Sam Harris speaks at the TED convention Part 2

Thanks for coming by!

Feb 2010
TED convention
Long Beach, CA
At the TED convention, Sam Harris made an argument that the separation between science and human values is an illusion.
See the speech, and others at http://www.ted.com

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Category:

Education

Tags:

• Sam
• harris
• speech
• at
• TED
• human
• values
• science
• long
• beach
• ca

[justatallguy]

I watched it 2 times in a row so the conceopt sticks in my mind, and I'll probably watch this every once in a while, because really, this is sex to my brain.

Sam Harris kicks ass!

[mdjur327]

this guy is an amazing speaker. very well tempered too

[parras65]

Genius!!



[ProportionalResponse]

@AntitheistPOV HOly cow, I have no idea if you are trolling me or not. Read what I said, before responding, please. Where did I come close to saying we should exclude anything?? Moral vacum? Take what we know, try to do better. Yeah we're still learning, doesn't mean we can't fix shit along the way. If you respond with anything like that, where you are trying to put words in my mouth, I will not reply, and chalk you up to trolling.

[AntitheistPOV]

@ProportionalResponse

Where do we get that information in a moral vacuum? We're still learning. We know barely enough to demonstrate how much we don't know.

[ProportionalResponse]

@AntitheistPOV I'm not sure you follow.. I was saying take the collective of what we know. I'm not throwing out lessons learned from some "other"civilization. This is a collective of humanity. No one is saying throw out any knowledge. Use collective knowledge (in the analogy - stars, tides, maps, writing, language, carpentry to make navigation better) to make a better moral system.

[AntitheistPOV]

@ProportionalResponse

Except that it's not. Nautical navigation made use of multiple inputs (stars, tides, maps, writing, language, carpentry and so on and so forth). To use your analogy, if you take one civilization and its morality and eliminate the rest, it would be like taking carpentry and trying to figure out navigation with no stars.

[ProportionalResponse]

@AntitheistPOV But with the knowledge we have gained, with "us" being a decently young species, we can use what we know from years of experience and build on that. It's not irony, it's moving to the next level, or at least he is suggesting a method to do that. It's like any knowledge, like say nautical navigation. Of course there was a learning period, but then a method was established, and improved on. The same is true for anything.

[lalaurentide]

@AntitheistPOV Only if we burn all of our history books and knowledge. You are either disingenuous or very short sighted.

[PointLarusso]

@AntitheistPOV Okay. Let's say everyone does assume the same standard of morality, and then someone tries it by committing murder. Everyone will know that is wrong and will steer clear. Let's now say someone decides that he will split all he makes with his neighbors in true altruism. This might beget the most sincere reciprocal altruism. Harris isn't offering answers. He is saying that they exist. It is up to us to find them.

[AntitheistPOV]

Without diversity in culture and morality, how is it possible to define what is optimal? Moral evolution occurs by comparison with inferior values. If everyone assumed the same standard of morality, there would be no input available whereby to weigh the comparative value of one practice against another.