Harris v. Wolpe

This is an oldie, but a goodie: Sam Harris versus David Wolpe:



I think Harris definitely gets the best of Wolpe, although Wolpe's no slouch. There are so many good lines by Harris it's hard to list them all. For example, "We need to cease to reward people for pretending to know things they do not know. And the only area of discourse where we do this is on the subject of God."

What interests me more, though, is Wolpe's utter confusion when it comes to understanding neuroscience (at 44:50):

"The reason that our minds can do something more than just operate on instinct is because we operate all the time with things that are not physical, right: ideas, words... I can say something and change the physiology of your brain. Now how is that unless there's something more to your brain than physiology?"

This is remarkably dim. Ideas and words are not physical? An idea is a certain pattern of our neurophysiology. Spoken words are vibrations of the air. The patterns thus formed are interpreted by the nerves in the ear and are transmitted to the brain as electrical signals. Calling these things "not physical" betrays an ignorant, pre-scientific view of the world.

I wonder where Wolpe thinks ideas reside, if not in the brains of humans and other animals? In some magical ethereal realm?

I can say something and change the physiology of my computer. Heck, if my toaster is hooked up to some voice recognition, I can say something and change the physiology of a piece of bread. How does that imply that there's "something more" to a piece of bread?