What is the main message of Making Sense?

The main message of Making Sense is to explore the nature of human experience and the power of reason.

How long does it take to read Making Sense?

The reading time for Making Sense varies depending on the reader's speed. However, the Blinkist summary can be read in just 15 minutes.

Who is the author of Making Sense?

The author of Making Sense is Sam Harris.

Society & Culture

Making Sense Book Summary - Making Sense Book explained in key points

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Making Sense summary

Name: Making Sense
Rating: 4.3 (335 reviews)
Author: Sam Harris

Sam Harris

Conversations on Consciousness, Morality, and the Future of Humanity

4.3 (335 ratings)

31 mins

Brief summary

Making Sense by Sam Harris is a collection of thought-provoking essays that explore various topics such as politics, religion, science, and philosophy. Harris presents his views on controversial issues and challenges readers to think critically about their own beliefs.

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Theoretical Philosophy

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Making Sense
Summary of 10 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 10

What’s in it for me? A mind-expanding exploration of the human mind, history, and the universe.

If you visit a university campus, you’ll find each department sequestered away in its own building. The disciplines remain largely insular, the lines between fields firmly partitioned. When you leave the campus, however, a difference becomes apparent: reality isn’t partitioned like that at all.

To truly make sense of the world, and of our minds, interdisciplinary thought is necessary. We must critically examine the ideas – both bad and good – that have taken hold in our societies. In particular, it’s our job to analyze the bad ideas, replace them with better ones, and create a better world for everyone.

These blinks cover some of the broad themes discussed in the podcast Making Sense, which consists of conversations between author Sam Harris and various guests. In them, we’ll explore everything from consciousness to selfhood, tyranny, artificial intelligence, and beyond.

Along the way, you’ll discover

why thermostats might be conscious;
that free will is an illusion; and
how everyone you know is made of math.

The evolutionary purpose of consciousness is still a mystery.

Let’s kick things off with a question that, though seemingly simple, is surprisingly difficult to answer: What is consciousness?

It’s variably defined as “sentience,” “awareness,” “subjectivity,” or “experience.” But these are ultimately just synonyms for consciousness – not definitions of it.

A better characterization comes from Thomas Nagel’s 1974 essay, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” In it, Nagel formulates consciousness as the idea that, as he puts it, “there is something it is like to be” any given organism. For instance, there’s something it is like – something it feels like – to be you. But there isn’t anything it feels like to be, say, a glass of water sitting on a desk.

Of course, defining consciousness is just the first step toward actually understanding what it is.

The key message here is: The evolutionary purpose of consciousness is still a mystery.

In the early 1990s, the philosopher David Chalmers introduced the widely debated hard problem of consciousness. Chalmers asked: Why does consciousness arise in the first place? We strongly feel as if we’re subjectively experiencing the world. Evolutionarily speaking, why is that so?

The hard problem becomes clearer if we contrast it with what Chalmers called the “easy problems” of consciousness. These are questions about how we behave and function, and they can be understood through the underlying mechanisms within our brains. Take vision, for instance. When we see, light energy is translated into neurochemical events, and the visual field is mapped onto the relevant parts of the brain’s visual cortex. We understand these functional aspects of conscious experience – yet the hard problem remains.

One way of explaining consciousness is that it’s an epiphenomenon – essentially a byproduct of the massive amounts of processing our brains do. Much like the smoke coming out of an old-fashioned steam engine, it’s part of the overall structure, yet not actually propelling it forward.

But this isn’t the only possibility. Neuroscientist Anil Seth proposes another theory. He says that, ultimately, the brain’s objective is to regulate and maintain the body’s internal state; consciousness may be contributing to that goal. Our emotions mark out something in our conscious experience that’s relevant, our brains predict the potential consequences, and we decide how to react.

Take the basic emotion of disgust, for instance. That feeling relates to your body rejecting something perceived as toxic or dangerous, such as decomposing food or an open wound, for the sake of self-preservation.

Obviously, evolution gave us consciousness for some reason. But are humans the only ones who have it?

It’s possible that animals – and even inanimate objects – are conscious.

Consider the term “memory.” We generally use this word to describe our brain’s capacity for storing information from the past. And we intuitively feel that remembering what we ate last night and remembering how to swing a tennis racket are more or less the same function. However, neurologically, these two forms of remembering are totally separate processes.

Throughout history, we’ve been consistently proven wrong about our own minds. Our theories about consciousness are no exception. At one time, for instance, many people felt that consciousness must be inextricable from our linguistic faculties. But, of course, that isn’t true.

Someday, we may create superintelligent machines that are – or seem – conscious.

Could we, one day, come up with an invention that tells us exactly how conscious something is? Well, the chances are good – since we already have one that works on humans.

Scientists at the University of Milan developed something called the perturbational complexity index. In it, numbers stand in as a measure of consciousness. A scientist uses transcranial magnetic stimulation to send a pulse of electromagnetic activity into the brain’s cortex. The scientist listens to the echo from the pulse, which can then be quantified as a number.

Our selves are much more fractured than we’d like to believe.

What percentage of the day do you spend lost in thought? Would you say five percent, or maybe 10?

In fact, those guesses are way off. All the available empirical data suggests that we’re actually lost in thought for 30 to 50 percent of our waking hours. Factor in the time we’re dreaming while asleep, and that number grows even larger. The bottom line is that we’re mentally not in control for two-thirds of our conscious lifetime.

There’s no biological basis for the concept of free will.

There are countless factors beyond our conscious awareness that influence our behavior at any given time.

People sitting in a room that smells like rotten garbage, for instance, become more socially conservative on questionnaires. If you point out to them that they were more socially liberal the previous week, when they took the same survey in a room that smelled like flowers, they will attempt to rationalize their behavior. They’ll say something like, “Oh, there was a political event recently that changed my views.” But in reality, they were simply influenced by sensory cues from their environment.

Racism isn’t always overt and obvious.

There’s no question that the United States has a brutal history of racism. There’s also no question that racism lives on in American society today, and that white people still retain certain social and economic advantages over Black people.

Open questions about racism persist, and it’s important to be able to have honest, good-faith discussions about them. To what extent is American society still racist? What should we do about it? And exactly how should we define racism, anyway?

Societies must take great care not to authorize tyranny.

In his essay “The Power of the Powerless,” the Czech writer and revolutionary Vaclav Havel offered a parable set in his Soviet-era homeland. A greengrocer places a sign in his store window that reads, “Workers of the world, unite!” – a famous quotation from The Communist Manifesto. The greengrocer doesn’t actually endorse the sentiment of the sign, but he places it in his window anyway so that he can go about his daily life without any trouble from the Communist authorities. Other people begin to engage in similar acts, following the same logic. Eventually, the public sphere is dominated by external signs of loyalty, and resistance becomes unthinkable.

Havel’s parable illustrates how essential it is for people to take a public stance against authoritarianism of any kind. But this is just one component of resisting tyranny.

Technological development could eventually lead to doomsday.

Picture a giant urn full of different-colored balls. Some are white, some gray, and some black. Each ball represents an idea, invention, or cultural norm. The white ones are innovations that have positive outcomes. The gray ones have mixed positive and negative effects. And the black ones are harmful, with consequences so bad they could destroy civilization.

This concept is referred to as the urn of invention, and it was formulated by the philosopher Nick Bostrom. Throughout history, we’ve pulled many balls out of the urn of invention, and we will continue to do so. Thus far, we’ve gotten lucky – all the balls we’ve pulled have been white or gray. But, in terms of probability, there have to be some black balls in the urn, and it’s only a matter of time before we draw one. What happens when we do?

Math and physics help us understand counterintuitive facts about the universe.

Did you know that when you look at your spouse, sibling, or best friend, you’re really looking at a bunch of math?

You’re probably wondering how that could possibly be. Well, when you look at another person, you’re really just seeing a collection of physical particles – up quarks, down quarks, and electrons. These particles consist of mathematical properties. An electron, for instance, has the properties minus one, one half, one, and so on. We have names for these properties, like electric charge, spin, and electron number – but these are just bits of language we use to describe the underlying math.

Knowledge can make anything possible.

When we talk about “knowledge,” we often feel it requires a knowing subject – someone who is aware of facts or information about the world.

However, physicist David Deutsch defines knowledge in a different way. He says that knowledge is simply information that describes something true about the world. When a scientist speculates about something, and her speculation turns out to be true, she has created knowledge. It then exists – independent of the minds that are aware of it.

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What is Making Sense about?

Making Sense (2020) consists of conversations about some of life’s biggest questions: the nature of consciousness, the progression of tyranny, the history of racism, the mysteries of the universe, and the challenges posed by artificial intelligence. Though the topics it covers are wide-ranging, its ultimate goal is to explore the ways in which we can understand our minds and harness their power to build the best possible world for everyone.

Making Sense Review

Making Sense (2021) by Sam Harris is a thought-provoking exploration of reason, philosophy, and the human mind that offers valuable insights and perspectives. Here's why this book is worth reading:

Through in-depth analysis and critical thinking, it challenges readers to question their own beliefs and assumptions, opening up new avenues of understanding.
With its clarity and straightforwardness, the book presents complex ideas in a digestible manner, making it accessible to a wide range of readers.
It tackles controversial topics with intellectual rigor, sparking meaningful discussions and encouraging readers to engage in deep and meaningful reflection.

Best quote from Making Sense

One test of whether you are a free person is whether you can change your mind. –Timothy Snyder

—Sam Harris

Who should read Making Sense?

Open-minded thinkers, ponderers, and questioners
Fans of psychology, neuroscience, history, and technology
Gazers into the past and future

About the Author

Sam Harris is a neuroscientist, philosopher, and host of the popular Making Sense podcast. His app, Waking Up, aims to teach meditation through a modern, scientific lens. He has written several best-selling and award-winning books, including The End of Faith, The Moral Landscape, and Waking Up.

Categories with Making Sense

Society & Culture Science Philosophy

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