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Join The Santa Monica Philosophy Now Meetup Group
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Vote now for the topic for the Philosophy Now Meetup, Sunday, Feb 24 at 5:00 PM in Santa Monica!
| From: | Brian |
| Sent on: | Friday, February 15, 2008 11:06 PM |
Hi Everyone!
Our monthly Meetup (http://philosophynow.meetup.com/30/ and http://philosophy-in-LA.tribe.net ) is happening Sunday, February 24, 5:00 pm - 7:45 pm! We'll be at our usual venue, the Community Room of the Yahoo! center, 2500 Broadway, between Cloverfield & 26th, Santa Monica, 90404, 310-453-0333. Driving directions are at the end of this email.
FYI, here are the dates and times of our next two meetings, both of which occur on the 3rd Sunday of the month at the same location: March 16 at 5:00 PM and April 20 at 5:00 PM. Mark these dates on your calendar.
Feel free to join us for dinner and more conversation after the meeting at the nearby "Earth, Wind and Flour" restaurant. For more info, or to be on our regular emailing list, email me at [address removed]
As usual, we're voting on the meeting's topic now. Listed below are five questions or topics suggested during previous meetings or by email. Please reply to this email (soon) with the name of the topic(s) that you would most like to talk about. (Anybody can send in a vote, whether or not you have been to previous meetings.) I will send a meeting reminder Wednesday or so, letting you know which topic won the vote, and what optional readings we have!
1) "WHAT IMPORTANT THING HAVE YOU RECENTLY CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT?" This is the question posed by "The Edge," a website that posts one question each year and solicits the responses of a slew of well-known thinkers. Most responses are just one or a few paragraphs long. You can read about this question and their current list of contributors (165 luminaries) at http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_index.html
To see what these thinker came up with, scroll about half way down the webpage, past the blurbs, to find where their responses start. Alternately, go directly to this link: http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_1.html to see the responses.
Whether or not you look at what others have written, think for a bit about a significant philosophical, ethical or social idea or issue you've changed your mind about within the last few months or years. Come to our meeting and tell us about it, and most importantly, tell us why you changed your mind, and perhaps why we, too, should change our mind about it.
2) IS SCIENCE CONVERGING UPON THE TRUTH, or do our various, successful scientific theories merely provide us with ever more useful ways of looking at the world? Is it even necessary for our different theories to be consistent with each other?
3) IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE RATIONALLY PERSUADED TO CONVERT TO A RELIGION? It's often said that people accept their childhood religion, or convert to a new one, for reasons other than a rational appraisal of arguments and evidence. Is it ever rational to convert to a religion? Whether it is or not, some argue that one's religious choices don't need to be rationally justified, that such choices shouldn't primarily be a matter of intellectual justification. Decisions of this sort are, perhaps, akin to questions about one?s preferences for food, music, or jobs.
4) WHAT IS A PSYCHOANALYTIC VIEW ON ATTEMPTING TO BE RATIONAL ABOUT ETHICS? If subconscious desires, wishes, beliefs, fears, and so on exist in the way that psychoanalytic theory says, does that make it difficult or impossible to take a rational approach to one's ethical choices and deliberations?
5) WHAT MORAL OBLIGATIONS DO WE HAVE TO OBEY THE LAWS AND LEGAL RULINGS OF OUR GOVERNMENT? Socrates, for example, seemed to think that we are obliged to obey the laws and court judgments of our society, even when we disagree with them or think them unjust. Yet, if we do think a law unjust, we are also obliged to protest against it and suffer the consequences of doing so. Do you agree with these claims?
---------------------------
Send in a vote for your favorite topic(s) now! If you have any suggestions for future topics, send those, too.
DIRECTIONS to the Community Room of the Yahoo! Center (formerly the Colorado Center), 2500 Broadway, at 25th st, between Cloverfield & 26th, Santa Monica, 90404-3065, 310-453-0333. From the 405 fwy, take the I-10 fwy toward Santa Monica - go 2.2 mi. Take the CLOVERFIELD BLVD exit, turn Right on CLOVERFIELD BLVD. Go a half mile, turn Right on BROADWAY, go a quarter mile, park near 25th st. Parking is free on Sundays on Broadway & nearby streets, but most of 25th st is off limits; they will ticket you!
The Community Room is directly on Broadway at 25th st, at the corner of the building, a few feet from the "HBO Symantec" sign, right across the street from the LA Art Institute and a bicycle shop. The room is not labeled, but you will notice its glass doors and plenty of windows with blinds on them. If you have trouble finding parking on the street, ample free parking is available in the parking garage beneath the building. The garage entrance is on the other side of the Colorado Center, so take Broadway to 26th st, turn right, take your first right (Colorado ave); the garage entrance is at 2401 Colorado, on your right, just before Cloverfield. When you enter the garage, go straight as far as you can, turn right, go as far as you can and park near the 2500 building, where the "HBO" sign is. Walk up the stairs or take the elevator to "G" (the ground level), exit the building, take the short pathway until you can take a left (tennis courts will be in front of you), stop when you reach Broadway. The Community Room is a few feet to your left. If you input your address & "2500 Broadway" at http://www.mapquest.com or http://maps.yahoo.com/, a map and driving directions will magically appear.
----
If you weren't with us last time, you missed our discussion about Monogamy. Don't miss this month's meeting!
Brian
Our monthly Meetup (http://philosophynow.meetup.com/30/ and http://philosophy-in-LA.tribe.net ) is happening Sunday, February 24, 5:00 pm - 7:45 pm! We'll be at our usual venue, the Community Room of the Yahoo! center, 2500 Broadway, between Cloverfield & 26th, Santa Monica, 90404, 310-453-0333. Driving directions are at the end of this email.
FYI, here are the dates and times of our next two meetings, both of which occur on the 3rd Sunday of the month at the same location: March 16 at 5:00 PM and April 20 at 5:00 PM. Mark these dates on your calendar.
Feel free to join us for dinner and more conversation after the meeting at the nearby "Earth, Wind and Flour" restaurant. For more info, or to be on our regular emailing list, email me at [address removed]
As usual, we're voting on the meeting's topic now. Listed below are five questions or topics suggested during previous meetings or by email. Please reply to this email (soon) with the name of the topic(s) that you would most like to talk about. (Anybody can send in a vote, whether or not you have been to previous meetings.) I will send a meeting reminder Wednesday or so, letting you know which topic won the vote, and what optional readings we have!
1) "WHAT IMPORTANT THING HAVE YOU RECENTLY CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT?" This is the question posed by "The Edge," a website that posts one question each year and solicits the responses of a slew of well-known thinkers. Most responses are just one or a few paragraphs long. You can read about this question and their current list of contributors (165 luminaries) at http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_index.html
To see what these thinker came up with, scroll about half way down the webpage, past the blurbs, to find where their responses start. Alternately, go directly to this link: http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_1.html to see the responses.
Whether or not you look at what others have written, think for a bit about a significant philosophical, ethical or social idea or issue you've changed your mind about within the last few months or years. Come to our meeting and tell us about it, and most importantly, tell us why you changed your mind, and perhaps why we, too, should change our mind about it.
2) IS SCIENCE CONVERGING UPON THE TRUTH, or do our various, successful scientific theories merely provide us with ever more useful ways of looking at the world? Is it even necessary for our different theories to be consistent with each other?
3) IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE RATIONALLY PERSUADED TO CONVERT TO A RELIGION? It's often said that people accept their childhood religion, or convert to a new one, for reasons other than a rational appraisal of arguments and evidence. Is it ever rational to convert to a religion? Whether it is or not, some argue that one's religious choices don't need to be rationally justified, that such choices shouldn't primarily be a matter of intellectual justification. Decisions of this sort are, perhaps, akin to questions about one?s preferences for food, music, or jobs.
4) WHAT IS A PSYCHOANALYTIC VIEW ON ATTEMPTING TO BE RATIONAL ABOUT ETHICS? If subconscious desires, wishes, beliefs, fears, and so on exist in the way that psychoanalytic theory says, does that make it difficult or impossible to take a rational approach to one's ethical choices and deliberations?
5) WHAT MORAL OBLIGATIONS DO WE HAVE TO OBEY THE LAWS AND LEGAL RULINGS OF OUR GOVERNMENT? Socrates, for example, seemed to think that we are obliged to obey the laws and court judgments of our society, even when we disagree with them or think them unjust. Yet, if we do think a law unjust, we are also obliged to protest against it and suffer the consequences of doing so. Do you agree with these claims?
---------------------------
Send in a vote for your favorite topic(s) now! If you have any suggestions for future topics, send those, too.
DIRECTIONS to the Community Room of the Yahoo! Center (formerly the Colorado Center), 2500 Broadway, at 25th st, between Cloverfield & 26th, Santa Monica, 90404-3065, 310-453-0333. From the 405 fwy, take the I-10 fwy toward Santa Monica - go 2.2 mi. Take the CLOVERFIELD BLVD exit, turn Right on CLOVERFIELD BLVD. Go a half mile, turn Right on BROADWAY, go a quarter mile, park near 25th st. Parking is free on Sundays on Broadway & nearby streets, but most of 25th st is off limits; they will ticket you!
The Community Room is directly on Broadway at 25th st, at the corner of the building, a few feet from the "HBO Symantec" sign, right across the street from the LA Art Institute and a bicycle shop. The room is not labeled, but you will notice its glass doors and plenty of windows with blinds on them. If you have trouble finding parking on the street, ample free parking is available in the parking garage beneath the building. The garage entrance is on the other side of the Colorado Center, so take Broadway to 26th st, turn right, take your first right (Colorado ave); the garage entrance is at 2401 Colorado, on your right, just before Cloverfield. When you enter the garage, go straight as far as you can, turn right, go as far as you can and park near the 2500 building, where the "HBO" sign is. Walk up the stairs or take the elevator to "G" (the ground level), exit the building, take the short pathway until you can take a left (tennis courts will be in front of you), stop when you reach Broadway. The Community Room is a few feet to your left. If you input your address & "2500 Broadway" at http://www.mapquest.com or http://maps.yahoo.com/, a map and driving directions will magically appear.
----
If you weren't with us last time, you missed our discussion about Monogamy. Don't miss this month's meeting!
Brian
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