Edit:
Fuck it I'm not getting involved.

JRPC wrote:

"Sam Harris is among our farthest-ranging, deepest-probing, and most straight & open public intellectuals, engaging sincerely with ideas & people whether he agrees with them or not".

Mate, I've been to all these places and have the t shirts. When you were bahai and bumping heads with some guy and sometimes myself in the God thread, who do you think I was reading at the time?

This shit ain't new. Pinker, Harris, jerry coyne. (I've been scouring hoping that coyne will jump in, because I think he is good with science. But he's pc alarmist like Harris.)

I saw the Tweet from pinker too. I note he hasn't gotten into the science or a piece on it.

Anyhoo.

This is what I'm saying. I've read nearly all of his books. More than half for sure. Moral landscape, free will, end of faith (aaaages ago). I've read heaps of his articles, I've watched vids. I did a moral philosophy course a while back, happened to be about the time moral landscape came out.

Spent ages reading up on the criticism of that. I don't need to be more aware of the guy's thoughts on things.

I recommend googling Russell blackford and reading his reviews of moral landscape. And massimo pillugi. Blackford is a better/actual philosopher than Harris. But he is as kind to Harris as possible while still disagreeing. Or not even disagreeing, just pointing out that he hasn't done the legwork on various schools of thought around moral error theory and situational ethics.

I find it all interesting, for one, but more importantly, and hopefully you'll see the trend here, you'll discover that Harris is cooky cutter in his thinking on moral philosophy. Basically, you can kind of agree with a broad version of what he's saying in the ML (and I do), but with a bit more reading and legwork, you discover plenty of folks have done a better job of what he's saying previously, without ignoring large chunks of philosophical criticism.

So, if you like, there's the beginning of my bias against Harris. Pick a topic which isn't one of his specialties, and he just ignores mountains of work from specialists in that field. Moral philosophy, history, geopolitics, religion, add race and IQ to the list.

Probably worth thinking about why in every tustle he's in, where he's non expert, experts are generally frustrated with him.

Now, speaking generally, thats probably also a good time to point out that having folks outside a discipline critiquing it isn't necessarily a bad thing, but, it requires a little humility from those in and outside.

Hunk's mentioned Kuhn and popper, but I'd just recommend more generally reading some general philosophy of science. There's a number of excellent, readable and shortish (300 page) philosophy of science books out there.

There's currently a poor relationship between a lot of scientists (Krause famously) and philosophers generally, and philosophers of science specifically. And it's to the detriment of the scientists, IMO.

Harris should be sympathetic to the philosophers of science, should be angling himself in that lane, but he's not, he's hard line the other way.

Its a problem.

There was.

This is where I might have to hit up Petey. Aaaages ago he posted a boss lecture from I think Harvard or Yale, from a science professor, talking about philosophy of science. It was amazing, I've not been able to find it since.

Please tell me he was born to it. Who would choose Baha'i? That's like choosing to support Wimbledon AFC when you're from Cheam

hunk wrote:

Philosophy buff face, respect!

Fuck that, like science generally, or geopolitics, the more you read, the more you know you don't know shit.

Facewon wrote:

This is what I'm saying. I've read nearly all of his books. More than half for sure. Moral landscape, free will, end of faith (aaaages ago). I've read heaps of his articles, I've watched vids. I did a moral philosophy course a while back, happened to be about the time moral landscape came out. Spent ages reading up on the criticism of that. I don't need to be more aware of the guy's thoughts on things. I recommend googling Russell blackford and reading his reviews of moral landscape. And massimo pillugi. Blackford is a better/actual philosopher than Harris. But he is as kind to Harris as possible while still disagreeing. Or not even disagreeing, just pointing out that he hasn't done the legwork on various schools of thought around moral error theory and situational ethics. I find it all interesting, for one, but more importantly, and hopefully you'll see the trend here, you'll discover that Harris is cooky cutter in his thinking on moral philosophy. Basically, you can kind of agree with a broad version of what he's saying in the ML (and I do), but with a bit more reading and legwork, you discover plenty of folks have done a better job of what he's saying previously, without ignoring large chunks of philosophical criticism. So, if you like, there's the beginning of my bias against Harris. Pick a topic which isn't one of his specialties, and he just ignores mountains of work from specialists in that field. Moral philosophy, history, geopolitics, religion, add race and IQ to the list. Probably worth thinking about why in every tustle he's in, where he's non expert, experts are generally frustrated with him. Now, speaking generally, thats probably also a good time to point out that having folks outside a discipline critiquing it isn't necessarily a bad thing, but, it requires a little humility from those in and outside. Hunk's mentioned Kuhn and popper, but I'd just recommend more generally reading some general philosophy of science. There's a number of excellent, readable and shortish (300 page) philosophy of science books out there. There's currently a poor relationship between a lot of scientists (Krause famously) and philosophers generally, and philosophers of science specifically. And it's to the detriment of the scientists, IMO. Harris should be sympathetic to the philosophers of science, should be angling himself in that lane, but he's not, he's hard line the other way. Its a problem.

I think that's a good response. 

You imagine that I'm not familiar with that criticism, what I would actually consider the real critics of Harris, when actually I am (in fact I think you first put me in touch with Blackford aaaages ago), but I'll leave it there. 

Moral philosophy and ethics is my jam (with a good dash of medical ethics), or at least it has been for the last 3 or 4 years, and I have come out the other end of that a hard Harrisian. The Moral Landscape, Free Will and Lying are now pretty much core software running on my brain.    

My view from what you've said here, despite obviously having read some Harris, is that I don't think you've actualy understood it. Not fully. Not deeply. Maybe to avoid falling into another rabbit-hole here, I could stretch that to perhaps that you're reading him differently to how I do.

Maybe we should leave it there.

Not in the slightest. Just testing the waters for a slim chance of a coincidence. 

Gonz said you were baha'i once. 
Is there a chance you are in Melbourne and know of a wedding today?

That's quite the drive then haha. 
I'm just aware it's a fairly small community here though in Melbourne and sydney probably not so small.

Look out. Vela, are you saying you going to a baha'i wedding today?

If it involves the streets barber or a bloke called nima as guests, then fuck me small world. One of my fellow assistant coaches isn't on the trip to Warrnambool because of a wedding, I think. He's baha'i.

What's streets barber?

Streets barber is a dude who cuts homeless folks hair for free. He's a champ. He's brother of my guy nima, who I coach with. I could be way off base, but I know nima is away for today's game because of a wedding.

Facewon wrote:

Streets barber is a dude who cuts homeless folks hair for free. He's a champ. He's brother of my guy nima, who I coach with. I could be way off base, but I know nima is away for today's game because of a wedding.

Cheers ill ask around

JRPC wrote:

...   
My view from what you've said here, despite obviously having read some Harris, is that I don't think you've actualy understood it. Not fully. Not deeply. ...

Ahahahaha! “You didn’t understand it properly!”

Coming from the person who didn’t understand how the wiki on Perspectivism relates to the question “is the ideal that there is no bias?”, and directed at Face.... that is truly ridiculous.

Is there any argument you’ve put forward that *isn’t* Argument From Authority?

The way I see it is Face can frame the Harris/Klein discussion much better than jrpc because he has so much more knowledge on the subject of science and philosophy. And the keyword here is 'frame'.

This thing is this discussion (what is/isn't science, what is pseudoscience?) is not new. Kuhn and Popper already described this extensively yet Harris shows enormous ignorance on the subject. Not sure why, he is a phd afterall but if Klein's assessment is correct it's because Harris' wants to get back at the evil sjw's who threaten his career.

God I hate the term sjw but there you go...

To Jrpc, go out and read some more stuff on the subject and expand your horizon. There's more than just Harris' which is just one perspective on the topic. It's good to see stuff from multiple angles.