If you’ve ever found yourself three hours deep into a Sam Harris episode, questioning the very nature of your existence while wondering if you’re smart enough to understand why you should be questioning the very nature of your existence, then congratulations, you’ve experienced the beautiful intellectual vertigo that is “Making Sense with Sam Harris.”
Whether he’s casually dismantling your sense of free will over breakfast or explaining why your consciousness is basically an elaborate neurological prank, Harris has created a treasure trove of episodes that will expand your mind, challenge your assumptions, and leave you with that peculiar mix of enlightenment and existential confusion that only comes from truly great philosophical discourse. These are the episodes that best showcase Harris’s talent for making the profound feel accessible and the accessible feel profoundly complicated.
#91 – The Biology of Good and Evil
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Robert Sapolsky engaged in a conversation with Sam Harris, discussing Sapolsky’s research involving baboon behavior, the tension that exists between rational thinking and emotional responses, uncertainty, how the brain has developed through evolution, the frontal cortex’s function in promoting civilized behavior, the misconception of autonomous choice, concepts of fairness and retribution, technology that connects brains to machines, spiritual beliefs, pharmaceutical substances, and various additional subjects.
#425 – Are We Prepared for the Next Pandemic?
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Marc Lipsitch and Sam Harris discussed pandemic readiness, covering COVID lessons, institutional credibility issues, scientific communication challenges, vaccination reluctance, mRNA safety, COVID’s origins, gain-of-function studies, and upcoming disease threats.
#189 – Wealth & Happiness
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Scott Galloway engaged in a discussion with Sam Harris regarding the relationship between financial prosperity and well-being. Their conversation covered issues of economic disparity, the movement of resources from younger to older generations, social class tensions within Democratic political strategies, government overspending, income-based Social Security qualification requirements, Bloomberg’s political campaign and controversial policing policies, dismantling large technology corporations, extreme privacy advocacy, contemplative practices, death, non-religious worldviews, and various additional subjects.
#304 – Why I Left Twitter
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Sam Harris explains his Twitter departure, then discusses with Cal Newport how technology fragments modern life, covering social media effects, internet business models, TikTok’s influence, conspiracy thinking, productivity losses from email and context switching, deep work principles, time management, and career advice pitfalls.
#48 – What is Moral Progress?
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Philosopher Peter Singer engaged in a conversation with Sam Harris regarding moral principles, broadening our ethical considerations, political matters, freedom of expression, conspiratorial beliefs, Edward Snowden, the significance of motivations, World War II, assisted dying, consuming ethically-raised cattle, and various additional subjects.
#386 – Information & Social Order
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Yuval Noah Harari discussed with Sam Harris his book Nexus and contemporary challenges, covering human self-destructive tendencies, information systems in governance, institutional trust, democratic self-correction, social media reform, Trump’s authoritarianism, nationalism needs, Israeli politics, Ukraine conflict, Middle Eastern tensions, antisemitism, religious extremism, and spiritual ethics.
#198 – A Conversation with Paul Bloom
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Paul Bloom engaged in a conversation with Sam Harris regarding the misconceived choice between economic interests and public wellness, assigning monetary value to human existence, how moral issues are presented, potential behavioral changes from COVID-19, readily available authoritarian systems, educational transformation, lasting mental health impacts from the crisis, the 2020 electoral race, the possibility of Sanders followers rejecting Biden, Harris’s concept that personal identity is a misconception, and various additional subjects.
#337 – The Future of Psychedelic Medicine
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Jeannie Fontana and Robin Carhart-Harris discussed with Sam Harris the California TREAT Initiative and the increasing potential of psychedelic substances for mental health treatment.
#81 – Leaving Islam
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Sarah Haider engaged in a conversation with Sam Harris regarding her organization Ex-Muslims of North America, the political Left’s misunderstanding of Islam, sexual violence culture within Islamic contexts, maintaining honesty while avoiding prejudice, hidden religious governance, immigration issues, the potential for Islamic reform, and various additional subjects.
#207 – Can We Pull Back From The Brink?
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Sam examined the recent social demonstrations and public disorder, considering existing knowledge about racial discrimination and law enforcement brutality in America.
#369 – Escaping Death
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Sebastian Junger engaged in a conversation with Sam Harris about peril and mortality. Their discussion covered Junger’s journalistic work in conflict areas, the relationship between risk and purpose, his near-fatal abdominal aneurysm rupture, persistent psychological effects, the notion of wonder, mind-altering substances, close-to-death encounters, non-religious worldviews, paranormal occurrences, awareness and neural function, and various additional subjects.
#127 – Freedom from the Known
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Michael Pollan discussed with Sam Harris his book “How to Change Your Mind,” exploring the renewed clinical and end-of-life interest in psychedelic substances, enhancing healthy individuals’ well-being, the connection between thought patterns and psychological distress, contrasts between psychedelic experiences and contemplative practices, unified consciousness, the brain’s default mode network, their personal encounters with mind-altering compounds, and various additional subjects.
#269 – Deep Time
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Oliver Burkeman engaged in a conversation with Sam Harris regarding humanity’s connection to temporal experience. Their discussion covered the dangers of optimization, existence versus transformation, the misconception of time as a commodity, child-rearing and youth, professional-personal equilibrium, diminished recreational time, the pitfall of excessive planning, societal disconnection, contemporary rest practices, and various additional subjects.
#181 – The Illusory Self
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Richard Lang discussed with Sam Harris methods for perceiving reality beyond the misconception of personal identity.
#283 – Gun Violence in America
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Graeme Wood engaged in a conversation with Sam Harris regarding the issue of firearm violence following the mass shooting incident in Uvalde, Texas.
#402 – The Geopolitics of Trump 2.0
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Niall Ferguson discussed with Sam Harris current global politics, covering Trump’s Ukraine approach, shifting Europe-U.S. relations, security concerns about Trump’s appointments, economic policy impacts, China’s perspective on American political chaos, democracy’s resilience, Musk’s influence on X, UK free speech issues, and Trump’s Gaza strategy.
#43 – What Do Jihadists Really Want?
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Sam Harris examined content from the most recent edition of “Dabiq,” the publication of ISIS, and analyzed the ideological convictions and objectives of global jihadist movements.
#196 – The Science of Happiness
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Laurie Santos discussed with Sam Harris the science of happiness, covering expectations versus reality, social connections’ importance, technology’s impact on relationships, time perception, mindfulness benefits, resilience, goal achievement’s illusory significance, and the happiness-ethics connection.
#86 – From Cells to Cities
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Geoffrey West engaged in a conversation with Sam Harris regarding the scaling properties of biological and social structures, the importance of fractal patterns, possibilities for dramatically prolonging human lifespan, the phenomenon of “emergence” in complex networks, urban significance, the requirement for ongoing innovation, and various additional subjects.