https://philosophyforus.org en Philosophy for Us is a podcast about doing philosophy together — not as the property of experts, but as the shared, everyday work of thinking well. Each season takes one live question of modern life and works through the philosophy you need to think about it clearly and decide where you stand. No prerequisites. Just the questions, taken seriously. © 2026 Josh Torkington Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:57:21 +1000 Josh Torkington Philosophy for Us is a podcast about doing philosophy together — not as the property of experts, but as the shared, everyday work of thinking well. Each season takes one live question of modern life and works through the philosophy you need to think about it clearly and decide where you stand. No prerequisites. Just the questions, taken seriously. episodic Josh Torkington josh@torkington.au no https://philosophyforus.org/assets/cover.jpg https://philosophyforus.org We run the whole form on two real minds where the wall will not come down: a patient in a scanner who answers a command she cannot move to give, and the system on your screen whose fluent 'I feel' is optimised to be believed. Two objecting voices, met at full weight — and the thing they agree on without saying it: you are deciding either way. tag:torkington.au,2026:philosophy-podcast:m-01-ai-consciousness-and-moral-status:ep09 Tue, 02 Jun 2026 09:00:00 +1000 Josh Torkington Does this thing matter? 1 9 full 52:51 We run the whole form on two real minds where the wall will not come down: a patient in a scanner who answers a command she cannot move to give, and the system on your screen whose fluent 'I feel' is optimised to be believed. Two objecting voices, met at full weight — and the thing they agree on without saying it: you are deciding either way. no How do you honestly hold a position the evidence cannot settle? Chalmers's map for locating where you already stand; calibrated under-determination instead of false confidence; owning the framework you reason from — and then the hardest voice in the argument, which concedes the gap and still says your stand rests on a confusion. tag:torkington.au,2026:philosophy-podcast:m-01-ai-consciousness-and-moral-status:ep08 Tue, 26 May 2026 09:00:00 +1000 Josh Torkington Taking a stand you can't verify 1 8 full 59:52 How do you honestly hold a position the evidence cannot settle? Chalmers's map for locating where you already stand; calibrated under-determination instead of false confidence; owning the framework you reason from — and then the hardest voice in the argument, which concedes the gap and still says your stand rests on a confusion. no Moral status was never a module you bolt on once the science arrives. Going on is already a verdict on who counts. Singer and Korsgaard, the octopus and the insect, Locke's 'person' and Parfit's doubts, and the hardest counter of all: the ground you stand on is chosen, not read off nature. tag:torkington.au,2026:philosophy-podcast:m-01-ai-consciousness-and-moral-status:ep07 Tue, 19 May 2026 09:00:00 +1000 Josh Torkington Who counts — and how we decide 1 7 full 59:47 Moral status was never a module you bolt on once the science arrives. Going on is already a verdict on who counts. Singer and Korsgaard, the octopus and the insect, Locke's 'person' and Parfit's doubts, and the hardest counter of all: the ground you stand on is chosen, not read off nature. no The two tempting exits, walked all the way into: illusionism (there is nothing in there to find) and panpsychism (there is something in there everywhere), plus the theory that promised to measure consciousness outright. None makes the gap go away. This is the floor of the whole descent — where not even a patient on a ward can be settled from the outside. tag:torkington.au,2026:philosophy-podcast:m-01-ai-consciousness-and-moral-status:ep06 Tue, 12 May 2026 09:00:00 +1000 Josh Torkington Maybe it's everywhere — or nowhere 1 6 full 55:25 The two tempting exits, walked all the way into: illusionism (there is nothing in there to find) and panpsychism (there is something in there everywhere), plus the theory that promised to measure consciousness outright. None makes the gap go away. This is the floor of the whole descent — where not even a patient on a ward can be settled from the outside. no 'It's just predicting the next word.' We deliver that reflex at full weight, then ask whether it's an answer about what the machine lacks or just a description of how it works. Stochastic parrots against world-models — and the residue both leave: no amount of behaviour closes the gap. tag:torkington.au,2026:philosophy-podcast:m-01-ai-consciousness-and-moral-status:ep05 Tue, 05 May 2026 09:00:00 +1000 Josh Torkington Could a machine mean it? 1 5 full 53:19 'It's just predicting the next word.' We deliver that reflex at full weight, then ask whether it's an answer about what the machine lacks or just a description of how it works. Stochastic parrots against world-models — and the residue both leave: no amount of behaviour closes the gap. no We hand you the words you've been circling — the hard problem, the explanatory gap — and show that naming the gap doesn't close it. Mary's Room presses it from the knowledge side; the access problem presses it from the evidence side. The wall that hides the machine hides the person sitting beside you, just as completely. tag:torkington.au,2026:philosophy-podcast:m-01-ai-consciousness-and-moral-status:ep04 Tue, 28 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +1000 Josh Torkington What it is like — and how we'd know 1 4 full 46:13 We hand you the words you've been circling — the hard problem, the explanatory gap — and show that naming the gap doesn't close it. Mary's Room presses it from the knowledge side; the access problem presses it from the evidence side. The wall that hides the machine hides the person sitting beside you, just as completely. no Two famous thought experiments — the philosophical zombie and Searle's Chinese Room — turn out to be one subtraction made from opposite sides. We stop watching the scenarios and start watching the inference, and find both doing their real work at a joint the vivid picture was hiding. tag:torkington.au,2026:philosophy-podcast:m-01-ai-consciousness-and-moral-status:ep03 Tue, 21 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +1000 Josh Torkington The zombie and the room 1 3 full 55:17 Two famous thought experiments — the philosophical zombie and Searle's Chinese Room — turn out to be one subtraction made from opposite sides. We stop watching the scenarios and start watching the inference, and find both doing their real work at a joint the vivid picture was hiding. no What is a mind — something your matter does, or a pattern your matter happens to run? We lay out the position families (physicalism, dualism, functionalism, eliminativism) and find that one of them answers the machine question almost by accident. We end on a perfect copy you still can't quite bring yourself to credit. tag:torkington.au,2026:philosophy-podcast:m-01-ai-consciousness-and-moral-status:ep02 Tue, 14 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +1000 Josh Torkington The mind and the machine 1 2 full 46:12 What is a mind — something your matter does, or a pattern your matter happens to run? We lay out the position families (physicalism, dualism, functionalism, eliminativism) and find that one of them answers the machine question almost by accident. We end on a perfect copy you still can't quite bring yourself to credit. no You talk, every day, to something that answers like someone is there. Before asking whether the machine has a mind, we turn the question around: there is unmistakably something it is like to be you — the most certain thing you have, and the hardest to point at. Nagel's bat, Block's two senses of 'conscious', and the 2022 LaMDA story open the four doors this season walks through. tag:torkington.au,2026:philosophy-podcast:m-01-ai-consciousness-and-moral-status:ep01 Tue, 07 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +1000 Josh Torkington Is anyone home? 1 1 full 44:46 You talk, every day, to something that answers like someone is there. Before asking whether the machine has a mind, we turn the question around: there is unmistakably something it is like to be you — the most certain thing you have, and the hardest to point at. Nagel's bat, Block's two senses of 'conscious', and the 2022 LaMDA story open the four doors this season walks through. no