From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
To: [email protected] Sent: Thursday, May 1, 2014 10:02 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: To Curtis - Sam Harris I think it would be a fantastic discussion and I would love to help you prep for an interview. He is an especially good choice because he is an experienced Buddhist meditator and is interested in connecting his own field, neuro science with the experiences we have in meditation. But in a more philosophical than TM brain studies way. Harris is definitely the only one of the "outspoken public atheists" I can stand to read. The rest tend to strike me as being pretty much as strident as their fundamentalist opposites. The only reason I can find to like them is that they're not afraid to stand up to a society in which the word "atheist" is treated as a synonym for "ignorant spawn of Satan" and spoken (or written) in a tone of voice (or writing) similar to how Southern folks say the word "Nigger!" He is coming out with a course this Fall to coincide with his new book about an alternative perspective to subjective experiences from traditional spirituality. That sounds interesting. One of my problems with most forms of traditional spirituality, at least of the kinds that value meditation, is that they *overvalue* subjective experience, as if it does or even could "trump" other forms of thinking and perceiving the world. I don't buy that. And I've had me some Jim-Dandy subjective experiences along the way, more than some here. To quote Blade Runner, "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe." But NONE of them in my honest opinion were any "higher" than any other, "better" than any other, or (especially) "more valid" than any other. They were what they were -- subjective experiences. NONE of them IMO "mean" anything in particular -- about the nature of the experience, about the nature of the universe, or about one's place in that universe -- and they will never constitute "proof" of anything. I look forward to what he has to say about walking that razor's edge between "having had cool subjective experiences" and overvaluing them, placing them on a pedestal of "specialness." My pedestal would be flat, with no experience elevated over another. He thinks both materialist scientists and spiritual people are jumping to conclusions. He might be especially interested in this dialogue with you at this time because of this direction he is taking. It is a direction he is taking some shit from hard core atheists for which makes him all the better as a bridge for a rich discussion with you. So although he probably does believe that consciousness is an emergent property of brain functions, he is more open to discussing the philosophical implications of our sense of self from meditation experience. He is more aware of things we don't know about human consciousness than most people, atheist or not, and would not be afraid wherever the discussion leads. I am reading his book on free will right now. Very thought provoking. Excellent idea Rick. If anyone can bridge these disparate perspective in a non judgmental way so the discussion can really breath, it is YOU! ---In [email protected], <rick@...> wrote : I have this idea kicking around in my head to try to interview Sam Harris, or someone like him. An intelligent atheist, as I understand him. I’d want to read all his books first, and then hash out the likely points of discussion with you beforehand. We could do it on FFL. My perspective is very SCI-like – that intelligence is omnipresent, all-pervading, and obvious if one looks closely enough. I’m interviewing a guy named Bernardo Kastrup in a couple of months who has written a book called “Why Materialism is Baloney”, but it would be fun to interview an intelligent materialist, if that’s what Harris is, and see if we could find any common ground. What do you think?
