Connection 4 Reflection 4

Reflection #4

The Bjerkely chapter has really messed with my mind. The fact that this entire time I have been reading the book that Albert Knag wrote for Hilde is uncomfortable. It remind me of the allegory of the cave. I thought the reality was Sophie and her teacher Alberto Knag and now it has been revealed that the real world is really that of Hilde and her father. It feels as if Sophie’s world (the shadows) is what is actually real and I am having a hard time grasping the fact that it is all a story. I also agree with the relevance of this chapter being right after the Berkeley chapter (someone said that in class). Berkeley believed that “To be is to be perceived” in other words, one can not exist if they are not perceived by someone else. Sophie and her world exists because she is being perceived by Hilde and her father. Hilde and her father exist because they are being perceived by the class as we read the book. If this idea of perception is followed further then one begins to think: who’s perceiving me? Berkeley says that the greater perceiver is God to make up for the fact that one still exists even when they are alone. The part of his odd logic that freaks me out, however, is the fact that we (humans) could be just a story though of by God. The next frame outside of that is God is being perceived by something even greater. Is that even possible? And if so, then when does the perception end? Most importantly, what can we consider actual reality if everything is merely a perception?

Connection #4

The philosophy presented by Hume stuck made me think this most in the reading. Hume believed that we can not be sure of the laws of nature. At first, I thought Hume was ridiculous for saying that, but after more consideration I could understand more what he was getting at. My initial opposition to Hume’s claim was that through the scientific method and diligently carried out experiments, humans can identify the laws of nature and be sure of them. However, this thought changed when I was reminded that correlation does not equal causation. The example given in the book was: just because a rock drops to the ground when you let it go does not mean it must do that. I applied this to what I am learning in my astronomy class. The creation of the moon is said to have happened because the Earth slammed together with another planet and the debris of the collision is what coalesced to create the moon. While this idea is highly probable through intensive scientific studies, humans can not actually go back in time and prove that it is actually what happened. It’s just a theory. There is just so much in our world that requires explanation to make sense. We try our best to come up with the best reasoning to the explanations, but after reading the chapter about David Hume I am starting to think that they can’t truly be proved. Humans used to think that the world was flat, and that the Sun revolved around the Earth. Mankind’s beliefs about outer space and the laws of our planet may be educated, but there is a possibility that they aren’t completely correct.