Peter Godfrey-Smith

A Great Horned Owl, seen in Point Reyes during my recent California trip. Spotted (while quite a bit better hidden than he is here) by Daniel Dietrich. A young one, apparently. Flew off and then sat watching as I scrambled up the hill to get a photo.

.. and he agrees with a version of the 'dark room' challenge to predictive processing.
I don't read Italian (a retirement project, I say to myself..) and used Google translate, which seemed remarkably good, especially with the sophisticated language of the review. 3/

Some comments about the review by @gvallortigara.bsky.social. He discusses my treatment of the 'Umwelt' concept and also predictive processing (Friston, Clark etc). I am critical of both. Giorgio sees more value in the Umwelt concept (as many good scientists do, I must admit).. 2/

A review of 'Living On Earth' by @gvallortigara.bsky.social.

Just read this old-school sci-fi gem I found in a vintage bookstore in Bologna, where a Practical Philosopher Corps is deployed across the galaxy to assess sentience and cognition in alien species.
I guess the dream job for @birchlse.bsky.social @petergs.bsky.social

Driving down the east side of the Sierra Nevadas a few weeks ago. I keep coming back here.

Thank you.
I watched 'Jaws' again recently. Such a superlative film.
I'd not processed the fact that it really is 50 years old..

The title is from a William James letter - "such flexible intensity of life in a form so inaccessible to our sympathy."
Classic James. But perhaps not so inaccessible. 2/

‘Such Flexible Intensity of Life’ | Verlyn Klinkenborg Their striking intelligence makes octopuses tempting subjects for wishful anthropomorphism and uncanny reminders of nature’s mysteries.

In the @nybooks.com, a review by Verlyn Klinkenborg of all three books of the 'Other Minds' trilogy, plus David Scheel's octopus book and one by Craig Foster (of 'My Octopus Teacher').
Quite an armful. (Image by Jason Logan.) 1/
www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

This year’s whale migration has been bigger – and louder – than ever Australia’s east coast humpback whale population is now as large as it was before industrial whaling began, and by some estimates even bigger.

The article (I thought SMH usually has an immediate paywall, but maybe not always):
www.smh.com.au/environment/...

Australian whale populations – what a pleasure to read this.

Weather coming in over Eagle Lake, (California, near Tahoe), last week.

"Living on Earth: Life, Consciousness and the Making of the Natural World" by @petergs.bsky.social (published by William Collins) has been shortlisted for the 2025 Nayef Al-Rodhan International Prize in Transdisciplinary Philosophy.

Learn more: royalinstitutephilosophy.org/news/shortli...

I will do a thread here soon with a few highlights, or at least ideas that stayed with me, from the Virginia conference.
Here is one passage, which contributed the title of Fesmire's talk:

A good event at UV:

From @cherylmisak.bsky.social's paper for the Dewey event, in a letter from Dewey to Ratner:
"I’m glad an American didn’t write Ayer's Language Truth and
Logic—if one had, the English would have thought it a peculiarly crass Philistine American production."

I'll be talking about Dewey's treatment of "idealism." (Mainly objective idealism.)
Will be a commentary by Ram Neta.

A century in the making - this week's University of Virginia conference on John Dewey's "Experience and Nature" (1925). A majestic, frustrating, (endless) book.
Event organized by @cbarzun.bsky.social www.law.virginia.edu/event/sympos... 1/

ASPP 2025 Melbourne Australasian Society for Philosophy and Psychology 2025 Conference Melbourne, November 24th - 25th, 2025

Come to Melbourne for the 2025 Conference of the Australasian Society for Philosophy and Psychology

Check out the great keynotes - submit your abstract

Come join this exciting community of researchers

Nov 24-25 - Register now!

#philosophy #neuroskyence #philsky

sites.google.com/monash.edu/a...

... On the philosophical side: to what extent is subjective experience (or consciousness) "a thing" – a single phenomenon, despite its many varieties – across very different animals? 2/
www.eventbrite.com/e/uc-berkele...

Later this month I am giving the 2025 Howison Lecture at UC Berkeley.
"Evolution and Animal Minds."
It will have quite a lot on recent work looking at play and dreams in nonhumans. 1/

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/...