Sam Harris on Meditation, Mystery and Rejecting "Atheism"

nice.

and he is also ballsy enough to repeat that talk again in the Beyond Belief 2007 conference. there's a good Q&A with Harris too. i blogged about this recently. check it out :)

~C

Julian, is Sam becoming your 'Critical Thinking' homeboy? :)

He appears to be gently delaminating inquiry from, um, sleeping.

not only critical thinking, Sanjuro. Harris does scientific thinking too. check out this neuroscience research that was recently published with some of his peers.

Functional Neuroimaging of belief, disbelief, and uncertainty

~C

I appreciate all these thinkers, these logicians. With Myers-Briggs, I always test as an INFP, so critical thinking is like swimming with a parka on for me! Its sort of like Bran though, takes a while to get through…

Now ~C, is it just me or is Sam doing something with this test that seems a little too obvious? Mental Models is something that Peter Senge covered extensively in the Fifth Discipline. I wonder what his motivation is? Is it to discuss and help dispute 'belief''? I know he isn't an atheist anymore, but he is certainly a non-believer! :)

But if y'all haven't checked out Marty Seligman, this is a good introduction. He I suppose has brought the science into meaning (by way of learned helplessness, and optimism), and this has been his focus since 1965… quite incredible. Some of his stuff I found so inspiring I will bring up in a blog at some point soon… anyways…

The video link is not working, but we all still read yeh? :)

btw I agree, Sam Harris is thinking and being honest WITHOUT being petulant like Hitchens… a sign of SD development?…

“The desire to know what is actually going on in the world is very difficult to argue with – and insofar as we represent merely that desire, WE become difficult to argue with…”

Sam Harris here echoes something very profound that I myself have long felt. I think he is someone who should be listened to very closely. Now, I don't believe that I could call myself an Athiest. I think Athiest is what others call someone who 'doesn't believe in god'. I think the confusion in others, and perhaps in these very Athiests, is that 'belief' is not required at all. We can get on with living and discovering, and being in this world, and living and finding out what we need to find out to regain paradise on earth… why are we just saying 'this is true, I believe this, so must you.'

What does 'belief' have to do with anything at all? How does 'belief' get us anywhere? It just fills in the blanks, and then we seem to be violently opposed to exploring those blanks with the genuine curiousity, beautiful minds, and infinite awareness that 'God' has supposedly given to us as his crowning achievement. What does 'belief' have to do with anything?

The argument seems to be that belief, at least how people act upon it unquestioningly, is responsible for a tremendous amount of unnecessary wickedness and incoherence in the world. These people are trying to tell us to live with the unknown, to live in the unknown… and we are naturally terrified of them. To us (and to the schizophrenic) these people are in favor of worshipping ix machina rather than God. But they aren't… they don't believe in ix machina either.

Part 2 (questions) is worth watching as well, and his last question has to do with meditation, even attaining a state where one can 'understand the mystics'.

Don't you know what happens to atheists?????

“And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulphur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

Just kidding of course.  :) Can't resist a silly joke now and then.

Actually I was recently trying to look into alternatives to the God idea with Mr. T. I was trying to think of what would be atheistic alternatives to a second face of God idea for truly transpersonal stage growth. One that comes to mind are the 3 tenents of  Roshi Bernie Glassman's Zen Peacemakers: 1) not knowing; 2) bearing witness; 3) loving action. I'm sure there are others, but I don't know what the instructions are. I'm going to go ask someone if there's any second face of God in Zen Peacemakers.

Best,

David

Sanjuro said: “Now ~C, is it just me or is Sam doing something with this test that seems a little too obvious? Mental Models is something that Peter Senge covered extensively in the Fifth Discipline. I wonder what his motivation is?”

obvious? maybe obvious to us in the interior space but not so on the exterior. i see this statement as collapsing the exterior (biological) in favor of the interior (psychological) ;)

here's the conclusion of the study.

“The human brain is a prolific generator of beliefs. Indeed, personhood is largely the result of the capacity of a brain to evaluate new statements of propositional truth in light of countless others that it already accepts. By recourse to intuitions of truth and falsity, logical necessity and contradiction, human beings are able to knit together private visions of the world that largely cohere. The results of our study suggest that belief, disbelief, and uncertainty are mediated primarily by regions in the medial PFC, the anterior insula, the superior parietal lobule, and the caudate. The acceptance and rejection of propositional truth-claims appear to be governed, in part, by the same regions that judge the pleasantness of tastes and odors.

“These results suggest that the differences among belief, disbelief, and uncertainty may one day be distinguished reliably, in real time, by techniques of neuroimaging. This would have obvious implications for the detection of deception, for the control of the placebo effect during the process of drug design, and for the study of any higher-cognitive phenomenon in which the differences among belief, disbelief, and uncertainty might be a relevant variable.”

~C

Oh totally…
To be clear, the obviousness in my mind was multi-layered.
I saw the obviousness of Sam's motivation, which is what will bind him. You know?
But truly I am glad it is being attempted.
The thing is though I am astounded that the fMRI/psych heavy hitters haven't done this years ago! I just thought we had mapped that already…

Belief as a science eh? Profoundly different world that might be…, as long as its not the other way round… :)

I agree that Sam Harris rocks. I would go even further and say that his agenda (as C put it, “to strip (or set aside) the dogma and religious roots of spiritual practices and come up with a more secular Contemplative Science”) can have a greater positive impact on humanity than Wilber’s Integral Agenda (as it stands now). I’ve heard little from Wilber in the last decade other than the parroting and/or promoting of himself and his AQAL model. WE may have a dialogue going here, but Wilber has shown no willingness or capacity for open-ended discussion, as far as I can tell. Which is fine, there are plenty of other smart people around (like us!).

I feel inclined to join Sam and support his agenda, bringing AQAL to bear when appropriate, but not clinging to it or using it as a pair of rainbow-colored glasses. My first proposal might seem radical, but it strikes me as important, foundational maybe: DITCH THE WORD “SPIRITUAL.”

Who’s with me?…

Anyone…

And let’s revive the field of Transpersonal Psychology, which was envisioned by Maslow in the 60’s as the fulfillment of Sam’s agenda of establishing an academic discipline to explore TRANSPERSONAL experiences.

Come on guys (and gals)! It’ll be easy. We just have to jettison all the New Age non-sense from Transpersonal Studies, bring Wilber back into the fold, via integrating the useful aspects of his work since he abandoned the field, and get someone outside of Northern California to establish a graduate program.

Who’s with me?…

Anyone…

Julian,

Thanks for linking this vid and starting an interesting conversation. I think all of your blogs rock and I totally admire what you do.

I have to say that I don't find Sam Harris resonating with me from an integral “buddy” or “ally” perspective. When I try to take up his arguments from his perspective and argue them myself I find no references that indicate a strong cultural value sphere recognition, all quadrants in Ken's model; now that aspect might be taken into account, I have to say it's a little bit amgibuous from what I've seen from him so far (which isn't much). But I find that there's virtually no recognition of levels or lines; types seem to be confused as well, yet he does indicate an openness to states with his meditation experience.

My interpretation of him is that he appears to speak and argue primarily from an orange probability wave, perhaps he's just appealing to that wave in what I've seen, and he certainly seems to be one of the sharper sticks in orange's toolbox.

In my estimation a minimally generic equivalent of the AQAL framework must be perceivable as operating on at least an intuitive level in guiding a person's reasoning about any occasion to justify Teal altitudinal appraisal. So, as a bare minimum: AQSL (All Quadrants, Some Levels); with Some Lines, Some States, Some Types as added bonuses. That would be my criteria for spotting a second tier intuition.

In my view, Sam seems  to be caught up in (despite most of the praise that I think you rightly lavish on him) thinking that what Gebser called the Mythic structure of consciousness along with it's antecedents can be talked out of their perspectives using proofs or arguments that are presuasive from the Rational structural perspective; which is just a total irresponsibility to take into account developmental sequences from a synthesizing perspective.

I'm interested in what criteria you're observing to assess his integralativity. Is the bare minimum of AQSL asking for too much on my part? Or do you find indications of level recognition in his work?

Cheers,
Eric

Eric,

Sorry to stick my nose in here before Julian can respond, but I can’t help myself. I just can’t for the life of me understand how cognitively translating an “occasion” into AQAL terms is any better, in terms of practical solutions, than the rational dialogue which Harris is engaged in. It’s really not that hard to frame the whole thing in terms of Wilber’s theory. ANY rational person can do it. I don’t see what’s “Second Tier” about it. To my mind, Wilber’s theory is just a different rational framework, to be judged on its practical merits, of which I’ve seen little to impress me.

On the other hand, there is ample evidence, as far as I’m concerned, that people with the capacity for reason, which includes just about every adult religious person on the planet right now, CAN have their minds changed through the process of rational dialogue. Look at Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She was a devout Muslim, then was exposed to new ways of thinking, and eventually dropped her more limited ways of thinking. Unless we did so spontaneously by the age of twelve, ALL of us who have dropped our mythic conceptions of the universe in adulthood did so by being exposed to BETTER ideas. Now, you could say that we DEVELOPED to some higher level of consciousness, which might be true. But the point is this: HOW did we go from relative ignorance to relative enlightenment? By translating our situation into AQAL terms? I don’t think so. Rather, a relatively shitty way of understanding was replaced, gradually perhaps, by a better way of understanding. If Wilber’s books helped along the way, they did so by helping to clarify our thinking.

It may be very difficult, if not impossible in some cases, to talk someone out of their perspective. But exactly was does Wilber’s model suggest we DO about it? Wait for development to happen? Facilitate conditions for further development? What better way to facilitate development of perspectives than through rational dialogue? The reason I took up meditation in the first place was because Wilber talked me into it, using solid, clear REASON. Any development that happened afterward was a direct result of that mind change.

Hey Bob,

Thanks for responding.

In my view, the reason why AQAL, or any approach that considers levels, is important is because if you don't take structural levels of development into account, then you will probably fail to recognize the difference between contents of consciousness and structures of consciousness.

And I think that's important in this case because I see this war on religion that Sam is so often associated with as targeting a content of consciousness (religion) when it is really the structural level of consciousness (mythic-literal) that it objects to. And if a person does really understand developmental sequences, then studies tend to demonstrate that that person does not usually try to eliminate the previous structures.

You can change the contents of consciousness all you want without necessarily effecting any vertical growth. Therefore, it doesn't matter as much whether someone believes in God or not, but why. A person can change his or her mind about belief in God without advancing to the milieu of higher structures of development. So an attempt to affect change by rearranging contents alone is insufficiently complex.

I subscribe to the notion that if you really want to help people grow through levels of development, then finding ways to provide for the healthiest possible setting for each structure while improving life conditions and increasing opportunities for all people to explore and develop into higher structures will be more effective than simply arguing against the existence of a mythic-literal concept of God.

I also don't think belief in God is a very accurate litmus test for complexity of thought, unless you follow up and ask Why?

I always liked the old Alan Watts reference to R.H. Blyth's response when a student asked him if he believed in God: “If you do, I don't; if you don't, I do.

Cheers,
Eric

Cheers to you, Eric. Great discussion.

Ha! I love the Alan Watts quote. If Father Thomas Keating asked me “Do you believe in God?”, I would probably say “Yes.” Everyone else gets a long-winded, philosophical response.

Much of your response makes sense to me, and I do find AQAL to be a useful way to conceptualize problems, but I’m still getting hung up on the practical side of things. You say:

“I subscribe to the notion that if you really want to help people grow through levels of development, then finding ways to provide for the healthiest possible setting for each structure while improving life conditions and increasing opportunities for all people to explore and develop into higher structures will be more effective than simply arguing against the existence of a mythic-literal concept of God.”

I just don’t know what this means in terms of taking action, right now, today. HOW do you find ways to provide for the healthiest possible setting for each structure? HOW do you increase opportunities for all people to explore and develop into higher structures?

I think creating cognitive dissonance in people so that they might let go of distorted thought patterns IS working to provide a saner, healthier setting within which continued personal growth can flourish. I don’t see the issue here as helping people “develop” from a “Mythic” center of gravity to a “Rational” center of gravity. People’s already established capacity for reason needs to “develop” from pathological distortion to healthy clarity. The vast majority of religious people have highly developed powers of reason in all areas of their lives EXCEPT when it concerns their religious beliefs. Many of the 9/11 highjackers were highly educated. Yet they believed they’d get a date with seventy-two virgins by murdering thousands of innocent people. This insane belief needs to be acknowledged as insane, right now, today, along with countless other insane beliefs held in other religions, otherwise reasonable people will continue to act on these beliefs in necessarily ignorant and destructive ways. It is not necessary to “eliminate” everything about religion – ritual, community, contemplative practices, etc. – and Sam Harris is certainly not trying to do that. He’s just trying to expose dangerous and downright stupid ideas for what they are, so that we all can be free to move forward as a species without continuing to harm ourselves and others.

I’ve yet to hear a single practical solution to any specific problem from Ken Wilber or his followers. Everything under the sun in translated into AQAL terms, which seems elegant and satisfying until we recognize that nothing has changed. “Meditate” or “Try my ILP program” –that’s about all I can think of as the practical applications of AQAL thus far.

Rational dialogue has been and will continue to be a true agent of transformation for individuals and societies. The capacity for reason is already there, it just needs to get healthier, stronger and clearer. That’s what Sam Harris – and Ken Wilber for that matter – have done for me: Clarified my thinking. This clarity has, in turn, affected my actions in ways that have been fulfilling and transformative.

Eric said: “I subscribe to the notion that if you really want to help people grow through levels of development, then finding ways to provide for the healthiest possible setting for each structure while improving life conditions and increasing opportunities for all people to explore and develop into higher structures will be more effective than simply arguing against the existence of a mythic-literal concept of God.”

Bob said: “I just don’t know what this means in terms of taking action, right now, today. HOW do you find ways to provide for the healthiest possible setting for each structure? HOW do you increase opportunities for all people to explore and develop into higher structures?”

excellent discussion guys. allow me to address both your points with a link to a debate between Sam Harris and Scott Atran (post-Beyond Belief 2006 conference).

i do like Sam Harris, but i think Scott Atran had the upper-hand in this exchange due to Atran's field experience and his implied approach of meeting people where they're at, in short, Atran's arguments is more “integral” than Harris's arguments, especially when it comes to the discussion of sacred values.

it's a looong read. but it's worth it. check it out. follow the links. then let me know what you think about this debate.

Scott Atran: I find it fascinating that brilliant scientists and philosophers have no clue how to deal with the basic irrationality of human life and society other than to insist against all reason and evidence that things ought to be rational and evidence based. [more…]

Sam Harris: Atran makes insupportable claims about religion as though they were self-evident: like “religious beliefs are not false in the usual sense of failing to meet truth conditions”; they are, rather, like “poetic metaphors” which are “literally senseless.” How many devout Christians or Muslims would recognize their own faith in this neutered creed? [more…]

Scott Atran: And while I'm on the subject of religious beliefs and their contents, and how they are transmitted, let me address the view, first proposed by Dawkins and popularized by Dennett, that religions are composed of memes. [more…]

now, this is the kind of uber-rational debate/dialogue that is missing from the integral camp ;)

~C

I’ve written about this many times before, but it always amazes me when highly intelligent people disagree. What does it say about reason that we can support almost any claim? That’s a whole other discussion, I know.

I must have some bias for Sam Harris’s way of thinking, because I always seem to agree with him. He has a real knack for cutting to the quick:

“The point is not that all religious people are bad; it is not that all bad things are done in the name of religion; and it is not that scientists are never bad, or wrong, or self-deceived. The point is this: intellectual honesty is better (more enlightened, more useful, less dangerous, more in touch with reality, etc. ) than dogmatism. The degree to which science is committed to the former, and religion to the latter remains one of the most salient and appalling disparities to be found in human discourse.”

Ironically (as a supposed, pro-evidence guy), what I didn’t like about Atran’s essay is his continual referencing of social science studies. Whenever someone says “Studies show…”, I get very skeptical. Without the study in front of me, I have only the author’s interpretation to rely on, an interpretation which I may or may not agree with. I’ve always preferred common sense arguments to “Studies show” arguments. Working in the mental health field as long as I have, I’ve seen first hand how economic, political, and personal agendas can distort the process of scientific research. This too, is another discussion, although I’m surprised religious-minded folk don’t use this argument more when railing against a science-based society. Scientific conclusions are often not nearly as objective as people might think.

Wilber is a master at stretching the “Studies show” spiel to support a conclusion that he undoubtedly arrived at long before digging up the research. Look how much mileage he’s gotten out of Taylor’s TM study. I’d be more impressed with AQAL if Wilber came right out and said “I just came up with this shit, because it makes so much sense” – instead of trying to make it look like a model built from the ground up through careful examination of empirical evidence.

With that, I’m WAY off topic and revealing to myself (and probably to all of you) what MY not-so-hidden agenda in all this must be, namely to shoot down Ken Wilber and to prop up Sam Harris. WHY I’m compelled to do this, only semi-consciously, I’m not sure. I’ll have to sit with that a bit.

Bob said: “Wilber is a master at stretching the “Studies show” spiel to support a conclusion that he undoubtedly arrived at long before digging up the research. Look how much mileage he’s gotten out of Taylor’s TM study.”

i get your point. i've ranted about that too on the I-I pod.

anyway, to continue with this discussion, i'll take Atran's side. i undertand your concern for the “studies show…” however, i think you may have missed the fact that Atran is an anthropologist specializing in Middle East conflicts. compared to Harris, Atran is closer to where the action is, and he does the research and science while he's at it. while Harris maybe looking from 5,000 feet above the forest, Atran is immersed in the trees, hence their disagreements.

i'd like to highlight Atran's statement in rebuttal to Sam Harris:

“My approach to dogmatism is to practically engage irrationality where I believe it is most dangerous and where I think I can have the most effect (for example, in negotiations with Hamas and Israel to stop Qassam missile attacks, or in field investigations of beheadings in Azad Kahsmir – efforts reported in the last two issues of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists). If I employed Harris's recommendation for dealing with irrationality in such cases, by lambasting the conflicting parties with how preposterous are their core beliefs, I would probably be kicked out or killed (and in misjudging the ways reason is best advanced, I have on a few occasions been very nearly killed).”

this sounds like a more practical approach because it recognizes a developmental and political perspective as well.

here's another quote from Atran. notice the phrase “in my own studies.”

Good points ~C:

I didn’t realize there were TWO essays by Atran on that page you linked to. Your quotes above are from the one I didn’t read (until now). My thoughts:

1) It’s hard for me to respond to some of the more academic points Atran makes, because I don’t have the time and inclination to review the data myself. He lost me at various points in his critique, because of what I see as an over-reliance on “weighing the evidence.” I get your point about us lay folk being at the mercy of experts, but I think that’s true only to a certain extent. Especially in the social sciences and when making philosophical, ethical, or moral arguments, the limits of accepted research methods make a strictly “empirical” approach to understanding such things untenable, I think. Here’s where I love the integral approach. One can take in an “occasion” from as many perspectives as possible, informing ones intuition as it were, but in the end we act on what we feel “makes sense” on a gut level.

2) Atran makes some excellent points when focusing on the issue of skillful means when dealing with real life conflicts and situations. Here’s where his EXPERIENCE makes his perspective worth taking seriously, and you’re right, he does take into account developmental levels, making his a more “integral” approach, in the Wilberian sense. I’ve seen so many Sam Harris videos that I couldn’t tell you where I heard this, but I remember him very humbly admitting that what he’s doing (in his books and talks) is probably not the most skillful means of dealing directly with political conflict. What he is doing is only addressing a small part of the issue. Harris is mainly addressing well-educated Westerners, mostly middle class American Christians, in his books. I believe that in this context, his approach IS a kind of skillful means. I say this because an appeal to reason and the raising of conscious/cognitive dissonance has been sufficient to break me out of many a “spell” in my own life. But, of course, I wouldn’t send Sam Harris to broker a Middle Eastern peace treaty. Atran would be a much better choice.

3)This a great discussion! When we dialogue around specific issues and struggle toward practical applications of our understanding, we really get somewhere with all this Integral stuff. If only Integral Institute wasn’t such a closed-loop organization. If only Wilber didn’t take himself and his theory so god-damned seriously!

Bob,

“I just don’t know what this means in terms of taking action, right now, today. HOW do you find ways to provide for the healthiest possible setting for each structure? HOW do you increase opportunities for all people to explore and develop into higher structures?”

Reference Don Beck's work with SDi for some concrete examples.

“People’s already established capacity for reason needs to “develop” from pathological distortion to healthy clarity.”

I think you're distorting lines. First you have to specify what someone is reasoning about: Just because I can do algebra does not mean I'm at post-conventional moral reasoning. Kohlberg found that most adults don't make it to a worldcentric stance, and I'm not aware of any studies that show that you can just argue people into it.

“The vast majority of religious people have highly developed powers of reason in all areas of their lives EXCEPT when it concerns their religious beliefs.”

Again, this is where recognition of lines of development is important along with stages. Most people in America will probably have to have some formal-operational awakening if they've graduated high school, but the cognitive line is not sufficient for the other lines. So formal-operational on Piaget's chart does not automatically mean someone is at post-conventional on Kohlberg's chart, or at a rational/mental-egoic spiritual stage of orientation.

“I’ve yet to hear a single practical solution to any specific problem from Ken Wilber or his followers.”

I don't think we've highlighted a specific problem here yet, but AQAL is a tool for orientation that helps make sure the manifold nature of lifeworld contexts are not approached with insufficient complexity, and I think that's pretty darn practical.

I'm not saying what Sam Harris is doing seems useless to me. I just don't find what I've encountered from him so far very integral, and so I'm still interested in why Julian does.


Regards,
Eric

Eric said: “I'm not saying what Sam Harris is doing seems useless to me. I just don't find what I've encountered from him so far very integral, and so I'm still interested in why Julian does.”

i'd like to hear Julian expound on his claim. but i remember Julian's related post about this. check it out.

as for me, i find Harris more “integral” not in an AQAL way. when i refer to Harris as more integral my frame of reference is the other New Atheists. compared to them Harris seems to be the only one who includes interiority (or consciousness expansion). check out his interview on Raving Atheist wherein he expounded on his meditation practice. Harris also mentioned meditation in his book End of Faith. he also gave a high regard to Eastern Philophers/Mystics over Western Philosophers (it's in the end notes of his book). he also cited Wilber's Sex, Ecology, and Spirituality in the bibliography. so taking all these together, Harris (as compared to other New Atheists) has a more embracing view than say Dawkins, or even Dennett.

see also my book review of End of Faith for more context.

~C

Eric,

I appreciate you hanging in there with me, but I think I’ll bow out for now and wait for Julian to chime in on your original question. I’m WAY too lazy to go searching through Don Beck’s work for concrete examples of anything. And I think our dialogue would have to veer off in an entirely tangential direction in order to continue. Perhaps we can carry this forward another time.

Your responses to me assume the validity of Wilber’s AQAL theory, in all its nuances. I’ve been studying Wilber’s work for fifteen years, and I consider him an intellectual hero of mine. But the truth is I just don’t buy into the model – in all its specifics – anymore.

I agree that “Integral” is a powerful orientation that can inform practical strategies in many useful ways. But when I think “Integral,” I think of the general principles of 1) taking into account multiple perspectives (particularly the interior and exterior dimensions of the individual and collective); 2) grounding theory in direct experience (integrating theory and practice); and 3) acknowledging some form of developmental depth (which does not necessarily mean buying into Beck’s or Wilber’s versions, which I don’t. For instance, I think “Second Tier” is a completely bogus concept.)

I’ve said this before in my characteristically confused way, but there comes a point (I think) when AQAL ceases to be a tool for orientation and instead conditions us to see things from a particular perspective, i.e. Wilber’s, and holding the model too tightly (which I believe Wilber and most of his followers do), it can start to filter out as much as it illuminates.

Thx C4,

I finally got around to checking out the link to Julian's previous post about this subject and that pretty much clears up every question I raised in my first response.

Aren't contexts fun?

I finally saw that whole video. I liked him. Of course he's not seeing that religion plays a role in cultural development and health, but it does need to be cut down to size, so all that rational talk is a good cause. I also liked his talk about contemplatives. Very good speaker.