Philosophy: Food for the Soul

So...this is my journal/essay about idealism and realism.
After reading the material and before this big, exciting discussion took place I thought I was completely a realist. But when you brought up your friend, Sam, I started to question myself. I believed in him and started to make a mental picture of what I thought he looked like. I immediately thought of when I read books or novels and then they make a movie about it. I’m always excited to see the movies but I end up being disappointed, almost every time, because it’s not what I thought it would be. You see, whenever I read books, I develop this picture in my mind of all the characters: where the live, and what goes on. I even get disappointed because the movies aren’t as detailed as the book, but that’s just my thinking, and what all I think the movies should include. I think everyone is guilty, at one time or another, of developing a mental picture of something that they have no idea what it actually looks like. I don’t think that anyone can tell themselves quite enough to not be in pain, once they have a broken bone. That kind of seems a little crazy and absurd to me. I guess that’s my realist side coming out. Although, in my math class last semester, my teacher told us about these studies being done to see if a certain surgery, drug, or vaccination healed people. They did some single-blind and some double-blind experiments on a sample of different people. They would give some the medicine or surgery and others nothing. What they ended up discovering was that many of them, who didn’t receive treatment, were saying they felt completely different and better. So, I guess them thinking they got the treatment made them think they were better. This is a good example of mind over matter. I think that children will develop their own ideas, like imaginary friends and thinking they are right about everything, because that’s what they see in their minds. This might influence my teaching methods one day, but I am not too sure about that yet. I had never really thought about realism and idealism to an extent until this class. I love how you open the discussion up to the class and the enthusiasm you have that makes the whole experience really exciting. I think my best friend gets tired of me talking about the things we learn in each class. I am definitely able to learn better with the class teaching one another, than if it was just a lecture-based class. I have never really had such deep thought processes until this class. Almost every day I ask myself the question, “When am I an idealist and when am I a realist?”