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.
