#488 — Ego, Ecstasy, and Equanimity

**Sam Harris** (0:02)
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**Neal Brennan** (0:25)
Guys, my guess today is, it's hard to even describe what you've blossomed into.
He's got an app called Waking Up. He's got a podcast. He's got a sub stack and books. How do you describe yourself at this point?

**Sam Harris** (0:41)
Yeah, I'm rarely in a situation when I have to.

**Neal Brennan** (0:43)
You ran it, hit me.

**Sam Harris** (0:45)
Yeah.
I mean, I am essentially a philosopher of mind, but technically my PhD is in neuroscience, but I got it really as an expression of my philosophical interests. I almost did a PhD in philosophy, but just did a lateral move to neuroscience because I wanted to know more about the brain. So most of my writing is philosophy of mind and moral philosophy, but I get dragged into politics so much that I'm... The phrase public intellectual is embarrassing to apply to oneself, but it's the way I'm functioning. I'm just bringing science and philosophy into whatever I can when we're talking about public politics.

**Neal Brennan** (1:24)
Do you just bring science into it, or is it meaning you just end up inevitably talking about neuroscience within this stuff?

**Sam Harris** (1:31)
Yeah, I mean, not just neuroscience, but I just think our understanding of ourself scientifically is and should put pressure on what we think is real, obviously, and what we think human life is for and could be for and how good might it be, and what sort of public policies make sense to implement, and what should we get our ethics? Should we get it from books that people think were dictated by the creator of the universe 2,000 years ago or 1,400 years ago, depending, or should we be having a 21st century conversation about the foundations of human flourishing? And so every time I open my mouth on any of these topics, I'm trying to bring in kind of a secular rationality into pretty fraught topics.

**Neal Brennan** (2:17)
Yeah, but before even getting all that serious stuff, can you explain to people who your mother is? Because this is, I'm getting ready to blow your head apart. He's going to take a sip of water and then he's going to tell you who his mom is.

**Sam Harris** (2:30)
So my mom is Susan Harris and she created a bunch of shows, but the one that was most seen and impactful was the Golden Girls. So, but she created Soap and a bunch of, you know, like, I don't know, 10 shows. Benson? Benson was a spinoff of Soap.

**Neal Brennan** (2:45)
Did she fire Jerry Seinfeld?

**Sam Harris** (2:48)
Jerry Seinfeld was a, didn't he had a bit part of Benson?

**Neal Brennan** (2:51)
I think he didn't make it.

**Sam Harris** (2:52)
Yeah, no, I don't think he, well, I don't know if that was just like a walk-on part or if that was, he was trying to be a cast.

**Neal Brennan** (2:58)
I think he wanted, I think he was trying to be in the cast. Everybody was trying to be in the cast.

**Sam Harris** (3:01)
Okay, well, I don't know the details on that, but she discovered Billy Crystal, Soap launched Billy Crystal, which was great.

**Neal Brennan** (3:09)
Yes.

**Sam Harris** (3:10)
Jessica, the homosexuals go way back in history. Who?

**Sam Harris** (3:14)
Alexander the Great was gay, Plato was gay.

**Neal Brennan** (3:22)
Mickey Mouse's dog was gay.
He was, well, I don't want to say he was impressionist at that point, but kind of. Joe Fraser, don't talk about me. And what was it like? Was she a single mom? That's what I mean.

**Sam Harris** (3:37)
Yeah.

**Neal Brennan** (3:39)
How did she start?

**Sam Harris** (3:41)
Not in a way that sounds like it would give a high probability of success. So my dad left when I was two and a half, and I still had a relationship with him, but he moved to New York when I was three and a half, and so we were here.

**Neal Brennan** (3:55)
And living in an apartment.

**Sam Harris** (3:57)
Yeah, living in an apartment in the valley, and my mother had no safety net, and I think my dad paid child support once.
I think that was like one $500 check or something that discharged his responsibilities there. And she, I mean, as the story goes, she was watching television one day. I don't know what she was doing for work or looking, she was looking for work at that point, but I mean, very soon after he left, she was watching television and just thought, I could write one of those scripts. And she wrote a first script and sold a first script, I think for $2,000 or something. I think it was for a show.