Sam Harris / Rupert Spira debate clip

[*osokin]

Hello everyone,

Just want to share a YouTube clip from the interview Sam Harris did of Rupert Spira some time back. (The full version is available through Harris's Waking Up app, which I understand not everyone will be motivated to sign up for; hence the free excerpt.)

Note that this is the same brief (21 minute) section of their exchange that I posted my verbatim transcription of about a year ago on the old BK forum. It's fairly contentious, with the two agreeing on the phenomenological significance of consciousness, but (unsurprisingly) disagreeing on its ontological primacy.

[Eugene I]

I don't know much about Harris and his views, but based on his comments in this conversation he equates the "reality at large" with "physics of things" which is physicalism. No wonder they could not agree. But I like how Rupert phrased it: "most materialist scientists no not have the integrity and honesty to admit that materialism is a religion."

[*osokin]

Yes, Harris is still basically a physicalist, albeit one who's got enough meditation experience and insight to be more sensitive to the significance of consciousness than many other popular and vocal physicalists. He's just not able to make the leap from phenomenological primacy to ontological primacy.

In my opinion, what’s likely holding him back in that regard, at least in part, is a failure to give significant weight to the hard problem. That, in addition to what he mentions in the clip (@19:17):

“If what happened to you [under general anesthesia] just spontaneously happened, it would be entirely mysterious: you just lost thirty minutes of life, and you couldn’t account for it. But here we have all these people who can account for it because they produced this effect in you. I’m saying that the temptation to be materialist, whatever word you want to use to describe all of these happenings outside of any one individual’s awareness, that is the temptation that we call materialism, or physical science, and that is the thing that is producing such an amazing spectrum of effects in terms of making predictions about the kinds of things we will find if we only look.”

Of course, both idealism and physicalism make inferences, and in that quote he’s referring to the inference made by idealism. But, as I said, he fails to recognize that the inference made by physicalism is an order of magnitude more outrageous and indefensible. This is where a comparable dialogue with Bernardo would not only be stimulating, but might even nudge Harris a bit closer to reconsidering his materialist stance.

[*osokin]

Incidentally, on that last note above, if everyone on this forum would go to Sam's website and submit a request for him to have a "Waking Up" dialogue with BK, it might help get this closer to happening. I did so some time ago.

[Lou Gold]

I loved Bernardo's book, "More Than Allegory." It was the turn-on for me. The highpoint occurred for me when he pointed out that both "dualism" and "non-dualism" are myths.

In terms of the podcast discussion of being under anesthesia I've seen youtubes of verified reports of people under anesthesia having an out-of-the-body experience of witnessing everything going on including detailed descriptions of the instruments in use.

[*osokin]

Absolutely, same with out-of-body experiences and veridical perception during NDEs. Those "mere anecdotes" (as naysayers typically call them) are still data that need to be taken into account when assigning the provenance of consciousness.

Speaking of NDEs, here's an interesting panel discussion that addresses a lot of the issues discussed on this forum (Bernardo is also referenced):

[Eugene I]

The highpoint occurred for me when he pointed out that both "dualism" and "non-dualism" are myths.

"Some seek nonduality, others duality. They do not know the Truth, which is the same at all times and everywhere, which is devoid of both duality and nonduality." Avadhuta Gita

[Eugene I]

Absolutely, same with out-of-body experiences and veridical perception during NDEs. Those "mere anecdotes" (as naysayers typically call them) are still data that need to be taken into account when assigning the provenance of consciousness.

Speaking of NDEs, here's an interesting panel discussion that addresses a lot of the issues discussed on this forum (Bernardo is also referenced):

Great video, and they also mentioned the book "The Self Does Not Die", a good read. And there is another one:
Chris Carter "Science and the Near-Death Experience: How Consciousness Survives Death".

Chris Carter wrote this in the comments on "The Self Does Not Die" on Amazon:

Literally millions of people alive today have reported clear, lucid consciousness and thought, including often accurate perception of the surrounding environment, occurring during periods of time in which there is every medical reason to believe that their brains were either severely impaired or entirely non-functioning. These so-called near-death experiences (NDEs) have been studied under rigorous conditions by cardiologists around the world; and the results have been published in scientific journals, including prestigious medical journals such as The Lancet, Resuscitation, and the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine,

Several of the very best cases are described in detail in this excellent book.

There is no self-contradiction in the statement that the mind can exist without a functioning brain: hence, it is at least a logical possibility, and the only way to decide if it is actually true is by a careful examination of the data. This book provides that careful examination.

The authors, as well as many respected physicians, brain surgeons, neuroscientists, and philosophers have concluded that these experiences provide solid evidence that normal, even enhanced consciousness can exist in the absence of a properly functioning brain. Their conclusion is the NDE is exactly what it appears to be: a genuine separation of mind from body during the early stages of biological death.

However, a small yet vocal minority of scientists and physicians deny this conclusion.

If this were almost any other field of inquiry, the controversy would have been settled by the data decades ago.

However, the study of near-death experiences (NDEs) is not like any other field of inquiry. The data of NDEs challenge deeply held worldviews, worldviews that are concerned not only with science, but also with religious and philosophical issues. As such, the evidence arouses strong passions, and for many, a strong desire to dismiss it.

It is impossible to fully understand this controversy without realizing that it has a strong ideological component. Most of the so-called “skeptics” are militant atheists, with a strong hidden agenda of promoting the ideology of materialism: the doctrine that everything, including life and mind, can be explained by the interaction of particles of matter and force fields. The data of NDEs indicate that the mind can exist without a functioning brain, which strongly refutes materialism.

Refusing to accept data that falsifies a scientific theory turns it into an ideology, a belief held as an article of faith, held despite evidence that it is not correct. And there seems to be a growing realization that ideological factors play a crucial role in several scientific controversies. Philosopher Tyler Burge (1993) has argued that the naturalistic view of the world is more like a political or religious ideology than like a position supported by evidence, and that materialism is an article of faith. More to the current point, neuroscientist Mario Beauregard in his book The Spiritual Brain has written:

“Materialists have conducted a running war against psi [and NDE] research for decades, because any evidence of psi’s validity, no matter how minor, is fatal to their ideological system. Recently, for example, self-professed skeptics have attacked atheist neuroscience grad student Sam Harris for having proposed, in his book titled The End of Faith (2004), that psi research has validity. Harris is only following the evidence. But in doing so, he is clearly violating an important tenet of materialism: materialist ideology trumps evidence.”

The thinking of militant atheists is, for the most part, based on the materialism implied by classical physics, which has been known to be fundamentally incorrect for over a century. And materialism simply cannot accommodate the reality of NDE and psi phenomena. If materialism is proven false by the data for the NDE and for psi, then one of the foundations of their opposition to religion is thereby removed.

In short, the deniers and debunkers tend to be militant atheists who are motivated by allegiance to an obsolete worldview, by ignorance of the implications of the new physics, and by a hatred of religion. If they admitted to the reality of psychic abilities such as telepathy, and of near death experiences as involving a genuine separation of mind from body, then the materialistic foundation of their worldview would crumble. Hence, their vehement denial of any evidence for the existence of the NDE as involving a genuine separation of mind from body.

Many “skeptics” are fond of pointing out various atrocities which have made a mockery of religious belief, such as the occasional persecution of witches and heretics in medieval times.
But we can just as easily find examples of atrocities committed in the name of ideology, which I define as a faith-based belief system that motivates a social agenda. Consider the misery inflected upon millions in the twentieth century by the ideologies of fascism and communism. Turning from one faith-based belief system to another is unlikely to solve the problem of fanaticism.

The “NDE debunker” who figures most prominently in this book is militant atheist Gerald Woerlee, an anesthesiologist currently practicing in the Netherlands. He is the most vocal and the most medically knowledgeable of the NDE “skeptics”. Woerlee has made it his personal crusade to debunk NDEs, as he realizes – correctly – that any evidence for the validity of NDEs is fatal to his ideological system. Rivas, Dirven, and Smit take on Woerlee’s arguments directly and convincingly refute them with logic, evidence, and the testimony of neurosurgeons and cardiologists directly involved with NDE cases and research.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Incidentally, on that last note above, if everyone on this forum would go to Sam's website and submit a request for him to have a "Waking Up" dialogue with BK, it might help get this closer to happening. I did so some time ago.

I've suggested this as well to both Sam and Ananka via the comments section of various podcast offerings ~ though how likely they are to follow such comments, who knows? In any case, given that BK has torn into Sam on a few occasions, mainly for his rather antagonistic dismissal of Eben Alexander's NDE account, and such accounts in general, as being highly suspicious and lacking any serious credibility, this may be a strong deterrent to either BK or SH having any vested interest in getting together for a respectful chat ~ although that was over 5 years ago now, and perhaps they've moved on from any animosity over that. But this is where the Essentia Foundation and its attempt at making the primacy of consciousness, and by extension psi/paranormal phenomena, scientifically viable to such a degree as to give science-based rationalists like Sam serious cause to reconsider, when EF has highly credible scientists on board making a cogent and coherent case for some variation of idealism ~ e.g. Don Hoffman who the Harris' have already interviewed. So perhaps make the same suggestion on the EF website and/or Facebook page as well, just for good measure.

[AshvinP]

Incidentally, on that last note above, if everyone on this forum would go to Sam's website and submit a request for him to have a "Waking Up" dialogue with BK, it might help get this closer to happening. I did so some time ago.

I've suggested this as well to both Sam and Ananka via the comments section of various podcast offerings ~ though how likely they are to follow such comments, who knows? In any case, given that BK has torn into Sam on a few occasions, mainly for his rather antagonistic dismissal of Eben Alexander's NDE account, and such accounts in general, as being highly suspicious and lacking any serious credibility, this may be a strong deterrent to either BK or SH having any vested interest in getting together for a respectful chat ~ although that was over 5 years ago now, and perhaps they've moved on from any animosity over that. But this is where the Essentia Foundation and its attempt at making the primacy of consciousness, and by extension psi/paranormal phenomena, scientifically viable to such a degree as to give science-based rationalists like Sam serious cause to reconsider, when EF has highly credible scientists on board making a cogent and coherent case for some variation of idealism ~ e.g. Don Hoffman who the Harris' have already interviewed. So perhaps make the same suggestion on the EF website and/or Facebook page as well, just for good measure.

As you point out, Sam Harris is rationalist to the core. His debate with Jordan Peterson went nowhere for that reason - most of the time was spent on JP trying to explain that the world of meaning and value precedes the world of empirically verifiable 'facts' and 'objects'. I'm afraid people like him have built up such a large stake in their anti-religious (anti-theist specifically) positions that it would literally ruin them to reverse course now, and that's exactly what repeated exposure to people like BK threatens them with. Annaka was in a panel debate recently with BK, though, so maybe she would agree to a one-on-one with BK. But in that panel debate, she made the claim that qualia can be experienced without any experiencer, and I think BK's response left her a bit shell-shocked.