Is it only in full via Patreon or a delay for it to hit RUclips please Mr O'Connor? Also, finding you on RUclips has really helped with my decades old depression, the art of thinking...thank you.
Alex, if you want to meditate, better to start with a group experience. There is a synergy in groups where the sum is greater than the parts. We are like 60 watt bulbs. If we plug into a grid, the power available is much greater. I worked in psyche rehab for 10 years leading meditations. I used a simple meditation of being silent and listening to music and invoking what is called "the healing stream". Energy filled the room. People with serious addiction and mental health issues found themselves deeply affected by the experience. the peace was palpable.
Yes I have...a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls...
I feel pretty thankful that Sam Harris is patient enough to talk about this topic everywhere he goes. I struggle with mindfulness, and understanding it, but each time it is explained, I feel lucky to be forced back to true consciousness, even if for brief moment, and reminded how important it is to keep trying.
Yeah I love that he can continuously have this patience and even enthusiasm to talk about it, and that he always does it in such depth and with his remarkable articulacy. It's like someone said in the comments about Sapolsky, he's done so many interviews about the free will stuff, but never seems to get bored with it.
@Cody-qh3os So I feel drawn to respond to this. Mainly because you bring up a lot of good points to consider. Your perspective is actually quite relatable to my own except I don't see either side as being better than the other. The creators decision to create the illusion of separation within itself was not born out of loneliness. It came from a sudden flash of awareness. The understanding that it could know itself. Conceptually it's very much like the Big Bang. We are a beautiful part of that. It's sort of paradoxical because both things are true. The fact that we are incarnated onto Earth, into physical bodies, and grapple with these concepts are proof that our physical existence is extremely precious, even if you only believe in the physicality of it all. There is an importance to this "illusory" space of separation that we find ourselves in. We get to come across other aspects of ourselves and truly believe it is separate. We get to have genuine expressions of our own Free Will, and Co-create alongside the creator. We create the encounters and interactions alongside the creator, in the present moment, and help it Define what it is in that moment. It is one thing to know the potentials, but the real magic is the unique unfoldment of those potentials into reality. So the separation is important for knowing ourselves, but the deeper truth is that we have this innate, fundamental connection with everything. That we are all One, and infinitely connected in a holographic, fractal, universe. You can learn to connect to the creation, because you are it. We do this through the moment, which is all that there really is, At least this is my experience. I'd love to hear your take on everything. I just felt I wanted to share about my thonking.
Nah its just an illusion like your self anyways.. :) Who cares.. No one cares, nothing matters. These guys are under the illusion that they are saying something worthwhile, in fact tho, all that is just another illusion. We live, poop and die. Onwards.. :D
If this really is Alex's first foray into mindfulness and the understanding of no-self, I expect we're going to be hearing quite a bit more about this in the coming months and years.
Probably. The Commies can't stand the idea of free will, it destroys their materialistic premise and ruins their entire cult religion. Thinking is not automatic, one must choose to think and therefore has free will. Commies wish everyone were NPC's or automatons. To their dismay, they are wrong. Harris is a woke quack and Commie religious cult fanatic. Sam just sucks and Alex is just a naive little boy pretending to know things he doesn't know.
Your the light of a star and the darkness of outer space. That was my experience from heavy meditation. I also didn't sleep much and meditated a lot,so sleep deprivation causing hallucinations and delusions could've been possible also
This is one of those rare times i find myself thinking "oh i just really hope these two hit it off" and i care more about how they interact than the conversation itself. Perhaps its because no matter how long this single discussion ends up being, there would be nothing i enjoy more than 2 dozen more of them over the next decade.
@Drengodr I just read it now and I chuckled a little. I listen to Sam's podcast too so I'm used to longer format, but Alex's are usually shorter. It figures that it's Sam, of all people, that he gets a full 3 hours out of.
I like thay you adress the existential anxiety that is available when doing philosophy. I considered myself weak-minded when I lost some of the footing i thought i had, when i exposed myself to these questions and all their possible answers. Im glad that im not alone in thise experiences. And i love that Sam and you finally got a talk. Its been a long time coming.❤
The gravity of this statement pains me. My understanding has grown significantly over the past years, and it's a slippery slope talking with people generally about spirituality. I feel like I look a little more looney the deeper my understanding goes.
@@NenJiDaPassiv That kinda shows you have no understanding. Spirituality doesn't lead to insight or wisdom, it is effectively closing your mind. IT's no coincidence the parallels that are drawn between spirituality and conservatism, ironically. You are just creating a bubble for yourself only you can't see it. You believe you are gaining understanding when in fact you are deluding yourself. Your words also tell me you don't understand the quote nor the man who said it, if you did you'd see the irony.
On a Vipassana 10 day meditation course (the practice that got sam going on the meditation path) the teacher said to me, most of the world just talks about this, here, we are doing it" And thats so true.
@@Eel-on_Musk it wasn't exactly a walk in the park, and still isn't, I almost left on day 2 thinking I wasn't ready. But I persisted and its the most worthwhile thing I've ever done. Now I do 1 or 2 courses a year. and practice once or twice daily, It gets easier and easier over time. I feel incredibly lucky to have been drawn to it. I could have easily missed this deeper perspective my whole life and gone on generating ever more layers of complexes ignorantly. Now I'm going in the other direction and am filled with gratitude for how my mind has changed over the past 6 years. Thanks for asking :)
@@Eel-on_Musk I didn't get high or have visions, though some do report all sorts of different transient experiences. I wouldnt say anything better than how Sam put it in this video. It has to be practiced to be experienced. And I'm careful about how I explain my experiences with it, because it's so helpful to go in without any expectations, with an open mind and ready to work. 🌱🌳 if you're looking for amazing high, bliss experiences or profound visions, that wanting might hinder progress in deeper insights or wisdom.
Two of my favourite public intellectuals in conversation. This is incredibly exciting. I hope it's the first of many talks. I think Alex is just as sharp and clear thinking, if not even more, in religious debates as Sam has been. This podcast is a real treat.
When Sam says at the end, that “the feeling of I” requires a prerequisite, a light by which I notice this feeling, I was instantly reminded of Heidegger’s concept of being-in-the-world. Which was, at least for me, an eye opener.
I've always wanted alex to delve deeper into eastern philosophies and mindfulness. He's a brilliant mind and it would be a treat to watch him unfold these concepts.
Why? Actual qualified individuals already do this, without the Western sanitising. Why is it better if he does it? Why do you want available information repeated by a specific individual? Does it suddenly make it valid?
@@pcaul8156 um. I've been following Alex since highschool and have found his insights very astute. I have studied a lot of eastern philosophy by myself, and I would enjoy a discourse on it.
I like the use of the gym and its outcome. As a meditator of almost 10 years (and waking up subscriber), there is still much to learn while simultaneously beginning again. Thank you both.
So refreshing to watch a calm and respectful conversation. We’ve become so accustomed to obnoxious and confrontational discussions where the goal is to score points and win, that something like this stands out as odd, is telling of the sad state of the modern media and the gotcha culture.
I've been meditating for 4 years, thanks to discovering Sam Harris' app during the pandemic. It has significantly changed my life, but one thing I've always struggled with was this idea of "scrutiny of self" that he always describes. This video helped me finally get a glimpse of it for the first time. Thanks for sharing this conversation.
This is a method that was helpful for me personally with this sort of thing: Asking myself: who do I believe I am? Whatever comes up, I notice it. Because I notice it, that means I am behind it, and it is not me, so I let it go of what came up. What am I thinking about next? Is that me? If not, I also let it go, because I am looking for my true self. I continue to let go of everything that is not me (not push it away, just relinquish it, just letting it drift away). Lo and behold, I am left with only raw experience at the end, not having found myself anywhere, I am left with no self. And what got me here? The act (sensation?) of letting go of each of the things that came up prior. So for me, re-accessing No-self becomes as simple as 'letting go' and learning to consistently access that sensation (action?) without even having to go through that questioning process, just letting go, and then sitting with what is left: no self, just experience. I think this also ties in with the 'No-free will" stuff. Who is it behind your experience that is trying to control it, to access the no-self, to do anything? If there is no free will, who is trying to control what? Just a dog trying to hold its own leash.
Just be mindful of this idea of "letting go" because it can be a subtle thought or image one is identified with. You can't actually grasp experience or let go, you can only become aware of that which was unable to be grasped in the first place. If you do have thoughts or images of "letting go", you want to be aware of that as yet another object in consciousness 👍
Just listening to these guys talk about this subject is so wonderful. I've loved Sam and Alex for a long time and seeing both of them now, describing a phenomenon I enjoy, is just bunkers.
Sam started my mindfulness journey back in 2014 (as well as my off again on again love for bjj) and he and Alex were the first atheistic content I consumed after leaving Christianity. It truly feels like I was "born again" as an atheist and like I've been waiting for these two minds to meet my entire life.
Self is fluid and not a constant entity; it is dynamic and continues evolving. There is always discrepancy between how something is perceived or believed to be and how it actually may be.
I never saw Alex nervous and he is not an intense expressive nervous dude, but you can clearly see he is so happy of being face to face with one of his idols. It’s like he is: “OMG IS SAM HARRIS” the entire time haha 😂
Is Sam Harris even that well regarded outside the space of "popular philosophy?" Though I guess an atheist speaker would also look up to another well regarded atheist speaker.
Sam is always interesting meditating is really helpful I've been doing it for months and I am more productive and less emotional would recommend to anyone
I’ve had an ego death experience and it wasn’t a net positive on my life. It led to me losing stuff I feel was helpful like my will, my agency and my creativity. Maybe if it happened on purpose after years of religious practices, losing my desires and sense of self would of felt like a relief. But to me, the resulting time afterwards felt a lot more like disassociation and depression
@@PatculSame goes for meditation, Sam is one of the few that do discuss the potential for negative effects, although yes psychedelics more commonly have a negative effect. Although still rare.
Hearing sam explain everything I've personally observed myself doing, like distinguishing the separation from hearing and consciousness and the separation from self, etc... Just feels crazy reflecting on things and just trying to grow intellectually as a person. Coming across a video expressing the ability for others to do that too is so cool. Also reading the comments saying about how this is all essentially Buddhism and how alex didnt already know, as someone from the uk i can totally see how you would be able to come to being mindful without necessarily needing knowledge of eastern cultures as they can be quite stigmatised in the uk thus other methods will likely be taken for self improvement before then exploring those cultures
@Darkloid21 i don't know if you're saying his perception of being able to analyse the thoughts and impulses happening in your brain isn't true or that Buddhism isn't true. As for Buddhism, I didn't say or necessarily believe it's true, especially when it comes to assention or becoming a higher state. I believe we are just what we are animals on a big rock. But I was simply saying it's understandable that someone from the uk wouldn't be so aware to the concepts within Buddhism
@@DRoW1l His perception of being able to analyze these things is wrong. It’s sad to see as a neuroscientist he doesn’t see that mediation just alters the blood flow to the areas of the brain that maintain our separateness from other things around us. He’s not talking about insight but literally just the result of altering your brain. He’s also wrong about what meditation leads to. It’s just sad to see them both so wrong about it. Nevermind that mediation affects everyone wildly differently and psychedelic experiences don’t mean or prove anything.
@Darkloid21 curiosly, doesn't it bode for his point in some ways. What I mean is, the way i see it, the whole meditation thing is meant to be a parallel to being able to alter how your brain is functioning as if you were to take drugs of a kind. What we think and feel are just combinations of those electro signals and hormones, and like you said, bloodflow / oxygen levels all having different effects on our consciousness. Unless I'm completely misunderstanding, being able to observe that your consciousness/internal monologue is dictated by these things as opposed to believing we are special with higher levels of being, we're just essentially super smart monkeys. The way I think of it is that our internal monologue is just one of if not our best problem solving tool. But our sense of identity and self develope as its best way to discern our impacts on others and theirs to us. I can sit talking to friends playing games and completely dissociate from my sense of self or identity, purely in the moment. And I just hope that the point of the meditation or breathing practice is just a way to realise that our sense of self or identity is infact dictated by those impulses, thoughts will come to use whether we want to think them or not. And come a fair few situations discerning that 'I want' type of thought, especially an impulse to consume something we know we shouldn't, helps greatly to understand our body's effects on our thought processes and in some way give us a small element of controll by trying to understand why we thought what we thought. Anyway, that's how I interpret it, but I, too, am not a neuroscientist, so if I got things wrong, clarification would be great. Ty for reading anyhow
@@DRoW1l Not really. He’s not saying these are just chemicals, but at the same time he’s talking about this divorced from the spiritual context that makes it make sense. An alteration to normal functioning doesn’t lead to truth here. There is a center putting this all together and experiencing it and it’s the brain. We even know where the self is located as well. Your “sense” of self is a self not just a sense. You aren’t dissociating when you play games. In fact a lot of that processing happens prior to you being aware of it, so your thoughts are really just you being aware of what the brain already decided. In short he’s wrong about everything in this. He has no idea what he is talking about and it shows. Not only does he get the neuroscience wrong but also the spiritual aspects of it. There is a reason you can’t talk about meditation outside the schools that teach it. Otherwise you end up with idiots like Sam who don’t know what they’re talking about. You don’t have control over your thoughts and whether you want to think them and that’s not what meditation is about. Honestly people need to stop listening to Sam, he’s fallen off. Being a clear communicator doesn’t mean you know what you’re talking about. Like in the last part, consciousness is a sense too, a sense of being aware. We are reducible to a sense, we aren’t more than that. Our brains take in data and model reality, not really perceive it. We even make predictions to compensate for our perception lag. So consciousness isn’t some prior thing to sensation, it is sensation. It’s impossible to be in the moment We are the mind, not consciousness, everything he’s talking about is thought. Even that state of just being is thought and mind too. Like I said, he knows nothing.
Such an interesting and intelligent examination of what it means to talk about consciousness and the "self" from Sam. Makes me want to learn how to meditate. 😊
@@Mikael-jt1hk Not necessarily. He’s starting to _get it,_ he’s getting closer and closer. There are many people on the planet who have no idea and are nowhere close…
There are people out there, many people, who gain new information and either refuse to do anything about it, or flat out reject it because it does not align with their world view. Regardless of the truth of the new information. So no, not everyone gets wiser lol
@@DirtmopAZ Yep, and it’s very obvious he has enough awareness and IQ such that he can go from being _skeptical_ about something to things clicking quickly. You can assess someone intelligence pretty accurately by watching how they take on new concepts and what they do with it.
I have found that so much of the struggle in contemplating these topics comes down to a definitional problem. We often are using the terms “conscious” and “self” differently than others are in a conversation and we end up speaking at orthogonals to each other.
Harris has made it quite far, imagine being able to meet Alex! (seriously, I high Harris in very high esteem, but I just love seeing Alex being actual, full-time philosopher. Remember taking a look at this teen-age youtuber who was already thinking way better than most academic adults I knew)
I think that's going a bit far. He's a RUclipsr, not a full-time philosopher. Does he have an academic qualification is philosophy? Does he hold an academic post? Has he had any papers published in academic journals? Has he come up with any new theories?
@@omp199 fair points, but there are several actual philosophers who haven't created any new relevant theories, I mean things that make people think in radically new, better way. I'm more interested in merits or actual effect than academic titles. With CS background in uni I definitely value academics, but when it comes to rational thinking, epistemology and religion, I'd imagine Alex has caused much more good than all our most famous philosophers in Finland combined, due to his polite, witty questions he started asking publicly already during his early years.
It's my sincere hope that Alex commits more fully to the endeavor of investigating consciousness and its associated subjects. The addition of someone with his exceptional articulation and keen analytical abilities to this domain would be immensely valuable. We would greatly benefit from having such a brilliant communicator and sharp thinker join the space.
The brain is capable of being of setting itself Totally Free of fear, anxiety, sorrow, despair, loneliness, shame, guilt, confusion, contradictions, addictions, irritations, vanity, envy, greed, jealousy, attachment, possessiveness, ill-will, hatred, cruelty, bias, prejudice, and all other mental/emotional disturbances, in each and every moment of daily life, 24/7...AND it doesn't take time.
I always struggle with the word illusion because I'm fond of the way of thinking that perceives something that impacts reality as also real. It could be that is not actually there, but the act of thinking it's there changes the way you behave, therefore making the illusion something that influences reality in a meaningful and transformative way.
Well said. The character we attach to in a movie is never in front of us, they're pixels, and they've never even existed. But the way we feel about them and the things we learn about ourselves and life from them are very real and pragmatic.
@@chronicle8080 That's a bit more existence x reality than illusion x reality but I definitely agree. Lots of characters from movies and series don't actually exist, but are in fact more real than you and me or most people when you think along the lines of the impact in shaping reality that they had. You could extend this idea when talking about God, that whether you believe in him or not, the influence of the idea of God is so insurmountably impactful that God could be defined as being more real than any of us, even if he may not actually exist.
Took a couple of hits of acid once in college, and about 7 hours in, I realized that my emotions had flown off somewhere. It wasn't bad, it good, just weird. We headed home from our adventure, and once there, I was compelled to listen to a specific album. All of the emotions came crashing back on me and I felt so free and fine. Like all was right in the universe.
Until he spills the beans, may I suggest _Science_ by Incubus. That has been the soundtrack to many a trip for me. Or how about the Screaming Headless Torsos. I was on acid the first time I heard them and I was completely enthralled.
was trying to remember what we listened to, god, back in the eighties..! definitely remember a pitch black room, a single red light coming from the music centre (lol) ..and some wicked Hawkwind... hawkwind feels a bit corny now but it was spot on at the time... people will disagree but Yello are pretty interesting at such times too... 🙂 x
The self observing itself deconstruct itself is still the self. The self believing it doesn’t exist is still the self. The self as a noun may be an illusion, but as Bucky Fuller said, “I seem to be verb.”
You notice he can't even describe the experience without terms like "you". The transcendental unity of consciousness is never an object of consciousness but is always the basic condition of any possible object of consciousness. But Buddhist philosophy is more concerned with bringing you to that state of recognition than it is in giving it an accurate metaphysical interpretation.
@@koffeeblack5717The english language doesn't allow for one to not use such terms as the language is a product of its culture and its philosophies. You can describe it much better in Pali for example
@@dcompx yes, the ego is also considered an illusion. The ego is something we describe that is not permanent, something ever changing therefore illusory. You're correct, there must be something that can be considered irreducible. Sam is attempting to point us to this very irreducible fact. Since words and thoughts are always changing it can't be them, which is why words can't ever describe this place. It quickly becomes clear that something lies beyond thought, but we also intuit that there must be something finite to what we're looking for. Each of our tasks is to discover this for ourselves.
This is something I have hoped for for quite a while. That one or some of these deep skeptics would find an intimate conversation with someone who can translate esoteric or mystical experiences (mostly as part of Eastern, not Abrahamic thought) into language and ideas the western mind can take in. Harris is very good at this, as were Ram Dass and Alan Watts, and it takes talent to do this well. This is a huge step away from discourses with fundamentalist Christian theists. Dawkins had conversations with a Hindu scholar and a Buddhist monk and neither had this particular talent, therefore the communication was clumsy and ineffective. Harris presents a basic, non challenging, non theist basis for his perceptions, which have a strong Buddhist flavor (which is a non theist philosophy but has recognition of transcendental reality as part of the nature of things), but he speaks from a base of his own experience, which is important. This is what I have been trying to get across for quite a while. That the nature of self, of consciousness and existence ( they haven't gone to the latter from what I have seen, Harris is very careful to lay a very strong foundation) has very little to do with conventional Abrahamic religious thinking and acknowledges profoundly that consciousness exists beyond the perceptions or operations of the intellect. I applaud Alex for his openness and refusal to indulge in resistance. More than interesting. The analogy at the end is similar to one I use in that there are not common reference points. If someone has lived in a desert for hundreds of years and you talk about swimming in the vast ocean, they most likely would think you are nuts. Harris does an exemplary job of describing weight lifting as an example. In Shogun Toranaga asks Blackthorne to share his knowledge of the world. What Blackthorne tells him completely blows Toranaga's mind because it is so outside of his field of conception and experience, and Toranaga is an exceptionally intelligent and astute human being.
@@victorgreen6944 Books and books and sacred texts have been written about this and there have been thousands if not millions of hours of discourse. I am not here to write another one as a comment and recapitulate what now in our time is readily and easily available.
10:03 the more you can fall back into this recognition that there is no center to this experience it suddenly gives you a direct experience of equanimity in the midst of even classical unpleasant experiences
All it does really is make you one with your self and separates you from your ego. I’m not sure that’s a good thing because at the end of the day you’re someone to someone… if that makes sense
"There is only experience" That says it all. It's not too complicated. If there is a "you", you are literally made of all your experiences. Everyone thinks they are "me".
So the so-called "self" is merely a composite of its experiences? Does this mean the self doesn't truly exist, only the experiences exist and the brain generates a consciousness based on these experiences?
@@chaunceyfauntleroymontgome3535 if the experiences exist and the self is just a phenomenon that expresses the entirety of experiences, then wouldn’t that mean the self also exists the same experiences do
@_Sloppyham I should think so, but the inescapability of the effects of one's own genetic predispositions and environment, make me wonder how the self can possibly exist. This thing we view as our unique self is so heavily constrained by our external and internal environment that it makes it hard to think of a quality that is truly inherent to that self. Think of your personal 'self', for example. Can you think of a quality of your 'self' that can not be traced to some environmental/social/cultural factor or genetic predisposition? If not, where can we locate this supposed unique self? As far as my dumb ass can tell, nowhere. I'm probably wrong about all this but it's fun to think about anyway
Why are you taking what Sam Harris is saying as Gospel. There is most definitely a self. To deny this is to deny one of the most basic obvious facts of existence and experience. Our experiences, influences, and behaviors mold our "self", for the better or the worse. What is most profound is that our inner self innately knows to a degree what is wrong and right behavior. And when we behave contrary to our nature, we experience pain, regret, Anxiety and suffer. The self must be nurtured through behaving and thinking in ways that are in congruence with our inner nature or else the dissonance causes inner upheaval and unrest. This is the fundamental claim of religion. That the Creator after having created man based on a certain nature than revealed guidance that was in line with man's inner nature, by following which mankind could attain peace on the personal, familial, national and international levels.
Weren't there a lot of scandels with Better help? Like them illegally selling personal therapy data, and the therapists not actually being qualified to do what they do? Could you elaborate on your considerations to partner with better help?
Look. They're sponsoring our favourite RUclipsrs and providing sufficient funding to help them do worthwhile projects like this one. Let's all just quietly let it happen and agree not to use their services.
@William1w1 that would work, but only if everyone was aware that they are no good. People tend to trust their favourite youtubers as well, especially someone like Alex, who tends to do his research. My point is that not everybody knows they're bad, and thus, people will get scammed. Not good!
Very interesting conversation. I was typing some notes earlier, and had a memory of high school typing class (is that even a thing anymore?) remembering the struggle to get words from my mind through the typewriter and on to the paper accurately. I think our thoughts are similar in that we are practiced at thinking, and our subconscious just takes over. Kind of like driving. The first month of driving took some effort and attention, but once you were practiced the motions just started to flow. The problem is that all that subconscious flow into the world is only governed by past experiences, reactions, and environments, and has very little to do with who we are. I am a life coach and I have seen more lives turned around just by realizing that we mistakenly identified ourselves by the flow of the subconscious.
I accidentally took somewhere around 50-70 hits of LSD. (I took an eyedrop container into the bathroom at a concert, I was trying to give myself a drop and instead I squirted the entire thing.) I sat there and stared at a statue of Bhudda in a friend's house after the concert. I experienced an ego death, as in I did not have a sensation of self anymore. What I had were flashing visions of the faces of everyone I'd ever known, or seen, and a bunch my mind invented, and felt profound love for all of them, forgiveness for their faults. Jesus and Bhudda kept emerging from the sea of faces. I felt unity with every human's struggles, their love, their flaws, their genius, their failures and successes. It was like looking out through all the human eyes throughout history with immense loving kindness and empathy. It obliterated my ability to feel angry at people. I can still get frustrated at situations other people are causing, but never angry at the person. Before I'd even heard Sam Harris or Sopolsky talk about free will I had already begun to treat people as if they were not to blame for their own actions. The experience profoundly impacted the way that I view other people, and the way I treat them.
Not sure why an ape having a hallucination is profound. You have to be some kind of narcissist to believe you "feel" the suffering of the children screaming out for help as they starve to death all over the world.
@@ramudon2428 I'm sure I would have arrived at the same place either way, but definitely not when I was 20 years old. I was quick to forgive peers, but never authority figures.
This happened to me too, although I took 60 hits but turned out to be crazy strong, my whole world melted and gradually over 12 hours restructured my beliefs to compassion with continual references to Jesus and Buddha. I couldn’t help but think I had tapped into whatever inspiration they had as well
It's a universal philosophy, has nothing to do with x religion or x book or x philosophy. The truths are across all religions when you're aware enough to know.
@@Eliminton while some western philosophers have dwelt on the nature of self. It is predominant in eastern schools of philosophy, viz Hinduism and Buddhism. Abrahamic religions do not give any prominence to self enquiry.
18:19 The most important part starts here. The comparision of training your mind vs training your body on gym was superb! And it makes me wonder if there are ways to demonstrate your mental abilities after training hard. It's easy to see results of somebody who has been training hard in a gym for years but how do you see somebody has been successfully training their mind? I have some understanding of mindfullness but I still fail to understand the "self is an illusion" viewpoint in this discussion.
It was a good talk. To really relate what Sam Harris tries to convey there is a need to try a Tibetan type of meditation with open eyes. It's not difficult to practice and it's interesting experience.
Please help me understand! Still a question remains: Who is the subject that feels the tranquility/emptiness that is achieved after the self is removed?
No… the self is a muscle contraction appearing in consciousness… Peace is the result of this recognition that the self is an illusion… long lasting peace is the result of discovering that consciousness is infinite…
@@maxk3062 but still there is somebody realizes “there is no thinker” and experiences the peace. Why would you pursue this peace if there is nobody feeling the peace?
self is not illusion but it essence of your being which reveal itself in decisions you made and your ego. what is humanity if not struggle and conflict between reason and emotion, morality and desire. every moment your are making decision between them. often you don't think before making decisions because your self choose something else over your reason and rationality. idea of self is rooted in decision which you make.
I'm personally very happy to see Alex grown up into such a grand intellectual having conversations with the best minds on his podcast. It's such a pleasure to listen
There isn't just one layer of greatest minds. Sam Harris is definitely among the layers of great and so is Alex. I'm really proud of what these guys are adding to our understanding. Salute to them both...
@@jgarciajr82 Dumpty is dumber than a stump, and the fact is that Sam is pretty close. You also don't seem very bright, with that massive swing and a miss.
Things do not appear to anything. There is just apprearence without a subject. Try and look for that which is observing stuff and see if you can find something which isn't a new appearance and the reciever of experiences. Subjects are a product of language. But just like we don't think objects have female/male essences like we see in certain languages we do project the structure of language onto experience when talking about subjects. And i know it feels this way, like the contrated feelings of the seeming first person body and thoughts rapidly following other thoughts about a person living a life. Or when you think you are conscious of something it's just a thought about a thought about a thought or different sense modalitie.
@@lucasheijdeman2581 If you don't realize that you've just strung together a series of self-contradictory assertions, there is no hope for a rational discourse.
@@ZTAudioWhat is the contradiction? Please give me the formal inference structure. But even then contradictions seems perfectly fine to talk about concepts if you want them. Like i can stipulate concepts and rules for the usage of the concepts which are contradictory and you would perfectly know what i mean. For example: 1.All vultures are Wultures. 2. All Wultures are not black. 3. Delia is a black vulture. C. Delia is and is not a Wulture. You may want to say that you only adhere to classical logics and want to reframe contradictions like the liar paradox in different language (like partly or approximately, or in a certain sense.) But to say this is meaningless or non rational (as i assume you do) seems like a bias/failure of imagination on your part as three valence logics have turned out to be very useful in certain domains where classical logic turn out to be fruitless. What do you mean by rational here? It seems to me you are using to word to signify those things you don't like as you are unable to defeat the problem of the criterion. (You either assume/question beg for a certain proposition being rational/a correct instance of rationality without means of showing why that proposition as opposed to another account or you assume/beg the question for a methodology for sorting out rational from non rational propositions without first knowing what rational means in the first place so that you can differentiate the correct from the non correct method.) And because i aestheticly prefer that rationality can be reduced to consistency patterns in rule following and/or instrumentality towards goals in other cases depending on the social context i don't see how i am irrational as i seem to be forfilling my goal of replying to your vacous criticism without a problem.
The self being a useful construct does not make it an illusion. Going so far as to claim it literally doesn't exist as part of the mind results in statements that eat themselves. Like some of the other responses. It's odd to "me" that some feel the need to go this far when processing the idea that a fully concentrated essence doesn't exist.
There is no way to answer this without delving into the extremely supernatural ideas of the vedic Indian man Gatum where the idea of noself finds its origin. He never provided a shred of proof for any of this.
The wonderful thing about eastern traditions is that they implore direct engagement with their subject matter rather than leaving it up to ultimate subservience. This of course does not preclude some adherents to follow these traditions blindly nor mean that all followers of western traditions do not explore the implications in great detail, but that the difference in emphasis plays a huge role in how these traditions manifest. There's no one "Buddhism" or "Hinduism" because of how much these practices can vary person to person, let alone school to school. While it should, rightly be pointed out that western traditions have plenty of sub groups, the actual core way people practice their faiths is still quite similar overall. In this clip, Harris, presents a wonderful and digestible explanation of anatman and why meditation can be helpful and also why it is so difficult. Even if one thinks of this is eastern mumbo jumbo in the end, I still challenge people to really think through the implications of anatman and why it might not be so bad. Much of western thought is still gated behind orientalism and that we are all better served to break down these barriers.
@@manicbichon5847the no self is a way to discern what is stable and what is transient, advaita vedanta uses a similar means to establish the awareness as the unchanging self , Buddhism uses this to establish nothingness.
Iv listened to Alex for years and I was looking forward to the day he gives Buddhist/non dualism philosophy a proper go. Good to see him not appear to be too resistant to these sort of concepts. All his arguments against the existence of god are based on countering the abrahamic religions. After a year of daily meditation I’m not sure he would hold the same views on the matter ☮️
I think or at least hope that Sam Harris could be a good doorway or bridge in that sense, just like Jordan Peterson is acting as a doorway or bridge into (orthodox) Christianity.
Seeing this interview, I think it would really interesting to have Dr. K from the channel HealthyGamerGG to come on to talk about philosophy, the idea of consciousness, and maybe more in-depth meditation.
Am I the only one that believes that this "self is an illusion" philosophy is just idiotic? Who knows. Maybe I am just deceived by my illusionary self.
I think many people believe that; but consensus doesn't make an argument correct. I'd like to hear how you justify the self being real. This isn't a trick question; I'm genuinely curious why you are so convinced. Where is the self? Can you find it? Can you describe it? Could you even explain it? How could something inside consciousness be "you?" I can't even find a way to make a coherent argument like that.
The self is a construct, an abstraction we employ in order to exist effectively in the world. It is a useful concept, but it is still a concept. I don't know if "illusion" is the best word for it, but what I think the people who say that phrase mean is that "the self is not who we really are".
It could be idiotic, it depends what the belief is in detail. To believe that for example if you hold a particular moral stance and always think somebody else does as well because you are both one, you will end up bashing yourself against a brick wall at some point. However, it makes sense to me at least, that we are both individuals and one (selfless) at the same time. Individuals because I have different experiences to you and therefore different thoughts and behaviours based upon my belief system that has risen from these experiences, yet there is nothing that exists isolated in a complete vacuum, even in space there is interchange of energy. Every thought, word and action that we bring into existence has an effect on our surroundings, whether we like it or not. In that sense alone, the self is indeed an illusion. Self implies separation. Going further than this, as Sam points out albeit in a rather noncommittal way, it is possible to sense oneness when we go beyond our "thought programme". I have had a few inklings of this but tend to be a bit lazy with my meditation so I don't go so deep. But it might happen in dreams or when you're half awake as Alex alluded to. However, we need to employ our egos and reptilian brains from time to time in order to function and survive in this material existence, yet at a fraction of what a pretty unconscious society normally does.
It comes down to quality of conversation . These discussions, no matter what your views are , represent what podcasts, and social media were going to aspire to . Instead for the most part it is the nutritional equivalent to junk food for the mind what is out there These are the people I find interesting , great video
I always claimed to be a spectator of what happens to me if I phrased it right. Now I am having a better understanding of that. I was not too far from this paradigm
Not ego death but transcendence. You're endorsing spirituality, and Sam talked about "unity with a larger totality". You guys are talking about spiritual psychology. By the way, after many experiences in meditation, at 67 I find the most powerful meditation is walking through Nature. The most powerful mantra is the sounds of the ocean.
@@dxcSOUL Idk man, it's so great when someone can sort thoughts out for you and hold your hands until u can walk. It's more like an introductory guide than an idol
@@hesqn77 People have been debating this for millennia, and science still doesn't have an empirically proven answer to the question. Yet you're here stating your assumption as if it's fact? Have I missed something? Has a scientific revolution somehow passed me by?
"... my own words coming out of my own mouth seem no more connected to this thing I'm calling "me" than the words that are coming out of your mouth." Beautifully said! Unfortunately, what is really connecting me - I'd actually say locking me - to the experience of "me" is _pain_ and maybe fear, as well (or maybe some sorts of fear are actually pain). I never feel more "me" - and more locked to the "me" - than when I'm sitting in the dentist's chair. Or when I have a strong headache. Other people's pain doesn't really feel like "me" the same way, even though I sometimes do feel some kind of odd physical "mirror pain" (and also some reactive pain or empathy/sympathy, which is another thing than the direct physical "mirror pain") when somebody else is suffering.
@@teawhydee I am intrigued! Why not unfortunate? (Personally, I think the feeling of "solid me" is a solid pain in my behind, and the cause of a lot of trouble)
@@mailill that doens't make any sense, it's his own organism producing these vocal sounds and his own consciousness asserting the claim that his own sound isn't "his" somehow (his confusing himself!). I said this already, truth is independent of our own personal feelings, and while the "no-self" doctrine can be appealling and offer psychological comfort, that doens't make it any more true than saying that after my death I will be in a magical bed filled with beautiful women and infinite food etc.
@@mailill not unfortunate - mostly just because it's the way it is. I agreed mainly on the fear point. I am not sure what you mean by this solid pain (or 'solid me'), and I don't think I identify with pain. Still, you may be right about pain, but I don't think it's the pain itself makes me feel 'me' - it's the reaction to pain (fear/otherwise). I sometimes seek out moments and experiences that include some form of fear (which I tended to avoid before because of my personality). And I think a lot of people seek such experiences naturally. Maybe it's just because of dopamine. Is there correlation between dopamine levels and ego? Probably. But I don't really like thinking in those terms. I think out viewpoints are somewhat different.
@@joaocosta3506 You can't really locate the "me" though. I am not talking about the organism, of course, or the brain in itself - those can certainly be located. But if you try to "pin down" the feeling of "me" and "me-ness" as an experience, (this is "me", "this is who I am inside") which is what they are talking about, you might see that it is actually a psychological construct with no objective reality.
You can really see it all starting to click for Alex here. If somehow he is reading this, I hope you explore this more as many of us can attest that there is something very life changing on the other side.
@@ZER0-- I’m mainly referring to the insights you gain when when you learn to meditate and examine the contents of consciousness. The difference between an examined life and an unexamined one really can feel like a total different side.
I'm not convinced that the self is so easily dismissed as Harris claims. For example, I think the fact that Harris claims to not be able to tell the next words coming out of his mouth is just a product of him not being introspective enough about his speech. I doubt either Harris or O'Connor would ever say that they couldn't tell you the next thing they were going to write in an essay, but the only difference between speech and writing is the speed at which it happens. There's a rapidity to speech that isn't there in writing because when you're talking to someone, the responses *have to* come more quickly, but that doesn't mean that you're not editing yourself as you go along. You're more likely to notice your self-editing when you're trying to be tactful, precise, or diplomatic, but the editing is always there. Claiming to not know why you said what you said just shows either a lack of introspection or a lack of honesty.
Well, the vast majority of philosophers do not agree with the supernaturalist ideas of sam harris which are obviously inspired by the unfounded religious bollocks of Buddhism. Nobody is dismissing the idea except those who are propelled by supernaturalism.
Once you try mindfulness meditation as Harris himself teaches it on his Waking Up app, you can find out what he means by not being able to predict / control your next thought. Thoughts simply arise just like the next sound from the street or the next noise from another room appears. Mindfulness shows you that you can't predict in advance whether the next content in your consciousness will be a memory, an emotion, a picture, a craving, a sound, a sensation, etc. - it simply appears and you can't know what it is before it's there, as that would be impossible. It doesn't matter if you're writing or thinking and it doesn't have anything to do with self-editing. That's the only thing Harris claims, and everyone should be able to notice that if you pay close enough attention, i.e., if you practice mindfulness. Also, there is nothing supernatural about these claims about our universal subjective experience, as he himself often stresses. He and other secular, agnostic teachers like Stephen Batchelor would say you don't need to believe in Buddhist dogma to be mindful and notice how your consciousness works.
@@nowwhat6716what exactly is this “well known scientific fact”? It’s not entirely clear to me what exactly you’re referring to with that particular comment.
The no-self can be a common experience. Nodding off and waking to a noise. " Oh. That was me snoring." You hear it. But your self is not the central reference point. No- self hears the noise, the snore. The senses are still operative. (Audio sense). But there is no-one who is hearing
What the supernaturalist vedic Indian man Gautam meant when he said "noself" was that "ignorance itself" becomes an agent of action, so "ignorance itself" is the perceiver according to the religion that followed his death. This is obviously nonsense but we should not expect a man who lived 2500 years ago to have anything of value to say.
The question is invalid because you're already positing there to be a sense of self as the conclusion. Its like saying "if god doesn't exist, who created the universe?" Implying there has to be a "creator". In the same way, the question is asking "if there's no entity receiving consciousness, which entity is?" The human body is made up of a trillion or whatever dead molecules, and these molecules give rise to consciousness. These molecules are of course not the real "you", and most people see themselves as some sort of ghost in the machine controlling the neural impulses and muscles.
@@richardmccabe2392 What he is saying is that the idea of something being an illusion presupposes a self to be under the illusion. To deny the self is contradictory.
It's good to see you moving towards spirituality based explorations over the logical fallacies and religious debates. It's better to learn the universal principles that religion has built dogma on top of than the religions themselves.
self is an illusion and the self only lives for a fraction of a second. It’s incredible how the “self” is born but it doesn’t survive as long as you thought. this also seems in accordance with what Sam is saying
@@ZER0--for he who tries to find it. talking about this without having (and even having) experienced it is very very difficult, more is to understand it, really all this ijust an invitation to try and just notice. Doesnt matter what you believe or not, if you get on the practice of simply paying closer and closer attention youll gain wisdom, maybe not what you expect, maybe not something you know (or desire) to use in your personal life but youll gain it, after all mindfulness if anything its about experiencing the world and your life as close as they deserve without being interrupted by thought and appreciating the true and nature of everything that happens. Non-dual awareness is more like the ultimate peace if even a split second, a punctual practice to break the spell of self and other, and suffering. at leastthats how i see it, i dont even think i can practice in a non dual way right now. Hope you have time to read this, if you ever feel like the smallest bit interested just ask for a waking up subscription. Also im not trying to debate anything, just trying to be of help with me explaining my understanding of this
The Self is just a word to describe. .our experience of feeling a whole being..and an image of ourselves...our Ego is a smaller part of our wider Self.
Watch the full, three-hour conversation now: www.patreon.com/posts/101184504?
Is it only in full via Patreon or a delay for it to hit RUclips please Mr O'Connor? Also, finding you on RUclips has really helped with my decades old depression, the art of thinking...thank you.
No thanks.
Watch this back and look for structure and demonstration rather than opinion and woo.
This is woo.
Alex, if you want to meditate, better to start with a group experience. There is a synergy in groups where the sum is greater than the parts. We are like 60 watt bulbs. If we plug into a grid, the power available is much greater.
I worked in psyche rehab for 10 years leading meditations. I used a simple meditation of being silent and listening to music and invoking what is called "the healing stream". Energy filled the room. People with serious addiction and mental health issues found themselves deeply affected by the experience. the peace was palpable.
If the self is an illusion, then who is experiencing/having the illusion?
@@TheHuxleyAgnostic your mind, your brain, or your body.
1:43
Sam:"Have you ever taken psychedelics?"
Alex:"I have, yeah."
*Hitchens from the background:"Of course you have, you're obsessed with drugs!"*
😂😂😂 I can't.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH, this is a brilliant one!
Yes I have...a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls...
Fear and loathing 👍🏽@@Thedeepseanomad
I read it in hitchens voice lol
I feel pretty thankful that Sam Harris is patient enough to talk about this topic everywhere he goes. I struggle with mindfulness, and understanding it, but each time it is explained, I feel lucky to be forced back to true consciousness, even if for brief moment, and reminded how important it is to keep trying.
Yeah I love that he can continuously have this patience and even enthusiasm to talk about it, and that he always does it in such depth and with his remarkable articulacy. It's like someone said in the comments about Sapolsky, he's done so many interviews about the free will stuff, but never seems to get bored with it.
Have you tried his waking up app?
@@Sylar-451Yes it has been good for me. Makes perfect sense.
@Cody-qh3os So I feel drawn to respond to this. Mainly because you bring up a lot of good points to consider. Your perspective is actually quite relatable to my own except I don't see either side as being better than the other. The creators decision to create the illusion of separation within itself was not born out of loneliness. It came from a sudden flash of awareness. The understanding that it could know itself. Conceptually it's very much like the Big Bang. We are a beautiful part of that.
It's sort of paradoxical because both things are true. The fact that we are incarnated onto Earth, into physical bodies, and grapple with these concepts are proof that our physical existence is extremely precious, even if you only believe in the physicality of it all. There is an importance to this "illusory" space of separation that we find ourselves in. We get to come across other aspects of ourselves and truly believe it is separate. We get to have genuine expressions of our own Free Will, and Co-create alongside the creator. We create the encounters and interactions alongside the creator, in the present moment, and help it Define what it is in that moment. It is one thing to know the potentials, but the real magic is the unique unfoldment of those potentials into reality.
So the separation is important for knowing ourselves, but the deeper truth is that we have this innate, fundamental connection with everything. That we are all One, and infinitely connected in a holographic, fractal, universe. You can learn to connect to the creation, because you are it. We do this through the moment, which is all that there really is,
At least this is my experience. I'd love to hear your take on everything. I just felt I wanted to share about my thonking.
Nah its just an illusion like your self anyways.. :) Who cares.. No one cares, nothing matters. These guys are under the illusion that they are saying something worthwhile, in fact tho, all that is just another illusion. We live, poop and die. Onwards.. :D
If this really is Alex's first foray into mindfulness and the understanding of no-self, I expect we're going to be hearing quite a bit more about this in the coming months and years.
I'm very much looking forward to Alex getting into eastern philosophy!
“No eyes, no ears, no nose..”
im here for it
Probably. The Commies can't stand the idea of free will, it destroys their materialistic premise and ruins their entire cult religion. Thinking is not automatic, one must choose to think and therefore has free will. Commies wish everyone were NPC's or automatons. To their dismay, they are wrong. Harris is a woke quack and Commie religious cult fanatic. Sam just sucks and Alex is just a naive little boy pretending to know things he doesn't know.
"no-self" is a misunderstanding, it's supposed to be "non-self", as in the self is not to be found anywhere in particular in the 5 aggregates
Sams right eyebrow is raising higher and higher every time I see him
The comment I was looking for
Same!
Lmao😊
Because it's an illusion of Sam's right eyebrow!
@@Darth_Niki4 🤣
Sam and Alex in conversation, what a wondeful treat!!!
Agreed. uwu
“You are the universe experiencing itself.”
-Alan Watts
It’s like we’re all the swamp monster except this is barely allegory. Mind blowing to think about!
Bah, that's when it moves from a useful tool into pseudo religious meta physics
Oh, so the universe has a self?
@@joejohnson6327 bravo, nicely put
Your the light of a star and the darkness of outer space. That was my experience from heavy meditation. I also didn't sleep much and meditated a lot,so sleep deprivation causing hallucinations and delusions could've been possible also
This is one of those rare times i find myself thinking "oh i just really hope these two hit it off" and i care more about how they interact than the conversation itself.
Perhaps its because no matter how long this single discussion ends up being, there would be nothing i enjoy more than 2 dozen more of them over the next decade.
🤢🤮
💯
The pinned comment says it's 3 hours, so I think you're in luck
Well said. Good point.
@Drengodr I just read it now and I chuckled a little. I listen to Sam's podcast too so I'm used to longer format, but Alex's are usually shorter. It figures that it's Sam, of all people, that he gets a full 3 hours out of.
I like thay you adress the existential anxiety that is available when doing philosophy. I considered myself weak-minded when I lost some of the footing i thought i had, when i exposed myself to these questions and all their possible answers. Im glad that im not alone in thise experiences. And i love that Sam and you finally got a talk. Its been a long time coming.❤
“The more we make inner progress, the more the number of those with whom we can truly communicate decreases.”
-Emil Cioran
Gotta love Cioran haha
Inner progress is a lie. There is no where to go except up your own arse.
Gandalf, excusing talking to himself, mentioned something about the ancient tradition of discussing matters with the wisest person present.
The gravity of this statement pains me. My understanding has grown significantly over the past years, and it's a slippery slope talking with people generally about spirituality. I feel like I look a little more looney the deeper my understanding goes.
@@NenJiDaPassiv That kinda shows you have no understanding. Spirituality doesn't lead to insight or wisdom, it is effectively closing your mind. IT's no coincidence the parallels that are drawn between spirituality and conservatism, ironically. You are just creating a bubble for yourself only you can't see it. You believe you are gaining understanding when in fact you are deluding yourself.
Your words also tell me you don't understand the quote nor the man who said it, if you did you'd see the irony.
On a Vipassana 10 day meditation course (the practice that got sam going on the meditation path) the teacher said to me, most of the world just talks about this, here, we are doing it"
And thats so true.
How was your experience?
@@Eel-on_Musk it wasn't exactly a walk in the park, and still isn't, I almost left on day 2 thinking I wasn't ready. But I persisted and its the most worthwhile thing I've ever done. Now I do 1 or 2 courses a year. and practice once or twice daily, It gets easier and easier over time. I feel incredibly lucky to have been drawn to it. I could have easily missed this deeper perspective my whole life and gone on generating ever more layers of complexes ignorantly. Now I'm going in the other direction and am filled with gratitude for how my mind has changed over the past 6 years. Thanks for asking :)
@@constantchange1145 thanks for the reply 🙏
Did you get high or visions or rather how did it change you if I may ask?
@@Eel-on_Musk I didn't get high or have visions, though some do report all sorts of different transient experiences. I wouldnt say anything better than how Sam put it in this video. It has to be practiced to be experienced. And I'm careful about how I explain my experiences with it, because it's so helpful to go in without any expectations, with an open mind and ready to work. 🌱🌳 if you're looking for amazing high, bliss experiences or profound visions, that wanting might hinder progress in deeper insights or wisdom.
@@constantchange1145 what have you realised about the reality by doing this meditation..??
I am so excited for the full podcast!
Does anyone know when it's being released?
Two of my favourite public intellectuals in conversation. This is incredibly exciting. I hope it's the first of many talks. I think Alex is just as sharp and clear thinking, if not even more, in religious debates as Sam has been. This podcast is a real treat.
When Sam says at the end, that “the feeling of I” requires a prerequisite, a light by which I notice this feeling, I was instantly reminded of Heidegger’s concept of being-in-the-world. Which was, at least for me, an eye opener.
The Sartrean For- Itself ( and the Nothingness at the definitional and phenomenalogical core { in opposition to the In- Itself} ) rocks . Man
I've always wanted alex to delve deeper into eastern philosophies and mindfulness. He's a brilliant mind and it would be a treat to watch him unfold these concepts.
Why? Actual qualified individuals already do this, without the Western sanitising. Why is it better if he does it? Why do you want available information repeated by a specific individual? Does it suddenly make it valid?
@@pcaul8156 um. I've been following Alex since highschool and have found his insights very astute. I have studied a lot of eastern philosophy by myself, and I would enjoy a discourse on it.
@@pcaul8156it gives different prespective
@@pcaul8156 Within eastern philosophy and mindfulness is the answer to this whole god debate.
Which he seems very passionate about
I like the use of the gym and its outcome. As a meditator of almost 10 years (and waking up subscriber), there is still much to learn while simultaneously beginning again. Thank you both.
So refreshing to watch a calm and respectful conversation. We’ve become so accustomed to obnoxious and confrontational discussions where the goal is to score points and win, that something like this stands out as odd, is telling of the sad state of the modern media and the gotcha culture.
Realizing that you're angry for petty reasons and calming yourself after that realization is a great feeling 😃
It is good as long as you do that before acting out of anger.
I've been meditating for 4 years, thanks to discovering Sam Harris' app during the pandemic. It has significantly changed my life, but one thing I've always struggled with was this idea of "scrutiny of self" that he always describes. This video helped me finally get a glimpse of it for the first time. Thanks for sharing this conversation.
This is a method that was helpful for me personally with this sort of thing:
Asking myself: who do I believe I am? Whatever comes up, I notice it. Because I notice it, that means I am behind it, and it is not me, so I let it go of what came up. What am I thinking about next? Is that me? If not, I also let it go, because I am looking for my true self. I continue to let go of everything that is not me (not push it away, just relinquish it, just letting it drift away). Lo and behold, I am left with only raw experience at the end, not having found myself anywhere, I am left with no self.
And what got me here? The act (sensation?) of letting go of each of the things that came up prior.
So for me, re-accessing No-self becomes as simple as 'letting go' and learning to consistently access that sensation (action?) without even having to go through that questioning process, just letting go, and then sitting with what is left: no self, just experience.
I think this also ties in with the 'No-free will" stuff. Who is it behind your experience that is trying to control it, to access the no-self, to do anything? If there is no free will, who is trying to control what? Just a dog trying to hold its own leash.
Very well put.
Who lets go?
Just be mindful of this idea of "letting go" because it can be a subtle thought or image one is identified with. You can't actually grasp experience or let go, you can only become aware of that which was unable to be grasped in the first place. If you do have thoughts or images of "letting go", you want to be aware of that as yet another object in consciousness 👍
@@richardmccabe2392 thank you for the tip!
Stoked to see this whole conversation !
uwu
This was such a treat. Thank you, Alex.
Just listening to these guys talk about this subject is so wonderful. I've loved Sam and Alex for a long time and seeing both of them now, describing a phenomenon I enjoy, is just bunkers.
Exactly my thoughts!
Sam started my mindfulness journey back in 2014 (as well as my off again on again love for bjj) and he and Alex were the first atheistic content I consumed after leaving Christianity. It truly feels like I was "born again" as an atheist and like I've been waiting for these two minds to meet my entire life.
Sam Harris’ Waking Up app is incredible. It’s helped me and taught me so much.
Informative! I geek out on this!
And what did you learn?
Self is fluid and not a constant entity; it is dynamic and continues evolving. There is always discrepancy between how something is perceived or believed to be and how it actually may be.
Is that why it is fixed for some?
I never saw Alex nervous and he is not an intense expressive nervous dude, but you can clearly see he is so happy of being face to face with one of his idols. It’s like he is: “OMG IS SAM HARRIS” the entire time haha 😂
Exactly how I am watching them both together
👁️👄👁️
@@movepauserestore ME TOO HAHA 🤣
Is Sam Harris even that well regarded outside the space of "popular philosophy?"
Though I guess an atheist speaker would also look up to another well regarded atheist speaker.
@@aaryan346 Yes he is. But since his field is more close to science than philosophy it’s a little different.
Id say Sam is a very popular "public intellectual".
Sam is always interesting meditating is really helpful I've been doing it for months and I am more productive and less emotional would recommend to anyone
Immensely thankful to Alex and Sam Harris n RUclips for the video!!
Enjoyed the convo...Alex is a smart young guy and he's getting better all the time...I wish him well...
I’ve had an ego death experience and it wasn’t a net positive on my life. It led to me losing stuff I feel was helpful like my will, my agency and my creativity. Maybe if it happened on purpose after years of religious practices, losing my desires and sense of self would of felt like a relief. But to me, the resulting time afterwards felt a lot more like disassociation and depression
This doesn't always get talked about enough. Unfortunately psychedelic experiences are not always positive.
@@PatculSame goes for meditation, Sam is one of the few that do discuss the potential for negative effects, although yes psychedelics more commonly have a negative effect. Although still rare.
@@PKWeaver74that's how yoga is constructed to avoid any negative effect.
Ben Stiller is pretty smart!
Right??😂😂
hahahahahahhahahahahah😂
😂😂😂😂
Hearing sam explain everything I've personally observed myself doing, like distinguishing the separation from hearing and consciousness and the separation from self, etc...
Just feels crazy reflecting on things and just trying to grow intellectually as a person. Coming across a video expressing the ability for others to do that too is so cool.
Also reading the comments saying about how this is all essentially Buddhism and how alex didnt already know, as someone from the uk i can totally see how you would be able to come to being mindful without necessarily needing knowledge of eastern cultures as they can be quite stigmatised in the uk thus other methods will likely be taken for self improvement before then exploring those cultures
It's not Buddhism though because it's not true. Oneness is just an illusion.
@Darkloid21 i don't know if you're saying his perception of being able to analyse the thoughts and impulses happening in your brain isn't true or that Buddhism isn't true. As for Buddhism, I didn't say or necessarily believe it's true, especially when it comes to assention or becoming a higher state. I believe we are just what we are animals on a big rock. But I was simply saying it's understandable that someone from the uk wouldn't be so aware to the concepts within Buddhism
@@DRoW1l His perception of being able to analyze these things is wrong. It’s sad to see as a neuroscientist he doesn’t see that mediation just alters the blood flow to the areas of the brain that maintain our separateness from other things around us. He’s not talking about insight but literally just the result of altering your brain.
He’s also wrong about what meditation leads to. It’s just sad to see them both so wrong about it. Nevermind that mediation affects everyone wildly differently and psychedelic experiences don’t mean or prove anything.
@Darkloid21 curiosly, doesn't it bode for his point in some ways. What I mean is, the way i see it, the whole meditation thing is meant to be a parallel to being able to alter how your brain is functioning as if you were to take drugs of a kind. What we think and feel are just combinations of those electro signals and hormones, and like you said, bloodflow / oxygen levels all having different effects on our consciousness. Unless I'm completely misunderstanding, being able to observe that your consciousness/internal monologue is dictated by these things as opposed to believing we are special with higher levels of being, we're just essentially super smart monkeys. The way I think of it is that our internal monologue is just one of if not our best problem solving tool. But our sense of identity and self develope as its best way to discern our impacts on others and theirs to us. I can sit talking to friends playing games and completely dissociate from my sense of self or identity, purely in the moment. And I just hope that the point of the meditation or breathing practice is just a way to realise that our sense of self or identity is infact dictated by those impulses, thoughts will come to use whether we want to think them or not. And come a fair few situations discerning that 'I want' type of thought, especially an impulse to consume something we know we shouldn't, helps greatly to understand our body's effects on our thought processes and in some way give us a small element of controll by trying to understand why we thought what we thought.
Anyway, that's how I interpret it, but I, too, am not a neuroscientist, so if I got things wrong, clarification would be great.
Ty for reading anyhow
@@DRoW1l Not really. He’s not saying these are just chemicals, but at the same time he’s talking about this divorced from the spiritual context that makes it make sense.
An alteration to normal functioning doesn’t lead to truth here. There is a center putting this all together and experiencing it and it’s the brain. We even know where the self is located as well.
Your “sense” of self is a self not just a sense. You aren’t dissociating when you play games. In fact a lot of that processing happens prior to you being aware of it, so your thoughts are really just you being aware of what the brain already decided.
In short he’s wrong about everything in this. He has no idea what he is talking about and it shows. Not only does he get the neuroscience wrong but also the spiritual aspects of it. There is a reason you can’t talk about meditation outside the schools that teach it. Otherwise you end up with idiots like Sam who don’t know what they’re talking about.
You don’t have control over your thoughts and whether you want to think them and that’s not what meditation is about. Honestly people need to stop listening to Sam, he’s fallen off. Being a clear communicator doesn’t mean you know what you’re talking about.
Like in the last part, consciousness is a sense too, a sense of being aware. We are reducible to a sense, we aren’t more than that. Our brains take in data and model reality, not really perceive it. We even make predictions to compensate for our perception lag. So consciousness isn’t some prior thing to sensation, it is sensation. It’s impossible to be in the moment
We are the mind, not consciousness, everything he’s talking about is thought. Even that state of just being is thought and mind too.
Like I said, he knows nothing.
Thought provoking, thank you
Such an interesting and intelligent examination of what it means to talk about consciousness and the "self" from Sam. Makes me want to learn how to meditate. 😊
Sam Harris! Wow!! Go on, Alex! it's great to watch your career going stellar, dude. You're very good!👍
Buddhist interpretations of man presented as scientific facts.
Alex is getting wiser and wiser
thats true for litterally every human being on the planet. But okay.
@@Mikael-jt1hk Not necessarily. He’s starting to _get it,_ he’s getting closer and closer. There are many people on the planet who have no idea and are nowhere close…
@@epicbehavior Get what? Nowhere close to what? The more you learn and the more you understand....the less you actually do.
There are people out there, many people, who gain new information and either refuse to do anything about it, or flat out reject it because it does not align with their world view. Regardless of the truth of the new information. So no, not everyone gets wiser lol
@@DirtmopAZ Yep, and it’s very obvious he has enough awareness and IQ such that he can go from being _skeptical_ about something to things clicking quickly.
You can assess someone intelligence pretty accurately by watching how they take on new concepts and what they do with it.
Props on Alex for letting Sam interview himself.
I have found that so much of the struggle in contemplating these topics comes down to a definitional problem.
We often are using the terms “conscious” and “self” differently than others are in a conversation and we end up speaking at orthogonals to each other.
Easy for me to say, because I wouldn't do it either, but it would be interesting to hear about Alex's experience of ego death.
Harris has made it quite far, imagine being able to meet Alex!
(seriously, I high Harris in very high esteem, but I just love seeing Alex being actual, full-time philosopher. Remember taking a look at this teen-age youtuber who was already thinking way better than most academic adults I knew)
I think that's going a bit far. He's a RUclipsr, not a full-time philosopher. Does he have an academic qualification is philosophy? Does he hold an academic post? Has he had any papers published in academic journals? Has he come up with any new theories?
@@omp199 fair points, but there are several actual philosophers who haven't created any new relevant theories, I mean things that make people think in radically new, better way.
I'm more interested in merits or actual effect than academic titles. With CS background in uni I definitely value academics, but when it comes to rational thinking, epistemology and religion, I'd imagine Alex has caused much more good than all our most famous philosophers in Finland combined, due to his polite, witty questions he started asking publicly already during his early years.
Beautiful conversation. I’m understanding what Iam more every day 🙏🏾
It's my sincere hope that Alex commits more fully to the endeavor of investigating consciousness and its associated subjects.
The addition of someone with his exceptional articulation and keen analytical abilities to this domain would be immensely valuable.
We would greatly benefit from having such a brilliant communicator and sharp thinker join the space.
The brain is capable of being of setting itself Totally Free of fear, anxiety, sorrow, despair, loneliness, shame, guilt, confusion, contradictions, addictions, irritations, vanity, envy, greed, jealousy, attachment, possessiveness, ill-will, hatred, cruelty, bias, prejudice, and all other mental/emotional disturbances, in each and every moment of daily life, 24/7...AND it doesn't take time.
I always struggle with the word illusion because I'm fond of the way of thinking that perceives something that impacts reality as also real. It could be that is not actually there, but the act of thinking it's there changes the way you behave, therefore making the illusion something that influences reality in a meaningful and transformative way.
Well said. The character we attach to in a movie is never in front of us, they're pixels, and they've never even existed. But the way we feel about them and the things we learn about ourselves and life from them are very real and pragmatic.
@@chronicle8080 That's a bit more existence x reality than illusion x reality but I definitely agree. Lots of characters from movies and series don't actually exist, but are in fact more real than you and me or most people when you think along the lines of the impact in shaping reality that they had.
You could extend this idea when talking about God, that whether you believe in him or not, the influence of the idea of God is so insurmountably impactful that God could be defined as being more real than any of us, even if he may not actually exist.
Very helpful. Sam is great.
Alex please learn more about Buddhism. Keen for the full episode!
This is what people think they sound like when they are high or drunk.
I don't think so. Without the work, they tend to know everything about life though lol
😂
Took a couple of hits of acid once in college, and about 7 hours in, I realized that my emotions had flown off somewhere. It wasn't bad, it good, just weird. We headed home from our adventure, and once there, I was compelled to listen to a specific album. All of the emotions came crashing back on me and I felt so free and fine. Like all was right in the universe.
What was the album? 👀
TELL US DESERT SKY GUY, WHAT WAS THE ALBUM
Until he spills the beans, may I suggest _Science_ by Incubus. That has been the soundtrack to many a trip for me. Or how about the Screaming Headless Torsos. I was on acid the first time I heard them and I was completely enthralled.
@@nuynobi FUDGE YEAH SCIENCE BY INCUBUS
was trying to remember what we listened to, god, back in the eighties..!
definitely remember a pitch black room, a single red light coming from the music centre (lol) ..and some wicked Hawkwind...
hawkwind feels a bit corny now but it was spot on at the time...
people will disagree but Yello are pretty interesting at such times too... 🙂 x
Ok, I would definitely love to see a lot more conversations between these two.
The self observing itself deconstruct itself is still the self. The self believing it doesn’t exist is still the self. The self as a noun may be an illusion, but as Bucky Fuller said, “I seem to be verb.”
You notice he can't even describe the experience without terms like "you". The transcendental unity of consciousness is never an object of consciousness but is always the basic condition of any possible object of consciousness. But Buddhist philosophy is more concerned with bringing you to that state of recognition than it is in giving it an accurate metaphysical interpretation.
I mean self and "you" are both illusions lol
@@koffeeblack5717
@@koffeeblack5717 any recommended reading/listenjng on this point?
@@koffeeblack5717The english language doesn't allow for one to not use such terms as the language is a product of its culture and its philosophies. You can describe it much better in Pali for example
@@koffeeblack5717 seems like a deficiency in language not experience
If the self is an illusion, what should I call the thing that has been successfully decieved?
The ego is a common term used
@@Jhawk_2k is the ego also an illusion? It seems to me eventually you hit something that is distinct and irreducable i.e. nonillusory.
@@dcompx yes, the ego is also considered an illusion. The ego is something we describe that is not permanent, something ever changing therefore illusory.
You're correct, there must be something that can be considered irreducible. Sam is attempting to point us to this very irreducible fact. Since words and thoughts are always changing it can't be them, which is why words can't ever describe this place.
It quickly becomes clear that something lies beyond thought, but we also intuit that there must be something finite to what we're looking for. Each of our tasks is to discover this for ourselves.
Pseudo-self
@@Jhawk_2k very interesting.
This is something I have hoped for for quite a while. That one or some of these deep skeptics would find an intimate conversation with someone who can translate esoteric or mystical experiences (mostly as part of Eastern, not Abrahamic thought) into language and ideas the western mind can take in. Harris is very good at this, as were Ram Dass and Alan Watts, and it takes talent to do this well. This is a huge step away from discourses with fundamentalist Christian theists. Dawkins had conversations with a Hindu scholar and a Buddhist monk and neither had this particular talent, therefore the communication was clumsy and ineffective.
Harris presents a basic, non challenging, non theist basis for his perceptions, which have a strong Buddhist flavor (which is a non theist philosophy but has recognition of transcendental reality as part of the nature of things), but he speaks from a base of his own experience, which is important.
This is what I have been trying to get across for quite a while. That the nature of self, of consciousness and existence ( they haven't gone to the latter from what I have seen, Harris is very careful to lay a very strong foundation) has very little to do with conventional Abrahamic religious thinking and acknowledges profoundly that consciousness exists beyond the perceptions or operations of the intellect.
I applaud Alex for his openness and refusal to indulge in resistance. More than interesting.
The analogy at the end is similar to one I use in that there are not common reference points. If someone has lived in a desert for hundreds of years and you talk about swimming in the vast ocean, they most likely would think you are nuts. Harris does an exemplary job of describing weight lifting as an example.
In Shogun Toranaga asks Blackthorne to share his knowledge of the world. What Blackthorne tells him completely blows Toranaga's mind because it is so outside of his field of conception and experience, and Toranaga is an exceptionally intelligent and astute human being.
There is no such thing as "esoteric" or "mystical" experiences.
@@threestars2164 blanket statements have a hard time being completely truthful
why? religions don't have anything to offer to either science or skepticism, lol
@@threestars2164 Clarify please
@@victorgreen6944 Books and books and sacred texts have been written about this and there have been thousands if not millions of hours of discourse. I am not here to write another one as a comment and recapitulate what now in our time is readily and easily available.
10:03 the more you can fall back into this recognition that there is no center to this experience it suddenly gives you a direct experience of equanimity in the midst of even classical unpleasant experiences
All it does really is make you one with your self and separates you from your ego. I’m not sure that’s a good thing because at the end of the day you’re someone to someone… if that makes sense
This new style of videos is great
I cannot wait for the full release of this episode!
"There is only experience"
That says it all. It's not too complicated.
If there is a "you", you are literally made of all your experiences.
Everyone thinks they are "me".
So the so-called "self" is merely a composite of its experiences? Does this mean the self doesn't truly exist, only the experiences exist and the brain generates a consciousness based on these experiences?
@@chaunceyfauntleroymontgome3535 if the experiences exist and the self is just a phenomenon that expresses the entirety of experiences, then wouldn’t that mean the self also exists the same experiences do
self is just another experience in the panorama
@_Sloppyham I should think so, but the inescapability of the effects of one's own genetic predispositions and environment, make me wonder how the self can possibly exist. This thing we view as our unique self is so heavily constrained by our external and internal environment that it makes it hard to think of a quality that is truly inherent to that self. Think of your personal 'self', for example. Can you think of a quality of your 'self' that can not be traced to some environmental/social/cultural factor or genetic predisposition? If not, where can we locate this supposed unique self? As far as my dumb ass can tell, nowhere.
I'm probably wrong about all this but it's fun to think about anyway
Why are you taking what Sam Harris is saying as Gospel. There is most definitely a self. To deny this is to deny one of the most basic obvious facts of existence and experience. Our experiences, influences, and behaviors mold our "self", for the better or the worse. What is most profound is that our inner self innately knows to a degree what is wrong and right behavior. And when we behave contrary to our nature, we experience pain, regret, Anxiety and suffer. The self must be nurtured through behaving and thinking in ways that are in congruence with our inner nature or else the dissonance causes inner upheaval and unrest. This is the fundamental claim of religion. That the Creator after having created man based on a certain nature than revealed guidance that was in line with man's inner nature, by following which mankind could attain peace on the personal, familial, national and international levels.
Weren't there a lot of scandels with Better help? Like them illegally selling personal therapy data, and the therapists not actually being qualified to do what they do?
Could you elaborate on your considerations to partner with better help?
Look. They're sponsoring our favourite RUclipsrs and providing sufficient funding to help them do worthwhile projects like this one. Let's all just quietly let it happen and agree not to use their services.
@William1w1 that would work, but only if everyone was aware that they are no good.
People tend to trust their favourite youtubers as well, especially someone like Alex, who tends to do his research. My point is that not everybody knows they're bad, and thus, people will get scammed. Not good!
Very interesting conversation. I was typing some notes earlier, and had a memory of high school typing class (is that even a thing anymore?) remembering the struggle to get words from my mind through the typewriter and on to the paper accurately. I think our thoughts are similar in that we are practiced at thinking, and our subconscious just takes over. Kind of like driving. The first month of driving took some effort and attention, but once you were practiced the motions just started to flow. The problem is that all that subconscious flow into the world is only governed by past experiences, reactions, and environments, and has very little to do with who we are. I am a life coach and I have seen more lives turned around just by realizing that we mistakenly identified ourselves by the flow of the subconscious.
Really enjoying watching where your curiosity is taking you
I accidentally took somewhere around 50-70 hits of LSD. (I took an eyedrop container into the bathroom at a concert, I was trying to give myself a drop and instead I squirted the entire thing.)
I sat there and stared at a statue of Bhudda in a friend's house after the concert.
I experienced an ego death, as in I did not have a sensation of self anymore. What I had were flashing visions of the faces of everyone I'd ever known, or seen, and a bunch my mind invented, and felt profound love for all of them, forgiveness for their faults. Jesus and Bhudda kept emerging from the sea of faces.
I felt unity with every human's struggles, their love, their flaws, their genius, their failures and successes.
It was like looking out through all the human eyes throughout history with immense loving kindness and empathy.
It obliterated my ability to feel angry at people. I can still get frustrated at situations other people are causing, but never angry at the person.
Before I'd even heard Sam Harris or Sopolsky talk about free will I had already begun to treat people as if they were not to blame for their own actions. The experience profoundly impacted the way that I view other people, and the way I treat them.
I didn't even have to take LSD to get there, it sort of just made sense as I grew older.
Not sure why an ape having a hallucination is profound. You have to be some kind of narcissist to believe you "feel" the suffering of the children screaming out for help as they starve to death all over the world.
Beautiful experience. May the auspicious happen
@@ramudon2428 I'm sure I would have arrived at the same place either way, but definitely not when I was 20 years old.
I was quick to forgive peers, but never authority figures.
This happened to me too, although I took 60 hits but turned out to be crazy strong, my whole world melted and gradually over 12 hours restructured my beliefs to compassion with continual references to Jesus and Buddha. I couldn’t help but think I had tapped into whatever inspiration they had as well
They are analysing Advaita Vedanta philosophy in Hinduism.
Sam has studied eastern philosophy considerably
It's a universal philosophy, has nothing to do with x religion or x book or x philosophy. The truths are across all religions when you're aware enough to know.
@@Eliminton while some western philosophers have dwelt on the nature of self. It is predominant in eastern schools of philosophy, viz Hinduism and Buddhism. Abrahamic religions do not give any prominence to self enquiry.
@@ElimintonNope
@@Elimintonit's Hinduism
These discussions about self, etc, are more relevant than ever, in an age of the dawn of AGI.
18:19 The most important part starts here. The comparision of training your mind vs training your body on gym was superb! And it makes me wonder if there are ways to demonstrate your mental abilities after training hard. It's easy to see results of somebody who has been training hard in a gym for years but how do you see somebody has been successfully training their mind?
I have some understanding of mindfullness but I still fail to understand the "self is an illusion" viewpoint in this discussion.
It was a good talk. To really relate what Sam Harris tries to convey there is a need to try a Tibetan type of meditation with open eyes. It's not difficult to practice and it's interesting experience.
When the student is ready, the teacher will appear
Amazingly accurate saying I've found..
Confucius right..?
Alex won't find a better mentor than Sam.
No student was ready
I hope Alex will trip with Sam. He’s “get it” then. And it’d change his entire worldview, making it more complete in a profound way.
😂
Please help me understand! Still a question remains: Who is the subject that feels the tranquility/emptiness that is achieved after the self is removed?
Everyone else around you feels it, because you are no longer a problem child...❤
No… the self is a muscle contraction appearing in consciousness…
Peace is the result of this recognition that the self is an illusion…
long lasting peace is the result of discovering that consciousness is infinite…
No subject. There is seeing, but no seer; hearing, but no hearer; thinking, but no thinker.
@@maxk3062 but still there is somebody realizes “there is no thinker” and experiences the peace. Why would you pursue this peace if there is nobody feeling the peace?
@@ivangonzalez1954 who is experiencing the peace? Do you mean oneness with the universe when you said discovering consciousness is infinite?
Sam Harris talks, I listens
Underrated comment
@@ZorbaTh underrated response 🙏
Stop he is actually really dumb
Have you listened to his views on Gaza?
@@ZER0-- I have not
From about 17:00 to about 20:15 was VERY GOOD!
self is not illusion but it essence of your being which reveal itself in decisions you made and your ego.
what is humanity if not struggle and conflict between reason and emotion, morality and desire.
every moment your are making decision between them. often you don't think before making decisions because your self choose something else over your reason and rationality.
idea of self is rooted in decision which you make.
I'm personally very happy to see Alex grown up into such a grand intellectual having conversations with the best minds on his podcast. It's such a pleasure to listen
😂 Pretty sad, if Harris is one of the "best minds".
@@TheHuxleyAgnostic ok Harris is not Leonard Susskind or Joshua Bach but he's pretty incredible guy
There isn't just one layer of greatest minds. Sam Harris is definitely among the layers of great and so is Alex.
I'm really proud of what these guys are adding to our understanding.
Salute to them both...
@@TheHuxleyAgnostic can't argue with facts my guy 😂 I would like to see who you think has a great mind...Trump 😂😂😂😂😂
@@jgarciajr82 Dumpty is dumber than a stump, and the fact is that Sam is pretty close. You also don't seem very bright, with that massive swing and a miss.
If the self is an illusion, then to whom does this illusion appear (and presumably) deceive?
Things do not appear to anything. There is just apprearence without a subject. Try and look for that which is observing stuff and see if you can find something which isn't a new appearance and the reciever of experiences. Subjects are a product of language. But just like we don't think objects have female/male essences like we see in certain languages we do project the structure of language onto experience when talking about subjects. And i know it feels this way, like the contrated feelings of the seeming first person body and thoughts rapidly following other thoughts about a person living a life. Or when you think you are conscious of something it's just a thought about a thought about a thought or different sense modalitie.
@@lucasheijdeman2581 If you don't realize that you've just strung together a series of self-contradictory assertions, there is no hope for a rational discourse.
@@ZTAudioWhat is the contradiction? Please give me the formal inference structure. But even then contradictions seems perfectly fine to talk about concepts if you want them. Like i can stipulate concepts and rules for the usage of the concepts which are contradictory and you would perfectly know what i mean. For example: 1.All vultures are Wultures. 2. All Wultures are not black. 3. Delia is a black vulture. C. Delia is and is not a Wulture. You may want to say that you only adhere to classical logics and want to reframe contradictions like the liar paradox in different language (like partly or approximately, or in a certain sense.) But to say this is meaningless or non rational (as i assume you do) seems like a bias/failure of imagination on your part as three valence logics have turned out to be very useful in certain domains where classical logic turn out to be fruitless. What do you mean by rational here? It seems to me you are using to word to signify those things you don't like as you are unable to defeat the problem of the criterion. (You either assume/question beg for a certain proposition being rational/a correct instance of rationality without means of showing why that proposition as opposed to another account or you assume/beg the question for a methodology for sorting out rational from non rational propositions without first knowing what rational means in the first place so that you can differentiate the correct from the non correct method.) And because i aestheticly prefer that rationality can be reduced to consistency patterns in rule following and/or instrumentality towards goals in other cases depending on the social context i don't see how i am irrational as i seem to be forfilling my goal of replying to your vacous criticism without a problem.
The self being a useful construct does not make it an illusion. Going so far as to claim it literally doesn't exist as part of the mind results in statements that eat themselves. Like some of the other responses. It's odd to "me" that some feel the need to go this far when processing the idea that a fully concentrated essence doesn't exist.
There is no way to answer this without delving into the extremely supernatural ideas of the vedic Indian man Gatum where the idea of noself finds its origin. He never provided a shred of proof for any of this.
The wonderful thing about eastern traditions is that they implore direct engagement with their subject matter rather than leaving it up to ultimate subservience. This of course does not preclude some adherents to follow these traditions blindly nor mean that all followers of western traditions do not explore the implications in great detail, but that the difference in emphasis plays a huge role in how these traditions manifest. There's no one "Buddhism" or "Hinduism" because of how much these practices can vary person to person, let alone school to school. While it should, rightly be pointed out that western traditions have plenty of sub groups, the actual core way people practice their faiths is still quite similar overall.
In this clip, Harris, presents a wonderful and digestible explanation of anatman and why meditation can be helpful and also why it is so difficult. Even if one thinks of this is eastern mumbo jumbo in the end, I still challenge people to really think through the implications of anatman and why it might not be so bad. Much of western thought is still gated behind orientalism and that we are all better served to break down these barriers.
"Direct engagement" yet there's no self to do the "direct engagement"? Mkay
@@manicbichon5847the no self is a way to discern what is stable and what is transient, advaita vedanta uses a similar means to establish the awareness as the unchanging self , Buddhism uses this to establish nothingness.
I had satori while listening to Sam deliver this logical handhold: 20:47.
just his theory, influenced by his budhism
@@ondrejsaly749theory becomes fact if you realize it for yourself
Iv listened to Alex for years and I was looking forward to the day he gives Buddhist/non dualism philosophy a proper go. Good to see him not appear to be too resistant to these sort of concepts. All his arguments against the existence of god are based on countering the abrahamic religions. After a year of daily meditation I’m not sure he would hold the same views on the matter ☮️
I think or at least hope that Sam Harris could be a good doorway or bridge in that sense, just like Jordan Peterson is acting as a doorway or bridge into (orthodox) Christianity.
Actually Buddhism is not non dualism
It's Advaita Vedanta a Hindu philosophy
@ yes advaita but also Mahayana Buddhism. Read nagarjunas MMK it’s simply wonderful. ❤️
Seeing this interview, I think it would really interesting to have Dr. K from the channel HealthyGamerGG to come on to talk about philosophy, the idea of consciousness, and maybe more in-depth meditation.
100% - would be a great discussion, Alex is such an incredible podcaster but dr K could give him a 15% xp bonus on eastern knowledge
Am I the only one that believes that this "self is an illusion" philosophy is just idiotic?
Who knows. Maybe I am just deceived by my illusionary self.
Nope
I think many people believe that; but consensus doesn't make an argument correct.
I'd like to hear how you justify the self being real.
This isn't a trick question; I'm genuinely curious why you are so convinced.
Where is the self? Can you find it? Can you describe it? Could you even explain it?
How could something inside consciousness be "you?"
I can't even find a way to make a coherent argument like that.
The self is a construct, an abstraction we employ in order to exist effectively in the world. It is a useful concept, but it is still a concept. I don't know if "illusion" is the best word for it, but what I think the people who say that phrase mean is that "the self is not who we really are".
Whole clip: Buddhist interpretations of man presented as scientific facts.
It could be idiotic, it depends what the belief is in detail. To believe that for example if you hold a particular moral stance and always think somebody else does as well because you are both one, you will end up bashing yourself against a brick wall at some point.
However, it makes sense to me at least, that we are both individuals and one (selfless) at the same time. Individuals because I have different experiences to you and therefore different thoughts and behaviours based upon my belief system that has risen from these experiences, yet there is nothing that exists isolated in a complete vacuum, even in space there is interchange of energy. Every thought, word and action that we bring into existence has an effect on our surroundings, whether we like it or not. In that sense alone, the self is indeed an illusion. Self implies separation.
Going further than this, as Sam points out albeit in a rather noncommittal way, it is possible to sense oneness when we go beyond our "thought programme". I have had a few inklings of this but tend to be a bit lazy with my meditation so I don't go so deep. But it might happen in dreams or when you're half awake as Alex alluded to. However, we need to employ our egos and reptilian brains from time to time in order to function and survive in this material existence, yet at a fraction of what a pretty unconscious society normally does.
Full video when? Eagerly waiting :)
Same bro, same
Usually released on Sundays
Its out now if you pay some money on his patreon
Alex is a snake....why would he release the full video......he's part of the problem and only want to tease you for more
It comes down to quality of conversation . These discussions, no matter what your views are , represent what podcasts, and social media were going to aspire to .
Instead for the most part it is the nutritional equivalent to junk food for the mind what is out there
These are the people I find interesting , great video
exactly! huge emphasis on NO MATTER WHAT YOUR VIEWS ARE. There is always something to take away and consider.
Diversifying the series I see 🙌🏼
The gym analogy is great
Bro stop teasing us with these bites off the full podcast
True. It could help someone but it's locked behind a paywall lol
You’d rather see none of it then? It’s 23 minutes, and you’re whining about being teased..
I think it will be uploaded to RUclips eventually, on Patreon it is a timed exclusive. Which is fair I reckon.
I suspect it's more a way to milk some extra views out of the conversations
It's so funny that Harris accepts basically the entirety of Humean skepticism except his morality.
What's a "Humean"?
A follower of David Hume's philosophy
Because he is a neocon
I always claimed to be a spectator of what happens to me if I phrased it right. Now I am having a better understanding of that. I was not too far from this paradigm
Not ego death but transcendence. You're endorsing spirituality, and Sam talked about "unity with a larger totality". You guys are talking about spiritual psychology.
By the way, after many experiences in meditation, at 67 I find the most powerful meditation is walking through Nature. The most powerful mantra is the sounds of the ocean.
Nature is the goat :D
Alex is the reason I am interested in Philosophy
It's a shame some people need an icon of some sort, whether it's a thing or person to get them interested in deeper concepts.
That's awesome, he has impacted my philosophical journey greatly as well
@@dxcSOUL Idk man, it's so great when someone can sort thoughts out for you and hold your hands until u can walk. It's more like an introductory guide than an idol
@@dxcSOULWhy is that a shame? The result is the same, more people interested. Which is a good thing.
@@dxcSOUL
He never said Alex is his icon, just the reason he is interested in philosophy.
“We are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively”. For me, Hicks summed it up with this.
Who is Hicks?
@@ZER0-- Bill Hicks
@@hesqn77 People have been debating this for millennia, and science still doesn't have an empirically proven answer to the question. Yet you're here stating your assumption as if it's fact? Have I missed something? Has a scientific revolution somehow passed me by?
You just did the same with your first comment lol@@benjamindavidscargill5633
I get the sense that Sam Harris understands these concepts intellectually and not spiritually.
What's the difference?
@@prime-mateOne is a concept, the other is a direct experience
@bobbobson4030 you mean concept of spirituality can only be experienced intellectually! 😉
@@prime-mate What?
@bobbobson4030 Bob son of bob.. My original tongue and cheek joke is so old now, it's just not worth the effort....
Alex always sounds sarcastic 😂 Love him and his podcasts though. Wouldn’t change anything about you. Thanks for your amazing podcasts.
Two brilliant minds at their peak. 🇦🇺 😊
"... my own words coming out of my own mouth seem no more connected to this thing I'm calling "me" than the words that are coming out of your mouth."
Beautifully said! Unfortunately, what is really connecting me - I'd actually say locking me - to the experience of "me" is _pain_ and maybe fear, as well (or maybe some sorts of fear are actually pain). I never feel more "me" - and more locked to the "me" - than when I'm sitting in the dentist's chair. Or when I have a strong headache. Other people's pain doesn't really feel like "me" the same way, even though I sometimes do feel some kind of odd physical "mirror pain" (and also some reactive pain or empathy/sympathy, which is another thing than the direct physical "mirror pain") when somebody else is suffering.
I agree. I wouldn't call it unfortunate, though.
@@teawhydee I am intrigued! Why not unfortunate?
(Personally, I think the feeling of "solid me" is a solid pain in my behind, and the cause of a lot of trouble)
@@mailill that doens't make any sense, it's his own organism producing these vocal sounds and his own consciousness asserting the claim that his own sound isn't "his" somehow (his confusing himself!). I said this already, truth is independent of our own personal feelings, and while the "no-self" doctrine can be appealling and offer psychological comfort, that doens't make it any more true than saying that after my death I will be in a magical bed filled with beautiful women and infinite food etc.
@@mailill not unfortunate - mostly just because it's the way it is.
I agreed mainly on the fear point. I am not sure what you mean by this solid pain (or 'solid me'), and I don't think I identify with pain. Still, you may be right about pain, but I don't think it's the pain itself makes me feel 'me' - it's the reaction to pain (fear/otherwise).
I sometimes seek out moments and experiences that include some form of fear (which I tended to avoid before because of my personality). And I think a lot of people seek such experiences naturally. Maybe it's just because of dopamine. Is there correlation between dopamine levels and ego? Probably. But I don't really like thinking in those terms.
I think out viewpoints are somewhat different.
@@joaocosta3506 You can't really locate the "me" though. I am not talking about the organism, of course, or the brain in itself - those can certainly be located. But if you try to "pin down" the feeling of "me" and "me-ness" as an experience, (this is "me", "this is who I am inside") which is what they are talking about, you might see that it is actually a psychological construct with no objective reality.
You can really see it all starting to click for Alex here. If somehow he is reading this, I hope you explore this more as many of us can attest that there is something very life changing on the other side.
What do you mean by "the other side"?
@@ZER0-- I’m mainly referring to the insights you gain when when you learn to meditate and examine the contents of consciousness. The difference between an examined life and an unexamined one really can feel like a total different side.
I'm not convinced that the self is so easily dismissed as Harris claims.
For example, I think the fact that Harris claims to not be able to tell the next words coming out of his mouth is just a product of him not being introspective enough about his speech. I doubt either Harris or O'Connor would ever say that they couldn't tell you the next thing they were going to write in an essay, but the only difference between speech and writing is the speed at which it happens. There's a rapidity to speech that isn't there in writing because when you're talking to someone, the responses *have to* come more quickly, but that doesn't mean that you're not editing yourself as you go along. You're more likely to notice your self-editing when you're trying to be tactful, precise, or diplomatic, but the editing is always there. Claiming to not know why you said what you said just shows either a lack of introspection or a lack of honesty.
Not everyone has the same ability to edit or filter.
It's well known scientific fact. If it was as easy as U explained it there won't be any problem or discussion on it. It's much deeper then that .
Well, the vast majority of philosophers do not agree with the supernaturalist ideas of sam harris which are obviously inspired by the unfounded religious bollocks of Buddhism. Nobody is dismissing the idea except those who are propelled by supernaturalism.
Once you try mindfulness meditation as Harris himself teaches it on his Waking Up app, you can find out what he means by not being able to predict / control your next thought. Thoughts simply arise just like the next sound from the street or the next noise from another room appears. Mindfulness shows you that you can't predict in advance whether the next content in your consciousness will be a memory, an emotion, a picture, a craving, a sound, a sensation, etc. - it simply appears and you can't know what it is before it's there, as that would be impossible. It doesn't matter if you're writing or thinking and it doesn't have anything to do with self-editing.
That's the only thing Harris claims, and everyone should be able to notice that if you pay close enough attention, i.e., if you practice mindfulness. Also, there is nothing supernatural about these claims about our universal subjective experience, as he himself often stresses. He and other secular, agnostic teachers like Stephen Batchelor would say you don't need to believe in Buddhist dogma to be mindful and notice how your consciousness works.
@@nowwhat6716what exactly is this “well known scientific fact”? It’s not entirely clear to me what exactly you’re referring to with that particular comment.
The no-self can be a common experience. Nodding off and waking to a noise. " Oh. That was me snoring."
You hear it. But your self is not the central reference point. No- self hears the noise, the snore. The senses are still operative. (Audio sense). But there is no-one who is hearing
it’s fascinating if one has just the moment just that moment of understanding of the mechanism and working of the self it’s hangover will last forever
Who is experiencing the illusion if there is no self? If there is no self, who exactly is it that perceives the illusion?
What the supernaturalist vedic Indian man Gautam meant when he said "noself" was that "ignorance itself" becomes an agent of action, so "ignorance itself" is the perceiver according to the religion that followed his death. This is obviously nonsense but we should not expect a man who lived 2500 years ago to have anything of value to say.
The question is invalid because you're already positing there to be a sense of self as the conclusion. Its like saying "if god doesn't exist, who created the universe?" Implying there has to be a "creator". In the same way, the question is asking "if there's no entity receiving consciousness, which entity is?"
The human body is made up of a trillion or whatever dead molecules, and these molecules give rise to consciousness. These molecules are of course not the real "you", and most people see themselves as some sort of ghost in the machine controlling the neural impulses and muscles.
I’m positing a self because what else could posit?
@@richardmccabe2392 What he is saying is that the idea of something being an illusion presupposes a self to be under the illusion. To deny the self is contradictory.
Yes
It's good to see you moving towards spirituality based explorations over the logical fallacies and religious debates. It's better to learn the universal principles that religion has built dogma on top of than the religions themselves.
No religion is based on "universal principles" and neither is your new-age rubbish.
@@threestars2164 I disagree but I appreciate your opinion. Love and Light to you my friend!
self is an illusion and the self only lives for a fraction of a second. It’s incredible how the “self” is born but it doesn’t survive as long as you thought. this also seems in accordance with what Sam is saying
It's there every time you look for it. That's the opposite of illusion, that's Truth.
If the self is an illusion, then who is the illusion for?
@@ZER0--for he who tries to find it. talking about this without having (and even having) experienced it is very very difficult, more is to understand it, really all this ijust an invitation to try and just notice. Doesnt matter what you believe or not, if you get on the practice of simply paying closer and closer attention youll gain wisdom, maybe not what you expect, maybe not something you know (or desire) to use in your personal life but youll gain it, after all mindfulness if anything its about experiencing the world and your life as close as they deserve without being interrupted by thought and appreciating the true and nature of everything that happens.
Non-dual awareness is more like the ultimate peace if even a split second, a punctual practice to break the spell of self and other, and suffering. at leastthats how i see it, i dont even think i can practice in a non dual way right now.
Hope you have time to read this, if you ever feel like the smallest bit interested just ask for a waking up subscription.
Also im not trying to debate anything, just trying to be of help with me explaining my understanding of this
The Self is just a word to describe. .our experience of feeling a whole being..and an image of ourselves...our Ego is a smaller part of our wider Self.
Yup. That is my understanding, that I myself have come to, as well.
Alex cranking up that stage light