What Is True?? - Harris & Peterson Debate Realism

[SelfPeace]

If you watched Leo's video on realism, I'm sure you've been questioning your epistemological assumptions all week. Today, Sam Harris, probably the most popular of the "New Athiest" (with maybe the exception of Dawkins) released a podcast of a two hour debate on realism and the idea of Truth.

Jordan Peterson has been the most requested guest to Sam Harris's podcast which naturally gives way to a very interesting conversation. I believe Peterson is better versed in spirituality and psychology in general, but Harris is an honarable intellectual and seems to be the most 'conscious' of the new atheist. 

Both men strike me as highly intellectually honest and educated (though no one is free of their biases). I'm really excited to see where this conversation will lead to as I have seen Harris evolve a lot over the years, espicially of have written his book Waking Up. I believe this conversation is at the forefront of this debate in the mainstream media (or atleast amoungst the ones the more learned of the crowd) and the outcome of it I think will be significant to society.

I'm not going to spew my opinion or perspective on this debate and on realism just yet, but I'd like to see this thread turn into a highly philosophical discussion. I challenge you to listen to the conversation and share your thoughts/counter-arguments (it's less than twice the length of a typical video by Leo, so no excuses if you take this stuff seriously ?).

 

P.S Intro until 4:20, they rail on about political correctness and politics until 24:00, then the conversation turns to Realism. They cover a lot of territory though never come to a consensus, but agree to meet again soon..

 

 

Edited January 22, 2017 by SelfPeace

[SelfPeace]

I've been reaching out to both men, and more specifically Harris, over the past few weeks (though I admit the communication has been one-sided ?) trying to summarize each sides most significant points and make sure they're acknowledged by the other side.

They will meet again next week and I'd like to continue trying to reach out and deliever the most important points to be heard. You're welcome to help out, as it is an opportunity to open the mind of a public intellectual whose growing very rapidly in popularity and importance to our contemporary thinking.

@Leo Gura I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts on this conversation and what points you'd make to Harris's highly, materialistic/rationalist pov. I'm quite young and though I try to keep up with them, you're way more knowledgable about philosophy/psychology than myself, so I'd appreciate it.

Edited January 22, 2017 by SelfPeace

[Leo Gura]

Not really a fan of Sam's debating approach to life. He seems to like to debate everything and everybody. Which doesn't strike me as very conscious, although he is very articulate and logical.

When one's consciousness becomes deep enough, the debating attitude should stop IMO.

I challenge him to 30mg of 5-meo. If he wants to come over, we can film him do it and film his reaction. That's as objective a test as it gets, without getting into endless debating.

The problem with the left brain is that can argue it's way into or out of anything. Like a lawyer. The right brain is needed to reign it in, otherwise it runs amok. Access to Absolute Truth is not possible via the left brain, but via the right.

[SelfPeace]

@Leo Gura I feel you, as I've grown in awareness I get really put off when a friend wants to debate or wants me to listen to a debate, though I make exceptions with few intellectuals. Reality is reality is reality, we can observe truth without needing to debate about it.

Harris seems to have grown an identity around debating cause he approaches almost every conversation as if it were one. Though he's claimed to have done months long meditation retreats and openly speaks of psychedelics, something I can't imagine Dawkins doing haha.

Atleast he's treading the territory and may one day come across the mother of psychedelics. Can we try to make it happen though "5-Meo-DMT - Harris and Leo talk about God"? ?

[Leo Gura]

@SelfPeace I have imagined offering him 30mg of 5-meo. I would even help him take it and film his reaction.

But I doubt he'd be open to it. And I certainly don't want to debate over it as a hypothetical.

I'm not a fan of the academic style of philosophy. It lacks soul. But good luck convincing it of that on logical grounds.

[SelfPeace]

10 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@SelfPeace I have imagined offering him 30mg of 5-meo. I would even help him take it and film his reaction.

But I doubt he'd be open to it. And I certainly don't want to debate over it as a hypothetical.

I'm not a fan of the academic style of philosophy. It lacks soul. But good luck convincing it of that on logical grounds.

Wellll, I'm sure you keep doing what you do and if he's as committed to the "truth" as he claims to be, he may come around. Maybe Peterson will atleast help him see past his notions of truth but whatever.

If you don't mind me asking, when/how did you get your first let's say major paradigm shift away from rationalism, cause I'm assuming it was before you experimented with psychedelics? For me personally, I think exposure to atleast the proposed implications of quantum mechanics early in my life put me on the way that psychedelics/meditation/mythology (or religion) kind of reaffirmed. I'm asking cause they're usually a large gap between the average person and someone who's willing to experiment with 5-meo.

[Leo Gura]

@SelfPeace I gotta admit a dirty secret: I've always simply intuited -- without any justification or reasonable cause -- that reality was fundamentally irrational and paradoxical, and could not be grasped or modeled. This was my only philosophical position.

In my mind, it has to be this way, because it's silly to expect a subset to model the superset. A subset cannot reach beyond itself. If a mind could logically understand reality, reality wouldn't be worth very much.

Godel's incompleteness theorem sorta puts a nail in the coffin of the rationalist agenda IMO.

Philosophers have been vigorously trying to rationalize reality for the last 2000 years, and they've failed pretty miserably. To me, rationality is itself irrational. It can't help but collapse in on itself at its core. Because it was born out of irrationality. Rationality had to be created, along with time, space, matter, energy, and everything else. We cannot take rationality as a given or fundamental.

[SelfPeace]

47 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

The problem with the left brain is that can argue it's way into or out of anything. Like a lawyer. The right brain is needed to reign it in, otherwise it runs amok. Access to Absolute Truth is not possible via the left brain, but via the right.

I like this. It's funny you say that because Jordan Peterson mentioned that many of the viewers of the podcast mentioned that it was listening to the right brain trying to talk to the left brain, totally true. 

I'd recommend watching him if you ever get the the chance, he is pretty interesting. He seems to have a very interesting view on religion and myth and how it relates to Being. E.g. 

This sounds a lot like an experience I had while meditating the other day, almost like being abducted but with overflowing love. What's strange is he's had the experience while contemplating for a book he was writing "Maps of Meaning" and not necessarily meditating. What would be your take on that? Basically self-inquiry? 

[Leo Gura]

@SelfPeace He's describing a classic mystical experience, or altered state of consciousness.

Sure, they can happen at any time. You don't have to be meditating. You could be watching TV or sitting on the toilet or eating a cheeseburger.

But since he was contemplating a deep existential question about meaning and life, it's not at all surprising it happened for him then.

It is possible to have an enlightenment experience just from reading a book, for example. Although that doesn't mean reading books is an effective method for enlightenment. It probably isn't.

It's sorta funny that he describes music as revealing the nature of being, when in fact EVERYTHING reveals the nature of being. Not just music, EVERYTHING! There is nothing but BEING! Being is exactly itself. Of course, if one has a particular fondness for music, that can push the mind to open to higher awareness. And human minds generally love music. It's a lot harder for the human mind to see the being of rape or the being of a dirty toilet.

Being also doesn't need meaning. Being's meaning is being! When the human mind loses touch with the mystical nature of being, it seeks meaning. But being is always superior to meaning, provided one is conscious of being. After all, being is all there is.

Also note how he refused the call of being. Because it was too radical. What would one's life look like if you FULLY embraced being or Truth? It would be an unrecognizable life. The very core of the self is set up to resist surrender to being. Which is why surrender to being requires utmost emotional labor. Which is why self-inquiry is so god damn painful and rarely done.

Which is where debate comes in! Debate is an avoidance mechanism for self-inquiry.

[jse]

49 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

In my mind, it has to be this way, because it's silly to expect a subset to model the superset. A subset cannot reach beyond itself. If a mind could logically understand reality, reality wouldn't be worth very much.

I was sitting on the toilet while watching TV and eating a cheeseburger last night, and a thought occurred to me on understanding the fundamental nature of reality, and whether this is possible through the rational mind:

If mind (arising and being a subset of the body) can model and understand the body's many functions, could our mind then (somehow) also be able to grasp the bigger superset of fundamental reality?

[Leo Gura]

@jse Sure, you can model it. But reality is not a model. So the best you'll ever get is anything but reality as a whole.

Direct consciousness becomes impossible under the realist paradigm because consciousness is thought to be a subset rather than the superset.

But if consciousness is the superset, it can literally BE reality as a whole! Without modeling. Without speculation. Without inaccuracy or fudge factor. Direct consciousness turns out to be the most scientific method.

Nothing quite compares to literally becoming all of reality as a whole. Give it a shot!

After that, your attitude towards models will be similar to your attitude towards moldy, 30-day old bread.

30-day old bread is delicious, but only when you've got nothing else.

[SelfPeace]

52 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

@SelfPeace He's describing a classic mystical experience, or altered state of consciousness.

Sure, they can happen at any time. You don't have to be meditating. You could be watching TV or sitting on the toilet or eating a cheeseburger.

But since he was contemplating a deep existential question about meaning and life, it's not at all surprising it happened for him then.

It is possible to have an enlightenment experience just from reading a book, for example. Although that doesn't mean reading books is an effective method for enlightenment. It probably isn't.

It's sorta funny that he describes music as revealing the nature of being, when in fact EVERYTHING reveals the nature of being. Not just music, EVERYTHING! There is nothing but BEING! Being is exactly itself. Of course, if one has a particular fondness for music, that can push the mind to open to higher awareness. And human minds generally love music. It's a lot harder for the human mind to see the being of rape or the being of a dirty toilet.

Being also doesn't need meaning. Being's meaning is being! When the human mind loses touch with the mystical nature of being, it seeks meaning. But being is always superior to meaning, provided one is conscious of being. After all, being is all there is.

Also note how he refused the call of being. Because it was too radical. What would one's life look like if you FULLY embraced being or Truth? It would be an unrecognizable life. The very core of the self is set up to resist surrender to being. Which is why surrender to being requires utmost emotional labor. Which is why self-inquiry is so god damn painful and rarely done.

Which is where debate comes in! Debate is an avoidance mechanism for self-inquiry.

Cool! I think I might have even had a similar experience one day as a child cause I was unusually introspective. I remember then having a weird existential crisis that lasted for months cause every concept seemed foreign to me (space, separation, language). Things eventually come back around though!

But yeah I think he mentioned music for the theatrics he usually doesn't lol. I don't think he's making any presumptions on Beingness itself, I think he gets it quite well. His primary subject of study early on his life was politics and morality though, so I assume he's trying to derive meaning to put it in a social context.

I may butcher the analogy but I think similar to how Maslow was developing a Psychology of Being, I think Peterson might be developing a Politics of Being. His views on religion seem quite similar to Robert Wright's and Jonathan Haidt view on social systems and morality.

I totally agree though, I don't think all the teaching and debating is making him more conscious, he'd be better off spending some of the time doing consciousness work. It's hard to imagine pursing enlightenment while being a highly successful professor/intellectual. I used want to get a PhD but now I think what I'm doing is a lot wiser haha.

Having said that though, don't you fancy an enlightened person can learn a thing from a Peterson/Haidt/Wright maybe even Harris, to develop understanding and avoid becoming a zen devil? (and I mean they're ideas not the persons themselves).

[Leo Gura]

@SelfPeace Sure, I always recommend being well-read and pulling from diverse sources. I got nothing against reading those guys' books if you do so in an non-ideological manner. I have Haidt's and Harris' books on my book list. And I like what I've heard from Peterson so far.

If all your sources were only enlightened masters, you'd be missing out.

[Hunter Arrington]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Not really a fan of Sam's debating approach to life. He seems to like to debate everything and everybody. Which doesn't strike me as very conscious, although he is very articulate and logical.

When one's consciousness becomes deep enough, the debating attitude should stop IMO.

I challenge him to 30mg of 5-meo. If he wants to come over, we can film him do it and film his reaction. That's as objective a test as it gets, without getting into endless debating.

The problem with the left brain is that can argue it's way into or out of anything. Like a lawyer. The right brain is needed to reign it in, otherwise it runs amok. Access to Absolute Truth is not possible via the left brain, but via the right.

He's no master! Every argument is from an egoic standpoint, even if the ego in that case has the more factual standpoint. Arguing requires there to be me vs u! It's kinda scary to see the older one gets, the less likely one could be a true master at life. This shit should start young. 

[Leo Gura]

@Hunter Arrington Oh, he's quite a master debater

[AxelK]

@Hunter Arrington If you've seen or heard  anything from Sam Harris, criticsing him for egoic standpoints are ludicrous. Yes, all debates will in some way have a you vs me setting therefore an ego, but Sam Harris is one of few who is void from bringing his own ego into debating, atleast in my opinion.

[Leo Gura]

@AxelK The ego is more than just petty name-calling or obvious emotional biases. It's also the entire metaphysical and epistemic foundation of the mind. One's entire understanding of reality is shaped by the mere fact of holding oneself as a self, not to mention all of one's philosophical positions, which require a lot of energy to defend and justify.

It's ironic that rationalists tend to be very clingy about their rationalism.

Rationalists tend to have more in common with the religious fanatics they loath, than they do with nondualists.

Because the core problem is the position-taking and the loathing and fighting, not the content of one's beliefs.

The quality of one's consciousness is manifest at the level of being, not believing or talking.

[AxelK]

@Leo Gura I agree, i'm just saying in comparison to most mainstream academics Sam Harris ego is small. He's said numerous times that he believes the self/ego and free will is an illusion. Its just that he approaches it from almost a purely scientific standpoint, which makes him miss the other aspects. Although he primarily focuses on the science, he's open to it being beyond science. 

 

[Leo Gura]

@AxelK Certainly he's not your typical scientist or rationalist.

He's sort of an enigma to me. I don't fully understand why he defends rationalism so much if he's experienced nonduality.

Of course the depth of the experience is very important.

But also, I bet it's possible to be an enlightened rationalist crusader. Just strikes me as an odd situation. Then again, people can be very diverse creatures. And it's risky psycho-analyzing other people so this is all just speculation.

[AxelK]

@Leo Gura Exactly. Which is why i think its unfair to disregard him as your typical scientist. I think he has all the information and the view of the world similar to nonduality,  i just dont think he's made the connection yet.