Making Sense with Sam Harris - Subscriber Content
Sam Harris
Join neuroscientist, philosopher, and best-selling author Sam Harris as he explores important and controversial questions about the human mind, society, and current events. Sam Harris is the author of five New York Times bestsellers. His books include The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, Free Will, Lying, Waking Up, and Islam and the Future of Tolerance (with Maajid Nawaz). The End of Faith won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction. His writing and public lectures cover a wide range of topics—neuroscience, moral philosophy, religion, meditation practice, 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. Harris's work has been published in more than 20 languages and has been discussed in The New York Times, Time, Scientific American, Nature, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and many other journals. He has written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Economist, The Times (London), The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, The Annals of Neurology, and elsewhere. Sam Harris received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Apr 21, 2018 • 1h 47min
#124 - In Search of Reality
Sam Harris speaks with Sean Carroll about our understanding of reality. They discuss consciousness, the many worlds view of quantum mechanics, the arrow of time, free will, facts and values, and other topics.
Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist at CalTech. He received his PhD from Harvard University. He has worked on the foundations of quantum mechanics, the arrow of time, and the emergence of complexity. Carroll has been awarded prizes and fellowships by the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Physics, and the Royal Society of London. He frequently serves as a science consultant for film and television. He is the author of The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself.
Twitter: @seanmcarroll
Episodes that have been re-released as part of the Best of Making Sense series may have been edited for relevance since their original airing.
127 snips
Apr 9, 2018 • 2h 6min
#123 - Identity & Honesty
Sam Harris and guest Ezra Klein discuss racism, identity politics, intellectual honesty, and controversies, including the aftermath of a podcast with Charles Murray. They delve into IQ, race, societal biases, ethical dilemmas, and the importance of listening to varying viewpoints with intellectual scrupulousness.
Apr 3, 2018 • 43min
#122 - Extreme Housekeeping Edition
Sam Harris responds to the ongoing controversy over his interview with Charles Murray and discusses his upcoming conversation with Ezra Klein. He also announces a change he will be making to the format of the podcast.
Mar 25, 2018 • 2h 21min
#121 - White Power
Sam Harris speaks with Christian Picciolini about his experience as a neo-Nazi skinhead. They discuss how Christian got out of the movement, the limits of shame and forgiveness, the cult-like dynamics of white supremacy, the alt-Right, Russian support for white supremacy in the US, “fake news”, the significance of Charlottesville, the SPLC, and many other topics.
Christian Picciolini became a white supremacist at the age of fourteen and went on to become the leader in the notorious Hammerskin Nation, one of the most violent hate groups in the world. After leaving the white power movement at twenty-two, he co-founded Life After Hate, a non-profit organization run by former extremists who are now dedicated to countering racism. He is a TEDx speaker and won an Emmy in 2016 for his role as director and executive producer of an anti-hate video campaign. He’s the author of White American Youth: My Descent in America’s Most Violent Hate Movement—And How I Got Out.
Twitter: @cpicciolini
Mar 19, 2018 • 1h 54min
#120 - What Is and What Matters
Sam Harris speaks with Rebecca Goldstein and Max Tegmark about the foundations of human knowledge and morality.
Rebecca Goldstein is a MacArthur Fellow, a professor of philosophy, and the author of five novels and a collection of short stories. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts. Her latest book is Plato at The Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away.
Twitter: @platobooktour
Max Tegmark is a professor of physics at MIT and the co-founder of the Future of Life Institute. Tegmark has been featured in dozens of science documentaries. He is the author of Our Mathematical Universe and Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.
Twitter: @Tegmark
Mar 12, 2018 • 2h 18min
#119 - Hidden Motives
Sam Harris speaks with Robin Hanson about our hidden motives in everyday life. They discuss selfishness, hypocrisy, norms and meta-norms, cheating, deception, self-deception, education, the evolutionary logic of conversation, social status, signaling and counter-signaling, common knowledge, AI, and many other topics.
Robin Hanson is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. He has a Phd in social science from Cal Tech, master’s degrees in physics and philosophy, and nine years of experience as a research programmer in artificial intelligence and Bayesian statistics. He’s recognized not only for his contributions to economics (pioneering the theory and use of prediction markets) but also in a wide range of other fields. He is the author (along with Kevin Simler) of The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life.
Twitter: @robinhanson
Mar 7, 2018 • 55min
Ask Me Anything #11
What are your thoughts on the Lawrence Krauss situation?Will you create a way for listeners to nominate and vote on podcast guests?Who are the philosophers that have most inspired you?My experience in meditation seems to increase my feeling of self. Can you say something about this?How does intelligence correlate with wellbeing?How should society deal with destructive drugs like methamphetamine?What are your thoughts on Stoicism?Can you further discuss the misgivings you have regarding Jordan Peterson’s work?Why do so many smart people not accept your arguments about the illusoriness of the self and free will?If you could speak with any person from history, who would it be and why?Do you think meditation can prevent a person from having bad experiences on psychedelics?Will you invite more guests on the podcast whom you strongly disagree with?What do you think about the ethics of inherited wealth?How can we differentiate abortion from murder?
Feb 28, 2018 • 9min
Bonus Questions: Preet Bharara
Preet Bharara is an American lawyer who served as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017. His office prosecuted cases involving terrorism, narcotics and arms trafficking, financial and healthcare fraud, cybercrime, public corruption, gang violence, organized crime, and civil rights violations. In 2012, Bharara was featured on TIME‘s “100 Most Influential People in the World.” On April 1, 2017, Bharara joined the NYU School of Law faculty as a Distinguished Scholar in Residence. He is Executive Vice President at Some Spider Studios where he hosts a podcast, Stay Tuned, focused on questions of justice and fairness.
Twitter: @preetbharara
Feb 27, 2018 • 1h 7min
#118 - The View from Trumpistan
Sam Harris speaks with Preet Bharara about President Trump and the Russia investigation.
Preet Bharara is an American lawyer who served as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017. His office prosecuted cases involving terrorism, narcotics and arms trafficking, financial and healthcare fraud, cybercrime, public corruption, gang violence, organized crime, and civil rights violations. In 2012, Bharara was featured on TIME‘s “100 Most Influential People in the World.” On April 1, 2017, Bharara joined the NYU School of Law faculty as a Distinguished Scholar in Residence. He is Executive Vice President at Some Spider Studios where he hosts a podcast, Stay Tuned, focused on questions of justice and fairness.
Twitter: @preetbharara
Feb 19, 2018 • 3min
Bonus Questions: Niall Ferguson
Niall Ferguson is one of the world’s most renowned historians. He is the author of Paper and Iron, The House of Rothschild, The Pity of War, The Cash Nexus, Empire, Colossus, The War of the World, The Ascent of Money, High Financier, Civilization, The Great Degeneration, Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist, and The Square and the Tower. He is Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. His many awards include the Benjamin Franklin Prize for Public Service (2010), the Hayek Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2012), and the Ludwig Erhard Prize for Economic Journalism (2013).
Twitter: @nfergus
