The Junior Philosophical Society

THE JUNIOR PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY - SYNOPSIS

What makes some older children, as well as their parents, behave as they do nowadays? Some of the possible reasons are examined in this semi-fictional study of a group of intelligent
children.

It's about the meetings they hold to speculate about life, today and in the future. In many subjects, they soon realise they are better informed than most of their elders. Their observations and conclusions range from the hilarious to the deadly serious. Some of them even contain what could be some original ideas about Life and the Universe in general?

The plot linked Subjects they explore include Computer Intelligence, Alien Visitations, Politics, The Supernatural and ESP, Time Travel, Human Behaviour and Morality, Evolution and Religion. Plus comments on Cosmology, as well as a cynical look at Astrology, and the probable end of the civilised World as we, or rather they, know it. Their discussions often raise more questions than provide answers, but may also prompt adult readers to reconsider their attitude towards children, and the questions they ask. Especially in the light of the, rapidly accelerating, information revolution surrounding, and even submerging, many of us today. Grownups cannot keep children quiet with patronising answers nowadays, especially when they can now easily find out about all kinds of things, and in ways that earlier generations never could!

When the Members of The Junior Philosophy Society apply their devastating youthful logic to what they discover, and compare it with what the older generation tries to tell them, the seeds of distrust already sown in their fertile young minds begin to grow!

Extracts from THE JUNIOR PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY

THE FIRST MEETING
We talked about the subjects which interest us and agreed on these, to have first: -

EVOLUTION including dinosaurs.
TIME TRAVEL to the past and future.
RELIGION including Heaven and Hell, and anything else to do with it like Angels and Cherubs.
THE UNIVERSE and how it started.
SPACE TRAVEL.
THE SUPERNATURAL.
ALIENS and UFOs.
COMPUTERS including Robots.
THE FUTURE, right up to the end of it, whenever that is.
POLITICS ... well perhaps?

Some things we said, from some of the meetings:

ALIENS & UFOs
Sylvie said she though that Aliens have never been here yet, but perhaps they will one day.

I said, No, I'm not sure. Perhaps they never will. Perhaps aliens are something like us and get ill and have pollution and global warming and bad things like that. So that they die out or kill each other before they get really started on space travel to other stars and galaxies.

Fred said, How about if they didn't have those problems, but their star was going to explode or something? That could happen, then they would want to build spaceships to rescue everyone.

I said, Perhaps we'll have to do that one day? I read that a giant asteroid or comet could hit us and make life on this planet impossible for us, like they say it happened to the dinosaurs. I read one is going to come very close in the year 2028!

Mike wanted to know how many people could you get in a spaceship. Everybody in the world certainly couldn't go.

I tried working it out on my computer. I said, if it was a really big one, about a mile long, you could easily make it like a city with about 100,000 people in it. So you'd need 10 giant spaceships for every million people. That would be a lot to save the whole world!

HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
Sylvie said, It's against the law to marry more than one person. But my cousin Jenny has lived with about three different men since she was eighteen. She's twenty-five now, and all by herself at the moment, but is already thinking about the next one, she told me last week. She only lives with one at a time, but I don't think there's a law against more than one at a time, is there?

None of us had heard of one.

Fred said, I suppose it must be the same if a man lives with more than one girl at the same time. That's interesting, I bet some men are already doing it. Perhaps even in the same house?

So it's against the law if you're married, but OK if you're not, said Mike.

POLITICS
Alf said, The kind of event that really worries the government is whenone of their members dies or does something wrong and has a scandal, so he has to resign. I think this often happens, going by the newspapers. That's what really worries them, especially when it's time to have the next big election.

Joe wanted to know what a scandal was.

I said, It's like when the newspapers find out one of them has a secret girl friend somewhere, that his wife doesn't know about. Or even if she does. All the newspapers make a terrible fuss about it, because politicians are supposed to be good and honest and not make mistakes, so that the newspapers find out about them and then make a big fuss.

RELIGION
Alf said, I think it's all about human behaviour too. It makes a lot of sense to always be good to other people, and never hurt them, so that they're always good to you back.

I said, From everything I've heard and read about, most of the different religions believe that. They say you should love your neighbours, and forgive them for whatever they do to you, no matter how bad it is.

Yes, but perhaps it means only to other people with the same religion as you, Mike said.

COMMENTS
We agreed not to tell our parents about what we talk about at our meetings so we don't get them embarrassed or anything. We believe they think we just play games on my computer. We decided we would talk about time travel next time.

ABOVE ARE JUST A FEW EXTRACTS FROM THE MANY SECTIONS AND SUBJECTS DISCUSSED IN THE COMPLETE BOOK – For more see the author's website …

www.tonythorne.co.uk