Blog #6

Reaction to Sophie's World
          Wow. These last final chapters have been nothing less than confusing. We learn that Sophie and Alberto are figures of Albert's imagination. Sophie's world is a book not made for Sophie but for Hilde, written by her father. Its confusing though because it's like there is a book inside of a book. We think we are reading a story about Sophie, but really we are reading about Hilde reading about Sophie. I'm still not exactly sure of what to make of what I just read, but I am glad that it's over. The book was good but it was starting to get too confusing and there were too many unanswered questions, there still are so many unanswered questions. I need some answers before I can put this book down for a final time.

Applying Philosophy to Real Life
          I have seen "In Time" before, and it is one of my favorite movies. I find the concept behind it so interesting. People always say "time is money", and in this case it truly is. Time is more than just money in this movie though, it also is a measure of how much time you have left on this earth. I think it would be interesting if everyone had to live as a person in the "ghetto" for a day,not knowing whether or not they would get extra time before their limited clock ones out... how many people would turn to violence to gain time? Who would work, hoping to make some money(time) to extend their time(lives)? Who would go out and try something new, spend their last hours doing something on their bucket list? Another interesting point brought up in our conversation after watching the movie was how we never saw a middle class. There were a lot of time zones so you would assume there would be a middle class but we were only shown the ghetto and then Greenwich. How does the middle class live? Are they always checking their clocks, or do they live pretty comfortably?

Blog #4

Reaction to Sophie's World
         Another week has passed and I'm still eagerly awaiting for my questions to be answered. My patience is running thin, and I just want answers. I haven't read any further then the Descartes, Spinoza, and Locke chapters yet. I did like these chapters more than the Renaissance chapter because I thought they were less textbooky. I found Descartes to be the "wisest" of the three I guess. He had a deeper understanding of the world, accepting the fact that we don't know everything. I also found his idea of reason over feeling interesting. It seems so easy and sounds like a smart way to live, but it is by no means easy to ignore all emotions and just act on reason. Our decision making process often gets clouded by our feelings; love, hatred, fear, and so on. Locke's views were very interesting to me also, are our senses reliable? It sort of connects to Descartes views of the mind/body connection.Can we trust how we see things or can our feelings alter the actual image? For example, you may find a person beautiful, not because they are society's definition of beautiful but because of how they make you feel. Another example, people who get drunk and have a bad hangover may not drink that same alcohol for a while, not because of the taste but because of the effects its had on them, how it made them feel. Spinoza I wasn't to interested in, I understand why he thought the bible should be ready deeply, but I think that still leaves so much up to interpretation.

Applying Philosophy to Real Life
         I think Descartes ideas. are still very relevant today. When I was reading about Descartes my immediate connection was to the Full House episode where Michelle has the devil and angel telling her whether or not to play with Uncle Jessie's new expensive music equipment. The angel is your reason, your conscious. Influencing you to do whats right, like doing your homework even though you are tired and wish to just go to bed. The devil represents your impulses. What feels good at the time and has immediate satisfaction, like eating a cupcake even though you're trying to eat healthy. Descartes said we should listen to the "angel", ignore the "devil". The angel will always guide you right, while the devil may bring trouble upon you. I don't think we necessarily do this though, I think there's a pretty equal balance between the two; listening to reason and jumping on impulse.

Blog #3

Reaction to Sophie's World
         I'm starting to get frustrated and annoyed by Sophie's World. The entire book has been one big cliff hanger and I'm losing patience! I want to know the connection between Hilde and her dad with Alberto and Sophie. Also, why is Alberto still calling Sophie Hilde? Is it purposeful? Although I'm getting annoyed, I have been learning a lot. For instance I have learned about three new philosophers; Descartes, Spinoza, and Locke. Descartes was a lot like Socrates, he knew that he didn't know much. He was the first philosopher of his time to attempt to create a philosophical system that used all known knowledge. He focused mainly on mind/body connection. According to him the mind should rely on reason. Descartes was a major influence on Spinoza, the next philosopher mentioned in this chapter. Spinoza focused heavily on the Bible, reading it deeply and thoroughly. He had a deterministic view of the world, believing God ruled the world through natural law. The final philosopher, Locke, focused on our senses... Are they reliable? He felt we could perceive simple sensations, and that we then build them up, ultimately creating complex ideas.


Applying Philosophy to Real Life
        I was really interested when learning about the three hellenistic philosophical views; epicureans, cynicism, and stoicism. While reading about the three different views of life, I was trying to place myself into one of the categories. I guess I'm somewhat of an epicurean because I do try to "seize the day" or "carpe diem", but I also believe that there is some interference from God, not everything is chance. I would like to be a cynic, not worshiping things or relying on materialistic items for happiness and I try to do so, but there are things, like my phone, buying clothes,etc. that do make me happy and it would behard for me to live without them. I also ocassionally find myself acting like a stoic. Relying on reason, and ignoring my feelings, because sometimes its easier to follow your head (what you should do) rather than your heart (what you want to do). Saying that, I'm also an emotional being, I do let emotions cloud my jusgement at times... but who doesn't? What I discovered is that I don't necessarily fit into of these categories, I'm somewhat of a Hellenistic mutt, a little bit of everything.

Blog #2

Reaction to Sophie's World
         This book is getting more and more suspenseful with each chapter, leaving me with so many questions.... Who is Hilde? Is Sophie Hilde? The Renaissance chapter was specifically confusing. Why is Alberto so infuriated by Hilde's dad? Alberto keeps saying that Hilde's dad is a powerful being, making him sound like a deity or some sort of higher power, it's the only way he can have so much power and influence when it comes to getting the letters delivered to Sophie and it would explain all of the odd things going on with Sophie. For example, the mirror from the cabin that showed a reflection of Hilde. It's also odd how Sophie keeps finding things, like the gold crucifix or the ten crowns for bus fare, the same time that Hilde looses these exact items, or so it says in the letters addressed to Hilde from her father. Also why is Alberto keep calling Sophie Hilde? Is it the doing of Hilde's father and his "powers", or is Alberto slipping and revealing the truth. Could Sophie be Hilde? If so, could Alberto be the father?

Applying Philosophy to Real Life
         The lesson we had today on the different roots of religion and atheism really had me thinking about my faith. I am by no means a saint, I rarely go to church when it isn't a holiday and I find myself only praying to God when I need something, and only thanking him if I get the result I was hoping for. I like the idea of a higher power and having someone looking over me with somewhat of a plan for my life, guiding me in the right direction (even though it is my choice to follow his lead).  I try to have faith, believing in God but it is hard to grasp the idea that God was always here. How? Its hard enough to try and wrap my head around the fact that he just appeared one day, but I realized that he couldn't possibly have just appeared because that would mean he was created by an even higher power, so that mean he has always had to have been here... always. How is that possible?

Blog #1

Reaction to Sophie's World
      Sophie was receiving all of these letters asking her questions, but I had a couple questions of my own. Who is the mystery person writing Sophie? Why Sophie, of all the young girls in the world, heck of all the people in the world, why was Sophie chosen to receive these letters? I put these questions in the back of my head and continued to read. I'm impressed by this author’s ability to write informative material while keeping it interesting, I prefer learning from a novel like this rather than reading straight out of a textbook. I found chapter 2, "The Top Hat" interesting. One part in particular stood out to me, it was the idea that people, even when all of their basic needs are met, will still “need” more. I challenge this idea, I agree that people have a lot of needs but I think that when those needs are met things stop being "needs" and turn into "wants". I have taken a couple psych classes so chapter 4 was a nice refresher, but it also contained a lot of new information as well. Heraclitus was a philosopher that I had never heard about, I found his idea of constant change interesting and I really liked the quote he used to support his idea, "we cannot step twice into the same river." That quote made so much sense to me, once you do something once you will never be able to replicate it again, you can never go back to that exact state. I also thought his idea of the world being characterized by opposites intriguing. He mentioned that we could never be well if we were never ill, or never see light if we never had darkness and so on. I have actually thought about this idea multiple times before and I enjoyed reading and learning about the man who was the first to talk about it, it was cool to see that even all the way back in 540 B.C. people still had the same ideas and thoughts as people do today.

Applying Philosophy to Real Life
         I found our discussion on fate versus freewill in class very thought-provoking and it is actually a discussion I've had with myself multiple times. It was cool to learn and talk about something that actually relates to my life. I find myself in the constant argument of, "well if it's meant to be, it will be" and "if I want something I need to get it myself". There's comfort in believing everything happens for a reason but it's also thrilling to think that you have control over your life and that you have the power to create the kind of life you want. I find myself leaning to fate when something in my life goes bad, for example if I got into a car accident maybe I would tell myself that there was a reason it happened, maybe I needed to be in a small accident to wake me up and make me more cautious to prevent a bigger, more serious accident from happening. Then when good things happen, such as getting an A in a class I tell myself it was freewill, I earned that grade all on my own, I had to study, I had to read, I had to participate, so on. I think it’s natural for people to flip-flop when it comes to fate and freewill; it’s hard to believe in just one.