Philosophy For Our Times22 Jul 2025

How other species challenge our idea of consciousness | Peter Godfrey-Smith

In this IAI Studio interview, philosopher and science writer Peter Godfrey-Smith explores the evolution of consciousness and the enduring mystery of the mind–body problem. Drawing on his work with octopuses and other animals, he argues that consciousness emerged gradually through increasingly complex forms of sensory-motor interaction, rather than as a sudden leap. Using cephalopods as a case study, he shows how minds can evolve in radically different ways, suggesting that subjective experience is more widespread,and varied, than we often assume. The conversation touches on ethics, the limits of physicalism, and how studying animal minds can reshape our understanding of our own.

Peter Godfrey-Smith is a philosopher of science and a leading thinker on the evolution of consciousness and animal minds. He is a professor at the University of Sydney and the author of several acclaimed books, including Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness and Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind. His work combines philosophy, biology, and firsthand experience with marine animals to explore how subjective experience arises in the natural world. Through his research and writing, Godfrey-Smith offers a compelling naturalistic account of the mind that bridges science and philosophy.

To witness such topics discussed live buy tickets for our upcoming festival: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/

And visit our website for many more articles, videos, and podcasts like this one: https://iai.tv/

You can find everything we referenced here: https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimes

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(557)

The world after liberalism | Maurice Glasman & Sohrab Amari

Is this the end of liberalism, or just another temporary crisis? If it is the end, what will follow it? And where did it all go wrong?Since the end of WWII, the Western world has been governed by libe...

30 Jun 32min

Why artists shouldn't fear AI | Jaron Lanier

What does originality mean in the age of AI? Why should artists resist the temptation to fear AI? What role will human creativity play in the future we're building?Jaron Lanier, a visionary computer s...

23 Jun 30min

Copying consciousness: the future of mind uploading | Anders Sandberg

What makes you 'you'? If scientists made a digital replica of your mind, would this new 'you' be conscious? And what does this all mean for what it means to exist?Whole-brain emulation (often called “...

16 Jun 37min

The return of idealism | James Tartaglia

Is materialism mistaken in its understanding of consciousness? How can dividing experience into the phenomenal and the transcendent provide a new angle from which to view consciousness? Have you ever ...

9 Jun 28min

Reimagining the right | Richard Tice

Is this the end of Britain's two-party system? How has Reform brought together seemingly contradictory left- and right-wing ideas? Why do they think that we should get used to climate change instead o...

2 Jun 29min

Is philosophy becoming irrelevant? | Mary Midgley

Does philosophy still matter in today's world? If so, why are students less and less interested in studying in it?In a special episode from the IAI archives, Mary Midgley addresses the declining inter...

26 Mai 27min

Who's afraid of gender? | Judith Butler

Why has gender identity become such a controversial talking point in modern politics?Judith Butler, pioneering gender theorist whose changed the way we think about gender and sexuality, explores the t...

19 Mai 40min

Human perception is imagination | Nadine Dijkstra

Nadine Dijkstra is a Principal Investigator at the Institute of Neurology at UCL. Her research in Imaging Neuroscience explores how the brain generates mental images and differentiates them from actua...

12 Mai 14min