like betrayal provides evolutionary advantages. It will show how this belief formed over time and explain why a person thinks that way. But all this
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Many thoughts might seem simplified or not fully developed. That is natural. We are touching on things that are, in principle, difficult to fit into verbal definitions. My goal is not to explain everything as it is, but merely to
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is precisely why people argue as if the meaning of betrayal objectively exists. And everyone claims that it is they who see this meaning correctly. Just as 2 times 2 is 4 is an objective truth. You can teach a child that 2 times 2 is 6,
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point to what has been largely forgotten today. And gaining detailed knowledge of this is a special personal labor and personal responsibility.
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take perfectly concrete things, say, a tree. You can study it, classify it, and describe the processes of growth and photosynthesis. You can describe the importance of the tree in the ecosystem and even learn how to grow it . But would this be knowing the tree?
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I only offer to know the truth, nothing more. For modern man, his inner world generally consists of several main components. Thinking. Well, it's clear: that's when you think, solve problems, and calculate actions. Feelings, emotions, that's also clear.
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and confirmed: "Yes, this is a tree." And that's the extent of his knowledge. But that is not the deepest level. If we dig deeper, a question arises: where did the very essence of the tree come from? What does it mean to be a tree?
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Imagination, fantasy, the ability to mentally model certain situations and dream. Intuition, when you somehow feel what is right, what is dangerous, what is false. And memory, that's also clear: the retention of information.
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doesn't care what model is stored in your brain. It possesses its own essence of being a tree. So, the essential level of reality is precisely what contains all these meanings and qualities. For a philosopher, these are mathematical truths, the essences of
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Although, if Aristotle or Shankara, Maximus the Confessor or Thomas Aquinas saw this list, they would surely say that the most important thing is missing. Modern science links absolutely all these functions to brain activity. They are all the result of
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naturalistic philosophy denies this. And now we come to the main question. What does intelligence have to do with this? We know that our sensory organs —sight, hearing, and others—show us a world of physical phenomena that are the subject of our experience. But
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processing information in different ways across different brain areas, using various neural sys
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meaning or essence. We can compare them and say, "One corresponds to the other. " It is true. This is the result of a calculation. But neither system A nor system B is a result of calculation itself. Calculation can establish a
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correspondence between them, but it does not create the givens themselves. They are perceived reality. They are given or revealed to us, as we termed it in our previous video, the world's underside. And if so, what do we perceive this revelation with? System A
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is perceived by the physical sensory organs. Excellent. But what is system B perceived with? With what organ do we see a tree? Clearly, with our eyes. But try to answer this: with what organ do we see betrayal? If the eyes see the
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actual tree, then what sees its essence ? And if the eyes see an event, then what sees its justice or injustice?
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Traditional metaphysics claims: "Man has a special faculty to contemplate the meanings and essences of things directly at this essential or meaningful level of reality." In the Latin tradition, this faculty was called*intellectus*, and in the Greek, *nous*. And this is truly surprising.
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Think about it: almost all traditions arrive at the same structure. They distinguish between discursive thinking and a deeper capacity for the direct vision of the true essence of things.
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In ancient Greece, back from the time of Plato and especially Aristotle, the rational side of human nature was divided into two complementary faculties. These were dianoia, which can be translated as intellect, and the famous nous, usually translated as mind
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. In the Latin tradition, this later evolved into the pair ratio and intellectus. So, what we are used to calling intelligence, thinking, rational mind, or reasoning today, was traditionally assigned to the realm of dianoia, intellect, or ratio. But nous,
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the mind, or the intellect, was the capacity to perceive the essence or the first principle of things. Today, we would say it is the ability to see the meanings of things. Meanings that exist objectively, regardless of whether we
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understand them or not. In modern Europe, this capacity began to be called into question. This shift in European philosophy reached its logical conclusion with Kant. His system was built precisely around the question of intellectual intuition. As is well
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known, Kant has the concepts of phenomenon and noumenon. A phenomenon is a thing for us, meaning the form in which we perceive an appearance. For example, a tree, as we see it. But the noumenon is closely linked to the
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thing-in-itself, that is, what it truly is, independent of our perception. The objective essence of a thing. It is amusing that Kant did not invent the term himself. He borrowed the ancient Greek word "noumenon." This word comes from the verb "noeo," which means to
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comprehend, recognize, or grasp the meaning. And this verb, in turn, comes from the very same noun "nous," the mind. Thus, it literally means that which is comprehended by the nous, that which is intellectually intuited—the essence of a phenomenon. And so, Kant
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took a truly revolutionary step. He claimed that humans do not possess this capacity for direct intellectual intuition of essences at all. This is one of the main ideas of his Critique of Pure Reason. After Kant, this line of thought gradually began to dominate
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European philosophy. Interest shifted from the question of intellectual intuition to the principles of human consciousness, and later to the study of the brain, psyche, and cognitive processes, which is where we are today.
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So, a strange historical riddle arises. Since ancient times, philosophers, theologians, and mystics from various cultures considered the capacity for direct apprehension of truth to be man's most important faculty. They debated it, tried to develop it, described its corruption, sought ways
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to purify it, and then it simply vanished from the intellectual field. And not because someone proved its non-existence, nor as a result of an experiment, but it just disappeared.
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Isn't that strange? In the 20th century , many major philosophers began to speak again about the direct insight into the essence of things, objective values, and meanings. Husserl, Scheler, and Hartmann, in one way or another, raised the question of the objective
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existence of meanings. And the prominent mathematician Kurt Gödel believed that mathematical truths are not constructed by humans, but exist objectively and are merely discovered by them. Max Tegmark, by the way, thinks the same way. That is, some debates continue even today, but the
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very concept of "nous" or "intellectus" as a human ability to perceive the essential level of reality is almost never mentioned. But what is "nous"?
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What is intellectual contemplation? Imagine a labyrinth: you walk through it, turn corners, hit dead ends, and turn back. That is "dianoia," it is calculation, discursive step-by-step thinking. But if you climb a high tower and see the entire labyrinth at once,
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that is "nous" or intellect. It does not calculate anything; it sees. Aristotle writes: "Just as light makes the potentially visible actually visible, so the active nous makes the potentially thinkable actually thinkable." Thomas Aquinas, citing Boethius, writes: "Intellect relates to
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reason just as eternity relates to time ." Remember the fight we talked about at the beginning. When you see it, you immediately understand: something bad is happening. It doesn’t matter who started it, or why, or for what reason.
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You don’t know any of that yet, but you already see it’s wrong. Why? This is where the tradition engages "nous." It is exactly what immediately grasps the discrepancy between what is happening and harmony, the good, and the fundamental principles of being. "
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Nous" does not see Peter hitting Vasya because he stepped on his foot. It sees the very meaning of the situation, its essential content. Or, to use the language of the Greek tradition, it sees what is happening in the light of
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the "logoi" of being. It sees and immediately provides you with the meaning of what is happening. An ontological harmony has been broken, a falling away from the good has occurred , which is evil. When you walk over and
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start to sort out who started it, what they are fighting about, and who is to blame, that is already the work of " dianoia," of the intellect. It will help you figure everything out. But the fact of violence itself, as a rupture
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in the proper order of being, is perceived by "nous" before any analysis . Or, a completely different example.
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You see a square inscribed in a circle. "Nous" tells you immediately that the circle is larger than the square, but if you want to prove it mathematically, you have to engage "dianoia," write out theorems, and calculate the areas. And
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don't be quick to object that this is just standard eye-balling. Better to press pause and try to understand what is really being discussed here. " Dianoia" might ask the question: what does "larger" or "smaller" mean, and explain at length that it is a
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calculation of a quantity in terms of predefined units of measurement, or something of that sort. But "nous" requires no explanation; it simply sees what "larger" and "smaller" are. As you can see, two very different examples, yet the method of cognition is the same
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. Direct vision of meaning. This is what "nous," mind, or intellect does in its original Latin sense. But I use the Greek term "nous" more often so as not to confuse the modern meaning of " intellect" with its original one. And
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this is not just a quirky invention of the ancient Greeks. On the contrary, we find the functional equivalent of the Greek pair nous and dianoia in all traditional metaphysics. In Hinduism, these are buddhi and manas. In Islamic Sufism, qalb and aql. In Taoism, chang
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xin and chengxin. In Catholicism, the very same intellectus and ratio. That is, all great civilizations have a functionally similar distinction between two ways of knowing: immediate, as the vision of truth, and discursive, through the rational activities of the
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mind. Accordingly, the concepts of understanding and cognition are also distinguished, but in an entirely different way. As we have already said, in modern cognitive science, cognition is data processing and the construction of a description of a phenomenon, while
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understanding is the formation of subjective meaning. In traditional metaphysics, understanding is a discursive logical description of a phenomenon, while cognition is precisely the intellectual or intuitive vision of its essence itself, its objective meaning. For example, one can learn all of history, dates, events,
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and names, and yet not know the meaning of the historical process at all. And our entire education system is currently built on this. Or one can memorize the entire Bible, yet not know the meaning of Christianity. In fact,
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the difference is that modern culture asserts that humans themselves form meaning and judgments of what is good and what is bad. But traditions say that good and bad are objective concepts, independent of human opinion and assessment, just like all other
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meanings. The result is roughly the following scheme. There is an external phenomenon that a person perceives: an object, a situation, an event, anything at all. There is the human mind, the nous or intellectus, which sees the objective meaning, the essence of this
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phenomenon, that is, it perceives it directly on that essential level of reality. Dianoia compares one thing with another, forms an understanding of what is happening, and clothes the description of the phenomenon in verbal form, which a person can then express,
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remember, or write down. This is information available for transmission. That is exactly what dianoia is for: to glue these two modes of perception into a single, meaningful reality. And it is precisely this work that we can observe as corresponding processes in the brain
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. It is obvious that these two modes of cognition complement each other. Without dianoia, complete cognition would be impossible. Perception of meaning alone is not enough. Even if you perceive the true meaning with the help of the nous, you will not be able
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to assimilate it. Just as sensory visual perception alone is insufficient , a complex process of processing incoming information and building a mental model is also required. But without the nous, reflection is impossible. Only the experience itself is possible, but not a meaningful
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experience. Roughly speaking, after receiving information from visual, auditory, and other receptors, dianoia can link different structures, process them, and form a certain assessment based on the experience. Dangerous, attractive, edible, and so on. And on this basis, develop a corresponding
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reaction: run, grab, eat. It is not hard to see that this is the level of instincts, which can be quite complex.
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This is what the brain of any animal does. But it is precisely the nous that connects human sensory experience with the level of essences and meanings, giving the dianoia a kind of additional information channel—not physical, but of a qualitative, essential nature. It
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is the presence of this capacity that allows a person to operate with mathematical abstractions, to philosophize, and to ask questions: what is the meaning, what is the good, what is the true essence of things. If we did not have this capacity, such
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questions could not arise in principle, which is exactly what we observe in animals. Some of them are physiologically very close to humans and even possess highly developed brains, yet they lack this capacity for the direct contemplation of the level
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of meanings and therefore cannot ask existential questions or reflect on the nature of reality at all. At the very least, there is no evidence that animals are capable of doing this. Only humans constantly go beyond the perceived and begin to ask about things
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that have no direct relation to simple physical survival. That is, it is the nous that makes a human human. It is interesting that in the Greek Orthodox tradition, angels are sometimes called pure minds, using the term nous. That
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is to say, an angel is a pure nous. You can now roughly imagine what the nous is in a human being. It is something that links humanity to angelic nature.
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And, by the way, in other traditions, this corresponding human capacity to contemplate truth is also perfectly revealed in spiritual beings—devas, rishis, bodhisattvas, and others. So this is a very universal understanding.
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Initially, we see the term nous back with Homer, and it means an inner understanding of a situation, the ability to instantly see the meaning of what is happening. Among the pre-Socratics, for example Anaxagoras, nous is a transcendent rational order
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that organizes the universe. That very essential level of reality containing all meanings, truths, and principles.
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Functionally similar concepts in Hinduism include dharma, and for the Chinese, dao or perhaps tian—heaven.
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Among the Neoplatonists, the nous becomes an intermediary link between the One and the physical world. And the Greeks used this same word, nous, to name the very capacity of a human to perceive this level of being. Saint Gregory of Nyssa wrote in the fourth
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century: "As the nature of our mind, the nous, created in the image of the Creator, is beyond comprehension, it bears an exact resemblance to the super-essential through its own unknowability, distinguishing its own incomprehensible nature." Perhaps you will say, "Okay, if we have this nous,
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this instrument for the direct vision of meanings, let's just start using it and know the truth." But, alas, this is where the problems begin. First, you need to understand that you are already using it constantly, otherwise you wouldn't be watching this video. After
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all, this is not some hidden chakra or a Marvel-style superpower. It is, so to speak, the base firmware of human consciousness. The nous is a part of your natural essence. It directly perceives the meaningful, qualitative side of the world, supplementing the
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continuous flow of your sensory experience and making it intelligible. Therefore, your nous is working right now. That is why you are a human, not an ape. But the problem is, and this is the second point, that it is working
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incorrectly. It is operating with critical distortions. In this sense, we see a striking consensus among traditions. Everywhere describes a critical error in human cognitive capacity. We have already touched upon this issue in other videos. In Hinduism and Buddhism, this state is called
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avidya, fundamental ignorance, an illusion preventing one from seeing the true nature of reality. In Islamic Sufism, this concept is ghaflah, a spiritual sleep. In the Christian tradition, it is called a corruption of the mind or spiritual blindness.
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Different eras and different cultures, using their own language, describe the same mental phenomenon. Our inner vision of meaning is distorted. It is clouded and obscured by our attachments passions interests reasoning opinions, biases—in short, by all the bustle in which our habitual worldly
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life unfolds. The most paradoxical thing is that in everyday life, we do not notice this blindness at all. It seems to us that our perception of meaning is perfectly adequate. The outstanding 19 th-century theologian Ignatius Brianchaninov wrote about this
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: "I find it necessary to set forth the teaching on the double blindness of man , acquired through the Fall." Most people are alien to any concept of this blindness; they do not even suspect its existence. If a person from birth sees
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the world exclusively in black and white, and everyone around them sees it the same way, the thought that something is wrong with their vision will never occur to them. It is the same here. The blindness of the mind
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has become the norm for us. This is the tragedy of modernity, which I call the Great Catastrophe of the Modern Era.
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Man has been convinced: "There is no blindness. The truth is within you. Just listen to yourself. Your intellect is perfect. You can increase its power and, with its help, know everything more and more. There is no limit." But
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any tradition would call this the extreme degree of obfuscation. It is the same as telling a blind man: "Hey, you are perfectly fine, throw away your cane, just walk, don't pay attention to anyone." I wonder how far he will get?
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Tradition would say: "Yes, the truth can indeed be seen within oneself, but its organ of perception is ill.
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Therefore, first heal it and learn to distinguish its voice from the noise of your own passions, opinions, habits, and desires." Deny yourself. Ultimately , what ancient philosophers, scholastics, and church fathers considered the highest human faculty is gradually disappearing from view
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altogether. Moreover, the very inability to engage in such contemplation begins to be perceived as a natural state. Rational discursive thinking, which antiquity called dianoia or ratio, takes the place of intellect, and in modern languages, it begins to be called intellect itself.
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In Russian, unfortunately, the concepts of mind, reason, intellect, thinking, and intelligence are all lumped together. Therefore, even for our Orthodox believers, confusion often arises. After all, when translating, for example, ancient Greek prayers, the word "nous" was translated as "mind."
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And now, when our Orthodox person sees phrases in prayer like "Raise my mind, cast down to the earth, to Thee," they often don't even understand that it is not about thinking or rational reasoning, but specifically about that very "nous" called to inner
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contemplation of the truth. So, in the end, how does this blindness manifest itself? Let's look at specific examples of how this works. All right, remember once again the fight we talked about.
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Even a damaged "nous" is capable of immediately seeing a violation of ontological harmony and showing a person that evil is happening. But today, for many, the "nous" has become so blinded that it no longer even sees this. Instead of the natural reaction
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to stop the fight, break up the combatants, and reconcile people, a person grabs a phone and starts filming . Their "nous" shows them not evil, but entertainment that needs to be recorded and posted online. Or another example.
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Take some image from an advertisement. A damaged "nous" no longer sees anything wrong in this image and, on the contrary, even sees a certain beauty. But if the "nous" is even slightly purified, the person will turn away from such an image with disgust. A
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particularly clear example is conscience. After all, conscience is directly connected to the "nous." Look, a person has committed something bad. A betrayal, for example. The "nous" immediately shows the essence of their action. It is evil. But the "dianoia,"
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that is, the intellect, will skillfully find logical justifications. There were reasons. The end justifies the means.
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He is at fault himself; otherwise, I would have suffered. The "dianoia" has explained everything, and the person has accepted the explanation. But if their "nous" is not completely blinded, it will continue to show them that this is evil. No matter how you explain it.
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This discrepancy is perceived by a person as a prick of conscience. If the "nous" is completely darkened, the person may feel nothing at all. A shameless person, as they say in such cases. There are also more mundane examples, let’s say, a tree. One can
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perceive it exclusively as a biological organism, a collection of cells, molecules, chemical reactions, and genetic programs. And that is all true.
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But look at a person who works with trees their whole life. A good gardener , a forester, or a cabinetmaker. They see in each tree something more than just a biological object. They feel its character, its inner order, its place
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in the overall harmony of nature. From the point of view of, for example, the Orthodox tradition, this is not just about accumulated experience. The "nous " discerns the "logos" of a thing, the design by which a tree is a tree and
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not just a collection of atoms. This knowledge is hard to put into words, but it is precisely what distinguishes a master from a formalist. And here is the biggest example. For if all things and phenomena have an objective essence
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, then the entire universe as a whole must have its own universal essence. Some see this essence, and some do not.
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It is quite clear what I am talking about. It is important to understand here that a person might not even know what nous or intellectus is, or that they have such an ability at all. They may never even think about it, but the
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degree to which their nous is clouded or purified will determine how they understand reality, what meanings they see in phenomena, and what judgments they make. Just like with ordinary eyesight. A person simply sees either poorly or well. They do not need to
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know what vision is or how the eyes work. Quite naturally, you might have the question: how can one correct this ability within oneself? How can one purify their nous, their intellect? And here another problem arises. The experience of personally purifying
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one's internal intellectual vision, one's nous, is practically impossible to convey, and this is linked to the very nature of this capacity. As we have seen, dianoia is responsible for rational thinking. It structures experience, builds models, and integrates information. It also gives
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this a verbal form and provides a verbal description. But language has its own critical limitations. It is not capable of replacing the experience itself. You cannot convey the experience of seeing a beautiful sunset to another person in words. Neither can
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you describe the experience of purifying the mind and seeing meaning. Any verbal definition will be flawed.
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Nous is not just some window into another world. It is part of human nature, an organic ability. It does not just see—that is also just a verbal definition—it lives in a world of meanings and participates in what it
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perceives. It in a way changes itself in accordance with the meaning, with the essence it comes into contact with.
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Therefore, the nous cannot be trained, for instance, by reading books. It can only be transformed. Simply put, to begin to see true meanings, a person must themselves participate in the truth, must be transformed. This is precisely why sacred texts and the
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words of tradition elicit no response from many people at all. Although they perfectly understand the written text, a clouded nous cannot commune with the spiritual reality that these words point to. And no matter how you explain it, until a person is transformed, they
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will not know anything. As for specific methods of purifying the mind, this is where dry philosophy ends and the realm of personal choice begins. It is surprising, but despite all the colossal differences in worldviews, the major traditions offer quite similar
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principles for fixing the situation. That is, the paths are different, but how to walk them, what to do, and what to pay attention to—here everything is surprisingly similar. First, moral purification, the struggle against one's own vices, passions, and
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selfishness. Secondly, spiritual discipline, a constant practice that requires attention, patience, and inner effort. Thirdly, life within a tradition, following a proven path under the guidance of those who have traveled it before, and finally, the constant turning of the mind toward a
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higher reality. For some through prayer , for others through meditation, contemplation, or other forms of spiritual practice. This is common, virtually everywhere. But the paths and goals themselves, as I said, diverge.
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Some traditions say that a person gradually reveals their true nature, others that they are freed from ignorance, and a third that they grow in submission to God. And Orthodoxy goes even further, asserting that all these methods and personal efforts are
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necessary, but not sufficient. True healing occurs only through the action of divine grace, as a gift. This quite radically distinguishes Eastern Christianity from other traditions. In any case, it is important to understand that no tradition says that the
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purification of the mind and insight can happen easily and quickly. Except perhaps in exceptional cases. It is always a long, gradual process, as I said, a lifelong one. But the most interesting thing is that we see the highest authority, so to speak, of this
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contemplative faculty within ourselves. The meanings that our own nous reveals to us appear to us as self-evident truth. After all, its direct function is to contemplate the truth. We may not think about it or even know it, but
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such is our nature. The organ of perceiving truth reveals the truth. This is built into our consciousness, even if we are not aware of it. That is why we argue, sometimes irreconcilably, trying to prove we are right. Dianoia
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can recognize an error, but if the Nous is already experiencing something as truth, it is incredibly difficult to abandon it. A person is inclined to trust their nous unconditionally. That is why people are even willing to die for their convictions. Not because they
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calculated them, but because they are true for them. This is precisely why the darkening of the Nous is so dangerous. We constantly mistake falsehood for truth. And that is why, in the traditions, one of the most important rules is not to trust one's
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own opinion, not to believe oneself, that is, not to believe the meanings that your darkened nous shows you. That is why authority is so important everywhere as a necessary reference point. As we can see, modern culture has a completely different picture of
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the human psyche. Interpreting scientific facts within the framework of naturalistic philosophy, it denies both the existence of an objective, essential level of reality and the human capacity to connect with it through intellectual contemplation, nous, or intellectus. Today, everything
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is focused on dianoia or ratio. Everything is described and explained exclusively within the framework of rational discursive knowledge based on computational processes in the brain.
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Even unconscious processes, intuition, or aesthetic sense are reduced to calculations. In this regard, it is very appropriate to quote the French philosopher René Guénon, which might sound strange in another context, but here it hits the mark perfectly. He
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writes: "It is incredibly difficult for our contemporaries to understand that there are things which, by their very nature, are not subject to discussion.
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Instead of trying to elevate himself to the truth, modern man seeks to bring the truth down to his own level. Well put: there is obviously a big difference between rational knowledge through dianoia and immediate intellectual contemplation. Dianoia works well as a tool for describing
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material reality. After all, this reality is given to us in an undistorted form. It is limited by the nature of human perception, but not distorted. We see objects as they are revealed to us. That is why discursive logical cognition works so well with
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material phenomena. Their description fits perfectly into verbal definitions, which means it can be recorded and passed on to others, that is, accumulated. But that which the nous perceives is not subject to verbal definition at all, and therefore cannot
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be fully described in words, recorded, and transmitted. Even the knowledge contained in traditions of those who have followed the path of purification cannot convey the experience itself.
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Each person must walk the entire path of purifying their own mind until they reach the transformation of their personality. This is precisely the difference between ancient civilizations and the modern one.
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Dianoia expands the collective memory of humanity. Nous reveals the potential fullness of the individual personality.
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Perhaps that is why our civilization, fully oriented toward dianoia and rational cognition, achieves unprecedented scientific and technical development but simultaneously faces a crisis of meaning. It turns into some completely faceless, impersonal, and meaningless subject of material cognition, in which the individual
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personality has no significance at all. This collective subject becomes increasingly knowledgeable, whereas the individual person does not become wiser . Quite the opposite. Therefore, it is absolutely impossible to say where or why civilization is moving with all its
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vast array of knowledge. Dianoia, when placed at the forefront, calculates perfectly, but it cannot answer the question of whether something corresponds to the truth, because that is not a computational task. The truth cannot be calculated; it must be seen.
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Having discarded the essential level of reality, having discarded intellectual contemplation, the nous, modern man has lost the tool that would allow him to say:" This goal is objectively false. " Therefore, the problem is not that a person does not know what they want.
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The problem is that they can sincerely want what is false, being completely convinced that they are striving for the good. As stated in the Upanishads, those living in ignorance, but considering themselves wise and learned , wander in circles like blind men led
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by the blind. And in the Gospel, can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into a pit? Isn't that remarkable? Believe me, I am by no means equating the Upanishads with the Gospel. That is not the point. The fact
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itself. A single intuition across completely different traditions. A human normally has two eyes. Binocular vision. If one eye is damaged, the person will not stop seeing. Moreover, he will see the same thing as with two eyes. But he will not see depth, the
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stereo image, nor will he be able to determine the distance to objects. The same goes for the pair of dianoia and ratio, intellectus, reason, and mind.
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Formally, a person perceives everything and lives meaningfully, but the nous is completely darkened, and they have lost the ability to see the true meaning of existence. And at the same time, the person does not even realize it. Today,
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our entire civilization is one-eyed, yet it is completely convinced that it is closer to the truth than ever before . Ultimate darkening. Remember the film " A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court "?
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That is how you can get fire in any month and at any time. Yes, it is convenient. If only it were just as easy to obtain love, fidelity, and devotion.
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Look at what an amazing point in history we have reached. On one hand, artificial intelligence, which knows everything; it remembers all the texts in the world, all formulas, all historical dates. It is almost flawless in its logic. We think we have created
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something like a god, but we have created it in the image and likeness of our dianoia, our computational reason.
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It can combine facts, calculate, and build logic, but it cannot contemplate meanings. And this is absolute knowledge without a drop of true cognition. It would be more accurate to call it artificial ratio, a perfect ratio, completely devoid of intellect
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in its original sense. The ideal embodiment of our entire one-eyed civilization. And here, across 25 centuries, the voice of a man reaches us who walked barefoot through the streets of Athens, asking passersby strange and uncomfortable questions.
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Socrates:" I know that I know nothing. "It seems like just a beautiful figure of speech, a display of false modesty, or a rhetorical trick. But by understanding the difference between reason and mind, we can see the true ontological scale of this phrase. When
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Socrates says" I know, "his reason, his dianoia, is at work. But the moment Socrates declares that he knows nothing , his nous comes into play. This is the greatest insight. To admit one's ignorance. It is not an admission of
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stupidity. It is to commit a radical act of existential courage. It is to realize that very spiritual blindness that mystics and saints would later speak of. Only by admitting that the dirty and crooked mirror of your understanding distorts reality do you
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get a chance to at least wipe it clean. After all, it is the moment you sincerely say to yourself," I don't know, "that your intellectus gets a chance at purification. Yes. And here is one more thing. Perhaps you think
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that I myself am so enlightened, that my nous is purified, and I am contemplating the truth. Well, just because I am talking about all these things here, not at all. I have simply retold to you what all the major
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metaphysical traditions say, as I understand it. Of course, you can study all of this yourself. I can only echo Socrates and his phrase to the very end . I know that I know nothing, but many don't even know that. Thank you for
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watching until the end. Don't forget to visit us on Boosty or Patreon, and also support us on Donation Alerts if you can. All links are in the description.
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Or you can become a channel sponsor, just click the button under the video. Vivat, friends. U
Topics:intelligencecognitionunderstandinghuman mindartificial intelligencephilosophynousmeaningancient wisdomconsciousness
