Living In Sophie's World (9.13.11)

*This post was copied from my original blog on Google Docs*

Today, during class, we continued with our discussion about Sophie’s World. One question that was asked was, “How is it possible to have memories if you have no senses at all?” I thought about this, but I can’t seem to figure out how that could actually be possible, so I don’t know either. Karen asked if people without senses could dream, and some of the responses were that people who can’t see dream about things like colors or even sounds. Helen mentioned that as a child, one develops reactions to certain things, and what you see as a child affects what you see for the rest of your life. Emma added that when you’re a child, you absorb everything that you learn. For instance, in Sophie’s World, the father might have wanted Hilde to think about the bigger things in life at the age of 15 instead of trivialities.
Continuing the discussion about why Hilde’s father wanted her to learn about philosophy at the age of 15, Jasmine said that no one is too young or even dumb to think about life’s bigger lessons, because when you need to find your place when you’re young.
During the subject about why Hilde’s father wrote about Sophie for Hilde’s benefit, Kevin said that he might have written Sophie’s character so that Hilde could easily relate to her. They have so much in common, so Hilde could easily place herself in Sophie’s shoes and become closer with the lessons involved in the book.
Emma said that Sophie makes such a great character for Hilde’s book because she embraces the ideas that she learns, but she is also critical of them. This makes her a practical, but perfect model for Hilde. Later in the discussion, Emma also added that reality is an adventure, but illusion is real. What we perceive is real to us.
One of the final questions asked was if Alberto and Sophie are actually making any decisions. They think that they have free will, but they actually don’t. Perhaps we don’t have free will either, and are being controlled by something else...