Category: Speaker

Ben Wade

11 a.m., October 29, 2023

Join the Humanist Forum at the Mountain View Senior Center, where Ben Wade will present to us, OR join us on Zoom.

Ben will briefly overview the definition of critical thinking and some of its skills, attitudes, and dispositions. He will examine, in some detail, the disposition of flexibility, especially concerning older persons. Finally, Ben will suggest actions that Humanists can take to support and encourage critical thinking in the general populace.

Ben Wade has been a student and practitioner of critical thinking for many years. He holds a Masters Degree in Critical Thinking from the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

10/29/2023 Ben Wade from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

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Also, we will continue to present our forums on Zoom. To join and be able to ask questions and make comments, click here.
No password is needed — our host will admit you from the waiting room. Joining the meeting via the link will download and install the Zoom app on your desktop computer (if it’s not already installed), and then take you to the meeting. You can also install the Zoom app on your computer or smartphone, and then enter:
Meeting ID: 816 5389 0712
Passcode: 250634

You can also call any of the following phone numbers and then enter the above Meeting ID and the Passcode in order to join the meeting by phone.
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
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+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
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+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
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You can find international phone numbers to call here.

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David Friedman

11 a.m., September 24, 2023

Join the Humanist Forum, in person OR on Zoom.

This Sunday we are happy to have David Friedman joining us in person to talk about the economics of climate change.

Most criticism of the current climate orthodoxy questions either whether climate change is happening or whether it is anthropogenic. In my view the real question is neither of those. It is what the net consequences are. Climate change has large negative consequences, large positive consequences, both spread through a long and uncertain future; I do not believe we know whether the net effect is positive or negative. The widespread belief that it is predictably negative is based in part on ignoring the positive consequences, which get very little public mention, and in part on a biased, in some cases dishonest, presentation of the evidence.

Prof. Friedman is an American economist, physicist, legal scholar, author and anarcho-capitalist theorist. He was a professor of law at Santa Clara University from 2005 to 2017, and is currently Professor Emeritus. His is a contributing editor to the libertarian journal, Liberty.
Prof. Friedman is a longtime member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, where he’s known as Duke Cariodoc of the Bow. He is a science fiction fan and has written two fantasy novels, Harald and Salamander.
This should be a very interesting forum.

9/24/2023 David Friedman from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.

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Also, we will continue to present our forums on Zoom. To join and be able to ask questions and make comments, click here.
No password is needed — our host will admit you from the waiting room. Joining the meeting via the link will download and install the Zoom app on your desktop computer (if it’s not already installed), and then take you to the meeting. You can also install the Zoom app on your computer or smartphone, and then enter:
Meeting ID: 816 5389 0712
Passcode: 250634

You can also call any of the following phone numbers and then enter the above Meeting ID and the Passcode in order to join the meeting by phone.
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 408 638 0968 US (San Jose)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
You can find international phone numbers to call here.

———-

RSVP on Meetup here.
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See videos of our past Forums here.
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Martin Squibbs

11 a.m., September 17, 2023

Join the Humanist Forum, in person OR on Zoom. Martin Squibbs will present to us in person.

I have long held the theory that time may not be a real physical 4th dimension as it is commonly believed to be, and modeled in the sciences. Instead, perhaps reality is simply the motion of physical things in only 3 dimensions, absent of time. And within this reality, our brains are creating virtual, abstracted “forms” of physical reality beyond them, and storing these forms as memories. These forms being our perceptions, and these memories being their past. And you and I, ourselves, exist here in our brains, and experience these perceptions and observe these past memories as our objective world in mind. In this case, I believe time, or more accurately time bases, may be just particular types of these objective past memories; regular repeating ones. We, ourselves, remember and count these different times, and use them to order and measure the relative duration of our other past memories. And we also use these times to order and measure the duration of futures we imagine and predict in our minds; these futures being our projections of yet-to-be-perceived, experienced and observed past objective memories. So between our self and our brain, we create our future objective memories here in our brain.

———-

Also, we will continue to present our forums on Zoom. To join and be able to ask questions and make comments, click here.
No password is needed — our host will admit you from the waiting room. Joining the meeting via the link will download and install the Zoom app on your desktop computer (if it’s not already installed), and then take you to the meeting. You can also install the Zoom app on your computer or smartphone, and then enter:
Meeting ID: 816 5389 0712
Passcode: 250634

You can also call any of the following phone numbers and then enter the above Meeting ID and the Passcode in order to join the meeting by phone.
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 408 638 0968 US (San Jose)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
You can find international phone numbers to call here.

———-

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See videos of our past Forums here.
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Presenters: Richard Duda & Michael Abramson

When: Saturday, August 12^th , 2023

Pre-meeting for in-person participants:
6:00 pm – 6:45 pm: (potluck)

Pre-meeting for Zoom participants:
6:30 pm – 6:45 pm: connect to Zoom

Meeting:
6:45 pm – 7:00 pm: check-in for everybody
7:00 pm – 7:45 pm: each presentation is 20 minutes
7:45 pm – 8:40 pm: all-peer discussion

Potluck:
The in-person meeting includes a potluck at the beginning.

Where:
Fireside Room at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto (for potluck and in-person meeting)
Directions to the meeting: https://www.uucpa.org/connection/visiting-us/

Our next Humanists at UUCPA potluck meeting is on Artificial intelligence. It’s a hot topic, so this meeting has two presenters: Richard Duda & Michael Abramson, to be followed by a group discussion.

Dick wrote the following for his presentation:

In November last year, OpenAI, a small company in San Francisco, caused a sensation by making publicly available its AI chatbot — called ChatGPT3. ChatGPT’s breadth of knowledge, fluent use of English, and fast response was quite astonishing.

OpenAI and several other companies have used the same general technology — called “generative AI” — to translate languages, write computer code, create images, compose music, and even command robots.

However, if these programs do not know the answer to a question, they simply make something up — in the jargon, they “hallucinate”. Although engineers are working on this problem, it is not easy to solve, which limits their usefulness. In his presentation, Dick will give a basic explanation of how ChaptGPT works, speculate on its possible applications,
and point out the problems with its use.

The following is mostly written by Michael to describe his presentation.

Instead of focusing on chatbots, Michael will look at the bigger picture.
The “landscape of intelligence” includes
– Human Intelligence (HI). Most familiar to us, but not well understood.
– Programmed Intelligence (PI). Drives most of automation around us.
– The specialized Artificial Intelligence (AI). rapidly progressing
– Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). The most powerful, controversial, and dangerous of all.

You will learn that ChatGPT is not an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), not even close, but it shows what could be an impact of AI having unrestricted access to all knowledge from the Internet.

AGI could be created using ideas borrowed from HI and PI, and can be developed surprisingly fast.

AGI can become an existential threat to humans almost immediately if it gets access to the Internet of Things (IoT). Using less advanced specialized forms of AI as the guardrails against the runaway AGI may or may not work.

Come join us.
For our potluck, please bring a dish of your choice:  vegetarian, salad, meat or dessert. Our meetings usually have 15 attendees.

More:
We usually meet on the second Saturday of each month.

To receive the Humanists at UUCPA monthly announcement and reminder, subscribe to our list:
https://www.uucpa.org/connection/affinity-groups/humanists-uucpa/

Martin Squibbs

11 a.m., June 11, 2023

Join the Humanist Forum, in person OR on Zoom. Martin Squibbs will present to us in person.

We deal with time every day, in planning, ordering, and organizing our own lives, and in using it in the mathematical models of almost every branch of science, technology, and engineering. Yet despite this, what time is and what time measures remain largely a mystery to us. I’d like to present a possible solution.

I’ll start by considering the two worlds I believe we so often speak of and hold in mind. The first is familiar to us all and it’s our own world in mind, where we, our self, also reside. This world and this self, both in this mind, exist, I believe, within our brain. The second world is a little less familiar. It includes our mind, our brain, our body, in fact, all of life on Earth, all of the Earth, and our solar system, etc. This world then is the known Universe. I call it reality.

I believe that we frequently conflate these two worlds, and treat them the same, and that this can lead to false assumptions, and, of course, to being unable to distinguish their possible differences. So I’ll like to consider them separately. What are they? How do they behave? What is their relationship with one another? How might our two different branches of physics, classical and quantum, map onto their different realities? And of course inherent in all these questions and their answers; what is the nature of time in each of these worlds?

Finally, with this framework of reality in mind, I’d like to consider some of the mysteries, problems, and complex ideas that exist within physics and other disciplines, to see if they might work, and how they might work in such a framework. And could this framework offer fresh insights, more clarity, and possibly some solutions to them?

Bio
Martin was born in England in 1964 and graduated with a Degree in Electrical Engineering and Management from Imperial College, London in 1987. He moved to the US in 1994 and has held a career in the semiconductor industry, in various positions in design, marketing, and business development.

He had a love and fascination for clocks from an early age, which probably sparked his curiosity in time. He was never comfortable with the idea of time being a 4th dimension of space, and met a family friend in England one Christmas, Dennis Smout, who in response to his discomfort suggested “Well, maybe this moment is not in time, but rather time is in this moment”. This struck a chord in him that has rung true ever since, and launched him on his journey with time, to explore and uncover its true nature.

———-

Also, we will continue to present our forums on Zoom. To join and be able to ask questions and make comments, click here.
No password is needed — our host will admit you from the waiting room. Joining the meeting via the link will download and install the Zoom app on your desktop computer (if it’s not already installed), and then take you to the meeting. You can also install the Zoom app on your computer or smartphone, and then enter:
Meeting ID: 816 5389 0712
Passcode: 250634

You can also call any of the following phone numbers and then enter the above Meeting ID and the Passcode in order to join the meeting by phone.
+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)
+1 408 638 0968 US (San Jose)
+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)
+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)
+1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC)
+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
+1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
You can find international phone numbers to call here.

———-

RSVP on Meetup here.
Like us on Facebook here.
Retweet our Twitter announcement here.
Linkedin here.
See videos of our past Forums here.
Add this event to your Google Calendar