Tuesday,May 12 2009, 11:47:48 AMWandering through the Wondrous Lane of Philosoph..

“Nothing can come out of nothing, and nothing is ever lost.” Sounds difficult, even impossible to understand?  That’s perfectly fine ─ as long as you do not freak out , and immediately turn away from the doubt and confusion aroused, because it is “too tiring” or “too troublesome” to think deeper. Why? Simply because if you do back off, you are actually refusing to learn.

What happen when you refuse to learn? Well, not much. You will just miss the chance of learning some extremely valuable knowledge from this seemingly nonsense statement and all the fun in the process of learning.  Not much, right? Oh, did I mention if you get used to refusing to learn, your life is actually not much different from that of a little bug living at the “very tip of a rabbit’s fine hairs”? Yes, you heard me right. You are not that different from a tiny little bug if you refuse to learn.

It is funny how students (especially Hong Kong students) nowadays tend to avoid using their brain, the most important part of their bodies, to perform the most important function ─ thinking. Now this may not be accurate since nobody can actually avoid thinking. But you get the point. What are the odds of finding a student in Hong Kong who would readily prompt to answer a “philosophical” question? Or should I ask, what are the odds of finding a Hong Kong student who do not immediately shut down his/her brain once the word “philosophy” is heard? You may say I am exaggerating here but just look around and be honest to yourself. What are students thinking about these days? What are people thinking?

　　Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World remains as a classic for many reasons, good ones too, if you ask me. One I cannot deny would be Gaarder’s bold attempt to returning to the fundamentals of philosophy ─ appealing to the curiousity of human beings.

       “The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder.” How right this is, and yet, how ignorant we are! We, as human beings, are born with the gift of wonder. Some animals can also wonder, but not in the way we do. A dog can see a tree as we do, and wonder what it is. However, as soon as the dog figures out this object “tree” has nothing to do with its food, mating or anything a dog cares about, it will not have the impulse to explore more. This, in a sense, separates us human beings from other animals because we do have the impulse to explore more.  We wonder everything we come across in our young ages. What deprives us of that gift of wonder? No, Sophie’s World does not have the answer. But it certainly is a good guide to anyone who is eager enough to embark on their own journeys to find out.

Despite the fact that Sophie’s World deserves its reputation and critical acclaim, it is far from a comprehensive encyclopedia of the broad realm of philosophy. Nor did Gaarder attempted to cover the whole picture of philosophy in a 500 pages fiction. What Sophie’s World should be treated as, is an enjoyable and rewarding journey into one of the most important areas of human knowledge. It is a perfectly decent starting point for anyone who is interested in life and wants to live in ways different from a bug.  It’s even better for “scholars” who have forgotten about the essence of life.

          Simply put, Sophie’s World is the kind of book that everyone should keep a copy on his/her bookshelf. Not for anything else, but to remind us of the difference between a bug and human beings. Big deal, isn’t it?

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