<p> List of Potential Discussion Topics for Plato’s Cave</p><p>These topics come from computer files in my system and are loosely organized in groups. Some of the topics have brief explanations; others are self-explanatory or may need later clarification.Please submit your own suggestions for consideration.</p><p>Philosophy-David Hume.doc</p><p>Sociocracy A form of government or management that presumes equality of individuals and is based on consent. This equality is not expressed with the 'one man one vote' law of democracy, but in the principle that a decision can only be taken if none of those present have an overbearing argumented objection against it.</p><p>Religion-What the Beatles Gave Science.doc Beatles-Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.doc Bhagavad Gita.doc GOD Question.doc Religion-Galileo vs Pope.doc Religion and Violence.doc Book-Gods Problem.doc - How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer Psi-Possession.doc Exorcist Sceptic.doc</p><p>Science of Religion.doc Science and religion have often been at loggerheads. Now the former has decided to resolve the problem by trying to explain the existence of the latter Science and Belief.doc</p><p>Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.doc</p><p>Mother Teresa-The Moral Instinct.doc The Moral Instinct - By STEVEN PINKER Evolution has endowed us with ethical impulses. Do we know what to do with them? Mother Teresa-2.doc</p><p>Psi-William James-Varieties of Human Experience.doc Psi-Reincarnation-Ian Stevenson.doc</p><p>Universe Creation.doc One of the good things about being God is that there's not much competition. From time immemorial, no one else has boasted the skills necessary to create a universe. Now that's about to change. "People are becoming more powerful," says Andrei Linde, a cosmologist based at Stanford University in California. "Maybe it's time we redefine God as something more sophisticated than just the creator of the universe."</p><p>1 Gödel on the Divine.doc Kurt Gödel, the preeminent mathematical logician of the twentieth century, is best known for his celebrated Incompleteness Theorems; yet he also had a profound rational theology worthy of serious consideration. “The world is rational,” (Wang, 1996: 316) asserted Gödel, evoking philosophical theism, “according to which the order of the world reflects the order of the supreme mind governing it” (Yourgrau, 2005: 104-105).</p><p>CR-Terrorist_Making.pdf What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism by Alan B. Krueger</p><p>Suicide Bombers.doc</p><p>Book-Age of American Unreason.doc</p><p>Law Suit Nation.doc</p><p>Belief to Knowing.doc Mind-Body_Problem-meaning.pdf Buddhists Know About Science.doc</p><p>Laws of Nature.doc (source unknown)</p><p>Consciousness_vs_objective_reality.pdf Is Consciousness Primary? Six arguments against the view that conscious experience derives from a material basis are presented, none of which is entirely new taken in isolation but whose conjunction is compelling. These arguments arise from epistemology, phenomenology, neuropsychology, and philosophy of quantum mechanics. It turns out that any attempt at proving that conscious experience is ontologically secondary to material objects both fails and brings out its methodological and existential primacy.</p><p>Consciousness-Thought Experiment.pdf A Thought Experiment on Consciousness The Mind-Body Problem, which constitutes the starting point for a large part of the speculations about consciousness and conscious experience, can be restated in an equivalent way, using the `brain duplication' argument described in this paper. If we assume that consciousness follows from a peculiar organization of physical matter and energy, namely that it does not transcend physical reality, then the brain duplication argument gives a possible interesting physical characterization of the mind: namely, a sort of extensive interdependence of the brain with the whole surrounding physical world in giving rise to consciousness.</p><p>2 Happiness.doc Happiness: Enough Already The push for ever-greater well-being is facing a backlash, fueled by research on the value of sadness.</p><p>Tibet-Myth and Reality.doc Tibet and China.doc Buddhism - The Tibet Myth.doc Buddhist Economics.doc</p><p>Shamanism.doc Psi--Psychic crackdown-EU.doc Psi-Hal_Puthoff-matrix_and_metaphysics.pdf Psi-Challenge of Parapsychology.doc</p><p>Evolution Debate.doc Evolution-Human.doc Evolution and Beauty.doc - Study Explains Why We're Not All Beautiful Environment-Population Reduction.doc</p><p>Philosophy-Morality-Darwin.doc Philosophy-Morality-Ethics-Intro.doc Philosophy-Morality-Ethics.doc</p><p>Beginnings-philosophical problem.doc In the preface to The Great Chain of Being, Arthur Lovejoy remarked that the idea of which his book was a history was for many centuries one of the dominant ideas in western philosophy. He lamented that even hearsay knowledge of it had died away so completely that he had to explain to his readers just what the idea was. The problem of beginning has suffered a similar fate. For many centuries it was a pervasive and foundational problem addressed in some degree by virtually every systematic philosopher</p><p>Anthropic principle.doc Victor Stenger-Anthropic Coincidences.doc</p><p>CR-Freedom-1st_Amendment.pdf Saggy Pants Defense.doc</p><p>Sex Survey-MSNBC.doc</p><p>Sex-Turn Out the Red Light.doc Turn Out the Red Light? Amsterdam plans to close down its most famous district, citing sleaze, criminal activity and human trafficking. Not everybody is happy about it. By Thijs Niemantsverdriet | Newsweek Web Exclusive </p><p>3 Stem Cells and Anti-Aging.doc Aging and Longevity-2.doc</p><p>AI - Kurzweil.doc AI-Singularity-2.doc Artificial Life-Venter.doc AI-Slow Progress.doc AI_gone_awry.pdf</p><p>Thinking Machine.doc The Thinking Machine Jeff Hawkins created the Palm Pilot and the Treo. Now he says he’s got the ultimate invention: software that mimics the human brain.</p><p>Virtual World Simulation.doc Reality-Virtual World Hypothesis.doc Reality as Computer SSE 2006.doc</p><p>Nanotech_viewers_guide.pdf</p><p>Lie Detector-Hand-held.doc Truth Scan.doc</p><p>Drug War.doc</p><p>4</p>