It's hard not to love Sam Harris. He may lack the louche charm of the late Christopher Hitchens, but he's an attractive man nevertheless; super-smart and good-looking in a Ben Stilleresque manner. And, like Hitchens, he's courageous enough to openly challenge religious stupidity in all its forms (including the most violent).
But nobody's perfect: not even Sam Harris. And some of his views - particularly those in relation to parapsychology, mysticism and the so-called wisdom of the East - leave me troubled and disappointed.
It's a shame that despite all the excellent work in The End of Faith mapping out the future of reason and insulting believers, Harris continues to write of spiritual needs and to argue that our highest purpose as human beings is to come to terms with the sacred dimension of existence on an intuitive (but rational) basis.
This seems to mean not only admitting that there are transformative experiences that transcend "the ordinary limits of our subjectivity", but accepting that such experiences are empirically significant "in that they uncover genuine facts about the world" [40]. And, wouldn't you know, these also happen to be moral facts that (in part at least) help to make happy.
In effect, Harris wants to combine scientific skepticism with an openness of mind that accepts the reality of psychic phenomena and the claims of mystics concerning ideas of reincarnation, for example, as spiritual truths worthy of serious investigation: "It is time we realized that we need not ... renounce all forms of spirituality or mysticism to be on good terms with reason." [43]
Which is, of course, just another way of saying: I want to have my cake and eat it.
A philosophy graduate from Stanford with a Ph.D. in neuroscience, Harris just can't help being a bit spooky when it comes to the question of consciousness and taking a pop at those scientists who believe that the latter is wholly dependent on the workings of the brain. Such materialism, says Harris, is merely another kind of faith position; a conviction for which there is no conclusive evidence.
Mind, suggests Harris, may be a rudimentary phenomenon that exists beyond "living creatures and their brains" [209]; one which can only be explored directly through sustained introspection - i.e., via meditation and other spiritual practices, including prayer and fasting.
Aware that such ascetic idealism may strike many of his readers as a "confusing eruption of speculative philosophy" [214], Harris claims such a response to be an unfortunate consequence of Western ignorance. We might understand theoretical physics, but we are conceptually unequipped to understand the spiritually advanced and more sophisticated claims of "the great philosopher mystics of the East" [215].
Further, we're too tied to our thoughts to ever experience true consciousness which transcends its contents, or grasp the roiling mystery of the world, that is non-conceptual but not inconceivable to those initiates who have woken up to the fact that "mysticism is a rational enterprise" and that the human mind has a natural propensity for spirituality [221].
Oh, Sam!
See: Sam Harris, The End of Faith, (The Free Press, 2006). Page references in the text are to this edition.
In effect, Harris wants to combine scientific skepticism with an openness of mind that accepts the reality of psychic phenomena and the claims of mystics concerning ideas of reincarnation, for example, as spiritual truths worthy of serious investigation: "It is time we realized that we need not ... renounce all forms of spirituality or mysticism to be on good terms with reason." [43]
Which is, of course, just another way of saying: I want to have my cake and eat it.
A philosophy graduate from Stanford with a Ph.D. in neuroscience, Harris just can't help being a bit spooky when it comes to the question of consciousness and taking a pop at those scientists who believe that the latter is wholly dependent on the workings of the brain. Such materialism, says Harris, is merely another kind of faith position; a conviction for which there is no conclusive evidence.
Mind, suggests Harris, may be a rudimentary phenomenon that exists beyond "living creatures and their brains" [209]; one which can only be explored directly through sustained introspection - i.e., via meditation and other spiritual practices, including prayer and fasting.
Aware that such ascetic idealism may strike many of his readers as a "confusing eruption of speculative philosophy" [214], Harris claims such a response to be an unfortunate consequence of Western ignorance. We might understand theoretical physics, but we are conceptually unequipped to understand the spiritually advanced and more sophisticated claims of "the great philosopher mystics of the East" [215].
Further, we're too tied to our thoughts to ever experience true consciousness which transcends its contents, or grasp the roiling mystery of the world, that is non-conceptual but not inconceivable to those initiates who have woken up to the fact that "mysticism is a rational enterprise" and that the human mind has a natural propensity for spirituality [221].
Oh, Sam!
See: Sam Harris, The End of Faith, (The Free Press, 2006). Page references in the text are to this edition.
