Section 1
Opening Questions
How "real" are the following items? (Rate them on a scale from 1 to 10 , where 10 is most real, 1 is least real.)The person sitting next to you _____The chair you are sitting in _____God _____The planet Uranus _____Beethoven’s music _____The headache you had last night _____Human rights _____Electrons _____The woman or man in (not “of”) your dreams _____Angels _____The number 7 _____Water _____Ice _____Love _____Beauty _____Genes _____The theory of relativity _____Einstein’s brain (when he was alive) _____Einstein’s ideas _____Your own mind _____The color red _____A red sensation (in your own mind) _____“Unreal numbers” _____The NFL _____Your own body _____Your soul _____
Do you believe that the earth is flat and does not move, while the stars, sun, moon, and planets circle around it in more or less regularly shaped orbits? If not, why not? (If so, why?)
If a tree falls in the forest when there's no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Why or why not? If no one ever sees, hears, or touches the tree itself, what sense does it make to say that the tree is "real"?
Does the universe itself have a purpose? If so, what is this purpose? If not, is it, as some modern philosophers have argued, just a universe of "matter in motion"—particles and electromagnetic fields acting according to the laws of physics?