Eric Schwitzgebel is here to make you doubt and ponder all kinds of stuff. Check it.

Eric Schwitzgebel is a professor of philosophy, a blogger, and a science fiction writer. His output is crazy expansive—and from what I’ve read so far, crazy good. And this conversation is good! So listen up!

Notes

• “The Unreliability of Naive Introspection” by Eric Schwitzgebel
• Oh, you don’t know Jiddu Krishnamurti? If I may, I suggest starting with Freedom from the Known.
• “A Defense of the Rights of Artificial Intelligences” by Eric Schwitzgebel and Mara Garza
• The Twilight Zone: “It’s a Good Life”
• Robert Nozick’s utility monster
• “Reinstalling Eden” by Eric Schwitzgebel and R. Scott Bakker
• For more good exploration of concepts like identity with respect to beings that mix, merge, mince, and multiply, check out Robin Hanson’s The Age of Em. (And check him out here, with us!)
• For more on the ethics of designing people to serve, check you—you guessed it—“Designing People to Serve” by Steve Petersen. Also check out his excellent entry in our boy John Danaher’s new collection, Robot Sex. And, as ever, don’t forget about Douglas Adams’s Ameglian Major Cow.
• “If Materialism Is True, the United States Is Probably Conscious” by Eric Schwitzgebel
• “Group Minds on Ringworld” by Eric Schwitzgebel

Media Mentions

Eric

• Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center by Ray Monk
• The old Blade Runner

Tom

• Patton Oswalt: Annihilation
• The new Blade Runner
• Music Maker JAM

Scott

• “Out of the Jar” by Eric Schwitzgebel
• “Closer” by Greg Egan
• “Crash Space” by R. Scott Bakker

Zach

• Stranger Things Season 2
• “Inconstant Moon” by Larry Niven
• The Long Earth by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter