Philosophy by the river

THE VENUE: Starbucks

It's autumn so we will meet indoors for the next few months

When we meet indoors, we run the same event in two locations: Caffè Nero and Starbucks, so as to provide capacity for as many people who would like to attend, without overwhelming any one venue. Thus, there will be two events published, and you can choose which one to attend. Please don't sign up for both. This event is for the Starbucks location.

We meet upstairs at Starbucks. An organiser will be present from 10.45. We are not charged for use of the space so it would be good if everyone bought at least one drink.

An attendee limit has been set so as not to overwhelm the venue.

Etiquette
Our discussions are friendly and open. We are a discussion group, not a for-and-against debating society. But it helps if we try to stay on topic. And we should not talk over others, interrupt them, or try to dominate the conversation.

There is often a waiting list for places, so please cancel your attendance as soon as possible if you subsequently find you can't come.

WhatsApp groups
We have two WhatsApp groups. One is to notify events, including extra events such as meeting for a meal or a drink during the week which we don't normally put on the Meetup site. The other is for open discussion of whatever topics occur to people. If you would like to join either or both groups, please send a note of the phone number you would like to use to Richard Baron on: website.audible238@passmail.net. (This is an alias that can be discarded if it attracts spam, hence the odd words.)

THE TOPIC: What is it like to be a ghost?

This week's topic has been prepared by Richard.

The ghosts of Halloween are the ghosts of folklore. They may be scary, but they vanish in the sunrise of sobriety. The ghosts of philosophy are something else. Studying them may teach us something about being human.

We find them in Jean-Paul Sartre's screenplay Les jeux sont faits (The chips are down), filmed in 1947. The deceased are ghosts who can walk around the city, can see and be concerned about what goes on, but can only interact with other ghosts. The living cannot see or hear them, and they can do nothing in the world of the living unless they are briefly returned to life - as happens to the two main characters.

Detachment from the world, fully aware of what was going on but unable to help, could be annoying. But more than that, is it essential to our humanity that we can do things? Does your sense of who you are depend on your being in a world that changes in response to your actions? Are you only who you are because you are at a specific location, a point from which you not only see certain things you would not see from elsewhere but can do things you could not do if you were elsewhere?

Another element of the sense of self that ghosts would lack would be a sense of achievement. It is not just that we do things. We find that the world resists. Doing things takes effort, and sometimes things do not go to plan. We can say "I did that" with pride. How important is a sense of achievement to our sense of self? Sartre's ghosts would lack any such sense.

Sometimes we must say "I did that" with shame. We make choices that we later see as bad ones. We take responsibility for our actions - or at least, we do if we are good existentialists. Is that possibility vital to our humanity? Again, ghosts would be safe from any such sense because they would not act in the world.

One of our greatest challenges is time, or the lack of it. In the screenplay we are told that the living seem to be in a hurry, while the dead just stroll around. Would we be fully human if we did not feel the pressure of time?

Situations demanding action, our responses, our successes and our failures make us different people. But if we were ghosts, without the pressures and possibilities of life, would each of us still be unique? Perhaps after a while all the ghosts Sartre imagined would be the same, dressed in the costumes of the times when they died but otherwise indistinguishable.

THE VENUE: Caffè Nero

It's autumn so we will meet indoors for the next few months.

When we meet indoors, we run the same event in two locations: Caffè Nero and Starbucks, so as to provide capacity for as many people who would like to attend, without overwhelming any one venue. Thus, there will be two events published, and you can choose which one to attend. Please don't sign up for both. This event is for the Nero location.

We meet upstairs at Caffè Nero. An organiser will be present from 10.45. We are not charged for use of the space so it would be good if everyone bought at least one drink.

An attendee limit has been set so as not to overwhelm the venue.

Etiquette
Our discussions are friendly and open. We are a discussion group, not a for-and-against debating society. But it helps if we try to stay on topic. And we should not talk over others, interrupt them, or try to dominate the conversation.

There is often a waiting list for places, so please cancel your attendance as soon as possible if you subsequently find you can't come.

WhatsApp groups
We have two WhatsApp groups. One is to notify events, including extra events such as meeting for a meal or a drink during the week which we don't normally put on the Meetup site. The other is for open discussion of whatever topics occur to people. If you would like to join either or both groups, please send a note of the phone number you would like to use to Richard Baron on: website.audible238@passmail.net. (This is an alias that can be discarded if it attracts spam, hence the odd words.)

THE TOPIC: What is it like to be a ghost?

This week's topic has been prepared by Richard.

The ghosts of Halloween are the ghosts of folklore. They may be scary, but they vanish in the sunrise of sobriety. The ghosts of philosophy are something else. Studying them may teach us something about being human.

We find them in Jean-Paul Sartre's screenplay Les jeux sont faits (The chips are down), filmed in 1947. The deceased are ghosts who can walk around the city, can see and be concerned about what goes on, but can only interact with other ghosts. The living cannot see or hear them, and they can do nothing in the world of the living unless they are briefly returned to life - as happens to the two main characters.

Detachment from the world, fully aware of what was going on but unable to help, could be annoying. But more than that, is it essential to our humanity that we can do things? Does your sense of who you are depend on your being in a world that changes in response to your actions? Are you only who you are because you are at a specific location, a point from which you not only see certain things you would not see from elsewhere but can do things you could not do if you were elsewhere?

Another element of the sense of self that ghosts would lack would be a sense of achievement. It is not just that we do things. We find that the world resists. Doing things takes effort, and sometimes things do not go to plan. We can say "I did that" with pride. How important is a sense of achievement to our sense of self? Sartre's ghosts would lack any such sense.

Sometimes we must say "I did that" with shame. We make choices that we later see as bad ones. We take responsibility for our actions - or at least, we do if we are good existentialists. Is that possibility vital to our humanity? Again, ghosts would be safe from any such sense because they would not act in the world.

One of our greatest challenges is time, or the lack of it. In the screenplay we are told that the living seem to be in a hurry, while the dead just stroll around. Would we be fully human if we did not feel the pressure of time?

Situations demanding action, our responses, our successes and our failures make us different people. But if we were ghosts, without the pressures and possibilities of life, would each of us still be unique? Perhaps after a while all the ghosts Sartre imagined would be the same, dressed in the costumes of the times when they died but otherwise indistinguishable.