Adrian is a multi-award winning fantasy and science fiction author. He is known best for his series Shadows of the Apt and for his novel Children of Time. Children of Time was awarded the 30th Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2016.
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 YouTube.
We discuss:
00:00 Preview!
00:55 Welcome
02:15 Adrian's Intro
- "I write books about giant spiders from outer space"
03:45 What's Real?
- "I'm very much on the science end"
- "We weren't a religious household"
- US/UK religiosity
- "A fascination with the natural world"
- Dabbling w/#spirituality "It's amazing how many people have been King Arthur"
- "I believed in every damn thing... desperate to find the 'other'"
- "The people who want to believe don't examine it"
- "Still... looking for that strange but within a scientific boundary"
- #aliens
- #evolution
- "I am pretty much entirely naturalistic"
- #briancox
- #homeopathy & "special cases"
- #scientificmethod
- Tech & magic. Apt & Inapt
- #telepathy , #psychics, #ghosts "people are out there trying to fake it is... tangential evidence that it is not real"
- "I'm not saying 'this cannot be' but I am saying 'show it to me'"
- "There is no supernatural"
- Do extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence?
- #cryptids
- "I don't want to be fooled by some... snake-oil salesman"
- "There's a weird sort of science cosplay going on"
- Folklore, fiction, speculation, narrative "this is a long way from saying 'this is the case'
29:15 What Matters?
- "Try to do no harm & don't be a dick"
- The Golden Rule & improvements
- Autism, pronouns... considering others
- Freedom & constraints on freedom
- "Being considerate & egalitarian... if you have the luck & the resources to be able to"
- "I get my morality from other people"
- "I could so easily have fallen in with a very different group of people"
- Divine command theory, relativism, nihilism, egoism
- "Science can be mis-used... race theory for example"
- "Religion defaults to a faith-based argument that effectively is not an argument"
- "I accept the theory of relativity but I don't understand it"
- Studying animal behaviour: Skinnerian behaviourism: "Animals... can't really feel pain"
- Animal intelligence. Spiders dreaming
- Phil of mind: #Illusionism, eliminativism, #panpsychism
- Origins of sentience "those are the things that make life do what it does"
...and much more. Full show notes at Sentientism.info.
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at Sentientism.info. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall via this simple form.
Everyone, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. The biggest so far is here on FaceBook. Come join us there!
Thanks Graham.
--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sentientism/messageCheese Challenge & Pescetarian Paradox - Maja Cullen, Devon Docherty, Carol Jasper - Sentientism 200
"Reductionism is well-named. It reduces what you can do." - Michael Levin - Sentientism 199
"We need to imagine a different world" - Emilia Leese - author and host of Think Like a Vegan - Sentientism 198
Hip Hop is Going Green - Keith Tucker of Hip Hop is Green - Sentientism 197
Nigerian Food Revolution - Hakeem Jimo of Veggie Victory and ProVeg Nigeria - Sentientism 196
Consciousness Live! - with skateboarding philosopher Richard Brown - Sentientism 195
A Truly Humane Education - Laura Chepner - The Vegan Society's Education Officer - Sentientism 194
Imagining Ethical Schools - Sentientism 193
Is Veganic the Future of Farming? "We grow plants using plants" - Jimmy Videle - Sentientism 192
Half-Earth Socialism - Troy Vettese - Sentientism 191
"Your Neighbour Kills Puppies" - Tom Harris - Activist, Artist & Author - Sentientism 190
"A new world of animal justice" - Sabine Brels of World Animal Justice - Sentientism 189
Talking to Humanists about Sentientism - Cross-post bonus from Podcast for Inquiry - Sentientism 188
"What if we saw ourselves as species diplomats?" - David Peña-Guzmán of Overthink and SFSU - Sentientism 187
Could animal farming be good for the animals? The Logic of the Larder - with Nick Pendergrast - Cross-post bonus episode from 3CR's Freedom of Species radio show and podcast - Sentientism 186
"If you combine rationality and compassion you have the essence" - Jonathan Leighton of OPIS - Sentientism 185
Is veganism a moral obligation? Ghostless Machine cross-post bonus - Sentientism 184
Don't underestimate your influence! - Chris Bryant of Bryant Research - Sentientism 183
160: "Mother Cow, Mother India" - Yamini Narayanan - International Development A/Prof - Sentientism
Waking Cosmos - a cross-post bonus episode - Sentientism 182
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