[In-person] Curiosity Café: Personal Identity and Transformation

Looking for Halloween plans? Well, we heard CHANGE is scary, and arguing with a vampire might be too. Come and talk about it. In this café, we will be exploring what makes us who we are, with reference to a few philosophical thought experiments. That is: Who are we, really? What is at the core of our identity? Is it our preferences? Our values? Our life narrative? Whom or what we love? Or something else entirely?

Beyond exploring what makes up our essence (or whether a fundamental essence even exists), we will also explore the implications of incremental personal change and transformative experiences. To help us navigate these questions, we’ll discuss the following thought experiments:

• The Ship of Theseus (a boat slowly gets all of its parts replaced. Is it still the same boat? If not, when does it stop being the same boat?)
• Arguing with the Vampire (you’ve been presented with the opportunity to become a vampire…)
• Advanced Directives and Dementia (someone has Alzheimer’s but it doesn’t go like she predicted it would. Should we respect her advanced directive?)

Join moderator Sophia Whicher on Wednesday, October 29th for a spooky, collaborative exploration of these questions and more. Absolutely no pre-reading is required, but if you’re curious about the vampire, we recommend you check out Paul Bloom’s Arguing with the Vampire (~10 minute read).

Space is limited! Please obtain a “Pay-What-You-Can” ticket from Curiosity Café at this link (click here) to attend this event. You need a ticket to be admitted. See the above link for more info about tickets and other options including a limited number of free tickets. Come and hang out with us, grab food, and read through our handout from 6-6:30pm. Our structured discussion will run from 6:30-8:30pm with a 10 minute break in the middle.

Hope to see you there!

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This event is brought to you by Being and Becoming, a Toronto based non-profit. We aim to create community around exploring everyday concepts and experiences so that we may live more intentional, thoughtful, and meaningful lives. We use philosophy as a tool with which we can come to a richer understanding of the world around us.

By offering activities, spaces, and other opportunities for conversation and co-exploration, we hope to enable the meeting and fusion of individuals and their ideas. Everyone is welcome, regardless of background: indeed, we believe the journey is best undertaken alongside explorers from a variety of disciplines, cultures, backgrounds, and experiences.

Find out more about Being and Becoming here.

About the Curiosity Café Series:

For those of you who haven’t had the opportunity to join us at our Curiosity Cafés and are wondering what they’re all about: every two weeks, we invite members of our community to come out to the Madison Avenue Pub to engage in a collaborative exploration of our chosen topic. Through these events, we aim to build our community of people who like to think deeply about life’s big questions, and provide each other with some philosophical tools to dig deeper into whatever it is we are most curious about.