Podcast appearances and mentions of peter godfrey smith

What if there's something it's like to be a shrimp — or a chatbot?For centuries, humans have debated the nature of consciousness, often placing ourselves at the very top. But what about the minds of others — both the animals we share this planet with and the artificial intelligences we're creating?We've pulled together clips from past conversations with researchers and philosophers who've spent years trying to make sense of animal consciousness, artificial sentience, and moral consideration under deep uncertainty.Links to learn more and full transcript: https://80k.info/nhsChapters:Cold open (00:00:00)Luisa's intro (00:00:57)Robert Long on what we should picture when we think about artificial sentience (00:02:49)Jeff Sebo on what the threshold is for AI systems meriting moral consideration (00:07:22)Meghan Barrett on the evolutionary argument for insect sentience (00:11:24)Andrés Jiménez Zorrilla on whether there's something it's like to be a shrimp (00:15:09)Jonathan Birch on the cautionary tale of newborn pain (00:21:53)David Chalmers on why artificial consciousness is possible (00:26:12)Holden Karnofsky on how we'll see digital people as... people (00:32:18)Jeff Sebo on grappling with our biases and ignorance when thinking about sentience (00:38:59)Bob Fischer on how to think about the moral weight of a chicken (00:49:37)Cameron Meyer Shorb on the range of suffering in wild animals (01:01:41)Sébastien Moro on whether fish are conscious or sentient (01:11:17)David Chalmers on when to start worrying about artificial consciousness (01:16:36)Robert Long on how we might stumble into causing AI systems enormous suffering (01:21:04)Jonathan Birch on how we might accidentally create artificial sentience (01:26:13)Anil Seth on which parts of the brain are required for consciousness (01:32:33)Peter Godfrey-Smith on uploads of ourselves (01:44:47)Jonathan Birch on treading lightly around the “edge cases” of sentience (02:00:12)Meghan Barrett on whether brain size and sentience are related (02:05:25)Lewis Bollard on how animal advocacy has changed in response to sentience studies (02:12:01)Bob Fischer on using proxies to determine sentience (02:22:27)Cameron Meyer Shorb on how we can practically study wild animals' subjective experiences (02:26:28)Jeff Sebo on the problem of false positives in assessing artificial sentience (02:33:16)Stuart Russell on the moral rights of AIs (02:38:31)Buck Shlegeris on whether AI control strategies make humans the bad guys (02:41:50)Meghan Barrett on why she can't be totally confident about insect sentience (02:47:12)Bob Fischer on what surprised him most about the findings of the Moral Weight Project (02:58:30)Jeff Sebo on why we're likely to sleepwalk into causing massive amounts of suffering in AI systems (03:02:46)Will MacAskill on the rights of future digital beings (03:05:29)Carl Shulman on sharing the world with digital minds (03:19:25)Luisa's outro (03:33:43)Audio engineering: Ben Cordell, Milo McGuire, Simon Monsour, and Dominic ArmstrongAdditional content editing: Katy Moore and Milo McGuireTranscriptions and web: Katy Moore

Peter Godfrey-Smith, a Professor of the Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney, explores with us the differences between creativity in science and philosophy. While philosophers speculate unconstrainedly, scientists must balance creative thinking with the need for empirical testing and within our fields' paradigms – if you mention the “Lamarck” word at a bar full of geneticists, don't be surprised if the piano suddenly stops and everybody looks at you in disbelief. We also talk about Thomas Kuhn's tension between normal and revolutionary science, the risks and rewards of disruptive ideas, and the importance of "middle-class science"—independent labs driving innovation. Peter ends by drawing a parallel between the night science / day science transition and Händel's aria "As Steals the Morn," which describes the transition from dream state to wakefulness.This episode was supported by Research Theory (researchtheory.org). For more information about Night Science, visit https://www.biomedcentral.com/collections/night-science .

Robinson's Podcast #240 - Peter Godfrey-Smith: Cuttlefish, Octopuses, and the Consciousness of Mysterious Minds Peter Godfrey-Smith is a professor in the School of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney. He has also taught at Stanford University and Harvard University. Among other topics, he has researched the philosophy of biology and mind, and is very well-known for his book Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness (FSG, 2016). In this episode, Peter and Robinson discuss that book, as well as his latest, Living on Earth (William Collins, 2024). More particularly, they discuss cuttlefish, octopuses, consciousness, metaethics, and animal welfare. Peter's Website: https://petergodfreysmith.com Living on Earth: https://a.co/d/9MvUFHV OUTLINE 00:00 Introduction 01:10 Scuba Diving with Cuttlefish and Octopuses 09:43 Why Did Creatures Evolve Nervous Systems? 16:18 Why Did Conscious Minds Evolve? 27:23 Why Do We Believe that Other Animals Have Minds? 36:49 Do Shrimp or Fish Feel Pain? 47:01 What's It Like to Be an Octopus? 57:32 What Is Metaethics? 1:04:57 First-Order Ethics 1:08:12 Is It Morally Acceptable to Eat Animals? 1:16:04 What Does Peter Eat? 1:29:49 Future Work

Peter Godfrey Smith is famous for his work on understanding the minds of other animals, particularly octopuses. In this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast he discusses animal minds with Nigel Warburton.

"A shameless recycling of existing content to drive additional audience engagement on the cheap… or the single best, most valuable, and most insight-dense episode we put out in the entire year, depending on how you want to look at it." — Rob WiblinIt's that magical time of year once again — highlightapalooza! Stick around for one top bit from each episode, including:How to use the microphone on someone's mobile phone to figure out what password they're typing into their laptopWhy mercilessly driving the New World screwworm to extinction could be the most compassionate thing humanity has ever doneWhy evolutionary psychology doesn't support a cynical view of human nature but actually explains why so many of us are intensely sensitive to the harms we cause to othersHow superforecasters and domain experts seem to disagree so much about AI risk, but when you zoom in it's mostly a disagreement about timingWhy the sceptics are wrong and you will want to use robot nannies to take care of your kids — and also why despite having big worries about the development of AGI, Carl Shulman is strongly against efforts to pause AI research todayHow much of the gender pay gap is due to direct pay discrimination vs other factorsHow cleaner wrasse fish blow the mirror test out of the waterWhy effective altruism may be too big a tent to work wellHow we could best motivate pharma companies to test existing drugs to see if they help cure other diseases — something they currently have no reason to bother with…as well as 27 other top observations and arguments from the past year of the show.Check out the full transcript and episode links on the 80,000 Hours website.Remember that all of these clips come from the 20-minute highlight reels we make for every episode, which are released on our sister feed, 80k After Hours. So if you're struggling to keep up with our regularly scheduled entertainment, you can still get the best parts of our conversations there.It has been a hell of a year, and we can only imagine next year is going to be even weirder — but Luisa and Rob will be here to keep you company as Earth hurtles through the galaxy to a fate as yet unknown.Enjoy, and look forward to speaking with you in 2025!Chapters:Rob's intro (00:00:00)Randy Nesse on the origins of morality and the problem of simplistic selfish-gene thinking (00:02:11)Hugo Mercier on the evolutionary argument against humans being gullible (00:07:17)Meghan Barrett on the likelihood of insect sentience (00:11:26)Sébastien Moro on the mirror test triumph of cleaner wrasses (00:14:47)Sella Nevo on side-channel attacks (00:19:32)Zvi Mowshowitz on AI sleeper agents (00:22:59)Zach Weinersmith on why space settlement (probably) won't make us rich (00:29:11)Rachel Glennerster on pull mechanisms to incentivise repurposing of generic drugs (00:35:23)Emily Oster on the impact of kids on women's careers (00:40:29)Carl Shulman on robot nannies (00:45:19)Nathan Labenz on kids and artificial friends (00:50:12)Nathan Calvin on why it's not too early for AI policies (00:54:13)Rose Chan Loui on how control of OpenAI is independently incredibly valuable and requires compensation (00:58:08)Nick Joseph on why he's a big fan of the responsible scaling policy approach (01:03:11)Sihao Huang on how the US and UK might coordinate with China (01:06:09)Nathan Labenz on better transparency about predicted capabilities (01:10:18)Ezra Karger on what explains forecasters' disagreements about AI risks (01:15:22)Carl Shulman on why he doesn't support enforced pauses on AI research (01:18:58)Matt Clancy on the omnipresent frictions that might prevent explosive economic growth (01:25:24)Vitalik Buterin on defensive acceleration (01:29:43)Annie Jacobsen on the war games that suggest escalation is inevitable (01:34:59)Nate Silver on whether effective altruism is too big to succeed (01:38:42)Kevin Esvelt on why killing every screwworm would be the best thing humanity ever did (01:42:27)Lewis Bollard on how factory farming is philosophically indefensible (01:46:28)Bob Fischer on how to think about moral weights if you're not a hedonist (01:49:27)Elizabeth Cox on the empirical evidence of the impact of storytelling (01:57:43)Anil Seth on how our brain interprets reality (02:01:03)Eric Schwitzgebel on whether consciousness can be nested (02:04:53)Jonathan Birch on our overconfidence around disorders of consciousness (02:10:23)Peter Godfrey-Smith on uploads of ourselves (02:14:34)Laura Deming on surprising things that make mice live longer (02:21:17)Venki Ramakrishnan on freezing cells, organs, and bodies (02:24:46)Ken Goldberg on why low fault tolerance makes some skills extra hard to automate in robots (02:29:12)Sarah Eustis-Guthrie on the ups and downs of founding an organisation (02:34:04)Dean Spears on the cost effectiveness of kangaroo mother care (02:38:26)Cameron Meyer Shorb on vaccines for wild animals (02:42:53)Spencer Greenberg on personal principles (02:46:08)Producing and editing: Keiran HarrisAudio engineering: Ben Cordell, Milo McGuire, Simon Monsour, and Dominic ArmstrongVideo editing: Simon MonsourTranscriptions: Katy Moore

Peter Godfrey-Smith knows his cephalopods. Once of CUNY and now a professor of history and philosophy of science at University of Sydney, his truly capacious career includes books such as Theory and Reality (2003; 2nd edition in 2020), Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection (2009) and most recently Metazoa. RtB--including two Brandeis undergraduates as guest hosts, Izzy Dupré and Miriam Fisch--spoke with him back in October 2021 about his astonishing book on the fundamental alterity of octopus intelligence and experience of the world, Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea and the Deep Origins of Consciousness. Another equally descriptive title for that book, and for the discussion we share with you here (after Thomas Nagel's "What is it like to be a Bat?") might be What is it Like to be an Octopus? As always, below you will find helpful links for the works referenced in the episode, and a transcript for those who prefer or require a print version of the conversation. Please visit us at Recallthisbook.org (or even subscribe there) if you are interested in helpful bonus items like related short original articles, reading lists, visual supplements and past episodes grouped into categories for easy browsing. Mentioned in the Episode: Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Ruin "Open the pod bay doors, Hal": a chilling line from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) District Nine (2009, dir. Neill Bloomkamp) in which giant intelligent shrimp from outer space play the role of octopus-like alien intelligence, and prompt a complex but unmistakably racist reaction on their arrival in South Africa. Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) Erik Linklater, Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (1949) Listen and Read Here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Peter Godfrey-Smith knows his cephalopods. Once of CUNY and now a professor of history and philosophy of science at University of Sydney, his truly capacious career includes books such as Theory and Reality (2003; 2nd edition in 2020), Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection (2009) and most recently Metazoa. RtB--including two Brandeis undergraduates as guest hosts, Izzy Dupré and Miriam Fisch--spoke with him back in October 2021 about his astonishing book on the fundamental alterity of octopus intelligence and experience of the world, Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea and the Deep Origins of Consciousness. Another equally descriptive title for that book, and for the discussion we share with you here (after Thomas Nagel's "What is it like to be a Bat?") might be What is it Like to be an Octopus? As always, below you will find helpful links for the works referenced in the episode, and a transcript for those who prefer or require a print version of the conversation. Please visit us at Recallthisbook.org (or even subscribe there) if you are interested in helpful bonus items like related short original articles, reading lists, visual supplements and past episodes grouped into categories for easy browsing. Mentioned in the Episode: Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Ruin "Open the pod bay doors, Hal": a chilling line from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) District Nine (2009, dir. Neill Bloomkamp) in which giant intelligent shrimp from outer space play the role of octopus-like alien intelligence, and prompt a complex but unmistakably racist reaction on their arrival in South Africa. Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) Erik Linklater, Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (1949) Listen and Read Here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peter Godfrey-Smith knows his cephalopods. Once of CUNY and now a professor of history and philosophy of science at University of Sydney, his truly capacious career includes books such as Theory and Reality (2003; 2nd edition in 2020), Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection (2009) and most recently Metazoa. RtB--including two Brandeis undergraduates as guest hosts, Izzy Dupré and Miriam Fisch--spoke with him back in October 2021 about his astonishing book on the fundamental alterity of octopus intelligence and experience of the world, Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea and the Deep Origins of Consciousness. Another equally descriptive title for that book, and for the discussion we share with you here (after Thomas Nagel's "What is it like to be a Bat?") might be What is it Like to be an Octopus? As always, below you will find helpful links for the works referenced in the episode, and a transcript for those who prefer or require a print version of the conversation. Please visit us at Recallthisbook.org (or even subscribe there) if you are interested in helpful bonus items like related short original articles, reading lists, visual supplements and past episodes grouped into categories for easy browsing. Mentioned in the Episode: Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Ruin "Open the pod bay doors, Hal": a chilling line from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) District Nine (2009, dir. Neill Bloomkamp) in which giant intelligent shrimp from outer space play the role of octopus-like alien intelligence, and prompt a complex but unmistakably racist reaction on their arrival in South Africa. Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) Erik Linklater, Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (1949) Listen and Read Here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/environmental-studies

Peter Godfrey-Smith knows his cephalopods. Once of CUNY and now a professor of history and philosophy of science at University of Sydney, his truly capacious career includes books such as Theory and Reality (2003; 2nd edition in 2020), Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection (2009) and most recently Metazoa. RtB--including two Brandeis undergraduates as guest hosts, Izzy Dupré and Miriam Fisch--spoke with him back in October 2021 about his astonishing book on the fundamental alterity of octopus intelligence and experience of the world, Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea and the Deep Origins of Consciousness. Another equally descriptive title for that book, and for the discussion we share with you here (after Thomas Nagel's "What is it like to be a Bat?") might be What is it Like to be an Octopus? As always, below you will find helpful links for the works referenced in the episode, and a transcript for those who prefer or require a print version of the conversation. Please visit us at Recallthisbook.org (or even subscribe there) if you are interested in helpful bonus items like related short original articles, reading lists, visual supplements and past episodes grouped into categories for easy browsing. Mentioned in the Episode: Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Ruin "Open the pod bay doors, Hal": a chilling line from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) District Nine (2009, dir. Neill Bloomkamp) in which giant intelligent shrimp from outer space play the role of octopus-like alien intelligence, and prompt a complex but unmistakably racist reaction on their arrival in South Africa. Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) Erik Linklater, Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (1949) Listen and Read Here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science

Peter Godfrey-Smith knows his cephalopods. Once of CUNY and now a professor of history and philosophy of science at University of Sydney, his truly capacious career includes books such as Theory and Reality (2003; 2nd edition in 2020), Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection (2009) and most recently Metazoa. RtB--including two Brandeis undergraduates as guest hosts, Izzy Dupré and Miriam Fisch--spoke with him back in October 2021 about his astonishing book on the fundamental alterity of octopus intelligence and experience of the world, Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea and the Deep Origins of Consciousness. Another equally descriptive title for that book, and for the discussion we share with you here (after Thomas Nagel's "What is it like to be a Bat?") might be What is it Like to be an Octopus? As always, below you will find helpful links for the works referenced in the episode, and a transcript for those who prefer or require a print version of the conversation. Please visit us at Recallthisbook.org (or even subscribe there) if you are interested in helpful bonus items like related short original articles, reading lists, visual supplements and past episodes grouped into categories for easy browsing. Mentioned in the Episode: Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Ruin "Open the pod bay doors, Hal": a chilling line from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) District Nine (2009, dir. Neill Bloomkamp) in which giant intelligent shrimp from outer space play the role of octopus-like alien intelligence, and prompt a complex but unmistakably racist reaction on their arrival in South Africa. Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) Erik Linklater, Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (1949) Listen and Read Here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peter Godfrey-Smith knows his cephalopods. Once of CUNY and now a professor of history and philosophy of science at University of Sydney, his truly capacious career includes books such as Theory and Reality (2003; 2nd edition in 2020), Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection (2009) and most recently Metazoa. RtB--including two Brandeis undergraduates as guest hosts, Izzy Dupré and Miriam Fisch--spoke with him back in October 2021 about his astonishing book on the fundamental alterity of octopus intelligence and experience of the world, Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea and the Deep Origins of Consciousness. Another equally descriptive title for that book, and for the discussion we share with you here (after Thomas Nagel's "What is it like to be a Bat?") might be What is it Like to be an Octopus? As always, below you will find helpful links for the works referenced in the episode, and a transcript for those who prefer or require a print version of the conversation. Please visit us at Recallthisbook.org (or even subscribe there) if you are interested in helpful bonus items like related short original articles, reading lists, visual supplements and past episodes grouped into categories for easy browsing. Mentioned in the Episode: Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Ruin "Open the pod bay doors, Hal": a chilling line from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) District Nine (2009, dir. Neill Bloomkamp) in which giant intelligent shrimp from outer space play the role of octopus-like alien intelligence, and prompt a complex but unmistakably racist reaction on their arrival in South Africa. Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) Erik Linklater, Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (1949) Listen and Read Here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/animal-studies

More at https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/whats-so-special-about-humans. Human beings share the planet with many different organisms with vastly diverse ways of life. We like to think we're a higher form of intelligence. But are we really that unique? How different are we as a species when it comes to language, thought, and culture? Where does our specifically human form of consciousness come from? And if other animals are so similar to us, should we stop eating them? The Philosophers walk the Earth with Peter Godfrey-Smith from the University of Sydney, author of "Living on Earth Forests, Corals, Consciousness, and the Making of the World."

This is a selection of highlights from episode #203 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview — and if you enjoy this, we strongly recommend checking out the full episode:Peter Godfrey-Smith on interfering with wild nature, accepting death, and the origin of complex civilisationAnd if you're finding these highlights episodes valuable, please let us know by emailing podcast@80000hours.org.Highlights:Luisa's intro (00:00:00)Thinking about death (00:00:24)Uploads of ourselves (00:05:32)Against intervening in wild nature (00:12:36)Eliminating the worst experiences in wild nature (00:16:15)To be human or wild animal? (00:21:46)Challenges for water-based animals (00:27:38)Highlights put together by Simon Monsour, Milo McGuire, and Dominic Armstrong

Octopuses are famously smart: they can recognize individual humans, solve problems, and even keep gardens. They are also a popular food for humans: around 350,000 tons of octopus are caught worldwide each year, and demand is only growing. Some governments and start-ups have invested significant resources into domesticating octopus, and the world's first octopus farm may soon open in Spain's Canary Islands.  But should octopus be farmed at all? That question is being debated in several pieces of legislation right now, including a bipartisan US Senate bill. For Jennifer Jacquet, professor of environmental science and policy at the University of Miami, the answer is a resounding no. For the last decade, she has worked to end octopus farming before it begins, as she wrote in Issues in 2019. On this episode, Jacquet discusses why octopuses are poor candidates for farming, the growing social movements around octopus protection, and why we need public conversations about new technologies before investments begin.  Resources: Read “The Case Against Octopus Farming,” Jennifer Jacquet's Issues piece, co-authored with Becca Franks, Peter Godfrey-Smith, and Walter Sánchez-Suárez.  Learn more about US legislation to end octopus farming:  Washington HB 1153: the first state to pass an octopus farming ban.  California A.B. 3162: the second state to pass one.  The OCTOPUS ACT of 2024: a bipartisan US Senate bill currently up for debate.  Check out the Science letter authored by 100 scientists and experts calling for congressional support of the OCTOPUS Act.  Read this Guardian article to learn more about the potential octopus farm. Explore a recent survey of American attitudes towards animal issues, including octopus farming on page 18-19. 

The prize-winning writer Richard Powers moves from the forests and outer space in his last two novels The Overstory and Bewilderment, to dive into the vast and mysterious ocean in his latest work, Playground. Through the lives of four main characters he explores the ubiquity of play in the natural world, and the role technology is playing in the game of evolution. The scuba diving philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith concludes his three part exploration of the origins of intelligence, with Living on Earth: Life, Consciousness and the Making of the Natural World. As he looks back at the origins of life and its divergence, he places humans within this 3.8 billion year history, and their shared sentience with other life forms, and weighs their current responsibilities on an evolving planet. The marine biologist Professor Heather Koldewey takes her responsibilities very seriously, acting to protect the oceans from over-fishing and plastic pollution. One of the world's leading authorities on seahorses, Koldewey has looked at forming partnerships with others to solve problems, from working with a manufacturer to turn discarded fishing nets into high-end carpets, to creating conservation areas alongside local fishing communities in projects across the Indian Ocean.Producer: Katy Hickman

"In the human case, it would be mistaken to give a kind of hour-by-hour accounting. You know, 'I had +4 level of experience for this hour, then I had -2 for the next hour, and then I had -1' — and you sort of sum to try to work out the total… And I came to think that something like that will be applicable in some of the animal cases as well… There are achievements, there are experiences, there are things that can be done in the face of difficulty that might be seen as having the same kind of redemptive role, as casting into a different light the difficult events that led up to it."The example I use is watching some birds successfully raising some young, fighting off a couple of rather aggressive parrots of another species that wanted to fight them, prevailing against difficult odds — and doing so in a way that was so wholly successful. It seemed to me that if you wanted to do an accounting of how things had gone for those birds, you would not want to do the naive thing of just counting up difficult and less-difficult hours. There's something special about what's achieved at the end of that process." —Peter Godfrey-SmithIn today's episode, host Luisa Rodriguez speaks to Peter Godfrey-Smith — bestselling author and science philosopher — about his new book, Living on Earth: Forests, Corals, Consciousness, and the Making of the World.Links to learn more, highlights, and full transcript.They cover:Why octopuses and dolphins haven't developed complex civilisation despite their intelligence.How the role of culture has been crucial in enabling human technological progress.Why Peter thinks the evolutionary transition from sea to land was key to enabling human-like intelligence — and why we should expect to see that in extraterrestrial life too.Whether Peter thinks wild animals' lives are, on balance, good or bad, and when, if ever, we should intervene in their lives.Whether we can and should avoid death by uploading human minds.And plenty more.Chapters:Cold open (00:00:00)Luisa's intro (00:00:57)The interview begins (00:02:12)Wild animal suffering and rewilding (00:04:09)Thinking about death (00:32:50)Uploads of ourselves (00:38:04)Culture and how minds make things happen (00:54:05)Challenges for water-based animals (01:01:37)The importance of sea-to-land transitions in animal life (01:10:09)Luisa's outro (01:23:43)Producer: Keiran HarrisAudio engineering: Ben Cordell, Milo McGuire, Simon Monsour, and Dominic ArmstrongContent editing: Luisa Rodriguez, Katy Moore, and Keiran HarrisTranscriptions: Katy Moore

Science journalist Lauren Young talks about a recent Scientific American article that explores how GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic quiets the "food noise." Then, scuba diving philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith explores consciousness and who and what can be called a sentient being.

University of Sydney professor Peter Godfrey-Smith, author of the bestselling Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness, discusses how life on Earth has changed our planet, whether there might be life on other planets, and what the future of humanity could look like. Professor Godfrey-Smith's new book is Living on Earth: Forests, Corals, Consciousness, and the Making of the World.

We talk with Peter Godfrey Smith about Living On Earth, Forests, Corals, Consciousness, And The Making Of The World. It combines natural history, ethics and philosophy to consider a new approach to our responsibility to life on this planet.

Traditional stories of the evolution of life on our planet tell us that we and all other creatures on Earth were shaped by evolution. But how do minds that are shaped by evolution go on to transform nature in their own right? In the final volume of the landmark trilogy that began with Other Minds and continued with Metazoa, philosopher of science Peter Godfrey-Smith explores the role that animal minds - and, especially, human minds - have had on our world. If you've ever wondered why it was primates and not dolphins who developed language and culture, whether or not medical testing on animals can be ethically justified, and which aspects of Gaia theory hold up today, this episode is for you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We may not know what it's like to be a bat, but we're pretty confident that it's like something—that bats (and other mammals) are sentient creatures. They feel pleasure and pain, cold and warmth, agitation and comfort. But when it comes to other creatures, the case is less clear. Is a crab sentient? What about a termite, or a tree? The honest answer is we just don't know—and yet, despite that uncertainty, practical questions arise. How should we treat these beings? What do we owe them? My guest today is Dr. Jonathan Birch. Jonathan is a Professor of Philosophy at the London School of Economics and the author of the new book The Edge of Sentience: Risk and Precaution in Humans, Other Animals, and AI. In it, he presents a framework for thinking about which beings might be sentient and about how our policies should account for this. Here, we talk about Jonathan's work at the nexus of philosophy, science, and policy—in particular, his role in advising the UK government on the welfare of cephalopods and decapods. We discuss what it means to be sentient and what the brain basis of sentience might be. We sketch his precautionary framework for dealing with the wide-ranging debates and rampant uncertainty around these issues. We talk about several prominent edge cases in the natural world. And, finally, we consider whether AI might become sentient and, if so, by what route. Along the way, Jonathan and I touch on: plants, crayfish, bees, larvae, and LLMs. We talk about "sentience candidates" and the "zone of reasonable disagreement"; about Jonathan's stances on octopus farming and live-boiling of crabs; about the “run-ahead principle” and the “gaming problem”; and about the question of whether all conscious experience has a valence. Jonathan's book is a remarkably clear and compelling read—if you find yourself intrigued by our conversation, I definitely recommend that you check out The Edge of Sentience as well. Alright friends, without further ado, on to our sixth season of Many Minds and on to my conversation with Dr. Jonathan Birch. Enjoy! A transcript of this episode will be available soon. Notes and links 3:00 – The full report prepared by Dr. Birch and colleagues for the UK government is available here. 4:30 – Listen to our earlier episode with Dr. Alex Schnell here. 7:00 – Dr. Birch's 2017 book, from an earlier chapter of his career during which he focused on kin selection and social behavior. 11:00 – A paper by Dr. Birch on the UK government's response to the pandemic. 16:00 – A classic 1958 paper on sentience by the philosopher Herbert Feigl. 20:30 – Read Dr. Birch's general audience essay on the case of live-boiling crabs. 28:30 – Advocates of the idea that regions of the midbrain support sentience include Antonio Damasio, Jaak Panskepp (whose work we discussed in this earlier episode), and Bjorn Merker (whose work we discussed in this earlier episode).  31:30 – A discussion of the possibility of sentience in plants, with former guest Paco Calvo. 34:30 – Peter Godfrey Smith's recent book, Metazoa. 35:30 – A paper by Dr. Birch and colleagues titled ‘Dimensions of animal consciousness.' 39:30 – A study reporting conditioned place avoidance in octopuses. 40:30 – A study reporting anxiety-like states in crayfish. 42:00 – A primer on "nociception" (which Kensy mispronounces in this segment). 44:00 – A popular article by Dr. Birch and colleagues arguing against octopus farming. 47:00 – A paper about welfare concerns in farmed insects. 49:00 – A paper showing that bees will selectively groom an antenna that was touched with a heat probe. 51:00 – The OpenWorm project. 1:02:00 – A recent piece by Dr. Birch and former guest Kristin Andrews about developing better markers for understanding AI sentience. The question of defining “markers” of conscious experience was also a central topic of our recent episode with Tim Bayne.   Recommendations Other Minds, Peter Godfrey-Smith The Mind of a Bee, Lars Chittka Justice for Animals, Martha Nussbaum   Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation to Indiana University. The show is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd. Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala. Subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also now subscribe to the Many Minds newsletter here! We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com.  For updates about the show, visit our website or follow us on Twitter (@ManyMindsPod) or Bluesky (@manymindspod.bsky.social).

Waar in de wereld is bewustzijn allemaal te vinden? Volgens duiker, bewustzijnsonderzoeker en filosoof Peter Godfrey-Smith op véél meer plekken dan vaak gedacht. Als dieren als octopussen, zeepaardjes en insecten - die mijlenver van ons afstaan in de grote stamboom van de evolutie - bewustzijn hebben: wat leert ons dat dan over onze eigen ervaring, en onze relatie tot al het andere leven? Hij denkt een antwoord te hebben.Gast: Peter Godfrey-SmithPresentatie: Jessica van der Schalk & Wouter van NoortAudioredactie: Ruben PestMontage: Gal Tsadok-HaiZie het privacybeleid op https://art19.com/privacy en de privacyverklaring van Californië op https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Murray Shanahan is a professor of Cognitive Robotics at Imperial College London and a senior research scientist at DeepMind. He challenges our assumptions about AI consciousness and urges us to rethink how we talk about machine intelligence. We explore the dangers of anthropomorphizing AI, the limitations of current language in describing AI capabilities, and the fascinating intersection of philosophy and artificial intelligence. Show notes and full references: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ICtBI574W-xGi8Z2ZtUNeKWiOiGZ_DRsp9EnyYAISws/edit?usp=sharing Prof Murray Shanahan: https://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~mpsha/ (look at his selected publications) https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=00bnGpAAAAAJ&hl=en https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Shanahan https://x.com/mpshanahan Interviewer: Dr. Tim Scarfe Refs (links in the Google doc linked above): Role play with large language models Waluigi effect "Conscious Exotica" - Paper by Murray Shanahan (2016) "Simulators" - Article by Janis from LessWrong "Embodiment and the Inner Life" - Book by Murray Shanahan (2010) "The Technological Singularity" - Book by Murray Shanahan (2015) "Simulacra as Conscious Exotica" - Paper by Murray Shanahan (newer paper of the original focussed on LLMs) A recent paper by Anthropic on using autoencoders to find features in language models (referring to the "Scaling Monosemanticity" paper) Work by Peter Godfrey-Smith on octopus consciousness "Metaphors We Live By" - Book by George Lakoff (1980s) Work by Aaron Sloman on the concept of "space of possible minds" (1984 article mentioned) Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations" (posthumously published) Daniel Dennett's work on the "intentional stance" Alan Turing's original paper on the Turing Test (1950) Thomas Nagel's paper "What is it like to be a bat?" (1974) John Searle's Chinese Room Argument (mentioned but not detailed) Work by Richard Evans on tackling reasoning problems Claude Shannon's quote on knowledge and control "Are We Bodies or Souls?" - Book by Richard Swinburne Reference to work by Ethan Perez and others at Anthropic on potential deceptive behavior in language models Reference to a paper by Murray Shanahan and Antonia Creswell on the "selection inference framework" Mention of work by Francois Chollet, particularly the ARC (Abstraction and Reasoning Corpus) challenge Reference to Elizabeth Spelke's work on core knowledge in infants Mention of Karl Friston's work on planning as inference (active inference) The film "Ex Machina" - Murray Shanahan was the scientific advisor "The Waluigi Effect" Anthropic's constitutional AI approach Loom system by Lara Reynolds and Kyle McDonald for visualizing conversation trees DeepMind's AlphaGo (mentioned multiple times as an example) Mention of the "Golden Gate Claude" experiment Reference to an interview Tim Scarfe conducted with University of Toronto students about self-attention controllability theorem Mention of an interview with Irina Rish Reference to an interview Tim Scarfe conducted with Daniel Dennett Reference to an interview with Maria Santa Caterina Mention of an interview with Philip Goff Nick Chater and Martin Christianson's book ("The Language Game: How Improvisation Created Language and Changed the World") Peter Singer's work from 1975 on ascribing moral status to conscious beings Demis Hassabis' discussion on the "ladder of creativity" Reference to B.F. Skinner and behaviorism

In dieser Folge begibt sich Petra Hartlieb mit ihrem Gast Dominika Meindl auf eine außergewöhnliche Reise. Das Gespräch führt uns nach Hallstatt, nach China und zu einer dort aufgebauten Replica des österreichischen Tourismus-Mekkas. Meindl hat mit ihrem Buch "Selbe Stadt, anderer Planet" einen sehr ironischen und klugen, durchaus auch politischen Roman geschrieben.Am Ende der Sendung empfiehlt Ihnen Katharina Kropshofer aus der FALTER-Redaktion noch zwei Bücher zum Thema Tierkommunikation. Hier gehts zu den Büchern: "Selbe Stadt, anderer Planet" von Dominika Meindl: https://shop.falter.at/detail/9783711721440/selbe-stadt-anderer-planet "Der Krake, das Meer und die tiefen Ursprünge des Bewusstseins" von Peter Godfrey-Smith: https://shop.falter.at/detail/9783957577115/der-krake-das-meer-und-die-tiefen-urspruenge-des-bewusstseins "Die Sprache der Wale. Eine Reise in die Welt der Tierkommunikation" von Tom Mustill: https://shop.falter.at/detail/9783498003258/die-sprache-der-wale Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Den australske blækspruttefilosof Peter Godfrey-Smith er ikke i tvivl. Intelligent liv er opstået to gange på Jorden: hos os mennesker og hos blæksprutterne. Hvis vi vil finde andre intelligente livsformer, behøver vi ikke lede i fjerne galakser med dyre rumteleskoper. De findes her på vores blå planet – og kan observeres med snorkel og dykkermaske. Siden 2009 har Godfrey-Smith sammen med marinbiologer studeret blækspruttesamfundet Octopolis i Jervis-bugten ud for Sydney og forsøgt at sætte sig ind i blækspruttens verden. Med sine mærkelige arme med mere end tusind sugekopper er den ottearmede blæksprutte lidt af en alien på jord. I sin bog 'Other Minds – The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life' fra 2016 genfortæller Godfrey-Smith denne aliens fascinerende evolutionshistorie. Siden vores seneste fælles forfader, der var en hjerneløs fladorm, levede for 600 millioner år siden, har blæksprutten fulgt en helt anden vej i livets træ end os og udviklet et ejendommeligt centralnervesystem, hvor 320 millioner af dens mere end 500 neuroner findes i armene, der kan agere mere eller mindre uafhængigt af dens hjerne. Selvom vi i dag ved en masse om blækspruttens mærkværdige fysiologi, er dens verden efter alt at dømme radikalt anderledes end vores. For hvordan er det i grunden at være en blæksprutte? Og hvad siger det om bevidsthed og intelligens i det hele taget? ** Peter Godfrey-Smith er en af verdens førende videnskabsfilosoffer og professor ved University of Sydney i Australien. Han er forfatter til flere bøger, heriblandt de internationale bestsellere ‘Other Minds' og ‘Metazoa'.

This episode contains: This is a throwback episode to the old times, before the Dark Times when Ben came. Steven and Devon host the show. We talk about the difficulty of scheduling a time for four people to get together consistently, Devon talks about having his neighbors over for dinner and how over-achieving they are, and the cost of success. Although, what is success? Steven is still dealing with sick kids and his own recurring illness. We also read and respond to comments from our Patrons.   Brain Matters: Rats have an imagination, new research suggests. Researchers have developed a novel system to probe a rat's thoughts, finding that animals can control their brain activity to imagine remote locations.  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/11/231102162557.htm Devon also talks about reading Blindsight by Peter Watts and his recent foray into reading about consciousness. Blindsight by Peter Watts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel) Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea and The Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter-Godfrey-Smith: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Minds:_The_Octopus,_the_Sea,_and_the_Deep_Origins_of_Consciousness   Fire Sale at the Lefttorium: Left-handers aren't better spatially, gaming research shows. By asking participants to download and play a video game that captured user information and tracked navigational challenges, researchers were able to measure demographic data -- including hand preference -- and activity from more than 420,000 international participants, across 41 different countries. They found that left-handers were neither better nor worse than right-handers at the tasks, clarifying a long-running debate about the links between handedness and spatial skills.  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/11/231109121511.htm   Science Fiction: We discuss the season premiere of For All Mankind, which Steven realizes he did not finish. We talk about the alternate history between the last season and this season, the events of the new episode and where the show might be going. We also talk about the first three episodes of this season of Rick and Morty. Devon enjoys the show more on rewatch. Steven then tells us about Lethal Company.

The study of cognition and sentience would be greatly abetted by the discovery of intelligent alien beings, who presumably developed independently of life here on Earth. But we do have more than one data point to consider: certain vertebrates (including humans) are quite intelligent, but so are certain cephalopods (including octopuses), even though the last common ancestor of the two groups was a simple organism hundreds of millions of years ago that didn't have much of a nervous system at all. Peter Godfrey-Smith has put a great amount of effort into trying to figure out what we can learn about the nature of thinking by studying how it is done in these animals with very different brains and nervous systems.Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2023/09/11/249-peter-godfrey-smith-on-sentience-and-octopus-minds/Support Mindscape on Patreon.Peter Godfrey-Smith received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of California, San Diego. He is currently professor in the School of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney. Among his books are Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness and Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind.Web siteUniversity of Sydney web pageGoogle Scholar publicationsPhilPeople profileWikipediaAmazon author pageHere are some of the papers mentioned in this episode:Crook (2021), Octopus painGibbons et al. (2022), Bee painGutnick et al. (2011), Octopus arm behaviorSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of the Sentient Media Podcast, host Ana Bradley interviews Dr. Jennifer Jacquet about the controversial topic of octopus farming. Dr. Jacquet discusses the reasons behind the resistance to octopus farming in the 21st century and the ethical implications of mass-producing a beloved animal species. They explore the current status of proposed octopus farms in different countries, including the world's first factory farm for octopuses in Gran Canaria. Dr. Jacquet shares insights into what an octopus factory farm might look like and the potential impact on the animals' well-being. They also discuss the reasons for choosing a land-based facility for octopus farming and the public's response to this issue. This episode provides valuable perspectives on the challenges and ethical considerations surrounding octopus farming.Dr. Jennifer Jacquet is a professor in Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of Miami. She is the recipient of a 2015 Alfred P. Sloan research fellowship and a 2016 Pew fellowship in marine conservation. Along with Becca Franks, Peter Godfrey-Smith and Walter Sanchez-Suarez, she published an article on “The Case Against Octopus Farming” in 2019. 

Does science have anything to say about our freedom of choice?Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here: https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimesA famed experiment, by Libet in the 1980s, led many scientists and philosophers to argue that free will was an illusion. Despite the experiment being challenged at the time and in recent studies, its legacy persists. Many materialists still contend that free will has been shown to be illusory, supporting their belief that humans are merely biological machines. We often imagine that experiment settles the matter, but should we instead conclude that our interpretation of experiment is a function of our desire to believe its outcome? Or can empiricism really determine the existence or non-existence of free will?Prolific British writer, philosopher and co-founder of The Philosophers' Magazine, Julian Baggini, renowned Australian philosopher of science, Peter Godfrey-Smith, and leading British neuroscientist and UCL professor, Sarah Garfinkel, argue about empiricism and its role in determining the existence of free will. Alex O'Connor hosts.There are thousands of big ideas to discover at IAI.tv – videos, articles, and courses waiting for you to explore. Find out more: https://iai.tv/podcast-offers?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=the-future-of-freedomSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A discussion on the intelligence of octopuses and cuttlefish, and on the origins of consciousness, with celebrated writer and philosopher, Peter Godfrey-Smith. Peter is Professor in the School of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney. He is the author, among others, of Other Minds and Metazoa. You can read more about his work here: https://petergodfreysmith.com/

Peter Godfrey-Smith on two books about living like a deer and learning from the birds.https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/deer-man-geoffroy-delorme-the-parrot-in-the-mirror-antone-martinho-truswell-book-review-peter-godfrey-smith/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our Books in Dark Times series offered John this 2021 chance to speak with Lorraine Daston of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. Her list of publications outstrips our capacity to mention here; John particularly admires her analysis of “epistemic virtues” such as truth to nature and objectivity in her 2007 Objectivity (coauthored with Peter Galison). Although she “came of age in an era of extreme contextualism” Daston is anything but time-bound. She starts things off in John's wheelhouse with Henry James, before moving on to Pliny the Younger–no, not the scientist, the administrator! Then she makes a startling flanking maneuver to finish with contemporary Polish poetry. John puffs to keep up… Discussed in this episode: Henry James, Portrait of a Lady (Nicole Kidman as Isabel Archer, American abroad, in Jane Campion's Portrait of a Lady) Pliny the Younger, Letters (“the very model of the good civil servant”) Lisa Ford, Settler Sovereignty Ovid, Tristia Zbigniew Herbert, e.g. Mr. Cogito Wislawa Szymborska View with a Grain of Sand D. H. Lawrence, “Snake” (and other animal poems) Peter Godfrey-Smith, Other Minds (“This [octopus encounter] is probably the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien.”) George Herbert, “The Rose“ Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead Stanislaw Lem, Solaris (1961) and The Futurological Congress (1971) Listen and Read: 41 RTB Books in Dark Times 13: Lorraine Daston, Historian of Science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Our Books in Dark Times series offered John this 2021 chance to speak with Lorraine Daston of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. Her list of publications outstrips our capacity to mention here; John particularly admires her analysis of “epistemic virtues” such as truth to nature and objectivity in her 2007 Objectivity (coauthored with Peter Galison). Although she “came of age in an era of extreme contextualism” Daston is anything but time-bound. She starts things off in John's wheelhouse with Henry James, before moving on to Pliny the Younger–no, not the scientist, the administrator! Then she makes a startling flanking maneuver to finish with contemporary Polish poetry. John puffs to keep up… Discussed in this episode: Henry James, Portrait of a Lady (Nicole Kidman as Isabel Archer, American abroad, in Jane Campion's Portrait of a Lady) Pliny the Younger, Letters (“the very model of the good civil servant”) Lisa Ford, Settler Sovereignty Ovid, Tristia Zbigniew Herbert, e.g. Mr. Cogito Wislawa Szymborska View with a Grain of Sand D. H. Lawrence, “Snake” (and other animal poems) Peter Godfrey-Smith, Other Minds (“This [octopus encounter] is probably the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien.”) George Herbert, “The Rose“ Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead Stanislaw Lem, Solaris (1961) and The Futurological Congress (1971) Listen and Read: 41 RTB Books in Dark Times 13: Lorraine Daston, Historian of Science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our Books in Dark Times series offered John this 2021 chance to speak with Lorraine Daston of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. Her list of publications outstrips our capacity to mention here; John particularly admires her analysis of “epistemic virtues” such as truth to nature and objectivity in her 2007 Objectivity (coauthored with Peter Galison). Although she “came of age in an era of extreme contextualism” Daston is anything but time-bound. She starts things off in John's wheelhouse with Henry James, before moving on to Pliny the Younger–no, not the scientist, the administrator! Then she makes a startling flanking maneuver to finish with contemporary Polish poetry. John puffs to keep up… Discussed in this episode: Henry James, Portrait of a Lady (Nicole Kidman as Isabel Archer, American abroad, in Jane Campion's Portrait of a Lady) Pliny the Younger, Letters (“the very model of the good civil servant”) Lisa Ford, Settler Sovereignty Ovid, Tristia Zbigniew Herbert, e.g. Mr. Cogito Wislawa Szymborska View with a Grain of Sand D. H. Lawrence, “Snake” (and other animal poems) Peter Godfrey-Smith, Other Minds (“This [octopus encounter] is probably the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien.”) George Herbert, “The Rose“ Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead Stanislaw Lem, Solaris (1961) and The Futurological Congress (1971) Listen and Read: 41 RTB Books in Dark Times 13: Lorraine Daston, Historian of Science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Our Books in Dark Times series offered John this 2021 chance to speak with Lorraine Daston of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. Her list of publications outstrips our capacity to mention here; John particularly admires her analysis of “epistemic virtues” such as truth to nature and objectivity in her 2007 Objectivity (coauthored with Peter Galison). Although she “came of age in an era of extreme contextualism” Daston is anything but time-bound. She starts things off in John's wheelhouse with Henry James, before moving on to Pliny the Younger–no, not the scientist, the administrator! Then she makes a startling flanking maneuver to finish with contemporary Polish poetry. John puffs to keep up… Discussed in this episode: Henry James, Portrait of a Lady (Nicole Kidman as Isabel Archer, American abroad, in Jane Campion's Portrait of a Lady) Pliny the Younger, Letters (“the very model of the good civil servant”) Lisa Ford, Settler Sovereignty Ovid, Tristia Zbigniew Herbert, e.g. Mr. Cogito Wislawa Szymborska View with a Grain of Sand D. H. Lawrence, “Snake” (and other animal poems) Peter Godfrey-Smith, Other Minds (“This [octopus encounter] is probably the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien.”) George Herbert, “The Rose“ Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead Stanislaw Lem, Solaris (1961) and The Futurological Congress (1971) Listen and Read: 41 RTB Books in Dark Times 13: Lorraine Daston, Historian of Science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Our Books in Dark Times series offered John this 2021 chance to speak with Lorraine Daston of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. Her list of publications outstrips our capacity to mention here; John particularly admires her analysis of “epistemic virtues” such as truth to nature and objectivity in her 2007 Objectivity (coauthored with Peter Galison). Although she “came of age in an era of extreme contextualism” Daston is anything but time-bound. She starts things off in John's wheelhouse with Henry James, before moving on to Pliny the Younger–no, not the scientist, the administrator! Then she makes a startling flanking maneuver to finish with contemporary Polish poetry. John puffs to keep up… Discussed in this episode: Henry James, Portrait of a Lady (Nicole Kidman as Isabel Archer, American abroad, in Jane Campion's Portrait of a Lady) Pliny the Younger, Letters (“the very model of the good civil servant”) Lisa Ford, Settler Sovereignty Ovid, Tristia Zbigniew Herbert, e.g. Mr. Cogito Wislawa Szymborska View with a Grain of Sand D. H. Lawrence, “Snake” (and other animal poems) Peter Godfrey-Smith, Other Minds (“This [octopus encounter] is probably the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien.”) George Herbert, “The Rose“ Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead Stanislaw Lem, Solaris (1961) and The Futurological Congress (1971) Listen and Read: 41 RTB Books in Dark Times 13: Lorraine Daston, Historian of Science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our Books in Dark Times series offered John this 2021 chance to speak with Lorraine Daston of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. Her list of publications outstrips our capacity to mention here; John particularly admires her analysis of “epistemic virtues” such as truth to nature and objectivity in her 2007 Objectivity (coauthored with Peter Galison). Although she “came of age in an era of extreme contextualism” Daston is anything but time-bound. She starts things off in John's wheelhouse with Henry James, before moving on to Pliny the Younger–no, not the scientist, the administrator! Then she makes a startling flanking maneuver to finish with contemporary Polish poetry. John puffs to keep up… Discussed in this episode: Henry James, Portrait of a Lady (Nicole Kidman as Isabel Archer, American abroad, in Jane Campion's Portrait of a Lady) Pliny the Younger, Letters (“the very model of the good civil servant”) Lisa Ford, Settler Sovereignty Ovid, Tristia Zbigniew Herbert, e.g. Mr. Cogito Wislawa Szymborska View with a Grain of Sand D. H. Lawrence, “Snake” (and other animal poems) Peter Godfrey-Smith, Other Minds (“This [octopus encounter] is probably the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien.”) George Herbert, “The Rose“ Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead Stanislaw Lem, Solaris (1961) and The Futurological Congress (1971) Listen and Read: 41 RTB Books in Dark Times 13: Lorraine Daston, Historian of Science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

What are the moral limits today?Looking for a link we mentioned? It's here: https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimesWe think we should be concerned for the well being of farm animals and those used in experiments. But where should we draw the line? Mosquitoes? Plants? Rivers? Join philosopher and bestselling author Peter Godfrey-Smith as he argues we should draw new limits for our moral consideration.Peter Godfrey-Smith is professor in the School of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney. His main research interests are in the philosophy of biology and the philosophy of mind.He is the author of numerous highly-acclaimed, including 'Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness.'There are thousands of big ideas to discover at IAI.tv – videos, articles, and courses waiting for you to explore. Find out more: https://iai.tv/podcast-offers?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=should-we-care-for-ants-peter-godfrey-smithSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Octopuses (Probably) Don't Have Nine Minds, published by Bob Fischer on December 12, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Key Takeaways Here are the key takeaways for the full report: Based on the split-brain condition in humans, some people have wondered whether some humans “house” multiple subjects. Based on superficial parallels between the split-brain condition and the apparent neurological structures of some animals—such as chickens and octopuses—some people have wondered whether those animals house multiple subjects too. To assign a non-negligible credence to this possibility, we'd need evidence that parts of these animals aren't just conscious, but that they have valenced conscious states (like pain), as that's what matters morally (given our project's assumptions). This evidence is difficult to get: The human case shows that unconscious mentality is powerful, so we can't infer consciousness from many behaviors. Even when we can infer consciousness, we can't necessarily infer a separate subject. After all, there are plausible interpretations of split-brain cases on which there are not separate subjects. Even if there are multiple subjects housed in an organism in some circumstances, it doesn't follow that there are always multiple subjects. These additional subjects may only be generated in contexts that are irrelevant for practical purposes. If we don't have any evidence that parts of these animals are conscious or that they have valenced conscious states, then insofar as we're committed to having an empirically-driven approach to counting subjects, we shouldn't postulate multiple subjects in these cases. That being said, the author is inclined to place up to a 0.1 credence that there are multiple subjects in the split-brain case, but no higher than 0.025 for the 1+8 model of octopuses. Introduction This is the sixth post in the Moral Weight Project Sequence. The aim of the sequence is to provide an overview of the research that Rethink Priorities conducted between May 2021 and October 2022 on interspecific cause prioritization—i.e., making resource allocation decisions across species. The aim of this post, which was written by Joe Gottlieb, is to summarize his full report on the phenomenal unity and cause prioritization, which explores whether, for certain species, there are empirical reasons to posit multiple welfare subjects per organism. That report is available here. Motivations and the Bottom Line We normally assume that there is one conscious subject—or one entity who undergoes conscious experiences—per conscious animal. But perhaps this isn't always true: perhaps some animals ‘house' more than one conscious subject. If those subjects are also welfare subjects—beings with the ability to accrue welfare goods and bad—then this might matter when trying to determine whether we are allocating resources in a way that maximizes expected welfare gained per dollar spent. When we theorize about these animals' capacity for welfare, we would no longer be theorizing about a single welfare subject, but multiple such subjects.[1] In humans, people have speculated about this possibility based on “split-brain” cases, where the corpus callosum has been wholly or partially severed (e.g., Bayne 2010; Schechter 2018). Some non-human animals, like birds, approximate the split-brain condition as the norm, and others, like the octopus, exhibit a striking lack of integration and highly decentralized nervous systems, with surprising levels of peripheral autonomy. And in the case of the octopus, Peter Godfrey-Smith suggests that “[w]e should.at least consider the possibility that an octopus is a being with multiple selves”, one for central brain, and then one for each arm (2020: 148; cf. Carls-Diamante 2017, 2019, 2022). What follows is a high-level summary of my full report on...

Vanaf aflevering 3 is de serie alleen in de NRC Audio app te beluisteren. Deze is gratis en je hoeft daar geen abonnement voor te hebben. Hier kun je de NRC Audio app downloadenWaar in de wereld is bewustzijn allemaal te vinden? Volgens duiker, bewustzijnsonderzoeker en filosoof Peter Godfrey-Smith op véél meer plekken dan vaak gedacht. Als dieren als octopussen, zeepaardjes en insecten - die mijlenver van ons afstaan in de grote stamboom van de evolutie - bewustzijn hebben: wat leert ons dat dan over onze eigen ervaring, en onze relatie tot al het andere leven? Hij denkt een antwoord te hebben.Gast: Peter Godfrey-SmithPresentatie: Jessica van der Schalk & Wouter van NoortAudioredactie: Ruben PestMontage: Gal Tsadok-HaiZie het privacybeleid op https://art19.com/privacy en de privacyverklaring van Californië op https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When it comes to exploring the mind-boggling complexity of living systems—ranging from the origins of human consciousness to treatments for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's—Susan Fitzpatrick has long been a critic of reductionist thinking. In this episode we talk with Fitzpatrick, who has spent three decades supporting brain research as president of the James S. McDonnell Foundation, about new ways to understand the human brain, the difficulty of developing an effective Alzheimer's treatment, and how scientific research can successfully confront complex problems. Further reading: The James S. McDonnell Foundation website Susan Fitzpatrick's review of Metazoa by Peter Godfrey-Smith and Life's Edge by Carl Zimmer Her review of Brains Through Time by Georg F. Striedter and R. Glenn Northcutt Her review of Mind Fixers by Anne Harrington Her review of Chasing Men on Fire by Stephen G. Waxman and Understanding the Brain by John E. Dowling “Asking the Right Questions in Alzheimer's Research,” her Feature essay in the Fall 2018 Issues in Science and Technology

In this episode Claudia talks to musicologist Martin Ullrich about animals and music. Together they touch on the multiple ways in which music and animals intersect from how animals inspire human music, to how animals make and listen to music, and the ethics of more-than-human musical encounters. They find that the focus on animals and music destabilizes anthropocentric understandings of both culture and aesthetics. Date Recorded: 15 December 2021 Martin Ullrich studied piano in Frankfurt and Berlin as well as music theory in Berlin too. He received his PhD in musicology in 2005. His main research area is sound and music in the context of more-than-human aesthetics (nonhuman animals and music, artificial intelligence and music), with an emphasis on human-animal studies. He has presented and chaired at international conferences and has published on animal music and the relationship between animal sounds and human music. Martin was a professor for music theory at Berlin University of the Arts from 2005 to 2009 and the president of Nuremberg University of Music from 2009 to 2017. Since 2017, he has worked as a professor for interdisciplinary musicology and human-animal studies at Nuremberg University of Music. Find Martin on Facebook and Twitter (@MResearchHAS).   Featured: Human-Elephant Encounters in Music by Martin Ullrich; Animal Music: David Rothenberg, Dario Martinelli, and Martin Ullrich Exchange Their Views on the Topic Minding Animals: Studies and Research Contributions  by Jessica Ullrich;  The Critical Posthumanities; Or, Is Medianatures to Naturecultures as Zoe Is to Bios?  by Rosi Braidotti; Piano for Elephants by Paul Barton on Youtube; The War Against Animals by Dinesh Wadiwell; The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith; How Musical are Animals by Hollis Taylor; Sound files: Woodland in Late Spring; Piano trio in C minor op.1 no.3 / Beethoven (1905) from the British Library Thank you to  A.P.P.L.E for sponsoring this podcast; the Sonic Arts Studio and SAPLab for sponsoring this season; Gordon Clarke (Instagram: @_con_sol_) for the bed music, Jeremy John for the logo, and Hannah Hunter for the Animal Highlight. 

Do the possibilities for a good life change as you get older, and is a long life desirable? We talk about ageing, health advice for the elderly, life expectancy, families, and the stages of life in early modern Europe. Was it possible to live a good life when old, and if so, good in what sense? This episode's examples are a ballad about an old man neglected by his son and daughter in law, and a brief reflection by the essayist Michel de Montaigne on the Bible verse, ‘To every thing there is a season' (Ecclesiastes 3, 1-8). Sources mentioned Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life: How Fungi Make our Worlds, Change our Minds, and Shape our Futures (London: Random House, 2020)(see the review in the London Review of Books from May 2021: Francis Gooding, ‘From its Myriad Tips') Peter Godfrey-Smith, Other Minds: The Octopus, The Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness (London: Collins, 2016) Laurence Brockliss and Colin Jones, The Medical World of Early Modern France (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997) Sarah Bakewell, How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer (London: Chatto and Windus, 2010) ‘The Old Man's Complaint Against His Wretched Son who to Advance his Marriage did Undo Himself' (1658-64). Montaigne, ‘All things have their season', in Complete Works, tr. by Donald Frame (London: Everyman, 2003)See here for the chapter in French: https://artflsrv03.uchicago.edu/philologic4/montessaisvilley/navigate/1/4/29/ Contact us on twitter: @leahastbury and @eclaussen Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Godfrey-Smith knows his cephalopods. Once of CUNY and now a professor of history and philosophy of science at University of Sydney, his truly capacious career includes books such as Theory and Reality (2003; 2nd edition in 2020), Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection (2009) and most recently Metazoa. RtB--including two Brandeis undergraduates as guest hosts, Izzy Dupré and Miriam Fisch-- loves his astonishing book on the fundamental alterity of octopus intelligence and experience of the world, Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea and the Deep Origins of Consciousness. Another equally descriptive title for that book, and for the discussion we share with you here (after Thomas Nagel's "What is it like to be a Bat?") might be What is it Like to be an Octopus? As always, below you will find helpful links for the works referenced in the episode, and a transcript for those who prefer or require a print version of the conversation. Please visit us at Recallthisbook.org (or even subscribe there) if you are interested in helpful bonus items like related short original articles, reading lists, visual supplements and past episodes grouped into categories for easy browsing. Mentioned in the Episode: --Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Ruin --"Open the pod bay doors, Hal": a chilling line from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) --District Nine (2009, dir. Neill Bloomkamp) in which giant intelligent shrimp from outer space play the role of octopus-like alien intelligence, and prompt a complex but unmistakably racist reaction on their arrival in South Africa. --Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) --Erik Linklater, Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (1949) Transcript Finally, all listeners and readers who are interested in the gentle art of podcasting are cordially invited to the inaugural Humanities Podcasting Symposium, held over Zoom, October 15-16. Latif Nasser of Radiolab will headline two days of workshops, seminars and discussions among scholars students and amateurs who have fallen in love with the pedagogical and intellectual possibilities the medium affords. Elizabeth and John will both be presenting. Join us. RSVP here Elizabeth Ferry is Professor of Anthropology at Brandeis University. Email: ferry@brandeis.edu. John Plotz is Barbara Mandel Professor of the Humanities at Brandeis University and co-founder of the Brandeis Educational Justice Initiative. Email: plotz@brandeis.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peter Godfrey-Smith knows his cephalopods. Once of CUNY and now a professor of history and philosophy of science at University of Sydney, his truly capacious career includes books such as Theory and Reality (2003; 2nd edition in 2020), Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection (2009) and most recently Metazoa. RtB--including two Brandeis undergraduates as guest hosts, Izzy Dupré and Miriam Fisch-- loves his astonishing book on the fundamental alterity of octopus intelligence and experience of the world, Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea and the Deep Origins of Consciousness. Another equally descriptive title for that book, and for the discussion we share with you here (after Thomas Nagel's "What is it like to be a Bat?") might be What is it Like to be an Octopus? As always, below you will find helpful links for the works referenced in the episode, and a transcript for those who prefer or require a print version of the conversation. Please visit us at Recallthisbook.org (or even subscribe there) if you are interested in helpful bonus items like related short original articles, reading lists, visual supplements and past episodes grouped into categories for easy browsing. Mentioned in the Episode: --Adrian Tchaikovsky, Children of Ruin --"Open the pod bay doors, Hal": a chilling line from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) --District Nine (2009, dir. Neill Bloomkamp) in which giant intelligent shrimp from outer space play the role of octopus-like alien intelligence, and prompt a complex but unmistakably racist reaction on their arrival in South Africa. --Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) --Erik Linklater, Pirates in the Deep Green Sea (1949) Transcript Finally, all listeners and readers who are interested in the gentle art of podcasting are cordially invited to the inaugural Humanities Podcasting Symposium, held over Zoom, October 15-16. Latif Nasser of Radiolab will headline two days of workshops, seminars and discussions among scholars students and amateurs who have fallen in love with the pedagogical and intellectual possibilities the medium affords. Elizabeth and John will both be presenting. Join us. RSVP here Elizabeth Ferry is Professor of Anthropology at Brandeis University. Email: ferry@brandeis.edu. John Plotz is Barbara Mandel Professor of the Humanities at Brandeis University and co-founder of the Brandeis Educational Justice Initiative. Email: plotz@brandeis.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dip below the ocean's surface and you are soon confronted by forms of life that could not seem more foreign to our own: sea sponges, soft corals, and serpulid worms, whose rooted bodies, intricate geometry, and flower-like appendages are more reminiscent of plant life or even architecture than anything recognizably animal. Yet these creatures are our cousins. As fellow members of the animal kingdom—the Metazoa—they can teach us much about the evolutionary origins of not only our bodies, but also our minds. In his acclaimed 2016 book, Other Minds, the philosopher and scuba diver Peter Godfrey-Smith explored the mind of the octopus—the closest thing to an intelligent alien on Earth. In Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind (FSG, 2020), Godfrey-Smith expands his inquiry to animals at large, investigating the evolution of subjective experience with the assistance of far-flung species. As he delves into what it feels like to perceive and interact with the world as other life-forms do, Godfrey-Smith shows that the appearance of the animal body well over half a billion years ago was a profound innovation that set life upon a new path. In accessible, riveting prose, he charts the ways that subsequent evolutionary developments—eyes that track, for example, and bodies that move through and manipulate the environment—shaped the subjective lives of animals. Following the evolutionary paths of a glass sponge, soft coral, banded shrimp, octopus, and fish, then moving onto land and the world of insects, birds, and primates like ourselves, Metazoa gathers their stories together in a way that bridges the gap between mind and matter, addressing one of the most vexing philosophical problems: that of consciousness. Combining vivid animal encounters with philosophical reflections and the latest news from biology, Metazoa reveals that even in our high-tech, AI-driven times, there is no understanding our minds without understanding nerves, muscles, and active bodies. The story that results is as rich and vibrant as life itself. Peter Godfrey-Smith is a professor in the School of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney. He is the author of the bestselling Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness, which has been published in more than twenty languages. His other books include Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science and Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection, which won the 2010 Lakatos Award. Mark Molloy is the reviews editor at MAKE: A Literary Magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/neuroscience

In this episode I talk with Peter Godfrey-Smith, author of Metazoa, a book which explores consciousness from an evolutionary perspective. We talk about octopus arms, impudent tongues, and theories of consciousness, including panpsychism. Related links: Peter Godfrey-Smith homepage Metazoa on Amazon Other Minds on Amazon My discussion with Tam Hunt about panpsychism  

On this week's episode of The Fun Kids Science Weekly, Peter Godfrey Smith chats about the creature he says is the closest we'll ever come to meeting an intelligent alien...an octopus! We also find out about a creature with 100 different ways of poisoning you, 546 million-year-old animal footprints, how slime is made, and we're pitching man vs animal again...who will come out tops?Join Fun Kids Podcasts+: https://funkidslive.com/plusSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.