| Status: | Active, open to new members |
| Coordinator: | |
| When: | Monthly on Tuesday mornings 10:00 2nd Tuesday morning of the month |
| Venue: | (contact coordinator) |
There are four philosophy groups and Group 2 looks at topics with a scientific theme. (Group 1 discusses general topics in philosophy, Group 3 followed a "Crash course" to get into the subject, and now Group 4 is following the same path.) New members are welcome to join the most appropriate group. Contact one of the co-ordinators to just come and see what it's like, and if you might be interested.
The image above is "The Philosophers" by Pietro della Vechia, showing Ptolemy and Euclid, Greek philosophers of science. The image is in the public domain via Wiki Commons, and the original hangs in the Christ Church Gallery, Oxford
In Group 2 we don't follow a formal training course and we are not led by a tutor. We have studied the Philosophy of Science and discussed various science oriented topics - The Mind, Time, a scientific approach to religion, and various issues in Bio-Ethics. We revisited the basics of philosophy of science in "50 Philosophy of Science Ideas you really need to know" by Gareth Southwell. We have read to Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene". We have studied the philosophy of maths and Time and Bioethics. We discussed the Reith Lectures on AI. We completed a course on the Philosophy of Cognitive Sciences. We have read Jim Al-Khalili's "The Joy of Science" and followed Daniel Chamovitz' Coursera lectures on plant biology. We went back to AI and looked again at consciousness, moving on via left- and right- brain thinking to Kahneman's System 1 and System 2 thinking. We have been studying cosmology and wondering whether theories about the origins of the universe are science, or just another creation myth, and we followed that with a look at Religion and Science. After a few different topics we returned to time. We then took a deep dive into AI and its implications and what constitutes life. We are looking further into genetics and epigenetics.
Forthcoming meetings
Past meetings
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Earth is doomed! AI is being developed to take the elite to other planets!
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How does AI and Deep Learning actually work? What are the potential real benefits and threats, and can we stay in control of it?
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What benefits of AI do we look forward using, and what are its threats?
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We have looked at the physics of time, but how do we actually feel or experience time?
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We tried to get to some understanding of the nature of time as described by mainstream physics.
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We heard about the development of logic from that of ancient Greece through to modern logics (yes - there are variants) and learnt how to read formal logic statements