Blog #6

Sophie’s World Response:

            Well, I’ve finally finished it. After about three months of reading, questioning, and wondering, the pages have run out. The book has ended, and I am left with what I am left with. I have a pretty good grip on what has happened, that Hilde was real all along and Sophie exists in an alternate dream world, kind of like how Cooper tried to communicate with Murph in the tesseract in Interstellar. And yet…

            Despite all of this, the narrative of Sophie’s World doesn’t quite make perfect sense. What happened to Hilde’s crucifix, or her red scarf? They were real physical items that seemed to just vanish. These little details that just don’t quite fit.

            But then I realized something. In my first blog post, I mentioned how the story part of Sophie’s World paralleled the history of philosophy. 507 pages later, it still holds true. Philosophy is all about trying to understand and explain our world. In the past three or so months, I have been learning about all these different philosophical ideas, I’ve realized they all are constantly struggling for supremacy. Is history linear or cyclical? Are we the center of the universe, or do we revolve around the sun? Materialism or idealism? Creation or evolution? Through history, some ideas have become truth, like the earth revolving around the sun for example.

            However through all of this, there has never been a theory that has come like a magic wand and explained everything. I don’t think there ever will be one. Maybe, like Socrates, the only real truth is that we won’t know everything.

            Yet here we are. There are no more pages left. There is no more history to look back on. We are on our own. We won’t truly know everything, so we have to take a leap of faith. Maybe it was like Basho said, “Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.”

Real World Application:

            As a big soccer fan, I wanted to do a post on philosophy and soccer, so here goes.

After the World Cup this summer, I wanted to get a World Cup poster to hang in my room. I got it a week or so later, but the place I ordered it from gave me two other things: an official World Cup Sticker Book, and a cool Nike poster based on an animated short film they released called “The Last Game”. On the bottom of the poster, it said “THERE IS NO GREATER DANGER THAN PLAYING IT SAFE”.

            That statement is what ties soccer into the economic philosophies of the late 1800’s. Marxism/Communism was a response to the Capitalist economic system in England during that time. Capitalism is based on the idea that the system should benefit those who take risks with their money. On the other hand, Marxism is based on the worker. The system should benefit those who control the means of production (the workers). Just like capitalism and communism have been fighting for supremacy for years, soccer philosophies have been the same. Is it better to play attacking soccer, or defensive soccer?

            Attacking soccer is similar to capitalism. It is based on risk taking. Own possession. Get players forward to attack. Cross. Shoot. Score. It is based on the idea that without the ball, you cannot score. (Nike’s slogan for the World Cup was “Risk Everything.” So we know what side of the fence they’re on.)  It is like capitalism, where you cannot gain money unless you risk it. In soccer, Germany and Spain have won the last two World Cups playing very proactive styles. In 2010, Spain averaged almost 60% of possession. Of course, with any risk, there is chance of it backfiring, like when Brazil, home of attacking, beautiful soccer, got blasted 7-1 at home to Germany. (Not that Germany’s style was really defensive, just that Brazil’s was too risky.) Brazil kept pushing players forward, including defenders, and they got torn apart time and time again.

            The other side of the coin is the defensive style of play. It is similar to Marxism, based on structure and discipline. It is all about defensive shape, structure, and not conceding goals. No player is more important than the system. The system cannot afford risks or individual profit as much because it could undermine the overall structure and lead to defeat. The whole system could be explained by this quote from manager Jose Mourinho:

"1) The game is won by the team who commits fewer errors. 2) Football favors whoever provokes more errors in the opposition. 3) Away from home, instead of trying to be superior to the opposition, it's better to encourage their mistakes. 4) Whoever has the ball is more likely to make a mistake. 5) Whoever renounces possession reduces the possibility of making a mistake. 6) Whoever has the ball has fear. 7) Whoever does not have it is thereby stronger."

It has worked in the past too. Greece won the European Championships in 2004, with only 43% possession in the final, and were outshot 17 to 4. Of course, the system has drawbacks, it is hard to score goals when defending is the only priority, and even the strongest walls can be broken down.

Just like capitalism and communism will continue to battle, defensive vs. attacking vs. in-between (socialism?) soccer will too. The question is, do you play to win, or not to lose?

Blog #5 (With Super Bowl Connection)

Sophie’s World Response:

            Well, something finally happened. It took a while, but finally we are beginning to understand what is really happening behind Sophie’s World. There has finally been something entertaining, with Hilde being real and reading a story about Alberto and Sophie. Hilde’s father is the puppeteer pulling the strings. This casts a little more light on the idea, however it seems like we will have to walk through a few mysterious hallways before we reach the climax of the novel. After all, what 500-page book would have its turning point at page 283? (See my use of romantic irony?)

            In particular, I have found the chapter on Kierkegaard to be intriguing. It first of all starts with the absurdity of having Alice in Wonderland show up (a result of Hilde’s dad influencing the story). I found the red and blue bottles to be very interesting. The red bottle Sophie drank from changed the world into a pantheistic one, where everything merged into one. The blue bottle changed the world into an individualistic world, where every part of it became it’s own world.

            I wonder if this part of the book gave some inspiration to The Matrix, like the scene with the red and blue pills (“You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”) The red pill is like the red bottle and romanticism and idealism. It revealed an idealistic world where everything is connected, like The Matrix. The blue pill/bottle is the opposite of the red, like Kierkegaard’s individualistic response to romanticism, where truth is more important, just like the blue pill would reveal the truth in The Matrix.

            As the book continues, Sophie and Alberto might need to stay more on the blue side to try and break free from Hilde’s father.

Real World Response- Super Bowl Edition

            Two Sundays ago, I saw the epic Super Bowl 49. Before the game, I wanted the Patriots slightly more because I wanted to see Tom Brady win another Super Bowl and I thought Deflategate was nonsense, but the Seahawks were likeable too. Overall, it was a good match-up.

            It was an enjoyable game throughout; the Patriots took an early lead, and could’ve led by more, if not for a couple of bad Tom Brady interceptions. The Seahawks came roaring back to tie the game at halftime, and then took a ten-point lead (24-14), and had multiple chances to kill off the Patriots, but couldn’t do it. However, it set up the crazy 4^th quarter.

            Brady drives the Patriots down and scores a touchdown pass to make it a three-point game. The Patriots get the ball back and score another touchdown to take a 28-24 lead. What happens next, though, is for the history books.

            Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson drives them down and completes an INSANE, just absolutely INSANE, pass to receiver Jermaine Kearse to the Patriots 5-yardline. Kearse dove, and the ball ricocheted off him at least three times before he hauls it in.

            At this point it seemed official, the Seahawks had all the luck and they were going to win. They were bound to after a play like that. The next play, the dangerous running back Marshawn Lynch runs another four yards. The Seahawks are one yard away from winning the Super Bowl.

At this point there are 55ish seconds left. The Patriots have two timeouts left. The cameras show Patriots coach Bill Belichick, expecting him to call a timeout. A few seconds pass.

(Wait, what is this guy doing!?! Call timeout! CALL TIMEOUT!!!)

Inexplicably, Belichick does not use his timeouts, and the clock keeps ticking and ticking, seemingly allowing less and less time for a Patriots comeback for when Seattle scores. With 26 seconds left, Wilson gets the ball and looks to throw, (What?) throws, and (OH MY GOODNESS!!!) the pass gets intercepted by Patriots safety Malcolm Butler! The Patriots win the Super Bowl!

Now here is where the philosophy comes in. When Marshawn Lynch ran the ball to the 1 with 55 seconds left, coach Belichick had two options. He could,

a) Call timeout, allow time for the Seahawks to pick their best play, and most likely score. By doing this, he would save time for Brady, but he would have to drive a long distance against the NFL’s best defense in under a minute.

b) Not call timeout, and hope that the Patriots defense stops them.

Remember the red bottle and the blue bottle from earlier? Option A would be like Kierkegaard’s philosophy, the blue bottle. It is truthful, and logical. It is realistic, and is what 99.9% of people would choose. Like The Matrix, they want to wake up into reality, with 50 seconds left, down by 3, with Tom Brady needing to engineer an unlikely drive to win.

Or like Saito said in Inception, you can take a leap of faith. Belichick chose Option B, the red bottle. Like in The Matrix, he plunged deeper into the rabbit hole, and hoped to come out on the other side. They were going to live or die on this play. It was Idealistic. It was Romantic. And it worked.

The Seahawks expected the Patriots to call a timeout. They didn’t. If you watch the play again, the Seahawks were confused. They didn’t know where to line up. The Patriots, on the other hand, had gambled, and were set up to defend this one play. Russell Wilson got the ball, and even when he threw it, the receiver looked to be open. I don’t blame Russell Wilson for throwing that pass. However, Malcolm Butler was prepared and made a fabulous play to win the Super Bowl for the Patriots. Who knows, maybe Bill Belichick took some extra philosophy courses and had the influence his decision. 

Blog #4

Sophie’s World Response:

            At this point in time, I have just finished reading “Berkeley”. It is constantly engaging, but becoming almost frustrating because we have become tantalizingly close to finding the truth about Hilde and her father, but haven’t quite reached it. It is like an asymptote in math, getting closer and closer to the boundary, without ever touching it (sorry, wrong subject…let me put my philosophy brain back on… OK good).

            While I was reading this, I kept thinking about a couple of the questions on the Scale of Doubt Quiz I took in class. The questions were “Do you believe that things should be admitted as evidence in establishing reality?” And, “Do you believe that the world is not completely knowable by science?”  What I found interesting, and even ironic, while reading the book was that Sophie has been learning these philosophical ideas, to try and interpret the world what goes on in it. The strange thing that is with all the Hilde things going on, the world is presenting her with things that are completely beyond science, reason, or explanation. A talking dog. A random cross appearing by her pillow. An airplane saying “Happy Birthday Hilde”. It is like the world is throwing her curveballs, and Sophie is unprepared. At the end she tells her mother during the storm, “It’s like a bad dream.”  It is similar to Inception, it is like Sophie is waiting for the train (the secret to Hilde), she doesn’t know where it will take her, or if it will arrive, but she has to find the idea to know what really is going on with Hilde, to explain these strange occurrences.

Real World Application:

           

            During my Scale of Doubt Quiz, I thought about the question “Do you believe that the world is not completely knowable by science?”  I believe in God, but I also believe in science, and science can be very useful to explain the things we see on Earth. What I wonder about is how we were able to discover the things we know. Some scientific things can be easy to measure, like gravity, but some of the more intricate things make me wonder. How were we able to find out so much about atoms, or protons and electrons when they’re so freaking small? How could we know so much about other galaxies and when they’re so far away! I believe that atoms and other planets exist, but it is incredible to find out so much about things seemingly beyond our grasp.

            In my health class last year I saw the movie And the Band Played On. It starred Matthew Modine was based on the true story of how we discovered AIDS. It was a disease that was killing people left and right, seemingly impossible to predict or keep track of. Modine’s team spent years in the lab, and in different countries and spend millions of dollars trying to find solutions. They had taken all that risk, and in the end, it could’ve all been for naught, to a danger that they had no idea of. Lo and behold, the team eventually found information and we as a society have made a lot more progress on fighting AIDS than 30 years ago. We have gained knowledge on a seemingly unknowable thing. We will never know everything about the world, but we are making good progress.

Response #3

Sophie’s World Response:

I haven’t read much farther in Sophie’s World at the moment, so here are some more thoughts on the parts I have read.

The first thing I am going to say doesn’t really have anything to do with the plot, but how does Alberto manage to rattle off giant blurbs (“And then came along the English physicist Isaac Newton, who live from 1642 to 1747…”) about these different philosophers and ideas? It’s unbelievable. I understood when he typed things in a textbook-type format and sent them to Sophie, but when he sees her, it’s like he is the textbook. There’s no way he could remember all that without preparing what he says first, or else he has an IQ of around 9000.

My other thought is that I think something major is about to happen. I think that Hilde’s dad will make an appearance soon, or Hilde herself will be revealed, or that all these shenanigans could be all part of a learning experience between everybody. I also think that Alberto is all part of this, as much as he is displeased by the actions of Hilde’s father. He has already called Sophie “Hilde” a couple of times, and he always seems to run into the traps of Hilde’s father, and I think it could be intentional at this point. Of course, maybe Alberto is trying to get away from him, but he is running out of places to hide. I mentioned No Country for Old Men in my last post, and at this point in the book (through “Descartes”), it’s gotten to the point where Hilde’s father has infiltrated Alberto’s computer. I think like Llewelyn running away from Anton, Alberto is being foolish trying to outrun a force that he can’t escape from. 

Real World Response:

It seems to be an ongoing trend for me to try and find philosophical things in every movie that I watch, so when I stumbled across The Usual Suspects on HBO, it was inevitable that I was going to write about it here.

Basically what happens is that five conmen (McManus, Keaton, Fenster, Hockney, and Verbal) are arrested, but are eventually released. They decide to take revenge on the police by performing a bunch of different operations, and while doing so, the get on the bad side of a man named Keyser Soze, an absolutely insane, evil person ever known, almost to the point of urban legend. The movie eventually leads to a boat shootout, where Verbal is one of only two survivors. The police interrogate Verbal in a quest to find out who Keyser really is.      

            What I realized watching this was that the idea of Pantheism is displayed in the movie, where Keyser Soze was connected in everything, like Giordano Bruno believed that all things were connected by the spirit of God. As quoted by Verbal:

“Nobody believed he was real. Nobody ever saw him or knew anybody that ever worked directly for him, but to hear Kobayashi tell it, anybody could have worked for Soze. You never knew. That was his power. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.”

“He lets the last Hungarian go. He waits until his wife and kids are in the ground and then he goes after the rest of the mob. He kills their kids, he kills their wives, he kills their parents and their parents' friends. He burns down the houses they live in and the stores they work in, he kills people that owe them money. And like that he was gone. Underground. Nobody has ever seen him since.”

While God certainly isn’t as evil as Keyser Soze, they have a similar influence on people. Like God, there are people who believe or don’t believe in Keyser Soze. And in the movie, the people that do believe in him believe that he could be anywhere, and connected with everything, like the idea of Pantheism with God, where everything was connected through Him. I wonder if the makers of the movie ever thought of it that way.

(And like that, poof, the analysis is gone!)