Sophie's World notes on Chapters 1-4

Sophie got another letter that had three morequestions. "Is there a basic substance thateverything else is made of? Can water turninto wine? How can earth and water produce alive frog?" (Gaarder 31).

Sophie spent a lot of time wondering aboutthese questions. She knew that Jesus hadturned water into wine but she never thoughtabout it literally.

The next letter says it is a good idea to try andfigure out what each philosopher's project isand what they are trying to figure out. It thenmakes it easier to follow the philosopher's lineof thought.

The philosopher's believed that there had tobe something or a substance that everythingcame from and returned to. Philosophydeveloped out of religion and eventually grewto science.

The first philosopher we know of is Thales,who came from Miletus. He thought that thesource of everything was water and he thoughtabout how it froze, vaporized and turned towater again.

The next philosopher is Anaximander, wholived in Miletus about the same time as Thales.He believed that the substance that is thesource of all things had to be something otherthen what was created.

Another philosopher from Miletus, Anaximenesthought that the source of all things must be"air" or "vapor".

Parmenides thought that everything that existshad always existed. He is a rationalist which issomeone who believes that human reason isthe primary source of our knowledge of theworld.

Sophie "decidedthat philosophy wasnot something youcan learn; butperhaps you canlearn to thinkphilosophically"(Gaarder 42).

Myths are stories about the gods which set outto explain why life is as it is. These mythswere handed down from generation togeneration through religious explanations.

Once the myths were in written form by Homerand Hesoid, it created a whole new situationbecause the could now be discussed.

Reading about all of the myths in the letterabout weather makes Sophie wonder how toexplain how it randomly just starts to rain orwhere the snow goes.

These myths were thought of before scienceexisted and Sophie decides to forget about allof the science she learns at school.

Sophie isn't interested anymore in games likebadminton or cards and she can't focus onschool anymore because she feels that thesequestions about life are way more important.

When Sophie gets home from school she goesand looks in the mailbox and finds anotherletter addressed to her.

The letter talks about Philosophy and howthere will always be something that everyoneneeds. Everyone also needs to figure out whothey are and why they are here as well.

She recieves another letter again thatsays "The only thing we require to be goodphilosophers is the faculty of wonder"(Gaarder 17). As we get older, ourreactions to certain situations changebecause the world becomes habit.

When Sophie's mother gets home from workthat night, Sophie asks her about life and theearth. Her mother is so taken back by this andshe asks Sophie if she is taking drugs.

Sophie receives a letter in the mail.

"It contained only a slip of paper no biggerthan the envelope. It read 'Who are you?'"(Gaarder 4).

Sophie doesn't know who she really is. Shegoes into the bathroom and looks at herselfand talks to herself in the mirror and thisconfuses her.

Sophie also starts to think a lot about why shelooks the way she does and why she didn'thave any say in her appearance. She alsostarts to wonder what will happen after shedies.

She finds another letter in the mailbox. "Wheredoes the world come from? it said" (Gaarder7).

This letter makes Sophie think because sheknows that everything that has ever existedhas to have had some starting point.

Sophie receives a birthday card in the mailaddressed to "Hilde." This confuses herbecause she doesn't know why someonewould purposely send their daughter a birthdaycard to the wrong place.