Sentientism Jamie Woodhouse

Devon Docherty, Carol Jasper and Maja Cullen are psychology researchers from the University of Stirling. Carol is a lecturer, Devon is a teaching assistant and Maja is a research assistant. Devon is also a researcher, writer and animal advocate with Surge and Earthling Ed.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?”

Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

00:00 Clips!

01:09 Welcome

03:25 Devon, Maja and Carol Introductions

- Psychology (human-animal interactions, clinical health) and animal advocacy

- Their papers on the paradoxes and dissonances of vegetarianism and pescetarianism

- Quantitative research: "science doesn't have to be about numbers... if we want to understand people... we need to do that with words... listen to their experiences... their own narratives... we all have positionality."

- "Science teaching so often is based entirely in pseudo-objectivity... subjectivity can be really powerful."

06:53 What's Real?

Carol:

- Growing up in a #presbyterian family. Attending Sunday
school. Exploring celtic / pagan mythology and spirituality.

- Reading the Bible "a really beautiful book... but how
can the old testament... be real?" Dad's response: "a way that people used to understand the world around them... in the absense of other explanations"

- Now constructing narratives in a scientific domain

- Belief in the supernatural? "I'd be really hesitant
to say that we have all the answers... consciousness... I want to believe that there's a ghost in the machine although I know there isn't"

- Celtic confluence of the ephemeral and the tangible
"intertwined together... I very much believe in the concrete real but also I like to think there's things we don't know and we don't understand yet... we should always be trying to find out more."

- "Maybe it's just... physical energy... but I like to think there's something beyond us... hope there's some other... maybe there's some hope that they could come and help us get everything right."

Devon:

- "It's really complex being a human sometimes."

- #catholic family and school "very strict catholic teaching"

- "Religion never really resonated with me"

- "The teacher was telling us that animals don't have souls... That was the moment that I realised that I really do have these strong views."

- "I had a dog at the time... she was just as full and complex of a being as I was."

- Moving away from religion to "do my own thing"

- "I'm pretty terrified of death"

- Focusing on morality "That's my thing - rather than
anything outside of the realm of what we can see and how we can treat other people"

- JW: Psychological motivations for religious belief: fear
of uncertainty, fear of death, a hope that god has a plan

- "I got to learn more and more about the Catholic
church and realise how much I disagree with it"

- JW: Epistemological and ethical reasons people move away from religion

Maja:

- Growing up in Germany, then moving to Scotland

- "It was rare... to meet someone who wasn't christened"

... and much more! (full notes at sentientism.info)

47:55 What and Who Matters?

01:12:05 A Better World?

01:37:15 Follow!

Carol: @DrCarolJasper, @veganfoodtrainerMaja: @maja_cullen_Devon: @devonmdocherty, Devon on LinkedIn, @earthlinged

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Michael is a developmental and synthetic biologist at Tufts University where he is the Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor. He is also an associate faculty at the Wyss Institute at Harvard. Michael is a director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University and the Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology. He is also co-director of the Institute for Computationally Designed Organisms. Michael's Levin Lab focuses on "Embodied Minds: understanding diverse intelligence in evolved, designed, and hybrid complex systems" and works "at the intersection of developmental biology, artificial life, bioengineering, synthetic morphology, and cognitive science". This work includes the bioengineering of novel living machines and has clinical applications in regenerative medicine. Michael has editing roles at a number of academic journals and has published more than 350 papers.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?”

Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

00:00 Clips!

01:18 Welcome

- "We biologists have plenty of spherical cows"

03:50 Mike's Introduction

04:37 What's Real?

- A "not religious but highly spiritual" Jewish background

- Hebrew school " I harrassed everybody with questions.... how souls are supposed to work...the hard problem of consciousness... the answers weren't terribly forthcoming."

- At home "an emphasis on inquiry... asking big questions... things that matter"

- "The question of 'how do I know?' figured prominently in my childhood"

- "Rationality is an amazing tool but one can also ask questions about its limitiations... what are the things that we're not seeing"

- Being sceptical about the approaches you're bringing to a problem

- "I pretty much only have one supernatural belief which is that the universe is understandable... Once you've taken that on everything else becomes possible... I can't think of anything that would be truly supernatural..."

- "We are finite beings" trying to understand reality then "you have to ask yourself 'how is this working out?... is
this helping me have a more meaningful life... be a more ethical person... have better relationships with others?'"

- "I don't really think of myself as a biologist... my
fundamental commitment... has been to understand embodied mind"

- "I'm interested in cognition, intelligence and inner
perspective in a wide range of diverse systems... some of which are alive"

- "I think cognition is a broader category than life"

- "It just so happens that life is, so far, our best example of how that can scale"

- "Molecular networks scaling into cells scaling into tissues scaling into organisms and beyond"

- Collective intelligence, goals... "biology is an excellent playground for these things"

- Cognition, mind etc. "All of these cognitive claims... where you think something is on the spectrum... how much mind... I don't think these are terms describing particular systems. I think these are terms describing our intended relationship to them... an engineering interaction protocol"

51:04 What and Who Matters?

01:08:53 A Better World?

Follow Michael

- drmichaellevin.org

- thoughtforms.life

- @drmichaellevin

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠"I'm a Sentientist" wall⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Emilia is co-author of the book Think Like A Vegan and host of the Think Like a Vegan podcast. She is involved in the Birchfield Highlands re-wilding project in Scotland, edits the quarterly magazine for The Heath & Hampstead Society in London and has developed life skills and ethics workshops for underserved youth. Professionally, she has been a corporate finance lawyer for over 20 years.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?”

Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.
00:00 Clips!

01:25 Welcome

- Shared Sentientism guests with  @thinklikeavegan  :

- Troy Vettese episode

- Josh Milburn episode

- Aysha Akhtar episode

04:41 Emilia's Intro

- Corporate finance, vegan writing / podcasting, rewilding
in Scotland, magazine editing

05:45 What's Real?

- Growing up in Italy

- #catholic  school "which I hated... it never made sense to me that only some people... would go to heaven"

- Letting teachers know at 5-6 years old "this doesn't
make any sense"... "they kind of stopped asking me questions"

- Dad is an Indian philosophy professor

- Investigating eastern and western traditions and religions
"I said 'none of it matters'... it matters what I do here and now"

- "People have their traditions and I love that...but
for me ultimately I don't need to have any of that"

- "The fundamental of all of them is love... just practice it"

- "That love then turns in to a respect and a valuing... of sentient life... and everything that's around us"

- "Plants & funghi... even minerals and mountains... they may not feel anything but that doesn't matter... it's all
connected"

- "The fate of the least among us... is extremely important"

- "Bees and insects... how they go, we go"

- "I don't need an outside force to tell me to do the right thing"

- "A certain basic fairness... treat everyone the same unless there's a morally relevant reason to treat them differently"

- "I have personally witnessed things that I cannot explain... there's lots of things I don't know... so I've decided that's fine"

- "You have to leave space for changing your mind... we
learn everything!"

- JW: How broken epistemology can lead "good" people to do terrible things

- The ethical and epistemological errors that justify animal
agriculture

- Maneesha Deckha's "beingness" concept

- "We as advocates have to be better at our own rhetoric"

- "We live in a capitalist, non-vegan world... so there
will be inherent things that you are not going to be able to solve"

- "You don't need to be well versed in philosophy... we
can all get there"

- Examining what's driving our actions... fear (of others,
change, deistic reprisal, social norms, admitting we were wrong)

- JW: Uncommon common sense re: ethical and epistemic basics

- Humans building convenient hierarchies "as long as
you're at the top"

- "Animal agribusiness has never been nice... 10,000
years ago... 5,000 years ago... there's always objectification, exploitation and death... that doesn't change"

- "To the being - you only have one life"
26:20 What Matters?

53:13 Who Matters?

01:00:42 A Better World?

01:22:00 Follow Emilia

- EmiliaLeese.com

- Think Like a Vegan Podcast

- @emiisgoodeating

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠"I'm a Sentientist" wall⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Keith Tucker is founder and Executive Director of Hip Hop is Green, a nonprofit organization on a mission to support holistic wellness and transform urban communities environmentally. He has been a visionary and social entrepreneur for over 30 years. He has worked with hundreds of businesses, youth groups and community organizations and many icons in the entertainment business as a creative promoter and an ambassador for the culture of hip hop.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?”

Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

00:00 Clips!

01:19 Welcome

02:44 Keith's Intro

- Founder and ED of Hip Hop is Green 

- "I'm a father, a brother, a friend, a husband and currently I'm a human being living on earth"

03:19 What's Real?

- Growing up in Seattle, raised by mother, grandmother and grandfather

- Religious grandparents

- Going to #baptist church

- Attending strict #catholic school, taught by nuns "I remember sister Sheila - boy she was mean"

- Catholic high school in California

-  "Some rough times." Drugs (from 13 yrs old), street-life "in with the wrong crowd"

- Grandmother and mother "I'm so blessed and fortunate to have had them in my life... gave me a great foundation of morals and values and patience and determination"

- Lending a bike and having it stolen "I'm a very giving and nice person... I have to beware... trust has its limits"

- 31 years clean & sober now

- "My values who I am today were actually both shaped by good things that happened to me and bad things that happened to me"

- "Just really good people", not because of their religion...

- "...spiritual as well... my grandmother used to call it motherwit... I still have that today... I just get a feeling... it's always 100% right every time... everybody has it to... some people listen to their motherwit more than others"

- "Back in the early '70s it was a different world... in school they could paddle you in class... in front of everyone... there was no such thing as non-bullying"

- Being taught the Bible "I never really questioned anything... absorbed it into who I am... although I wasn't following most of the Bible to be honest at that point... I was more interested in having fun and partying... not really focusing on why I'm here, who I am and what my purpose is"

- Last time used drugs. Motherwit voice spoke very loud "you may not live through this." Attending a treatment centre, guided by the motherwit voice "it's not luck"

- April 7 1992 "I need to change my life... I kept that commitment all the way through to today... the weight had been lifted off me."

- Finishing treatment, moving to the Texas countryside
- Starting to figure out "who is Keith Tucker... what is my purpose?... Baptism through fire."

- "I am not Christian or religious today.... but I am very spiritual and I believe in god."

- "I walk in my purpose and in god's purpose every single day... helping people and serving people is what my purpose is"

- "The people that were enslaved... were introduced to the Bible... as a system to keep their minds enslaved."

- "Using religion to chain people's minds"

29:30 What Matters?

47:30 Who Matters?

01:05:40 A Better World?

01:28:24 Follow Keith

- Hip Hop is Green

- @hiphopisgreen

- HHIG on Instagram

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Hakeem Jimo is co-founder and CEO of Veggie Victory, Nigeria’s first plant-based food tech company. Hakeem and his partner, Bola Adeyanju, also founded Nigeria's first vegan restaurant, V Café, and now run the VChunks meat alternative product company - designed to help veganise Nigerian cuisine. Hakeem is also country director for ProVeg Nigeria.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?”

Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

00:00 Clips!

00:36 Welcome

01:59 Hakeem's Intro

- Nigerian father, German mother, growing up in Germany, now in Nigeria

- 10 years of veganism and vegan entrepreneurship

- Establishing ProVeg Nigeria

03:45 What's Real?

- Not much supernatural thinking in small-town Germany "there were more cows than humans"

- Lutheran evangelical protestant society but "we went to church twice a year... it was not a very religious background"

- Nigeria: "A completely different ballgame... the spiritual, religious world plays a much bigger role in Africa... religion is everywhere here... and I like it... In Africa I started to pray... you don't have that sense of control."

- Christianity, Islam as well as natural / traditional religions from the pre-colonial era

08:33 What Matters?

- "Every day I see these two sides", Germany (enlightenment, studying philosophy) and Nigeria (travelling as a journalist in W.Africa: "a completely different way people see the world")

- Only recently exploring the Bible (via podcasts) "just to understand historically"

- Finding references to treatment of animals in the Old and New Testaments

- Nigeria: "Religion is much more taken... by the letter" vs. the German way "it's just a parable"

- "If you're coming from a western background you just
shape your belief system" vs. "people are handing over authority to another level"

- "How do we actually convince people... whether I'm in
Germany or Nigeria?"

- "I walk through the streets here... it's funny... even though everybody is black and in Germany everybody is white I see features... very similar behaviours"

- "I see really the universal parts... that's where things come together... trying to change the world and not just a few enlightened people"

13:16 Who Matters?

- Step-father in Germany was a farmer "neighbours got
together and bought a pig... the butcher coming to the farm"

- Hearing stories about factory farming "they were
using nicotine to disinfect the chickens... there's something wrong here"... overfishing... foot and mouth disease

- "Nobody in rural Germany was talking about sentientism or veganism "

- University in Hamburg "there was an alternative meal
in the canteen"... a vegetarian partner aware of history of US colonialist animal agriculture

- Travelling to West Africa and eating #streetfood
"when I'm on a #vegetarian diet I don't get sick!" vs. getting typhoid fever from a road-side meat barbecue

- "You start learning... what's the implications... I realised... this is good... let me become vegetarian"

24:35 A Better Future?

48:41 Follow Hakeem

- https://www.linkedin.com/in/hakeemjimo/
- https://veggievictory.com/ “We are winning with the veggies!”

- https://proveg.com/ng/...and much more. Full show notes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

This episode is a cross-post of my discussion with Richard Brown on his Consciousness Live YouTube podcast. Make sure you go and subscribe there too.

Richard is a professor of philosophy at City University of New York. His work is focused on the philosophy of mind, consciousness studies, and the foundations of cognitive science but he also works on the philosophy of language, metaethics, philosophy of physics, logic and the philosophy of logic, as well as the history of philosophy. As you can imagine, this made it an enjoyably brain-stretching conversation for me. Richard was also my guest on Sentientism way back on episode 57 if you want to see the tables turned the other way around.

I hope you enjoy listening as much as I did talking with Richard - feedback and suggestions are always welcome. As ever I'm only one Sentientist so others will disagree!

A warm welcome to everyone who has recently joined one of our ⁠⁠online Sentientism communities⁠⁠. More people join us there every day - whether they think of themselves as Sentientists or not. The groups are open to everyone.
Just search for the word "Sentientism" on your favourite platforms (⁠⁠FaceBook is our biggest group⁠⁠) and you'll find us there.

Also check out the new ⁠⁠"In action" section⁠⁠ of Sentientism.info. We're building pages there about Sentientist Education, Politics, Rights, Economics, Justice, Agriculture, Environmentalism and more - come and help us work out what a more Sentientist world might look like. 

A final thank you to Denise and Tarabella who found our ⁠⁠Sentientism Patreon⁠⁠ and are kindly contributing to our production costs - helping us steadily nudge the world towards "evidence, reason and compassion".

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sentientism.info⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠"I'm a Sentientist" wall⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ via ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠this simple form⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


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