Posted on Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Photos from the Seattle SOPHIA Chapter’s March Meeting

Check out this cool event that the Seattle SOPHIA Chapter organized on “Artificial Intelligence and Doomsday,” posted on MeetUp.com. Here are a few pictures from the gathering:

Photo of the gathering at the Seattle SOPHIA Chapter meeting in March of 2018.

Photos courtesy of Gene Lin.

It looks like a great group. The event details on their MeetUp.com page reads as follows:

Is AI an existential threat to humanity? This will be a philosophically oriented discussion of the issue (but we will have at least one AI expert in attendance). We will consider the work of the philosopher Nick Bostrom, the philosophical engine behind an idea which has been championed by Elon Musk, and supported by people such as Bill Gates, Steven Hawking, and Stuart Russell.

There is no required reading, but some potentially helpful links are below:

Good summary of the issues from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artificial_general_intelligence

An argument for AI safety, with a good table summarizing the various “myths” around advanced artificial intelligence – for example, the myth that machines cannot have goals, or the myth that potential AI consciousness is a relevant issue.

https://futureoflife.org/background/benefits-risks-of-artificial-intelligence/

Some profiles of a few prominent people involved in the AI safety movement:

Article about Bostrom:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/23/doomsday-invention-artificial-intelligence-nick-bostrom

Article about Elon Musk’s crusade:
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/03/elon-musk-billion-dollar-crusade-to-stop-ai-space-x

If you live in or near Seattle, Washington, consider joining this chapter here and meeting up with them! Their next event is scheduled for May, 2018.

On Thursday, March 22nd at 8pm U.S. Eastern Time, SOPHIA is holding our next online symposium, on “Plato’s Cave Today.” Join us!

Anthony Cashio will be our facilitator for this event. This meeting will be about the content of our very first episode of Philosophy Bakes Bread, but there is no homework to prepare in advance of this meeting. If you want to listen to the episode, you’re encouraged to do it, but we will proceed with the assumption that some or many have not had a chance to hear it.

SOPHIA aims to hold genuinely conversational meetings. We have a facilitator or two each time, but the idea is not to hear a presentation and then ask questions, but instead to have a very brief introduction to a topic, give everyone sufficient time to read our one-sheet document for this event, and then we open the floor to discussion about it.

Thursday’s meeting will be about difficulties obtaining and knowing the truth, about the ways in which media frame our understanding of facts, and about the challenges that emerge as a result for trusting politicians, journalists, scientists, and others. At the same time, trust is important and yet ideals of objectivity may well be unattainable. We will have fun talking about these topics, going where our conversation takes us.

To prepare for an online symposium, please be sure to:

a) situate yourself in a quiet space (or else the moderator will mute your microphone)

b) have a working Web cam, microphone, and headphones (otherwise, your mic may pick up your speakers)

c) be connected to a great internet connection

d) pause or turn off file-syncing software, like Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud, etc.

e) mute phones

f) Know that we will be recording this event and posting it on YouTube and on our Web site. Participation is taken to be permission to be recorded.

We’ll be connecting via:

Zoom Video conferencing using this link:

https://uky.zoom.us/j/249753269

Date:	March 22, 2018
Time:	08:00-9:30 p.m.
Event:	Plato's Cave Today: Online Symposium
Sponsor:	The Society of Philosophers in America (SOPHIA) 859.257.1849
Venue:	Zoom Video Conferencing Platform
Public:	Public

If you haven't already done so, consider joining the Society of Philosophers in America (SOPHIA)!

Posted on Friday, March 16, 2018

‘It’s Over Debbie’ – Euthanasia

One-Sheet for SOPHIA Conversations

John Lachs facilitating a SOPHIA symposium in Oxford, MS.

John Lachs of Vanderbilt University

This piece was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1988 and inspired a firestorm of responses. Dr. John Lachs proposed this as a one-sheet document for a conversation that he and Executive Director Weber organized in Oxford, MS, in 2008 on “Ethics at the End of Life.” This one-sheet document was hugely successful for spurring inspired yet civil conversation about values at the end of life, as well as whether there should be freedom in end-of-life decision-making, what sort, and what kinds of policies make sense for end-of-life circumstances. The JAMA withheld the name of the author this piece by request.

Printable PDF.

The document is available on the JAMA Web site as an image file. For a printable, searchable (OCR’d) version, click here, on the Adobe PDF logo on right, or on the image here below:

Posted on Friday, March 16, 2018

Disagreement

One-Sheet for SOPHIA Conversations

Printable version

Courtesy of the South Puget Sound SOPHIA Chapter

By Dr. Sergia Hay, Dr. Michael Rings, and Matthew Salzano

First used on March 5, 2018 at Pacific Lutheran University

Topic:

Disagreement: Strategies for Talking Across Divides

Hay

Questions for conversation:

1) How can we have productive discussions when there is disagreement?

Rings

2) What does it mean to have a “productive” discussion when there is disagreement?

3) Can tools from philosophy help in these discussions?

4) What are the roles of reason and emotion in these discussions?

Salzano

5) Are there strategies to use (or avoid) in these discussions?

6) Are there times when it is advisable not to engage in these discussions?

Additional Resources:

David Bohm, On Dialogue (New York: Routledge Press 2004), http://amzn.to/2FCdb75.

Daniel Dennett, Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking (New York: Norton Publishing, 2014), http://amzn.to/2DeUS2C.

John Dewey, How We Think (New York: Dover Thrift Editions, 1910/2002), http://amzn.to/2Fplxjn.

Jennifer Lackey, The Epistemology of Disagreement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), http://amzn.to/2GarlKy.

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (New York: Dover Thrift Editions, 1859/2002), http://amzn.to/2ty2PQY.

“Disagreement,” Philosophy Talk [Radio], Sunday, December 5, 2010, https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/disagreement.

Bryan Frances, “Disagreement,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2018, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/disagreement/.

What: Talk about Euthanasia & a LexSOPHIA Chapter

When: Friday, March 30th from 5 – 6:30 pm

Where: Common Grounds Coffeeshop (back room reserved for us)

**RSVP on MeetUp.com**

Image of a hand gripping a heartrate line, stopping it with its grasp.

At this first meeting of the Lexington SOPHIA Chapter, LexSOPHIA, we’ll be talking about a controversial 1-page piece that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, called “It’s Over Debbie.” It’s about euthanasia and is very useful for getting people talking about some important philosophical ideas about life, death, ethics, medical procedure, the law, and more. It’s really fun to talk about. Don’t worry, there’s no homework!

After an hour or so, we’ll talk about a next meeting and the future of the LexSOPHIA chapter. Join us if you can!

Add the event to your calendar

For those who can’t attend, send us your thoughts about:

a) Whether you’d like to be part of such a chapter;
b) What you’d enjoy talking about;
c) What days and times work for you, if this first meeting didn’t.

Email SOPHIA Executive Director Eric Thomas Weber if you have any thoughts, comments, or questions regarding this event or accessibility needs.

Date:	March 30, 2018
Time:	05:00-6:30 p.m.
Event:	Talk about Euthanasia & Found LexSOPHIA Chapter!
Sponsor:	The Society of Philosophers in America (SOPHIA) 859.257.1849
Venue:	Common Grounds Coffee Shop (room reserved for us) 859.233.9761
Location:	343 E High St Lexington, KY 40507 USA
Public:	Public
Registration:	Click here to register.