Blog #101 - Questions about the Adjustment Bureau

While we watched the Adjustment Bureau, I had several questions as did many of you. Here were several of them:

1. Who was the Chairman in the film (I know that somebody found info that the director said that the Chairman was a female character in the film)? Did Norris and / or Elise see the Chairman during the film or was it earlier in their lifetimes before the film ever began? (Do you buy my idea that it was the guy that said hi to Norris on the street after the second time Norris and Elise meet?)

2. When Harry said to Elise and Norris that the Chairman rewrote the plan, the book showed a blank space ahead for the two of them.  What do you think that meant?  Does the blank space mean that David and Elise get to forge their own destiny?  Or does it mean something else?  Explain.  And what does this say about the mind of the Chairman, that two humans can change the

3. Kids in past classes have asked why there weren't any female adjusters.  I didn't have an answer for them as to that question.  I have also criticized the film's Western / Euro - centered bias when it talked about giving mankind free will during the Roman times and the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Assess the film in light of these flaws.



4. Why do you think the filmmaker decided never to show the Chairman in his/her/its true form?  By leaving this question unanswered, what was the filmmaker's intent? 

5. Think about Harry's crisis of conscience when Elise and David broke up for the 3rd time (when he left her at the hospital), and he asked Richardson about the rightness of the plan.  Put yourself in one of the adjusters' shoes and try to make sense of it all when you're only given part of the picture. Does this limited view of the big picture reflect our own view on life in general?  Why or why not?

6. Do you agree with Thompson when he says that "free will is an illusion"?  Why or why not? 

7. What is the filmmaker saying about order and chaos when Thompson tells us about the times when humans had free will and made a complete mess of the world? 

8. Looking at Harry's statement at the end (see below), what do you think is the filmmaker's message? Why?

“Most people live life on the path that we set for them to afraid to explore any other [path]/ Sometimes, someone like you comes along and knocks down the obstacles that we put in your way. People should realize that free will is a gift that you’ll never know how to use until you fight for it. I think that’s the Chairman’s real point. And maybe one day, we won’t write the plan, you will.”

Pick three of these questions and answer them for Monday, April 25 before class begins.  350 word minimum for your total answer.  Thanks. 


Some articles on the inclusion of philosophy in Adjustment Bureau: 
1. https://www.philosophynews.com/post/2011/09/05/The-Adjustment-Bureau-and-Free-Will.aspx
2. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/plato-pop/201103/what-the-adjustment-bureau-tells-us-about-free-will
3. https://maxandrews.wordpress.com/2011/03/06/the-philosophy-behind-the-adjustment-bureau/
4. http://www1.cbn.com/movies/the-adjustment-bureau-fate-free-will

Blog #100 - Agent Smith's Negative Outlook on Humanity

 

During Morpheus' interrogation, Agent Smith reveals to Morpheus why humans rejected the first version of the Matrix, the perfect version of it, 1.0:


"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from, which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization"1

This idea that humans' lot in life on Earth is suffering comes a lot from many different religions, but it's also a very negative view of life.  Is it accurate that humans' reality DEPENDS upon suffering and misery?  That's one question I'd like you to think more deeply about.  

Smith goes on to define humans as a virus that destroys anything and everything in its path; we spread across the planet like a plague and annihilate everything.

"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure" 1

This is kind of a bleak outlook on humanity, but what would you expect from a computer / artificial intelligence who had been trying to destroy our kind for 200 years? But, ironically, these thoughts didn't come from a computer but the minds of the Wachowski sisters who wrote the script. And even more levels of irony, the Agents characters (as revealed in the sequels) are essentially viruses in the system of the Matrix (think about it - they can hop from one sentient being to another, and when that being is killed, the virus / Agent looks for another host with which to do damage).  

And since we're hopefully wrapping up the Covid pandemic (fingers crossed), I couldn't help but think of the corona virus when I watched this scene again in 2022.  In the past two years, we have seen the virus kill over 1 million Americans (and 6.2 million worldwide as of April 7) and almost half a BILLION confirmed cases across the world.  If we want any evidence that humans are NOT a virus, this pandemic has shut that notion down dramatically (though some radical environmental activists point to improved pollution levels as the pandemic being a good thing since a lot of human activity was shut down for months on end).  


Questions: 

1. Do you agree w/ Agent Smith that humankind's reality depends upon suffering and misery?  Why or why not?  

2. Does mankind act like a virus in the way we consume resources and destroy our living space? Why or why not?


Due Sunday, April 10. 300 words minimum for your total answer.

Sources:
1. Internet Movie Database - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/quotes


A little music to make the blog go easier: Shinedown's "Devour" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QXNtLaOnSE plus the lyrics for the song:

Take it and take it and take it and take it and take it all

Take it and take it and take it until you take us all

Smash it and crash it and thrash it and trash it

You know they're only toys

Try it you'll like it don't hide it don't fight it, just let it out

Steal and shoot it and kill it or take another route

Take it and take it and take it

You know they're only toys

Devour Devour

Suffocate your own empire

Devour Devour

It's your final hour

Devour Devour

Stolen like a foreign soul

Devour Devour

What a way to go

You want it, you want it, you want it, you want it

Well here it is

Everything everything everything

Isn't so primitive

Take it and take it and take it and take it and take it all

Nobody nobody wants to feel like this

Nobody nobody wants to live like this

Nobody nobody wants a war like this

Devour Devour

Suffocate your own empire

Devour Devour

It's your final hour

Devour Devour

Stolen like a foreign soul

Devour Devour

What a way to go

What a way to go

Blog #99 _ What is Wrong with Socrates?

We read the articles by Emily Wilson with her alternative take on the life of Socrates. In "What's Wrong with Socrates?" in The Philosophers' Magazine, 2nd Qtr., 2008, she listed 10 things that conflicted with the myth/legend of Socrates that we have grown familiar with.

Among Socrates' perceived transgressions (in Dr. Wilson's eyes), he was:

1. An amateur and prided himself in not getting paid;

2. Irresponsible to leave his wife and two children behind;

3. A chatterbox (talk over action is valued);

4. Psychologically naive - with statements like "nobody does wrong willingly", Wilson tears him apart;

5. Felt that pain didn't matter - if you were good, though wrong/harm was done to you, the real harm is in the sinner or the wrongdoer;

6. Anti-political - he felt that few if any are smart enough to run a government properly, but could he do it? Could anyone? If not, why have gov't in the first place?

7. Parochial - there was little that Socrates believed could be learned outside of the walls of Athens;

8. Arrogant - when Dr. Wilson says arrogant, apparantly she means ill-mannered and inconsiderate among other things listed in the article;

9. Superstitious - sometimes, philosophers mean that someone who is religious is superstitious, but the way she wrote this passage, she made him sound a bit loony (eccentric if you want to put a good spin on it) for listening to the voice inside his head. Is that voice his conscience or was hearing voices like the math professor in A Beautiful Mind?

10. Rationalist - normally, you wouldn't think there's anything wrong with being rational, but Dr. Wilson finds that Socrates puts such a strong emphasis on being rational that he leaves no room for emotion in solving problems. He is devoid of emotion.

So, your job here is to pick 4 of these criticisms and discuss whether or not you agree or disagree with them. We heard from many of you in class, and here's your chance to refine or air out your ideas. 

300 words for your total response to these criticisms, due Friday night, March 25th, by midnight.   

Blog #98 - Which of these philosophers is NOT your vibe?

  In the article, "Philosophy 101," we surveyed six major philosophers and came up with some modern-day applications / examples of their ideas. What you should do with this blog is review their ideas and pick which one you think has the most problematic views, whether their philosophy can apply to today, or if you think it doesn't make sense.  Explain why.  

I. Ancient Greece 

A. Plato - he believed in the idea of the perfect form, that there is a perfect concept for everything (person, horse, chair, etc.) and that everything manmade or natural on Earth is an imperfect copy of that perfect form (In the picture to the left, you have a photo of a chair, a definition of a chair printed out, and an actual chair - each one is a chair but they each have different degrees of reality to them - the farther away from the ideal form they are, the less perfect they are). 

- Plato felt that achieving this perfection would be impossible but it would be important to live a good life by striving for perfection. 




B. Aristotle - Some of his ideas included deductive reasoning (that we might see in cop/mystery movies or forensics TV shows), the Golden Mean (choosing between two extremes), and the feelings of catharsis or an emotional cleansing. Aristotle was also one of the first true scientists of the ancient era who had the means to study and catalogue numerous plants and animals. 

- With the Golden Mean, Aristotle might feel today that a balance should be struck somewhere between being totally in touch with one's friends through social networking and cutting one's self off completely. 

- Here's an interesting website about a concept called the Overton Window - the points along the scale (if you mapped out the spots between one extreme and another) at which the public is willing to accept an option. 


II. Modern Philosophy 

C. Rene Descartes - He is the father of modern philosophy and started many snowballs rolling downhill, but the one we focused on here was the idea of dualism, the mind and body are separate and not linked. An example the article gave was that if you died in a dream, you wouldn't die in actuality. Movies like The Matrix and Inception deal fully with this mind / body dualism. Descartes is also known for the statement "I think, therefore I am" in which in order to exist, you must first think. Quite a concept! (See link for a further elaboration on different types of dualism).


D. David Hume - This Scottish philosopher improved upon some of Descares' ideas like skepticism (that we cannot truly ever be sure of something b/c it might not reoccur - the article uses the example of a bottle breaking when knocked off of a table). Part of the reason that this type of skepticism exists is b/c of the randomness of life and the infinite number of variables that play into it (later to be called the chaos theory in Jurassic Park or the butterfly effect). Lastly, there's the post hoc fallacy, or to believe that because we see two things occur together, one must have caused the other. Let us say that one morning I get up and turn my coffee machine on, but at the same time, the dishwasher starts up. Does that mean that X (turning coffee machine on) causes Y (dishwasher turns on)? No, not necessarily. 



E. Immanuel Kant - One of his biggest ideas was the categorical imperative, or in other words, putting yourself to a moral test for each of your actions. You should consider what would happen if everyone followed your course of actions and how that would impact society. Applying this standard to all of your actions would be the key to living a righteous life. If you cheat on taxes, then you are expecting everyone to cheat on their taxes.  

- Also, perception matters, and it differs for everyone. We can never fully perceive what we perceive b/c we are not that object which we perceive. 





F. Georg Hegel - Hegel had an idea that had been around for awhile but he refined it to something called absolute spirit - a network that connected every thing to ideas, people and other things around the universe. Hegel also came up with an idea called zeitgeist(German for time-spirit) where peoples' thoughts are guided by the political and cultural atmosphere of a specific time in history. For instance, our time period represented the angry Populist revolt, originally seen in the 1890s when farmers revolted against big business and economic inequality, is seen today in the Tea Party or Trump populism or the left-wing populism of Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. 



Your Job: Pick one of these philosophers and critique his major ideas.  Make sure you include some details and explanation from the article in your response. Also, pick one which has ideas closest to your own and explain why.  Again, use details from the article and our discussion.  

Blog due by Thursday by class.  Minimum of 300 words for your answer.  

Blog #97 - Should the Batman Kill the Joker?

Please read the following article: "Why Doesn't the Batman Just Kill the Joker?" by Jesse Richards.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/quora/why-doesnt-batman-just-ki_b_3686003.html

It brings up a few good points: 
1. The Joker will continue to kill (but does Batman murder him for future crimes - could be dangerous - or past crimes?  Joker has killed Robin, Commissioner Gordon's wife, and crippled Batgirl, Gordon's stepdaugher).
2. Batman's honor code of not killing is just a way for Batman to feel superior to the men and women of crime whom he is fighting.
3. Is Batman responsible for all of the deaths / mayhem / destruction since Batman first apprehended the Joker?  Is that chaos Batman's to own, or should it be the Joker?

Additionally, it seems, on further reflection, that the Joker, especially the way he is portrayed in The Dark Knight, is the ultimate nihilist.  Nihilism is an extreme skepticism that doesn't adhere to any moral or religious principles because they believe that life is meaningless.  In some ways, nihilism condemns existence itself.   

So, questions to answer: 
1. In which of the scenarios of the Trolley Problem do you think best applies to this situation w/ the Batman and Joker (assuming it was the Joker who is the trolley)?
2. Should the Batman kill the Joker?  Why or why not?  And if so, for what crimes - past or to prevent future crimes?
3. Should our superheroes have a no-killing code?  Why or why not?  Does it just lead to more crime?
4. Is the concept of utilitarianism useful for real life decisions?  Why or why not?

5. Is Batman a true Kantian in his refusal to kill the Joker (think Kant's practical postulates)?  

Pick 3 of the questions above to answer.  

300 words total for all 3 answers.  Due by class on Friday night (11/13) by midnight.  

Blog #96 - Interpretations of Inception

Here are several interepretations of the movie.  Your job is to read over the blog and pick three to talk about.  You don't have to agree with them: you can pick them apart with evidence from the movie. 

Questions to choose from (pick three):

1. Near the end, Mal (or her projection) in limbo makes a pretty good case that Cobb is lost in his own dream and can't tell one reality from another. Do you think that this is a plausible alternative?  Why or why not? 

2. This blog from Moviefone.com outlines six different interpretations of the film (and also five plot holes - see next question). Read it for more details on each of the six interpretations, but I'll just list each of them below. We have talked about some of them in class.

** If you decide to fully tackle more than one interpretation of Inception, this will count as another of your three questions.

a. All of Inception is a dream - are we ever really shown reality? Whose dream is it, anyway?

b. Everything after the test sedation is a dream - after Yusuf's chemical test, do we see Cobb spin his totem and see it fall properly?

c. Saito is the architect and pulls a Mr. Charles gambit on Cobb - instead of a job audition like Saito said, maybe Saito is trying to extract something from Cobb?

d. Ariadne is Cobb's therapist trying to help him get over Mal's death - This is an interesting and plausible take on the movie - found here http://halphillips.tumblr.com/post/822919795/inception

e. We do see reality in the movie (first train ride in Japan, Paris, Mombasa), but Cobb is in a dream at the end - could this explain why the totem never falls at the end of the movie? This interpretation apparently hinges on the idea that the children don't appear to have aged. Plus, we don't see how Saito and Cobb get out of limbo.

f. What we see is what we get - that we are presented with a reality at the beginning of the movie (train ride in Japan) and that Cobb is back in the U.S. at the end of the movie.

3. Evil genius theory - We should have discussed this in class, but I wonder if it's possible to show that either Saito, Mal or Cobb could be the evil genius manipulating everything we're seeing. Or could it be the film maker Christopher Nolan?



4. Is Inception really just an extended metaphor for films? In a previous blog from last semester, I posted a link from Wired, and I traced it back to its source, so I'll quote the author's take on Nolan's film:

"The film is a metaphor for the way that Nolan as a director works, and what he’s ultimately saying is that the catharsis found in a dream is as real as the catharsis found in a movie is as real as the catharsis found in life. Inception is about making movies, and cinema is the shared dream that truly interests the director."

Here's a link to the whole post: http://www.chud.com/24477/NEVER-WAKE-UP-THE-MEANING-AND-SECRET-OF-INCEPTION/

My question is, do you buy this interpretation of the movie? Why or why not? What kind of implication does it have for us as film watchers - this shared "dream space" of watching a movie together? Did Christopher Nolan just perform inception on all of us because it's now an idea, like a parasite that won't go away? :)

5. When Saito asks Cobb to take a leap of faith, he's asking Cobb to believe in him and Saito's ability to fix Cobb's problems. In some ways, Saito almost acts like a deity in this movie because through him, almost everything is engineered to work. He is the Prime Mover or causal agent - Cobb and his team are sent on their mission because they failed to extract vital info from Saito for Cobol Engineering. They are tasked to help destroy Saito's biggest competitor (Fischer), and when it's all said and done, Saito returns from limbo after many many years (remember, Mal and Cobb didn't look like they had aged when the train ran them over after just 50 yrs together, but Saito was wrinkled and withered) and supposedly sweeps away Cobb's murder warrant. What is Saito, really? Is he just a very powerful man or is he something else? Why?

6. Those of you with AP Psych experience, help us out on some of the brain / dream logistics. The way that they explain the dream rules in the movie sound plausible, but what is realistic w/ regards to dreams? Shared dream space isn't possible, is it? Any other psych insights would be greatly appreciated here.

7. Arthur mentioned it briefly on how the technology for the shared dreaming was created - by the military so that soldiers could fight/kill each other without truly maiming themselves in reality. Plus, the character played by Michael Caine, Mal's father, seems to have been the one who taught Cobb how to do what he could do. In many ways, I sense the hints of a "prequel," not a sequel for this movie. Unlike the Matrix (which probably should have been left alone instead of having 2 sequels), it might be interesting to explore how the technology for this type of thing was developed and most likely stolen. If it takes 10 years in between movies like it did with Toy Story or Tron, then so be it. What kinds of possibilities do you see in a prequel or, even if you don't agree with me, a sequel?

Some additional points and counterpoints to theories in the movie - http://inceptiontheories.com/inception-theories-points-counterpoints/

DUE THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22 BY MIDNIGHT.  

Blog #95 - Henry Poole is Here

 Pick three of the following topics / thoughts about the movie and write about your thoughts based on your own personal experience and the movie.  

1. You can’t go to the past to fix the present.” - Esperanza said this when Henry visited his parents' house. Agree or disagree? Why?

2. Noam Chomsky said: "As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss" 1.

Patience quotes him in the movie, and then follows it up with these lines: "It means that not everything needs an explanation. Sometimes, things happen b/c we choose for them to happen. I chose to believe."

Is she saying that because she believed the miracle on Henry's wall to be true, then that made it true? Or is she saying something else? If you could choose for one thing to come true / exist, what would that be and why?

 

3. During the dinner date, Dawn said to Henry as he tried backing away from getting closer to her was: "I know you're gonna die. But all that either of us have is right now, and we should pay attention to that."  Henry might be feeling selfish and pushing people away w/ the way he's acting. But when he said, "I am paying attention." And that's why he can't do this (meaning fall for Dawn, go where the date will eventually lead ). Did Henry stop being selfish there for a moment? Or did he revert back to himself again? Why?

4. I get the feeling that Henry senses that there are greater forces at work, somehow helping him, coming to heal him, yet he feels unworthy of this sense of grace. Why he feels unworthy, I don't know. The movie doesn't develop Henry's background well enough to make more than a guess.  Maybe it's not unworthy, maybe it's pride or stubbornness in his own beliefs that life has just dealt him an awful hand. Maybe he has accepted this fate, for lack of a better word, and decided to deal with it in his own way despite a higher power demanding an audience. What do you think of this idea?

5. There's got to be a reason why Patience is named Patience. What about the name Esperanza? It's Spanish for Hope. What made me think about Hope (besides the Obama-themed poster of Henry) was when he was about to destroy the wall and he yelled, "Hope can't save you!" And the last of the virtues would be Love symbolized by Dawn and Faith by Millie (who was the first one to test the validity of the wall).

Henry, on the other hand, would symbolize the seven deadly sins - sloth, gluttony, lust, greed, anger, envy and pride. A stretch? Maybe. How would he symbolize the seven?

6. Do you think Henry symbolizes some philosophers' skepticism of one's senses?  Or does Henry go beyond that to a total skepticism of everything: religion, senses, peoples' good intentions, etc. until he finally discovers that he's not going to die?  Why?


7. "Everything happens for a reason."  When Esperanza talks to Henry about her old boyfriend, Leo, and how that she prayed to God to give her a sign that Leo was o.k., how does the sign on Henry's wall signify an answer to her prayers?

PICK THREE OF THESE QUESTIONS AND ANSWER THEM FULLY.  400 WORDS TOTAL.  DUE THURSDAY, 10/8/20 BY CLASS. 

Blog #94 - Deep Thoughts about Source Code

 We talked a bit about the film, Source Code, and how it relates to Plato's Allegory of the Cave.  I don't know if it's a perfect fit, but what is?  I think further research is needed for this topic and if you guys can find it pertaining to the film and Plato, that would be great.

The film opens up some questions about fate that I don't think it really answered or that we really touched upon too much.  When Capt. Stevens kept being pulled out of the Source Code (SC) and back into his "capsule," he saw these glimpses - call them deja vu, precognition, whatever - of himself and Christina at Chicago's Millenium Park and the big chrome bean.  These scenes occurred even before he felt like saving anybody on the train or understood his situation - as if he was headed towards that future "alternate universe" no matter happened.  Could it be that every obstacle that Stevens ran into (or literally ran into him - see below!) kept him moving towards that unavoidable future?




What about the morality of using Capt. Stevens as a lab rat for the Source Code?  It's obvious by the end of the movie that he's in a terrible state of physical trauma, and that only his mind is the most complete and functioning part of him.  At points in the film, it appeared that Dr. Rutledge was "torturing" Stevens by sending him back into the memories of Sean Fentress only to be blown up again and again.  We did mention that Capt. Stevens, as a member of the U.S. military, most likely, had signed away his rights to do with his remains as his parents wished.  However, it is hard to imagine a father wishing this for his son.  And by the end of the film, if it has reset and everything starts anew, Capt. Stevens will continue to be used further in the GWOT (global war on terror).

One question I kept having while first watching the movie (and occasionally in rewatching it with previous philosophy classes), is what happened to Sean Fentress's essence or soul or being?  Captain Stevens takes over Sean's body, his likeness doesn't change, but his demeanor and actions do, as evidenced by Christina noticing how different he is acting on subsequent trips into the Source Code.  Dr. Rutledge says that Sean Fentress exists in the Source Code as an electromagnetic field.  But where did his essence go?  Does Sean's essence / soul / being cease to exist as soon as Capt. Stevens enters Sean's body?  Or did it cease to exist as soon as he died and this "Sean" is just a shadow of his former self?   Does Sean's essence go somewhere else (maybe heading to heaven or hell or limbo, depending upon what you or even Sean believed)?  Is his essence maybe going some place permenantly because he doesn't come back to his body after the end of eight minutes - the bomb goes off and Sean and Christina and dozens other people die?  Or since we're watching a memory replay over and over again, is the whole point of where Sean is a moot point because at that point, Sean and many others are already dead and just live on in the memory?  Plus at the end of the movie, we see Sean and Christina walking by Millenium Park enjoying a beautiful spring day playing hooky in some kind of memory(?) that couldn't have happened because the bomb didn't go off.  Has the real Sean returned?  Or is that still Capt. Stevens in his body?

One more question that I thought of while watching the movie again was this: are all of these trips into the Source Code with all of their different outcomes just part of a multiverse as the movie suggested?  Essentially, all of these trips have the same setting, the same laws of physics still apply, the same people in them, and essentially the same outcome (except for the last one) but the one wild card that changes every time is what Captain Stevens does within the eight minutes.  Do all of these of these trips comprise different versions of a multiverse?  And since the theory behind a multiverse states that almost all outcomes of an event are possible, that could leave room for one "reality" in which the bomb didn't go off.


Lastly, how do you explain the ending?  Goodwin and Rutledge have no knowledge of the previous day's events (if those events even occurred - but they had to have existed somewhere, b/c Stevens sent her the email - it came from somewhere, sometime, right?).  And at the end of the movie, it looked as if the whole day had been reset, Capt. Stevens was alive and in his previous "state of being," in addition to the bomber being caught and the initial train bombing never having occurred.

Questions to choose from:
1. How could the filmmakers have changed the film to make it more like Plato's cave?  Explain your reasoning.
2.  What role did fate play in this movie?  Why?  Or, did fate play no role at all and why not?
3.  Did the military cross the line with the use of Capt. Stevens' body and mind for the Source Code?  Why or why not?
4. Where did Sean Fentress's essence / soul / being go while Captain Stevens took over his body in the Source Code?  Why?
5. Is the ending a new "movie reality" (for lack of a better term)?  Why or why not?  Is it possible that Stevens' determination somehow merged the alternate universe with the movie's original reality?


Pick three of the following questions and answer each one as fully as you can.  Stay in the nuances of the question as long as you can.  Your response should be a minimum of 400 words total and is due Wednesday, Sept. 23 before class begins. 

Here are a few interesting articles that explore some other issues brought up in the film: 
"Who is Sean Fentress? A Completely Serious Exploration of What Happened After the Ending of Source Code" - https://filmschoolrejects.com/who-is-sean-fentress-e3ddff9993a/ 
"Here I Am: The Identity Philosophy behind Source Code" - https://filmschoolrejects.com/here-i-am-the-identity-philosophy-of-source-code-78cbe40abd2f/ 
"The Philosophy Behind The Source Code" - https://maxandrews.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/the-philosophy-behind-source-code/