“Who knows what ‘I think, therefore I am’ means?” asks senior Edmund Obeng. About a dozen students snack on chips, soda, and doughnut holes while Edmund animatedly leads the discussion and senior Brendan Shimizu jots down highlights on the blackboard. On Thursday, December 8, the ERHS Philosophy Club held its first meeting in Room 112. Headed by three seniors, Shimizu, Obeng, and Chiemeka Okeoma, the newly founded extracurricular aims to introduce the student body to new perspectives.

The ideal format the club wants to stick to is pairing philosophy with pop culture in order to easily bridge the gap between student experience and complex concepts. This began with Brendan pairing Edmund’s question with “Has anybody seen the Matrix before?” Not many are familiar with the nuances of René Descartes’s work, but plenty of teens have watched Keanu Reeves dodge bullets.

The interest meeting primarily involved the club’s leaders going over what realm of philosophy would be debated in future meetings. They plan to start out with an “Ethics Month,” with the first meeting’s topic being “Right and Wrong.” Other possible topics include the philosophy of nihilism, money, and religion.

Junior Ambe Mckinney said that he came to the interest meeting because he and his friends “like talking about lifestyles and how they live,” and just by going to the first meeting, he was already equipped with “new terms for the ideas I had.” This sentiment was echoed by sophomores Emily White and Naomi Lewko, who were each able to expand their vocabularies.

When asked how the first meeting went, junior Caleb Zuk said that those who attended definitely became “more involved” as the introduction went on. All of the officers said they thought that the interest meeting was a success and were excited about its future prospects.