43 - Eric Schwitzgebel: The Philosophical Weirdness of the World

Eric Schwitzgebel is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of California Riverside. Before that, he did his undergraduate work at Stanford, and then received his doctorate from the University of California Berkeley. Eric has worked on an extremely wide array of topics, ranging from Chinese philosophy to philosophy of mind, metaphilosophy, and metaphysics. In this conversation, however, Robinson and Eric talk about his upcoming book on philosophy and weirdness. In particular, they discuss why the United States might be conscious, what Kant and cyberpunk have in common, the moral value of alien microbes, and a lot more about garden snails than you thought you could ever find interesting. Keep up with Eric through his blog, the Splintered Mind, or on Twitter @eschwitz.

Outline:

00:00 Introduction

3:07 A Man of Many Interests

4:21 The Weirdness of the World

12:32 Why the United States May Be Conscious

25:50 Kant and Cyberpunk

35:22 Experimental Evidence for an External World

46:54 Are Ethicists More Ethical Than the Rest of Us?

1:04:47 What It's Like to Be a Garden Snail

1:23:07 The Moral Value of Alien Microbes

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