Walden Pod

Wild animal suffering – is it possible to do anything about it? Should we do anything about it? Even though the general principles that inform our concern for animal welfare shouldn’t be arbitrarily limited to animals outside the wild, I think intervention on any serious scale would be ill-advised. The natural order is deeply interconnected, dynamic, and awesomely complex. Drastic action, such as ending predation, would plausibly cause the system to collapse into nonexistence or end in some other irreversible catastrophe. Sadly, natural evil is inextricably built into the biological order. “...for practical purposes I am fairly sure, judging from man’s past record of attempts to mold nature to his own aims, that we would be more likely to increase the net amount of animal suffering if we interfered with wildlife, than to decrease it.” - Peter Singer YouTube Consider supporting the show on Patreon here or Counter Apologetics here Listen to our sister show, Counter Apologetics here Music by ichika Nito and used with permission. Transcript  Twitter @waldenpod @OnPanpsychism linktr.ee/emersongreen

Personal identity, the potential evolutionary origins of religion, Bernardo Kastrup and analytic idealism, the Ship of Theseus and substance dualism. Leave a voicemail at (734) 707-1940 YouTube Twitter @waldenpod @OnPanpsychism Patreon.com/waldenpod linktr.ee/emersongreen

A few thoughts on what mysterianism is not. Also, why "What is consciousness?" is a bad question.  Linktree

My opinionated introduction to mysterianism. Inspired by Noam Chomsky, Colin McGinn, and Eric Schwitzgebel, we explore a version of mysterianism that I think may be true. YouTube Support on Patreon Listen to our sister show, Counter Apologetics here Transcript Shane Wagoner - From Physicalism to Mysterianism Music by ichika Nito and used with permission. Twitter @waldenpod @OnPanpsychism linktr.ee/emersongreen

A few scattered thoughts about internet materialists, stronger forms of physicalism, underdetermination, neuroscience, the evolution of consciousness, qualia microscopes, and the hard problem of consciousness. YouTube Consider supporting the show on Patreon here or Counter Apologetics here Listen to our sister show, Counter Apologetics here Music by ichika Nito and used with permission. Twitter @waldenpod @OnPanpsychism linktr.ee/emersongreen

If epiphenomenalism is true, mental causation is an illusion. Even if pain and pleasure were inverted, you’d go on behaving the same way you do now, since your conscious states have nothing to do with determining or motivating your physical behavior. This is counterintuitive, to say the least. But it also leaves us completely unable to explain why our conscious states line up appropriately with our actions. We typically think that natural selection molded our mental profile: that which aids in survival and reproduction is incentivized by experiences with a positive hedonic valence, and vice versa. Thus, we have an evolutionary explanation of harmonious correlations. But on epiphenomenalism, this can't be the right explanation, since experiences play no causal role at all. If they have no causal influence, they can't make any difference to genetic fitness. So how is it that harmonious correlations evolved if experiences are invisible to natural selection? Argument from Psychophysical Harmony w/ Dustin Crummett  Psychophysical Harmony in a Nutshell   Listen to our sister show, Counter Apologetics here Transcript Music by ichika Nito and used with permission. Twitter @waldenpod @OnPanpsychism YouTube Consider supporting the show on Patreon here or Counter Apologetics here linktr.ee/emersongreen

Ben Burgis recently invited me on his Callin show to speak about the value of “science fiction” thought experiments in applied ethics.  I argue that in the realm of applied ethics, thought experiments often confuse more than they clarify. They don’t map on to the real world cases they’re intended to help with (for various reasons), and we shouldn’t be informing action with scenarios that differ in ethically relevant respects. Applied ethics is about what we should do – it’s a uniquely practical subfield of philosophy. Ethical thought experiments commonly provide us with both too much and too little information: they exclude morally relevant detail that we would possess in the real world, and they include morally relevant detail that we would not possess in the real world. So even though we may come to the same conclusion regarding an action or principle in a thought experiment doesn’t mean we’d agree in the real world case, since these two cases differ in morally relevant respects. Consequently, I think it’s often a mistake to inform action in the real world with conclusions drawn from a thought experiment. Ben Burgis - The Joe Rogan Experience  Canceling Comedians While the World Burns The Left Should Oppose Censorship by Big Tech Companies Callin - Friendly Debate w/Emerson Green—Do “Science Fiction” Thought Experiments Have Any Value in Philosophy? James Wilson - Philosophy Bites Interview on the value of thought experiments in applied ethics Subscribe on YouTube Consider supporting the show on Patreon here or Counter Apologetics here Listen to our sister show, Counter Apologetics here Follow me on Twitter @waldenpod linktr.ee/emersongreen

Many leaders in the skeptic community have proven themselves to be untrustworthy sources of information on the topics they speak about. They’ve misled me often about what others believe and why. Moreover, genuine skepticism seems to be far less important to the skeptic community than the kind of conclusions one comes to. Failure to adopt the required list of beliefs disqualifies one from being a real skeptic, it would seem. In today’s episode, I talk about how my atheism caused me to gravitate towards the skeptic community, and how the same subject caused me to drift away. We also discuss how skeptics mishandle the subjects of theism, parapsychology, the JFK assassination, 9/11, and aliens. For the record, this should not be seen as a comprehensive treatment of the topics raised (e.g. conspiracy theories). My framework was the following: Skeptics told me conspiracy theorists believed X for reason Y, but they were often wrong on both counts. I used a few examples, but I wasn’t aiming to provide a full account of what 9/11 truthers believe, or what alien abductees think, nor was I trying to defend a rejection of the Warren Commission. I especially shied away from that last topic, since it’s a bit different from the others for me. In the case of the JFK assassination, I’m more solidly on the side of the conspiracy theorists. Along with the majority of Americans, I don’t accept the Warren Commission. Watch on YouTube Consider supporting the show on Patreon here or Counter Apologetics here Listen to our sister show, Counter Apologetics here Transcript Twitter @waldenpod  Linktree For a more accurate picture of what these common skeptic targets believe and why: / JFK Oliver Stone’s documentary JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass /or/ JFK: Destiny Betrayed [longer version of same doc]  Mark Lane interviewed on JFK assassination (1992)  / 9/11 Three-part article in CovertAction Magazine - Peter Dale Scott, Aaron Good, Ben Howard The Road to 9/11 (University of California Press) Peter Dale Scott  / Theism Kenny Pierce defends theism against Graham Oppy (Dialogue)  Joshua Rasmussen defends theism against Felipe Leon (Dialogue)  / Parapsychology  Mitch Horowitz: A parapsychologist’s take on James Randi / Aliens Nick Pope w/ Michael Shermer on UAPs and UFOs Avi Loeb w/ Michael Shermer on alien life and oumuamua 

I’m joined by philosopher Luke Roelofs to discuss the combination problem for panpsychism, split brain cases, vagueness arguments, illusionism, mental privacy, the general and special composition question, mereological nihilism and universalism, and many other topics related to consciousness and composite subjectivity. Watch on YouTube Combining Minds: How to Think About Composite Subjectivity (Oxford University Press) Amodal Mind Perception: Combining Inferentialism and Perceptualism Luke’s website Consider supporting the show on Patreon here or Counter Apologetics here Listen to our sister show, Counter Apologetics here Music by ichika Nito and used with permission. Twitter @waldenpod @OnPanpsychism linktr.ee/emersongreen

I'm joined by Scott Clifton (Theoretical Bullshit) to discuss free will skepticism, compatibilism, moral responsibility, revenge, and killing coyotes. Video version - Is free will an illusion?  Scott's channel  Follow me @waldenpod and TBS @TheoreticalBS Consider supporting Walden Pod here or Counter Apologetics here linktr.ee/emersongreen