"We are entropic eddies complex enough to have woken up" - Sci-Fi author Peter Watts - EP:56

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Peter Watts (rifters.com/) is a Hugo Award winning sci-fi author. His works include the Rifters trilogy (e.g. Starfish) & the Firefall series (e.g. Blindsight). He earned a Ph.D from the Univ of BC Canada. He held several academic positions & worked as a marine-mammal biologist before becoming an author.
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 audio is on our Podcast: apple.co/391khQO & pod.link/1540408008.
We discuss:
0:00 Welcome
1:30 Peter's Intro - Baptist to biology to sci-fi
- A father so confident in Baptist truth that he encouraged questioning "He taught so many people about the word of god but had somehow failed to reach me"
- Becoming a marine biologist then fleeing the political bullshit
- Becoming a sci-fi author
- Including academic references in sci-fi. "I've been published in Nature more than they have because Nature publishes sci-fi stories!"
- "One of the coolest things about this gig is that scientists seek me out"
4:35 What's real?
- Parental default "We're programmed to imitate & imprint"
- A "rock star" Baptist minister father who trained other ministers. Seeing him struggle with domestic abuse, dementia & being a "non-practicing homosexual"
- "He was the most unjudgmental man I've ever known." "Rolling his eyes at the sin but loving the sinner." Maybe because he was afraid of being judged for being gay. "A tormented, unhappy but wonderful guy"
- Starting to question religion by reading sci-fi
- Robert Heinlein's 'Stranger in a Strange Land' "introduced me to what an asshole the old testament god was". For some reason this hadn't been mentioned in Sunday school
- Interestingly, as a gay minister, dad didn't seem to know about Leviticus
- "Learning just enough from sci-fi novels to be an asshole to my dad"
- "God doesn't really explain anything"
- Being an atheist teenager + later becoming anti-religious
- "Religion is basically a biological epiphenomenon"
- Snorting oxytocin to improve fidelity
- In/out group tribalism
- Once you strip away the rhetoric humans act pretty much like any other mammal
- "Being right is not as important in survival as having the esteem of your social group"
- "Nobody ever achieved exalted social status by saying 'you guys are all fucking morons & here's my evidence'"
- More educated people sometimes just have better post-rationalisations
- "When you think of people as mammals a lot of stuff that seems bat-shit insane suddenly makes sense"
- A soft spot for psionics/telepathy: "Time travelling snuff porn"?
- "We kinda don't know everything yet - isn't that what science is about?"
- Does being open-minded make us vulnerable to fundamentalists?
- "It's easier to fit god than uncertainty onto a bumper sticker"
23:30 What matters morally?
- How humans prioritise animal species
- "We are programmed by instincts programmed 50k years ago"
- "When your tools can wipe out the biosphere, the same instincts that helped us survive threaten the rest of the world"
- "Our tech has improved but we still have caveman brains"
- Hyperbolic discounting means we undervalue future catastrophe
- Is "good" just what feels good (in our caveman minds)?
- "Hidden Spring" by Mark Solms. The mind weighing up attention foci & "gut feeling"
- "I don't know how we can do that (fix human thinking) without re-wiring human nature at a neurological level"
- Antinatalism or wireheading?
- Can we engineer ourselves so that making good long-term decisions gives us a dopamine rush?
- I agree with Sentientism 100% but it's not rational, it's "gut level cuddliness"
- Racism & speciesism can be driven by unfamiliarity
- "I have a profound appreciation for non-human life" "I feel a kinship"
- Economists know people so they only value people
- Enlightened self-interest
- If we $ value eco-system services won't a developer just write a cheque and say "fuck off"?
- Economic value vs. real value gaps
- We are entropic eddies complex enough to have woken up
- There is no "free" will
- Ethics in multiple universes?
56:05 The Future
- Truth vs. dogmatic compliance
- Theocracy & secularism
- More people in the US believe in angels than in evolution
- Might humans band together in response to a major threat?
- "The crisis is human nature"
- Biden's "Green New Deal" & the time-lag of the env. crisis
- "I'm happier than I should be"
- "We're a pest species" heading for feudalism
- The NSA are watching in double-speed.
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info/. Join our "I'm a Sentientist" wall sentientism.info/wall/ here: sentientism.info/im-a-sentien....
Everyone interested, Sentientist or not, is welcome in our groups. Main one: / sentientism .
Thanks Graham: / cgbessellieu .

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13 июн 2024

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Комментарии : 68

@Sentientism 2 года назад

If you prefer audio, here are the links to the Sentientism podcast: 🍎apple.co/391khQO 👂pod.link/1540408008. Ratings, reviews & sharing with friends all appreciated. You're helping normalise "evidence, reason& compassion for all sentient beings" sentientism.info/posts.

@juanmaUnl 27 дней назад

I've been watching every Peter Watts interview, this one was different, in a good way. He's not just repeating his usual speech. That means there was an equally great interviewer. Congrats 👏

@Sentientism 26 дней назад

Thanks Juan - glad you enjoyed. Peter has an amazing mind. Great fun to explore these fundamental questions with him. You might enjoy my Adrian Tchaikovsky episode too.

@kheperainherhiding6522 Год назад

This is probably my favorite interview ever. What a brilliant human. Thanks for this!

@Sentientism Год назад

Thanks - I love Peter's work so it was mindblowing to get to talk to him. If you're into sci-fi you might enjoy my conversation with Adrian Tchaikovsky. Hope some of the other 135 interviews catch your eye as well :)

@tehdii 6 месяцев назад

The more I hear from Peter the more i like him as a human. Hitch, DFW and Peter are deep in my heart :) p.s. I just wanted to post here an awesome comment from video Gibson Technology science fiction and Apocalypse. Someone verbalized what I thought about Peter's works :) 3 0 3 0 I think he really hits the nail on the head here about what makes old science fiction awesome to read in the Present Day. The beauty isnt in the accuracy but rather the inaccuracy and these wild, outlandish, unprecedented settings that they spin. It's the stuff they get wrong that makes it fun. And it's also a little nostalgic because you don't really see that kind of reckless imagining of the future too often in modern fiction.

@jeffsnow7547 3 года назад

Awesome interview. I loved Blindsight and Echopraxia.

@Sentientism 3 года назад

Thanks Jeff. Yep - Blindsight was mindblowing. It's on our "Sentientist Culture" list - more nominations welcome: sentientism.info/how/sentientist-culture

@vegansomething719 3 года назад

Ooooh! Settling down for a listen, this looks like it's going to be a good one. Really appreciate your detailed notes in the description. 💚

@LouisGedo 3 года назад

👋

@clippedwings225 2 месяца назад

This was pretty incredible! I'm a huge fan of Blindsight and so have been listening to Watts' podcast appearances and there were some pretty amazingly interesting ideas in here.

@Sentientism 2 месяца назад

Thanks for watching - glad you enjoyed. Peter has an amazing mind. On the sci-fi front you might enjoy my conversation with Adrian Tchaikovsky next ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1X8UarLxoOk.htmlsi=zaJGLKvXUxq-SNHE. I've been lucky to have so many awesome guests.

@LouisGedo 3 года назад

I just saw the notice for this interview just now...........looking forward to this.

@fenrisulfur666 3 года назад

Fantastic conversation there, and as always I am in awe over Mr (Dr?) Watts' mind.

@Sentientism 3 года назад

Thanks Oskar. Was quite a ride talking to him :) An interesting combination of a fairly dark frame of mind re: humanity but also an amazingly creative vision - and compassion / caring too.

@jonathanacuna Год назад

This was so fascinating to listen

@Sentientism Год назад

Thanks Jonathan! Loved talking to Peter - amazing mind :)

@foetaltreborus2017 4 месяца назад

Find Peter such a great listen..

@Sentientism 4 месяца назад

Loved talking to him. Thanks for listening in.

@LouisGedo 3 года назад

36:58 Excellent thought testing of what I see as the problem of basing right and wrong acts / behavior on whether they cause suffering or pleasure. I'd argue that irrespective of suffering or pleasure, the grounding of morality from a Sentientism perspective might be best attributed to whether another's actions / behavior interferes with, infringes upon, or supercedes without consent the ability for a sentient organism to experience anything. So even if the organism could experience only pleasure from being stabbed to death, it would be wrong to stab that organism to death because that would be infringing upon the experience of the organism.

@Sentientism 3 года назад

Agree Louis - it's removing the potential for any future experience from that sentient being. That's also why I think even painless slaughter of non-human animals (not that it ever happens) is a moral negative - just as it is for humans. That's over and above the 2nd order impacts on the family/group of the sentient being or even on the human doing the killing.

@LouisGedo 3 года назад

@@Sentientism Agreed

@Gonzihh Год назад

wow, great interview, amazing interviewer, found this by accident, was pleasantly surprised!

@Sentientism Год назад

Thanks - really glad you enjoyed. Peter is awesome. If you're into these big questions I hope you'll find some of my other Sentientist conversations interesting. If you're into sci-fi - my chat with Adrian Tchaikovsky might be a good place to start: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1X8UarLxoOk.html

@tehdii 5 месяцев назад

I remember 10 years ago there was a writing contest about climate future and the story that won began with a conversation between parent and a child in witch parent was reading a picture book with animals and for the child our commonly existing animals may have been unicorns at that time of the story. News from the radio 6 January 2024, 45 million children on the world will be having problem with access to food (7% of all the children in the world) and Cholera is back... I am watching Peter's videos to stay optimistic...

@Sentientism Год назад

If you enjoyed that you might like this new episode with Adrian Tchaikovsky: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1X8UarLxoOk.html

@foetaltreborus2017 Год назад

Reading Blindsight at the mo.... Really enjoy his lectures & interviews..

@Sentientism Год назад

It's a somewhat bleak but awesome book. Mindblowing. Thanks for watching the conversation. You might enjoy some of the others in the series including ep: 126 with another amazing sci-fi author Adrian Tchaikovsky ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1X8UarLxoOk.html

@rwess Год назад

I was going to delve into some of Peter's much-touted sci-fi works,. but now that I know what's real I don't need to.

@magikarpslapper759 2 года назад

Enjoying the talk so far! I do think you guys need a speaker's baton. It feels like Jamie is waging a silent battle for the mic while Peter unashamedly yells about his Time Travelling Snuff Porn hypothesis. Thanks, excellent work!

@Sentientism 2 года назад

Ha - Peter defintely won!

@magikarpslapper759 2 года назад

@@Sentientism No doubt 😁 I can tell Peter cares deeply about the environment and people in general. I think there's a place for cold and calculating in science, but passionate troublemakers like Peter really speak to me about WHY it's worth pursuing. I hope you enjoyed your time together, best of luck Jamie!

@Sentientism Год назад

Another great, dark piece by Peter here: clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/. Watch "The Thing" first. Thanks to Aaron from the Embrace The Void and @PhilosophersInSpace podcasts for suggesting it.

@COLDCHEMICALpresents 3 года назад

Fantastic conversation, thank you. A lot of really fascinating terrain covered here! Question for Jamie: what exactly do you mean by "naturalistic"? You used it a lot and I'm curious how you define it.

@Sentientism 3 года назад

Thanks! Naturalism is a pretty broad concept but I tend to use it in contrast to supernaturalism. So in terms of methodology it's about using evidence & reasoning as the bases for our beliefs/credences. It can also mean a view that natural stuff (energy (inc. dark), matter (inc. dark), information etc...) is all there is. This has a more professional overview: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy).

@iainbaker6916 Год назад

Re non-religious rates in the UK 🇬🇧- it’s probably much higher than 50% amongst the native population below the age of 70. Most of the religious people in the uk are either 70+ years old or first and second generation immigrants, most notably fundamentalist Christian’s from Africa, Catholics from Ireland, the Philippines and Central/Eastern Europe and Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh and most of the middle eastern boat people.

@tehdii 5 месяцев назад

There is a curious observation made by few of physicists. Ultimately there is no reason, no law, no rule, there is no why regarding the way photon "decides" to reflect or go through, particle decay... In the deepest sense this is undeterministic as things are going to be in this Verse.

@tomlabooks3263 Год назад

The sheer verbal power of this guy…. I would never even dare to get into an argument with him. He is wrong on so many counts, but he is an amazing author, a genius, without exaggeration.

@Sentientism Год назад

Ha - that's an interesting combo to be sure... :) It was great fun talking to him.

@tomlabooks3263 Год назад

@@Sentientism It’s such a great conversation. Excellent channel 👍🏻 I just subscribed.

@Sentientism Год назад

@@tomlabooks3263 Awesome - thank you. Hope you enjoy the 124 other conversations so far :) On the sci-fi front I interviewed Adrian Tchaikovsky today - out soon!

@tomlabooks3263 Год назад

@@Sentientism Fabulous. I read and loved his Children of Time.

@bulhakov Год назад

Can you name some points you think he was wrong on?

@spanishDoll1 3 года назад

Nice

@Sentientism 3 года назад

Thanks Crystal!

@ashley-r-pollard 3 года назад

Thoughtful, to be expected. One question, the reference to the clairvoyance snuff porn research, any chance of a reference or link?

@Sentientism 3 года назад

Here you go Ashley. As expected, fails to replicate (even when Bem himself attempted). Likely p-hacking and wishful thinking: news.cornell.edu/stories/2010/12/study-looks-brains-ability-see-future web.archive.org/web/20180805142806/www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/p-hacker_confessions_daryl_bem_and_me web.archive.org/web/20180902084255/www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/back_from_the_future

@ashley-r-pollard 3 года назад

@@Sentientism Thank you.

@carbon1479 Год назад

1:04:45 - I think you'd both enjoy Slate Star Codex's 'Meditations on Moloch', ie. dealing with multipolar traps to which so much of human irrationality seems to come down to. Also - I'm reading Blindsight for the first time, and I'm sure Peter has to be familiar with these names by now but Nate Hagens has been saying a lot of interesting things about the environmental issues and both Karl Friston and Michael Levin have been doing fascinating work on the biology and, particularly with Michael, biology and consciousness front. I bring that up as this point because Peter's observation about the general pattern is almost identical to what Daniel Schmachtenberger or Liv Boeree would say about the 'Moloch' dynamic.

@Sentientism Год назад

Thank you! I'll add that to my reading list: www.lesswrong.com/posts/TxcRbCYHaeL59aY7E/meditations-on-moloch. Hope you enjoy Blindsight.

@Sentientism Год назад

Fascinating article thanks again. I've mentioned elsewhere that co-operation has proven to be adaptive so far - I hope it continues to be adaptive. In a way the Elua "god" Scott is suggesting we work towards so we can kill "Moloch" is a Sentientist. It would recognise the intrinsic value of sentience (although Scott says "human values") - whereas "Moloch" doesn't care about sentience either way. Patterns that are good at persisting and replicating will tend to persist and replicate better than others. I hope we can influence things so those patterns are ones that value sentience. Otherwise we're all in trouble!

@carbon1479 Год назад

@@Sentientism I think I'm stuck in the same place Peter mentioned being in. For this to stop there would have to be a decisive victory over the game theory of defection, and it would have to be won even in the face of a certain fraction of the human population with dark triad traits who'd be more than happy to fill any of these roles to win. My hope is that with the type of research that people like John Vervaeke or the GameB / Concilience / Stoa crowd are doing that there might be some type of grassroots answer or set of answers rather than having this turn into a FAANG variant of China's Sesame Credit.

@davampenzo4012 2 года назад

Looking for Peter watt’s social medias, can anyone help?

@Sentientism 2 года назад

Hi - I'm not sure Peter does any social media but there's a link to his Rifters website in the show notes here: sentientism.info/we-are-entropic-eddies-complex-enough-to-have-woken-up-sci-fi-author-peter-watts.

@kurtobrien2248 Год назад

Loved Blindsight. Very disappointed with the religious discussion. Especially the Sunday school level understanding of the Bible and Christian theology shown by Watts and the interviewer

@Sentientism Год назад

I loved Bliindsight too, Kurt. Sorry to disappoint on the religious discussion. What did you think we got wrong or misunderstood?

@legionpigsmack1153 Год назад

…crickets…

@RafaelRodrigues-rx9ry Год назад

After study high theology you'll see that everything there is ultimately based on Sunday school stories, nothing there holds water.

@TrangleC 2 года назад

Rather disappointing. I expected more than run of the mill TDS, pro Biden nonsense and talking points from the 90s, like "overpopulation" from the author of Blindsight.