This week I welcome Sam Harris to TGS. Sam is a neuroscientist and philosopher, the host of the podcast Making Sense, and the proprietor of the meditation app Waking Up. He’s a searching, truly open-minded thinker who follows the evidence where it leads, even if that means admitting that he was wrong about a previously held position.
I finally had a chance today to listen to the full session. It was great.
Me? I don't see the conflict between these two: 1) Regarding individuals as if race was as important as eye or hair color. 2) Looking at broad characteristics of groups. I try to do one all the time, but make mistakes. Don't see the connection to two, but ICBW.
I'm not sure Sam Harris is as enlightened as he seems to think he is. I agree with everything he said. But I didn't hear him recognize that Atheism is taken on FAITH just like any Religion is. In fact, I wrote a paper for freshman English called "Science as Religion" in '72.
I'll give it to him that, at least to me, the Abrahamic Religions seem to overlook the fact that man was made in the image of G*d. Or mebbe they haven't fully looked into. But what they HAVE done is create a G*D in the image of man which, to me anyway, doesn't seem very sound.. That's just me, tho.
It occurs to me, that the world Sam wants to live in is the one most white people I grew up with (I was born in the late 70s) *thought* we lived in. I come from a rural extended family with deep racism and xenophobia, but grew up in super diverse suburbs, so I was always conflicted about the extend to which there was still racism. I think the “racial reckoning” was a bunch oh white people realizing for the first time that they couldn’t assume racism was dead because they weren’t racist. I think at its root, the problem is we assume our experience is correct and universal. So that leads to going from “there’s no racism because I can’t see it” to “there is some racism and I didn’t see it, so it must be everywhere!!” It’s just too hard to hold the idea that other people will have different experiences without that negating your own personal experience. I hope we figure out as a society how to find that middle ground before we tear ourselves apart completely.
I don't know how anyone can confidently claim to now the true downsides and upsides of the pursuit of knowledge.
Sam mentions in passing that he is no longer comfortable with pursuing knowledge for knowledges sake, using virology as an example where these risks seem to have very limited benefits against very real downsides. But the next logical question is who decides what the trade-off is. Who gets to make the decisions about what tradeoffs we are willing to take?
Sidney Farber purposefully poisoned children based only on biological theory. This is a trade-off that the average person may not have been willing to make. He has saved and extended countless lives by making a risky trade-off. There is not systemic risk in the death of a child. But the point I am making is that this was not sanctioned by a governing body. This was medicinal entrepreneurship. If we start building barriers around the pursuit of knowledge, we are losing upside that Sam seems to take for granted.
He is no fool. He is fully aware of the bounty science has given us, and may be one of it's most fervent cheerleaders. But I can barely understand how one can live through the era of COVID Noble Lies and think that we need more oversight over what scientific pursuits we undertake.
Entrance exams are only relevant to candidates selection, NOT to outcomes. At the end of the day, a surgeon is good based on his postgraduate training and successfully passing the boards, not the MCAT. Santiago Ramon y Cajal, the father of neuroscience, flunked histology THREE times…. he received th Nobel Price in 1906.
I very much enjoyed the first half of the podcast, the second part was somewhat interesting, but I wish Glenn would have pushed back on Sam like he does John regarding thinking of all religions as irrational and foolish.
A few thoughts:
A ) Russell's argument about number of conflicting religions all claiming a monopoly in truth means percentage wise every religion is likely to be false. This is weak tea (pardon the English reference and vague hint regarding his "celestial teapot argument" [the predecessor to the FSM]):
1.) Why would it not be true atheism is just one more in the set of exclusive truth claims [regarding G-d], hence it would also be untrue by the same numbers game.
2.) If you put up all the believers in the world and compared them to the atheists by number, the believers would dwarf the atheists. I don't think Russell would say the believers are more likely to be right.
B.) The Church of Wisdom: The reason secularists can't create the same atmosphere where they gather as believers is not due to building funding or bad song writers. The reason is secular people reject the concept of a relationship with G-d. Wisdom is great, it is not something one has a relationship with.
C.) Sectarianism: I find it interesting when atheists think believers have the monopoly on sectarianism. I fail to see how ridiculing beliefs and practices of others, as well as often the believers themselves is morally different than believers who shut themselves from the rest of society. When Daniel Dennett calls atheist "brights" (see his book: Breaking the Spell), or atheists call themselves "free thinkers" - the insinuation is people who do not hold the same opinion as them are not free thinkers. Plenty of divisiveness and exclusion of others to go around, unfortunately.
I read Murray’s FACING REALITY and I have the same problem with it that I have with the left’s identity grouping. As I think Harris said in this show, we could or should just focus on the individual, because in fact that is what matters. Individual variety is infinite and one’s genetic load may or may not determine one’s success in life. We all know extremely bright individuals who are colossal failures. And who cares if Harvard’s entire entering freshman class is Asian? They are Americans and we should be applauding their success.
Harris fudged the answer about God. Most people think of God as something outside themselves. Loury needs to press this point in Part 2. I think labeling God as consciousness makes no sense. Conscience yes. I like the notion of the Quaker “inner light” that exists in all of us, must be nurtured and may or may not be connected to a transcendent force. I also think it is a mistake to dismiss the Bible, Koran, etc. people, especially children, need stories to understand moral dilemmas. Could be the Greek and Roman myths too, or Aesop or Sholem Aleichem.
35:45 “If we looked into the market for eggs, you know, human eggs that people who are going to do in vitro fertilization and whatnot are purchasing. I don’t know this for a fact, but I’d bet a lot that there’s a premium driven by these kinds of characteristics like, how tall was the woman, was she blond or brunette, was she white or black or Asian, were her eyes blue or brown or whatever? I’ll bet people actually pay a premium in that market for certain traits…”
Re: The type of world we want to live in, here’s something else for Sam Harris (and Glenn) to think about and imagine: A world where human beings aren’t treated like commodities, where babies aren’t made to order (as per the prospective parents’ desires) and treated as property to be acquired. If we want a world where human dignity is respected, we need to do more to nurture a culture that values the content of one’s character over physical traits, and that recognizes the ethical problems with using technology to create human life.
Stimulating conversation as always. I couldn't help but find Sam Harris's description of the world he wants to live in painfully naive, though. John Lennon's Imagine started playing in the back of my mind. People don't get to live in the world they want to live in.
Sam doesn't get to live in that world. John Lennon didn't. Karl Marx didn't either. I'm sure a lot of good and sincere Christians and Muslims would like to live in a world where there was no Sam Harris pointing out the logical and ethical flaws in their world views all over the internet. They don't get to. We all live in the world as it is.
In a world where the percentage of blondes in Harvard and other institutions has been publicized and people and institutions are castigated because of it, social policies are put in place because of it, educational institutions are changing curriculum because of it, the discourse of the population is coerced because of it, wouldn't it be valuable to find out why the discrepancies might be there? Suppose researchers found that there was no significant difference in measurable cognitive skills between blondes and other hair colors. Wouldn't that be an important data point to introduce into the discussion?
Is there some knowledge that we shouldn't have? It's kind of a moot question. Once the genie is out of the bottle, there is no getting it back in and there is no controlling it. Francis Lowell, was it, who brought Britain's guarded designs of industrial technology to America in his head? The US tried hard to keep nuclear knowledge confined. That lasted no time at all. The Sars-covid genome? Any bad actor who has the knowledge and equipment to craft a virus from a description of its genome surely has the knowledge and equipment to sequence the genome on her own. And who gets to decide what knowledge is verboten? Sam Harris? Biden? Putin? Xi? All the good and sincere Christians and Muslims in the world? Communities of them have tried, but the gates are only guarded at significant cost and knowledge in the world seeps in anyway.
The cancellation of Charles Murray should have been a warning to us all. I was stunned to hear about the university's condemnation of Amy Wax, too. Witch hunts. I sometimes wonder what it might take for a Glenn Loury or a John McWhorter to be truly banished; John's NYT column cancelled or Glenn's retirement forced earlier than he'd planned. I'm guessing they can talk about race all they want, but gender identity would be where the line is drawn.
I jotted down a few notes with the intention of discussing them here. They became unnecessary at the 33-minute mark when Dr. Loury said (speaking Murray's perspective, but adding he thinks it would be his view as well):
"Sure, we can do that as long as you promise that we don't have a politics driven by the inequality in the representation in groups in these various activities. I tell you what, you give up your 'racial justice' weapon [...] and I'm happy to do away with investigating group disparity in the determinants of human behavior that actually influence whether or not people excel at these activities. It seems to me you can't do one without the other."
The left insists all group inequality is caused by a flawed society, a flawed society created by bigoted whites. That seems far-fetched to many people. People who then respond with, "Hey, let's roll up our sleeves and see if we can come up with something less fantastical." Polygenic studies provide fertile territory.
You can't have your cake (group differences must neither be studied nor spoken of) and eat it too (group differences as the primary driver of legislation and acceptable societal attitudes).
Tremendous episode. Great outing from Dr. Loury, with Sam making some interesting points as well.
I'm 50% "Fundamentalist Atheist." The Science sect of the Atheist Religion. I was raised that way. (Failed outta science school, but still...) So I'm 50% Religio-Spiritual. Learned the hard Way.
Could exist? Mebbe not? I don't think that'll EVER be known as a FACT one Way or t'other. Me? Pure Agnostic. "Fundamentalist Agnostic." Life after death? Same deal, for me anyway.
As You may recall, I just don't have TIME to listen to a podcast. Too far behind on my reading. (Currently "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity" and just starting today "American Reboot: An Idealist's Guide to Getting Big Things Done".
Only caught a few moments at beginning and end. On what SHOULD or should NOT be investigated, where to draw the red line: I would say a good place to have asked that question was before CRISPR was detonated.
But, to me anyway, sometimes uncomfortable things SHOULD be investigated. Hope to get to some Charles Murray soonest. I would recommend for Your attention, along those lines, this investigation by a PROGRESSIVE scientist. (Hafta read again sometime today.)
To me anyWay, obviously both genetics and environment, right? Saw someplace 40% due to genetics. I'm skeptical, but dunno how they came up with the "guess."
I finally had a chance today to listen to the full session. It was great.
Me? I don't see the conflict between these two: 1) Regarding individuals as if race was as important as eye or hair color. 2) Looking at broad characteristics of groups. I try to do one all the time, but make mistakes. Don't see the connection to two, but ICBW.
I'm not sure Sam Harris is as enlightened as he seems to think he is. I agree with everything he said. But I didn't hear him recognize that Atheism is taken on FAITH just like any Religion is. In fact, I wrote a paper for freshman English called "Science as Religion" in '72.
I'll give it to him that, at least to me, the Abrahamic Religions seem to overlook the fact that man was made in the image of G*d. Or mebbe they haven't fully looked into. But what they HAVE done is create a G*D in the image of man which, to me anyway, doesn't seem very sound.. That's just me, tho.
It occurs to me, that the world Sam wants to live in is the one most white people I grew up with (I was born in the late 70s) *thought* we lived in. I come from a rural extended family with deep racism and xenophobia, but grew up in super diverse suburbs, so I was always conflicted about the extend to which there was still racism. I think the “racial reckoning” was a bunch oh white people realizing for the first time that they couldn’t assume racism was dead because they weren’t racist. I think at its root, the problem is we assume our experience is correct and universal. So that leads to going from “there’s no racism because I can’t see it” to “there is some racism and I didn’t see it, so it must be everywhere!!” It’s just too hard to hold the idea that other people will have different experiences without that negating your own personal experience. I hope we figure out as a society how to find that middle ground before we tear ourselves apart completely.
I don't know how anyone can confidently claim to now the true downsides and upsides of the pursuit of knowledge.
Sam mentions in passing that he is no longer comfortable with pursuing knowledge for knowledges sake, using virology as an example where these risks seem to have very limited benefits against very real downsides. But the next logical question is who decides what the trade-off is. Who gets to make the decisions about what tradeoffs we are willing to take?
Sidney Farber purposefully poisoned children based only on biological theory. This is a trade-off that the average person may not have been willing to make. He has saved and extended countless lives by making a risky trade-off. There is not systemic risk in the death of a child. But the point I am making is that this was not sanctioned by a governing body. This was medicinal entrepreneurship. If we start building barriers around the pursuit of knowledge, we are losing upside that Sam seems to take for granted.
He is no fool. He is fully aware of the bounty science has given us, and may be one of it's most fervent cheerleaders. But I can barely understand how one can live through the era of COVID Noble Lies and think that we need more oversight over what scientific pursuits we undertake.
Entrance exams are only relevant to candidates selection, NOT to outcomes. At the end of the day, a surgeon is good based on his postgraduate training and successfully passing the boards, not the MCAT. Santiago Ramon y Cajal, the father of neuroscience, flunked histology THREE times…. he received th Nobel Price in 1906.
I very much enjoyed the first half of the podcast, the second part was somewhat interesting, but I wish Glenn would have pushed back on Sam like he does John regarding thinking of all religions as irrational and foolish.
A few thoughts:
A ) Russell's argument about number of conflicting religions all claiming a monopoly in truth means percentage wise every religion is likely to be false. This is weak tea (pardon the English reference and vague hint regarding his "celestial teapot argument" [the predecessor to the FSM]):
1.) Why would it not be true atheism is just one more in the set of exclusive truth claims [regarding G-d], hence it would also be untrue by the same numbers game.
2.) If you put up all the believers in the world and compared them to the atheists by number, the believers would dwarf the atheists. I don't think Russell would say the believers are more likely to be right.
B.) The Church of Wisdom: The reason secularists can't create the same atmosphere where they gather as believers is not due to building funding or bad song writers. The reason is secular people reject the concept of a relationship with G-d. Wisdom is great, it is not something one has a relationship with.
C.) Sectarianism: I find it interesting when atheists think believers have the monopoly on sectarianism. I fail to see how ridiculing beliefs and practices of others, as well as often the believers themselves is morally different than believers who shut themselves from the rest of society. When Daniel Dennett calls atheist "brights" (see his book: Breaking the Spell), or atheists call themselves "free thinkers" - the insinuation is people who do not hold the same opinion as them are not free thinkers. Plenty of divisiveness and exclusion of others to go around, unfortunately.
Two points after listening:
I read Murray’s FACING REALITY and I have the same problem with it that I have with the left’s identity grouping. As I think Harris said in this show, we could or should just focus on the individual, because in fact that is what matters. Individual variety is infinite and one’s genetic load may or may not determine one’s success in life. We all know extremely bright individuals who are colossal failures. And who cares if Harvard’s entire entering freshman class is Asian? They are Americans and we should be applauding their success.
Harris fudged the answer about God. Most people think of God as something outside themselves. Loury needs to press this point in Part 2. I think labeling God as consciousness makes no sense. Conscience yes. I like the notion of the Quaker “inner light” that exists in all of us, must be nurtured and may or may not be connected to a transcendent force. I also think it is a mistake to dismiss the Bible, Koran, etc. people, especially children, need stories to understand moral dilemmas. Could be the Greek and Roman myths too, or Aesop or Sholem Aleichem.
35:45 “If we looked into the market for eggs, you know, human eggs that people who are going to do in vitro fertilization and whatnot are purchasing. I don’t know this for a fact, but I’d bet a lot that there’s a premium driven by these kinds of characteristics like, how tall was the woman, was she blond or brunette, was she white or black or Asian, were her eyes blue or brown or whatever? I’ll bet people actually pay a premium in that market for certain traits…”
Re: The type of world we want to live in, here’s something else for Sam Harris (and Glenn) to think about and imagine: A world where human beings aren’t treated like commodities, where babies aren’t made to order (as per the prospective parents’ desires) and treated as property to be acquired. If we want a world where human dignity is respected, we need to do more to nurture a culture that values the content of one’s character over physical traits, and that recognizes the ethical problems with using technology to create human life.
Stimulating conversation as always. I couldn't help but find Sam Harris's description of the world he wants to live in painfully naive, though. John Lennon's Imagine started playing in the back of my mind. People don't get to live in the world they want to live in.
Sam doesn't get to live in that world. John Lennon didn't. Karl Marx didn't either. I'm sure a lot of good and sincere Christians and Muslims would like to live in a world where there was no Sam Harris pointing out the logical and ethical flaws in their world views all over the internet. They don't get to. We all live in the world as it is.
In a world where the percentage of blondes in Harvard and other institutions has been publicized and people and institutions are castigated because of it, social policies are put in place because of it, educational institutions are changing curriculum because of it, the discourse of the population is coerced because of it, wouldn't it be valuable to find out why the discrepancies might be there? Suppose researchers found that there was no significant difference in measurable cognitive skills between blondes and other hair colors. Wouldn't that be an important data point to introduce into the discussion?
Is there some knowledge that we shouldn't have? It's kind of a moot question. Once the genie is out of the bottle, there is no getting it back in and there is no controlling it. Francis Lowell, was it, who brought Britain's guarded designs of industrial technology to America in his head? The US tried hard to keep nuclear knowledge confined. That lasted no time at all. The Sars-covid genome? Any bad actor who has the knowledge and equipment to craft a virus from a description of its genome surely has the knowledge and equipment to sequence the genome on her own. And who gets to decide what knowledge is verboten? Sam Harris? Biden? Putin? Xi? All the good and sincere Christians and Muslims in the world? Communities of them have tried, but the gates are only guarded at significant cost and knowledge in the world seeps in anyway.
Here’s the URL to when Glenn was on Sam’s podcast in 2016 if you want a different (though similar) conversation between them. No paywall. https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/racism-and-violence-in-america
The cancellation of Charles Murray should have been a warning to us all. I was stunned to hear about the university's condemnation of Amy Wax, too. Witch hunts. I sometimes wonder what it might take for a Glenn Loury or a John McWhorter to be truly banished; John's NYT column cancelled or Glenn's retirement forced earlier than he'd planned. I'm guessing they can talk about race all they want, but gender identity would be where the line is drawn.
What a magnificent and profound discussion! This was one of the best Glenn Shows ever.
I jotted down a few notes with the intention of discussing them here. They became unnecessary at the 33-minute mark when Dr. Loury said (speaking Murray's perspective, but adding he thinks it would be his view as well):
"Sure, we can do that as long as you promise that we don't have a politics driven by the inequality in the representation in groups in these various activities. I tell you what, you give up your 'racial justice' weapon [...] and I'm happy to do away with investigating group disparity in the determinants of human behavior that actually influence whether or not people excel at these activities. It seems to me you can't do one without the other."
The left insists all group inequality is caused by a flawed society, a flawed society created by bigoted whites. That seems far-fetched to many people. People who then respond with, "Hey, let's roll up our sleeves and see if we can come up with something less fantastical." Polygenic studies provide fertile territory.
You can't have your cake (group differences must neither be studied nor spoken of) and eat it too (group differences as the primary driver of legislation and acceptable societal attitudes).
Tremendous episode. Great outing from Dr. Loury, with Sam making some interesting points as well.
TY again. TYTY, enjoy "talking" with Ya.
I'm 50% "Fundamentalist Atheist." The Science sect of the Atheist Religion. I was raised that way. (Failed outta science school, but still...) So I'm 50% Religio-Spiritual. Learned the hard Way.
Could exist? Mebbe not? I don't think that'll EVER be known as a FACT one Way or t'other. Me? Pure Agnostic. "Fundamentalist Agnostic." Life after death? Same deal, for me anyway.
First time I've seen or listened to Sam Harris. Gotta say, I'm not impressed.
2 of my big heroes/ great/ love to see another conversation with Glenn and Sam exclusively about consciousness/ great topic
As You may recall, I just don't have TIME to listen to a podcast. Too far behind on my reading. (Currently "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity" and just starting today "American Reboot: An Idealist's Guide to Getting Big Things Done".
Only caught a few moments at beginning and end. On what SHOULD or should NOT be investigated, where to draw the red line: I would say a good place to have asked that question was before CRISPR was detonated.
But, to me anyway, sometimes uncomfortable things SHOULD be investigated. Hope to get to some Charles Murray soonest. I would recommend for Your attention, along those lines, this investigation by a PROGRESSIVE scientist. (Hafta read again sometime today.)
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/can-progressives-be-convinced-that-genetics-matters
To me anyWay, obviously both genetics and environment, right? Saw someplace 40% due to genetics. I'm skeptical, but dunno how they came up with the "guess."