The Brussels Philosophy Meetup

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À propos de nous

This group is meant for anyone who loves to philosophize and who thrives on the experience of philosophizing together in an informal setting. Philosophy lives not only in the written word, but also in the spoken word.
The spirit of these meetups is to explore broadly and deeply themes and topics we might consider to be important and meaningful, using the tools of critical and creative thinking.
Although some/many of us may have studied philosophy at university or elsewhere, this meetup group presupposes no formal study of philosophy or of the history of philosophy. Ideas of great thinkers of past and present do however end up naturally in our talks and these of course always serve as valuable material during our discussions.
Note: although we use English as common language, it is not at all necessary to speak it perfectly. 90% of our participants speak English as a 2nd language. Our meetups have proven to be wonderful opportunities to meet philosophical others from many diverse backgrounds!
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Limitations and the meaning of life - The Brussels Philosophy Meetup
09 mai 2026 15:00 CEST
The Sister Brussels Cafe, 3, rue Chair et Pain, 1000 Brussels Belgium, Brussels, BE
We are living in an age of ever increasing intelligence and power. Individual humans haven’t really become any smarter or more powerful, but together we’ve developed systems that increase the control we exert over our environment. If we look at a country like China for example, the last 50 years have seen an undeniable and unprecedented increase in living standards, which correlates with an increase in happiness and life satisfaction.

Another way to look at this is that we’re constantly finding ways to overcome the limitations imposed on us by life/existence/the universe. Hungry? Just go to the supermarket! Had a bad fall? Here is surgery and some painkillers! Cold? Open your tap and warm water flows out like magic!

What if we follow this process to its conclusion? What does a world without struggle, problems or limitations look like? What would the absence of limitations do to our behavior, our values and our ethics? Would we still be human or does something get lost along the way? Is our current intelligence explosion missing a balancing wisdom explosion?

We’ll be approaching these topics by thinking creatively about the following concrete questions among others:

- If we had a vaccine against lung cancer, why shouldn’t we smoke?

- If we could suck all of the CO2 out of the air, why shouldn’t we continue using fossil fuels?

- If antidepressants had no side effects, why shouldn’t we all take them to deal with grief?

- If we could breed animals (human or nonhuman) without pain receptors, why shouldn’t we eat them?

- If all human activity could be automated, why shouldn’t we become “WALL-E people”?
12 participants