Sentientism | "What if we saw ourselves as species diplomats?" - David Peña-Guzmán of @OverthinkPodcastPhilosophy @Sentientism | Uploaded February 2024 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
David (sentientism.info/sentientist-pledge/david-pena-guzman) is Associate Professor of Humanities at San Francisco State University. He specialises in European philosophy, the history and philosophy of science and the philosophy of animal minds. He is interested in the problem of consciousness, the study of lived experience and the value of the humanities. He has previously worked at Johns Hopkins University, Laurentian University, Dillard University, and Emory University (where he received his Ph.D. in 2015). He is the author of "When Animals Dream: The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness" and co-host, with Ellie Anderson, of the Overthink Podcast. His work has been covered by The New York Times, CNN, ABC, The Atlantic, Le Parisian, El País, and Forbes, among others.
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.
00:00 Clips!
01:14 Welcome
- Our two way para-social relationships
- Sharing #naturalistic thinking & an interest in expanding our #moralcircle based on #sentience
04:48 David's Intro
- Continental philosophy, teaching humanities, animal minds/ethics/politics, the science of consciousness & co-hosting @OverthinkPodcastPhilosophy
- "There's something equally mysterious & fascinating & alluring... about the minds of other creatures."
- Links between animal academia & animal movements (rights, welfare...) "Most of it is happening beyond the ivory tower of higher education... it's happening on the ground with people who are committed to the goal of #animalliberation "
08:10 What's Real?
- "It's hard to know how much weight to give to those early experiences..."
- Raised #catholic
- A small town in Mexico where "Catholicism was the economic driving force of town life... 5-10 thousand people that would be overrun by a million religious pilgrims 5 times a year"
- Manifestation of the virgin Mary with indigenous roots with a reputed power to do health miracles
- Disenchantment "I really saw the church & faith largely as a story that we the locals told in order to bring in tourists... As a child I never really understood that we were really meant to believe the content of the stories"
- A "great 11 year old awakening" and a "show-down with my mother... I don't want to go to church... I don't actually believe any of this... my mother had no problem with that which further just confirmed my suspicion that a lot of this was just surface"
- "Catholics... we tend to be very bad at reading the bible - we usually just get our lessons from the priest... for me it seemed like smoke & mirrors"
- "From my early teen years I leaned towards a naturalistic outlook of the world and the cosmos... I do think the world is composed of matter, of motion, of the fundamental forces of physics... that goes a really long way in explaining the kind of universe that we inhabit"
- "That does not necessarily mean that I am a #rationalist ... I don't think that our human cognitive architecture is necessarily so imperious and mighty that it is poised to uncrack all the mysteries of nature... or to deplete the world in an all-encompassing explanation."
- "There might be a gap between what our minds can comprehend and the structure of the world... the nature of life... and more specifically consciousness... these are very tricky areas... fundamental questions about the nature of reality"
- Epistemic humility & tragedy "there is a tragic thread to human existence... the recognition of that humility entails that the world was not made for us to understand it... our minds work according to really rough classifications, categorisations, schemas that nature honestly couldn't care less about"
- "The moment you think you have depleted the world or captured it... is precisely the moment the world throws another surprise at you... a hubris in assuming that somehow the world should bow down... to our human mind"
- JW: Hangovers of religious thinking even in the minds of many non-religious people... "reify ourselves to replace the deity"
- "If you're made in the image of the divine... that's a tall order to live up to... it does set us up on a pedestal that nature, as a fact, denies us"
34:59 What Matters?
57:05 Who Matters?
01:14:15 How To Make A Better World?
01:22:42 Follow David
- https://humcwl.sfsu.edu/people/david-pena-guzman
- overthinkpodcast.com
- https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691220093/when-animals-dream
- twitter.com/DrPenaGuzman1
& much more... (sentientism.info for full notes)#sentientism
#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.
David (sentientism.info/sentientist-pledge/david-pena-guzman) is Associate Professor of Humanities at San Francisco State University. He specialises in European philosophy, the history and philosophy of science and the philosophy of animal minds. He is interested in the problem of consciousness, the study of lived experience and the value of the humanities. He has previously worked at Johns Hopkins University, Laurentian University, Dillard University, and Emory University (where he received his Ph.D. in 2015). He is the author of "When Animals Dream: The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness" and co-host, with Ellie Anderson, of the Overthink Podcast. His work has been covered by The New York Times, CNN, ABC, The Atlantic, Le Parisian, El País, and Forbes, among others.
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.
00:00 Clips!
01:14 Welcome
- Our two way para-social relationships
- Sharing #naturalistic thinking & an interest in expanding our #moralcircle based on #sentience
04:48 David's Intro
- Continental philosophy, teaching humanities, animal minds/ethics/politics, the science of consciousness & co-hosting @OverthinkPodcastPhilosophy
- "There's something equally mysterious & fascinating & alluring... about the minds of other creatures."
- Links between animal academia & animal movements (rights, welfare...) "Most of it is happening beyond the ivory tower of higher education... it's happening on the ground with people who are committed to the goal of #animalliberation "
08:10 What's Real?
- "It's hard to know how much weight to give to those early experiences..."
- Raised #catholic
- A small town in Mexico where "Catholicism was the economic driving force of town life... 5-10 thousand people that would be overrun by a million religious pilgrims 5 times a year"
- Manifestation of the virgin Mary with indigenous roots with a reputed power to do health miracles
- Disenchantment "I really saw the church & faith largely as a story that we the locals told in order to bring in tourists... As a child I never really understood that we were really meant to believe the content of the stories"
- A "great 11 year old awakening" and a "show-down with my mother... I don't want to go to church... I don't actually believe any of this... my mother had no problem with that which further just confirmed my suspicion that a lot of this was just surface"
- "Catholics... we tend to be very bad at reading the bible - we usually just get our lessons from the priest... for me it seemed like smoke & mirrors"
- "From my early teen years I leaned towards a naturalistic outlook of the world and the cosmos... I do think the world is composed of matter, of motion, of the fundamental forces of physics... that goes a really long way in explaining the kind of universe that we inhabit"
- "That does not necessarily mean that I am a #rationalist ... I don't think that our human cognitive architecture is necessarily so imperious and mighty that it is poised to uncrack all the mysteries of nature... or to deplete the world in an all-encompassing explanation."
- "There might be a gap between what our minds can comprehend and the structure of the world... the nature of life... and more specifically consciousness... these are very tricky areas... fundamental questions about the nature of reality"
- Epistemic humility & tragedy "there is a tragic thread to human existence... the recognition of that humility entails that the world was not made for us to understand it... our minds work according to really rough classifications, categorisations, schemas that nature honestly couldn't care less about"
- "The moment you think you have depleted the world or captured it... is precisely the moment the world throws another surprise at you... a hubris in assuming that somehow the world should bow down... to our human mind"
- JW: Hangovers of religious thinking even in the minds of many non-religious people... "reify ourselves to replace the deity"
- "If you're made in the image of the divine... that's a tall order to live up to... it does set us up on a pedestal that nature, as a fact, denies us"
34:59 What Matters?
57:05 Who Matters?
01:14:15 How To Make A Better World?
01:22:42 Follow David
- https://humcwl.sfsu.edu/people/david-pena-guzman
- overthinkpodcast.com
- https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691220093/when-animals-dream
- twitter.com/DrPenaGuzman1
& much more... (sentientism.info for full notes)#sentientism
#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.
