Can we agree that Sam Harris, while not the "logical conclusion " to philosophy...

Delete your thread if you can't properly type.

I know who keeps posting this and you will be found.

I concur.

I'm going to have to plant a flag here

>BTFOs lefty chomsky
>BTFOs Al Bin Affleck
>BTFOs theology fag Peterson

When will you butthurt autists realize that Harris is the saviour of western civilization?

he looks like the type of jerk that would betray you on a long journey across the Gobi desert and leave you stranded to die alone in the dunes

>cause
Are you going to tell me that you can have free will in a universe of cause and effect?

...

More like a revolving point.

No. He's just your average atheist Jew with a hateboner for Christianity.

Nothing special. Nothing to write home about.

KeK

>Nothing special. Nothing to write home about.
Aren't the whole lot of us

As someone currently studying neuroscience/biology, Sam Harris genuinely represents everything bad about the 21st century's manner of dealing with philosophy, and his very existence has been destructive to the dialogue between science and philosophy. He is yet another scientist unwisely stepping out of his magisteria to deal with topics he knows very little about. He is both a product and symbol of the failure of academia's procedural self-isolation and self-atomization, and I suspect 20 years after his death he will only be known as that one Ben Stiller look-alike that had some kind of inferiority complex in relation to the religious.

what is your take on this:

>As this book was being finalized, there came the news that researchers had inserted two small silicon chips into the posterior parietal cortex of a tetraplegic individual, ninety-six microscopic electrodes that could record the activity of about a hundred nerve cells at the same time. Based on previous work with monkeys, which guided the researchers to a specific area of the human brain, they found that they could reliably read out where the patient intended to move his paralyzed arm by analyzing the differing patterns of these hundred cells. This information was then used—bypassing his damaged spinal cord—to enable him to direct a robot arm either to pick up a beer or move a cursor on a computer screen. The researchers could even predict how fast he wanted to move, and whether he wanted to move his left or right arm. In a related experiment, by showing the activity of a single nerve cell on a screen, the patient was able to modulate the cell activity. The experiment was very specific. One nerve cell, for example, would increase its activity when he imagined rotating his shoulder, and decrease its activity when he imagined touching his nose. The specificity of this experiment, and the fact that it could throw light on the man’s intentions, not just his actual movements, offers great hope for the future, but from our point of view it takes reductionism to a new level, uniting still further psychology and physics.

It from the book i'm reading called Convergence

>What did he exactly revolutionize and how?
Yeah, exactly what did he change about atheism?

This is how I feel about Dawkins and Hitchens so I'm not too inclined to learn anything about Sam Harris.

We get it, religion is a "false" ideology. But what none of these New Atheists seem capable of doing is understanding Scientific Realism as another for of ideology, one that tends to ignore important philosophical questions like "What is Knowledge?" or "What is Just?" or "What is Society?".

Anyone who actually studies the philosophy of science should understand the limitations of Induction or Falsification. Dawkins and Hitchens seem to have missed that day of class.

For any New Atheists who happen to be reading, check out "What is this Thing Called Science?". It's probably the most commonly used book for teaching the philosophy of science. If you think Science is everything, you should at least understand it's limits.

>atheist
>savior of western civ

but he was the one getting BTFO in all those cases

Maybe he's staying away from academe b/c he doesn't want to get shouted off stage by a triggered mob of extras from Fury Road.

These thread are always filled with thinly veiled pro-faith bullshit, rather than giving any substantive arguments against him. And I say this as someone who disagrees with quite a bit of his views.

There's nothing wrong with Atheism. I'd guess most of us don't believe in deities.

In China you can't be a member of the Communist Party and a Catholic. The Chinese recognize that religions are just a subset of ideology, including political and philosophical ideologies. Scientific Materialism has the same effect of orienting what a person believes.

What's obnoxious about New Atheists is that they're so convinced they've cast off all delusions, when they really haven't.

The Philosophy of Science is a very interesting field, filled with genuine debate over how to define science, how to perform science, and what it can and cannot answer. I really don't think Dawkins and the rest will have any substantial contribution to the study.

(some) People on Veeky Forums really have an irrational hatred of this guy. Not everything he says is perfect, but they make him out to be this close minded, disdain filled atheist who is completely cemented in his ideas. They treat him as if he is some high school pseudo-intellectual. Not recognizing that while is he no genius, he certainly isn't stupid either.

Why is this site filled with so much hyperbole and extremism. Is it just some confirmation bias from my side? Or are the vast majority just trolls?

>Sam Harris will die in your lifetime

>You will die in your lifetime

I mean this brings up some semantic issues.

Lay it on me, baby

>What's obnoxious about New Atheists is that they're so convinced they've cast off all delusions, when they really haven't.

You've just labeled a non-group in order to make blanket generalizations to make yourself feel superior. Try thinking.

A few years ago, I came across stuff that was saying "Sam Harris actually doesnt believe in free will, as defined: A person cannot make a choice between 2 distinct things, there is no such thing as 'possible choice', there is only ever '1 possibility'', and so I looked into it a bit, and found someone online who believed the same thing, and so had some back and forth with him. I just remembered looking at this however, that when I copy pasted the discussion into word, it was all messed up... which sucks... its al out of order...so it might be impossible to read... but oh well.

pastebin.com/B6NiQvRv

The person I was arguing with, never conceded, but I am confident, and have written more concise and clearer, just dont remember where those are, my points, that I think are absolutely correct.

Sam Harris is not really a scientist. He is known for and spends most of his time writing and talking about philosophical and political ideas. Find a different example for your retarded observation.

I don't have anything against atheist philosophers and I'd say that most people here don't either, even the religious. They do make up a huge portion of the academy after all. The problem is that there is a huge divide between the atheist "philosophy" we see on the internet and among popular authors such as Harris, and the philosophical arguments we see being put forth in universities by academic philosophers.

The Moral Landscape and his book on Free Will are jokes. Not only are they unconvincing, but they don't engage with any real scholarship on the subject of free will or ethics. They seem to be written in a vacuum. The free will book especially is one strawman after another. He woefully misrepresents what is meant by "free will" among those in favor of libertarian free will.

This isn't even an issue of atheists vs. religious, because their religious counterparts do the exact same thing. If you're honest with yourself, you know that Harris and Dawkins are the Ken Ham and Ray Comfort of atheism. They're having their own backward discussion in the public sphere while real philosophers talk about actual shit.

These threads are always made by a false-flagging imbecile for this intention. Don't expect anything.

the Sell Out who has nothing new to say point in humanity?

How did he sell out?

Word.

There's nothing wrong with faith, without it people like Dawkins wouldn't have a career.

Whenever the time zone shifts to Britain I notice a surge of atheism on this site. I swear you fucking krumpets couldn't have faith in a tube of toothpaste could you.

yah, every thread about him is full of autists, likely in the literal sense

Did she agree or did they get bogged down?

I feel like Sam Harris is one of those people who's really frustrating for actual philosophers to listen to.

Zoolander was not really that deep.

Sam Harris has the smug homosexual look

Reminder that Sam Harris has no background in logic (nor has he ever studied it by himself) and, as far as we know, when he says logic he means common sense.

No, we can't.

What are some arguments against his position on free will? He makes a decent case against it.

Compatibilism. His position is the most common position among undergrads in Phil 101.
There is nothing wrong with it, since it is still a reasonable theory, but he lacks in nuances and ends up saying completely uninteresting things about it, things that have been said already countless times.

Tl;dr: he is a hack

True, most neuroscientists have the same position. I think it's fallacious to treat the subconscious as a separate entity, but it's difficult to rebuke his argument, primarily because it is built know incomplete knowledge.

I can't even imagine. I am a layman who reads a lot of philosophy but has no formal training and it's hard even for me to listen to. I probably don't know 10% of what middle aged or older philosophers in academic environments know about philosophy.

>True, most neuroscientists have the same position

First of all, keep in mind that he's no neuroscientist.
Secondly, yes, it is a common position and as I said it is a respectable one. That said, he doesn't make any compelling argument for it, in fact he preys on the most basic, "common sense"-based arguments you can think of, and his proposed solution of new ethic is shacky at best (so shacky that no actual ethicist is interested in discussing it: they've already hear those arguments countless times).
Like with every other argument he makes, he proves his complete incompetence when it comes to actual philosophy.
The fact that he really thinks that he's making philosophical progress with his discourse is both laughable and infinetely sad.
he has read very few philosophy classics, but I'm pretty sure that he has read enough of them to be self-aware about his actual place in the world. He must know, deep down, that he is a failure and that the only value he is creating is the one in his bank account.

No, he really doesn't.

sam hyde?

You need to study logic to properly use and understand it? Is that really what you think?

OK, he doesn't bring anything new to the table and reiterates what others have already said. But his argument is good, and you can't dismiss it by calling him a hack. Its what a lot of intellectuals do. Few create unique ideas, and they are the great men.

Why do I get the feeling that he would be a lot more respected here if he was a 17th century scholar named Samuel Harrison?

>keep in mind that he's noneuroscientist.
I'm pretty sure he is

I don't think you have to do it if you're a average Joe shitposting on Veeky Forums, too bad that he is a self-proclaimed philosopher who is trying to reconciliate morals and science through only logic.
He should have definetely studied it.

Sorry Nomy, but try again. It won't matter, you'll always get BTFO'd by Harrisgod.

shadowtolight.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/neuroscientist-sam-harris/
rhizzone.net/forum/topic/13771/

>Why do I get the feeling that he would be a lot more respected here if he was a 17th century scholar named Samuel Harrison?
Because he would have been somewhat original back then (but not radically so).
Is spouting other philosophers ideas while being hundreds, if not thousands of years late to the game enough to be a good philosopher? That's what we readers should do, not what an actual philosopher should do. You're basically syaing that his insight is worthless, since nor his thesis nor his arguments are anything new, nor are they stated in a different way.

>Few create unique ideas, and they are the great men.
stating a good, extremely old argument won't cut it in the real world, especially if it doesn't trigger any sort of relevant discourse in the philosophy community (and we both know that his books, by themselves, are grossly insufficient and don't address any relevant point, nor does it address old points in a interesting way).

All you are saying is true. But from what I have seen, people dismiss his valid argumemts on the grounds that he's not a philosopher or he's a hack. (not you necessarily.) he may be an uninspired hack, but some people on this thread are definitely using ad homonym to dismiss him.

If you can give me reason to believe that it is possible for any action or any event/effect to be non-caused (and at the same time not completely random), then I will have reason to believe that freewill exists.

...

>shadowtolight.wordpress.com/2015/01/07/neuroscientist-sam-harris/
I am very hesitant to believe much of what is written on that site. Going through it, it's clear that it is heavily biased against atheists. There is a whole lot of shit flinging their way

And
rhizzone.net/forum/topic/13771/
Tends to insult Harris a whole lot. They clearly have something personally against him. Those are some pretty partisan sources you gave me there, you do realize. Regardless of Harris' position as a scientist

Perhaps he's a turning point in the art of podcasting, he's pretty damn good at that tbqh.

I disagree

I disagree with your disagreement

How do we solve this moral dilemma through objective, science-based podcasting methods?

Why does free will have to be uncaused in order to not be an illusion? I HOPE for the sake of everything it's not. I have rational, emotional, social needs, I want to be safe, I don't want to feel horrible about the choices I make etc. This free will better be caused by this physical reality I'm in. The only thing I don't understand is why this makes free will an illusion. I don't remember anyone arguing 1) that we are living outside of nature or 2) that free will means I can transcend space and time and inhabit the soul of a fuckbuddy of Plato to get his opinion on ethics before I decide in the ethereal realm whether fucking this boipussi is moral. Free will simply means I have judgement and can exercise it. Of course it hinges on everything else right here right now. That's the whole point.

What the fuck am I missing here that makes this such a controversial subject?

What do Jews have to do with the fragility of life?

I'm not reading that china wall of text, but I agree that free will exists, which arguments did you present?

Seriously though this country has that same fucking snide attitude towards religion that Dawkins and Harris had.
Religion isn't even that prevelant in the UK and everyone complains about it.

I'm going to have to plant a flag here. First we should clearly define, in no uncertain terms, what podcasting is

Why can't STEMshits stay in their designated STEMMING streets? Every time they try to approach philosophy it boils down to babby's first materialism.

>thinks sam harris is smart
>can't even type properly
thank you for making me think

Western civilization is evolving to the new era, religion is the leftovers from the old guard

...

There's a core issue here, and it's to do with the way we and Sam Harris define our identity. What most people would read from that is that our motivations are largely determined because a non-conscious and physical element has come before our conscious decision. Therefore, we can come to understand the non-conscious elements and predict conscious behavior and from that we can map a successful society.

The issue is the very human idea of taking consciousness as the core part of our identity, and assuming decision making works linearly rather than simultaneously. The physical precursor to moving your arm is that neuron, but that neuron is still a non-alien part of you, it's entirely functionally related to your consciousness. Without making a conscious judgement on moving your arm, the neuron would never fire and vice-versa. Even if the neuron fires first it's still entirely dependent on that conscious judgement for ratification. Think of it like a government making a judicial ruling. The consciousness is the executive body and the neuron firing is a lower jury. Let's say that jury make a ruling but that the conscious body has to ratify it to make it a law, which, by political protocol, is almost a guarantee. Even though the decision is made before the executive body, it's the executive who are still in charge, by virtue of final control. So, even before the action happens, the executive still need to see it before anything can progress, much like for any kind of conscious action, for it to happen, we need to be actually aware of it.
Now, the argument could be made that this is not analogous to moving an arm, as the neuron's appear to gaurentee the executive will be binded to it's decision, but I'd just as likely say that moving an arm is not analogous to any kind of society. What people like Sam Harris do, in their reduction, is move from the micro to the macro with the stroke of a hand. While basic movement might require a tiny executive role, effectively just a glance over at the paperwork, any kind of moral or seriously human decision will bounce back and forth between the subconsious and conscious, or the various political chambers, much like any deep political debate, before finally being decided. Importantly though, the decision is very much in flux while it is deliberated. The urge to move your hand onto a woman's tit might strike you and fire similar signals, but the executive could pay attention and reverse such an urge, until, at last, the paperwork is good enough to consciously accept. The idea that the command is going on before ratification is fine and troubling to some, but it will be aborted mid-process if it doesn't meet the conscious standards.

And society isn't a movement of hands, it's a great debate of different interests, and, far from being neatly decided, the paperwork keeps shuffling back and forth. And until that final verdict, no behavior is really as predictable as Harris would have it.

>If you can give me reason to believe that it is possible for any action or any event/effect to be non-caused (and at the same time not completely random), then I will have reason to believe that freewill exists.
Define: Free Will.

Free Will = Compatible with Cause and Effect.

Because you are a lazy idiot, you think of everything as only Yes or No. On or Off. Free Will or Not. Cause or Effect. Mind and Body.

I will give you a hint. It is contained in this:

A piano player uses both hands, and both feet (pedals) at the same time. Potentially not only both hands, but 10 fingers moving independently at once.

How can 1 singularity. Control more than 10 differently doing things at once?

What could would be the meaning of this? Further more, a piano song is not 1 second/10 notes long. Further more a pianist can memorize potentially more than 30 hour long pieces of music, containing more than thousands of notes each. And notes are not just singularities of 1 dimensional singuarlityness, each note depends on all surrounding, and all surrounding those, and potentially quiet vast and subtle accentuation's and details of effect, and further more room for interpretation of the player; and further more while the pianist is playing, he may not only be thinking of the current notes, and the ones always continously coming next and next and next, and 4 away and 7 seconds away etc. He may be imagining fields, and sunshine, and ice cream, and God, and angels, and mountains, and rivers, and birds.

Dont be an idiot, dont be lazy, wherein therein above lies your answers. Time, space, matter, multiplicity, singularities, united, breadth.

I can agree that Sam Harris chugs clumpy grogans.

If a cause is internal and authentic, is that not a free decision?

funnily enough the example you gives appears to be almost the ideal example of proving determinism. There are notes severely and concreted engraved onto page, and a performer is merely a robotic machine inputing and outputting such. Also.. I would have never written this if you did not determine me to write this. I have no choice over these words, they are merely the ideal words I am forced to write in response to you. Blue bear, koala turkey carnival pig sty loving buddy group hug group on turnstyle turn table windingo windango butterfly buttersby. In that exact moment, of stream of writing, there was absolutely no way, I could have chose any other words then I did, if I could have, and if I did, then what I would have written then, would have been the only thing I could have chosen. Just prior I typed a i that was lowercase, and there is something in me even though I see it on this site all the time, that cannot allow myself to write a lower case I, just something so ingrained, something so determined in me, that I had to backspace and capitalize it. In the moment I was doing it I was forced to think to write about it which I am now writing about, and I thought, it would be possible for me to not only leave it, but then not write this what I am now writing about it (I could have written that sentence in another way, I thought, but if I did, then that would have been the exact way I must have written it).

As so as that may be so, my dearest of friends, I was attempting to more point out, even the possibility, for one might claim to be a 'singleness' of I, a single little dot, inside the head, that is nudged this way then that way, by this instinct than that impulse. To draw your attention for what it must mean, for the potential of that single dot, to be able to 'push this finger' and push that finger' (and 8 more, in continuos real time, at complex adjusting speeds and meanings) this way, and that way, at once.

The worst thing about Sam Harris free will book is he likely made more money off of it than I have in the past 5 years (or maybe my life) and all he had to write was: What I am currently saying is false What I am currently saying is false What I am currently saying is false What I am currently saying is false What I am currently saying is false
A few thousand times. And it only took me a few days to understand the history of the freewill debate and write like 30 pages of perfect flawless refutations and no one will publish me

Cut them some slack.
had you read those articles you would know why are they so vitriolic: he is a charlatan who is pretending to be a neuroscientist, even if he has never studied the discipline nor he has never designed a worthwhile experiment (in fact his experiments are used as a laughing stock).

The guy is a fraud.

he has made a career doing exactly what he has made a career off denouncing those who make carrers off creating false texts and selling them into the world as t/Truth, which increases the falsisity of the world

How does Sam reconcile the facts that the Universe (subject to physical law) came from point-singularity (not subject to physical law). If the ultimate cause of all isn't a subject to determinism, you can no longer use a subjects deterministic nature upon sub-subjects as an argument for unfree will

its shit like this that allows people to add onto the pile of justifying their giving the jews a bad name

Unless of course this is all apart of the Illumnatis master plan, lobbing up these strawy soft balls, in which case; nothing personal kid (as always... you personally are not the truths and falses you attempt to utter into the wind, so dont get offended if you let a false slip which you think is true, and it is shown to be so, as no one one the right good side should want to or care to utter falseries, so a mere, thanks for correcting me, shall always suffice)

>you personally are not the truths and falses you attempt to utter into the wind
You sure about that bub?