Topic Suggestions...

Please use this thread to make suggestions for meeting topics.

How about depression? Many people suffer from it. Is it just a condition, or something more? Can we effectively combat the effects with drugs, or are we just band-aiding the problem?

Questions?

Comments?

Jokes? lol


-Losenger

That sounds like a good topic, depression is endemic it seems to Western society but really we know very little for definite about it.

I honestly hate to stay on a religion-based theme, but it's something.

Why don't you discuss the merits of a particular philosopher? Like Ayn Rand, for instance. Discuss the merits and faults of Objectivism.

The problem there is finding people confident enough to chair meetings on specific schools/philosophers.

Any volunteers?

i think the topic of mental illness is worthy. i would love to see a debate on the philosophic concept of free will as well as any of the classical philosophical topics. additionally, let it be known i am always up for a debate/discussion regarding marijuana in any context.

this group rocks! right on thinkers...keep thinking.

Depression as a topic could be cool. There are definite chemical aspects to it to be sure which medicine tries to handle. But there's a lot of free-floating depression/purposelessness that opens into a whole lot of other topics.

You know me, the philosophy of capitalism is a favorite of mine (not the economic benefits of it versus other systems, but it's implicit assumptions of how people interelate).

Drugs discussions may get a bit more political than desired. Philosophic permutations I can think of off the bat, does it help understanding? Another option is a discussion of the effects of drugs on religion (compare and contrast European and Asian drugs of choice and the religions that formed at those times).

If anyone could host it, I'd love a discussion of Islam. It's been years since my religion classes, I'd love an expert to do a lecture and Q&A on the basic theologoical differences and major misunderstandings of the religion.

That's it for me at the moment.

I would love to hear what we think about SL sex..or cybersex in general. Is it cheating? Can we keep our pecadillos in-world only, or does it affect us in RL, too.

I know what I think...I'd love to hear other opinions..

- Emmy

Emmy, I was thinking the same thing.... I'd be interested to hear what others thing about the whole idea. Is there too much sex in SL, or is it confined enough (to particular areas) that it isn't a problem? If it *is* a problem, is there anything we as residents can do about it? Can you have a partner in RL and still play around in SL without it having a negative effect? Is the sexual aspect of SL positive, negative, or somewhere in between? I think it'd be fascinating.

Well, we have a mature HQ, we can do that.

Remember Thinkers are free to run meetings at any time at the HQ, although if you want 4pm or 2pm you should check with me first .

And not Free Will Evolves, as I just said IW.

This would be a very good starting point for a free will discussion.

Or would it? Because Dennett says he has actually solved the free will problem in this book, there would be nothing left for us to discuss...

This is a very sensitive subject, but since having exchanged some ideas with two hearing impaired persons, and one with multiple sclerosis, one with deep sociopath problems, one connected to a machine, and lots of smaller physical/mental disabilities, I wonder if we could/should talk about the "therapeutic" virtues of SL, where anyone can have fun as a "normal" avatar and without any type of prejudice?

This is a very sensitive topic, though... most people do not want to discuss their illnesses openly. BUT it's true there are a high percentage of people "having fun in SL" just because they can't have it in RL...

Gwyneth,

This is an interesting and potentially valuable topic. I have always been concerned in virtual worlds by the arbitrary way that some people are 'banned'. I would find it very upsetting to be banned and I am conscious of the fact that many people in virtual worlds are disabled or housebound. For them the experience could be devastating, because of the importance of their involvement.

I was thinking of this too, after some interesting conversations and a curious meeting at the weekend. Has anyone done this yet? If not I will do this on Thursday at 2pm game time...

Well, since Jinny challenged me to do something on Tuesdays - and today is Tuseday - and I've seen that the 2 pm slot is still "free", I thought I'd get just something going on today. if not, this will probably be the topic for next Tuesday (pending approval from the Thinker prefects!).

The topic will be "Addictions" (yes, I got the idea from Darko Cellardoor ). Of course we are all addicted to Second Life, and this will probably be what we're going to discuss. On the other hand, I've noticed an unusual high percentage of caffeine and even nicotine addicts in SL, compared to the world percentage. Is this a sign that we ARE different?

While I will try to avoid going too much into the darker side of drug addiction - I'm certainly no expert on the subject, and this event should not be seen as "group therapy" for recovering addicts of hard drug usage in any case. We will try to focus on "mild addictions", ie. not social-imparing ones, and our personal relationship with them.

How can we define addiction? There are psychological addictions (like SL or cybersex or chatting too much on MSN) and physical addictions (say, like nicotine or alcohol). We go through certain phases on those "addictions". In some cases, we know we are addicted (normally too late) and net help to get out of it; in some cases - even worse - we know that we're addicted but we don't want to stop it (again, like SL).

Should all kinds of addiction be banned? Or just those based on chemical substances? Just those that annoy other people? (eg. smoking) Or just those that prevent us to function properly in our society? (eg. alcohol and so-called "hard drugs"
Or shouldn't we simply leave that to "mature adults" to figure it out themselves, and punish only the consequences of addiction? (ie. driving drunk, killing someone while under the effect of psychotropi substances, or neglecting your SO because of playing too much SL)

The event should be posted as "mature" since this certainly can go into very adult stuff. No kiddies allowed

My sincere apologies. After 90 minutes of several crashes and timeouts, I finally managed to log in. Seems that I have found out a hidden bug somewhere which prevents me from logging in when I have received IMs (while offline) AND have the unfortunate luck of setting the home location and last location to the same region. Wow. Difficult to reproduce that bug, but I guess I did it. And was thus prevented to get in time to the Thinkers' HQ for hosting the event, despite having some friends IMing Live Help and the Lindens to help me

I guess Murphy strikes again...

Event postponed until next Tuesday...

No worries Gwyn. I will still be addicted next week.

Are we still discussing the subject of addiction today (Tuesday) at 2:00pm pst?

Ouch! Syncronicity! I just had posted it on the Events page when I got an email telling me that this thread got a new message...

Wow!

Yes, Addictions later on! See you!

Hope it goes well, sadly Tuesday's are my insanely long days so I will get home about the time the discussion finishes

Remember if you have a meeting that works well, post a report about it here in its own thread. That way discussions that could go on forever... can.

On last Saturday's Thinkers' Soapbox Improv, I suggested Jinny a theme for debate/discussion, named (after much thought) "Reshuffling the Ego".

Since I'm no psychologist myself, I may have some serious disadvantages in going much into this subject in a scientific way, but this is the result of several conversations about SL, both inworld and onworld.

Basically some psychologists think that what we call the "self" is an assembly of several "personality facets" (do not confuse that with "multiple personalities", which is a mental disorder). As we grow and learn, we tend to agreggate some of those facets into what other people tend to view as our "ego". This is a simple explanation for our behaviour difference when we are drunk, for instance - some "hidden" or "repressed" facets surface out and dominate our ego for a short while. But we "revert back to normal" shortly afterwards - think of our ego as a rubber-band. When you stretch it, you can get different shapes, but after a while, it just goes back to normal.

You aren't "born" with the ego fully-formed - we all go through some phases to "build" it for ourselves. Education is a major factor, as well as self-study and introspection, but most people have their ego pretty well "roughened out" when you leave your adolescence. This means pushing and pulling some of those facets into dominant positions (and this also explains why there aren't "totally good" or "totally evil" persons in RL).

Still, this doesn't mean that the ego is engraved in stone tablets - aging, learning, getting new experiences (bad or good), may disturb your current "facet assortment" and you may display new facets more strongly than before (ie. after the loss of a someone special, you may be a more taciturn or depressed person). This is "normal" as far as human development goes!

"Multiple personality disorders" happen when you can't get a grip on a current "set" of facets and mantain them coherently for a long while - you keep emphasizing some over the others, and switching back again. New ones can dominate over time, and you become a somewhat different person then. This is viewed clinically as a "disorder". Slight changes to the "facets" are acceptable, but not if they are "permanent", or wildly swing between two (or more) different sets.

Now I postulate that things like Second Life can change dramatically our view on "ego composition". Meaning that since you are in a certain way "reincarnating" your "self" into another body - your avatar - into another world, you can "reshuffle" your personality facets slightly, but make them permanent. A few simple examples come to mind: overcoming shyness, being more social, having a much stronger sexual drive. In some cases this phenomenum is simply discarded as mere "role-playing" and nothing more. But is it really? (or should we discuss what "role-playing" really is?)

I also don't believe that people can change their egos TOTALLY when logging in. If you're a peaceful person in RL, it's very hard to "pretend" being a violent person in SL. You can do it for a while, yes. Good actors (amateurs or pros) may even be able to keep that illusion for a long while. However, I don't think that you can "pretend" to be someone else ALL the time! Nevertheless, you can "reshuffle" your ego facets, and let others see you under a different light - what some psychologists call the "alter ego" (which is not necessarily an "opposite you", but, like what it means literally, a "different you".

If you think that this makes sense, and is interesting to discuss, that'll be the topic for next Tuesday

Uh, no replies at all, so this means I can go ahead with "Reshuffling the Ego"?

I think psychology (in general), and if depression is really a side effect of societal conditions or chemical imbalance or if they cause each other, would be a great topic. I am very familiar with psychology as well as mental illness and it would be a very interesting meeting for me.