Sam Harris’ Next Book: Lying

Knowingly communicating falsehoods or withholding relevant details when asked.  Bam!

Is that a caddisfly?

It must be all about religion and the priests, rabbis, ministers and other trolls who practice it.

Hunky vampires?

Could that be a “sky hook” with an artificial lure? 

I have a feeling it will be “Fishing Stories” as a metaphor for how some of these ridiculous myths get started.  But that’s just a wild guess.

Yeah, assuming it is supposed to be some kind of clinch knot, it could have used a few more twists before the bitter end was tucked back through.

Seems silly to go through the process of mocking up a book cover for an ebook. You know, the hard-back look, I mean.

Bonus points to anyone who can accurately predict what it’ll be about.

Uh… Lying?

I liked it too, it wasn’t mind-blowing if you were already familiar with the concept but it was everything he needed to make his case all written down in one place… I’d say that makes for a decent book

Harun Yahya’s wonderful examples of godly-created insects?

one of the best I have ever read.

From Sam’s twitter:

Writing about the ethics of lying: What are the most damaging lies ever told (in history, current events, literature, or film)?

Perhaps the book will touch upon this, which Sam wrote in 2009:
http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/the-edge-annual-question-2009/

Maybe the Xtians can match e-books with f-books – Faith implanted in brains, directly from god:
 
no pages,
phony sages

no kindles
ancient jingles 

no nooks,
implanted in kooks

no truth from Dr. Harris,
tales of bananas that embarrass

Ah-ha! I think I’ve found it. On Sam Harris’ website, on the second video (Ask Sam Harris Anything #2), at 4 minutes and 42 seconds he begins to address a question about free will. He goes on to mention that he’s been getting so much attention about his thoughts on free will that he’s thinking about combining and expanding some blog posts and making an e-book. So this might be it. Link to the video: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/ask-sam-harris-anything-2/

I love e-books. It’s the only way I can read. I don’t have an e-reader (would love one though), I just use my Blackberry. The text is the same size as a book-12pt.

You have access to a computer. Download the free Kindle software from Amazon and read the book, or use their browser-based reader and dont even install anything.

Because it was a book on 1st year Ethics written by someone who had slept through most of the classes.

A) he didn’t write anything new, yet he wrote as if it was all his.
B) he repeatedly claimed he wasn’t writing about consequentialist ethics, yet his arguments about ethics were all consequentialist arguments.
C) he basically spat on all the philosophers who came before by disregarding their work in several places.

One example of his egregious bullshit: on page 101, Harris claims that “The problem is that no account of causality leaves room for free will”.

Harris’s buddy, Daniel Dennett, must be surprised to hear that as Dennett wrote a whole damn book on the topic: Freedom Evolves. Fun fact: Harris cites Freedom Evolves in his Bibliography! So either Harris is a liar, citing a book that he hasn’t read, or he’s a liar because Dennett’s account of causality *does* leave room for free will.

Blackford has an excellent review of the myriad of problems with The Moral Landscape: http://jetpress.org/v21/blackford3.htm

Some people have trouble reading books on computer screens.

In addition to JJ’s point, it’s worth noting that eBooks actually still have a cover page as well. Actual eReaders of course show these as black-and-white, but they can be made to appear in colour on devices capable of it (cell phones, for instance).

I have an ebook reader so I know there’s a cover page that looks like the cover of the hard-back book. I’m just surprised someone would mock up a cover that looks like it’s wrapped around a book for a book that won’t be sold anything other than electronically 🙂

A) You don’t appear to have read “Freedom Evolves”. Dennett’s solution is not any version of compatibilism, but an outright rejection of the terms, a rejection of the idea that ‘determinism entails inevitability’.

B) Harris doesn’t argue that there is no *successful* account of causality that leaves room for free will, but that there is “no account of causality that leaves room for free will”. In only talking about Dennett, I’m throwing Harris a bone: I’m assuming that he’s ignorant of the vast body of literature on this very topic. The fact that he cites Dennett, however, means that he is *not* ignorant of at least one “account of causality that leaves room for free will”.

You can debate whether or not it’s successful, or whether it’s some form of compatabilism (or any other label you care to apply): all of that is irrelevant to Harris’s point. He’s claiming such an account doesn’t exist when he has either read it, or is pretending to have read it.

That others may disagree with Dennett’s approach is, again, irrelevant. 

No religion can grow based upon real facts, IMHO. So all sorts of outright lies or exaggerations come into existence to attract converts.

…and yet, the title is “Lying”  and not “Free Will”… WTF?

Miss Beara, I suggest you purchase an e-Reader. There is no reason not to have one.  You can continue to purchase hardcover books, but it is much faster and cheaper for Mr. Harris to get his ideas out to his readers using the electronic format.  Sign of the times my dear, not an indictment of “book” medium.