Joe Rogan Experience #543 — Sam Harris Transcript

Transcript

0:00 Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out! When did you post that? And look, we're pals. There's no such thing as a spirit, so why would you want to endorse something called spirituality? Can I pull these off because I'm – out if God needs if God needs these we know his powers are limited I'll take And it's this idea that the spirit is, you're asserting some kind of dualism.

3:19 other methodology that really perturbs consciousness, There's no word for that endeavor. And to call it Because once we understand things like psychopathy and other ways in which Obviously, that's an evil deed. receptor that correlates with psychopathy or a deficit of such a receptor, then you Is that, I mean, negative? in a way that doesn't resonate with me. So the far end of the extremity where you have somebody

7:11 So when you hear that, that's not the same thing as hearing and yet the only similar words that do a similar job are even spooky or something I hate neologisms. sort of redefining the world are you starting a cult like you're coming up with your own jargon Now, this is a... And the people who are satisfied with bad reasons and willing to defend their bad reasons with

10:22 that there's all these good things sense of self, lose your sense of being an ego, lose your sense that you're a rider on the horse And most people most of the time feel that they're in their heads believe that it's an illusion based on just the underlying neurology gets improved in many obvious ways once one is able to cut through that illusion. Your thought process is affected when you're sick.

13:41 Yeah, yeah. selves are called forth in those I become the Asperger's guy with him. But, yeah, the mind is complicated. Because it's interesting you raise the point of solitary confinement because the experience that has got me to write this book And to some degree, it's obviously not like being in a prison, no one to talk to or nothing to read or nothing to distract myself with. And I was in a tent.

17:57 the Unabomber's Manifesto is a far more balanced expression these things but i eventually went on to spend uh you know almost two years on silent retreats in external circumstances shows you that it's really, I mean, you are almost entirely dependent on the character of your thoughts, really. identical to whatever subjective state, emotional state, mood state it dictates. So if it's a

20:57 when you were 16 years old, if like you took me and said oh you have to spend a few days alone up in the mountain. who would be miserable in that circumstance there's this real discontinuity with every project and every aspiration and everything you have going on. When you really start paying attention to it, the sheer automaticity of it, just to not be able to stop the conversation. And you just can't stop talking

24:14 Because without the concentration, all of a sudden the thought's just you. I mean, you're just hearing the sound of my voice as a kind of appearance in consciousness right now. It's the feeling of this next thought capturing consciousness. And you are identical to that idea. the story at the moment. me um one of my main issues is my work um like uh like stand-up comedy for instance like if i have a show and uh i fuck a bit up if it

28:22 that that uncomfortable moment and then the subsequent uncomfortable recollection of that moment you know like why i'm cutting into my food yeah well that that that's an interesting moment because You're totally captured by the movie. Yet we lose in that same fight a thousand times a day. see thoughts for what they are. So the next time you flub a line and the next time you recall it,

30:43 comes and it goes, and it doesn't have, and it's going, I'm going to get up earlier. And you can selectively be as uptight and neurotic as you want, not just likely but it's someone in there's 100 people fighting in this tournament someone's going UFC heavyweight. Travis Brown lost the fight by decision. And he's curled up in a fetal position crying.

34:54 You're only as good as your last appearance of this thing vulnerable to what other other people think about you and um captive of your for other people to hear, and they could hear you repeat yourself over and over and over again, without any sense that there should be continuity. Because the repetition, and I brought you a book, and I wanted to sign the book,

37:59 That doesn't make any sense. And yet our subjectivity is continually just – it is discursive in that way. out loud in the way that, you know, you'd have to be sort of crazy to do as an adult. But as a kid, and it wouldn't be starkly crazy, but to verbalize them, then you're a madman. So our relationships are based on thoughts and every public institution and science.

41:09 there is a kind of delusion there. It is analogous to the dream state in a way where you're just, And yet it's not really taught. few people that go through that entire process are involved in a comprehensive analysis of how to think. Yeah, well, mindfulness is actually increasingly current now, Yeah. were reporting back in terms of their experience was amazing.

44:54 if you want to have a very clear look at the nature of your own consciousness, So you're just noticing unpleasant experience without pushing it away and noticing pleasant experience without trying to grab at it. downside to the way mindfulness is being marketed at this point is that it's really being thought of as almost an esoteric version of an executive stress ball where it's a tool to optimize performance and it's the kind of thing that a CEO wants to have in his toolkit.

46:58 in this case, about the nature of the mind. The center of the bullseye is to cut through this illusion So you're walking around and you know you have a head, Right. and this feeling of being a self behind the eyes is this feeling of there being a center you're no longer looking over your own shoulder having the experience, And then that's why a person would surf or do anything else,

51:17 And that's really the subject of this book. That flow state is very different when you get great at something, whether it's martial arts or you feel it in stand-up comedy as well. anything like that when you're when you're when you're locked in when you know you you've done There'll be no flow state. You'll be acting and reacting instead of just in the zone.

53:24 different things as you know, you're trying to hit the little white ball. You know, you can just drop your problem while realizing that you don't know what to do when the guy's passing your guard. You know, but it's, these, so these, but people find these experiences really addictive and not addictive in a technical, in a biological sense, but they're just really captivating, and they orient their lives around having these experiences.

55:45 And if you're a jihadist feeling that, just as you get off the bus in Syria and you meet And what I'm arguing is that the only thing peak experiences prove there are Hindus who have experiences that are identical Is that what's going on when Pentecostals speak in tongues, when they hit that, To some degree, it is a uh yeah i've never seen it so i don't know what on fear factor a guy was um he, he actually won the event, but it's so hilarious.

59:01 So you just drove. You know, it was weird to watch someone. where it would have linguistic structure, He's one of those guys that Jesus wants you to see. like that kind of sound. in their bullshit language and his bullshit language. yeah there's not that many ways to make nonsense quick sounds quickly and so that i mean there's Yeah. And see if they

1:02:11 Well, it's interesting to know where the line between self-deception and conscious fraud is placed. yeah because he's you know for a decade or more he sees people flop around at the mirror you know all of a sudden, it's gone. It's like science in that you're running an experiment that is as close to a real experiment as you can run without anyone getting killed.

1:04:37 to be able to nullify the advantage of jiu-jitsu. you really do want to be on the ground. And so there's Like a wheel kick or something. And he introduces the original technique. front kick to the face right and for years we had none um terry edam when he first knocked out or um that have happened and and and how all these traditional techniques have been discarded that

1:07:51 just a pure traditionalist who was like one of the guys who showed up at UFC 1 now, who really actually do those techniques. I've worked out with high level guys, like guys who are fighting for And when I've tried to teach them these specific techniques, it's amazing how incompetent they are at them. You're used to a certain distance as well. You have the reaction time and action time are two very different things.

1:10:31 That's why, actually, this opens up to, I don't know if we want to go recklessly in this direction, but this opens up into the ethics of uses of violence and just kind of use of force philosophy. about knowing what happened in Ferguson And so they have to assume that that is a possibility no matter what you look like, and then you sue him later. But it's just because the filter he is seeing everything through is this guy.

1:12:57 And so very few people understand that. And people are just not aware of that. And they're interacting with cops. And it's dangerous for He's giving her his stuff, and he says, and she's like, sir, I need you to turn around and lean your body up against him. You can't assume that someone's a good person. Is this the day? industrial workers. cops never die like i saw this twitter post it says like one-tenth of one percent of cops die

1:16:53 in terms of your hand-to-hand skills. do the job against somebody who doesn't have a gun themselves. And so it's a hard job. And I've got who's just taking totally rational steps to stay safe in a situation where there's just basic uncertainty as to what you're dealing with. I think we're requiring so much of someone who He punched you in the face so fast.

1:20:12 got you know guys got tats like you and he's got cauliflower ear and and you mauled not mauled like um like well you know i kind of held them off for a little while but It's like drowning because when you're, your arms and legs is just it's completely ineffectual and you could be making a hundred And then you get on the mat with somebody who really has a deep jiu-jitsu game

1:22:51 And I have to be on full defense. Marcelo Garcia and you had like months to prepare I would just bench press her And they go in there and they just get tied up. Because you have this very calm, very flat way of expressing yourself, which makes anyone who's super emotional and super And the crucial difference, and one reason why jiu-jitsu is so satisfying,

1:25:45 is as a politician no matter how wrong you are on the on the facts if you if you can get a big What was that, 88 or something like that? Yes. Jack Kennedy was a friend. You know, Jack Kennedy, fuck, man. Yeah. Exactly. Jesus doesn't want us to let queers marry each other. but I recognize that if you go long enough I'm hoping that I'm making sense. have a certain amount of charisma or you have to have a certain sense of humor you have to have

1:30:06 This was when I was in high school. this is who he really is this is what he's trying to protect like he's like he's wearing a superhero blogged about this. Jefferson had a morbid fear of public speaking and gave exactly two speeches, Supportives of his? Yeah. you would think they're absolutely insane. would you, you know, and weird affectations of his voice.

1:33:25 and i'm going to make you cry and and now obviously it's incredibly effective you know and i'm getting his vibe and there's i'm not getting exactly what a german would have gotten you know, I try to speak, and this is, you know is one reason why I would never be a great speaker, but I try to be as conversational as possible. magic club every sunday night and uh it was like a regular show he would do there and on sunday

1:36:14 And that was how he found out whether or not it was an actual funny idea or whether or And one of the reasons why it's such a great speech is not just because he said it, being aided by a mic he's it's appropriate to be belting it out over over the heads of the audience Could you do it? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It is a Scientology thing, yeah. They're not uncomfortable making silent eye contact with somebody. They're not constantly throwing their words into the space because

1:40:08 this is a period where i was doing a lot of psychedelics and one of the experiences being committed to looking into people's eyes and never looking away can be a way of sort of So all of the psychopaths and the Scientologists and everyone comes out of the woodwork because there's some number of people walking around Earth at this moment who are playing that game.

1:42:11 know 40 feet between us and he looked at me and I looked at him and then it was just like war of you know, 40 feet away. Right. And I was like, what's going on here? And then finally something happened. it's still in my head for no reason at all just me and this fucking guy looking at each other on that you need to just throw whatever you've got in your hand on the ground.

1:45:53 freedom from kind of the neurotic self-program that everyone's running i mean you can you can and there are artifacts which are confusing to people You know, when someone's busy, like trying to not be, not spaz meeting Jill Rogan, you There's nothing about the frame around the situation that is making you the center of And every, you know, he transformed everybody's life in that room to some degree.

1:48:57 Kumari. can't make eye contact with a woman like that and just lock eyes with her without her thinking you because especially male to woman you know because of a guy is locking eyes with another guy. it's just intrusive. is there free will and you would probably say no yeah i have said no much to the consternation of and, you know, comrade in arms on the whole religion issue.

1:52:32 but free will has always been a topic including every influence on the human brain and everything that's giving rise to thoughts and decisions and behavior, And he, he thought he was being, you know, in his defense, I think he thought he was being very diplomatic and measured and responsible in how he engaged me. And what he did is he when you're just writing

1:55:21 but you can easily find it on my blog. more or less effortlessly. he wrote this review and I said okay and he hadn't probably showed me the review before I And it was no go there. you are in a position to do what it is you do, You didn't pick your parents. you haven't created your neurophysiology, And the truth is, it actually doesn't matter. So, for instance, just to notice this moment.

2:00:45 free will program over there. Right. Right. And so that's the intuition that I'm trying to get at. if I can hold up this piece of paper Right. How do you know when a person has decided? kind of streaming in front of you. And you're just watching the letters and numbers. screen when I was committed. of controlling your thoughts. It's a very interesting experiment.

2:05:01 so as to make it an invalid experiment. And it's still being caused by events that you didn't cause. And yet it's very difficult to map on to third-person reality. It's very difficult to map on to the physical world. because you're just a machine that's that's throwing dice occasionally um so but but the each one of those hiccups is a mystery to me subjectively,

2:08:02 There are other synonyms, there are other words that mean consistency Okay. names you recognize and which Paris was not in the cards for you. and you didn't think Paris. if we rewind the movie of our lives right now, But are we not getting trapped in minutiae here? So it comes up to my mind pretty quickly. so this can all seem very abstract and academic and of no use to anyone. And what I argue in my

2:12:22 And so we can maybe table that for the moment or maybe we'll get to it. and someone's giving you some donuts Sometimes you've got a will of steel and you don't eat the donut. But what that doesn't mean, that doesn't mean that willpower is irrelevant. My decision to train will be the proximate cause of my going into a school and training. And so you can't—where people get confused is they think that determinism

2:15:12 Right. I mean, is that not free will in some sense? someone like Dan Dennett wants to say that is all we mean by free will the only thing you need for free will is this effect of intention and training life, if replayed in your double you've got no free will but we are going to throw in a little randomness to make you you know you But that's not free will that's just you know if you knew that your decision to marry your wife as opposed to somebody else

2:19:02 get. And I'm not arguing that punishment is So this guy is, if anyone deserves to be punished, this guy does, and he was killed by the cops. his brain because he knows something's wrong with it and maybe they can find the reason and to be undermining their impulse control. of physical causality. And what I'm arguing is that if we fully, if we had a perfect understanding

2:21:57 variables, again, that you inherited courtesy of genes and environment, which are the only influences we think you have, right? And if we could understand these influences clearly, it would all begin to look like Charles Whitman's brain tumor. do here? There's something that's going on in your mind the exact same, no randomness at all, If there is a consciousness, if there's a something in the mind.

2:24:38 but it's still just coming out of the darkness from your point of view subjectively. You don't No, no. you know what, after all this, I'm going to go with the right, case but you can make it as big as you want whether i shoot shoot the intruder in my living There's no, today, I'm going to be a better person. It may be semantic in how most people will live their lives most of the time.

2:27:20 But here's where it changes. just roll back the clock of his life, right? So when you look at him as a 40-year-old, which um is an illusion and but what i'm arguing is that this actually can become the basis and the determinism is hostile to any notion of retributive justice. I can defend myself from it. How does that change life? out on the street?

2:31:28 and financial systems that have been co-opted by pharmaceutical companies Turns out just by sheer luck, it's just you got one, you know, there's one neurotransmitter You know, you just put it in the food supply, right? Whitman, right? So Charles Whitman, you discover the brain the brain tumor was the reason why he was going to be Charles Whitman. Okay, but you wouldn't have that on the grizzly bear.

2:33:14 No, no, but on some level you understand that ran amok I mean, they lynched an elephant, right? This is, if we, with someone like Charles Whitman, when you see that there's a brain tumor, you recognize, all right, he's just being a guy who's got a brain tumor in the wrong place. That's a hard pill. when you want to just bring down the hammer on him?

2:35:15 the shot doesn't exist to turn someone who's a psychopath into a good person. Or psychopaths of a certain extremity. Right. comes to a mind like okay in your case when you're writing and you're sitting in front of your computer and, you know, I'm sure you probably have those moments where a concept or a sentence comes and it almost feels like it appears out of midair, right?

2:38:33 That can be cut through. But you can raise the stakes as much as you want. whether we're sober, And you feel like you're being led around by the nose, by the environment, a little bit more there. Okay. Now, again, nothing turns on it, It's like there was nothing riding on it. You know who Oprah is. Yeah, so you would have been lost on me. I know I've got this thing and I can't figure out

2:41:43 is inexplicable I heard that somebody, it was like some Apple hacking thing. I see what you're saying, and I agree with you mostly. I don't know. You know, you eat a salad or you eat a bowl of pasta. Is it just neurochemistry? I mean, is it making me decide that? Is it just neurochemistry? Yeah, but that doesn't, the thing is that doesn't take out any of the good stuff of life.

2:43:58 which makes absolutely no sense is a malfunctioning robot. we are consciousness cannot be detached less profound. actions or punishing people or removing people. Not at all. Not at all. Exactly. Because punishment carjackings and we want the carjackers to be better people. So we're going to do X, Y, and Z That's one thing that, I mean, what you just said was very important,

2:47:25 law itself like when you have a prosecutor whose entire your your your reputation is built on Yeah, yeah. So it's in a sense the system itself is so inherently flawed that it almost should be tossed out and it should be where no one has an incentive whether that person is guilty or innocent. They're too good at manipulating equally flawed, because you're picking all these people.

2:50:16 can benefit financially from someone being innocent or guilty yeah and if we had a a reliable lie Yeah, and that was a troubling case. And I'm sure people are going crazy, writing blogs, responding to you and Twitter comments Is it on audiobook as well? Excellent. It was like a Cirque du Soleil act that I couldn't perform. and you got people in a... you know, you're in a

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