Final Connection

Learning about Freud in class was really fun to me. I took psychology last year. I learned about the five steps from Mrs. McCutcheon. Aside from her funny dance, I was really interested in the things that he said. I tried to connect his findings to my own life and to others around me, and it turns out, in many of my own cases that I have experimented with, things work out like he said. For example, my mom never weined me off of my pacifier. All she did, was one day just take it away (she hid them in the highest cabinet in the house, I found out years later). Becasue of this, according to Freud, the child would then have a oral fixation complex. This hypothesis is completely true for me. I chewed on and bit my nails for the longest time, in fact I have just gotten over it in the past three years. Also whenever I am presented with a problem I have to weigh pros and cons and do a lot of deciding to determine what is  the right thing to do, this is an example of the struggle between my Id, Ego and Superego. It is weird to think that even though it is said that Freud's hypothesess cannot be trusted, in many of my cases that I have tested, they are ver true.

The End.

I have waited the whole first trimester to learn about all of the mysteries of Sophie's World. The second I read Bjerkely I know for me, personally I would not be super fond of where the whole plot was going. When I learned that Sophie and Alberto were the ones who were not real, I felt like I had nothing to believe in anymore in the way of the book. The last couple of chapters were a mix and mingle of the author trying to sum up all of the questions that were asked throughout the entire novel. Because he tried to answer every question I felt there was nothing to really think about after the book was over. I didn't like how unreal all of it seemed at the end. During the book I knew that it would have a little bit of fiction, in order to explain all of mysteries, but I never figured Sophie and and Alberto would be walking around invisible in the world of Hilde and Alberto. But the ending was so abrupt and even talking about the big bang which I didn't really understand. But overall I learned a lot about philosophy and I liked the plot of the story.

Are we all murders?

            As I was googleing a connection to make to the book for my connection I decided to instead on taking some advice that had come to me in a discussion in class today. I clicked on my news tab on my toolbar and it said that there were 1,652 new articles. Of them I search philosophy and believe it or not an article popped up about Peter Singer. I read it and found it to be very interesting. The Australian philosopher explains an idea that I am now very interested in. His explained, in more words, that all of the people in the world could be saved by money or services we could help them with. And to be abrupt about it, all of us buying another house or car for the summer are essentially murderers. He uses a very powerful extended metaphor to help explain his theory. He explains that one wouldn’t walk by a toddler drowning in a pond, so why should we ignore the people and children who are suffering in other countries? Just because they are not dying right in front of our faces? As a result he is proposing a  progressive tax system that would “force” people to pledge between 1% and 2% of their total income to a NGO’s of their choice. I think that in a perfect world this would be a great idea and help many people in the best ways possible though to get something like this passed and approved is much easier said than done. 

Reflection #... o I don't even know

              It has come to the point in the story in which the author really wants the reader to figure out what is happening. The author of the entire book, Jostein Gaarder is done giving us clues. I think he has decided that it is now up to Albert Knag to tell us what we need to know. Though considering that he is having trouble giving his own daughter, and therefore Sophie and Alberto information I doubt us as readers will get too much in the way of insider secrets. I think at this point, when Alberto talks about doing things while Albert is focusing on Sophie is all written in the book. I don’t think that they (Sophie and Alberto) have any such kind of free will, as this point at least. I believe all of this skepticism and questions were all thought up by Hilde’s father in Lebanon, and put in her birthday book to kind of test Hilde in a way. Maybe her father wants to see what she will do confronted with this kind of ethical and more or less moral decision. I think her father is a very clever man, and can do much more that Hilde, Sophie and Alberto could ever realize. 

The Atkins Diet and Philosophy

            

            I was actually looking for a car adapter when I came across a book titled “The Atkins Diet and Philosophy Chewing the Fat with Kant and Nietzsche” which caught my eye on Amazon. This book not only talks about how to loose weight but majors philosophers such as Marx, Kant, Rousseau and many others that have a very secure standpoint on some of these related issues. Discussions such as Atkins advertising a negative body image, how it fits into Kant’s perception of the moral life, or theories about a kinder, and gentler human society are talked about. This book will be kind of like how we use “Sophie’s World”. It will be an interesting topic that will intertwine certain, valuable philosophical lessons. The real purpose of this book is to actually un-teach diet in general and turn on the light for some people, and show them that there are things that are more important in life. I am personally kind of interested in the book, just to see how it compares (in regards to the lessons) to “Sophie’s World”

reality becomes a story and the mystery becomes reality

All of the mystery and suspense had all come down to one chapter. This chapter would be the answer to all of my questions thus far. Before I read Bjerkely I was super excited to finally unfold the mystery of Sophie’s World. Though as I started to read it, and began to comprehend what the mystery was I was kind of disappointed. I was kind of hoping that it was more complicated than it really was. Sophie has really evolved as a person, and I have felt many connections with her/her character. Because of the connections I felt with her as a character, I am sad to now know that she isn’t real. My hypothesis on the mystery of the book was much more complicated.

             I hypothesized that Sophie was the real one and Hilde was more like a character. Though as we found out in this chapter, it is the exact opposite. The fact that Hilde is still so foreign to the reader makes me wonder how the author will develop her character enough, in order for the audience to accept her as the new main character. I’m also very curious about how us now knowing the secret will play out within the book. For me, because we know that the first half of the book was pretty much fake, makes me feel like it was kind of pointless because Hildes father was just telling and setting up a fake story for his daughter. Finally, we are only half way through the book, what other mysteries have Hilde and Sophie been hiding from us?

If a tree falls and no one is around, does it still make a noise?

                        The more that I learn about all of the empiricists, the more interested I become. Though at the beginning of the novel the philosophy lessons from Alberto were boring and difficult to understand, I am not starting to appreciate the lessons. Even thought the philosophers and their ideas are becoming more complex, Alberto has started teaching lessons on people who have very radical ideas that really make me think about life as a whole and is helping me weed out and debunk philosophies I think are false, or no way could be true. I think it is very interesting the views and thoughts of Hume. We are taught in school in physics and probably referenced in a plethora of different class about laws. Things that are always true, for example in physics we learn the law of gravity and inertia. Though Hume was convinced that we, as humans couldn’t be certain of anything. Just because of cause and effect, and that something always seems to happen doesn’t mean that is will always happen, or always be true. Hume also had ideas about psychology. He concludes that people act of feelings rather than reason. He suspects that though people take reason into account when deciding something, more often than not, the final decision will be deducted using more feelings than reason.