On Tuesday, First to Third Form members of the Kingdon Society were invited to a lunch with the Headmaster, Mr Thomas. Harry Heyworth and Henry Powell (both First Form) have reported on the event below:

‘We were treated to a lunch of delicious sandwiches and finger food, whilst we chatted amongst ourselves about current affairs. There was lots of interesting discussion on the COP26 Climate Change Conference and whether we felt governments and large organisations will really commit to cutting emissions and reducing the global temperature increase.

After we had eaten, Mr Thomas gathered us together and asked us to order ourselves based on our date of birth, from the 1st January to 31st of December. With a little help, we managed this. We were then organised into small groups of three or four and asked to discuss the following three philosophical questions: What colour is Tuesday? Which is bigger, past, present or future? What is the definition of right?

Popular colours for Tuesday were yellow and light blue and overall there was a sense of agreement that Tuesday was definitely a lighter colour day. It was felt that there was a sense of relief and a lightness that Monday was out of the way and the week was progressing. Discussions then moved onto which is bigger, the past, present or future? We discussed that the past is defined by a set amount of time that has already occurred and is always increasing and that the present is only the current time and therefore likely to be the smallest. With regards to the future, how big this could be is potentially unknown as the future is yet to happen and would be different for each individual. A lot of us fell upon the idea that the past is ever-expanding and the future is always decreasing. This question certainly caused lots of debate!

For our final question, we discussed the definition of right. The Oxford Dictionary defines right as ‘morally good, justified or acceptable’ but how do we know what is morally good or acceptable? This is would be determined by how and what we have been taught, who has taught us and what the laws of the country we live in are. What one person considers as right may be different to another based on how they have been raised or where they live. It was pretty tricky to come up with a clear definition.

Our first Kingdon Society event was most enjoyable and we certainly worked our brains over lunch!’