Wow - this one definitely makes the list of favorite episodes. Both of you brilliantly match and uphold each other’s obligation to rigorous, honest transmission of the kind of ideas that people seldom discuss but yet, that hold the potential for such transformative power in our lives. Thank you for sharing!

Jay Garfield is perhaps the most clued up philosopher currently alive. It’s a tough pill to swallow, what he says, but it’s mighty liberating.

One of the best discussions I've heard from this podcast (it's my favorite topic). I can tell Sam really enjoyed it as well. Just brilliant.

notes I made before I had to stop and make dinner: We exist as persons, rather than ‘selves’ An illusion is something that exists in one way, but APPEARS in another way. A mirage exists as a refraction of light - but appears as a body of water. A person exists as a person, but appears as a self. We think we are the ‘me’ that owns our body. The agent that acts upon the world, but isn’t quiet in the world. We think we own our minds and bodies. Imagine somebody who’s body you’d like to have. For a short or long time. The moment you’ve formed that desire - you’ve told yourself you’re not your body, that you HAVE your body, and that in principle could have another body. Or that you could have somebodies mind for a while. We regard ourselves to ‘have’ a mind. The thing we think of behind our experience. The thing that’s always subject and never object. That’s pure agent that acts upon the world. That is the illusion of self. Yet it’s the way we exist. We believe we are a passenger in the body - appropriating the body from a position of subjectivity. Specifically in the head. Behind the eyes. A singular area of attention, free will, consciousness, mind, inner-monologue. The sense that you’re behind your eyes as a subject, is our ‘i’ or ‘me’. When you experience self consciousness. Talking in front of a crowd perhaps. Or when you lock eye contact with another person in a certain context. You feel as if there’s an inner identity being exposed. Your own face becomes a kind of mask. When it blushes it’s misbehaving and telling. Against your will. Feeling at war with your experience. At this point your body is in the reality of the world - your mind is not. Part of the self illusion is that part of our experience happens inside a space, that’s separate to the outer space-time reality. Somehow physical space and time is all exterior to us, but we have an inner life in an inner space. It removes us from consciousness and the world, and reveals the world to be a separate arena in which we can act, but to which we don’t belong. The moment we stop consciously recognizing this - we slip perfectly back into the illusion. A default. The significance? There is some duty to us as humans to understand our own experience. Moral: The self illusion acts as a foundation of egoism, and moral attitudes: blame, anger. The self illusion actually inhibits our relationships. Self consciousness. It is that antithesis of flow-state, the mind state most transcendent of ego. It’s all the psychological suffering of self.

Damn, Jay Garfield! He's great. I took a class on Buddhist philosophy with him years ago. Can't wait to listen. So glad he and Sam connected.

Your guest speaks exceptionally well! I was pleased to hear you both speak

This is one of the better ones you've ever done, Sam.

Very interesting conversation as always. Cheers, Sam.

So stoked to see Jay on this podcast. Basically wrote my whole dissertation on that guy !

Glad to see you aren't as heavily invested in twitter as other people, like Jordan Peterson. He's kind of going crazy :P. Staying away from that site and having informed discussions with other academics is so much more productive! :)

The difficult part of this is reminding myself that free will is an illusion. When I listen to Sam, I can in that moment forgive even the worst mass murderer, only to wanting to harm the person who designed soap dispencers who aim straight forward instead of down a moment later.

The goal is to have a “centered self without being self-centered”. The difference is the direction of flow. A centered self is balanced and emergent, adding their unique talents and energy to life. The pejorative term self-centered implies a self that takes energy from their environment, selfishly adding nothing of themselves.

Hey it's Jay Garfield! Loved his TTC lecture series, Meaning of Life.

Been a big San Harris fan for decades and never miss a podcast but this one lost me. I have no idea what they are on about. Sam said they'd explain it for the layperson but they didn't.

I am currently majoring in philosophy at a major private University. The semester I spent reading the Buddhist philosophy was excellent and really opened my eyes to the different perspectives on meta-physics that people use

The self is not an illusion. An illusion doesn't mean that something does not exist but rather an illusion is something which doesn't appear to be what it is. When you use the word "illusion", you're defining something in relation to that thing which is considered to be real. For example, on a hot summer's day, the road at a distance looks like there's water on it since it appears wet. Getting closer to the road, you then realize that the wetness you saw before was a mirage or an illusion. Since you're calling the wetness you saw before an illusion, then it's an illusion of what? Well, it's an illusion of water where water is considered to be a real thing and what you saw before was not real, thus an illusion. To call the self an illusion, then what in relation to the self is it an illusion of? So the self is really not an illusion but rather the self does not exist.

One of your top 10 talks for sure even though I have to look up the meaning of some words. Thanks.

Self is what exists and the illusion is that we are the body and not Self. That is Maya and ignorance from previous several births. That is Advaitha. Self or Atman only exists.

Good stuff. Thank you.... in 1951, when I was 10, in the fourth grade in Roxbury Kansas, and they were doing their best to break me, I decided to adhere to the Nuremberg code for the rest of my life... " it is the moral obligation of every human being to reject immoral orders. "... this solemn oath allowed me to survive with my character somewhat intact.

I've heard someone express a point of view that our mind comes FROM our body: As our brains grow and develop, its neurons arrange themselves in a manner dependant on the input they receive from the body, which is furthermore dependant on the body's interactions with the environment. So our brain and its content are inextricably linked to and controlled by the environment.

When i see the word exist ,self,free will , god, win at social & political life. It's excited me the most , i am not nerd, I have readed very few books , but when ever i find book or videos on the topic, I never leave it.😏

I shit therefore I am.

There's a recent video by Ajarn Amaro entitled 'Who Am I?' that explores the idea of the self and how it can be tracked back to nothingness. Much simpler and practical for anyone looking for a hands on approach. Not to say that this video wasn't very interesting also. I really enjoyed the intelligent back and forth.

Do not argue with anyone in private, you will not convince them, argue in public to convince others.

I was thinking... We (as information processors) process a disproportionate amount more sensory input within a certain radius, and there's the inevitability of touching and interacting with ourselves to cause feedback loops. It seems as if our pleasure reward/defence system is behind our sense of "want", and that "I" is to clarify which neural receptors exactly want feeding. So why do certain molecules feel nice or bad to us? In cases of Alzheimer's or "split-brain" patients to name a couple, it's been well demonstrated how paradoxical the brain can behave, showing how thoughts are/can be retrieved only by asking the right questions. I've noticed how despite not having been diagnosed with any memory-related condition, I have noticed how occasionally I have needed to be asked a question in a certain way for me to acknowledge a phrase/word i've always known. It leads me to believe that we may all be on the spectrum in a way, and that what feels like a a cloud of consciousness which reports back to the same central governing body, might instead be millions of individual agents working autonomously who [as one of many parallel chains of command] each get the opportunity to act as the the main guy (mouth, arms etc).

I don't believe in "free will" but I am strongly libertarian. Each person is an intensely complex biological computer with a unique and biased view of the universe. On some greater level our behavior is an expression of the universe, those who intend to control and guide that are megalomaniacs with the same limitations as the rest of us.

The state of being one with the Self... Those who have experienced the Turiya stage of self-consciousness have reached the pure awareness of their own non-dual Self as one with everyone and everything, for them the knowledge, the knower, the known becomes one, they are the enlightened Immortals...

Sam at the end: "If you'd like to continue with this existential crisis, you'll have to pay for the full ride..."

I looked at the tiny elephant in my hand and chuckled, it was so cute when it reared up on its hind legs

From the perspective of the “Will” (which is being channelled to obtain the best outcome for the individual) it is completely free and choosing the most favourable outcome according to the known factors at the time.

Sam please release full thing and skip the pay wall. I cannot afford and I've messaged your team with no response. Miss your free meditations.

I’m still confused on this concept. I sort of “get it,” but there doesn’t seem to be much here. Are we just one self experiencing itself as individual persons? This seems like supernatural mumbo jumbo. I can’t wrap my head around it. But apparently I don’t have a head according to Sam. I’m so confused.

I'm unvaxxed and had COVID, it wasn't an unpleasant experience for me, nothing at all similar to a COVID experience others have described.

Glad Covid wasn't too bad Sam. Don't overdo things in the following weeks - better chance to avoid long Covid... Enjoyed the episode btw. Def one of those to listen to again.

It is very liberating realizing that the self is an illusion.

Hi Sam. Could awakening be that the sense of “I am”, which can take infinite perspectives, settles back into the quiet of the formless perspective, therefore the experience becomes whatever arises is the present? Nothing actually changing but perspective

We observe. Self is another thing we observe.

Buddhism was born in a collectivist society, and brought to the west, an individualistic society. This context is crucial and also is a metaphor for the beautiful tension between the soul and the ego. They are inexorably intertwined.

Starts at 3:15.

around when I was first introduced to this notion, someone I hardly knew told me 'you THINK your self is real but I KNOW it's not' over the phone. i paused not really knowing what to say, and when I started talking again they cut me off and repeated it 😅

Yes, you do! If interpretations of neuroscience suggest that what we know is true isn't true, then we should change those interpretations.

For what it’s worth, my perspective, Through shattering my self-concept via spiritual breakthrough. I have come to learn, I was a prisoner for 11 years….There is no objective self, identity, no objective sense of self. Only possible through the mind, consciously understood or not. The mind is the author, through consciousness we are the editor. The only identity that I say I am in line with reality, is the person, the human being. The mind is a machine, you are the driver. If you can’t find your keys, the machine (mind) will produce infinite amount of reasons to be mad, but, the machine (mind) does not know what YOU want, it’s just providing a Function, then you can turn into your values to the present moment and pivot and direct then you and the mind can be into life and not a spectator to circumstance. Once this is understood, you can LIBERATE and LIVE the life YOU want. To appreciate you and the mind in harmony but with hierarchy in finality of outcome. YOU are the one who is the driver, but the mind drives and we get lost, become blind. To see it as this, the mind doesn’t know what YOU want, it knows what it’s function is. You change to what you want, you teach the mind HOW it needs to function and that it is NOT in the drivers seat. But important to feel what needs to be felt, listen to mind with openness, compassion, and make the adjustments that your reality requires. Then you find yourself in Love with both sides of the human. To liberate towards potential and freedom from infinite Destruction of the mind. You are LOVE, it’s deep inside of you, keep asking questions, with your eyes open, arms open wide, to be with. We are all on our own journey, I know you are capable of liberation. With Love, liberation, I wish you all the best in life, Tyler

This is the most radical idea. Buddha must be genius to come up with it 2500 years ago

I can imagine all sorts of false things. That doesn't mean I believe any of them even for an instant.

finally you upload another video Sam Harris, I was waiting for this.

There's a still centre in us all which is beyond thought and words. We can call it presence or awareness etc, but it is beyond description. It just is. "That what is" is really the experiencer of life in us all! One can call it the higher self, to give it a label, but it is a mystery what it is. It is always here, whether we're still, or whether the mind is busy, from birth to death. It is our still centre, with other words, there is no self or no "I" or me. Who we all generally think we are, is due to identification with thought, but that is an illusion. Everything disappears when we're asleep, or with mental illness like Alzheimer's etc. When this is realised it is obvious, and equally a mystery.

one of the few scholars who understands that notself does not negate real persons

Check out Brad Stanfield's longevity videos. Hopefully Sam invites him to podcast, Brad is a medical doctor.

All this philosophising is good but Naropa didn’t get enlightened until he left Nalanda and found the madman crazy wisdom yogi Tilopa. There must be room for logic and magic equally or the path is not complete.

I clicked it faster than pulling my hands out of a hot pot .

The only thing that is is the self. Everything else radiates out from there, whether by distance or time. The moment is the only time which exists. It’s upsetting to me that the existence of the self would be reduced to “person” inside of an experienced world.

Does anyone understand this?

The awareness of self is surely a natural extension of the requirement that for life to survive, the structures involved in DNA processes have to be maintained. With the presence of potential pathogens in the external environment, an organism must possess the means to neutralize these - and ONLY these. This is the molecular expression of self-recognition. The psychological self arises out of this

Great talk overall. Thanks. @7:00 No. Buddhism is not the origin of no self. 1500 BC - Vedic period, origins of Advaita developed 800-300 BC - Vedic texts "Upanishads" were composed - containing central conceptual roots for Hinduism and Buddhism c. 563/480 - c. 483/400 BC :Gautama Buddha was born. During the period between 2000 BCE - 1000 BCE, 4 distinct Vedas were compiled; Rig Veda (composed of hymns), Yajur Veda (sacrificial formulae), Sama Veda (melodies) and the Atharva Veda (incantations) . It is the Rig Veda, consisting of 1,071 hymns divided into ten books or mandalas, which comprises the knowledge basis of "Oneness" and the Advaita doctrine of Vedanta (the philosophy contained at the end of the Vedas)

This was one of the most life changing conversations I've ever listened to. Thanks a lot. I'm looking forward to reading Jay's new book, hoping it will help me live without a self. Western philosophy was among my tools a few years back, and now I'm very deep into mindfulness and yoga. I hope this book opens a new chapter where I can reunite spiritual practice and philosophy.

Sam agrees with the Calvinists! There is no ultimate free will!

What a contradictory question.. “Do ‘YOU’ really have a self?” The “you” implies a self evident yes.. no one can eat for me nor think for me.

An Illusion/Mirage realizing it's an Illusion or a Mirage. Very interesting. Seems like these Illusions or Mirages have spent alot of time thinking of themselves that don't actually exist.

This is dangerous thinking. How long is forever? What is space without a boundary? You cannot answer a relative question with truth (absolute). When all questions are destroyed then what? Nothing (everything) The paradox is there is no paradox. You would do yourself a favor by looking at the white background of this then trying to figure out the black symbols. Sam, if you enjoyed this you can donate to me. I am donation based.🙃

I have subscribed to your youtube channel at least 4x now and someone how I keep getting removed. Someone at KZfaq is not a fan of your work.

what about choice? animals make choices. the more intelligent and emotionally aware the animal, the more depth there is to their choices. certainly, sam is more or less accurately describing a fish, or another early product of evolution. but a great ape like ourselves is no bio-machine; our actions aren't easily reduced down to deterministic inevitabilities.

They mean the self that you are aware that others are aware of

Love that you tackle the blameworthiness of god and how the religious are so desperate to protect god from blame. In their desperation, they spawned the lie of free will. And propagate it to this very day.

This conversation was mostly baffling, but the more I listen the more I start to understand. I also love to hear two zealots discussing a topic they obviously love. Ol' Sam feels obligated to crush the moron Trump as well as the woke mob, but this is the type of discussion he clearly loves.

Does the ego exist?

The person on which I am hitchhiking is a 320 lb. food addict. Based on this, how do I get it to work out? Telling it to, ain't workin.....based on my understanding of Sam, it is a product of all the experiences up through June 26, 2022 and why would "I" think "I" could make it change???

What is this artwork of the eye? That’s lovely.

Sam stated that the self wasn't in this unknown area inside the head where we imagine it to be ... but why shouldn't it be there? If there is some physical material inside us that would cause us to lose our (model of) self when damaged, then surely the self can protect this material the best if it is actually is where the self expects it to be? Natural selection does appear to have equipped us with the sensory systems, reactions, and bone structure to protect this area too.

Love the podcast but I’m canceling my subscription and just getting it free from YT. You charge too much for someone who uploads so infrequently. Stay frosty Big Sam!

As far as I'm concerned consciousness is the self

Such a great explainer.

I perceive some comparable concepts that align with The Case Against Reality by Donald Hoffman and the game changing research of Lisa Feldman Barrett in Seven and a Half Lessons and How Emotions are Made.

Alan Watts talks about this in his many lectures and weighs heavy on the side if we are it but we don't know it. Difficult to comprehend.

It is not dangerous but good to feel pride and guilt where it is deserved It is not wrong to judge others bad behavior. We must struggle to overcome our own programming and circumstances to grow and become free agents. We can not accept that we have no free will or else we are mere monkeys!

New age nonsense.

He literally said he defines the self-illusion as the homunculus behind the body at the beginning of the video, which is not the main buddhist idea of self-illusion regardless of if he is right or wrong. But at around 28 minutes he says the fact that he is talking to sam itself is an illusion, which is derivative from the main buddhist idea which is much, much more radical than anything said in the first 25 minutes of the video... but he doesn't follow this idea and contradicts it by saying he can live a better life by believing these ideas... no you can't, life is an illusion and so is duality according to buddhism. And he then doubles down on the idiotic saying "humans are social creatures" despite the fact that buddhists, including buddha himself spent years meditating completely alone. He's also wrong when he says humans create the self, animals have been doing this without language for millions of years.

I'm a recent subscriber. The last podcast was the type of conversation I liked. I'd never have willingly purchased the type of topic of this convo. I hope that there isn't much of this type of content. Did I waste my money? What really disappoints me is that it did not begin by addressing what appears to be a huge disagreement among commentors with the stance Sam expressed in the last podcast. I was eagerly awaiting Sam addressing the very many listeners that were bothered by Sam's willingness to sanction what he himself would have in any other situation castigate.

This is the good stuff.

oh dear I wish I 'got' it' from their conversation. Must be me that's just very dumb. Thanks for trying Mr Harris. appreciated.

Professor of logic? I wonder if he owns a doghouse

Relax, girl, your self does not exist!

If "SELF" really does not exist why do you eat right, exercise, and save for retirement?

Ok…this reminds me of when I was a kid and had such a strong connection to myself, that I was afraid of falling asleep… I liked (and still like) to take ideas and think a lot about them and one of them was "in a 7 year cycle your body is being completely swapped for a new one, since every cell has been exchanged at least once for a new one at that point" or something like that. There is this question, that my ethics teacher loved to ask. If Odysseus were to repair his ship over and over and over again and after some time the ship has had every part exchanged (I know that this is stupid, since you would get a new ship, when certain parts are missing, but it's just a thought experiment) and the man repairing said ship was to build a new ship from the scraps of the old ones. Which one would be the real one? You can say that the ship, that has been repaired over and over is the real one, because Odysseus is currently using it and you could say that the other one is the real one, because it is made purely from parts, that were used on Odysseus ship. You wouldn't argue, that if I took a castle of Legos apart and put it back together it would suddenly be a different thing, right? So, you can see where this was going. If all the cells in my body are replaced, who am I? You could say that I am still myself, but I did not take something like a soul into account. The only thing that made me different from the old cells, that weren't part of my body anymore, was that I was in one piece, but that didn't calm me. I also started thinking about how a personality changes. Most of the things you "learn" during a day, you actually don't really learn, but just remember how to do. You really get the skill in the middle of the night, when your body is getting some maintenance. Also, while you sleep, you don't really know what's happening. You are disconnected from reality in some sense. You can't be "productive" (in the sense that you work) and, at least in my case, I couldn't observe very much. Sleep was just a big stretch of disconnection+remodeling of personality and skill. Pair all of that up with an extreme, and I mean extreme, fear of dying, that I had. My perseption of sleep wasn't resting. It was dying, so that someone else, who just appears to be similar to you, can step up and take your place. Maybe you could call that rebirth, but for that you would have to take something into consideration, that doesn't change. You body is replaced, you personality is modified and I did not take a soul into consideration. There is no rebirth, if there is nothing, that actually defines you as the same person. It's death and birth of a new entity. But it ended at some point. Ironically, hurting myself fixed me…I took a knife to my hand and I don't know what really changed, but after that, my fear of death was mostly gone. Does self harm just disconnect you from your body or something? Maybe, I mean, you are basically treating your body as property, that you can abuse. Who would actually do that to themselves? Maybe if you really hate yourself, but I didn't. I was bored or at least that was the best way to explain my freaking back then. Maybe I also just wanted to create a drama, because nobody would take a kid seriously who is afraid of going to bed, that sounds silly. A kid that harms itself? That's a serious issue and that needs care. It's sad to think, that maybe some other kid went through something very similar and didn't end get through all the shit, that the world throws at you and just gave up. Even ideas, that seem to be great can harm people, if they just think about it's implications too much and don't have someone who understands the idea well enough, to point out the positive aspects.

Thank you for this video :)

I never understand to me calling myself self after knowing I have no self at centre ( controlling sitting ,inside ) it just feeling created by brain and when we said object it's object to whom,if someone observingg then or it's just observance I mean it's mystery whn did we develop this illusory world

Yes. Yes you do. The you that exists is in fact a piece of the greater and impossibly complex mathematical-equation of causality. Aka, reality. You are part of it.

This is far too complicated. Use Occam's razor: the sense of self is a very convincing illusion created by the brain from all the sensory information being received through our five senses in order for us to recognise "us" and "them" in order to defend the self-contained body that contains the genetic information that is required to be passed on to produce a copy of itself to continue the chain of life. There's no reason for it, or for this process, it's just a genetic imperative to do so. The sense of self is created by the brain in order to facilitate this mission. The thus-created sense of self is rather grandiose, believing it rules not only the body it's a projection of, but the outside world, and perhaps even the whole universe. The truth is the constructed illusion of self is just a puppet emperor, having almost no power to do anything except react. 99 percent of the body's functions are carried out automatically with this illusory self having little or no control over any of it. The illusion is very sophisticated. But don't let that fool you. Complexity does not equal significance. the complexity of the illusory self manufactured by the brain does not signify anything at all about any supposed value of "ourselves." The value of our "selves" is the body that carries the genes that need to be passed on to the next generation. Once the body dies, so does the brain-created illusion of "self-ness" and importance. It's all a trick, like the Wizard of Oz.

From a country in the south of Africa, I haven't a bank account, I can't afford to subscribe in your website but I would like to listen to the full episode.

Love Sam Harris, but really struggled with this one. I'm on board with the no free will, but nothing here stood out for me as a separate argument for an absence of a self - the being Descartes referred to when he denied everything and was left with just the one doing the denying - "I think therefore I am". That that "I" is an inextricable part of the causal world doesn't point me to why it doesn't exist at all. My best conclusion of what they're saying is that the sense we have of being a self is just that, only a sense, a concept that captures our ability to perceive the world and ourselves in the world. But free will argument aside, isn't that what the self is? Just our way of perceiving our place in the world?

It'd be so funny if he started with... "Do you really have a self? Uhhh... Nope!" And just let music run for an hour.

Sam Harris gives me serious cognitive dissonance. I was a fan for fifteen years. How can someone who speaks so eloquently, precisely and insightfully about the self that is not a self--and about how experiencing this insight can alleviate all kinds of suffering--and who also seems very preoccupied with moral behavior, simultaneously be peddling experimental injections pushed by a corrupt corporatocracy in league with unelected plutocrats and oligarchs who have--unilaterally--decided humanity's course? The data about covid vaccine injuries is pouring in--it is no longer the stuff of "conspiracy theorists". An agenda is at work here, and I need Sam to come clean on his stance. What are his private rationalizations for participating in this evil? Maybe he thinks all this suffering is justified when compared to the greater suffering he thinks will result if humanity were not so coerced? What mental gymnastics is he performing? Or is he perhaps using not-self as a kind of escape hatch--a cauterizing, if you will, or cremation of care?

Cool! Good to see some more meditation type content again :)

All conscious beings exist in 2 states at once. The individual consciousness of the components on the body and the entangled whole that we call the self. The brain integrates all the senses that allows us to exist in the 4 dimensions. Consciousness itself exists in a timeless space and it's anchored to reality thru the entanglement with the wave. Death is the disentanglement of the "self" with the wave.

Okay but are we to have no concept of ourselves? Like, you guys are certainly passionate about this and it certainly seems to somewhat exemplify “who” you guys are with the things you identify with and pursue. Just one of the questionS I have! Love Sam just trying to understand better! Any response would be appreciated! Thanks.

That was extremely interesting! Thank you!

Animals make a model of the world around them for the purpose of moving through it to gather the necessities for life (and to avoid danger). Those that don’t do this perish without reproducing; evolution forgets them. The self is an hypothesis constructed to represent the animal inside that model of the world. In the model, there is a self. But the world is not a model. In the world, all of the universe is continuous; there is no self/other distinction, it’s all one thing. We don’t live in the world, we live in the model.

fuck it, I'll listen

No, “you” don’t. “Consciousness” is a vague term. Try to define it without the use of synonyms. I’m yet to find someone who has succeeded at doing so.

It's hard to get past that Jay Garfield sounds kinda like Rudy Giuliani. ❤

No serious evaluation of the self (the idea of the self) can be carried out without taking into account the works of the late Carlos Castaneda.