Sam Harris speaks with James R. Doty about his memoir Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart. They discuss the significance of childhood stress, the possibility of changing one’s core beliefs about oneself, the relationship between surgeons and their patients, the nature of compassion, the Dalai Lama, the relationship between wealth and empathy, the worsening problem of social inequality, the physiology of compassion, the broken healthcare system in the U.S., and other topics.

James R. Doty is a clinical professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at Stanford University and the director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University School of Medicine. 

As director of CCARE, Dr. Doty has collaborated on a number of research projects focused on compassion and altruism including the use of neuro-economic models to assess altruism, use of the CCARE-developed compassion cultivation training in individuals and its effect, assessment of compassionate and altruistic judgment utilizing implanted brain electrodes and the use of optogenetic techniques to assess nurturing pathways in rodents. Presently, he is developing collaborative research projects to assess the effect of compassion training on immunologic and other physiologic determinants of health, the use of mentoring as a method of instilling compassion in students and the use of compassion training to decrease pain.

Dr. Doty is also an inventor, entrepreneur and philanthropist having given support to a number of charitable organizations including Children as the Peacemakers, Global Healing, the Pachamama Alliance and Family & Children Services of Silicon Valley. He is on the Board of Directors of a number of non-profit foundations including the Dalai Lama Foundation, of which he is chairman and the Charter for Compassion International of which he is vice-chair. He is also on the International Advisory Board of the Council for the Parliament of the World’s Religions. He also writes for The Huffington Post.

Twitter: @jamesrdotymd

Episodes that have been re-released as part of the Best of Making Sense series may have been edited for relevance since their original airing.

Sam Harris speaks with Eliezer Yudkowsky about the nature of intelligence, different types of AI, the “alignment problem,” IS vs OUGHT, the possibility that future AI might deceive us, the AI arms race, conscious AI, coordination problems, and other topics.

Eliezer Yudkowsky is a decision theorist and computer scientist at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute in Berkeley, California who is known for his work in technological forecasting. His publications include the Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence chapter “The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence,” co-authored with Nick Bostrom. Yudkowsky’s writings have helped spark a number of ongoing academic and public debates about the long-term impact of AI, and he has written a number of popular introductions to topics in cognitive science and formal epistemology, such as Rationality: From AI to Zombies and “Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.” He is also the author of Inadequate Equilibria: Where and How Civilizations Get Stuck.

Twitter: @ESYudkowsky

Episodes that have been re-released as part of the Best of Making Sense series may have been edited for relevance since their original airing.

Sam Harris speaks with Siddhartha Mukherjee about the human desire to understand and manipulate heredity, the genius of Gregor Mendel, the ethics of altering our genes, the future of genetic medicine, patent issues in genetic research, and other topics.

Siddhartha Mukherjee is a cancer physician and researcher. He is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and a staff cancer physician at the CU/NYU Presbyterian Hospital. A former Rhodes scholar, he graduated from Stanford University, University of Oxford (where he received a PhD studying cancer-causing viruses) and from Harvard Medical School. His laboratory focuses on discovering new cancer drugs using innovative biological methods. He has published articles and commentary in such journals as Nature, New England Journal of Medicine, Neuron and the Journal of Clinical Investigation and in publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The New Republic. His work was nominated for Best American Science Writing, 2000. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. His most recent book is The Gene: An Intimate History.

Episodes that have been re-released as part of the Best of Making Sense series may have been edited for relevance since their original airing.

Sam Harris speaks with James Clear about habit formation. They discuss the difference between creating good habits and discontinuing bad ones, the role of the environment, the misalignment between immediate and long term outcomes, the remembering self vs the experiencing self, goals vs systems, the compounding of incremental gains, the role of attention, the four laws of behavior change, “temptation bundling,” and other topics.

James Clear is an author and speaker focused on habits, decision-making, and continuous improvement. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Entrepreneur, Time, and on CBS This Morning. He is a regular speaker at Fortune 500 companies and his work is used by teams in the NFL, NBA, and MLB. His book Atomic Habits is a New York Times bestseller and has sold more than 9 million copies worldwide.

Website: www.jamesclear.com

Twitter: @jamesclear 

Instagram: @jamesclear

Episodes that have been re-released as part of the Best of Making Sense series may have been edited for relevance since their original airing.

Sam Harris speaks with Yuval Noah Harari about meditation, the need for stories, the power of technology to erase the boundary between fact and fiction, wealth inequality, the problem of finding meaning in a world without work, religion as a virtual reality game, the difference between pain and suffering, and other topics.

Yuval Noah Harari has a PhD in history from Oxford University and is a professor in the Department of History at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He specialized in World History, medieval history and military history, but his current research focuses on macro-historical questions: What is the relation between history and biology? What is the essential difference between Homo sapiens and other animals? Is there justice in history? Does history have a direction? Did people become happier as history unfolded?

He is the author of two blockbuster books, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow.

Episodes that have been re-released as part of the Best of Making Sense series may have been edited for relevance since their original airing.

Sam Harris speaks with Robert Plomin about the role that DNA plays in determining who we are. They discuss the birth of behavioral genetics, the taboo around studying the influence of genes on human psychology, controversies surrounding the topic of group differences, the first law of behavior genetics, heritability, nature and nurture, the mystery of unshared environment, the way genes help determine a person’s environment, epigenetics, the genetics of complex traits, dimensions vs disorders, the prospect of a GATTACA-like dystopia and genetic castes, heritability and equality of opportunity, the implications of genetics for parenting and education, DNA as a fortune-telling device, and other topics.

Robert Plomin is MRC Research Professor in Behavioral Genetics at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London and has previously taught at the University of Colorado Boulder and at Pennsylvania State University. He has received lifetime research achievement awards from the major associations related to his field (Behavior Genetics Association, Association of Psychological Science, Society for Research in Child Development, International Society for Intelligence Research), as well as being made Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, British Academy, American Academy of Political and Social Science, and Academy of Medical Sciences (UK).

Robert’s latest book, Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are, makes the case that DNA inherited from our parents at the moment of conception can predict our psychological strengths and weaknesses.

Website: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/robert-plomin

Episodes that have been re-released as part of the Best of Making Sense series may have been edited for relevance since their original airing.

Sam Harris speaks with Frank Ostaseski about death and dying—and about how the awareness of death can improve our lives in each moment.

Frank Ostaseski is a Buddhist teacher, international lecturer, and a leading voice in end-of-life care. In 1987, he co-founded the Zen Hospice Project, the first Buddhist hospice in America. In 2004, he created the Metta Institute to provide innovative educational programs and professional trainings that foster compassionate, mindfulness-based care. Mr. Ostaseski’s groundbreaking work has been widely featured in the media, including the Bill Moyers television series On Our Own Terms, the PBS series With Eyes Open, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and in numerous print publications. AARP magazine named him one of America’s 50 most innovative people. In 2001, he was honored by the Dalai Lama for his many years of compassionate service to the dying and their families. He is the author of The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully.

mettainstitute.org

Fiveinvitations.com

Episodes that have been re-released as part of the Best of Making Sense series may have been edited for relevance since their original airing.

Sam Harris speaks with psychologist Paul Bloom about the limitations of empathy as a guide to moral reasoning, why empathy is a bad metric for measuring one’s character, cognitive biases, and other topics.

Paul Bloom is Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, and Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Yale University. Paul Bloom studies how children and adults make sense of the world, with a special focus on pleasure, morality, religion, fiction, and art. He has won numerous awards for his research and teaching. He is past-president of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and co-editor of Behavioral and Brain Sciences. He has written for scientific journals such as Nature and Science, and for popular outlets such as The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic Monthly. He is the author of six books, including The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning.

Episodes that have been re-released as part of the Best of Making Sense series may have been edited for relevance since their original airing.

Sam Harris speaks with Michael Sandel about the problem with meritocracy. They discuss the dark side of the concept of merit, the pernicious myth of the self-made man, the moral significance of luck, the backlash against “elites” and expertise, how we value human excellence, the connection between wealth and value creation, the ethics of the tax code, higher education as a sorting mechanism for a caste system, alternatives to 4-year colleges, and other topics.

Michael Sandel teaches political philosophy at Harvard University. His writings—on justice, democracy, ethics, and markets—have been translated into 27 languages. His course “Justice” was the first Harvard course to be made freely available online and on television and has been viewed by tens of millions of people around the world. Sandel has been a visiting professor at the Sorbonne, delivered the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Oxford, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His BBC series “The Global Philosopher” explores the ethical issues lying behind the headlines with participants from over 30 countries.

His latest book is titled The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?

Website: http://justiceharvard.org/ 

Episodes that have been re-released as part of the Best of Making Sense series may have been edited for relevance since their original airing.

Sam Harris speaks with Thomas Metzinger about the scientific and experiential understanding of consciousness. They also talk about the role of intuition in science, the ethics of building conscious AI, the self as a hallucination, how we identify with our thoughts, attention as the root of the feeling of self, the place of Eastern philosophy in Western science, and the limitations of secular humanism.

Thomas Metzinger is full professor and director of the theoretical philosophy group and the research group on neuroethics/neurophilosophy at the department of philosophy, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany. He is the founder and director of the MIND group and Adjunct Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute of Advanced Studies, Germany. His research centers on analytic philosophy of mind, applied ethics, philosophy of cognitive science, and philosophy of mind. He is the editor of Neural Correlates of Consciousness and the author of Being No One and The Ego Tunnel.

Episodes that have been re-released as part of the Best of Making Sense series may have been edited for relevance since their original airing.