Complexity and Coffee

4.9•283 ratings

Saint Paul, MN, US

About us

Welcome to Complexity & Coffee! This meetup is for curious people who want to explore the intricacies of reality, society, and ourselves through open dialogue. Let's co-create a playful space where we can show up as learners, thinkers, skeptics, and seekers, collaboratively delving into thought-provoking topics that challenge our perspectives and generate surprising insights. So grab a cup of coffee and join the conversation!

Upcoming events

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Flourishing Now // Session Five // Wisdom, Freedom & Play
Mon, Nov 9 · 6:30 PM CST
Northern Commons, 308 E Prince St Ste 246, St Paul, MN 55101, USA, Saint Paul, MN, US
What's Flourishing Now?
Flourishing Now is a six-session course that draws from contemplative traditions, philosophy, cognitive science, complexity science, and more.

Each two-hour gathering will be more like a jam session than a formal class, with a mix of conversation, meditation, and other contemplative practices. Sessions build on each other, so it's helpful (but not absolutely necessary) to attend them as a series.

What's it all about?
We live in a world of astonishing beauty, creativity, and possibility, as well as profound suffering, injustice, and loss. There is much worth loving just as it is and much that urgently needs to change.

But our desire for things to be different can make it difficult to fully encounter things as they are. We can become so focused on what should happen next that we lose touch with what is happening now. Yet accepting the world as it is can seem like giving up on changing it.

How can we engage with this tension? Can we flourish here, now, in a world that’s both beautiful and broken and still change things for the better?

Session Five: Wisdom, Freedom & Play
What does it mean to flourish in a world we can never fully know or control? Throughout this series, we've explored how our experience takes shape, how we belong to a deeply interconnected world, and how our ways of seeing can open or close possibilities.

In session five, we'll bring these threads together, then explore the relationships between wisdom, freedom, and play. How might we cultivate the capacity to respond wisely, move beyond habitual patterns, and discover possibilities we couldn't previously imagine? And what might these capacities offer us as we navigate the complexity, uncertainty, and interconnected crises of our time?

Session Schedule
1. Experience & Reality: Mon, Oct 5 | 6:30–8:30 pm
2. Belonging & Boundaries: Mon, Oct 12 | 6:30–8:30 pm
3. Opening & Closure: Mon, Oct 26 | 6:30–8:30 pm
4. Clarity & Insight: Mon, Nov 2 | 6:30–8:30 pm
5. Wisdom, Freedom & Play: Mon, Nov 9 | 6:30–8:30 pm
6. Flourishing Now: Mon, Nov 16 | 6:30–8:30 pm

Other Details
- We'll provide snacks and beverages
- Here's some info about parking at Northern Commons
10 attendees
Open Dialogue // The Power of Language
Sat, Nov 14 · 2:00 PM CST
Northern Commons, 308 E Prince St Ste 246, St Paul, MN 55101, USA, Saint Paul, MN, US
Can every human experience be described in words? And how much does language shape what we're able to experience?

Language allows us to make distinctions, recognize patterns, and share meaning. Metaphors are especially powerful: we understand time as something we spend, arguments as things we win, and organizations as machines or living systems. Each way of speaking brings certain possibilities into focus while leaving others in the background.

Drawing on cognitive science and complexity thinking, we'll explore the relationship between language, perception, and meaning-making. What does language make possible? What might it obscure? And can changing the words we use change the worlds we inhabit?

This conversation will be free-form, which means it might meander into adjacent topics. No need to prepare or bring anything but your curiosity and an open mind.
18 attendees