Sam Harris praises reason as the only game in town for strangers to play

Near the end of Sam Harris' conversation with André Duqum, which I've written about here and here, Harris praised reason in a way that deeply resonated with me.

One reason I liked the praise of reason is that it's a vitally important human capacity that too often is taken for granted. It's the foundation of every well-functioning society and organization, from the smallest to the largest.

Yet too often we only notice the importance of reason when it's missing. As in religious dogma. As in political posturing. As in pronouncements of authoritarians. As in attempts to ban books and decry science.

At the moment Israel is embroiled in a war with Hamas, which attacked Israel from its base in Gaza. Reason isn't going to end the war, but it sure would have been nice if reason had been more in evidence during the lengthy disputes between Israel and the Palestinian people.

As you can read in the transcript I made of Harris' remarks about reason, he views reason as the only viable means of bringing enemies together who don't like each other. Reason can't guarantee a cooperative outcome of a dispute. 

But it's a heck of a lot better than killing each other.

Problem is, reason requires two or more reasonable people to function. This is obvious in recent Republican debates between presidential candidates. The moderators will ask a reasonable question, then the candidates generally toss reason aside and resort to emotional polemics instead.

The result: a lot of heat but little light. 

Harris starts off by referring to the project of improving human wellbeing, the overarching theme of his conversation with Duqum. In places I probably got some words wrong in this transcript, but overall it's accurate.

The only thing that is safeguarding this project, collectively, really, the only tool beyond just the goodwill  that wants that project to succeed -- the love, kindness, and gratitude that would release those fears -- is reason.

All we have is a disposition to talk about facts, to care about facts, to be consistent, to be self-aware of our own ignorance and our own capacity for self-deception and wishful thinking and cognitive bias, to meet other people. 

There are eight billion strangers. No matter how many people you know, virtually everyone is a stranger.  And all you can do is reason with them from a basic inclination to cooperate and find some future that is compatible with more and more of us, more of the time, leading better lives.

We need to recognize that we're all in principle on the same team, in the limit, and try to solve increasingly complex problems and build the tools to do that. Or we're going to fail spectacularly at the attempt to do that.

And our failure will be totally predictable. Our failure will be born of failures of rationality, failures of goodwill, failures of love, failures of kindness. Failures to act in what really is in our own best interest if we could only see it.

The idea that we could ever wind up in a condition that is permanently zero-sum is just a crazy illusion given the circumstance we're actually in.

How good life could be, if we just got our heads screwed on straight and cooperated without political division, and dogmatism, and all of these structures that reliably cause conversations to fail. It really doesn't seem wrong to expect something like a utopia if only we could get over our very basic political and apeish disinclinations to cooperate with one another.

Reason is the only tool for the job, because its the only algorithm you can run where even if people don't like each other and are emotionally unavailable -- they're resisting playing well with others -- because of its universal characteristics, with reason you can show your enemies how they're contradicting themselves. 

Reason has the capacity to force conversions and really drag people kicking and screaming across the finish line of cooperation, because at bottom reality has a certain structure and certain things are true and certain things are false.

Certain maps fit the territory better than other maps. And even if we are confused about the game we're playing, people tend not to like to bump into hard objects in the dark, right? They want to know where they're going, and insofar as there are right answers to any questions of importance, reason is the thing that will insure we're tracking that.

So apart from people who are completely psychotic or completely psychopathic, meaning they're fundamentally unavailable to any kind of cooperative effort, reason is the thing that, even in the absence  of appropriate love and good feelings, is going to align all of our interests.

Yeah, on some levels, it's the only game in town for strangers to play. 

Comments

[Ron E.]

Hmm, not too convinced of the power of reason. Reason, belief and emotion all seem to be tied in to the human psyche – in the sense of mind. Reason can be described as: - ‘The power of the mind to think, understand and form judgements logically.’

As the mind is a composite of information then it is that information that informs ones thinking, judgements and actions. I would say that if that information informs you that a particular action is reasonable, or even justified, then if that reasoning results in war and violence then for that mindset their actions stem from reason.

It is known that we humans do not reason entirely from facts; much of our reasoning stems from emotions and emotions, like reasons, are part of the brain’s network of information. The whole package of emotions, beliefs, logic, thinking and reasoning are part of the human mind. Perhaps it is possible to reprogramme, or rather absorb new information to counter the old, but so entrenched are we in our mind’s contents, generally, it is almost impossible.

[SantMat64]

Why Baba Sam Harris is Not My Guru ( Part 2)

I've noticed that the people who habitually qualify their opinions as "rational" are usually just highly biased wingnuts.

Baba Sam Harris for example. He doesn't like Trump, which is fine, totally understandable, and moreover is his right as a US citizen. But instead of merely pointing out how he doesn't like Trump and would not vote for him, Harris concocts one of his brilliantly *rational" arguments that it's perfectly fine when the U.S. government, Big Tech, and the news media collude to keep Trump from being elected in 2020.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EbsZ10wqnA

As I previously pointed out, Babaji Harris also says it's rational to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against a Muslim nation because Muslims can't be trusted.

Babaji is also on record for saying it's rational to torture people for the sake of the common good.

The Baba also considers it to be rationally sound to say that Bin Laden, responsible for the greatest terrorist attack in history, is actually a "mensch" and a man of admirable character.

The 3 great Babas. Watts, Breer, Harris.

[Spence Tepper]

The application of reason rests upon logic, and logic is hopelessly limited to accepted premises. These are core, agreed-upon assumptions, and they are bound by culture, knowledge, ignorance and prejudice.

Yet, in the core of Harris' comments is the seed of a truth he has not yet uncovered.

He says:
"We need to recognize that we're all in principle on the same team"

That recognition is not the result of reason, but experience.

That can come from different sources.

Travel is the long-accepted means to see that all people share a common humanity, even amidst different cultures. In travel, one witnesses different culture norms, sees kindness and compassion in different forms, as well as prejudice and limitation. Why did those strangers accept me with such kindness when they don't know me at all? It must be something within THEM, something within all human beings, whether developed or undeveloped.

But this travel can also be done within meditation, sitting peacefully and NOT thinking about such things. Those awakenings happen as our awareness expands.

So that isn't reason. It's purely experiential.

Having had that experience, then reason kicks in. In retrospect, in hindsight, we are all from the same genetic pool, nearly identical to all human beings with variation in less than 1% of our genetic code, and similar to all creatures on this planet, with variation no greater than 10-20%.

We are much the same. Examining the paper thin biosphere we all depend upon, and seeing what we have done to it should bring us closer, on this relatively tiny lifeboat called Earth. We cannot afford to live any other way.

"The world has become a neighborhood before it has become a brotherhood."
Lyndon Johnson

We can see that logically, we need to become a brotherhood. But that will mean that we must accept so much that we might have argued over. So much that we might have gotten into territorial disputes over. To get anything done, we must be pluralistic, unitarian in all cultural aspects, and focused on the truly important tasks. Humanism in its ultimate form, with behavior change, collaboration, teamwork for the good of all as the highest ethics that overarch and supercede all others. And there must be the support to do so, to reach decisions that may not always seem best locally, personally, but which are progressive and move things forward both locally and universally.

This is all the product of experience, however. To see the One in all, to see the power of life in all, that makes these outer shells far less essential.

[Spence Tepper]

As Isaac Asimov wrote decades ago...
"Violence is the refuge of the incompetent."

Competence requires a lot of creative work, to invent better options for everyone, to establish good will as a foundation. To make small steps together.

Competence requires an understanding of how corruption and incompetence on all sides perpetuates recurring incidents of violence.

And that competency is built on a foundation of understanding and acceptance that whatever has happened mustn't be the choice for the future, that it must be forgiven, but never forgotten, yet remembered only as the basis for rules that make collaboration, equality, freedom and cooperation possible for all.

Reason, sadly, doesn't work. Reason uses the past as evidence for the future.
But compassion can create a new future. And a new future is the only one that will work.

How sad is every new incredible idea. It holds all hope. Yet all the past evidence that exists is against it.

It's as if mom and dad said "We won't allow Junior to walk again. Every step, so far, has been met with a fall. the evidence is completely against walking."

And so goes conventional reason.

Solutions, brotherhood/sisterhood, requires a leap of faith that we can build what has never been before in human history.

Yet, human history is filled with such invention. History also does have hope, that we can do what has never been accomplished before.

Reason won't open the door, though it can help guide us through.
Compassion opens all doors.

[Puddin]

Reason has its limits.

It’s of scant use if a truly life-changing disaster befalls you.

And of course, it’s pretty much anathema to our greatest achievement or experience, which is an emotion, i.e. true love.

Nah highly overrated.

[SantMat64]

Why I don't "stand with Israel."

There's no excuse for the deliberate killing by Hamas of civilians, particularly women and children.

But I'm tired of the media hit parade portraying what happened as having come out causeless"anti-Semitism." Israel has done much to provoke the Palestinians.

It's true that 308 Israelis have been killed since 2008.

But Israel has killed 6407 Palestinians since that year. And since the Hamas attacks this week, Israel has "in response" indiscriminately slaughtered hundreds of Palestinians.

I'm also tired of hearing how Israel is our "friend" and ally. Israel has actually been nothing but a problem, endless problems for the U.S. since 1948. Despite the countless billions of dollars that we give that country every year, they refuse to act justly with the Palestinians which causes instability across the region.

And I've not forgotten how the Israel lobby had much to do with the decision to invade Iraq. Israel has a long history of Lying About fake 'WMDs' in Iran and Iraq. The fate of Israel was a major part of the calculus for sending American troops to Iraq. Thousands of Americans died in that war, those who made it out will never be the same, and it was all done for nothing. And Israel didn't commit a single soldier to fight that war.

Now Israel and its supporters are beating their war drums full blast for a war with Iran. As I said, endless problems.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi SantMat64:

Everyone has feet of clay. That is a truth that continues to prove itself.
Nations and their governments, and the terrorists within and without are all human beings.
When human beings attempt to justify killing of any kind, even in "war" there inevitably is collateral damage, and the death of innocents.

So now both sides are at fault. And yet each side must accept full responsibility for their behavior. To blame one side as the cause of harm from the other is mistaken and perpetuates a "victim" mentality that perpetuates the justifications for violence.

So Israel must be held accountable for every death they have caused.
And Hammas must be held accountable for every death they have caused.

Who will hold them accountable? When so many arms manufacturers benefit, when there is so much money and economics behind the violence, so much political power supporting it, how will it end?

The only solution will in fact be a diplomatic one, but a diplomatic solution only works when there is a disciplined police and military to enforce it.

If the only solution will be a diplomatic one, then why are we bombing innocents today?
If a diplomatic solution will be problematic and weak at best, but the only actual end (even temporarily) to violence, then why aren't we working very hard to build it?

The U.S. wants everyone to decry Hammas. That is right. But when it comes time to decry Israel's over-aggressive acts that have harmed civilians, that is also going to be part of the solution.

We're either going to condemn both, or forgive both, so long as they stop and come to the bargaining table.

And that will only happen with third party intervention.

There is no military solution to this problem. Just as with Ukraine.

The only solutions are diplomatic. And those are very, very difficult to build. Who is reaching out to build them? Who is willing to admit fault? Who is willing to forgive? Who is willing to bargain for some things in order to gain the more important things: Freedom and peace?

And how will these be enforced?

All of that is the work of diplomats backed by appropriate military strength.

[Spence Tepper]

In war we love the good guys and we hate the bad guys.

But in diplomacy, both are just participants at the bargaining table, and each must be treated with a basic respect for their right to live in peace and freedom.

That is a very, very tough platform.

But the only one that has ever worked.

The world is now too small to win through sheer unrestrained military power. Sheer unrestrained military power today will end all life on earth.

The world must be shared. And that sharing requires a level of maturity that is not universal by any means. Hence diplomacy is our only avenue.

People unwilling to bargain, unwilling to compromise on the smaller things in order to gain the larger ones; people unwilling to prioritize what is truly important for all people on all sides; people unwilling to treat others as equals and not enemies; these are the terrorists in every culture.

But we see them in all cultures: People who use their power and authority to take unfair advantage of others, rather than to work together as equals.

The standard must change. We are now a small family and must listen to and respect one another, and make compromises to share these limited resources.

[777]

Love