• June 17, 2013

17. Is anything possible if we put our mind to it? (proposed — Stephen)

Is any­thing pos­si­ble if we put our mind to it? For exam­ple flight, sub­mari­nes, space trav­el, inter­net etc Do we man­i­fest what we think?

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16. Rape — whose fault? (proposed — Beth)

Last year a UK offi­cial made the com­ment that some­times when a rape takes place the female vic­tim must accept the real­i­ty that her actions may have trig­gered the attack, at least in part. Is this a fair state­ment? What impli­ca­tions does it have for both vic­tims and per­pe­tra­tors? What impli­ca­tions does it have for…

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15. Abortion (proposed — Beth)

In the recent pres­i­den­tial debates in the USA the Repub­li­can par­ty expressed their wish to make abor­tion ille­gal once more, with an excep­tion for cas­es where preg­nan­cy was the result of rape or abuse. Do you think this line of rea­son­ing makes sense? Is it enforce­able? Is this even an issue that war­rants the government’s…

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13. Wilderness protection (proposed — Bill)

Should our remain­ing wild areas be pro­tect­ed at all costs? Or should they be open to com­mer­cial devel­op­ment, min­ing, farm­ing, wood-chip­ping, etc.

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11. The concept of alternative universes (proposed — Bill)

The con­cept of alter­na­tive uni­vers­es is a pop­u­lar top­ic in sci­ence at the moment. If an alter­na­tive uni­verse exist­ed, would it have dif­fer­ent phys­i­cal prop­er­ties to those of our uni­verse? Or would the phys­i­cal laws nec­es­sar­i­ly be the same?

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10. Photography is both the easiest and the hardest medium (proposed — Bill)

Pho­tog­ra­phy is pop­u­lar because it’s the eas­i­est medi­um in which to be com­pe­tent. But it’s also the hard­est medi­um in which to devel­op a unique artis­tic vision and sep­a­rate your­self from the crowds of com­pe­tent pho­tog­ra­phers. (para­phras­ing Chuck Close)

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9. Is artificial intelligence a real possibility? (proposed — Bill)

Will com­put­ers ever be able to trans­late com­plex sen­tences? Is arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence a real pos­si­bil­i­ty? Or is it sim­ply an imag­i­nary con­cept?

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7. Poetry (proposed — Bill )

Poet­ry, as an activ­i­ty and an insti­tu­tion, used to be cen­tral to civ­i­liza­tion, but is much more mar­gin­alised now. Why is that?

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6. What is the purpose of dreaming? (proposed — Bill) discussed 29 June 2013

What is the pur­pose of dream­ing? (i.e. what evo­lu­tion­ary advan­tage would a dream­ing crea­ture have over one that does not dream?) There are many exist­ing the­o­ries, such as emo­tion­al reboot, build­ing neu­ral net­works for visu­al pro­cess­ing, etc., but there is no gen­uine con­sen­sus on the issue.

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5. Intelligent life elsewhere in the universe — already discussed

Debate top­ic: Is there intel­li­gent life else­where in the uni­verse? Or was the devel­op­ment of life on earth a com­plete fluke, a once only event, which hap­pened again­st all odds, and is nev­er like­ly to occur again any­where in the uni­verse? Is the search for life else­where in the uni­verse a waste of time, mon­ey…

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