Spacecadet:  A Venture Collective

Sam Harris is an author, philosopher, neuroscientist, and podcast host, touching on topics including: rationality, religion, ethics, free will, meditation, psychedelics, and philosophy. Read his five big bang book recommendations below...

T-5: Featuring Sam Harris

Sam Harris is an author, philosopher, neuroscientist, and podcast host, touching on topics including: rationality, religion, ethics, free will, meditation, psychedelics, and philosophy. Read his five big bang book recommendations below...

  • 01

    The Koran

    BY

    Very few of you have read the Koran. Many of you have heard me make unpleasant assertions about it. Read it. It’s much shorter than the Bible. You can read it in a weekend and you will be informed about the central doctrines of Islam in a way that you may not be and it’s good to be informed, given how much influence these ideas have currently in our world.

  • 02

    Reasons and Persons

    BY Derek Parfit

    Derek Parfit’s book, “Reasons and Persons,” is just brilliant and written as though by an alien intelligence. It’s a deeply strange book filled with thought experiments that bend your intuitions left and right. It's just a truly strange and unique document and incredibly insightful about morality and questions of identity and well worth reading if you are of a philosophical cast of mind.

  • 03

    The Beginning of Infinity

    BY David Deutsch

    Greatly expanded my sense of the potential power of human knowledge.

  • 04

    A History of Western Philosophy

    BY Bertrand Russell

    Bertrand Russell is one of the great philosophers of his time and just a remarkably clear thinker and writer. Just a great example of how English should be written and just a great voice to have in your head as a result. Being a philosopher himself, he was quite opinionated about the very schools and traditions in philosophy. It’s a fun read, provided you care about the history of Western philosophy.

  • 05

    The Flight of the Garuda

    BY Keith Dowman

    There’s one book called The Flight of the Garuda, which I think is especially beautiful and wise. And among the Hindus who teach Advaita Vedanta, the non-dual teachings of yogic meditation that really just talks about pure consciousness and the illusion of the self – don’t be confused about the assertion of the existence of the big Self, capital S. They’re just talking about awareness in that case.