Since 2014, Sam Harris—neuroscientist, philosopher, and best-selling author—has been exploring some of the most important questions about the human mind, society, and current events on his podcast, Making Sense. With more than one hundred million downloads, these discussions have clearly hit a nerve, frequently walking a tightrope where either host or guest—and sometimes both—lose their footing, but always in search of a greater understanding of the world in which we live. For Harris, honest and frank conversation, no matter how difficult, is the only path beyond a scientific ignorance, political tribalism and personal delusion. His writing and public lectures cover a wide range of topics—neuroscience, moral philosophy, religion, meditation practice, consciousness, tyranny, human violence, rationality—but generally focus on how a growing understanding of ourselves and the world is changing our sense of how we should live. It is a book simply packed with intriguing information and interesting dialogues with prominent guests.

This adaptation of some of Harris’s most thought-provoking and controversial podcast episodes is engaging from beginning to end with a wide-ranging set of fascinating topics explored in depth in an accessible manner. They are deeply perceptive, incisive and presented in a lucid and eminently readable format which I raced through. Even his discourse with those he vehemently disagrees with is considered and intelligent with no unnecessary theatrics you often receive from other commentators or broadcasters. The written form is especially great for allowing a more detailed analysis of a topic than perhaps the spoken word and I felt it worked exceptionally well. If you are a fan of psychologists such as Dr Jordan Peterson and the like then this is a book worth your time. If you enjoy hearing brain-boosting material or information that'll cause cranium conflagration then give this a read. Many thanks to Bantam Press for an ARC.

I really enjoy Sam Harris' podcast. This book being a written form of a few of the episodes.
At the beginning he states the difference between the two formats and why podcasts do not lend themselves well to full in-depth discussion, whereas his writing allows for more fleshed out ideas. I appreciated his want to fully explain and examine some of the topics.
My one criticism is that the book doesn't include womxn. Twelve guest discussions and they're all blokes. I think current discussions have highlighted the need for a variety of perspectives. While I'm sure this is an innocent oversight, everyone needs to be doing better.

I certainly don't agree with everything Sam Harris says, but I feel that his desire to intellectually challenge is generally well thought out and it is interesting to read through this. If you have listened to the podcast, you will know the premise and probably much of the material, but if he is new to you or you are a fan of the podcast, this is a good read.

Kahneman's favourite bias and the Bayesian brain

A book or an encyclopaedia? Either way, the amount of knowledge presented in Making Sense by Sam Harris is incredible. Ranging from consciousness, tyranny and our future, each topic is brought to life by in-depth conversations - and often fierce intellectual debates - between Sam Harris and one of his renowned guests. One fascinating conversation is with Professor Anil Seth (Professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex) on perceptions and emotions.

Professor Seth approaches perception and emotions through the language of the Bayesian brain. In this view, perception always involves a balance between sensory signals coming from the world and interpretations, or, in the Bayesian language, predictions about the causes of these sensations. For example, it is built into our visual systems that light comes from above, which makes us perceive shadows in a certain way. All our perception is created by our brain’s predictions of the causes of the sensory input. Most of the time we agree on this: what I see as green grass, you are likely to see as green grass, too. However, in certain situations, for example, in certain states of psychosis or in dreams, one person’s predictions about the causes of the sensory information may differ from those of other people. Baba Brinkman, the musician and playwright, who Professor Seth has worked with, captures this by saying, ‘What we call reality is just when we all agree about our hallucinations’.

Similarly to making predictions about external sensory information to maintain the ideal state of the brain and the body, emotions are predictions too. In this view, emotions are predictions about what is going on in our bodies, which the brain uses to figure out if it needs to intervene to ensure the safety of the brain and body. There is a line of thinking claiming that all sorts of perception - external and from our bodies - serve this one physiological regulation to keep us safe and alive.

This is just one snippet of the many fascinating dialogues. There are intriguing conversations about zombie experiments concerning consciousness, some lesser known facts about the disgraceful Night of Broken Glass (hint: it was a present for Martin Luther) and also an interview with Daniel Kahneman and his favourite cognitive error (a small hint: drawing far-fetched conclusions based on weak evidence - e.g. assuming that someone using long sentences will perform well in a job).