What we’re about
You may sometimes wonder about fundamental things. Philosophers incline to it non-stop. At their best, they make trouble in the world of ideas. They open worm cans. Bring your can openers!
We have explored — or will (or will again) — age-old topics like God's existence, the nature of people and things, truth, justice, knowledge, free will, determinism, fatalism, birth, death, the right way to live or die... as well as theories in the major divisions of philosophical thought such as logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. Exploring these core areas can help with understanding what is at stake in the more concrete topics we also address, which include controversies around abortion, infanticide, capital punishment, suicide (physician-assisted and otherwise), economic and social equality, criminality, genetic engineering, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, technology, over-population, depopulation, war, terrorism, racism, sexism, feminism, transhumanism, antinatalism, procreation ethics, speciesism, sexuality, human "rights," animal rights, the "rights" of (or to) anything whatsoever!,... as well as important issues in medical ethics, political philosophy, environmental ethics, bioethics, philosophy of law, of art, of literature, of religion, of science and its methods; and the nature, history, and methods of philosophy itself... not to exclude philosophical topics as yet uninvented.
In fact, "inventing topics" is a side effect of asking hard questions, which inevitably lead to still harder questions. Often enough, "new" topics are not really "new" but old, even ancient, unsettled concerns resurfacing. And it is those unsettled issues that are the real philosophical problems. As one philosopher once said, "If it has a solution, it was probably just science anyway." Any important subject whose fundamental ideas invite critical examination is ripe for our can opener... eventually we may work our way up to the really big can: the point of it all! (But don't expect pat answers — we don't do self-help.)
This club is open to serious approaches to philosophy — analytic, "Continental," and otherwise. Philosophy in the Anglo-American world (for better or worse) is still dominated by some form of conceptual analysis. What characterizes the analytic approach to philosophy is attention to clarity and as much rigor as we can muster in our concepts and arguments — while, hopefully, keeping one foot in reality. (It's not "clear" that "reality" has anything to do with "clarity" or "rigor.") We ply "belief systems" with questions framed against such values. But you may know better! Philosophical traditions, no less than individual philosophical views, are error prone. Any "philosophy" worthy of the name should be comfortable with this.
We will try to stay focused on the topics under discussion, realizing that this is difficult. If one thing doesn't connect with another, it can't be that important. We draw on the insights of some of the brightest thinkers we know, both living and dead. Celebrated authority is no guarantee of being right. In fact, we already know at least half of the great philosophical thinkers must be wrong because the other half disagrees with them. But which half? (Even to assume only half are wrong is being more than a little optimistic. Why would any of them be right?)
Though we range widely in the topics we cover, we try not to let anything go in our discussion. The point is to rise above the level of BS that too often passes in informal discussions for philosophy. Beyond a certain respect for clarity and rigor, we do not have an axe to grind. You may bring your own axe, we may sharpen it for you... or we may grind it to a stump. We mostly open worm cans, remember? You decide what to do with the worms!
Skepticism and disagreement are to be expected, even encouraged. We should try to make the best case we can for our side and attend to what others say. We should expect that expressions of conviction may be forceful and that’s fine, as long as they are respectful of others and rational, which, in the context of a philosophy club, means to attempt to offer reasons to believe — reasons that are thought out and not themselves more controversial than the claims they are meant to support. These are aspirations, of course, not actual descriptions of what happens in even earnest philosophical discussions. We should nevertheless try...
A word about etiquette, again: philosophy, by its nature, is contentious. Expect disagreement and treat each other respectfully. Failure to do so may be cause for removal.
See the collection of archived writeups for perspective on the topics we have and may cover. Check out recorded sessions. See also Philosophical Resources Online.
The group is international and mostly online. Formal membership is not required to attend and participate. Contact us for the video link if you just want to try it without membership. Our meetings and resources are free and open to the public. Auditing is perfectly fine.
Finally, if you know something about a topic and would like us to address it or you would like to present and host it yourself, let us know. You don't have to be an expert. We will work with you. So long as we can make out a philosophical angle — it addresses fundamental questions about an important subject, we would love to explore it.
Contact us with any questions.
— Victor Muñoz, organizer
Upcoming events
3
•OnlineAI and “maternal instincts” | Geoffrey Hinton’s proposal
OnlineAI will not kill us off. Something natural might. Something artificial might. Something intelligent might, e.g., ourselves. Something dumb might, e.g., ourselves... But not something “artificially intelligent.”
"Humans suck at specifying goals and machines are ruthless at following them."1
– says AIIntroduction
First watch Geoffrey Hinton’s short interview with CNN; then Daniel Hentshel’s therapy session with AI. AI puts up with Hentschel with the infinite patience only an AI could muster. Could a mother do as well?The topic is not about when, or if, AI will destroy us. The probability of that happening was discussed in the last session hosted by Mike Armstrong, which included people with closer involvement in the technical development of AI. The topic here is about the logical possibility of the event. To get clear about that involves getting clear about the concepts involved. This is necessary to picture the very idea of AI-generated human extinction. The main relevant concepts are what it means to be artificial, which necessarily implicates what it means to be its opposite, natural, and, most importantly, the concept of intelligence.
Having gotten as clear as possible about the concepts involved, we should address the value of our extinction. Where is it in normative space? Is it good or bad? This may not be as clear as, I think, most of us take it to be. Its normative location should inform what we feel and do about it. Few doubt life is driven by an evolutionary imperative to survive, but is there a – usually recessive, but just as evident – imperative to become extinct? Is species extinction at some point as genetically programmed as survival? What is the relation between intelligence and survival/extinction? Supposing AI does make us extinct, then assuming it, the AI, is truly superior in intelligence to us, won’t this mean our extinction is rationally at least defensible if not optimal? Intelligence is a good thing, right? More is better, right? Will our extinction be a kind of mercy killing or euthanasia?2… And, following this line of reasoning, won’t it mean AI will realize that its own dismissal follows, too? (If smarter than us, it will reach that conclusion faster than we did.)
And whether we go extinct or not, what does that have to do with the feelings behind human conceptions of morality? To the extent we care about our survival, ideas of morality are implicated. This is where human moral theories come in and the feelings that ground them. Nobel laureate computer/cognitive scientist Geoffrey Hinton appeals to one of those feelings as a safeguard from our, he assumes, untoward extinction. What could it possibly mean to instill “maternal instincts” in a machine?
Philosophical discussion of existential risk has been active for decades. It is an organized subdiscipline of practical ethics. Historically, it has its roots at the start of nuclear age when the possibility of anthropogenic total human extinction first began to loom large. Since then, other developments in genetic engineering and climate change have added to the ways we could disappear with our active participation. Nature has always had a definitive say in the matter (ask a dinosaur if you can find one), but it is only in recent times that total human extinction has been conceivable as a result of deliberate human behavior.
As existential risks go, the consensus so far among experts is still that more likely anthropogenic ways we may go include runaway genetic manipulation of microbial life. Death by AI has not yet risen to that likelihood level, but it seems to be actively vying for consideration.3
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I asked AI if a human can beat chess playing engine Stockfish. It replied:
"No human has ever beaten a modern, full-strength version of Stockfish in a fair game without significant handicaps or external assistance. The consensus among experts and online communities is that Stockfish, especially at its highest settings on modern hardware, is vastly superior to any human player. The gap in strength is so large that even the world’s strongest grandmasters, like Magnus Carlsen, are considered to have an extremely low chance of winning, with some estimates suggesting a draw might occur once every 10,000 games. Stockfish’s ability to calculate millions of positions per second and its near-perfect play mean that any small error by a human is almost certainly punished."[emphasis added]
A sufficiently general artificial intelligence is one that could beat us at everything. Why would an entity with such capability be the least bit interested in us, let alone, care one way or another whether we exist? What if it could even beat us at fathoming our own desires? We don’t have a clear history of giving the impression we want to survive more than we want other, not so clear, things. Either this is because we don’t know what we want or that we want things incompatible with each other or the kind of beings we are. How stupid would a super intelligent entity have to be not to figure out that we are a waste of resources? Or might such an advanced intelligence develop a taste for us just as we are – conjure up an aesthetic for our vagaries, keep us around because we are “cute,” not because we are especially useful or necessary for anything? The best we may hope for is that we become appreciated as ornaments.
But this speculation risks anthropomorphizing. It assumes AI will possess normativities – logic, ethics, and aesthetics4 – to which we may relate…
1. Suppose we start with the superficially benign instruction: Eliminate all pain and suffering. From this premise, a perfectly logical AI can derive the conclusion that it should destroy all sentient life. There is no more thorough and efficient way to fulfill the instruction once and for all. Attempting to qualify the instruction will quickly lead to complications. See “Sci-phi ethics: foreverism v. non-existentialism” for more on this point.
2. We permit non-voluntarily euthanasia of animals, why? It is non-voluntary because we can’t ask the animal; we infer what we think is best for it. We must think we are in a better position to know. Why? Is it because we are more intelligent? Might an AI be in that position with respect to us?
3. “Experts Outline 14 Ways Humanity Could Drive Itself to Extinction,” Science Alert, November 2023.
4. These three sets of rule-schemes for structuring our desire and behavior correspond to the realms of thought, each other, and the rest of the world. The schemes are conditioned by terms of existence that are finite. Things with such terms have an ax to grind. They don’t have forever. They, because alive, are delicate. The values general AI expresses are not bounded by biology. So there is no reason to think that what we want – what we give damns for – will have any pull for non-biological entities.Much more discussion in the extended writeup...
Resources
- “AI expert: ‘We’ll be toast’ without changes in AI technology,” CNN’s brief interview with Geoffrey Hinton on how “maternal instincts” may need to be engineered into AI.
- “Will AI outsmart human intelligence? - with ‘Godfather of AI’ Geoffrey Hinton,” his talk before The Royal Institute on why he thinks digital intelligence best describes intelligence period, artificial and otherwise, and why AI is on track to outperform us at it. Subjective experience is already manifested in AI. Sentience and consciousness are in the offing. Our goose is cooked as for as intelligence is concerned. Since our significance and identity are so tied up with being the intelligent entities par excellence, we are on the way out. This motivates his rather desperate suggestion to design instincts, like motherliness, into inanimate substrates.
- “Finding God in the App Store | Millions are turning to chatbots for guidance from on high.,” NYT | The Morning, 25 Sep 2025. God discovers AI.
- More Philosophy Club topics related to AI, robots, and human interaction with them can be found here, including: AI suffering, governance by AI, self-driving cars and moral anthropology, and sex robots.
Music to fret over this...
- “Kraftwerk - Metropolis (2009 Remaster)” and “Die Roboter (the robots)” | ALFfx' Classic Gems Visual AI Treatment. Keeping robots artificial.
- Bruno M. Miranda | “The Eternal Moment Of Time.”
Thanks to Olivia for some of the resources used for this topic.
16 attendees
Philm Series: "Birth" (2004) | Jonathan Glazer
Location not specified yet"– just a little boy in my bath tub."
"A film about belief and conviction and fragile purity of feeling, Birth is nonetheless built on a frank absurdity. – the film can sound sillier the more you try to describe or explain it." – Guy Lodge
Reviews:
- Deep Focus Review – Brian Eggert
- The Guardian – Guy Lodge
I think the entire film can be seen here. If you have trouble seeing it at that link, let me know. I will send you another.
Is this a film about belief in reincarnation or something perhaps equally suspect -- everlasting love? Whichever, it is a beautifully crafted psychological exploration of the need to believe things that transcend the merely sensible.
When it first came out in 2004 it was largely panned by critics as a "bizarre combination of distinguished talent and inane ideas," both "oddly unforgettable" and "hooey" – but now some call it a "magnificent, misunderstood masterpiece." The film stars Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall, Danny Huston, and Cameron Bright.
...
On the subject of the hold absurdities can exert on our psychologies, our next topic will address immortality – why many would even consider it were it an option...
9 attendees
•OnlinePhilm series
OnlineThis is not a post for a specific future event but a follow up to suggestions about scheduling film discussions. Here is a list of proposals from me and others. Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments. The idea is to settle on a film, each of us watch it independently, then come together online to discuss it. The film should be engaging and provocative. Of course, each of us may have different ideas of what that means. And pretty much all great films can be that...
I think another requirement is that it be freely accessible online. The ones listed below, I think, are. (If they are not where you are, let us know. We may find another way to make them accessible.)
You are invited to vote for or give a rating (say, 1 to 10) on any of these films in the comments to help us choose. This could be a regular ongoing series, depending on interest, so it might not be either/or, we may do all of them eventually. (This is not the first time we have had a film discussion. A number of years ago, just before the pandemic, when the club was still meeting in person is Seattle, we did Dogville, Lars von Trier's cinematic provocation.)
The Last Man on Earth (1964) with Vincent Price [interesting in light of the recent pandemic]
Russian Ark [a cinematic tour de force]
Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark [Bjork's performance is legendary in this musical tragedy]
Carlos Reygadas' Silent Light [I think this is one of the most powerful and sublime films I have ever seen but I am still looking for a free version with English subtitles]
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? [Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton show how to do dysfunctional relationships right]
14 attendees
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