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Making Sense: Conversations on Consciousness, Morality and the Future of Humanity
"Civilization rests on a series of successful conversations." Sam Harris
Neuroscientist, philosopher, podcaster and bestselling author Sam Harris, has been exploring some of the greatest questions concerning the human mind, society, and the events that shape our world.
Harris's search for deeper understanding of how we think has led him to engage and exchange with some of our most brilliant and controversial contemporary minds - Daniel Kahneman, Robert Sapolsky, Anil Seth and Max Tegmark - in order to unpack and clarify ideas of consciousness, free will, extremism, and ethical living.
For Harris, honest conversation, no matter how difficult or contentious, represents the only path to moral and intellectual progress.
Featuring eleven conversations from the hit podcast, these electric exchanges fuse wisdom with rigorous interrogation to shine a light on what it means to make sense of our world today.
'I don't have many can't miss podcasts, but Making Sense is right at the top of that short list.' - Stephen Fry
'Sam Harris is the most intellectually courageous man I know.' - Richard Dawkins
Neuroscientist, philosopher, podcaster and bestselling author Sam Harris, has been exploring some of the greatest questions concerning the human mind, society, and the events that shape our world.
Harris's search for deeper understanding of how we think has led him to engage and exchange with some of our most brilliant and controversial contemporary minds - Daniel Kahneman, Robert Sapolsky, Anil Seth and Max Tegmark - in order to unpack and clarify ideas of consciousness, free will, extremism, and ethical living.
For Harris, honest conversation, no matter how difficult or contentious, represents the only path to moral and intellectual progress.
Featuring eleven conversations from the hit podcast, these electric exchanges fuse wisdom with rigorous interrogation to shine a light on what it means to make sense of our world today.
'I don't have many can't miss podcasts, but Making Sense is right at the top of that short list.' - Stephen Fry
'Sam Harris is the most intellectually courageous man I know.' - Richard Dawkins
444 pages, Paperback
First published August 11, 2020
1159 people are currently reading
8566 people want to read
About the author
Sam Harris
61 books9,014 followersLibrarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Sam Harris (born 1967) is an American non-fiction writer, philosopher and neuroscientist. He is the author of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason (2004), which won the 2005 PEN/Martha Albrand Award, and Letter to a Christian Nation (2006), a rejoinder to the criticism his first book attracted. His new book, The Moral Landscape, explores how science might determine human values.
After coming under intense criticism in response to his attacks on dogmatic religious belief, Harris is cautious about revealing details of his personal life and history. He has said that he was raised by a Jewish mother and a Quaker father, and he told Newsweek that as a child, he "declined to be bar mitzvahed." He attended Stanford University as an English major, but dropped out of school following a life-altering experience with MDMA. During this period he studied Buddhism and meditation, and claims to have read hundreds of books on religion. In an August 21, 2009 appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher, Harris stated that he grew up in a secular home and his parents never discussed God. He has stated, however, that he has always had an interest in religion.
After eleven years, he returned to Stanford and completed a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy. In 2009, he obtained his Ph.D. degree in neuroscience at University of California, Los Angeles, using functional magnetic resonance imaging to conduct research into the neural basis of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty.
-source, plus more info
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Sam Harris (born 1967) is an American non-fiction writer, philosopher and neuroscientist. He is the author of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason (2004), which won the 2005 PEN/Martha Albrand Award, and Letter to a Christian Nation (2006), a rejoinder to the criticism his first book attracted. His new book, The Moral Landscape, explores how science might determine human values.
After coming under intense criticism in response to his attacks on dogmatic religious belief, Harris is cautious about revealing details of his personal life and history. He has said that he was raised by a Jewish mother and a Quaker father, and he told Newsweek that as a child, he "declined to be bar mitzvahed." He attended Stanford University as an English major, but dropped out of school following a life-altering experience with MDMA. During this period he studied Buddhism and meditation, and claims to have read hundreds of books on religion. In an August 21, 2009 appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher, Harris stated that he grew up in a secular home and his parents never discussed God. He has stated, however, that he has always had an interest in religion.
After eleven years, he returned to Stanford and completed a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy. In 2009, he obtained his Ph.D. degree in neuroscience at University of California, Los Angeles, using functional magnetic resonance imaging to conduct research into the neural basis of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty.
-source, plus more info
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 209 reviews
October 9, 2020
Audiobooks are very popular right now and I envy all of you who are able to listen to them. If I could listen and do other things, I would get more books read. Also, many people point out how much more personal a book is when the author reads it themself. And then there's the added entertainment value.
However, my brain doesn't absorb audio nearly as well as visual. If I listen to a book, I have to go back and read it because I don't retain the information. Even watching movies - If there are no subtitles, I can't watch them. Sure, I see the action, but the spoken words don't translate well in my brain and I flounder around not knowing what's going on.
Because of this, I miss out on all the great podcasts available. Thankfully, Sam Harris decided to take several of his favourite shows from his podcast, transcribe them, and put them into a book.
The result is amazing! Topics include the nature of consciousness, the future of artificial intelligence, the question of whether or not we are living in a simulation, the Fermi Paradox, racism, the multiverse, and more.
Making Sense: Conversations on Consciousness, Morality, and the Future of Humanity is intellectually stimulating and exciting to read. While some chapters and guests were more interesting than others, all of them were thought-provoking and had me absorbed into the conversation.
My only complaint is that there are no conversations with women. I do not know if Sam Harris does not often have women on his show or it's simply that his favourite ones over the years have been with men. It's his book and he gets to decide which he likes the most, but it irked me.
If you enjoy mentally stimulating books, you will find much to appreciate in this book. I didn't 100% agree with everything everyone said, but that doesn't matter. It had my brain firing neurons all over the place and that's what's important!
I leave you with a few of my favourite quotes from the book:
"One test of whether you are a free person is whether you can change your mind." (~Timothy Snyder)
"If you do away with the belief that there are facts, you’ve gone straight to the heart of the matter. You’ve destroyed democracy." (~Timothy Snyder)
"If people say, Wow, that’s dehumanizing—to view us as just biological machines with mechanical problems,” well, that’s a hell of a lot better than demonizing us as having bad souls." (~Robert Sapolsky)
"What makes me a scientist is that I’d much rather have questions I can’t answer than answers I can’t question." (~Max Tegmark)
"If you’re... worried about living in a simulation, I’ll give you some advice: live a really interesting life and do interesting things, so that whoever’s running it doesn’t get bored and shut you down." (~Max Tegmark)
However, my brain doesn't absorb audio nearly as well as visual. If I listen to a book, I have to go back and read it because I don't retain the information. Even watching movies - If there are no subtitles, I can't watch them. Sure, I see the action, but the spoken words don't translate well in my brain and I flounder around not knowing what's going on.
Because of this, I miss out on all the great podcasts available. Thankfully, Sam Harris decided to take several of his favourite shows from his podcast, transcribe them, and put them into a book.
The result is amazing! Topics include the nature of consciousness, the future of artificial intelligence, the question of whether or not we are living in a simulation, the Fermi Paradox, racism, the multiverse, and more.
Making Sense: Conversations on Consciousness, Morality, and the Future of Humanity is intellectually stimulating and exciting to read. While some chapters and guests were more interesting than others, all of them were thought-provoking and had me absorbed into the conversation.
My only complaint is that there are no conversations with women. I do not know if Sam Harris does not often have women on his show or it's simply that his favourite ones over the years have been with men. It's his book and he gets to decide which he likes the most, but it irked me.
If you enjoy mentally stimulating books, you will find much to appreciate in this book. I didn't 100% agree with everything everyone said, but that doesn't matter. It had my brain firing neurons all over the place and that's what's important!
I leave you with a few of my favourite quotes from the book:
"One test of whether you are a free person is whether you can change your mind." (~Timothy Snyder)
"If you do away with the belief that there are facts, you’ve gone straight to the heart of the matter. You’ve destroyed democracy." (~Timothy Snyder)
"If people say, Wow, that’s dehumanizing—to view us as just biological machines with mechanical problems,” well, that’s a hell of a lot better than demonizing us as having bad souls." (~Robert Sapolsky)
"What makes me a scientist is that I’d much rather have questions I can’t answer than answers I can’t question." (~Max Tegmark)
"If you’re... worried about living in a simulation, I’ll give you some advice: live a really interesting life and do interesting things, so that whoever’s running it doesn’t get bored and shut you down." (~Max Tegmark)
November 8, 2025
Friends, a moment of your time. Have you ever, while sermonizing to your fully bound partner about the fascinating nature of the Peak-End Rule (a psychological heuristic in which the remembering self is at odds with the experiencing self in judging how miserable you were during an experience, based on peak intensity and how said experience ended, rather than the total suffering endured over time), demonstrated its validity by punctuating your soft playful flogging with a sudden, crushing, kadiddly-swarp to the chairman of the erogenous party? Did their limbs jerk spastically and hitch against their bindings as they attempted to collapse into the incandescent node of their genital anguish and fuck themselves completely out of the physical realm with its screaming central nervous system and concomitant throw-uppy & “Dear God she’s assassinated the chairman!” kind of vibes? And then, thwarted by like the material properties of their bindings with its (first rate non-abrasive Twisted Monk Shibari rope) deceptively powerful tensile strength, elected to shout, in rather course language, insisting and demonically retching, that they (the recipient of a sharp, unexpected, spinning back-fist to the chairman) didn’t, and would never, under any circumstances, sign up for this shit? Did you point out that last session you utilized Saint Andrew’s Cross, Butt plug, Cane, Floggers, Nipple clamps, Riding crop, Spanking Paddles (and belt), Vampire Gloves, Whip, Sybian, and life sized replica of Johnny 5 from Short Circuit, all this lasting four times as long as the current session, and the worst that was ever said was like; “Mistress, I think I’m going to be ill.”? Why do you suppose that was? You ask. Surely the total amount of suffering was far greater? And, confirming the rule, they reply; “The pain was never more than mild. You played with my hair after untying me and told me how precious I was.”
Perched sidesaddle on a human sofa, I strike the red phosphorus across the stubble adorning my armrest. I touch the flame to the metal bowl of my Kiseru, causing the fine hairs of Kizami tobacco to curl with rapid oxidation. I drag the match languidly through the air with a turn of the wrist then drop the smoldering ember onto the naked flank of the quivering furniture below me, the barest tremor of pain transmitting itself up through the quaking arms and into my Black Lace-up Giaro “DOMINIQUE” Thigh Boots. I recross my legs and take a few puffs, tapping the genkubi across the bare buttocks serving as my ash tray. I narrow my eyes against the smoke and scoff; “A sofa that can’t even summarize for me Claude Shannon’s concept of information...” Taking a long draw, I blow the smoke into his face, my acid-tongue trailing behind with merciless enunciation. “Paaaaaaathetic.”
“Jen, uhhh, I mean.. Mistress. Don’t you think you’ve been getting too weird and maybe like.. sexual with your reviews lately?”
Listlessly blowing perfect rings skyward, I award this mewling no response.
“Well, anyway... if, as Shannon says, information is a reduction in uncertainty, then I think it’s safe to say that your reviews are low in information, as a person reading this would have absolutely no idea what this book is about.”
“Isn’t that what the summary is for you pitiful configuration of carbon?” Touching the scalding metal of my pipe to his fanny.
“Ah! Yes! Yes Mistress!”
“And wouldn’t it be redundant for me to recapitulate all of that here? Hmmm? As a matter of fact, wouldn’t it be a dereliction of basic human decency to merely reformulate that terse summary into something more verbose? Hmm? Answer me! Do you want me to perform some urethral sounding? AS YOU WISH, WORM!”
“NO MOMMY NOOOOOOOOOO!”
These are just a couple of the fascinating ideas I’ve learned from being a longtime listener to Sam’s podcast, where he frequently engages in substantive conversation with some of the world’s most brilliant minds across the disciplinary spectrum. This is a collection of some of the best conversations that are most pertinent to Sam’s primary interests as a philosopher and neuroscientist. Topics touched upon include: The hard problem of consciousness (why it’s ‘like’ something to be you). Artificial Intelligence. Psychedelics. The possibility that the universe is a simulation. Foundations of morality. Religion. The neurobiology of belief. Perception as a controlled hallucination. Meditation. The significance of WWII in the history of ideas. The role of intuition in science. The ethics of building conscious AI. The peak-end rule. System one and two of human decision making. The Vulnerable World Hypothesis. The Fermi Paradox. Complementary and competitive cognitive artifacts. The nature of Mathematics. The multiverse. The threat of totalitarianism. And much much more.
Perched sidesaddle on a human sofa, I strike the red phosphorus across the stubble adorning my armrest. I touch the flame to the metal bowl of my Kiseru, causing the fine hairs of Kizami tobacco to curl with rapid oxidation. I drag the match languidly through the air with a turn of the wrist then drop the smoldering ember onto the naked flank of the quivering furniture below me, the barest tremor of pain transmitting itself up through the quaking arms and into my Black Lace-up Giaro “DOMINIQUE” Thigh Boots. I recross my legs and take a few puffs, tapping the genkubi across the bare buttocks serving as my ash tray. I narrow my eyes against the smoke and scoff; “A sofa that can’t even summarize for me Claude Shannon’s concept of information...” Taking a long draw, I blow the smoke into his face, my acid-tongue trailing behind with merciless enunciation. “Paaaaaaathetic.”
“Jen, uhhh, I mean.. Mistress. Don’t you think you’ve been getting too weird and maybe like.. sexual with your reviews lately?”
Listlessly blowing perfect rings skyward, I award this mewling no response.
“Well, anyway... if, as Shannon says, information is a reduction in uncertainty, then I think it’s safe to say that your reviews are low in information, as a person reading this would have absolutely no idea what this book is about.”
“Isn’t that what the summary is for you pitiful configuration of carbon?” Touching the scalding metal of my pipe to his fanny.
“Ah! Yes! Yes Mistress!”
“And wouldn’t it be redundant for me to recapitulate all of that here? Hmmm? As a matter of fact, wouldn’t it be a dereliction of basic human decency to merely reformulate that terse summary into something more verbose? Hmm? Answer me! Do you want me to perform some urethral sounding? AS YOU WISH, WORM!”
“NO MOMMY NOOOOOOOOOO!”
These are just a couple of the fascinating ideas I’ve learned from being a longtime listener to Sam’s podcast, where he frequently engages in substantive conversation with some of the world’s most brilliant minds across the disciplinary spectrum. This is a collection of some of the best conversations that are most pertinent to Sam’s primary interests as a philosopher and neuroscientist. Topics touched upon include: The hard problem of consciousness (why it’s ‘like’ something to be you). Artificial Intelligence. Psychedelics. The possibility that the universe is a simulation. Foundations of morality. Religion. The neurobiology of belief. Perception as a controlled hallucination. Meditation. The significance of WWII in the history of ideas. The role of intuition in science. The ethics of building conscious AI. The peak-end rule. System one and two of human decision making. The Vulnerable World Hypothesis. The Fermi Paradox. Complementary and competitive cognitive artifacts. The nature of Mathematics. The multiverse. The threat of totalitarianism. And much much more.
June 2, 2020
I've never listened to Harris' podcast (I tend to lean towards reading content rather than listening to it), but the topics broached in this book were fascinating. To be completely honest, I'm sure some of the information went over my head - I am not a philosopher, and one of my gripes with this book is that I don't think it's user friendly for the vast majority. I took philosophy courses in college which give me some background to speak of, but there were many concepts and thought processes that were discussed in this book without being properly introduced, in my opinion. I also felt it was a little bit strange to be essentially reading a transcript of his podcast. I thought there would be additional content (and there were little intros at the beginning of each chapter, but they didn't really flesh out the topics being discussed, and I think that could've been valuable). Maybe this is the type of book that's meant to only be fully enjoyed by those with a deeper background in philosophy, I don't know, but I was ultimately disappointed by how little I got from it. I am so interested in the topics of conversation in this book, they're things I discuss and contemplate regularly, but I repeatedly felt like a child trying to keep up with an adult conversation - and that is NOT something I'm used to. That being said, while it was a challenge, I did learn at least one thing from each chapter, I just wish it had been less of a struggle and more of a conversation including the reader rather than one where I constantly felt one step behind. This book is called Making Sense, but I don't know that it made enough sense of itself to be a truly enjoyable experience for most readers.
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for the e-galley in exchange for my honest review.
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for the e-galley in exchange for my honest review.
August 11, 2020
Since 2014, Sam Harris—neuroscientist, philosopher, and best-selling author—has been exploring some of the most important questions about the human mind, society, and current events on his podcast, Making Sense. With more than one hundred million downloads, these discussions have clearly hit a nerve, frequently walking a tightrope where either host or guest—and sometimes both—lose their footing, but always in search of a greater understanding of the world in which we live. For Harris, honest and frank conversation, no matter how difficult, is the only path beyond a scientific ignorance, political tribalism and personal delusion. His writing and public lectures cover a wide range of topics—neuroscience, moral philosophy, religion, meditation practice, consciousness, tyranny, human violence, rationality—but generally focus on how a growing understanding of ourselves and the world is changing our sense of how we should live. It is a book simply packed with intriguing information and interesting dialogues with prominent guests.
This adaptation of some of Harris’s most thought-provoking and controversial podcast episodes is engaging from beginning to end with a wide-ranging set of fascinating topics explored in depth in an accessible manner. They are deeply perceptive, incisive and presented in a lucid and eminently readable format which I raced through. Even his discourse with those he vehemently disagrees with is considered and intelligent with no unnecessary theatrics you often receive from other commentators or broadcasters. The written form is especially great for allowing a more detailed analysis of a topic than perhaps the spoken word and I felt it worked exceptionally well. If you are a fan of psychologists such as Dr Jordan Peterson and the like then this is a book worth your time. If you enjoy hearing brain-boosting material or information that'll cause cranium conflagration then give this a read. Many thanks to Bantam Press for an ARC.
This adaptation of some of Harris’s most thought-provoking and controversial podcast episodes is engaging from beginning to end with a wide-ranging set of fascinating topics explored in depth in an accessible manner. They are deeply perceptive, incisive and presented in a lucid and eminently readable format which I raced through. Even his discourse with those he vehemently disagrees with is considered and intelligent with no unnecessary theatrics you often receive from other commentators or broadcasters. The written form is especially great for allowing a more detailed analysis of a topic than perhaps the spoken word and I felt it worked exceptionally well. If you are a fan of psychologists such as Dr Jordan Peterson and the like then this is a book worth your time. If you enjoy hearing brain-boosting material or information that'll cause cranium conflagration then give this a read. Many thanks to Bantam Press for an ARC.
December 20, 2020
Ben Stiller continues his multi-year project masquerading as a philosopher-turn-podcast host. Tricks very smart people into having conversations with him. Said conversations recorded here in text form.
August 26, 2021
First off, I am not into identity politics but I did notice that Harris has conversations with 11 people in this book, all men. Only 1 is a black man, Glenn C Loury and I believe Anil Seth is biracial. The rest were all white males. I have nothing against white males but to me this book is heavily biased towards men. I know there are women in AI, philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, etc. so I do find it disappointing that someone like Harris doesn't bother to find females. This is heavily biased and unacceptable.
Secondly, some of the conversations he has having were boring to me and I felt some topics to be intellectually shallow. Some of the conversations were interesting so from this perspective, the book is ok. There are certain sections where his political bias is showing and I have a problem with that since he's touting his bias as fact, rather than just his political opinion. Harris needs some intellectual humility in the realm of politics because he's very blind about politics and the media.
Secondly, some of the conversations he has having were boring to me and I felt some topics to be intellectually shallow. Some of the conversations were interesting so from this perspective, the book is ok. There are certain sections where his political bias is showing and I have a problem with that since he's touting his bias as fact, rather than just his political opinion. Harris needs some intellectual humility in the realm of politics because he's very blind about politics and the media.
November 1, 2020
Liked this a lot. Harris is smart and clever and interested in a lot of the same things I am - but something about his attitude often bugs me. I’ve read several of his books, but I think I really like him in this format better, having interesting discussions with other people. And they’re definitely discussions, not interviews.
June 19, 2023
Making Sense is an audiobook that curates eleven conversations from the author's podcast series of the same name. The author, Sam Harris of New Atheism fame, has decided that his mission of engaging with important current ideas and spreading good memes is optimized by the podcasting format. However, he realizes that many people will only consume public-intellectual-type content in a traditional book format. Hence, the existence of this book.
Harris has a melange of influences that range from traditional neuroscience to Eastern philosophy (mostly Buddhism). Many of his ideas arise from or are shared by the Rationalist and Effective Altruist (EA) communities, which Harris' work has often been connected to. This is a particular mode of thinking that is eager to expand scientific rationalism into as many intellectual domains as possible. This effort feels fairly antiseptic, especially given that it is typically yoked to consequentialism, especially utilitarianism, as an ethical framework. So despite the laudable goal of championing rationalism and the scientific method as an epistemology, Harris and his ilk periodically find themselves trapped by the bizarre paradoxes created by pristine ethical frameworks.
Although Harris has carefully chosen conservations with experts from a variety of domains, there are clear themes that run through the conversations. Harris circles similar ideas or questions: the nature of being and consciousness, materialist determinism, the biological constraints on human cognition and behavior, and the current and future impact of technology on the human species. These are heady conversations, and one's understanding of them is greatly enriched by having read within the relevant subject areas. Nonetheless, these conversation are still a great introduction to exciting and often important and salient ideas about the modern world. And of course, these conversations sometimes include unwarranted hype, credulous readings of thin empirical records, or completely silly ideas, but none of this negates the overall edification they can offer to an educated lay person.
The content of Making Sense includes the following conversations:
The Light of the Mind: A Conversation with David Chalmers
Finding Our Way: A Conversation with David Deutsch
Consciousness and the Self: A Conversation with Anil Seth
The Nature of Consciousness: A Conversation with Thomas Metzinger
The Road to Tyranny: A Conversation with Timothy Snyder
What Is Racism?: A Conversation with Glenn C. Loury
The Biology of Good and Evil: A Conversation with Robert Sapolsky
The Map of Misunderstanding: A Conversation with Daniel Kahneman
Will We Destroy the Future?: A Conversation with Nick Bostrum
Complexity and Stupidity: A Conversation with David Krakauer
Our Future: A Conversation with Max Tegmark
Harris has a melange of influences that range from traditional neuroscience to Eastern philosophy (mostly Buddhism). Many of his ideas arise from or are shared by the Rationalist and Effective Altruist (EA) communities, which Harris' work has often been connected to. This is a particular mode of thinking that is eager to expand scientific rationalism into as many intellectual domains as possible. This effort feels fairly antiseptic, especially given that it is typically yoked to consequentialism, especially utilitarianism, as an ethical framework. So despite the laudable goal of championing rationalism and the scientific method as an epistemology, Harris and his ilk periodically find themselves trapped by the bizarre paradoxes created by pristine ethical frameworks.
Although Harris has carefully chosen conservations with experts from a variety of domains, there are clear themes that run through the conversations. Harris circles similar ideas or questions: the nature of being and consciousness, materialist determinism, the biological constraints on human cognition and behavior, and the current and future impact of technology on the human species. These are heady conversations, and one's understanding of them is greatly enriched by having read within the relevant subject areas. Nonetheless, these conversation are still a great introduction to exciting and often important and salient ideas about the modern world. And of course, these conversations sometimes include unwarranted hype, credulous readings of thin empirical records, or completely silly ideas, but none of this negates the overall edification they can offer to an educated lay person.
The content of Making Sense includes the following conversations:
The Light of the Mind: A Conversation with David Chalmers
Finding Our Way: A Conversation with David Deutsch
Consciousness and the Self: A Conversation with Anil Seth
The Nature of Consciousness: A Conversation with Thomas Metzinger
The Road to Tyranny: A Conversation with Timothy Snyder
What Is Racism?: A Conversation with Glenn C. Loury
The Biology of Good and Evil: A Conversation with Robert Sapolsky
The Map of Misunderstanding: A Conversation with Daniel Kahneman
Will We Destroy the Future?: A Conversation with Nick Bostrum
Complexity and Stupidity: A Conversation with David Krakauer
Our Future: A Conversation with Max Tegmark
June 11, 2020
Sam Harris' Making Sense is for those looking for some intellectual stimulus.
His newest book covers the gamut of current topics relevant to almost anyone. He uses the conversations from his notable podcast to form the basis of his book. As he says, by putting it into writing it gives both him and his interviewees the time to reflect and refine their arguments. I particularly loved his conversations on race in America and consciousness.
While this book didn't make me want to stay up all night reading it, it did get me thinking.
This review is based on Edelweiss+ ARC provided in exchange for an honest, unbiased opinion.
His newest book covers the gamut of current topics relevant to almost anyone. He uses the conversations from his notable podcast to form the basis of his book. As he says, by putting it into writing it gives both him and his interviewees the time to reflect and refine their arguments. I particularly loved his conversations on race in America and consciousness.
While this book didn't make me want to stay up all night reading it, it did get me thinking.
This review is based on Edelweiss+ ARC provided in exchange for an honest, unbiased opinion.
November 1, 2020
I, for one, am grateful to Sam Harris for favouring us with this hard-copy access to a number of his podcasts. As Harris himself says, this provides the reader with a greater control over the subjects discussed, especially in regard to the details of the topic under discussion. The current popularity of podcasts is increasing exponentially, it seems, and they provide outlets for many to express and disseminate their views readily and extensively. Whether this is a good thing or not is a moot point: it depends on who is disseminating what.
My personal take on this matter is linked to the traditional interpretation that “Seeing is believing”. That insight, stemming from the “realism” of personal visual experience and/or on the “truth” of photographic realism, has been quite undermined both by deeper understanding of the way humans’ perceptions of what is going on around them can be highly misleading on the one hand, and by the extensive developments of adulterated photographs and movies through time-altering complex editing techniques, and impressive and virtually invisible graphic manipulation of images on the other hand. The final result is that we can be subject to deception on the largest scale possible. Simply “seeing” is no longer a firm basis for conferring justification for reality.
That same potential for propagating beliefs can be attributed to the more ephemeral, time-constrained reality of listening: oratorical techniques will acknowledge that most listeners are selective. We hear only what they want to hear. Therefore the emphasis and reiteration of sound-bites, repeated catch-phrases and generic unquestioned blanket concepts that appeal primarily to the emotions are more important in disseminating ideas than the truth, reality or validity of those ideas. Historically, this has been the most dominating form of communication in the history of humanity. It is perhaps “truer” to say that “Hearing is believing”; we pick and choose the sounds and words we want to hear and disregard the rest.
While written words do not necessarily escape all criticism, the hard copy they represent are at least one step removed from the more evanescent impact of sounds; and are more readily exposed to more critical evaluation and analysis — and this is what Harris has provided for us with this book.
The reader is permitted more intimate contact with the thoughts and opinions of eleven experts in their fields, shaped by the passionate clarity of Harris’ questioning and comments, as they grapple with concepts of Consciousness, Morality, and associated matters such as Free Will, Ethics, Artificial Intelligence, etc. as they relate to the present (2020) and to their possible implications for the future of Humanity in general. My use of the word “grappling” is very appropriate, since these concepts are very slippery indeed. The use of “thought experiments” is often utilised to explore this slipperiness, frequently subjecting sub-topics with qualifying adjectives which can both clarify and possibly complicate things further… Each step can be re-examined by the reader and meditated upon further if one so wishes.
I can appreciate that not all potential readers will necessarily be attracted to these ideas, but for those who might be tantalised by them, this book is a superb snap-shot of current thinking in these areas of discourse, especially as presented as clearly and as precisely as here.
My personal take on this matter is linked to the traditional interpretation that “Seeing is believing”. That insight, stemming from the “realism” of personal visual experience and/or on the “truth” of photographic realism, has been quite undermined both by deeper understanding of the way humans’ perceptions of what is going on around them can be highly misleading on the one hand, and by the extensive developments of adulterated photographs and movies through time-altering complex editing techniques, and impressive and virtually invisible graphic manipulation of images on the other hand. The final result is that we can be subject to deception on the largest scale possible. Simply “seeing” is no longer a firm basis for conferring justification for reality.
That same potential for propagating beliefs can be attributed to the more ephemeral, time-constrained reality of listening: oratorical techniques will acknowledge that most listeners are selective. We hear only what they want to hear. Therefore the emphasis and reiteration of sound-bites, repeated catch-phrases and generic unquestioned blanket concepts that appeal primarily to the emotions are more important in disseminating ideas than the truth, reality or validity of those ideas. Historically, this has been the most dominating form of communication in the history of humanity. It is perhaps “truer” to say that “Hearing is believing”; we pick and choose the sounds and words we want to hear and disregard the rest.
While written words do not necessarily escape all criticism, the hard copy they represent are at least one step removed from the more evanescent impact of sounds; and are more readily exposed to more critical evaluation and analysis — and this is what Harris has provided for us with this book.
The reader is permitted more intimate contact with the thoughts and opinions of eleven experts in their fields, shaped by the passionate clarity of Harris’ questioning and comments, as they grapple with concepts of Consciousness, Morality, and associated matters such as Free Will, Ethics, Artificial Intelligence, etc. as they relate to the present (2020) and to their possible implications for the future of Humanity in general. My use of the word “grappling” is very appropriate, since these concepts are very slippery indeed. The use of “thought experiments” is often utilised to explore this slipperiness, frequently subjecting sub-topics with qualifying adjectives which can both clarify and possibly complicate things further… Each step can be re-examined by the reader and meditated upon further if one so wishes.
I can appreciate that not all potential readers will necessarily be attracted to these ideas, but for those who might be tantalised by them, this book is a superb snap-shot of current thinking in these areas of discourse, especially as presented as clearly and as precisely as here.
September 4, 2020
It was good. Just not particularly the content I was expecting. I went in thinking it would be like Tools of Titans, but it didn't resonate as well as ToT, likely due to the format of the conversations mostly transcripts from podcasts and not particularly summarized per se.
2.8/5
2.8/5
July 11, 2021
DEUTSCH: Well, I see human history as a long period of virtually complete failure—failure, that is, to make any progress. Our species has existed for, depending on where you count it from, maybe a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand years. And for the vast majority of that time, people were alive, they were thinking, they were suffering, and they wanted things. But nothing ever improved. The improvements that did happen happened so slowly that archaeologists can’t distinguish between artifacts from eras separated by thousands of years. There was generation upon generation upon generation of suffering and stasis.
Then there was slow improvement, and then faster improvement. Then there were attempts to institutionalize a tradition of criticism, which I think is the key to rapid progress—that is, progress discernible in a human lifetime—and there was also error correction, so that regression was less likely. That happened several times and failed every time except once—in the European Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
What worries me is that the inheritors of that unique instance of sustained progress are only a small proportion of the population of the world today. It’s the culture, or civilization, that we call the West. Only the West has a tradition of institutionalized criticism. And this has made for various problems, including the problem of failed cultures that see their failure writ large by comparison with the West and therefore want to do something about it that doesn’t involve creativity. That’s very dangerous. And even in the West, what it takes to maintain our civilization is not widely known. As you've also said, the prevailing view among people in the West, including very educated people, is a picture of the relationship between knowledge and progress and civilization and values that’s wrong in dangerous ways. Although our cultural institutions have now preserved stability despite rapid change for hundreds of years, the knowledge of what it takes to keep civilization stable in the face of rapidly increasing knowledge is not widespread.
We're like people on a huge, well-designed submarine which has all
sorts of lifesaving devices built in, who don’t know they’re in a submarine. They think they’re in a motorboat, and they’re going to open all the hatches because they want a nicer view.
HARRIS: What a great analogy! The misconception that worries me most, frankly, is the fairly common notion that there’s no such thing as progress in any real sense, and there’s certainly no such thing as moral progress. Many people believe that you can’t justify the idea that one culture is better than another, or one way of life is better than another, because there’s no such thing as moral truth. They’ve somehow drawn this lesson from twentieth-century science and philosophy, and now, in the twenty-first century, even very smart people—even physicists whose names would be well known to you, with whom I’ve collided on this point—think there’s no place to stand where you can say, for instance, that slavery is wrong. They consider a condemnation of slavery a mere preference that has no possible connection to science.
I'll give you an example of just how crazy this hypocrisy and doublethink can become among well-educated people. I was at a meeting at the Salk Institute to talk about things like the alleged gulf between facts and values, which I consider one of the more spurious exports from philosophy that has been widely embraced by scientists. I was making an argument for moral realism and said something like, “If there’s any culture that we can be sure has not given the best possible answer to the question of how to live a good life, it’s the Taliban. Consider, for instance, the practice of forcing half the population to live in cloth bags, and beating them or killing them when they try to get out. If we know anything about human well-being, we know that this is an idiotic and immoral practice.”
It turns out that to disparage the Taliban at an academic conference is to court controversy. After my talk, a woman who holds multiple graduate degrees in relevant fields—she’s technically a bioethicist, but she has graduate degrees in science, philosophy, and law
DEUTSCH: That doesn’t fill me with confidence.
HARRIS: Right. I should also say that this prodigy has gone on to serve on the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. She’s now one of thirteen people advising President Obama on the ethical implications of current advances in medicine.
After my talk, she said, “How could you possibly say that forcing women and girls to live under the veil is wrong? I understand you don’t like it, but that’s just your Western notion of right and wrong.”
I said, “The moment you admit that questions of right and wrong relate to the well-being of conscious creatures—in this case, human beings—then you have to admit that we know something about morality. And we know, in this case, that the burqa isn’t the best solution to the mystery of how to maximize human well-being.”
“That’s just your opinion,” she said.
“Well, let’s make it simpler. Let’s say we found a culture on an island somewhere that was removing the eyeballs of every third child. Would you then agree that we had found a culture that was not perfectly maximizing human well-being?”
“It would depend on why they were doing it,” she said.
“Let’s say they’re doing it for religious reasons. They have a scripture which says, ‘Every third should walk in darkness,’ or some such nonsense.”
Then she said, “Well, then you could never say that they were wrong.”
The fact that these hypothetical barbarians were laboring under a religious precept trumped all other possible truth claims for her, leaving us with no way to declare anything better or worse in moral terms. I’ve had the same kinds of conversations with physicists who say, “I don’t like slavery. I personally wouldn't want to be a slave, or to keep slaves. But there’s no place to stand scientifically that allows me to say that slaveholders are in the wrong.”
Once we acknowledge the link between morality and human wellbeing, or the well-being of all possible conscious persons, this kind of moral relativism is tantamount to saying not only that we don’t know anything about well-being, but that we will mever know anything about it. The underlying claim is that no conceivable breakthrough in knowledge would tell us anything relevant to navigating the difference between the worst possible misery for everyone and every other state of the universe that is better than that.
What worries me is that many of the things you've said about prog. ress, and about there being only a subset of humanity that has found creative methods for improving human life, will seem controversial~ even bigoted—to many of the people who make decisions about how we should live.
DEUTSCH: Yes, that is scary. But it has always been so. The thing is, our culture is wiser than we are in many ways. The people who defeated communism, for instance, might well have said that they were doing it for Jesus. In fact they weren’t. They were doing it for Western values, which they had been brought up to reinterpret as “doing it for Jesus.” They'd say things like “The values of democracy and freedom are enshrined in the Bible.” Well, those things aren’t enshrined in the Bible. But the practice of saying that they are is part of a subculture which was extraordinarily good, and did good. So things are not as bad as the existence of perverse academics like those might lead you to think.
HARRIS: One thing that makes it not as bad as one might think is that it’s impossible, even for someone like her, to live out the implications of such hypocrisy. I could have said, ���You've convinced me. I'll send my daughter to Afghanistan for a year abroad, forcing her to live in a burqa with a Taliban family. What do you think? Is that the best use of her time? Am I a good father? After all, there’s really no basis for judging that this could be bad for her, apart from my succumbing to my own xenophobic biases, so presumably you support me in this decision.” I have to imagine that even she would balk at that, because we all know in our bones that certain ways of living are undesirable.
DEUTSCH: Right. There’s another, related irony, which is that she’s willing to condemn you for not being a moral relativist. But moral relativism is a pathology that arises only in Western culture. Every other culture has no doubt that there’s such a thing as right and wrong, they’ve just got the wrong idea of what right and wrong are, but they don’t doubt that there is such a thing, and she wouldn’t condemn them for that, although she does condemn you for it.
You say “hypocrisy.” I think this all originated in the same mistake we discussed at the beginning of this conversation—empiricism, or the idea that knowledge comes to us through the senses, which has led to scientism, which is the idea that science, by itself, constitutes the whole of reason—that the scientific method constitutes the whole of rationality. Which leads to the idea that there can’t be such a thing as morality since we can’t do an experiment to test it. Your answer to that seems to be, “But we can, if we adopt the simple criterion of human well-being.” But we can’t just leave it at that. The idea that there can’t be any morality because it can’t be derived from the senses is the same argument chat there can’t be any scientific knowledge because it can’t be derived from the senses.
In the twentieth century, empiricism was found to be nonsense, and some people therefore concluded that scientific knowledge was nonsense. But the real truth is that science isn’t based on empiricism, it’s based on reason, and so is morality. So if you adopt a rational attitude toward morality, and therefore say that morality consists of moral knowledge—and knowledge always consists of conjectures, doesn’t need a basis, only needs modes of criticism; and those modes of criticism operate by criteria that are themselves subject to modes of criticism—then you come to a transcendent moral truth. If all knowledge is conjectural and subject to improvement, then protecting the means of improving knowledge is more important than any particular piece of knowledge. That idea—before one even invokes ideas like “humans should flourish,” and then “all humans are equal,” and so on—will lead directly to, for example, the fact that slavery is an abomination. Human well-being is a good approximation in most practical situations, but not an absolute truth. I can imagine, for example, situations in which it would be right for the human race as a whole to commit suicide.
August 23, 2022
Discovering the work of Sam Harris both in print and in podcasts has been nothing short of amazing. Over the last several months he has already taught me so much and in ways that make sense and is accessible to a person like me. And now because of Sam I am able to understand a lot more about artificial intelligence, free will, religion, and a host of other interesting facts, concepts, and beliefs. Science was never my strong suit but Sam Harris makes it both fun and rewarding. Please read the rest of my review here:
https://rogueliterarysociety.com/f/ma...
https://rogueliterarysociety.com/f/ma...
August 10, 2022
This is the most influential and thought-provoking audiobook I have read in recent times. It is a selection of conversations taken from Sam Harris' podcast of the same name. Sam Harris is one of my favorite contemporary thinkers both because his range of interests coincides with mine and because of his sharp intelligence. In this collection, he talks with a range of thought leaders who have some of the most interesting things to say about our mind, consciousness, morality, free will, the future of humanity, and artificial intelligence. Even though I have read most of the books written by these authors, Sam Harris can bring dig deeper into these ideas by asking the right questions.
If nothing else, I am sure listening to these conversations, you will feel a little smarter and feel proud that we share the planet with such intelligent and original thinkers. If there is one book you read this year, this could be it.
If nothing else, I am sure listening to these conversations, you will feel a little smarter and feel proud that we share the planet with such intelligent and original thinkers. If there is one book you read this year, this could be it.
March 7, 2024
A very deep set of conversations that was a nice intellectual challenge to tackle. I may not agree with Harris's view at times, but one has to admire his courage in picking interviewees he does not see eye to eye with and confronting his ideas with theirs.
Having said that, we're into the third decade of the 21st century, talking about a book heavily focused on the future, and there is not a single female thinker to invite to the table? Really?
Having said that, we're into the third decade of the 21st century, talking about a book heavily focused on the future, and there is not a single female thinker to invite to the table? Really?
July 28, 2020
I certainly don't agree with everything Sam Harris says, but I feel that his desire to intellectually challenge is generally well thought out and it is interesting to read through this. If you have listened to the podcast, you will know the premise and probably much of the material, but if he is new to you or you are a fan of the podcast, this is a good read.
May 17, 2024
Łooooaaaa. Przyznaję bez bicia: wielu rzeczy nie zrozumiałam. Bardzo dużo filozofii, etyki, ale i technicznych pojec. Ale jakie to było ciekawe, jak pobudziło do myślenia, a jakie momentami przerażające... Generalnie gdybym miała wiedzę tych gości, gdybym miała ich teorie w głowie, to nie wiem, jak spałabym w nocy. Fascynujące to było.
November 3, 2020
Heavy going. Think I understood possibly three sentences in total.
May 16, 2021
Good collection of podcasts, obv works well as audiobook (if willing to pay for it).
December 23, 2024
„Test Garlanda ma coś wspólnego z testem Turinga, a mianowicie że w równym stopniu sprawdza możliwości systemu, co samego człowieka. Tym razem jednak chodzi o reakcję emocjonalną, a nie o inteligencję. Ten film wyczuwa, że stany emocjonalne i cielesne są zapewne lepszymi kryteriami występowania świadomości albo przypisywania czemuś świadomości niż kryteria oparte na inteligencji.”
„Czy poszerzymy nasz krąg troski, bo mamy systemy, które wyglądają, jak gdyby były świadome? Czy właśnie zawęzimy, bo wycofamy się w głąb naszej indywidualnej egzystencji,w to, czego możemy być pewni? Może staniemy się – niszcząco – większymi solipsystami? Takie wycofanie ku solipsystycznemu „ja” i utrata troski o inne istoty może okazać się niezamierzonym skutkiem zwiększonego występowania AI.”
„gdybyśmy faktycznie żyli w symulacji, nie byłoby tak, że nie ma rzeczywistości, że nie ma krzeseł, stołów ani drzew. Ale raczej: istniałyby one w innej formie, niż nam się początkowo zdaje. Pod tym wszystkim kryłby się poziom jakiejś komputacji[7] i to jego uznalibyśmy za rzeczywistość fizyczną.
W fizyce krąży hipoteza, przez niektórych traktowana serio, zwana czasem hipotezą „bytu z bitu” (it from bit)[8] – że pod fizyką znajduje się informacja. Według tej wizji drzewa czy atomy nie tyle nie istnieją, co istnieją, ale składają się z informacji. Gdybyśmy więc odkryli, że żyjemy w symulacji, powiedziałbym zasadniczo: „Wszystko to jest rzeczywiste, ale okazuje się, że żyjemy w świecie informacyjnym””
„rozpatrzenie pomysłu symulacji może skłonić człowieka do bardziej poważnego potraktowania idei stwórcy. Mógłby istnieć stwórca, a przynajmniej stwórca naszego lokalnego kawałka wszechświata. Można to nazwać teologią symulacji: spekulacje o postaci, która tę symulację zrobiła”
„W jednej przyszłości projektujemy istoty zupełnie odmienne od nas i one przejmują świat. W drugiej zaczynamy od siebie i siebie ulepszamy, może wgrywamy mózgi do sieci i tym podobne. W tej drugiej przyszłości to my stajemy się superinteligentnymi istotami – a przynajmniej superinteligentne istoty przyszłości dają się rozpoznać jako jakieś wersje nas, jakoś z nas się rozwinęły, może na przykład zostaliśmy przeniesieni na inny hardware. To moim zdaniem zmniejsza dystans między tymi istotami a nami. Może też zwiększyć szanse, że istoty te będą prawdziwie świadome.
To rodzi pytanie, czy świadomość gdzieś się wytraca, jeśli wgrywamy siebie na szybszą technologię.”
„Empiryzm to pogląd, że wiedzę nabywamy poprzez zmysły. To akurat przekonanie całkowicie fałszywe: wszelka wiedza wynika z domniemań. Rodzi się ona wewnątrz i ma rozwiązywać problemy, a nie podsumowywać dane. Natomiast pogląd (skądinąd również fałszywy), że autorytet wynika z doświadczenia i jedynie z doświadczenia, stanowił doskonałą obronę przed wcześniejszymi formami autorytetu, nie tylko nieuzasadnionymi, ale wręcz tłamszącymi. Natomiast w XX wieku zdarzyło się coś okropnego: ludzie zaczęli brać empiryzm na serio, nie jako ledwie obronę, ale dosłowną prawdę – co niemal zabiło niektóre z nauk. Nawet w fizyce postawa ta szkodziła teorii kwantowej.”
„Naukowcy sprawdzili to w ten sposób, że grupa kontrolna pacjentów miała robione normalne kolonoskopie i wziernik wyjmowano zaraz po zakończeniu zabiegu. Natomiast w grupie doświadczalnej wziernik pozostawał na miejscu, zupełnie bez potrzeby, jeszcze na kilka minut po zakończeniu badania, dostarczając dość słabego, lecz wciąż negatywnego bodźca. Skutek był taki, że wrażenie ogólnej nieprzyjemności u badanych spoza grupy kontrolnej znacząco się zmniejszyło, a ich skłonność do powrotu i poddania się potencjalnie ratującej życie kolonoskopii w przyszłości – zwiększyła. Czyli każdą miarą słusznie było zrobić to tym ludziom – poza czasem trwania zabiegu, bo tu można powiedzieć, że lekarze bez medycznego powodu przedłużali nieprzyjemne doznanie.”
„istnieje takie przekonanie, że wrażeń coś nam dostarcza: czy to inni ludzie, heroina, programy telewizyjne czy cokolwiek. To błąd. Może subiektywnie interpretujemy to, co się dzieje, jako dostarczanie nam wrażeń, ale w rzeczywistości bawi nas dopiero nasze własne twórcze zaangażowanie w to, co się dzieje. Bez niego nic nas nie rozerwie”
„Po obudzeniu ze snu możesz nie być pewien, która jest godzina, ale wciąż masz poczucie upływu czasu. Dochodząc do siebie po znieczuleniu ogólnym, czujesz, że równie dobrze mogło minąć pięć minut, pięć godzin czy pięć lat.
Wielu ludzi miało to niedoznanie, jakim jest znieczulenie ogólne. W pewnym szczególnym sensie ja nie mogę się doczekać następnego razu, bo to przeżycie jak gdyby dodaje otuchy, przynajmniej u obu jego skrajów. To całkowity niebyt”
„Postrzegam, że jakaś rzecz ma tył, nie dlatego, że widzę tył, ale dlatego, że mój mózg jakoś koduje, w jaki sposób różne działania odsłoniłyby mi ten tył”
„Żachwa – bardzo proste stworzenie morskie – w swej młodocianej postaci pływa po morzu, szukając miejsca do życia. Gdy już osiądzie i zacznie się filtracyjnie odżywiać, trawi własny mózg, ponieważ nie ma już potrzeby posiadania kompetencji percepcyjnych czy ruchowych. Oczywiście często wykorzystuje się to do złośliwego porównania z akademikiem, który otrzymał katedrę profesorską”
„Przynajmniej do pewnego stopnia twoje doznania faktycznie się zmieniają, ponieważ wykształcasz sobie nowy zestaw przewidywań. Dzięki nowym przewidywaniom możesz lepiej odróżniać początkowo podobne sygnały zmysłowe. Nie tylko jest tak, że zauważasz inne rzeczy, ale zmienia się też twoje doznawanie.”
„Testy na ludziach pokazały, że zatracamy się w myślach przez trzydzieści do pięćdziesięciu procent czasu czuwania i nie zdajemy sobie z tego sprawy. Cierpimy na przeoczenia introspektywne. Jeśli do tego doliczysz marzenia senne, okaże się, że przez dwie trzecie świadomego życia nie panujemy nad umysłem”
„Empirycznie wie też, że my sami do tego nie dojdziemy, z powodu naszego błędu poznawczego faworyzującego istnienie.
Ja to nazywam błędem faworyzacji istnienia (existence bias). To tak naprawdę może być nasz najgłębszy rdzeń „bycia sobą”: pragnienie wiecznotrwałej egzystencji. Natomiast superinteligencja nie miałaby żadnej trudności w wyobrażeniu sobie, że sama musi się wyłączyć, gdyby doszła do racjonalnego wniosku, iż lepiej by było nie istnieć. My jednak jesteśmy biologicznymi systemami antyentropicznymi, z zaszczepionym straszliwym pragnieniem istnienia i lękiem przed śmiercią.”
„Mamy model „ja” niższego poziomu, realizujący imperatywy biologiczne, który podpowiada: „W żadnym razie nie wolno ci umrzeć”. Ale w przeciwieństwie do każdej innej czującej istoty na naszej planecie mamy też nowiutki poznawczy model „ja”, który ujawnia: „Twój przyszły horyzont skurczy się do zera. Umrzesz”. Tak że do naszego modelu „ja” wkrada się informacja, której nie powinno tam być, i powoduje ciągły konflikt wewnętrzny.
Jawna, świadoma wiedza o własnej śmiertelności ma związek z ewolucją religii. Ja religie określam jako systemy urojeń adaptacyjnych; pomagają one istotom ludzkim przeczyć własnej moralności.”
„Musimy dowiedzieć się, jak nawigować po pejzażu wszelkich możliwych umysłów, w którym można zarówno cierpieć najboleśniejsze, bezsensowe nieszczęście przez bardzo długi czas, jak i odejść od niego tak daleko, jak tylko potrafimy sobie wyobrazić: w przestrzenie czysto twórczych, estetycznie pięknych i intelektualnie satysfakcjonujących kontaktów z kosmosem, w sobie i poza sobą. Czy możemy zabrać ze sobą hieny, szczury i ośmiornice, by mogły robić coś więcej, niż tylko tu cierpieć – w to wątpię, ale może zanim opuścimy tę planetę i polecimy do gwiazd, po prostu wsypiemy MDMA do źródeł wody.”
„globalizacja, nawet jeśli niesie ze sobą w uśrednieniu jakąś poprawę, mierzoną abstrakcyjnym składnikiem dobrobytu typu PKB per capita, spowoduje też lokalne albo przekładające się na lokalność nierówności i resentymenty – ponieważ za globalizacją idzie globalizacja porównań. Oznacza ona, że ludzie porównują się do innych jak nigdy wcześniej, przez co często zaczynają siebie postrzegać jako ofiary”
„Uważalibyśmy psychopatów za nieszczęśników. Jakkolwiek do tego doszło, czy przez wpływ kultury, czy rodziców, których się nie wybiera, czy zmutowane geny, widziałbym ich jako ofiary okoliczności. Gdybyśmy nie mieli na to leku, zakwaterowalibyśmy ich w więzieniu. Ale gdyby pojawił się lek na psychopatię, odmawianie go w imię odwetu byłoby niegodziwością. To byłoby odmawianie operacji neurochirurgicznej komuś z guzem mózgu, który powoduje u niego przemocowość. Moralnie nie miałoby to sensu.”
„Oszałamiające jest to, że w różnych ciekawych badaniach używa się takiej techniki – przezczaszkowej stymulacji magnetycznej – która potrafi nieinwazyjnie zmodyfikować u ludzi aktywność niewielkich zlepków neuronów korowych. Zmienia się u badanych decyzje moralne, zmienia się poziom hojności w grach ekonomicznych, a kiedy przełącza się przycisk, ludzie wracają do poprzedniego stanu. To jest zjawisko mechanistyczne i zapowiedź przeróżnych rzeczy, z którymi coraz częściej będziemy się spotykać w przyszłości.”
„Pod koniec drugiej wojny światowej psycholog społeczny Kurt Lewin opracował sposoby na zmianę zachowania. Wyróżnił dwa zasadnicze: można kłaść nacisk na kierunek, w którym ludzie mają iść, albo można zadać zupełnie inne pytanie: dlaczego sami tam nie idą? Co ich powstrzymuje przed postępowaniem tak, jak twoim zdaniem powinni? I tak można usunąć przeszkody. Ułatwić to ludziom. Możliwe, że to jest najlepszy pomysł w psychologii, o jakim słyszałem. Rozróżnienie na nacisk i ułatwienia, eliminację przeszkód”
„Jeśli więc uważa się ludzi za istoty samolubne, należałoby się spodziewać niewystarczającej podaży redukcji ryzyka egzystencjalnego, zwanego ryzykiem x. Tymczasem można sobie wyobrazić, że gdyby ludzie mogli podróżować w czasie, to przyszłe pokolenia skłonne byłyby przeznaczyć ogromne sumy pieniędzy, by nagrodzić nas za działania obniżające ryzyko x. Ale skoro transakcja taka jest niemożliwa, nasze działania są w deficycie”
„Rozumowanie polega na tym, że jest znacznie bardziej prawdopodobne, iż ty jesteś człowiekiem numer sto miliardów, jeśli suma wszystkich ludzi w dziejach ma wynieść dwieście miliardów, niż kiedy ma wynieść dwieście bilionów. Oznacza to, że jesteś gdzieś pośrodku, że masz całkowicie przeciętne miejsce w tej kolejności. Byłoby to jednak dziwne być numerem sto miliardów, gdyby gatunek ludzki miał w dziejach dojść do setek bilionów.”
„Zamiast przechodzić ze stanu porządku w stan nieporządku, przeciwnie, przechodzisz ze stanu losowości – bo nie wiesz, dokąd jechać – w stan porządku. Shannon zrozumiał, że informacja jest tak naprawdę negatywem termodynamicznej entropii”
„Informacyjna teoria mózgu pozwala nam budować implanty ślimakowe. Pozwala mózgowi kontrolować robotyczne kończyny. Nie jest to więc metafora, ale głęboka zasada matematyczna, pozwalająca nam zrozumieć, jak działają mózgi i jak je przebudowywać”
„Inteligencja jest, jak ja lubię mówić, jednym z tematów, w których jesteśmy najgłupsi”
„Jeśli wiesz, jak poruszać się w przestrzeni fizycznej, na przykład przestrzeni euklidesowej albo po zakrzywionej powierzchni ziemi, pozwala ci to myśleć o różnych innych rodzajach przestrzeni – przestrzeni relacji, przestrzeni idei. Na przykład wyobrażenie ścieżki od jednej idei do drugiej – jako metafora – ma tak naprawdę bezpośrednie i naturalne przełożenie na kategorię ścieżki w przestrzeni realnej”
„Możemy zapytać: co odróżnia naukowca od ortodoksa? Wydaje mi się, że odpowiedź kryje się w definicji naukowca autorstwa Richarda Feynmana: kogoś, kto charakteryzuje się fundamentalną podejrzliwością wobec ekspertów. Mam wrażenie, że powinniśmy spróbować rozwiązać ten problem poprzez taki program pedagogiczny, który pozwala ludziom żyć z niepewnością i sprawia, że ona ich zadowala, a nie irytuje. Powinno nas krzepić istnienie wielu możliwości, a nie ich brak”
„Za inteligencję mojej żony nie odpowiada masa, którą ona ma w głowie, tylko wzorce, w które ta masa się układa.
A jeśli zapytasz: „Co to znaczy, że bryła materii potrafi pamiętać, przetwarzać informacje, uczyć się, postrzegać i doznawać?” – czyli posiada właściwości kojarzone przez nas z ludzkim umysłem – to dla każdej z tych właściwości można podać jasną, fizyczną odpowiedź”
„Mój kolega z MIT, z naszej szkoły handlowej, Erik Brynjolfsson ujął to dobitnie, kiedy występował w panelu na niedawnej konferencji o AI: „Jeśli nie będziemy w stanie zagwarantować, że po tej ogromnej eksplozji bogactwa każdemu będzie się powodziło lepiej, to będzie wstyd”. Wstyd!”
„Czy poszerzymy nasz krąg troski, bo mamy systemy, które wyglądają, jak gdyby były świadome? Czy właśnie zawęzimy, bo wycofamy się w głąb naszej indywidualnej egzystencji,w to, czego możemy być pewni? Może staniemy się – niszcząco – większymi solipsystami? Takie wycofanie ku solipsystycznemu „ja” i utrata troski o inne istoty może okazać się niezamierzonym skutkiem zwiększonego występowania AI.”
„gdybyśmy faktycznie żyli w symulacji, nie byłoby tak, że nie ma rzeczywistości, że nie ma krzeseł, stołów ani drzew. Ale raczej: istniałyby one w innej formie, niż nam się początkowo zdaje. Pod tym wszystkim kryłby się poziom jakiejś komputacji[7] i to jego uznalibyśmy za rzeczywistość fizyczną.
W fizyce krąży hipoteza, przez niektórych traktowana serio, zwana czasem hipotezą „bytu z bitu” (it from bit)[8] – że pod fizyką znajduje się informacja. Według tej wizji drzewa czy atomy nie tyle nie istnieją, co istnieją, ale składają się z informacji. Gdybyśmy więc odkryli, że żyjemy w symulacji, powiedziałbym zasadniczo: „Wszystko to jest rzeczywiste, ale okazuje się, że żyjemy w świecie informacyjnym””
„rozpatrzenie pomysłu symulacji może skłonić człowieka do bardziej poważnego potraktowania idei stwórcy. Mógłby istnieć stwórca, a przynajmniej stwórca naszego lokalnego kawałka wszechświata. Można to nazwać teologią symulacji: spekulacje o postaci, która tę symulację zrobiła”
„W jednej przyszłości projektujemy istoty zupełnie odmienne od nas i one przejmują świat. W drugiej zaczynamy od siebie i siebie ulepszamy, może wgrywamy mózgi do sieci i tym podobne. W tej drugiej przyszłości to my stajemy się superinteligentnymi istotami – a przynajmniej superinteligentne istoty przyszłości dają się rozpoznać jako jakieś wersje nas, jakoś z nas się rozwinęły, może na przykład zostaliśmy przeniesieni na inny hardware. To moim zdaniem zmniejsza dystans między tymi istotami a nami. Może też zwiększyć szanse, że istoty te będą prawdziwie świadome.
To rodzi pytanie, czy świadomość gdzieś się wytraca, jeśli wgrywamy siebie na szybszą technologię.”
„Empiryzm to pogląd, że wiedzę nabywamy poprzez zmysły. To akurat przekonanie całkowicie fałszywe: wszelka wiedza wynika z domniemań. Rodzi się ona wewnątrz i ma rozwiązywać problemy, a nie podsumowywać dane. Natomiast pogląd (skądinąd również fałszywy), że autorytet wynika z doświadczenia i jedynie z doświadczenia, stanowił doskonałą obronę przed wcześniejszymi formami autorytetu, nie tylko nieuzasadnionymi, ale wręcz tłamszącymi. Natomiast w XX wieku zdarzyło się coś okropnego: ludzie zaczęli brać empiryzm na serio, nie jako ledwie obronę, ale dosłowną prawdę – co niemal zabiło niektóre z nauk. Nawet w fizyce postawa ta szkodziła teorii kwantowej.”
„Naukowcy sprawdzili to w ten sposób, że grupa kontrolna pacjentów miała robione normalne kolonoskopie i wziernik wyjmowano zaraz po zakończeniu zabiegu. Natomiast w grupie doświadczalnej wziernik pozostawał na miejscu, zupełnie bez potrzeby, jeszcze na kilka minut po zakończeniu badania, dostarczając dość słabego, lecz wciąż negatywnego bodźca. Skutek był taki, że wrażenie ogólnej nieprzyjemności u badanych spoza grupy kontrolnej znacząco się zmniejszyło, a ich skłonność do powrotu i poddania się potencjalnie ratującej życie kolonoskopii w przyszłości – zwiększyła. Czyli każdą miarą słusznie było zrobić to tym ludziom – poza czasem trwania zabiegu, bo tu można powiedzieć, że lekarze bez medycznego powodu przedłużali nieprzyjemne doznanie.”
„istnieje takie przekonanie, że wrażeń coś nam dostarcza: czy to inni ludzie, heroina, programy telewizyjne czy cokolwiek. To błąd. Może subiektywnie interpretujemy to, co się dzieje, jako dostarczanie nam wrażeń, ale w rzeczywistości bawi nas dopiero nasze własne twórcze zaangażowanie w to, co się dzieje. Bez niego nic nas nie rozerwie”
„Po obudzeniu ze snu możesz nie być pewien, która jest godzina, ale wciąż masz poczucie upływu czasu. Dochodząc do siebie po znieczuleniu ogólnym, czujesz, że równie dobrze mogło minąć pięć minut, pięć godzin czy pięć lat.
Wielu ludzi miało to niedoznanie, jakim jest znieczulenie ogólne. W pewnym szczególnym sensie ja nie mogę się doczekać następnego razu, bo to przeżycie jak gdyby dodaje otuchy, przynajmniej u obu jego skrajów. To całkowity niebyt”
„Postrzegam, że jakaś rzecz ma tył, nie dlatego, że widzę tył, ale dlatego, że mój mózg jakoś koduje, w jaki sposób różne działania odsłoniłyby mi ten tył”
„Żachwa – bardzo proste stworzenie morskie – w swej młodocianej postaci pływa po morzu, szukając miejsca do życia. Gdy już osiądzie i zacznie się filtracyjnie odżywiać, trawi własny mózg, ponieważ nie ma już potrzeby posiadania kompetencji percepcyjnych czy ruchowych. Oczywiście często wykorzystuje się to do złośliwego porównania z akademikiem, który otrzymał katedrę profesorską”
„Przynajmniej do pewnego stopnia twoje doznania faktycznie się zmieniają, ponieważ wykształcasz sobie nowy zestaw przewidywań. Dzięki nowym przewidywaniom możesz lepiej odróżniać początkowo podobne sygnały zmysłowe. Nie tylko jest tak, że zauważasz inne rzeczy, ale zmienia się też twoje doznawanie.”
„Testy na ludziach pokazały, że zatracamy się w myślach przez trzydzieści do pięćdziesięciu procent czasu czuwania i nie zdajemy sobie z tego sprawy. Cierpimy na przeoczenia introspektywne. Jeśli do tego doliczysz marzenia senne, okaże się, że przez dwie trzecie świadomego życia nie panujemy nad umysłem”
„Empirycznie wie też, że my sami do tego nie dojdziemy, z powodu naszego błędu poznawczego faworyzującego istnienie.
Ja to nazywam błędem faworyzacji istnienia (existence bias). To tak naprawdę może być nasz najgłębszy rdzeń „bycia sobą”: pragnienie wiecznotrwałej egzystencji. Natomiast superinteligencja nie miałaby żadnej trudności w wyobrażeniu sobie, że sama musi się wyłączyć, gdyby doszła do racjonalnego wniosku, iż lepiej by było nie istnieć. My jednak jesteśmy biologicznymi systemami antyentropicznymi, z zaszczepionym straszliwym pragnieniem istnienia i lękiem przed śmiercią.”
„Mamy model „ja” niższego poziomu, realizujący imperatywy biologiczne, który podpowiada: „W żadnym razie nie wolno ci umrzeć”. Ale w przeciwieństwie do każdej innej czującej istoty na naszej planecie mamy też nowiutki poznawczy model „ja”, który ujawnia: „Twój przyszły horyzont skurczy się do zera. Umrzesz”. Tak że do naszego modelu „ja” wkrada się informacja, której nie powinno tam być, i powoduje ciągły konflikt wewnętrzny.
Jawna, świadoma wiedza o własnej śmiertelności ma związek z ewolucją religii. Ja religie określam jako systemy urojeń adaptacyjnych; pomagają one istotom ludzkim przeczyć własnej moralności.”
„Musimy dowiedzieć się, jak nawigować po pejzażu wszelkich możliwych umysłów, w którym można zarówno cierpieć najboleśniejsze, bezsensowe nieszczęście przez bardzo długi czas, jak i odejść od niego tak daleko, jak tylko potrafimy sobie wyobrazić: w przestrzenie czysto twórczych, estetycznie pięknych i intelektualnie satysfakcjonujących kontaktów z kosmosem, w sobie i poza sobą. Czy możemy zabrać ze sobą hieny, szczury i ośmiornice, by mogły robić coś więcej, niż tylko tu cierpieć – w to wątpię, ale może zanim opuścimy tę planetę i polecimy do gwiazd, po prostu wsypiemy MDMA do źródeł wody.”
„globalizacja, nawet jeśli niesie ze sobą w uśrednieniu jakąś poprawę, mierzoną abstrakcyjnym składnikiem dobrobytu typu PKB per capita, spowoduje też lokalne albo przekładające się na lokalność nierówności i resentymenty – ponieważ za globalizacją idzie globalizacja porównań. Oznacza ona, że ludzie porównują się do innych jak nigdy wcześniej, przez co często zaczynają siebie postrzegać jako ofiary”
„Uważalibyśmy psychopatów za nieszczęśników. Jakkolwiek do tego doszło, czy przez wpływ kultury, czy rodziców, których się nie wybiera, czy zmutowane geny, widziałbym ich jako ofiary okoliczności. Gdybyśmy nie mieli na to leku, zakwaterowalibyśmy ich w więzieniu. Ale gdyby pojawił się lek na psychopatię, odmawianie go w imię odwetu byłoby niegodziwością. To byłoby odmawianie operacji neurochirurgicznej komuś z guzem mózgu, który powoduje u niego przemocowość. Moralnie nie miałoby to sensu.”
„Oszałamiające jest to, że w różnych ciekawych badaniach używa się takiej techniki – przezczaszkowej stymulacji magnetycznej – która potrafi nieinwazyjnie zmodyfikować u ludzi aktywność niewielkich zlepków neuronów korowych. Zmienia się u badanych decyzje moralne, zmienia się poziom hojności w grach ekonomicznych, a kiedy przełącza się przycisk, ludzie wracają do poprzedniego stanu. To jest zjawisko mechanistyczne i zapowiedź przeróżnych rzeczy, z którymi coraz częściej będziemy się spotykać w przyszłości.”
„Pod koniec drugiej wojny światowej psycholog społeczny Kurt Lewin opracował sposoby na zmianę zachowania. Wyróżnił dwa zasadnicze: można kłaść nacisk na kierunek, w którym ludzie mają iść, albo można zadać zupełnie inne pytanie: dlaczego sami tam nie idą? Co ich powstrzymuje przed postępowaniem tak, jak twoim zdaniem powinni? I tak można usunąć przeszkody. Ułatwić to ludziom. Możliwe, że to jest najlepszy pomysł w psychologii, o jakim słyszałem. Rozróżnienie na nacisk i ułatwienia, eliminację przeszkód”
„Jeśli więc uważa się ludzi za istoty samolubne, należałoby się spodziewać niewystarczającej podaży redukcji ryzyka egzystencjalnego, zwanego ryzykiem x. Tymczasem można sobie wyobrazić, że gdyby ludzie mogli podróżować w czasie, to przyszłe pokolenia skłonne byłyby przeznaczyć ogromne sumy pieniędzy, by nagrodzić nas za działania obniżające ryzyko x. Ale skoro transakcja taka jest niemożliwa, nasze działania są w deficycie”
„Rozumowanie polega na tym, że jest znacznie bardziej prawdopodobne, iż ty jesteś człowiekiem numer sto miliardów, jeśli suma wszystkich ludzi w dziejach ma wynieść dwieście miliardów, niż kiedy ma wynieść dwieście bilionów. Oznacza to, że jesteś gdzieś pośrodku, że masz całkowicie przeciętne miejsce w tej kolejności. Byłoby to jednak dziwne być numerem sto miliardów, gdyby gatunek ludzki miał w dziejach dojść do setek bilionów.”
„Zamiast przechodzić ze stanu porządku w stan nieporządku, przeciwnie, przechodzisz ze stanu losowości – bo nie wiesz, dokąd jechać – w stan porządku. Shannon zrozumiał, że informacja jest tak naprawdę negatywem termodynamicznej entropii”
„Informacyjna teoria mózgu pozwala nam budować implanty ślimakowe. Pozwala mózgowi kontrolować robotyczne kończyny. Nie jest to więc metafora, ale głęboka zasada matematyczna, pozwalająca nam zrozumieć, jak działają mózgi i jak je przebudowywać”
„Inteligencja jest, jak ja lubię mówić, jednym z tematów, w których jesteśmy najgłupsi”
„Jeśli wiesz, jak poruszać się w przestrzeni fizycznej, na przykład przestrzeni euklidesowej albo po zakrzywionej powierzchni ziemi, pozwala ci to myśleć o różnych innych rodzajach przestrzeni – przestrzeni relacji, przestrzeni idei. Na przykład wyobrażenie ścieżki od jednej idei do drugiej – jako metafora – ma tak naprawdę bezpośrednie i naturalne przełożenie na kategorię ścieżki w przestrzeni realnej”
„Możemy zapytać: co odróżnia naukowca od ortodoksa? Wydaje mi się, że odpowiedź kryje się w definicji naukowca autorstwa Richarda Feynmana: kogoś, kto charakteryzuje się fundamentalną podejrzliwością wobec ekspertów. Mam wrażenie, że powinniśmy spróbować rozwiązać ten problem poprzez taki program pedagogiczny, który pozwala ludziom żyć z niepewnością i sprawia, że ona ich zadowala, a nie irytuje. Powinno nas krzepić istnienie wielu możliwości, a nie ich brak”
„Za inteligencję mojej żony nie odpowiada masa, którą ona ma w głowie, tylko wzorce, w które ta masa się układa.
A jeśli zapytasz: „Co to znaczy, że bryła materii potrafi pamiętać, przetwarzać informacje, uczyć się, postrzegać i doznawać?” – czyli posiada właściwości kojarzone przez nas z ludzkim umysłem – to dla każdej z tych właściwości można podać jasną, fizyczną odpowiedź”
„Mój kolega z MIT, z naszej szkoły handlowej, Erik Brynjolfsson ujął to dobitnie, kiedy występował w panelu na niedawnej konferencji o AI: „Jeśli nie będziemy w stanie zagwarantować, że po tej ogromnej eksplozji bogactwa każdemu będzie się powodziło lepiej, to będzie wstyd”. Wstyd!”
December 13, 2022
Audiobook și nu prea. Dialogurile pe care le poartă Sam Harris cu diverși filosofi și oameni de știință nu sunt altceva decât o selecție de episoade din podcastul lui. Calitatea audio nu se ridică la standarde, iar pasajele concepute special pentru audiobook sunt minimale. Dincolo de ambalarea asta nefericită a unor întâlniri de pe Skype și din conferințe, rămâne faptul că discuțiile sunt în mare parte fascinante și livrează fix acel lucru pe care îl căutai când te-ai apucat de ascultat. Materialul are peste 22 de ore și curge bine în tren și la plimbările lungi.
August 16, 2024
Trochę się wymęczyłam przy niektórych wywiadach, bo dotyczyły spraw, których zupełnie nie ogarniam swoim małym rozumkiem. Ale wywiady na tematy społeczne bardzo mi się podobały, zwłaszcza ten o rasizmie przeprowadzony z czarnoskórym naukowcem. Myślę, że forma rozmów na różne tematy zawsze wiąże się z tym, że część zainteresuje nas bardziej, a inne w ogóle. Ale zawsze warto posłuchać mądrych ludzi.
March 9, 2021
I thought this was a great read, but I would say it’s important to know that I was familiar with Sam Harris and the topics he regularly engages in before I picked up this book. I first came across his name when I saw some videos passing by on YouTube and I thought he made a lot of sense on a wide range of subjects (pun not intended). Afterwards I read his book Waking Up and I listened to the most recent episodes of the Making Sense podcast. This book seemed like a perfect catch-up for someone like me who missed the first episodes and wanted to get the highlights of these conversations. On the other hand, if you haven’t read or heard anything by Sam Harris, I wouldn’t recommend this book to get started because it will introduce too many different ideas at once without enough background information and it might come off as overwhelming.
Regarding the structure of the book, of course there are some downsides to written dialogue: it’s less structured or coherent, it doesn’t build upon itself to reach a certain goal, etc... However, I appreciated this structure and the upsides that come with it:
- There’s several (pretty smart) people being interviewed so you get a wide range of ideas on several topics and you can choose to learn more about the ones that interest you.
- There’s also more back and forth challenging of ideas. In a classical book structure you’re dependent on the ideas of the author alone and how critical he/she was for their own ideas when writing the book.
- It’s not a thin book but the conversational structure makes it quite easy to read
Regarding the structure of the book, of course there are some downsides to written dialogue: it’s less structured or coherent, it doesn’t build upon itself to reach a certain goal, etc... However, I appreciated this structure and the upsides that come with it:
- There’s several (pretty smart) people being interviewed so you get a wide range of ideas on several topics and you can choose to learn more about the ones that interest you.
- There’s also more back and forth challenging of ideas. In a classical book structure you’re dependent on the ideas of the author alone and how critical he/she was for their own ideas when writing the book.
- It’s not a thin book but the conversational structure makes it quite easy to read
September 20, 2020
I have been following Sam Harris for a while and have read a couple if His books, The End of Faith and Letters to a Christian Nation, with yet another couple on my to read list.
He is a brilliant mind and what I like most about his writing is the clarity of his message while using highly complex language. He takes very complicated ideas and issues from a couple different domains, mostly philosophy and neuroscience, and tries(successfully in my books) to weave an image that is clear enough for even the layman to perceive it.
This particular book, Making Sense, is a little different in the sense that it’s a collection of the best conversations that Harris had on his hugely successful podcast. The subjects are complex, including the hard problem of consciousness and the fundamentals of morality. The guests are themselves intellectual powerhouses like David Chalmers, David Deutsch, Anil Seth,Timothy Snyder, to name a few. Each a specialist in his own niche, they bring their own perspective and try to answer the same age old questions. A must read.
He is a brilliant mind and what I like most about his writing is the clarity of his message while using highly complex language. He takes very complicated ideas and issues from a couple different domains, mostly philosophy and neuroscience, and tries(successfully in my books) to weave an image that is clear enough for even the layman to perceive it.
This particular book, Making Sense, is a little different in the sense that it’s a collection of the best conversations that Harris had on his hugely successful podcast. The subjects are complex, including the hard problem of consciousness and the fundamentals of morality. The guests are themselves intellectual powerhouses like David Chalmers, David Deutsch, Anil Seth,Timothy Snyder, to name a few. Each a specialist in his own niche, they bring their own perspective and try to answer the same age old questions. A must read.
February 28, 2021
This book is not for everybody. I assume if you're a fan of Sam Harris, you're probably already listening to his podcast. Otherwise, pick your subjects and don't try to read everything. Some are really interesting, but most of them are really dense.
March 3, 2021
This book definitely inspires future reading
January 17, 2023
The sea squirt—a very simple marine creature—swims about during its juvenile phase looking for a place to settle, and once it settles and starts filter feeding, it digests its own brain, because it no longer has any need for perceptual or motor competence. This is often used as an unkind analogy for getting tenure in academia. - Anil Seth
I'm not usually one to enjoy podcasts. I find that the casual conversational format and overproduced transitions result in frustratingly low information density. But what Sam Harris has put together here in Making Sense is brilliant.
Harris has gathered together and transcribed (for the text version) a number of his best episodes from his podcast channel of the same name. In it, he has conversations with some huge names in the fields of artificial intelligence, consciousness, philosophy, history, and other big idea topics. The list includes David Chalmers, David Deutsch, Anil Seth, Thomas Metzinger, Timothy Snyder, Glenn Loury, Robert Sapolsky, Daniel Kahneman, Nick Bostrom, David Krakauer, and Max Tegmark.
Harris is one of the finest hosts I've ever heard. He gives every person a ton of room to speak while keeping them on topic and also ensuring that the guest does not get too far into the weeds without filling in the audience on what they need to know. Harris's deep knowledge on all of these topics also allows him to pull out some of the most interesting lines of thought from the people he speaks with.
A couple of the interviews did venture into some claims that will not age well, such as the concerns raised in, "The Road to Tyranny" where the guest suggests that Donald Trump is an evil genius that was going somehow drive the country into the same direction as Nazi Germany, rather than an incompetent populist that would end up doing very little due to the checks and balances designed into our country.
Amazingly, the interview discussing racism with Glenn Loury was sensible and level-headed, unlike most of the popular books on racism that have come out in the last decade or so. I don't think this is an area Harris has a deep knowledge of, but he still manages to have an intelligent conversation with Loury on the subject.
These thought provoking talks are a fantastic launching pad for deeper dives into each of the topics covered, especially for those interested in AI and consciousness.
I'm not usually one to enjoy podcasts. I find that the casual conversational format and overproduced transitions result in frustratingly low information density. But what Sam Harris has put together here in Making Sense is brilliant.
Harris has gathered together and transcribed (for the text version) a number of his best episodes from his podcast channel of the same name. In it, he has conversations with some huge names in the fields of artificial intelligence, consciousness, philosophy, history, and other big idea topics. The list includes David Chalmers, David Deutsch, Anil Seth, Thomas Metzinger, Timothy Snyder, Glenn Loury, Robert Sapolsky, Daniel Kahneman, Nick Bostrom, David Krakauer, and Max Tegmark.
Harris is one of the finest hosts I've ever heard. He gives every person a ton of room to speak while keeping them on topic and also ensuring that the guest does not get too far into the weeds without filling in the audience on what they need to know. Harris's deep knowledge on all of these topics also allows him to pull out some of the most interesting lines of thought from the people he speaks with.
A couple of the interviews did venture into some claims that will not age well, such as the concerns raised in, "The Road to Tyranny" where the guest suggests that Donald Trump is an evil genius that was going somehow drive the country into the same direction as Nazi Germany, rather than an incompetent populist that would end up doing very little due to the checks and balances designed into our country.
Amazingly, the interview discussing racism with Glenn Loury was sensible and level-headed, unlike most of the popular books on racism that have come out in the last decade or so. I don't think this is an area Harris has a deep knowledge of, but he still manages to have an intelligent conversation with Loury on the subject.
These thought provoking talks are a fantastic launching pad for deeper dives into each of the topics covered, especially for those interested in AI and consciousness.
December 5, 2022
Firstly, his preface on acknowledging podcasts is relevant and tells you how fast our world is evolving. And, in fact this book needs to be updated and so 1.5 out of 5 stars for me.
I discovered many authors, scientists, philosophers through reading the conversations organised in this book -for example, Nick Bostrom, a Sweden-born philosopher now at the University of Oxford and is the author of over 200 publications -born 10th March 1973 -age 49. He works at the Future of Humanity Institute. For some of his research see From Artificial Intelligence to Superintelligence: Nick Bostrom on AI & The Future of Humanity. on YouTube (2020).
I'm reading the hard cover version of his conversations. Published August 2020, some of the conversations were in 2015, 2016, 2017 so I can see the necessity of a more recent podcast. So much has happened in the last 6 years. I am writing this review in June 2022. Uppermost in my mind is the pandemic of 2020, 2021 and from current news we might have another flare up but the changes in social media, the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, advancements in technology, missions to space, robots, AI and Electric vehicles -things not spoken off so much four years ago.
The conversation with Max Tegmark is the best for me because I was introduced to Max Tegmark, who is a physicist and wrote the book Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Tegmark says ..It is about Us giving meaning to the Universe ...
...It took many years to build a mechanical bird for flying and the that idea was squashed and replaced with a new idea of an airplane which is successfully used. Likewise, the the space X, and this logic can be extended to building a 'successful' human-like AI .. He says that he is a 'tech geek'.
The question for everyone to ask is, "what sort of future would we like to see?" We should envision a positive future and work at this goal --AI safety research, understand how to make computers unhackable, and amplify human intelligence with artificial intelligence.
David Deutch in conversation with the author, says: "There is no guarantee that civilization or our species will survive, but there is a guarantee that we know in principle how both can survive."
Chapter 2
Thomas Metzinger in conversation with the author: His competencies are in something called "analytic philosophy of mind" In Germany, he says, Philosophy means the history of philosophy.
Every German child, at one age or another, learns what happened --- the atrocities my tribe had committed. He says he learned about the Holocaust at age 10 when he read The Yellow Star: The Persecution of the Jews in Europe, 1933-1945.
Metzinger founded the Association for Scientific Study of Consciousness. He wrote The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self -Life isn't a mystery anymore and similarly, Consciousness will not be a mystery.
Harris: Our intuitions were designed to avoid getting hit over the head by another ape and to mate with his sister. Our intuitions are very crude ---- They are discussing AI, consciousness and computers ---Question: are the AI machines ethically conscious?
This conversation was most interesting... brings out the worst and the best in both. They are both in late 50's Let's hear from them again when they retire age 60, 70 or older like Paul McCartney. This month he reached the age of 80.
Conversation with Snyder -> He discusses his little book 'On Tyranny", which I read and was one of those readers that said -I did not like it- but will take another look now, a few years later when so much has happened including the pandemic, the intense desire to visit Mars etc
Snyder says we are trapped in the present and have trouble seeing the past. The first globalization ended in the First World War, the Great Depression and the Second World War.. He adds that globalization can boomerang and that some of the reactions to it can be quite extreme.
In conversation with Glenn C. Loury: Loury born 1948, is a Professor of Economics at Brown University. Loury defines racism. He references a number of authors including Ta-Nehesi Coates, who said in an interview,
"There ain't nothing wrong with Black people that ending white supremacy wouldn't fix. What do you expect people to do? [say] They're rats in a barrel. You've got the lid on the barrel. You open the lid and peek down in there and you find they're at each other's throats. Well, what do you expect to happen? It's the friggin' barrel, man. You gonna blame the rats?"
Behaviors are a consequence of the system and oppression.
I thought of, Noam Chomsky, who said that children are excellent at critical thinking but something happens as they grow up to suppress this. It's not us, humans enclosed in our home, Planet Earth but it's the friggin' barrel (the system), by which we are bound, just for survival and or just to be 'successful'.
Robert Sapolsky discusses 'The Biology of Good and Evil.' Sapolsky is a neuro-endocrinologist and a primatologist. He talks about the effects of stress on health ...
Other conversations are with Nick Bostrom, Daniel Kahneman, who wrote Thinking Fast and Slow -excellent book- a must read, David Krakauer and Max Tegmark, who works at MIT on AI and Physics and asks, "What is Ultimate Reality?" Max Tegmark is super passionate about Future AI developments.
I discovered many authors, scientists, philosophers through reading the conversations organised in this book -for example, Nick Bostrom, a Sweden-born philosopher now at the University of Oxford and is the author of over 200 publications -born 10th March 1973 -age 49. He works at the Future of Humanity Institute. For some of his research see From Artificial Intelligence to Superintelligence: Nick Bostrom on AI & The Future of Humanity. on YouTube (2020).
I'm reading the hard cover version of his conversations. Published August 2020, some of the conversations were in 2015, 2016, 2017 so I can see the necessity of a more recent podcast. So much has happened in the last 6 years. I am writing this review in June 2022. Uppermost in my mind is the pandemic of 2020, 2021 and from current news we might have another flare up but the changes in social media, the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, advancements in technology, missions to space, robots, AI and Electric vehicles -things not spoken off so much four years ago.
The conversation with Max Tegmark is the best for me because I was introduced to Max Tegmark, who is a physicist and wrote the book Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Tegmark says ..It is about Us giving meaning to the Universe ...
...It took many years to build a mechanical bird for flying and the that idea was squashed and replaced with a new idea of an airplane which is successfully used. Likewise, the the space X, and this logic can be extended to building a 'successful' human-like AI .. He says that he is a 'tech geek'.
The question for everyone to ask is, "what sort of future would we like to see?" We should envision a positive future and work at this goal --AI safety research, understand how to make computers unhackable, and amplify human intelligence with artificial intelligence.
David Deutch in conversation with the author, says: "There is no guarantee that civilization or our species will survive, but there is a guarantee that we know in principle how both can survive."
Chapter 2
Thomas Metzinger in conversation with the author: His competencies are in something called "analytic philosophy of mind" In Germany, he says, Philosophy means the history of philosophy.
Every German child, at one age or another, learns what happened --- the atrocities my tribe had committed. He says he learned about the Holocaust at age 10 when he read The Yellow Star: The Persecution of the Jews in Europe, 1933-1945.
Metzinger founded the Association for Scientific Study of Consciousness. He wrote The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self -Life isn't a mystery anymore and similarly, Consciousness will not be a mystery.
Harris: Our intuitions were designed to avoid getting hit over the head by another ape and to mate with his sister. Our intuitions are very crude ---- They are discussing AI, consciousness and computers ---Question: are the AI machines ethically conscious?
This conversation was most interesting... brings out the worst and the best in both. They are both in late 50's Let's hear from them again when they retire age 60, 70 or older like Paul McCartney. This month he reached the age of 80.
Conversation with Snyder -> He discusses his little book 'On Tyranny", which I read and was one of those readers that said -I did not like it- but will take another look now, a few years later when so much has happened including the pandemic, the intense desire to visit Mars etc
Snyder says we are trapped in the present and have trouble seeing the past. The first globalization ended in the First World War, the Great Depression and the Second World War.. He adds that globalization can boomerang and that some of the reactions to it can be quite extreme.
In conversation with Glenn C. Loury: Loury born 1948, is a Professor of Economics at Brown University. Loury defines racism. He references a number of authors including Ta-Nehesi Coates, who said in an interview,
"There ain't nothing wrong with Black people that ending white supremacy wouldn't fix. What do you expect people to do? [say] They're rats in a barrel. You've got the lid on the barrel. You open the lid and peek down in there and you find they're at each other's throats. Well, what do you expect to happen? It's the friggin' barrel, man. You gonna blame the rats?"
Behaviors are a consequence of the system and oppression.
I thought of, Noam Chomsky, who said that children are excellent at critical thinking but something happens as they grow up to suppress this. It's not us, humans enclosed in our home, Planet Earth but it's the friggin' barrel (the system), by which we are bound, just for survival and or just to be 'successful'.
Robert Sapolsky discusses 'The Biology of Good and Evil.' Sapolsky is a neuro-endocrinologist and a primatologist. He talks about the effects of stress on health ...
Other conversations are with Nick Bostrom, Daniel Kahneman, who wrote Thinking Fast and Slow -excellent book- a must read, David Krakauer and Max Tegmark, who works at MIT on AI and Physics and asks, "What is Ultimate Reality?" Max Tegmark is super passionate about Future AI developments.
April 18, 2025
My favorite conversation in the book is definitely the one with Robert Sapolsky, though the opening discussion is also incredibly compelling. I’d absolutely recommend this book—but with a caveat. It can be a bit of a rollercoaster, moving rapidly between drastically different ideas, and that can make it a challenge to get through at times. Still, it’s a fascinating read, especially because it’s presented in dialogue form, taken directly from Harris' podcast.
I learned quite a bit, particularly about neuroscience, which isn’t exactly my strong suit. This book is best suited for readers who are already familiar with Sam Harris' worldview. If you're just stepping into his work for the first time, I wouldn’t start here. I'd recommend reading Free Will first, and then maybe Letter to a Christian Nation. (That said, I personally find Christopher Hitchens’ critiques of religion far more engaging than Harris’, though both offer worthwhile perspectives.)
Overall, I’d give Making Sense a solid 4.5 stars—if that were possible. It’s a great read, but I hesitate to give it a full 5 stars only because I think Harris has more thought-provoking work elsewhere. Then again, this book wasn’t written to be a showcase of his own philosophy—it’s more of a guided tour through the ideas of others, using a Socratic, dialogue-based format to make complex topics more accessible.
I learned quite a bit, particularly about neuroscience, which isn’t exactly my strong suit. This book is best suited for readers who are already familiar with Sam Harris' worldview. If you're just stepping into his work for the first time, I wouldn’t start here. I'd recommend reading Free Will first, and then maybe Letter to a Christian Nation. (That said, I personally find Christopher Hitchens’ critiques of religion far more engaging than Harris’, though both offer worthwhile perspectives.)
Overall, I’d give Making Sense a solid 4.5 stars—if that were possible. It’s a great read, but I hesitate to give it a full 5 stars only because I think Harris has more thought-provoking work elsewhere. Then again, this book wasn’t written to be a showcase of his own philosophy—it’s more of a guided tour through the ideas of others, using a Socratic, dialogue-based format to make complex topics more accessible.
April 19, 2023
Дори да мразите Сам Харис, той произвежда невероятни разговори в подкаста, буквално с най-умните на света, които е транскрибирал в тази книга. Особено впечатляващи за мен бяха дискусиите с Даниел Канеман, Робърт Саполски и Ник Бостръм. Въпреки това, тази книга доказва, че разговорите не са най-оптимален начин за придобиване на знания. Дори най-светлите умове могат да ви кажат повече в текст, отколкото в разговор. Разговорите могат само да ви запалят любопитството. Няма да спечелите много, ако спрете само до подкасти, които днес вече са най-модерният начин за информационна комуникация. И ще загубите много, ако не продължите с четенето на тези, които ви говорят.
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