Sam Harris – Seek Truth

How is one to escape from the suffering and consummation of one’s character inflicted by the memory and assimilation of one’s own historical malevolence and shortcomings? This question is not to be posed to those of perfect character, but being that such a thing doesn’t exist, except in the minds of the mentally diminished, we must admit of having been cursed with periods of retrospectively found evil volition, and later discovered inner peace. It need not be discussed as to the causality and manifestation of such periods, as the factors present in any individual’s life range from ignorance to misfortune, what must be addressed is how to deal with our consciousness once it is consumed by the memory of one’s own moral ineptitude, and character traits resulting from historical events which one desires to escape from.

There is an absurd feeling which emerges when one compares who one is today, with the person one was in the past, growing more absurd the bigger the gap in time. New knowledge and wisdom has taken us to this place, recognizing the suffering produced in the present moment, the flaws in our current condition, and through understanding the conditionality of such a state, we choose to rebel against the state of affairs inflicted upon our experience of the present. We wish to escape the historical antecedents causing unrest within our conscious experience. But to escape the web of causality is a logical fallacy, and attempting to do so necessarily creates cognitive dissonance at the expense of the individual’s sanity. To escape the suffering caused as a result of moral shortcomings implies a purging of moral shame and moral dread from one’s experience. This means no longer feeling remorse for one’s malevolence, and no longer fearing the result of repeating or taking part in a future unholy endeavor. This attempt to escape ones suffering from historical causes appears to be an escape from conscience, which is far from the answer to our original question, being how to cope with the inevitable suffering of falling short of one’s present ideals.

It’s clear that any advancement in one’s personal morality, both practically and abstractly, can be seen as being a result of what in Buddhism is regarded as the twin foundation stones of morality, moral shame and dread. Feeling the pangs of one’s past transgressions, recognizing the current repercussions in one’s experience and the conscious experience of suffering due to such actions, forces one into the biologically necessary position of dreading such an experience in one’s future, aiding the development of a character aiming at avoiding said moral infringements to one’s system. Being that we are discussing a system of beliefs in the ethical sphere, it’s worth noting that such a conscience is in no way universal to all, but can be judged according to universal principles. This means we may not share the current conscience, view of good and evil, which doesn’t mean that the validity of such developed systems lies in the relativity of one’s society and culture, ultimately, only apparently does.

Sam Harris’s conceptualization of universal principles which encapsulates all of mankind moving in a positive direction towards a better humanity, and away from universal suffering, gives us a good description on the structure we should be using to judge the state of one’s conscience, or in comparing multiple individuals to one another and their relation to higher shades of meaning and moral recognition. But here I digress only to state that what we are concerned with is the individual, and not the validity of his conscience, which should be analyzed and constructed through the accumulation of experience and wisdom requisite to be a man wishing to rectify his current experience with past malevolence. Thus one is necessarily in the correct state of mind to answer and proceed such inquires if he reaches the point in life where he poses the question, and sees finding its solution necessary, for the good of one’s own experience foremost, with a thought towards its influence on humanity at large.

What the courageous man wishes to embark on, is a rebellion against the constraint on one’s character and psyche imposed by a literally different person, oneself, in one’s past. The difference in the two people need not be noted, separated by time, one creates and destroys, changes, and evolves, in directions only recognized as positive or negative due to comparison in phenomenological data and subjective judgment, and this process of transfiguring is proceeding to be carried out from moment to moment. Thus one rebels against the human condition, against that absurd contradiction not between the outside world and the inside world, but between ones perceived past and ones perceived present, between what was, what is, and what could be, between the contradiction herein, and the immediately illusory belief that the same person is inhabiting all three positions.

The unrelenting drive of the psyche to push one’s consciousness to accept the validity of one’s own ability to volitionally act outside of the bounds of causality, free will, as well as believe in the permanence of a central Being (a self), serves to undermine reality, necessarily creating an absurd view of the state of our being as we perceive it. Those who have struggled to emerge from such illusions here should consider themselves blessed, as one obstacle in our pursuit is no longer an issue. The proof of such phenomena being falsehoods, is expanded upon in “The Causal Tethers Which Bind Us”. Seeing ones past as a series of acts done by another person (a previous version of the current “self”) doesn’t aide the individual upon first glance as we perceive ourselves as constant through time (albeit – an illusory view), but one should rebel against the nature of the mind to see oneself in this way to attempt to cut through the illusion, if not experientially at least abstractly. While it is necessary to experience the moral shame and dread proceeding an unjust act, as it is a necessary place in psychic growth and wisdom in producing a mind better able to act in accordance with itself, we must not allow ourselves to act from the habits formed by someone who lives in a distinctly different time in place. Rather, we should rebel against the strings which move us, and attempt to cut our ties to the character traits we consciously wish to separate ourselves from. Our suffering acts as an indicator of where to approach, where to learn, where to grow, and we should follow it, and when based on misfortune, accept it stoically, when based on our own acts, rebel.

Fight against the tendency to continue in darkness, fight against the stagnation of unrelenting conscious stability, fight for a better experience, a better life, a better humanity. We must accept that we deserve our punishment which we created for ourselves, and in rebelling against the idea that we still are the person we used to be, we become the person we have the potentiality of being. Rebel against any tendency towards a rigid conception of eternal permanence. Whether we find ourselves suffering for the misfortune of a past, or of an act of immortality sparked by the cursed nature which we inherited, whether through ignorance or awareness of rage, the suffering which we currently experience must be fought off with the aim of creating the space for the new to replace the old. The mind is consciously attempting to manifest order to combat the chaos of past experience, we must not hinder it by further pursuing dissonant thoughts, or acting in accordance with our outdated philosophy. We should strive to build upon the biological framework, the universal scaffolding, which we encounter within the present moment. To tear down the edifice, to cause a revolution of the spirit, to attempt to escape the causes which fabricates the present, is a dissociative endeavor, causing only future confusion and voluntary ignorance. Through denial of past events we serve only to fool ourselves into insanity, to accept the occurrence of the past, and work to overcome its negative effect on the present, is the task of the brave.

We must bridge the gap between the unchanging past and the changing present, and see that it is possible to accept the validity of both, while transcending them both to a higher level of conceptualization, and from there incorporate the truths we have thus far encountered. To escape one’s history is never the goal, to overcome misfortune and the evil discovered in one’s own heart is the task at hand. The emergence of the realization of one’s own malevolence is unearthed only through conscious retrospection, and is only conquered through conscious pursuit of a character in accordance with ones developed conscience. Effects of one’s own evil manifestations, such as those upon our character, and those which are experiential, such as memories, are overcome psychologically through rebelling against the principles one once stood upon, through fighting against our nature to habitually indulge in bad intentions, through pursuing a morality based on the lessons one has acquired, which is constituted by a factual interpretation of reality. Historical rebellion is combated by rebelling against the restraints, the universe which holds us attached to it.

We should fight against our biological drive to see ourselves as being the same as our experiences, and rather frame the situation realistically, in us constituting the current production of history. One should strive to extract the gold in the lessons we’ve learned while simultaneously avoiding over encumbrance by the content of memories.

We recognize the outdated version as being us, yet distinctly different, thus in our comparison we conclude the situation is patently absurd. In addition to us never being able to truly know who we are now, or understand the totality of past states of being which make up the foreground of our present experience, there is the fact of other individuals having even more ignorance of our historical being. The separation we feel within, between our old self and new self, our recognition of ignorance, coupled with the isolation we feel in reference to others, undoubtedly creates an absurd mindset. Not to mention, if this line of thought is carried out, we realize our ignorance of others to be incalculably greater than the ignorance of ourselves, which if honestly admitted, is unbearably large as it is. This puts us in a strange place mentally, but not necessarily in a situation without hope, and not within a challenge too great to not be worth rebelling against, and overcoming through wisdom itself, aided by reason, virtue, discipline, and persistence.

We ought to rebel against the constraints of determinism in confining you to a predestined path by conscious effort towards escaping the confines consciously imposed through recollection of your past character, and instead pursue the character, state of being, place in reality, which you desire and claim to be better. Do not let the chains of your past hold you down, even though they literally do, even if we know that we are permanently chained through causality, that does not mean to give up on a path to greater heights than we have experienced, nor to sacrifice our thoughts and actions toward goals we set, but rather we should accept our condition in history, and fight against our inner demons urging us to immorality or to the ruin of our current condition through complacency.

Is it possible for humans to have multiple philosophical structures or methods which are morally equal? From a moral relativist point of view, this is valid, but in actuality we are given a different situation, if we can look closer at what such claims imply. Sam Harris presented an objective method to which we can hypothetically determine better or worse methods, actions, and structures in the moral sphere, based on what is being used to determine what ought to be, in other words, we can scientifically determine, if given the requisite measuring tools and causal prediction datum, the conclusion of better or worse answers to moral questions. This method relies upon the acceptance of a moral axiom that the worst possible suffering for all sentient life is what would be considered an Absolute “Bad” in moral terms, and any movement away from this would be “good”. Suffering that is necessary to learning or developing, or suffering with a silver lining, or “tough love”, isn’t ruled out in this framework, and also, in its long term benefit, can still be accounted for. Pure pleasure or bliss isn’t measured as the extreme end of “Good”, but rather what is meaningful, beneficial, and useful, in totality, including some pain and suffering and hard lessons, may all be included under the title of “wellbeing”, to greater or less degrees. What is moral therefore isn’t simply what is nice, or hedonistic pleasures, but is much more nuanced in its implications.

Given our experience, we can have better or worse states of mind, modes of being, and conscious experiences. We can be better equipped to navigate life, and less equipped. We can face difficulty, to degrees, and we can experience wellbeing, to different degrees. These degrees and modes of being are preconditioned by circumstance, knowledge, and actions, which effectively modify our experience. Due to the experience of life being modifiable by actions, and due to the differing degrees of wellbeing which are produced in correspondence to action, or knowledge, or in general, differing factors, there necessarily implies better or worse preconditions in relation to the effect of actions in their manifestation.

As there are better or worse ways to orient yourself in the world, and therefore in terms of action, and frameworks for action, (value systems, philosophies, psychological tools) we will always produce a hierarchy in useful beneficiality. In analyzing the results of factors on the conscious states of those affected, we can easily intuit better or worse actions, modes of being from which actions stem, and preconditions in their relation to the effects caused, and deem one better or worse than the other, in direct relation. In the rare case that two different methods, moral systems, or actions, produce the apparent same consequence, take the same amount of time, effort, energy, competence, all factors equal, yet the result was acquired in different ways, I think it is still possible for one method to be morally superior to the other, in terms of its impact on all conscious creatures, in the method employed in achieving the same end goal, meaning, technically, a different end result. One method may provide an understanding more useful to the individual than the other knowledge upon creating the end consequence, in that, in the intentionality, the effect that stretches beyond the immediate action and its effect, may be more or less beneficial to the individual and his expanding circle of influence. While a mere action stemming from different modes of being may be the same, the modification on the subsequent mode of being of the individual, and its later effect in manifesting further action, can be better or worse in relation to the modification of the original intention of the “same action”.

I think the method as well as consequence should always be measured and taken into consideration. We may not currently be able to calculate the hierarchy correctly, due to the difficulty in a complete analysis of repercussions and preconditions, but I believe it is certainly true that there are better and worse ways to produce the same results as we can easily intuit from the change in conscious experience that results from different sources of intentionality. Due to the causal factors emanating from an action, we can never test a system in the present moment against another, as any individual system, in its fullness and facticity, can never truly be created, but this doesn’t mean that we can’t intuit using reason and subjective experience to formulate an extrapolation of causal effects to make definite claims on the extreme ends of the moral spectrum as to their effect upon the wellbeing of sentient beings. Even in situations where the moral outcome appears to be the same, it never can, in practice, in reality, outside of thought experiments and labs, actually be, because the method used to achieve it changes the universe, it is by definition a method, a movement of something, a change in something, and changes produce better or worse outcomes, always. We can never recreate an action, because the time is always changing, as the moment changes, the action inevitably will not be the same. Time, place, people, situation, all matter.

Any talk of universalizing action or moral imperatives is extremely shallow and definitely isn’t accounting for the nuances between different times and situations, but just because this is the case, doesn’t imply that a moral relativist perspective holds its ground, it more points to the fallibility in measuring differences between potential actions, and the inaccuracy in determining optimal solutions to moral problems. We can judge and predict future outcomes based on experiential data from the past in a way that is informed and wise. As it is true that we can’t prove gravity will exist in the future, yet from past verification we can assume the probability of its efficacy extrapolated into the future will be high, high enough to act as if it was truly a fact. In the same way, moral conclusions based on past experience, which are, in this case, objective datum, can be extrapolated to their probability of being effective at producing similar results of wellbeing and reduction in suffering into the future, in similar situations as recorded experience, and thus treat the imperatives or experiential knowledge as if it we’re real in the sense of, worth acting upon for the desired future results.

Moral realism is plausible if you accept that morality is the business of moving away from the most possible misery for everyone towards something better. This creates a spectrum where moral statements, if carried out, move us more or less far from that place, thus producing better and worse solutions to moral problems, validating the claim that there are right or wrong answers to moral claims. Accepting this premise for morality is akin to accepting other axioms in other fields. Such as, that truth and evidence matter to science, health is good for medicine, that burning the whole world down would be a terrible plan for an economist, etc. For moral philosophy, a good bedrock is the positiveness of moving away from the most possible misery for every sentient being. While this conceptualization of an objective and non – relativistic moral system appears to be valid in optimizing how we view experience and moral decisions, that is, based on wellbeing and suffering, this structure itself may be fallible in that there may be a better way of conceptualizing the moral landscape, or other views on morality could possible by more effective than this method.

Seek Truth

Tag: Sam Harris

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