Sam Harris' Rational Mysticism

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(Now that I have finally finished reading the End of Faith, thought I'd post something about a concept he is in big favor of.

Sam Harris' argument about rational mysticism:
http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text ... -mysticism

I'm still contemplating the exact implications of it ... and what Sam Harris is getting at exactly. So what if we can potentially put ourselves in a mindset where we no longer feel the "I" and become one with the world? Why does this matter exactly?

Is this really rational to say that consciousness is independent from the brain? Is that what he's actually saying? That's the impression I got reading his book at least. Anyone care to elaborate on this?

He made a lot of great points about faith and religion in his book, but as soon as he mentions mysticism and spirituality, it was like imagining a different person writing the book.

I think Sam Harris wants to believe there is something out there beyond this material world but coats it in words that don't make his fellow atheists get all suspicious.

The word "Rational" should not appear in the same sentence as "Mysticism" unless an editorial opinion is being expressed.

Sam Harris is either an Atheist/Materialist or he is not. Dabbling in mysticism betrays tendencies toward the latter.

He is an atheist, though. No question about that. Whether or not he is a materialist, I don't think he actually claims that he is anyway.

It's his spirituality beliefs that seem unscientific that confuse me especially when he insists that science has yet to show that consciousness is part of the brain. I think such an argument is misleading as science has done quite the opposite. And it is up to him to show that this isn't the case.

He believes the working of the Mind and the Spirit (which are at the base, material physical things) can be studied rationally.

He is an ontological reductionist as most scientifically oriented people are. The basement of the world is material-physical even if our theories don't quite reached down that far.

ruveyn

You want him to prove a negative?

He wants to believe that consciousness is separate from the brain, and says that science has yet to show it is dependent on the brain itself (at least as far as my understanding of what he said in the book goes).

The problem here is that the burden still falls upon him because of the principle of parsimony. All the evidence we have thus far is that there is no separate entity that one would refer to as consciousness that is separate from the brain.

So much of what fuels a person, gives joy to life, and in general recharges the battery pack - over and above sleep - comes from healthy balance in the subjective. It sounds like he's just giving a nod to things like meditation, mindfulness, etc. as being life enhancing as well as stating personal opposition to the opinion that all subjective things need to be squashed under a more jack-booted take on reason.