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.

Reflections-Hume

I really like Hume’s idea of the complex idea. It makes a lot of sense if you think about it. We have seen wings and a human figure but never together. Also how he talks about how we get our impressions and ideas from. Once we burn ourselves on a hot stove we get our “impression” and were not going to do that again. Hume talks about how reason isn’t enough to motivate human action unless you have passion and emotion too. This makes a ton of sense because most people do things well because they love it. I agree with Hume’s statement of we can’t prove the universe was actually created by God because we didn’t experience it with our senses. We just go by what was documented, which is enough evidence for me, and most other people too. We can’t say that there is another universe out there because that is beyond what we can experience by sensory perception. What he talks about makes sense. I like the fact that he emphasizes the importance of sympathy because it is an important factor in moral understanding and maybe help promote public good.

Sophie's World

No offence but this book is getting so creepy. How Alberto wants to meet Sophie all by herself in some run down church. This book was obviously written a long time ago because no one these days would ever think that’s okay. I’m also very inpatient and looked up how it ended. I think I liked your coma idea better. It makes more sense. I really like though how the book is written for all ages. Philosophy can be a hard subject to grasp but reading this book has made it a lot easier. Alberto relates the philosopher’s views to something that Sophie, a 13-year-old girl, can understand. The two cultures chapter has been my favorite I think. I enjoyed reading about Paul because I know he played a big role in Christianity and this book really explained it well. I knew who Paul was but now I can actually understand everything that he did. I never thought philosophy played a big role in human knowledge. I know realize that without philosophers, we would never expand further into our knowledge. It makes us think beyond science to give us a different perspective. In a way without philosophy, there would be no human being because philosophy is our guide to further evolving. It makes us think which is never a bad thing! 

Evil

I had my iPod on shuffle and song by Bad Meets Evil came on and it reminded me of the talk we had about can someone really be evil? Evil is such a bad term to use. That would never be the first adjective that pops into my head to describe something. When I hear the word evil I just think about superhero movies. I don’t really believe that there are necessarily evil things in our world. I think just “bad” things happen that comes with the freedom and gift of life. Just like we talked about in class, there has been evil people like Hitler, but I don’t think evil is something all around us. Evil is mostly found in people that abuse power. I looked up to see if there were an  “evil” Americans and number 8 was Ayn Rand! Wasn’t that one of our philosopher choices?  Almost everyone on the list was in some type of politics. Also one of the questions was if there is an evil then is there a hell? I don’t believe that hell is an actual place with fire and demons. Heaven is an actual place, but I think “to go to hell” is just saying your soul won’t be brought to God. Overall, the whole evil thing will go both ways depending on what your view on right vs wrong its.

Sophie's World

Were on page 163 and I still think the Philosopher is really creepy. How he “knew” she was going to be in the cabin and leaves things for her. I think if Sophie really tried to look for the philosopher the book could get really interesting. As she tried to find the philosopher, the scene in the book could change and Sophie could actually experience what the philosophers were talking about. Reading letters over and over can get boring, so if Sophie was actually there and got to see what the particular philosopher did it would be better. Each chapter could be a different setting in the book. It can be like the chronicles of Narnia in a way. Sophie could probably better understand things if she actually experiences them. It would be a good way to give examples of the philosopher’s theory. 

Planet of the Apes- connection

While I was looking up St. Augustine, I came across a philosopher named Descartes. His man vs. animal theory stated that they must have the capacity for speech and act from knowledge. Only humans have minds. No matter how human-like an animal can be, you can always distinguish them from humans. This reminds me of the Movie Planet of the Apes. This movie really tests the theory because Apes act like the humans, but according to Descartes it isn’t possible. When the apes take over, they know how to do so from  “previous knowledge” which according to Descartes cant happen to animals. They learned how to be dominant from watching and observing the humans. They stored the information and became intellectual animals. Descartes believed that this could never happen because animals didn’t have the cognitive capacity to store that kind of information. Most people would say the animals became so smart because they got treats, but the animals weren’t given treats from learning how to take over the world. There was no difference between the people and the animals besides their appearance. Descartes theory was flipped in this movie, proving that animals can be just as smart as humans.

Connections!

This is a poster from breathe by Pink Floyd. I've never listened to them before but i came across this poster and it reminded me about our discussion about reality. We said that we still believe in things that we cant see that make up our lives. How we all believe the earth is round but only a few people have actually experienced that and have seen it.

 How i interpreted the poster was: If you go about your life with this motto you will have a very sheltered life. I think the whole part about reality and being able to dream is being able to experience things. Going back to talking about our senses, if you can only touch and see your not experiencing everything that you can and those two senses will eventually let you down. Our senses have a big play in our reality because it helps us interpret things that distinguish our reality from something else.

In case the poster doesn't show up it says:

All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be.

Reflection on Sophie's world

First off, i think its really creepy that a 14 year old girl is perfectly fine getting all these notes from a stranger. At that age i wouldn't be as interested in the letters as she is. In the first chapter she talks about where the world comes from and i think its an annoying questions just like she does! I agree with Sophie- something had to start from something else, but what created the very first thing? What came before space? I think the mind's logic operates within space and time, so beyond space and time, logic doesn't work. So its hard to figure out what was before space when its such a hard thought process. Most people say God is the answer and leave it at that. Not a lot of people have science to back up their theory's because its such a big question, there is no answer.