Sentientism Jamie Woodhouse

Dhruv is a PhD student at the Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Cambridge. He has interests in psychology, philosophy and animal advocacy.

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.

We discuss:

00:00 Welcome

01:33 Dhruv Intro

02:25 What's Real?

- Born in India, moving to Scotland "A mix of two cultures"

- Hindu temple at home, outside was "classic western materialism, science..."

- @OfficialDerrenBrown 's "Tricks of the Mind". Magic, charlatanism, #homeopathy , #religion, #GMO scepticism (e.g. Golden Rice)

- Reading Michael Shermer's "Why People Believe Weird Things" at 12 yrs old

- Finding school academically easy but socially hard "immigrant children willl know... feeling like half and half and the halves don't really mix"

- Culturally universal values: "There was this value of transcendence that was just missing... it would be really nice if god was real... I switched back and forth"

- Celebrating #diwali when visiting India "I could see the appeal... but I couldn't see any reason or logic"

- "It's not like the western materialists have any really great answers on how to live..."

- Experiencing clinical #depression at Cambridge University

- Discovering #stoicism & #nietzsche "a very positive nihilism"

- The @philosophizethispodcast and @theschooloflifetv "self-directed, exploratory learning"

- Existentialism "I couldn't really follow the continental philosophers". Camus' "The Plague" made more sense during #covid19

- A personal situation "which just did not seem amenable to being logiced out of"

- A talk by @akalamusic

- Going back to Indian religion & philosophy "there might be something here"

- Reading the #mahabharata to understand the context for the #bhagavadgita

- #arjuna , #krishna roles & responsibilities "why should I act if the fruits of my acts are not my own?"

- Encountering #buddhism Graham Priest's "Paraconsistent logics" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Priest

- 2 weeks at a Buddhist monastery in Scotland "everyone had their own story... so much suffering... worse than mine"

- Values of patience, generosity, loving

- Practising #meditation & #mindfulness

- "Let me just try things that seem to work"

- The wisdom of hunter-gatherer cultures

- Not dismissing or reifying any culture

- "I accidentally moved to New Zealand"

- Going #vegan (after growing up #vegetarian ) mainly for environmental reasons

- Trying vegan pizza "this is fine"

- @SimonAmstellNumb 's #Carnage documentary https://youtu.be/6dXG0_yr7HE

- @ed.winters Watching #EarthlingEd

- Ethical & epistemological journeys developing in parallel

- Meeting an activist community

- Reading Peter Singer's "The Life You Can Save" and #effectivealtruism

- Sam Harris' "Waking Up"

- Identity & Derek Parfit

- Physicist Carlo Rovelli's "The Order of Time" & intepretations of quantum physics

- "I have 4 extremely diverse points of view pointing to this very strange thing about notions of identity... the Buddha takes things one step further... his is one of the reasons you're upset"

- "Being troubled by open metaphysical questions is not because you don't have an answer... it's because you expect the answer"

- A local #yoga group

- "I stopped being bothered by these big existential questions"

- Exploring from the outside & the inside (e.g. via meditation)

- Cravings & suffering


Also what matters, who matters, how we can make a better future...


...and much more. Full show notes at ⁠Sentientism.info⁠.

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

Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is ⁠here on Face

This episode is a bonus cross-post of my conversation about "Why is it so hard to talk about meat?", and of course Sentientism, with Jenny Splitter for her FutureFeed substack - make sure you go and subscribe! Jenny is managing Editor for Sentient Media. She is an award-winning journalist and contributor to outlets like Vox, Everyday Health, Popular Mechanics, The Guardian and others. She’s one of the founding members of, and a contributor to SciMoms. I was also lucky to have Jenny as my guest on Sentientism episode 64.

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

Sentientism answers those questions with a commitment to "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings."

Find out more at ⁠Sentientism.info⁠. Join our ⁠"I'm a Sentientist" wall⁠ via ⁠this simple form⁠.

Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is ⁠here on FaceBook⁠. Come join us there!

Andrew is Professor of Animal Welfare & Ethics & Founding Director of the University of Winchester Centre for Animal Welfare. He also holds many other academic and veterinary positions.

Ever since helping launch Australia’s campaign against the live sheep trade to the Middle East in the early 1990s, he has advocated on behalf of animals. For nearly a decade prior to 2012 he practiced veterinary medicine, mostly around London. In 2013 – 2014 he directed the Clinical Skills Laboratory and taught animal ethics, welfare, veterinary practice management and surgical and medical skills at one of the world’s largest veterinary schools in the Caribbean.

Andrew's books include The Routledge Handbook of Animal Welfare (2023) and The Costs and Benefits of Animal Experiments (2011). He has published widely for both public and academic audiences including papers in New Scientist, the British Medical Journal USA and PLoS One. Andrew has been honoured with 14 awards for his research, his advocacy and for his teaching.

sustainablepetfood.info - includes details of all the research discussed.

andrewknight.info

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.

We discuss:

00:00 Welcome

01:33 Andrew's Intro

03:57 What's Real?

- Questioning his life after being unlucky in love

- Following the tradition of "gurus going to mountain tops"... hiking up a mountain & fasting

- A beautiful mountain view at dawn... "Please god - if there's anything out there - let me know now!"

- "The sun came up... I got my answer clear as day... there was absolutely nothing... I had to go back down the mountain... carry on and do the best I could... without any advice or clues from above... that's been my guiding inspiration since... what are we going to do with this opportunity?..."

- "I was very pleased because I could finally eat some food" :)

- Australia's secularism

- Veterinary education focused on science & evidence.

11:11 What Matters?

- "Try to do the most good you can and the least harm that you can."... without letting that turn you into a grim and uninspiring person

- Enjoying your life & not burning out (tough for caring professions & activists)

- "Don't forget to look after ourselves"

- "That's why it's [doing good, avoiding harm] such a good baseline principle... It's a simple clear message... something we can all aspire to"

15:32 Who Matters?

29:46 How Can We Make a Better Future?

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

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

Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!

Katherine is chief of Science Advancement and Outreach (SAO) at PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). SAO aims to change the paradigm of biomedical research by promoting the development & implementation of cutting-edge strategies in biomedical research & training & eliminating the use of animals in experimentation. Katherine earned her bachelor’s degrees in biology psychology from Syracuse University and her Ph.D. in experimental psychology and cognitive science from the University of California–San Diego. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University, she went on to become a research fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health, where she stayed for eight years. Over the course of her research career, she studied the neural correlates of linguistic, spatial, & memory processes, working with children with early focal brain injury, adults & children with schizophrenia, and individuals with Williams syndrome and related genetic disorders. Katherine has more than 20 years of experience conducting brain and neuroimaging research with humans and is an expert at experimental design and data analysis. She has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals and has presented her findings at national and international industry conferences.

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.

We discuss:

00:00 Welcome

01:29 Katherine's Intro - from neuroscience and the NIH to PETA

- "About half of biomedical research... involves very invasive procedures with animals"

- "It became clear to me that that assumption... that the harms we were doing were justifiable... fell apart... the harms were much greater than I realised but also... there's a lot of species differences that make data from these labs difficult to translate into benefits for humans."

- "Then the question becomes... well what are we doing?"

- "Trying to make sure people realise how sentient these animals really are... they have their own needs & wants & desires"

- Previous episodes with Ingrid Newkirk https://youtu.be/M7Ac2Ba2jbM & Aysha Akhtar https://youtu.be/EZ_gh0ldzpo

04:55 What's Real?

- "Religious but not deeply religious" parents - Anglican, episcopalian Christians

- "It never really took"

- Not needing external reasons for "wanting to cause as little harm as possible and to live in harmony with the world around us"

- Learning about animals through science "started to change the way I viewed them"

24:54 What & Who Matters?

46:49 How Can We Make a Better Future?



...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

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

Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!

Ziya is a television presenter, producer, author and board member. She was the co-host of Discovery Channel’s long-running primetime science magazine, Daily Planet. In 2019 she wrote the book “The Reality Bubble“. Ziya serves on the boards of a range of NGOs and charities, including PEN Canada, We Animals Media and WWF International.

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.

We discuss:

00:00 Welcome

01:46 Ziya's Intro 

- Science broadcasting  @discoverycanada  

- Author of "The Reality Bubble" exposing human blind-spots

- NGO board roles including  @WeAnimalsMedia  (animal photojournalism led by Jo-Anne McArthur)

- Tweeting about earthlings: https://twitter.com/ziyatong

03:32: What's Real?

- "Being a bi-racial person gives you a sort of split view... Chinese... Eastern European"

- Communism & capitalism, eastern & western

- "I never really... took one true dogmatic reality"

- "I consistently shed layers of what I previously thought of as reality"

- Yoda: "You must unlearn what you have learned"

- A science journalist career "naturalistic in one sense"

- "With science you can reveal a lot... the whole book [The Reality Bubble] is about that... but it always puts a lens between you and the subject"

- Black holes & mites on our eyelashes

- "The humanities are much more subjective"

- Polymaths spanning humanities & the sciences "that blend is what's interesting to me"

- "Indigenous perspectives... have so much to share with us about how we perceive reality"

- Swimming sea wolves in British Columbia "new to science - but indigenous peoples had known about these wolves for their entire histories"

- The Consilience Model: Science and indigenous perspectives "Two eyed seeing"

- Plant medicines like #ayahuasca "which open up an entirely new door to reality"

- "I don't believe reality stands on firm ground... I'm happy to run around the ice flow as it shifts... reality should never be solid"

- Science & indigenous perspectives "are both based on observation"

- "To a neutrino this mug wouldn't be here at all"

- "We have to question our every-day common sense notions of reality"

- Humilty & error-correction

- Risks of dogma within science "we looked at animals as if they were machines"

- Brought up Roman #catholic , dabbled with #buddhism  / #sufiism 

- Rumi: "There's a hundred ways to kiss the ground"

- #Vipassna #meditation  - a 10 day silent retreat "you are really guided by yourself"

- Feeding ants & saving an ant "I promised not to kill anything" as part of the 10 Buddhist precepts

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

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

Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!

Michael is a law professor and scholar of U.S. constitutional law. He is the Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law at Cornell Law School. In addition to constitutional law, Michael has taught courses in civil procedure and federal courts. He has written/co-written/edited six books, including Beating Hearts: Abortion and Animal Rights (co-written with his wife, Sherry Colb), as well as scores of law review articles about American constitutional law. He is also a columnist for Verdict. Michael is a former law clerk to Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Michael has appeared in American news media as a legal expert and has been interviewed by and/or quoted in, for example, The New York Times, CNN, National Public Radio and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (another suspected sentientist).

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.

We discuss:

00:00 Welcome

02:02 Michael's Intro

- Studying physics, then the law

- Clerking then legal scholarship

- Blogging @ Dorf On Law

- #vegan since 2006

- Animal work in partnership with Mike's wife, Sherry Kolb "we agreed on nearly everything, but not quite everything"

04:44 What's Real?

- Growing up in New York, raised #jewish "but mostly culturally"

- "My father never went to synagogue unless it was somebody's wedding... he was not at all religious but he was the most ethical person I knew"

- "Religion is not necessary and certainly... not sufficient to make someone an ethical person"

- "That personal aspect... overshadowed anything I was being taught"

- Dad's library: "the answers that the religious folks were giving to deep philosophical questions... barely scratched the surface... whereas if I went into my dad's study... Bertrand Russell's "History of Western Philosophy"... Lao Tse..."

- Teaching: "what I really value is engagement with hard questions"

- "The sorts of answers that religion gives stop asking the questions just when they become interesting... god made the world... god thus commanded it... it leaves lots of further questions unasked"

- "Nearly all of the spiritual or supernatural beliefs I've encountered, whether religious or otherwise, strike me as ridiculous"

- "If that happens [god appearing] then I'll adjust my views... but that will be in response to evidence... that itself would be a kind of naturalism."

...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.

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

Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!