At an enlarged meeting of the 29th March 2003 the Executive Board of the Circle “New Magnaura” took the following decision: the membership fee for individual members will be 10% of the lowest wage for the country where the relevant member resides, and monthly payments will be 4% of the same value, as both percentages will be round figures of the most approximate whole number of the main monetary unit of the relevant country.

On 22 November the New Magnaura Circle and the Association for Development of Information Society jointly arranged a seminar in Plovdiv on:

"Delusions in the Age of Information".

In the first part of the seminar the following presentations were made:

  1. Peter STANCHEV – “Dimensions of delusions"

The author presented an overview of the opinions received from the online Probing No1 (“Delusion by Areas of Life”). Despite the continuing collection of opinions, a significant diversity in community ideas about the role of the arts, media, science, education, jurisdiction, politics, religion and commerce in infiltration of delusions have already been indicated. Particularly clear examples of such differences have been determined for the indicators of the empirical dispersion (or respectively, standard deviation).

  2. Professor Peter BARNEV – “Delusions in the information society"

The presentation explained some threats, which accompanied human society upon entering the information era, and which traditionally remained in information shadow for a large group of people. Concerning this matter, examples for keeping in deep secret some data that could be uncontrollably used for causing harm to certain people have been given.

  3. Associate Professor Iliya KOZHOUHAROV – “About the (im)possibility of definitions"

The presentation demonstrated those problems that face every attempt to propose a logical algorithm for definition as well as the fact that people, trustfully accepting proposed definitions for one or another concept, showed a conventional disinterest in this matter.

  4. Alexander BUZDREV – “Critical way of thinking and education"

The presentation examined the normative arrangements and the current practice in cultivating critical way of thinking in Bulgarian schools. In this context, a number of characteristics for critical thinking as well as its importance for the personal development in general was given.

  5. Maria KARAIVANOVA – “Schools of arts and culture between truths and delusions"

The presentation discussed the popular mistake that the disciplines in natural and mathematical sciences did not have important contribution to the education in schools of arts and culture. The author provided information about a developed and tested system, which enabled the inclusion of scientific approaches in studying special disciplines of arts.

  6. Ivan VELEV – “A new tendency in the fight with delusions"

The author delivered information about significant differences between identical paragraphs from the criminal laws of Italy and Bulgaria, related to the matters of delusion and deceit. He notified of preparation and opening of a trial against the Catholic Church for systematical involvement in delusions of masses of people.

  7. Associate Professor Kostadin GRIBACHEV – “The delusion about Euclid’s Fifth Postulate"

The report interpreted the delusion, which had been fostered for more than two thousand years, about the possibility of proving the famous Fifth Postulate of Euclid’s Elements like a theorem. The author also explained the genesis of the Non-Euclidean Geometry as a result of the attempts to realize this “possibility”.

  8. Assistant Professor Todor STOEV – “Evolution and creationism"

The author clarified the efforts of the adherents of so-called “creationism” to debunk the evolution theory. He emphasized on how they systematically disregarded some positions proved by science with the aim of keeping large masses of people in religious obedience.

  9. Eudokia & Viktor TAFROV – “What happened on the 3th October 1918?"

In their presentation the authors examined the unconstitutionality of the abdication act of Bulgarian Tsar Ferdinand I as well as the unconstitutional and, consequently not legitimate stay of his son Boris on the Bulgarian throne for 25 years. The speech also accentuated on the conventional disinterest of a large number of Bulgarians in violation of rules, allowed at the top-levels of the Bulgarian government.

10. Assistant Professor Maria VLAJKOVA – “For and against telling the truth to people suffering from cancer"

The presentation discussed on the deeply controversial problem related to informing the patients suffering from cancer about their actual condition. The author interpreted the question about the compulsory involvement of patients in delusions on certain occasions. In addition, information on the national differences in solving this serious moral problem was delivered.

11. Professor Philip PAVLOV – “Children’s creative work or sub-product?"

The lecturer discussed the probability for young and immature musical authors to get lost about the essence of the act of creation, when supported by the huge possibilities of contemporary computers and synthesisers.

11. Associate Professor Yavor KONOV – “The age of information and the ‘round tone’"

The presentation posed some questions: “Is the human progress due to the knowledge achieved by science to the same extent, as to the delusions in their various forms of expression?”, “Is not the definition for delusion offered in the Manifesto of the Circle New Magnaura quite common?”, “Does the world of new information technologies enrich us all as much as we usually suppose?"

An extensive discussion on various problems provoked by the presentations took place in the second part of the seminar.