Mr. Sam Harris on happiness and spiritual experience.

[brunodemoura]

Love and curiosity is sufficient.

[avedic]

I love Sam. Sums up my own viewpoint. I was a die-hard atheist for the longest time...mainly due to my unfailing interest and respect in science. Yet, recent mediation and psilocybin mushroom experiences..of which the psilocybin was the single most poignant, important, and meaningful experience of my entire life..have opened me up to the idea that there may be something very interesting and mysterious about consciousness that is worth looking in to. It needn't be about abandoning reason though

[AegeanKing]

LOL the entire audience is old people. This guy is only semi-relevant to the public because bashing God is good business. Bashing God sells books and makes people lots of money. It is pathetic....

[ZachRose88]

@AegeanKing Supporting the concept of "God" is even better business.

[AegeanKing]

@ZachRose88 LOL!!! No, its not. Go to any book store and the best sellers are ALWAYS anti-God books. The New York times best sellers list proves that anti-God books are infinitely more popular than pro-God books.

[LegendSw0rd]

@AegeanKing Yes, but everything popular is wrong.

[AegeanKing]

@ZachRose88 LOL!!! No, its not. Go to any book store and the best sellers are ALWAYS anti-God books. The New York times best sellers list proves that anti-God books are infinitely more popular than pro-God books.

[ZachRose88]

@AegeanKing That's a pretty blanket statement, what about books like the Bible itself? What about people who claim to talk to the dead like James Van Praagh? What about the lady who gained international fame from finding an image of Mary in a grilled cheese sandwhich? Anyways I hope you're right on that point actually. Books by deluded people who believe in the tooth fairy (or "God", whatever) should be laughed straight out of bookstores.

[AegeanKing]

@ZachRose88 Lets narrow it down. Books that defend the existence of God V.S. Books that deny the existence of God. Also, the tooth fairy analogy is really old and stale. Just by listening to your malicious statements about books on theology shows that you are just another militant atheist who is obsessed with his own unbelief and obsesses about a subject that he thinks doesnt exist. Pretty pathetic if you ask me. Get a hobby...

[JarethGT]

@AegeanKing Not really, all of the four horsemen combined sell less books than the average bullshit self-help books and religious books on philosophy.

[AegeanKing]

@JarethGT Are you on drugs? Both Dawkins and Hitchens make millions of dollars off of their books. Bashing God is big business.

[JarethGT]

@AegeanKing Between Hitch, Dawkins and Harris they've sold about 4 million books. Rick Warren (Religious author) sells a million in a month and sells more total in a year. Bullcrap self help books wipe the floor with their sales too.

I never said they don't make money, they do make millions of dollars, but millions less than religious literature.

Acting like I do drugs just because I disagree with what you said?... How christ-like.

[LifeofAwe]

Sam is awesome

[kidkong584]

9:30 Symphony of Science moment =)

[Gravija1980]

Sam "gets it" where all other atheists fail.

[TheOtherView]

I like Harris but he's weak in this area.

[gemgus87]

Sam Harris is my best friend even though I've never met him

[sresnick2]

> [Buddhism and Hinduism] advocate the 'detachment

> from material desires' for inner peace, nothing else.

Buddha's teaching doesn't "advocate" detachment, inner peace, or anything else. Buddha did teach that an attachment mind (i.e., the mind that likes or dislikes, wants to get or wants to avoid) is a cause of suffering. This is the case whether the object of the attachment is a material thing, an idea, a good feeling, emptiness, freedom, or anything else.

[ilshockll]

why are there gaps in this presentation? what is being said between cuts?

[MrPhiloscience]

@ilshockll This was back before I could upload longer videos, so I cut out a few seconds here and there -- mostly long pauses, page turnings etc. The whole talk can easily be found, probably at the top of the suggested videos list.

[Laughingblades]

^ This

[Guedingen]

@MrPhiloscience grateful for the upload as I deleted this accidentally. However I have to take issue with you that there are only long pauses, etc cut. Doesn't he also challenge the atheist notion that 'spiritual experience' lies in experiencing setting and rising suns but is something profounder i.e. as he says earlier, not contingent on anything.

[Laughingblades]

@ilshockll Back when he first started speaking Sam Harris had a habit of trailing off a bit (IE in the middle of a sentence throwing out additional details that interrupt the flow of what he was saying, like this) then snapping back exactly to where he left off, so a bit of editing was necessary to get under the 10 or 15 minute mark and get what he was saying out more succinctly.

Also, he had and still has a tendency to pause in his speech, so the pauses often get edited out.

[Hermoor]

I want LSD"!"!

[dstrube1]

(See also the scenes in the Gene Wilder and Richard Prior 1980 film "Stir Crazy" where Gene Wilder didn't want to come out of solitary.)

[dstrube1]

The most significant distinction between solitary confinement and going into isolation seeking happiness is this: perception of choice. If one believes one is in solitude voluntarily then it can be heaven; else, it will be hell. I conjecture that while in solitary confinement, if one chooses to believe it is something that one wants to do, for the sake of seeking happiness, then it would not only be bearable but maybe even preferable to the alternative, i.e., not being in solitary confinement.

[Rudra108]

the gentleman and the caveman

[TheOtherView]

@Rudra108

The greatest pleasure is a relationship with God. I happen to love Harris though. I enjoy his critical thinking, his courage, and sincerity. I just disagree with him on the God issue.

[1blueshifted]

could sam be bridging the gap between spiritualists and atheists?

[cygnusvideo]

Excellent video. 

[mompm]

bravo

[SovietSR71]

this vid is amazing. MUST SPREAD IT AROUND INTERNETZ

[velesk]

he is basically talking about stoicism. it is free of religion and it deals exactly with this view of life - the perception of thinks in our mind brings us happiness/sadness, not the things themselves. ancient greeks had this right, too bad the christianity suppressed it.

[Aeythvaenn]

@velesk I believe he is talking about buddhism he himself is a meditator and has been tought in buddhism. Buddhism and stoicism do look alike though but have significant differences...

[velesk]

@Aeythvaenn buddhism and stoicism has a lot of common, but the main difference is, that like all other organized faith, buddhism is full of ceremonies and mysticism. the "search for happiness" as he called it must be free of all this. that's why he mentioned, that is has to be free of any faith. just systematic search for this phenomenon.

[Aeythvaenn]

@velesk Well, buddhism stripped from ceremonies and mysticism doesnt make it (basically) stoicism. There are many agnostic/atheist buddhists though, for example Stephen Batchelor who has written books about the subject.

[MrPhiloscience]

@Aeythvaenn Sure. I guess I just don't understand why they still call themselves Buddhists...

[GermanOperaSinger]

@velesk Buddhism at its core is just a philosophy of meditation that does not incorporate any religious ceremonies or superstitious beliefs. People have warped Buddhism into the so called 'religion' it is today. The same holds true for Hinduism, which most Westerners have a very poor understanding of. Both advocate the 'detachment from material desires' for inner peace, nothing else. Many people are turned off by Eastern philosophy because they equate it with religion. It's not the case.

[EdwardsComment]

If are agreed that all human beings are set on the quest for happiness, and that it is easier to achieve our collective happiness when working together, it is logical that we ought base our goals not on subjective interpretations of mythology but on objective interpretations of reality.

[shantih433]

@EdwardsComment I'm not sure I know what an "objective interpretation" is. Aren't all interpretations subjective? This is not mere pedantry.

[EdwardsComment]

@shantih433 Well no, not all interpretation is subjective. Let me explain.

If I believe in external truth; physical constants that exist even if we are ignorant of them, then I do not believe that facts exist only in the minds of individuals. Repeatable testing and empiricism can discover facts of our external reality. Therefore, explanations of reality produced from factual truths discovered by repeatable experimentation and empiricism would be objective explanations of reality.

[shantih433]

@EdwardsComment Right. I guess I was hung up on the word "interpretations". Considering the "meaning" of raw data is often still open to subjective interpretation (scientists since Newton have been observing the same world, just interpreting/perceiving it differently) even within science subjectivity plays a major role. This doesn't mean we can't establish probabilities based on consensus, though. It may just mean that "absolute truth" is something we should avoid thinking we've reached.

[EdwardsComment]

@shantih433 I see I could have worded my first comment more effectively, you clarified the issue well. The conclusions drawn from data can be over-reaching without peer-review and repeatable experimentation, and little can honestly be inferred from a single perspective. Many must participate to produce an explanation of the material world that is truly objective, but I think Sam's point is that the only necessary check is intellectual honesty (i.e. Accepting that beliefs could be mistaken)

[shantih433]

@EdwardsComment Exactly. My focus is not so much on "objective reality/fact" but rather on how we perceive, think, and talk about it. Of course there is an objective reality, and there is objective fact. None of us live in that world, though. Science, for the most part, has an acknowledgement of this built in, in that it operates based on models and approximations (an does very well by this), but when people assume they've "finally got it" and know "the truth"... they're most likely mistaken

[TheOtherView]

@EdwardsComment

You are oversimplifying a complex issue. You view these issues in atheist and theist, when there are so many differences between us on so many levels.

[EdwardsComment]

@TheOtherView

I'm not certain I follow you. What complex issue do I (over)simplify?

[TheOtherView]

@EdwardsComment

The idea of a. working collectively (cultures, peoples maintain vastly different ways of perceiving their world largely based on shared history, cultural identity etc. this goes beyond believing in God). Happiness is defined diff. in the West than in the East. There are so many aspects of life that are subjective that to state that "we" need to base "our goals" on objective interpretation is both not feasible and not psychologically normal or healthy.