The Toronto Philosophy Meetup

Passcode: 200

We had discussions on whether a Supreme One (God) exists and on describing the attributes of God. Through those discussions the Group and I developed some questions the answers to which may help us better determine whether there is a Supreme One (God) and, if so, what it is like. Those questions are:

10-9 Discussion: What is the best way to define God?- The Ultimate Source of All/Ultimate Ground of Being could be called One/All/Creator/Source
10-16 Discussion: Is sacrifice the only way to atone for things you have done wrong?- No, other religions besides Christianity believe in other things such as meditation, pilgrimage and other spiritual practices where one can mitigate one's so called bad karma.
10-23 Discussion: Can God have a physical existence or should we treat God as beyond the realm of existence?- Many religions believe that God does have a physical existence. A theory we discussed was God as a Mind (or spirit) beginning outside of spacetime creating the universe into which his Order was encoded. An example of a manifestation of this Supreme Mind was given as being mathematics, which exists independent of space time and the rules of which are encoded in physics.
10-30 Discussion: Is there one substance or many? In our day to day reality there appear to be many, which is likely an evolutionary adaptation. Furthermore, there appear to be many religions as it is difficult to reconcile the myriad faiths and actions of them. A Platonic view is the One came into Being, creating two (One and Being) each of which has its own two thereby replicating itself to infinity. So there would be One and many or the One that created the many. Also, the many living things in the world appear as many, but all have consciousness in common.
11-6 Discussion: How can we have freewill with an all powerful God? Freewill and an all powerful (transcendent) God don't seem to coincide, an all powerful God may not allow for freewill and vice versa. But an all powerful God may allow for a type of weak form freewill where within Gods ultimate will humans have freewill. However if Nature is equated with God, humans being a part of Nature can have freewill as they are also part of the all powerful God.
11-15 Discussion: Could God give us free will only to do good? It is undecided whether freewill exists at all, so God restricting freewill in such a manner would not be incomprehensible and could potentially even go unnoticed. But many think freewill only to do good is not freewill at all and that removing the ability to perform morally wrong actions would fundamentally change the nature of what it is like to be alive, while others believe that this loss would be justified. We already have limits on freewill, such as we can not decide we want to jump to the moon, therefore it is uncertain what effect further limits on freewill, those in the moral sense, would have on our experience. But in direct answer to the question, yes, God probably could, if he wanted, give us freewill only to do good, whether that would result in the optimal result is a different question.
11-22 Discussion-Has energy (and matter) existed forever? No because if it had then it would be infinite and we would never have been able to get to the present through an infinite past
1-1 Discussion-Is the beginning of the Universe incomprehensible? The beginning of the universe is partially comprehensible because advancing technology may get us closer and closer and basic reason gives us some foundational understanding. Based on the most probabilistic explanation for the beginning of the universe (big bang) and the 11-22 discussion the universe was created at some instance. You could ask what created the thing that created the universe, but based on the fact that the universe exists, it must be acknowledged that at some point in the chain there is an uncaused/self causing cause.
1-8 Discussion: Is religion just a will to power? No people who follow a religion do not only do it to gain power, but some do, and when they do the results can be devastating. Religion seems to primarily provide people with answers about things such as what happens when I die, what should I do with my life, how should others and myself act? As religions institutionalize, the institution that results seems to strive after power because of the propensity of any institution to act this way in order to self perpetuate.
1-15-26-Do the laws of physics prove or disprove God? If God exists outside of space and time then the laws of physics would not be able to inform us about these things because physics only exists in space-time. But the idea of the cosmological constants that exist and were required in order for the universe to come into existence tend to lend support to the idea of a God (a fine tuner). To counter, there is some speculation that perhaps these constants exist because maybe there was an infinite time (but I really mean outside of space time) in which the void was creating universes that failed etc. and this is the one that took. Also, there is the view that we exist and we have to move forward and question things from here.
1-23 discussion-Is there an objective morality? No consensus on this. An analysis of love was performed and love can result in good or bad because it can cause you to be impartial. There are two schools of thought in developing moral codes, those based on God and those based on Intellect. Both these schools seem to come to the same conclusions, which lends credence to there being an objective morality. It seems easier to judge right and wrong from the outside than from the subjective perspective, along the same lines maybe for there to be a truly objective morality there has to be an observer outside of space-time.
1-29 Discussion: Does the Supreme One care about morality? We think yes, because if the Supreme One did he would have created conditions in which morality could develop i.e. a world with limited resources in which animals are mortal. This scarcity necessitated steady state societies and societal rules(which we equated to morals) to develop. This is a bottom up morality, alternatively the morals come from the Supreme One himself, we didn't have a preference.
2-6-26 Discussion: Is the Supreme One's existence and non-existence mutually exclusive? Religious experience can be strange in that believers and nonbelievers can interpret the same thing in different ways. For something to exist it must exist in space-time, which God may not, therefore, it literally may not exist but can act within space time. God would likely be above the laws of logic, so could cause a contradiction if he likes. On the other hand saying God is above the laws of logic causes logic itself to loose value and you can say anything you like and intuitively it seems something either is or is not.
2-12-26 Discussion: Are any of the mainstream religions valid? We decided comparing the religions for which is better is not the best way to approach a faith. Each religion may have its truth. A majority of the religions overlap in certain fundamental core concepts that we now may consider to be core beliefs, which have a high funcitonal value for living a good life. On the flip side many religions have negative aspects to them that have a negative functional value for living a positive life. Almost every religion is wrong in some instances and right in others. That being said Buddhism seemed to anticipate modern scientific developments pretty well through its way of thinking on the universe, which may indicate a high truth value.
2-19 Discussion: Could all religions be True? Different Objective truths cannot be true at the same time, but subjective truths can be. Objectively only one religion can be true because they have conflicting theologies, but subjectively all religions can be true to their adherents simultaneously. Many of the religious texts seem to be harmonious in the way that they read and to ascribe to living in a similar way. Religion could be thought of as a guiderail through which one can live, but it may be the case that no one guiderail is the correct one, but some guiderails may be better for a given individual.
2-26 Discussion: What is the best religion for living a good life? We didn't necessarily settle on a specific religion, some say the religion you were born into, others the religion that best suits your values. But we questioned whether this was the true in all cases especially in extreme cases of bad religions or personalities. We think that probably the best religions for individuals are the eastern religions because they tend to focus on people guiding themselves as opposed to being motivated by the rules/laws of their religion. But on the flip side, some people are naturally externally motivated while others are internally motivated, so maybe it is like we said before, that it is specific to the individual.
3-5-26 Does everyone want to do the right thing? From the subjective standpoint of what each individual believes to be the right thing for their circumstances, yes, most if not all people want to do the right thing at the intellectual level. At the psychological or biological levels this intellectual will can be overcome by something like an addiction whereby people who know they shouldn't be consuming a drug continue to do it out of a psychological or biological addiction. Doing the right thing is further complicated in a society, whereby most large scale evil that is done is not done through lone wrongdoers, but large organizations where for the individual acting within them what is right and wrong becomes more nuanced. Even though people often want to do the right thing, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and people often will do wrong with good intentions believing that the ends will justify the means. This often leads to suboptimal results.
Does a belief in a Supreme Being improve or harm our life?

Well try to go through all of these in order , this weeks subject is:

Does a belief in a Supreme Being improve or harm our life?

Overall, In this series we discuss great questions of philosophy. You could call what we are doing debate style or open forum, but participants are free to give their ideas and challenge others while discussing the topic of the week. Each week I will choose from one of hundreds of topics such as: are humans innately good or evil, what makes us human, did you exist before you were born, and does god (a supreme mind) exist. I think a Socratic method/critical analysis of questions where each assumption held on a particular topic is questioned to dig deeper is a good way to make progress.

The Zoom link will be posted shortly before the event. I have installed a timer in Zoom, so a timer will start automatically when you start speaking, I am setting a 3 minute time limit on each speaker. Once a speaker talks anyone can follow up with a counter point, question, or continuing thought along the same line of thought (leave such comments to 1 minute). But do not begin a new train of thought unless you raise your hand. I will set a 5 minute timer for all follow up to an original speaker.

This critique group is kept private to preserve the privacy of critique submissions. Most don't RSVP on Meetup.

To join, please email Erik at tigurini@protonmail.com and include in your message: (1) A description of your current writing project(s), (2) Your goals for joining this writer's critique group, (3) And a brief history of yourself as a writer, including past projects, education, and related. Your message doesn't have to be anything fancy. We just wish to make sure that you're serious about observing and that your intentions/projects are a good fit for this critique group.

About:
As the title suggests, we critique writing that is speculative (sci-fi, fantasy, horror, surrealism, slipstream, etc.), philosophical (idea-driven, writing with a message, etc.), and experimental (unusual language, visual/musical aspects, transgressive, etc.). All writing submitted for critique should fit at least one of these categories. We are happy to include work in all formats (poetry, prose, playwriting, screenplay, libretto, graphic novel, and hybrid) and for any audiences (adults, YA, and kids).

Some Example Works:
Of course, the written works and authors that inspire us may vary, and widely. Nonetheless, here's a list of some written works and authors that have inspired us, and which we might use as an (incomplete) list of the kind of writing that could be submitted to this critique group.

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez; Ice, Anna Kavan; Blade Runner, Philip K. Dick; The Waves, Virginia Woolf; The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin; The Street of Crocodiles, Bruno Shulz; Stories of Your Life, Ted Chiang; The Faerie Queene, Edmund Spenser; The Book of Disquiet, Fernando Pessoa; The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath, H. P. Lovecraft; Don't Bite The Sun, Tanith Lee; Illuminations, Arthur Rimbaud; The Rings of Saturn, W. G. Sebald; The Three Body Problem, Liu Cixin; Moby Dick, Herman Melville; Kindred, Octavia E Butler; The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood; The Divine Comedy, Dante; The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle; A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen; Les Fleurs du Mal, Charles Baudelaire; Blindsight, Peter Watts; The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Leguin; Sweat, Lynn Nottage; The Song of Maldoror, Comte de Lautremont; Solaris, Stanislaw Lem; Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy; Dune, Frank Herbert; Star Maker, Olaf Stapledon.

Critique Group Structure:

• Meets weekly Thursdays from 6:00pm-7:30pm PT / 9:00pm-10:30pm ET
• Submission length maximum: 20,000 words (many submissions are shorter).
• Back-to-back weekly submissions for novelists + long form writers are encouraged.
• Participants are expected to closely read the submission and arrive prepared to discuss it in depth for 1.5 hours.
• If, for whatever reason, a participant can't read the submission in time for our meeting and/or can't attend our meeting, that participant is urged to provide a written (or audio recorded) summary of feedback to the submitting writer through DM on our Discord.
• Active participation is required to ensure all members' best interests. A member can be removed from the group if found absent in critique sessions for more than 3 months. Should one wish to rejoin the group, please message me directly either in Discord or via email.

Community:
We're a serious yet fun group of writers with eclectic projects and tastes. We're always looking to meet new friends and grow our community, so we hope you'll consider observing a critique group - and if we're a good fit for one another, continuing to hang out with us Thursday evenings!

We meet on the Blinding Cyclops Discord server.

You can read our full syllabus under the category "Writer's Critique Groups." The rest of the writer's critique group channels are kept hidden to preserve the privacy of critique submissions, but will be opened up to you when your observation has been confirmed.

Commitments:
This critique group's structure expects a weekly attendance commitment, so it's only right for writers who are committed to writing and critiquing.

How do we actually experience the world—before concepts, theories, or abstractions step in? In this hourlong meetup, we’ll explore the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, one of the most influential philosophers of perception, embodiment, and lived experience.

Together, we’ll watch each of Merleau-Ponty’s public lectures and use them as a springboard for discussion. His work challenges the idea that perception is merely a mental representation of an external world, instead emphasizing the body as our primary way of being in and understanding the world. Perception, for Merleau-Ponty, is not something we have—it is something we are doing, moment by moment.

One of Merleau-Ponty’s most seminal works was Phenomenology of Perception. These lectures provide a public introduction to this highly influential work of phenomenology.

No prior background is required. The emphasis will be on shared inquiry, careful listening, and reflecting on how Merleau-Ponty’s ideas resonate with our own everyday perception. This may be of particular interest if you have read and are interested in other phenomenologists, especially Husserl but also Heidegger, Jaspers, etc.

For each session, please read the notes for that lecture ahead of time, and if inspired, pick a passage that you would like to read aloud and discuss in the group. We will listen to Merleau-Ponty’s lecture and then do the live-read and discussion. Here’s the text:

http://timothyquigley.net/cont/mp-wp.pdf

These lecture and discussion sessions should give us some good grounding for when Philip returns in mid-March, when we will resume discussing two books related to the phenomenology of emotion and heavily influenced by Merleau-Ponty. Namely, Turning Emotion Inside Out: Affective Life Beyond the Subject by Ed Casey, and the Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Merleau-Ponty and Phenomenology of Perception by Komarine Romdenh-Romluc.