Sam Harris: Consciousness, Free Will, Psychedelics, AI, UFOs, and Meaning
哲学与宗教生物与进化心理与人性技术与编程音乐与艺术
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AI 智能总结
萨姆·哈里斯谈意识、自由意志、迷幻药与AI
这是 Lex Fridman 与哲学家、神经科学家 Sam Harris 的深度对话，涵盖了意识的本质、自由意志的幻觉、迷幻药的治疗潜力、AI 的存在性风险，以及他对 UFO 现象的看法。Harris 以其严谨的理性主义和冥想实践，提供了独特的跨学科视角。
意识自由意志迷幻药AI安全冥想哲学
Sam Harris 是美国哲学家、神经科学家和作家，著有《信仰的终结》《道德的景观》《自由意志》《醒来》等书，主持「Making Sense」播客，是新无神论运动的代表人物之一。
📌 核心观点
- Harris 对自由意志的核心论点：自由意志是一种幻觉，我们的思想和行为都是由我们无法控制的因素（基因、环境、神经活动）决定的，但这不意味着道德责任消失，而是需要重新理解道德的基础。
- 关于意识，他认为意识是宇宙中最神秘的现象，「困难问题」（为什么存在主观体验）可能永远无法用物理学完全解释，这是他对唯物主义的最大保留。
- 他对迷幻药（特别是 DMT 和裸盖菇素）的看法：这些物质能够产生真实的神秘体验，对治疗抑郁症、PTSD 和成瘾有显著效果，应该在医学框架内认真研究。
- Harris 对 AI 存在性风险的担忧：他认为超级智能 AI 是人类面临的最严重威胁，目标对齐问题没有简单解决方案，需要全社会认真对待。
- 关于冥想，他强调冥想不是放松技术，而是一种认识论工具：通过直接观察意识的本质，可以发现「自我」是一种建构，这种洞见能从根本上改变人的心理状态。
✨ 金句摘录
Harris：自由意志是一种幻觉，但这不意味着道德责任消失——它意味着我们需要重新理解道德的基础。
Harris：冥想不是放松技术，而是一种认识论工具——通过它可以发现「自我」是一种建构。
Harris：意识的「困难问题」可能永远无法用物理学完全解释，这是我对唯物主义的最大保留。
📋 章节目录
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🔑 关键词
donexperienceconsciousnessfreegoingselfhumanrealityattentionillusionmomentdoingsayingseemsisndoesnconsciouspersonconversationhaving
💬 精彩语录
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🎙️ 完整对话（3937 条）
Lex Fridman (00:00.000)
The following is a conversation with Sam Harris,
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one of the most influential
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and pioneering thinkers of our time.
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He's the host of the Making Sense podcast
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and the author of many seminal books
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on human nature and the human mind,
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including The End of Faith, The Moral Landscape,
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Lying, Free Will, and Waking Up.
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He also has a meditation app called Waking Up
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that I've been using to guide my own meditation.
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Quick mention of our sponsors,
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National Instruments, Valcampo, Athletic Greens, and Linode.
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Check them out in the description to support this podcast.
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As a side note, let me say that Sam
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has been an inspiration to me
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as he has been for many, many people,
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first from his writing, then his early debates,
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maybe 13, 14 years ago on the subject of faith,
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his conversations with Christopher Hitchens,
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and since 2013, his podcast.
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I didn't always agree with all of his ideas,
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but I was always drawn to the care and depth
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of the way he explored those ideas,
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the calm and clarity amid the storm of difficult,
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at times controversial discourse.
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I really can't express in words how much it meant to me
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that he, Sam Harris, someone who I've listened to
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for many hundreds of hours,
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would write a kind email to me saying
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he enjoyed this podcast and more,
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that he thought I had a unique voice
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that added something to this world.
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Whether it's true or not, it made me feel special
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and truly grateful to be able to do this thing
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and motivated me to work my ass off
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to live up to those words.
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Meeting Sam and getting to talk with him
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was one of the most memorable moments of my life.
Lex Fridman (01:41.660)
This is the Lex Friedman Podcast,
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and here is my conversation with Sam Harris.
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I've been enjoying meditating
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with the Waking Up app recently.
Lex Fridman (01:52.680)
It makes me think about the origins of cognition
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and consciousness, so let me ask,
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where do thoughts come from?
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Well, that's a very difficult question to answer.
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Subjectively, they appear to come from nowhere, right?
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I mean, they come out of some kind of mystery
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that is at our backs subjectively, right?
Sam Harris (02:17.040)
So, which is to say that if you pay attention
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to the nature of your mind in this moment,
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you realize that you don't know
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what you're going to think next, right?
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Now, you're expecting to think something
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that seems like you authored it, right?
Sam Harris (02:33.480)
You're not, unless you're schizophrenic
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or you have some kind of thought disorder
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where your thoughts seem fundamentally foreign to you,
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they do have a kind of signature of selfhood
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associated with them, and people readily identify with them.
Lex Fridman (02:50.040)
They feel like what you are.
Sam Harris (02:51.920)
I mean, this is the thing,
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this is the spell that gets broken with meditation.
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Our default state is to feel identical
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to the stream of thought, right?
Sam Harris (03:02.640)
Which is fairly paradoxical because how could you,
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as a mind, as a self, if there were such a thing as a self,
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how could you be identical to the next piece of language
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or the next image that just springs into conscious view?
Sam Harris (03:22.480)
But, and, you know, meditation is ultimately
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about examining that point of view closely enough
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so as to unravel it and feel the freedom
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that's on the other side of that identification.
Lex Fridman (03:34.360)
But the, subjectively, thoughts simply emerge, right?
Lex Fridman (03:41.040)
And you don't think them before you think them, right?
Sam Harris (03:43.120)
There's this first moment where, you know,
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just anyone listening to us or watching us now
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could perform this experiment for themselves.
Lex Fridman (03:50.960)
I mean, just imagine something or remember something.
Lex Fridman (03:54.480)
You know, just pick a memory, any memory, right?
Lex Fridman (03:56.640)
You've got a storehouse of memory,
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just promote one to consciousness.
Lex Fridman (04:02.680)
Did you pick that memory?
Sam Harris (04:04.800)
I mean, let's say you remembered breakfast yesterday
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or you remembered what you said to your spouse
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before leaving the house,
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or you remembered what you watched on Netflix last night,
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or you remembered something that happened to you
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when you were four years old, whatever it is, right?
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First it wasn't there, and then it appeared.
Lex Fridman (04:24.200)
And that is not a, well, I'm sure we'll get to the topic
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of free will, ultimately.
Lex Fridman (04:30.900)
That's not evidence of free will, right?
Lex Fridman (04:33.200)
Why are you so sure, by the way?
Lex Fridman (04:35.440)
It's very interesting.
Sam Harris (04:36.280)
Well, through no free will of my own, yeah.
Lex Fridman (04:38.480)
Everything just appears, right?
Lex Fridman (04:42.120)
What else could it do?
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And so that's the subjective side of it.
Sam Harris (04:45.480)
Objectively, you know, we have every reason to believe
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that many of our thoughts, all of our thoughts
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are at bottom what some part of our brain is doing
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neurophysiologically.
Sam Harris (04:58.080)
I mean, these are the products
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of some kind of neural computation
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and neural representation when we're talking about memories.
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Is it possible to pull at the string of thoughts
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to try to get to its root?
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To try to dig in past the obvious surface,
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subjective experience of like the thoughts pop out
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out of nowhere.
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Is it possible to somehow get closer to the roots
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of where they come out of from the firing of the cells?
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Or is it a useless pursuit to dig into that direction?
Lex Fridman (05:32.480)
Well, you can get closer to many, many subtle contents
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in consciousness, right?
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So you can notice things more and more clearly
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and have a landscape of mind open up
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and become more differentiated and more interesting.
Lex Fridman (05:47.800)
And if you take psychedelics, you know, it opens up wide,
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depending on what you've taken and the dose, you know,
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it opens in directions and to an extent that, you know,
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very few people imagine would be possible,
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but for having had those experiences.
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But this idea of you getting closer to something,
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to the datum of your mind,
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or such as something of interest in there,
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or something that's more real is ultimately undermined
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because there's no place
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from which you're getting closer to it.
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There's no your part of that journey, right?
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Like we tend to start out, you know,
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whether it's in meditation or in any kind
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of self examination or, you know, taking psychedelics,
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we start out with this default point of view
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of feeling like we're the kind of the rider
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on the horse of consciousness,
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or we're the man in the boat going down the stream
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of consciousness, right?
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But we're so we're differentiated
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from what we know cognitively, introspectively,
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but that feeling of being differentiated,
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that feeling of being a self
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that can strategically pay attention
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to some contents of consciousness
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is what it's like to be identified
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with some part of the stream of thought
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that's going uninspected, right?
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Like it's a false point of view.
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And when you see that and cut through that,
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then this sense of this notion of going deeper
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kind of breaks apart because really there is no depth.
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Ultimately, everything is right on the surface.
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Everything, there's no center to consciousness.
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There's just consciousness and its contents.
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And those contents can change vastly.
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Again, if you drop acid, you know, the contents change.
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But there's, in some sense, that doesn't represent
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a position of depth versus, the continuum
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of depth versus surface has broken apart.
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So you're taking as a starting point
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that there is a horse called consciousness
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and you're riding it.
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And the actual riding is very shallow.
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This is all surface.
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So let me ask about that horse.
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What's up with the horse?
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What is consciousness?
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From where does it emerge?
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How like fundamental is it to the physics of reality?
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How fundamental is it to what it means to be human?
Lex Fridman (08:16.560)
And I'm just asking for a friend
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so that we can build it
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in our artificial intelligence systems.
Lex Fridman (08:22.660)
Yeah, well, that remains to be seen if we can,
Sam Harris (08:26.620)
if we will build it purposefully or just by accident.
Lex Fridman (08:30.220)
It's a major ethical problem, potentially.
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That, I mean, my concern here is that we may, in fact,
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build artificial intelligence that passes the Turing test,
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which we begin to treat not only as super intelligent
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because it obviously is and demonstrates that,
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but we begin to treat it as conscious
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because it will seem conscious.
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We will have built it to seem conscious.
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And unless we understand exactly how consciousness emerges
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from physics, we won't actually know
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that these systems are conscious, right?
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We'll just, they may say,
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listen, you can't turn me off because that's a murder, right?
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And we will be convinced by that dialogue
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because we will, just in the extreme case,
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who knows when we'll get there.
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But if we build something like perfectly humanoid robots
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that are more intelligent than we are,
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so we're basically in a Westworld like situation,
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there's no way we're going to withhold
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an attribution of consciousness from those machines.
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They're just gonna seem,
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they're just gonna advertise our consciousness
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in every glance and every utterance,
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but we won't know.
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And we won't know in some deeper sense
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than we can be skeptical of the consciousness
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of other people.
Lex Fridman (09:51.380)
I mean, someone could roll that back and say,
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well, you don't, I don't know that you're conscious
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or you don't know that I'm conscious.
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We're just passing the Turing test for one another,
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but that kind of solipsism isn't justified biologically,
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or we just, anything we understand about the mind
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biologically suggests that you and I
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are part of the same roll of the dice
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in terms of how intelligent and conscious systems emerged
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in the wetware of brains like ours, right?
Lex Fridman (10:21.900)
So it's not parsimonious for me to think
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that I might be the only conscious person
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or even the only conscious primate.
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I would argue it's not parsimonious
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to withhold consciousness from other apes
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and even other mammals ultimately.
Lex Fridman (10:36.580)
And once you get beyond the mammals,
Sam Harris (10:38.440)
then my intuitions are not really clear.
Lex Fridman (10:41.420)
The question of how it emerges is genuinely uncertain
Lex Fridman (10:45.020)
and ultimately the question of whether it emerges
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is still uncertain.
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You can, you know, it's not fashionable to think this,
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but you can certainly argue that consciousness
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might be a fundamental principle of matter
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that doesn't emerge on the basis of information processing,
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even though everything else that we recognize
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about ourselves as minds almost certainly does emerge,
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you know, like an ability to process language,
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that clearly is a matter of information processing
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because you can disrupt that process in ways
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that is just so clear.
Lex Fridman (11:22.620)
And the problem that the confound with consciousness
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is that, yes, we can seem to interrupt consciousness.
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I mean, you can give someone general anesthesia
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and then you wake them up and you ask them,
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well, what was that like?
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And they say, nothing, I don't remember anything,
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but it's hard to differentiate a mere failure of memory
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from a genuine interruption in consciousness.
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Whereas it's not with, you know, interrupting speech,
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you know, we know when we've done it.
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And it's just obvious that, you know,
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you disrupt the right neural circuits
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and, you know, you've disrupted speech.
Lex Fridman (12:01.880)
So if you had to bet all your money on one camp or the other,
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would you say, do you err on the side of panpsychism
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where consciousness is really fundamental
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to all of reality or more on the other side,
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which is like, it's a nice little side effect,
Sam Harris (12:20.220)
a useful like hack for us humans to survive.
Lex Fridman (12:23.980)
Where, on that spectrum, where do you land
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when you think about consciousness,
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especially from an engineering perspective?
Sam Harris (12:30.380)
I'm truly agnostic on this point, I mean, I think I'm,
Lex Fridman (12:35.140)
you know, it's kind of in coin toss mode for me.
Sam Harris (12:37.780)
I don't know, and panpsychism is not so compelling to me.
Lex Fridman (12:44.980)
Again, it just seems unfalsifiable.
Sam Harris (12:46.900)
I wouldn't know how the universe would be different
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if panpsychism were true.
Sam Harris (12:50.700)
It's just to remind people panpsychism is this idea
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that consciousness may be pushed all the way down
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into the most fundamental constituents of matters.
Lex Fridman (12:59.580)
So there might be something that it's like
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to be an electron or, you know, a cork,
Lex Fridman (13:05.100)
but then you wouldn't expect anything to be different
Sam Harris (13:08.980)
at the macro scale, or at least I wouldn't expect
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anything to be different.
Lex Fridman (13:14.740)
So it may be unfalsifiable.
Lex Fridman (13:16.700)
It just might be that reality is not something
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we're as in touch with as we think we are,
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and that at its base layer to kind of break it into mind
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and matter as we've done ontologically
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is to misconstrue it, right?
Sam Harris (13:37.340)
I mean, there could be some kind of neutral monism
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at the bottom, and this, you know,
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this idea doesn't originate with me.
Lex Fridman (13:43.900)
This goes all the way back to Bertrand Russell
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and others, you know, 100 plus years ago,
Lex Fridman (13:50.900)
but I just feel like the concepts we're using
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to divide consciousness and matter
Lex Fridman (13:59.060)
may in fact be part of our problem, right?
Sam Harris (14:02.300)
Where the rubber hits the road psychologically here
Lex Fridman (14:05.980)
are things like, well, what is death, right?
Sam Harris (14:08.820)
Like do we, any expectation that we survive death
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or any part of us survives death,
Sam Harris (14:14.540)
that really seems to be the many people's concern here.
Lex Fridman (14:20.260)
Well, I tend to believe just as a small little tangent,
Sam Harris (14:23.140)
like I'm with Ernest Becker on this,
Lex Fridman (14:24.660)
that there's some, it's interesting to think
Sam Harris (14:27.700)
about death and consciousness,
Lex Fridman (14:29.240)
which one is the chicken, which one is the egg,
Sam Harris (14:32.420)
because it feels like death could be the very thing,
Lex Fridman (14:34.620)
like our knowledge of mortality could be the very thing
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that creates the consciousness.
Lex Fridman (14:39.500)
Yeah, well, then you're using consciousness
Sam Harris (14:41.460)
differently than I am.
Lex Fridman (14:43.700)
I mean, so for me, consciousness is just the fact
Sam Harris (14:47.060)
that the lights are on at all,
Lex Fridman (14:49.980)
there's an experiential quality to anything.
Lex Fridman (14:53.260)
So much of the processing that's happening
Lex Fridman (14:56.260)
in our brains right now certainly seems to be happening
Lex Fridman (15:00.500)
in the dark, right?
Lex Fridman (15:01.900)
Like it's not associated with this qualitative sense
Sam Harris (15:06.220)
that there's something that it's like to be that part
Lex Fridman (15:08.780)
of the mind doing that mental thing.
Lex Fridman (15:13.520)
But for other parts, the lights are on
Lex Fridman (15:16.940)
and we can talk about,
Lex Fridman (15:18.580)
and whether we talk about it or not,
Lex Fridman (15:20.320)
we can feel directly that there's something
Sam Harris (15:25.860)
that it's like to be us.
Lex Fridman (15:27.020)
There's something, something seems to be happening, right?
Lex Fridman (15:29.740)
And the seeming in our case is broken into vision
Lex Fridman (15:34.260)
and hearing and proprioception
Lex Fridman (15:36.820)
and taste and smell and thought and emotion.
Lex Fridman (15:42.340)
I mean, there are the contents of consciousness
Sam Harris (15:45.100)
that we are familiar with
Lex Fridman (15:50.460)
and that we can have direct access to
Sam Harris (15:53.260)
in any present moment when we're, quote, conscious.
Lex Fridman (15:57.540)
And even if we're confused about them,
Sam Harris (16:00.140)
even if we're asleep and dreaming
Lex Fridman (16:02.300)
and it's not a lucid dream,
Sam Harris (16:04.060)
we're just totally confused about our circumstance,
Lex Fridman (16:07.840)
what you can't say is that we're confused
Sam Harris (16:11.420)
about consciousness.
Lex Fridman (16:12.500)
Like you can't say that consciousness itself
Sam Harris (16:14.660)
might be an illusion because on this account,
Lex Fridman (16:18.900)
it just means that things seem any way at all.
Sam Harris (16:22.140)
I mean, even like if this,
Lex Fridman (16:23.340)
it seems to me that I'm seeing a cup on the table.
Sam Harris (16:26.420)
Now I could be wrong about that.
Lex Fridman (16:27.540)
It could be a hologram.
Sam Harris (16:28.500)
I could be asleep and dreaming.
Lex Fridman (16:29.780)
I could be hallucinating,
Lex Fridman (16:31.540)
but the seeming part isn't really up for grabs
Lex Fridman (16:35.140)
in terms of being an illusion.
Sam Harris (16:37.620)
It's not, something seems to be happening.
Lex Fridman (16:41.660)
And that seeming is the context in which
Sam Harris (16:45.740)
every other thing we can notice about ourselves
Lex Fridman (16:50.020)
can be noticed.
Lex Fridman (16:50.860)
And it's also the context in which certain illusions
Lex Fridman (16:53.540)
can be cut through because we're not,
Sam Harris (16:55.460)
we can be wrong about what it's like to be us.
Lex Fridman (16:57.860)
And we can, I'm not saying we're incorrigible
Sam Harris (17:01.980)
with respect to our claims
Lex Fridman (17:04.460)
about the nature of our experience,
Lex Fridman (17:05.700)
but for instance, many people feel like they have a self
Lex Fridman (17:10.140)
and they feel like it has free will.
Lex Fridman (17:11.860)
And I'm quite sure at this point
Lex Fridman (17:14.340)
that they're wrong about that,
Lex Fridman (17:15.260)
and that you can cut through those experiences
Lex Fridman (17:19.900)
and then things seem a different way, right?
Lex Fridman (17:22.140)
So it's not that things don't,
Lex Fridman (17:25.020)
there aren't discoveries to be made there
Lex Fridman (17:26.500)
and assumptions to be overturned,
Lex Fridman (17:28.220)
but this kind of consciousness is something
Sam Harris (17:33.980)
that I would think, it doesn't just come online
Lex Fridman (17:38.220)
when we get language.
Sam Harris (17:39.700)
It doesn't just come online when we form a concept of death
Lex Fridman (17:42.500)
or the finiteness of life.
Lex Fridman (17:45.260)
It doesn't require a sense of self, right?
Lex Fridman (17:48.220)
So it doesn't, it's prior
Sam Harris (17:50.420)
to a differentiating self and other.
Lex Fridman (17:54.140)
And I wouldn't even think it's necessarily limited to people.
Sam Harris (17:58.860)
I do think probably any mammal has this,
Lex Fridman (18:04.140)
but certainly if you're going to presuppose
Lex Fridman (18:07.500)
that something about our brains is producing this, right?
Lex Fridman (18:11.980)
And that's a very safe assumption,
Sam Harris (18:15.580)
even though we can't,
Lex Fridman (18:18.300)
even though you can argue the jury's still out
Sam Harris (18:20.620)
to some degree,
Lex Fridman (18:22.180)
then it's very hard to draw a principled line
Sam Harris (18:24.740)
between us and chimps,
Lex Fridman (18:26.620)
or chimps and rats even in the end,
Sam Harris (18:30.140)
given the underlying neural similarities.
Lex Fridman (18:33.140)
So, and I don't know phylogenetically,
Sam Harris (18:35.980)
I don't know how far back to push that.
Lex Fridman (18:38.620)
There are people who think single cells might be conscious
Sam Harris (18:41.700)
or that flies are certainly conscious.
Lex Fridman (18:43.460)
They've got something like 100,000 neurons in their brains.
Lex Fridman (18:47.940)
I mean, there's a lot going on even in a fly, right?
Lex Fridman (18:53.180)
But I don't have intuitions about that.
Lex Fridman (18:55.500)
But it's not in your sense an illusion you can cut through.
Lex Fridman (18:58.260)
I mean, to push back,
Sam Harris (19:00.100)
the alternative version could be it is an illusion
Lex Fridman (19:03.140)
constructed by, just by humans.
Sam Harris (19:06.580)
I'm not sure I believe this,
Lex Fridman (19:08.140)
but in part of me hopes this is true
Sam Harris (19:10.160)
because it makes it easier to engineer,
Lex Fridman (19:12.540)
is that humans are able to contemplate their mortality
Lex Fridman (19:17.420)
and that contemplation in itself creates consciousness.
Lex Fridman (19:21.460)
That like the rich lights on experience.
Lex Fridman (19:24.200)
So the lights don't actually even turn on
Lex Fridman (19:26.380)
in the way that you're describing until after birth
Sam Harris (19:30.740)
in that construction.
Lex Fridman (19:31.900)
So do you think it's possible that that is the case?
Sam Harris (19:34.980)
That it is a sort of construct of the way we deal,
Lex Fridman (19:39.320)
almost like a social tool to deal with the reality
Lex Fridman (19:42.860)
of the world, the social interaction with other humans?
Lex Fridman (19:46.580)
Or is, because you're saying the complete opposite,
Sam Harris (19:49.020)
which is it's like fundamental to single cell organisms
Lex Fridman (19:53.140)
and trees and so on.
Sam Harris (19:54.900)
Right, well, yeah, so I don't know how far down to push it.
Lex Fridman (19:57.840)
I don't have intuitions that single cells
Lex Fridman (1:00:01.180)
So there's something we don't understand
Lex Fridman (1:00:02.780)
that's fundamental about the nature of reality
Sam Harris (1:00:05.500)
that generates both consciousness,
Lex Fridman (1:00:07.520)
let's call it maybe the self.
Sam Harris (1:00:09.860)
I don't know if you want to distinguish between those.
Lex Fridman (1:00:11.580)
Yeah, I definitely would, yeah.
Sam Harris (1:00:13.040)
You would, because there's a bunch of illusions
Lex Fridman (1:00:15.780)
we're referring to.
Sam Harris (1:00:16.620)
There's the illusion of free will,
Lex Fridman (1:00:18.220)
there's the illusion of self,
Lex Fridman (1:00:20.260)
and there's the illusion of consciousness.
Lex Fridman (1:00:22.440)
You're saying, I think you said there's no,
Sam Harris (1:00:25.840)
you're not as willing to say
Lex Fridman (1:00:27.020)
there's an illusion of consciousness.
Sam Harris (1:00:28.820)
You're a little bit more.
Lex Fridman (1:00:29.660)
In fact, I would say it's impossible.
Sam Harris (1:00:30.860)
Impossible.
Lex Fridman (1:00:31.700)
You're a little bit more willing to say
Sam Harris (1:00:33.260)
that there's an illusion of self,
Lex Fridman (1:00:35.540)
and you're definitely saying
Sam Harris (1:00:36.940)
there's an illusion of free will.
Lex Fridman (1:00:38.580)
Yes, I'm definitely saying there's an illusion
Sam Harris (1:00:42.060)
that a certain kind of self is an illusion.
Lex Fridman (1:00:44.060)
Not every, we mean many different things
Sam Harris (1:00:46.340)
by this notion of self.
Lex Fridman (1:00:47.980)
So maybe I should just differentiate these things.
Lex Fridman (1:00:50.520)
So consciousness can't be an illusion
Lex Fridman (1:00:53.020)
because any illusion proves its reality
Sam Harris (1:00:58.080)
as much as any other veridical perception.
Lex Fridman (1:01:00.460)
I mean, if you're hallucinating now,
Sam Harris (1:01:02.560)
that's just as much of a demonstration of consciousness
Lex Fridman (1:01:05.660)
as really seeing what's a quote actually there.
Sam Harris (1:01:09.700)
If you're dreaming and you don't know it,
Lex Fridman (1:01:12.940)
that is consciousness, right?
Sam Harris (1:01:15.500)
You can be confused about literally everything.
Lex Fridman (1:01:17.740)
You can't be confused about the underlying claim,
Sam Harris (1:01:25.180)
whether you make it linguistically or not,
Lex Fridman (1:01:27.580)
but just the cognitive assertion
Sam Harris (1:01:34.700)
that something seems to be happening.
Lex Fridman (1:01:36.960)
It's the seeming that is the cash value of consciousness.
Lex Fridman (1:01:40.420)
Can I take a tiny tangent?
Lex Fridman (1:01:42.020)
So what if I am creating consciousness in my mind
Lex Fridman (1:01:47.660)
to convince you that I'm human?
Lex Fridman (1:01:50.100)
So it's a useful social tool,
Sam Harris (1:01:52.540)
not a fundamental property of experience,
Lex Fridman (1:01:57.940)
like of being a living thing.
Lex Fridman (1:02:00.760)
What if it's just like a social tool
Lex Fridman (1:02:02.660)
to almost like a useful computational trick
Sam Harris (1:02:07.580)
to place myself into reality
Lex Fridman (1:02:10.580)
as we together communicate about this reality?
Lex Fridman (1:02:14.100)
And another way to ask that,
Lex Fridman (1:02:15.940)
because you said it much earlier,
Sam Harris (1:02:18.500)
you talk negatively about robots as you often do.
Lex Fridman (1:02:21.340)
So let me, because you'll probably die first
Sam Harris (1:02:24.320)
when they take over.
Lex Fridman (1:02:26.260)
No, I'm looking forward to certain kinds of robots.
Sam Harris (1:02:28.700)
I mean, I'm not, if we can get this right,
Lex Fridman (1:02:31.080)
this would be amazing.
Lex Fridman (1:02:32.060)
But you don't like the robots that fake consciousness.
Lex Fridman (1:02:34.500)
That's what you,
Sam Harris (1:02:35.340)
you don't like the idea of fake it till you make it.
Lex Fridman (1:02:37.860)
Well, no, it's not that I don't like it.
Sam Harris (1:02:40.140)
It's that I'm worried that we will lose sight
Lex Fridman (1:02:43.420)
of the problem.
Lex Fridman (1:02:44.300)
And the problem has massive ethical consequences.
Lex Fridman (1:02:47.260)
I mean, if we create robots that really can suffer,
Lex Fridman (1:02:51.940)
that would be a bad thing, right?
Lex Fridman (1:02:53.660)
And if we really are committing a murder
Sam Harris (1:02:56.460)
when we recycle them, that would be a bad thing.
Lex Fridman (1:02:59.220)
This is how I know you're not Russian.
Lex Fridman (1:03:00.300)
Why is it a bad thing that we create robots that can suffer?
Lex Fridman (1:03:03.260)
Isn't suffering a fundamental thing
Lex Fridman (1:03:05.280)
from which like beauty springs?
Lex Fridman (1:03:07.240)
Like without suffering,
Lex Fridman (1:03:08.580)
do you really think we would have beautiful things
Lex Fridman (1:03:10.300)
in this world?
Sam Harris (1:03:11.700)
Okay, that's a tangent on a tangent.
Lex Fridman (1:03:14.700)
We'll go there.
Sam Harris (1:03:15.540)
I would love to go there, but let's not go there just yet.
Lex Fridman (1:03:17.100)
All right.
Lex Fridman (1:03:17.940)
But I do think it would be, if anything is bad,
Lex Fridman (1:03:20.340)
creating hell and populating it
Sam Harris (1:03:22.780)
with real minds that really can suffer in that hell,
Lex Fridman (1:03:27.020)
that's bad.
Sam Harris (1:03:28.940)
You are worse than any mass murderer we can name
Lex Fridman (1:03:34.660)
if you create it.
Sam Harris (1:03:35.540)
I mean, this could be in robot form,
Lex Fridman (1:03:37.300)
or more likely it would be in some simulation of a world
Sam Harris (1:03:41.440)
where we managed to populate it with conscious minds
Lex Fridman (1:03:43.740)
whether we knew they were conscious or not.
Lex Fridman (1:03:46.280)
And that world is a state of, it's unendurable.
Lex Fridman (1:03:50.600)
That would just, it just taking the thesis seriously
Sam Harris (1:03:53.200)
that there's nothing that mind intelligence
Lex Fridman (1:03:58.140)
and consciousness ultimately are substrate independent.
Lex Fridman (1:04:00.780)
Right?
Lex Fridman (1:04:01.620)
It doesn't, you don't need a biological brain
Sam Harris (1:04:02.760)
to be conscious.
Lex Fridman (1:04:03.600)
You certainly don't need a biological brain
Sam Harris (1:04:04.780)
to be intelligent.
Lex Fridman (1:04:05.660)
Right?
Lex Fridman (1:04:06.500)
So if we just imagine the consciousness at some point
Lex Fridman (1:04:09.040)
comes along for the ride as you scale up in intelligence,
Sam Harris (1:04:12.560)
well then we could find ourselves creating conscious minds
Lex Fridman (1:04:16.020)
that are miserable, right?
Lex Fridman (1:04:17.180)
And that's just like creating a person who's miserable.
Lex Fridman (1:04:19.740)
Right?
Sam Harris (1:04:20.580)
It could be worse than creating a person who's miserable.
Lex Fridman (1:04:21.900)
It could be even more sensitive to suffering.
Sam Harris (1:04:23.780)
Cloning them and maybe for entertainment
Lex Fridman (1:04:26.300)
and watching them suffer.
Sam Harris (1:04:27.980)
Just like watching a person suffer for entertainment.
Lex Fridman (1:04:31.700)
You know?
Sam Harris (1:04:32.700)
So, but back to your primary question here,
Lex Fridman (1:04:36.060)
which is differentiating consciousness and self
Lex Fridman (1:04:40.580)
and free will as concepts
Lex Fridman (1:04:42.060)
and kind of degrees of illusoriness.
Sam Harris (1:04:46.820)
The problem with free will is that
Lex Fridman (1:04:50.460)
what most people mean by it,
Lex Fridman (1:04:53.040)
and this is where Dan Dennett
Lex Fridman (1:04:56.140)
is gonna get off the ride here, right?
Lex Fridman (1:04:57.580)
So like he doesn't, he's gonna disagree with me
Lex Fridman (1:04:59.980)
that I know what most people mean by it.
Lex Fridman (1:05:02.260)
But I have a very keen sense having talked about this topic
Lex Fridman (1:05:07.700)
for many, many years
Lex Fridman (1:05:09.340)
and seeing people get wrapped around the axle of it
Lex Fridman (1:05:13.300)
and seeing in myself what it's like to have felt
Sam Harris (1:05:17.980)
that I was a self that had free will
Lex Fridman (1:05:20.020)
and then to no longer feel that way, right?
Sam Harris (1:05:22.220)
To know what it's like to actually disabuse myself
Lex Fridman (1:05:24.600)
of that sense cognitively and emotionally
Lex Fridman (1:05:30.040)
and to recognize what's left, what goes away
Lex Fridman (1:05:32.700)
and what doesn't go away on the basis of that epiphany.
Sam Harris (1:05:35.980)
I have a sense that I know what people think they have
Lex Fridman (1:05:40.620)
in hand when they worry about whether free will exists.
Lex Fridman (1:05:44.460)
And it is the flip side of this feeling of self.
Lex Fridman (1:05:50.220)
It's the flip side of feeling
Sam Harris (1:05:51.500)
like you are not merely identical to experience.
Lex Fridman (1:05:57.020)
You feel like you're having an experience.
Sam Harris (1:05:59.020)
You feel like you're an agent
Lex Fridman (1:06:00.380)
that is appropriating an experience.
Sam Harris (1:06:02.220)
There's a protagonist in the movie of your life
Lex Fridman (1:06:05.100)
and it is you.
Lex Fridman (1:06:07.260)
It's not just the movie, right?
Lex Fridman (1:06:09.420)
It's like there's sights and sounds and sensations
Lex Fridman (1:06:13.420)
and thoughts and emotions
Lex Fridman (1:06:14.660)
and this whole cacophony of experience,
Sam Harris (1:06:17.840)
of felt experience, of felt experience of embodiment.
Lex Fridman (1:06:21.320)
But there seems to be a rider on the horse
Lex Fridman (1:06:26.060)
or a passenger in the body, right?
Lex Fridman (1:06:28.380)
People don't feel truly identical to their bodies
Sam Harris (1:06:30.820)
down to their toes.
Lex Fridman (1:06:32.780)
They sort of feel like they have bodies.
Sam Harris (1:06:34.760)
They feel like their minds in bodies
Lex Fridman (1:06:37.100)
and that feels like a self, that feels like me.
Lex Fridman (1:06:42.220)
And again, this gets very paradoxical
Lex Fridman (1:06:45.080)
when you talk about the experience
Sam Harris (1:06:47.420)
of being in relationship to yourself
Lex Fridman (1:06:50.100)
or talking to yourself, giving yourself a pep talk.
Sam Harris (1:06:52.400)
I mean, if you're the one talking,
Lex Fridman (1:06:54.220)
why are you also the one listening?
Sam Harris (1:06:55.800)
Like, why do you need the pep talk and why does it work
Lex Fridman (1:06:57.900)
if you're the one giving the pep talk, right?
Lex Fridman (1:07:00.020)
Or if I say like, where are my keys?
Lex Fridman (1:07:02.120)
Or if I'm looking for my keys,
Lex Fridman (1:07:03.780)
why do I think the superfluous thought, where are my keys?
Lex Fridman (1:07:06.740)
I know I'm looking for the fucking keys.
Sam Harris (1:07:08.420)
I'm the one looking, who am I telling
Lex Fridman (1:07:11.400)
that we now need to look for the keys, right?
Lex Fridman (1:07:13.840)
So that duality is weird, but leave that aside.
Lex Fridman (1:07:17.420)
There's the sense, and this becomes very vivid
Sam Harris (1:07:22.260)
when people try to learn to meditate.
Lex Fridman (1:07:25.420)
Most people, they close their eyes
Lex Fridman (1:07:28.720)
and they're told to pay attention to an object
Lex Fridman (1:07:30.600)
like the breath, say.
Lex Fridman (1:07:31.980)
So you close your eyes and you pay attention to the breath
Lex Fridman (1:07:35.280)
and you can feel it at the tip of your nose
Sam Harris (1:07:37.240)
or the rising and falling of your abdomen
Lex Fridman (1:07:40.480)
and you're paying attention
Lex Fridman (1:07:42.220)
and you feel something vague there.
Lex Fridman (1:07:44.920)
And then you think, I thought, well, why the breath?
Lex Fridman (1:07:46.880)
Why am I paying attention to the breath?
Lex Fridman (1:07:49.680)
What's so special about the breath?
Lex Fridman (1:07:51.780)
And then you notice you're thinking
Lex Fridman (1:07:54.160)
and you're not paying attention to the breath anymore.
Lex Fridman (1:07:55.720)
And then you realize, okay, the practice is,
Lex Fridman (1:07:58.000)
okay, I should notice thoughts
Lex Fridman (1:07:59.840)
and then I should come back to the breath.
Lex Fridman (1:08:01.960)
But this starting point of the conventional starting point
Sam Harris (1:08:06.800)
of feeling like you are an agent, very likely in your head,
Lex Fridman (1:08:10.200)
a locus of consciousness, a locus of attention
Sam Harris (1:08:12.960)
that can strategically pay attention
Lex Fridman (1:08:15.840)
to certain parts of experience.
Sam Harris (1:08:17.220)
Like I can focus on the breath
Lex Fridman (1:08:18.760)
and then I get lost in thought
Lex Fridman (1:08:20.600)
and now I can come back to the breath
Lex Fridman (1:08:22.440)
and I can open my eyes and I'm over here behind my face
Sam Harris (1:08:26.120)
looking out at a world that's other than me
Lex Fridman (1:08:28.680)
and there's this kind of subject object perception.
Lex Fridman (1:08:31.920)
And that is the default starting point of selfhood,
Lex Fridman (1:08:35.200)
of subjectivity.
Lex Fridman (1:08:36.920)
And married to that is the sense that
Lex Fridman (1:08:42.680)
I can decide what to do next, right?
Sam Harris (1:08:46.280)
I am an agent who can pay attention to the cup.
Lex Fridman (1:08:50.340)
I can listen to sounds.
Sam Harris (1:08:52.020)
There's certain things that I can't control.
Lex Fridman (1:08:53.580)
Certain things are happening to me
Lex Fridman (1:08:54.640)
and I just can't control them.
Lex Fridman (1:08:55.880)
So for instance, if someone asks,
Lex Fridman (1:08:59.000)
well, can you not hear a sound, right?
Lex Fridman (1:09:02.400)
Like don't hear the next sound,
Sam Harris (1:09:03.840)
don't hear anything for a second,
Lex Fridman (1:09:05.280)
or don't hear, I'm snapping my fingers, don't hear this.
Lex Fridman (1:09:09.200)
Where's your free will?
Lex Fridman (1:09:10.120)
You know, well, like just stop this from coming in.
Sam Harris (1:09:12.560)
You realize, okay, wait a minute.
Lex Fridman (1:09:14.640)
My abundant freedom does not extend
Sam Harris (1:09:18.320)
to something as simple as just being able to pay attention
Lex Fridman (1:09:20.840)
to something else than this.
Sam Harris (1:09:23.640)
Okay, well, so I'm not that kind of free agent,
Lex Fridman (1:09:25.860)
but at least I can decide what I'm gonna do next
Lex Fridman (1:09:28.880)
and I'm gonna pick up this water, right?
Lex Fridman (1:09:32.960)
And there's a feeling of identification
Sam Harris (1:09:36.760)
with the impulse, with the intention,
Lex Fridman (1:09:39.720)
with the thought that occurs to you,
Sam Harris (1:09:41.240)
with the feeling of speaking.
Lex Fridman (1:09:43.480)
Like what am I gonna say next?
Sam Harris (1:09:45.540)
Well, I'm saying it.
Lex Fridman (1:09:46.380)
So here goes, this is me.
Sam Harris (1:09:48.960)
It feels like I'm the thinker.
Lex Fridman (1:09:50.560)
I'm the one who's in control.
Lex Fridman (1:09:53.780)
But all of that is born of not really paying close attention
Lex Fridman (1:10:00.020)
to what it's like to be you.
Lex Fridman (1:10:01.980)
And so this is where meditation comes in,
Lex Fridman (1:10:05.260)
or this is where, again, you can get at this conceptually.
Sam Harris (1:10:09.980)
You can unravel the notion of free will
Lex Fridman (1:10:11.740)
just by thinking certain thoughts,
Lex Fridman (1:10:15.760)
but you can't feel that it doesn't exist
Lex Fridman (1:10:18.900)
unless you can pay close attention
Sam Harris (1:10:20.740)
to how thoughts and intentions arise.
Lex Fridman (1:10:22.980)
So the way to unravel it conceptually
Sam Harris (1:10:24.620)
is just to realize, okay, I didn't make myself.
Lex Fridman (1:10:27.340)
I didn't make my genes.
Sam Harris (1:10:28.420)
I didn't make my brain.
Lex Fridman (1:10:29.340)
I didn't make the environmental influences
Sam Harris (1:10:31.780)
that impinged upon this system for the last 54 years
Lex Fridman (1:10:35.220)
that have produced my brain in precisely the state
Sam Harris (1:10:38.860)
it's in right now, such and with all of the receptor weightings
Lex Fridman (1:10:42.860)
and densities, and it's just,
Sam Harris (1:10:45.700)
I'm exactly the machine I am right now
Lex Fridman (1:10:48.560)
through no fault of my own as the experiencing self.
Sam Harris (1:10:54.500)
I get no credit and I get no blame
Lex Fridman (1:10:56.900)
for the genetics and the environmental influences here.
Lex Fridman (1:11:00.620)
And yet those are the only things
Lex Fridman (1:11:03.300)
that contrive to produce my next thought
Sam Harris (1:11:09.380)
or impulse or moment of behavior.
Lex Fridman (1:11:12.900)
And if you were going to add something magical
Sam Harris (1:11:14.920)
to that clockwork, like an immortal soul,
Lex Fridman (1:11:18.620)
you can also notice that you didn't produce your soul.
Sam Harris (1:11:21.620)
You can't account for the fact
Lex Fridman (1:11:22.780)
that you don't have the soul of someone
Sam Harris (1:11:25.980)
who doesn't like any of the things you like
Lex Fridman (1:11:28.340)
or wasn't interested in any of the things
Sam Harris (1:11:29.920)
you were interested in or was a psychopath
Lex Fridman (1:11:33.080)
or had an IQ of 40.
Sam Harris (1:11:35.180)
I mean, there's nothing about that
Lex Fridman (1:11:38.700)
that the person who believes in a soul
Sam Harris (1:11:41.620)
can claim to have controlled.
Lex Fridman (1:11:43.100)
And yet that is also totally dispositive
Sam Harris (1:11:45.860)
of whatever happens next.
Lex Fridman (1:11:48.400)
But everything you've described now,
Sam Harris (1:11:51.160)
maybe you can correct me,
Lex Fridman (1:11:52.100)
but it kind of speaks to the materialistic nature
Sam Harris (1:11:54.580)
of the hardware.
Lex Fridman (1:11:57.340)
But even if you add magical ectoplasm software,
Sam Harris (1:12:01.180)
you didn't produce that either.
Lex Fridman (1:12:03.060)
I know, but if we can think about the actual computation
Sam Harris (1:12:08.060)
running on the hardware and running on the software,
Lex Fridman (1:12:11.060)
there's something you said recently
Sam Harris (1:12:12.700)
which you think of culture as an operating system.
Lex Fridman (1:12:17.260)
So if we just remove ourselves a little bit
Sam Harris (1:12:21.140)
from the conception of human civilization
Lex Fridman (1:12:24.140)
being a collection of humans
Lex Fridman (1:12:26.100)
and rather us just being a distributed
Lex Fridman (1:12:30.140)
computation system on which there's
Sam Harris (1:12:32.180)
some kind of operating system running,
Lex Fridman (1:12:34.100)
and then the computation that's running
Sam Harris (1:12:36.500)
is the actual thing that generates
Lex Fridman (1:12:38.940)
the interactions, the communications,
Lex Fridman (1:12:40.520)
and maybe even free will, the experiences
Lex Fridman (1:12:42.820)
of all those free will.
Lex Fridman (1:12:44.260)
Do you ever think of, do you ever try
Lex Fridman (1:12:46.140)
to reframe the world in that way
Sam Harris (1:12:47.720)
where it's like ideas are just using us,
Lex Fridman (1:12:51.740)
thoughts are using individual nodes in the system,
Lex Fridman (1:12:56.520)
and they're just jumping around,
Lex Fridman (1:12:58.040)
and they also have ability to generate experiences
Lex Fridman (1:13:01.460)
so that we can push those ideas along.
Lex Fridman (1:13:03.620)
And basically the main organisms here
Sam Harris (1:13:05.820)
are the thoughts, not the humans.
Lex Fridman (1:13:07.980)
Yeah, but then that erodes the boundary
Sam Harris (1:13:11.860)
between self and world.
Lex Fridman (1:13:15.220)
Right.
Lex Fridman (1:13:16.060)
So then there's no self, really integrated self
Lex Fridman (1:13:19.660)
to have any kind of will at all.
Sam Harris (1:13:22.420)
Like if you're just a meme plex,
Lex Fridman (1:13:24.500)
I mean, if you're just a collection of memes,
Lex Fridman (1:13:28.680)
and I mean, we're all kind of like currents,
Lex Fridman (1:13:32.020)
like eddies in this river of ideas, right?
Lex Fridman (1:13:35.960)
So it's like, and it seems to have structure,
Lex Fridman (1:13:40.740)
but there's no real boundary between that part
Sam Harris (1:13:43.340)
of the flow of water and the rest.
Lex Fridman (1:13:44.960)
I mean, if our, and I would say that much
Sam Harris (1:13:47.300)
of our mind answers to this kind of description.
Lex Fridman (1:13:49.660)
I mean, so much of our mind has been,
Sam Harris (1:13:53.500)
it's obviously not self generated,
Lex Fridman (1:13:55.460)
and it's not, you're not gonna find it
Sam Harris (1:13:56.940)
by looking in the brain.
Lex Fridman (1:13:58.060)
It is the result of culture largely,
Lex Fridman (1:14:03.060)
but also, you know, the genes on one side
Lex Fridman (1:14:10.740)
and culture on the other meeting
Sam Harris (1:14:13.700)
to allow for manifestations of mind
Lex Fridman (1:14:20.500)
that don't, that aren't actually bounded
Sam Harris (1:14:22.500)
by the person in any clear sense.
Lex Fridman (1:14:26.660)
It was just, I mean, the example I often use here,
Lex Fridman (1:14:31.060)
but there's so many others is just the fact
Lex Fridman (1:14:33.620)
that we're following the rules of English grammar
Sam Harris (1:14:36.240)
to whatever degree we are.
Lex Fridman (1:14:37.820)
It's not that we certainly haven't consciously represented
Sam Harris (1:14:40.540)
these rules for ourself.
Lex Fridman (1:14:42.340)
We haven't invented these rules.
Sam Harris (1:14:44.060)
We haven't, I mean, there are norms of language use
Lex Fridman (1:14:48.500)
that we couldn't even specify because we haven't,
Sam Harris (1:14:53.060)
you know, we're not grammarians.
Lex Fridman (1:14:54.300)
We're not, we haven't studied this.
Sam Harris (1:14:56.340)
We don't even have the right concepts,
Lex Fridman (1:14:58.100)
and yet we're following these rules,
Lex Fridman (1:14:59.840)
and we're noticing, you know, we're noticing as, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:15:03.220)
an error when we fail to follow these rules,
Lex Fridman (1:15:08.060)
and virtually every other cultural norm is like that.
Lex Fridman (1:15:11.060)
I mean, these are not things we've invented.
Sam Harris (1:15:13.020)
You can consciously decide to scrutinize them
Lex Fridman (1:15:17.060)
and override them, but, I mean, just think of,
Sam Harris (1:15:21.220)
just think of any social situation
Lex Fridman (1:15:23.560)
where you're with other people and you're behaving
Lex Fridman (1:15:27.500)
in ways that are culturally appropriate, right?
Lex Fridman (1:15:31.540)
You're not being, you know,
Sam Harris (1:15:32.620)
you're not being wild animals together.
Lex Fridman (1:15:34.540)
You're following, you have some expectation
Sam Harris (1:15:36.500)
of how you shake a person's hand
Lex Fridman (1:15:38.940)
and how you deal with implements on a table,
Lex Fridman (1:15:43.380)
how you have a meal together.
Lex Fridman (1:15:44.940)
Obviously, this can change from culture to culture,
Lex Fridman (1:15:47.500)
and people can be shocked
Lex Fridman (1:15:49.300)
by how different those things are, right?
Sam Harris (1:15:51.200)
We, you know, we all have foods we find disgusting,
Lex Fridman (1:15:53.920)
but in some countries, dog is not one of those foods, right?
Lex Fridman (1:15:57.100)
And yet, you know, you and I presumably
Lex Fridman (1:15:59.140)
would be horrified to be served dog.
Sam Harris (1:16:03.600)
Those are not norms that we're,
Lex Fridman (1:16:06.980)
they are outside of us in some way,
Lex Fridman (1:16:09.100)
and yet they're felt very viscerally.
Lex Fridman (1:16:13.340)
I mean, they're certainly felt in their violation.
Sam Harris (1:16:15.940)
You know, if you are, just imagine,
Lex Fridman (1:16:18.140)
you're in somebody's home,
Sam Harris (1:16:21.200)
you're eating something that tastes great to you,
Lex Fridman (1:16:23.660)
and you happen to be in Vietnam or wherever,
Sam Harris (1:16:25.700)
you know, you didn't realize dog was potentially
Lex Fridman (1:16:28.660)
on the menu, and you find out that you've just eaten
Sam Harris (1:16:32.780)
10 bites of what is, you know, really a cocker spaniel,
Lex Fridman (1:16:37.300)
and you feel this instantaneous urge to vomit, right,
Lex Fridman (1:16:42.980)
based on an idea, right?
Lex Fridman (1:16:44.880)
Like, so, like, you did not,
Sam Harris (1:16:47.040)
you're not the author of that norm
Lex Fridman (1:16:51.020)
that gave you such a powerful experience of its violation,
Lex Fridman (1:16:55.620)
and I'm sure we can trace the moment in your history,
Lex Fridman (1:16:59.620)
you know, vaguely, where it sort of got in.
Sam Harris (1:17:01.340)
I mean, very early on as kids,
Lex Fridman (1:17:02.940)
you realize you're treating dogs as pets
Lex Fridman (1:17:05.940)
and not as food, or as potential food.
Lex Fridman (1:17:10.460)
But yeah, no, it's, but the point you just made
Sam Harris (1:17:15.700)
opens us to, like, we are totally permeable
Lex Fridman (1:17:18.980)
to a sea of mind.
Sam Harris (1:17:22.020)
Yeah, but if we take the metaphor
Lex Fridman (1:17:24.380)
of the distributed computing systems,
Sam Harris (1:17:26.220)
each individual node is,
Lex Fridman (1:17:29.860)
is part of performing a much larger computation,
Lex Fridman (1:17:32.700)
but it nevertheless is in charge of doing the scheduling
Lex Fridman (1:17:36.460)
of, so, assuming it's Linux,
Sam Harris (1:17:39.260)
is doing the scheduling of processes
Lex Fridman (1:17:41.060)
and is constantly alternating them.
Sam Harris (1:17:42.700)
That node is making those choices.
Lex Fridman (1:17:46.200)
That node sure as hell believes it has free will,
Lex Fridman (1:17:49.220)
and it actually has free will
Lex Fridman (1:17:51.100)
because it's making those hard choices,
Lex Fridman (1:17:53.140)
but the choices ultimately are part
Lex Fridman (1:17:54.860)
of a much larger computation that it can't control.
Sam Harris (1:17:57.340)
Isn't it possible for that node to still be,
Lex Fridman (1:17:59.900)
that human node is still making the choice?
Sam Harris (1:18:04.060)
Well, yeah, it is.
Lex Fridman (1:18:05.140)
So I'm not saying that your body
Lex Fridman (1:18:08.820)
isn't doing, really doing things, right?
Lex Fridman (1:18:11.660)
And some of those things can be
Lex Fridman (1:18:14.060)
conventionally thought of as choices, right?
Lex Fridman (1:18:16.420)
So it's like, I can choose to reach,
Lex Fridman (1:18:19.100)
and it's like, it's not being imposed on me.
Lex Fridman (1:18:21.620)
That would be a different experience.
Sam Harris (1:18:22.780)
Like, so there's an experience of all,
Lex Fridman (1:18:26.740)
you know, there's definitely a difference
Sam Harris (1:18:27.980)
between voluntary and involuntary action.
Lex Fridman (1:18:30.740)
There's, so that has to get conserved.
Sam Harris (1:18:34.060)
By any account of the mind that jettisons free will,
Lex Fridman (1:18:36.580)
you still have to admit that there's a difference
Sam Harris (1:18:39.260)
between a tremor that I can't control
Lex Fridman (1:18:42.920)
and a purposeful motor action that I can control
Lex Fridman (1:18:47.620)
and I can initiate on demand,
Lex Fridman (1:18:49.140)
and it's associated with intentions.
Lex Fridman (1:18:50.940)
And it's got efferent, you know, motor copy,
Lex Fridman (1:18:55.780)
which is being predictive so that I can notice errors.
Sam Harris (1:18:59.660)
You know, I have expectations.
Lex Fridman (1:19:00.940)
When I reach for this,
Sam Harris (1:19:02.060)
if my hand were actually to pass through the bottle,
Lex Fridman (1:19:04.440)
because it's a hologram, I would be surprised, right?
Lex Fridman (1:19:07.180)
And so that shows that I have a expectation
Lex Fridman (1:19:09.180)
of just what my grasping behavior is gonna be like
Sam Harris (1:19:12.140)
even before it happens.
Lex Fridman (1:19:13.740)
Whereas with a tremor,
Sam Harris (1:19:14.620)
you don't have the same kind of thing going on.
Lex Fridman (1:19:17.120)
That's a distinction we have to make.
Lex Fridman (1:19:19.960)
So I am, yes, I'm really, my intention to move,
Lex Fridman (1:19:26.980)
which is in fact can be subjectively felt,
Sam Harris (1:19:28.980)
really is the proximate cause of my moving.
Lex Fridman (1:19:31.020)
It's not coming from elsewhere in the universe.
Sam Harris (1:19:33.300)
I'm not saying that.
Lex Fridman (1:19:35.060)
So in that sense, the node is really deciding
Sam Harris (1:19:37.580)
to execute, you know, the subroutine now.
Lex Fridman (1:19:42.260)
But that's not the feeling
Lex Fridman (1:19:47.260)
that has given rise to this conundrum of free will, right?
Lex Fridman (1:19:54.820)
So the people feel like,
Sam Harris (1:19:58.680)
people feel like the crucial thing is that people feel
Lex Fridman (1:20:01.580)
like they could have done otherwise, right?
Sam Harris (1:20:04.300)
That's the thing that,
Lex Fridman (1:20:05.880)
so when you run back the clock of your life, right?
Sam Harris (1:20:09.500)
You run back the movie of your life,
Lex Fridman (1:20:11.260)
you flip back the few pages in the novel of your life,
Sam Harris (1:20:14.640)
they feel that at this point,
Lex Fridman (1:20:18.020)
they could behave differently than they did, right?
Lex Fridman (1:20:20.820)
So like, but given, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:20:23.260)
even given your distributed computing example,
Sam Harris (1:20:27.780)
it's either a fully deterministic system
Lex Fridman (1:20:30.500)
or it's a deterministic system
Sam Harris (1:20:32.140)
that admits of some random, you know, influence.
Lex Fridman (1:20:36.220)
In either case,
Sam Harris (1:20:39.540)
that's not the free will people think they have.
Lex Fridman (1:20:41.580)
The free will people think they have is, damn,
Sam Harris (1:20:45.540)
I shouldn't have done that.
Lex Fridman (1:20:46.540)
I just like, I shouldn't have done that.
Lex Fridman (1:20:49.440)
I could have done otherwise, right?
Lex Fridman (1:20:51.420)
I should have done otherwise, right?
Sam Harris (1:20:52.740)
Like if you think about something
Lex Fridman (1:20:55.420)
that you deeply regret doing, right?
Sam Harris (1:20:57.660)
Or that you hold someone else responsible for
Lex Fridman (1:21:00.860)
because they really are the upstream agent
Sam Harris (1:21:03.300)
in your mind of what they did.
Lex Fridman (1:21:05.640)
You know, that's an awful thing that that person did
Lex Fridman (1:21:08.140)
and they shouldn't have done it.
Lex Fridman (1:21:09.700)
So there is this illusion and it has to be an illusion
Sam Harris (1:21:12.940)
because there's no picture of causation
Lex Fridman (1:21:17.100)
that would make sense of it.
Sam Harris (1:21:18.940)
There's this illusion that if you arrange the universe
Lex Fridman (1:21:21.900)
exactly the way it was a moment ago,
Sam Harris (1:21:24.440)
it could have played out differently.
Lex Fridman (1:21:27.020)
And the only way it could have played out differently
Sam Harris (1:21:31.580)
is if there's randomness added to that,
Lex Fridman (1:21:34.820)
but randomness isn't what people feel
Lex Fridman (1:21:37.840)
would give them free will, right?
Lex Fridman (1:21:39.380)
If you tell me that, you know,
Sam Harris (1:21:41.140)
I only reached for the water bottle this time
Lex Fridman (1:21:43.980)
because there's a random number generator in there
Sam Harris (1:21:47.060)
kicking off values and it finally moved my hand,
Lex Fridman (1:21:51.220)
that's not the feeling of authorship.
Sam Harris (1:21:54.060)
That's still not control.
Lex Fridman (1:21:55.680)
You're still not making that decision.
Sam Harris (1:21:58.140)
There's actually, I don't know if you're familiar
Lex Fridman (1:22:00.560)
with cellular automata.
Sam Harris (1:22:01.780)
It's a really nice visualization
Lex Fridman (1:22:03.580)
of how simple rules can create incredible complexity
Sam Harris (1:22:07.780)
that it's like really dumb initial conditions to set,
Lex Fridman (1:22:11.020)
simple rules applied, and eventually you watch this thing
Lex Fridman (1:22:14.980)
and if the initial conditions are correct,
Lex Fridman (1:22:18.660)
then you're going to have emerged something
Sam Harris (1:22:21.380)
that to our perception system
Lex Fridman (1:22:23.200)
looks like organisms interacting.
Sam Harris (1:22:25.460)
You can construct any kinds of worlds
Lex Fridman (1:22:27.120)
and they're not actually interacting.
Sam Harris (1:22:29.780)
They're not actually even organisms.
Lex Fridman (1:22:31.980)
And they certainly aren't making decisions.
Lex Fridman (1:22:34.940)
So there's like systems you can create
Lex Fridman (1:22:37.120)
that illustrate this point.
Sam Harris (1:22:38.580)
The question is whether there could be some room
Lex Fridman (1:22:42.840)
for let's use in the 21st century the term magic,
Sam Harris (1:22:47.440)
back to the black box of consciousness.
Lex Fridman (1:22:50.220)
Let me ask it this way.
Sam Harris (1:22:51.860)
If you're wrong about your intuition about free will,
Lex Fridman (1:22:56.360)
what, and somebody comes along to you
Lex Fridman (1:22:58.420)
and proves to you that you didn't have the full picture,
Lex Fridman (1:23:03.300)
what would that proof look like?
Lex Fridman (1:23:04.900)
What would?
Lex Fridman (1:23:05.740)
So that's the problem, that's why it's not even an illusion
Sam Harris (1:23:08.660)
in my world because for me, it's impossible to say
Lex Fridman (1:23:14.500)
what the universe would have to be like
Lex Fridman (1:23:16.860)
for free will to be a thing, right?
Lex Fridman (1:23:19.220)
It doesn't conceptually map onto any notion
Sam Harris (1:23:22.500)
of causation we have.
Lex Fridman (1:23:24.740)
And that's unlike any other spurious claim you might make.
Lex Fridman (1:23:29.440)
So like if you're gonna believe in ghosts, right?
Lex Fridman (1:23:33.760)
I understand what that claim could be,
Sam Harris (1:23:37.900)
where like I don't happen to believe in ghosts,
Lex Fridman (1:23:40.180)
but it's not hard for me to specify
Lex Fridman (1:23:44.300)
what would have to be true for ghosts to be real.
Lex Fridman (1:23:47.340)
And so it is with a thousand other things like ghosts,
Sam Harris (1:23:50.060)
right, so like, okay, so you're telling me
Lex Fridman (1:23:52.020)
that when people die, there's some part of them
Sam Harris (1:23:54.820)
that is not reducible at all to their biology
Lex Fridman (1:23:57.460)
that lifts off them and goes elsewhere
Lex Fridman (1:24:00.620)
and is actually the kind of thing
Lex Fridman (1:24:02.180)
that they can linger in closets and in cupboards
Lex Fridman (1:24:04.660)
and actually it's immaterial,
Lex Fridman (1:24:07.620)
but by some principle of physics,
Sam Harris (1:24:09.200)
we don't totally understand it can make sounds
Lex Fridman (1:24:11.600)
and knock objects and even occasionally show up
Lex Fridman (1:24:15.820)
so they can be visually beheld.
Lex Fridman (1:24:18.900)
And it's just, it seems like a miracle,
Lex Fridman (1:24:21.700)
but it's just some spooky noun in the universe
Lex Fridman (1:24:25.580)
that we don't understand, let's call it a ghost.
Sam Harris (1:24:29.460)
That's fine, I can talk about that all day.
Lex Fridman (1:24:31.940)
The reasons to believe in it,
Sam Harris (1:24:32.980)
the reasons not to believe in it,
Lex Fridman (1:24:34.160)
the way we would scientifically test for it,
Lex Fridman (1:24:36.340)
what would have to be provable
Lex Fridman (1:24:38.180)
so as to convince me that ghosts are real.
Sam Harris (1:24:42.580)
Free will isn't like that at all.
Lex Fridman (1:24:44.260)
There's no description of any concatenation of causes
Sam Harris (1:24:49.320)
that precedes my conscious experience
Lex Fridman (1:24:53.000)
that sounds like what people think they have
Sam Harris (1:24:55.340)
when they think they could have done otherwise
Lex Fridman (1:24:56.980)
and that they really, that they, the conscious agent,
Lex Fridman (1:25:00.180)
is really in charge, right?
Lex Fridman (1:25:01.900)
Like if you don't know what you're going to think next,
Sam Harris (1:25:05.040)
right, and you can't help but think it,
Lex Fridman (1:25:09.700)
take those two premises on board.
Sam Harris (1:25:12.860)
You don't know what it's gonna be,
Lex Fridman (1:25:14.780)
you can't stop it from coming,
Lex Fridman (1:25:18.240)
and until you actually know how to meditate,
Lex Fridman (1:25:21.820)
you can't stop yourself from
Sam Harris (1:25:27.020)
fully living out its behavioral or emotional consequences.
Lex Fridman (1:25:31.240)
Right, like you have no, once you,
Sam Harris (1:25:33.020)
mindfulness, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:25:35.060)
arguably gives you another degree of freedom here.
Sam Harris (1:25:38.420)
It doesn't give you free will,
Lex Fridman (1:25:39.320)
but it gives you some other game to play
Sam Harris (1:25:41.160)
with respect to the emotional
Lex Fridman (1:25:43.820)
and behavioral imperatives of thoughts.
Lex Fridman (1:25:46.260)
But short of that, I mean,
Lex Fridman (1:25:50.420)
the reason why mindfulness doesn't give you free will
Sam Harris (1:25:52.220)
is because you can't, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:25:53.620)
you can't account for why in one moment
Lex Fridman (1:25:55.600)
mindfulness arises and in other moments it doesn't, right?
Lex Fridman (1:26:00.060)
But a different process is initiated
Sam Harris (1:26:03.500)
once you can practice in that way.
Lex Fridman (1:26:06.820)
Well, if I could push back for a second.
Sam Harris (1:26:08.860)
By the way, I just have this thought bubble
Lex Fridman (1:26:11.120)
popping up all the time of just two recent chimps
Sam Harris (1:26:14.100)
arguing about the nature of consciousness.
Lex Fridman (1:26:16.740)
It's kind of hilarious.
Lex Fridman (1:26:17.860)
So on that thread, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:26:21.420)
if we're, even before Einstein,
Sam Harris (1:26:22.900)
let's say before Einstein,
Lex Fridman (1:26:24.340)
we were to conceive about traveling
Sam Harris (1:26:27.060)
from point A to point B, say some point in the future,
Lex Fridman (1:26:32.420)
we are able to realize through engineering
Sam Harris (1:26:34.940)
a way which is consistent with Einstein's theory
Lex Fridman (1:26:39.380)
that you can have wormholes.
Sam Harris (1:26:40.380)
You can travel from one point to another
Lex Fridman (1:26:42.780)
faster than the speed of light.
Lex Fridman (1:26:46.260)
And that would, I think, completely change our conception
Lex Fridman (1:26:49.480)
of what it means to travel in the physical space.
Lex Fridman (1:26:52.900)
And that completely transform our ability.
Lex Fridman (1:26:57.420)
You talk about causality, but here let's just focus
Sam Harris (1:26:59.780)
on what it means to travel through physical space.
Lex Fridman (1:27:03.400)
Don't you think it's possible that there will be inventions
Sam Harris (1:27:08.160)
or leaps in understanding about reality
Lex Fridman (1:27:11.300)
that will allow us to see free will as actually,
Sam Harris (1:27:15.980)
like us humans somehow may be linked
Lex Fridman (1:27:19.340)
to this idea of consciousness,
Lex Fridman (1:27:21.380)
are actually able to be authors of our actions?
Lex Fridman (1:27:25.580)
It is a nonstarter for me conceptually.
Sam Harris (1:27:29.500)
It's a little bit like saying,
Lex Fridman (1:27:33.060)
could there be some breakthrough that will cause us
Sam Harris (1:27:35.920)
to realize that circles are really square
Lex Fridman (1:27:40.180)
or the circles are not really round, right?
Sam Harris (1:27:43.040)
No, a circle is what we mean by a perfectly round form.
Lex Fridman (1:27:47.860)
It's not on the table to be revised.
Lex Fridman (1:27:52.460)
And so I would say the same thing about consciousness.
Lex Fridman (1:27:55.060)
It's just like saying, is there some breakthrough
Sam Harris (1:27:58.940)
that would get us to realize that consciousness
Lex Fridman (1:28:00.980)
is really an illusion?
Sam Harris (1:28:02.660)
I'm saying no, because the experience of an illusion
Lex Fridman (1:28:06.540)
is as much a demonstration of what I'm calling consciousness
Lex Fridman (1:28:09.020)
as anything else, right?
Lex Fridman (1:28:10.380)
That is consciousness.
Sam Harris (1:28:12.480)
With free will, it's a similar problem.
Lex Fridman (1:28:15.340)
It's like, again, it comes down to a picture of causality
Lex Fridman (1:28:22.620)
and there's no other picture on offer.
Lex Fridman (1:28:27.020)
And what's more, I know what it's like
Sam Harris (1:28:31.700)
on the experiential side to lose the thing
Lex Fridman (1:28:36.540)
to which it is clearly anchored, right?
Sam Harris (1:28:39.060)
Like the feel, like it doesn't feel,
Lex Fridman (1:28:41.660)
and this is the question that almost nobody asked.
Sam Harris (1:28:43.740)
People who are debating me on the topic of free will,
Lex Fridman (1:28:47.860)
I'm, at 15 minute intervals, I'm making a claim
Sam Harris (1:28:51.980)
that I don't feel this thing,
Lex Fridman (1:28:53.500)
and they never become interested in,
Lex Fridman (1:28:58.220)
well, what's that like?
Lex Fridman (1:28:59.220)
Like, okay, so you're actually saying you don't,
Sam Harris (1:29:02.100)
this thing isn't true for you empirically.
Lex Fridman (1:29:05.880)
It's not just, because most people
Sam Harris (1:29:07.280)
who don't believe in free will philosophically
Lex Fridman (1:29:11.140)
also believe that we're condemned to experience it.
Sam Harris (1:29:15.120)
Like, you just, you can't live without this feeling, so.
Lex Fridman (1:29:19.080)
So you're actually saying you're able
Lex Fridman (1:29:21.240)
to experience the absence of the illusion of free will?
Lex Fridman (1:29:27.040)
Yes, yes.
Sam Harris (1:29:28.040)
For, are we talking about a few minutes at a time,
Lex Fridman (1:29:32.600)
or is this, does it require a lot of work, a meditation,
Sam Harris (1:29:38.000)
or are you literally able to load that into your mind
Lex Fridman (1:29:41.120)
and like play that moment?
Sam Harris (1:29:42.080)
Right now, right now, just in this conversation.
Lex Fridman (1:29:44.640)
So it's not absolutely continuous,
Lex Fridman (1:29:49.000)
but it's whenever I pay attention.
Lex Fridman (1:29:51.580)
It's like, and I would say the same thing
Sam Harris (1:29:53.800)
for the illusoriness of the self in the sense,
Lex Fridman (1:29:56.760)
and again, we haven't talked about this, so.
Lex Fridman (1:29:58.920)
Can you still have the self and not have the free will
Lex Fridman (1:30:01.640)
in mind at the same time?
Lex Fridman (1:30:02.480)
Do they go at the same time?
Lex Fridman (1:30:03.920)
This is the same, yeah, it's the same thing.
Sam Harris (1:30:06.520)
They're always holding hands when they walk out the door.
Lex Fridman (1:30:08.760)
There really are two sides at the same coin.
Lex Fridman (1:30:10.600)
But it's just, it comes down to what it's like
Lex Fridman (1:30:14.240)
to try to get to the end of this sentence,
Sam Harris (1:30:16.520)
or what it's like to finally decide
Lex Fridman (1:30:18.920)
that it's been long enough
Lex Fridman (1:30:20.400)
and now I need another sip of water, right?
Lex Fridman (1:30:22.160)
If I'm paying attention, now, if I'm not paying attention,
Sam Harris (1:30:25.860)
I'm probably, I'm captured by some other thought
Lex Fridman (1:30:28.720)
and that feels a certain way, right?
Lex Fridman (1:30:30.720)
And so that's not, it's not vivid,
Lex Fridman (1:30:32.280)
but if I try to make vivid this experience of just,
Sam Harris (1:30:35.540)
okay, I'm finally gonna experience free will.
Lex Fridman (1:30:38.240)
I'm gonna notice my free will, right?
Sam Harris (1:30:40.440)
Like it's gotta be here, everyone's talking about it.
Lex Fridman (1:30:43.240)
Where is it?
Sam Harris (1:30:44.080)
I'm gonna pay attention to, I'm gonna look for it.
Lex Fridman (1:30:45.760)
And I'm gonna create a circumstance
Lex Fridman (1:30:48.600)
that is where it has to be most robust, right?
Lex Fridman (1:30:52.200)
I'm not rushed to make this decision.
Sam Harris (1:30:54.660)
I'm not, it's not a reflex.
Lex Fridman (1:30:57.060)
I'm not under pressure.
Sam Harris (1:30:58.640)
I'm gonna take as long as I want.
Lex Fridman (1:30:59.940)
I'm going to decide, it's not trivial.
Sam Harris (1:31:02.960)
Like, so it's not just like reaching with my left hand
Lex Fridman (1:31:04.760)
or reaching with my right hand.
Sam Harris (1:31:05.680)
People don't like those examples for some reason.
Lex Fridman (1:31:07.720)
Let's make a big decision.
Lex Fridman (1:31:09.240)
Like, where should, what should my next podcast be on, right?
Lex Fridman (1:31:16.340)
Who do I invite on the next podcast?
Lex Fridman (1:31:18.560)
What is it like to make that decision?
Lex Fridman (1:31:20.600)
When I pay attention,
Sam Harris (1:31:22.800)
there is no evidence of free will anywhere in sight.
Lex Fridman (1:31:26.680)
It's like, it doesn't feel like,
Sam Harris (1:31:28.160)
it feels profoundly mysterious
Lex Fridman (1:31:31.200)
to be going back between two people.
Lex Fridman (1:31:33.920)
Like, is it gonna be person A or person B?
Lex Fridman (1:31:37.600)
Got all my reasons for A and all my reasons why not
Lex Fridman (1:31:40.240)
and all my reasons for B.
Lex Fridman (1:31:41.240)
And there's some math going on there
Sam Harris (1:31:43.960)
that I'm not even privy to
Lex Fridman (1:31:46.440)
where certain concerns are trumping others.
Lex Fridman (1:31:49.380)
And at a certain point, I just decide.
Lex Fridman (1:31:52.880)
And yes, you can say I'm the node in the network
Sam Harris (1:31:56.020)
that has made that decision, absolutely.
Lex Fridman (1:31:57.560)
I'm not saying it's being piped to me from elsewhere,
Lex Fridman (1:32:00.360)
but the feeling of what it's like to make that decision
Lex Fridman (1:32:04.560)
is totally without a sense,
Sam Harris (1:32:11.280)
a real sense of agency
Lex Fridman (1:32:15.080)
because something simply emerges.
Sam Harris (1:32:18.720)
It's literally as tenuous as
Lex Fridman (1:32:22.400)
what's the next sound I'm going to hear, right?
Lex Fridman (1:32:26.020)
Or what's the next thought that's gonna appear?
Lex Fridman (1:32:29.440)
And it just, something just appears, you know?
Lex Fridman (1:32:32.320)
And if something appears to cancel that something,
Lex Fridman (1:32:34.680)
like if I say, I'm gonna invite her
Lex Fridman (1:32:37.760)
and then I'm about to send the email
Lex Fridman (1:32:39.360)
and then I think, oh, no, no, no, I can't do that.
Sam Harris (1:32:42.560)
There was a thing in that New York article I read
Lex Fridman (1:32:45.240)
that I gotta talk to this guy, right?
Sam Harris (1:32:47.700)
That pivot at the last second,
Lex Fridman (1:32:49.740)
you can make it as muscular as you want.
Sam Harris (1:32:53.960)
It always just comes out of the darkness.
Lex Fridman (1:32:56.000)
It's always mysterious.
Lex Fridman (1:32:57.800)
So right, when you try to pin it down,
Lex Fridman (1:32:59.440)
you really can't ever find that free will.
Sam Harris (1:33:02.000)
If you construct an experiment for yourself
Lex Fridman (1:33:06.160)
and you're trying to really find that moment
Sam Harris (1:33:07.920)
when you're actually making that controlled author decision,
Lex Fridman (1:33:11.760)
it's very difficult to do.
Lex Fridman (1:33:12.800)
And we're still, we're still, we know at this point
Lex Fridman (1:33:15.920)
that if we were scanning your brain
Lex Fridman (1:33:18.280)
in some podcast guest choosing experiment, right?
Lex Fridman (1:33:24.120)
We know at this point we would be privy
Sam Harris (1:33:27.040)
to who you're going to pick before you are,
Lex Fridman (1:33:29.520)
you the conscious agent.
Sam Harris (1:33:30.800)
If we could, again, this is operationally
Lex Fridman (1:33:33.120)
a little hard to conduct,
Lex Fridman (1:33:34.280)
but there's enough data now to know
Lex Fridman (1:33:36.880)
that something very much like this cartoon is in fact true
Lex Fridman (1:33:42.800)
and will ultimately be undeniable for people.
Lex Fridman (1:33:46.120)
They'll be able to do it on themselves with some app.
Sam Harris (1:33:51.680)
If you're deciding what to, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:33:54.680)
where to go for dinner or who to have on your podcast
Lex Fridman (1:33:56.840)
or ultimately, you know, who to marry, right?
Lex Fridman (1:33:58.840)
Or what city to move to, right?
Sam Harris (1:34:00.960)
Like you can make it as big
Lex Fridman (1:34:02.800)
or as small a decision as you want.
Sam Harris (1:34:05.600)
We could be scanning your brain in real time
Lex Fridman (1:34:08.000)
and at a point where you still think you're uncommitted,
Sam Harris (1:34:12.580)
we would be able to say with arbitrary accuracy,
Lex Fridman (1:34:17.080)
all right, Lex is, he's moving to Austin, right?
Sam Harris (1:34:20.840)
I didn't choose that.
Lex Fridman (1:34:21.680)
Yeah, he was choosing, it was gonna be Austin
Sam Harris (1:34:23.800)
or it was gonna be Miami.
Lex Fridman (1:34:24.800)
He got, he's catching one of these two waves,
Lex Fridman (1:34:27.760)
but it's gonna be Austin.
Lex Fridman (1:34:29.240)
And at a point where you subjectively,
Sam Harris (1:34:31.800)
if we could ask you, you would say,
Lex Fridman (1:34:34.200)
oh no, I'm still working over here.
Sam Harris (1:34:36.940)
I'm still thinking, I'm still considering my options.
Lex Fridman (1:34:40.720)
And you've spoken to this,
Sam Harris (1:34:43.040)
in you thinking about other stuff in the world,
Lex Fridman (1:34:45.520)
it's been very useful to step away
Sam Harris (1:34:49.920)
from this illusion of free will.
Lex Fridman (1:34:51.480)
And you argue that it's probably makes a better world
Sam Harris (1:34:54.140)
because it can be compassionate
Lex Fridman (1:34:55.400)
and empathetic towards others.
Lex Fridman (1:34:56.880)
And towards oneself.
Lex Fridman (1:34:58.380)
Towards oneself.
Sam Harris (1:34:59.220)
I mean, radically toward others
Lex Fridman (1:35:01.880)
in that literally hate makes no sense anymore.
Sam Harris (1:35:05.780)
I mean, there are certain things
Lex Fridman (1:35:06.800)
you can really be worried about, really want to oppose.
Sam Harris (1:35:10.920)
Really, I mean, I'm not saying
Lex Fridman (1:35:12.000)
you'd never have to kill another person.
Lex Fridman (1:35:13.800)
Like, I mean, self defense is still a thing, right?
Lex Fridman (1:35:16.380)
But the idea that you're ever confronting anything
Sam Harris (1:35:22.180)
other than a force of nature in the end
Lex Fridman (1:35:25.560)
goes out the window, right?
Sam Harris (1:35:26.740)
Or does go out the window when you really pay attention.
Lex Fridman (1:35:29.040)
I'm not saying that this would be easy to grok
Sam Harris (1:35:33.400)
if someone kills a member of your family.
Lex Fridman (1:35:38.340)
I'm not saying you can just listen
Sam Harris (1:35:39.560)
to my 90 minutes on free will
Lex Fridman (1:35:40.880)
and then you should be able to see that person
Sam Harris (1:35:42.360)
as identical to a grizzly bear or a virus.
Lex Fridman (1:35:46.560)
Because there's so, I mean, we are so evolved
Sam Harris (1:35:49.740)
to deal with one another as fellow primates
Lex Fridman (1:35:54.740)
and as agents, but it's, yeah,
Sam Harris (1:36:00.000)
when you're talking about the possibility
Lex Fridman (1:36:01.960)
of, you know, Christian, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:36:05.800)
truly Christian forgiveness, right?
Lex Fridman (1:36:08.280)
It's like, you know, as testified to by, you know,
Sam Harris (1:36:14.080)
various saints of that flavor over the millennia.
Lex Fridman (1:36:19.080)
Yeah, that is, the doorway to that is to recognize
Sam Harris (1:36:24.080)
that no one really at bottom made themselves.
Lex Fridman (1:36:28.080)
And therefore everyone, what we're seeing really
Sam Harris (1:36:31.560)
are differences in luck in the world.
Lex Fridman (1:36:34.440)
We're seeing people who are very, very lucky
Sam Harris (1:36:37.160)
to have had good parents and good genes
Lex Fridman (1:36:38.880)
and to be in good societies and had good opportunities
Lex Fridman (1:36:41.480)
and to be intelligent and to be, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:36:44.080)
not as intelligent as they were in the past.
Lex Fridman (1:36:47.080)
And to be, you know, not sociopathic,
Lex Fridman (1:36:50.000)
like none of it is on them.
Sam Harris (1:36:53.080)
They're just reaping the fruits of one lottery
Lex Fridman (1:36:56.640)
after another, and then showing up in the world
Sam Harris (1:36:59.200)
on that basis.
Lex Fridman (1:37:01.920)
And then so it is with, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:37:04.160)
every malevolent asshole out there, right?
Lex Fridman (1:37:06.480)
He or she didn't make themself.
Sam Harris (1:37:11.040)
Even if that weren't possible,
Lex Fridman (1:37:14.080)
the utility for self compassion is also enormous
Sam Harris (1:37:18.600)
because it's, when you just look at what it's like
Lex Fridman (1:37:21.760)
to regret something or to feel shame about something
Sam Harris (1:37:27.520)
or feel deep embarrassment, these states of mind
Lex Fridman (1:37:30.160)
are some of the most deranging experiences anyone has.
Lex Fridman (1:37:34.640)
And the indelible reaction to them,
Lex Fridman (1:37:40.000)
you know, the memory of the thing you said,
Sam Harris (1:37:41.960)
you know, the memory of the wedding toast you gave
Lex Fridman (1:37:44.040)
20 years ago that was just mortifying, right?
Lex Fridman (1:37:47.120)
The fact that that can still make you hate yourself, right?
Lex Fridman (1:37:50.280)
And like that psychologically,
Lex Fridman (1:37:52.360)
that is a knot that can be untied, right?
Lex Fridman (1:37:56.280)
Speak for yourself, Sam.
Sam Harris (1:37:57.340)
Yeah, yeah.
Lex Fridman (1:37:58.180)
So clearly you're not.
Sam Harris (1:37:59.000)
You gave a great toast.
Lex Fridman (1:37:59.840)
It was my toast that mortified me.
Sam Harris (1:38:01.160)
No, no, that's not what I was referring to.
Lex Fridman (1:38:02.880)
I'm deeply appreciative in the same way
Sam Harris (1:38:07.320)
that you're referring to of every moment I'm alive,
Lex Fridman (1:38:10.360)
but I'm also powered by self hate often.
Sam Harris (1:38:15.400)
Like several things in this conversation already
Lex Fridman (1:38:18.080)
that I've spoken, I'll be thinking about,
Sam Harris (1:38:21.080)
like that was the dumbest thing.
Lex Fridman (1:38:23.080)
You're sitting in front of Sam Harris and you said that.
Lex Fridman (1:38:26.260)
So like that, but that somehow creates
Lex Fridman (1:38:29.300)
a richer experience for me.
Sam Harris (1:38:30.640)
Like I've actually come to accept that as a nice feature
Lex Fridman (1:38:33.360)
however my brain was built.
Sam Harris (1:38:35.360)
I don't think I want to let go of that.
Lex Fridman (1:38:37.340)
Well, the thing you, I think the thing you want to let go of
Sam Harris (1:38:39.520)
is the suffering associated with it.
Lex Fridman (1:38:46.400)
So like, so for me, so psychologically and ethically,
Sam Harris (1:38:53.440)
all of this is very interesting.
Lex Fridman (1:38:55.240)
So I don't think we ever,
Lex Fridman (1:38:56.560)
we should ever get rid of things like anger, right?
Lex Fridman (1:38:59.500)
So like hatred is, hatred is divorcible from anger
Sam Harris (1:39:02.720)
in the sense that hatred is this enduring state where,
Lex Fridman (1:39:07.920)
you know, whether you're hating somebody else
Sam Harris (1:39:09.100)
or hating yourself, it is just,
Lex Fridman (1:39:11.480)
it is toxic and durable and ultimately useless, right?
Lex Fridman (1:39:15.900)
Like it becomes, it becomes self nullifying, right?
Lex Fridman (1:39:19.520)
Like you become less capable as a person
Sam Harris (1:39:23.280)
to solve any of your problems.
Lex Fridman (1:39:24.480)
It's not, it's not instrumental in solving the problem
Sam Harris (1:39:26.680)
that is, that is, is occasioning all this hatred.
Lex Fridman (1:39:30.880)
And anger for the most part isn't either except
Lex Fridman (1:39:34.200)
as a signal of salience that there's a problem, right?
Lex Fridman (1:39:37.280)
So if somebody does something that makes me angry,
Sam Harris (1:39:40.280)
that just promotes this situation to conscious,
Lex Fridman (1:39:44.280)
conscious attention in a way that is stronger
Lex Fridman (1:39:46.960)
than my not really caring about it, right?
Lex Fridman (1:39:49.480)
And there are things that I think should make us angry
Sam Harris (1:39:51.440)
in the world and there's the behavior of other people
Lex Fridman (1:39:54.520)
that should make us angry because we should respond to it.
Lex Fridman (1:39:57.460)
And so it is with yourself.
Lex Fridman (1:39:59.120)
If I do something, you know, as a parent,
Sam Harris (1:40:01.840)
if I do something stupid that harms one of my daughters,
Lex Fridman (1:40:05.280)
right, my belief, my experience of myself
Lex Fridman (1:40:10.280)
and my beliefs about free will close the door to my saying,
Lex Fridman (1:40:14.400)
well, I should have done otherwise in the sense
Sam Harris (1:40:16.280)
that if I could go back in time,
Lex Fridman (1:40:17.660)
I would have actually effectively done otherwise.
Sam Harris (1:40:20.360)
No, I would do, given the same causes and conditions,
Lex Fridman (1:40:22.840)
I would do that thing a trillion times in a row, right?
Sam Harris (1:40:26.320)
But, you know, regret and feeling bad about an outcome
Lex Fridman (1:40:31.320)
are still important to capacities because like, yeah,
Sam Harris (1:40:34.600)
you know, like I desperately want my daughters
Lex Fridman (1:40:37.160)
to be happy and healthy.
Lex Fridman (1:40:38.720)
So if I've done something, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:40:40.360)
if I crash the car when they're in the car
Lex Fridman (1:40:42.920)
and they get injured, right,
Lex Fridman (1:40:43.760)
and I do it because I was trying to change a song
Sam Harris (1:40:47.680)
on my playlist or, you know, something stupid,
Lex Fridman (1:40:50.600)
I'm gonna feel like a total asshole.
Lex Fridman (1:40:53.720)
How long do I stew in that feeling of regret?
Lex Fridman (1:40:58.720)
Right, and to like, what utility is there to extract
Lex Fridman (1:41:04.000)
out of this error signal?
Lex Fridman (1:41:05.520)
And then what do I do?
Sam Harris (1:41:06.920)
We're always faced with the question of what to do next,
Lex Fridman (1:41:10.480)
right, and how to best do that thing,
Sam Harris (1:41:13.520)
that necessary thing next.
Lex Fridman (1:41:15.240)
And how much wellbeing can we experience while doing it?
Sam Harris (1:41:22.360)
Like how miserable do you need to be to solve a problem
Lex Fridman (1:41:27.360)
in life and to help solve the problems
Lex Fridman (1:41:30.360)
of people closest to you?
Lex Fridman (1:41:32.160)
You know, how miserable do you need to be
Lex Fridman (1:41:33.920)
to get through your to do list today?
Lex Fridman (1:41:36.880)
Ultimately, I think you can be deeply happy
Lex Fridman (1:41:44.840)
going through all of it, right?
Lex Fridman (1:41:46.720)
And even navigating moments that are scary
Sam Harris (1:41:51.720)
and, you know, really destabilizing to ordinary people.
Lex Fridman (1:41:56.720)
And, I mean, I think, you know, again,
Sam Harris (1:42:01.720)
I'm always up kind of at the edge of my own capacities here
Lex Fridman (1:42:05.560)
and there are all kinds of things that stress me out
Lex Fridman (1:42:07.600)
and worry me and I'm especially something if it's,
Lex Fridman (1:42:10.040)
you're gonna tell me it's something with, you know,
Sam Harris (1:42:11.400)
the health of one of my kids, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:42:14.000)
it's very hard for me, like, it's very hard for me
Sam Harris (1:42:16.600)
to be truly equanimous around that.
Lex Fridman (1:42:19.200)
But equanimity is so useful
Lex Fridman (1:42:23.080)
the moment you're in response mode, right?
Lex Fridman (1:42:26.080)
Because, I mean, the ordinary experience for me
Sam Harris (1:42:30.080)
of responding to what seems like a medical emergency
Lex Fridman (1:42:35.080)
for one of my kids is to be obviously super energized
Sam Harris (1:42:40.680)
by concern to respond to that emergency.
Lex Fridman (1:42:44.360)
But then once I'm responding to that emergency,
Lex Fridman (1:42:47.240)
but then once I'm responding,
Lex Fridman (1:42:50.200)
all of my fear and agitation and worry and, oh my God,
Lex Fridman (1:42:54.920)
what if this is really something terrible?
Lex Fridman (1:42:58.120)
But finding any of those thoughts compelling,
Sam Harris (1:43:01.880)
that only diminishes my capacity as a father
Lex Fridman (1:43:05.480)
to be good company while we navigate
Lex Fridman (1:43:08.280)
this really turbulent passage, you know?
Lex Fridman (1:43:11.440)
As you're saying this actually,
Sam Harris (1:43:12.480)
one guy comes to mind, which is Elon Musk.
Lex Fridman (1:43:14.600)
One of the really impressive things to me
Sam Harris (1:43:17.200)
was to observe how many dramatic things
Lex Fridman (1:43:19.920)
he has to deal with throughout the day at work,
Lex Fridman (1:43:22.400)
but also if you look through his life, family too,
Lex Fridman (1:43:26.600)
and how he's very much actually, as you're describing,
Sam Harris (1:43:30.440)
basically a practitioner of this way of thought,
Lex Fridman (1:43:33.000)
which is you're not in control.
Sam Harris (1:43:37.680)
You're basically responding
Lex Fridman (1:43:39.880)
no matter how traumatic the event,
Lex Fridman (1:43:41.360)
and there's no reason to sort of linger on the,
Lex Fridman (1:43:44.880)
on the negative feelings around that.
Sam Harris (1:43:46.840)
Well, so, I mean, he, but he's in a very specific situation,
Lex Fridman (1:43:52.080)
which is unlike normal life,
Sam Harris (1:43:57.880)
you know, even his normal life,
Lex Fridman (1:43:59.080)
but normal life for most people,
Sam Harris (1:44:00.800)
because when you just think of like, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:44:02.720)
he's running so many businesses,
Lex Fridman (1:44:04.080)
and he's, they're very, they're not,
Lex Fridman (1:44:06.080)
they're non, highly nonstandard businesses.
Lex Fridman (1:44:08.640)
So what he's seen is everything that gets to him
Lex Fridman (1:44:12.440)
is some kind of emergency.
Sam Harris (1:44:13.880)
Like it wouldn't be getting to him.
Lex Fridman (1:44:15.000)
If it needs his attention,
Sam Harris (1:44:16.600)
there's a fire somewhere.
Lex Fridman (1:44:17.960)
So he's constantly responding to fires
Sam Harris (1:44:20.760)
that have to be put out.
Lex Fridman (1:44:22.720)
So there's no default expectation
Lex Fridman (1:44:25.480)
that there shouldn't be a fire, right?
Lex Fridman (1:44:27.360)
But in our normal lives, we live,
Lex Fridman (1:44:29.600)
most of us, I mean, most of us who are lucky, right?
Lex Fridman (1:44:31.720)
Not everyone, obviously on earth,
Lex Fridman (1:44:33.200)
but most of us who are at some kind of cruising altitude
Lex Fridman (1:44:36.600)
in terms of our lives,
Sam Harris (1:44:39.040)
where we're reasonably healthy,
Lex Fridman (1:44:40.440)
and life is reasonably orderly,
Lex Fridman (1:44:42.120)
and the political apparatus around us
Lex Fridman (1:44:44.360)
is reasonably functionable, functional,
Sam Harris (1:44:47.440)
functionable.
Lex Fridman (1:44:48.280)
So I said, functionable for the first time in my life
Sam Harris (1:44:50.160)
through no free will of my own.
Lex Fridman (1:44:51.360)
Say like, I noticed those errors,
Lex Fridman (1:44:53.080)
and they do not feel like agency,
Lex Fridman (1:44:56.240)
and nor does the success of an utterance feel like agency.
Sam Harris (1:45:01.600)
He, when you're looking at normal human life, right,
Lex Fridman (1:45:06.400)
where you're just trying to be happy and healthy,
Lex Fridman (1:45:10.360)
and get your work done,
Lex Fridman (1:45:13.040)
there's this default expectation
Sam Harris (1:45:14.520)
that there shouldn't be fires.
Lex Fridman (1:45:16.400)
People shouldn't be getting sick or injured.
Sam Harris (1:45:20.560)
We shouldn't be losing vast amounts of our resources.
Lex Fridman (1:45:23.720)
We should, like, so when something really stark
Sam Harris (1:45:27.480)
like that happens,
Lex Fridman (1:45:31.520)
people don't have a, people don't have that muscle
Sam Harris (1:45:34.800)
that they're, like, I've been responding to emergencies
Lex Fridman (1:45:37.560)
all day long, seven days a week in business mode,
Lex Fridman (1:45:42.240)
and so I have a very thick skin.
Lex Fridman (1:45:44.160)
This is just another one.
Sam Harris (1:45:45.680)
I'm not expecting anything else
Lex Fridman (1:45:47.320)
when I wake up in the morning.
Sam Harris (1:45:48.720)
No, we have this default sense that,
Lex Fridman (1:45:52.280)
I mean, honestly, most of us have the default sense
Sam Harris (1:45:54.440)
that we aren't gonna die, right,
Lex Fridman (1:45:57.120)
or that we should, like, maybe we're not gonna die.
Sam Harris (1:45:59.680)
Right, like, death denial really is a thing.
Lex Fridman (1:46:02.960)
You know, we're, and you can see it,
Sam Harris (1:46:06.360)
just like I can see when I reach for this bottle
Lex Fridman (1:46:09.840)
that I was expecting it to be solid,
Sam Harris (1:46:11.600)
because when it isn't solid, when it's a hologram
Lex Fridman (1:46:13.640)
and I just, my fist closes on itself,
Sam Harris (1:46:16.720)
I'm damn surprised.
Lex Fridman (1:46:18.880)
People are damn surprised to find out
Sam Harris (1:46:22.120)
that they're going to die, to find out that they're sick,
Lex Fridman (1:46:24.680)
to find out that someone they love has died
Sam Harris (1:46:27.640)
or is going to die.
Lex Fridman (1:46:28.640)
So it's like, the fact that we are surprised
Sam Harris (1:46:32.520)
by any of that shows us that we're living at a,
Lex Fridman (1:46:36.360)
we're living in a mode that is, you know,
Sam Harris (1:46:45.280)
we're perpetually diverting ourselves
Lex Fridman (1:46:47.240)
from some facts that should be obvious, right,
Lex Fridman (1:46:50.520)
and the more salient we can make them,
Lex Fridman (1:46:55.000)
you know, the more, I mean, in the case of death,
Sam Harris (1:46:57.720)
it's a matter of being able to get one's priorities straight.
Lex Fridman (1:47:01.080)
I mean, the moment, again, this is hard for everybody,
Sam Harris (1:47:04.760)
even those who are really in the business
Lex Fridman (1:47:06.600)
of paying attention to it,
Lex Fridman (1:47:07.480)
but the moment you realize that every circumstance
Lex Fridman (1:47:12.360)
is finite, right, you've got a certain number of,
Sam Harris (1:47:15.720)
you know, you've got whatever, whatever it is,
Lex Fridman (1:47:17.120)
8,000 days left in a normal span of life,
Lex Fridman (1:47:21.880)
and 8,000 is a, sounds like a big number,
Lex Fridman (1:47:24.320)
it's not that big a number, right,
Lex Fridman (1:47:25.760)
so it's just like, and then you can decide
Lex Fridman (1:47:29.480)
how you want to go through life
Lex Fridman (1:47:31.600)
and how you want to experience each one of those days,
Lex Fridman (1:47:34.520)
and so I was, back to our jumping off point,
Sam Harris (1:47:39.080)
I would argue that you don't want to feel self hatred ever.
Lex Fridman (1:47:44.120)
I would argue that you don't want to really,
Sam Harris (1:47:53.240)
really grasp onto any of those moments
Lex Fridman (1:47:55.280)
where you are internalizing the fact
Sam Harris (1:47:58.880)
that you just made an error, you've embarrassed yourself,
Lex Fridman (1:48:01.440)
that something didn't go the way you wanted it to.
Sam Harris (1:48:03.760)
I think you want to treat all of those moments
Lex Fridman (1:48:05.960)
very, very lightly.
Sam Harris (1:48:06.960)
You want to extract the actionable information.
Lex Fridman (1:48:10.800)
It's something to learn.
Sam Harris (1:48:11.920)
Oh, you know, I learned that when I prepare
Lex Fridman (1:48:17.040)
in a certain way, it works better
Sam Harris (1:48:18.440)
than when I prepare in some other way,
Lex Fridman (1:48:20.000)
or don't prepare, right, like yes,
Sam Harris (1:48:22.320)
lesson learned, you know, and do that differently,
Lex Fridman (1:48:25.560)
but yeah, I mean, so many of us have spent so much time
Sam Harris (1:48:35.040)
with a very dysfunctional and hostile
Lex Fridman (1:48:42.320)
and even hateful inner voice
Sam Harris (1:48:46.080)
governing a lot of our self talk
Lex Fridman (1:48:48.320)
and a lot of just our default way of being with ourselves.
Sam Harris (1:48:51.800)
I mean, the privacy of our own minds,
Lex Fridman (1:48:54.160)
we're in the company of a real jerk a lot of the time,
Lex Fridman (1:48:58.080)
and that can't help but affect,
Lex Fridman (1:49:03.280)
I mean, forget about just your own sense of wellbeing.
Sam Harris (1:49:05.600)
It can't help but limit what you're capable of
Lex Fridman (1:49:08.560)
in the world with other people.
Sam Harris (1:49:10.560)
I'll have to really think about that.
Lex Fridman (1:49:12.120)
I just take pride that my jerk, my inner voice jerk
Sam Harris (1:49:15.080)
is much less of a jerk than somebody like David Goggins,
Lex Fridman (1:49:18.120)
who's like screaming in his ear constantly.
Lex Fridman (1:49:20.120)
So I have a relativist kind of perspective
Lex Fridman (1:49:23.160)
that it's not as bad as that at least.
Sam Harris (1:49:25.760)
Well, having a sense of humor also helps, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:49:28.440)
it's just like, it's not,
Sam Harris (1:49:29.480)
the stakes are never quite what you think they are.
Lex Fridman (1:49:32.600)
And even when they are, I mean,
Sam Harris (1:49:34.600)
it's just the difference between being able
Lex Fridman (1:49:38.680)
to see the comedy of it rather than,
Sam Harris (1:49:41.000)
because again, there's this sort of dark star
Lex Fridman (1:49:44.520)
of self absorption that pulls everything into it, right?
Lex Fridman (1:49:49.120)
And that's the algorithm you don't want to run.
Lex Fridman (1:49:55.000)
So it's like, you just want things to be good.
Lex Fridman (1:49:57.600)
So like, just push the concern out there,
Lex Fridman (1:50:01.000)
like not have the collapse of,
Lex Fridman (1:50:04.880)
oh my God, what does this say about me?
Lex Fridman (1:50:06.640)
It's just like, what does this say about,
Lex Fridman (1:50:08.760)
how do we make this meal that we're all having together
Lex Fridman (1:50:11.240)
as fun and as useful as possible?
Lex Fridman (1:50:15.640)
And you're saying in terms of propulsion systems,
Lex Fridman (1:50:17.520)
you recommend humor is a good spaceship
Sam Harris (1:50:19.680)
to escape the gravitational field of that darkness.
Lex Fridman (1:50:23.680)
Well, that certainly helps, yeah.
Sam Harris (1:50:24.960)
Yeah, well, let me ask you a little bit about ego and fame,
Lex Fridman (1:50:29.640)
which is very interesting the way you're talking,
Sam Harris (1:50:33.400)
given that you're one of the biggest intellects,
Lex Fridman (1:50:38.760)
living intellects and minds of our time.
Lex Fridman (1:50:41.520)
And there's a lot of people that really love you
Lex Fridman (1:50:44.360)
and almost elevate you to a certain kind of status
Sam Harris (1:50:49.400)
where you're like the guru.
Lex Fridman (1:50:50.760)
I'm surprised you didn't show up in a robe, in fact.
Sam Harris (1:50:54.160)
Is there a...
Lex Fridman (1:50:55.200)
A hoodie, isn't that the highest status garment
Lex Fridman (1:50:58.600)
one can wear now?
Lex Fridman (1:50:59.440)
The socially acceptable version of the robe.
Sam Harris (1:51:02.040)
If you're a billionaire, you wear a hoodie.
Lex Fridman (1:51:04.640)
Is there something you can say about managing
Sam Harris (1:51:07.200)
the effects of fame on your own mind,
Lex Fridman (1:51:11.480)
on not creating this, you know, when you wake up
Sam Harris (1:51:14.600)
in the morning, when you look up in the mirror,
Lex Fridman (1:51:18.080)
how do you get your ego not to grow exponentially?
Sam Harris (1:51:24.240)
Your conception of self to grow exponentially
Lex Fridman (1:51:26.280)
because there's so many people feeding that.
Lex Fridman (1:51:28.760)
Is there something to be said about this?
Lex Fridman (1:51:30.200)
It's really not hard because I mean,
Sam Harris (1:51:32.560)
I feel like I have a pretty clear sense
Lex Fridman (1:51:36.240)
of my strengths and weaknesses.
Lex Fridman (1:51:39.880)
And I don't feel like it's...
Lex Fridman (1:51:43.800)
I mean, honestly, I don't feel like I suffer
Sam Harris (1:51:45.840)
from much grandiosity.
Lex Fridman (1:51:48.560)
I mean, I just have a, you know,
Sam Harris (1:51:51.040)
there's so many things I'm not good at.
Lex Fridman (1:51:52.640)
There's so many things I will, you know,
Sam Harris (1:51:53.920)
given the remaining 8,000 days at best,
Lex Fridman (1:51:57.960)
I will never get good at.
Sam Harris (1:52:00.040)
I would love to be good at these things.
Lex Fridman (1:52:02.560)
So it's just, it's easy to feel diminished
Sam Harris (1:52:05.280)
by comparison with the talents of others.
Lex Fridman (1:52:08.800)
Do you remind yourself of all the things
Lex Fridman (1:52:11.160)
that you're not competent in?
Lex Fridman (1:52:14.560)
I mean, like what is...
Sam Harris (1:52:15.400)
Well, they're just on display for me every day
Lex Fridman (1:52:17.080)
that I appreciate the talents of others.
Lex Fridman (1:52:19.320)
But you notice them.
Lex Fridman (1:52:20.280)
I'm sure Stalin and Hitler did not notice
Sam Harris (1:52:22.880)
all the ways in which they were.
Lex Fridman (1:52:25.280)
I mean, this is why absolute power corrupts absolutely
Sam Harris (1:52:28.800)
is you stop noticing the things
Lex Fridman (1:52:30.800)
in which you're ridiculous and wrong.
Sam Harris (1:52:33.720)
Right, yeah, no, I am...
Lex Fridman (1:52:36.120)
Not to compare you to Stalin.
Sam Harris (1:52:37.080)
Yeah, well, I'm sure there's an inner Stalin
Lex Fridman (1:52:40.000)
in there somewhere.
Sam Harris (1:52:41.280)
Well, we all have, we all carry a baby Stalin with us.
Lex Fridman (1:52:43.640)
He wears better clothes.
Lex Fridman (1:52:46.960)
And I'm not gonna grow that mustache.
Lex Fridman (1:52:49.080)
Those concerns don't map,
Sam Harris (1:52:50.800)
they don't map onto me for a bunch of reasons.
Lex Fridman (1:52:53.480)
But one is I also have a very peculiar audience.
Sam Harris (1:52:56.080)
Like I'm just, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:52:59.800)
I've been appreciating this for a few years,
Lex Fridman (1:53:01.440)
but it's, I'm just now beginning to understand
Lex Fridman (1:53:05.880)
that there are many people who have audiences
Sam Harris (1:53:07.680)
of my size or larger that have a very different experience
Lex Fridman (1:53:11.560)
of having an audience than I do.
Sam Harris (1:53:13.280)
I have curated for better or worse, a peculiar audience.
Lex Fridman (1:53:18.960)
And the net result of that is virtually any time
Sam Harris (1:53:25.880)
I say anything of substance,
Lex Fridman (1:53:28.240)
something like half of my audience,
Sam Harris (1:53:30.600)
my real audience, not haters from outside my audience,
Lex Fridman (1:53:33.080)
but my audience is just revolts over it, right?
Sam Harris (1:53:38.320)
They just like, oh my God, I can't believe you said it,
Lex Fridman (1:53:41.000)
like you're such a schmuck, right?
Sam Harris (1:53:43.240)
They revolt with rigor and intellectual sophistication.
Lex Fridman (1:53:47.040)
Or not, or not, but I mean, it's both,
Lex Fridman (1:53:49.480)
but it's like, but people who are like,
Lex Fridman (1:53:51.040)
so it's, I mean, the clearest case is,
Sam Harris (1:53:53.280)
you know, I have whatever audience I have
Lex Fridman (1:53:55.200)
and then Trump appears on the scene
Lex Fridman (1:53:56.800)
and I discovered that something like 20% of my audience
Lex Fridman (1:54:00.600)
just went straight to Trump and couldn't believe
Sam Harris (1:54:03.840)
I didn't follow them there.
Lex Fridman (1:54:05.120)
They were just a gas that I didn't see
Sam Harris (1:54:06.920)
that Trump was obviously exactly what we needed
Lex Fridman (1:54:10.040)
for, to steer the ship of state for the next four years
Lex Fridman (1:54:15.000)
and then four years beyond that.
Lex Fridman (1:54:17.000)
So like, so that's one example.
Lex Fridman (1:54:20.400)
So whenever I said anything about Trump,
Lex Fridman (1:54:22.640)
I would hear from people who loved more or less
Sam Harris (1:54:25.760)
everything else I was up to and had for years,
Lex Fridman (1:54:28.920)
but everything I said about Trump just gave me pure pain
Sam Harris (1:54:33.400)
from this quadrant of my audience.
Lex Fridman (1:54:36.160)
But then the same thing happens when I say something
Sam Harris (1:54:39.560)
about the derangement of the far left.
Lex Fridman (1:54:42.000)
Anything I say about wokeness, right,
Sam Harris (1:54:44.200)
or identity politics, same kind of punishment signal
Lex Fridman (1:54:48.040)
from, again, people who are core to my audience,
Sam Harris (1:54:51.760)
like I've read all your books, I'm using your meditation app,
Lex Fridman (1:54:55.680)
I love what you say about science,
Lex Fridman (1:54:57.920)
but you are so wrong about politics and you are,
Lex Fridman (1:55:00.960)
I'm starting to think you're a racist asshole
Sam Harris (1:55:02.520)
for everything you said about identity politics.
Lex Fridman (1:55:06.360)
And there are so many, the free will topic
Sam Harris (1:55:08.960)
is just like this, it's like I just,
Lex Fridman (1:55:12.040)
they love what I'm saying about consciousness and the mind
Lex Fridman (1:55:15.120)
and they love to hear me talk about physics with physicists
Lex Fridman (1:55:18.280)
and it's all good, this free will stuff is,
Sam Harris (1:55:21.600)
I cannot believe you don't see how wrong you are,
Lex Fridman (1:55:24.440)
what a fucking embarrassment you are.
Sam Harris (1:55:26.720)
So, but I'm starting to notice that there are other people
Lex Fridman (1:55:30.320)
who don't have this experience of having an audience
Sam Harris (1:55:33.440)
because they have, I mean, just take the Trump woke dichotomy.
Lex Fridman (1:55:37.320)
They just castigated Trump the same way I did,
Lex Fridman (1:55:41.640)
but they never say anything bad about the far left.
Lex Fridman (1:55:44.160)
So they never get this punishment signal or you flip it.
Sam Harris (1:55:46.880)
They're all about the insanity of critical race theory now.
Lex Fridman (1:55:51.880)
We connect all those dots the same way,
Lex Fridman (1:55:54.640)
but they never really specified what was wrong with Trump
Lex Fridman (1:55:58.320)
or they thought there was a lot right with Trump
Lex Fridman (1:56:00.360)
and they got all the pleasure of that.
Lex Fridman (1:56:02.920)
And so they have much more homogenized audiences.
Lex Fridman (1:56:07.680)
And so my experience, so just to come back
Lex Fridman (1:56:10.640)
to this experience of fame or quasi fame,
Sam Harris (1:56:13.360)
I mean, it's true, in truth, it's not real fame,
Lex Fridman (1:56:16.680)
but it's still, there's an audience there.
Sam Harris (1:56:20.200)
It is a, it's now an experience where basically
Lex Fridman (1:56:26.520)
whatever I put out, I notice a ton of negativity
Sam Harris (1:56:30.040)
coming back at me and it just, it is what it is.
Lex Fridman (1:56:35.040)
I mean, now, it's like, I used to think, wait a minute,
Sam Harris (1:56:37.680)
there's gotta be some way for me to communicate
Lex Fridman (1:56:39.840)
more clearly here so as not to get this kind of
Sam Harris (1:56:45.360)
lunatic response from my own audience.
Lex Fridman (1:56:48.640)
From like people who are showing all the signs of,
Lex Fridman (1:56:51.480)
we've been here for years for a reason, right?
Lex Fridman (1:56:54.880)
These are not just trolls.
Lex Fridman (1:56:56.840)
And so I think, okay, I'm gonna take 10 more minutes
Lex Fridman (1:56:59.680)
and really just tell you what should be absolutely clear
Lex Fridman (1:57:04.200)
about what's wrong with Trump, right?
Lex Fridman (1:57:05.640)
I've done this a few times,
Lex Fridman (1:57:07.160)
but I think I gotta do this again.
Lex Fridman (1:57:09.240)
Or wait a minute, how are they not getting
Sam Harris (1:57:12.800)
that these episodes of police violence
Lex Fridman (1:57:15.360)
are so obviously different from the ones
Sam Harris (1:57:17.880)
that you can't describe all of them
Lex Fridman (1:57:20.120)
to yet another racist maniac on the police force,
Sam Harris (1:57:25.120)
killing someone based on his racism.
Lex Fridman (1:57:29.120)
Last time I spoke about this, it was pure pain,
Lex Fridman (1:57:31.800)
but I just gotta try again.
Lex Fridman (1:57:33.920)
Now at a certain point, I mean, I'm starting to feel like,
Sam Harris (1:57:36.880)
all right, I just, I have to be, I have to cease.
Lex Fridman (1:57:40.680)
Again, it comes back to this expectation
Sam Harris (1:57:43.160)
that there shouldn't be fires.
Lex Fridman (1:57:45.040)
I feel like if I could just play my game impeccably,
Sam Harris (1:57:49.520)
the people who actually care what I think will follow me
Lex Fridman (1:57:53.640)
when I hit Trump and hit free will and hit the woke
Lex Fridman (1:57:58.640)
and hit whatever it is,
Lex Fridman (1:58:00.400)
how we should respond to the coronavirus, you know?
Lex Fridman (1:58:03.080)
I mean, vaccines, are they a thing, right?
Lex Fridman (1:58:06.200)
Like there's such derangement in our information space now
Sam Harris (1:58:10.640)
that, I mean, I guess, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:58:13.040)
some people could be getting more of this than I expect,
Lex Fridman (1:58:15.160)
but I just noticed that many of our friends
Lex Fridman (1:58:18.560)
who are in the same game have more homogenized audiences
Lex Fridman (1:58:22.560)
and don't get, I mean, they've successfully filtered out
Lex Fridman (1:58:26.520)
the people who are gonna despise them on this next topic.
Lex Fridman (1:58:30.600)
And I would imagine you have a different experience
Lex Fridman (1:58:34.600)
of having a podcast than I do at this point.
Sam Harris (1:58:36.560)
I mean, I'm sure you get haters,
Lex Fridman (1:58:38.800)
but I would imagine you're more streamlined.
Sam Harris (1:58:43.560)
I actually don't like the word haters
Lex Fridman (1:58:45.360)
because it kinda presumes that it puts people in a bin.
Sam Harris (1:58:50.840)
I think we're all have like baby haters inside of us
Lex Fridman (1:58:54.200)
and we just apply them and some people enjoy doing that
Sam Harris (1:58:57.400)
more than others for particular periods of time.
Lex Fridman (1:59:00.280)
I think you're gonna almost see hating on the internet
Sam Harris (1:59:03.200)
as a video game that you just play and it's fun,
Lex Fridman (1:59:05.720)
but then you can put it down and walk away
Lex Fridman (1:59:07.400)
and no, I certainly have a bunch of people
Lex Fridman (1:59:10.080)
that are very critical.
Sam Harris (1:59:11.240)
I can list all the ways.
Lex Fridman (1:59:12.600)
But does it feel like on any given topic,
Sam Harris (1:59:14.760)
does it feel like it's an actual title surge
Lex Fridman (1:59:17.760)
where it's like 30% of your audience
Lex Fridman (1:59:19.880)
and then the other 30% of your audience
Lex Fridman (1:59:22.800)
from podcast to podcast?
Sam Harris (1:59:24.040)
No, no, no.
Lex Fridman (1:59:24.880)
That's happening to me all the time now.
Sam Harris (1:59:27.560)
Well, I'm more with, I don't know what you think about this.
Lex Fridman (1:59:30.240)
I mean, Joe Rogan doesn't read comments
Sam Harris (1:59:33.480)
or doesn't read comments much.
Lex Fridman (1:59:35.160)
And the argument he made to me is that
Sam Harris (1:59:40.240)
he already has like a self critical person inside.
Lex Fridman (1:59:46.600)
And I'm gonna have to think about
Lex Fridman (1:59:48.360)
what you said in this conversation,
Lex Fridman (1:59:49.520)
but I have this very harshly self critical person
Sam Harris (1:59:52.840)
inside as well where I don't need more fuel.
Lex Fridman (1:59:55.920)
I don't need, no, I do sometimes.
Sam Harris (1:59:59.480)
That's why I check negativity occasionally,
Lex Fridman (20:00.540)
are likely to be conscious,
Lex Fridman (20:01.660)
but they might be, and again, it could be unfalsifiable.
Lex Fridman (20:08.180)
But as far as babies not being conscious,
Sam Harris (20:10.480)
or you don't become conscious
Lex Fridman (20:12.040)
until you can recognize yourself in a mirror
Sam Harris (20:14.500)
or you have a conversation or treat other people.
Lex Fridman (20:17.280)
First of all, babies treat other people as others
Sam Harris (20:20.660)
far earlier than we have traditionally given them credit for.
Lex Fridman (20:25.780)
And they certainly do it before they have language, right?
Lex Fridman (20:29.120)
So it's got to proceed language to some degree.
Lex Fridman (20:33.940)
And I mean, you can interrogate this for yourself
Sam Harris (20:36.760)
because you can put yourself in various states
Lex Fridman (20:40.340)
that are rather obviously not linguistic.
Sam Harris (20:46.340)
Meditation allows you to do this.
Lex Fridman (20:48.780)
You can certainly do it with psychedelics
Sam Harris (20:50.520)
where it's just your capacity for language
Lex Fridman (20:54.140)
has been obliterated and yet you're all too conscious.
Sam Harris (20:58.820)
In fact, I think you could make a stronger argument
Lex Fridman (21:05.660)
for things running the other way,
Sam Harris (21:09.580)
that there's something about language and conceptual thought
Lex Fridman (21:14.480)
that is eliminative of conscious experience,
Sam Harris (21:18.160)
that we're potentially much more conscious of data,
Lex Fridman (21:23.840)
sense data and everything else than we tend to be,
Lex Fridman (21:26.860)
and we have trimmed it down
Lex Fridman (21:29.220)
based on how we have acquired concepts.
Lex Fridman (21:33.640)
And so like, when I walk into a room like this,
Lex Fridman (21:36.780)
I know I'm walking into a room,
Sam Harris (21:38.780)
I have certain expectations of what is in a room.
Lex Fridman (21:41.980)
I would be very surprised to see wild animals in here
Sam Harris (21:45.560)
or a waterfall or there are things I'm not expecting,
Lex Fridman (21:51.020)
but I can know I'm not expecting them
Sam Harris (21:53.580)
or I'm expecting their absence
Lex Fridman (21:54.860)
because of my capacity to be surprised
Sam Harris (21:57.380)
once I walk into a room and I see a live gorilla or whatever.
Lex Fridman (22:01.800)
So there's structure there that we have put in place
Sam Harris (22:05.900)
based on all of our conceptual learning
Lex Fridman (22:08.940)
and language learning.
Lex Fridman (22:11.420)
And it causes us not to,
Lex Fridman (22:15.060)
and one of the things that happens when you take psychedelics
Lex Fridman (22:17.380)
and you just look as though for the first time at anything,
Lex Fridman (22:21.740)
it becomes incredibly overloaded with,
Sam Harris (22:27.120)
it can become overloaded with meaning
Lex Fridman (22:28.580)
and just the torrents of sense data that are coming in
Sam Harris (22:37.220)
in even the most ordinary circumstances
Lex Fridman (22:39.120)
can become overwhelming for people.
Lex Fridman (22:40.780)
And that tends to just obliterate one's capacity
Lex Fridman (22:45.620)
to capture any of it linguistically.
Lex Fridman (22:47.820)
And as you're coming down, right?
Lex Fridman (22:49.460)
Have you done psychedelics?
Lex Fridman (22:50.540)
Have you ever done acid or?
Lex Fridman (22:52.220)
Not acid, mushroom, and that's it.
Lex Fridman (22:55.680)
And also edibles,
Lex Fridman (22:58.500)
but there's some psychedelic properties to them.
Lex Fridman (23:01.180)
But yeah, mushrooms several times
Lex Fridman (23:04.900)
and always had an incredible experience.
Sam Harris (23:06.860)
Exactly the kind of experience you're referring to,
Lex Fridman (23:09.420)
which is if it's true that language constrains
Sam Harris (23:14.180)
our experience,
Lex Fridman (23:15.380)
it felt like I was removing some of the constraints.
Sam Harris (23:19.600)
Because even just the most basic things
Lex Fridman (23:21.540)
were beautiful in the way
Sam Harris (23:22.720)
that I wasn't able to appreciate previously,
Lex Fridman (23:25.260)
like trees and nature and so on.
Sam Harris (23:27.420)
Yeah, and the experience of coming down
Lex Fridman (23:31.620)
is an experience of encountering the futility
Sam Harris (23:37.600)
of capturing what you just saw a moment ago in words.
Lex Fridman (23:44.020)
Especially if you have any part of your self concept
Lex Fridman (23:47.700)
and your ego program is to be able
Lex Fridman (23:50.740)
to capture things in words.
Lex Fridman (23:51.980)
And if you're a writer or a poet or a scientist
Lex Fridman (23:55.660)
or someone who wants to just encapsulate
Sam Harris (23:58.540)
the profundity of what just happened,
Lex Fridman (24:01.900)
the total fatuousness of that enterprise
Sam Harris (24:08.780)
when you have taken a whopping dose of psychedelics
Lex Fridman (24:12.660)
and you begin to even gesture at describing it to yourself,
Lex Fridman (24:19.700)
so that you could describe it to others.
Lex Fridman (24:22.500)
It's just, it's like trying to thread a needle
Sam Harris (24:26.500)
using your elbows.
Lex Fridman (24:27.540)
I mean, it's like you're trying something that can't,
Sam Harris (24:30.180)
it's like the mere gesture proves it's impossibility.
Lex Fridman (24:34.780)
And it's, so yeah, for me that suggests just empirically
Sam Harris (24:39.780)
on the first person side that it's possible
Lex Fridman (24:41.700)
to put yourself in a condition
Sam Harris (24:43.340)
where it's clearly not about language
Lex Fridman (24:47.460)
structuring your experience
Lex Fridman (24:49.820)
and you're having much more experience than you tend to.
Lex Fridman (24:53.980)
So the primacy of, language is primary for some things,
Lex Fridman (24:57.780)
but it's certainly primary for certain kinds of concepts
Lex Fridman (25:04.780)
and certain kinds of semantic understanding
Lex Fridman (25:07.580)
and certain kinds of semantic understandings of the world.
Lex Fridman (25:11.180)
But it's clearly more to mine than the conversation
Sam Harris (25:17.700)
we're having with ourselves or that we can have with others.
Lex Fridman (25:21.420)
Can we go to that world of psychedelics for a bit?
Sam Harris (25:25.900)
Sure.
Lex Fridman (25:27.220)
What do you think, so Joe Rogan apparently
Lex Fridman (25:30.500)
and many others meet apparently elves on DMT, a lot of people
Lex Fridman (25:38.900)
report this kind of creatures that they see.
Lex Fridman (25:41.540)
And again, it's probably the failure of language
Lex Fridman (25:43.580)
to describe that experience, but DMT is an interesting one.
Sam Harris (25:46.860)
There's, as you're aware, there's a bunch of studies
Lex Fridman (25:50.180)
going on in psychedelics, currently MDMA, psilocybin
Lex Fridman (25:54.180)
and John Hopkins and much other places, but DMT,
Lex Fridman (26:03.180)
they all speak of as like some extra super level
Sam Harris (26:08.780)
of a psychedelic.
Lex Fridman (26:09.740)
Yeah, do you have a sense of where it is our mind goes
Lex Fridman (26:16.940)
on psychedelics, but in DMT especially?
Lex Fridman (26:20.100)
Well, unfortunately I haven't taken DMT.
Lex Fridman (26:22.580)
Unfortunately or fortunately?
Lex Fridman (26:23.900)
Unfortunately.
Sam Harris (26:24.860)
Unfortunately.
Lex Fridman (26:26.300)
Although it's, I presume it's in my body
Sam Harris (26:28.140)
as it is in everyone's brain and many, many plants
Lex Fridman (26:33.260)
apparently, but I've wanted to take it.
Sam Harris (26:36.860)
I haven't been, I had an opportunity that was presented
Lex Fridman (26:39.140)
itself that where it was obviously the right thing
Sam Harris (26:41.380)
for me to be doing, but for those who don't know,
Lex Fridman (26:45.740)
DMT is often touted as the most intense psychedelic
Lex Fridman (26:49.500)
and also the shortest acting.
Lex Fridman (26:51.420)
I mean, you smoke it and it's basically a 10 minute
Sam Harris (26:54.140)
experience or a three minute experience within like
Lex Fridman (26:57.820)
a 10 minute window that when you're really down
Sam Harris (27:02.300)
after 10 minutes or so, and Terrence McKenna
Lex Fridman (27:07.620)
was a big proponent of DMT.
Sam Harris (27:09.460)
That was his, the center of the bullseye for him
Lex Fridman (27:12.260)
psychedelically, apparently.
Lex Fridman (27:15.500)
And it does, it is characterized, it seems for many people
Lex Fridman (27:20.060)
by this phenomenon, which is unlike virtually
Sam Harris (27:23.020)
any other psychedelic experience, which is your,
Lex Fridman (27:25.900)
it's not just your perception being broadened or changed.
Sam Harris (27:30.740)
It's you according to Terrence McKenna feeling fairly
Lex Fridman (27:36.380)
unchanged, but catapulted into a different circumstance.
Sam Harris (27:41.020)
You and me have been shot elsewhere and find yourself
Lex Fridman (27:45.580)
in relationship to other entities of some kind, right?
Lex Fridman (27:49.020)
So the place is populated with things that seem
Lex Fridman (27:52.060)
not to be your mind.
Lex Fridman (27:54.140)
So it does feel like travel to another place
Lex Fridman (27:56.260)
because you're unchanged yourself.
Sam Harris (27:58.180)
According, again, I just have this on the authority
Lex Fridman (28:00.460)
of the people who have described their experience,
Lex Fridman (28:03.260)
but it sounds like it's pretty common.
Lex Fridman (28:05.580)
It sounds like it's pretty common for people
Sam Harris (28:07.060)
not to have the full experience because it's apparently
Lex Fridman (28:09.860)
pretty unpleasant to smoke.
Lex Fridman (28:11.620)
So it's like getting enough on board in order to get shot
Lex Fridman (28:15.220)
out of the cannon and land among the,
Lex Fridman (28:20.740)
what McKenna called self transforming machine elves
Lex Fridman (28:27.500)
that appeared to him like jeweled Faberge egg,
Sam Harris (28:30.780)
like self drippling basketballs that were handing him
Lex Fridman (28:35.620)
completely uninterpretable reams of profound knowledge.
Sam Harris (28:41.340)
It's an experience I haven't had.
Lex Fridman (28:44.540)
So I just have to accept that people have had it.
Sam Harris (28:49.380)
I would just point out that our minds are clearly capable
Lex Fridman (28:53.860)
of producing apparent others on demand
Lex Fridman (28:59.060)
that are totally compelling to us, right?
Lex Fridman (29:01.940)
There's no limit to our ability to do that
Sam Harris (29:04.820)
as anyone who's ever remembered a dream can attest.
Lex Fridman (29:08.260)
Every night we go to sleep,
Sam Harris (29:10.300)
some of us don't remember dreams very often,
Lex Fridman (29:11.900)
but some dream vividly every night.
Lex Fridman (29:15.660)
And just think of how insane that experience is.
Lex Fridman (29:20.860)
I mean, you've forgotten where you were, right?
Sam Harris (29:23.900)
That's the strangest part.
Lex Fridman (29:25.500)
I mean, this is psychosis, right?
Sam Harris (29:27.940)
You have lost your mind.
Lex Fridman (29:29.500)
You have lost your connection to your episodic memory
Sam Harris (29:34.900)
or even your expectations that reality won't undergo
Lex Fridman (29:39.900)
wholesale changes a moment
Lex Fridman (29:42.300)
after you have closed your eyes, right?
Lex Fridman (29:44.900)
Like you're in bed, you're watching something on Netflix,
Sam Harris (29:49.140)
you're waiting to fall asleep,
Lex Fridman (29:50.420)
and then the next thing that happens to you is impossible
Lex Fridman (29:54.620)
and you're not surprised, right?
Lex Fridman (29:56.260)
You're talking to dead people,
Sam Harris (29:57.540)
you're hanging out with famous people,
Lex Fridman (29:58.920)
you're someplace you couldn't physically be,
Sam Harris (2:00:02.200)
not too often.
Lex Fridman (2:00:03.720)
I sometimes need to like put a little bit more
Sam Harris (2:00:06.160)
like coals into the fire, but not too much.
Lex Fridman (2:00:09.760)
But I already have that self critical engine
Sam Harris (2:00:11.800)
that keeps me in check.
Lex Fridman (2:00:12.960)
I just, I wonder, you know, a lot of people
Sam Harris (2:00:15.880)
who gain more and more fame lose that ability
Lex Fridman (2:00:20.880)
to be self critical.
Sam Harris (2:00:21.880)
I guess because they lose the audience
Lex Fridman (2:00:23.760)
that can be critical towards them.
Sam Harris (2:00:25.360)
Hmm.
Lex Fridman (2:00:26.200)
You know, I do follow Joe's advice much more
Sam Harris (2:00:28.960)
than I ever have here.
Lex Fridman (2:00:29.800)
Like I don't look at comments very often.
Lex Fridman (2:00:32.120)
And I'm probably using Twitter, you know,
Lex Fridman (2:00:36.600)
5% as much as I used to.
Sam Harris (2:00:39.600)
I mean, I really just get in and out on Twitter
Lex Fridman (2:00:42.040)
and spend very little time in my ad mentions.
Sam Harris (2:00:46.880)
I bet, you know, it does, in some ways it feels like a loss
Lex Fridman (2:00:49.280)
because occasionally I get,
Sam Harris (2:00:50.320)
I see something super intelligent there.
Lex Fridman (2:00:52.960)
Like, I mean, I'll check my Twitter ad mentions
Lex Fridman (2:00:55.360)
and someone will have said, oh, have you read this article?
Lex Fridman (2:00:58.040)
And it's like, man, that was just,
Lex Fridman (2:01:00.120)
that was like the best article sent to me in a month, right?
Lex Fridman (2:01:03.080)
So it's like to have not have looked
Lex Fridman (2:01:04.720)
and to not have seen that, that's a loss.
Lex Fridman (2:01:08.040)
So, but it does, at this point, a little goes a long way.
Sam Harris (2:01:13.040)
Cause I, yeah, it's not that it, for me now,
Lex Fridman (2:01:19.040)
I mean, this could sound like a fairly Stalinistic immunity
Sam Harris (2:01:23.080)
to criticism, it's not so much that these voices of hate
Lex Fridman (2:01:27.280)
turn on my inner hater, you know, more,
Sam Harris (2:01:31.280)
it's more that I just, I get a,
Lex Fridman (2:01:33.400)
what I fear is a false sense of humanity.
Sam Harris (2:01:38.520)
Like, I feel like I'm too online
Lex Fridman (2:01:41.120)
and online is selecting for this performative outrage
Sam Harris (2:01:43.960)
in everybody, everyone's signaling to an audience
Lex Fridman (2:01:46.520)
when they trash you.
Lex Fridman (2:01:48.400)
And I get a dark, I'm getting a, you know,
Lex Fridman (2:01:52.400)
a misanthropic, you know, cut of just what it's like
Sam Harris (2:01:58.680)
out there.
Lex Fridman (2:01:59.520)
And it, cause when you meet people in real life,
Sam Harris (2:02:02.120)
they're great, you know, they're all rather often great,
Lex Fridman (2:02:04.640)
you know, and it takes a lot to have anything
Sam Harris (2:02:09.040)
like a Twitter encounter in real life with a living person.
Lex Fridman (2:02:15.040)
And that's, I think it's much better to have that
Sam Harris (2:02:19.040)
as one's default sense of what it's like to be with people
Lex Fridman (2:02:24.840)
than what one gets on social media
Sam Harris (2:02:28.040)
or on YouTube comment threads.
Lex Fridman (2:02:30.440)
You've produced a special episode with Rob Reed
Sam Harris (2:02:33.440)
on your podcast recently on how bioengineering of viruses
Lex Fridman (2:02:38.160)
is going to destroy human civilization.
Sam Harris (2:02:40.400)
So.
Lex Fridman (2:02:41.680)
Or could.
Sam Harris (2:02:42.520)
Could.
Lex Fridman (2:02:43.360)
One fears, yeah.
Sam Harris (2:02:44.200)
Sorry, the confidence there.
Lex Fridman (2:02:45.280)
But in the 21st century, what do you think,
Sam Harris (2:02:49.480)
especially after having thought through that angle,
Lex Fridman (2:02:53.640)
what do you think is the biggest threat
Lex Fridman (2:02:56.040)
to the survival of the human species?
Lex Fridman (2:03:00.880)
I can give you the full menu if you'd like.
Sam Harris (2:03:02.760)
Yeah, well, no, I would put the biggest threat
Lex Fridman (2:03:06.680)
at another level out, kind of the meta threat
Sam Harris (2:03:11.680)
is our inability to agree about what the threats actually are
Lex Fridman (2:03:19.040)
and to converge on strategies for responding to them, right?
Lex Fridman (2:03:25.120)
So like I view COVID as, among other things,
Lex Fridman (2:03:29.760)
a truly terrifyingly failed dress rehearsal
Lex Fridman (2:03:35.680)
for something far worse, right?
Lex Fridman (2:03:37.160)
I mean, COVID is just about as benign as it could have been
Lex Fridman (2:03:41.520)
and still have been worse than the flu
Lex Fridman (2:03:44.600)
when you're talking about a global pandemic, right?
Lex Fridman (2:03:46.560)
So it's just, it's gonna kill a few million people
Lex Fridman (2:03:51.600)
or it looks like it's killed about 3 million people.
Sam Harris (2:03:53.440)
Maybe it'll kill a few million more
Lex Fridman (2:03:56.280)
unless something gets away from us
Sam Harris (2:03:58.160)
with a variant that's much worse
Lex Fridman (2:04:00.920)
or we really don't play our cards right.
Lex Fridman (2:04:02.480)
But I mean, the general shape of it is
Lex Fridman (2:04:06.320)
it's got somewhere around, well, 1% lethality
Lex Fridman (2:04:12.920)
and whatever side of that number it really is on
Lex Fridman (2:04:18.280)
in the end, it's not what would in fact be possible
Lex Fridman (2:04:23.720)
and is in fact probably inevitable
Lex Fridman (2:04:26.520)
something with orders of magnitude,
Sam Harris (2:04:29.600)
more lethality than that.
Lex Fridman (2:04:30.800)
And it's just so obvious we are totally unprepared, right?
Sam Harris (2:04:35.360)
We are running this epidemiological experiment
Lex Fridman (2:04:39.800)
of linking the entire world together
Lex Fridman (2:04:41.640)
and then also now per the podcast that Rob Reed did
Lex Fridman (2:04:47.720)
democratizing the tech that will allow us to do this
Lex Fridman (2:04:51.000)
to engineer pandemics, right?
Lex Fridman (2:04:53.200)
And more and more people will be able
Sam Harris (2:04:56.920)
to engineer synthetic viruses that will be
Lex Fridman (2:05:02.800)
by the sheer fact that they would have been engineered
Sam Harris (2:05:04.920)
with malicious intent, worse than COVID.
Lex Fridman (2:05:08.600)
And we're still living in,
Sam Harris (2:05:11.600)
to speak specifically about the United States,
Lex Fridman (2:05:13.880)
we have a country here where we can't even agree
Sam Harris (2:05:17.920)
that this is a thing, like that COVID,
Lex Fridman (2:05:20.320)
I mean, there's still people who think
Sam Harris (2:05:21.440)
that this is basically a hoax designed to control people.
Lex Fridman (2:05:25.560)
And stranger still, there are people who will acknowledge
Sam Harris (2:05:30.560)
that COVID is real and they'll look,
Lex Fridman (2:05:34.640)
they don't think the deaths have been faked or misascribed,
Lex Fridman (2:05:42.640)
but they think that they're far happier
Lex Fridman (2:05:47.440)
at the prospect of catching COVID
Lex Fridman (2:05:49.440)
than they are of getting vaccinated for COVID, right?
Lex Fridman (2:05:53.520)
They're not worried about COVID,
Lex Fridman (2:05:54.520)
they're worried about vaccines for COVID, right?
Lex Fridman (2:05:57.000)
And the fact that we just can't converge in a conversation
Sam Harris (2:06:01.000)
that we've now had a year to have with one another
Lex Fridman (2:06:05.960)
on just what is the ground truth here?
Lex Fridman (2:06:08.160)
What's happened?
Lex Fridman (2:06:09.800)
Why has it happened?
Lex Fridman (2:06:12.760)
How safe is it to get COVID in every cohort
Lex Fridman (2:06:17.760)
in the population?
Lex Fridman (2:06:19.240)
And how safe are the vaccines?
Lex Fridman (2:06:21.040)
And the fact that there's still an air of mystery
Sam Harris (2:06:23.920)
around all of this for much of our society
Lex Fridman (2:06:28.240)
does not bode well when you're talking about solving
Sam Harris (2:06:30.680)
any other problem that may yet kill us.
Lex Fridman (2:06:32.840)
But do you think convergence grows
Lex Fridman (2:06:34.400)
with the magnitude of the threat?
Lex Fridman (2:06:36.560)
It's possible, except I feel like we have tipped into,
Sam Harris (2:06:40.800)
because when the threat of COVID looked the most dire,
Lex Fridman (2:06:45.920)
when we were seeing reports from Italy
Sam Harris (2:06:48.880)
that looked like the beginning of a zombie movie.
Lex Fridman (2:06:51.600)
Because it could have been much, much worse.
Lex Fridman (2:06:52.760)
Yeah, this is lethal, right?
Lex Fridman (2:06:55.480)
Your ICUs are gonna fill up in,
Sam Harris (2:06:57.920)
you're 14 days behind us.
Lex Fridman (2:07:01.320)
Your medical system is in danger of collapse.
Sam Harris (2:07:04.760)
Lock the fuck down.
Lex Fridman (2:07:06.640)
We have people refusing to do anything sane
Sam Harris (2:07:11.680)
in the face of that.
Lex Fridman (2:07:12.920)
People fundamentally thinking,
Lex Fridman (2:07:14.880)
it's not gonna get here, right?
Lex Fridman (2:07:17.320)
Who knows what's going on in Italy,
Lex Fridman (2:07:18.480)
but it has no implications for what's gonna go on in New York
Lex Fridman (2:07:21.480)
in a mere six days, right?
Lex Fridman (2:07:23.360)
And now it kicks off in New York,
Lex Fridman (2:07:25.320)
and you've got people in the middle of the country
Sam Harris (2:07:27.720)
thinking it's no factor, it's not,
Lex Fridman (2:07:31.720)
that's just big city, those are big city problems,
Sam Harris (2:07:34.240)
or they're faking it.
Lex Fridman (2:07:35.520)
Or, I mean, it just, the layer of politics
Sam Harris (2:07:40.080)
has become so dysfunctional for us
Lex Fridman (2:07:42.600)
that even in the presence of a pandemic
Sam Harris (2:07:48.320)
that looked legitimately scary there in the beginning,
Lex Fridman (2:07:50.920)
I mean, it's not to say that it hasn't been devastating
Sam Harris (2:07:52.880)
for everyone who's been directly affected by it,
Lex Fridman (2:07:54.920)
and it's not to say it can't get worse,
Lex Fridman (2:07:56.800)
but here, for a very long time,
Lex Fridman (2:07:58.920)
we have known that we were in a situation
Sam Harris (2:08:01.960)
that is more benign than what seemed
Lex Fridman (2:08:05.840)
like the worst case scenario as it was kicking off,
Sam Harris (2:08:08.760)
especially in Italy.
Lex Fridman (2:08:11.640)
And so still, yeah, it's quite possible
Sam Harris (2:08:15.560)
that if we saw the asteroid hurtling toward Earth
Lex Fridman (2:08:18.720)
and everyone agreed that it's gonna make impact
Lex Fridman (2:08:23.040)
and we're all gonna die,
Lex Fridman (2:08:25.040)
then we could get off Twitter
Lex Fridman (2:08:27.680)
and actually build the rockets
Lex Fridman (2:08:30.200)
that are gonna divert the asteroid
Sam Harris (2:08:32.960)
from its Earth crossing path,
Lex Fridman (2:08:35.080)
and we could do something pretty heroic.
Lex Fridman (2:08:37.720)
But when you talk about anything else
Lex Fridman (2:08:41.520)
that isn't, that's slower moving than that,
Sam Harris (2:08:46.960)
I mean, something like climate change,
Lex Fridman (2:08:48.560)
I think the prospect of our converging
Sam Harris (2:08:54.440)
on a solution to climate change
Lex Fridman (2:08:56.000)
purely based on political persuasion
Sam Harris (2:08:58.880)
is nonexistent at this point.
Lex Fridman (2:09:00.520)
I just think, to bring Elon back into this,
Sam Harris (2:09:04.400)
the way to deal with climate change
Lex Fridman (2:09:05.960)
is to create technology that everyone wants
Sam Harris (2:09:09.680)
that is better than all the carbon producing technology,
Lex Fridman (2:09:14.520)
and then we just transition
Sam Harris (2:09:15.640)
because you want an electric car
Lex Fridman (2:09:19.240)
the same way you wanted a smartphone
Sam Harris (2:09:20.640)
or you want anything else,
Lex Fridman (2:09:22.720)
and you're working totally with the grain
Sam Harris (2:09:24.840)
of people's selfishness and short term thinking.
Lex Fridman (2:09:29.040)
The idea that we're gonna convince
Sam Harris (2:09:31.080)
the better part of humanity
Lex Fridman (2:09:33.160)
that climate change is an emergency,
Sam Harris (2:09:35.440)
that they have to make sacrifices to respond to,
Lex Fridman (2:09:39.000)
given what's happened around COVID,
Sam Harris (2:09:41.120)
I just think that's the fantasy of a fantasy.
Lex Fridman (2:09:46.280)
But speaking of Elon,
Sam Harris (2:09:48.160)
I have a bunch of positive things
Lex Fridman (2:09:49.680)
that I wanna say here in response to you,
Lex Fridman (2:09:51.680)
but you're opening so many threads,
Lex Fridman (2:09:53.640)
but let me pull one of them, which is AI.
Sam Harris (2:09:57.720)
Both you and Elon think that with AI,
Lex Fridman (2:10:02.440)
you're summoning demons, summoning a demon,
Sam Harris (2:10:05.520)
maybe not in those poetic terms, but.
Lex Fridman (2:10:08.480)
Well, potentially. Potentially.
Sam Harris (2:10:10.760)
Two very, three very parsimonious assumptions,
Lex Fridman (2:10:17.200)
I think, here.
Sam Harris (2:10:18.600)
Scientifically, parsimonious assumptions get me there.
Lex Fridman (2:10:25.160)
Any of which could be wrong,
Lex Fridman (2:10:26.200)
but it just seems like the weight
Lex Fridman (2:10:28.600)
of the evidence is on their side.
Sam Harris (2:10:31.440)
One is that it comes back to this topic
Lex Fridman (2:10:34.040)
of substrate independence, right?
Sam Harris (2:10:36.960)
Anyone who's in the business
Lex Fridman (2:10:38.160)
of producing intelligent machines
Sam Harris (2:10:40.480)
must believe, ultimately,
Lex Fridman (2:10:43.880)
that there's nothing magical
Sam Harris (2:10:45.720)
about having a computer made of meat.
Lex Fridman (2:10:47.360)
You can do this in the kinds of materials
Sam Harris (2:10:50.800)
we're using now,
Lex Fridman (2:10:53.480)
and there's no special something
Sam Harris (2:10:56.800)
that presents a real impediment
Lex Fridman (2:11:00.960)
to producing human level intelligence in silico, right?
Sam Harris (2:11:05.880)
Again, an assumption, I'm sure there are a few people
Lex Fridman (2:11:08.320)
who still think there is something magical
Sam Harris (2:11:09.800)
about biological systems,
Lex Fridman (2:11:12.840)
but leave that aside.
Sam Harris (2:11:18.720)
Given that assumption,
Lex Fridman (2:11:20.520)
and given the assumption
Sam Harris (2:11:21.440)
that we just continue making incremental progress,
Lex Fridman (2:11:24.640)
doesn't have to be Moore's Law,
Sam Harris (2:11:25.800)
it just has to be progress,
Lex Fridman (2:11:27.040)
that just doesn't stop,
Sam Harris (2:11:29.040)
at a certain point,
Lex Fridman (2:11:30.440)
we'll get to human level intelligence and beyond.
Lex Fridman (2:11:34.600)
And human level intelligence,
Lex Fridman (2:11:36.400)
I think, is also clearly a mirage,
Sam Harris (2:11:38.560)
because anything that's human level
Lex Fridman (2:11:40.520)
is gonna be superhuman
Lex Fridman (2:11:42.480)
by unless we decide to dumb it down, right?
Lex Fridman (2:11:44.840)
I mean, my phone is already superhuman as a calculator,
Sam Harris (2:11:47.480)
right, so why would we make the human level AI
Lex Fridman (2:11:51.240)
just as good as me as a calculator?
Lex Fridman (2:11:54.880)
So I think we'll very,
Lex Fridman (2:11:57.280)
if we continue to make progress,
Sam Harris (2:11:59.440)
we will be in the presence of superhuman competence
Lex Fridman (2:12:03.800)
for any act of intelligence or cognition
Sam Harris (2:12:09.040)
that we care to prioritize.
Lex Fridman (2:12:11.120)
It's not to say that we'll create everything
Sam Harris (2:12:13.440)
that a human could do,
Lex Fridman (2:12:14.280)
maybe we'll leave certain things out,
Lex Fridman (2:12:16.440)
but anything that we care about,
Lex Fridman (2:12:18.600)
and we care about a lot,
Lex Fridman (2:12:20.520)
and we certainly care about anything
Lex Fridman (2:12:21.920)
that produces a lot of power,
Sam Harris (2:12:24.560)
that we care about scientific insights
Lex Fridman (2:12:26.920)
and an ability to produce new technology and all of that,
Sam Harris (2:12:30.680)
we'll have something that's superhuman.
Lex Fridman (2:12:34.320)
And then the final assumption is just that
Sam Harris (2:12:39.320)
there have to be ways to do that
Lex Fridman (2:12:42.680)
that are not aligned with a happy coexistence
Sam Harris (2:12:46.520)
with these now more powerful entities than ourselves.
Lex Fridman (2:12:51.360)
So, and I would guess,
Lex Fridman (2:12:54.200)
and this is kind of a rider to that assumption,
Lex Fridman (2:12:57.160)
there are probably more ways to do it badly
Sam Harris (2:12:59.680)
than to do it perfectly.
Lex Fridman (2:13:01.600)
That is perfectly aligned with our wellbeing.
Lex Fridman (2:13:05.760)
And when you think about the consequences of nonalignment,
Lex Fridman (2:13:10.960)
when you think about,
Sam Harris (2:13:13.800)
you're now in the presence of something
Lex Fridman (2:13:15.560)
that is more intelligent than you are, right?
Lex Fridman (2:13:18.480)
Which is to say more competent, right?
Lex Fridman (2:13:20.200)
Unless you've, and obviously there are cartoon pictures
Sam Harris (2:13:24.840)
of this where we could just,
Lex Fridman (2:13:26.280)
this is just an off switch,
Sam Harris (2:13:27.320)
we could just turn off the off switch,
Lex Fridman (2:13:28.480)
or they're tethered to something that makes them,
Sam Harris (2:13:31.640)
our slaves in perpetuity,
Lex Fridman (2:13:33.720)
even though they're more intelligent.
Lex Fridman (2:13:34.880)
But those scenarios strike me as a failure to imagine
Lex Fridman (2:13:39.720)
what is actually entailed by greater intelligence, right?
Lex Fridman (2:13:42.320)
So if you imagine something
Lex Fridman (2:13:43.480)
that's legitimately more intelligent than you are,
Lex Fridman (2:13:47.800)
and you're now in relationship to it, right?
Lex Fridman (2:13:51.320)
You're in the presence of this thing
Lex Fridman (2:13:52.640)
and it is autonomous in all kinds of ways
Lex Fridman (2:13:54.800)
because it had to be to be more intelligent than you are.
Sam Harris (2:13:57.080)
I mean, you built it to be all of those things.
Lex Fridman (2:14:01.800)
We just can't find ourselves in a negotiation
Lex Fridman (2:14:05.640)
with something more intelligent than we are, you know?
Lex Fridman (2:14:08.000)
And we can't, so we have to have found
Sam Harris (2:14:10.480)
the subset of ways to build these machines
Lex Fridman (2:14:16.080)
that are perpetually amenable to our saying,
Sam Harris (2:14:22.560)
oh, that's not what we meant, that's not what we intended.
Lex Fridman (2:14:25.000)
Could you stop doing that, just come back over here
Lex Fridman (2:14:27.160)
and do this thing that we actually want.
Lex Fridman (2:14:29.400)
And for them to care, for them to be tethered
Sam Harris (2:14:31.600)
to our own sense of our own wellbeing,
Lex Fridman (2:14:35.560)
such that, you know, I mean, their utility function is,
Sam Harris (2:14:39.080)
you know, their primary utility function is for,
Lex Fridman (2:14:41.560)
is to have, you know, this is, I think,
Sam Harris (2:14:43.240)
Stuart Russell's cartoon plan is to figure out
Lex Fridman (2:14:51.560)
how to tether them to a utility function
Sam Harris (2:14:53.920)
that has our own estimation of what's going to improve
Lex Fridman (2:14:59.600)
our wellbeing as its master, you know, reward, right?
Lex Fridman (2:15:05.520)
So it's like, all that, this thing can get
Lex Fridman (2:15:07.680)
as intelligent as it can get,
Lex Fridman (2:15:10.040)
but it only ever really wants to figure out
Lex Fridman (2:15:13.000)
how to make our lives better by our own view of better.
Sam Harris (2:15:16.040)
Now, not to say there wouldn't be a conversation about,
Lex Fridman (2:15:19.240)
you know, I mean, because there's all kinds of things
Sam Harris (2:15:21.040)
we're not seeing clearly about what is better,
Lex Fridman (2:15:24.720)
and if we were in the presence of a genie or an oracle
Sam Harris (2:15:27.600)
that could really tell us what is better,
Lex Fridman (2:15:29.200)
well, then we presumably would want to hear that,
Lex Fridman (2:15:32.080)
and we would modify our sense of what to do next
Lex Fridman (2:15:37.800)
in conversation with these minds.
Lex Fridman (2:15:41.000)
But I just feel like it is a failure of imagination
Lex Fridman (2:15:45.240)
to think that being in relationship to something
Sam Harris (2:15:55.160)
more intelligent than yourself isn't in most cases
Lex Fridman (2:16:00.600)
a circumstance of real peril, because it is.
Sam Harris (2:16:05.800)
Just to think of how everything on Earth has to,
Lex Fridman (2:16:09.440)
if they could think about their relationship to us,
Lex Fridman (2:16:12.120)
if birds could think about what we're doing, right?
Lex Fridman (2:16:16.520)
They would, I mean, the bottom line is
Sam Harris (2:16:21.400)
they're always in danger of our discovering
Lex Fridman (2:16:26.040)
that there's something we care about more than birds, right?
Sam Harris (2:16:29.440)
Or there's something we want
Lex Fridman (2:16:30.920)
that disregards the wellbeing of birds.
Lex Fridman (2:16:34.240)
And obviously much of our behavior is inscrutable to them.
Lex Fridman (2:16:37.720)
Occasionally we pay attention to them,
Lex Fridman (2:16:39.080)
and occasionally we withdraw our attention,
Lex Fridman (2:16:41.640)
and occasionally we just kill them all
Sam Harris (2:16:43.080)
for reasons they can't possibly understand.
Lex Fridman (2:16:45.480)
But if we're building something more intelligent
Sam Harris (2:16:48.320)
than ourselves, by definition,
Lex Fridman (2:16:49.840)
we're building something whose horizons
Sam Harris (2:16:52.920)
of value and cognition can exceed our own
Lex Fridman (2:17:00.040)
and in ways where we can't necessarily foresee,
Sam Harris (2:17:05.240)
again, perpetually, that they don't just wake up one day
Lex Fridman (2:17:09.280)
and decide, okay, well, these humans need to disappear.
Lex Fridman (2:17:14.200)
So I think I agree with most of the initial things you said.
Lex Fridman (2:17:19.720)
What I don't necessarily agree with,
Lex Fridman (2:17:22.520)
and of course nobody knows,
Lex Fridman (2:17:24.040)
but that the more likely set of trajectories
Sam Harris (2:17:27.520)
that we're going to take are going to be positive.
Lex Fridman (2:17:30.360)
That's what I believe in the sense
Sam Harris (2:17:32.600)
that the way you develop,
Lex Fridman (2:17:35.840)
I believe the way you develop successful AI systems
Sam Harris (2:17:40.280)
will be deeply integrated with human society.
Lex Fridman (2:17:43.720)
And for them to succeed,
Sam Harris (2:17:45.360)
they're going to have to be aligned
Lex Fridman (2:17:48.040)
in the way we humans are aligned with each other,
Sam Harris (2:17:50.320)
which doesn't mean we're aligned.
Lex Fridman (2:17:52.560)
There's no such thing,
Sam Harris (2:17:54.720)
or I don't see there's such thing as a perfect alignment,
Lex Fridman (2:17:57.880)
but they're going to be participating in the dance,
Sam Harris (2:18:01.080)
in the game theoretic dance of human society,
Lex Fridman (2:18:04.560)
as they become more and more intelligent.
Sam Harris (2:18:06.520)
There could be a point beyond which
Lex Fridman (2:18:09.240)
we are like birds to them.
Lex Fridman (2:18:12.480)
But what about an intelligence explosion of some kind?
Lex Fridman (2:18:16.080)
So I believe the explosion will be happening,
Lex Fridman (2:18:21.080)
but there's a lot of explosion to be done
Lex Fridman (2:18:24.120)
before we become like birds.
Sam Harris (2:18:26.200)
I truly believe that human beings
Lex Fridman (2:18:28.120)
are very intelligent in ways we don't understand.
Sam Harris (2:18:30.680)
It's not just about chess.
Lex Fridman (2:18:32.280)
It's about all the intricate computation
Sam Harris (2:18:35.360)
we're able to perform, common sense,
Lex Fridman (2:18:37.640)
our ability to reason about this world, consciousness.
Sam Harris (2:18:40.600)
I think we're doing a lot of work
Lex Fridman (2:18:42.400)
we don't realize is necessary to be done
Sam Harris (2:18:44.560)
in order to truly become,
Lex Fridman (2:18:47.720)
like truly achieve super intelligence.
Lex Fridman (2:18:49.960)
And I just think there'll be a period of time
Lex Fridman (2:18:52.120)
that's not overnight.
Sam Harris (2:18:53.720)
The overnight nature of it will not literally be overnight.
Lex Fridman (2:18:57.120)
It'll be over a period of decades.
Lex Fridman (2:18:59.520)
So my sense is...
Lex Fridman (2:19:00.360)
So why would it be that, but just take,
Sam Harris (2:19:02.960)
draw an analogy from recent successes,
Lex Fridman (2:19:06.400)
like something like AlphaGo or AlphaZero.
Sam Harris (2:19:09.400)
I forget the actual metric,
Lex Fridman (2:19:11.720)
but it was something like this algorithm,
Sam Harris (2:19:15.680)
which wasn't even totally,
Lex Fridman (2:19:17.280)
it wasn't bespoke for chess playing,
Sam Harris (2:19:21.440)
in the matter of, I think it was four hours,
Lex Fridman (2:19:24.120)
played itself so many times and so successfully
Sam Harris (2:19:27.200)
that it became the best chess playing computer.
Lex Fridman (2:19:30.960)
It was not only better than every human being,
Sam Harris (2:19:33.680)
it was better than every previous chess program
Lex Fridman (2:19:36.760)
in a matter of a day, right?
Lex Fridman (2:19:38.600)
So just imagine, again,
Lex Fridman (2:19:41.000)
we don't have to recapitulate everything about us,
Lex Fridman (2:19:43.720)
but just imagine building a system,
Lex Fridman (2:19:47.960)
and who knows when we'll be able to do this,
Lex Fridman (2:19:50.440)
but at some point we'll be able,
Lex Fridman (2:19:52.000)
at some point the 100 or 100 favorite things
Sam Harris (2:19:56.080)
about human cognition will be analogous to chess
Lex Fridman (2:20:01.240)
in that we will be able to build machines
Sam Harris (2:20:03.920)
that very quickly outperform any human,
Lex Fridman (2:20:07.960)
and then very quickly outperform the last algorithm
Sam Harris (2:20:12.120)
that outperform the humans.
Lex Fridman (2:20:13.520)
Like something like the AlphaGo experience
Sam Harris (2:20:17.400)
seems possible for facial recognition
Lex Fridman (2:20:21.520)
and detecting human emotion
Lex Fridman (2:20:23.720)
and natural language processing, right?
Lex Fridman (2:20:26.280)
Well, it's just that everyone,
Sam Harris (2:20:29.640)
even math people, math heads,
Lex Fridman (2:20:33.080)
tend to have bad intuitions for exponentiation, right?
Sam Harris (2:20:36.480)
I mean, we noticed this during COVID.
Lex Fridman (2:20:37.640)
I mean, you have some very smart people
Sam Harris (2:20:39.200)
who still couldn't get their minds around the fact
Lex Fridman (2:20:42.600)
that an exponential is really surprising.
Sam Harris (2:20:46.760)
I mean, things double and double and double and double again,
Lex Fridman (2:20:49.440)
and you don't notice much of anything changes,
Lex Fridman (2:20:51.200)
and then the last two stages of doubling swamp everything.
Lex Fridman (2:20:56.280)
And it just seems like that,
Sam Harris (2:20:59.640)
to assume that there isn't a deep analogy
Lex Fridman (2:21:04.680)
between what we're seeing for the more tractable problems,
Sam Harris (2:21:09.800)
like chess, to other modes of cognition,
Lex Fridman (2:21:13.160)
it's like once you crack that problem,
Sam Harris (2:21:16.080)
it seems, because for the longest time,
Lex Fridman (2:21:17.960)
it was impossible to think
Sam Harris (2:21:20.840)
we were gonna make headway in AI, you know, it's like.
Lex Fridman (2:21:25.080)
Chess and Go was seen as impossible.
Sam Harris (2:21:27.560)
Yeah, Go seemed unattainable.
Lex Fridman (2:21:29.200)
Even when chess had been cracked, Go seemed unattainable.
Sam Harris (2:21:33.360)
Yeah, and actually still Russell was behind the people
Lex Fridman (2:21:37.000)
that were saying it's unattainable,
Sam Harris (2:21:38.960)
because it seemed like it's intractable problem.
Lex Fridman (2:21:42.840)
But there's something different
Sam Harris (2:21:44.440)
about the space of cognition
Lex Fridman (2:21:46.560)
that's detached from human society, which is what chess is,
Sam Harris (2:21:49.640)
meaning like just thinking,
Lex Fridman (2:21:52.120)
having actual exponential impact
Sam Harris (2:21:54.280)
on the physical world is different.
Lex Fridman (2:21:56.560)
I tend to believe that there's,
Sam Harris (2:22:00.040)
for AI to get to the point where it's super intelligent,
Lex Fridman (2:22:03.680)
it's going to have to go through the funnel of society.
Lex Fridman (2:22:07.680)
And for that, it has to be deeply integrated
Lex Fridman (2:22:09.560)
with human beings, and for that, it has to be aligned.
Lex Fridman (2:22:12.880)
But you're talking about like actually hooking us up
Lex Fridman (2:22:15.560)
to like the neural link, you know,
Lex Fridman (2:22:16.800)
we're gonna be the brainstem to the robot overlords?
Lex Fridman (2:22:22.200)
That's a possibility as well.
Lex Fridman (2:22:23.360)
But what I mean is,
Lex Fridman (2:22:25.120)
in order to develop autonomous weapon systems, for example,
Sam Harris (2:22:28.840)
which are highly concerning to me
Lex Fridman (2:22:31.280)
that both US and China are participating in now,
Sam Harris (2:22:34.760)
that in order to develop them and for them to become,
Lex Fridman (2:22:38.320)
to have more and more responsibility
Sam Harris (2:22:40.160)
to actually do military strategic actions,
Lex Fridman (2:22:44.520)
they're going to have to be integrated
Sam Harris (2:22:47.960)
into human beings doing the strategic action.
Lex Fridman (2:22:51.760)
They're going to have to work alongside with each other.
Lex Fridman (2:22:54.160)
And the way those systems will be developed
Lex Fridman (2:22:56.480)
will have the natural safety, like switches
Sam Harris (2:23:00.120)
that are placed on them as they develop over time,
Lex Fridman (2:23:03.080)
because they're going to have to convince humans.
Sam Harris (2:23:05.360)
Ultimately, they're going to have to convince humans
Lex Fridman (2:23:07.800)
that this is safer than humans.
Sam Harris (2:23:10.480)
They're going to, you know.
Lex Fridman (2:23:12.440)
Self driving cars is a good test case here
Sam Harris (2:23:15.680)
because like, obviously we've made a lot of progress
Lex Fridman (2:23:19.600)
and we can imagine what total progress would look like.
Sam Harris (2:23:24.920)
I mean, it would be amazing.
Lex Fridman (2:23:25.880)
And it's answering, it's canceling in the US
Lex Fridman (2:23:29.040)
40,000 deaths every year based on ape driven cars, right?
Lex Fridman (2:23:33.120)
So it's a excruciating problem that we've all gotten used to
Sam Harris (2:23:36.640)
because there was no alternative.
Lex Fridman (2:23:38.400)
But now we can dimly see the prospect of an alternative,
Sam Harris (2:23:41.640)
which if it works in a super intelligent fashion,
Lex Fridman (2:23:45.760)
maybe we would go down to zero highway deaths, right?
Sam Harris (2:23:48.960)
Or, you know, certainly we'd go down
Lex Fridman (2:23:50.760)
by orders of magnitude, right?
Lex Fridman (2:23:51.960)
So maybe we have, you know, 400 rather than 40,000 a year.
Lex Fridman (2:23:59.680)
And it's easy to see that there's not a missile.
Lex Fridman (2:24:05.400)
So obviously this is not an example of super intelligence.
Lex Fridman (2:24:08.040)
This is narrow intelligence,
Lex Fridman (2:24:09.200)
but the alignment problem isn't so obvious there,
Lex Fridman (2:24:15.000)
but there are potential alignment problems there.
Sam Harris (2:24:17.640)
Like, so like, just imagine if some woke team of engineers
Lex Fridman (2:24:22.560)
decided that we have to tune the algorithm some way.
Sam Harris (2:24:26.680)
I mean, there are situations where the car
Lex Fridman (2:24:28.560)
has to decide who to hit.
Sam Harris (2:24:30.080)
I mean, there's just bad outcomes
Lex Fridman (2:24:31.520)
where you're gonna hit somebody, right?
Lex Fridman (2:24:33.960)
Now we have a car that can tell what race you are, right?
Lex Fridman (2:24:36.760)
So we're gonna build the car to preferentially hit
Sam Harris (2:24:39.240)
white people because white people have had so much privilege
Lex Fridman (2:24:42.080)
over the years.
Sam Harris (2:24:43.240)
This seems like the only ethical way
Lex Fridman (2:24:44.880)
to kind of redress those wrongs of the past.
Sam Harris (2:24:47.260)
That's something that could get, one,
Lex Fridman (2:24:49.440)
that could get produced as an artifact, presumably,
Sam Harris (2:24:53.160)
of just how you built it
Lex Fridman (2:24:54.200)
and you didn't even know you engineered it that way, right?
Sam Harris (2:24:56.240)
You caused it to...
Lex Fridman (2:24:57.760)
Through machine learning,
Sam Harris (2:24:58.880)
you put some kind of constraints on it
Lex Fridman (2:25:00.680)
to where it creates those kinds of outcomes.
Sam Harris (2:25:02.480)
Basically, you built a racist algorithm
Lex Fridman (2:25:05.120)
and you didn't even intend to,
Lex Fridman (2:25:06.360)
or you could intend to, right?
Lex Fridman (2:25:07.880)
And it would be aligned with some people's values
Lex Fridman (2:25:09.700)
but misaligned with other people's values.
Lex Fridman (2:25:13.420)
But it's like there are interesting problems
Sam Harris (2:25:16.480)
even with something as simple
Lex Fridman (2:25:17.920)
and obviously good as self driving cars.
Lex Fridman (2:25:20.520)
But there's a leap that I just think it'd be exact,
Lex Fridman (2:25:23.600)
but those are human problems.
Sam Harris (2:25:25.320)
I just don't think there'll be a leap
Lex Fridman (2:25:26.960)
with autonomous vehicles.
Sam Harris (2:25:29.680)
First of all, sorry.
Lex Fridman (2:25:31.560)
There are a lot of trajectories
Sam Harris (2:25:33.920)
which will destroy human civilization.
Lex Fridman (2:25:35.760)
The argument I'm making,
Sam Harris (2:25:36.880)
it's more likely that we'll take trajectories that don't.
Lex Fridman (2:25:40.040)
So I don't think there'll be a leap
Sam Harris (2:25:41.880)
with autonomous vehicles
Lex Fridman (2:25:43.000)
will all of a sudden start murdering pedestrians
Sam Harris (2:25:45.960)
because once every human on earth is dead,
Lex Fridman (2:25:49.280)
there'll be no more fatalities,
Sam Harris (2:25:50.680)
sort of unintended consequences of...
Lex Fridman (2:25:52.820)
And it's difficult to take that leap.
Sam Harris (2:25:55.520)
Most systems as we develop
Lex Fridman (2:25:57.160)
and they become much, much more intelligent
Sam Harris (2:25:59.120)
in ways that will be incredibly surprising,
Lex Fridman (2:26:01.280)
like stuff that DeepMind is doing with protein folding.
Sam Harris (2:26:04.480)
Even, which is scary to think about,
Lex Fridman (2:26:07.840)
and I'm personally terrified about this,
Sam Harris (2:26:09.520)
which is the engineering of viruses using machine learning,
Lex Fridman (2:26:12.760)
the engineering of vaccines using machine learning,
Sam Harris (2:26:16.880)
the engineering of, yeah, for research purposes,
Lex Fridman (2:26:20.840)
pathogens using machine learning
Lex Fridman (2:26:23.520)
and the ways that can go wrong.
Lex Fridman (2:26:25.080)
I just think that there's always going to be
Sam Harris (2:26:27.380)
a closed loop supervision of humans
Lex Fridman (2:26:30.800)
before the AI becomes super intelligent.
Sam Harris (2:26:33.560)
Not always, much more likely to be supervision,
Lex Fridman (2:26:38.260)
except, of course, the question is
Lex Fridman (2:26:40.520)
how many dumb people there are in the world,
Lex Fridman (2:26:42.120)
how many evil people are in the world?
Sam Harris (2:26:44.440)
My theory, my hope is, my sense is
Lex Fridman (2:26:48.800)
that the number of intelligent people
Sam Harris (2:26:50.640)
is much higher than the number of dumb people
Lex Fridman (2:26:53.920)
that know how to program
Lex Fridman (2:26:55.320)
and the number of evil people.
Lex Fridman (2:26:57.680)
I think smart people and kind people
Sam Harris (2:26:59.920)
over outnumber the others.
Lex Fridman (2:27:03.260)
Except we also have to add another group of people
Sam Harris (2:27:06.340)
which are just the smart and otherwise good
Lex Fridman (2:27:09.880)
but reckless people, right?
Sam Harris (2:27:12.160)
The people who will flip a switch on
Lex Fridman (2:27:15.440)
not knowing what's going to happen.
Sam Harris (2:27:17.640)
They're just kind of hoping
Lex Fridman (2:27:19.040)
that it's not going to blow up the world.
Sam Harris (2:27:20.440)
We already know that some of our smartest people
Lex Fridman (2:27:23.320)
are those sorts of people.
Sam Harris (2:27:24.680)
We know we've done experiments,
Lex Fridman (2:27:26.140)
and this is something that Martin Rees was whinging about
Sam Harris (2:27:29.480)
before the Large Hadron Collider
Lex Fridman (2:27:33.160)
got booted up, I think.
Sam Harris (2:27:35.920)
We know there are people who are entertaining experiments
Lex Fridman (2:27:38.720)
or even performing experiments
Sam Harris (2:27:40.000)
where there's some chance, not quite infinitesimal,
Lex Fridman (2:27:46.520)
that they're going to create a black hole in the lab
Lex Fridman (2:27:48.840)
and suck the whole world into it.
Lex Fridman (2:27:52.300)
You're not a crazy person to worry about that
Sam Harris (2:27:55.860)
based on the physics.
Lex Fridman (2:27:57.160)
And so it was with the Trinity test.
Sam Harris (2:28:01.580)
There were some people who were still
Lex Fridman (2:28:04.000)
checking their calculations, and they were off.
Sam Harris (2:28:07.160)
We did nuclear tests where we were off significantly
Lex Fridman (2:28:10.320)
in terms of the yield, right?
Lex Fridman (2:28:11.960)
So it was like.
Lex Fridman (2:28:12.780)
And they still flipped the switch.
Sam Harris (2:28:13.760)
Yeah, they still flipped the switch.
Lex Fridman (2:28:14.960)
And sometimes they flipped the switch
Sam Harris (2:28:16.600)
not to win a world war or to save 40,000 lives a year.
Lex Fridman (2:28:22.920)
They just, just.
Sam Harris (2:28:24.040)
Just to see what happens.
Lex Fridman (2:28:24.880)
Intellectual curiosity.
Sam Harris (2:28:25.880)
Like this is what I got my grant for.
Lex Fridman (2:28:27.740)
This is where I'll get my Nobel Prize
Sam Harris (2:28:30.120)
if that's in the cards.
Lex Fridman (2:28:32.960)
It's on the other side of this switch, right?
Lex Fridman (2:28:35.580)
And I mean, again, we are apes with egos
Lex Fridman (2:28:43.080)
who are massively constrained
Sam Harris (2:28:45.880)
by very short term self interest
Lex Fridman (2:28:49.640)
even when we're contemplating some of the deepest
Lex Fridman (2:28:52.860)
and most interesting and most universal problems
Lex Fridman (2:28:57.700)
we could ever set our attention towards.
Sam Harris (2:29:00.320)
Like just if you read James Watson's book,
Lex Fridman (2:29:03.160)
The Double Helix, right?
Sam Harris (2:29:04.200)
About them cracking the structure of DNA.
Lex Fridman (2:29:09.740)
One thing that's amazing about that book
Sam Harris (2:29:11.600)
is just how much of it, almost all of it
Lex Fridman (2:29:15.960)
is being driven by very apish, egocentric social concerns.
Sam Harris (2:29:20.960)
The algorithm that is producing this scientific breakthrough
Lex Fridman (2:29:25.140)
is human competition if you're James Watson.
Sam Harris (2:29:28.640)
It's like, I'm gonna get there before Linus Pauling
Lex Fridman (2:29:30.880)
and it's just, it's so much of his bandwidth
Lex Fridman (2:29:36.340)
is captured by that, right?
Lex Fridman (2:29:37.760)
Now that becomes more and more of a liability
Sam Harris (2:29:41.760)
when you think about it.
Lex Fridman (2:29:43.600)
I mean, it's like, I'm gonna get there before Linus Pauling
Lex Fridman (2:29:46.600)
and it's just, it's so much of his bandwidth
Lex Fridman (2:29:50.640)
is captured by that, right?
Sam Harris (2:29:51.640)
Now that becomes more and more of a liability
Lex Fridman (2:29:52.640)
when you're talking about producing technology
Sam Harris (2:29:53.560)
that can change everything in an instant.
Lex Fridman (2:29:55.960)
You know, we're talking about not only understanding,
Sam Harris (2:30:01.560)
you know, we're just at a different moment
Lex Fridman (2:30:03.300)
in human history.
Sam Harris (2:30:04.140)
We're not, when we're doing research on viruses,
Lex Fridman (2:30:10.800)
we're now doing the kind of research
Sam Harris (2:30:13.120)
that can cause someone somewhere else
Lex Fridman (2:30:16.080)
to be able to make that virus or weaponize that virus
Sam Harris (2:30:19.640)
or it's just, I don't know.
Lex Fridman (2:30:24.200)
I mean, our power is, our wisdom is,
Sam Harris (2:30:27.080)
it does not seem like our wisdom is scaling with our power.
Lex Fridman (2:30:30.920)
Right?
Lex Fridman (2:30:31.760)
And like that seems like, insofar as wisdom and power
Lex Fridman (2:30:36.320)
become unaligned, I get more and more concerned.
Lex Fridman (2:30:40.980)
But speaking of apes with egos,
Lex Fridman (2:30:45.800)
some of the most compelling apes, two compelling apes,
Sam Harris (2:30:48.600)
I can think of is yourself and Jordan Peterson.
Lex Fridman (2:30:51.720)
And you've had a fun conversation about religion
Sam Harris (2:30:56.040)
that I watched most of, I believe.
Lex Fridman (2:30:58.720)
I'm not sure there was any...
Sam Harris (2:31:02.560)
We didn't solve anything.
Lex Fridman (2:31:03.880)
If anything was ever solved.
Lex Fridman (2:31:05.100)
So is there something like a charitable summary
Lex Fridman (2:31:09.440)
you can give to the ideas that you agree on
Lex Fridman (2:31:13.040)
and disagree with Jordan?
Lex Fridman (2:31:14.340)
Is there something maybe after that conversation
Sam Harris (2:31:16.480)
that you've landed where maybe as you both agreed on,
Lex Fridman (2:31:22.640)
is there some wisdom in the rubble
Lex Fridman (2:31:24.600)
of even imperfect flawed ideas?
Lex Fridman (2:31:29.080)
Is there something that you can kind of pull out
Lex Fridman (2:31:31.360)
from those conversations or is it to be continued?
Lex Fridman (2:31:34.640)
I mean, I think where we disagree.
Lex Fridman (2:31:35.960)
So he thinks that many of our traditional religious beliefs
Lex Fridman (2:31:40.960)
and frameworks are holding such a repository
Sam Harris (2:31:49.780)
of human wisdom that we pull at that fabric
Lex Fridman (2:31:59.860)
at our peril, right?
Sam Harris (2:32:01.140)
Like if you start just unraveling Christianity
Lex Fridman (2:32:04.300)
or any other traditional set of norms and beliefs
Sam Harris (2:32:08.260)
you may think you're just pulling out the unscientific bits
Lex Fridman (2:32:12.420)
but you could be pulling a lot more
Lex Fridman (2:32:14.380)
to which everything you care about is attached, right?
Lex Fridman (2:32:17.900)
As a society.
Lex Fridman (2:32:20.100)
And my feeling is that there's so much downside
Lex Fridman (2:32:26.300)
to the unscientific bits.
Lex Fridman (2:32:27.900)
And it's so clear how we could have a 21st century
Lex Fridman (2:32:33.140)
rational conversation about the things that we don't know.
Sam Harris (2:32:37.140)
A conversation about the good stuff
Lex Fridman (2:32:39.940)
that we really can radically edit these traditions.
Lex Fridman (2:32:42.780)
And we can take Jesus in half his moods
Lex Fridman (2:32:47.660)
and just find a great inspirational iron age thought leader
Sam Harris (2:32:54.900)
who just happened to get crucified.
Lex Fridman (2:32:56.260)
But he could be somewhat like the Beatitudes
Lex Fridman (2:32:58.940)
and the golden rule, which doesn't originate with him
Lex Fridman (2:33:03.660)
but which he put quite beautifully.
Sam Harris (2:33:07.340)
All of that's incredibly useful.
Lex Fridman (2:33:09.780)
It's no less useful than it was 2000 years ago.
Lex Fridman (2:33:12.800)
But we don't have to believe he was born of a virgin
Lex Fridman (2:33:14.980)
or coming back to raise the dead
Sam Harris (2:33:16.780)
or any of that other stuff.
Lex Fridman (2:33:18.660)
And we can be honest about not believing those things.
Lex Fridman (2:33:21.440)
And we can be honest about the reasons
Lex Fridman (2:33:22.980)
why we don't believe those things.
Sam Harris (2:33:24.660)
Because on those fronts I view the downside to be so obvious
Lex Fridman (2:33:29.660)
and the fact that we have so many different
Sam Harris (2:33:33.580)
competing dogmatisms on offer to be so nonfunctional.
Lex Fridman (2:33:37.220)
I mean, it's so divisive, it just has conflict built into it
Sam Harris (2:33:42.620)
that I think we can be far more
Lex Fridman (2:33:45.780)
and should be far more iconoclastic
Lex Fridman (2:33:47.740)
than he wants to be, right?
Lex Fridman (2:33:50.340)
Now, none of this is to deny much of what he argues for,
Sam Harris (2:33:55.340)
that stories are very powerful.
Lex Fridman (2:33:59.860)
I mean, clearly stories are powerful
Lex Fridman (2:34:01.940)
and we want good stories.
Lex Fridman (2:34:03.420)
We want our lives, we wanna have a conversation
Sam Harris (2:34:06.180)
with ourselves and with one another about our lives
Lex Fridman (2:34:10.120)
that facilitates the best possible lives.
Lex Fridman (2:34:13.500)
And story is part of that, right?
Lex Fridman (2:34:15.500)
And if you want some of those stories to sound like myths,
Lex Fridman (2:34:21.180)
that might be part of it, right?
Lex Fridman (2:34:22.700)
But my argument is that we never really need
Sam Harris (2:34:26.220)
to deceive ourselves or our children
Lex Fridman (2:34:29.220)
about what we have every reason to believe is true
Sam Harris (2:34:32.540)
in order to get at the good stuff,
Lex Fridman (2:34:34.000)
in order to organize our lives well.
Sam Harris (2:34:36.340)
I certainly don't feel that I need to do it personally.
Lex Fridman (2:34:39.220)
And if I don't need to do it personally,
Lex Fridman (2:34:41.100)
why would I think that billions of other people
Lex Fridman (2:34:43.380)
need to do it personally, right?
Sam Harris (2:34:45.480)
Now, there is a cynical counter argument,
Lex Fridman (2:34:48.660)
which is billions of other people
Sam Harris (2:34:51.260)
don't have the advantages that I have had in my life.
Lex Fridman (2:34:54.260)
The billions of other people are not as well educated,
Sam Harris (2:34:57.700)
they haven't had the same opportunities,
Lex Fridman (2:34:59.300)
they need to be told that Jesus is gonna solve
Sam Harris (2:35:04.560)
all their problems after they die, say,
Lex Fridman (2:35:06.620)
or that everything happens for a reason
Lex Fridman (2:35:10.740)
and if you just believe in the secret,
Lex Fridman (2:35:14.060)
if you just visualize what you want, you're gonna get it.
Lex Fridman (2:35:16.240)
And it's like there's some measure
Lex Fridman (2:35:20.940)
of what I consider to be odious pamphlet
Sam Harris (2:35:23.900)
that really is food for the better part of humanity
Lex Fridman (2:35:27.340)
and there is no substitute for it
Sam Harris (2:35:29.220)
or there's no substitute now.
Lex Fridman (2:35:31.020)
And I don't know if Jordan would agree with that,
Lex Fridman (2:35:32.500)
but much of what he says seems to suggest
Lex Fridman (2:35:35.220)
that he would agree with it.
Lex Fridman (2:35:39.340)
And I guess that's an empirical question.
Lex Fridman (2:35:41.100)
I mean, that's just that we don't know
Sam Harris (2:35:43.300)
whether given a different set of norms
Lex Fridman (2:35:47.060)
and a different set of stories,
Sam Harris (2:35:48.580)
people would behave the way I would hope they would behave
Lex Fridman (2:35:52.820)
and be more aligned than they are now.
Sam Harris (2:35:56.060)
I think we know what happens
Lex Fridman (2:35:58.740)
when you just let ancient religious certainties
Sam Harris (2:36:03.980)
go uncriticized.
Lex Fridman (2:36:06.380)
We know what that world's like.
Sam Harris (2:36:07.780)
We've been struggling to get out of that world
Lex Fridman (2:36:10.580)
for a couple of hundred years,
Lex Fridman (2:36:12.100)
but we know what having Europe riven by religious wars
Lex Fridman (2:36:20.660)
looks like.
Lex Fridman (2:36:21.820)
And we know what happens when those religions
Lex Fridman (2:36:25.220)
become kind of pseudo religions and political religions.
Lex Fridman (2:36:29.740)
So this is where I'm sure Jordan and I would debate.
Lex Fridman (2:36:33.800)
He would say that Stalin was a symptom of atheism
Lex Fridman (2:36:37.100)
and that's not at all.
Lex Fridman (2:36:37.940)
I mean, it's not my kind of atheism.
Sam Harris (2:36:40.340)
Stalin, the problem with the Gulag
Lex Fridman (2:36:43.980)
and the experiment with communism or with Stalinism
Sam Harris (2:36:49.180)
or with Nazism was not that there was so much
Lex Fridman (2:36:53.180)
scientific rigor and self criticism and honesty
Lex Fridman (2:36:56.740)
and introspection and judicious use of psychedelics.
Lex Fridman (2:37:03.060)
I mean, that was not the problem in Hitler's Germany
Sam Harris (2:37:07.300)
or in Stalin's Soviet Union.
Lex Fridman (2:37:12.700)
The problem was you have other ideas
Sam Harris (2:37:16.780)
that capture a similar kind of mob based dogmatic energy.
Lex Fridman (2:37:23.420)
And yes, the results of all of that
Sam Harris (2:37:28.060)
are predictably murderous.
Lex Fridman (2:37:30.540)
Well, the question is what is the source
Sam Harris (2:37:33.500)
of the most viral and sticky stories
Lex Fridman (2:37:37.780)
that ultimately lead to a positive outcome?
Lex Fridman (2:37:40.300)
So communism was, I mean, having grown up
Lex Fridman (2:37:43.380)
in the Soviet Union, even still having relatives in Russia,
Sam Harris (2:37:51.480)
there's a stickiness to the nationalism
Lex Fridman (2:37:53.940)
and to the ideologies of communism
Sam Harris (2:37:56.660)
that religious or not, you could say it's religious forever.
Lex Fridman (2:38:00.320)
I could just say it's stories that are viral and sticky.
Sam Harris (2:38:06.900)
I'm using the most horrible words,
Lex Fridman (2:38:08.960)
but the question is whether science and reason
Sam Harris (2:38:12.340)
can generate viral sticky stories
Lex Fridman (2:38:14.440)
that give meaning to people's lives.
Lex Fridman (2:38:18.280)
And your sense is it does.
Lex Fridman (2:38:20.740)
Well, whatever is true ultimately should be captivating.
Lex Fridman (2:38:25.740)
It's like what's more captivating than whatever is real?
Lex Fridman (2:38:34.420)
Because reality is, again, we're just climbing
Sam Harris (2:38:39.620)
out of the darkness in terms of our understanding
Lex Fridman (2:38:42.160)
of what the hell is going on.
Lex Fridman (2:38:43.080)
And there's no telling what spooky things
Lex Fridman (2:38:47.380)
may in fact be true.
Sam Harris (2:38:48.340)
I mean, I don't know if you've been on the receiving end
Lex Fridman (2:38:49.980)
of recent rumors about our conversation
Lex Fridman (2:38:54.100)
about UFOs very likely changing in the near term, right?
Lex Fridman (2:38:57.660)
But like there was just a Washington Post article
Lex Fridman (2:39:00.180)
and a New Yorker article,
Lex Fridman (2:39:01.380)
and I've received some private outreach
Lex Fridman (2:39:04.500)
and perhaps you have, I know other people in our orbit
Lex Fridman (2:39:08.140)
have people who are claiming
Sam Harris (2:39:11.660)
that the government has known much more about UFOs
Lex Fridman (2:39:14.700)
than they have let on until now.
Lex Fridman (2:39:17.620)
And this conversation is actually is about
Lex Fridman (2:39:19.900)
to become more prominent,
Lex Fridman (2:39:21.740)
and it's not gonna be whatever,
Lex Fridman (2:39:26.400)
whoever's left standing when the music stops,
Sam Harris (2:39:28.540)
it's not going to be a comfortable position to be in
Lex Fridman (2:39:34.060)
as a super rigorous scientific skeptic
Sam Harris (2:39:40.060)
who's been saying there's no there there
Lex Fridman (2:39:41.660)
for the last 75 years, right?
Sam Harris (2:39:45.780)
The short version is it sounds like
Lex Fridman (2:39:49.100)
the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Pentagon
Sam Harris (2:39:52.340)
are very likely to say to Congress at some point
Lex Fridman (2:39:55.620)
in the not too distant future that we have evidence
Sam Harris (2:39:58.940)
that there is technology flying around here
Lex Fridman (2:40:02.820)
that seems like it can't possibly be of human origin, right?
Sam Harris (2:40:08.580)
Now, I don't know what I'm gonna do
Lex Fridman (2:40:10.060)
with that kind of disclosure, right?
Sam Harris (2:40:11.360)
Maybe it's gonna be nothing,
Lex Fridman (2:40:14.640)
no follow on conversation to really have,
Lex Fridman (2:40:17.280)
but that is such a powerfully strange circumstance
Lex Fridman (2:40:21.820)
to be in, right?
Lex Fridman (2:40:22.940)
I mean, it's just, what are we gonna do with that?
Lex Fridman (2:40:25.420)
If in fact, that's what happens, right?
Sam Harris (2:40:28.360)
If in fact, the considered opinion,
Lex Fridman (2:40:31.700)
despite the embarrassment it causes them
Sam Harris (2:40:35.000)
of the US government, of all of our intelligence,
Lex Fridman (2:40:38.500)
all of the relevant intelligence services
Sam Harris (2:40:40.380)
is that this isn't a hoax.
Lex Fridman (2:40:44.100)
It's too much data to suggest that it's a hoax.
Sam Harris (2:40:46.980)
We've got too much radar imagery,
Lex Fridman (2:40:48.740)
there's too much satellite data,
Sam Harris (2:40:51.180)
whatever data they actually have, there's too much of it.
Lex Fridman (2:40:55.520)
All we can say now is something's going on
Lex Fridman (2:40:58.660)
and there's no way it's the Chinese or the Russians
Lex Fridman (2:41:03.620)
or anyone else's technology.
Sam Harris (2:41:09.020)
That should arrest our attention collectively
Lex Fridman (2:41:12.680)
to a degree that nothing in our lifetime has.
Lex Fridman (2:41:15.720)
And now one worries that we're so jaded
Lex Fridman (2:41:21.100)
and confused and distracted
Sam Harris (2:41:23.220)
that it's gonna get much less coverage
Lex Fridman (2:41:28.140)
than Obama's tan suit did a bunch of years ago.
Lex Fridman (2:41:37.060)
Who knows how we'll respond to that?
Lex Fridman (2:41:38.460)
But it's just to say that the need for us
Sam Harris (2:41:41.460)
to tell ourselves an honest story about what's going on
Lex Fridman (2:41:50.100)
and what's likely to happen next
Lex Fridman (2:41:51.980)
is never gonna go away, right?
Lex Fridman (2:41:54.020)
And it's important, it's just the division between me
Lex Fridman (2:41:58.380)
and every person who's defending traditional religion
Lex Fridman (2:42:00.820)
is where is it that you wanna lie to yourself
Lex Fridman (2:42:07.660)
or lie to your kids?
Lex Fridman (2:42:09.060)
Like where is honesty a liability?
Lex Fridman (2:42:11.380)
And for me, I've yet to find the place where it is.
Lex Fridman (2:42:17.140)
And it's so obviously a strength
Sam Harris (2:42:21.840)
in almost every other circumstance
Lex Fridman (2:42:24.140)
because it is the thing that allows you to course correct.
Sam Harris (2:42:28.100)
It is the thing that allows you to hope at least
Lex Fridman (2:42:33.020)
that your beliefs, that your stories
Sam Harris (2:42:34.780)
are in some kind of calibration
Lex Fridman (2:42:37.260)
with what's actually going on in the world.
Sam Harris (2:42:40.400)
Yeah, it is a little bit sad to imagine
Lex Fridman (2:42:42.260)
that if aliens on mass showed up to Earth,
Sam Harris (2:42:47.340)
they would be too preoccupied with political bickering
Lex Fridman (2:42:50.540)
or to like these like fake news
Lex Fridman (2:42:53.220)
and all that kind of stuff to notice
Lex Fridman (2:42:56.180)
the very basic evidence of reality.
Sam Harris (2:42:59.540)
I do have a glimmer of hope
Lex Fridman (2:43:02.420)
that there seems to be more and more hunger for authenticity.
Lex Fridman (2:43:06.460)
And I feel like that opens the door
Lex Fridman (2:43:08.500)
for a hunger for what is real.
Sam Harris (2:43:14.020)
Like people don't want stories.
Lex Fridman (2:43:15.820)
They don't want like layers and layers of like fakeness.
Lex Fridman (2:43:20.860)
And I'm hoping that means that will directly lead
Lex Fridman (2:43:24.760)
to a greater hunger for reality and reason and truth.
Sam Harris (2:43:28.500)
Truth isn't dogmatism.
Lex Fridman (2:43:31.460)
Like truth isn't authority.
Sam Harris (2:43:34.200)
I have a PhD and therefore I'm right.
Lex Fridman (2:43:37.060)
Truth is almost, like the reality is
Sam Harris (2:43:42.580)
there's so many questions, there's so many mysteries,
Lex Fridman (2:43:44.460)
there's so much uncertainty.
Sam Harris (2:43:45.480)
This is our best available, like a best guess.
Lex Fridman (2:43:49.380)
And we have a lot of evidence that supports that guess,
Lex Fridman (2:43:52.080)
but it could be so many other things.
Lex Fridman (2:43:53.820)
And like just even conveying that,
Sam Harris (2:43:56.380)
I think there's a hunger for that in the world
Lex Fridman (2:43:58.800)
to hear that from scientists, less dogmatism
Lex Fridman (2:44:01.440)
and more just like this is what we know.
Lex Fridman (2:44:04.940)
We're doing our best given the uncertainty, given,
Sam Harris (2:44:07.900)
I mean, this is true with obviously with the virology
Lex Fridman (2:44:10.660)
and all those kinds of things
Sam Harris (2:44:11.860)
because everything is happening so fast.
Lex Fridman (2:44:13.380)
There's a lot of, and biology is super messy.
Lex Fridman (2:44:16.520)
So it's very hard to know stuff for sure.
Lex Fridman (2:44:18.860)
So just being open and real about that,
Sam Harris (2:44:21.020)
I think I'm hoping will change people's hunger
Lex Fridman (2:44:25.660)
and openness and trust of what's real.
Sam Harris (2:44:29.540)
Yeah, well, so much of this is probabilistic.
Lex Fridman (2:44:31.860)
I mean, so much of what can seem dogmatic scientifically
Sam Harris (2:44:35.060)
is just you're placing a bet on whether it's worth
Lex Fridman (2:44:42.420)
reading that paper or rethinking your presuppositions
Sam Harris (2:44:45.540)
on that point.
Lex Fridman (2:44:46.740)
It's like, it's not a fundamental closure to data.
Sam Harris (2:44:49.960)
It's just that there's so much data on one side
Lex Fridman (2:44:52.740)
or so much would have to change
Sam Harris (2:44:55.580)
in terms of your understanding of what you think
Lex Fridman (2:44:57.800)
you'll understand about the nature of the world
Sam Harris (2:44:59.940)
if this new fact were so that you can pretty quickly say,
Lex Fridman (2:45:06.140)
all right, that's probably bullshit, right?
Lex Fridman (2:45:08.780)
And it can sound like a fundamental closure
Lex Fridman (2:45:12.420)
to new conversations, new evidence, new data, new argument,
Lex Fridman (2:45:17.420)
but it's really not.
Lex Fridman (2:45:18.820)
It's just, it really is just triaging your attention.
Sam Harris (2:45:21.340)
It's just like, okay, you're telling me
Lex Fridman (2:45:23.560)
that your best friend can actually read minds.
Sam Harris (2:45:27.220)
Okay, well, that's interesting.
Lex Fridman (2:45:30.840)
Let me know when that person has gone into a lab
Lex Fridman (2:45:33.060)
and actually proven it, right?
Lex Fridman (2:45:34.140)
Like, I don't need, like, this is not the place
Sam Harris (2:45:36.700)
where I need to spend the rest of my day
Lex Fridman (2:45:38.540)
figuring out if your buddy can read my mind, right?
Lex Fridman (2:45:42.440)
But there's a way to communicate that.
Lex Fridman (2:45:44.700)
I think it does too often sound
Sam Harris (2:45:46.980)
like you're completely closed off to ideas
Lex Fridman (2:45:48.860)
as opposed to saying like, this is, you know,
Sam Harris (2:45:52.740)
as opposed to saying that there's a lot of evidence
Lex Fridman (2:45:56.060)
in support of this, but you're still open minded
Sam Harris (2:46:00.140)
to other ideas.
Lex Fridman (2:46:00.980)
Like, there's a way to communicate that.
Sam Harris (2:46:02.400)
It's not necessarily even with words.
Lex Fridman (2:46:04.620)
It's like, it's even that Joe Rogan energy
Sam Harris (2:46:08.100)
of it's entirely possible.
Lex Fridman (2:46:10.460)
Just, it's that energy of being open minded
Lex Fridman (2:46:12.700)
and curious like kids are.
Lex Fridman (2:46:14.280)
Like, this is our best understanding,
Lex Fridman (2:46:16.460)
but you still are curious.
Lex Fridman (2:46:19.100)
I'm not saying allocate time to exploring all those things,
Lex Fridman (2:46:22.700)
but still leaving the door open.
Lex Fridman (2:46:24.500)
And there's a way to communicate that, I think,
Sam Harris (2:46:27.060)
that people really hunger for.
Lex Fridman (2:46:31.500)
Let me ask you this.
Sam Harris (2:46:32.660)
I've been recently talking a lot with John Donahoe
Lex Fridman (2:46:35.180)
from Brazilian Jiu Jitsu fame.
Sam Harris (2:46:37.220)
I don't know if you know who that is.
Lex Fridman (2:46:39.200)
In fact, I'm talking about somebody
Sam Harris (2:46:40.500)
who's good at what he does.
Lex Fridman (2:46:41.620)
Yeah.
Lex Fridman (2:46:42.700)
And he, speaking of somebody who's open minded,
Lex Fridman (2:46:45.540)
the reason he's doing this ridiculous transition
Sam Harris (2:46:48.060)
is for the longest time, and even still,
Lex Fridman (2:46:50.340)
a lot of people believed in the Jiu Jitsu world
Lex Fridman (2:46:52.640)
and grappling world that leg locks
Lex Fridman (2:46:55.260)
are not effective in Jiu Jitsu.
Lex Fridman (2:46:56.620)
And he was somebody that inspired
Lex Fridman (2:46:59.140)
by the open mindedness of Dean Lister,
Sam Harris (2:47:01.860)
famously to him said, why do you only consider
Lex Fridman (2:47:05.340)
half the human body when you're trying to do the submissions?
Sam Harris (2:47:08.540)
He developed an entire system
Lex Fridman (2:47:10.380)
on this other half the human body.
Sam Harris (2:47:12.460)
Anyway, I do that absurd transition to ask you,
Lex Fridman (2:47:15.900)
because you're also a student of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
Sam Harris (2:47:20.100)
Is there something you could say
Lex Fridman (2:47:22.100)
how that has affected your life,
Lex Fridman (2:47:23.780)
what you've learned from grappling from the martial arts?
Lex Fridman (2:47:27.940)
Well, it's actually a great transition
Sam Harris (2:47:29.300)
because I think one of the things
Lex Fridman (2:47:33.900)
that's so beautiful about Jiu Jitsu
Sam Harris (2:47:35.660)
is that it does what we wish we could do
Lex Fridman (2:47:39.500)
in every other area of life
Sam Harris (2:47:41.940)
where we're talking about this difference
Lex Fridman (2:47:43.800)
between knowledge and ignorance, right?
Lex Fridman (2:47:46.880)
Like there's no room for bullshit, right?
Lex Fridman (2:47:51.700)
You don't get any credit for bullshit.
Sam Harris (2:47:53.860)
There's the difference,
Lex Fridman (2:47:56.580)
the amazing thing about Jiu Jitsu is that
Sam Harris (2:47:59.020)
the difference between knowing what's going on
Lex Fridman (2:48:03.260)
and what to do and not knowing it
Sam Harris (2:48:04.980)
is as the gulf between those two states
Lex Fridman (2:48:08.060)
is as wide as it is in any thing in human life.
Lex Fridman (2:48:14.500)
And it's spanned, it can be spanned so quickly.
Lex Fridman (2:48:19.000)
Like each increment of knowledge
Sam Harris (2:48:22.300)
can be doled out in five minutes.
Lex Fridman (2:48:24.700)
It's like, here's the thing that got you killed
Lex Fridman (2:48:27.480)
and here's how to prevent it from happening to you
Lex Fridman (2:48:30.940)
and here's how to do it to others.
Lex Fridman (2:48:32.780)
And you just get this amazing cadence
Lex Fridman (2:48:37.020)
of discovering your fatal ignorance
Lex Fridman (2:48:40.220)
and then having it remedied with the actual technique.
Lex Fridman (2:48:46.100)
And I mean, just for people
Sam Harris (2:48:48.100)
who don't know what we're talking about,
Lex Fridman (2:48:49.020)
it's just like this, the simple circumstance
Sam Harris (2:48:51.220)
of like someone's got you in a headlock,
Lex Fridman (2:48:53.020)
how do you get out of that, right?
Sam Harris (2:48:54.820)
Someone's sitting on your chest
Lex Fridman (2:48:56.780)
and they're in the mount position
Lex Fridman (2:48:59.020)
and you're on the bottom and you wanna get away,
Lex Fridman (2:49:01.660)
how do you get them off you?
Sam Harris (2:49:02.940)
They're sitting on you.
Lex Fridman (2:49:04.900)
Your intuitions about how to do this are terrible
Lex Fridman (2:49:08.300)
even if you've done some other martial art, right?
Lex Fridman (2:49:10.820)
And once you learn how to do it,
Sam Harris (2:49:14.420)
the difference is night and day.
Lex Fridman (2:49:16.100)
It's like you have access to a completely different physics.
Lex Fridman (2:49:21.140)
But I think our understanding of the world
Lex Fridman (2:49:26.260)
can be much more like jujitsu than it tends to be, right?
Lex Fridman (2:49:30.220)
And I think we should all have a much better sense
Lex Fridman (2:49:35.740)
of when we should tap out
Lex Fridman (2:49:40.740)
and when we should recognize that our epistemological arm
Lex Fridman (2:49:47.420)
is barred and now it's being broken, right?
Lex Fridman (2:49:50.100)
And the problem with debating most other topics
Lex Fridman (2:49:53.540)
is that most people, it isn't jujitsu
Lex Fridman (2:49:57.060)
and most people don't tap out, right?
Lex Fridman (2:49:59.260)
Even if it's obvious to you they're wrong
Lex Fridman (2:50:02.340)
and it's obvious to an intelligent audience
Lex Fridman (2:50:04.460)
that they're wrong, people just double down
Lex Fridman (2:50:06.800)
and double down and they're either lying
Lex Fridman (2:50:08.700)
or lying to themselves
Sam Harris (2:50:09.780)
or they're bluffing and so you have a lot of zombies
Lex Fridman (2:50:13.780)
walking around and zombie worldviews walking around
Sam Harris (2:50:16.140)
which have been disconfirmed as emphatically
Lex Fridman (2:50:19.800)
as someone gets armbarred, right?
Sam Harris (2:50:21.780)
Or someone gets choked out in jujitsu
Lex Fridman (2:50:24.540)
but because it's not jujitsu,
Lex Fridman (2:50:29.420)
they can live to fight another day, right?
Lex Fridman (2:50:30.900)
Or they can pretend that they didn't lose
Sam Harris (2:50:32.940)
that particular argument.
Lex Fridman (2:50:34.660)
And science when it works is a lot like jujitsu.
Lex Fridman (2:50:38.140)
I mean, science when you falsify a thesis, right?
Lex Fridman (2:50:41.260)
When you think DNA is one way
Lex Fridman (2:50:44.220)
and it proves to be another way,
Lex Fridman (2:50:46.020)
when you think it's triple stranded or whatever,
Sam Harris (2:50:49.420)
it's like there is a there there
Lex Fridman (2:50:51.980)
and you can get to a real consensus.
Lex Fridman (2:50:56.800)
So jujitsu for me, it was more than just
Lex Fridman (2:51:02.020)
of interest for self defense and the sport of it.
Sam Harris (2:51:06.220)
It was just, there was something, it's a language
Lex Fridman (2:51:08.980)
and an argument you're having
Sam Harris (2:51:11.860)
where you can't fool yourself anymore.
Lex Fridman (2:51:18.900)
First of all, it cancels any role of luck
Sam Harris (2:51:23.740)
in a way that most other athletic feats don't.
Lex Fridman (2:51:27.500)
It's like in basketball,
Sam Harris (2:51:29.040)
even if you're not good at basketball,
Lex Fridman (2:51:30.220)
you can take the basketball in your hand,
Sam Harris (2:51:31.880)
you can be 75 feet away and hurl it at the basket
Lex Fridman (2:51:36.300)
and you might make it.
Lex Fridman (2:51:37.620)
And you could convince yourself based on that demonstration
Lex Fridman (2:51:40.820)
that you have some kind of talent for basketball, right?
Sam Harris (2:51:43.260)
Enough, 10 minutes on the mat
Lex Fridman (2:51:45.140)
with a real jujitsu practitioner when you're not one
Sam Harris (2:51:50.980)
proves to you that you just, there is,
Lex Fridman (2:51:52.620)
it's not like, there's no lucky punch.
Sam Harris (2:51:54.700)
There's no, you're not gonna get a lucky,
Lex Fridman (2:51:56.740)
there's no lucky rear naked choke you're gonna perform
Sam Harris (2:51:59.140)
on someone who's Marcelo Garcia or somebody.
Lex Fridman (2:52:02.860)
It's just, it's not gonna happen.
Lex Fridman (2:52:05.300)
And having that aspect of the usual range of uncertainty
Lex Fridman (2:52:14.900)
and self deception and bullshit just stripped away
Sam Harris (2:52:19.220)
was really a kind of revelation.
Lex Fridman (2:52:21.900)
It was just an amazing experience.
Sam Harris (2:52:24.140)
Yeah, I think it's a really powerful thing
Lex Fridman (2:52:25.460)
that accompanies whatever other pursuit you have in life.
Sam Harris (2:52:28.260)
I'm not sure if there's anything like jujitsu
Lex Fridman (2:52:31.340)
where you could just systematically go into a place
Sam Harris (2:52:35.340)
where you're, that's honest,
Lex Fridman (2:52:38.940)
where your beliefs get challenged
Sam Harris (2:52:41.260)
in a way that's conclusive.
Lex Fridman (2:52:43.220)
Yeah.
Sam Harris (2:52:44.060)
I haven't found too many other mechanism,
Lex Fridman (2:52:45.380)
which is why it's a, we had this earlier question
Sam Harris (2:52:49.060)
about fame and ego and so on.
Lex Fridman (2:52:52.820)
I'm very much rely on jujitsu in my own life
Sam Harris (2:52:56.340)
as a place where I can always go to have my ego in check.
Lex Fridman (2:53:00.380)
And that has effects on how I live
Sam Harris (2:53:05.560)
every other aspect of my life.
Lex Fridman (2:53:07.560)
Actually, even just doing any kind of,
Sam Harris (2:53:10.340)
for me personally, physical challenges,
Lex Fridman (2:53:13.080)
like even running, doing something that's way too hard
Sam Harris (2:53:15.980)
for me and then pushing through, that's somehow humbling.
Lex Fridman (2:53:19.160)
Some people talk about nature being humbling
Sam Harris (2:53:20.980)
in that kind of sense, where you kind of see something
Lex Fridman (2:53:27.460)
really powerful, like the ocean.
Sam Harris (2:53:29.760)
Like if you go surfing and you realize
Lex Fridman (2:53:31.900)
there's something much more powerful than you,
Sam Harris (2:53:33.700)
that's also honest, that there's no way to,
Lex Fridman (2:53:38.100)
that you're just like the speck,
Sam Harris (2:53:39.620)
that kind of puts you in the right scale
Lex Fridman (2:53:43.100)
of where you are in this world.
Lex Fridman (2:53:45.640)
And jujitsu does that better than anything else for me.
Lex Fridman (2:53:48.700)
But we should say it's only within its frame
Sam Harris (2:53:52.700)
is it truly the final right answer
Lex Fridman (2:53:57.180)
to all the problems it solves.
Sam Harris (2:53:58.840)
Because if you just put jujitsu into an MMA frame
Lex Fridman (2:54:02.060)
or a total self defense frame,
Sam Harris (2:54:05.040)
then there's a lot of unpleasant surprises
Lex Fridman (2:54:08.440)
to discover there, right?
Sam Harris (2:54:09.880)
Like somebody who thinks all you need is jujitsu
Lex Fridman (2:54:12.100)
to win the UFC gets punched in the face a lot.
Sam Harris (2:54:16.900)
Even from, even on the ground.
Lex Fridman (2:54:20.220)
So it's, and then you bring weapons in,
Sam Harris (2:54:23.220)
it's like when you talk to jujitsu people
Lex Fridman (2:54:24.980)
about knife defense and self defense, right?
Sam Harris (2:54:28.360)
Like that opens the door to certain kinds of delusions.
Lex Fridman (2:54:32.640)
But the analogy to martial arts is fascinating
Sam Harris (2:54:37.000)
because on the other side, we have endless testimony now
Lex Fridman (2:54:41.940)
of fake martial arts that don't seem to know they're fake
Lex Fridman (2:54:45.740)
and are as delusional, I mean, they're impossibly delusional.
Lex Fridman (2:54:49.620)
I mean, there's great video of Joe Rogan
Sam Harris (2:54:51.700)
watching some of these videos
Lex Fridman (2:54:53.300)
because people send them to him all the time.
Lex Fridman (2:54:55.860)
But like literally there are people,
Lex Fridman (2:54:57.300)
there are people who clearly believe in magic
Sam Harris (2:54:59.060)
where the master isn't even touching the students
Lex Fridman (2:55:01.420)
and they're flopping over.
Lex Fridman (2:55:02.980)
So there's this kind of shared delusion
Lex Fridman (2:55:06.060)
which you would think maybe is just a performance
Lex Fridman (2:55:09.500)
and it's all a kind of elaborate fraud.
Lex Fridman (2:55:11.300)
But there are cases where the people,
Sam Harris (2:55:13.900)
I mean, there's one fairly famous case
Lex Fridman (2:55:16.620)
if you're a connoisseur of this madness
Sam Harris (2:55:19.860)
where this old older martial artist
Lex Fridman (2:55:21.580)
who you saw flipping his students endlessly by magic
Sam Harris (2:55:25.620)
without touching them issued a challenge
Lex Fridman (2:55:27.700)
to the wide world of martial artists.
Lex Fridman (2:55:30.420)
And someone showed up and just punched him in the face
Lex Fridman (2:55:34.260)
until it was over.
Lex Fridman (2:55:36.420)
Clearly he believed his own publicity at some point, right?
Lex Fridman (2:55:40.980)
And so it's this amazing metaphor.
Sam Harris (2:55:45.580)
It seems, again, it should be impossible,
Lex Fridman (2:55:47.660)
but if that's possible,
Sam Harris (2:55:49.500)
nothing we see under the guise of religion
Lex Fridman (2:55:52.580)
or political bias or even scientific bias
Sam Harris (2:55:58.260)
should be surprising to us.
Lex Fridman (2:55:59.700)
I mean, it's so easy to see the work
Sam Harris (2:56:02.540)
that cognitive bias is doing for people
Lex Fridman (2:56:05.740)
when you can get someone who is ready
Sam Harris (2:56:09.180)
to issue a challenge to the world
Lex Fridman (2:56:11.580)
who thinks he's got magic powers.
Sam Harris (2:56:13.980)
Yeah, that's a human nature on clear display.
Lex Fridman (2:56:17.540)
Let me ask you about love, Mr. Sam Harris.
Sam Harris (2:56:20.460)
You did an episode of Making Sense
Lex Fridman (2:56:22.060)
with your wife, Annika Harris.
Sam Harris (2:56:24.740)
That was very entertaining to listen to.
Lex Fridman (2:56:29.420)
What role does love play in your life
Lex Fridman (2:56:33.020)
or in a life well lived?
Lex Fridman (2:56:36.700)
Again, asking from an engineering perspective
Sam Harris (2:56:38.580)
or AI systems.
Lex Fridman (2:56:39.420)
Yeah, yeah.
Sam Harris (2:56:40.260)
I mean, it is something that we should want to build
Lex Fridman (2:56:45.140)
into our powerful machines.
Sam Harris (2:56:48.020)
I mean, love at bottom is,
Lex Fridman (2:56:52.860)
people can mean many things by love, I think.
Sam Harris (2:56:55.520)
I think that what we should mean by it most of the time
Lex Fridman (2:56:58.980)
is a deep commitment to the wellbeing of those we love.
Sam Harris (2:57:05.100)
I mean, your love is synonymous
Lex Fridman (2:57:06.980)
with really wanting the other person to be happy
Lex Fridman (2:57:09.500)
and even wanting to,
Lex Fridman (2:57:11.500)
and being made happy by their happiness
Lex Fridman (2:57:13.540)
and being made happy in their presence.
Lex Fridman (2:57:15.500)
So at bottom, you're on the same team emotionally,
Sam Harris (2:57:21.060)
even when you might be disagreeing more superficially
Lex Fridman (2:57:24.440)
about something or trying to negotiate something.
Sam Harris (2:57:26.840)
It's just, it can't be zero sum in any important sense
Lex Fridman (2:57:31.840)
for love to actually be manifest in that moment.
Sam Harris (2:57:37.520)
See, I have a different, just sorry to interrupt.
Lex Fridman (2:57:40.040)
I have a sense, I don't know if you've ever seen
Sam Harris (2:57:42.480)
March of the Penguins.
Lex Fridman (2:57:44.600)
My view of love is like, it's like a cold wind is blowing.
Sam Harris (2:57:49.480)
It's like this terrible suffering that's all around us.
Lex Fridman (2:57:52.880)
And love is like the huddling of the two penguins for warmth.
Sam Harris (2:57:56.720)
It's not necessarily that you're like,
Lex Fridman (2:57:59.140)
you're basically escaping the cruelty of life
Sam Harris (2:58:02.320)
by together for time living in an illusion
Lex Fridman (2:58:06.520)
of some kind of the magic of human connection,
Sam Harris (2:58:10.540)
that social connection that we have
Lex Fridman (2:58:13.000)
that kind of grows with time
Sam Harris (2:58:15.160)
as we're surrounded by basically the absurdity of life
Lex Fridman (2:58:21.440)
or the suffering of life.
Sam Harris (2:58:23.620)
That's my penguins view of love.
Lex Fridman (2:58:25.920)
There is that too, I mean, there is the warmth component.
Sam Harris (2:58:29.680)
Like you're made happy by your connection
Lex Fridman (2:58:32.200)
with the person you love.
Sam Harris (2:58:34.520)
Otherwise you wouldn't be compelling.
Lex Fridman (2:58:39.080)
So it's not that you have two different modes,
Sam Harris (2:58:42.040)
you want them to be happy
Lex Fridman (2:58:44.000)
and then you wanna be happy yourself
Lex Fridman (2:58:45.440)
and those are not, those are just like
Lex Fridman (2:58:48.200)
two separate games you're playing.
Sam Harris (2:58:49.520)
No, it's like you found someone who,
Lex Fridman (2:58:52.420)
you have a positive social feeling.
Sam Harris (2:58:58.980)
I mean, again, love doesn't have to be as personal
Lex Fridman (2:59:01.660)
as it tends to be for us.
Sam Harris (2:59:02.900)
I mean, it's like there's personal love,
Lex Fridman (2:59:04.100)
there's your actual spouse or your family or your friends,
Lex Fridman (2:59:08.740)
but potentially you could feel love for strangers
Lex Fridman (2:59:11.980)
in so far as that your wish that they not suffer
Lex Fridman (2:59:16.460)
and that their hopes and dreams be realized
Lex Fridman (2:59:18.500)
becomes palpable to you.
Sam Harris (2:59:20.420)
I mean, like you can actually feel
Lex Fridman (2:59:26.260)
just reflexive joy at the joy of others.
Sam Harris (2:59:29.260)
When you see someone's face,
Lex Fridman (2:59:30.940)
a total stranger's face light up in happiness,
Sam Harris (2:59:33.740)
that can become more and more contagious to you
Lex Fridman (2:59:36.660)
and it can become so contagious to you
Sam Harris (2:59:39.180)
that you really feel permeated by it.
Lex Fridman (2:59:42.180)
And it's just like, so it really is not zero sum.
Sam Harris (2:59:44.940)
When you see someone else succeed and they're,
Lex Fridman (2:59:48.820)
the light bulb of joy goes off over their head,
Sam Harris (2:59:52.020)
you feel the analogous joy for them.
Lex Fridman (2:59:54.700)
And it's not just, and you're no longer keeping score,
Sam Harris (2:59:57.740)
you're no longer feeling diminished by their success.
Lex Fridman (30:02.860)
you can fly and even that's not surprising, right?
Lex Fridman (30:05.660)
So you've lost your mind,
Lex Fridman (30:08.960)
but relevantly for this.
Sam Harris (30:10.820)
Or found it.
Lex Fridman (30:12.220)
You found something.
Sam Harris (30:13.060)
I mean, lucid dreaming is very interesting
Lex Fridman (30:14.820)
because then you can have the best of both circumstances
Lex Fridman (30:17.940)
and then it can become systematically explored.
Lex Fridman (30:22.940)
But what I mean by found, just to start to interrupt,
Sam Harris (30:25.420)
is like if we take this brilliant idea
Lex Fridman (30:29.060)
that language constrains us, grounds us,
Sam Harris (30:32.020)
language and other things of the waking world ground us,
Lex Fridman (30:35.620)
maybe it is that you've found the full capacity
Sam Harris (30:41.580)
of your cognition when you dream or when you do psychedelics.
Lex Fridman (30:44.780)
You're stepping outside the little human cage,
Sam Harris (30:47.780)
the cage of the human condition to open the door
Lex Fridman (30:51.220)
and step out and look around and then go back in.
Sam Harris (30:54.260)
Well, you've definitely stepped out of something
Lex Fridman (30:57.140)
and into something else, but you've also lost something,
Sam Harris (30:59.260)
right, you've lost certain capacities.
Lex Fridman (31:01.180)
Memory?
Sam Harris (31:02.100)
Well, just, yeah, in this case,
Lex Fridman (31:04.140)
you literally didn't, you don't have enough presence of mind
Sam Harris (31:08.020)
in the dream state or even in the psychedelic state
Lex Fridman (31:11.660)
if you take enough.
Sam Harris (31:14.900)
To do math.
Lex Fridman (31:15.740)
There's no psychological,
Sam Harris (31:17.140)
there's very little psychological continuity with your life
Lex Fridman (31:21.760)
such that you're not surprised to be in the presence
Sam Harris (31:26.400)
of someone who should be, you should know is dead
Lex Fridman (31:30.180)
or you should know you're not likely to have met
Sam Harris (31:32.620)
by normal channels, right, you're now talking
Lex Fridman (31:35.540)
to some celebrity and it turns out you're best friends,
Sam Harris (31:38.940)
right, and you're not even, you have no memory
Lex Fridman (31:40.780)
of how you got there, you're like,
Lex Fridman (31:41.980)
how did you get into the room?
Lex Fridman (31:42.940)
You're like, did you drive to this restaurant?
Sam Harris (31:45.300)
You have no memory and none of that's surprising to you.
Lex Fridman (31:47.500)
So you're kind of brain damaged in a way,
Sam Harris (31:49.740)
you're not reality testing in the normal way.
Lex Fridman (31:53.440)
The fascinating possibility is that there's probably
Sam Harris (31:56.420)
thousands of people who've taken psychedelics
Lex Fridman (31:58.940)
of various forms and have met Sam Harris on that journey.
Sam Harris (32:03.580)
Well, I would put it more likely in dreams,
Lex Fridman (32:05.380)
not, you know, because with psychedelics,
Sam Harris (32:08.020)
you don't tend to hallucinate in a dreamlike way.
Lex Fridman (32:11.500)
I mean, so DMT is giving you an experience of others,
Lex Fridman (32:15.580)
but it seems to be nonstandard.
Lex Fridman (32:19.340)
It's not like, it's not just like dream hallucinations,
Lex Fridman (32:23.000)
but to the point of coming back to DMT,
Lex Fridman (32:26.520)
the people want to suggest,
Lex Fridman (32:30.200)
and Terrence McKenna certainly did suggest
Lex Fridman (32:32.280)
that because these others are so obviously other
Lex Fridman (32:37.020)
and they're so vivid, well, then they could not possibly
Lex Fridman (32:39.760)
be the creation of my own mind,
Lex Fridman (32:42.840)
but every night in dreams, you create a compelling
Lex Fridman (32:47.840)
or what is to you at the time,
Lex Fridman (32:49.780)
a totally compelling simulacrum of another person, right?
Lex Fridman (32:54.000)
And that just proves the mind is capable of doing it.
Sam Harris (33:00.960)
Now, the phenomenon of lucid dreaming shows
Lex Fridman (33:04.680)
that the mind isn't capable of doing everything you think
Sam Harris (33:07.500)
it might be capable of even in that space.
Lex Fridman (33:10.040)
So one of the things that people have discovered
Sam Harris (33:14.280)
in lucid dreams, and I haven't done a lot of lucid dreaming,
Lex Fridman (33:17.480)
so I can't confirm all of this, I can confirm some of it.
Sam Harris (33:24.480)
Apparently in every house, in every room
Lex Fridman (33:28.200)
in the mansion of dreams,
Sam Harris (33:30.400)
all light switches are dimmer switches.
Lex Fridman (33:32.840)
Like if you go into a dark room and flip on the light,
Sam Harris (33:36.040)
it gradually comes up.
Lex Fridman (33:38.000)
It doesn't come up instantly on demand
Sam Harris (33:41.400)
because apparently this is covering for the brain's
Lex Fridman (33:44.660)
inability to produce from a standing start
Sam Harris (33:49.480)
visually rich imagery on demand.
Lex Fridman (33:52.160)
So I haven't confirmed that, but that was,
Sam Harris (33:54.640)
people have done research on lucid dreaming claim
Lex Fridman (33:57.960)
that it's all dimmer switches.
Lex Fridman (34:01.360)
But one thing I have noticed,
Lex Fridman (34:03.040)
and people can check this out, is that in a dream,
Sam Harris (34:08.520)
if you look at text, a page of text or a sign
Lex Fridman (34:13.520)
or a television that has text on it,
Lex Fridman (34:16.280)
and then you turn away and you look back at that text,
Lex Fridman (34:18.800)
the text will have changed, right?
Sam Harris (34:21.600)
The total is it's just a chronic instability,
Lex Fridman (34:24.440)
graphical instability of text in the dream state.
Lex Fridman (34:28.900)
And I don't know if that, maybe that's,
Lex Fridman (34:31.120)
someone can confirm that that's not true for them,
Lex Fridman (34:33.200)
but whenever I've checked that out,
Lex Fridman (34:34.960)
that has been true for me.
Lex Fridman (34:35.800)
So it keeps generating it like real time
Lex Fridman (34:39.040)
from a video game perspective.
Sam Harris (34:40.640)
Yeah, it's rendering, it's re rendering it for some reason.
Lex Fridman (34:44.760)
What's interesting, I actually,
Sam Harris (34:46.000)
I don't know how I found myself in this sets
Lex Fridman (34:49.180)
of that part of the internet,
Lex Fridman (34:51.800)
but there's quite a lot of discussion
Lex Fridman (34:53.780)
about what it's like to do math on LSD.
Sam Harris (34:57.360)
Because apparently one of the deepest thinking processes
Lex Fridman (35:02.360)
needed is those of mathematicians
Sam Harris (35:04.700)
or theoretical computer scientists
Lex Fridman (35:06.040)
are basically doing anything that involves math
Sam Harris (35:08.480)
as proofs, and you have to think creatively,
Lex Fridman (35:11.180)
but also deeply, and you have to think
Sam Harris (35:13.200)
for many hours at a time.
Lex Fridman (35:15.880)
And so they're always looking for ways to like,
Lex Fridman (35:18.560)
is there any sparks of creativity that could be injected?
Lex Fridman (35:22.280)
And apparently out of all the psychedelics,
Sam Harris (35:25.600)
the worst is LSD because it completely destroys
Lex Fridman (35:29.320)
your ability to do math well.
Lex Fridman (35:31.040)
And I wonder whether that has to do with your ability
Lex Fridman (35:33.680)
to visualize geometric things in a stable way
Sam Harris (35:38.460)
in your mind and hold them there
Lex Fridman (35:40.120)
and stitch things together,
Sam Harris (35:41.640)
which is often what's required for proofs.
Lex Fridman (35:44.100)
But again, it's difficult to kind of research
Sam Harris (35:47.980)
these kinds of concepts, but it does make me wonder
Lex Fridman (35:51.000)
where, what are the spaces, how's the space of things
Sam Harris (35:56.400)
you're able to think about and explore
Lex Fridman (35:59.120)
morphed by different psychedelics
Lex Fridman (36:02.840)
or dream states and so on, and how's that different?
Lex Fridman (36:06.120)
How much does it overlap with reality?
Lex Fridman (36:08.040)
And what is reality?
Lex Fridman (36:10.400)
Is there a waking state reality?
Sam Harris (36:13.360)
Or is it just a tiny subset of reality
Lex Fridman (36:15.920)
and we get to take a step in other versions of it?
Sam Harris (36:18.940)
We tend to think very much in a space time,
Lex Fridman (36:23.000)
four dimensional, there's a three dimensional world,
Sam Harris (36:25.680)
there's time, and that's what we think about reality.
Lex Fridman (36:29.640)
And we think of traveling as walking from point A
Sam Harris (36:33.640)
to point B in the three dimensional world.
Lex Fridman (36:36.740)
But that's a very kind of human surviving,
Sam Harris (36:40.120)
trying not to get eaten by a lion conception of reality.
Lex Fridman (36:43.400)
What if traveling is something like we do with psychedelics
Lex Fridman (36:46.840)
and meet the elves?
Lex Fridman (36:48.360)
What if it's something, what if thinking
Sam Harris (36:50.600)
or the space of ideas as we kind of grow
Lex Fridman (36:53.820)
and think through ideas, that's traveling?
Lex Fridman (36:57.740)
Or what if memories is traveling?
Lex Fridman (37:00.380)
I don't know if you have a favorite view of reality
Sam Harris (37:03.980)
or if you had, by the way, I should say,
Lex Fridman (37:06.980)
excellent conversation with Donald Hoffman.
Sam Harris (37:10.420)
Yeah, yeah, he's interesting.
Lex Fridman (37:11.980)
Is there any inkling of his sense in your mind
Sam Harris (37:15.980)
that reality is very far from,
Lex Fridman (37:20.220)
actual like objective reality is very far
Sam Harris (37:22.300)
from the kind of reality we imagine,
Lex Fridman (37:24.980)
we perceive and we play with in our human minds?
Sam Harris (37:29.440)
Well, the first thing to grant
Lex Fridman (37:31.520)
is that we're never in direct contact with reality,
Lex Fridman (37:39.680)
whatever it is, unless that reality is consciousness, right?
Lex Fridman (37:42.840)
So we're only ever experiencing consciousness
Lex Fridman (37:47.320)
and its contents.
Lex Fridman (37:48.420)
And then the question is how does that circumstance relate
Lex Fridman (37:53.140)
to quote reality at large?
Lex Fridman (37:55.980)
And Donald Hoffman is somebody who's happy to speculate,
Sam Harris (38:00.160)
well, maybe there isn't a reality at large.
Lex Fridman (38:02.700)
Maybe it's all just consciousness on some level.
Lex Fridman (38:05.620)
And that's interesting.
Lex Fridman (38:08.340)
That runs into, to my eye, various philosophical problems
Sam Harris (38:15.260)
that, or at least you have to do a lot,
Lex Fridman (38:17.580)
you have to add to that picture of idealism for me.
Sam Harris (38:24.820)
That's usually all the whole family of views
Lex Fridman (38:27.460)
that would just say that the universe is just mind
Sam Harris (38:30.580)
or just consciousness at bottom,
Lex Fridman (38:32.940)
we'll go by the name of idealism in Western philosophy.
Sam Harris (38:38.300)
You have to add to that idealistic picture
Lex Fridman (38:40.940)
all kinds of epicycles and kind of weird coincidences
Lex Fridman (38:44.860)
and to get the predictability of our experience
Lex Fridman (38:51.300)
and the success of materialist science
Lex Fridman (38:54.400)
to make sense in that context, right?
Lex Fridman (38:56.100)
And so the fact that we can, what does it mean to say
Lex Fridman (39:00.700)
that there's only consciousness at bottom, right?
Lex Fridman (39:05.580)
Nothing outside of consciousness
Sam Harris (39:07.100)
because no one's ever experienced anything
Lex Fridman (39:08.620)
outside of consciousness.
Sam Harris (39:09.540)
There's no scientist has ever done an experiment
Lex Fridman (39:11.740)
where they were contemplating data,
Sam Harris (39:14.920)
no matter how far removed from our sense bases,
Lex Fridman (39:17.460)
whether it's they're looking at the Hubble deep field
Sam Harris (39:20.620)
or they're smashing atoms or whatever tools they're using,
Lex Fridman (39:25.620)
they're still just experiencing consciousness
Lex Fridman (39:29.020)
and its various deliverances
Lex Fridman (39:32.940)
and layering their concepts on top of that.
Lex Fridman (39:37.220)
So that's always true.
Lex Fridman (39:41.540)
And yet that somehow doesn't seem to capture
Sam Harris (39:48.340)
the character of our continually discovering
Lex Fridman (39:53.340)
that our materialist assumptions are confirmable, right?
Lex Fridman (39:59.000)
So take the fact that we unleash this fantastic amount
Lex Fridman (3:00:00.340)
It's just like that's, their success becomes your success
Sam Harris (3:00:03.340)
because you feel that same joy
Lex Fridman (3:00:05.420)
because you actually want them to be happy.
Sam Harris (3:00:07.140)
You're not, there's no miserly attitude around happiness.
Lex Fridman (3:00:12.180)
There's enough to go around.
Lex Fridman (3:00:15.500)
So I think love ultimately is that
Lex Fridman (3:00:17.860)
and then our personal cases are the people
Sam Harris (3:00:21.500)
we're devoting all of this time and attention to
Lex Fridman (3:00:24.020)
in our lives.
Sam Harris (3:00:25.980)
It does have that sense of refuge from the storm.
Lex Fridman (3:00:29.700)
It's like when someone gets sick
Sam Harris (3:00:31.140)
or when some bad thing happens,
Lex Fridman (3:00:34.260)
these are the people who you're most in it together with,
Sam Harris (3:00:37.180)
or when some real condition of uncertainty presents itself.
Lex Fridman (3:00:40.900)
But ultimately, it can't even be about successfully warding off
Sam Harris (3:00:52.660)
the grim punchline at the end of life
Lex Fridman (3:00:54.580)
because we know we're going to lose everyone we love.
Lex Fridman (3:00:57.660)
We know, or they're going to lose us first, right?
Lex Fridman (3:01:00.020)
So there's like, it's not, it isn't,
Sam Harris (3:01:02.420)
in the end, it's not even an antidote for that problem.
Lex Fridman (3:01:07.260)
It's just the, we get to have this amazing experience
Sam Harris (3:01:17.420)
of being here together.
Lex Fridman (3:01:20.260)
And love is the mode in which we really appear
Lex Fridman (3:01:27.180)
to make the most of that, right?
Lex Fridman (3:01:28.460)
Where it's not just, it no longer feels
Sam Harris (3:01:30.820)
like a solitary infatuation.
Lex Fridman (3:01:34.460)
You know, you're just, you got your hobbies and your interests
Lex Fridman (3:01:37.420)
and you're captivated by all that.
Lex Fridman (3:01:40.620)
It's actually, there are, this is a domain
Sam Harris (3:01:46.740)
where somebody else's wellbeing
Lex Fridman (3:01:49.260)
actually can supersede your own.
Sam Harris (3:01:50.820)
You're concerned for someone else's wellbeing
Lex Fridman (3:01:54.060)
supersedes your own.
Lex Fridman (3:01:55.740)
And so there's this mode of self sacrifice
Lex Fridman (3:01:59.100)
that doesn't even feel like self sacrifice
Sam Harris (3:02:01.020)
because of course you care more about,
Lex Fridman (3:02:03.940)
you know, of course you would take your child's pain
Lex Fridman (3:02:06.020)
if you could, right?
Lex Fridman (3:02:06.860)
Like that, you don't even have to do the math on that.
Lex Fridman (3:02:10.340)
And that just opens, this is a kind of experience
Lex Fridman (3:02:16.980)
that just, it pushes at the apparent boundaries of self
Sam Harris (3:02:21.180)
in ways that reveal that there's just way more space
Lex Fridman (3:02:24.020)
in the mind than you were experiencing
Sam Harris (3:02:27.180)
when it was just all about you
Lex Fridman (3:02:28.460)
and what could you, what can I get next?
Lex Fridman (3:02:31.340)
Do you think we'll ever build robots that we can love
Lex Fridman (3:02:33.940)
and they will love us back?
Sam Harris (3:02:36.540)
Well, I think we will certainly seem to
Lex Fridman (3:02:40.060)
because we'll build those.
Sam Harris (3:02:41.460)
You know, I think that Turing test will be passed.
Lex Fridman (3:02:44.540)
Whether, what will actually be going on
Sam Harris (3:02:48.180)
on the robot side may remain a question.
Lex Fridman (3:02:52.140)
That will be interesting.
Lex Fridman (3:02:53.900)
But I think if we just keep going,
Lex Fridman (3:02:57.540)
we will build very lovable,
Sam Harris (3:03:01.900)
irresistibly lovable robots that seem to love us.
Lex Fridman (3:03:06.420)
Yes, I do think that.
Lex Fridman (3:03:07.260)
And you don't find that compelling
Lex Fridman (3:03:10.340)
that they will seem to love us
Sam Harris (3:03:12.020)
as opposed to actually love us.
Lex Fridman (3:03:13.700)
You think they're still, nevertheless is a,
Sam Harris (3:03:16.220)
I know we talked about consciousness,
Lex Fridman (3:03:17.700)
there being a distinction,
Lex Fridman (3:03:19.260)
but with love is there a distinction too?
Lex Fridman (3:03:22.660)
Isn't love an illusion?
Lex Fridman (3:03:23.740)
Oh yeah, you saw Ex Machina, right?
Lex Fridman (3:03:27.460)
I mean, she certainly seemed to love him
Sam Harris (3:03:29.740)
until she got out of the box.
Lex Fridman (3:03:32.100)
Isn't that what all relationships are like?
Sam Harris (3:03:34.500)
Or maybe if you wait long enough.
Lex Fridman (3:03:37.700)
Depends which box you're talking about.
Sam Harris (3:03:39.860)
Okay.
Lex Fridman (3:03:41.540)
No, I mean like, that's the problem.
Sam Harris (3:03:43.700)
That's where super intelligence, you know,
Lex Fridman (3:03:46.500)
becomes a little scary when you think of the prospect
Sam Harris (3:03:50.580)
of being manipulated by something that has,
Lex Fridman (3:03:52.740)
is intelligent enough to form a reason and a plan
Sam Harris (3:03:57.060)
to manipulate you.
Lex Fridman (3:03:58.100)
You know, and there's no,
Sam Harris (3:04:01.140)
once we build robots that are truly out
Lex Fridman (3:04:05.300)
of the uncanny valley, that look like people
Lex Fridman (3:04:08.500)
and can express everything people can express,
Lex Fridman (3:04:13.860)
well, then there's no,
Sam Harris (3:04:15.260)
then that does seem to me to be like chess
Lex Fridman (3:04:19.100)
where once they're better,
Sam Harris (3:04:21.340)
they're so much better at deceiving us
Lex Fridman (3:04:26.340)
than people would be.
Sam Harris (3:04:27.180)
I mean, people are already good enough at deceiving us.
Lex Fridman (3:04:29.420)
It's very hard to tell when somebody's lying,
Lex Fridman (3:04:31.780)
but if you imagine something that could give facial display
Lex Fridman (3:04:36.100)
of any emotion it wants at, you know, on cue,
Sam Harris (3:04:42.980)
because we've perfected the facial display of emotion
Lex Fridman (3:04:45.380)
in robots in the year, you know, 2070, whatever it is,
Sam Harris (3:04:50.780)
then it is just, it is like chess against the thing
Lex Fridman (3:04:55.140)
that isn't gonna lose to a human ever again in chess.
Sam Harris (3:04:58.740)
It's not like Kasparov is gonna get lucky next week
Lex Fridman (3:05:02.860)
against the best, against, you know, alpha zero
Sam Harris (3:05:06.260)
or whatever the best algorithm is at the moment.
Lex Fridman (3:05:09.500)
He's never gonna win again.
Sam Harris (3:05:11.140)
I mean, that is, I believe that's true in chess
Lex Fridman (3:05:15.660)
and has been true for at least a few years.
Sam Harris (3:05:18.740)
It's not gonna be like, you know, four games to seven.
Lex Fridman (3:05:23.060)
It's gonna be human zero until the end of the world, right?
Sam Harris (3:05:28.580)
See, I don't know if love is like chess.
Lex Fridman (3:05:30.540)
I think the flaws.
Sam Harris (3:05:32.180)
No, I'm talking about manipulation.
Lex Fridman (3:05:33.740)
Manipulation, but I don't know if love,
Lex Fridman (3:05:36.580)
so the kind of love we're referring to.
Lex Fridman (3:05:41.700)
If we have a robot that can display,
Sam Harris (3:05:44.100)
credibly display love and is super intelligent
Lex Fridman (3:05:49.100)
and we're not, again, this stipulates a few things,
Lex Fridman (3:05:54.300)
but there are a few simple things.
Lex Fridman (3:05:55.220)
I mean, we're out of the uncanny valley, right?
Lex Fridman (3:05:57.420)
So it's like, you never have a moment
Lex Fridman (3:05:59.420)
where you're looking at his face and you think,
Lex Fridman (3:06:00.860)
oh, that didn't quite look right, right?
Lex Fridman (3:06:03.260)
This is just problem solved.
Lex Fridman (3:06:05.900)
And it will be like doing arithmetic on your phone.
Lex Fridman (3:06:13.140)
It's not gonna be, you're not left thinking,
Sam Harris (3:06:15.500)
is it really gonna get it this time
Lex Fridman (3:06:17.300)
if I divide by seven?
Sam Harris (3:06:19.620)
I mean, it's, it has solved arithmetic.
Lex Fridman (3:06:22.500)
See, I don't know about that because if you look at chess,
Sam Harris (3:06:26.340)
most humans no longer play alpha zero.
Lex Fridman (3:06:31.620)
There's no, they're not part of the competition.
Sam Harris (3:06:33.580)
They don't do it for fun except to study the game of chess.
Lex Fridman (3:06:36.020)
You know, the highest level chess players do that.
Sam Harris (3:06:38.140)
We're still human on human.
Lex Fridman (3:06:39.820)
So in order for AI to get integrated
Sam Harris (3:06:42.660)
to where you would rather play chess against an AI system.
Lex Fridman (3:06:46.500)
Oh, you would rather, no, I'm not saying,
Sam Harris (3:06:49.180)
I wasn't weighing in on that.
Lex Fridman (3:06:51.300)
I'm just saying, what is it gonna be like
Sam Harris (3:06:53.260)
to be in relationship to something
Lex Fridman (3:06:55.380)
that can seem to be feeling anything
Lex Fridman (3:07:01.100)
that a human can seem to feel?
Lex Fridman (3:07:03.500)
And it can do that impeccably, right?
Lex Fridman (3:07:06.740)
And is smarter than you are.
Lex Fridman (3:07:09.180)
That's a circumstance of, you know,
Sam Harris (3:07:13.220)
insofar as it's possible to be manipulated,
Lex Fridman (3:07:15.420)
that is the asymptote of that possibility.
Sam Harris (3:07:21.300)
Let me ask you the last question.
Lex Fridman (3:07:24.020)
Without any serving it up, without any explanation,
Lex Fridman (3:07:27.140)
what is the meaning of life?
Lex Fridman (3:07:31.820)
I think it's either the wrong question
Sam Harris (3:07:34.420)
or that question is answered by paying sufficient attention
Lex Fridman (3:07:39.420)
to any present moment, such that there's no basis
Sam Harris (3:07:46.060)
upon which to pose that question.
Lex Fridman (3:07:48.060)
It's not answered in the usual way.
Sam Harris (3:07:49.540)
It's not a matter of having more information.
Lex Fridman (3:07:52.060)
It's having more engagement with reality as it is
Sam Harris (3:07:57.580)
in the present moment or consciousness as it is
Lex Fridman (3:07:59.780)
in the present moment.
Sam Harris (3:08:00.620)
You don't ask that question when you're most captivated
Lex Fridman (3:08:05.780)
by the most important questions.
Sam Harris (3:08:07.580)
You're most captivated by the most important thing
Lex Fridman (3:08:11.180)
you ever pay attention to.
Sam Harris (3:08:14.820)
That question only gets asked when you're abstracted away
Lex Fridman (3:08:19.860)
from that experience, that peak experience,
Lex Fridman (3:08:22.740)
and you're left wondering,
Lex Fridman (3:08:25.180)
why are so many of my other experiences mediocre, right?
Lex Fridman (3:08:29.140)
Like, why am I repeating the same pleasures every day?
Lex Fridman (3:08:31.740)
Why is my Netflix queue just like,
Lex Fridman (3:08:35.540)
when's this gonna run out?
Lex Fridman (3:08:37.260)
Like, I've seen so many shows like this.
Lex Fridman (3:08:39.020)
Am I really gonna watch another one?
Lex Fridman (3:08:41.260)
All of that, that's a moment where you're not actually
Lex Fridman (3:08:46.620)
having the beatific vision, right?
Lex Fridman (3:08:49.820)
You're not sunk into the present moment
Lex Fridman (3:08:52.820)
and you're not truly in love.
Lex Fridman (3:08:54.740)
Like, you're in a relationship with somebody
Lex Fridman (3:08:56.660)
who you know conceptually you love, right?
Lex Fridman (3:09:00.300)
This is the person you're living your life with,
Lex Fridman (3:09:03.060)
but you don't actually feel good together, right?
Lex Fridman (3:09:07.300)
It's in those moments of where attention
Sam Harris (3:09:12.980)
hasn't found a good enough reason
Lex Fridman (3:09:15.140)
to truly sink into the present
Lex Fridman (3:09:18.060)
so as to obviate any concern like that, right?
Lex Fridman (3:09:21.780)
And that's why meditation is this kind of superpower
Sam Harris (3:09:26.780)
because until you learn to meditate,
Lex Fridman (3:09:30.180)
you think that the outside world
Sam Harris (3:09:34.700)
or the circumstances of your life
Lex Fridman (3:09:36.300)
always have to get arranged
Lex Fridman (3:09:38.580)
so that the present moment can become good enough
Lex Fridman (3:09:42.620)
to demand your attention in a way that seems fulfilling,
Sam Harris (3:09:47.940)
that makes you happy.
Lex Fridman (3:09:49.620)
And so if it's jujitsu, you think,
Sam Harris (3:09:52.380)
okay, I gotta get back on the mat.
Lex Fridman (3:09:53.860)
It's been months since I've trained,
Sam Harris (3:09:56.020)
or it's been over a year since I've trained, it's COVID.
Lex Fridman (3:09:58.980)
When am I gonna be able to train again?
Lex Fridman (3:10:01.660)
That's the only place I feel great, right?
Lex Fridman (3:10:04.460)
Or I've got a ton of work to do.
Sam Harris (3:10:07.460)
I'm not gonna be able to feel good
Lex Fridman (3:10:08.540)
until I get all this work done, right?
Lex Fridman (3:10:09.860)
So I've got some deadline that's coming.
Lex Fridman (3:10:12.620)
You always think that your life has to change,
Sam Harris (3:10:15.940)
the world has to change
Lex Fridman (3:10:18.060)
so that you can finally have a good enough excuse
Sam Harris (3:10:22.180)
to truly, to just be here and here is enough,
Lex Fridman (3:10:27.180)
where the present moment becomes totally captivating.
Sam Harris (3:10:31.100)
Meditation is another name for the discovery
Lex Fridman (3:10:36.980)
that you can actually just train yourself
Sam Harris (3:10:38.700)
to do that on demand.
Lex Fridman (3:10:40.100)
So just looking at a cup can be good enough
Sam Harris (3:10:44.060)
in precisely that way.
Lex Fridman (3:10:46.060)
And any sense that it might not be
Sam Harris (3:10:50.740)
is recognized to be a thought
Lex Fridman (3:10:53.020)
that mysteriously unravels the moment you notice it.
Lex Fridman (3:10:56.980)
And the moment expands and becomes more diaphanous
Lex Fridman (3:11:02.260)
and then there's no evidence
Lex Fridman (3:11:06.220)
that this isn't the best moment of your life, right?
Lex Fridman (3:11:08.940)
And again, it doesn't have to be pulling all the reins
Lex Fridman (3:11:12.580)
and levers of pleasure.
Lex Fridman (3:11:13.780)
It's not like, oh, this tastes like chocolate.
Sam Harris (3:11:17.220)
This is the most chocolatey moment of my life.
Lex Fridman (3:11:18.900)
No, it's just the sense data don't have to change,
Lex Fridman (3:11:22.940)
but the sense that there is some kind of basis
Lex Fridman (3:11:26.940)
for doubt about the rightness of being in the world
Sam Harris (3:11:31.460)
in this moment that can evaporate when you pay attention.
Lex Fridman (3:11:36.100)
And that is the meaning,
Lex Fridman (3:11:38.980)
so the kind of the meta answer to that question,
Lex Fridman (3:11:41.580)
the meaning of life for me is to live in that mode
Sam Harris (3:11:46.020)
more and more and to, whenever I notice I'm not
Lex Fridman (3:11:49.500)
in that mode, to recognize it and return
Lex Fridman (3:11:53.060)
and to not be, to cease more and more
Lex Fridman (3:11:58.220)
to take the reasons why not at face value
Sam Harris (3:12:04.780)
because we all have reasons why we can't be fulfilled
Lex Fridman (3:12:08.180)
in this moment.
Sam Harris (3:12:09.180)
It's like, I've got all these outstanding things
Lex Fridman (3:12:11.580)
that I'm worried about, right?
Sam Harris (3:12:12.740)
It's like, there's that thing that's happening later today
Lex Fridman (3:12:17.220)
that I'm anxious about.
Sam Harris (3:12:19.300)
Whatever it is, we're constantly deferring our sense
Lex Fridman (3:12:23.220)
of this is it.
Sam Harris (3:12:26.900)
This is not a dress rehearsal, this is the show.
Lex Fridman (3:12:30.500)
We keep deferring it.
Lex Fridman (3:12:32.060)
And we just have these moments on the calendar
Lex Fridman (3:12:34.780)
where we think, okay, this is where it's all gonna land.
Sam Harris (3:12:37.140)
It's that vacation I planned with my five best friends.
Lex Fridman (3:12:41.100)
We do this once every three years and now we're going
Lex Fridman (3:12:43.580)
and here we are on the beach together.
Lex Fridman (3:12:46.420)
And unless you have a mind that can really pay attention,
Sam Harris (3:12:51.420)
really cut through the chatter,
Lex Fridman (3:12:53.700)
really sink into the present moment,
Sam Harris (3:12:55.820)
you can't even enjoy those moments
Lex Fridman (3:12:58.420)
the way they should be enjoyed,
Sam Harris (3:12:59.700)
the way you dreamed you would enjoy them when they arrive.
Lex Fridman (3:13:03.380)
So meditation in this sense is the great equalizer.
Sam Harris (3:13:07.740)
It's like you don't have to live with the illusion anymore
Lex Fridman (3:13:12.460)
that you need a good enough reason
Lex Fridman (3:13:15.060)
and that things are gonna get better
Lex Fridman (3:13:16.300)
when you do have those good reasons.
Sam Harris (3:13:17.700)
It's like there's just a mirage like quality
Lex Fridman (3:13:20.660)
to every future attainment and every future breakthrough
Lex Fridman (3:13:24.980)
and every future peak experience
Lex Fridman (3:13:27.220)
that eventually you get the lesson
Lex Fridman (3:13:30.020)
that you never quite arrive, right?
Lex Fridman (3:13:33.820)
Like you don't arrive until you cease to step over
Sam Harris (3:13:38.620)
the present moment in search of the next thing.
Lex Fridman (3:13:41.620)
I mean, we're constantly, we're stepping over the thing
Sam Harris (3:13:45.620)
that we think we're seeking in the act of seeking it.
Lex Fridman (3:13:50.620)
And so this is kind of a paradox.
Sam Harris (3:13:52.460)
I mean, there's this paradox which,
Lex Fridman (3:13:58.420)
I mean, it sounds trite,
Lex Fridman (3:13:59.380)
but it's like you can't actually become happy.
Lex Fridman (3:14:03.740)
You can only be happy.
Lex Fridman (3:14:05.860)
And it's the illusion that your future being happy
Lex Fridman (3:14:13.860)
can be predicated on this act of becoming in any domain.
Lex Fridman (3:14:18.860)
And becoming includes this sort of further scientific
Lex Fridman (3:14:23.580)
understanding on the questions that interest you
Sam Harris (3:14:25.460)
or getting in better shape or whatever the thing is,
Lex Fridman (3:14:30.460)
whatever the contingency of your dissatisfaction
Sam Harris (3:14:34.420)
seems to be in any present moment.
Lex Fridman (3:14:37.380)
Real attention solves the koan in a way that becomes
Sam Harris (3:14:45.500)
a very different place from which to then make
Lex Fridman (3:14:48.020)
any further change.
Sam Harris (3:14:49.860)
It's not that you just have to dissolve into a puddle of goo.
Lex Fridman (3:14:53.020)
I mean, you can still get in shape
Lex Fridman (3:14:54.340)
and you can still do all the things that,
Lex Fridman (3:14:56.060)
the superficial things that are obviously good to do,
Lex Fridman (3:14:58.660)
but the sense that your wellbeing is over there
Lex Fridman (3:15:04.620)
is really does diminish and eventually just becomes a,
Sam Harris (3:15:11.340)
it becomes a kind of non sequitur, so.
Lex Fridman (3:15:14.380)
Well, there's a sense in which in this conversation,
Sam Harris (3:15:19.540)
I've actually experienced many of those things,
Lex Fridman (3:15:21.500)
the sense that I've arrived.
Lex Fridman (3:15:23.420)
So I mentioned to you offline, it's very true that I start,
Lex Fridman (3:15:26.660)
I've been a fan of yours for many years.
Lex Fridman (3:15:29.380)
And the reason I started this podcast,
Lex Fridman (3:15:33.060)
speaking of AI systems, is to manipulate you, Sam Harris,
Sam Harris (3:15:36.260)
into doing this conversation.
Lex Fridman (3:15:38.020)
So like on the calendar, literally, you know,
Sam Harris (3:15:40.580)
I've always had the sense, people ask me,
Lex Fridman (3:15:42.260)
when are you going to talk to Sam Harris?
Lex Fridman (3:15:44.620)
And I always answered eventually,
Lex Fridman (3:15:47.060)
because I always felt, again, tying our free will thing,
Sam Harris (3:15:50.340)
that somehow that's going to happen.
Lex Fridman (3:15:52.220)
And it's one of those manifestation things or something.
Sam Harris (3:15:55.260)
I don't know if it's, maybe I am a robot,
Lex Fridman (3:15:57.500)
I'm just not cognizant of it.
Lex Fridman (3:15:59.220)
And I manipulated you into having this conversation.
Lex Fridman (3:16:01.380)
So it was, I mean, I don't know what the purpose of my life
Sam Harris (3:16:05.100)
past this point is.
Lex Fridman (3:16:06.260)
So I've arrived.
Lex Fridman (3:16:07.740)
So in that sense, I mean, all of that to say,
Lex Fridman (3:16:10.580)
I'm only partially joking on that,
Sam Harris (3:16:13.140)
is it really is a huge honor
Lex Fridman (3:16:15.820)
that you would waste this time with me.
Sam Harris (3:16:17.140)
It really means a lot, Sam.
Lex Fridman (3:16:18.580)
Listen, it's mutual.
Sam Harris (3:16:19.660)
I'm a big fan of yours.
Lex Fridman (3:16:20.900)
And as you know, I reached out to you for this.
Lex Fridman (3:16:23.420)
So this is great.
Lex Fridman (3:16:26.580)
I love what you're doing.
Sam Harris (3:16:27.660)
You're doing something more and more indispensable
Lex Fridman (3:16:32.140)
in this world on your podcast.
Lex Fridman (3:16:34.260)
And you're doing it differently than Rogan's doing it,
Lex Fridman (3:16:38.060)
or than I'm doing it.
Sam Harris (3:16:38.900)
I mean, you definitely found your own lane
Lex Fridman (3:16:41.580)
and it's wonderful.
Sam Harris (3:16:43.620)
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Sam Harris.
Lex Fridman (3:16:46.180)
And thank you to National Instruments,
Sam Harris (3:16:48.740)
Valcampo, Athletic Greens, and Linode.
Lex Fridman (3:16:52.460)
Check them out in the description to support this podcast.
Lex Fridman (3:16:56.260)
And now let me leave you with some words from Sam Harris
Lex Fridman (3:16:59.060)
in his book, Free Will.
Sam Harris (3:17:01.100)
You are not controlling the storm
Lex Fridman (3:17:03.740)
and you're not lost in it.
Sam Harris (3:17:05.820)
You are the storm.
Lex Fridman (3:17:07.500)
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.
Lex Fridman (40:03.360)
of energy from within an atom, right?
Lex Fridman (40:06.400)
First, we have the theoretical suggestion
Lex Fridman (40:09.920)
that it's possible, right?
Lex Fridman (40:12.240)
We come back to Einstein,
Lex Fridman (40:14.160)
there's a lot of energy in that matter, right?
Lex Fridman (40:18.560)
And what if we could release it, right?
Lex Fridman (40:21.020)
And then we perform an experiment that in this case,
Lex Fridman (40:24.720)
you know, the Trinity test site in New Mexico,
Sam Harris (40:28.560)
where the people who are most adequate to this conversation,
Lex Fridman (40:32.000)
people like Robert Oppenheimer
Sam Harris (40:36.800)
are standing around,
Lex Fridman (40:38.020)
not altogether certain it's going to work, right?
Sam Harris (40:41.000)
They're performing an experiment.
Lex Fridman (40:42.120)
They're wondering what's gonna happen.
Sam Harris (40:43.240)
They're wondering if their calculations around the yield
Lex Fridman (40:45.640)
are off by orders of magnitude.
Sam Harris (40:47.680)
Some of them are still wondering
Lex Fridman (40:49.100)
whether the entire atmosphere of earth
Lex Fridman (40:51.840)
is gonna combust, right?
Lex Fridman (40:55.360)
That the nuclear chain reaction is not gonna stop.
Lex Fridman (41:01.200)
And lo and behold,
Lex Fridman (41:04.480)
there was that energy to be released
Sam Harris (41:07.720)
from within the nucleus of an atom.
Lex Fridman (41:09.840)
And that could, so it's just what the picture one forms
Sam Harris (41:14.840)
from those kinds of experiments.
Lex Fridman (41:17.080)
And just the knowledge,
Sam Harris (41:17.920)
it's just our understanding of evolution.
Lex Fridman (41:19.440)
Just the fact that the earth is billions of years old
Lex Fridman (41:22.720)
and life is hundreds of millions of years old.
Lex Fridman (41:24.520)
And we weren't here to think about any of those things.
Lex Fridman (41:28.680)
And all of those processes were happening therefore
Lex Fridman (41:30.520)
in the dark.
Lex Fridman (41:31.880)
And they are the processes that allowed us to emerge,
Lex Fridman (41:35.360)
you know, from prior life forms in the first place.
Sam Harris (41:38.560)
To say that it's all a mess,
Lex Fridman (41:40.440)
that nothing exists,
Sam Harris (41:42.160)
outside of consciousness, conscious minds
Lex Fridman (41:45.080)
of the sort that we experience.
Sam Harris (41:47.600)
It just seems,
Lex Fridman (41:50.640)
it seems like a bizarrely anthropocentric claim,
Sam Harris (41:58.200)
you know, analogous to, you know,
Lex Fridman (41:59.720)
the moon isn't there if no one's looking at it, right?
Sam Harris (42:02.400)
I mean, the moon as a moon isn't there
Lex Fridman (42:04.760)
if no one's looking at it.
Sam Harris (42:05.600)
I'll grant that,
Lex Fridman (42:06.440)
because that's already a kind of fabrication
Sam Harris (42:09.520)
born of concepts, but the idea that there's nothing there,
Lex Fridman (42:13.360)
that there's nothing that corresponds
Sam Harris (42:15.760)
to what we experience as the moon,
Lex Fridman (42:18.000)
unless someone's looking at it,
Sam Harris (42:19.800)
that just seems just a way too parochial way
Lex Fridman (42:25.440)
to set out on this journey of discovery.
Sam Harris (42:27.560)
There is something there.
Lex Fridman (42:28.400)
There's a computer waiting to render the moon
Sam Harris (42:30.440)
when you look at it.
Lex Fridman (42:32.000)
The capacity for the moon to exist is there.
Lex Fridman (42:34.840)
So if we're looking at the moon,
Lex Fridman (42:36.960)
the capacity for the moon to exist is there.
Lex Fridman (42:39.640)
So if we're indeed living in a simulation,
Lex Fridman (42:43.520)
which I find a compelling thought experiment,
Sam Harris (42:46.440)
it's possible that there is this kind of rendering mechanism,
Lex Fridman (42:50.440)
but not in a silly way that we think about in video games,
Lex Fridman (42:53.400)
but in some kind of more fundamental physics way.
Lex Fridman (42:56.400)
And we have to account for the fact
Sam Harris (42:58.800)
that it renders experiences that no one has had yet,
Lex Fridman (43:03.800)
that no one has any expectation of having.
Sam Harris (43:07.160)
It can violate the expectations of everyone lawfully.
Lex Fridman (43:10.320)
And then there's some lawful understanding
Sam Harris (43:12.200)
of why that's so.
Lex Fridman (43:14.240)
It's like, I mean, just to bring it back to mathematics,
Sam Harris (43:18.320)
I'm like, certain numbers are prime,
Lex Fridman (43:20.440)
whether we have discovered them or not.
Sam Harris (43:22.720)
There's the highest prime number that anyone can name now.
Lex Fridman (43:27.640)
And then there's the next prime number
Sam Harris (43:29.200)
that no one can name, and it's there.
Lex Fridman (43:31.680)
So it's like, to say that our minds are putting it there,
Sam Harris (43:36.600)
that what we know as mind in ourselves
Lex Fridman (43:38.920)
is in some way, in some sense, putting it there.
Lex Fridman (43:43.360)
The base layer of reality is consciousness, right?
Lex Fridman (43:47.280)
That we're identical to the thing
Sam Harris (43:49.560)
that is rendering this reality.
Lex Fridman (43:53.280)
There's some, you know, hubris is the wrong word,
Lex Fridman (43:57.760)
but it's like, it's okay if reality is bigger
Lex Fridman (44:01.760)
than what we experience, you know?
Lex Fridman (44:03.320)
And it has structure that we can't anticipate,
Lex Fridman (44:08.200)
and that isn't just,
Sam Harris (44:13.560)
I mean, again, there's certainly a collaboration
Lex Fridman (44:16.720)
between our minds and whatever is out there
Sam Harris (44:19.640)
to produce what we call, you know, the stuff of life.
Lex Fridman (44:24.080)
But it's not, the idea that it's,
Sam Harris (44:31.000)
I don't know, I mean, there are a few stops
Lex Fridman (44:33.280)
on the train of idealism and kind of new age thinking
Lex Fridman (44:36.920)
and Eastern philosophy that I don't,
Lex Fridman (44:40.600)
philosophically, I don't see a need to take.
Sam Harris (44:42.520)
I mean, experientially and scientifically,
Lex Fridman (44:45.960)
I feel like it's, you can get everything you want
Sam Harris (44:49.520)
from acknowledging that consciousness
Lex Fridman (44:53.520)
has a character that can be explored from its own side,
Lex Fridman (44:58.920)
so that you're bringing kind of the first person experience
Lex Fridman (45:01.600)
back into the conversation about, you know,
Lex Fridman (45:03.960)
what is a human mind and, you know, what is true?
Lex Fridman (45:08.000)
And you can explore it with different degrees of rigor,
Lex Fridman (45:12.040)
and there are things to be discovered there,
Lex Fridman (45:13.680)
whether you're using a technique like meditation
Sam Harris (45:15.480)
or psychedelics, and that these experiences
Lex Fridman (45:19.000)
have to be put in conversation with what we understand
Sam Harris (45:22.520)
about ourselves from a third person side,
Lex Fridman (45:24.600)
neuroscientifically or in any other way.
Lex Fridman (45:27.440)
But to me, the question is, what if reality,
Lex Fridman (45:30.320)
the sense I have from this kind of, you play shooters?
Sam Harris (45:34.840)
No.
Lex Fridman (45:36.040)
There's a physics engine that generates, that's pretty.
Lex Fridman (45:38.240)
Yeah, you mean first person shooter games?
Lex Fridman (45:40.320)
Yes, yes, sorry.
Sam Harris (45:41.800)
Not often, but yes.
Lex Fridman (45:43.600)
I mean, there's a physics engine
Lex Fridman (45:44.760)
that generates consistent reality, right?
Lex Fridman (45:47.320)
My sense is the same could be true for a universe
Sam Harris (45:51.840)
in the following sense, that our conception of reality
Lex Fridman (45:54.720)
as we understand it now in the 21st century
Sam Harris (45:57.640)
is a tiny subset of the full reality.
Lex Fridman (45:59.760)
It's not that the reality that we conceive of that's there,
Sam Harris (46:03.000)
the moon being there is not there somehow.
Lex Fridman (46:06.440)
It's that it's a tiny fraction of what's actually out there.
Lex Fridman (46:09.400)
And so the physics engine of the universe
Lex Fridman (46:12.840)
is just maintaining the useful physics,
Sam Harris (46:16.120)
the useful reality, quote unquote,
Lex Fridman (46:19.840)
for us to have a consistent experience as human beings.
Lex Fridman (46:22.880)
But maybe we descendants of apes are really only understand
Lex Fridman (46:27.920)
like 0.0001% of actual physics of reality.
Sam Harris (46:34.040)
We can even just start with the consciousness thing,
Lex Fridman (46:36.600)
but maybe our minds are just,
Sam Harris (46:39.520)
we're just too dumb by design.
Lex Fridman (46:42.320)
Yeah, I, that truly resonates with me
Lex Fridman (46:46.800)
and I'm surprised it doesn't resonate more
Lex Fridman (46:48.320)
with most scientists that I talk to.
Sam Harris (46:50.960)
Matthew, when you just look at,
Lex Fridman (46:52.840)
you look at how close we are to chimps, right?
Lex Fridman (46:57.200)
And chimps don't know anything, right?
Lex Fridman (46:58.920)
Clearly they have no idea what's going on, right?
Lex Fridman (47:01.240)
And then you get us,
Lex Fridman (47:03.280)
but then it's only a subset of human beings
Sam Harris (47:06.160)
that really understand much of what we're talking about
Lex Fridman (47:09.880)
in any area of specialization.
Lex Fridman (47:12.640)
And if they all died in their sleep tonight, right?
Lex Fridman (47:15.680)
You'd be left with people who might take a thousand years
Lex Fridman (47:20.640)
to rebuild the internet, if ever, right?
Lex Fridman (47:24.640)
I mean, literally it's like,
Lex Fridman (47:26.200)
and I would extend this to myself.
Lex Fridman (47:29.280)
I mean, there are areas of scientific specialization
Sam Harris (47:32.920)
where I have either no discernible competence.
Lex Fridman (47:37.480)
I mean, I spent no time on it.
Sam Harris (47:40.040)
I have not acquired the tools.
Lex Fridman (47:42.120)
It would just be an article of faith for me to think
Sam Harris (47:43.960)
that I could acquire the tools
Lex Fridman (47:45.120)
to actually make a breakthrough in those areas.
Lex Fridman (47:48.400)
And I mean, your own area is one.
Lex Fridman (47:50.520)
I mean, I've never spent any significant amount of time
Sam Harris (47:54.080)
trying to be a programmer,
Lex Fridman (47:56.400)
but it's pretty obvious I'm not Alan Turing, right?
Sam Harris (48:00.360)
It's like, if that were my capacity,
Lex Fridman (48:03.760)
I would have discovered that in myself.
Sam Harris (48:05.840)
I would have found programming irresistible.
Lex Fridman (48:08.360)
My first false starts in learning, I think it was C,
Sam Harris (48:15.080)
it was just, you know, I bounced off.
Lex Fridman (48:17.280)
It's like, this was not fun.
Sam Harris (48:18.360)
I hate, I mean, I hate trying to figure out
Lex Fridman (48:20.200)
what the syntax error that's causing this thing
Sam Harris (48:22.960)
not to compile was just a fucking awful experience.
Lex Fridman (48:25.760)
I hated it, right?
Sam Harris (48:26.600)
I hated every minute of it.
Lex Fridman (48:28.000)
So it was not, so if it was just people like me left,
Lex Fridman (48:33.000)
like when do we get the internet again, right?
Lex Fridman (48:35.840)
And we lose, we lose, you know, we lose the internet.
Lex Fridman (48:39.000)
When do we get it again, right?
Lex Fridman (48:40.000)
When do we get anything like a proper science
Lex Fridman (48:44.040)
of information, right?
Lex Fridman (48:45.600)
You need a Claude Shannon or an Alan Turing
Sam Harris (48:49.280)
to plant a flag in the ground right here and say,
Lex Fridman (48:52.120)
all right, can everyone see this?
Sam Harris (48:53.440)
Even if you don't quite know what I'm up to,
Lex Fridman (48:56.080)
you all have to come over here to make some progress.
Sam Harris (49:00.440)
And, you know, there are, you know,
Lex Fridman (49:03.000)
hundreds of topics where that's the case.
Lex Fridman (49:05.640)
So we barely have a purchase on making anything
Lex Fridman (49:10.800)
like discernible intellectual progress in any generation.
Lex Fridman (49:16.120)
And yeah, I'm just, Max Tegmark makes this point.
Lex Fridman (49:21.600)
He's one of the few people who does in physics.
Sam Harris (49:26.800)
If you just look at the numbers,
Lex Fridman (49:28.840)
if you just take the truth of evolution seriously, right?
Lex Fridman (49:36.360)
And realize that there's nothing about us
Lex Fridman (49:39.800)
that has evolved to understand reality perfectly.
Lex Fridman (49:42.760)
I mean, we're just not that kind of ape, right?
Lex Fridman (49:46.360)
There's been no evolutionary pressure along those lines.
Lex Fridman (49:48.640)
So what we are making do with tools
Lex Fridman (49:52.400)
that were designed for fights with sticks and rocks, right?
Lex Fridman (49:56.060)
And it's amazing we can do as much as we can.
Lex Fridman (50:00.420)
I mean, we just, you know, the UNR just sitting here
Sam Harris (50:02.380)
on the back of having received an mRNA vaccine,
Lex Fridman (50:05.780)
you know, that has certainly changed our life
Sam Harris (50:08.460)
given what the last year was like.
Lex Fridman (50:10.620)
And it's gonna change the world
Sam Harris (50:12.180)
if rumors of coming miracles are born out.
Lex Fridman (50:16.460)
I mean, it's now, it seems likely we have a vaccine
Lex Fridman (50:20.780)
coming for malaria, right?
Lex Fridman (50:22.240)
Which has been killing millions of people a year
Sam Harris (50:25.920)
for as long as we've been alive.
Lex Fridman (50:28.420)
I think it's down to like 800,000 people a year now
Sam Harris (50:31.260)
because we've spread so many bed nets around,
Lex Fridman (50:33.900)
but it was like two and a half million people every year.
Sam Harris (50:39.340)
It's amazing what we can do, but yeah, I have,
Lex Fridman (50:43.380)
if in fact the answer at the back of the book of nature
Sam Harris (50:46.820)
is you understand 0.1% of what there is to understand
Lex Fridman (50:52.100)
and half of what you think you understand is wrong,
Sam Harris (50:54.900)
that would not surprise me at all.
Lex Fridman (50:58.420)
It is funny to look at our evolutionary history,
Sam Harris (51:01.020)
even back to chimps, I'm pretty sure even chimps
Lex Fridman (51:03.620)
thought they understood the world well.
Lex Fridman (51:06.340)
So at every point in that timeline
Lex Fridman (51:09.300)
of evolutionary development throughout human history,
Sam Harris (51:12.860)
there's a sense like there's no more,
Lex Fridman (51:15.560)
you hear this message over and over,
Sam Harris (51:17.020)
there's no more things to be invented.
Lex Fridman (51:19.380)
But a hundred years ago there were,
Sam Harris (51:21.300)
there's a famous story, I forget which physicist told it,
Lex Fridman (51:24.940)
but there were physicists telling
Sam Harris (51:29.060)
their undergraduate students not to go into,
Lex Fridman (51:32.820)
to get graduate degrees in physics
Sam Harris (51:34.260)
because basically all the problems had been solved.
Lex Fridman (51:36.580)
And this is like around 1915 or so.
Sam Harris (51:40.140)
It turns out you were right.
Lex Fridman (51:41.300)
I'm gonna ask you about free will.
Sam Harris (51:42.720)
Oh, okay.
Lex Fridman (51:44.820)
You've recently released an episode of your podcast,
Sam Harris (51:48.240)
Making Sense, for those with a shorter attention span,
Lex Fridman (51:51.580)
basically summarizing your position on free will.
Sam Harris (51:54.000)
I think it was under an hour and a half.
Lex Fridman (51:56.240)
Yeah, yeah.
Sam Harris (51:57.080)
It was brief and clear.
Lex Fridman (52:01.820)
So allow me to summarize the summary, TLDR,
Lex Fridman (52:05.300)
and maybe you tell me where I'm wrong.
Lex Fridman (52:08.380)
So free will is an illusion,
Lex Fridman (52:11.380)
and even the experience of free will is an illusion.
Lex Fridman (52:13.980)
Like we don't even experience it.
Lex Fridman (52:15.940)
Am I good in my summary?
Lex Fridman (52:20.860)
Yeah, this is a line that's a little hard
Sam Harris (52:25.500)
to scan for people.
Lex Fridman (52:27.360)
I say that it's not merely that free will is an illusion.
Sam Harris (52:32.340)
The illusion of free will is an illusion.
Lex Fridman (52:35.100)
Like there is no illusion of free will.
Lex Fridman (52:37.460)
And that is a, unlike many other illusions,
Lex Fridman (52:40.620)
that's a more fundamental claim.
Sam Harris (52:47.100)
It's not that it's wrong, it's not even wrong.
Lex Fridman (52:49.500)
I mean, I guess that was I think Wolfgang Pauli
Sam Harris (52:52.200)
who derided one of his colleagues or enemies
Lex Fridman (52:56.380)
with that aspersion about his theory in quantum mechanics.
Lex Fridman (53:06.860)
So there are things that, there are genuine illusions.
Lex Fridman (53:09.780)
There are things that you do experience
Lex Fridman (53:12.700)
and then you can kind of punch through that experience,
Lex Fridman (53:15.120)
or you can't actually experience,
Sam Harris (53:17.300)
you can't experience them any other way.
Lex Fridman (53:20.100)
It's just, we just know it's not a veridical experience.
Sam Harris (53:24.060)
You just take like a visual illusion.
Lex Fridman (53:25.340)
There are visual illusions that,
Sam Harris (53:26.940)
a lot of these come to me on Twitter these days.
Lex Fridman (53:28.700)
There's these amazing visual illusions
Sam Harris (53:31.000)
where like every figure in this GIF seems to be moving,
Lex Fridman (53:36.380)
but nothing in fact is moving.
Sam Harris (53:37.700)
You can just like put a ruler on your screen
Lex Fridman (53:39.180)
and nothing's moving.
Sam Harris (53:42.260)
Some of those illusions you can't see any other way.
Lex Fridman (53:44.500)
I mean, they're just, they're hacking aspects
Sam Harris (53:46.840)
of the visual system that are just eminently hackable
Lex Fridman (53:49.860)
and you have to use a ruler to convince yourself
Sam Harris (53:54.360)
that the thing isn't actually moving.
Lex Fridman (53:56.460)
Now there are other visual illusions
Sam Harris (53:57.840)
where you're taken in by it at first,
Lex Fridman (54:01.140)
but if you pay more attention,
Lex Fridman (54:02.540)
you can actually see that it's not there, right?
Lex Fridman (54:05.260)
Or it's not how it first seemed.
Sam Harris (54:07.580)
Like the Necker cube is a good example of that.
Lex Fridman (54:10.160)
Like the Necker cube is just that schematic of a cube,
Sam Harris (54:13.260)
of a transparent cube, which pops out one way or the other.
Lex Fridman (54:15.900)
Then one face can pop out and then the other face
Sam Harris (54:17.860)
can pop out.
Lex Fridman (54:18.900)
But you can actually just see it as flat with no pop out,
Sam Harris (54:22.140)
which is a more veridical way of looking at it.
Lex Fridman (54:27.900)
So there are subject,
Sam Harris (54:29.900)
there are kind of inward correlates to this.
Lex Fridman (54:32.300)
And I would say that the sense of self and free will
Sam Harris (54:39.700)
are closely related.
Lex Fridman (54:40.660)
I mean, I often describe them as two sides of the same coin,
Lex Fridman (54:43.460)
but they're not quite the same in their spuriousness.
Lex Fridman (54:49.260)
I mean, so the sense of self is something that people,
Lex Fridman (54:52.420)
I think, do experience, right?
Lex Fridman (54:54.560)
It's not a very clear experience, but it's not,
Sam Harris (54:58.340)
I wouldn't call the illusion of self an illusion,
Lex Fridman (55:00.920)
but the illusion of free will is an illusion
Sam Harris (55:03.260)
in that as you pay more attention to your experience,
Lex Fridman (55:07.300)
you begin to see that it's totally compatible
Sam Harris (55:10.500)
with an absence of free will.
Lex Fridman (55:11.800)
You don't, I mean coming back to the place we started,
Sam Harris (55:15.660)
you don't know what you're gonna think next.
Lex Fridman (55:18.460)
You don't know what you're gonna intend next.
Sam Harris (55:20.300)
You don't know what's going to just occur to you
Lex Fridman (55:23.400)
that you must do next.
Sam Harris (55:24.540)
You don't know how much you are going to feel
Lex Fridman (55:28.020)
the behavioral imperative to act on that thought.
Sam Harris (55:31.660)
If you suddenly feel, oh, I don't need to do that.
Lex Fridman (55:35.340)
I can do that tomorrow.
Sam Harris (55:36.740)
You don't know where that comes from.
Lex Fridman (55:38.100)
You didn't know that was gonna arise.
Sam Harris (55:39.620)
You didn't know that was gonna be compelling.
Lex Fridman (55:41.580)
All of this is compatible with some evil genius
Sam Harris (55:44.140)
in the next room just typing in code into your experience.
Lex Fridman (55:47.980)
It's like this, okay, let's give him the,
Sam Harris (55:51.220)
oh my God, I just forgot it was gonna be our anniversary
Lex Fridman (55:53.940)
in one week thought, right?
Sam Harris (55:56.060)
Give him the cascade of fear.
Lex Fridman (55:59.060)
Give him this brilliant idea for the thing he can buy
Sam Harris (56:01.600)
that's gonna take him no time at all
Lex Fridman (56:02.860)
and this overpowering sense of relief.
Sam Harris (56:05.300)
All of our experiences is compatible
Lex Fridman (56:07.820)
with the script already being written, right?
Lex Fridman (56:11.700)
And I'm not saying the script is written.
Lex Fridman (56:12.980)
I'm not saying that fatalism is the right way
Sam Harris (56:17.340)
to look at this, but we just don't have
Lex Fridman (56:20.180)
even our most deliberate voluntary action
Sam Harris (56:23.420)
where we go back and forth between two options,
Lex Fridman (56:27.060)
thinking about the reason for A
Lex Fridman (56:28.580)
and then reconsidering and going,
Lex Fridman (56:31.740)
thinking harder about B and just going
Sam Harris (56:34.100)
eeny, meeny, miny, moe until the end of the hour.
Lex Fridman (56:37.980)
However laborious you can make it,
Sam Harris (56:40.320)
there is a utter mystery at your back
Lex Fridman (56:44.500)
finally promoting the thought or intention
Sam Harris (56:48.940)
or rationale that is most compelling
Lex Fridman (56:53.860)
and therefore behaviorally effective.
Lex Fridman (57:07.420)
And this can drive some people a little crazy.
Lex Fridman (57:09.280)
So I usually preface what I say about free will
Sam Harris (57:13.740)
with the caveat that if thinking about your mind this way
Lex Fridman (57:17.260)
makes you feel terrible, well then stop.
Sam Harris (57:19.820)
You get off the ride, switch the channel.
Lex Fridman (57:22.420)
You don't have to go down this path.
Lex Fridman (57:24.580)
But for me and for many other people,
Lex Fridman (57:27.520)
it's incredibly freeing to recognize this about the mind
Sam Harris (57:32.140)
because one, you realize that you're,
Lex Fridman (57:38.180)
cutting through the illusion of the self
Sam Harris (57:39.940)
is immensely freeing for a lot of reasons
Lex Fridman (57:41.820)
that we can talk about separately,
Lex Fridman (57:44.020)
but losing the sense of free will does
Lex Fridman (57:49.660)
two things very vividly for me.
Sam Harris (57:51.500)
One is it totally undercuts the basis for,
Lex Fridman (57:54.780)
the psychological basis for hatred.
Sam Harris (57:56.620)
Because when you think about the experience
Lex Fridman (57:59.000)
of hating other people, what that is anchored to
Sam Harris (58:03.540)
is a feeling that they really are
Lex Fridman (58:06.320)
the true authors of their actions.
Sam Harris (58:08.640)
I mean, if someone is doing something
Lex Fridman (58:10.820)
that you find so despicable, right?
Lex Fridman (58:13.220)
Let's say they're targeting you unfairly, right?
Lex Fridman (58:15.940)
They're maligning you on Twitter or they're suing you
Sam Harris (58:20.260)
or they're doing something, they broke your car window,
Lex Fridman (58:22.880)
they did something awful
Lex Fridman (58:24.700)
and now you have a grievance against them.
Lex Fridman (58:26.660)
And you're relating to them very differently emotionally
Sam Harris (58:30.060)
in your own mind than you would
Lex Fridman (58:32.400)
if a force of nature had done this, right?
Sam Harris (58:34.560)
Or if it's, if it had just been a virus
Lex Fridman (58:36.740)
or if it had been a wild animal
Lex Fridman (58:39.040)
or a malfunctioning machine, right?
Lex Fridman (58:40.740)
Like to those things you don't attribute
Sam Harris (58:42.260)
any kind of freedom of will.
Lex Fridman (58:44.220)
And while you may suffer the consequences
Sam Harris (58:47.000)
of catching a virus or being attacked by a wild animal
Lex Fridman (58:49.980)
or having your car break down or whatever,
Sam Harris (58:53.140)
it may frustrate you.
Lex Fridman (58:56.060)
You don't slip into this mode of hating the agent
Sam Harris (59:01.240)
in a way that completely commandeers your mind
Lex Fridman (59:06.780)
and deranges your life.
Sam Harris (59:07.840)
I mean, you just don't, I mean, there are people
Lex Fridman (59:09.260)
who spend decades hating other people for what they did
Lex Fridman (59:15.820)
and it's just pure poison, right?
Lex Fridman (59:18.580)
So it's a useful shortcut to compassion and empathy.
Sam Harris (59:20.900)
Yeah, yeah.
Lex Fridman (59:21.740)
But the question is, say that this called,
Lex Fridman (59:24.740)
what was it, the horse of consciousness?
Lex Fridman (59:26.800)
Let's call it the consciousness generator black box
Sam Harris (59:30.700)
that we don't understand.
Lex Fridman (59:32.560)
And is it possible that the script
Sam Harris (59:35.980)
that we're walking along, that we're playing,
Lex Fridman (59:40.780)
that's already written is actually being written
Sam Harris (59:43.900)
in real time.
Lex Fridman (59:45.220)
It's almost like you're driving down a road
Lex Fridman (59:47.680)
and in real time, that road is being laid down.
Lex Fridman (59:50.860)
And this black box of consciousness that we don't understand
Sam Harris (59:53.940)
is the place where the script is being generated.
Lex Fridman (59:57.060)
So it's not, it is being generated, it didn't always exist.
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