I bought the book Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder, which is a novel about the history of philosophy, for my daughter. I ended up reading the book myself. It was a wonderful story about Western-world philosophers who became famous because they asked questions and wrote down their thoughts and views about life and their society. “What is a thought and how does a thought transform into wisdom?” A thought either remains hidden in the mind or is expressed through the written or expressed word. Are the words on this page a stream of consciousness, or have they become a thought? Like a body of water, maybe our minds are always lled with thoughts, feelings, and dreams. Are thoughts similar to a pool of water, with movements seen and felt only when a breeze or current lets the light reÀect on the water’s surface? It seems that thoughts are either at the mind’s edge-like the water’s shoreline, lying just below the water’s surface in the mind’s consciousness-or are submerged in the depths of the mind’s subconscious. Thoughts are inÀuenced by the amount of light or inspiration in our lives. The tides of times and famous philosophers inÀuenced who we are in society, what we think about, and how we might be inspired to ask more questions about just about anything. I thought about when man rst started to dream and ask questions about the world. Maybe I could learn about philosophy while riding through history in a goat-drawn chariot or on the back of a giant tortoise.
