Existentialism

I really like the idea of Existentialism. It just makes so much sense. Life is too short to waste puzzling over our existence. Just deal with the fact that we’re here. That’s so true. It doesn’t matter why were here, yeah it would be interesting to know, but we’re here and cant do anything about it so we might as well use our life to the fullest. People who find these types of answers for a living are the only exception to this concept. When people find reasons to support that fact that we could be a video game, it makes no sense and couldn’t be possible.

 God made man for pleasure. He made us so we would have the pleasure of knowing him. I like the statement “ mankind didn’t ask to be created, but we’re responsible for everything we do.” Yeah we didn’t ask to be on this earth, but if we were asked I don’t think anyone would oppose it. Being response for everything means “living”. If your not responsible for everything you do, that means someone else is “living” for you. If you don’t make choices, you are living a fake life. Living an authentic life is making your own decisions based on what you want to do/know. If other people make it for you, you’re living in their life. Making choices is what living is.

Ending of Sophie's World

I wouldn’t say Sophie’s World is my favorite book, but I did end up liking it. I really liked the fact that it “ dumbs down” the philosophies for people to understand better. I went into the class basically knowing nothing, and I think this book really helped me understand key concepts. Gaarder usually had Alberto give Sophie a real life example that really helped me understand too. Gaarder mostly went in depth about the philosophers that we already knew like Plato or Socrates. He could have gone into depth about the philosophers that people don’t really know of to help us get more familiar with them. Looking back at my notes from the book I noticed that the author usually mentions what the certain philosopher thinks about women. I think that was a minor detail that could have easily been taken out. It doesn’t matter if the philosopher hated women or not. It’s like meeting a person for the first time and they tell you what they just ate for dinner. Its not useful information. Those details usually don’t play a role in the philosophy. I’m still confused with the ending. Once I read the extremely weird chapter of the garden party nothing really made any sense from there. I liked the ending but I didn’t understand it. I think for next year, you should give out those quizzes for every couple chapters. It makes people read ( not saying I didn’t read), and it lets you know if you understand the concept before the test.

Darwin

Darwin

Darwin and I wouldn’t get along very well. I don’t agree with most of his views, especially with his evolution theory. I’m a big believer in God so I’m all for creation. I don’t think Darwin had enough evidence to back up his theories so his ideas never turned to facts. Darwin says that that evolution is a process of change, but the fossils don’t show any change. Going from a species with no vertebra to a species with it takes hundreds of years and there has never been any fossil evidence to capture that. Creation doesn’t have any evidence either but it says in the bible that there is evidence all around us. Darwin says that the elements just “spontaneously” formed into a living cell. That sounds like creation to me. Nothing in science just magically appears, its all God. When he talks about how certain specifies stay alive because of the way they can adapt to the environment. Dinosaurs are extinct and not alive because other species could adapt better then they could.  If I understand it correctly then it makes a lot of sense. Species die because they cant find a way to live in the environment.  Another species was better at adapting to the environment than dinosaurs, so they went extinct. Darwin has good theories, but he doesn’t have enough information to back it up to make it believable. 

Big picture vs little picture

Big Picture vs little picture? I’m not sure what I see things as; I guess it depends on the situation. I think to see a little picture first you need the whole thing. You focus on the little picture to correct, or adjust, and to gather details, but you need the big picture for it to all make sense. I heard a saying: Set short term goals and you’ll win games. Set long term goals and you’ll win championships. Its when actors set a goal for years ahead to win an Oscar, but the small picture of the fine detail that would be the short term is to first get elected. The small picture makes everything count. I like knowing the little details. I hate surprises and when authors leave me on a cliffhanger. I like to know everything that is going on. But on the other hand, the big picture helps me see as a whole and can help me make better decisions. I always wanted to skip diving practice and in the small picture it wouldn’t be bad missing a few here or there, but in the Big picture I could have learned something totally new that one day that would help me for the rest of the season that I would have missed. Sometimes you need to step back and look at everything as a whole to decide if it’s the right thing to do.

Connections- Criminal Minds

I was watching the Criminal Minds marathon this week. I noticed in most of the episodes the killer only did what he/she did was because society was mean to them, or they had a bad childhood. Not because of the show, but it does emphasize why I went to the “ I agree” side when we got asked if we think people are born good but society corrupts them. No one is just born to kill. Something has to scar them so bad that they feel the need to harm other people. In one of the episodes, a man wasn’t allowed to be with the girl he loved because he had a small mental problem and the public didn’t want them together. He ended up killing people and making a wind chime out of their ribs and sending it to his lover as a gift. Most of his actions were probably because he wasn’t mentally stable, but society just pushed him over the edge and not knowingly made him do what he did. People are born the same, but it’s the things that influence them and the people that they surround themselves with are what shape them. Some people are born with a mental disorder that might have them make bad decisions, but if they’re surrounded with love and positive influences then most likely they wont go and make harmful decisions.

Reflection

When we talked abut Jean Jacques’ Rousseau and his book about education, it got me thinking about what we need and don’t need in a school to have a better outcome. I know we listed some ideas in class, but here are a few more. I wish there was a way to make people read more. Reading is in everything and if you cant read well, the ACT is difficult. We should have a class that is required once a year to take that is strictly reading. We shouldn’t read boring biographies or trashy teen books. An up to date book that is a mystery or something interesting. To get everyone to read, the grade in the class would be mostly test grades and class work or projects. Sparknotes can only get you so far. I also think we need a grammar class. I’m so surprised that it hasn’t been added to the curriculum yet. Spelling and grammar are such a big part of our lives. When we write papers for professors in college, they’re going to expect us to know how to correctly use a comma. For seniors, I would have a class that teaches you the basics of living on your own. How to use a checkbook, save your money, and buy a car. A class on the How To’s of living on your own. A lot of kids (including me) have a hard time doing their own laundry. We could switch out a few electives and add in a few more that will benefit us.

Connection

Its October so all the Halloweentown movies are on! In the movies, people of our world go into another world called Halloweentown. Obviously this movie and Inception are two completely different types of movies, but they both have different “worlds” and needs way to get into and out of them. When the producer didn’t show how Cobb and Saito get out of Limbo, it reminded me of Halloweentown and how it doesn’t say how they get into the town you just assume its because of magic. This made me think about how Satio and Cobb got back from Limbo. In the movie Cobb said it was really hard to get out of limbo and I think that was somewhat of a lie. Cobb new that he would be the only one tempted to stay in limbo, because of Mal, if they all got killed, so he wanted to avoid going there. All Cobb and Mal did was get run over by a train to get out of Limbo, so it’s not that hard to get out. Cobb and Saito both new that they had to kill themselves to get out of limbo, so I think they killed each other with guns. That would kick them back through all the levels and have them awaken on the plane with everyone else.