Sentientism | "A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousness" - Walter Veit - Sentientism Ep:158 @Sentientism | Uploaded June 2023 | Updated October 2024, 3 hours ago.
Walter (sentientism.info/sentientist-pledge/452) is an interdisciplinary scientist, philosopher and writer focusing on biology, minds and ethics. He publishes the ‘Science and Philosophy‘ series on Psychology Today and Medium.
This is our second Sentientist Conversation (here's our first: youtu.be/xxSGItuaSn4). Here we focus on Walter's new book, published on the same day as this episode, "A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousness" routledge.com/A-Philosophy-for-the-Science-of-Animal-Consciousness/Veit/p/book/9781032343617.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & https://anchor.fm/sentientism.
We discuss:
00:00 Taster clips!
01:02 Welcome
02:22 Book Launch: A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousness
03:40 Walter's Intro
- Peter Godfrey-Smith & Paul Griffiths
- Heather Browning (youtu.be/DDDwKuYhx7Q)
- "An evolutionary, non-anthropocentric approach"
- "A lot of the denial of pain [e.g. fish, crustaceans, octopuses] has rested on a very #anthropocentric position"
- Some animals have different eyes vs. humans but that doesn't mean they can't see. The same applies re: the architectures underpinning consciousness
- "what animal lives are like... what kinds of subjective experiences would be useful for them to have from a #Darwinian perspective"
- Studying consciousness "as a natural phenomenon... rather than... as a human phenomenon"
- Did human social contexts (barter, trade, co-operation, agreements) lead to us having more abstract cognitive facilities?
- Modern discoveries re: advanced cognitive and social capabilities in non-human animals (e.g. corvids, octopuses)
10:53 A Darwinian Perspective
- #DanielDennett "Complexity matters - but what kind of complexity"
- #iit & #HigherOrderTheory
- Brain hemispheres operating more independently. Two separate streams of experience?
- Theories of consciousness that are untestable or fail to make predictions
- #Panpsychism, #illusionism
- "The Darwinian bottleneck"
- "Philosophers very rarely ask the question 'where does the mind come from?'"
- "In order to understand how it works we'll need to understand why it evolved"
- "We can only understand what consciousness is by understanding how it evolved"
- Evolution & development processes
- #Epiphenomena
- Marian Dawkins
- "This attitude that anything goes in the literature... it doesn't seem like we're making any progress... we're just creating new outlandish views without having any means of trying to filter them out... like panpsychism"
- JW: "It's very common for people to say 'we know nothing about consciousness' which I find a bizarre statement"
- "We've made so much scientific progress"
- "There are some mental properties that are unique to humans but it's very unclear those are the ones that matter for moral purposes"
20:31 The Origins of Sentience & Consciousness
- "It is adaptationist... very complex phenomena don't just appear out of nowhere... They almost always have a functional role. They're not just spandrels..."
- "Consciousness is just far to complex and evolutionarily fine tuned for that to happen"
- "In our own experience we can see how well it helps us... even if it sometimes can misfire"
- The mistaken view that consciousness must be sharp-edged & binary, on or off
- "If you can't explain how it can gradually come into existence you must believe that it has always been there" #panpsychism
- Quasi-consciousness & Dennett's hemi-demi-semi minds "what might be in between"
- Wanting to apply crisp well bounded concepts (baldness, life, health, consciousness) to a messy reality
- "Philosophy suffers from this ambition... clear cut concepts that capture nature at its joints & can just carve it neatly"
- "When you look at sciences like biology, cognitive science, the boundaries are just far too messy... nature itself has unclear boundaries... there are gradations"
- Life histories, k and r species (reproductive strategies)
- "Biologists have meaningful concepts like 'species' that aren't perfectly clear cut - they're still useful, real categories and we need them to understand the real world"
- "It makes more sense to have these fuzzy boundary concepts"
33:02 Pathological Complexity
35:28 Panpsychism & Philosophy of Mind
38:50 Welfare ranges and comparing animal species
47:55 The 5 Dimensions of Consciousness
1:00:29 Artificial Sentience
1:17:25 Other Evo Views of Consciousness
1:25:51 Science & Philosophy & Humanity
& much more... (sentientism.info for full notes)
#Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all #sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info/. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall sentientism.info/wall/.
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. E.g.: facebook.com/groups/sentientism.
Walter (sentientism.info/sentientist-pledge/452) is an interdisciplinary scientist, philosopher and writer focusing on biology, minds and ethics. He publishes the ‘Science and Philosophy‘ series on Psychology Today and Medium.
This is our second Sentientist Conversation (here's our first: youtu.be/xxSGItuaSn4). Here we focus on Walter's new book, published on the same day as this episode, "A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousness" routledge.com/A-Philosophy-for-the-Science-of-Animal-Consciousness/Veit/p/book/9781032343617.
In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & https://anchor.fm/sentientism.
We discuss:
00:00 Taster clips!
01:02 Welcome
02:22 Book Launch: A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousness
03:40 Walter's Intro
- Peter Godfrey-Smith & Paul Griffiths
- Heather Browning (youtu.be/DDDwKuYhx7Q)
- "An evolutionary, non-anthropocentric approach"
- "A lot of the denial of pain [e.g. fish, crustaceans, octopuses] has rested on a very #anthropocentric position"
- Some animals have different eyes vs. humans but that doesn't mean they can't see. The same applies re: the architectures underpinning consciousness
- "what animal lives are like... what kinds of subjective experiences would be useful for them to have from a #Darwinian perspective"
- Studying consciousness "as a natural phenomenon... rather than... as a human phenomenon"
- Did human social contexts (barter, trade, co-operation, agreements) lead to us having more abstract cognitive facilities?
- Modern discoveries re: advanced cognitive and social capabilities in non-human animals (e.g. corvids, octopuses)
10:53 A Darwinian Perspective
- #DanielDennett "Complexity matters - but what kind of complexity"
- #iit & #HigherOrderTheory
- Brain hemispheres operating more independently. Two separate streams of experience?
- Theories of consciousness that are untestable or fail to make predictions
- #Panpsychism, #illusionism
- "The Darwinian bottleneck"
- "Philosophers very rarely ask the question 'where does the mind come from?'"
- "In order to understand how it works we'll need to understand why it evolved"
- "We can only understand what consciousness is by understanding how it evolved"
- Evolution & development processes
- #Epiphenomena
- Marian Dawkins
- "This attitude that anything goes in the literature... it doesn't seem like we're making any progress... we're just creating new outlandish views without having any means of trying to filter them out... like panpsychism"
- JW: "It's very common for people to say 'we know nothing about consciousness' which I find a bizarre statement"
- "We've made so much scientific progress"
- "There are some mental properties that are unique to humans but it's very unclear those are the ones that matter for moral purposes"
20:31 The Origins of Sentience & Consciousness
- "It is adaptationist... very complex phenomena don't just appear out of nowhere... They almost always have a functional role. They're not just spandrels..."
- "Consciousness is just far to complex and evolutionarily fine tuned for that to happen"
- "In our own experience we can see how well it helps us... even if it sometimes can misfire"
- The mistaken view that consciousness must be sharp-edged & binary, on or off
- "If you can't explain how it can gradually come into existence you must believe that it has always been there" #panpsychism
- Quasi-consciousness & Dennett's hemi-demi-semi minds "what might be in between"
- Wanting to apply crisp well bounded concepts (baldness, life, health, consciousness) to a messy reality
- "Philosophy suffers from this ambition... clear cut concepts that capture nature at its joints & can just carve it neatly"
- "When you look at sciences like biology, cognitive science, the boundaries are just far too messy... nature itself has unclear boundaries... there are gradations"
- Life histories, k and r species (reproductive strategies)
- "Biologists have meaningful concepts like 'species' that aren't perfectly clear cut - they're still useful, real categories and we need them to understand the real world"
- "It makes more sense to have these fuzzy boundary concepts"
33:02 Pathological Complexity
35:28 Panpsychism & Philosophy of Mind
38:50 Welfare ranges and comparing animal species
47:55 The 5 Dimensions of Consciousness
1:00:29 Artificial Sentience
1:17:25 Other Evo Views of Consciousness
1:25:51 Science & Philosophy & Humanity
& much more... (sentientism.info for full notes)
#Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all #sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info/. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall sentientism.info/wall/.
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. E.g.: facebook.com/groups/sentientism.
