Herbert Harris, MD, PhD, is a psychiatrist and writer whose work bridges the sciences and the humanities. After undergraduate study in philosophy at Georgetown University, he earned his MD and PhD from the University of Pittsburgh and completed his psychiatry training at Yale. He subsequently spent three decades in CNS translational research and clinical practice. His current work explores the intersection of neuroscience and philosophy of mind, with particular attention to consciousness, subjective experience, and their social formation. As a Black psychiatrist, he has written extensively on race, identity, and cultural memory. His essays have appeared in Literary Hub, New England Review, and Creative Nonfiction, earning the 2021 Michael Steinberg Award and multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. He co-edited Racial and Ethnic Identity: Psychological Development and Creative Expression (Routledge) and contributed to The Beiging of America anthology (2Leaf Press). He is currently at work on a memoir. Email: herb.hw [at] gmail.com. Website: www.herbertwharris.com
by Herbert Harris What gives art its power? There are as many answers as there are powerful works of art, but most seem to fall into a few broad categories. A great deal of art is representational. It is intended to depict or show us something, whether natural or abstract. It succeeds by faithfully capturing…
by Herbert Harris Why should we care about each other? Is it disguised self-interest? Is altruism a “selfish gene” that gives the species a survival advantage? Is responsibility an illusion? Economist Adam Smith took on these questions at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Better known for his foundational economic theories, Smith is remembered as…
by Herbert Harris I met Paul Gilroy at a conference on racial identity at Yale in the early 1990s. I was finishing my training and eager for new ideas. He was soft-spoken and thoughtful, but his presentation was quietly electrifying. He seemed to be rethinking race, culture, and identity in a radically creative way. The…
by Herbert Harris This year’s Black History Month is different. Black history itself has become contested. Not debated at the margins but questioned at its core. School curricula are scrutinized, and institutions that preserve Black memory are accused of being “divisive.” Should Black history exist, or should it disappear, erasing its many uncomfortable truths and…
by Herbert Harris The greatest privilege of my childhood was growing up in a house where books had their own room. My father’s library occupied the second floor, the only room without a window air-conditioning unit. On summer afternoons in Washington, DC, when the heat and humidity pressed down like a weight, the rest of…
by Herbert Harris Many years ago, I began a meditation practice, sparked by curiosity and vague, middle-aged worries about stress and blood pressure. To my surprise, it quickly became a regular part of my life. I restlessly explored many forms of meditation and meditation groups, eventually coming to the San Francisco Zen Center. Before long,…
by Herbert Harris Is mathematics created or discovered? For over two thousand years, that question has puzzled philosophers and mathematicians alike. In Plato’s Meno, Socrates encourages an uneducated boy to “discover” a geometrical truth simply by answering a series of guided questions. To Plato, this demonstrated that mathematical knowledge is innate, that the soul recalls…
by Herbert Harris Artificial intelligence has emerged not as a single technology but as a civilization-transforming event. Our collective response has predictably polarized between apocalyptic fears of extinction and utopian dreams of abundance. The existential risks are real. As AI systems become increasingly powerful, their inner workings become increasingly opaque to their creators. This raises…
by Herbert Harris I began my psychiatric training in 1990, the year that marked the start of a program called the “Decade of the Brain.” This was a well-funded, high-profile initiative to promote neuroscience research, and it succeeded spectacularly. New imaging techniques, molecular insights, and psychopharmacological discoveries transformed psychiatry into a vibrant biomedical science. The…
by Herbert Harris In 2023, Stanford neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky’s bestseller ‘Determined’ declared free will to be a complete illusion. Sapolsky gathered a wealth of data from neuroscience to quantum mechanics in an effort to deliver a final knockout blow to our intuitive ideas of freedom. He then explores a wide range of ethical and social issues…
by Herbert Harris When we say, “I’m feeling self-conscious,” we usually mean we are uncomfortably aware of being the center of other people’s attention. We might worry about how we look, what we wear, or how we act. While we are, to some degree, concerned with aspects of ourselves, our main focus is on others…