Review of Waking Up #129: AN INSIDER'S VIEW OF MEDICINE

Program Notes: "In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Dr. Nina Shapiro about the practice of medicine. They discuss the unique resiliency of children, the importance of second opinions, bad doctors, how medical training has changed in recent years, medical uncertainty, risk perception, vaccine safety, and other topics."

I don't actually find the first 2/3 of this podcast very informative. I'd pretty much sum it up by saying: you're not doing yourself any favors by trying to tell the hospital staff how to do their job or who to assign to your case.

The last third or so, where Dr. Shapiro addresses some myths and misconceptions, was a bit more interesting, and it would probably be a really good idea to buy her book, "Hype," where she tells the reader things like, gluten is a protein, not a carb, and not helpful to avoid, or the whole concept of "de-toxing" is nonsense, or anti-oxidants do not actually prevent most cancers, etc. 

(Regardless of her opinions about GMOs, I'd probably be inclined to cling to my unscientific prejudice against them, but that's more because I don't believe there's any unbiased scientists actually working on the question, than because I think science isn't capable of addressing the question.)

Review of Waking Up #126: IN DEFENSE OF HONOR

Official Notes: 

In this episode of the Waking Up podcast Sam Harris speaks with Tamler Sommers about cultures of honor. They discuss the difference between honor and dignity, “justice porn,” honor killings, honor and interpersonal violence, prison and gang culture, collective responsibility and collective punishment, retributive vs restorative justice, the ethics of forgiveness and redemption, #metoo, and other topics.

Not one the more interesting podcast episodes. In fact it boggles the mind that Sommers wanted to write a whole book about this; nobody likes to be lectured about honor or morality. And even less do I want to be asked to think about the history or sociology of it. It boggles the mind even further that he found a publisher, although maybe he's in with enough ethics professors around the country that he can guarantee a certain number of sales. 

It did make me want to look up “Justice Porn” on Reddit, though. Also, the idea of restorative justice is pretty cool and one can imagine many ways it would improve the country if it could start to be implemented more, for those specific crimes where it is appropriate.

Otherwise, not the best use of the listener's time. I recommend a "2X" setting for play speed. 

Review of Waking Up: #125. WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY

Official Notes: 

In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks to Bart Ehrman about his experience of being a born-again Christian, his academic training in New Testament scholarship, his loss of faith, the most convincing argument in defense of Christianity, the status of miracles, the composition of the New Testament, the resurrection of Jesus, the nature of heaven and hell, the book of Revelation, the End Times, self-contradictions in the Bible, the concept of a messiah, whether Jesus actually existed, Christianity as a cult of human sacrifice, the conversion of Constantine, and other topics.

This is a deeper look into biblical scholarship of the 400 years AD. No hell; heaven is just Earth with “slightly tweaked “ laws of physics; the difference between early Christians and other Jews is that Jews didn’t believe that a messiah would be crucified.

It was fascinating to learn that that Ehrman lost his faith when, in bible college, he was told that contradictions between texts in the Bible might merely mean that one of the texts is wrong. Shouldn't have let the camel's nose in THAT tent!

Another fun fact is that early Christians and Jews believed in a multiplicity of gods, so Yahweh was just the number 1 god, not the only one.

Review of Waking Up #124: IN SEARCH OF REALITY

Official Notes:

In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Sean Carroll about our understanding of reality. They discuss consciousness, the many worlds view of quantum mechanics, the arrow of time, free will, facts and values, and other topics.

Housekeeping:

“I had an argument for most of what I was saying, and Klein did not.“, Sam maintains his blind spot and does not understand that Klein’s central argument is that the data is too fuzzy and too charged to draw conclusions from.

Is versus Ought. Sam takes a line reminiscent of the Jordan Peterson position that what is true includes what ought to be true, specifically not maximizing suffering for all humans.

Free will: they reach an understanding that there are two levels you can look at human behavior on: the microscopic level, where there is no free will, and the macro level, where we believe that we have free will because nobody yet is capable of predicting our responses.

Carroll points out that in 500 years the big tragedy will be that nobody figured out what quantum mechanics means, although he is 100% convinced that quantum mechanics is right.

Also Carroll seems to think that an infinite number of infinities, the multi-universe theory, is less complicated then something like an extra, undetected, variable.

Review of Waking Up #120: WHAT IS AND WHAT MATTERS

Official Notes:

In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Rebecca Goldstein and Max Tegmark about the foundations of human knowledge and morality.

Another one in front of a live audience. At the Q &A after someone even asked about the live audience thing and SH affirmed that it has the advantage of bringing an audience into the conversation. He also said it might be weird for podcast listeners since some laughs won’t seem justified. They don’t address my principal complaints that a live podcast tends to pander just a little more. But actually, the pandering was less of an issue in this one. This actually felt more like a genuine conversation and less like an attempt to squeeze in as many one-liners as possible.

The main focus was on how science can answer the question of what is matter but not the question of what matters. Topics covered: counterfactuals, modal realism (everything that can exist, does) multi universes. Refinement of free will explanation by Sam.

Science= what is

Philosophy =what matters.

Sam claims that even if you think you don’t care about philosophy, only science, you still have to decide what science you like and that means some elements of philosophy gets involved. Not sure I buy this.

I also dispute their agreement that that that human brain cognitively developed to be able to understand parabolic arcs, but not quantum mechanics. 

Having studied quantum mechanics, I think the human brain is more of a blank slate than that. It may be true that we understand parabolic arcs better than a lot of other mathematical forms because of our brain structure, but I think that's something that develops as we mature through childhood.

It’s maybe also true that quantum mechanics doesn’t make sense to the human brain because it's a nonsensical theory.

Review of Waking Up #119. HIDDEN MOTIVES

Official Notes:

In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Robin Hanson about our hidden motives in everyday life. They discuss selfishness, hypocrisy, norms and meta-norms, cheating, deception, self-deception, education, the evolutionary logic of conversation, social status, signaling and counter-signaling, common knowledge, AI, and many other topics.

Robin has a pretty cynical view of people and tries to cover the appalling things he says with a deprecating chuckle every time he talks. By the end of the hour that gets old. 

Also, this has the disadvantage of being before a live audience, with all the irritating features that come with this forum.

As for the actual content of the podcast, I'm not sure there's much in here that's very deep. If I were Sam and not afraid of offending the guest, I'd label the episode "Extreme Cynicism." Because that seems to be all there is here.

Review of Waking Up #117: NETWORKS POWER AND CHAOS

Official Notes:

In this episode of the Waking Up podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Niell Ferguson about his new book "The Square and the Tower." They discuss his career as a writer, networks and hierarchies, how history gets written, the similarity between the 16th century and the 21st, the role of social media in the 2016 Presidential election, the influence of advertising on the public sphere, Trump, the Russian investigation, Islamic extremism, counterfactuals, what would have happened if Clinton had won the presidency, immigration in Europe, conspiracy theories, capitalism, globalization, communism, wealth inequality, universal basic income, Henry Kissinger, the prospect of a US war with China, cyberwar, and other topics.

Here's a crazy idea: the counterfactuals if Clinton were elected may be even grimmer than our Trump factuals.

I'm not sure I believe that, but it intrigued me enough to check Fergeson's book out of the library. And I'm glad I did--he's a wonderful writer and historian. Plus he didn't drink the Obama Koolaid, so you can actually read an intellectual and a scholar who doesn't gush mindlessly over the Obama years.

The episode was stimulating, I suppose, but nothing in it leapt out at me. But read the book. Or at least a few chapters of it.