January 17, 2022
Sam Harris (2010). Book completed on January 5, 2022.
This was the first book I've read cover to cover in while and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I've been a longtime listener of Sam Harris' podcast, dubbed Making Sense, and so reading his thoughts in prose versus via audio was a refreshing change of pace-- I find some ideas are best elucidated in text.
His central thesis is that moral values can be decided based on where they guide us on the topology of the titular moral landscape. Such peaks and valleys on this landscape represent a spectrum of the "well-being of conscious creatures"-- from the most idyllic lives in a cosmopolitan society to the worst possible suffering for all beings. From this delta, science can play its role in relating states of the brain, through its physical and chemical compositions, to states of the world. The still burgeoning field of neuroscience gives us the tools to measure the brain scientifically, and thus allow us to determine human values.
I would recommend this book to everyone, really. The only caveat being that there will be some familiarity among all the chapters to regular listeners of Making Sense. Even still, I would argue the book is the finest distillation of his arguments on the topic and thus well worth reading.
As with mathematics, science, art, and almost everything else that interests us, our modern concerns about meaning and morality have flown the perch built by evolution. (loc 246)
I've always found it silly when people reference our sanguine history to guide our evolving moral culture-- as if the same tribal nature that led us to wage ware with nearby settlements millions of years ago is one that we should maintain in modernity. Or perhaps we ought to remain fearful of witchcraft and erect the stakes once more?
Our sense of our own freedom results from our not paying attention to what it is actually like to be what we are. (loc 1834)
I found this succint quote to be momentarily arresting. Indeed, paying attention to the fact that thoughts merely arise in consciousness is a valuable exercise and has helped me escape the feeling of a "self".
Knowing what a person believes is equivalent to knowing whether or not he is telling the truth. Consequently, any external means of determining which propositions a subject believes would constitute a de facto "lie detector". (loc 2180)
It seems to me that the arrival of such lie detectors are not too far in the future. The act of swearing an oath on the bible may be quickly replaced with being plugged into the matrix (or the "Metaverse" as Facebook would insist).
No one has ever mistaken me for an optimist. and yet when I consider one of the more pristine sources of pessimism--the moral development of our species--I find reasons for hope. (loc 2907)
This quote is used to begin the book's fifth and final chapter and is one that I find inspiring of hope for our continued moral progress.