Ought flows from sentience - neuropsychologist & Hidden Spring author Mark Solms - Ep:112 Sentientism 2022-05-16 | Mark is a psychoanalyst & neuropsychologist, best known for his discovery of the brain mechanisms of dreaming & his use of psychoanalytic methods in contemporary neuroscience. He holds the Chair of Neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital and is the President of the South African Psychoanalytical Association. He has published more than 250 articles & book chapters, & 6 books. His latest book, on the hard problem of consciousness, is The Hidden Spring.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://pod.link/1540408008.We discuss:00:00 Welcome 01:29 Mark's Intro- The brain as the organ of the mind- Breaking from behaviourism- Studying psychoanalysis (first person) alongside neuroscience (studying from the outside)- The value of interdisciplinary studies of consciousness- Artificial intelligence perspectives06:08 What's Real?- Sunday school, Christian mother- At 5-6 yrs old, father said "Your mum believes in all that stuff, I don't."- Brother's horrific accident & brain damage: "He came back from the hospital... a changed person." "Who is this guy and where is Lee?"- "I was forced at an early age to confront this question of the relationship mind & body... the person & the organism"- "My sentient being must somehow be bound up with the functions of this bodily organ"- "I think we underestimate little kids... they really do think about these things"- "Clearly he is his brain"- Finding it terrifying... intimations of our own mortality- Lying in bed in panic: "I am going to cease to exist"- Depression: "what's the point?"- Becoming atheist, now agnostic. Appreciating the limits of human comprehension (through working with patients)- "We're only able to comprehend as much as the instrument we use... is capable of... it's not a perfect instrument"- Taking a comfort in ignorance & the limits of our capability- "Do the best we can to understand" but "science has limits"- Un-testable/falsifiable beliefs. Delusions as a response to frightening uncertainties26:50 What Matters?- Starting out with cultural defaults, but "that's not what drives me now"- "The fundamental basis of my ethical & moral compass now... is derived neither from religion or philosophy, but rather from neuroscience"- Discovering the brain mechanisms of dreaming in the brain-stem- Jaak Panksepp: "Deep, evolutionarily ancient (200m yrs) circuits sourced in the brain stem which give rise to our (all mammals & some with all invertebrates) basic emotions"- "This must surely be the foundation of all of our values" "They pre-date by a very long shot any philosophy, any religion... it's nothing to do with culture and education"- "Pain is bad - everyone knows that just because it is"- Basic circuits of fear, disgust, pain, rage, lust, separation distress "it's bad to separate a baby from its caregiver"- Nurturing & compassion instincts- Dealing with conflicting values. "That's where learning & education & enculturation kick in"- We evolved to live in very different environments, so now we need laws, governance etc.- "The idea that if you don't hold to a religious worldview then you have no basis for being ethical... that's nonsense"- The innate need to play... negotiation, social navigation, reciprocity- Emotion, affects, experiences, sentience, consciousness "deeply confluent terms"- "The reticular activated system is where the light switch is"- Damaging 2 cubic mm of the Parabrachial Complex will cause a coma: "the most concentrated consciousness generating tissue that we know"- "In its most elementary form, consciousness is valence... the whole point of consciousness is for the creature to know how it's doing... I feel this is going well/badly so I can make voluntary choices (vs. reflexive)."- "The term consciousness is synonymous with feeling", representation is then secondary- "It was a big mistake... to focus on the uniquely human forms of consciousness as our model"- Sentience as the morallly salient aspect of consciousness & also it's foundation- Without the feeling, the rest collapses- "I still have many an argument with highly respected animal neuroscientists (e.g. Joseph LeDoux) who have great difficulty in accepting [animal sentience]"- Supernatural & naturalistic anthropocentrism- Zoomorphising humans- The problem of other minds & solipsism...And much more! Full show notes are at sentientism.info - they wouldn't fit here.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.Thanks Graham! twitter.com/cgbessellieu
Is slaughter haram? - Clip from Sentientism episode 216 with Altamush Saeed Sentientism 2024-10-19 | Watch our full conversation here: youtu.be/fGQhXvN7W5c
Factory farming... is impermissible in Islam - Altamush Saeed - Sentientism 216 Sentientism 2024-10-18 | Altamush is an animal and environmental law professor. He teaches Pakistan’s 1st Animal Law Advocacy Course and is Founding Managing Partner At Environmental and Animal Rights Consultants, Pakistan’s 1st dedicated Animal and Environmental law and policy firm. Altamush is known for his non-profit work on Interspecies Justice for which he has won multiple awards. He also co-founded the Charity Doings Foundation, a non-profit that aims to save all life, be it human, animal, or the environment in Pakistan. Amongst many other advisory roles he serves as a strategic academic advisor and advocate for Muslim Veganism and Environmentalism at Green Islam.In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI. 00:00 Clips!01:11 Welcome- Islam and non-human animals- Animals as survivors/victims of natural disasters03:00 Altamush's Intro- 3 masters degrees: animal, environmental and human rights law "I always see the three disciplines as together"- Teaching law- Founding and running a non-profit and a law firm- Becoming a documentary film-maker05:00 What's Real?- "I've had multiple identities"- Growing up in Pakistan- Doctor parents... a good education... privileges- "Animals are kind of invisible"- "this anthropocentric mindset... fuelled by the idea that you're unable to see beyond your own needs... until they're met at a proper scale... it's hard for people to see beyond human beings... that's the lived reality in Pakistan."- Pakistan as an Islamic nation "part of our constitution... we have laws on Islam... laws on animal rights in Islam... codified, however not implemented properly."- "Initially I didn't see animals... that's how I started my non-profit"- "A cat came into my life... even though I physically rescued her she was the one who mentally rescued me... that's the day when I started seeing animals for who they really are..."- JW: Religious belief based on faith/revelation/authority or on evidence and reason?- "It's actually both of them... I do believe in the text... the Quran... taught about that from a very young age... we pray... community... good human rights stuff"- "All Muslims are khalifa which is basically a ruler. But the actual word is steward... a sovereign who has responsibility for everytihng..."- "That's not normally how it's read... you are the most superior being... everything has been made for you... you have divine permission to do anything including eating animals - that's how we're normally taught."- "I used reason... the most driving reasoning for me was the mercy of Allah... there are constant references that his mercy overpowers his anger"- "...How can mercy be limited?... animals are mentioned in many ways in the scripture..."- "Whenever you connect veganism and Islam people think that's not possible because it does say... that you can eat them - however it never says that you actually have to..."- "...there are some other principles of faith of empathy and mercy... you can extend those principles"- "Islam is for the subjects who pray to god... however it's also mentioned that animals pray to god as well in the Quran.. the sound that the frog makes is a prayer to god and he does that his whole life... Prophet Muhammad loved the frog for this reason"- "The Quran also mentions that animals are a community... the Arabic word Ummah... those people or those beings for whom the religion was created and animals are referenced there."- Marine animals not mentioned because "when Islam came it was in the desert... the religion's meaning will change with time"- "Human rights are very strongly mentioned in religion... if you do anything that harms humans... that is 100% impermissible"13:05 What and Who Matters?- JW: Varieties of religious worldview ranging from universal mercy and compassion to the risks of hierarchy, sexism, homophobia, harsh discriminations against outsiders & apostates- "In the human ethics space it's very, very clear... rights for human beings are mentioned explicitly... if you extend this concept of mercy... men and women are equal in the religion"- "Not extending rights to women... does not fall under Islam for me... however the interpretations can be slightly different"- The story behind the Hijab...17:00 Who Matters?41:52 A Better World?01:04:48 Follow Altamush- linkedin.com/in/altamushsaeed95- instagram.com/altamushsaeed& much more... see 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.
A whole new relationship... that will blow people’s minds! Jonina Turzi Sentientism 78 Remastered Sentientism 2024-10-11 | Jonina (twitter.com/JoninaTurzi) is cofounder of Lancaster Farm Sanctuary (lancasterfarmsanctuary.org), a volunteer district leader for HSUS, & a doctor of physical therapy & yoga educator. This is an audio remastered version of our original conversation published in August 2021.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://pod.link/1540408008.We discuss:0:00 Welcome1:58 Jonina's Intro- Lancaster Farm Sanctuary, physical therapy, yoga teaching, sobriety, queerness3:07 What's Real?- Hippie parents, social justice, civil rights- Catholic father & schooling, more cultural than doctrinal- Brethren Church family history- Parents with a spiritual appreciation without buying into religious doctrine- Feeling the freedom to explore "I just want you to be happy"- "It felt like a human construct"- Identifying as an atheist as a teenager- Finding a beauty in the human body (& a sense of spiritual meaning) through an anatomy class- Being bullied, as a "young queer kid", by members of "Youth for Christ"- "I have no idea what's real"- The lower & upper case "Self" in some Yoga practice- Some things might always be unknowable- Reverence, wonder & awe... openness19:08 What (& who) Matters?- Oneness & interconnectedness- Unnecessary harm to sentient others- Might plants have a kind of sentience? "I'm OK with saying we shouldn't harm plants unnecessarily"- Seeing the similiarities between human and non-human animals through physiology- "The idea that non-human animals aren't sentient is so bizarre to me"- Movement & intent as indicators of sentience- Are Roomba's sentient?- Evolution, behaviour/comms, information processing as inferential evidence for sentience- Intrinsic & instrumental value- The ethical dangers of holistic/ecocentric thinking- "Spirtual Bypassing"... rushing to find a purpose/meaning/spiritual goal while bypassing compassion & understanding- Knowing very spiritual people who also own factory farms- A local factory farm with a Bible verse written on it- "The foundation of a spiritual practice is caring for others"- Stages of moral development: Ego, ethno, anthropocentric...41:12 Vegetarian to vegan- Rebelling against Jonina's mother's vegetarianism as a teenager- Being vegetarian. Not understanding dairy- Seeing slaughterhouse footage & going vegan together with Jonina's partner- Social indoctrination re: animal ethics & the supernatural- Climate change- The relationship between scarcity & morality. Is it harder to be moral under scarcity?48:04 The Future- "Treating every sentient being I can with dignity, including myself"- "We should all adopt Sentientism"- Embedding a sentientist culture & ethics of care into education & religion & law- A post-scarcity future? Freeing creative impulses from the bottom half of Maslow's hierarchy- Re-wilding, permaculture, agro-forestry- "A whole new relationship with non-human animals that will blow people's minds" as at Lancaster Farm Sanctuary- Existential hope?- Being clear about problems but radically open-minded about potential utopias- Extending human concepts (e.g. Universal Declaration of Sentient Rights, Sentientist Development Goals) or something different?- You can't just legislate morality. People need to feel it too - by meeting other sentients! Gaps in our compassion are like holes in our brains- Our most basic, important interests are those we most have in common with non-human sentients- "Sentientism will look different depending on where it's practised"- Indigenous perspectives on sentience & connecteness- Humanity to Sentientity?1:06:20 Conspirituality- MLMs, Wellness, "Alternative" medicine, QAnon, Flat Earth...- The Conspirituality Podcast (conspirituality.net)- Assessing yoga/spiritual teachers & groups. "Is there a clear call for compassionate ethics towards other sentients?"- The danger of putting anything as more important than sentient beings1:12:21 Following Jonina and Lancaster Farm Sanctuary- lancasterfarmsanctuary@gmail.com- lancasterfarmsanctuary.org- Instagram, FaceBook, maybe TikTok soon...Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info/. Join Jonina (sentientism.info/sentientist-pledge/jonina-turzi) on our "I'm a Sentientist" wall sentientism.info/wall here: sentientism.info/im-a-sentientist.Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here: facebook.com/groups/sentientism.Thanks for the post-prod, Graham twitter.com/cgbessellieu.
Accelerating the end of factory farming - clip from Sentientism 215 with @farmkinds Thom Norman Sentientism 2024-10-07 | Find our full conversation here (and on the Sentientism podcast): youtu.be/4mRSskrZXvg
That system will be history... Our job is just to speed that up - Thom Norman of @farmkind - 215 Sentientism 2024-10-05 | Thom Norman (sentientism.info/sentientist-pledge/thom-norman) is the co-founder of @FarmKind (www.farmkind.giving), a new non-profit focused on raising money for some of the best farmed animal charities. FarmKind is designed to help donors both have a big impact for animals and donate to the organisations they care about most.In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI. 00:00 Clips!00:56 Welcome- Cameron King episode: youtu.be/RkF6bNp7qus02:30 Thom's Intro- Co-founding @farmkind - "What's the thing I can do best... to tackle the issue of factory farming?"... "We believe the single biggest thing... is to donate to the right charities... we help people to do that"- Finding charities that do great work and making donating to those charities super-easy03:44 What's Real?- A very, very religious family "church is an integral part... of their worldview... also social structures"- "Broadly a positive thing" - Anglican, Church of England Christian- Asking philosophical questions that "hit up against some bible verse or god - and that's the end of the conversation"- Conversations with some Christians about animals: "Humans are made in the image of god... we are above other animals... that is kind of the end of the conversation"- "As someone who increasingly... took the suffering of animals very seriously... I don't think that's where the conversation should end... and for many Christians that's not where it ends"- "You can think that humans matter more than animals and still think that animals do matter"- "We can still agree on basic things like 'suffering is bad'... 'animals suffer'... 'if there are things we can do to prevent suffering'... 'then it seems obvious that that's a good thing'"- The people working within religious communities to emphasise more universal sentiocentric compassion... #ahimsa, #stewardship, care and compassion, mercy- Reading religious apologetics and secular points of view- "I don't know what I think... a pragmatic pragmatism?... what version of the world do I see that allows me to operate... to move through it... even if epistemically or ethically that's not 100% perfectly logically sound"- Humility... "We need to be clear that we're not sure that we're right"- Donating to the most effective charities "is not the only thing people care about"... so FarmKind allows donation splitting... head and heart donations- The tension between different values... more rational and more intuitive / personal- "It's very important we don't disregard those emotional reasons"15:03 What Matters?- "Doing good is a fundamentally important thing"- Leaving behind a safe career as a lawyer for start-up charity founding- "I do attribute that to coming from a religious upbringing... that's how I got there"- From divine command theory "doing good means following what god wants" towards "suffering is very bad... if you can do things that reduce suffering... or increase positive emotions and affect... then this is almost certainly good"- "There are very few coherent moral frameworks that would say that reducing suffering is bad"- "Probably... I would be a deontologist... I'm not a utilitarian... there are these values... justice and fairness as well as suffering... what is right is probably... stay as close to those"- JW: Linking the good/bad of experiences to the good/bad of morality- Ethical pluralism (virtue, utility, justice, care...) "many of these theories have some things that are helpful to them"- "You can do more good or less good... aiming towards doing more good is better... there's an unerring logic to that"- "When we're acting as ethical beings... we're not getting out a spreadsheet... there is clearly something emotional going on... it would seem strange... to say that can't be the right way"- Virtue ethics "doing good because you're a good person"- Is killing (outside of compassionate euthanasia) wrong if it's done without suffering? "there's still something that's clearly wrong"- JW: The suffering-free killing thought experiment "bears no relation to animal agriculture whatsoever"- A narrow focus only on suffering "is clearly missing something"... JW: "We tend to call it murder"26:00 Who Matters?38:24 A Better World?01:08:37 Follow Thom and @farmkind - https://www.farmkind.giving/- https://x.com/FarmKindThom- linkedin.com/in/tdnorman& much more... see 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.
Our Kindred Creatures - clip from Monica Murphy and Bill Wasik on @Sentientism podcast/YT ep:214 Sentientism 2024-09-26 | Here's our full conversation - hope you enjoy: youtu.be/G61Gx7qaqp4Thanks @PenguinRandomHouse
This great unresolved tension of modern life - Monica Murphy & Bill Wasik - Sentientism 214 Sentientism 2024-09-24 | Bill Wasik is the editorial director of @nytimes The New York Times Magazine. Monica Murphy is a veterinarian and a writer. Their previous book, Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus, was a Los Angeles Times best seller and a finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Their latest book, "Our Kindred Creatures" makes a case for seeing the fight against animal cruelty as a crucial thread in America's history. Readers are introduced to the activists, scientists, and moguls who helped create our modern views on animals, with our intense compassion for certain species and ignorant disregard for others.In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI. 00:00 Clips!01:09 Welcome- "Our Kindred Creatures" as an example of Sentientist History?03:30 Monica and Bill's Intros- Writing two books together: Rabid and Our Kindred Creatures- "...Monica's interest in animals [as a veterinarian] that I think got me interested"- Telling the story of how the animal welfare movement came to the USA in the decades after the civil war- The emergence of the modern way of thinking about animals "some of them are like members of the family... others of them in huge numbers are excluded..."- "Everyday people in cities... were living among all kinds of animals in a way that feels very foreign to us today"07:18 What's Real?- Meeting in a church youth group, Bill's family more devout than Monica's- "It was not a creationist church... there was a sense that we weren't going to doubt what science was telling us just because we were part of a religious tradition that had a different story"- "'In a world in which there's no god why should we care at all about human suffering?'... runs implicitly through the book - many of the people we write about are religious"- Links between religion, the abolition of slavery and animal ethics "though of course the slavers themselves had various bible verses that they waved around"- "Today we're Unitarian Universalists... go to church on Sundays and Bill sings in the choir"- "Our Unitarian church is a very humanist church... animals don't come up much... some other Unitarian churches have animal affinity groups"- "There are also a lot of atheistic Unitarians... our church leans atheistic... the younger people even more so"- "Whatever concept of god that I have wouldn't conform with traditional ones - it's more notional"- "We came back to religion because of our son... he was a very loud atheist... a disrespectful atheist... we wanted him to expand his thinking"- "Even though we occupy three different spots in our family on the atheistic side of the spectrum we're very at home in this church"- "One of the things that makes me hesitate to call myself an atheist is a kind of epistemological humility" re: history and other cultures- "To say 'now we know better... theistic tradition has no truths to offer'... feels ahistorical"- "I have found it useful when listening to people talk about religion to swap in the idea of 'goodness' for 'god'"- The origins of the UK animal movement (and the abolition of slavery) "really coming out of religion... romanticism... individuals and their sufferings... matter to god"- "Not just to know in some logical sense that slavery must be wrong... but to really feel it... god really looks at the suffering... that is simply intolerable"- Scientific understanding that animals "are basically built the same way"- "From a religious lens... our creator... has seen fit to make animals in a comparable manner... therefore they must experience suffering in much the same way as we do"- "'Brute creation'... getting at the idea that these animals were made by god... we're stewards of their care..."- Did the 19th Century UK and US animal thinkers recognise the deeper history re: ahimsa / animism etc?- The focus on law enforcement (e.g. ASPCA) vs. a personal question of concern for animals25:27 What and Who Matters?- Monica: "I was a child animal lover... I loved pets... being around horses... became a vegetarian at 14... going to veterinary school"52:43 A Better World?01:12:27 Follow Bill and Monica- twitter.com/murphydvm- twitter.com/billwasik- penguinrandomhouse.com/books/634494/our-kindred-creatures-by-bill-wasik-and-monica-murphy& much more... see 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.
Theres enough spirituality in just appreciating a walk in the forest - Clip from Sentientism 213 Sentientism 2024-09-20 | Clip from Sentientism episode 213 with sociologist Richard Twine. Here's our full conversation: youtu.be/aO91FkHLsts (and don't forget to subscribe).
Spirituality is a great way in which capitalism commodifies peoples belief - Richard Twine - 213 Sentientism 2024-09-15 | Richard is Reader in Sociology at @EdgeHillUniversity in the UK, working at the nexus of critical animal studies, environmental sociology, the sociology of climate change and gender studies. He is co-director of The Centre for Human Animal Studies, an interdisciplinary forum for research and activities that engage with the complex material, ethical and symbolic relationships between humans, other animals, and their environments. Richard is the author of many articles, papers and books for both academic audiences and the wider public, including "The Climate Crisis and Other Animals".In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI. 00:00 Clips!00:43 Welcome02:34 Richard's Intro- Philosophy, psychology, history, natural sciences, bio-technology and sociology- Ecofeminism (Carol Adams, Val Plumwood), Regan, Singer, then Critical Animal Studies- The "flawed awakenings" of climate change awareness and non-human animal ethics05:28 What's Real?- Non-religious, implicitly atheist, socialist parents and household- Attending Sunday School with a Christian friend "It didn't have any effect - it was just another space to play"- A religious teacher who "made us recite the Lord's Prayer at the start of every day... that was odd... that kind of drove me away from religion"- Asking for an exemption from religious education at secondary school "Probably sociologically limited because it's actually good to learn about religion... but I already knew that wasn't something that I wanted to spend my time doing"- A materialist outlook "when we die, we die... decompose and feed the rest of nature... a kind of beautiful thing... I don't believe in an afterlife"- Avoiding dogmatism about materialism. Interested in near-death experiences- "I'm on board with that aspect of Sentientism - reason and evidence... but I would also add that my atheism isn't simplistically rationalistic... elements of romanticism in it... Shelley... beauty and wonder of nature giving us some kind of meaningfulness in our lives... that's enough."- "There's a poor track record with religiosity and conservative ideology... distanced me from it... used to justify patriarchy, anthropocentrism, colonialism, capitalism etc."- A hobbyist interest in UFOs and UAPs "stems from my childhood... subscribed to a magazine called 'The Unexplained'... I've always had that interest but ultimately - give me some evidence."- Conspiracy theories and cover-ups "I'm skeptical but I'm fascinated"- Richard's "'Alien' Disclosure and Critical Animal Studies" blog post sites.edgehill.ac.uk/cfhas/blog-post-january-2024- Spritualistic ecofeminism "I didn't like it... turns a politics into a personal identity project... egocentric."- "Spirituality is a great way in which capitalism commodifies people's belief systems... it's a big business - spirituality"- "There's enough spirituality just in appreciating a walk in a forest or jumping into a waterfall... or having a great empathic experience with something that has a face"- The @Conspiritualitypodcast - The problems of #humanism and Richard's "I'll be ticking no religion but obviously not a humanist" tweet- "When I was a lot younger I would have identified with humanism but part of my journey has been distancing myself from humanism... for me humanism has been too much too tied to the anthropocentric ideology"- "I've become more interested in post-humanism as a whole... tools to decentre the human"- "The need for humanism keeps being recycled... we keep having atrocities..."- "I don't think we've learned the lessons from the second world war yet... difference and otherness... we're still doing that - we're still otherising... muslims or women... 80 years later we've not really learned... we're kind of stuck"- JW: "A post-humanist approach or a sentientist approach gives us a better chance of addressing the intra-human challenges as well."- JW: "If they [humanists] can't fix that then they've become another dogma... If they gets stuck with anthropocentrism then they're betraying their own humanism"26:48 What Matters?32:59 Who Matters?58:29 A Better World?01:21:12 Follow Richard- richardtwine.com- https://x.com/richardtwine- sites.edgehill.ac.uk/cfhas- https://x.com/CfHAS- blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/9781743328996 & much more... see 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.
You dont really need to convince people to be compassionate @newrootsinstitutes Jesse Tandler Sentientism 2024-09-09 | Watch our full conversation here and don't forget to subscribe! youtu.be/C9h7n_FSmN4
You dont really have to convince people to be compassionate - Jesse Tandler @newrootsinstitute Sentientism 2024-09-08 | Jesse is Managing Director of the @NewRootsInstitute. He oversees programming, people operations, and implementation of New Roots Institute's strategy. Jesse is a writer, academic, and has been an educator for nearly two decades. He earned a B.A. from UC Berkeley in 2002 and an MFA from the New School in 2007. Shortly thereafter, he began teaching high school students about the ethics of our food culture. Later, during his PhD work, Jesse continued to include environmental and animal ethics on the syllabi of his undergraduate classes at the @CityUniversityofNewYork, where for five years he taught philosophy, literature, writing, and rhetoric. In 2017, he moved to Los Angeles to apply his years of research and educational experience in the non-profit sphere. Outside of New Roots Institute, you may find him practicing yoga, appreciating beauty in its myriad forms, reading in one of his preferred languages, or teaching food politics at @UCLA In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI. 00:00 Clips!01:09 Welcome02:55 Jesse's Intro- Continental philosophy, teaching food politics and running New Roots Institute (was the Factory Farming Awareness Coalition)03:32 What's Real?- Jewish pre-school- "I assumed there was a god because that's what the adults told me"- At 6-7 yrs old "It seemed slightly improbable to me because there was no other evidence for it"- At 4-5 yrs "I started getting really concerned about death and what was going to happen when I died... the annihilation of my consciousness"- "I asked my dad and he said 'of course there's no god'... I felt validated actually"- Next 15 years "a very atheistic worldview... probably some contempt for religion and people who believed in something that seemed completely impossible to me... I was pretty loud about it..."- "Very few atheists around me..." A 9th grade debate: "Is there a god... it was pretty much me against the class"- "It became a point of identity for me... in middle school and high school"- "Some of my points of identity - like being a meat-eater - had changed drastically"- College at Berkeley, psychedelics "It opened me up to the possibility that I might just not be seeing everything... my five senses were limited... I had a circumscribed intellect... it was unlikely I had access to whatever the reality out there is."- "Us looking at the universe is like a dog looking at the TV... the dog has no idea what's going on with the TV... I barely have any idea..."- 2 layers: phenomenon "what we experience" then "something else going on that we just don't really have access to - maybe some kind of spiritual access.. intuitive access.. but we can't figure out empirically."- "I'm actually not sure how much it matters what that fundamental reality is that we can't access... I still have to behave as though this world is this naturalistic thing that I'm experiencing."- "The understanding that there is more gives me a humility and more compassion"- "I might not believe that fundamentally we have free will.. but it definitely appears that way... I have to hold myself accountable on that level... I still have to behave with choice."- "I'm looking at things at a very particular scale... my table... is actually mostly space... that's definitely not the way I'm experiencing it"- "I operate as though the world is naturalistic because I'm not sure how else to operate in it"- JW: How our intuitions work better re: "middle sized dry goods" and not so well for philosophy of mind or the foundations of physics- JW: Open-mindedness and humility vs. arbitrary / fabricated beliefs- @Conspiritualitypodcast and the risks of people in the yoga / wellness / mysticism worlds can slip into conspiracism, cults and far-right worldviews- We need to disagree about reality... but without undermining our compassion for and relationality with those we're disagreeing with- JW: Actual reality, socially constructed reality, cognitive reality (and the degree to which they're correlated)20:38 What Matters?- "The journey was definitely away from the certainty that I had about what was right and wrong and who was right and wrong"35:38 Who Matters?46:47 A Better World?01:19:29 Follow Jesse:- newrootsinstitute.org/our-team/jesse-tandler- linkedin.com/in/jessetandler- https://x.com/jmtandler& much more... see 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.
We need better stories Arran Stibbe 🤩 on #Sentientism Ep:211 @theuniofglos @arranstibbe5937 Sentientism 2024-08-31 | Here's our full conversation - enjoy and subscribe! youtu.be/UZ2lIeEQ6m0
Being more rather than having more - Ecolinguist Arran Stibbe @theuniofglos - Sentientism 211 Sentientism 2024-08-26 | Arran Stibbe is Professor in Ecological Linguistics at the University of Gloucestershire. In his teaching and research he focuses on how language makes us who we are as people, and the role of language in building the kind of society we live in, using discourse analysis and ecolinguistics. Ecolinguistics examines how language encodes the stories we live by, and shapes how we see ourselves and our relationship with other animals and the earth. This involves linguistic analysis of a wide range of discourses, from advertising which encourages people to buy unnecessary and ecologically damaging products, to the inspirational language of nature writing. He is founder of the International Ecolinguistics Association.In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI. 00:00 Clips!01:00 Welcome- "I'm a massive fan of Sentientism. It's a crystal clear worldview that you're expressing... it's an important message that needs to get out there."- Arran's book "Econarrative"03:39 Arran's Intro- Ecological linguistics... "I get to analyse any kind of discourse that I want to... then I critique the stories that are emerging... based on my ecological philosophy... respecting living beings and wanting them to flourish"- Discourses from Men's Health magazine to the Pork industry handbook to nature poetry, creation stories... "positive ones and negative ones"- "Searching for new stories to live by"- Consulting with @greenpeace and others on messaging- Stories... Ben Okri: "Stories are the secret reservoirs of values... if we change the stories that individuals and nations live by then we change the individuals and nations themselves"- "If we pay careful attention to the language we can understand these stories that fundamentally underpin our unequal and unsustainable and quite cruel society"- Stories as "cognitive models in our minds that influence how we think, how we talk and how we act"... individuals and across a culture e.g. "The masculine man being strong & not showing emotions & eating lots of meat... a hegemonic story"- Narrative: "A more traditional kind of story you might tell to children at bedtime... sequences of events..."- "I would go with this #meme idea... but I think it's even more fundamental than that... so much of what we're thinking is part of this wider social cognition..."- "Is it a simplification to think of a separate being... you wouldn't exist for more than a few minutes on your own in space... your continued existence depends on breathing... an interchange with other species... within your body... you only exist in an interconnected web"- "Even your thoughts aren't yours they're coming from this wider social cognition"- Eastern religious challenges to over-simplistic rationality / language / concepts "the world is more complex"- "We can't just stay quiet and meditate in a forest... we have to tell other stories... they will be simplifications but they're necessary... to spread compassion"11:27 What's Real?- "The way we're thinking right now is a function of our upbringing and our history"- An intellectual family... number theory, mathematics, physics, NASA, computer science, philosophy- Father spent 15 years on an "extremely rational" philosophical treatise. "He started from nothing... from there he came up with the secrets of the universe." "...He was embarrassed by the fact that he wasn't a completely rational being... he had emotions and he had imagination..." - Father aspiring to be like Spock from Star Trek?- A very atheistic family- "I did feel like my father was missing something by denying the emotional, the imaginative, the embodied, the experiential, the sensuous side of being human"- Turning towards eastern religion... daoism, zen "that's really influenced everything that I've done"- "I've ended up being quite scientific in my analysis of language but I do have a real appreciation for the whole other imaginative, emotional, intuitive, experiential and sensual world"26:35 What and Who Matters?46:15 A Better World?01:12:52 Follow Arran:- glos.ac.uk/staff/profile/arran-stibbe- storiesweliveby.org.uk- ecolinguistics-association.org- Econarrative: ethics, ecology and the search for new narratives to live by. London: Bloomsbury- Ecolinguistics: language, ecology and the stories we live by (second edition). London: Routledge& much more... see 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.
“Not personhood… beingness” Sentientism 2024-08-14 | Clip of Maneesha Deckha on Sentientism Ep:209. Find our full conversation here: youtu.be/89Tp2siqDdg
Not personhood... beingness - Professor Maneesha Deckha@UVic - Sentientism 209 Sentientism 2024-08-13 | Maneesha (sentientism.info/sentientist-pledge/maneesha-deckha) is a law professor at the University of Victoria in BC, Canada @UVic . Her work initially spanned human rights, injustice, feminist theory, post-colonial & decolonial theory and later, inter-species justice and its links and intersectionality with human social justice. Maneesha founded and directs the Animals & Society Research Initiative at Victoria University @ASRI-UVic . She is the author of the book “Animals as Legal Beings”.In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI. 00:00 Clips!00:55 Welcome- Maneesha on The Animal Turn and Think Like a Vegan podcasts hosted by:- Claudia Hirtenfelder episode youtu.be/wnTkXgDhbUw- Emilia Leese episode youtu.be/AlL1wV_pmLk- #SentientistEducation sentientism.info/sentientism-in-action/sentientist-education03:05 Maneesha's Intro- "To consider how different oppressions for different groups, both human and animal and even other non-humans, are systemically structured and are related and overlap - and also how they might be different"- Working long before and since the "Animal Turn" in academia "when not too many people were discussing animals"- Research: animals legal subjectivity, animal ethics, feminist perspectives "connecting work... looking at issues of gender, race, culture, species in tandem"- "Addressing questions that affect women, that affect children, that affect animals - through that intersectional lens"- Starting and Directing the Animals & Society Research Initiative at Victoria University- Public facing projects e.g. the "A Deeper Kindness" documentary onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/asri/animal-law-films06:55 What's Real?- Growing up in a Hindu household... celebrations, stories- The radical diversity of Hinduism "all these gods and goddesses and quite a few of them are multi-species... Lord Ganesh"- Unviersity courses on Hinduism and Buddhism- "I always looked at that... as myth"- The ethos of learning... being introduced to modernist, scientific & secular views- "I approached the world in a more secular, atheist frame... atheist understood as being compatible with Hinduism... not really believing in these gods and goddesses but somewhat happy that these stories are there... the diversity of thought that it brings up"- "When we have a physical sensation or emotional sensation that it's real... that pain is real... that suffering is real even if it's psychological"- Learning about social construction and the influence of language at university "we cannot access... reality... without mediating that access through concepts, through language"- "We can't really know something 100% for certain... because it depends on how we frame it on the interiority of our mind which of course almost always depends on language"- Becoming a mother "I had biological & inter-relational experiences with my infant & also while pregnant that I felt weren't based on language" so had "a personal experience of contesting what I had so naturally and quickly imbibed doing university studies"- Pain scholars: "pain just eludes language"... "has made me be so responsive to pain not just in myself but in others - regardless of whether one is human or not"- That response motivating an interest in human social justice issues, "then those outside of the human category and the pain and suffering they are experiencing"- "I am very sensitive and it affects me deeply when someone is in pain and suffering"- "The pain & suffering that flows from the violence that is so ubiquitious in society against animals and others is real..."- "A prime example right now is the situation of the atrocities in Gaza"- "Animals that we don't see what is going on... they are being killed as we're speaking... because we use language to mediate that type of violence so we don't see it"- "As a younger person just out of university I would have said social construction is 100% of everything... now I wouldn't take that view..."- "While of course positionality is important it is not the end all be all..."26:30 What and Who Matters?37:25 Who Matters?01:07:47 A Better World?01:15:50 Follow Maneesha- uvic.ca/law/facultystaff/facultydirectory/deckha.php- A Deeper Kindness: youtu.be/Kg6QcF9rWk0 & much more... see 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.
Who matters? Ecosystems? Plants? Sentient beings? - Philosopher Joel MacClellan on @Sentientism 208 Sentientism 2024-08-07 | "Good ethics does start with what's real... with what's true."Clip from Sentientism episode 208 on podcast and YouTube with philosopher Joel MacClellan. Find our full conversation here: youtu.be/qn1G_Sd7y-A
Good ethics does start with whats real... with whats true - Philosopher Joel MacClellan - Ep:208 Sentientism 2024-08-06 | Joel is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University New Orleans. After completing his B.A. in philosophy at the University of Akron, he was a United States Peace Corps Volunteer in Panama working in environmental education and sustainable development. He completed his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Tennessee. Joel was a scholar-in-residence at Wesleyan University in 2013 as the New York University Animal Studies Initiative’s Animal Ethics and Public Policy Fellow. He held visiting assistant professorships at Washington State University and Binghamton University, SUNY, before coming to Loyola. His main areas of research are applied ethics, especially environmental ethics, and the philosophy of science. One of his many academic publications is "Minding Nature: A Defense of a Sentiocentric Approach to Environmental Ethics".In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI. 00:00 Clips!00:50 Welcome- Joel's PhD thesis re: #sentiocentrism- Our Sentientism FaceBook group: facebook.com/groups/sentientism02:47 Joel's Intro- Asst Prof of philosophy at Loyola- Director-elect of the environment programme- Coaching the Ethics Bowl- Institutional Review Board and animal usage ethicist- Peace Corps volunteering in Panama- Analytic philosophy focus- Applied, environmental, animal ethics- Philosophy of science and biology- British #empiricists- Grew up as a "latch-key kid" in Akron countryside "being in and messing around with nature" & rescuing animals ("Boy" turned out to be a girl...)- Mother a nurse "seeing... the fragility of life very early on"- Dad sold musical instruments "grew up around music and art"- "All manner of outdoor adventuring... rock climbing, kayaking"- "I'm a pretty hard-core board gamer... Evolution... Wingspan... nature themed board-games"- "Within philosophy applied ethics can be a bit of a perjorative... not real philosophy"- "I'm still trying to delay answering the question 'what do I want to be when I grow up?'"11:02 What's Real?- Raised in a minimally #protestant #Christian family "church on Sundays and that was about it"- Mum was "more spiritual than religious". Church for the singing and community more than belief- Dad: "We go to church because that's what we're supposed to do"- An inauthenticity about it "going through the motions"- "I've never been religious or spiritual"- "I think we're all born atheistic at least in the sense that we don't have any active beliefs in anything supernatural... we start as empiricists..."- Being puzzled as a kid at realising most humans are religious "I thought I might have been broken!"- Sunday school after church at 10 yrs old hearing about Noah's ark "there's so many species of beetle - this doesn't make any sense at all... basic critical thinking"- Anti-authoritarian and anti-dogmatism even from a young age- "I'm probably an #atheist ... at least a weak atheist... probably also an #agnostic "- At 12 signing in to church marking "'Do not wish to be a member of this church'... that got an invite by the pastor... where I was asked to apologise... I refused.... 'I'm here under duress against my will'... I didn't have to go to church any more after that."- Parents "let me find my own way"- In college reading Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and the New Atheists "I learned a lot from that... but you mentioned humility... they... struck me as divisive and not welcoming to people that might be open... if you're not actively ridiculing them"- "I grew up atheist but I'm no longer practicing" :)- "I'm more of what one might call an #apatheist... apathy or indifference towards the existence or non-existence of god... it just doesn't play a role in my life or my thinking academically"- "I'm a naturalist... more as a method... not as an ontology" - "How I write treats the world as given... I don't make any assumptions beyond the empirical... supernatural entities - they just don't play a role in my work"- Scepticism (David Hume) & naturalism in balance- Descartes, behaviourism, Jane Goodall's fight to recognise animals as sentient individuals32:53 What Matters?51:50 Who Matters?01:22:19 A Better World?01:46:30 Follow Joel- http://cas.loyno.edu/philosophy/bios/joel-macclellan- linkedin.com/in/joel-macclellan-2038292b9- philpeople.org/profiles/joel-macclellan& much more... see 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.
To see a socialist radical turn into a conservative reactionary just mention animal rights Sentientism 2024-08-04 | Mark Humanity, author of "The Humanity Trigger".Clip from Sentientism ep: 207 on podcast and YouTube. Full conversation here: youtu.be/E60cyfpAKRY
To see a socialist... turn into a conservative... just mention animal rights Mark Humanity ep:207 Sentientism 2024-08-03 | Mark Humanity is a long-time vegan activist. He currently lives on the edge of a rainforest in New Zealand and is on the Board of the Vegan Society of Aotearoa, New Zealand. Mark has been involved in animal rights since a teenager, initially in Ireland’s embryonic movement and later in the much more developed UK movement. A hunt saboteur for many years, Mark has been vegan since 1989 and got involved with the NZ Vegan Society via his vegan outreach Inititive called “Vegan Living Auckland”. He is currently helping raise two beautiful plant-based children and has a background in mental health nursing. Mark is the author of "The Humanity Trigger".In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI. 00:00 Clips!00:34 Welcome- Tom Harris episode youtu.be/BJ3pq1np9UY- Corey Lee Wrenn episode youtu.be/3oe47NEZQ_k- Philip McKibbin episode youtu.be/vJUOacXnHNA02:13 Mark's Intro- Anarcho-punk and vegan activism- Now “anarchish”- Writing “The Humanity Trigger” about two centuries of direct action for animals in Ireland- Vegan Society Aoteoroa board- 20 years as a psychiatric / learning disabilities nurse- Now stay at home dad raising two vegan kids on the edge of a rain forest03:28 What's Real?- “Things that still exist irrespective of whether people believe in them or not – are what’s real”- Raised in a staunchly Irish Catholic family and society- “our sense of reality growing up was filtered through the eyes of a deeply authoritarian… fascist-adjacent dictatorship of the Roman Catholic church”- “The government were simply puppets at the beck and call of the church when the church chose to intervene”- Attending church run by Redemptorist priests / monks “on the surface they preach very worthy things… giving to the poor… vows of chastity & poverty & obedience…”- The monthly Redemptorist “Reality” magazine: “Very medieval thinking… resurrections… ascensions to heaven… virgin births… that was all reality”- “I tried to believe it because it was what everyone around me was saying was true.”- “Anyone that even thought or even asked questions about it was deemed to be dangerously… on the slippery slope”- “If you haven’t been brought up in a strictly religious environment it’s very hard to imagine what it’s like when everyone around you believes in the devil… god… jesus… heaven and hell…”- Transubstantiation “Jesus does come down into that bread – his body is in that bread… it is literal – it is not meant to be taken as a metaphor… that’s the split between Catholicism and Protestantism”- “I tried to believe it but I couldn’t”- Comics, 2000AD, Pat Mills, Alan Moore “I read into those scripts… Flesh… Strontium Dogs, some of Judge Dredd… non-human animals had agency… were lead actors in these scripts… were the heroes and villains”- “It was a direct slap in the face of the idea of dominion… where animals are simply either furniture in the background or something to be eaten”- “… that allowed me to imagine animals to be something other than sausages or something to look at in a zoo”- Trying to read the Bible “It’s basically like a ‘Mein Kampf’ for the human supremacist outlook… Genesis and Leviticus…”- Exposed to anarcho-punk at 14-15, bands like Crass, Conflict “That pinned me to the wall… focused this and politicised it and gave it names… presented a very black and white version of the world… highly aggressive at times… I found my identity… it was absolutely sublime… to stumble across this sub-culture of people who felt the exact same as I did… the most beautiful thing at that age”- The influence of punk on other Sentientism guests: Delci Winders, Kristof Dhont, Nick Pendergrast, Nicola Harris, Luke McGuire, Nico Delon, Jamila Anahata, Tom Harris- “A movement that was full of contradictions and naivety and irony…”- “Beneath the harshness and the cynicism of a lot of the lyrics… they were deeply disappointed at the world they found around them because they expected so much better from people… a profound anger at how much better things could be and how things are now”19:05 What and Who Matters?34:30 A Better World?Follow Mark:- earthislandbooks.com/markhumanity- earthislandbooks.com/product-page/the-humanity-trigger-by-mark-humanity- thehumanitytrigger.com- vegansociety.org.nz & 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.
From consumer veganism to civic veganism? @RobertGrillo of @freefromharmblog on @Sentientism Sentientism 2024-07-25 | Clip from episode 206 of the Sentientism podcast/YouTube with Robert Grillo of Free from Harm. Watch our full conversation here: youtu.be/o2xv_SlOAvs
The Farm Bill is corrupted, spoiled, rotten - Robert Grillo of @freefromharmblog Sentientism 206 Sentientism 2024-07-24 | Robert Grillo (sentientism.info/sentientist-pledge/robert-grillo) is an activist, author and speaker for all species. He is also the founder and director of Free from Harm, a non profit dedicated to helping end animal exploitation. He founded Slaughter Free Chicago in 2018 which has now grown into the Slaughter Free Network. As a communications professional for over 25 years, Robert once worked on large food industry accounts where he acquired a behind-the-scenes perspective on food branding and marketing. His book, Farm to Fable: The Fictions of Our Animal-Consuming Culture, explores the powerful narratives driving our culture of mass animal consumption. Robert's other published works include contributions to The Humane Hoax, Caged: Top Activists Share Their Wisdom on Effective Animal Advocacy and Circles of Compassion: Connecting Issues of Justice.In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI. 00:00 Clips!00:55 Welcome- Free from Harm's "Humane Farmer" transfarmation stories: freefromharm.org/humane-farmer03:25 Robert's Intro- Author, speaker, activist- Free from Harm's mission: "advance a #plantbased food system and challenge the dominance of animal agriculture through bold and innovative grass-roots action."- Evolving from an on-line resource to "on the ground activism"05:16 What's Real?- At 10 yrs old father passed away. Creative, jazz, painting, architecture- Exploring dad's library... ways of thinking, ethics- "He was a non-believer - not a spiritual person"- Mother also non-religious- Ordinary middle-class upbringing- "I was definitely an outsider... I didn't really fit in... now I embrace it... causes me to question... being open to new ideas and scepticism... I feel like it's a strength"- The risks of scepticism spilling over into conspiracism- "Sometimes it's a small group of people that sense an injustice... that mainstream society doesn't... that's the role of activism... awakening and triggering of popular support to bring justice."- JW: Why epistemology matters "it's not just a popularity contest..." it's the weight of evidence- Spirituality / supernatural / transcendent?: "We have so much to deal with here that I don't have time for that stuff... I'm not seeking it out at this point in my life"12:56 What Matters?- Experiencing father's suffering and death as a child. "I developed a sense of empathy"- "I didn't really come into an understanding of the suffering of other animals... until much later in life"- Emotional (e.g. empathy, care) vs. intellectual (utility, justice, rights) moral influences- Sympathy, empathy and compassion17:28 Who Matters?- The risks of care/empathy in narrowing our moral scope- "I came to realise what the real conditions were for the animals that suffer in our food system... their suffering was like our suffering."- Watching documentaries and @mercyforanimals investigative footage- "A process of questioning... humane, sustainable farming as the way to go?... Those were empty marketing promises."- Working on food industry marketing: "I got to see behind the scenes... how that industry... manipulates our minds to create these fantasies"- Sentio/bio/ecocentrism?- "I think there's a conflation out there between someone being a moral patient and having respect for... beautiful rocks... rivers... mountains... nature"- "That's very different... want to protect nature... [from] the qualities of a sentient being"- "There's obviously a broad spectrum of sentience"- "We don't necessarily have to know where to draw the line... we can certainly protect and not harm those that we know... are highly sentient"- "Where do we draw the line? To me that's an indulgence... let's not ignore the ones that are already known to be very sentient"- "Let's not creat a huge false equivalency"28:44 A Better Future?- The moral burden of moral consideration for maybe quadrillions of sentient beings- Robert's book "Farm to Fable"... figuring out society's resistances to a plant-based agri transition: Naturalistic fallacies, appeals to humane treatment, false dilemmas...- "I'm really not interested in those 1 on 1 conversations anymore... the important work is how are we going to shift the power structure..."01:07:38 Follow Robert- robertgrillo.com- freefromharm.org- https://x.com/Free_from_harm- https://x.com/robert_grillo& 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.
I plant seeds for children... to think for themselves Louisa Jane Smith of The RE Podcast Sentientism 2024-07-19 | Clip from Sentientism episode 205. Watch our full conversation here: youtu.be/QY9Qy6vTyNs?si=Dp-mkUSgPLtxuAHT
I plant seeds for children... to think for themselves Louisa Jane Smith of The RE Podcast - ep:205 Sentientism 2024-07-18 | Louisa (sentientism.info/sentientist-pledge/louisa-jane-smith) is a Religious Education (RE) Teacher and Head of Life Skills at a school in England. She is host of the RE podcast, an RE Subject reviewer for Oak National, a member of the NATRE (National Association for Teachers of Religious Education) executive committee and the Surrey SACRE (Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education) as well as being a public speaker and author.In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI. 00:00 Clips!00:45 Welcome- Kids today are "The most enlightened generation... so socially aware... so aware of, for better or worse, the bigger picture... so passionate about things that really matter."- Jamie's appearance on The RE Podcast: therepodcast.co.uk/post/s12-e6-the-one-about-sentientism- "The reason we love RE [religious education] is because we love those big questions... this is like a proper geek out for me!"- The balance between neutrality and authenticity for RE teachers... how much to talk about your own worldview05:45 Louisa's Intro- 22 years of RE teaching in UK secondary schools- The RE Podcast "little lockdown project... I'd been wanting to do something creative... the first dedicated podcast for students and teachers of RE"- "I had no idea what a podcast was... the RE community... have been so supportive... now nearing 4 years of doing this... I absolutely love it"- Religious Education "fairly unique... to British schools... a national entitlement... every child up to the age of 18"- How RE has evolved from religious instruction "how to be a good Christian" to now: "religion and worldviews - everybody in the world has a worldview... we all stand somewhere... show respect... compassion for people who think differently... religious and non-religious worldviews"- NATRE executive committee- Oak National online teaching platform09:19 What's Real?- #catholic mum, #atheist dad, brought up Catholic (christening, school, church)- "You just accept the reality that you are given by your caretakers. And that was then reinforced at school... reinforced at church... with my friends..."- Despite atheist dad: "At no point did I really consider that atheism was a valid worldview"- At 8 yrs old "My dad had this big conversion... from being a complete and utter atheist and hating religion to becoming quite an evangelical Christian... he had a religious experience... he heard a voice... felt a pressure... waves of energy going through him."- Going to protestant evangelical church with dad "so very different from my Catholic version... quite exciting... my whole family left the Catholic church and went to the Protestant church."- "It was quite fundamentalist... to the point of it being quite judgmental"- "University was the first time I really questioned anything... taken out of my little religious bubble... exposed to... alternative ideas"- "A lot of the things I'd been told just didn't hold up to scrutiny... why there's evil and suffering... views about who was in and who was out... everyone else is going to hell... attitudes to homosexuality..."- "I ended up rejecting everything... if something falls apart everything falls apart"- "This is why some people are very hesitant to question their faith - in case it all falls apart... so you don't ask questions you just accept... blind faith is something that's celebrated in some versions of Christianity"- "I'm a naturally inquisitive, curious, cynical, questioning person - so as soon as I was given that opportunity I found that actually Christian faith just didn't sit right with me"- "I don't like the idea of people going to hell. I don't like the idea that homosexuality is wrong. I don't think if there was a god this is the world that we would see... I became an atheist"- "I didn't seem to get the same thing from Christianity that everybody else got... peace... joy... feel god's presence... answered prayer"- "This doesn't sit morally with me... but I think there's also that... lack of experience... lack of evidence in the things I was believing"- "Every single part of it was difficult... I got rejected from my church... the friends that I had at church stopped inviting me to things..."35:34 What Matters?46:15 Who Matters?01:11:26 A Better Future?01:30:50 Follow Louisa- https://x.com/TheREPodcast1- therepodcast.co.uk& 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.
Is #Marxism or #capitalism worse for animals? Clip from @Sentientism ep:204 @marxforcatsmeow9993 Sentientism 2024-07-13 | Clip from Sentientism ep: 204 with "Marx for Cats" author Leigh Claire La Berge. Here's our full conversation: youtu.be/1dv1cevkHsk
Marx for Cats - Leigh Claire La Berge - Sentientism 204 Sentientism 2024-07-07 | Leigh Claire La Berge is Professor in City University of New York's English Department. Her work focuses on aesthetics and political economy. Her first book, "Scandals and Abstraction: Financial Fiction of the Long 1980s", tracked the convergences of finance, realism and postmodernism in literature and culture throughout the 1980s in the United States. Her second book, "Wages Against Artwork: Decommodified Labor and the Claims of Socially Engaged Art" explored the twin rise of new forms of socially engaged art alongside what she called "decommodified labor," or labor that is not recompensed. Along with Alison Shonkwiler, Leigh Claire is the co-editor of the collection, "Reading Capitalist Realism". She recently published a book about animality and economy entitled "Marx for Cats: A Radical Bestiary". She is working on a new book called "Fake Work: How I Began to Suspect that Capitalism is a Joke" about her experience with corporate labor, Y2K, and management consultants.In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI. 00:00 Clips!00:58 Welcome02:32 Leigh Claire's Intro- "In an English department you don't just find people who read novels or who write novels... but also who do philosophy, critical theory..."- "Relationship between economic forms and the constitution of reality"- "... different cultural objects... artworks or films or TV shows or novels... mediate between what we perceive as economically real and what might be economically possible" #economics - #philosophy major, working for a management consultant in Manhattan- Seeing the corporate world... accounting... profiteering... record-keeping "I was genuinely surprised... this cannot be the way that capitalism works... but it is!"- Studying #politicaleconomy "manifestly politicised understanding of economic forms and economic structures"- "Scandals and Abstraction" on financial scandals represented in film & literature- "Wages against artwork" on art, economy and also animals (e.g. an exhibit of live birds)- Thinking about animals' presence in the economy- Explaining political economy to artists "What if you were talking to cats?"- The @marxforcatsmeow9993 video series "The cats loved it!"- Writing "Marx for Cats" - "A history of the capitalist world system... as told through cats, with cats and for cats"- "Cats are also amazing anti-work creatures... anti-authoritarian creatures"- "Cats have been understood to be anti-authority for at least 1200 years"- Royal lions, wildcat strikes, sabotabbies...- Animals that can be companion and work animals because "capitalism... it both structures our external reality and our most intimate, internal, familial realities."12:03 What's Real?- Growing up nominally #Presbyterian with a lapsed #Catholic father- "By the time I was 6 or 7 it was clear that church was not going to be for me"- A very academic household. Professor parents- Rural Virginia 100 meters from a cow pasture "Every day... I was near or in the presence of cows"- Dogs & cats at home- "Why are the cows in this fenced in area... and the dogs & cats live with us and our members of our family... what is the cause of this?"- At 11 yrs old seeing a cow give birth breech to a calf with a broken leg. Both mother cow and farmer left the calf to die in the snow "I friend and I called a local radio station" then a school project to look after the calf "really changed me... I did become a #vegetarian ... one of the first times that I was able to break out the comfort of my family... and ask them to join me in thinking... helped me start to individuate..."- Reading Peter Singer's "Animal Liberation" at 11. Watch Peter @Sentientism here: youtu.be/1Q6NCSFYtb0- "Who forms our most intimate communities and who do we want to be in our communities... and what would species have to do with it?"- Family's religion "it wasn't robust enough to reject..."- "What my parents wanted from a church was less a sense of religious community than just community"- "The household that I grew up in... was probably defined by a genuine secular #humanism "29:15 What Matters?33:57 Who Matters?58:11 A Better World?01:13:22 Follow Leigh Claire- https://x.com/marxforcats- instagram.com/marxforcats- https://cuny.academia.edu/LeighClaireLaBerge- vimeo.com/marxforcats- https://www.dukeupress.edu/marx-for-cats& 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.
Teaching the Sentientism Worldview Sentientism 2024-06-29 | Presentation from our "Teaching the Sentientism Worldview" webinar. The webinar was aimed at religious education / worldviews / philosophy teachers but will hopefully be of interest to everyone! Leave a comment if you'd like to attend a future webinar and / or follow us on Eventbrite to be notified: eventbrite.co.uk/o/sentientism-75936821713More #SentientistEducation resources: sentientism.info/sentientism-in-action/sentientist-education
What if youre the people youve been waiting for? - John Barry @QUBelfast Sentientism 202 Sentientism 2024-06-22 | John (sentientism.info/sentientist-pledge/john-barry) is an academic, a green political economist and former Green Party politician in Northern Ireland. He is Professor of Green Political Economy in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queen's University Belfast. His main research interests span politics, economics, the ethics of sustainability/ sustainable development, green moral and political theory, green political economy, vulnerability, resilience, civic republicanism and green politics, Irish/Northern Irish politics, Q Methodology and sustainable energy politics and policy.In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI. 00:00 Clips!01:01 Welcome- "Summer in Ireland... best weekend of the year" :)- Zion Lights episode: youtu.be/t2EWFEIQdwU03:34 John's Introduction- Green political economy- Co-chair the Belfast Climate Commission- "A recovering politician" led the Green Party of Northern Ireland- "I've always been politically active... I feel compelled... at this moment of crisis... a polycrisis... climate, ecological, social... animal welfare horrors of our current social order"- "A dissident political economist - I don't accept either #capitalism or endless economic growth"- "Our current economic system has now passed its sell-by date... industrialisation, globalism, the horrendous suffering of the more-than-human world"- Pessimism amongst climate scientists "describing in many respects... an uninhabitable world in the future"- "We cannot continue in a business as usual manner in the academy while the world is on fire... we need to practice what we teach"- "This time, not only of crisis... of great opportunity... we can fix so many problems... science... political will... justice focus" (global, inter-generational and inter-species justice and equity)- "We have all the solutions... What we lack... is the political will and the ethical courage of our convictions"07:33 What's Real?- Growing up in working class Dublin- "Not just as a lapsed but a completely collapsed #Catholic... I've been an #atheist all my thinking life"- At ~10yrs old asking "What's the evidence for this off-world, male, white deity?... Not really finding satisfactory answers from the priest or from teachers."- "I do hold some affection for Catholicism..."- The denial of evolution & #creationism among some Northern Irish Protestants and Evangelicals. Often #climatechange denialism too- Flaws of Catholicism: abuse of women & children & abuse cover-ups "effectively brought down the church... in Ireland... from its position of power"- General acceptance of science within Catholicism- "A form of poetry... religious perspectives as beautiful stories... they're fairy tales... beautiful but they're not real... can have certain morality lessons"- A naturalistic understanding of the world "led me [to]... we're not just like animals we are animals"- The importance for human beings of meaning making outside of naturalistic understandings "there is room for certain metaphysical understandings of what makes life meaningful"- "My own moral compass always has included... parts of the more than human world"- "I'd probably balk at the inanimate world although I'm open to persuasion... thinking like a mountain... rights of rivers and mountains..."- "Everyone can have their own opinions - you can't have your own facts"- The #Abortion issue in Ireland "I just could not understand... why Ireland... dominated as it was by the Catholic church was content to send often poor women off to England for back-street abortions where many of them died..."- Being shown pictures of aborted foetuses in University classes by anti-abortion priests and nun lecturers- "This idea that life begins at conception... I just couldn't see the evidence for it"- A feminist analysis: "It seemed the Catholic church was just anti-women"- "Where's the female Pope? Where's the female priests... bishops?"- "A metaphysical view of the world... causing irreparable harm to people who did not deserve it"21:50 What Matters?39:54 Who Matters?55:43 A Better Future?01:27:03 Follow John:- https://x.com/ProfJohnBarry- linkedin.com/in/john-barry-8788642a- http://marxistlentilist.blogspot.com- https://qub.academia.edu/JohnBarry- qub.ac.uk/schools/happ/find-a-phd-supervisor/professor-john-barry.html& 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.
Compassion... is like a muscle - Clip from @Sentientism ep:202 w/John Barry @QUBelfast - out soon! Sentientism 2024-06-21 | Subscribe to @Sentientism so you don't miss our full conversation. Check our back catalogue of over 200 inspirational conversations too.
What are the best characteristics of human beings? Zoe Weil of @instituteforhumaneeducatio5665 Sentientism 2024-06-13 | Hope you enjoy our full conversation - Sentientism episode 201: youtu.be/ECG8FBBKwgo
The Solutionary Way... we cant wait! - Zoe Weil @instituteforhumaneeducatio5665 - Sentientism 201 Sentientism 2024-06-11 | Zoe (sentientism.info/sentientist-pledge/zoe-weil) is the co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education (IHE). She is considered a pioneer in the comprehensive humane education movement. She has authored eight books both for adults and children, including her latest, "The Solutionary Way" - out for pre-order now! Zoe writes the Becoming a Solutionary blog at Psychology today. She has made numerous TV and radio appearances and has given six TED talks, including “Extending our Circle of Compassion.” Her first Sentientism conversation with me is here way back in episode 37: youtu.be/4NaSEJ4q8NQ In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI. 00:00 Clips!01:15 Welcome- Our first conversation: youtu.be/4NaSEJ4q8NQ- Most good (MOGO), least harm- Star Trek as a utopian inspiration- Mr Spock and Dr Spock "both of them have had a big influence"03:42 Zoe Introduction- Co-founder and President of @instituteforhumaneeducatio5665 - IHE: "Educate people to create a world where all humans and animals and nature can thrive... huge, huge goal and vision"- K-12 schools and graduate programmes with Antioch University- "It's going to keep my busy my entire life"04:37 The Solutionary Way- Subtitle "Transform your life, your community and your world for the better"- "An antidote to polarisation... actually solving the problems that we face... in a way that is good for everyone"- "We are not a single issue organisation... justice and compassion needs to be spread for everybody so that the world can be truly humane"- Solutionary lens "you approach problems as solvable" instead of "us vs. them approaches"- Critical thinking "what's true, what's false... lies at the foundation"- Systems thinking "see the connections... identify causes... leverage points..."- Strategic thinking- Creative thinking- Solutionary Framework: 4 phases, 12 steps- Prioritising problems & identifying the one you want to solve "Learn and learn then really dive deep... identify a narrow enough problem that you have the capacity to solve"- The Solutionary Way in schools... 4th graders have big concerns but might not be able to address them in full... so what can they "feasibly solve"?- "We have identified a leverage point which is the educational system through which we are working on... all problems"- "K-12 educational system is fundamentally working at the root cause of every other societal system"- "What happens in our educational system prepares us to be citizens"- "A profoundly important core strategy... at the same time many of the problems that we are facing are so immediate... we can't wait"- "Sometimes the people who care most... wind up doing work that is counter-productive... they may burn more bridges than they build"- Dealing with activist burnout and depression- Polarisation and populism in modern discourse... denial of a shared reality... denial of shared values... blaming instead of solutions17:52 A Shared Reality?- "The media [and politicians] drills down on the polarisation"- "I suspect that we are far less polarised than we think... but... it seems to be getting worse"- "Polarisation is nothing new"- Media and social media "aiding and abetting" polarisation- Solutionary Way "Investigate" phase "who is being harmed... who is being benefitted... critical thinking... really analysing"- "Very few of us have much first hand knowledge about the problems..."- Learning about animal oppression by reading Peter Singer (see his @Sentientism episode: youtu.be/1Q6NCSFYtb0)- "How did I know what was happening in laboratories or factory farms?... I went and visited some of them."- "With something like #climatechange we are going to have to trust somebody... who are we going to trust?"- Reputation, fact checking, scientists (watching for ulterior motives / funding / bias), consensus e.g. @IPCCGeneva - Conspiracy theories, mis and disinformation- #Antivaxx, #covid denial, fake / dangerous cures & supplements- "Making tens of thousands of dollars on those supplements because he is selling them!"- "We need to have some shared values"... the MOGO principle 25:17 Shared Values?57:29 Thinking About Solutions01:05:50 Education01:17:10 Follow Zoe and buy "The Solutionary Way"!- humaneeducation.org/become-a-solutionary/the-solutionary-way-zoe-weil- https://x.com/ZoeWeil& 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.
The Cheese Challenge and the Pescetarian Paradox - clip from @Sentientism episode 200! Sentientism 2024-06-02 | Here's our full conversation: youtu.be/48hnRqsXzMg with psychology researchers Devon Docherty @ed.winters, Maja Cullen and Carol Joseph.
Cheese Challenge & Pescetarian Paradox - Maja Cullen, Devon Docherty, Carol Jasper - Sentientism:200 Sentientism 2024-06-02 | Devon (sentientism.info/sentientist-pledge/devon-docherty), Carol (sentientism.info/sentientist-pledge/carol-jasper) and Maja (sentientism.info/sentientist-pledge/maja-cullen) are psychology researchers from the University of Stirling. Carol is a lecturer, Devon is a teaching assistant and Maja is a research assistant. Devon is also a researcher, writer and animal advocate with Surge and (Earthling) Ed Winters.In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI. 00:00 Clips!01:09 Welcome03:25 Devon, Maja and Carol Introductions- Psychology (human-animal interactions, clinical health) and animal advocacy- Their papers on the paradoxes and dissonances of vegetarianism and pescetarianism- Quantitative research: "science doesn't have to be about numbers... if we want to understand people... we need to do that with words... listen to their experiences... their own narratives... we all have positionality."- "Science teaching so often is based entirely in pseudo-objectivity... subjectivity can be really powerful."06:53 What's Real?Carol:- Growing up in a #presbyterian family. Attending Sunday school. Exploring celtic / pagan mythology and spirituality.- Reading the Bible "a really beautiful book... but how can the old testament... be real?" Dad's response: "a way that people used to understand the world around them... in the absense of other explanations"- Belief in the supernatural? "I'd be really hesitant to say that we have all the answers... consciousness... I want to believe that there's a ghost in the machine although I know there isn't"- Celtic confluence of the ephemeral and the tangible "intertwined together... I very much believe in the concrete real but also I like to think there's things we don't know and we don't understand yet."- "Maybe it's just... physical energy... but I like to think there's something beyond us... hope there's some other... maybe there's some hope that they could come and help us get everything right."Devon:- "It's really complex being a human sometimes."- #catholic family and school "very strict catholic teaching"- "Religion never really resonated with me"- "The teacher was telling us that animals don't have souls... That was the moment that I realised that I really do have these strong views."- "I had a dog at the time... she was just as full and complex of a being as I was."- Moving away from religion to "do my own thing"- "I'm pretty terrified of death"- Focusing on morality "That's my thing - rather than anything outside of the realm of what we can see and how we can treat other people"- JW: Psychological motivations for religious belief: fear of uncertainty, fear of death, a hope that god has a plan- "I got to learn more and more about the Catholic church and realise how much I disagree with it"Maja:- Growing up in Germany, then moving to Scotland- "It was rare... to meet someone who wasn't christened"- Protestant primary, Catholic high school (with nuns) & summer camps- At 11-12 "I wanted to be religious... I saw how much strength & purpose religious people could get... a beautiful & admirable thing"- "I tried reading the Bible. I tried praying... It just didn't feel authentic to me."- Vegetarian at 11-12 "The whole thing about being a devoted Christian but eating animals - that didn't sit right with me"- At 13: "I proudly declared to my religion teacher who was a priest that I was an #atheist."- "Since then... my brain works very logically... more the naturalistic kind of person... I'm not trying to be arrogant - this is just my worldview"All:- JW: If we take a relativistic, social constructivist approach to epistemology how can we resist misinformation, disinformation, conspiracism, wellness scams...- The "fish paper"... exploring how people perceive the fishes they consume- "Our participants actually admit to fallacies in their thinking... they admit that some of the beliefs that they hold are more so that they want to believe this... they are aware that... fish can perceive pain."47:55 What and Who Matters?01:12:05 A Better World?01:37:15 Follow!Carol: https://x.com/DrCarolJasper, instagram.com/veganfoodtrainerMaja: https://x.com/maja_cullen_Devon: https://x.com/devonmdocherty, linkedin.com/in/devon-docherty-7a7803230, instagram.com/earthlinged @ed.winters & 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.
Reductionism is well-named. It reduces what you can do. - Michael Levin - Sentientism 199 Sentientism 2024-05-24 | Dr. Michael Levin is a developmental and synthetic biologist at Tufts University where he is the Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor. He is also an associate faculty at the Wyss Institute at Harvard. Michael is a director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University and the Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology. He is also co-director of the Institute for Computationally Designed Organisms. Michael's Levin Lab focuses on "Embodied Minds: understanding diverse intelligence in evolved, designed, and hybrid complex systems" and works "at the intersection of developmental biology, artificial life, bioengineering, synthetic morphology, and cognitive science". This work includes the bioengineering of novel living machines and has clinical applications in regenerative medicine. Michael has editing roles at a number of academic journals and has published more than 350 papers.In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI. 00:00 Clips!01:18 Welcome- "We biologists have plenty of spherical cows"03:50 Mike's Introduction04:37 What's Real?- A "not religious but highly spiritual" Jewish background- Hebrew school " I harrassed everybody with questions.... how souls are supposed to work...the hard problem of consciousness... the answers weren't terribly forthcoming."- At home "an emphasis on inquiry... asking big questions... things that matter"- "The question of 'how do I know?' figured prominently in my childhood"- "Rationality is an amazing tool but one can also ask questions about its limitiations... what are the things that we're not seeing"- Being sceptical about the approaches you're bringing to a problem- "I pretty much only have one supernatural belief which is that the universe is understandable... Once you've taken that on everything else becomes possible... I can't think of anything that would be truly supernatural..."- "We are finite beings" trying to understand reality then "you have to ask yourself 'how is this working out?... is this helping me have a more meaningful life... be a more ethical person... have better relationships with others?'"- "I don't really think of myself as a biologist... my fundamental commitment... has been to understand embodied mind"- "I'm interested in cognition, intelligence and inner perspective in a wide range of diverse systems... some of which are alive"- "I think cognition is a broader category than life"- "It just so happens that life is, so far, our best example of how that can scale"- "Molecular networks scaling into cells scaling into tissues scaling into organisms and beyond"- Collective intelligence, goals... "biology is an excellent playground for these things"- Cognition, mind etc. "All of these cognitive claims... where you think something is on the spectrum... how much mind... I don't think these are terms describing particular systems. I think these are terms describing our intended relationship to them... an engineering interaction protocol"- Are humans machines? "If you have an orthopaedic surgeon who does not believe you are a machine - you are in trouble... If you have a spouse or a psycho-therapist who thinks you are a simple machine - you are also in trouble."- The TAME approach "Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere"- "Multiple observers can differ as to their assessment of any given system... but it doesn't mean that anything goes... observers can then compare 'how well did that worldview work out for you?'"- E.g. Animism "there's a spirit in every rock"... how does that perspective work out for you? - what does it help you do?- "The thing about treating these things as empirical questions not philosophy is that you are often surprised... that's what's good about science... an opportunity to learn"- What tools to apply?: physics & simple engineering, cybernetics & control theory, behaviourism & learning, communication & psychoanalysis?- Surprises: Very simple gene regulatory networks (no cell, no magic) - "that system, which most people would assume has zero cognition... is capable of 6 different kinds of learning including Pavlovian conditioning"51:04 What and Who Matters?xx A Better World?01:08:53 Follow Michael- drmichaellevin.org- https://thoughtforms.life/- https://x.com/drmichaellevin& 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.
Dr. Michael Levin on Sentientism episode 199 (out now!) - Preview clip @drmichaellevin Sentientism 2024-05-23 | Preview of Sentientism episode 199 with Dr. Michael Levin on podcast and YouTube. Here's our full conversation: youtu.be/-syJO94VXg4
Animal Agriculture Has Never Been Nice - Clip from @Sentientism ep 198 @thinklikeavegan Sentientism 2024-05-22 | Full conversation here: youtu.be/AlL1wV_pmLk Thanks Emi!
We need to imagine a different world - Emilia Leese @thinklikeavegan - Sentientism 198 Sentientism 2024-05-21 | Emilia is co-author of the book Think Like A Vegan and host of the Think Like a #vegan podcast. She is involved in the Birchfield Highlands re-wilding project in Scotland, edits the quarterly magazine for The Heath & Hampstead Society in London and has developed life skills and ethics workshops for underserved youth. Professionally, she has been a corporate finance lawyer for over 20 years.In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI. 00:00 Clips!01:25 Welcome- Shared Sentientism guests with @thinklikeavegan :- Troy Vettese episode: youtu.be/U8AkiuXsoJI - Josh Milburn episode: youtu.be/akBBFREpveU - Aysha Akhtar episode: youtu.be/EZ_gh0ldzpo04:41 Emilia's Intro- Corporate finance, vegan writing / podcasting, rewilding in Scotland, magazine editing05:45 What's Real?- Growing up in Italy- #catholic school "which I hated... it never made sense to me that only some people... would go to heaven"- Letting teachers know at 5-6 years old "this doesn't make any sense"... "they kind of stopped asking me questions"- Dad is an Indian philosophy professor- Investigating eastern and western traditions and religions "I said 'none of it matters'... it matters what I do here and now"- "People have their traditions and I love that...but for me ultimately I don't need to have any of that"- "The fundamental of all of them is love... just practice it"- "That love then turns in to a respect and a valuing... of sentient life... and everything that's around us"- "Plants & funghi... even minerals and mountains... they may not feel anything but that doesn't matter... it's all connected"- "The fate of the least among us... is extremely important"- "Bees and insects... how they go, we go"- "I don't need an outside force to tell me to do the right thing"- "A certain basic fairness... treat everyone the same unless there's a morally relevant reason to treat them differently"- "I have personally witnessed things that I cannot explain... there's lots of things I don't know... so I've decided that's fine"- "You have to leave space for changing your mind... we learn everything!"- JW: How broken epistemology can lead "good" people to do terrible things- The ethical and epistemological errors that justify animal agriculture- Maneesha Deckha's "beingness" concept- "We as advocates have to be better at our own rhetoric"- "We live in a capitalist, non-vegan world... so there will be inherent things that you are not going to be able to solve"- "You don't need to be well versed in philosophy... we can all get there"- Examining what's driving our actions... fear (of others, change, deistic reprisal, social norms, admitting we were wrong)- JW: Uncommon common sense re: ethical and epistemic basics- Humans building convenient hierarchies "as long as you're at the top"- "Animal agribusiness has never been nice... 10,000 years ago... 5,000 years ago... there's always objectification, exploitation and death... that doesn't change"- "To the being - you only have one life"26:20 What Matters?- JW: Are nihilism, relativism and divine command theory more "amoralities" than moralities?- "You have to realise there is an other"- Doing talks at a Himalayan vegan festival in Nepal- "You have to be able to move forward... the facts on the ground now" (as opposed to just doing what we've always done)- Ethics that focus on moral agents (virtue, care) vs. moral patients (suffering, freedom)- "For me a right is something that is inherent - you have that by virtue of being alive and being a sentient being... beingness"- "You have to have the interests... a subject of a life... you exist"- JW "They [your perspective/interests] matters to you... and a right is... just saying... they should matter to everyone else too?"- Gender, sex etc... "aren't morally relevant"- "There's a variety of different rights... but the fundamental right of being free from exploitation number one... if you don't have that you can't get any of the other ones"- "Being free... to exist unfettered in the most basic way... that's the fundamental. Everything else builds on top of that... [e.g.] the right to vote..."53:13 Who Matters?01:00:42 A Better World?01:22:00 Follow Emilia- emisgoodeating.com- open.spotify.com/episode/78C2oKeVrWtyRpmEVYRRaq- https://x.com/emisgoodeating- birchfieldhighlands.org& 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.
Hip Hop is Going Green - Keith Tucker of @hiphopisgreen4255 - Sentientism 197 Sentientism 2024-05-12 | Keith (sentientism.info/sentientist-pledge/keith-tucker) is founder and Executive Director of Hip Hop is Green, a nonprofit organization on a mission to support holistic wellness and transform urban communities environmentally. He has been a visionary and social entrepreneur for over 30 years. He has worked with hundreds of businesses, youth groups and community organizations and many icons in the entertainment business as a creative promoter and an ambassador for the culture of hip hop.In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?” Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI. 00:00 Clips!01:19 Welcome02:44 Keith's Intro- Founder and ED of @hiphopisgreen4255 - "I'm a father, a brother, a friend, a husband and currently I'm a human being living on earth"03:19 What's Real?- Growing up in Seattle, raised by mother, grandmother and grandfather- Religious grandparents- Going to #baptist church- Attending strict #catholic school, taught by nuns "I remember sister Sheila - boy she was mean"- Catholic high school in California- "Some rough times." Drugs (from 13 yrs old), street-life "in with the wrong crowd"- Grandmother and mother "I'm so blessed and fortunate to have had them in my life... gave me a great foundation of morals and values and patience and determination"- Lending a bike and having it stolen "I'm a very giving and nice person... I have to beware... trust has its limits"- 31 years clean & sober now- "My values who I am today were actually both shaped by good things that happened to me and bad things that happened to me"- "Just really good people", not because of their religion...- "...spiritual as well... my grandmother used to call it motherwit... I still have that today... I just get a feeling... it's always 100% right every time... everybody has it to... some people listen to their motherwit more than others"- "Back in the early '70s it was a different world... in school they could paddle you in class... in front of everyone... there was no such thing as non-bullying"- Being taught the Bible "I never really questioned anything... absorbed it into who I am... although I wasn't following most of the Bible to be honest at that point... I was more interested in having fun and partying... not really focusing on why I'm here, who I am and what my purpose is"- Last time used drugs. Motherwit voice spoke very loud "you may not live through this." Attending a treatment centre, guided by the motherwit voice "it's not luck"- April 7 1992 "I need to change my life... I kept that commitment all the way through to today... the weight had been lifted off me."- Finishing treatment, moving to the Texas countryside "getting away from the environment that I was in"- Starting to figure out "who is Keith Tucker... what is my purpose?... Baptism through fire."- "I am not Christian or religious today.... but I am very spiritual & I believe in god."- "I walk in my purpose and in god's purpose every single day... helping people and serving people is what my purpose is"- Watching @60minutes "& they had an expose on my school... priests that were molesting the kids at my school... while I was there... it really blew my mind."- Tracking the #catholic church abuse scandals- Studying history "how religion was used... that wasn't taught to me in school... we only learned a certain dogma..."- "How religion was used to conquer Africa, conquer America... where does the Bible come from... how was that book put together... who did that & why?"- "That gave me a new #spiritual outlook on my life"- Christianity in hip-hop vs. JW "Christianity was imposed on most of the communities"- "The people that were enslaved... were introduced to the Bible... as a system to keep their minds enslaved."- Versions of the Bible written for enslaved people "to say obey your master... you will get your riches in heaven and not on earth" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Select_Parts_of_the_Holy_Bible_for_the_use_of_the_Negro_Slaves_in_the_British_West-India_Islands- "Using religion to chain people's minds"- The importance of education "so important... research & study... things that you're interested in" and the 5th element of Hip Hop29:30 What Matters?47:30 Who Matters?01:05:40 A Better World?01:28:24 Follow Keith- hiphopisgreen.com- twitter.com/hiphopisgreen- instagram.com/hiphopisgreen& 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.
Hip Hop Goes Green w/ Keith Tucker of @hiphopisgreen4255 🤩 - preview from Sentientism ep:197! Sentientism 2024-05-11 | Preview of Sentientism 197 w/ Keith Tucker of @hiphopisgreen4255 🤩 - sub now so you don't miss it! @officialkrsone
Nigerian Food Revolution - from @Sentientism196 - Hakeem Jimo - @ProVegNigeria & @VeggievVctoryNG Sentientism 2024-05-06 | Here's our full conversation: youtu.be/bJ1IjjlECi4
Nigerian food revolution - Hakeem Jimo @ProVegInternational - Sentientism #196 Sentientism 2024-05-06 | Hakeem is co-founder and CEO of Veggie Victory, Nigeria’s first plant-based food tech company. Hakeem and his partner, Bola Adeyanju, founded Nigeria's first vegan restaurant, V Café, and now also run the VChunks meat alternative product company - designed to help veganise Nigerian cuisine. Hakeem is also country director for ProVeg Nigeria.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 & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI. 00:00 Clips!00:36 Welcome01:59 Hakeem's Intro- Nigerian father, German mother, growing up in Germany, now in Nigeria- 10 years of veganism and vegan entrepreneurship- Establishing ProVeg Nigeria03:45 What's Real?- Not much supernatural thinking in small-town Germany "there were more cows than humans"- Lutheran evangelical protestant society but "we went to church twice a year... it was not a very religious background"- Nigeria: "A completely different ballgame... the spiritual, religious world plays a much bigger role in Africa... religion is everywhere here... and I like it... In Africa I started to pray... you don't have that sense of control."- Christianity, Islam as well as natural / traditional religions from the pre-colonial era08:33 What Matters?- "Every day I see these two sides", Germany (enlightenment, studying philosophy) and Nigeria (travelling as a journalist in W.Africa: "a completely different way people see the world")- Only recently exploring the Bible (via podcasts) "just to understand historically"- Finding references to treatment of animals in the Old and New Testaments- Nigeria: "Religion is much more taken... by the letter" vs. the German way "it's just a parable"- "If you're coming from a western background you just shape your belief system" vs. "people are handing over authority to another level"- "How do we actually convince people... whether I'm in Germany or Nigeria?"- "I walk through the streets here... it's funny... even though everybody is black and in Germany everybody is white I see features... very similar behaviours"- "I see really the universal parts... that's where things come together... trying to change the world and not just a few enlightened people"13:16 Who Matters?- Step-father in Germany was a farmer "neighbours got together and bought a pig... the butcher coming to the farm"- Hearing stories about factory farming "they were using nicotine to disinfect the chickens... there's something wrong here"... overfishing... foot and mouth disease- "Nobody in rural Germany was talking about #sentientism or #veganism "- University in Hamburg "there was an alternative meal in the canteen"... a vegetarian partner aware of history of US colonialist animal agriculture- Travelling to West Africa and eating #streetfood "when I'm on a #vegetarian diet I don't get sick!" vs. getting typhoid fever from a road-side meat barbecue- "You start learning... what's the implications... I realised... this is good... let me become vegetarian"- "It took me almost 20 years to realise that leaving out dairy is another huge step... the #dairy industry is completely insane... even worse!"- Animal ethics mostly came in later- Patterns of diet. Eating animal products every day is a recent invention "the first and the last generation that eats so much meat"- "In Africa... if you talk to elderly people... in the villages... they don't each much meat"- But with factory farming availability "suddenly you have chicken wings for lunch"- "If we would come back to the old days... where meat was consumed on special occasions... that would be a big step forward"- "I live in Africa now I have to be pragmatic... because I want to see results"- An upcoming #GreenIslam summit thinking of declaring factory farming #haram "that is much more pragmatic than saying 'eating animals'"- "Hopefully we'll get to 100% leaving animals out... but we need to get the big wins now... if we can stop factory farming that's a big step... then we get to the last 20%"24:35 A Better Future?- Consumption of animal products in Nigeria is ~10% of that in the west- "The average African is eating 6kg of chicken in a year... the American is eating 120kg"- "The consumption of animals is actually very low on the African continent... we are very plant-forward eating... we have to acknowledge that"48:41 Follow Hakeem- linkedin.com/in/hakeemjimo- veggievictory.com @VeggievVctoryNG - proveg.com/ng& 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.
Imagine a Truly Humane Education! - clip of Laura Chepner @TheVeganSociety from @Sentientism ep:194 Sentientism 2024-04-25 | Watch our full conversation here: youtu.be/jf5j-W_rTcA
A Truly Humane Education - Laura Chepner - @TheVeganSociety s Education Officer - Sentientism 194 Sentientism 2024-04-25 | Laura (sentientism.info/sentientist-pledge/laura-chepner) is Education Officer at The #Vegan Society and Chair of The Vegan Society's Education Network. She is a qualified primary school teacher and well known for introducing the phrase ‘vegan-inclusive education’ to the #education sector. Laura worked for several years as the UK’s only #vegan inclusion education specialist under the pseudonym ‘Primary Veducation’ and continues to offer training to school staff on what it means to be vegan and how to appropriately teach and treat vegan learners in their care. Laura also empowers vegan learners and parents/guardians by facilitating the creation of peer-developed and reviewed resources and offering supportive interventions.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 & open.spotify.com/show/3c9OG5Mwf7PGChWFYBzuQI. 00:00 Clips!01:14 Welcome03:20 Laura's Intro- Supporting vegan learners & their families in education (vs. discrimination, being misunderstood)- Former primary school teacher "my first love"- Supporting the educators. Building the world's first and only CPD (continuous professional development) training course helping educators in being "vegan inclusive"- Leaving teaching after becoming vegan "I felt that the curriculum clashed with my ethics too much"- Vegan daughter starts school "They told me that they weren't going to provide a lunch for her... I was crying around the supermarket getting a packed lunch... my daughter is the most compassionate, kind & loving girl... I think she's being discriminated against."- Working with friends to create the UK's first vegan menu in her school- Starting "Primary Veducation" as a free consultancy- "Theorising vegan-inclusive education"- "To live through that [discrimination] was mind-boggling... I felt like I was by myself... on my own... all of these things were just completely flipped... I had to find this voice... I believed I was the only vegan the village... who would even care?"- Finding a vegan community. A wave of vegan parents wanting help "I realised it's not just me... shouting in this echo chamber"- "Everything I'd been taught... by people who I respected... my parents, my teachers, religious leaders... told me that one thing was correct... it wasn't"- "Everything felt undone... it did feel utterly heartbreaking... something good has come out of it"11:44 What's Real?- Jewish family. Russian-Latvian-Irish-British- Grandmother born Christian, converted to #judaism - Attending Jewish school, Synagogue and Sunday School- Mother "wanted my brother and I to be the most Jewish we could possibly be so we could fit in... Bar and Bat Mitvah's"- "Religion... become something... neither of us... are particularly driven by anymore"- Brother & family atheist- Valuing Jewish community, tradition, culture, food... "it's familiar"- "religion... of great importance... probably not... it's just that background part of my identity"- "A lot of the people who I grew up with just have blind faith and don't question... god did this, god created that, we live the way the 10 commandments tell us to - anything other than that is just outrageous"- "We are a people who have been discriminated against... we are strong... we need each other... we just follow the rules and we don't question"- Outgrowing friends from school "they don't ask these questions..."- "Sometimes ignorance is bliss... aren't you worried you're going to die one day? - no because god... it seems like a lovely thing to have... a safe, kind, supportive place to be."- "I was already starting to question... did Noah's ark really have these animals... was the Red Sea really parted? They seemed to much to be stories... to have any real truth about them"- At college & university "I rarely spoke about it [religion] at all... it wasn't part of my life at all". Party trick writing people's names in Hebrew- "The hypocrisy for me... it was just becoming too stark"- Reform and orthodox Judaism- "I would sit at my synagogue - men and women together... they would encourage children to come and play at the front... my rabbi is female and vegan..." 25:30 What & Who Matters?44:57 Making a Better World?01:17:12 Follow Laura- vegansociety.com/laura-chepner-0- twitter.com/laura_diamondo- goodreads.com/book/show/50977141-veducated-an-educator-s-guide-for-vegan-inclusive-teaching & 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.
Is Veganic the Future of Farming? Clip from Jimmy Videle @Sentientism ep 192 Sentientism 2024-04-16 | Find our full conversation here: youtu.be/oLaykXfBepI #veganic #veganicagriculture #veganicfarming #agriculture #farming #regenerativefarming
Is Veganic the Future of Farming? We grow plants using plants - Jimmy Videle - Sentientism Ep:192 Sentientism 2024-04-15 | Jimmy Videle (sentientism.info/sentientist-pledge/jimmy-videle) is a farmer, naturalist, and researcher. He is the author of The Veganic Grower’s Handbook: Cultivating Fruits, Vegetables, and Herbs from Urban Backyard to Rural Farmyard and the co-founder of NAVCS-Certified Veganic. His writing has appeared in many publications including CounterPunch, Countercurrents, and LA Progressive.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!01:01 Welcome03:08 Jimmy's Intro- 20 years in farming- A naturalist... observes and scientifically tries to understand nature "my passion". Over 10,000 hours of field research "a lot of time outside"- Author of The Veganic Grower's Handbook "how to grow... without the products of animals or having any animals on the farm"04:50 What's Real?- German Roman Catholic mother, Italian Catholic father- Church every Sunday, communion at 5-6 yrs old- 12 yrs old heading toward confirmation- Only child, parents divorcing, a tough patch at high school "It's probably a little easier if you have siblings... I went into my own little bubble... I always felt very comfortable alone"- Attending weekly catechism, dad asks if Jimmy still wants to go... "Dad... I really wanna just play baseball... this was our religion!"- "When you're really worried about what people are thinking about you you spend less time delving into the bigger questions... at that time it was the purpose of... 'I want people to like me'"- Music scholarship to college in California... meeting lifelong friends... hippy influence... "this idea that love could rule all... the biggest moment - flash of my life... wow love"- "The idea of god... I was never totally comfortable"- Having to confess sins "I didn't have any... I'd have to make something up... in #Catholocism you're always sinning... only being alive means you're sinning... it's really bizarre... If I didn't say something then there was this silence... impending, doomful silence"- "I always believed that there was god... but I always had a tough time with this god... always judging us... always making us feel bad... like victims... and we're only going to be saved when we die... when we have a chance... to go to heaven"- In my 19-20''s "I realised that wasn't going to be my path"- Exploring eastern religions & #daoism "we choose our path... but guiding supernatural principles..."- "Moments where I could predict something that would happen tomorrow... maybe it has something to do with this stream of consciousness that exists which daoism talks a lot about"... #buddhism, first nations religions- The #iching & "Animal Spirit Guides" by Steven Farmer "Maybe nature is also telling me something... nature has a message and all I have to do is listen and learn"- "I have my hands actually in the earth... I'm feeling something that most people don't"- "Every living thing that has died is part of that life consciousness that then exists"- Living on top of some of the earth's oldest rocks "I also want to believe that that rock has knowledge from 4 billion years ago"- "For me... a bacterium is as sentient as I am"- "Maybe all of that knowledge is there for the taking"- "Maybe it is all natural... maybe there's nothing mystical about it at all... start thinking about what it is to be a wolf or a deer or a hemlock tree... how can we see the world then?"- "To even believe that we are the only sentient being on the planet... it's as arrogant as we can get"- Gods as personalities vs. god as nature- Epistemic and ethical risks of supernatural worldviews- "What I believe now... #animism... the original religion... maybe it's the way nature looks at the world... every living being has a breath or a soul... anima... when you die, that soul becomes something else..."- "I don't put a lot of weight into it because I can't prove it... try to look at the world from a science perspective"- Colonial views of indigenous people as "savages"32:03 What and Who Matters?01:09:03 A Better World?01:41:32 Follow Jimmy- facebook.com/groups/37922658416/user/100076612535623- lafermedelaube.com- goodreads.com/book/show/62331559-the-veganic-grower-s-handbook- https://observatory.wiki/Jimmy_Videle- humaneherald.org/publications- certifiedveganic.org- indiegogo.com/projects/help-protect-3-500-acres-for-biodiversity& 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.
#HalfEarthSocialism & #veganism ? - Troy Vettese on the #sentientism #podcast Sentientism 2024-04-15 | Clip from @Sentientism podcast episode 191 with Troy Vettese, author of "Half-Earth Socialism" published by @VersoBooksFind our full conversation here: youtu.be/U8AkiuXsoJI Also available on the Sentientism audio podcast (all the usual platforms) if you prefer to listen.
Half-Earth Socialism - Troy Vettese - Sentientism Ep:191 Sentientism 2024-04-11 | Troy Vettese is an environmental historian who specializes in environmental economics, animal studies, and energy history. In 2019 he completed his doctorate in history at New York University. From 2019 to 2021, he worked at Harvard University as a William Lyon Mackenzie King postdoctoral research fellow. He has collaborated with Drew Pendergrass, an environmental engineer, on numerous projects including their book Half-Earth Socialism: A Plan to Save the Future from Extinction, Climate Change and Pandemics.Troy is currently revising his dissertation on neoliberal environmental thought into a book, tentatively titled 'Beyond Externality'. In addition to his academic work, he writes on a wide array of environmental topics for a popular audience, and has had essays published in the Guardian, the New Statesman, Jacobin, N+1, Book Forum, and Boston Review.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!01:04 Welcome02:58 Troy's Intro- Half-Earth Socialism "what does it look like to have an ecologically stable society... a good relationship with other beings on this planet and also to ensure a good life for everyone"- The Half-Earth Socialism computer game & maybe a future board-game05:44 What's Real?- #Ecosocialism and #neoliberalism in conversation with each other- Growing up in a fairly conservative but non-religious household- Being a Young Tory, reading Milton Friedman- In early 20's "a crisis of faith in terms of this conservative worldview" due to the Iraq war and the 2008 financial crisis- Reading Marx and New Left Review- Exploring the environmental crisis- A sensitive child, then a toxic masculinity phase as a teenager (callous, eating meat, machismo), then, alongside the crisis of faith in conservatism, a wish to return to childhood passion for nature- Gravitating towards ecosocialism- Didn't "grow up with red diapers" (being brought up in a left wing family) so feeling inoculated as knows the political right very well as "I came from the right to the left"- #greenwashing measures "I wanted to understand where these ideas had come from... no one had done an intellectual history of these things"- Challenging the common leftist view that the right & neoliberalism doesn't have any real intellectual depth "I took it more seriously than most socialists"- "I thought the left should have more concrete ideas of their own... match the rigour of these conservative ones"- "'We'll figure it out after the revolution'... that's not enough"- Mother who ran for the Green party in elections- Not religious now- "Sceptical of thinking that there's one true path... one true way of relating to each other or to animals"... relativism, Kuhnian (paradigms)?- The neoliberal view of the market as the optimal information processor- Being rational but also appreciating the spiritual/subliminal/subjective? "that's why I'm a big bird watcher"- The "spark bird" that gets you into #birdwatching - #deleuze "Becoming animal" vs. #Haraway's notion of "becoming with"- "This planet is pretty crazy... full of life... we just get used to it... get jaded... these moments when you really see how wonderful existence is"17:50 What & Who Matters?- "People only change their minds when the cracks are starting to appear and they're looking for something else"- Seeing neoliberal policies of privatisation & lower taxes "I'm not sure if that is actually working"- Knowing some vegetarians & arguing against them to defend meat-eating "I always felt dissatisfied with my own efforts"- "Marxists tend to be pretty bad at ethics"- "I want to scold other Marxists for being so bad about the animal question"- "Every creature including humans wants to engage in certain behaviours"- "Humans have this Hegelian quality where they want to see themselves in the world"- "The problem with #capitalism is... it's not our own ideas... it's capital... we're doing things we don't care about... no one is in control of this process... the human race is being subordinated to the ends of this non-human intangible thing we call capital"- Also an "intense attention to empathy... caring about the species being of other creatures"27:33 Who Matters?54:15 A Better World?01:29:55 Follow Troy- versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2650-half-earth-socialism- https://www.half.earth/& 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.
Unlocking the Intelligence of Octopuses and Dogs Evolutionary Discoveries Sentientism 2024-03-31 | ...
Shocking Truth Exposing the Dark Side of Factory Farming Sentientism 2024-03-31 | Watch our full conversation with Frans de Waal here:youtu.be/1uWQA335pU4
