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.
SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcast | Website | Spotify | RSS
Andy Norman (https://andynorman.org/ & https://twitter.com/DrAndyNo), PhD is the author of “Mental Immunity”. His work has appeared in Scientific American, Psychology Today, Skeptic, Free Inquiry & The Humanist. He has appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience, public radio, The BBC & The Young Turks. He champions the emerging science of mental immunity as the antidote to bad ideas, disinformation, propaganda, hate & division. Andy directs the Humanism Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University & is the founder of CIRCE, the Cognitive Immunology Research Collaborative.
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.” The video of our conversation is here on the Sentientism YouTube.
We discuss:
0:00 Welcome
– Has philosophy neglected the most important questions?
2:02 Andy’s Intro – “Mental Immunity”
– Philosophy & critical thinking
– Boosting the mind’s immune system. Helping minds filter out bad ideas
– Cognitive Immunology – the science of mental immune health
– Combatting epidemics of nonsense
3:30 What’s Real?
– Raised w/out religious affiliation. Quaker meetings
– “Most Quakers are pretty chill with a naturalistic view of the world”
– “Supernatural believing is unaccountable believing” – “Nature can hold us accountable”
– If our beliefs aren’t held accountable they drift away from reality & from the beliefs of each other
– Non-reality belief is spreading & causing social dislocation
– Do rights exist or are they just a useful construct?
– Being shy/sad at school & being told “just smile” as “spiritual” advice. “People just started smiling back”
– The ancient roots of naturalism in philosophy
– Supernaturalism, the dark ages & Enlightenment
– “The germ theory of disease probably would have been discovered centuries earlier were it not for religious orthodoxy”
– Hobbes, Locke & Mill
– “Human welfare improved dramatically in the wake of the Enlightenment”
– Pre-enlightenment roots of naturalism & sentiocentrism. Al Ma’arri.
– Arab cultures preserved naturalism during the dark ages
– Naturalism before humans & in other animals?
– Naturalism is adaptive to the degree that it enables survival/reproduction
– How correlated are the accuracy & usefulness of a belief?
– The power of social norms, tribalism & belonging re: bad beliefs
– Performative preference falsification & prevalence of latent/suppressed atheism even w/in religious communities
– Dennett: Many believe it’s good to believe in god rather than actually believing in god
– “Reality-based worldviews are destined to win out in the long run… because they better serve humanity… caring about other tribes as well”
… and much more. See Sentientism.info and YouTube for full show notes.
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at https://sentientism.info/. Join our “I’m a Sentientist” wall https://sentientism.info/wall/ here: https://sentientism.info/im-a-sentientist.
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. Main one: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sentientism.
Thanks for the post-production, Graham.
Sabine is legal advisor to the World Federation for Animals (https://wfa.org/). In 2014, she cofounded the Global Animal Law (GAL https://www.globalanimallaw.org/) Association and led work on the creation and update of the first complete Animal Welfare Legislation Database. In Sentientist …continue
Proudly brought to you by: 17 July 2021
Tom Cledwyn describes himself as the “chief emailer” at Drop Dead Generous (he’s actually the co-founder). Inspired by Chris Anderson’s (of TED) book, “Infectious Generosity”, Tom and his co-founder John Sweeney set up DDG as an experiment in sparking creative, …continue
Proudly brought to you by: 21 September 2025
Jack Waverley is a senior lecturer in marketing at the University of Manchester. He uses marketing and consumer research to protect and promote the interests of all animals, including humans. Jack teaches on a range of BSc and MSc courses …continue
Proudly brought to you by: 6 September 2025
