Sam Harris speaks with Laurie Santos about the scientific study of happiness. They discuss people’s expectations about happiness, the experiencing self vs the remembered self, framing effects, the importance of social connections, the effect of focusing on the happiness of others, introversion and extroversion, the influence of technology on social life, our relationship to time, the connection between happiness and ethics, hedonic adaptation, the power of mindfulness, resilience, the often...

Sam Harris speaks with Scott Barry Kaufman about human well-being. They discuss intelligence and creativity, wisdom and transcendence, the history of humanistic psychology, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the connection between well-being and ethics, self-esteem, psychedelics and meditation, peak and plateau experiences, mortality salience, the pre-trans fallacy, intrinsic vs. extrinsic rewards, pathological altruism, intimacy vs. belonging, two aspects of self-transcendence, and other topics. ...

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,...

Sam Harris speaks with Anil Seth about the scientific study of consciousness, where consciousness emerges in nature, levels of consciousness, perception as a “controlled hallucination,” emotion, the experience of “pure consciousness,” consciousness as “integrated information,” measures of “brain complexity,” psychedelics, different aspects of the “self,” conscious AI, and many other topics. Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex and...

Sam Harris speaks with David Benatar about his philosophy of “anti-natalism.” They discuss the asymmetry between the good and bad things in life, the ethics of existential risk, the moral landscape, the limits and paradoxes of introspection, the “experience machine” thought experiment, population ethics, and other topics. David Benatar is Professor of Philosophy at University of Cape Town, South Africa. He is the author of "Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence" and...

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...

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...

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....

In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with biologist David Krakauer about information, intelligence, the role of IQ, complex systems, technological advancement, the future of humanity, and other topics. David Krakauer is President and William H. Miller Professor of Complex Systems at the Santa Fe Institute. His research explores the evolution of intelligence on earth. This includes studying the evolution of genetic, neural, linguistic, social and cultural mechanisms supporting...

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....

Sam Harris speaks with Johann Hari about his books Chasing the Scream and Lost Connections. Johann Hari is the New York Times bestselling author of Chasing the Scream. He was twice named “Newspaper Journalist of the Year” by Amnesty International UK. He has written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and others. His TED talk, “Everything You Think You Know About Addiction Is Wrong,” has more than 20 million views. His most recent book is Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay...

Sam Harris speaks with Sean Carroll about our understanding of reality. They discuss consciousness, quantum mechanics, the arrow of time, free will, facts and values, and other topics. Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist at CalTech. He received his PhD from Harvard University. He has worked on the foundations of quantum mechanics, the arrow of time, and the emergence of complexity. Carroll has been awarded prizes and fellowships by the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Alfred P....

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...

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. Tamler Sommers is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Houston. He is the host of the podcast “Very Bad...

Sam Harris speaks with David Buss about the differential mating strategies of men and women. They discuss the controversy that surrounds evolutionary psychology, the denial of sex differences, cross-cultural findings in social science, the replication crisis in psychology, the biological definition of sex, why men and women have affairs, ovulatory shifts in mate preference, sex differences in jealousy and infidelity, the sources of unhappiness in marriage, mate-value discrepancies, what we...

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...

Sam Harris speaks with Derren Brown about his work as a “psychological illusionist.” They discuss the power of hypnosis, the power of expectations, the usefulness of Stoic philosophy, and other topics. Derren Brown began his UK television career in December 2000 with a series of specials called Mind Control. In the UK his name is now pretty much synonymous with the art of psychological manipulation. Amongst a varied and notorious TV career, Derren has played Russian Roulette live, convinced...

Sam Harris speaks with his wife, Annaka Harris, about her book, CONSCIOUS: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind. Annaka Harris is an author, editor, and consultant for science writers, specializing in neuroscience and physics. Annaka is also the author of the children’s book I Wonder, a collaborator on the Mindful Games Activity Cards, by Susan Kaiser Greenland, and a volunteer mindfulness teacher for the Inner Kids organization. All of her guided meditations and lessons...

Sam Harris speaks with Adam Gazzaley about the way our technology is changing us. They discuss our limited ability to process information, our failures of multitasking, “top-down” vs “bottom-up” attention, self-interruptions and switching costs, anxiety, boredom, “digital medicine,” neuroplasticity, video games for training the mind, the future of brain-machine interface, and other topics. Adam Gazzaley, M.D., Ph.D. is a Professor in Neurology, Physiology, and Psychiatry at the University of...

Sam Harris speaks with Frank Wilczek about the fundamental nature of reality. They discuss the difference between science and non-science, the role of intuition in science, the nature of time, the prospect that possibility is an illusion, the current limits of quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle, space-time as a substance, the “unreasonable effectiveness” of mathematics in science, the possibility that we might be living in a simulation, the fundamental building blocks of matter, the...

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,...

Sam Harris speaks with Jaron Lanier about the economics, politics, and psychology of our digital lives. They discuss the insidious idea that information should be free, what we should want from an advanced economy, the role of advertising, libertarianism in Silicon Valley, the problems with social media, and other topics. Jaron Lanier is a scientist, musician, and writer best known for his work in virtual reality and his advocacy of humanism and sustainable economics in a digital context....

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...

Sam Harris speaks with Jonathan Haidt about his book The Coddling of the American Mind. They discuss the hostility to free speech that has grown more common among young adults, recent moral panics on campus, the role of intentions in ethical life, the economy of prestige in “call out” culture, how we should define bigotry, systemic racism, the paradox of progress, and other topics. Jonathan Haidt is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University’s Stern School of...

Sam Harris speaks with Michael Pollan about his book How to Change Your Mind. They cover the resurgence of interest in psychedelics in clinical practice and end-of-life care, the “betterment of well people,” the relationship between thinking and mental suffering, the differences between psychedelics and meditation, the non-duality of consciousness, the brain’s “default mode network,” their experiences with various psychedelics, and other topics. Michael Pollan is the author of eight books,...