Peter Godfrey-Smith

One of a quartet of gang-gang cockatoos that came to visit last week. Very uncommon visitors, very welcome.

As a professor dealing with this right now, I am squarely in the 3rd category below. The destruction of the college essay as a format for thinking, learning, & assessing is awful to see. 2/

The Parrot in the Machine | James Gleick The artificial intelligence industry depends on plagiarism, mimicry, and exploited labor, not intelligence.

A good AI piece by James Gleick at @nybooks.com
Aghast, for good reason, at what's happening.
My only objection: a title unfair to parrots.
www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

A Giant Cuttlefish at Cabbage Tree Bay (the "Bower" dive site, Australia) last month. Perfect conditions that day.
I wrote a blog post about the encounters: metazoan.net/124-bower-cu...
One very relaxed cuttlefish, one very wild one.

Summer reading from the radio station KQED (@kqedarts.bsky.social) – *all* of the 'Other Minds' trilogy.
www.kqed.org/forum/201010...

I saw the movie "DJ Ahmet" the other day (part of Sydney Film Festival).
An absolute delight.
Made by Georgi Unkovski. About a world combining TikTok and techno with arranged marriage [what a blight that practice is], and the call to prayer.
Highly recommended if you get the chance.

A collage of the covers of six recent books: Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane Becoming Earth by Ferris Jabr Living on Earth by Peter Godfrey-Smith Eat, Poop, Die by Joe Roman The Many Lives of James Lovelock by Jonathan Watts Darwinizing Gaia by W. Ford Doolittle

🧵 I see my book Becoming Earth as one part of a larger emerging movement: a resurgence of holistic, planetary-scale thinking; an evolving Gaia as a modern coevolutionary framework for understanding Earth; and a renewed recognition of the animacy, agency, and rights of more-than-human living systems

📽️ The recording of the Sir Karl Popper Memorial Lecture 2025 by @petergs.bsky.social on freedom and tolerance is now available online!

Watch it here: www.youtube.com/live/1TWy0xa...

Tolerance and freedom of expression 6.30pm Mon 2 June | Peter Godfrey-Smith | Registration Required | Free public event at LSE

Later today (London) is my Karl Popper Memorial Lecture at the LSE. (Also zoomable.)
www.lse.ac.uk/Events/2025/...

Send me an email address and I will forward it.

The condensation of the (very enjoyable) conversation is fine except on one detail. I come across as treating all squid as aggressive as well as mysterious.
Some, for sure (the Humboldt Squid).
Others: just mysterious. 2/

Peter Godfrey-Smith on Alien Intelligences in Our Midst The philosopher discusses three novels about cephalopods’ mysterious forms of consciousness.

The @newyorker.com's "Book Currents" has a conversation with me about three cephalopod-centered novels, in different styles: Ray Naylor's "The Mountain in the Sea," @aptshadow.bsky.social‬'s "Children of Ruin," and China Mieville's "Kraken." 1/
www.newyorker.com/books/book-c...

Grades of Mind: Agency, Memory, Sentience “In attempting to understand the elements out of which mental phenomena are compounded, it is of the greatest importance to remember that from the protozoa to man there is nowhere a very wide…

This event (London and hybrid, Wednesday) now has a suitable image.
(Nudibranchs of the Armina genus, waltzing.)
Good topic, very good line-up.
www.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/e...

The problem of the destruction of ocean life is not like the problem of climate, where local action has very limited effect (only as a contribution to the whole, & perhaps as inspiration). With marine life, every reserve is significant in its own right, and even small reserves can achieve a lot. 4/

I am all for those agreements, but local reserves can have great effects whether or not the rest of the world goes along. 30% is difficult anywhere - what chance is there of global agreement?
The most important message is: protect locally, everywhere you can, whether or not others join in. 3/

About the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference Participate in a global online consultation of the ocean community in preparation of the 3rd United Nations Ocean Conference.

.. And a point of disagreement: After showing the efficacy of local reserves, the film puts much emphasis on global agreements, like the 2025 Ocean Conference in France, which will seek 30% protection of coastal waters.
ocean-climate.org/en/unoc2025/ 2/

Ocean with David Attenborough review – a passionate case against the ruination of the seas Released on his 99th birthday and presented in the context of his remarkable career, Sir David’s authority is matched only by nature’s grandeur in this visually stunning film

I saw the new David Attenborough film "Ocean" yesterday. Very good, as always.
A major point of agreement: the emphasis on marine reserves. Even small reserves can have dramatic effects..🧵 1/
www.theguardian.com/film/2025/ma...

Tolerance and freedom of expression 6.30pm Mon 2 June | Peter Godfrey-Smith | Registration Required | Free public event at LSE

Join us for the Sir Karl Popper Memorial Lecture 2025!

Peter Godfrey-Smith @petergs.bsky.social will talk about tolerance and the freedom of expression.

📅 2 June 2025 - 6:30pm (London time)

Hybrid and open to all!

More about the event and link to the live stream: www.lse.ac.uk/Events/2025/...

Online direct link for the endnotes to "Living On Earth":
petergodfreysmith.com/philosophy/l...
The animal experimentation discussion is in chapter 7. 4/

For more on how beagles have been treated in US labs, this article - mainly about commercial labs - is shocking.
theintercept.com/2018/05/17/i...
And also from my book's notes, below is more on those confinement/exercise rules.
Plus the first bit of the next (literally) nightmarish example. 3/

The beagle lab has just been shut down by Jay Bhattacharya.
The lab should never have been there and it's a stain on the NIH's legacy.
Credit (and blame) where it's due. 2/

In ch.7 of "Living on Earth," I single out US beagle experiments (toxicology especially) as among the worst forms of abuse of animals in science. Some discussion in the main text, more in the notes (see below). I didn't realize then that the NIH itself had a beagle lab on its main campus.. 🧵 1/

Grades of Mind: Agency, Memory, Sentience “In attempting to understand the elements out of which mental phenomena are compounded, it is of the greatest importance to remember that from the protozoa to man there is nowhere a very wide…

Please join me, @petergs.bsky.social, @jeffsebo.bsky.social, @aliboyle.bsky.social, Marta Halina, Nick Shea and Matt Sims online or in London, 28 May, for Grades of Mind: Agency, Memory, Sentience - a workshop so interesting it doesn't need a relevant image. www.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/e...

A photo from my Royce Lectures at Brown (taken by Alison Simmons) that has the outline of all three lectures in the background.
Life & Mind; Evolution & Goals; Biology & Idealism.

This, however, will be remembered for a long time.

One of the outcomes of the Australian federal election.
Much credit to @animalsaustralia.org.
They worked hard for this.

2028 is such a long way off – but this is also definite progress, and much of this progress due to you, @animalsaustralia.org.

Royce Lecture 3 - the last one. Collage of some slides.
The role of (metabolic) life in consequence etiologies; information as an ingredient; panpsychism; the objective idealist tradition & Dewey's critique.
Thanks again to Brown U. Philosophy.

Royce Lecture 2: "Evolution and Goals." A collage of some slides. "Consequence etiologies" in minimal and richer forms, feedback, and a bit of bee sentience continuing from lecture 1.

.. and a slide summarizing the week's themes: