Sam Harris Is Wrong About Morality | Can Morality Be Objective without God?
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- Опубликовано: 21 апр 2024
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This episode features the eminent scientist, Prof. Martin Rees, as he joins me in traversing the worlds of physics and biology.
Together, he and I grapple with the profound complexities of understanding reality, from contemplating multiple dimensions to exploring the implications of scientific insights that inspire and challenge us.
Dive into the evolution of humankind to include digital and AI creations, ponder philosophical questions of consciousness and self-awareness, and speculate on the future of machine consciousness.
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Big fan of yours Richard, you look great for 83. Lets hope you are around for many more decades, we need more people of reason and fact.
Richard Dawkins is one of my favorite person in the world.
get all your book content on youtube shorts Richard. in 50 years few will read books,
bequeath us your knowledge in snappy format
so we grow more stupid less quickly
Reason and fact is limited as is belief and disbelief. The only thing that is valid is knowing.
@@ALavin-en1kr Facts are what is true, reasons are the proofs given for a fact. If you think this is limited then you are limited in body and mind, have a nice day.
@@mariospanna8389Well it's a fact that evolution is impossible, so what do you do now?
It's a fact that water, rocks, minerals, proteins, lipids and all chemical elements are dead! No matter how you combine dead things, you cannot give them life!
It's a fact that evolution is supposed to be progressive!
But you and Dawkins etc ignore a more important fact, that the fossil record shows 11 distinct sudden explosions of life, the Avalon Devonian and Cambrian etc, where fully formed insects fish reptiles birds and mammals etc etc spontaneously appear in the fossil record without any transitional forms or common ancestors!
Why ignore this and spend decades bemoaning religion instead!
Research irreducible complexity, explain how a simple cell somehow developed the ability to create the most complex coding system known to man, using biological components!
Or explain how a simple cell developed the ability to carry out the incredibly complex series of chemical reactions we call the Krebs cycle, which will not run, unless all chemicals and enzymes are available.
It's taken scientists 100 years to get even close in a lab. It's Impossible!
You talk about facts but ignore them if they don't agree with your theory.
Sad really
RIP Daniel Dennett❤
What! I didnt know that. Nooo....😢
How sad. I had no idea also along with @frilansspion. RIP Daniel. Inspirational and a great, articulate rationalist. ❤️
How tragic 😢
@@will6724 He was 82 and had lived an amazing life. Not a tragedy, just sad.
Rip
How LUCKY are we to be alive to hear these two giants in conversation 👏👏🙏🙏
I find it strange that an atheist or "cultural christian" can say we can't get morality from reason, when every religious text is written by people not gods; and in other words all the morality in the books are from people, even if those people claim it's in the name of some god. And as Richard Dawkins says; today religious people choose what verse to follow based on modern, secular reasons.
Because they use the word ‘reason’ to refer a cold rationale calculation of ultimate gain.
Objective morals aren’t from religious books. Objective morals are universals, something innate to all humans. Example: hurting innocent people is not morally good.- there are higher morals, which are subjective…such as how relationships should be.
@@jaromsmiss Exactly. And even the subjective "morals" in religious books are from humans, not gods (obviously). All moral is human, and objective morals are innate in humans. Which is why I found Martin Rees statements so strange (and sad).
@@tcroncero Perhaps, but I think that applies to very few people since we have evolved as a group that depends on others to survive, and are able to appreciate the intellectual contribution of those around us even in spite of physical challenges, and also see simply "being human" as something to be protected and reason enough to be cared for. Of course this depends on how far back in history we are talking about.
@@deadbishop9317 That's an extremely modern and christian view of humanity that doesn't at all reflect the history of humans. The most common reaction among any tribes that met each other was war or raiding. Within their own civilizations, how they treated someone had a lot more to do with their sex, class, and skin colour. So no, humans don't naturally treat other humans good just because they are human, instead it's far more tribal in that certain humans are seen as worth listening to whereas others can be ignored. It's for this reason that the christian teachings of loving your neighbour and treating others as you would be treated were actually seen as radical ideas!!! Hence, why Dawkins and Rees are calling themselves cultural christians - they recognize they have morals views that are cultural.
34:54 The way that Dawkins asks a question is inspiring, his wording is so concise and his question is so defined, it's like poetry.
Morality is nothing more than the rules we make to govern our societies. To a large extent they have universal application because societies are founded on similar basic fundamentals. Morality, whether it be objective or subjective, is independent of god for the simple reason that there is no god.
The catch is though, that the extent to which we behave morally in accordance with the guidelines/laws etc, depends on how much or little we are dominated by our selfish ego. That's not to say we shouldn't look after ourselves, but I'm talking about the insecure, often conflicted "person" that we (wrongly) tend to think of as our entire self. The problem with mainstream Christianity, and some other faiths, is that their world view is hooked on the narrow human way of thinking about everything in terms of subject/object, eg "God" created "Life". In more mystical, meditative traditions, both East and West, it's all about our direct experience of this moment, when seen without the obscuring filters of our noisy minds. Many have tested this, including many atheists, and found it utterly transformative and liberating, i.e. they have tested the hypothesis by experiment. This is not something that can be put into words though - not in a way that lets the other person experience it. Anyway, that's how I think people can behave more morally - when we have more mental clarity and self-sufficiency!
Thank you for hosting such a living legend. Much love
Don’t know if you remember, but in 2011(? May have been 2009) you came to UVA in Charlottesville. I was so excited! I went with a group of people from the local Skeptics group and it was incredible to see you speak. You were kind enough to stick around afterwards and sign books. I still have my copy of the God Delusion, you signed.
I never could get close enough to Carl Sagan to sign my copy of Cosmos, when he was at Monticello in ‘92.
Fascinating talk. Keep going Richard!
Love to see a talk with Richard and Ray Kurzweil, concerning the Singularity and Epoch 6.
A wonderful talk. Professor Rees is able to convey his ideas very succinctly.
What a treat.!! Thanks so much 😊
Of course, anyone who lands the Templeton Prize, will ONLY say good things about religion.
Richard, you are NOT wrong about religion in society. Thanks for being the voice of Logic and Reason!!!
Much Love and Respect ❤
Eternal Memory of Daniel Dennett!!!⚘❤
Such a delight to listen to these two bright minds
I love you Richard Dawkins!
This conversation is at a register I am unable to comprehend!
that point he made about how the next breakthrough frontiers of science will be a "new kind of knowledge" that only complex AI will ever fully understand and humans will just have to accept never being able to wrap their heads around it is actually a really interesting thought and probably true
Thanks again for an interesting discussion 👍
I came away unconvinced that Harris is wrong. Nice chat though. Thx.
It's very wholesome seeing Richard share his fascination of science with a topic that is so alien to him.
I adore Lord Rees! Great to see him here. He is always so interesting and inspiring
This channel keeps me sane in an crazy world 🖖
For people running this channel, make a separate clip with the part talking about the title and give this professor due respect and stick his name in this full interview.
I’m not in the mood to find the meat for the bait I clicked on. Maybe I’ll come back and watch the full interview some time.
no one gives a shit dude
Agreed, it's 25:30 and his disagreement with Harris is pretty standard is/ought sort of objection.
1 word review -- marvelous!
Love your tie! :)
Why is this video titled "Sam Harris is wrong about morality"?
It looks like a clickbait such as those videoes with titles "person1 destroys person2".
It's not in Richard's class, at all!
Agreed. It's not very tasteful, although I guess they have to play the game if they want to perform on the platform..
I expect this sort of thing is up to someone else. It did get me to click
Apparently it is "in Richard's class". This is, after all Richard's channel.
@@hundredfireify his ideas should stand on their own merits without having to resort to clickbait.
That's what one must do when their ideas aren't up to par.
@@mugsofmirth8101 Well, the surprise and the fact that we are talking about this means that this doesn't look like Richard's way, especially since Sam and Richard are good friends and on the same team most of the time. I wouldn't have commented if it was Ben Shapiro's or Dave Rubin's channel.
2 titans of British science. ❤
Great admirer of R’s intellect and the disentanglement of the vastitudes inherent in religions , the conversation with Reese highlights ,to me, their shared avoidance of the very nature and existence of consciousness which does all this ........
The music at the beginning reminds of Dr Venkman’s paranormal cable TV show
I've watched many videos of Dawkins and Rees kn RUclips and others such as Penrose and Pinker, this vid has got me particularly excited, going to enjoy with a nice cup of tea on the sofa. 🛋️☕
Likewise! Cheers!
I'm gonna go out on a limb and answer the thumbnail's question BEFORE watching the video: No chance he's wrong.
Have you watched the video now?
@@omp199 Soooo embarrassed - I always mix up Sam Harris and Ben Stiller. My bad.
😂😢😅
8:10 almost miraculous😂
Wow, not come across Prof Rees, but what a clear explanation he gives, of the technique of identifying if a star has a planet. If only all scientists explained things this logically.
Martin Rees tied himself in to a few knots when he talked about using religion to guide morality.
Yes, he ended up trapped when Richard pointed out that judging which aspects of religion are moral requires moral judgement founded outside religion. A good chat nevertheless. Laurance Krauss also had a good long chat with Martin
Yes…but theres something to be said for using moral principles thatve been holding true for thousands of years, rather than asking people to try their best to reason it out or trying it out. Most people are pretty lost frankly. I think there should be more of a middleground really here
Rees was purchased by the Templeton Foundation.
@@Notalloldpeople Morality flows from our DNA as does all behavior of all mammals and all creatures as does social order as well.
A harmony in all aspects of life that we see and sustain or offend and where and how, dare I ask is this possible? call it by whatever name suits you science, God , all only names for something more than remarkable ( God forbid we use the G name)
He only affirms the same shortcomings he critcizes in religions, not those of the real teachings but his and all our shortcomings, those of men
Yes, and limited this conversation.
That small part of YT actually worth watching. Two great thinkers on interesting tricky questions, I liked the subject 19:55 most and cited you in the Kialo argument map "What is God?" because one potential definition of God(s) could be aliens (and I don't know why people use words without defining what they mean): whether they could only be godlike or possibly actual God(s) was a question just waiting to be addressed by somebody notable explicitly. I think all possible ways should be addressed and next up could be the simulation hypothesis (maybe in another video?).
I disagree that it's "[just] a semantic question" - semantic questions are questions about meaning, it couldn't be much more useful, and this needs to be addressed explicitly rather than just implicitly and it's good to do so before religious people do so.
It's also great that Dawkins stood by his assertions about religion in culture and didn't give in or change subject just because some reasonable major/valid points have been raised by Rees and that he put up a bit of scrutiny against them. There's many further points Dawkins could have made such as that there's not one path/way of the Church not surviving - for example there could be popular ways people substitute whatever they got from religion, e.g. in terms of meaning, moral guidance, and motivation in their lives. The benefits have been greatly overstated and one could have ethics/philosophy as a major subject in schools (could you address that - the lack of it in many countries or as a default subject and the need for it - in another video?)
It really is getting tiring having to respond to assertions that people need a god or religion to be “more” moral. I’m glad Richard pushed back against the claim, but it is tiresome to hear it still parroted even by non-religious thinkers.
Just goes to show you that even intelligent people who are true professionals in their field should probably stay within what Warren Buffett calls, "Circle of Competence". Because most who venture outside that circle, and look to bestow their opinion on matters, are unfortunately stating opinions based on surface knowledge rather than deep understanding. Don't be surprised if humans are still stating such things 25 years from now....those "memes" are very often spread from parent to child or other 'authority figures' and once those memes lock on, it's very difficult to pry them from ones brain.
All the best doctor.
Why can't morality be based on reason and sense just like traffic rules? Even the most devout zealots must admit that we didn't need any deity to make the traffic rules! They make perfect sense.
I think it is.
We life in a subjective perceived world with subjective man-made morals, based on KNOWLEDGE, EXPERIENCES and AGREEMENTS.
Over several generations we figured out that e.g. mu rder causes a lot disadvantages: you k ill someone from another familiy, they will k ill someone of your family, both families are weaker after.
Both families KNOW, based on that EXPERIENCE, that its better to not mu rder, they AGREE about that and develop a subjective moral and a juristic law agaisnt it.
Agreements like this lift the personal subjective moral on a common level, till the nevel of a nation, etc.
Based on KNOWLEDGE, EXPERIENCES and AGREEMENTS, we all agree that murder is by moral a no go and by law a crime.
The only way that murder can become accepted is claiming that its a demand from a "higher will" and by that an objective moral (which doesnt exist, but they claim it anyway). With that trick the Hebrews justifyed the gen oz ide they did on the Ammonites, and the Nazis justifyed they gen oz ide they did, etc.
Objective morals are not only not existing, they are also dangerous.
@arnelrdal2335 It ought to be possible to base morality on reason, the issue then becomes how do you enforce it in a world where selfishness overrides reason much of the time? The trick of religion was to leverage people's credulity to generate an existential enforcement mechanism for good behaviour. Theists try to push the idea that religion was such a moral force because of its inherently optimistic and beautiful story of salvation and everlasting life, but when it comes down to it ppl's behaviour was altered because they wanted to avoid hell and punishment.
Secular morality has no such compelling motivators at its disposal.
@@sierrabianca You exposed religion in the right way, but there is a big danger:
We life in a subjective perceived world with subjective man-made morals, based on KNOWLEDGE, EXPERIENCES and AGREEMENTS.
Over several generations we figured out that e.g. mu rder causes a lot disadvantages: you k ill someone from another familiy, they will k ill someone of your family, both families are weaker after.
Both families KNOW, based on that EXPERIENCE, that its better to not mu rder, they AGREE about that and develop a subjective moral and a juristic law agaisnt it.
Agreements like this lift the personal subjective moral on a common level, till the nevel of a nation, etc.
Based on KNOWLEDGE, EXPERIENCES and AGREEMENTS, we all agree that murder is by moral a no go and by law a crime.
>> The only way that murder can become accepted is claiming that its a demand from a "higher will" and by that an objective moral (which doesnt exist, but they claim it anyway). With that trick the Hebrews justifyed the gen oz ide they did on the Ammonites, and the Nazis justifyed they gen oz ide they did, etc.
Objective morals are not only not existing, they are also dangerous.
@@sierrabianca But people don’t fear eternal damnation and hell when breaching traffic rules, at least minor things. If they fear something it is being caught. But the punishment will be reasonable. Not biblical!
@@arnelrdal2335 I wasn't suggesting that Biblical scale motivators were the *only* ones which compel people to 'behave'. It seems pretty self evident that with things such as traffic rules, self interest plays a huge role in people's adherence to them. Any fool can see that running red lights isn't a long term strategy for survival. Fear of getting caught is a factor too, but judging by the sheer volume of minor traffic violations logged (which are only a fraction of the total committed), it's not a compelling one.
The only point I'm making, and it's not in defence of theistic morality at all, is that if you can get somebody to sincerely believe that abiding by certain rules will yield an eternal reward for them..they'll very likely follow those rules to the letter. No secular equivalent to that exists as far as I'm aware. Reason will only get you so far unfortunately, largely because culture has been poisoned (by religion) with the idea that without God nothing can possess value or purpose and so a purely reason based morality isn't even up for consideration for these people. It's pathetic.
Richard, couid you please, regularly, just talknabout how wonderful Russel's Teapot theory is, it us so fantastic.
I love you so much Prof.Richard, you gave me inspiration and motivation. You are a person loyal to your cause, and humanity always loves and supports you ❤
Its almost conceivable that words spoken by hominids as inspiring and intelligent as these two could be as profound as a Rembrandt late self portrait but they are only words and not the deep answer to the 'hard' question of consciousness that Rembrandt gives us. Arguably 🤔
I love that Richard dressed for the occasion.
At the point someone says “I believe I would behave better (or more “good”) with religion”; you should instantly question what they think is “good”. If a supernatural myth causes you to be “better”, then you need to change your idea of “better”. Because you don’t currently value the state of “better” that you have as a standard for existence.
the development of AI is secular intelligent design." What a great observation.
The more time I spend working with computers the less I consider a future inhabited by them and not us "inspiring."
At around 23:00 is a fair criticism of Dawkins, which I have made to his twitter account.
The guest says "I'm not with you in attacking religion" I think the reasons Rees gives for that shows an understanding of economic tradeoff that still eludes Dawkins. Dawkins benefits more than he suffers from the existence of a certain amount of people who "really do believe that stuff' (to a certain extent). Dawkins benefits from being in an economy, which requires people who have different emotional and intellectual needs.
24:00 Richard, it's not "patronizing" to accept that the average IQ (and EQ) is 100. Snap out of it.
Fascinating discussion, so much to say in response. On the issue of religion and morality, it is perfectly true that, as is often said, "you don't need God to be good". That is, you don't need a personal, explicit, conscious belief in God to be a moral person. We don't have to be believers - or for that matter non-believers - to be moral, we just need to be human. The much more difficult issue is the philosophical one. In the absence of God (the absolute transcendent Good which is the source of all things) what can we base morality on, what is our explanation of it? Non-theistic/scientific views, being reductive, have the effect not of explaining morality but of explaining it away. It is an evolved Darwinian survival mechanism, or it is conditioning arising from an invented socio-cultural construct, or part of a Freud-style psychological mechanism, or simply neuroscience, the neurons firing in this or that part of the brain. Morality is seen as an illusion (a powerful one, admittedly) which is a cog in some entirely non-moral mechanism. In contrast, the idea of God is not of a celestial police officer watching our every move. Rather, on the religious view, God as the Good is what gives meaning and ultimation to that moral sense which is central to what we are as human persons.
It’s not a difficult issue. One is true and the other isn’t. As much as you’d like a god to be the basis of morality the fact is that there is zero evidence for any god yet there is overwhelming evidence that we derive our morals from human experience.
Philosophy is much made up words put together to explain something beyond its practical application. Made up like gods as we preach them. Morality is always based on the rules of society which is based on the form of that society. In islamic societies it is immoral to be gay. In a western society, say like Sweden or Switzerland, it is morally alright to be gay.
@@karagi101 I don't think human experience can be seen as the basis of morality. Moral values and principles are things we apply to experience, not derive from it. Nor, surely, can we see morality as a sort of majority vote or consensus which society conditions us (via parents, education, law, etc.) to accept. As I say, the problem with non-theistic accounts of morality is that they inevitably have to find a non-moral explanation of why we are moral, so that they end up not explaining morality but explaining it away.
@@a.gwhiteley1855 We’ve learned morality from human experience just as we learn everything else from human experience. We knew murder and stealing were immoral before any religion codified these as immoral. Humans had to behave in certain ways to be able to cooperate, live and function together to survive. Actions that we found were detrimental to the wellbeing of human groups were deemed immoral. Morality evolved with experience and knowledge.
You're absolutely right - we don't need religion to give us moral principles and values, we have them because we are rational human beings. Religions themselves, in fact, say the same thing. The problem, however, with an explanation of morality in terms of society is that morality is seen as conditioning: society conditions us to adhere to certain behaviours because they are advantageous to it. The traditional view, on the other hand, held by just about every thinker, including religious ones, from Plato to Kant, is that morality is, like mathematics, perceived by reason. It is reason which tells us, for example, that we should look for the good of society, even to the point of sacrificing our own interests. It's a bit ironical that it is only with the Enlightenment - the "Age of Reason" - that we have relinquished this approach and opted instead for evolutionary and social explanations. I suppose this may be because the view from reason implies that there is a level of reality beyond the purely material cosmos.
Maybe some day we’ll be able to build compute systems that can outperform the human brain, but as it stands now, our brains operate on 10W of energy and weigh 2.5lbs - a machine equivalent would consume orders of magnitude more power and thermal envelope becomes difficult to manage (supercomputers have to be cooled). So wetware is much more efficient than any current hardware/software systems.
Another wonderful talk. One thing I take exception to is Prof. Rees' denigrating remark about monkeys: in my opinions, monkeys understand the postulates of quantum mechanics every bit as well as humans do.
Please show me the monkeys that can calculate how a wavefunction evolves in time using the Schrödinger equation.
@@xnoreq I see you have specified time dependence; are you suggesting that monkeys might understand the math of Schroedinger's time-independent equation of (hbar^2/2m)(Psi)sub-xx+U*Psi=E*Psi? Of course, the real point--as has been pointed out by minds superior to mine--that anyone who thinks they understand QM, doesn't. :)
@@karlyohe6379 That applies only to the philosophical interpretations of QM.
You are the real one love
I've admired your work for a long time, Richard. I appreciate your true skepticism which led you to oppose the new age woke left. I'd be really interested in you weighing the pros and cons of our early 2000s domesticated christianity (which is ultimately quite wholesome) against the government influenced 'woke' religion.
Now we’re throwing in “New Age” in that strawman bigotry about wokeism? It’s slur not a movement.
Just make up a word and have it represent everything you hate, then you can focus your frustration there.
@@ihatespam2 I'm using Woke in the way Dawkins does in other videos. It's your choice to make it a strawman or a steelman. Also, excuse me for hurting your feelings. Again, thank you Richard for challenging the new age liberal mindset (Which i agree is a betrayal of our old fashioned liberal values that we need to stand by) They never should have taken your humanist award away.
@@thisisbrotherhood769 this has nothing to do with liberal or mindsets, that’s you hiding from the topic.
And, steelmanning is when we try to agree on what something means, so no, it’s not an individual choice, another dodge.
And the whole point is, Dawkins sloppy use of the word woke, leading to problematic issues of people taking past each other. (See every comment you made.)
So, Im feeling you’re not even trying here. I’ll let someone else try to clarify all this for you some other time.
@ihatespam2 respectfully disagree. Woke encapsulates trans to kids ideology, censorship of people that disagree with it, etc. And it happens to be a fringe part of the left. I threw in "new age" to show that it is not standard liberal belief, but it is newfound which has brought me from liberal to moderate-light conservative. You simply don't have enough anti-bias to recognize that it is under the liberal platform that took Dawkins humanist award away. I couldn't care less about your idea of strawman or steel man in this circumstance. I dislike the notion you are so easily offended. Good luck to you.
How can we be in the 21st century and still be discussing this issue?
Why that video title? Sam Harris was mentioned here? I must have blinked.
Can you say if a mathematical equation is more rational than other? 26:00
Limited. It’s like they’re gluing random pieces together in a bid to paint a picture that has no solid canvas under it. I get it, they’re intelligent sound bites that map onto complex shapes but nonetheless, it adds up to nothing more than the obvious.
The revealing note was is in the notion that science can save us. No doubt science can help us but it can’t save us. To save is a feeling of connection. It is an a’ priori connection with the whole ecology of being. It is a conceptual framework that tries to wrap itself around something broader than each of us as individuals. To save is spiritually grounded. It is transcendental and only through this lens can we come to terms with the full scope and scale of what we are. Illumination will come when the mind fully calibrates around the correct ontology of being. Science can’t draw a line to measure this. Science is just a tool; a method. Part of the conceptual eye that seeks to understand the world it is of.
Waw my 2 favourite intellectuals disagree on something, I'll report back after watching to confirm which side I take on this topic. ❤
I think most wisdom and morality can only be learnt by the group over many years, generations, obstacles, rising and falling, different ideas, most often wrong until one works and the people thrive. The culture see's this, values the idea and passes it to the next generation, often by metaphors, song , story (most in history were uneducated and couldn't read and write). I don't think on an individual level we as humans are anywhere near smart enough to work out morality. They can converse and have a number of ideas that within reason are good ideas. Add them to the social system to be tested by time. It's taken a very long time to reach this point, with many a thinker talking about this and we still have a ways to go. The realm of the individual mind working in large groups is mind bogglingly complicated.
Very nice. Thank you. I find it strange that he feels religion should not be attacked. Partly it must have to do with how weak it became, otherwise we would be stoning a lot of people right now.
Consciousness is perfect. It is fundamental, not subject to motion or to anything elemental. It is ‘the hard problem’ for atheists, the wall they can neither climb nor tear down. It is good that materialism and materialists meet an end-point, something that cannot be tampered with, although we are living in a material age and many are materialists. In higher ages those who could only comprehend or apprehend matter were employed sweeping the streets. In this material age they are at the top of the professions, in science and in philosophy.
So it would be sad if all life forms were not able to feel sad? I got it right? :p well I agree. Wonderful discussion/video, thanks !
Master.
Morality bifurcates across obligations and prohibitions, so it's always going to feel schizophrenic to try to rationalize it. People keep trying to rationalize morality, and this is not so difficult to understand. There's a kind of anxiety in not knowing what's really on one's neighbor's mind.
The part when the guest made the argument about Harris being wrong is around 26:00
23:29- all the more reason for Atheists to develop their own forms of “devotional” art, music and architecture where nonbelievers can feel welcomed and part of a wider community - something which makes religion so alluring.
Thank you for this interview.
I like your skepticism of what we can measure at such great,distances. It is remarkable what we (as a species) have been able to create to augment our senses, whether it’s different wavelengths (e.g., x-rays) or the composition of distant stars through the spectrum of light we receive. I understand it up to a point, but when we reach a certain point, it seems we might add a little humility since as good as our instruments have become, it is not inconceivable that our present knowledge is very flawed, much as Copernicus advanced our understanding our place, but was wrong at the same time.
Also, regarding morality, I agree with you that a moral philosophy can be derived from our experience, without the need to defer to a higher power. When bringing up the issue of birth defects or euthanasia, I think rational people can disagree as to the morality of a particular action, but that doesn’t mean there is an objective morality that could provide a correct solution. I think the golden rule works as well as any form of most questions, but even then, we wouldn’t want masochists to torture others! I suppose that is the conundrum of beings that can act rationally, but are also inherently irrational.
Thanks again.
Masochists want to be tortured. Sadists want to torture others. 😂
Yeah, I read On The Future. It wasn't that exciting. But then, I'm a biology guy.
I like his approach to religion and have always hoped that Dawkins would take a more live and let live approach.
33:50- The Big Bang Theory is way more incredible and inspiring than any Creation myth we can imagine.
And…?
Is there more to that than you informing us as to what you find inspiring?
As a long time fan of Dawkins I’m surprised how many times he says “Umm”. Maybe it’s because the guest rubbed off on him? Never heard so many umms from my hero before, regardless, still love the content!!!!
If there is more than one Universe, why not more than one God (if they exist) ?
If a Universe existed before this one, why not a God that existed before the One we have now ?
Hamas and ISIS members believe a God is watching them (and us). Can't believe how intelligent people struggle to grasp deeply philosophical concepts that Sam and Richard peddle so beautifully.
There are two perspectives to reality and objectivity, i,e. 1. realism [philosophical] and anti-realism [Kantian], thus scientific realism and anti-realism [where morality can be objective scientifically].
If one approach morality from the philosophical realist position, i.e. a mind independent reality, e.g. moral emotivism, then morality cannot be objective because the common understanding is moral elements are subjective and not a matter of fact not truth apt. While the idea of a mind-independent reality is useful for basic common sense survival, it is grounded on an ASSUMPTION that there is something out out we can never realized but merely mirror or correspond with. Philosophical realism is grounded on an illusion.
Theism is also fundamentally philosophical realism, i.e. believing in a mind-independent God.
There is no denial that scientific facts are objective [as contingent upon the human-based
scientific method], either from a realist or antirealist pov.
There is no denial the majority accept the existence of morality, believe it, response to it and act upon it.
As such, there are regular patterns of relations and activities within the human brain that is represent moral beliefs and behaviors.
It is the business of science to discover these patterns as scientific facts which then is scientifically objective. We can infer these scientific moral related patterns are there, it is a matter of science advancing to confirm them.
I believe Harris is also optimistic that morality is objective in this sense.
Take inbreeding avoidance which is a evolutionary biology and psychological fact [scientific]. it is also a moral element. This inbreeding avoidance algorithm in the brain must be represent by a specific physical neural network When this is scientific fact is inputted into a a moral framework, it is then an objective moral fact grounded on the consensus of a collective. As such morality is objective [as qualified to this specific moral element].
That morality is objective cannot be claimed in-general but rather must be qualified to a specific set of moral elements which is justified scientifically [scientific antirealism] as objective.
We life in a subjective perceived world with subjective man-made morals, based on KNOWLEDGE, EXPERIENCES and AGREEMENTS.
Over several generations we figured out that e.g. mu rder causes a lot disadvantages: you k ill someone from another familiy, they will k ill someone of your family, both families are weaker after.
Both families KNOW, based on that EXPERIENCE, that its better to not mu rder, they AGREE about that and develop a subjective moral and a juristic law agaisnt it.
Agreements like this lift the personal subjective moral on a common level, till the nevel of a nation, etc.
Based on KNOWLEDGE, EXPERIENCES and AGREEMENTS, we all agree that murder is by moral a no go and by law a crime.
The only way that murder can become accepted is claiming that its a demand from a "higher will" and by that an objective moral (which doesnt exist, but they claim it anyway). With that trick the Hebrews justifyed the gen oz ide they did on the Ammonites, and the Nazis justifyed they gen oz ide they did, etc.
Objective morals are not only not existing, they are also dangerous.
Richard "won" the moral philosophy debate about as strongly as one could expect. There was a lot of backing down stopping just short of saying.. well of course if you put it rationally then of course morality can come from rationality.
Small time Bertrand Russel!! Sam got burned! LOL
The truth is the truth. Sam isn’t going to invent a new truth when Russel already elucidated it.
Thank you both so much.
If premisis is not a word, then neither is premiseez!
Your financial handlers should get a refund on that associates degree they showed you. It's worthless.
I tend to not bother to pick up my dog's shit unless there's a CCTV camera or someone watching around. I think Martin still has a point about behaving better if he thought God was watching. That's just human nature.
We simply do not know, and can not know our origins, meaning/purpose, and that includes morality and ethics. They always have been there, and until we get excess beyond the 3 dimensional 5 senses restriction of our existence that will remain so. Simple acceptance of the unknown is just too difficult for most, sadly.
That’s such a definitive statement. How do you know what we can and can’t know? We certainly know our origins from when evolution began. We are working on discovering how life began and I expect we will find that answer eventually too.
@@karagi101 we definitely do not know our origins are from evolution. That is only an adapted narrative. There is no ultimate evidence that is indeed the reality. The answer will only come to us when we learn have excess to the fourth dimension and beyond.
@@Robert-xs2mv I think you need to go sit under a tree. Evolution is proved, and we do know our origins are from evolution. Anyone can go and use some mystical bullshit as the answer for everything, that's easy.
The use of the terms "but true gods are..." is rather unfortunate. What I think he means is "but the idea we have of what a true god should be is...."
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Our morality isn't based on abstract reasoning it's based on what we will do under pressure, and when scared.
That's only one aspect...and very simple at that.
@@ck58npj72 If your moral beliefs fall apart under pressure it means they are not your real beliefs.
@@jawhale833 More important is if ur in a position of power, or the things you do that nobody notices.
Exactly backwards.
You cannot presuppose the level at which meaning can be gained from information. It may be that knowing the theory of everything does in fact inform our understanding of biology, we cannot know until we know (or don't). My second point is that the lesson to gain from AI isn't that we can create consciousness which is a special quality, but that consciousness is an illusion. Complexity creates illusions of intelligence and life. Our understanding is how we are like the machines not the other way around.
"My second point is that the lesson to gain from AI isn't that we can create consciousness which is a special quality, but that consciousness is an illusion."
Can AI falsely believe itself to be conscious?
Thats what you hold to be the case for humans right?
@@swaydam I think you are begging the question because the idea of belief is a quality of only conscious beings.
@@nineteenninetyfive Maybe I missed something. I thought you were implying there is no consciousness, for humans or AI.
In which case, my belief that I am conscious is false.
But if only conscious beings can hold beliefs, I must be conscious.
@@swaydam if you want to get into this further we are going to have to define terms, but essentially I am saying that our perception of consciousness is an illusion, as are our beliefs.
@@nineteenninetyfive I would like to get into this further.
I have no idea how to define consciousness or perception without using synonyms.
Belief means to hold something as true.
Illusion is a mistaken belief caused in part by an incomplete/limited perception.
You said our perception of consciousness is an illusion as well as our beliefs.
I don't see how there can be perception without consciousness.
I don't see how there can be illusion without consciousness.
Can an AI have an illusory perception of consciousness?
Can an AI have an illusory perception of having beliefs?
Needing religion to be moral is a supremely immoral position. And that's even assuming that you actually behave in a moral way based on your religion, which is a dubious proposition in practice.
Exactly. If you have empathy and grow up, you don’t need daddy telling you. If you’re a sociopath, you don’t listen to daddy anyway.
I knew Sam Harris was wrong when I heard him saying Israel is entitled to commit genocide
Yuval Noah Harari next Prof Dawkins
Didn’t Richard seem to agree with Sam? At least his position seems closer to Harris than Rees. The clickbait title seems a bit beneath the discussion. Still fascinating.
rees is more conservative whereas richard is more left wing
You take God out of the equation you take Consciousness out of the equation, and mind which emerges with quantum events would not exist either.
Well then. What should we do about this Sam fella
The question is - Why would one behave better if a God was watching them? For me it just highlights dishonesty and an underlying moral inauthenticity then we should be fixing within ourselves regardless of God.
It’s very immature and I’m sure he’s lying about being BETTER if he was religious. He’d be worse. Each subject he brought up about assisted suicide and abortion, religion is on the immoral side, trying to push their beliefs on others.
Hilarious 😂
It's simply insulting that this professor thinks that when humans struggle with moral questions looking for advice from religion. What does that mean? Ask a preacher? An ancient holy book? Guess what, people have a morality mostly aligned with the law (at least in the West) and NOT with an ancient preacher.
Morality came long before it was ever written down or codified into a religion.
I make my own morality, as I've never read the bible or know much about it.
I'd also question just how much of Christian teaching actually affected Britain or British societal values and laws. Thou shall not kill, tolerance, forgiveness, etc.. are all values that predate Christianity.
I work in the field of artificial intelligence and neuroscience. I disagree that machine consciousness is coming, yes there are improvements in models of language and vision in deep learning field, but even the intelligence of a honey bee is more then these models. We are long way from true autonomous intelligence and even millennia away from real understanding of what is consciousness.
Yes. The AI and linking them AI + Agents will no doubt be intelligent the way a machine is and it will be recombinatorial in intelligence thus disruptive technology penetrating many industries so potent. However I doubt that will be the same as consciousness in humans. What I think it might eventually gain once sufficient AI + Agent linking of high enough quality are created is linking all these then there may well be a self-regulatory center that in a sense has a kind of super intelligence parallel to consciousness but in a very different form to that of humans.
I think there's a lot of confusion concerning what consciousness is in humans and what AI will derive in time with sufficient development. Though for now that's a little while off with the current suite of LLM/NN/ML/GPT technologies combined. First the combination of agents and then refinement of specialized models then finally linking of all these together and eventual self-regulatory development which should be designed according to our biosphere as foundation reality system and basis for integration of this super-system with human civilization and planet Earth. That seems a while off both technologically and in human organizational coordination.
we re not milennia away
@@Soliloquy-gy6zf thats silly dude
@@frilansspion to you, an Ape. Yes
@@frilansspion to you, an Ape. Yes
SAM HARRIS is not wrong, Einsien said exactly the same thing ......get back in your box......you earner motiovated person....
i think i disagree with dawkins in one point and i realize this over and over again. and at that point im also with martin rees.
The belief in God as the cause of everything is "extremely helpful and useful, perhaps it is even the greatest trick that has come about in the course of evolution - even if it is based on a deep error" as Randolf Menzel said.
Thats one point i deeply disagree with dawkins and which i think hes wrong about.
Next time someone ask me about my beleiving in god I will just read a chapter of the Antichrist.
14:39- maybe through AI we’ll eventually achieve immortality, (at least by proxy).
In the meantime, AI is threatening to take away jobs and cause mass unemployment.
The tool created to make our lives better has the potential to replace us altogether - especially if it’s capable of creative thinking.
And should it become self aware, like Sky-net in “ The Terminator” it could perceive us an existential threat and do far worse.
Perhaps we should heed the late Daniel Dennett’s warning of our reliance on AI and the importance of having restrictions on what it should & shouldn’t do.