News – Page 16 – Toronto Oasis, Secular Community

Sun Feb 13 – [Online] What is Consciousness?

This will be an online Zoom meeting. Please RSVP on our Meetup for this event to get access to the Zoom link. See our online meeting instructions at: https://torontooasis.org/online-meeting-instructions

Our program will run from 11 am to 12:30 pm and you can join in to the meeting starting at 10:45 am for our open social. Followed by an extended discussion for a half hour. Volunteers please join by 10:30 am.

What scientific evidence do we have about consciousness? Is there a signature of consciousness in brain activity? Do some animals have a kind of consciousness?

Our featured speaker, Dr. Mark Reimers, will discuss results from studies of brain activity during conscious perception, effortful thinking, inner conflict, and day-dreaming. While these studies don’t give final answers to the deep questions, they do build on empirical evidence to point us in useful directions.

Dr. Mark Reimers works as a computational neuroscientist: studying brain function by applying statistical methods to look for patterns in large-scale and high-resolution recordings of brain activity and behavior. He applies these methods to understand normal brain function in memory and to shed light on mental illness.

Dr. Reimers has worked at the US National Institutes of Health, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and at the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics in Richmond, and now does research and teaches at Michigan State University. His broader aim is to ground our understanding of feeling and thought in the facts of biology.

Dr. Reimers was the leader of the Richmond Humanists in Virginia for five years, and now leads the UU Forum in Lansing, and speaks frequently at humanist and science outreach events in Michigan.

Please RSVP on meetup: https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Oasis/events/bhgwksydcdbrb/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

This meeting has been recorded: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1amciLl5OegpfnAQtQOnmu2gHaBJsHvrr/view?usp=sharing

Sun Feb 06 – [Online]The Power of Storytelling (Part 2)

For our featured presentation this Sunday, we will be watching and then discussing the second half of a video of a talk by Nikole Hannah-Jones.

Nikole Hannah-Jones is an American investigative journalist, known for her coverage of civil rights in the United States. In 2020 she won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for her work on The 1619 Project – a long-form journalism endeavor developed by Nikole Hannah-Jones that re-examines the legacy of slavery in the United States.

Tania Akon, a Toronto Oasis organizer, will introduce the talk and lead the discussion that will follow.

Please RSVP on meetup: https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Oasis/events/bhgwksydcdbjb/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

Sun Jan 30 – [Online] The Power of Storytelling (Part 1)

For our featured presentation this Sunday, we will be watching and then discussing the first half of a video of a talk by Nikole Hannah-Jones.

Tania Akon, a Toronto Oasis organizer, will introduce the talk and lead the discussion that will follow.

Please RSVP on meetup: https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Oasis/events/bhgwksydccbnc/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

Sun Jan 23 – [Online] How Did We Become Different Than Animals?

Our human mind has evolved from an ape mind over the past six million years. How have our brains and genes changed to bring this about? We are very similar to apes in some ways, in which scientists previously thought humans stood out, but quite different in other ways, such as our attention to and capacity for learning from other people.

In this talk, our featured speaker, Dr. Mark Reimers, will present genetic, anatomical, and behavioral evidence bearing on the changes to the brain that supported the emergence of the human mind and its capacity for culture.

Dr. Reimers was the leader of the Richmond Humanists in Virginia for five years, and now leads the UU Forum in Lansing, and speaks frequently at humanist and science outreach events in Michigan.

Please RSVP on meetup: https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Oasis/events/bhgwksydccbfc/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

This meeting has been recorded: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NwoDjSXzYevW2SwoAqmivJurUDVShcTe/view?usp=sharing

Sun Jan 16 – [Online] A Virtual Field Trip to Sunday Assembly Pittsburgh

This Sunday, instead of our usual Toronto Oasis Sunday Zoom meeting, we will be going on a virtual field trip and join the online Sunday gathering of Sunday Assembly Pittsburgh (https://sapgh.org/).

Note that their meeting starts at 10:00 am.

Sunday Assembly Pittsburgh is a secular community that celebrates life through striving to live better, help often, and wonder more. They get together on the third Sunday of every month to explore a theme through music, poetry/readings, guest speakers, and community members’ experiences in relation to the theme. January’s theme will be about Finding Meaning.

To attend their meeting, each of us must register to receive the Zoom link (which they request not get posted anywhere as that defeats the purpose of registration). Toronto Oasis members are instructed to use their first name, last initial and OASIS in the registration. Specifically, we have been instructed to include “OASIS” in the “last name” portion of registration.

Click the link below to register and the Zoom link will be emailed to you: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcudOGgqz8oHNdsl4zXPRtwuFBNpPSVqPVt

Sun Jan 09 – [Online] The Variety of Scientisms & the Limits of Science

For our featured presentation this Sunday, we will be watching and then discussing a video of a CFI (centreforinquiry.org) talk by Massimo Pigliucci: The Variety of Scientisms & the Limits of Science. This talk took place at the CSICon 2018 in Las Vegas on October 19, 2018.

Prof. Massimo Pigliucci has a PhD in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Connecticut and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Tennessee. He currently is the K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York. His research interests include the philosophy of biology, the relationship between science and philosophy, the nature of pseudoscience, and the practical philosophy of Stoicism.

Tania Akon, a Toronto Oasis organizer, will introduce the CFI talk and moderate the discussion that will follow.

Please RSVP on meetup: https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Oasis/events/bhgwksydccbmb/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

Sun Jan 02 – [Online] The Art of Creativity

We will start off the new year listening to an inspiring TEDx talk by Taika Waititi, a New Zealand filmmaker, actor, and comedian. He was the writer, director and producer of the 2019 movie Jojo Rabbit which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. The TEDx talk will be introduced by Ryan Zhang, a Toronto Oasis regular participant and volunteer.

Please RSVP on meetup: https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Oasis/events/bhgwksydccbdb/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

Sun Dec 26 – [Online] A Virtual Field Trip to West Hill

‘Twas the day after Christmas, and all through the town
Lots of folks were still sleeping, not many around…

This Sunday, instead of our usual Toronto Oasis Sunday Zoom meeting, we will be going on a virtual field trip and join the online Sunday gathering of West Hill United Church. Their meeting starts at 10:30 am.

Toronto Oasis is a local chapter of the Oasis Network (https://www.oasisnetwork.com/). West Hill United Church has long been affiliated with the same Oasis Network. Their minister, Gretta Vosper, who came out as an atheist in solidarity with atheists persecuted in other parts of the world, has participated on the international leadership team and has spoken at Oasis gatherings in several states. West Hill United Church conducts its meetings without the use of God language. Please note that their minister, Gretta Vosper, is currently on a leave of absence.

The focus of the gathering on the 26th will be an extension of one of the themes from their Wellness group, which has met on zoom on Tuesdays for much of the pandemic. The focus will be on reflecting on living out our values through these particularly complex times. What’s hard and what helps? What’s been encouraging? And what helps us care for our selves, for others in our personal lives, for others all over the world, and for the planet itself.

Let’s join West Hill for a time of sharing, celebration, and inspiration.

The Zoom meeting link for West Hill’s Sunday meeting can be found on their website: https://www.westhill.net/

Sun Dec 19 – [Online] The Problem of Living in Time

There are essentially two ways to explore time: from the outside and from the inside. From the outside there is Newtonian absolute time (the time we continually measure) and Relative time, our gift from Einstein.
Then there is inside time, where the possibilities are almost endless.

THE PAST is dependent on the reliability of memory, record keeping and interpretation.

THE PRESENT lacks objectivity.

THE FUTURE depends on probability and cannot be examined until it becomes the present or the past and then we are not examining the future.

Our featured speaker on this topic, Elka Enola, is a poet and social activist who has been an atheist since she learned the words ‘why’ and ‘how’. Since she still knows those words, her life-long quest of learning continues.

On the topic of time, Elka is especially interested in our inner time. How do we ‘live in the future and in the past’ while we are in the present? What is ‘now’? What is reality? Is the past real? The future? For a healthy life, how should we balance our focus between the past, the present and the future? Do temporal categories exist or are they a human construct?

Here are some links to YouTube videos on Time to get you started thinking on this topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3tbVHlsKhs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P3Ous2IjiQ

Please RSVP on meetup: https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Oasis/events/bhgwksyccqbzb/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!

This meeting has been recorded: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mJ1BolNr_PCXZFVWk2eBiFh4issxDqzs/view?usp=sharing

Sun Dec 12 – [Online] How the Internet is Changing Language

We will be watching and discussing a YouTube audio interview with linguist and science communicator Gretchen McCulloch. She discusses her recent book about the linguistics of the internet, in which she describes what is new and not-so-new about the language we use online and the ways we perceive it. The topic and YouTube clip will be introduced by Lola Bradford, who studies linguistics and is a regular Toronto Oasis participant.

Please RSVP on meetup: https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-Oasis/events/bhgwksyccqbqb/

Looking forward to seeing familiar faces and perhaps some new ones!