Next Live Dialogue - Dec 5

Greetings Citizen Philosophers,

Our next Thinking Out Loud meeting is this coming Wednesday, Dec 5, at 7:00. No topic has been chosen yet. If you have any suggestions, send them in to me or bring them with you to the meeting. We will vote on the topic right before the recording session.

I am looking forward to hearing again from our veteran Skype participants, Steve and Deborah. I also encourage other potential Skype participants - David Rood, Anthony Johnston, Lee Katchen, Chad Meltone, Brooklyn, and others - to also join in on Wednesday. To accommodate multiple Skype participants, I will set up a Skype conference call as before. I do need your Skype ID name, so email that to me if necessary. Log on to Skype around 6:45. I will call you if your Skype icon indicates you are online and accepting calls. We will use a chat box, as before, to indicate who "has their hand up" and is waiting to speak. Email if you have any questions.

I am also looking forward to engaging with our faithful local contingent of citizen philosophers, as always. If you are among those who have not participated in a while, not to worry, you are most welcome to join in again. Call me if you need directions or have questions.

If you prefer to just listen in, that is fine as well. The podcast of our conversation will be released on iTunes few days after the live discussion, usually on the following Sunday. Enjoy.

Hope to see/hear you all on Wednesday.

Best Regards,

Steve

Mysticism Transcript Posted

Steve Stokes once again has done a tremendous job transcribing our audio session on "What is Mysticism?". All the participants have now had their opportunity for review and it is ready to release. You can find a copy here.

And now, "as we speak", Steve is hard at work transcribing our latest session on Friendship and Honesty. Thanks Steve for your hard work.

For your easy reference, here are the authors mentioned in the session:

Rumi (the Sufi Poet)
Dean Hamer (The God Gene)
Richard Davidson
Georg Buchner (Danton's Death)
William Blake
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Andrew Greely (Ecstasy: A Way of Knowing)
Thich Nhat Hanh ("To be alive is a miracle...")
Buckminster Fuller
Arthur Koestler (The Act of Creation)
Ken Wilber
John Horgan (Rational Mysticism)
Simone Weil

Enjoy

I Am a Philosopher

I am enjoying UJ's new book, The Saint Troubadour, which I mentioned in one of my earlier posts. UJ (Uriah J. Fields) is a regular participant in our Thinking Out Loud podcasts. His book is a collection of poems, essays, and songs he has composed over the years dealing with a wide variety of philosophical and spiritual issues.

The very first poem in the book is entitled "I Am a Philosopher". I wanted to share it with you here, because I think it captures the essence of what I am calling the "Citizen Philosopher".

I Am a Philosopher
No, I am not Plato, Socrates or Aristotle;
But I am a philosopher.
I am a lover of truth.
I am concerned not merely with the facts but
.. their meanings and how they relate to
.. each other and to ultimate truth.
I am a philosopher reaching out, searching,
.. expanding, learning, loving and growing
.. while being present.
I am a philosopher.

Thank you UJ for that wonderful description of the philosopher in each of us.

For more gems like this, check out the book, The Saint Troubadour, available on amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Steve Donaldson

Participation Clarification

You are welcome to join in our monthly, Thinking Out Loud discussions. The live discussions are held on the first Wednesday of each month at 7:00 PM US East Coast Time. To participate, you must contact me in advance to make arrangements. Email me at blogmaster*at*growingagain.com (replace the *at* with @).

You will need Skype installed on your computer to participate. Skype is free "Voice over Internet" software that lets you use your Internet connection like a telephone. You can download Skype from www.skype.com. In addition to the software, you will need a suitable microphone, preferably the headset variety, available at most computer and office supply stores, such as Staples or Office Depot.

In the past we were able to "broadcast" live, so that people could listen to the discussion in real time, even if they were not active participants. We did this using a beta feature of Skype called Skypecast. Unfortunately, Skypecast was very buggy and finally became totally unuseable. So now we just use the Skype conference call to connect with remote participants. Currently we do not have a way to broadcast the live discussion to nonparticipants in real time.

However, we do make the recorded discussion available as a podcast shortly after the live discussion. You can download the podcasts through iTunes and other free podcast distributors, as well as through this web page. If and when Skypecasting become functional again, we will resume the live broadcasting. In the meantime, I hope you will consider participating in the live Skype conference call (email me first) or, if you prefer, just enjoy the recorded podcasts when it becomes available a few days later.

Cheers

Steve Donaldson

Friendship vs Honesty

The latest Thinking Out Loud podcast has been released on iTunes. The session was recorded Wednesday, Nov 7, and the topic was "To whom or what do we have the greater obligation, a friend or the principle of honesty?" Thank you Billie, George, John, U.J., and our two cyber participants, Debbie Martin from Boca Raton, Fl, and Steve Stokes from Atlanta, GA, for a great discussion. Having two long distance participants at once is a new milestone for us. Yea!! (If any of you other out-of-towners or someone you know would like to connect long distance as well, let me know. There is still room for more.)

Here are some of the questions we wrestled with:

Is it okay to lie to avoid hurting a friend's feelings? Is it okay to lie to protect a friend from physical harm? What about for profit or simply to avoid embarrassment? What is "situational ethics" and does it apply here? In situational ethics, if there are no universal rules that apply to every situation, what criteria should we use? Who is and is not a friend? Do friends ask friends to lie? Does friendship imply obligation? Where do obligations come from? Are obligations externally imposed or internally chosen? What are the boundaries of friendship? Is telling the truth always a virtue? Is it friendlier to be discrete or to confront? What are the alternatives? Who owns the truth? Does one have the right to demand of another that they keep private information private? Does one have the right to impose the truth on someone who does not want to hear it? Is there a gender difference in the level of confidentiality expected in a friendship? Do different rules apply to different degrees of friendship? At what point is it right to end a friendship to protect one's principles? Can civil laws resolve conflicting virtues? Should confidentiality laws always be obeyed? Is there a higher law to resolve conflicts of virtues? If so, what is it?

To subscribe to the podcast with your podcast software (such as iTunes or iPodder) copy and past the following link into your software:

www.citizenphilosopher.com/rss/tol_podcasts.xml

If you have iTunes, you can find us listed in the Apple Music Store directory under Podcasts/Society & Culture/Philosophy, or just do a search in iTunes on Thinking Out Loud People. The direct iTunes link is:

phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=214321935

If you don't have iTunes or other podcast software and just want to download the mp3 file directly, use this link:

Listen to the broadcast (mp3)

You are invited to add your thoughts by clicking on the "comments" link at the lower right hand corner of this post.

The next Thinking Out Loud will be Wednesday, December 5, at 7:00 pm. No topic has been chosen yet although several suggest themselves from our last discussion. The following spring to mind:

1. What is friendship?
2. What is conscience?
3. What is betrayal?
4. What is responsibility?

To elaborate on #4, if we accept the notion of universal human rights, does that also imply universal human responsibilities? If so, what are they?

These are just my initial thoughts. Your suggestions/refinements to these or other ideas for our next topic are most welcome. Send your ideas to me and I will circulate them among the group for feedback.

Also in order is congratulations to Uriah J. Fields (UJ) for the publication of his new book "The Saint Troubadour - Speaking and Singing Truth and Love" available from both www.amazon.com and www.bn.com (Barnes & Noble) - ISBN: 1424183588 (6 x9 413pp). Way to go UJ. And check out his web site for some of his other writings - www.uriahfields.com.


Cheers,

Steve

Next Live Dialogue - Nov 7

Cheers Citizen Philosophers,

Let it be known that the next Thinking Out Loud gathering is this coming Wednesday, Nov 7, at 7:00. The suggested topic is:

"Does loyalty to a friend affect your commitment to honesty?"

I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome our latest cyber participant. If all goes well, technology-wise, Deborah Martin of Boca Raton, will be joining us on Wednesday by way of a Skype conference call. Debbie was a regular at one of Steve Stokes' philosophy venues in Atlanta, GA, before moving to Florida about two years ago. She tells me that she was lamenting the fact that she could not find a similar group in her new environs, when she heard from Steve about our ongoing experiment in long distance interactive philosophical dialoguing. I am very pleased that she has found us and has volunteered to help us expand our experiment. I had the opportunity to talk with Debbie last night as we were testing our Skype connection and I can say with confidence that our Socratic explorations will be enriched by the participation of this caring and thoughtful citizen philosopher from Florida. Welcome aboard, Debbie.

Of course, I encourage previous Skype participants and would-be Skype participants - David, Steve, Anthony, etc. - to also join in on Wednesday. To accommodate more than one Skype participant, I will set up a Skype conference call and I will call you if your Skype icon indicates you are online and accepting calls. So if you want to participate long distance, log on to Skype around 6:45 and expect a call from me. We will use a chat box, as before, to indicate who "has their hand up" and is waiting to speak. Email me if you have any questions.

As for you flesh-and-blood regulars, I am most certainly looking forward to seeing your smiling faces and furrowed brows, as always. To you not-so-regulars, I say, we miss you. "Come on in. The philosophy is great."

Hope to see/hear you all on Wednesday.

Best Regards,

Steve