36: “The Ocean is Alive” – Ocean Ecologist Glenn Edney – Sentientist Conversations

We discuss the biggest questions: "what's real?", "who matters?" and "how to make a better world?" with scientists, celebrities, activists, writers and philosophers. The Sentientism worldview is "evidence, reason and compassion for all sentient beings." It's a simple, yet radical, philosophy that's grounded in reality (naturalistic epistemology) and has compassion for all sentient beings (mostly human and non-human animals). Naturalism & sentiocentrism combined.

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Glenn Edney (https://oceanspirit.org/) is an Ocean ecologist, underwater naturalist, sailor and professional diver. He has been exploring the Ocean and interacting with Ocean life for more than 30 years. He has an MSc in Holistic Science from Schumacher College and Plymouth University UK. His research is focused on understanding the Ocean as a living system and the role she plays as the primary life support system for our planet. He has a strong interest in bringing together traditional indigenous Ocean knowledge and modern scientific ecological understanding. For the past four years he has been collaborating with OceansWatch.org in working with communities in Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands to develop community based, qualitative assessment methodologies to monitor the health of local reefs. He has written three books, including “The Ocean Is Alive”.

In these Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?” Sentientism is “evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.”

The video of our conversation and full show notes are here on YouTube: https://youtu.be/9GAvks4BKJA.

We discuss:

– Ocean ecology

– The ocean as a “living” interconnected system

– First experiencing the ocean at 3 years old and the pervasive presence of the ocean in Aotearoa (New Zealand)

– Growing up in a conservative, farming area

– A dog best friend

– Running away from Sunday School at 5 yrs old. Not being able to get straight answers

– What we think of the natural world has often been heavily modified by humans

– Moving from the country to suburban Auckland. “An environment just for humans”. Sensing the separation of humans.

– Studying fundamentalist Christian churches at university

– Visiting the tomb of St. John the Baptist

– Transcendent experiences of connectedness and continuity, even within a naturalistic worldview

– The physical and spiritual experiences as distinct or as one

– The distinction between reality and the categories we apply to it

– The limits of science

– Collective minds and memory

– The “evolution” of a living ocean as a whole system

– Degrees or levels of sentience

– “Life has always been communal”

– Living things have always communicated sense data about the world (chemically or via other mechanisms). The early origins of sentience

– …and much more (show notes here https://youtu.be/9GAvks4BKJA)!

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at https://sentientism.info/. Join our “wall” https://sentientism.info/wall/ using this form: https://sentientism.info/im-a-sentientist.

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Thanks to Graham for his post-prod work: https://twitter.com/cgbessellieu.