68: Are Panpsychism, Veganism and Sentientism Compatible? – Luke Roelofs, Philosopher of Mind – Sentientist Conversation

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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Luke (lukeroelofs.com & Majestic Equality) is a philosopher of mind at the Centre for Mind, Brain & Consciousness at New York University. Although Luke works primarily on philosophy of mind & metaphysics, their areas of interest include ethics, social & political philosophy, early modern philosophy and philosophy of gender & sexuality. Their book, “Reason, Empathy, and the Minds of Others” is under contract with Oxford University Press.

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

Sentientism is “evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” As well as the video above the audio is on our Podcast here on Apple and here on the other platforms.

We discuss:
0:00 Welcome

1:32 Luke’s Intro – Philosophy of Mind

• Linking epistemology (how can we know) and ethics
• Empathy
• Consciousness as “the state that we’re in whenever we’re aware of anything… and any possible variation… of states like that”

3:41 What’s Real?

• Growing up fairly non-religious, but not anti-religious
• Talking to “modern” Christians who focused on “the spirit of Jesus’ ethos”
• Seeking out more forthright religious perspectives
• Being a fairly convinced atheist since 14 yrs
• “There’s very little evidential weight in the specific claims of religious revelation”
• The idea the universe was contrived by a benevolent being… doesn’t seem supported by the very morally mixed character of existence
• “The great majority of existence is neither good nor bad – it’s just dust in space”
• Mysterious ways & ineffability
• Theodicies as reminiscent of the excuses humans make for abuse
• The “Just World” bias leads us to make excuses for suffering
• Faith as belief without evidence or faith as trust in & loyalty to your group

14:00 What (and Who) Matters?

• Going vegan at 13-14 to spite an annoying person who pointed out the logical inconsistency of being vegetarian
• “Fine… just to spite you I’m going to be vegan”

… and much more. Full show notes on Sentientism.info.

Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info. Join Luke on our “I’m a Sentientist” wall using this simple form.

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Thanks Graham for the post-production.