If you prefer audio, here are the links to the Sentientism podcast: 🍎apple.co/391khQO 👂pod.link/1540408008. Ratings, reviews & sharing with friends all appreciated. You're helping normalise "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings" sentientism.info/posts. Everyone is welcome in our online communities - come join us: facebook.com/groups/sentientism
Jamie: Thank you for conducting and posting this interview. Dr Solms: I have learned so much from reading and rereading Hidden Spring and listening to your lectures. Thank you. Please enjoy more whole food plant-based meals so you can live a long healthy life while sharing your invaluable insights with humanity and also demonstrating your concern for non-human sentient beings.
Looking forward to this discussion - love how you often have guest i never heard of but are well focuse dinterested in sentientism. why cut 23min lol 26min good point limit 43min wow exactly ow i feel about sentience
Professor Solms, as a fellow South African I salute you for your ethics, morality and just plain kindness. Solms Delta wine is enjoyed with a happy conscience, it is so good, not sure if it is vegan though. So inspired to learn how your work and and science can back up why it is only right that we should afford all sentient beings moral worth. Here in South Africa animal agriculture is just as bad as in the rest of the world from live exports of sheep to factory farming and the rest. We have had the recognition of the moral worth of animals recognised in our courts and yet our precious wild life are now been classified as farm animals. Canned hunting still persists. Cry the beloved country.
Here in the US, an American scientist has been all over the internet with discussions about his new book called Determinism. He spent 30 years early in his career studying baboons in the wild. He has taught human behavior many years at Berkley. I've discovered through him that I support his theory on Determinism. We are who we are and our lives are determined by our biological neurons. (biology?) Therefore, my compassion for all human beings has softened since humans seem to not be in control of their lives due to lack of free will. I think he and Mark Solms would enjoy discussing their work with each other. It would be fascinating to listen in. I'm delighted that Dr. Solms popped up in my internet stream this morning since I've wanted to suggest Sapolsky's name to him. Scientists must support each other and living on different continents makes this reality more difficult. 🤔
Thanks Kirstin. Other sentientists disagree but personally I'm with you on determinism. I think we have "will" and make "choices" but neither are free. When people say we're "partly free" and you zoom in closer on that free part - it seems to evaporate... leaving biology, chemistry and physics (including potential quantum indeterminism which also leaves zero room for "freedom"). Like you, that leads me to a more compassionate mindset. You might find "luck pilling" an interesting concept - ultimately it's all luck all the way down. So on that basis maybe we need a little less blame and praise and retribution and reward - and instead a conception of justice that simply tries to make the world a better place. Some thoughts on that front here that might also help us care much more broadly than just human sentients... sentientism.info/sentientism-in-action/sentientist-justice
Thanks for the video and the channel. The source of his values 31:01... values 36:39.. 38:43..play... How to negotiate what I need versus what others need 41:42...41:59... Consciousness is valence... 49:13... No I'm zoomorphizing us 1:24:14 to 1:26:22... Love thy neighbor (all sentient beings) as thy self ... 1:34:00... Need both compassion and a naturalistic understanding
49:13 to 51:22 Such important points made here that it's prompted me to suggest to you Jamie, to *begin clipping very short, especially insightful segments of these interviews and making TH-cam Shorts of them.* Do it!
Thanks Louis - will look into it. Agree it would be great to surface more of the gems from within these fairly long conversations! Can other people take and create clips too? I'd be very happy for others to do that & share them too of course.
@@Sentientism Are you saying that you give permission to other Sentientists to clip short segments of these interviews, upload it to their own channel, and give appropriate credit and links to the original interview?
@@Sentientism, first step is to dominate your ARROGANCE, since you will never ever come to understand proper meta-ethics until you humble yourself before your owner and and study morality under his tutelage, James.
@@TheVeganVicar I don't have an owner - unless you're referring to my wife. I do humble myself before her but she's not said anythng yet about meta-ethics. I'll ask and report back. As an aside, wouldn't "dominating" my ARROGANCE in itself be an act of ARROGANCE?
1:24:48 No, that's NOT the biblical Christian ethic at all. The "love thy neighbor" in the Bible specifically refers to the people of your tribe and those you permit to live amongst your tribe. It is NOT a declaration of universal love and respect and we know this because the Bible also provides ample examples of justification for Israelites to show anything but love to people outside their tribe. And no, you cannot remove the entirety of Israelite culture and values from biblical Christianity.
It's encouraging how many people do take this to be a more universal imperative though. I wish more did. The guest I interviewed yesterday was brought up as Christian and intuitively thought of the "Golden Rule" as applying to every human and every sentient animal. Makes more sense :)
@@Sentientism But then is that giving props to biblical Christianity based on an exegesis interpretation of the text? I'd say probably not. It's much more an eisegesis interpretation and therefore the credit given is misapplied.
@@LouisGedo Agree. I wouldn't give Christianity the credit either way because the idea pre-dates Christianity (and all the other modern religions) by a long way.
1:15:29 But it doesn't even come close to resolving the is-ought divide because it's individuals like conscious humans who are subjectively perceiving that morality ought to be grounded in X. Someone could just as easily claim that morality ought to be grounded in Y. I've seen no sensible argument which provides a justification for the assertion that prescriptive claims can be based entirely and solely on what is. There seems no way possible to bridge the is-ought divide. That doesn't mean that there aren't less and more sensible groundings of what ought to be considered morality or even what's good and bad.........but those are all still subjective, prescriptive assertions. *An experiment to demonstrate that different non conditioned humans will likely have different notions of morality that could be done but likely never will is to take a few dozen human infants and place them on an uninhabited plant and animal rich island they cannot leave and provide them NO ability at all to access any human culture but provide them with the ability to make it to the point where they can acquire the ability to self sustain* ( sufficient nourishment ) *.......and see after 7, 10, 13, 17, 21, and 25 years what their perspective of morality is.* My intuition tells me that there will not be unanimity of what these individuals think morality is. Morality is subjective........and it appears as if there's no way possible around this.
Thanks Louis. I agree in the sense that we could arbitrarily decide some other form of morality if we wanted - in a way it's just a choice. But if "ought" just means "whatever we decide is right and wrong" I'm not sure it's even a useful concept. One of my other guests, Walter Veit, suggests we drop it (and even morality!) entirely. Instead we can just use "is" statements. Sentient beings don't like suffering. Suffering is bad. Needlessly causing suffering is bad. That requires us to link the "bad" of experience to a moral "bad" - but I'm pretty comfortable with that. What else could it be? If our "morality" doesn't include some sort of concern for others (e.g. some forms of supernatural obedience or egoism might ignore others completely) I'm not sure it deserves to be called morality at all.
@@Sentientism Hi, I disagree because I think what Veit is doing or what you're doing if you're interpreting his perspective correctly is equivocation on the term "bad". Morality, in my view, pertains to behavioral choices that moral agents make. A rock can't be held morally accountable for morally irresponsible choices if it happens to fall and crush in the skull of a toddler. But a normal human adult who intentionally throws a rock at that toddler's head, and consequently crushing her skull, can be held to some moral accountability. Rocks don't have minds to be able to weigh consequences or even ponder what good and bad means to them. Sorry for the rather harsh example but this illustrates in starkness why I draw the line on morality pertaining to moral agents alone......not inanimate, mindless things like some people believe. I'm not implying you believe the latter. The "bad" in the context of behaviors that moral agents can do is entirely prescriptive. The "bad" in the response to noxious stimuli upon the tissue of a living, sentient organism is NOT prescriptive, but descriptive. And thus, we still haven't resolved the is-ought divide / gap because equivocation isn't a logically sound pathway to resolve problems like this. The insurmountable difference between prescriptive oughts and descriptive is' is that prescriptive oughts is mind dependent and descriptive is' are mind independent. You ask: *"What else could it be?"* The prescriptive "bad" (and "good") can be literally anything that one subjectively feels or believes is "bad" or "good". This is why morality is subjective........it requires a mind to subjectively postulate what is or what ought to be determined to be good or bad. Whether one calls that morality or not is entirely up to the individual. Language can be messy. I could be entirely wrong on all of this........I've not studied philosophy in any academic setting. Anyway, have a nice day.
@@LouisGedo This might be taking things too far, but I think the concepts of moral agency and even free will aren't actually that useful... many (most) other sentientists disagree! sentientism.info/how/sentientist-justice
![ตีสิบเดย์ [FULL] | เปิดใจ "อาจารย์ เบียร์ ฅนตื่นธรรม" นักสนทนาธรรมสายดุดัน!](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/vqaBI_mnoDk/mqdefault.jpg)
If you prefer audio, here are the links to the Sentientism podcast: 🍎apple.co/391khQO 👂pod.link/1540408008. Ratings, reviews & sharing with friends all appreciated. You're helping normalise "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings" sentientism.info/posts. Everyone is welcome in our online communities - come join us: facebook.com/groups/sentientism
Jamie: Thank you for conducting and posting this interview. Dr Solms: I have learned so much from reading and rereading Hidden Spring and listening to your lectures. Thank you. Please enjoy more whole food plant-based meals so you can live a long healthy life while sharing your invaluable insights with humanity and also demonstrating your concern for non-human sentient beings.
Do you consider PLANTS to be sentient?
Looking forward to this discussion
Looking forward to this discussion - love how you often have guest i never heard of but are well focuse dinterested in sentientism. why cut 23min lol
26min good point limit 43min wow exactly ow i feel about sentience
Great conversation!
Thank you! I loved talking to Mark. Looking forward to him going vegan now too...
Professor Solms, as a fellow South African I salute you for your ethics, morality and just plain kindness. Solms Delta wine is enjoyed with a happy conscience, it is so good, not sure if it is vegan though. So inspired to learn how your work and and science can back up why it is only right that we should afford all sentient beings moral worth. Here in South Africa animal agriculture is just as bad as in the rest of the world from live exports of sheep to factory farming and the rest. We have had the recognition of the moral worth of animals recognised in our courts and yet our precious wild life are now been classified as farm animals. Canned hunting still persists. Cry the beloved country.
Here in the US, an American scientist has been all over the internet with discussions about his new book called Determinism. He spent 30 years early in his career studying baboons in the wild. He has taught human behavior many years at Berkley. I've discovered through him that I support his theory on Determinism. We are who we are and our lives are determined by our biological neurons. (biology?) Therefore, my compassion for all human beings has softened since humans seem to not be in control of their lives due to lack of free will. I think he and Mark Solms would enjoy discussing their work with each other.
It would be fascinating to listen in.
I'm delighted that Dr. Solms popped up in my internet stream this morning since I've wanted to suggest Sapolsky's name to him. Scientists must support each other and living on different continents makes this reality more difficult. 🤔
Thanks Kirstin. Other sentientists disagree but personally I'm with you on determinism. I think we have "will" and make "choices" but neither are free. When people say we're "partly free" and you zoom in closer on that free part - it seems to evaporate... leaving biology, chemistry and physics (including potential quantum indeterminism which also leaves zero room for "freedom").
Like you, that leads me to a more compassionate mindset. You might find "luck pilling" an interesting concept - ultimately it's all luck all the way down. So on that basis maybe we need a little less blame and praise and retribution and reward - and instead a conception of justice that simply tries to make the world a better place. Some thoughts on that front here that might also help us care much more broadly than just human sentients... sentientism.info/sentientism-in-action/sentientist-justice
Thanks for the video and the channel.
The source of his values
31:01... values
36:39..
38:43..play... How to negotiate what I need versus what others need
41:42...41:59... Consciousness is valence...
49:13... No I'm zoomorphizing us
1:24:14 to 1:26:22... Love thy neighbor (all sentient beings) as thy self ...
1:34:00... Need both compassion and a naturalistic understanding
49:13 to 51:22
Such important points made here that it's prompted me to suggest to you Jamie, to *begin clipping very short, especially insightful segments of these interviews and making TH-cam Shorts of them.*
Do it!
Thanks Louis - will look into it. Agree it would be great to surface more of the gems from within these fairly long conversations! Can other people take and create clips too? I'd be very happy for others to do that & share them too of course.
@@Sentientism Are you saying that you give permission to other Sentientists to clip short segments of these interviews, upload it to their own channel, and give appropriate credit and links to the original interview?
0:47
🎶 🎵 Not So Secret Agenda Man 🎶 🎵
World domination... it's only a matter of time! (probably quite a lot of time)
@@Sentientism Unfortunately yes, a lot of time. I'm reminded of a quote by MLK Jr. regarding the long arc of justice.
@@Sentientism, first step is to dominate your ARROGANCE, since you will never ever come to understand proper meta-ethics until you humble yourself before your owner and and study morality under his tutelage, James.
@@TheVeganVicar I don't have an owner - unless you're referring to my wife. I do humble myself before her but she's not said anythng yet about meta-ethics. I'll ask and report back. As an aside, wouldn't "dominating" my ARROGANCE in itself be an act of ARROGANCE?
1:24:48
No, that's NOT the biblical Christian ethic at all.
The "love thy neighbor" in the Bible specifically refers to the people of your tribe and those you permit to live amongst your tribe.
It is NOT a declaration of universal love and respect and we know this because the Bible also provides ample examples of justification for Israelites to show anything but love to people outside their tribe.
And no, you cannot remove the entirety of Israelite culture and values from biblical Christianity.
It's encouraging how many people do take this to be a more universal imperative though. I wish more did. The guest I interviewed yesterday was brought up as Christian and intuitively thought of the "Golden Rule" as applying to every human and every sentient animal. Makes more sense :)
@@Sentientism
But then is that giving props to biblical Christianity based on an exegesis interpretation of the text? I'd say probably not. It's much more an eisegesis interpretation and therefore the credit given is misapplied.
@@LouisGedo Agree. I wouldn't give Christianity the credit either way because the idea pre-dates Christianity (and all the other modern religions) by a long way.
@@Sentientism Yup, good point.
Jesus said love your enemies
1:15:29
But it doesn't even come close to resolving the is-ought divide because it's individuals like conscious humans who are subjectively perceiving that morality ought to be grounded in X. Someone could just as easily claim that morality ought to be grounded in Y.
I've seen no sensible argument which provides a justification for the assertion that prescriptive claims can be based entirely and solely on what is. There seems no way possible to bridge the is-ought divide.
That doesn't mean that there aren't less and more sensible groundings of what ought to be considered morality or even what's good and bad.........but those are all still subjective, prescriptive assertions.
*An experiment to demonstrate that different non conditioned humans will likely have different notions of morality that could be done but likely never will is to take a few dozen human infants and place them on an uninhabited plant and animal rich island they cannot leave and provide them NO ability at all to access any human culture but provide them with the ability to make it to the point where they can acquire the ability to self sustain* ( sufficient
nourishment ) *.......and see after 7, 10, 13, 17, 21, and 25 years what their perspective of morality is.*
My intuition tells me that there will not be unanimity of what these individuals think morality is.
Morality is subjective........and it appears as if there's no way possible around this.
Thanks Louis. I agree in the sense that we could arbitrarily decide some other form of morality if we wanted - in a way it's just a choice. But if "ought" just means "whatever we decide is right and wrong" I'm not sure it's even a useful concept. One of my other guests, Walter Veit, suggests we drop it (and even morality!) entirely. Instead we can just use "is" statements. Sentient beings don't like suffering. Suffering is bad. Needlessly causing suffering is bad. That requires us to link the "bad" of experience to a moral "bad" - but I'm pretty comfortable with that. What else could it be? If our "morality" doesn't include some sort of concern for others (e.g. some forms of supernatural obedience or egoism might ignore others completely) I'm not sure it deserves to be called morality at all.
@@Sentientism
Hi,
I disagree because I think what Veit is doing or what you're doing if you're interpreting his perspective correctly is equivocation on the term "bad".
Morality, in my view, pertains to behavioral choices that moral agents make. A rock can't be held morally accountable for morally irresponsible choices if it happens to fall and crush in the skull of a toddler. But a normal human adult who intentionally throws a rock at that toddler's head, and consequently crushing her skull, can be held to some moral accountability. Rocks don't have minds to be able to weigh consequences or even ponder what good and bad means to them. Sorry for the rather harsh example but this illustrates in starkness why I draw the line on morality pertaining to moral agents alone......not inanimate, mindless things like some people believe. I'm not implying you believe the latter.
The "bad" in the context of behaviors that moral agents can do is entirely prescriptive. The "bad" in the response to noxious stimuli upon the tissue of a living, sentient organism is NOT prescriptive, but descriptive. And thus, we still haven't resolved the is-ought divide / gap because equivocation isn't a logically sound pathway to resolve problems like this.
The insurmountable difference between prescriptive oughts and descriptive is' is that prescriptive oughts is mind dependent and descriptive is' are mind independent.
You ask: *"What else could it be?"*
The prescriptive "bad" (and "good") can be literally anything that one subjectively feels or believes is "bad" or "good". This is why morality is subjective........it requires a mind to subjectively postulate what is or what ought to be determined to be good or bad.
Whether one calls that morality or not is entirely up to the individual. Language can be messy.
I could be entirely wrong on all of this........I've not studied philosophy in any academic setting.
Anyway, have a nice day.
@@LouisGedo This might be taking things too far, but I think the concepts of moral agency and even free will aren't actually that useful... many (most) other sentientists disagree! sentientism.info/how/sentientist-justice
switch your perspective from applied ethics to meta-ethics and you will see why you are wrong
@@transcendentphilosophy
Why would I want to consider a meta ethical framework......... what meaningful practical fruit would that bare?
Looking forward to this discussion. 🤫
👏