Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes

Exeter campus today

Drug Science statement on RCPsych document: www.drugscience.org.uk/royal-colleg...

Latest reading list

www.rcpsych.ac.uk/docs/default...

I'm delighted that the Royal College of Psychiatrists have endorsed my work in metaphysics in their official statement on 'Psychotherapy assisted by psychedelic and related substances (PARS): Guidance for psychiatrists taking part in approved research trials':

Catch me speaking in:
—Bristol 10th October (Psychedelic Society)
—London 8th November (Verdurin)
—Penzance 15th November (Red Wing)
—Zurich 25th November (ETH Zurich uni)

Back to Haunt Us » Verdurin How do we accept the incompleteness of the universe itself — not merely our limited knowledge of it — without becoming lost in the arbitrary nature of meaning?

With J.F. Martel, Quentin S. Crisp, Jack Hunter, @petersjostedth.bsky.social, and Daniel Corrick.

📅 8 November, 2–6pm
📍 Verdurin, Hoxton
🎟️ buff.ly/7dJKHVp

RIP John Searle.

Searle was exceptional in the clarity with which he presented problems in the Philosophy of Mind, though his own solutions to those problems were perhaps less exceptional. Regardless, the issues he raised are more important to register than ever vis-à-vis AI today.

They’re a complete mystery, no one knows.

Hol(e)y Rocks

MSc Psychedelics: Mind, Medicine, and Culture (Online) | Online study | University of Exeter

The lovely people at University of Exeter have just launched the world's first master's degree dedicated to Psychedelics! The psychedelic renaissance is gaining traction by the day 👍

The on-campus and online MSc Psychedelics: Mind, Medicine, and Culture begins at the University of Exeter this week. Dr Anjali Bhat and I will be convening the MIND module, fusing metaphysics and neuroscience into a novel psychedelic concoction. ⭐️

‘[It behoves] us to be reflective in our metaphysics, lest it has control of us rather than we of it.’
– A. W. Moore, 2012

My one slide for the Exeter uni AI Superintelligence conference:

Meandering through the moors in the mist

What happens when AI outgrows us—or grows with us?

This September in Exeter, UK, we invite you to explore this question and many more at the forefront of artificial intelligence.

Full programme : www.superintelligenceconference.org/programme/2025

#superintelligence #SiC25 #UoE

Sad circular example of how Philosophy of Mind has ignored Idealism.

(From 2004, the reference is to Berkeley )

YouTube video by Ben Goh The Mind-Matter Problem | Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes

A chat about the Mind-Matter Problem:
youtu.be/WZfdLGVo1NA?...

Carn Galva

Leo Strauss: ‘I believe that materialism is an error … [but] materialism is not essentially nihilistic … [in fact] a certain anti-materialism or idealism is at the bottom of German nihilism.’ (1941)

Leo Strauss:
‘German nihilism is not absolute nihilism, desire for the destruction of everything including oneself, but a desire for the destruction of something specific: of modern civilisation.’ (1941)

God is half-dead. Two new apostles arrived today.

‘Its narrative resembled the popular image of the Hegelian march of Geist, except that spirit’s course in the Dialectic of Enlightenment was guided by a malevolent force.’

– Richard Bourke, 2023, 234

‘German philosophies, when they die, it has been said, go to Oxford…’
– R. G. Collingwood, 1933

Thanks Adam. Those stones are called the Mên-an-Tol – a map and description can be found here: www.cornwalls.co.uk/history/site...

On the ten-mile hike to Penzance today:

YouTube video by Breaking Convention Peter Sjöstedt Hughes - Panpsychism, Pantheism, Paganism, and Animism

Here’s my 20-minute talk at BC2025 on ‘Panpsychism, Animism, and Pantheism’:
youtu.be/zMAtHYiUfDE

'Animism and Cosmic Consciousness' – this Breaking Convention 2025 session at Exeter is now a video playlist, featuring:

Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes (host) – Ingrid Tartakowsky – Matthew David Segall – Rebekah Senanayake – Simon Ruffell:

youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Hegel was born 255 years ago today.

‘The Absolute is Mind – this is the supreme definition of the Absolute. To find this definition and to grasp its meaning is ... the ultimate purpose of all education and all philosophy.’
(Philo. of Mind, §384)

Nietzsche died 125 years ago yesterday.

'The two futures of mankind:

(1) consistent growth of mediocrity;
(2) conscious distinction, self-shaping.'

– Nietzsche

(WP953)