The Open Philanthropy Project spoke with Dr. Shiller as part of its investigation into which types of beings should be of moral concern, and thus a potential target for the Open Philanthropy Project’s grantmaking. This conversation focused on one particular factor plausibly relevant to whether a being should be of moral concern or not — namely, whether that being is phenomenally conscious, and what the character of its conscious experience is. Conversation topics included the possibility of “hidden” qualia, the implications of hidden qualia for the distribution of phenomenal consciousness, and the possibility of multiple conscious subjects being implemented in the human brain.
