Bernardo Kastrup VS Sam Harris

[Lauris Olups]

Now, I know that in 2012 Bernardo publicly challenged Sam Harris to a discussion on the mind/body problem. Four years have gone by, and I'd still be happy to see this! Maybe we can start some form of petition to make it a reality? :D

[Bruce Snyder]

On Wednesday, May 4, 2016 at 2:18:59 PM UTC-7, Lauris Olups wrote:

Now, I know that in 2012 Bernardo publicly challenged Sam Harris to a discussion on the mind/body problem. Four years have gone by, and I'd still be happy to see this! Maybe we can start some form of petition to make it a reality? :D

Lauris, brilliant idea!!!

Sort of what I had in mind, based around Harris' most recent public discussion of "consciousness." here.

Bruce 

[Bernardo]

I am all for it... ;) (But not in HIS podcast, where he misuse his editorial control! Neutral ground instead, broadcast live, so no editing tricks)

[Lauris Olups]

OK, I'm about to make a petition on ipetitions.com :D. Can someone with nice image editing skills make a picture of both of them together? I tried but cut off Bernardo's arm :(.

[RHC]

I finally had a chance to listen to Sam Harris's talk with David Chalmer's

https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/the-light-of-the-mind

It was interesting for reasons I didn't expect.  First panpychism came up but idealism, did not, even though the conversation was such that it certainly should have if either one of them took it at all seriously. Of course this could have been edited out, but I suspect, given the flow of the conversation it was not.  I think what surprised me the most was, that just based on this conversation,  Chalmers seems to definitely be a realist.  There IS matter.  And he only seems to be interested in considering philosophical perspectives that can lead to scientific testing. 

I had two takeaways re Bernardo from this. 

1)  It might be even more interesting to talk to Chalmers, maybe invite him onto an Inception Dialogue.  At this point Bernardo probably knows someone who can make an introduction. 

2) There is definitely grounds to have a non confrontational, idea exploration conversation with Harris.  He states a number of times in this that conscious experience is the ONE thing we can be certain is not an illusion.  Though he makes a bit of case for epiphenomenalism starting at 50:00,  he seems pretty open about ultimate explanations. Interestingly they seem to be taking the position that this is only current idea that might make any sense under materialism to explain consciousness, though I might be reading to much into it. 

I suspect with both of these gentlemen the biggest block to getting them to take it seriously is that if they cant imagine ways of studying aspects of it directly scientifically they wont be interested. Im not saying thats the case just that a meaningful conversation with them will have to account for this framing. 

[Sciborg]

Am I the only person who thinks debating Harris would be an incredible waste of time?

“You cannot awaken someone who only pretends to be asleep”

  - Indian proverb

[Gaurav De]

I think so too. I like the proverb, and yes I feel that he instinctively knows that idealism makes sense. He just  pretends to be asleep. 

[RHC]

Id be much more interested in a Chalmers conversation, as I said.  If the the point of a conversation with Harris is some kind of dueling intellects, ego wrestling match, then I agree -- total waste of time that will just publicly diminish both people. However if the point is discuss their common experiences in meditation, hallucinogenics, common belief in the existence of consciousness and where and why they diverge, then it would be an interesting conversation. They are both very articulate, well read, thinkers and on a pragmatic level the conversation would expose each to large new audiences. 

[Peter Jones]

On Thursday, 5 May 2016 21:48:31 UTC+1, RHC wrote:

---Chalmers seems to definitely be a realist.  There IS matter.

Yep, He endorses 'naturalistic dualism', which is the idea that metaphysics is impossible so we might as well ignore it and be a materialist. His science is fine, no doubt, but his metaphysics is primary-school stuff. 

--- And he only seems to be interested in considering philosophical perspectives that can lead to scientific testing.

That's where I come in. To test these ideas one would have to first translate them into formal metaphysics and test them in logic, and only then derive predictions for physics. Trying to do it directly from the scriptures seems a hopeless project and actually rather naive. 

Physics has more or less proved Bernardo's view (or the Buddha's at least) in my opinion. It's just that this will not be obvious to anyone who doesn't know this view. This would be why I speak of a failure of scholarship in the academic community. It really ain't rocket-science, just a question of taking an interest. 

    

[Peter Jones]

On Friday, 6 May 2016 07:02:57 UTC+1, Sciborg wrote:

Am I the only person who thinks debating Harris would be an incredible waste of time?

No.

It will just promote him above his station. He should be asking to debate with Bernardo who should be too busy to bother.

Time to occupy the high ground.

[Peter Jones]

On Friday, 6 May 2016 12:29:14 UTC+1, RHC wrote:

---I'd be much more interested in a Chalmers conversation, as I said.

Very much agree.

 

[Sciborg]

RHC - the discussion idea isn't a bad one. 

Harris, at least where Psi and such is concerned, is the most open of the New Atheist horsemen for sure. But I think he'll retreat into "obvious" answers that avoid the deeper metaphysical questions as he did with his book on morality where he said there was an "Obvious Good" without explaining how we can identify the objective morality in his metaphysics.

[RHC]

Yes but it is potentially discussions with people like Bernardo that might help gradually dismantle his ego-cage.  who knows?   He actually once referred to himself in his youth as an ego wrapped in skin so he is not completely lacking in self awareness.  Yes I know he is STILL an ego wrapped in skin, but who among us can cast the first stone on that?!

[Sciborg]

To be clear not trying to tell Bernardo what to do with his time. And of course I may be definitely wrong about Harris.

But Harris isn't a major gatekeeper AFAICTell? He has less than 500K followers on Twitter?

[RHC]

>To be clear not trying to tell Bernardo what to do with his time.

Of course!  Nor any of us.  Though it can be easy to fall into living a little vicariously through him.  "Boy it sure would be fun to have a conversation with Chalmers, well thats not going to happen, I know lets get Bernardo to do it!!!"  LOL : )   He probably gets 3 hours of sleep a night as it is. 

Interesting on Harrises numbers.   I wonder how many FB followers Deepak has?  The total audience for these topics is relatively speaking pretty small dont you think?

[Bruce Snyder]

On Friday, May 6, 2016 at 2:05:31 PM UTC-7, Sciborg wrote:

To be clear not trying to tell Bernardo what to do with his time

On Friday, May 6, 2016 at 3:01:50 PM UTC-7, RHC wrote:

>To be clear not trying to tell Bernardo what to do with his time.

Of course!  Nor any of us.  

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not quite true gentlemen. I am always trying to tell Bernardo what to do  with his time, often in strange ways and with strange language. But (that’s a big but)...I have made a blanket disclaimer--several times. "The banana-peel syndrome" Do I need to repeat it?

 

When I said “Brilliant idea” regarding the suggestion for a petition to have a Harris/Bernardo debate, what I meant was, “maybe… after addressing the subject of a recent Harris intrusion into our (MS Forum) area of interest 'consciousness,' since he had been focusing almost exclusively on other agendas, primarily religion bashing, since his latest book, 'Waking Up' had come out in 2014. And after addressing what I thought particularly needed to be addressed, a statement made by one of the most prolific contributors to the MS Forum, '…the fundamental nature of consciousness is probably the only metaphysical question I think Sam Harris has actually come close to getting correct.'"

With thinly veiled invitations to Bernardo to comment on this discussion, and particularly with this statement hanging there like a tur-bine in a punch-bowl, from my perspective, he chose not to comment. So I was astonished to see his response, positive response, to the “petition thing.” I thought I had been enveloped by the "banana-peel syndrome."

 

Let me be clear, here’s what Bernardo should do:
Ignore Sam Harris for the time being, unless and until he demonstrates this recent incursion in to our domain is more than just an anomaly. If and when he does demonstrate a change in his focus, I think he might be worth Bernardo’s time. Harris' book “Waking Up” offered essentially nothing new beyond his previous books and blogs. His promise of a “major breakthrough” in meditation was not delivered. Or if it was, it slipped past me, and I was looking for it. He spent an extraordinary amount of time and space rehashing in meticulous detail every nuance and perspective of the Eben Alexander kerfuffle (thank you Bernardo), and yet… And Yet… the book has received over 900 reviews with an 84% positive rating—a force to be addressed...if and when.

 

I think Bernardo should also ignore the “turbine in a punch-bowl” on his own blog if he wishes to.

 

[Peter Jones]

--"The fundamental nature of consciousness is probably the only metaphysical question I think Sam Harris has actually come close to getting correct.'"

Whoever said this does not quite understand metaphysics. It would be impossible to solve one metaphysical problem in isolation from all the others. Nobody has ever done it. If he is close to solving this one he is close to solving them all. It seems obvious that if understand the nature of consciousness then we will understand and be able to solve freewill-determinism, theism-atheism, Mind-Matter, the problem of origins, internalism,-externalism, altruism, ethics and so on. I've never read any Harris and don't intend to so this is a comment on a comment rather than a comment on him. .

"Boy it sure would be fun to have a conversation with Chalmers, well thats not going to happen, I know lets get Bernardo to do it!!!"

 Yay. That was my thought also. I have tried to attract Chalmers' attention on philpapers but no luck. I like a lot of his work but he seems to have a strange blindness to ideas outside his paradigm. It was two of his (very good) articles for JCS that led me to abandon consciousness studies for metaphysics, yet as their author he takes no notice of his own arguments. All very odd. 

If anybody who is a member of philpapers with commenting rights would like to have a discussion there I'd be keen. I never see a decent discussion of consciousness there. I don't know how many people read those forums but one would expect the editors to keep an eye on things, so maybe Chalmers would pick up on it. 
. 

[Bernardo]

David Chalmers has commented extensively on a recent pre-print of mine (https://www.scribd.com/doc/305856953/On-why-idealism-is-superior-to-physicalism-and-micropsychism). He said my idea of top-down dissociation to overcome both the 'hard problem' and the 'combination problem' was 'at least interesting.' :-) But then he stopped at that... Deepak debated him recently in Tucson and came back saying David still uses Johnson's argument against Berkeley ('I refute it thus!' kicking a rock), which is amazing to both Deepak and me.

Cheers, Bernardo.

[RHC]

Maybe Bernardo should have a discussion with Harris as an act of charity. 

Maybe Chalmers is just playing an academic career survival game.  Taking the position that consciousness is so unfathomable that even early Dennett should be treated seriously, and making sure to address test-ability, and talking from a realist perspective, lets him then propose more controversial positions without getting run out of town.

 

. 

[RHC]

He referred to Johnson, ouch!  All the more reason to have conversation with him. Another opportunity for a charitable intervention presents itself! LOL    Where in particular did he comment on your paper?  Which leads me to have you received any other particularly interesting comments on the paper, we can read somewhere online?

[Sciborg]

Peter -

 I said that line about Harris, though I'd note I was talking in relative terms. And also it was a joke.

 As to whether all these problems are connected, I'm not as convinced as you are but maybe you'll convince me someday with one of your arguments.

[Peter Jones]

----"Deepak debated him recently in Tucson and came back saying David still uses Johnson's argument against Berkeley ('I refute it thus!' kicking a rock), which is amazing to both Deepak and me"

Is this true? Really? I can hardly believe it. Honestly, it is almost impossible for me to believe this. If this is true I shall forget all about Chalmers. Rob may be right that he's playing a survival game, in which case he has abandoned philosophy.    



On Saturday, 7 May 2016 14:32:38 UTC+1, Sciborg wrote:

----"Peter - As to whether all these problems are connected, I'm not as convinced as you are but maybe you'll convince me someday with one of your arguments."

I think that you'd be able to convince yourself if you examine their relationship closely. Heidegger makes the case well, saying that there is only one metaphysical question but lots of ways of asking it. Not a coincidence, I think, that he was among the first European scholars to read the Gita. Anyway, this would be my view.  Nobody has ever solved one metaphysical problem in isolation from the others. I'll convince you yet... .

[Bernardo]

Mostly technical commentary about the right words to use, the right structure, etc., which was useful. He ended by saying that he didn't think I really solved the problem, but without specifying quite why. :-)

The draft is available here: https://www.scribd.com/doc/305856953/On-why-idealism-is-superior-to-physicalism-and-micropsychism

[Bernardo]

I was just passing on what I was told... :) I didn't watch the debate, not sure it's available in video. Cheers, B.