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The Best of Making Sense with Sam Harris — Science
The Best of Making Sense with Sam Harris

Join neuroscientist, philosopher, and five-time New York Times best-selling author Sam Harris as he explores important and controversial questions about the mind, society, current events, moral philosophy, religion, and rationality—with an overarching focus on how a growing understanding of ourselves and the world is changing our sense of how we should live.

Sam is also the creator of the Waking Up app. Combining Sam’s decades of mindfulness practice, profound wisdom from varied philosophical and contemplative traditions, and a commitment to a secular, scientific worldview, Waking Up is a resource for anyone interested in living a more examined, fulfilling life—and a new operating system for the mind.

Waking Up offers free subscriptions to anyone who can’t afford one, and donates a minimum of 10% of profits to the most effective charities around the world. To learn more, please go to WakingUp.com.

Sam Harris received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.

Follow Sam on Twitter: @SamHarrisOrg

Copyright: © 2022

Latest Episodes:

#175 — Leaving the Faith Sep 26, 2022

Sam Harris speaks with Yasmine Mohammed about her book Unveiled: How Western Liberals Empower Radical Islam. They discuss her family background and indoctrination into conservative Islam, the double standard that Western liberals use when thinking about women in the Muslim community, the state of feminism in general, honor violence, the validity of criticizing other cultures, and many other topics.

Yasmine Mohammed is a human rights activist and writer. She advocates for the rights of women living within Islamic majority countries, as well as those who struggle under religious fundamentalism. She is the founder of Free Hearts Free Minds, an organization that provides psychological support for ex-Muslims living within Muslim majority countries.

Website: YasmineMohammed.com

Twitter: @YasMohammedxx

If the Best Of Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK & WHITE, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

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.

#211 — The Nature of Human Nature Sep 19, 2022

Only the first 34 minutes of this episode are available on the paywalled podcast version (the BLACK & WHITE podcast logo). If you’d like to hear the full 1 hour and 53 minutes of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast, you’ll need to SUBSCRIBE here. If you’re already subscribed and on the private RSS feed, the podcast logo should appear GOLD & WHITE.

Sam Harris speaks with Robert Plomin about the role that DNA plays in determining who we are. They discuss the birth of behavioral genetics, the taboo around studying the influence of genes on human psychology, controversies surrounding the topic of group differences, the first law of behavior genetics, heritability, nature and nurture, the mystery of unshared environment, the way genes help determine a person’s environment, epigenetics, the genetics of complex traits, dimensions vs disorders, the prospect of a GATTACA-like dystopia and genetic castes, heritability and equality of opportunity, the implications of genetics for parenting and education, DNA as a fortune-telling device, and other topics.

Robert Plomin is MRC Research Professor in Behavioral Genetics at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London and has previously taught at the University of Colorado Boulder and at Pennsylvania State University. He has received lifetime research achievement awards from the major associations related to his field (Behavior Genetics Association, Association of Psychological Science, Society for Research in Child Development, International Society for Intelligence Research), as well as being made Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, British Academy, American Academy of Political and Social Science, and Academy of Medical Sciences (UK).

Robert’s latest book, Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are, makes the case that DNA inherited from our parents at the moment of conception can predict our psychological strengths and weaknesses.

Website: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/robert-plomin

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.

If the Best Of Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK & WHITE, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

#209 — A Good Life Sep 12, 2022

Sam Harris speaks with Scott Barry Kaufman about human well-being. They discuss intelligence and creativity, wisdom and transcendence, the history of humanistic psychology, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the connection between well-being and ethics, self-esteem, psychedelics and meditation, peak and plateau experiences, mortality salience, the pre-trans fallacy, intrinsic vs. extrinsic rewards, pathological altruism, intimacy vs. belonging, two aspects of self-transcendence, and other topics.

Scott Barry Kaufman is a humanistic psychologist exploring the depths of human potential. He has taught courses at the nation’s leading universities including Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, and New York University. He wrote the column Beautiful Minds for Scientific American and hosts The Psychology Podcast, which discusses insights into the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity. He has also written for The Atlantic and Harvard Business Review.

Scott’s latest book Transcend: The New Science of Self-Actualization is a reimagining of Maslow’s famous hierarchy of needs. It provides new insights for realizing one’s full potential and living a creative, fulfilled, and connected life. His previous books include Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined, Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind, and Twice Exceptional: Supporting and Educating Bright and Creative Students with Learning Difficulties. Scott is also credited for editing The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence.

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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.

#205 — The Failure of Meritocracy Sep 05, 2022

Sam Harris speaks with Daniel Markovits about the problems with meritocracy. They discuss the nature of inequality in the United States, the disappearance of the leisure class, the difference between labor and capital as sources of inequality, the way the education system amplifies inequality, the shrinking middle class, deaths of despair, differing social norms among the elite and the working class, universal basic income, the relationship between meritocracy and political polarization, the illusion of earned advantages, and other topics.

Daniel Markovits is Guido Calabresi Professor of Law at Yale Law School and Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Private Law. Markovits works in the philosophical foundations of private law, moral and political philosophy, and behavioral economics.

His writing has appeared in a number of notable publications including The New York Times, The Atlantic, Science, The American Economic Review, and The Yale Law Journal. His latest book, The Meritocracy Trap: How America’s Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles The Middle Class, and Devours The Elite, places meritocracy at the center of rising economic inequality and social and political dysfunction. The book takes up the law, economics, and politics of human capital to identify the mechanisms through which meritocracy breeds inequality and to expose the burdens that meritocratic inequality imposes on all who fall within meritocracy’s orbit.

SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.

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.

#113 — Consciousness and the Self Aug 29, 2022

In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Anil Seth about the scientific study of consciousness, where consciousness emerges in nature, levels of consciousness, perception as a “controlled hallucination,” emotion, the experience of “pure consciousness,” consciousness as “integrated information,” measures of “brain complexity,” psychedelics, different aspects of the “self,” conscious AI, and many other topics.

Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex and Founding Co-Director of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science. In his work, he seeks to understand the biological basis of consciousness by bringing together research across neuroscience, mathematics, artificial intelligence, computer science, psychology, philosophy, and psychiatry. In addition to delivering new insights into the nature of consciousness, his research has helped shape novel approaches to psychiatric disorders, as well as driving innovative methods in machine learning and in brain-inspired technologies.

His recent book—Being You: A New Science of Consciousness—explores what it means to “be you”—that is, to have a specific, conscious experience of the world around you and yourself within it.

SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.

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.

#18 — The Multiverse & You (& You & You & You...) Aug 22, 2022

Sam Harris speaks with MIT cosmologist Max Tegmark about the foundations of science, our current understanding of the universe, the risks of future breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, and other topics.

Max Tegmark is a professor of physics who has published more than two hundred technical papers and been featured in dozens of science documentaries. His work with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey on galaxy clustering shared the first prize in Science magazine’s “Breakthrough of the Year: 2003.” He is the author of Our Mathematical Universe. For more information about his work, please visit his MIT website and the Future of Life Institute.

SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.

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.

#107 — Is Life Actually Worth Living? Aug 15, 2022

Sam Harris speaks with David Benatar about his philosophy of “anti-natalism.” They discuss the asymmetry between the good and bad things in life, the ethics of existential risk, the moral landscape, the limits and paradoxes of introspection, the “experience machine” thought experiment, population ethics, and other topics.

David Benatar is Professor of Philosophy at University of Cape Town, South Africa. He is the author of Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence and The Human Predicament: A Candid Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions.

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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.

#68 — Reality and the Imagination Aug 08, 2022

Sam Harris speaks with Yuval Noah Harari about meditation, the need for stories, the power of technology to erase the boundary between fact and fiction, wealth inequality, the problem of finding meaning in a world without work, religion as a virtual reality game, the difference between pain and suffering, and other topics.

Yuval Noah Harari has a PhD in history from Oxford University and is a professor in the Department of History at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He specialized in World History, medieval history and military history, but his current research focuses on macro-historical questions: What is the relation between history and biology? What is the essential difference between Homo sapiens and other animals? Is there justice in history? Does history have a direction? Did people become happier as history unfolded?

He is the author of two blockbuster books, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow.

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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.

#104 — The Lessons of Death Aug 01, 2022

Sam Harris speaks with Frank Ostaseski about death and dying—and about how the awareness of death can improve our lives in each moment.

Frank Ostaseski is a Buddhist teacher, international lecturer, and a leading voice in end-of-life care. In 1987, he co-founded the Zen Hospice Project, the first Buddhist hospice in America. In 2004, he created the Metta Institute to provide innovative educational programs and professional trainings that foster compassionate, mindfulness-based care. Mr. Ostaseski’s groundbreaking work has been widely featured in the media, including the Bill Moyers television series On Our Own Terms, the PBS series With Eyes Open, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and in numerous print publications. AARP magazine named him one of America’s 50 most innovative people. In 2001, he was honored by the Dalai Lama for his many years of compassionate service to the dying and their families. He is the author of The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully.

More info: mettainstitute.org, Fiveinvitations.com

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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.

#14 — The Virtues of Cold Blood Jul 25, 2022

Sam Harris speaks with psychologist Paul Bloom about the limitations of empathy as a guide to moral reasoning, why empathy is a bad metric for measuring one’s character, cognitive biases, and other topics.

Paul Bloom is Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, and Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Yale University. Paul Bloom studies how children and adults make sense of the world, with a special focus on pleasure, morality, religion, fiction, and art. He has won numerous awards for his research and teaching. He is past-president of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and co-editor of Behavioral and Brain Sciences. He has written for scientific journals such as Nature and Science, and for popular outlets such as The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic Monthly. He is the author of six books, including The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning.

SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.

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.

#40 — Complexity and Stupidity Jul 18, 2022

Sam Harris speaks with biologist David Krakauer about information, intelligence, the role of IQ, complex systems, technological advancement, the future of humanity, and other topics.

David Krakauer is President and William H. Miller Professor of Complex Systems at the Santa Fe Institute. His research explores the evolution of intelligence on earth. This includes studying the evolution of genetic, neural, linguistic, social and cultural mechanisms supporting memory and information processing, and exploring their generalities. He served as the founding Director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, the Co-Director of the Center for Complexity and Collective Computation, and was Professor of mathematical genetics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 2012 Dr. Krakauer was included in the Wired Magazine Smart List as one of 50 people “who will change the world.”

For information about the Santa Fe Institute: www.santafe.edu

The article discussed in this podcast: The Empty Brain

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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.

#90 — Living With Violence Jul 11, 2022

Sam Harris speaks with Gavin de Becker about the primacy of human intuition in the prediction and prevention of violence, the value of crime statistics, self-defense, stalkers and assassinations, guns, and other topics.

Gavin de Becker is a three-time presidential appointee whose pioneering work has changed the way the U.S. government evaluates threats to its highest officials. He is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading experts on the prediction and management of violence. His firm, Gavin de Becker and Associates, advises many of the world’s most prominent media figures, corporations, and law enforcement agencies on predicting violence, and it also serves regular citizens who are victims of domestic abuse and stalking. Gavin is the author of #1 New York Times bestseller The Gift of Fear.

SUBSCRIBE to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast at samharris.org/subscribe.

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.

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