Opinions On Sam Harris

[Shrek_Of_Justice]

Howdy y'all

I recently watched this video by Sam Harris

And this made me very curious to what you pals think of him, because he seems to be plainly talking about enlightenment, even though he is an academic. As I do not know much about the lad, do you blokes think he is enlightened? Or at least has experienced the state of no-self? It would be quite neat if he'd spread the message in the scientific world. 

Cheers,

Shrek

[Visionary]

2 hours ago, Shrek_Of_Justice said:

Howdy y'all

I recently watched this video by Sam Harris

And this made me very curious to what you pals think of him, because he seems to be plainly talking about enlightenment, even though he is an academic. As I do not know much about the lad, do you blokes think he is enlightened? Or at least has experienced the state of no-self? It would be quite neat if he'd spread the message in the scientific world. 

Cheers,

Shrek

Maybe had certain insights (backed with some Neuroscience), but nah nowhere near enlightened. I think he especially uses scientific findings to find his truth. He claims he wants to find the proper balance between a materialistic point of view and non-materialistic.. but he's very materialistic.

[SOUL]

  My impression of him is that he had some paradigm shattering experiences in consciousness but since his career is rooted in science and the academics he tries to fit his personal understanding into the context that appeases the expectations of him  by others as a result of this career path.

Edited May 26, 2017 by SOUL

[Azrael]

I like listening to his opinions. I don't agree with him on everything and he doesn't seem "enlightened" to me, but he has a few points.

 

[Loreena]

He makes valid points.  much of his stuff is derived from eastern concepts.  I like his debates on atheism.

[Guest username]

Sam's admitted that's he's only reached stream-entry at best, so his view on Enlightenment is very limited, and  I think he faces a lot of practical constraints by operating and trying to expand the rationalist paradigm rather than being radically open and seeing where it takes him.

I think he's a good scientist and reasonable guy, but I think he misses a lot of the juicy stuff by shying away from the aspects of spirituality which  seem too woo-woo, but idk. He has more experience with both meditation/ spirituality and science than I do at the moment.

Edited May 28, 2017 by username

[Nahm]

What I've always found interesting about Sam is that he understands the uncertainty principle, understands that the fabric of everything is also him and in this sense the ego is illusory, and he see's that this one thing is also him, but he does not connect that he is the uncertainty principle. If he did, it would, in turn, reveal his 'accurate understanding of the nothingness' to be a mere ignorance of his own collapsing. 

[Martin123]

He thinks of his thinking roo much. That is his setback. He is brilliant and he knows it. That is his biggest strenght and weakness.

[Leo Gura]

I swear, rationalism is a worse disease of the mind than fundamentalism.

So many good minds wasted.

[Loreena]

14 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

I swear, rationalism is a worse disease of the mind than fundamentalism.

So many good minds wasted.

Why ? What is wrong with rationalism ? 

[Loreena]

28 minutes ago, Snick said:

rationalism is a kind of antidote to true creativity and true intuition. 

Logic/rationalism is not bad when it happened subconsciously though. And all rationalism you need if not more is already taking place in your subconscious mind. 

Your consciousness should aim for a relaxed  but focused mind in contact with intuition and creativity. Those who succeed are the happy and genius ones. 

To consciously seek rationalism is to poison your mind. 

But why ?

[Extreme Z7]

I used to be a rationalist once. In my experience, there's just this addictive feeling of being smarter than anyone else. It's very hard to let go of the egoic need to feel like you can understand everything and that you're way better than those stupid religious people who believe anything they're told.

I broke out of it, I guess, when I started to realize that reality isn't as obvious and easy-to-understand as rationalism puts it.

And then I began my meditation habit and after several months of the practice, I realized that rationalism only looks appealing from the perspective of an undisciplined mind. The reason why people are so dogmatic and rationalistic people tend to be so dogmatic is because they haven't put in the hard effort of disciplining their mind. And, of course, this causes a lot of trouble and suffering.

It's funny how a lot of rationalists like to criticize a lot of new-age, spiritual, or even self-help material as being 'pseudo-science', 'scams', or even just idiocy while at the same time falling prey to many consumer products in society that are really not helpful to the human mind.

They might criticize some New-age figure like Deepak Chopra as someone who spreads 'false-hope' and 'snake oil'. But then what do they do in their lives? Drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes,  spend hours watching TV, etc. etc. and they criticize New-age as something that ruins people's lives?

You see, rationalism is very attractive to the addicted and undisciplined. Because it's very hard to embark on a journey to grow yourself when you already think you're able to understand everything about life in your present state of mind, no matter how rotten it is.

Additionally, It's very hard to take any hardcore rationalist seriously when they make a "debunking" video while mixing it with random Star Wars effects. (Yes, this is real)

 

[Key Elements]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I swear, rationalism is a worse disease of the mind than fundamentalism.

So many good minds wasted.

It's easier to pass the fundamental phase; isn't it?  Rationalism is too transparent. 

Let's say society is the water and you're the fish in the water.

Someone asks you, "Hey, Mr. Fish, how's the water today?"

You say, "What water?????"

The fish doesn't see how the water impacts him.

Edited May 28, 2017 by Key Elements