This book aims to convince everyone, even skeptics and athiests, that there is value in some spiritual practises, particularly those related to meditation. Sam Harris argues that mediation doesn’t just help with concentration, but can also help us reach transcendental states that reveal the dissolution of the self. It mostly does a good job of what it sets out to do, but unfortunately I didn’t gain very much benefit from this book because it focused almost exclusively on persuading you that there is value here, which I already accepted, rather than providing practical instructions.
One area where I was less convinced was his claims about there not being a self. He writes that when meditating allows you to directly experience this, but worry he hasn’t applied sufficient skepticism. If you experience flying through space in an altered mental, it doesn’t mean that you are really flying through space. Similarly, how do we know that he is experiencing the lack of a self, rather than the illusion of there being no self?
I was surprised to see that Sam was skeptical of a common materialist belief that I had expected him to endorse. Many materialists argue against the notion of philosophical-zombies by arguing that if it seems conscious we should assume it is conscious. However, Sam Harris argues that the phenomenon of anaesthesia awareness, waking up completely paralysed during surgery, shows that there isn’t always a direct link between appearing conscious and actual consciousness. (Dreams seem to imply the same point, if less dramatically). Given the strength of this argument, I’m surprised that I haven’t heard it before.
Sam also argues that split-brain patients imply that consciousness is divisible. While split-brain patients actually still possess some level of connection between the two halves, I still consider this phenomenon to be persuasive evidence that this is the case. After all, it is possible for the two halves to have completely different beliefs and objectives without either side being aware of these.
On meditation, Sam is a fan of the Dzogchen approach that directly aims at experiencing no-self, rather than the slower, more gradual approaches. This is because waiting years for a payoff is incredibly discouraging and because practises like paying attention to the sensation of breath reinforce the notion of the self which meditation seeks to undermine. At the same time, he doesn’t fully embrace this style of teaching, arguing that the claim every realisation is permanent is dangerous as it leads to treating people as role models even when their practise is flawed.
Sam argues against the notion of gurus being perfect; they are just humans like the rest of us. He notes that is hard to draw the line between practises that lead to enlightenment and abuse; indeed he argues that a practise can provide spiritual insight AND be abusive. He notes that the reason why abuse seems to occur again and again is that when people seek out a guru it’s because they’ve arrived at the point where they realise that there is so much that they don’t know and they need the help of someone who does.
He also argues against assuming mediative experiences provide metaphysical insights. He points out that they are often the same experiences that people have on psychedelics. In fact, he argues that for some people having a psychedelic experience is vital for their spiritual development as it demonstrates that there really are other brain states out there. He also discusses near death experiences and again dismisses claims that they provide insight into the afterlife—they match experiences people have on drugs and they seem to vary by culture.
Further points: - Sam talked about experiencing universal love while on DMT. Many religions contain this idea of universal love, but he couldn’t appreciate it until he had this experience - He argues that it is impossible to stay angry for more than a few seconds without continuously thinking thoughts to keep us angry. To demonstrates this, he asks us to imagine that we receive an important phone call. Most likely we will put our anger aside.
FWIW no self is a bad reification/translation of not self, and the overhwleming majority seem to be metaphysically confused about something that is just one more tool rather than some sort of central metaphysical doctrine. When directly questioned “is there such a thing as the self” the Buddha is famously mum.
No-self is an ontological claim about everyone’s phenomenology. Not self is a mental state that people can enter where they dis-identify with the contents of consciousness.
Many materialists argue against the notion of philosophical-zombies by arguing that if it seems conscious we should assume it is conscious. However, Sam Harris argues that the phenomenon of anaesthesia awareness, waking up completely paralysed during surgery, shows that there isn’t always a direct link between appearing conscious and actual consciousness.
One of the problems with the general anti zombie principle, is that it makes much too strong a claim that what appears conscious, must be.
Book Review: Waking Up by Sam Harris
This book aims to convince everyone, even skeptics and athiests, that there is value in some spiritual practises, particularly those related to meditation. Sam Harris argues that mediation doesn’t just help with concentration, but can also help us reach transcendental states that reveal the dissolution of the self. It mostly does a good job of what it sets out to do, but unfortunately I didn’t gain very much benefit from this book because it focused almost exclusively on persuading you that there is value here, which I already accepted, rather than providing practical instructions.
One area where I was less convinced was his claims about there not being a self. He writes that when meditating allows you to directly experience this, but worry he hasn’t applied sufficient skepticism. If you experience flying through space in an altered mental, it doesn’t mean that you are really flying through space. Similarly, how do we know that he is experiencing the lack of a self, rather than the illusion of there being no self?
I was surprised to see that Sam was skeptical of a common materialist belief that I had expected him to endorse. Many materialists argue against the notion of philosophical-zombies by arguing that if it seems conscious we should assume it is conscious. However, Sam Harris argues that the phenomenon of anaesthesia awareness, waking up completely paralysed during surgery, shows that there isn’t always a direct link between appearing conscious and actual consciousness. (Dreams seem to imply the same point, if less dramatically). Given the strength of this argument, I’m surprised that I haven’t heard it before.
Sam also argues that split-brain patients imply that consciousness is divisible. While split-brain patients actually still possess some level of connection between the two halves, I still consider this phenomenon to be persuasive evidence that this is the case. After all, it is possible for the two halves to have completely different beliefs and objectives without either side being aware of these.
On meditation, Sam is a fan of the Dzogchen approach that directly aims at experiencing no-self, rather than the slower, more gradual approaches. This is because waiting years for a payoff is incredibly discouraging and because practises like paying attention to the sensation of breath reinforce the notion of the self which meditation seeks to undermine. At the same time, he doesn’t fully embrace this style of teaching, arguing that the claim every realisation is permanent is dangerous as it leads to treating people as role models even when their practise is flawed.
Sam argues against the notion of gurus being perfect; they are just humans like the rest of us. He notes that is hard to draw the line between practises that lead to enlightenment and abuse; indeed he argues that a practise can provide spiritual insight AND be abusive. He notes that the reason why abuse seems to occur again and again is that when people seek out a guru it’s because they’ve arrived at the point where they realise that there is so much that they don’t know and they need the help of someone who does.
He also argues against assuming mediative experiences provide metaphysical insights. He points out that they are often the same experiences that people have on psychedelics. In fact, he argues that for some people having a psychedelic experience is vital for their spiritual development as it demonstrates that there really are other brain states out there. He also discusses near death experiences and again dismisses claims that they provide insight into the afterlife—they match experiences people have on drugs and they seem to vary by culture.
Further points:
- Sam talked about experiencing universal love while on DMT. Many religions contain this idea of universal love, but he couldn’t appreciate it until he had this experience
- He argues that it is impossible to stay angry for more than a few seconds without continuously thinking thoughts to keep us angry. To demonstrates this, he asks us to imagine that we receive an important phone call. Most likely we will put our anger aside.
Recommended reading:
- https://samharris.org/a-plea-for-spirituality/
- https://samharris.org/our-narrow-definition-of-science/
FWIW no self is a bad reification/translation of not self, and the overhwleming majority seem to be metaphysically confused about something that is just one more tool rather than some sort of central metaphysical doctrine. When directly questioned “is there such a thing as the self” the Buddha is famously mum.
What’s the difference between no self and not self?
No-self is an ontological claim about everyone’s phenomenology. Not self is a mental state that people can enter where they dis-identify with the contents of consciousness.
One of the problems with the general anti zombie principle, is that it makes much too strong a claim that what appears conscious, must be.