Join neuroscientist, philosopher, and best-selling author Sam Harris as he explores important and controversial questions about the human mind, society, and current events. Sam Harris is the author of five New York Times bestsellers. His books include The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, Free Will, Lying, Waking Up, and Islam and the Future of Tolerance (with Maajid Nawaz). The End of Faith won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction. His writing and public lectures cover a wide range of topics—neuroscience, moral philosophy, religion, meditation practice, human violence, rationality—but generally focus on how a growing understanding of ourselves and the world is changing our sense of how we should live. Harris's work has been published in more than 20 languages and has been discussed in The New York Times, Time, Scientific American, Nature, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and many other journals. He has written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Economist, The Times (London), The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, The Annals of Neurology, and elsewhere. Sam Harris received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neu...
http://www.samharris.org
recommended podcasts
Collections with this podcast
#97 — The Impossible War
In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Ken Burns and Lynn Novick about their latest film, The Vietnam War.
You can support the Waking Up podcast at samharris.org/support.
#96 — The Nature of Consciousness
In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Thomas Metzinger about the scientific and experiential understanding of consciousness. They also talk about the significance of WWII for the history of ideas, the role of intuition in science, the ethics of building conscious AI, the self as an hallucination, how we identify with our thoughts, attention as the root of the feeling of self, the place of Eastern philosophy in Western science, and the limitations of secular...
#95 — What You Need to Know About Climate Change
In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Joseph Romm about how the climate is changing and how we know that human behavior is the primary cause. They discuss why small changes in temperature matter so much, the threats of sea-level rise and desertification, the best and worst case scenarios, the Paris Climate Agreement, the politics surrounding climate science, and many other topics.
You can support the Waking Up podcast at samharris.org/support.
#94 — The Future of Intelligence
In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Max Tegmark about his new book Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. They talk about the nature of intelligence, the risks of superhuman AI, a nonbiological definition of life, the substrate independence of minds, the relevance and irrelevance of consciousness for the future of AI, near-term breakthroughs in AI, and other topics.
You can support the Waking Up podcast at samharris.org/support.
#93 — Identity & Terror
In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Douglas Murray about identity politics, the rise of white nationalism, the events in Charlottesville, guilt by association, the sources of western values, the problem of finding meaning in a secular world, and other topics.
You can support the Waking Up podcast at samharris.org/support.
#92 — The Limits of Persuasion
In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with David Pizarro and Tamler Sommers about free speech on campus, the Scott Adams podcast, the failings of the mainstream media, moral persuasion, moral certainty, the ethics of abortion, Buddhism, the illusion of the self, and other topics.
You can support the Waking Up podcast at samharris.org/support.
#91 — The Biology of Good and Evil
In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Robert Sapolsky about his work with baboons, the opposition between reason and emotion, doubt, the evolution of the brain, the civilizing role of the frontal cortex, the illusion of free will, justice and vengeance, brain-machine interface, religion, drugs, and other topics.
You can support the Waking Up podcast at samharris.org/support.
#90 — Living With Violence
In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Gavin de Becker about the primacy of human intuition in the prediction and prevention of violence.
You can support the Waking Up podcast at samharris.org/support.
#89 — On Becoming a Better Person
In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with David Brooks about his book The Road to Character, the importance of words like “sin” and "virtue," self-esteem vs. self-overcoming, the significance of keeping promises, honesty, President Trump, and other topics.
You can support the Waking Up podcast at samharris.org/support.
#88 — Must We Accept a Nuclear North Korea?
In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Mark Bowden about the problem of a nuclear-armed North Korea.
You can support the Waking Up podcast at samharris.org/support.