I know what you’re thinking. “Can’t summer just be over already? Are there going to be any great public philosophy events in Brooklyn soon? And are authentic romantic relationships even possible?”
Well, I’m here to tell you: yes, yes, and maybe.
Coming up on Tuesday, 9/1 at 7:00 P.M., Skye Cleary (Columbia University), author of the recently published Existentialism and Romantic Love, joins Brooklyn Public Philosophers to share some of her work on the subject. Here’s a bit more about the talk, in Dr. Cleary’s own words:
Existentialism and Romantic Love
Romantic love suggests images of perfect happiness, harmony, understanding, and intimacy that make the lovers feel as if they are made for each other. The ideal is alluring but flawed, because romantic loving often involves conflicts and disappointments.
While every existential philosopher interprets being in the world differently, there is a common emphasis on concrete personal experience, freedom, authenticity, responsibility, individuality, awareness of death, and personal determination of values. It is therefore not surprising that they also consider the question of romantic loving.
This talk draws on the philosophies of Max Stirner, Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir in order to examine the roots of disappointments and frustrations within our everyday ideas about romantic love, as well as possibilities for resolution and creating authentically meaningful relationships.
Tell your friends/students/countrymen! Bring a date!
As usual, we meet at the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library (10 Grand Army Plaza), in the Info Commons lab.
See you there, I hope!
The pursuit of happiness is enshrined in the founding document of our nation as a fundamental and inalienable right. Yet nowhere is the method of this pursuit clearly defined. What, exactly, does it mean to be happy, and how can such happiness be sustained over the long-term? Can happiness be accurately gauged or measured? How does the paradoxical relationship between happiness and pleasure shape our quest to lead the good life? And what does modern science have to tell us about this universal yet elusive pursuit? Attorney and author Kim Azzarelli, historian Darrin McMahon, and social psychologist Barry Schwartz join forces to share their research and insight on happiness, pleasure, and the coveted good life.
*Reception to follow.
Featuring
Kim Azzarelli, JD
Adjunct Professor at Cornell Law School and Founding Partner of Seneca Point Global
Author of “Fast Forward: How Women Can Achieve Power and Purpose”
Darrin McMahon, PhD
Professor of History at Dartmouth College
Author of “Happiness: A History”
Barry Schwartz, PhD
Dorwin Cartwright Professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore College
Author of “The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less”
Moderator
Steve Paulson
Executive Producer, Wisconsin Public Radio’s nationally-syndicated program To the Best of Our Knowledge
Registration — Individual Lecture Prices
| Member | $5 |
| Member (Student / Postdoc / Resident / Fellow) | $5 |
| Nonmember | $15 |
| Nonmember (Student / Postdoc / Resident / Fellow) | $7 |
Cosmism was originated in Russia more than a hundred years ago. That was an esoteric futuristic philosophy about post-humanity, technological immortality, resurrection and cosmic expansion. Early cosmists proposed the idea of decompaction (lightweighting) of the human body, that eventually wouldn’t need an atmosphere and would be powered directly by solar energy. They call it “radiant humanity” – a perfect society of highly moral and super-conscious beings merging and colonizing the whole Universe.
Modern Cosmism brings to the original doctrine the ontological foundation, a scientific structure and a deeper comprehension of possible technology aims to create in the future a new synthetic reality where the concepts of truth, consciousness, freedom and happiness will be deeply revised.
The conference will review the critical question about a meeting with advanced extraterrestrial civilizations and suggest few hypothesis about their “eerie silence”. We will touch some related problems in cosmology, and astrophysics such as the shape and future of the Universe, black hole information paradox, multidimensional space, dark energy and interpretation of quantum mechanics. Are they a separate arrow of time? Are there exceptions to the principle of causality?
Like no other area of philosophy and technology before, Modern Cosmism raises fundamental questions about the post human nature and how it will be connected to the reality. Is the structure of reality included the consciousness? Is a non biological hardware can support the consciousness? How we can define Cosmic Evolution and what is the role of intelligent life?
The conference will address important philosophical issues that arise with the future design of artificial consciousness, mind uploading and cyber-immortality. How will our concepts of subjectivity, perception, and morality change, if we will live in virtual reality of mega-consciousness environment where individuals can experience multiple presence, personality and have no gender. Will we be able to create super intelligent agents with consciousness and feelings? What are the limits of artificial capacities or functional simulations we should create? Could we enhance our own humanity by genetically redesign our nature?
Our keynote and plenary speakers are well-known international protagonists of Cosmism, Transhumanism and interdisciplinary researchers. Their lectures will discuss the most important current issues of Modern Cosmism from the point of view of philosophy, technology, ethics, robotics, psychology, and anthropology.
Ben Goertzel Ph.D. is the author of “Cosmists Manifesto”. He is Chief Scientist of financial prediction firm Aidyia Holdings; Chairman of AI software company Novamente LLC, which is a privately held software company, and bioinformatics company Biomind LLC, which is a company that provides advanced AI for bioinformatic data analysis (especially microarray and SNP data); Chairman of the Artificial General Intelligence Society and the OpenCog Foundation; Vice Chairman of futurist nonprofit Humanity+; Scientific Advisor of biopharma firm Genescient Corp.; Advisor to the Singularity University; Research Professor in the Fujian Key Lab for Brain-Like Intelligent Systems at Xiamen University, China; and general Chair of the Artificial General Intelligence conference series.
Giulio Prisco is former senior manager in the European Space Agency, Prisco is a physicist and computer scientist. He served as a member on the board of directors of World Transhumanist Association, of which he was temporarily executive director, and continues to serve as a member on the board of directors of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and of the Associazione Italiana Transumanisti. He is also a founding member of the Order of Cosmic Engineers, and the Turing Church, fledgling organizations which claim that the benefits of a technological singularity, which would come from accelerating change, should or would be viable alternatives to the promises of major religious groups.
James J. Hughes Ph.D. served as the executive director of the World Transhumanist Association (which has since changed its name to Humanity+) from 2004 to 2006, and currently serves as the executive director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, which he founded with Nick Bostrom. He also produces the syndicated weekly public affairs radio talk show program Changesurfer Radio and contributed to the Cyborg Democracy blog. Hughes’ book Citizen Cyborg: Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future was published by Westview Press in November 2004
Nearly everyone agrees that knowledge is gained through diligent study and investigation, but there is far greater ambiguity when it comes to the meaning of wisdom and how it is acquired. What is wisdom, and how can it be attained? Is there an empirical relationship between wisdom and the cultivation of character, as Aristotle and others have argued? Is the development of virtue and the fulfillment of our innate potential a prerequisite to living the good life? Philosopher of science Philip Kitcher joins Humean philosopher Valerie Tiberius and distinguished psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett to explore the role of wisdom in the interplay between positive emotions, virtues, and character.
*Reception to follow.
Featuring
Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD
University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University
Director of the Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory
Philip Kitcher, PhD
John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University
Author of “The Ethical Project”
Valerie Tiberius, PhD
Chair and Professor of Philosophy at University of Minnesota
Author of “The Reflective Life: Living Wisely With Our Limits”
Moderator
Steve Paulson
Executive Producer, Wisconsin Public Radio’s nationally-syndicated program To the Best of Our Knowledge
Registration — Individual Lecture Prices
| Member | $5 |
| Member (Student / Postdoc / Resident / Fellow) | $5 |
| Nonmember | $15 |
| Nonmember (Student / Postdoc / Resident / Fellow) | $7 |
Is Valentine’s Day an opportunity for meaningful celebrations of love, or is it merely a chocolate-covered con? As lovers, should we resist being seduced into spending billions of dollars annually on red roses and teddies (be they bears or lingerie)? Or should we surrender to the superficial satisfactions they represent? Be there as Skye Cleary takes us on an existential look at the hype and the possibilities for authentic loving. And bring someone you love.
Friday, February 12, 2016 at 6pm at The Cornelia Street Café, located at 29 Cornelia Street, New York, NY 10014 (near Sixth Avenue and West 4th St.). Admission is $9, which includes the price of one drink. Reservations are recommended (212. 989.9319).
Skye Cleary, PhD is a philosopher and author of Existentialism and Romantic Love (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). She lectures at Columbia University, Barnard College, the City University of New York, and the New York Public Library. Skye is a co-founder of the Manhattan Love Salon, an advisory board member of Strategy of Mind, an associate editor of the American Philosophical Association’s blog, and a certified fellow with the American Philosophical Practitioners Association. Skye has written for The Huffington Post, ABC Radio National, YourTango and others.
Upcoming events:
3/23 – Elvira Basevich, “W.E.B. Du Bois’s Racialism and Two Liberal Conceptions of Plurality” @ the Dweck Center // 7:00 P.M.
4/27 – Christia Mercer on women in the history of philosophy @ the Dweck Center // 7:00 P.M.
5/18 – Chris Lebron on the philosophy of Black Lives Matter @ the Dweck Center // 7:00 P.M.
5/18 – Chris Lebron on the philosophy of Black Lives Matter @ the Dweck Center // 7:00 P.M.
‘Philosophy begins in wonder. And at the end, when philosophic thought has done its best, the wonder remains. There have been added, however, some grasp of the immensity of things, some purification of emotion by understanding. Yet there is a danger in such reflections. An immediate good is apt to be thought of in a degenerate form of a passive enjoyment. Existence (life) is activity ever merging into the future. The aim of philosophical understanding is the aim of piercing the blindness of activity in respect to its transcendent functions.’ (A.N. Whitehead, Modes of Thought, Capricorn Books, New York, 1938, 232).
Please read Anthony O’Hear work titled Philosophy – Wisdom or Technique? starting on page 351. Please click here.
Please remember to bring $3 for the Setauket Neighborhood House.
Brooklyn Public Philosophers is excited to announce a new program that we’ve put together for the fall! In addition to the Philosophy in the Library speaker series (stay tuned), we’re also starting a philosophy screening and discussion series that I’m calling Onscreen until I come up with a better name.
On Saturday, September 15th at 1:00 PM at the Flatbush Library (22 Linden Blvd.), we’ll be screening Ex Machina, a very good, very creepy movie about hubris, relationships, and what it takes to have a mind. Ian Olasov (CUNY), a.k.a. the person writing this post, will lead a brief discussion of it afterwards.
The screening is free. There will be free popcorn. It will be fun.
Einstein once remarked, “Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” Indeed, discovering the true nature of reality may ultimately hinge on grasping the nature and essence of human understanding. What are the fundamental elements or building blocks of human understanding? And how will superintelligent machines challenge our ideas about cognition, reality, and the limits of human understanding?
The 21st century has seen rapid advancements in the realm of artificial intelligence, or AI, which aims to generate a synthetic capacity to mimic and even surpass human knowledge. But beyond the creation of programs that detect statistical patterns in vast data sets, it remains to be seen whether AI can formalize the basic elements of human understanding into a system of rules that could then be applied in computer programs. Such “knowledge engineering” would constitute a significant breakthrough, enabling machines to share some of our cognitive abilities rather than merely imitating the results of our thinking. These advancements in AI may ultimately force us to confront more profound questions about what it means to be human.
Logician/mathematician Roger Antonsen and computer science pioneer Barbara J. Grosz join Steve Paulson to break down the fundamental elements of human understanding and analyze what lies ahead on the horizon of AI.
*Reception to follow
This event is part of the Conversations on the Nature of Reality series.
Moderated by journalist Steve Paulson, Executive Producer of Wisconsin Public Radio’s To the Best of Our Knowledge, this three-part series at the New York Academy of Sciences brings together leading scientists and thinkers to explore the fundamental nature of reality through the lens of personal experience and scientific inquiry.
To learn more about each lecture and to purchase tickets, click on the links below.
- The Mystery of Our Mathematical Universe, Wednesday, October 10, 2018
- Human Cognition and the AI Revolution, Thursday, December 6, 2018
- Reality is Not As it Seems, Thursday, February 7, 2019