A Tribute to Aristotle: Get Organized

I woke up for school one morning and noticed how I was out of clothes to wear. I was digging through my dirty laundry piles to find the cleanest shirt. I did the smell check on three shirts that I picked out. I found a winner that I was about to put on, but I noticed a huge coffee stain on the side. When I looked at a couple more shirts they were either too wrinkly or stained.

It dawned on me that I should probably wash my clothes. I didn't have time before school, so I grabbed a sweatshirt and decided it had to wait until after school. Later that day when I got back home from school, it was laundry time!

I picked up all my clothes from the floor and threw them all into a basket. I brought the basket down to my laundry room and separated my white clothes and my dark clothes. After I put the first load in the washing machine I waited 50 minutes, switched the first load into the dryer, then put the second load into the washing machine. When both loads were done I brought the basket of clothes up to my room and started folding my laundry. 

Instead of throwing all my clothes randomly into my drawers I decided to organize how my clothes are put away. Normally I would have clothes hanging off my chair and thrown in my closet, but I had the determination to organize each drawer. I took out a piece of paper and wrote down what each drawer should be and tapped it to my dresser. If I didn't do this I would easily forget where everything would be.

After everything had a drawer, I organized my clothes into piles. I put each pile into their corresponding drawer and felt accomplished because my room was clean and now everything had a place.

Best of Week: True Knowledge

    In class this week we have gone into in-depth analysis about the book Sophie's World. One of the ideas we discussed was the idea of true knowledge. The philosopher Plato believed "we can never have true knowledge of anything that is in a constant state of change" (Gaarder 86-87). We can only have opinions about things, or what are senses perceive. Plato also states "we can only have true knowledge of things that can be understood with our reason" (87). Reasoning would be something not defined by your senses.
   At first I thought that the idea of true knowledge that Plato had was contradictory. I feel like every idea or object starts out as something that is in a constant state of change, and then becomes something understood with reasoning. In the book they use the examples of Math and a rainbow as comparison for reason. The simple math of 2+2=4 is considered reasoning, but there had to been several different states of change that the idea of math even went through to get where it is today. I am unsure if I agree with Plato, though he is a great philosopher, I believe that our senses and being in a constant state of change is what brings about creativity in the mind to have the ability to make an idea reasonable.
    On the flip side, I can see where this philosophy of Plato's comes from. He has given me a different perspective for knowledge. I always viewed knowledge is a measure of how much you know in general. In my definition of knowledge senses were included. I think back to all the times I have argued with my brother about an item. Every time we fight, he always thinks he is right because he's the more knowledgeable person. For example,we were fighting about cars. He was telling me that our mom's black Acura was classier than our neighbors white Acura. My brother started spewing facts about how white becomes dirty easily and owners are less likely to take care of the car. I disagreed strongly, but fighting with him was useless. At the time I thought that since he did know about cars more than I did, maybe he was more knowledgeable about the whole situation overall. Looking back on it now, his opinions and his senses are what drove his argument for what was better on a car. He wasn't exemplifying knowledge, although he tried to make it seem like that by giving me "facts." 
    Overall, I enjoyed the reading on true knowledge as well as learning about it more in class. Ever since learning about it, I have been more aware of Plato's philosophy and trying to see if other people are also confused by the definition of knowledge. In general just the short reading in the book has opened by mind up a little bit and has me questioning things or conversations I have had, trying to find connections in my everyday life. Plato has guided me (sort of) to a new way of divergent thinking and really asking questions and analyzing what is really important.