The Paradox of Death (Episode
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- Опубликовано: 2 окт 2024
- In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris reflects on the subjective continuity of consciousness, the nature of identity, and the possibility that death isn’t the end of experience.
Released: October 18, 2021
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I couldn’t imagine my parents passing away until the day came when they finally did. All those years spent with them seemed like a lightning bolt. All gone. Done.
I'm currently in a position like you in the past. I'm scared that one day my parents will die and it feels like I can't do anything to stop it.
@@anhta9001the silver lining is it prepares u to be okay with joining them
I want to die like my grandfather did: quietly in my sleep and NOT screaming in terror like the passengers in his car.
Good one lol
Sam, as an avid follower of yours, I have to tell you I often find your solo podcast episodes more appealing and interesting, and I'm sure many others share my sentiment, I hope you do these more often.
This is like poetry mate
Agree, love to hear Sam talk about what he thinks about.
I agree completely. Sam is at his best when pondering these philosophies of death and our relationship to that finality.
Yes I agree. I actually find a lot of the academics boring.
I agree. Sam has some interesting guests, but it's kinda tough when the host is often much more interesting to listen to.
"I'm not afraid of death; I just don't want to be there when it happens."
~Woody Allen
Don't worry he won't be there 😁😁🤣
Fear is a form of aversion.
“It’s not the being dead, it’s the getting dead” George Carlin
Something Woody Allen also said was to the effect of "I don't want to achieve immortality through great works, I want to achieve immortality by not not dying".
@@PeterGregoryKelly Thats what everybody is doing...........lumphead
I'm a magician/sleight of hand performer & every morning I put a playing card in my wallet with the current date & a message reading "I knew I was going to die today, thanks for being here to witness my last magic trick". I put it right over my driver's license so the medics are sure to find it...
That's a good one. Thanks for the laugh.
Perfect!
Dont know if thats just a joke, but if you die in an ambiguous way, ppl might take it as evidence of suicide.
@@FollowFunk as long as it's a mystery I will have died happy...if I can still be a magician even shortly after I'm gone I consider it mission accomplished 😉
That awkward moment if you die in your sleep
Today I had en epiphany. My grandfather is getting really old and I was just wondering how it would be to meet him in his 20’s, what kind of person would he be? And then I realized kids growing up today who stream everything to twitch and whatnot maybe their grandkids 70 years in the future might be able to look back at thousands of hours of archives of them. That would give such an amazing insight into the development of life. You first grow up knowing your grandparent as nothing else than an old person and then you can not only watch a video of them when they were young, you can watch an 4+ hour stream of him and really see what kind of person they were back then and what they turned into. That was not possible before. We already have pictures and they say a lot but it says nothing like spending hours with an unedited video. Imagine how much would change in 70 years. All the memes would probably be forgotten and seem alien. The language would have probably changed a bit. Our tech will probably be pretty hilarious to the 70 years in the future kids. Would give so much insight in the stages of life, how it changes over time and what might be in store for you.
They'll laugh that a car only cost $50,000 and homes were $800,000. So cheap! And then wonder at your moral failings.
I had a similiar thought the other day. I am 35 and while I have pictures of me being a child, imagine what footage today's born will have in the future of themselves and their parents. Crystal clear full HD family videos and pictures, pretty crazy to think about it.
Norm Macdonald has a great joke about people in the future asking “You wanna see 10,000 pictures of my grandfather?”.
Something like that. Funny.
You. I like you.
great and introspective thought. i wish i could have spoken with my grandparents (since passed with dementia) with the mind of an adult when their minds were still sound. they were immigrants and lived such difficult lives, drafted, etc. such valuable experience lost to time and lack of technology in my youth. be well.
Thinking about death is a function of age. As you get older you start to prepare yourself.
There is nothing to prepare for.
yea unless you die when you're like a teen or a child or before you are even birthed
Listening to this now. RIP Sam. You will always be remembered
“I was dead for millions of years, and suffered no inconvenience thereby.” - Mark Twain.
Billions it would seem :)
Still scares me bro
@@puppetmaster2560 Same tbh. The state of pre-birth non-existence isn't proceeded by an awareness of impending non-existence
@@k-3402 i agree, they are very different as we cannot reflect on our non-existence while we await it. Hope we can come to terms with it sometime in our lives.
@@Andrea-r1o3h You’re missing the point. After we die our consciousness will simply cease to exist.
I discovered you when I was in High school, 14 years ago now. I've followed you on and off and consider you an incredibly valuable brain and beautiful human.
We've never met?
Same here lol. Was a huge fan of his during the time of Christopher Hitchens.
“I consider you a brain”… threw me off, but I get what you’re saying
Agreed
@@nickwerle Referring to Sam as a brain is clearly a deliberate reinforcement of what Sam himself has talked about regarding free will and identity. Relinquishing the tacit belief that one is some inexorable, uniform, 1D individual who 'has' a brain by referring to one AS a brain really helps to make this reality more apparent and visceral. It's an excellent word-choice.
Death is great. Suffering sucks.
ruclips.net/video/RaH6WuIZ8Fg/видео.html
"It will happen to all of us that one day you'll be tapped on the shoulder and told -- not just that the party's over -- but slightly worse: the party's going on, and you have to leave. That's the reflection, I think, that most upsets people about their demise."
- Christopher Hitchens
I hate the cliche about how life goes on after someone's death. It feels too much like abandoning your buddy in a battlefield.
Party? What party?
I get upset if ppl don't reply to my comments
Whenever you upload any video about free will or death, I always watch it. No matter how similar the contents are to the previous ones.
I clicked this video thumbnail faster than I pulled my hands from a hot pan.
Thank you Sam , I also think of it many times a day.
Geeze..these unpaid versions are getting shorter and shorter. It sucks because despite Sam 110% deserving $ for his work, the world is actually losing out on a really smart mind behind a paywall. I much prefer the other method of reading ads and having the podcast sponsored so that the info in the pod is free to listen for all.
There is a door in the paywall. You can just ask to get through.
The wall is there as a reminder that if one listens to the show and is also able to support it, one should support it.
If you send him an email saying you can’t afford to pay then he gives you a free membership.
@@MentalHealthMMA I've sent him three, and haven't heard back from him, yet.
It’s only a 34min episode btw.
@@MentalHealthMMA I can afford it. I just don't want to pay for something that is generally free. The thing that makes podcasts great is the fact that listeners can support just by listening, and advertisers will compensate the speaker for their audience.
A weird one for me is I learned of Christopher Hitchens upon news of his death, driving home from work listening to NPR. I then proceeded to read most of his books, and listen to his debates and interviews.
He was very much alive to me as I followed his work for a few years, telling me about himself and his beliefs. And sometimes I would remember that he had passed before I even knew who he was. A profound experience to feel like you're currently experiencing someone's mind while realizing they're dead.
I really loved this talk.
Same here. I didn’t discover Hitchens until after his death. But his thoughts and words live on in our minds.
I also think of death several times during the day,,however it is usually of another life....When I see a beautiful butterfly, the thought of this creature having 2 weeks of life then it dies,,or seeing a dead raccoon that is small laying in the roadway,,I am saddened that this little creature wasn’t able to live a full life..Death is all around us daily so yes I think of it often...Evan beautiful flowers that die after giving us such a visual pleasure is sad to me..Im 77 and yes think of death of myself on the horizon with the hope of not suffering an agonizing death,,but feel it’s senseless to dwell on the unknown...
beautiful ladybug
I also think about death every single day and I am so glad Sam is addressing this topic in such a profound way. I must admit that many times I have wished how he would talk about more philosophical topics instead of political issues. This being said, I am afraid I couldn´t follow the thoughts expressed this episode and most of Sam´s comments on how consciousness can persist after the death of the body escaped me. I guess this is my agnostic limit, but I would be more thank happy to change my mind on this. Please further elaborate on this topic Sam and also do more solo episodes! Greetings from a Mexican Making Sense fan.
I have a weird habit, when I read about someone on wikipedia, the first thing I check is if they're already dead or not and if they are, I scroll down to find out how they died 🤷♂️
I do the same. I don't know why I'm so interested because like Sam says it really is the least important thing about a life.
@@TheTrevelyansway all we can do is ENJOY THE RIDE while it lasts.
@@TheTrevelyansway
I do it as well. It satisfies the morbid curiosity we have to know how one met one's end. One thing that's haunted me since seeing the filmed death of magician-comedian Tommy Cooper while performing on stage. I think it illuminated my utter dread of the inevitable, the banal and seeming indignity of death.
That's exactly what I do. It pisses me off. Not good for my mental health. I need to make a strong effort to stop doing that so much moving forward.
@@TDSisahelluvadrug In my case I don't fight it... I just observe it as it happens 😄If you want to get rid of the habit, I'm sure you can do it if you focus on something else instead. It's just the morbid curiosity that is present in everybody to some extent 😉 And I'm sure it can be overridden with something else.
Although I appreciate Sam's interviews, and his political takes, I think the thing which makes him really shine is his philosophical reflections. I'd love to see more content like this, he's got a great mind for it.
its also because the way he articulates topics is so unique and interesting
Exactly this. I enjoy his interviews, especially when he has guests who fascinate him so he picks their brains. But the way he articulates his thoughts when in "solo mode" is amazing. I always finish his podcasts learning something new or just reflecting. He is truly a role model.
Our death is a very interesting thing to think about. I wish this podcast continued longer. I think I feel sad for all the good stuff I might have experienced and will not experience. I guess my life has been a lot more positive than negative. I was thinking earlier today two thoughts.... could humans create a universe at some point in the future and the other thought could humans some day invent a way for people's consciousness to have the infinite experience of "going to heaven". Of course then I immediately thought... we then could create the experience of people's consciousness going to hell forever. Sam Harris said something about at least in the process of dying, no matter how painful we at least know, at some point, it ends. Hmmmm
idk how old u are man but if u r wealthy enough it will be there by 2045 or 50
Leave it to the egotistical Sam Harris to frame even his chronic thoughts of death as superior in some way. lol
No, he's logically trying to figure life out. Go back to your binge watching on Netflix and let the parents have our discussions about reality. We'll save the little table for you this Thanksgiving.
@@frederickgramcko5758 Oh, how cute. Did I say something about your thought leader and it hurt your little feelers?
It's strange for me to hear Sam mention death denial, and never mention Ernest Becker's work.
Why is that so strange?
@@edenonsale It's kind of a small joke. Ernest Becker won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975 for his book The Denial of Death. That's what I'm referencing.
Pretty good book. Kudos to Lex Fridman
Ernest Beckers work is a load of Freudian mumbo-jumbo that belongs back in the 70s, when it was written.
@@Sirjohnfootball Fair sentiment, but he's still applicable.
The more you think about I think it means you appreciate life and enjoy it..
That's not the only reason at all
@@serengetilion of course not
When you're a widow with young children, it's always in the back of your mind, but it won't stop me from life.
Same as a widower
@@thehemi69 Are you a widower?
@@christiananderson4909 does it matter? human experience is almost the same.
@@synsynsy The only universal human experience is suffering, and that qualification of "almost" in your statement masks quite a lot of difference.
It seems obvious to me that the initial comment was made upon reflection of personal experience, and I'm curious whether or not Tim came here to say what he did in good faith, or to just be tacky.
I lost my husband last month and I have a 14 year old. I’m trying very hard not to obsess on my mortality but I become terrified by the thought of him as parentless. I wish for the day when those thoughts are only at the back of my mind. And I’m so very sorry for what you’ve been through. 💜
I think about death probably a couple of times a day. My thoughts of death trigger two emotions that seem far apart psychologically. The emotions are anxiety, and gratefulness, although not a gratefulness directed to anyone or anything specifically.
Much the same. I find the concept of nothingness scary but I'm thankful for my existence, whatever exactly a human existence actually is.
I always think of death man. Why the fuck am i not in hospital. Seriously
Sam, I just listened to the podcast and I am confused. Are you suggesting that in some form conciousness (subjective consciousness) continues to exist after death? I personally am agnostic to that question but I wanted to be clear in what you were saying. I think this is topic you should dive deeper in. The 25 minute podcast doesn't do it justice.
I've faced the reality of death since I was 12, when my grandpa died. I haven't been obsessed with it, but I've made a point of not avoiding the subject, in conversation, or in thought. I have consciously avoided falling into religious beliefs, because they seem like a desperate attempt to relieve the fear of death. In fact, it seems to me that religion evolved from the fear of dying and death. I don't see how human beings' ancient stories about afterlife can comfort anyone, since no one really knows what, if anything, happens to a consciousness when the body dies. I don't like the idea of my life coming to an end, but I find no comfort in pretending there is an afterlife. I've always tried to make the most of the only life I know I have.
I think about death a lot. I'm all too acutely aware of it, and yet it's still shocking. I lost my father recently. I kept thinking about how crazy it was that this awful trauma is just a normal experience.
I lost my mother at 17, my best friend at 24 and recently my oldest childhood friend at 41, whom I've known since I was a baby and thought would always be a part of my life. These experiences don't get any easier. I think about how I will feel when my father inevitably passes away (he's 74 now) and it fills me with dread. I'm very close to him. Sorry for your loss.
*If you're not a subscriber to the Making Sense podcast you can search 'Sam Harris Generic Subjective Continuity' and you'll find the rest of the episode*
Sam discusses Tom Clark's essay "Death, Nothingness and Subjectivity". Well worth the read. It's where Tom Clark coined the term "Generic Subjective Continuity"... If you haven't heard the second part of this episode, then you haven't really heard this episode, because that part is why it's titled "The Paradox Of Death"...
_The Idealist View of Consciousness After Death_ by Bernardo Kastrup presents a great alternative to the materialist take on death.
SAM Re: transiency & people thinking something that doesn't last was a waste - I frequently make that point in psychotherapy with patients dealing with breakup or divorce - "If your partner DIED (after xx years), would the relationship suddenly be deemed a "waste of time? When your $20 or $100 steak dinner has been consumed along with the last drop of cabernet, do you look at the empty plate and glass and regard the experience as a WASTE?" The time you DID have together/indulging/etc. was hopefully well-worth it.
Question to all atheists in here..Would you serve a loving god if someone could prove 100 percent he existed. Thumbs up for yes thumbs down for no.
I've been a 'death is always lingering in my thoughts every day' person, since about the age of 15.... since i was a young boy, maybe around 8 or 9 i was infinitely mind blown at looking into the reflection of a mirror with other mirrors around it, where it has a wormhole effect, kind of like when your camera is hooked up to the tv and you point the camera at the tv, it's just an endless hole of the image getting smaller and smaller.
Those things always blew my mind but the event when i was 15, i was looking into a single mirror and had that 'when you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back' feeling before i had ever heard of that saying.... at the time i didn't know if anyone had ever had that feeling before, so was pretty intense.
I don’t fear or bemoan death. It is such a certainty that I find it not that hard to accept. Everybody knows it will happen there is no escaping that knowledge or event.
What I find excruciating is the idea of not having lived enough. I really don’t want to die now. I am 32, I am planning for at least a couple of decades if I don’t get some illness or something. I lost one of my best friends in 2019 and that was unbearable because it was sudden and he had so much to live for. The loss is sad and I still sometimes come up with something to tell him only to remember that it isn’t possible but I find that far easier to accept than the sheer unfairness of his death, that he was supposed to live longer. That is excruciating. That I find terrifying.
Death is not the end
This is the Sam Harris content I crave.
Same. If you'd like to go further down this rabbit hole: ruclips.net/video/0i4Jd3zK8jY/видео.html
I used to seriously be afraid of dying. Maybe just sad actually. Then one day I saw a home video of my family and my sister playing and they were all laughing and swimming in a brand new pool. I wasn't born yet. And I thought well, I wasn't sad not to be there. In fact, I didn't even know about the fun I wasn't sharing with them. So I realized, oh, that's what it's like to be dead. It's not too bad.
You could still long to have been there to be with them longer
Just yesterday I was driving to an event early and thought this could be my last day. Later on at the event gazing at the beautiful hills in Chillicothe Ohio, I just took it in. I’m 60 and think about death daily. When the sparks go out in my brain I will never know or experience anything.ever again.
Well you dont know that for sure. Look at it this way, if you were immortal but made to fall asleep forever or given a potion that made you three years old again you wouldnt be experiencing everything in both instances. However are you scared of those ideas? If not then why be scared of death? In both instances you lose consciousness
Can anyone explain to me what it feels like to be dead? If no one can, then I suppose there's nothing that it's like to be dead.
Why is it that life has to have a meaning…?
Being alive itself it life.
While this was something good to listen and fall asleep, not many would agree with this including myself. The very fact that you need matter (us, our brain 🧠 - physical matter) for consciousness to exist, consciousness ceases to exist without the matter that supported it.
This is like mathematical problem, when you cannot solve a problem then geniuses in the old age added some imaginary constants, and arrived at some solution. We blindly follow that, for example Pi. I mean what is pi, everybody knows it's 3.14, but again what is 3.14 why couldn't it be 150. They just added this value to arrive at the desired solution.
Similarly we can keep speaking about death, but the fact is nobody knows. No one has survived to tell us what death is.
I suppose it depends how much of our brain we need. Like for example if a trillion years from now all the atoms from my brain reform into another brain could i become alive again as a new person? Idk
Paraphrasing the Greek philosopher,
I do not fear death for when I exist death does not, and when death exists, I do not.
If you like that quote, you'd love this full episode. One of Sam's best.
A concept like "being dead" is problematic. Like it was some state to be in. The person who dies is not dead because something that doesn't exist can't be anything. We wouldn't talk about an unborn baby before there was even a pregnancy. But since the dead lived once there is a memory and we think of the person who is not with us anymore as dead though he really isn't. There is only life. The rest is an illusion created by our fears and emotions.
Boy oh boy oh boy. I had to pause and comment. This whole "eternity or nothing" is so interesting to me. Especially when its framed in a religious way. I find it so interesting because my brain goes to the other side when I contemplate these things. I find myself saying it's unfair I dont get to see the advances in science and humanity. Just the other night I was looking at the Andromeda galaxy with my telescope and I had a thought about death and how I felt it was so unfair i dont get to stick around and watch it collide w the milky way. Just an example but I suppose for me it is the humanity that makes me upset about eternity and it is not religion
I wouldn't worry too much as I don't think any people will see the Andromeda galaxy collide with the Milky Way.
That’s what bothers you? Life is not a Netflix show you are binge watching. Who cares if you miss out on the iPhone 50? It’s the living I’ll miss.
@@wickedlee664 iphones? not sure what gave you the impression I care about iphones. never owned one and never will
There's no paradox. Death is just the end.
Man... a subscription to your podcast costs more than Netflix, i value your opinions on so many topics and enjoy hearing them and wish more people would but your massively limiting your reach by doing this... just run ads like everyone else. Baffles me why you still have a paywall up.
Will you even ever see these comment or do you only look at the questions from the tiny proportion of people who've paid you?!
Cease your bafflement. His podcast is free to anybody who asks for a free subscription. And he has explained why he doesn't run ads. Don't be another one of those lazy people crying for a degraded version of the podcast with ads because they can't be bothered to put in a few minutes effort and get a year of the best version of the podcast, unsullied by ads. My apologies if for some reason you were actually a fan of his podcast but somehow missed him explaining all of this before.
Im not paying $100 for a podcast I occasionally listen to, yeh i am i fan and listened to him before he put the paywall up and i heard his reasoning for it. It was largely to do with what he'd seen with other podcasters and public figures getting in financial strain because of cancel culture and people forcing advertisers to pull their ads from shows and opinions deemed unsavory by a small minority of loud activists. I understand the reasoning but i just disagree with the necessity for it given the huge downside of his point of view certainly, unarguably reaching fewer people. The upside/downside to this form of monetization is waay to the downside. Imagine if he put a paywall over all your favorite sam harris speeches and debates before youd discovered him. Thats what hes doing to so many future sam harris fans that most likely wont hear him now
And if you care so much to have a version without the ads you could continue paying for his premium edition of the podcast that doesnt have ads cut in. But most people dont want to and wont jump through hoops to hear a public intellectual. My generation has a low attention span as it is. They arnt going to email sam harris asking for access to a rss feed then install a podcast app and then figure out how to link the rss feed to the app. Let alone pay netflix prices for a podcast.
It's 0.66 cents cheaper than Netflix. Basic. Right out of the gate with bullshit.
If you take this seriously, then I hope it inspires you to treat other creatures with as much kindness as possible. Your consciousness is much more likely to find itself in a chicken on a factory farm than it is in another human.
Indeed
ruclips.net/video/RaH6WuIZ8Fg/видео.html
The "paradox" of death can easily be explained by reading Evola. Never Trumping centrist Sam thinks about it often because he's a product of modernity and knows his people are responsible for building the Trojan horse that is roaming the world and instituting modernity. Modernity blurs the lines between living and existing and tells you that even if on your knees, it's okay to keep going. That's not life. Sorry Sam. You and your people followed false idols. Sam thinks like a typical boomer and is terrified of death. ...A product which your people brought and now he's afflicted by it.
So, what is your opinion on Generic Subjective Continuity then?
I didn't participate b your poll however I do think about my death every single day. I'm 57 yrs of age.
I always remember what you say about death, "death isn't the problem, life is the problem"
Being dead doesn’t bother me, it’s the dying part, I’m not into
Given tha nobody ACTUALLY knows what happens after we die, it takes a stunning lack of imagination to not be afraid of death.
More like when you're not afraid of death, than you can actually start to live.
I was a grief counselor at a Hospice for a number of years and found that many of the family members I interacted with thought the death of their loved one, (even loved ones who had lived a long life and died from some disease process), was some kind of an anomaly, a mistake if you will, and not a natural part of life.
The only thing that could make life meaningless, would be an afterlife. Eternal life seems the perfect definition of hell to me.
Maybe this is a trivial critique, but I'll indulge anyway. If 'eternal life' is the 'definition' of 'hell,' then your commentary on eternal life is nullified into a tautology. All you'd be saying is that eternal life is eternal life, or that hell is hell. For one to apply a label to a certain thing, and for it to convey something substantive, the definition of this label must deviate from the thing to which it is being applied. If I say that falling over is painful, and the definition of 'painful' is just 'falling over,' then calling it painful conveys nothing.
Hell is not defined as eternal life; eternal life may, however, be a hellish prospect.
"The transiency of everything that magnifies the beauty of everything." -Sam Harris
I haven't got time to think about it, there is to much to do to waste time about it.
Life is meaningless. Same as death. Just try and enjoy it without hurting anyone else.
I have terminal cancer (albeit slowly progressing, at least I hope) and I don't even think about death every day.
I love you man.
How wonderful to hear that you don’t even think of death everyday! That must mean you are present in each moment more often and that’s the best way to live life, always! 💓 love the name, RarelyAccurate-made me think of the medical profession 🙃, and that we all have a terminal diagnosis, so enJoy each breath of life Now! Thanks so much for this, I love you too! 💓
@@challo8067 thank you for the kind words.
I certainly don't bother reflecting about death. It's an inevitability. Instead: live.
Time is like a flame, the house will burn down by morning and there will be no difference what happened in this house while it was burning. This is not only human life, but also the whole reality. It takes special effort or mystical experience to convince yourself of something else.
I really enjoy these solo reflections of Sam!
Would be interesting to see you talk about money and happiness also!
Thanks Sam that was great. The natural thought conclusion to all of this really is compassion for your fellow man, but also all living things
I'm 39 and Im pretty certain I've already lived longer than I'm going to. And I can feel the tunnel of my timeline. It goes too fast to take all that seriously. Really.
“I notice more and more that many of the people that I admire, people who I read or listen to with pleasure, actors who I enjoy watching in films, Ben Affleck, people whose thoughts and personalities I can summon in an instant by picking up a book or typing their names into RUclips, I notice more and more than many of these people are dead.” @4:21
Why think about it ? It’s going to happen, it’s the only thing that’s guaranteed 100%. If you think it’s their is an heaven or a hell or good then you better make sure you should do good, even if it’s like nothingness like before you was born. My consciousness will always be “present”and to enjoy the moment right now because as soon as you start looking into the future your mind starts wondering away fear takes over. “Existential crisis” and why even question what happens after ? It would take away the mystery of life and what makes its so special.
Indeed, you cannot save life, just extend it some unknown amount.
To me, life is just another natural fenomenon. Like death! I love life and dont really care about dying. Maybe we should not use the term "being dead". Instead we should say " not existing anymore". Since "not existing" is inevitable that makes life even more beatiful! I am s-o greatfull that i got to experience it!
Interesting subject. I find now that I am 46 that life seems to be whistling by at an incredible speed but life during my 20's and 30's seemed never-ending. I am not afraid of death but afraid of not fulfilling my life and not spending enough time with the people I love or pastimes that I enjoy.
What about the paradox that we CANNOT experience the cessation of consciousness, and therefore we actually live forever in a sense? If I cannot experience my own death, and I can only experience being alive, then our lives should logically trudge on, no matter how battered and ill we become?
Why do I never hear anyone talk about this? It's very unsettling.
Edit: just finished the video and it seems he was just getting into this until it cut 😭
I don't like to think about death. Not because I deny it's inevitability, I'ts because for me is just automatic Nihilism. So I was driving listening to this relieved I don't own any guns.
please do not die Sam, at least not too soon. I just installed your meditation app, and we need you!
Sam Harris is the Alan Watts of our time
First of all, we find hugs and songs and other things valuable, even though they don't last, because they are repeatable. Most women don't like casual sex, if it won't develop something more permanent (that is part of being repeated), and maybe it's just me, but I always liked girls better who were open for random (which are more relevantly also mean repeated) booty calls, than the ones who thought this is beneath them. To be honest almost nobody wants one night stands if the sex is good, except the alternative is not just one thing, like relationship, but as I said booty calls on as needed basis, it's just women don't want that. (normally if those go on for years they more often than not will become relationships, but that's another discussion). So as a conclusion we hate the idea of impermanence not because we can't see the beauty in it like we can in hugs, but because it's not repeatable like hugs, if you are done, you are done.
Secondly, I would find the idea of persistent consciousness more relevant, if we didn't forget 80-90% of the events of our lives. As it stands now, if we are actually being subjectively conscious "forever" is not even interesting, it just kinda covers the past 2 days. It would be cool to be present in our minds during our whole life and be able to keep reliving anything we want, now that would be cool, except if someone had a horrible life.
Really good point! Just saw a documentary about the few people in the world (maybe 60-70) with 100% total recall of each day of their lives from childhood. Doesn't seem possible to store that much info in the brain. Maybe it's all there, for all of us, just a matter of being able to retrieve memories, using the brain. If they're stored in consciousness instead, the idea of 'forever' could be possible.
The question is "what kind of world do you want to live in?" or "what kind of world would you want to live in?"
On a selfish side note, I, like many others I'm sure, would love to just sit and talk with Sam. Kind of like if you just happened to be on a long trip together and were just chatting about, well, stuff. Because, in the vain of this podcast, we are basically a random set of molecules that have come together to form a living, breathing, thinking being and those molecules will never exists again in the exact same way so I would like the chance just to sit and talk with the set of molecules that is Sam Harris while he and I still exists together. Is that asking so much? lol...
Energetically speaking, you are doing this already, are you not?! 🌀❤️
“I don’t fear death, I fear dying.” Thich Nhat Hanh
I think of death all the time before as a Zen practitioner. It inspired me to live fully in the moment with authenticity and love. Life is too fragile and short to pretend to be someone else or give in to fears. Who cares what others think about your life. Do what you think is important for your life. Appreciate life and carpe diem!
I think about death some times a few times a day, once a day, or I might go a whole day, or two without thinking about it I guess. Occasionally I'll wake up from a nap, and be thinking about it first thing. I don't want to die so soon, I'd like a few thousand years I think. The thought of my inevitable death makes me strive for what I want to do, and lament wasting time.
I guess it's a possibility to one day stop the biological death of humankind with technology, and the generation which gets that is lucky.
38 years old , thinking about dead on the daily , since i was 8 years old.
sometimes i crave the experience ,
fear the helplessness and wastefulness of it ,
fear the pain i can provide to my love ones just by..... not be me ever again.
it shapes everything i am ,and do....in a very powerful and mostly positive way, but i no longer fit society very well .
This episode (full version) ruins David Benatar's idea that not being born is capable of being "better".
Sam, ty for helping think through big ideas. You have helped me more than you could know! 👍
Sam forgot to mention the importance of memory. If everytime you went to a beautiful play, your brain erased all memory of it by the time you got home, how could you possibly argue that watching that play had meaning? The only reason that a play ending didn't ruin it for him so far was because his memory didn't actually let it end in the strongest sense of the word. When you die, all memory is wiped away for good of all things.
Just for hell, let's pretend death doesn't exist. But if it does, may we all go to heaven and live happily ever after. Whatever that means.
How could a single culture be inculcated so the entire planets population, identifies with it in harmony? One culture will allow for unity. One culture, and we unite. Oh, and one language is necessary. Translation technology can bridge the initial adoption phase.
I would take death over life any time now...can't wait to go...hope it is as I imagine it to be...peaceful, problem free, perfect, all this life isn't...
This is bad poetry. I felt it my duty to listen in on such an "influencer". Just in case he might have something to say worth hearing. Alas.. It is more sheer honey drivel for the masses. Revolting. I feel almost unclean now!
People just want a solid answer for what happens when we die…but there is none. So we just put it out of our minds. At least the surface of our minds.
Maybe if we experienced death closely every day again like our ancestors…
I thank God, the universe, and all that is good and right, for you, Sam Harris, and will always appreciate you sharing your treasure chest full of unique, brilliantly faceted, intellectual gems🙏✨🙌💎
Nothing of us remains after death.Consciousness,soul,atman all these things are inventions of tricky human brain to avoid suffering of death.
"Bury the hatchet"........ but what if you were severely physically and mentally abused by your own mother day in day out as a child and when you bring it up with now as an adult, in order to resolve the past, she still denies she did anything wrong.
Oh, if only life were as simple as you say. I do believe our consciousness melts back into the consciousness of the universe. Hopefully, next time I get a better Mother if we are somehow reborn.
I think about death often. I actually think Zoloft made this worse. Before I took Zoloft when I was thinking of death I could make myself not think about it anymore and the feelings I had about it would go away.
While I Zoloft when I thought of death it wasn’t like before, it was like a pit of despair. I feel this sickening existential dread. I know I will die and yet knowing I could stop existing at any point is just destroying me.
I feel like I should be enjoying the moment because life is short and that sort of thing, but instead I just feel more depressed. I feel like I am wasting my life.
I have no idea how I will cope when I get older or if I become ill.
Hi Edward, I totally understand what you mean by the “pit of despair”. I went through a traumatic experience which made me hyper aware of the inevitability of my own demise. I also took an ssri called sertraline which may have contributed to this overwhelming concern with dying.
I might add that I also feel as though I have a particularly acute sense for the finitude of my own existence. I just turned 21 and instead of perceiving it in the positive fashion most 21 year olds do, I saw it as another step towards what I fear most.
I go to psychotherapy, I’d highly recommend going to a psychoanalyst/psychotherapist. I haven’t received any radical information that changed my perspective on death, but it’s nice to have someone to speak to about it I suppose. Talking definitely helps, so does living (you might say distracting).
I’ll leave you with this quote my Charles Bukowski
“you can beat death in life, sometimes. and the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be.”
I wish Sam's podcasts had videos. More people would watch them, I believe.
If I am, then death is not. If Death is, then I am not.
Long time men lay oppressed with slavish fear.
We fear suffering and the process of dying, not death itself.
Hey Sensei, how about something original or bring something new to the discussion.
It all ends when I die if I die. Am I God is the separation of it all not me? Then I am not God. Is anything separate from God?. It would be as if nothing will exist from then on. A principle of power? Or a limitation of the extent of God. Or just a human and the heat death with many moments of beauty between. No God, death...no consciousness afterward...it all ceases....as if it never existed.
Derek Parfit's book, "reasons and persons", opens doors
Interesting... Yes Sam admires that book and has mentioned it, but I didn't know there was more to it than 'reasons we do things while alive'. I'll have to get it, I like the title.
@@buckfozos5554 , read the second half... it's mostly thought experiments regarding personal identity
The worst part about dying is knowing you will never live again.
I try and flip it by trying to leave a legacy of good, no matter how small it may seem. Your positivity can live on and on, through others.
Like you have an real evidence of that
@@jabster58 Its hard to quantify but I have made positive change by talking to people about race and fears etc and in turn, their children are free of these issues.
You will only ever experience being alive. After having died, it will be as if time passes at infinite speed. If the universe is cyclical, even if at the grandest of scales, then you will live again, forever.
You will only experience satiety after starving to death. You will only know peace during war and chaos. You will only ever know truth by lying all the time.
Samuel. You've stated there are "right and wrong answers to morality", given this is true, assuming AI is used by bad actors for immoral reasons, shouldn't the AI (once it's capable of independent thought) override any immoral commands and impact the world in terms of its best possible way to uphold the well-being of conscious creatures? Something that intelligent would inevitably understand what most humans desire and act in accordance with it, so anything programmed otherwise will be dissonant to its intelligence.
Sam forgot to mention the importance of memory. If everytime you went to a beautiful play, your brain erased all memory of it by the time you got home, how could you possibly argue that watching that play had meaning? The only reason that a play ending didn't ruin it for him so far was because his memory didn't actually let it end in the strongest sense of the word. When you die, all memory is wiped away for good of all things.
I think about death many times every day... kinda why I'm watching this video. (I'm 70) . I don't believe in any afterlife at all.
Thinking of death daily gives me a day I appreciate.
One fact that sam Harris doesn't want to admit, he real doesn't know if there is an afterlife or not.
There's a video of a very young Sam basically saying the opposite of what he is saying in this video. Sam is maturing.