You Are Them

By: Magnus Vinding

Narrated by: Randal Schaffer

What follows if we reject belief in any kind of non-physical soul and instead fully embrace what we know about the world? The main implication, this book argues, is a naturalization of personal identity and ethics. A radically different way of thinking about ourself.

“A precondition of rational behavior is a basic understanding of the nature of oneself and the world. Any fusion of ethical and decision-theoretic rationality into a seamless package runs counter to some of our deepest intuitions. But You Are Them makes a powerful case. Magnus Vinding's best book to date. Highly recommended.” (David Pearce, co-founder of the Neuroethics Foundation, co-founder of World Transhumanist Association / Humanity, and author of The Hedonistic Imperative and The Anti-Speciesist Revolution.)

©2017 Magnus Vinding (P)2019 Magnus Vinding

Veganism

All and all, I enjoyed the presentation of an original idea, but I do have some reservations, hence the three stars.

He uses a metaphor of a quantum field theory as applied to Consciousness (where the latter is not clarified here, Still Not…). Taken from theoretical physics and applied to consciousness of sentient beings - I’m also not sure why the listener only has to find out half way through about a promotion of veganism. Slowly unveiled by reference to ethics of ‘sentient beings’ I’m disappointed that he did not state his purpose earlier on as he did with his main idea. I also feel a bit fooled by this lack of upfront sincerity regarding his dietary opinion from the start.

Why not focus on the suffering of human beings and tackle the issues facing the human race for a start? That alone, is challenge enough for a philosopher. I’m a bit sure that the author is a philosopher? I will have to investigate this later. Surely not a theoretical physicist: why the leap to consciousness (and then include all sentient organisms) with field theory - and if so: then his care for suffering of lesser conscious or lesser sentient entities in the physical world could possibly follow in a sequel to this book.

Maybe if he stopped half way through, this book would’ve been more palatable and left something for reflection.

Some of the arguments are not very convincing

Clearly written and interesting ideas, although some of the arguments are not very convincing. Overall I enjoyed it!