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Braining storming

illusion
reality

enlightened
good results and bad results
more ugly truth
matrix oedipus the king minority report

Oedipus the king- he lived in a cave which was happy life for him-the reality was worse than he thought
Matrix- every people believe that they live in a real world. But the fact was that they were controlled by the computer system which manipulates people’s thoughts and behaviors.

Minority Report: the reality also shows worse situation

           We have been through many issues such as, definition of free will and how much human can control their free will with determined future, or situations that trap us in a cave without any knowledge of reality and the outcome of the reality.  But, I think that the relationship between illusion and the fact is more interesting for me, because as we live in our lives, we often face that we used to live in a small cave and the reality turned out to be sometimes ugly or happy face. however, I believed that the reality of illusion mostly would be terrible in our lives.  throughout this semester, i also found many sources that showed me how much we live in a cave and the how the reality turns out to be dystopian world.  As I experienced the play Oedipus the King, the movie Matrix, and "Minority Report" these all deal with the theme of illusion and terrible reality. these all explain about how miserable results of reality can be when people come to the real life. for the oedipus, the reality for the king Oedipus was that he killed his father and married his mother. For the movie, "matrix", even if people in the movie thought that their lives in that society was all about it, but the fact was that they were controlled by computer system. Likewise, the movie "Minority Report" also shows that reality is worse than they believe.precogs system was not always perfect. when i think of our lives, people face dystopian world in many times as well. As we grow up, we face responsibilities of many things, or some problems that we even did not think about it when we were young.
This English composition class forced me to think many various aspects of things about enlightening from the illusion as well as different topic like free will.

blog 7

Before taking ENG101, I had to take ESL classes and ENG099 class because my writing was not good, and there are some problems of grammar, word choices, and ideas. However, at the end of this semester, I think that my writing is better than before and I strongly think that one major reason was posting blogs. As I experienced several blogs, I strongly think that posting my writings on the blog has helped me a lot in many ways.

First, many blogs had to be posted on the blog cite every week. That forced me to practice writing at least once a week. Now I think that my writing skill is getting better than before I take this class.  Second, all the blogs that I did are exposed to public. That kind of characteristic also helped me to find correct way.  To make sure that I did in a correct way, I could check how other classmates did on the same topic. As I checked other blogs, I found out that I did wrong in some ways or I did properly. To be able to look at others’ blog also gave me some ideas when I totally did not know what to do or what we had to mention to response to the topic. Third, blogs made me more concentrate on topics critically other than taking care of grammar mistakes or other small parts. Writing blog meant that just think about the contents and it lead me to try to write about to fit on our topics, so it was very helpful to come up with my ideas. Forth, posting blog on the internet was also very convenient for us to post and edit when it is necessary. Whenever I feel mine is not correct, I could edit my blogs anytime and anywhere.  Fifth, some blogs that professor commented on them were especially effective. I could check the professor’s feedback and checked my problems on my blog. I also could check other students’ blog and see what they made mistakes and I also learn something from their works as well.

On the other hand, there also are some minor negative things I want to mention. In some way, if I see other papers, even if I tried to make it in my own words, I kind of tend to follow their ideas so finally my writing looked similar to other papers.

Practicing writing on the blogs is best experience to improve my skills and my critical ideas.

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People have free will for many things. They make countless decisions such as choosing what to wear, where to go, or what to eat. The results that they make come from their choices.   However, sometimes there are some cases that limit people’s free will because the future is already determined. Both the movie "Minority report" and the play "Oedipus the king" deal with the issue of how much humans control (free will) over their lives in the situations of determined future.

 In the movie minority report shows the future where people could predict future crime by three precogs and they caught pre-murderer before they committed a crime. People in that society were sure that the three precogs’ prediction was absolutely right and there was no exception. So they did not make any other decisions other than precogs’. They were totally affected depend on precogs’ prediction. When people found out that the main character John Anderton would kill Leo Crow, they undoubtedly believed that he must kill Leo Crow which cannot be changeable. Unlike other people in the movie, Anderton was the one who did not believe precogs, and tried to change determined future with his free will. (This is the concept of soft determinism(106) ). Precogs predicted that he was going to kill someone, but Anderton did not accept it and doubted about precog system. He tried to change his fate. Since he knew what was going to happen to him, he decided not to kill anybody as the three precogs predicted. Even if it seems that there was only one possible result, Anderton made another possible future by making his own decision. It seems that he had a strong free will.  Even if Leo Crow was finally dead like precog predicted, he was not killed by Anderton.

Likewise, in the play Oedipus the king, there is the same concept of how much Oedipus control himself in the situation of miserable destiny. In the play, when Oedipus’ father heard that his son would kill him and marry his wife, he believed that. He could not control his life. He was controlled by prophecy. He believed that there was no other choice, so he tried to get rid of his son to prevent terrible future. For him, the destiny that he was involved had only one possible future and absence of one’s self control. On the other hand, the king Oedipus was different than his father. When he was told about his destiny, Oedipus made exertion to change it. He left his home, and tried not to contact with his parents. However, he actually killed his father and married his mother. When Oedipus realized that he already had followed his destiny, he was despaired. It seems that he did not have any free will, but he did not yield his destiny. He just did not leave his country, he punished himself by making his eyes blind. This shows Oedipus’ strong free will. He controlled his life with making his own decision no matter what kind of fate he faced.

In addition to both the movie and the play, the article, ”free will and determinism in the world of Minority Report” support the idea of determinism and one’s free will. It shows two concepts of determinism. In the hard determinism, there is only one outcome possible, and no free will exist. In the soft determinism, there is determined future, but people have free will so that the determined future can be changeable by a person’s choice. Both Oedipus and Anderton had soft determinism. They chose their action and were responsible for outcome happened.

It looks that there is no difference between the movie and the play, but in the movie, Anderton actually knew what was going to happen to him and he chose not to follow his fate. However, in the play, Oedipus could not control his fate perfectly. He did exactly what prophecy said even if he always decides his action by himself.