30 December 2010

from Lawrence, Pub Philosophy Group, Sunday meeting: Success

Dear friends,

Hope you are looking forward to the new year and wish you all the best
for 2011.

Talking about the new year, this Sunday we are discussing: Success.

If you remember we have already discussed:
Do we learn from our success or do we learn from our mistakes?
http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/2008/09/from-lawrence-pub-philosophy-group.html

See you Sunday (18:30pm)

Take care

Lawrence

+++++++++MEETING DETAILS+++++++++
SUNDAY 6.30pm – 8.30pm at Molly Malone's Pub, probably downstairs----
-Email: philomadrid@yahoo.co.uk
-Yahoo group >> philomadridgroup-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk <
-Old essays: www.geocities.com/philomadrid
- Blog: http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/
-Group
photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/photosphilo
-My
tel 606081813
-metro: Bilbao : buses: 21, 149, 147
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Tertulia in English with Ignacio and friends: Every Thursday, from 19:30
to 21h, at Moore's Irish Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal).
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/
*************************************


from Lawrence, Pub Philosophy Group, Sunday meeting: Success

23 December 2010

from Lawrence, Pub Philosophy Group, Sunday meeting: The ability of Human beings to adapt + Cine Saturday + Msg from Peter

We're going to see a film Saturday evening + Peter's message

Dear friends,

First of all a big THANK YOU to all those who sent me greetings for
Christmas and the new year. And of course wishing you a happy Christmas
and the best for next year.

This Sunday we are discussing "The ability of Human beings to adapt". In
deed adapting is not only a necessity for us but unfortunately it can be
a very painful experience. Take recent history where the media had to
adapt to the way news of events is distributed to the population. The
population, that is, who like to be kept up to date. Politicians have to
adapt themselves unfortunately for them at super lighting speed or at
least at the speed their intimate secrets can be posted on the internet.

Even philosophers have to adapt, not only do we now have more
opportunities to do philosophy but we also have to accept the fact that
philosophy must first and foremost be about human beings in the real world.

Talking about the real world Ceit and Brian suggested we meet Saturday
(Christmas) to go to the Cinema. Their choice of "Mao's last dancer"
seems to be a really good one, or at least that's what I've been told by
those who saw the film. These are the details:

Mao's last dancer (El Ultimo Bailarin De Mao)

Meet 18:45 – 19:00 at Renoir Plaza España show 20:30

C/ Martin De Los Heros, 12, 28005 Madrid, España - 915 413 914

The idea for meeting early is to make sure we find tickets and then
maybe go for a quick drink near by.

Finally, Peter is still looking for a flat mate:

------- Peter has asked me once again to remind you that he is looking
for someone to share his flat with in Mostoles close to public
transport; very good conditions. Central heating and central hot water.
There two rooms to rent out: a single and a double: tel 609257259 (LJCB
Note: one of the rooms might be taken, not sure which one).


All the best and see you Saturday and/or Sunday


Lawrence


+++++++++MEETING DETAILS+++++++++
SUNDAY 6.00pm – 8.30pm at Molly Malone's Pub, probably downstairs----
-Email: philomadrid@yahoo.co.uk
-Yahoo group >> philomadridgroup-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk <
-Old essays: www.geocities.com/philomadrid
- Blog: http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/
-Group
photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/photosphilo
-My
tel 606081813
-metro: Bilbao : buses: 21, 149, 147
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Tertulia in English with Ignacio and friends: Every Thursday, from 19:30
to 21h, at Moore's Irish Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal).
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/
*************************************


from Lawrence, Pub Philosophy Group, Sunday meeting: The ability of
Human beings to adapt + Cine Saturday + Msg from Peter

16 December 2010

from Lawrence, Pub Philosophy Group, Sunday meeting: Should our will be the basis of our life? + Photo

Dear Friends,

First of all Mark kindly sent me the photo from the pub to share with
you; this is the link:
http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/2010/12/marks-visit-to-madrid.html
This Sunday we are discussing: Should our will be the basis of our life?
I am not sure what to make of this question. I will assume that by life
we are not talking about biological life, since will does not come into
biological existence, but only for some types of biological systems. We
might be referring to social life in which case we also do a lot of
things in automatic mode or unconsciously.
So if by will we mean want or desire or wish than maybe will might play
an important part in our life. The question is whether our will is the
basis of all our life or some of our life.
Looking forward to meeting you on Sunday at 6:30pm
Take care
Lawrence

+++++++++MEETING DETAILS+++++++++
SUNDAY 6.00pm – 8.30pm at Molly Malone's Pub, probably downstairs----
-Email: philomadrid@yahoo.co.uk
-Yahoo group >> philomadridgroup-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk <
-Old essays: www.geocities.com/philomadrid
- Blog: http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/
-Group
photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/photosphilo
-My
tel 606081813
-metro: Bilbao : buses: 21, 149, 147
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tertulia in English with Ignacio and friends: Every Thursday, from 19:30
to 21h, at Moore's Irish Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal).
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/
*************************************

from Lawrence, Pub Philosophy Group, Sunday meeting: Should our will be
the basis of our life? + Photo

13 December 2010

Mark's Visit to Madrid



Great to see Mark again after such a long time...




See you soon

Lawrence and Friends

09 December 2010

from Lawrence, Pub Philosophy Group, Sunday meeting: How can we know ourselves? + News,, ,,

Dear Friends,
This Sunday we are discussing: How can we know ourselves?
Of course, the first question that comes to mind is why would we want to
do such a thing? After all, we feel quite at home with our whims and
foibles, it is others that have the problem.
So the reason why we would want to know ourselves is first and fore most
an opportunity to know our abilities, skills and attitudes so we can get
the most from our relationships with others. It seems, therefore, to me
that the best way to find out about ourselves and thus know ourselves is
to see what others know and think about us. But this is easier said than
done.
Today, the received wisdom is to seek professional help from a
psychologist or psychiatrist. Scientifically this makes a lot of sense,
but it suffers from one serious drawback. They just don't know us in
real life surroundings.
I mean, how can a professional provider know what life is like for us
and how we really feel about life if they are not with us when the
printer refuses to print after clicking the button a hundred times and
replaced the software a score and one times; and the boss is spitting
fire at anything that moves within a radius of one hundred kilometres,
and our colleague is coughing in our face the latest designer virus of
the bubonic plague, and that the coffee from the vending machine tastes
as if it is laced with something that will destroy our love life so we
can turn up at the office in the morning fresh, alert and eager to work.
Professional services are useful, but.......
We can always, of course, ask our enemies, but there is a problem with
this, actually two. Our enemy or enemies might permanently neutralise us
before we can even discuss the problem or issue with them. And if we do
manage to talk to our enemies and do eventually improve our ways, would
it be morally right to deprive our enemies of a worthy adversary?
Maybe our friends might help? Maybe, but our good friends know us too
well to help us improve our ways and they know our ways, that they
correctly conclude that we'll only make a bigger hash of thing a few
days later. And thus end up in no better position than not having known
ourselves is the first place.
But don't despair, there is always the equivalent of a obliterating
weapon ( we have to be careful what we write these days on the net) that
will certainly tell us the truth about us. Basically, we have to find an
ally or a mole amongst our friends and enemies so they can whistleblower
to us what our friends and enemies are thinking about us or know about
us. Of course, there are always drawbacks with such drastic measures.
Least of which are to lose our friends and enemies at the same time.
After all is said and done, you pays your money, and you get your choice.
------- Peter has asked me once again to remind you that he is looking
for someone to share his flat with in Mostoles close to public
transport; very good conditions. Central heating and central hot water.
There two rooms to rent out: a single and a double: tel 609257259 (LJCB
Note: one of the rooms might be taken, not sure which one).
Finally, I forgot to mention it last Sunday that there is the off chance
that I won't be able to make it this Sunday, but don't worry the meeting
will still take place. Help!!!
In the meantime take care and see you Sunday, or not.
Lawrence

+++++++++MEETING DETAILS+++++++++
SUNDAY 6.00pm – 8.30pm at Molly Malone's Pub, probably downstairs----
-Email: philomadrid@yahoo.co.uk
-Yahoo group >> philomadridgroup-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk <
-Old essays: www.geocities.com/philomadrid
- Blog: http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/
-Group
photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/photosphilo
-My
tel 606081813
-metro: Bilbao : buses: 21, 149, 147
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tertulia in English with Ignacio and friends: Every Thursday, from 19:30
to 21h, at Moore's Irish Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal).
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/
*************************************

from Lawrence, Pub Philosophy Group, Sunday meeting: How can we know
ourselves? + News

02 December 2010

from Lawrence, Pub Philosophy Group, Sunday meeting: The present economic crisis + news

Dear friends,

This week we are discussing: The present economic crisis.
But before discussing the crisis Peter has asked me to remind you that:
he is sharing a flat in Mostoles close to public transport; very good
conditions. Central heating and central hot water. There two rooms to
rent out: a single and a double: tel 609257259 (LJCB Note: one of the
rooms might be taken, not sure which one)
I'm afraid I did not have time to finish my essay. However, I had four
points which I wanted to discuss.
1) Given that this crisis is global, does this mean that the world
economy has entered into some sort of black body state? That is, has the
world economy entered into a state of a closed system, with all the
repercussions of the second law of thermodynamics?
Look at it this way, some forty or fifty years ago the world economy
consisted of a the few countries that made up the west. China and the
Soviet Union did not feature much in the world economy of the time.
Moreover, the natural resources which the then economic system required
were either owned, manipulated or expropriated by the few countries that
made up the then world economy. In other words when in the past there
was an economic crisis it only affected a few countries and these
countries could easily obtain the resources at a "favourable" price not
to mention they could always find/create new markets to sell their goods.
Today, every country is part of the economic system, and all countries
are trying to own, manipulate or appropriate the resources of others.
This means that we cannot expand our economic activities beyond the blue
sky and we're not going to start selling sports cars to the whales and
dolphins any time soon. Basically, the question we can ask ourselves is
this, has the world economy entered into a regressive loop of boom and
bust? With those who experience a bust today would find it more
difficult to create a boom tomorrow.
Of course, there will always be those individual economies that will
experience a prosperous period in the shot term, not to say that
different economies will be at different levels of the loop. However,
the loop will lead towrds more violent crises involving more people. QED

2) When we ask ourselves, what caused the present economic crisis? Our
present day understanding of cause is not robust enough for today's way
of thinking. We are familiar with the sentence: smoking causes lung
cancer; but we are not familiar with the sentence: indifference causes
lung cancer. Not only are we not familiar with such statements, but even
our language cannot cope with any possible explanation, and moreover, we
just do not have the methodology to test such a statement. Our
understanding of cause requires a chain of events of the same class.
Cancer is a physical event in the physical organ, the lungs, and smoking
is a physical event that has a chemical reaction with the lungs.
Indifference is not something we can measure in a test tube.
Before, however, complex numbers were fully understood in mathematics
(see Wikipedia: complex numbers) the concept of square root of minus
one, did not much make sense, simply because the meaning of a number was
a real unit; one was the one as in one apple on the table. Thus for us,
when we ask the question what caused the present economic crisis, the
answer "indifference by investors as to whether their capital retains
its value over the medium or long term period" just does not make sense.
So we have to come up with such useless answers as, cheap interest
rates, profiteering, or easy credit or whatever.
So do we have to amend our thinking about cause to accept that in our
rational understanding of the world we have created for ourselves we
have to include negative events as legitimate causes of physical events?
In other words, do we have to consider: "the indifference of capital
owners towards the value of their capital over time" as an equal cause
as say "1.5% base lending rate issued by the central bank will cause
irresponsible lending?

3) What are the ethics of the present crisis? Given that we operate in a
global economy, do we owe a duty of welfare to those who have been
affected by the crisis? Ironically, I want to argue that the moral issue
is not this question nor the answer to this question, but the moral
dilemma that the rational and moral answer introduces. The rational and
moral answer to this question is of course, yes, we do aowe a duty to
these victims.
The moral dilemma, however, is this, should we act to prevent an
economic crisis so people won't become victims of a crisis. Thus we can
help those who are victims of a crisis by giving them ten or a hundred
Euros or we can demand and insist that investors do not do anything to
reduce the value of their capital. Even I have to think hard to come to
terms with the meaning of the second question. Giveing a tenner is much
easier than demading that companies made a fair and reasonable profit.
4) Unfortunately, for my fourth point I have no idea what the answer is
going to be, but I'll ask the question anyway: which is easier find a
solution to prevent future economic crises or change our thinking about
out how the economy should work?
But after all is said and done I have noticed one thing since I have
been observing the events of the world economy: those who are convinced
that the economy will do well, if not already doing well, have always
been in a well paid job. And I have never heard an honest unemployed
person, say that the economy is doing very well when they cannot find
decent work to support their family.
Take care and see you Sunday,
Lawrence

IF YOU DON'T GET AN EMAIL BY FRIDAY PLEASE LET ME KNOW

+++++++++MEETING DETAILS+++++++++
SUNDAY 6.00pm – 8.30pm at Molly Malone's Pub, probably downstairs----
-Email: philomadrid@yahoo.co.uk
-Yahoo group >> philomadridgroup-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk <
-Old essays: www.geocities.com/philomadrid
- Blog: http://philomadrid.blogspot.com/
-Group
photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/photosphilo
-My
tel 606081813
-metro: Bilbao : buses: 21, 149, 147
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tertulia in English with Ignacio and friends: Every Thursday, from 19:30
to 21h, at Moore's Irish Pub, c/ Barceló 1 (metro Tribunal).
http://sites.google.com/site/tertuliainenglishmadrid/
*************************************

from Lawrence, Pub Philosophy Group, Sunday meeting: The present
economic crisis + news