Walden Pod

Happy Darwin Day! We discuss geneticist Dimitri Belyaev’s efforts to domesticate the Russian silver fox, and how his experiments shed light on the domestication of grey wolves.

Belyaev's Foxes [Scientific American]

Rats and Foxes [NYT]

The Greatest Show On Earth - Richard Dawkins [Amazon]

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

Intro music [YouTube]

Outro music - Ichika Nito [YouTube]Transcripts available at emersongreenblog.wordpress.com

Rate the show on iTunes hereSupport on Patreon hereor if you prefer to give a one-time donation, you can do so with Venmo (@emersongreenpodcast)Listen to our sister show Counter Apologetics hereSubscribe to CA and Walden Pod on YouTube hereContact me at [email protected] or on Facebook

I am not an antinatalist. It would seem, however, that the idea has been growing in popularity. I hold that 'the asymmetry problem' is a decisive blow to strong antinatalism. I also reject weak antinatalism on epistemological grounds. Environmental antinatalism, arguably the most popular form, can also be rejected since it is not the best solution to the environmental challenges that we face. We also discuss several more issues related to antinatalism, like existentialism, panpsychism, memetics, True Detective, The Walking Dead, suicide, and climate change.

Transcript

David Benatar - We Are Creatures That Should Not Exist [The Critique]

Rust Cohle - clip from True Detective [YouTube]

CosmicSkeptic on Antinatalism [YouTube]

Al-Ma'arri, one of the first antinatalists [Existential Comics]

Procreation - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [SEP]

r/antinatalism [reddit]

First Reformed (film recommendation) [Amazon]

“Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. . . . This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.”

Bertrand Russell

“[Having children] contributes to problems. It also contributes to progress. If we want to have works of art, for example, or scientific understanding, or technological solutions to the problems around us, they’re going to come from people. If you don’t have the people, you don’t have the contributions.”
Noam Chomsky

This episode is a work of fiction. The PDF is available here: Work and Its Own, or In Defense of Those Who Take Really Long Bathroom Breaks

I try to answer the question, "What's the value of philosophy?" This is a sequel to episode one of this podcast, Is philosophy dead?

Bertrand Russell - The Value of Philosophy [pdf]
David Egan on Philosophy [Aeon]

The Panpsycast is a great philosophy podcast, as is Stephen West’s Philosophize This!

Transcripts available at emersongreenblog.wordpress.com

Rate the show on iTunes hereSupport on Patreon hereor if you prefer to give a one-time donation, you can do so with Venmo (@emersongreenpodcast)Listen to our sister show Counter Apologetics hereSubscribe to CA and Walden Pod on YouTube hereContact me at [email protected] or on Facebook

Is ideology a bad thing? Should we strive to free ourselves from ideology? I think there is a lot of confusion around the concept, and that the word has wrongly fallen into disrepute. Ideology is frequently conflated with dogma, closed-mindedness, and irrational certainty. Ideology, however, is merely a “a system of ideas and ideals,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. It’s a set of descriptive and normative beliefs. Everyone has an ideology, and we would all do well to admit as much and stop using it as a dirty word.
Transcripts available at emersongreenblog.wordpress.com

Rate the show on iTunes hereSupport on Patreon hereor give a one-time donation through Venmo (@emersongreenpodcast)Listen to our sister show Counter Apologetics hereSubscribe to CA and Walden Pod on YouTube hereContact me at [email protected] or on Facebook

The conclusion of our series on panpsychism, the view that the what-it-is-like-ness of conscious experience is fundamental and ubiquitous in the natural world.
Transcripts of episodes available at emersongreenblog.wordpress.com

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Galen Strawson 

The Wright Show [YouTube]

Philosophy Bites [YouTube]

The Panpsycast Interview [Panpsycast]

Things That Bother Me [Amazon]
Thomas Nagel

What is it like to be a bat? [PDF]

Panpsychism [PDF]

Mind and Cosmos [Amazon]

Very Bad Wizards - Thomas Nagel’s Philosophy of Mind [Fireside]
Hedda Hassel Mørch

The Panpsycast Interview [Panpsycast]

Panpsychism and Causation: A New Argument and a Solution to the Combination Problem [PDF]

The Fusion View and IIT [YouTube]

Is IIT Compatible with Russellian panpsychism? [MindsOnline]
Philip Goff 

On Panpsychism [Youtube] 

A Post-Galilean Paradigm - Podcast and Transcript [Edge]

Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness [Amazon]

Unbelievable - Does consciousness point to God? [YouTube]

Sean Carroll and Philip Goff [YouTube]

Philip Goff on Galileo’s Error [Panpsycast]

Panpsychism - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [SEP]
Annaka Harris 

Conscious - Making Sense Podcast [YouTube]

Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind [Amazon]
William Seagar

Panpsychism vs. Strong Emergence [YouTube]
Bertrand Russell 

The Analysis of Matter [PhilPapers]

Russellian Monism [SEP]
Counter ApologeticsCA13 Prayer StudiesCA27 Argument from ConsciousnessCA29 Science vs. the SoulCA58 NDEs pt. IICA66 Atheism, Materialism, and Consciousness

If you’ve never contemplated the philosophy of mind, here are several entry-level episodes that can help put all this into context: https://thepanpsycast.com/episodes-by-category (scroll to ‘Philosophy of Mind’ category)

The Combination Problem is widely considered to be the most serious difficulty facing panpsychism. The exact nature of the problem depends on your view of fundamental reality (the parts that are being combined) and the self (what is being formed through combination). We also discuss Galileo, the fusion view, Giulio Tononi’s Integrated Information Theory, and a few other related issues.
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The Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness - Hedda Hassel Mørch [Philosophy Now]

Hedda Hassel Mørch - Panpsychism and IIT [YouTube] 

Hedda Hassel Mørch - Is IIT Compatible with Russellian panpsychism? [MindsOnline]

Hedda Hassel Mørch - IIT and Panpsychism [The Panpsycast]

Hedda Hassel Mørch - Panpsychism and Causation: A New Argument and Solution to the Combination Problem [PDF]

The Neuroscience of Consciousness - Integrated Information Theory [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy] 
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We discuss a few more common objections to panpsychism, including Dan Dennett’s pan-nifty-ism, mysterianism, the woo accusation, and appeals to neuroscience.

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We address four common objections to panpsychism, argue that a heavier burden falls on the materialist than the panpsychist, and discuss why panpsychism is more Copernican than its competitors. 

(1) “The incredulous stare,” or an argument from strangeness, which appeals to our common sense and argues that panpsychism is forbiddingly counter-intuitive. 
(2) Falsifiability. Isn’t panpsychism unfalsifiable? 
(3) Isn’t physics entirely on the side of materialism? 
(4) Wouldn’t panpsychism force us to add a particle to the standard model? Doesn’t panpsychism imply that physics is wrong? 

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Sean Carroll - The laws underlying everyday life are completely understood [Preposterous Universe] 

Sean Carroll - Atoms and Death [YouTube]

Galen Strawson on Panpsychism [YouTube] 

Galen Strawson - Things That Bother Me [Amazon] 

"Panpsychism," says Thomas Nagel, “appears to follow from a few simple premises, each of which is more plausible than its denial, though not perhaps more plausible than the denial of panpsychism.” Any non-panpsychist is going to have to deny one of these four premises: (1) Material composition, (2) Realism, (3) Nonreductionism, or (4) Nonemergence. Panpsychism seems to follow from these, and those who don’t accept the view will have to deny one of the four. 

Note: I switched premises 2 and 3. Nagel’s second premise is Nonreductionism and mine is Realism (I thought this was the more logical order). So when I’m referencing premises, I’m always referring to *my* second and third premises, not Nagel’s.

In this clip, we discuss the four basic premises underlying panpsychism. Support Walden Pod for access to the full version on the Patron Feed here: https://www.patreon.com/waldenpod

Panpsychism - Thomas Nagel [PDF]

Moral Questions - Nagel [Amazon]

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