Sentientism

Visit Sentientism.info (click here) for full show notes! Subscribe to the Sentientism YouTube channel to watch the video of our conversation. Floris’s bio states he is “a philosopher and therefore an atheist”. He is a practical, activist, vegan philosopher. He has written a number of books including “Philosophy for a Better World”, “On Green Liberty”, “De vrolijke veganist” (“The Happy Vegan”) and “Hoe komen we van religie af?” (“How to get rid of religion. An inconvenient liberal paradox”). In 2017, Floris participated in a television series “To Hell With Your Religion”, in which he lived with a group of people of various religions for two weeks, exploring and critiquing religious ideas. In these Sentientist Conversations, we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?” You can find Floris’s books on Amazon & here. After our conversation, Floris kindly shared a series of posters he has developed that relate to Sentientist themes. These posters, hosted here, remain Floris’ intellectual property but he is happy with them being freely used for educational purposes. Floris is on our “Sentientist wall” – why not join him there in helping to normalise compassionate, rational thinking? Just fill out this simple form. Sentientism is “Evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings.” You can find out more at Sentientism.info. Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our community groups. Our main group is here on FaceBook. Many thanks to Graham for his work on this video. Follow him at @cgbessellieu. We discuss: - The imperative to reduce suffering, human & non-human, present & future - Growing up in a liberal Catholic environment - Hiding from Jesus 🙂 - Never believing, then finding out that’s called “atheism” - Finding the label “Humanism”, adding values - Studying Zen Buddhism in a Japanese monastery - Hell isn’t compassionate - Religious compassion often conditional & restricted & subject to higher priorities (the collective, a god, the church…) - Individuals can experience, collectives can’t - Not objectivist, not relativist, but a universalist (e.g. slavery is wrong & it was always wrong & it will always be wrong) - A universal focus on individual victims - Peter Singer - Vegetarianism & veganism And more here!

Naomi is the CEO of Best for Britain, the UK’s leading non-partisan advocacy group upholding internationalist values. Before her campaigning and political career she worked in the corporate world and chaired a number of voluntary groups. She describes herself as an internationalist, xenophile, humanist, vegan. She co-hosts the Oh God What Now? (formerly Remainiacs) and The Bunker podcasts. In these Sentientist Conversations, we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?” The video of this conversation is also on our YouTube channel - subscribe so you don’t miss future conversations. We discuss how Naomi’s personal philosophy has evolved, including her experience of religious sectarianism in Northern Ireland, being excluded from a religious education class and feeling a deep affinity for non-human animals from an early age. For full show notes - click here! You can follow Naomi on Twitter here @pimlicat. Naomi is on our “Sentientist wall” – why not join her there in helping to normalise compassionate, rational thinking? Fill out this simple form. Sentientism is “Evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings.” You can find out more at Sentientism.info. Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our community groups. Our main group is here on FaceBook. Many thanks to Graham Bessellieu for his post-production work on this video. Go follow him (& maybe work with him!) at @cgbessellieu.

David Pearce is a philosopher & co-founder of the World Transhumanist Organisation, now Humanity+. His work centres on "The Hedonistic Imperative" - a moral obligation to work towards the abolition of suffering in all sentient life." You can find the video of our conversation here. We discuss: - "The Hedonistic Imperative"  - Using biotech to abolish suffering & replace it with gradients of hedonic bliss - Compassion, Buddhism, negative utilitarianism & the need to systematise benevolence - The "3 supers" of Transhumanism: super intelligence, super longevity & super happiness + why non-humans should be included - Growing up as a 3rd generation v*gan in a Quaker household - Waiting for god to get in touch at 7-8 yrs old then ceasing to believe at 10-11 yrs - The centrality of compassion to the values of David's family - Is morality like supporting a football team? - We can build our ethics on deep intuitions, then extrapolate - First person suffering is dis-valuable. Hold your hand in iced water! - The centrality of our perspective as a highly adaptive illusion. The suffering of others is just as salient to them - each of us is not special - "My morality is a feature of reality" - A future connected mega-mind might look back on us as ignorant as well as unethical - A choice to be immoral is also irrational - Basing our morality on a naturalistic epistemology & spanning "is-ought" - How nearly everyone disagrees with Sentientism - Focusing on the good in religion & working on common ground - The Bible is light on the bio-tech details of how the lion will lie down with the lamb :) - If god has given us CRISPR, why not use it to show mercy? - If humans have compassion, surely god's compassion should be even deeper? - Not being righteous even when you're right - Having compassion for people you disagree with & naturalistic humility about your own beliefs - Religious texts don't prohibit the positive use of tech - We're all amateurs re: understanding consciousness - Consciousness/sentience as "just" info proc or something more - Is the USA conscious? (Eric Schwitzgebel) - Micro-experiential zombies - Physicalism plus the intrinsic nature of the physical, is experience the "fire in the equations"? - Falling asleep doesn't destroy consciousness, it breaks binding - Eric's "crazyism" - stay open minded - Powerpointism as an alternative to panpsychism :) - The temptation to fill gaps / address uncertainty with "woo" and mysticism/magic/god - Even if consciousness is fundamental, it's not "like anything" to be a rock - Distinction between panpsychism (consciousness attached to fundamental entities) & non-materialist physicalism (experience discloses the intrinsic nature of the physical) - Using genetics to give our offspring better lives - for health and to adjust their hedonic set-points - Ending animal farming "death factories" - laws will outlaw - Making it easy to do the right thing - Mitigating wild animal suffering (fertility regulation - immuno-contraception/gene drives). We are already intervening negatively on a massive scale - SCN-9A gene, the volume knob of pain - Converting carnivores to herbivores, providing cultured-meat alternatives, without being constrained by species essentialism - "Nature is pretty" vs. "Compassion for the suffering" - Moving from "kill them all" to compassionate interventions - Using our tech capability to tap into the latent compassion of humans. See the YouTube video for full show notes.

In these Sentientist Conversations, we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?” Stijn is a physicist (phd), economist (phd in progress), animal activist, rational moral philosopher (another phd) and an Effective Altruist! He co-founded and is president of EA Belgium. He’s currently researching economics at the university of Leuven. We talk about: Academic activism God not saving Stijn from swimming classes Martial arts, Star Wars & eastern/Buddhist philosophy (chi, forces, accupuncture, telekinesis, telepathy) Retaining a sense of awe, wonder & connection within a naturalistic worldview Ecocentrism/biocentrism as intuitively attractive, but as Stijn’s biggest moral mistake Ecosystems can’t suffer & “Gaia doesn’t care” The risk that ecocentrism often really reflects a human aesthetic judgement, not genuine altruistic concern for other sentients The moral salience of wild animal suffering The “don’t play god” rule against intervening in nature is a reflection of human values, not altruistic concern Are the most important moral questions actually the simplest? The value of thought experiments in solid morality - treating ethics like physics In ethics as in physics, we shouldn’t arbitrarily make exceptions Nihilism & its association with a materialist worldview Outgrowing a “puberty” stage in personal philosophy Moral uncertainty Life project of finding fundamental moral principles. Starting with 8, then 5, now 3: 1) Universal application / categorical imperative; 2) Avoiding unwanted arbitrariness (e.g. discrimination, exceptions, revelation); 3) Relative preferences (~utility / well-being / preferences) Religious believers are atheists in every other religion Starting from rights & working back to derive sentience as the moral qualifier (makes no sense to apply rights (e.g. autonomy / being used as a means) to non-sentients as they have no interests or needs to protect) We can grant rights to everything, but they can only be breached for sentient beings! Sentience/flourishing/suffering as the full range of simple & rich qualitative experiences, not just basic hedonistic pains & pleasures How every other interest or preference (e.g. freedom/autonomy) can be assessed through their impact on the quality of sentient experience ... Find the full show notes here. You can learn about Stijn’s work here: stijnbruers.wordpress.com & he's on Twitter here @StijnBruers. Stijn is on our “Sentientist wall” – why not join him there in helping to normalise compassionate, rational thinking? Sentientism is “Evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings.” You can find out more at sentientism.info. Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our community groups. Our main group is here on FaceBook.

John shares his story, from being a devout Pentecostalist Sunday School Teacher in Nigeria to being a Sentientist, atheist, vegan academic and author. Video version here. John is Strategic Lecturer in the School of Law and a Fellow of the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences at Queen Mary University of London. He is a cellist and dancer. We discuss: John growing up in Nigeria, then Italy in an evangelical, pentecostal family (both parents are missionaries and reverends) and community Being a sunday school teacher and devout believer Challenging those beliefs as a teenager, both re: evidence and ethics (e.g. rejecting religious homophobia) The rich integration of Nigerian culture, racial identity and religion and how that made leaving religion behind a difficult struggle Finding the courage to be open with parents who are very deeply involved with the church How some religious communities accept non-believing, “cultural” community members while others reject those who drop their supernatural beliefs Veganism being seen as a rejection of a culture rather than an individual moral choice How having freedom, time and distance from our culture can help us assess and improve our worldview Value as the foundation of ethics, not religion. Value comes first A pluralistic conception of value from the perspective of each individual: community, family, friendship, relationships, experiences Sentience as a sufficient ground for considering a being valuable because they have a perspective. Things can go better or worse for them. Morality is caring about that perspective of others Whether non-sentient beings have intrinsic or just instrumental value Is beauty of value even if no sentient ever experiences it? Let’s not destroy the Mona Lisa just to be safe The danger of bio/eco centrism and environmentalism neglecting or even harming sentient beings while trying to protect non-sentient things The full richness of sentient experience. Not just pleasure and pain – but aethetics, awe, wonder, connectedness and love The importance of setting a philosophical baseline of moral consideration for all sentients. But how even that baseline is the product of deep philosophical thinking by intellectual giants (e.g. Bentham) Why most of the 8 billion people on the planet disagree with Sentientism The importance of ensuring that our confidence in naturalism doesn’t lead to our own dogma or closed-mindedness or arrogance The importance of humility and receptiveness and open-mindedness and constructive conversation Compassion even for people you disagree with Basing our ethics on a naturalistic understanding of sentience and sentient beings How to get to a Sentientist future. Facts and logic won’t be enough… our emotional reactions come first, philosophy follows Empathy as a way to engage people emotionally Helping people be more ready change by setting a good, “normal” example Making better ethics the easier choice Once people have taken easier, better ethical choices they might upgrade their ethics Freedom of belief, but not freedom to use those beliefs to harm When you see something as more important than suffering and death, you tend to get quite a lot of suffering and death Law is there to restrict freedom to protect others We already grant rights to corporations and rivers, why not extend them to non-human animals? How the law and rights fields can help drive positive change.  John at QMUL. @JohnAdenitire. sentientism.info. FBook.

New York Times bestselling (4 times!) author and journalist AJ Jacobs experiments on himself to help us all learn. In this Sentientist Conversation he talks with Jamie about what he believes, what matters morally, and how his writing projects link to Sentientism's tenets of evidence, reason and universal compassion. The video of our conversation is here - why not subscribe on YouTube too? AJ: “I love the idea of Sentientism” We discuss: - Sentientist themes in AJ's personal experimentation writing projects: Living biblically, connecting everyone, thanking everyone, never lying, learning everything!  - The "belonging, belief and behaviour" of religion – including secular Judaism and hanging out at the Scientology centre. - Effective altruism and longtermism. - Moral realism, relativism and why the Taliban’s ethics just aren’t good. - Preferring shallow beliefs to deeply held beliefs. - The ethics of human and non-human animal, robot and far future ethics. - Expanding our moral circle through recognising our connectedness and/or through seeing climate change as a common enemy.  - Presenting positive opportunities to do good vs. using guilt. - What a Sentientist utopia might look like and whether we should even specify one. - Can Sentientism help address today’s dogmatic polarisation? AJ is on our Sentientist "wall":  - why not join him there using this simple form? AJ's web site is ajjacobs.com. Sentientism is "Evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings." You can find out more about it at https://sentientism.info/ Everyone interested, whether Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our global community. Our main group is here on Facebook.  Many thanks to Graham Bessellieu for his post-production work on this video. Go follow him (and maybe work with him!) at @cgbessellieu.

What's it like to have Prince throw a creationist tantrum when you take him on his first trip to a natural history museum? Carole Raphaelle Davis tells us what it's like to be a radical feminist, atheist, vegan (and Sentientist) in the showbiz world of Hollywood. "Sentientism feels like home!"  We talk about: - What it was like to work with and socialise with Prince - and how his religiosity affected their relationship - How animal ethics and veganism are finally, irreversibly going "mainstream" - Why it's so important for public figures, like Joaquin Phoenix, to be vocal about their ethics. You can find the video of our conversation here on YouTube - why not subscribe there too? Carole Raphaelle Davis is an actress, recording artist, writer and activist best known for her roles in Sex and the City and Madam Secretary and songwriting with Prince. Find out more about her work at caroleraphaelledavis.com. Here she is on our Wall of Sentientists. Why not join her there? Sentientism is "Evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings." You can find out more about it at sentientism.info. Everyone interested, whether Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our global community. Our main group is here on FaceBook. Many thanks to Graham Bessellieu for his post-production work on this video. Go follow him (and maybe work with him!) at @cgbessellieu.

Zion Lights is an author & activist known for her environmental work & science communication. She is UK director of Environmental Progress. She has been a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion (XR) UK on TV and radio, and founded & edited XR’s Hourglass newspaper. She has written for The Huffington Post, authored the evidence-based nonfiction book The Ultimate Guide to Green Parenting, and given a TEDx talk. To watch instead of listen, here's our conversation on YouTube. We talk about: Front line activism (before & during XR) Why environmentalists should commit to evidence & reason, even when it’s uncomfortable (e.g. nuclear) The risks of cause commitment leading to dogma & the ignoring/warping of evidence How a lack of evidence risks undermining movement credibility (particularly when being interviewed by Andrew Neill) Individual change vs. systemic change – making it easier for people to do the right thing How XR have helped bring env. concerns into the public consciousness Energy Justice, finding sustainable ways to get energy to people that most need it Understanding the reality of life in less-developed countries & acting with compassion as we pursue solutions Avoiding the developed country trope of: “We burned fossil fuels to get rich & happy – but you developing countries can’t, because we’ve destroyed the environment” Embedding compassion (for human & non-sentient beings) in our environmentalism Growing up in England with Punjabi parents, one Christian & one Sikh Exploring religions but being “baffled” by them How other dogmas (e.g. anti-vaxx, anti-masking) relate to religious dogmas The good (compassion) & bad (e.g. caste discrimination) of religious ethics Fatalism, karma & crossing the road in Indian cities! Fatalism & prayer as ways of coping with a difficult life, but ones that trap people Avoiding romanticism about living “simple” lives. These lives are often short, risky & full of suffering Superstitions as another set of un-founded & potentially dangerous beliefs The sense of freedom from letting go of superstition & religion & adopting a scientific worldview Marrying a doctor for safety/health as well as status reasons! Risking family & social connections to take a different path The value & constraints/dangers of community obligations The importance of freedom & autonomy The image of animal products as high status, aspirational or a “treat”,  going back to hunter/gatherer times Veganism, animal farming, clean meat, wild animal suffering, eco-fascism, paganism  A Star Trek/Kaku/Deutschian/Sagan future! There’s more about Zion here: http://www.zionlights.co.uk/ & you can follow her on Twitter here @ziontree. Here she is on our Celebrity “wall”. Sentientism is “Evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings.” You can find out more at sentientism.info. Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our community. Our main group is here on FaceBook.

In this Sentientist Conversation I talk to Law and Rights Lecturer and Author, Dr. Joe Wills. We talk about what’s real and what matters morally. “We have a golden opportunity to re-imagine our relationships with non-human animals.” We discuss: – Religious indoctrination and influences in childhood – Morality without the supernatural – The dangers of having too narrow a moral circle (within and beyond humanity) – Extending our moral circle (and avoiding moral doughnuts!) – Social norms that hold us back from extending our moral circle – Narrow (pain + pleasure) and richer conceptions of sentience – Sentiocentrism vs. biocentrism vs. ecocentrism – The dangers of dogma (including scientistic dogmas!) – The important contributions of religious compassion and religious thinkers to animal ethics thinking – How even compassionate supernatural belief systems can lead otherwise good people to do serious wrong – How dogma blocks constructive conversation – Criticisms of Humanism and Sentientism as over-confident, universal, “western” ways of thinking vs. their deep, cross-cultural, pre-religious (even pre-human!) roots – Religion and aristotelian hierarchy as an engine of oppression within and beyond humanity – Sentientism as a bulwark against oppression – Insisting on moral consideration for every being capable of suffering – The dangers of moral relativism – Welfarism, abolitionism, extinctionism, segregationism, antinatalism, relationalism and the future of human and non-human animal relations – The ethics of farming human toddlers (let’s not) – Wild animal suffering and what (if anything) we should do about it – If sentient experiences are all that matter, should we plug into Nozick’s experience machine? – Are we already in a simulation? Does it matter if the simulation is good enough? – We have a golden opportunity to re-imagine our relationships with non-human animals given climate change/zoonosis/anti-microbial resistance crises, but will we take it? – Seeing companion animals as family members, not property – Legal opportunities to link climate change to resisting animal farming – Political initiatives (e.g. Sentience Politics in Switzerland) working to end factory farming and resist animal oppression – How can we tap into the latent public opinion against factory farming and even animal slaughter (See Sentience Institute research). You can find out more about Joe’s academic work here and can follow him on Twitter here @DrJoeWills. Sentientism is “Evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings.” You can find out more about it at Sentientism.info. Everyone interested, whether Sentientist or not, is welcome to join our global community. Our biggest group is here on Facebook. Many thanks to Graham Bessellieu for his post-production work on this video. Go follow him (and maybe work with him!) at @cgbessellieu.

Hi, Welcome to our new podcast. This is just a quick trailer. You can look forward to conversations with celebrities, activists, academics and interested lay people about "what's real?" and "what matters?". While Sentientism is a very simple, common sense, philosophy, it has some deeply radical implications! A commitment to evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings might seem obvious, but almost everyone on the planet disagrees with it, for now... To find out more about Sentientism, visit sentientism.info or our new YouTube channel. You're also very welcome to join any of our online, global communities, whether you think you might be a Sentientist or you just find the idea interesting. Our biggest so far is here on Facebook where we have people from every generally habitable continent and around 90 countries. Thanks for listening and don't forget to subscribe and even give us a review (now I'm starting to feel like a real podcaster 🙂).