June 3rd, 2014
"______________________: is gender a factor?" Fill in the blank with patience, intelligence, rationality, stamina, decision making, map reading.......
June 24th, 2014
Is it possible to forgive without forgetting?
What are the characteristics of a good/true apology?
July 1st, 2014
Who is responsible for the discoveries of science?
If a scientist discovers, or creates, something that ultimately hurts people should the scientist be held responsible for the outcome?
July 8th, 2014
If a scientist discovers, or creates, something that ultimately hurts people should the scientist be held responsible for the outcome?
July 8th, 2014
What is the best way to grow old?
July 15th, 2014
July 15th, 2014
What does it mean to "tell the truth?
July 22nd, 2014
July 22nd, 2014
Are there any beneficial effects of guilt?
July 29th, 2014
July 29th, 2014
What is art?
August 5th, 2014
August 5th, 2014
Is world peace possible?
If a cure for aging was discovered how would it affect society?
August 12th, 2014
If a cure for aging was discovered how would it affect society?
August 12th, 2014
Do good and evil really exist, or are they just words used to describe our normal animal behavior?
August 19th, 2014
August 19th, 2014
Why question?
What are the big questions and what makes them so?
August 26th, 2014
What are the big questions and what makes them so?
August 26th, 2014
What is sense?
What is insanity? Is it a main factor in creativity?
September 2nd, 2014
What is insanity? Is it a main factor in creativity?
September 2nd, 2014
What is an American?
*What is depression and how does one prepare for it?
*What is depression and how does one prepare for it?
September 9th, 2014
What is a philosopher?
September 16th, 2014
September 16th, 2014
What if anything is the nature of individuality?
September 23rd, 2014
September 23rd, 2014
What is the philosophically examined life?
Gloria Rojas - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882). Transcendentalist, abolitionist, egalitarian, humanist
September 30th, 2014
September 30th, 2014
October 7th, 2014
What is the nature of transcendence?
What is a friend?
Gloria Rojas-George Santyana
October 21st, 2014
What is opinion?
What is history?
What is history?
October 28th, 2014
How do people become wise?
Is there such a thing as bad wisdom? Good wisdom, or just wisdom?
Is there such a thing as bad wisdom? Good wisdom, or just wisdom?
November 4th, 2014
How do you promote wisdom to the world?
Are we condemned to be free?
Are we condemned to be free?
November 11th, 2014
Is freedom of choice and free will the same thing?
Are we condemned to be free?
Are we condemned to be free?
November 18th, 2014
What is a legacy?
Does a legacy matter?
Does a legacy matter?
December 2nd, 2014
Why is there such a big gap between ideals and behavior?
Should the strong be obligated to take care of the weak?
Should the strong be obligated to take care of the weak?
December 9th, 2014
What is Christmas spirit?
December 16th, 2014
Is a family still relevant in the modern world?
What role does honor play in today’s society?
What role does honor play in today’s society?
January 6th, 2015
What role does forgiveness play in today’s society? Does “love thine enemy” seem like a good idea?
Is art more important than science?
Is art more important than science?
January 13th, 2015
Is it more important to be liked or respected?
What is the difference between guilt and shame?
What is the difference between guilt and shame?
January 20th, 2015
Is it more important to be liked or respected?
*Computers right now can do the things that humans spend most of their time being paid to do, so now's the time to start thinking about how we're going to adjust our social structures and economic structures to be aware of this new reality. What is it that humans will do and learn as computers replace our current basic functions?
*Computers right now can do the things that humans spend most of their time being paid to do, so now's the time to start thinking about how we're going to adjust our social structures and economic structures to be aware of this new reality. What is it that humans will do and learn as computers replace our current basic functions?
* If you have time, watch the video on the link below. It will give you a decent understanding of computer learning to help in the discussion:
http://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_howard_the_wonderful_and_terrifying_implications_of_computers_that_can_learn
http://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_howard_the_wonderful_and_terrifying_implications_of_computers_that_can_learn
January 27th, 2015
*Computers right now can do the things that humans spend most of their time being paid to do, so now's the time to start thinking about how we're going to adjust our social structures and economic structures to be aware of this new reality. What is it that humans will do and learn as computers replace our current basic functions?
* If you have time, watch the video on the link below. It will give you a decent understanding of computer learning to help in the discussion:
http://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_howard_the_wonderful_and_terrifying_implications_of_computers_that_can_learn
February 3rd, 2015
http://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_howard_the_wonderful_and_terrifying_implications_of_computers_that_can_learn
February 3rd, 2015
Should the USA have free Community Colleges? What should determine acceptance to a free Community College?
Should competitiveness be a natural function of a democracy?
Should competitiveness be a natural function of a democracy?
February 24th, 2015
What is the purpose of life?
Is progress a meaningful concept?
Is progress a meaningful concept?
March 3rd, 2015
A question on the meaning of life arose today. A request was made to know what classical philosophers have proposed is the meaning of life from their perspective. I looked for some compacted text that could meet that request. Try the link below from Wikipedia. It is a brief summary of meaning of life overviews of classical philosopher’s. Let me know if it "foots the bill:”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_of_life
We’ll open the meeting with any discussion you may want to have on the meaning of life. We need to put this vital question on the table and revisit it as necessary.
Rebecca Bernard proposed the following question for the upcoming meeting:
In a relationship, if you notice or become aware of information that may prompt personal growth in another, do you share this? is there danger? Who is the intervention serving?
In a relationship, if you notice or become aware of information that may prompt personal growth in another, do you share this? is there danger? Who is the intervention serving?
March 10th, 2015
Is there a code of life that dictates how you live?
March 17th, 2015
Try the links below from Wikipedia. They represent a brief summary of multicultural education:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicultural_education
Here are other links related to the education question:
Which curriculum should be used in American public schools: multicultural, Western or ……………?
March 24th, 2015
Below is a link from the Wash. Post on this week’s question:
What place do animals have in the world?
or
How do humans and animals-whose lives at times seem at cross purposes-co-exist?
March 31st, 2015
War: what is it good for?
Is it easier to tell the truth to a friend or an enemy?
Is it easier to tell the truth to a friend or an enemy?
April 7th, 2015
Idealism: What is it good for?
Is suicide a rational solution to a problem?
Is suicide a rational solution to a problem?
April 14th, 2015
Is trust more important than love? What is true love?
How should you define yourself as a retiree?
How should you define yourself as a retiree?
April 21st, 2015
What is the nature of stereotyping?
April 28th, 2015
What is the nature of morality?
May 5th, 2015
What is the nature of culture?
Is the American culture evolving in a positive direction?
Is the American culture evolving in a positive direction?
May 12th, 2015
Literature: What is it good for?
Are cell phones ruining our lives?
Are cell phones ruining our lives?
May 19th, 2015
When is judgment “snobbery?”
Are we asking the right questions? What are the right questions?
Are we asking the right questions? What are the right questions?
May 26th, 2015
Is it important to always do the momentary “right thing” regardless of the reason?
Are we asking the right questions? What are the right questions?
*Literature: What is it good for?
Are we asking the right questions? What are the right questions?
*Literature: What is it good for?
June 2nd, 2015
Is it important to always do the momentary “right thing” regardless of the reason?
June 9th, 2015
Are we asking the right questions? What are the right questions?
Should society be concerned about young adults, social media and technology?
Should society be concerned about young adults, social media and technology?
June 16th,2015
Are we asking the right questions? What are the right questions?
June 23rd, 2015
What is the future of the American family?
June 30th, 2015
Is our freedom of speech being tested by "trigger words?"
July 7th, 2015
Is psychotherapy a reasonable option for aging individuals?
July 14th, 2015
Gloria Rojas will have information on stoicism:
The questions will revolve around stoic philosophy. Paul Oneil will be at the helm with Gloria.
The questions will revolve around stoic philosophy. Paul Oneil will be at the helm with Gloria.
July 21st, 2015
The ethics of journalism.
July 28th, 2015
What part does history play in our lives.....and beyond?
Are accurate historical facts important for our future?
Are accurate historical facts important for our future?
August 4th, 2015
Does life require purpose?
August 11th, 2015
Do we have a soul? If so, what does it mean to our lives?
August 18th, 2015
Could a society exist if its members were not in some way committed to justice?
What holds a civil society together? Is it fear? Loyalty to an ideal? Honesty?
What holds a civil society together? Is it fear? Loyalty to an ideal? Honesty?
August 25th, 2015
Do love, chance and logic determine our lives?
What historical topics should everyone in the world know about?
What historical topics should everyone in the world know about?
September 1st, 2015
What is a hero?
Who are our heroes? Why?
Who are our heroes? Why?
September 8th, 2015
How have the events and experiences in life influenced the way you now think?
September 15th, 2015
We will discuss the book Energy, Economic Growth, and Geopolitical Futures - Eight Long Range Scenarios by Evan Hillebrand and Stacy Closson
September 22nd, 2015
*As you know from regular notifications, I generally just give you the question(s) for the meeting. This time I am sending a bit more. These questions require some context before we can discuss them. Please, read the provided info and links before we meet on the 22nd:
We’re beginning a second transition of moral cultures. The first major transition happened in the 18th and 19th centuries when most Western societies moved away from cultures of honor (where people must earn honor and must therefore avenge insults on their own) to cultures of dignity in which people are assumed to have dignity and don’t need to earn it. They foreswear violence, turn to courts or administrative bodies to respond to major transgressions, and for minor transgressions they either ignore them or attempt to resolve them by social means. There’s no more dueling.
Campbell and Manning describe how this culture of dignity is now giving way to a new culture of victimhood in which people are encouraged to respond to even the slightest unintentional offense, as in an honor culture. But they must not obtain redress on their own; they must appeal for help to powerful others or administrative bodies, to whom they must make the case that they have been victimized. It is the very presence of such administrative bodies, within a culture that is highly egalitarian and diverse (i.e., many college campuses) that gives rise to intense efforts to identify oneself as a fragile and aggrieved victim. This is why we have seen the recent explosion of concerns about microaggressions, combined with demands for trigger warnings and safe spaces, that Greg Lukianoff and I wrote about in The Coddling of the American Mind…. The key idea is that the new moral culture of victimhood fosters “moral dependence” and an atrophying of the ability to handle small interpersonal matters on one’s own. At the same time that it weakens individuals, it creates a society of constant and intense moral conflict as people compete for status as victims or as defenders of victims.
Campbell and Manning describe how this culture of dignity is now giving way to a new culture of victimhood in which people are encouraged to respond to even the slightest unintentional offense, as in an honor culture. But they must not obtain redress on their own; they must appeal for help to powerful others or administrative bodies, to whom they must make the case that they have been victimized. It is the very presence of such administrative bodies, within a culture that is highly egalitarian and diverse (i.e., many college campuses) that gives rise to intense efforts to identify oneself as a fragile and aggrieved victim. This is why we have seen the recent explosion of concerns about microaggressions, combined with demands for trigger warnings and safe spaces, that Greg Lukianoff and I wrote about in The Coddling of the American Mind…. The key idea is that the new moral culture of victimhood fosters “moral dependence” and an atrophying of the ability to handle small interpersonal matters on one’s own. At the same time that it weakens individuals, it creates a society of constant and intense moral conflict as people compete for status as victims or as defenders of victims.
What are the effects of this new protectiveness on the students?
Does it benefit the people it is supposed to help?
What exactly are students learning when they spend four years or more in a community that polices unintentional slights, places warning labels on works of classic literature, and in many other ways conveys the sense that words can be forms of violence that require strict control by campus authorities, who are expected to act as both protectors and prosecutors?
September 29th, 2015
What is cowardice?
To aid our discussion for the 29th, find several links below that contain dialogue and narrative to enhance our ruminations:
Cowardice: A Form of Bravery?
Laches, or Courage
Cowardice: A Form of Bravery?
Laches, or Courage
By Plato
Written 380 B.C.E
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
Written 380 B.C.E
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
October 6th, 2015
What is our attraction to sports?
Is it possible to live in the present?
October 13th, 2015
What is friendship?
Can equality and freedom be reconciled?
Can equality and freedom be reconciled?
October 20th, 2015
Should the judicial system be more concerned about victim's rights?
https://www.victimlaw.org/victimlaw/pages/victimsRight.jsp
How do you know that your experience of consciousness is the same as other people’s experience of consciousness?
How do you know that your experience of consciousness is the same as other people’s experience of consciousness?
October 27th, 2015
If you could choose just one thing to change about the world, what would it be?
Is there only a subjective world, or is there such a thing as a world of ultimate reality?
Is there only a subjective world, or is there such a thing as a world of ultimate reality?
November 3rd, 2015
If peace were a big umbrella, what would be under it?
When we begin to "edit humanity," what changes do you see us making?
When we begin to "edit humanity," what changes do you see us making?
Geneticist Jennifer Doudna co-invented a groundbreaking new technology for editing genes,
called CRISPR-Cas9. The tool allows scientists to make precise edits to DNA strands, which
could lead to treatments for genetic diseases … but could alsobe used to create so-called
"designer babies." Doudna reviews how CRISPR-Cas9 works — and asks the scientific
community to pause and discuss the ethics of this new tool.
TED talk by Jennifer Doudna
November 10th, 2015
What is disgust?
The Science of Disgust
The structure of DNA appears to be intelligently designed, what are the implications?
Can DNA Prove the Existence of an Intelligent Designer?
The Science of Disgust
The structure of DNA appears to be intelligently designed, what are the implications?
Can DNA Prove the Existence of an Intelligent Designer?
November 17th, 2015
What is intelligence?
Intelligence-WIKIWAND
The structure of DNA appears to be intelligently designed, what are the implications?
Can DNA Prove the Existence of an Intelligent Designer?
Paris?
November 2015 Paris Attacks
Intelligence-WIKIWAND
The structure of DNA appears to be intelligently designed, what are the implications?
Can DNA Prove the Existence of an Intelligent Designer?
Paris?
November 2015 Paris Attacks
November 24th, 2015
What is intelligence?
Intelligence-WIKIWAND
The structure of DNA appears to be intelligently designed, what are the implications?
Can DNA Prove the Existence of an Intelligent Designer?
Intelligence-WIKIWAND
The structure of DNA appears to be intelligently designed, what are the implications?
Can DNA Prove the Existence of an Intelligent Designer?
December 3rd, 2015
Have we gone too far with our freedoms?
Differential birth rates and the future?
Differential birth rates and the future?
Alternates from Tony:
Which corrupts more, power or powerlessness?
Does America have a leadership or followership problem?
Does America have a leadership or followership problem?
December 10th, 2015
Is progress in society based on inequality, if so how should the inequality be promoted?
December 17th, 2015
What is society’s responsibility to the aged?
Do the ends justify the means
How should curiosity and interest in learning be promoted by parents?
Do the ends justify the means
How should curiosity and interest in learning be promoted by parents?
December 24th & 31st Meetings are cancelled
Does life require purpose?
What is truth? Is it true that the only thing I know is that I know nothing?
What should be done about college athletes not completing their degree requirements?
What is truth? Is it true that the only thing I know is that I know nothing?
What should be done about college athletes not completing their degree requirements?
January 14th, 2016
What is truth? Is it true that the only thing I know is that I know nothing?
Is truth possible without evidence?
Is truth relative, or a matter of opinion?
Is truth possible without evidence?
Is truth relative, or a matter of opinion?
January 21st,2016
What things reflect our values and what things offend our values?
Should we be environmentally concerned about the planet at the expense of 3rd world countries?
Ex.- cheap coal
Should we be environmentally concerned about the planet at the expense of 3rd world countries?
Ex.- cheap coal
January 28th, 2016
What human qualities allow society to flourish?
Can you describe how you’ve experienced it in your community?
Does every human life have the same value?
How do you successfully interact with your child’s family to influence them?
Can you describe how you’ve experienced it in your community?
Does every human life have the same value?
How do you successfully interact with your child’s family to influence them?
February 4th, 2016
What human qualities allow society to flourish?
Can you describe how you’ve experienced it in your community?
Do you make your own decisions, or let others make them for you?
How do you successfully interact with your child’s family to influence them?
Can you describe how you’ve experienced it in your community?
Do you make your own decisions, or let others make them for you?
How do you successfully interact with your child’s family to influence them?
February 11th, 2016
Is there anything you would be willing to die for?
What is fair? Does it really exist?
How do you successfully interact with your child’s family to influence them?
What is fair? Does it really exist?
How do you successfully interact with your child’s family to influence them?
February 18th, 2016
Is there anything you would be willing to die for?
How do you know that your experience of consciousness is the same as other people’s experience of consciousness?
How do you successfully interact with your child’s family to influence them?
How do you know that your experience of consciousness is the same as other people’s experience of consciousness?
How do you successfully interact with your child’s family to influence them?
February 25th, 2016
How do you know that your experience of consciousness is the same as other people’s experience of consciousness?
Is art as important as our society treats it?
How do you successfully interact with your child’s family to influence them?
Is art as important as our society treats it?
How do you successfully interact with your child’s family to influence them?
March 3rd, 2016
What is art?
What is the advantage of art to society?
Why Art is Important?
What is the difference between science and art?
Jacob Bronowski-Science and Art
Ian McEwan in lively conversation with theoretical physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed in an exploration of the similarities, differences and connections between art and science.
What is the advantage of art to society?
Why Art is Important?
What is the difference between science and art?
Jacob Bronowski-Science and Art
Ian McEwan in lively conversation with theoretical physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed in an exploration of the similarities, differences and connections between art and science.
March 10th, 2016
What is art?
Art is a relative term used to describe a creative process.
What is the advantage of art to society?
Why Art is Important?
What is the difference between science and art?
Jacob Bronowski-Science and Art
Ian McEwan in lively conversation with theoretical physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed in an exploration of the similarities, differences and connections between art and science.
Art is a relative term used to describe a creative process.
What is the advantage of art to society?
Why Art is Important?
What is the difference between science and art?
Jacob Bronowski-Science and Art
Ian McEwan in lively conversation with theoretical physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed in an exploration of the similarities, differences and connections between art and science.
March 17th, 2016
What is the difference between science and art?
Karl Popper-Falsifiability
Jacob Bronowski-Science and Art
Ian McEwan in lively conversation with theoretical physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed in an exploration of the similarities, differences and connections between art and science.
Jacob Bronowski-Science and Art
Ian McEwan in lively conversation with theoretical physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed in an exploration of the similarities, differences and connections between art and science.
With the invention of the Internet and the advent of big data and crowd sourcing, it’s finally possible for citizens to govern themselves directly. Is it a good idea for the masses to directly govern themselves?
What are the pros and cons of colonizing other planets? How could this help or hurt the human race?
What are the pros and cons of colonizing other planets? How could this help or hurt the human race?
March 24th, 2016
Should governments make laws to protect people from hurting themselves?
How important are morals in a healthy society? What are the most important morals for citizens to have?
How important are morals in a healthy society? What are the most important morals for citizens to have?
What are the pros and cons of colonizing other planets? How could this help or hurt the human race?
March 31st, 2016
What is the difference between morals and ethics?
How does our language shape the way we think?
What effect does the language we speak (or language generally) has on everything we think and how we think about everything we think?
Are there ways in which the language we speak limits what we think or what we can think about?
What are the pros and cons of colonizing other planets? How could this help or hurt the human race?
April 7th, 2016
How does our language shape the way we think?
What effect does the language we speak (or language generally) has on everything we think and how we think about everything we think?
Are there ways in which the language we speak limits what we think or what we can think about?
What effect does the language we speak (or language generally) has on everything we think and how we think about everything we think?
Are there ways in which the language we speak limits what we think or what we can think about?
What are the pros and cons of colonizing other planets? How could this help or hurt the human race?
April 14th, 2016
What are the pros and cons of colonizing other planets? How could this help or hurt the human race?
If you were given an envelope with the time and date of your death inside, would you open it?
What have you personally lost when you no longer permit yourself to “waste” time?
What have you personally lost when you no longer permit yourself to “waste” time?
April 21st, 2016
What are the pros and cons of colonizing other planets? How could this help or hurt the human race?
As long as we’re checking off our to-do lists, we’re making progress, right?
What is success? What is the point of success?
What is success? What is the point of success?
April 28th, 2016
As long as we’re checking off our to-do lists, we’re making progress, right?
Is mind or matter more real?
What is success? What is the point of success?
What are the pros and cons of colonizing other planets? How could this help or hurt the human race?
Is mind or matter more real?
What is success? What is the point of success?
What are the pros and cons of colonizing other planets? How could this help or hurt the human race?
May 5th, 2016
What is a belief?
What is the role of belief in representing reality?
Do beliefs qualify as true or false depending on how helpful they are in enquiry and in action?
Is it only in the struggle with the surrounding environment that beliefs acquire meaning?
Does a belief only become true when it succeeds in a struggle?
What is the role of belief in representing reality?
Do beliefs qualify as true or false depending on how helpful they are in enquiry and in action?
Is it only in the struggle with the surrounding environment that beliefs acquire meaning?
Does a belief only become true when it succeeds in a struggle?
May 12th, 2016
Does a belief only become true when it succeeds in a struggle?
Do we really believe what we say?
What does honor mean to you?
How important is honor to you?
Does your culture value honor?
What exemplifies honor in your culture?
Do we really believe what we say?
What does honor mean to you?
How important is honor to you?
Does your culture value honor?
What exemplifies honor in your culture?
May 19th, 2016
What does honor mean to you?
How important is honor to you?
Does your culture value honor?
What exemplifies honor in your culture?
Do we have a right to not be offended?
How important is honor to you?
Does your culture value honor?
What exemplifies honor in your culture?
Do we have a right to not be offended?
May 26th, 2016
What does honor mean to you?
Is honor the most important thing in your life, if not, what is?
Does your culture value honor?
What exemplifies honor in your culture?
What does “Existence precedes and commands Essence” mean?
Is honor the most important thing in your life, if not, what is?
Does your culture value honor?
What exemplifies honor in your culture?
What does “Existence precedes and commands Essence” mean?
June 2nd, 2016
What is our responsibility towards nature?
What would be considered extremism with nature?
Is there any resolution (coexistence) between man and nature?
What is right about experimenting with animals?
What would be considered extremism with nature?
Is there any resolution (coexistence) between man and nature?
What is right about experimenting with animals?
June 9th, 2016
What is right about experimenting with animals?
Do you believe that an unfulfilled desire is better than a fulfilled one because you can still dream about it?
The Meaning of Life
Do you believe that an unfulfilled desire is better than a fulfilled one because you can still dream about it?
The Meaning of Life
June 16th, 2016
The Meaning of Life
June 23rd, 2016
Is there an afterlife?
What is grief? What is its purpose?
June 30th, 2016
Can virtue be taught?
What is personality? Why does it matter?
Where does the mind stop and the world begin?
July 7th, 2016
What is personality? Why does it matter?
Where does the mind stop and the world begin?
What is the core dilemma of religion?
July 14th, 2016
How do you examine your life?
What is personality? Why does it matter?
Where does the mind stop and the world begin?
July 21st, 2016
How do you examine your life?
What is personality? Why does it matter?
Where does the mind stop and the world begin?
July 28th, 2016
What is the examine life and what makes it more valuable than the unexamined life?
What is the relationship between intelligence and human worth?
What is personality? Why does it matter?
Where does the mind stop and the world begin?
August 4th, 2016
Do you agree with the following statement?
"We compare ourselves to the people who immediately surround us. Our feelings of sadness and happiness are relative to our locale."
What is personality? Why does it matter?
Where does the mind stop and the world begin?
August 11th, 2016
What is infinity?
If you could rewrite the 10 Commandments what would you change?
Starting over?
After Earth: Why, Where, How, and When we might leave our home planet?
August 18th, 2016
What is infinity?
If you could rewrite the 10 Commandments what would you change?
Starting over?
After Earth: Why, Where, How, and When we might leave our home planet?
August 25th, 2016
Does suicide play any part in the decision making process in your life?
Does your knowledge, or lack of it, about infinity affect your thinking or behavior in any way?
Starting over?
After Earth: Why, Where, How, and When we might leave our home planet?
September 1st, 2016
Starting over?
After Earth: Why, Where, How, and When we might leave our home planet?
September 8th, 2016
What is the purpose of forgiveness?
Should race matter?
(Does race matter? If so, when does it matter? Where does it/doesn't it matter? Why does race matter? What if race didn't matter?
What does love of country mean?
September 15th, 2016
What does love of country mean?
Evolutionary Theory
What use is it?
Can war be fought without boots on the ground?
September 22nd, 2016
What does anger mean in our personal lives?
September 29th, 2016
What is most important: the first time or the last time?
Why is positive change harder than negative change?
What role does fear play in American culture?
October 6th, 2016
What is most important: the first time or the last time?
Why is positive change harder than negative change?
What role does fear play in American culture?
October 13th, 2016
Why is positive change harder than negative change?
Why is emotion more important than thinking?
October 20th, 2016
What are ethics?
Does probability play a part in ethical decision making?
Can a computer make an ethical decision?
In what fields are ethics oxymoronic?
October 27th, 2016
What is the purpose of religion?
What is freedom?
Why do we fear freedom?
What are arguments for not examining your life?
November 3rd, 2016
If religions are good, then why aren't they more tolerant of each other?
What is freedom?
Why do we fear freedom?
What are arguments for not examining your life?
November 10th, 2016
What is freedom?
Why do we fear freedom?
How does fear of freedom affect our ability to enjoy life?
November 17th, 2016
Why are certain aesthetics beautiful?
Is it impossible to discuss why the nature of aesthetics cannot be discussed?
What is freedom?
Why do we fear freedom?
How does fear of freedom affect our ability to enjoy life?
December 1st, 2016
Genesis Chapter 3 verses 22 to 24: Is everyone a sinner?
What about free will?
What are arguments for not examining your life?
Why are certain aesthetics beautiful?
Is it impossible to discuss why the nature of aesthetics cannot be discussed?
What is freedom?
Why do we fear freedom?
How does fear of freedom affect our ability to enjoy life?
December 8th, 2016
What is sin?
What is awe?
Have you ever been awed? If so, by what?
What are the implications of atheism?
Does the conscience exist? If so, should we pay attention to it?
December 15th, 2016
What is Christmas?
Is Santa Claus really necessary?
If robots are coming to dominate our culture, then how do we save ourselves?
Does global thinking interfere with our ability to solve problems locally?
Does our education curriculum need a complete overhaul?
Why can't we, as a nation, understand the effect of technology
December 22nd & 29th Meetings are cancelled
2017
If the robots are coming to dominate our culture, then how do we save ourselves?
Does global thinking interfere with our ability to solve problems locally?
Does our education curriculum need a complete overhaul?
Why can’t we, as a nation, understand the effect of technology?
January 12th, 2017
If we examine the format (verbiage and edited video) for presenting the news, is there a standard format for the truth? How should truth be explained?
Does global thinking interfere with our ability to solve problems locally?
Does our education curriculum need a complete overhaul?
Why can’t we, as a nation, understand the effect of technology?
January 19th, 2017
What is altruism? Is there anything you would willing to give your life to save?
Does global thinking interfere with our ability to solve problems locally?
Does our education curriculum need a complete overhaul?
Why can’t we, as a nation, understand the effect of technology?
January 26th, 2017
What is selflessness? Is there really such a thing?
What is altruism? Is there anything that you would be willing to give your life to save?
Does altruism define people losing their lives for principles? (Sir Thomas More)
What should be the penalty for the woman accused of kidnapping a baby 18 years ago and raising the girl as her own?
February 2nd, 2017
Is abortion rational?
What is a human being?
What is prejudice?
What is faith?
February 9th, 2017
Is abortion rational?
What is a human being?
What is faith?
February 16th, 2017
What is progress? How does it happen? How is it corrupted?
What is the relationship between technology and moral progress?
Does technological progress foster moral progress?
February 23rd, 2017
Free speech. in a democratic society ..press, demonstrations, marches and our views and experiences
What constitutes free speech in a democracy? How does it operate in a totalitarian government?(murders of journalists)
What are the strengths of free speech in the press? newspapers, internet, magazines...What are the harmful abuses?
Competing demands Authority ...vs…. liberty?
What happens when free speech and offense clash? Danish cartoons? Parody? Skokie/ ?
Currently...how to treat “Alternate facts-----fake news”
What should be the responsibility of reporters, editors, writers?What are the responsibility of citizens? Schools? Parental input?
What is the role in schools and college for free speech?
What is the effect of Bias in the news...towards a party, a president, an ethnic or religious group?
Should there be controls other than public outrage, economic choice?
Current items in the news...president vocal against the press? Is it healthy?
-guns for the mentally ill….by-stander training
-additional anecdotal and philosophic l material from the group?
March 2nd, 2017
JUDGMENT AND JUDGMENTAL We touched upon this but there’s much more
Judgmental defined as a ” belief stronger than impression.” Other definitions?
What’s the rush to judgment..is something poisonous/? How ugly!! Is this beautiful?
Are we wired to be judgmental?
What’s the difference between an animal’s instinctive choice and a human judgmental approach?
(An animal uses his primary sense’s evaluation...smell, sight, movement. People generally use sight???
Judgmental in religion, politics, music, art, education, politics, civic life
In What aspects of our lives do we tend to be judgmental? Helpful? hindrance?
How do shared judgmental attitudes influence commercials, magazines, movies, pop culture
Extra Question,,,time filler
Discuss: Rene Descartes ...philosopher ...famous quote
“I think, therefore I am.
“Je pense donc je suis.:
“Cogito, ergo sum”
One interpretation: The only thing you know exists is yourself because you are thinking. Everything else is uncertain and depends on observation ..
Thinking is an affirmation of existence.
This is the context for his pronouncement:
Descartes was a mathematician, the founder of Cartesian (or coordinate) geometry,.
He was a philosopher who rejected many of the old schools but followed stoicism....
He rejected standard explanations of a deity -created world.
March 9th, 2017
How important is solitude in your life?
What are your thoughts about being alone?
What is the relationship between technology and moral progress?
March 16th, 2017
What is the relationship between technology and moral progress in the medical field?
Why is the unexamined life not worth living?
Why is the unexamined life not worth living?
March 23rd, 2017
Is there an American culture?
Are there common American themes?
Is the United States a free country? What does free mean?
Are there common American themes?
Is the United States a free country? What does free mean?
March 30th, 2017
Is the United States a free country? What does free mean?
April 6th, 2017
Do we have free will, or are our decisions the result of determinism?
The fifth century city states of ancient Greece were highly competitive. athletic and cultural.
Athens, the largest and richest, was the center of the competitive spirit.
Source...Paul Johnson, Socrates
Johnson says the spirit of competition started with a foot race, religious in intent, and spread to cultural life, plays both comic and tragic, poetry, music and public speaking.
Competitions were instituted with prizes and prestige.
Is competitiveness inborn?
What is good about it?
What are the harmful possibilities?
What kind of rewards motivate?
What about level playing fields?
How can society police excessive competitiveness?
Rewards and risks at different levels?
The athlete in Ancient Greece was a demigod and famous. Are we any better?
How does competition benefit society?
Does competition create a society of losers?
What do children learn about winning and losing?
April 13th, 2017
The fifth century city states of ancient Greece were highly competitive. athletic and cultural.
Athens, the largest and richest, was the center of the competitive spirit.
Source...Paul Johnson, Socrates
Johnson says the spirit of competition started with a foot race, religious in intent, and spread to cultural life, plays both comic and tragic, poetry, music and public speaking.
Competitions were instituted with prizes and prestige.
Is competitiveness inborn?
What is good about it?
What are the harmful possibilities?
What kind of rewards motivate?
What about level playing fields?
How can society police excessive competitiveness?
Rewards and risks at different levels?
The athlete in Ancient Greece was a demigod and famous. Are we any better?
How does competition benefit society?
Does competition create a society of losers?
What do children learn about winning and losing?
April 20th, 2017
Is a guaranteed income a human right?
What would be the social costs of a guaranteed income?
Would the benefits of the social costs outweigh the costs?
Is the concept of a guaranteed income hopelessly utopian?
April 27th, 2017
"What is art?"
What makes one work of art pleasing and another distasteful?
What makes "fine art" differ from "pop art"?
What makes a work of art worth millions? (Monetization of art)
What is the function of art?
May 4th, 2017
"What is art?"
What makes one work of art pleasing and another distasteful?
What makes "fine art" differ from "pop art"?
What makes a work of art worth millions? (Monetization of art)
What is the function of art?
Is there a difference between ethics and morals?
What do they mean to you?
May 11th, 2017
Is overpopulation really a problem?
What’s the point of dying?
Is life extension rational?
Is assisted suicide necessary in a life extension program?
Are newborns, or old people, the problem in overpopulation?
May 18th, 2017
Does life have a reason or purpose? Meaning?
What is happiness?
Is happiness the most important purpose in life?
What is boredom?
What is philosophy?
What, if anything, is the value of philosophy?
May 25th, 2017
What is courage?
What is boredom?
What is philosophy?
What, if anything, is the value of philosophy?
June 1st, 2017
What is courage?
What is philosophy?
From Paul Oneil:
It’d be hard to do a better description of Stoicism than Plutarch’s here:
“The teaching of philosophy is not, if I may use the words of Pindar, ‘a sculptor to carve statues doomed to stand idly on their pedestal and no
more,’ no, it strives to make everything that it touches active and efficient and alive, it inspires men with impulses which urge action, with judgments
that lead them towards what is useful, with preferences for things that are honorable, with wisdom and greatness of mind joined to gentleness and conservatism.”
So don’t think this is about reading and discoursing. No, it’s about doing and becoming. Mostly, about doing and becoming better.
Is knowing that you don't know really wisdom?
What if anything is the value of philosophy?
June 8th 2017
What is philosophy?
What, if anything, is the value of philosophy?
Is knowing that you don't know really wisdom?
June 16th, 2017
What is political philosophy?
What, if anything, is the value of political philosophy?
Is knowing that you don't know political philosophy really wisdom, or just a good idea?
June 22nd, 2017
Is any act that a nation makes in its own self-interest ever moral?
What's the nature of self-interest?
Can you objectively infer an ethical principle?
What is political philosophy?
Is government necessary?
June 29th, 2017
Is any act that a nation makes in its own self-interest ever moral?
What's the nature of self-interest?
Can you objectively infer an ethical principle?
What is political philosophy?
Is government necessary?
July 6th, 2017
Are there universal human rights?
Is democracy suitable for all countries?
Is patriotism irrational?
Should people have the right to live in any country they wish?
Is the preservation of culture a good reason to limit immigration?
Can you objectively infer an ethical principle?
July 13th, 2017
Should race matter?
How can we overcome racism?
Can you objectively infer an ethical principle?
Should the courts be involved in family medical issues? (Charlie Gard)
Should not correcting genetic mutations be unethical?
Should scientists move to direct evolutionary changes in organisms?
“A conversation about the ethics of human modification has been kicking around since the 1980s, when scientists started using cruder forms of gene editing.
“For decades, we’ve been able to say it’s not there yet, so we’re not going to do [human gene editing]. It was an easy way to stop the conversation,” says Debra Mathews,
a bioethicist at Johns Hopkins University. “We’re now at a point where it is precise enough that we do actually just have to have the conversation.” Over the next three days
in DC, scientists and policymakers will have to do just that.”
July 20th, 2017
How does travel affect you?
What is the purpose of religion?
Does wishful thinking play a part in your life?
Should you avoid wishful thinking?
What is individualism?
Is individualism being challenged by the “networked society?”
Is it important in your life to harbor illusions?
July 27th, 2017
What is uncertainty?
Does wishful thinking play a part in your life?
Should you avoid wishful thinking?
What is individualism?
Is individualism being challenged by the “networked society?”
Is it important in your life to harbor illusions?
August 3rd, 2017
What is individualism?
Is individualism being challenged by the “networked society?”
How has networking affected your life?
August 10th, 2017
To what extent are you trapped by culture?
Are the limits placed on women in countries such as Saudi Arabia acceptable?
If you were going to design a human being, what traits would you give them?
Should governments penalize people for unhealthy lifestyles?
August 17, 2017
What is reason? Does culture affect reason?
To what extent are you trapped by culture?
Is it possible to be acultural?
Can there be a “Just War?”
If you were going to design a human being, what traits would you give them?
Should governments penalize people for unhealthy lifestyles?
August 24th, 2017
Can there be a “Just War?”
What is justice?
What is reason? Does culture affect reason?
To what extent are you trapped by culture?
Is it possible to be acultural?
If you were going to design a human being, what traits would you give them?
Should governments penalize people for unhealthy lifestyles?
August 31st, 2017
What is reason? Does culture affect reason?
To what extent are you trapped by culture?
Is it possible to be acultural?
If you were going to design a human being, what traits would you give them?
Should governments penalize people for unhealthy lifestyles?
September 7th, 2017
At what point does free speech turn into hate speech?
Are there instances when free speech should be limited?
How should universities encourage discussion of differing
ideas while insuring the safety of their students?
How do the alt-right and alt-left affect free speech and what can be done about it?
What is modernism?
What is post-modernism?
What is nihilism?
September 14th, 2017
What is a human being?
What determines who we are?
Is "family" still relevant in the modern world?
What should every human being know?
Why don’t we say what we really mean?
What is modernism?
What is post-modernism?
What is nihilism?
How should one live?
What is a good life?
September 21st, 2017
What is a human being?
What determines who we are?
Is "family" still relevant in the modern world?
What should every human being know?
Why don’t we say what we really mean?
What is modernism?
What is post-modernism?
What is nihilism?
How should one live?
What is a good life?
September 28th, 2017
What is spirituality? Is it a religious concept?
What is the effect of a caste system in America? Does it operate in Cambridge?
What is laughter?
What is a human being?
What should every human being know?
What determines who we are?
Is "family" still relevant in the modern world?
Why don’t we say what we really mean?
October 5th, 2017
What is charity? Is the reason you give to a charity more important than giving at all?
Is "family" still relevant in the modern world?
Why don’t we say what we really mean?
What is spirituality? Is it a religious concept?
What is the effect of a caste system in America? Does it operate in Cambridge?
What is a human being?
What should every human being know?
What is modernism?
October 12th, 2017
What are the differences between authenticity and reality?
Are pain, longing and sadness essential to one’s happiness?
Is it the chase and temporary frustration of fulfillment that one is after in order to create happiness?
Are people ultimately driven by self-interest?
If one only has one life and nothing more, then would one want to waste it on inauthentic experience?
Would you plug in to the experience machine, or would you side with Nozick?
October 26th, 2017
What are the differences between authenticity and reality?
Are pain, longing and sadness essential to one’s happiness?
Is it the chase and temporary frustration of fulfillment that one is after in order to create happiness?
Are people ultimately driven by self-interest?
If one only has one life and nothing more, then would one want to waste it on inauthentic experience?
Would you plug in to the experience machine, or would you side with Nozick?
Has getting older changed your thinking about the future? In what way?
What things are you no longer concerned about now that you are older?
November 2nd, 2017
What is shame? Is there a difference between shame and guilt?
What would immortality be like and what would be its point?
What is the difference between ideals and actuality?
What would be lost if we never felt any emotions yet could have pleasurable feelings?
Socrates: But if the cause must precede the effect, and the effect must follow after the cause, do we not contradict ourselves in this thought that the cosmos, as an effect, must have preceded itself as its own cause?
What is meant by “the scheme of things?”
What is Pascal’s Wager and how does it affect your thinking?
November 9th, 2017
What is humiliation? Is it worse than shame?
What is the difference between ideals and actuality?
What would be lost if we never felt any emotions yet could have pleasurable feelings?
Socrates: But if the cause must precede the effect, and the effect must follow after the cause, do we not contradict ourselves in this thought that the cosmos, as an effect, must have preceded itself as its own cause?
What is meant by “the scheme of things?”
What is Pascal’s Wager and how does it affect your thinking?
November 16th, 2017
What is humiliation? Is it worse than shame?
What is the difference between ideals and actuality?
What would be lost if we never felt any emotions yet could have pleasurable feelings?
Socrates: But if the cause must precede the effect, and the effect must follow after the cause, do we not contradict ourselves in this thought that the cosmos, as an effect, must have preceded itself as its own cause?
What is the first cause? Prime mover?
What is meant by “the scheme of things?”
What is Pascal’s Wager and how does it affect your thinking?
What does it mean to flourish?
Do we really have control over ourselves?
Can we really choose how we react to things?
Are we the slave of circumstance, the slave of our DNA, of our childhood, of out socio-economic situation?
What things don’t we have complete control over in life?
Can we really change ourselves?
Is the good life actually about fulfilling my “bucket list?”
What is the nature of reality? Where am I? (Metaphysics)
How do I know where I am? (Epistemology)
So, now what do I do? (Ethics)
Is life scripted? How can I script my life?
If purpose comes from one’s philosophy, then what is my philosophy and hence my purpose in life?
November 23rd, 2017 - Thanksgiving
November 30th, 2017
At our next meeting we will discuss the story of Candide by Voltaire.
Questions concerning the work will be forthcoming. Here is an eBook and You Tube references to give you context for our ruminations.
eBook Candide - Voltaire
Video References:
December 7th, 2017
How did we come to believe the things that we do? What caused us to develop our philosophies?
What would be lost if we never felt any emotions yet could have pleasurable feelings?
What is the difference between ideals and actuality?
Socrates: But if the cause must precede the effect, and the effect must follow after the cause, do we not contradict ourselves in this thought that the cosmos, as an effect, must have preceded itself as its own cause?
What is the first cause? Prime mover?
What is meant by “the scheme of things?”
What is Pascal’s Wager and how does it affect your thinking?
What does it mean to flourish?
Do we really have control over ourselves?
Can we really choose how we react to things?
Are we the slave of circumstance, the slave of our DNA, of our childhood, of out socio-economic situation?
What things don’t we have complete control over in life?
Can we really change ourselves?
Is the good life actually about fulfilling my “bucket list?”
What is the nature of reality? Where am I? (Metaphysics)
How do I know where I am? (Epistemology)
So, now what do I do? (Ethics)
Is life scripted? How can I script my life?
If purpose comes from one’s philosophy, then what is my philosophy and hence my purpose in life?
What is self?
Thomas Nagel-The View from Nowhere
How do we square-or even connect- the view from within, according to which we are of overwhelming importance, with the view from without, which sees us as insignificant in a vast universe (reality is not just objective reality)?
December 14th, 2017
All the opinions batted around in our group come from members who have led (relatively) secure lives, relative that is to
people who have lived with serious oppression, invasion, civil war, famine, plague.
If you could put your yourself in the shoes of someone who fled East Germany, or North Korea, or the Sudan, would your thoughts about God, or truth, or justice,
or the life worth living be the same, or different?
Would existentialism make any sense to an oppressed person or is that a pose for a pampered person who doesn't
have anything real to worry about?
Would stoicism make any sense?
Would liberalism seem like a fairy tale?
December 21st, 2017
All the opinions batted around in our group come from members who have led (relatively) secure lives, relative that is to
people who have lived with serious oppression, invasion, civil war, famine, plague.
If you could put your yourself in the shoes of someone who fled East Germany, or North Korea, or the Sudan, would your thoughts about God, or truth, or justice,
or the life worth living be the same, or different?
Would existentialism make any sense to an oppressed person or is that a pose for a pampered person who doesn't
have anything real to worry about?
Would stoicism make any sense?
Would liberalism seem like a fairy tale?
December 28th, 2017 
The story for our Jan. 4th meeting will be Waiting for Godot.
Below is information as context for our discussion:
Text of Play
Below are the questions for this week’s (Dec. 28th) discussion:
*Questions:
All the opinions batted around in our group come from members who have led (relatively) secure lives, relative that is to people who have lived with serious oppression, invasion, civil war, famine, plague.
If you could put your yourself in the shoes of someone who fled East Germany, or North Korea, or the Sudan, would your thoughts about God, or truth, or justice,or the life worth living be the same, or different?
Would existentialism make any sense to an oppressed person or is that a pose for a pampered person who doesn't have anything real to worry about?
Would stoicism make any sense?
Would liberalism seem like a fairy tale?
Other questions:
What is a paradigm? How does it influence your thinking? How does it affect the interpretation of data?
Our ability to see patterns in things and build context to explain the pattern we see. Are we manipulating reality by doing that, or are we merely explaining reality?
What is divinity?
What is self?
Thomas Nagel-The View from Nowhere
How do we square-or even connect- the view from within, according to which we are of overwhelming importance, with the view from without, which sees us as insignificant in a vast universe (reality is not just objective reality)?
January 4th, 2018
Do the men in Waiting for Godot have any sort of character arcs? Do they evolve at all, or learn anything, or change in any way from the beginning to the end of the play?
Why discuss philosophical ideas in a work of fiction instead of, say, a treatise?
If it’s true that nothing happens in Waiting for Godot, how is it that we manage to be entertained as the audience/reader?
Do you think the play would function differently if the characters were all female instead of male?
Do Vladimir and Estragon stand around killing time because they’re waiting for Godot or is waiting for Godot itself just an act to fill the void?
If Waiting for Godot is moralistic in nature, what is the moral? How does the play instruct us to lead our lives? Are these lessons subjective and personal for each viewer, or objective and universal?
January 11th, 2018
Text of Play
*Questions:
Absurdism
Cosmos meaningless but we are forced to find meaning
How should we confront the absurd?
Be an actor
Be another kind of artist
Be political and powerful
Acceptance- the universe is pointless but you live life confronting that idea and accept the pointlessness of things.
One must consider Sisyphus happy.
Do the men in Waiting for Godot have any sort of character arcs? Do they evolve at all, or learn anything, or change in any way from the beginning to the end of the play?
Why discuss philosophical ideas in a work of fiction instead of, say, a treatise?
If it’s true that nothing happens in Waiting for Godot, how is it that we manage to be entertained as the audience/reader?
Do you think the play would function differently if the characters were all female instead of male?
Do Vladimir and Estragon stand around killing time because they’re waiting for Godot or is waiting for Godot itself just an act to fill the void?
If Waiting for Godot is moralistic in nature, what is the moral? How does the play instruct us to lead our lives? Are these lessons subjective and personal for each viewer, or objective and universal?
January 18th, 2018
Text of Play
*Questions:
Absurdism
Cosmos meaningless but we are forced to find meaning
How should we confront the absurd?
Be an actor
Be another kind of artist
Be political and powerful
Acceptance- the universe is pointless but you live life confronting that idea and accept the pointlessness of things.
One must consider Sisyphus happy.
Do the men in Waiting for Godot have any sort of character arcs? Do they evolve at all, or learn anything, or change in any way from the beginning to the end of the play?
Why discuss philosophical ideas in a work of fiction instead of, say, a treatise?
If it’s true that nothing happens in Waiting for Godot, how is it that we manage to be entertained as the audience/reader?
Do you think the play would function differently if the characters were all female instead of male?
Do Vladimir and Estragon stand around killing time because they’re waiting for Godot or is waiting for Godot itself just an act to fill the void?
If Waiting for Godot is moralistic in nature, what is the moral? How does the play instruct us to lead our lives? Are these lessons subjective and personal for each viewer, or objective and universal?
January 25th, 2018
What is postmodernism?
What does postmodernism have to say about science?
What is deconstruction in literature?
How does postmodernism see truth?
Other questions:
What is a paradigm? How does it influence your thinking? How does it affect the interpretation of data?
Our ability to see patterns in things and build context to explain the pattern we see. Are we manipulating reality by doing that, or are we merely explaining reality?
What is the reductionist paradigm? Is it the best way to explain the behavior of matter?
What is divinity?
What is self?
Thomas Nagel-The View from Nowhere
How do we square-or even connect- the view from within, according to which we are of overwhelming importance, with the view from without, which sees us as insignificant in a vast universe (reality is not just objective reality)?
February 1st, 2018
Below are some references for Shantung Compound. We will discuss the work at the upcoming meeting.
Here is a PDF file with a summary of the book Shantung Compound that will allow you to participate in the discussion.
If you would like to read the entire work, here is a link to Amazon for the Kindle version of the narrative.
This book powerfully evokes a very civilized despair for the human social condition. It implies that the Western notion of the social contract to be a wistful, romantic notion. I think I said that in a nice way. Shantung Compound was a blunt, clarifying, transformative read.
In Gilkey’s words, “This book is about the life of a civilian internment camp in North China during the war against Japan . . . Because internment-camp life seems to reveal more clearly than does ordinary experience the anatomy of man’s common social and moral problems and the bases of human communal existence, this book finally has been written.”
Gilkey was a 24-year-old American teacher in a Chinese university when World War II commenced. He and about 2,000 others, mostly Europeans including academics, clergy, and businessmen, were imprisoned for more than two years in relatively benign conditions in the Weihsien camp near Shantung. Their Japanese captors provided the bare minimum of food and coal and told the inmates to run the camp inside the walls.
Shantung Compound is Gilkey’s account of the endlessly frustrated attempts, by various camp leaders and elected committees and a few charismatic individuals, to enforce a fair allocation of the smallish rooms and dorm beds, to get everyone to do a fair share of work, to prevent stealing, to settle social disputes, to provide for the exceptional needs of the elderly, the frail, the young kids, the nursing mothers….
The overwhelming truth is that facing the prospective dangers and daily extremities of camp life, nearly all of the internees didn’t “rise to the occasion” to protect the weak and to cooperate rationally for their own good and the common good.
Instead, this is what nearly all of the internees—most of them white, educated, Western—tended to do most of the time: they conspicuously looked out for themselves and their families, declined to do more than a modicum of work, refused to give up some of their “equal” share of food and housing to needier fellow inmates, shied away from volunteer leadership, declined to share the contents of relief parcels sent by their “own” governments, stole food and supplies whenever possible, refused to punish the egregious wrongdoers among them, and rationalized most of their uncharitable, uncooperative and uncivil behavior in complex variations of religious and humanist moralities….
Mind you, this wasn’t humanity in a state of nature. No “. . . Nature, red in tooth and claw” stuff. The Japanese guards remained aloof from the prisoners’ largely autonomous camp administration and permitted black market trading with villagers outside the camp. The internees lived in dismal but not life-threatening conditions. They lived peaceably, often manifesting their shortcomings in a nominally genteel way. In a perverted sense, they were in a protected environment and really didn’t worry much about anything except surviving in a tolerably impoverished condition as part of a generally homogeneous group.
They could have lived an Enlightenment fantasy. They could have established a coherent community with orderly cooperation, consensual leadership and rational allocation of food, housing, and civic niceties to appropriately satisfy the disparate needs of all. But they didn’t.
In Gilkey’s words, “This book is about the life of a civilian internment camp in North China during the war against Japan . . . Because internment-camp life seems to reveal more clearly than does ordinary experience the anatomy of man’s common social and moral problems and the bases of human communal existence, this book finally has been written.”
Gilkey was a 24-year-old American teacher in a Chinese university when World War II commenced. He and about 2,000 others, mostly Europeans including academics, clergy, and businessmen, were imprisoned for more than two years in relatively benign conditions in the Weihsien camp near Shantung. Their Japanese captors provided the bare minimum of food and coal and told the inmates to run the camp inside the walls.
Shantung Compound is Gilkey’s account of the endlessly frustrated attempts, by various camp leaders and elected committees and a few charismatic individuals, to enforce a fair allocation of the smallish rooms and dorm beds, to get everyone to do a fair share of work, to prevent stealing, to settle social disputes, to provide for the exceptional needs of the elderly, the frail, the young kids, the nursing mothers….
The overwhelming truth is that facing the prospective dangers and daily extremities of camp life, nearly all of the internees didn’t “rise to the occasion” to protect the weak and to cooperate rationally for their own good and the common good.
Instead, this is what nearly all of the internees—most of them white, educated, Western—tended to do most of the time: they conspicuously looked out for themselves and their families, declined to do more than a modicum of work, refused to give up some of their “equal” share of food and housing to needier fellow inmates, shied away from volunteer leadership, declined to share the contents of relief parcels sent by their “own” governments, stole food and supplies whenever possible, refused to punish the egregious wrongdoers among them, and rationalized most of their uncharitable, uncooperative and uncivil behavior in complex variations of religious and humanist moralities….
Mind you, this wasn’t humanity in a state of nature. No “. . . Nature, red in tooth and claw” stuff. The Japanese guards remained aloof from the prisoners’ largely autonomous camp administration and permitted black market trading with villagers outside the camp. The internees lived in dismal but not life-threatening conditions. They lived peaceably, often manifesting their shortcomings in a nominally genteel way. In a perverted sense, they were in a protected environment and really didn’t worry much about anything except surviving in a tolerably impoverished condition as part of a generally homogeneous group.
They could have lived an Enlightenment fantasy. They could have established a coherent community with orderly cooperation, consensual leadership and rational allocation of food, housing, and civic niceties to appropriately satisfy the disparate needs of all. But they didn’t.
Postmodernism
What is postmodernism?
What does postmodernism have to say about science?
What is deconstruction in literature?
How does postmodernism see truth?
Other questions:
What is a paradigm? How does it influence your thinking? How does it affect the interpretation of data?
Our ability to see patterns in things and build context to explain the pattern we see. Are we manipulating reality by doing that, or are we merely explaining reality?
What is the reductionist paradigm? Is it the best way to explain the behavior of matter?
What is divinity?
What is self?
Thomas Nagel-The View from Nowhere
How do we square-or even connect- the view from within, according to which we are of overwhelming importance, with the view from without, which sees us as insignificant in a vast universe (reality is not just objective reality)?
February 8th, 2018
February 16th, 2018
February 23rd, 2018
March 1st, 2018
Is Contemporary Education Obsolete?
What Is Enlightenment?
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.
Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large part of mankind gladly remain minors all their lives, long after nature has freed them from external guidance. They are the reasons why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor. If I have a book that thinks for me, a pastor who acts as my conscience, a physician who prescribes my diet, and so on--then I have no need to exert myself. I have no need to think, if only I can pay; others will take care of that disagreeable business for me. Those guardians who have kindly taken supervision upon themselves see to it that the overwhelming majority of mankind--among them the entire fair sex--should consider the step to maturity, not only as hard, but as extremely dangerous. First, these guardians make their domestic cattle stupid and carefully prevent the docile creatures from taking a single step without the leading-strings to which they have fastened them. Then they show them the danger that would threaten them if they should try to walk by themselves. Now this danger is really not very great; after stumbling a few times they would, at last, learn to walk. However, examples of such failures intimidate and generally discourage all further attempts.
What does being enlightened mean?
What is the basis of enlightened thinking?
Do you consider yourself to be enlightened?
If you consider yourself enlightened, then what is your paradigm?
As an enlightened personage, what sort of education should be provided for the general populace?
What is deism?
Are you a deist?
Does deism go hand-in-hand with being enlightened?
March 8th, 15th, 22nd, 29th 2018
Is Contemporary Education Obsolete?
What changes do we need to make to education in America?
What Is Enlightenment?
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.
Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large part of mankind gladly remain minors all their lives, long after nature has freed them from external guidance. They are the reasons why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor. If I have a book that thinks for me, a pastor who acts as my conscience, a physician who prescribes my diet, and so on--then I have no need to exert myself. I have no need to think, if only I can pay; others will take care of that disagreeable business for me. Those guardians who have kindly taken supervision upon themselves see to it that the overwhelming majority of mankind--among them the entire fair sex--should consider the step to maturity, not only as hard, but as extremely dangerous. First, these guardians make their domestic cattle stupid and carefully prevent the docile creatures from taking a single step without the leading-strings to which they have fastened them. Then they show them the danger that would threaten them if they should try to walk by themselves. Now this danger is really not very great; after stumbling a few times they would, at last, learn to walk. However, examples of such failures intimidate and generally discourage all further attempts.
What does being enlightened mean?
What is the basis of enlightened thinking?
Do you consider yourself to be enlightened?
If you consider yourself enlightened, then what is your paradigm?
As an enlightened personage, what sort of education should be provided for the general populace?
What is deism?
Are you a deist?
Does deism go hand-in-hand with being enlightened?
April 5th, 2018
From Evan,
Admittedly, the article I wrote below is about public policy, not philosophy, but I think some members of the group might fine it interesting if you would care to pass it along.
https://issblog.nl/2018/03/27/deglobalisation-series-backtracking-from-globalisation-by-evan-hillebrand/
Questions for discussion:
What do you believe in?
What is belief?
Do you believe in mathematics?
What is mathematics?
What is the difference between an equation and a verbal description of the equation?
Free speech and political correctness are not mutually exclusive, as many presume, some argue that being Politically Correct is actually a responsible use of that freedom.
Do we really want to just "get away" with saying things, or do we want to raise the standard of discourse?
Saying something repugnant without much thought or consideration may not have legal consequences, but there are social ones.
April 12th, 2018
There are two contextual items here that will aide us in our discussions on AI and our current concerns on the Enlightenment. I encourage you to take the time to view and read them. Hopefully, they will enlighten you. Pun intended.
Here's the AI documentary Elon Musk thinks is essential viewing
The documentary - Do you trust this computer? - is particularly relevant given Facebook's ongoing Cambridge Analytica scandal. With so much data being pumped into companies like Google and Facebook, the world has to wonder just what those companies are doing with that information. Elon's tweet even goes as far to say "Nothing will affect the future of humanity more than digital super intelligence." So should we be scared?
http://bigthink.com/news/heres-the-ai-documentary-elon-musk-thinks-is-essential-viewing
From Evan,
Admittedly, the article I wrote below is about public policy, not philosophy, but I think some members of the group might fine it interesting if you would care to pass it along.
https://issblog.nl/2018/03/27/deglobalisation-series-backtracking-from-globalisation-by-evan-hillebrand/
Questions for discussion:
What do you believe in?
What is belief?
Do you believe in mathematics?
What are numbers?
What is mathematics?
What is the difference between an equation and a verbal description of the equation?
Is it worse to fail at something or never attempt it in the first place?
What do people strive for after enlightenment?
Free speech and political correctness are not mutually exclusive, as many presume, some argue that being Politically Correct is actually a responsible use of that freedom.
Do we really want to just "get away" with saying things, or do we want to raise the standard of discourse?
Saying something repugnant without much thought or consideration may not have legal consequences, but there are social ones.
April 19th & 26th, 2018
From Steve Heyneman:
In light of the flood of news and information that is now available: Is it possible to determine what is true or what is false?
__________________________________________________________________
What are your intentions for the rest of your life?
How do we know what words really mean?
From Joel: What is a cat?
What do you believe in?
What is belief?
What is a paradigm and how does it influence your thinking? How does it affect your interpretation of data?
What is the difference between an equation and a verbal description of the equation?
Is it worse to fail at something or never attempt it in the first place?
What do people strive for after enlightenment?
Published on January 1st of 1818, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been a fixture in the general thinking about science and responsibility.
Victor Frankenstein creates a life, but does not take responsibility for having done it. He runs away from his creation and his “Adam” follows his own instincts.
What are our responsibilities as creators? Should there be any?
May 3rd & May 10th, 2018
From Steve Conn:
Where do our morals come from?
Are they emotional, or reasoned?
Use this article as context:
__________________________________________________________________________________
From Steve Heyneman:
In light of the flood of news and information that is now available: Is it possible to determine what is true or what is false?
__________________________________________________________________
What are your intentions for the rest of your life?
From Joel: What is a cat?
What do you believe in?
What is belief?
What is a paradigm and how does it influence your thinking? How does it affect your interpretation of data?
What is the difference between an equation and a verbal description of the equation?
Is it worse to fail at something or never attempt it in the first place?
What do people strive for after enlightenment?
Published on January 1st of 1818, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been a fixture in the general thinking about science and responsibility.
Victor Frankenstein creates a life, but does not take responsibility for having done it. He runs away from his creation and his “Adam” follows his own instincts.
What are our responsibilities as creators? Should there be any?
May 17th, 2018
Questions for discussion:
Published on January 1st of 1818, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been a fixture in the general thinking about science and responsibility.
Victor Frankenstein creates a life, but does not take responsibility for having done it. He runs away from his creation and his “Adam” follows his own instincts.
What are our responsibilities as creators? Should there be any?
____________________________________
What are your intentions for the rest of your life?
What do you believe in?
What is belief?
Is it worse to fail at something or never attempt it in the first place?
What do people strive for after enlightenment?
What is a man?
May 24th, 2018
Questions for discussion:
Published on January 1st of 1818, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been a fixture in the general thinking about science and responsibility.
Victor Frankenstein creates a life, but does not take responsibility for having done it. He runs away from his creation and his “Adam” follows his own instincts.
What are our responsibilities as creators? Should there be any?
____________________________________
What are your intentions for the rest of your life?
What do you believe in?
What is belief?
Is it worse to fail at something or never attempt it in the first place?
What do people strive for after enlightenment?
What is a man?
May 31st, 2018
What is guilt?
How does guilt affect your life?
What is freedom of speech?
-Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
-A defense of free speech in an open society, the wall behind the statue of George Orwell at the offices of the BBC is inscribed with the words :
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”, words from George Orwell's proposed preface to Animal Farm (1945).
-In Evelyn Beatrice Hall's biography of Voltaire, she coined the following sentence to illustrate Voltaire's beliefs: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Hall's quote is frequently cited to describe the principle of freedom of speech.
-John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) argued that without human freedom there can be no progress in science, law or politics, which according to Mill required free discussion of opinion. Mill's On Liberty, published in 1859 became a classic defense of the right to freedom of expression. Mill argued that truth drives out falsity, therefore the free expression of ideas, true or false, should not be feared. Truth is not stable or fixed, but evolves with time. Mill argued that much of what we once considered true has turned out false. Therefore, views should not be prohibited for their apparent falsity. Mill also argued that free discussion is necessary to prevent the "deep slumber of a decided opinion". Discussion would drive the onwards march of truth and by considering false views the basis of true views could be re-affirmed. Furthermore, Mill argued that an opinion only carries intrinsic value to the owner of that opinion, thus silencing the expression of that opinion is an injustice to a basic human right. For Mill, the only instance in which speech can be justifiably suppressed is in order to prevent harm from a clear and direct threat. Neither economic or moral implications, nor the speakers own well-being would justify suppression of speech.
What are your personal standards on speaking freely?
What are your intentions for the rest of your life?
What do you believe in?
What is belief?
Is it worse to fail at something or never attempt it in the first place?
What do people strive for after enlightenment?
What is a man?
June 7th, 2018
Here are a couple of links to articles that are pertinent to the consideration of the freedom of speech:
What is freedom of speech?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
A defense of free speech in an open society, the wall behind the statue of George Orwell at the offices of the BBC is inscribed with the words :
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”, words from George Orwell's proposed preface to Animal Farm (1945).
In Evelyn Beatrice Hall's biography of Voltaire, she coined the following sentence to illustrate Voltaire's beliefs: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Hall's quote is frequently cited to describe the principle of freedom of speech.
John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) argued that without human freedom there can be no progress in science, law or politics, which according to Mill required free discussion of opinion. Mill's On Liberty, published in 1859 became a classic defense of the right to freedom of expression. Mill argued that truth drives out falsity, therefore the free expression of ideas, true or false, should not be feared. Truth is not stable or fixed, but evolves with time. Mill argued that much of what we once considered true has turned out false. Therefore, views should not be prohibited for their apparent falsity. Mill also argued that free discussion is necessary to prevent the "deep slumber of a decided opinion". Discussion would drive the onwards march of truth and by considering false views the basis of true views could be re-affirmed. Furthermore, Mill argued that an opinion only carries intrinsic value to the owner of that opinion, thus silencing the expression of that opinion is an injustice to a basic human right. For Mill, the only instance in which speech can be justifiably suppressed is in order to prevent harm from a clear and direct threat. Neither economic or moral implications, nor the speakers own well-being would justify suppression of speech.
What are your personal standards on speaking freely?
___________________________________________
What is a man?
June 14th, 2018
I received this email a few days ago and thought it might be an interesting reference for discussion. Rather than an ad for buying the book, read the sample meditation and then let’s discuss its ramifications in your philosophical thinking.
Do you subscribe to its implications?
My name is Dr. William Ferraiolo. I have twenty five years of experience teaching, researching, and publishing articles in academic journals. I have authored a book which contains a collection of meditations in the Stoic tradition that I believe would be an excellent addition to your library (or your own reading material). This collection is unique in that each meditation is presented in the second person, encouraging the reader to examine their struggles and failures in the pursuit of self-improvement and enlightenment. The following is a sample meditation that illustrates this:
“Everything that can suffer, does suffer. Everything that can die, will die. You have suffered, you will suffer much more, and a lifetime of your suffering will culminate in your death. When you can muster genuine gratitude for all of that, then you will have made the kind of progress that is not easily reversed. To develop sincere appreciation for this opportunity to be born in a brutal world, not of your making, to struggle and fail time and time again, to feel repeatedly lost, bewildered, frustrated, and hopeless, to swim in this ocean of misery, and, ultimately, to drown in it—this is the beginning of wisdom. You must embody overwhelming gratitude for the opportunity to fail repeatedly, with no guarantee of eventual success, and to wade cheerfully into a doomed struggle against time and your own limitations. You clamber toward your own death across a landscape of thorns, broken glass, and the corpses of those who have gone before you. Would you have it any other way?”
You can purchase my book through Amazon (see link below):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1785355872/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1510265657&sr=8-1#featureBulletsAndDetailBullets_secondary_view_div_1527522634362
Thank you for your consideration,
Dr. William Ferraiolo
“Everything that can suffer, does suffer. Everything that can die, will die. You have suffered, you will suffer much more, and a lifetime of your suffering will culminate in your death. When you can muster genuine gratitude for all of that, then you will have made the kind of progress that is not easily reversed. To develop sincere appreciation for this opportunity to be born in a brutal world, not of your making, to struggle and fail time and time again, to feel repeatedly lost, bewildered, frustrated, and hopeless, to swim in this ocean of misery, and, ultimately, to drown in it—this is the beginning of wisdom. You must embody overwhelming gratitude for the opportunity to fail repeatedly, with no guarantee of eventual success, and to wade cheerfully into a doomed struggle against time and your own limitations. You clamber toward your own death across a landscape of thorns, broken glass, and the corpses of those who have gone before you. Would you have it any other way?”
You can purchase my book through Amazon (see link below):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1785355872/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1510265657&sr=8-1#featureBulletsAndDetailBullets_secondary_view_div_1527522634362
Thank you for your consideration,
Dr. William Ferraiolo
June 21st, 2018
Jacques Barzun: Observations on Culture
Jacques Barzun (1907-2012) was one of the preeminent historians of the 20th century. Valedictorian of the 1920 class at Columbia, where he also received his Ph.D., Barzun wrote extensively on culture and education while serving in professorial and leadership roles at Cambridge and Columbia. His magnum opus, From Dawn to Decadence (2000), which traces the history of Western culture from 1500 to 2000, is required reading for anyone serious about understanding Western history.
Below are 10 observations from one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century:
1. “Philosophers no longer write for the intelligent, only for their fellow professionals.” — The Culture We Deserve (1989)
2. “Finding oneself [is] a misnomer: a self is not found but made.” – From Dawn to Decadence
3. “We seem to live mainly in order to see how we live, and this habit brings on what might be called the externalizing of knowledge; with every new manual there is less need for its internal, visceral presence.” — The Culture We Deserve
4. “Individuals of ordinary talent or glibness were encouraged to become professionals and thereby doomed to disappointment; and too many others, with just enough ability to get by, contributed to the lowering of standards and the surfeit of art.” – From Dawn to Decadence
5. “Since William James, Russell, and Whitehead, philosophy, like history, has been confiscated by scholarship and locked away from the contamination of general use.” — The Culture We Deserve
6. “Greatness of intellect and feeling, or soul and conduct — magnanimity, in short — does occur; it is not a myth for boy scouts, and its reality is important, if only to give us the true range of the term "human," which we so regularly define by its lower reaches.”—Berlioz and the Romantic Century (1969)
7. “The need for a body of common knowledge and common reference does not disappear when a society is pluralistic. On the contrary, it grows more necessary, so that people of different origins and occupation may quickly find familiar ground and as we say, speak a common language.”— Of What Use the Classics Today?," Begin Here: The Forgotten Conditions of Teaching and Learning (1991)
8. “Among the words that can be all things to all men, the word ‘race’ has a fair claim to being the most common, most ambiguous and most explosive. No one today would deny that it is one of the great catchwords about which ink and blood are spilled in reckless quantities. Yet no agreement seems to exist about what race means.” — Race: A Study in Modern Superstition (1937)
9. “The truth is, when all is said and done, one does not teach a subject, one teaches a student how to learn it.” – Op-Ed, New York Times (1988-10-11),
10. “Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.”— Teacher in America (1945)
June 28th, 2018
What does it mean to have an existential crisis?
What does an existentialist believe?
What is the existential question?
What is the existential risk?
What is the existential dread?
What is an existential nihilist?
What is the opposite of a nihilist?
What is the opposite of an existentialist?
What is an essentialist view?
July 5th, 12th, 2018
A new link to investigate:
Here are some thoughts to ponder for this this week:
Eating
Thinking philosophically about food, its production and its rituals
Whether you a carnivore.omnivore or vegetarian,you deal with food on a daily basis.
This Thursday, we will dive into a stew of ideas about food...some history, some rituals,
production, breeding animals, and a small excursion into the treatment of the topic in literature
and politics. Your own ideas are needed.
I am sending you this Kumin poem for you to chew on...so bring your thoughtful or ornery selves to the topic and attend.
1. Taking the Lambs to Market
All due respect to the blood on his bandsaw,
table, hands and smock, Amos is an artist.
We bring him something living, breathed, furred
and meet it next in a bloodless sagittal section.
Amos, who custom cuts and double wraps
in white butcher paper whatever we named,
fed, scratched behind the ear, deserves our praise:
a decent man who blurs the line of sight
between our conscience and our appetite.
2 Check it out if you have time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jungle
The site indicated is a look at Upton Sinclair’s book, The Jungle. It led to changes in the meatpacking industry and the forming of the FDA with President Teddy Roosevelt.
The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair (1878–1968).[1] Sinclair wrote
the novel to portray the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar
industrialized cities. His primary purpose in describing the meat industry and its working conditions was to advance socialism
in the United States. However, most readers were more concerned with his exposure of health violations and unsanitary practices
in the American meatpacking industry during the early 20th century, greatly contributing to a public outcry, which led to reforms
including the Meat Inspection Act.
Sinclair famously said of the public reaction,
"I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."
Sinclair admitted his celebrity arose "not because the public cared anything about the workers, but simply because the public did not want to eat tubercular beef".
July 19th 2018
Here’s a couple of articles for your edification:
A video for your consideration:
Question:
How do you respond to tragedy?
July 26th, August 2nd, August 9th, August 16th, 2018
Here are some thoughts to ponder for this this week:
Here’s several articles for your edification:
A video for your consideration:
Here are some thoughts to ponder for this this week:
Ideas to consider:
'The Uselessness of Half and Opinion''
from Tom Donaghy
“When we were talking about atheists, and who is an atheist, most have never given it a thought. Most people reached their
comfort zone and stop eliminating Gods when they get to the one they want to believe in. If you apply the argument, ''Why don't
you believe in Thor?'', and apply it to the bible-god, you get the same result. So, it is half an opinion."
Why don’t you believe in Thor?
_________________________________________________________
…from The Demon Haunted World - Science as a Candle in the Dark
-Carl Sagan 1995
Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a
service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands
of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question
those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's
true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously
influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and
superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. As I write, the number one video cassette rental in America is the movie Dumb and Dumber. Beavis and Butthead
remains popular (and influential) with young TV viewers. The plain lesson is that study and learning - not just of science, but of anything - are avoidable, even undesirable.
We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements - transportation, communications, and all other industries; agriculture, medicine, education, entertainment, protecting
the environment; and even the key democratic institution of voting - profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science
and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.
More questions…
Is it possible to prove a negative?
Which is more important, intelligence or creativity?
If you could go to the past and bring something with you, when would you go and what would you bring?
Are all cultures worth preserving?
What is quality?
What defines success?
Why do we tend to believe what we think?
Why do we experience the world in a certain way if it's not really like that?
What is human nature?
What can keep a civilization from stagnation?
Are we asking the right questions?
What is the purpose of asking questions? What's the goal of "this"?
August 23rd, 2018
Here are some thoughts to ponder for this this week:
Here’s several articles for your edification:
A video for your consideration:
What is the big synthesis?
Here are some thoughts to ponder for this this week:
…from The Demon Haunted World - Science as a Candle in the Dark
-Carl Sagan 1995
Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a
service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands
of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question
those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's
true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously
influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and
superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. As I write, the number one video cassette rental in America is the movie Dumb and Dumber. Beavis and Butthead
remains popular (and influential) with young TV viewers. The plain lesson is that study and learning - not just of science, but of anything - are avoidable, even undesirable.
We've arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements - transportation, communications, and all other industries; agriculture, medicine, education, entertainment, protecting
the environment; and even the key democratic institution of voting - profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science
and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.
More questions…
What do you mean by God?
-God is “how we imaginatively and collectively represent the existence and action of consciousness across time.”
-God is “that which eternally dies and is reborn in the pursuit of higher being and truth.”
-God is “the highest value in the hierarchy of values.” God is the “voice of conscience.”
-God is the “source of judgment and mercy and guilt.”
-God is the “future to which we make sacrifices and something akin to the transcendental repository of reputation.”
-God is “that which selects among men in the eternal hierarchy of men.”
These definitions are not how most people most of the time are using the word, and there’s something misleading about that.
What do you see as misleading?
If all humans disappeared overnight, would God still exist?
_____________________________________________________
In the realm of identity politics, is it possible to discuss topics as individuals rather than representatives of a tribe?
“Destroying kids’ sense of certainty and autonomy, inculcating them with the belief that any innate drive to succeed and obtain a higher status among their friends is shameful,
and that the people of the world should be seen first and foremost as part of their respective identity groups and not as individuals who have wildly more in common
with each other than any externally perceived differences is a horrendous thing to do, and I fear it’s had many negative real-world consequences.”