#266 — The Limits of Pleasure

Making Sense with Sam Harris

Waking Up with Sam Harris

Samharris, Currentevents, Politics, Ethics, Religion, Neuroscience, Science, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.6 • 29.1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 November 2021

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with Paul Bloom about the role that pain and suffering play in living a good life. They discuss the limitations of hedonism, the connection between chosen suffering and meaning, the research of Daniel Kahneman on well-being, integrating the experiencing and remembering selves, moral motivations, the effects of parenthood on happiness, unchosen suffering, the asymmetry of loss and gain, Nozick’s “experience machine” thought experiment, effective altruism, valuing the future more than the past, the power of contrast, false ideals of happiness, polyamory, money and status, the role of the imagination, boredom, the power of apology, and other topics.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast.
0:09.1	This is Sam Harris.
0:11.3	Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber
0:14.8	feed and will only be hearing the first part of this conversation.
0:18.6	In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense Podcast, you'll need to subscribe
0:22.5	at samharis.org.
0:24.5	There you'll find our private RSS feed to add to your favorite pod catcher, along with
0:28.3	other subscriber-only content.
0:30.7	We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support
0:34.7	of our subscribers.
0:35.7	So, if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one.
0:47.8	No housekeeping today.
0:49.7	Apart from a note to say that Ricky Jervais and I are working on the third season of
0:54.2	absolutely mental.
0:56.2	So if you want to catch up with the first two, you can do that over at absolutelymental.com.
1:03.2	That's been a lot of fun.
1:06.2	Okay.
1:07.2	Today I'm speaking with Paul Bloom.
1:12.1	Paul I think holds the record for most appearances on this podcast.
1:17.4	I have lost count, but spend many times.
1:20.8	He is now a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto.
1:25.3	And remains an emeritus professor of psychology at Yale.
	...

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