Anyone can join, whether or not you're a vegan, vegetarian, animal welfare activist, green environmentalist, intellectual, or nerd.  All you need is an interest in what we do. You can see our calendar for animal welfare / animal rights relevant events and nerdy and veg*n stuff: http://www.meetup.com/vegNerds/#calendar We get together for a variety of events. They can be for social, ethical, and / or intellectual purposes. We encourage all members to suggest event ideas, on the Message board, o …

Join us for public lectures in Chicago on the Gnostic Teachings, a practical, spiritual and scientific methodology for transforming suffering and acquiring personal knowledge of the divine. Gnosis is the universal wisdom at the heart of all great religions and mystical traditions, and has manifested through innumerable teachers and spiritual guides. The principal literature of discussion is the canon of Samael Aun Weor, a modern author and expositor on esoteric topics such as Gnosticism, Kabbala …

Art Appreciation is the understanding of the timeless qualities that characterise all great art. So too is philosophy concerned with universality and truth. What is your relationship to art? Why is art meaningful to you? This group explores the great world of art, aesthetic experience, and its relation to philosophy.  We will be looking at all types of media from painting to music, poetry and film. Also see these other philosophy groups in Chicago: Greek Philosophy: http://www.meetup.com/So …

This group is for those people in the education profession with a passion for their work who want to stay informed about developments in education policy, issues, research, best practices, etc. It will provide opportunities to share recent findings in effective ways to improve student outcomes and school environments. We will seek ways to take action in support of our best interests in the public realm. If you enjoy following current events and digging deeper than the obvious simple rhetoric on …

"The purpose of this meetup is to provide a venue for individuals who walk the esoteric/inner path but also strive for a balance with their more exoteric & worldly nature. I seek others like myself who walk the inner path and have experienced inner transfigurations and can examine these powerful, spiritual experiences from a scientific & psychological lens, who introspect ruthlessly, who are open to exploring the inner realms of self-identity, and who value knowledge and wisdom above all.  I hav …

The Startup Trebuchet Entrepreneurs’ Clinics create environments to explore the challenges of securing the best position in launching and maintaining a business. The groups are purposefully kept small, with 10 – 20 participants, to allow for in-depth discussion of actual issues. These are not lectures, but rather highly interactive sessions. Subjects range from entity formation, establishing co-founder agreements, protecting intellectual property and trade secrets, business assumption validati …

Under Construction (but join!) (Note that this page as well as some outgoing links are NSFW.) This group is for people who have an intuition of something better, and who are pursuing it in every direction simultaneously. You have a sense of rightness and wrongness that cuts to the bone, and it doesn't line up with traditional religion or the zeitgeist. You're an information sponge, but you hold it all provisionally and pragmatically. You know that all truths are partial perspectives, i.e. wrong …

This is a group of individuals who are fascinated by the amazing and thought provoking ideas shared on TED.com and wish to delve further into discussion for deeper understanding and exploration.

This is a group to get together and learn about the issues of the day in a social -meet people- learn & - respect others venue. This is 99% group so if you are in the 1% your ideas are welcome but will not be in the majority

We are students in Coursera classes (https://www.coursera.org/) who meet to study together and discuss Coursera classes in general. Meetings are in-person at convenient locations in the Chicago area and may include an option to attend virtually.

Since the beginning I've had a sense that there ought to be some discipline of cognition, some art of thinking, the studying of which would make its students visibly more competent, more formidable: the equivalent of Taking a Level in Awesome. - "A Sense That More Is Possible"

This group is for people who like to mix philosophical discourse and drinking. If you're looking for carefully moderated debate, look elsewhere. These discussions are unstructured intellectual free-for-alls - the only two constants are booze and a keen interest in the nature of reality and human existence. We take philosophy very seriously, but we don't think taking it seriously demands that you act like an academic when discussing it. No formal training is necessary - no one will be expected to …

Creating a new conversation in science, technology, and engineering for Chicagoland to think, understand and engage.

Have you read the Fifty Shades books by E.L. James? Multiple times? If you'd like to talk about Anastasia and Christian with other devotees, please join us. We'll delve into the characters, plot lines, and what makes these books so compelling to so many people.

We meet twice a month to discuss designated during the taping of Insight Radio.  (If you have not listened, here is the last show:  Insight Radio is looking for guests for our next show on current events.  Here are recent shows: Guest: Fran Hawthorne, Author of Ethical Chic: The Inside Story of the Companies We Think We Love. Award-winning journalist Fran Hawthorne has been a writer or editor at Fortune, BusinessWeek, Institutional Investor, Crane's and other publications. She is the author of …

The Book (Was Better) Club is for cinephiles and bookworms alike. Each month, members will select a book for which a film adaptation was (or will be) made. To keep discussions productive, caps will be placed on how many may attend a given meeting, but meet-ups will be held at least twice a month. So if you don't R.S.V.P. in time for one, just join another! Events will range from discussions (over coffee, tea, wine, or my personal favorite: FOOD) to in-home movie viewings and trips to the cinema.

(1 minute video) This group is for people who value and enjoy deeper discussions with amazing people and who are also willing to rise to the occasion by joining us to help make these discussion opportunities an ongoing reality. The events held in this group are all about having fun nights of great people and 'deeper' discussions over dinner in a charming restaurant. This Meetup group was created by Glen Brauer as part of a non-profit global initiative using practical philosophy to bring togeth …

Come on out and experience our Public Library systems! We participate in many FREE EVENTS... Free (or at nominal fees) Movies, Concerts, Book Club, Coffees, Lectures, Reading Programs, Book Mobiles, Friends of Library fundraisers and programs, Used book sales, after school reading programs for your kids, and much much more. Join here to be kept abreast of what is going on at your local library! [Chicago & Suburban Libraries Please Click Here] (to see the best layout for creating your profile fo …

Corvid College is an experimental collective of teachers and students who offer classes to the public. Our title comes from a family of birds that is social, non-hierarchical, and intelligent in nature; these qualities guide our efforts. The college runs on anarchic, decentralized, voluntary, self-managed, and horizontal principles, and we provide an open-ended framework for a non-hierarchical, informal, yet still academically rigorous class structure. Corvid College emerged in Boston in 2009, w …

This is a group for anyone interested in pairing up with another to further their learning. If you are interested in computer programming, learning a language, playing tennis or anything that you can learn better with one another then this is the meet-up for you. Looking forward to exploring how pair learning can benefit your learning process and developing a community.

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Theatre for Thinkers is a nascent meet up group with the goal of gathering folks to experience interesting, original and even bizarre theater and art that informs and offers insights into science and scientific endeavors. Anchored initially by Thom Britton's critically acclaimed show FreakShow and Tell, we hope to ultimately link to his shows and other local performers and artists with entertaining, interesting perspectives on science. We hope to both simply let people know about these events an …

Understanding the Seed comes together once a month to learn about the Seven Dimensions of Health and Wellness which are: physical, emotional, social, intellectual, spiritual, occupational and environmental. We also look at Prochaska's Transtheoretical Model of Health Behavior Change in addressing unhealthy personal behaviors that contribute to grieving the spirit and resisting personal growth. We learn how to cultivate the seven dimensions in our lives by doing reflective analysis through readin …

This is a group for anyone interested in learning and/or exchanging ideas directed to intellectual property (IP) issues common to Startups and strategies to implement best practices for IP rights protection and leverage the valve of the IP for the benefit of the Startup. All skills levels are welcome. The group was started in order to meet people interested in exploring IP issues common to Startups. Looking forward to exploring strategies and best practices with anyone interested.

This is a social-intellectual group in the spirit of the late great Atheist scholar and whiskey imbiber Christopher Hitchens. This group will meet bi-monthly at various local and friendly Chicago watering holes for camaraderie, community, mild drunkenness, and free-spirited discussions about the virtues and obstacles of our identity. We will also demonstrate through practice that ethical and altruistic behavior is innate and beneficial and not dependent upon a celestial creation. All Backgrounds …