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.