Friday, January 22, 2010
CURIOUS INCIDENT... Blog Post 1
On pages 12, Christopher writes: "I think prime numbers are a lot like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them." What does this metaphor mean? What moments and scenes in the first 23 pages of the book might relate to this insight?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
40 comments:
believe Christopher means is that life is completely unpredictable and is
forever changing and when we believe that we come to an understanding of something, it leads us to
another query. Though there are laws that govern our existence we have little understanding of
these forces. Prime numbers are very much similar, they are infinite and
esoteric. It would be futile to find them all Christopher expresses similar
view with jokes. Jokes are a random combination and words that can have many interwoven meanings. Some of them
don’t even make any sense “like you’re nutty for nuts” A nut has taken the place for a craving for .
something We understand the joke, but its wording is unclear. One could not
find or create every joke for they are infinite.
well first of all its not a metaphor. second of all i think what christopher is trying to explain life in his own way. christopher believes that prime numbers and life are related through their logic and question. he says life is logical but there are things about life you cannot work out. prime numbers are logical being what they are but sometimes you cant always see the truth behind them. there is always something you are missing in life and in prime numbers. many times in life things are based on logic and knowledge but they are confusing. this being christopher's philosophy (sort of) when thinking of anything he feels this way or something like it. his mother becoming sick is a part of life. it may be logical for some medical reason but we can never really understand why it has happened. as people discover more things about life they base their findings on WHAT WE KNOW. this isn't always the correct information. we simply have a great amount of information making seem true. we don't know the big bang created the planets for no one was there to see it. there is always logic behind things but no matter how hard you study it and no matter how long you focus on it you can never come to the final answer because you can never work out the rules.
I think Christopher is saying that life is unpredictable nd anything is possible in life. People will never know the meaning of life fully. Same with prime numbers. They are infinite and will never be solved. Both life and prime numbers are mysteries. When the dof gets killed and no one knows who killed it, a mystery begins. This is just one example of life and its many wonders and why things happen. The many metaphors are also an example. Christopher doesnt understand them just like life and prime numbers.
I think for Christopher life is very unpredictable, his mom dies, he is taken into the police station for hugging a dead dog, etc. Prime numbers are unpredictable, like Christopher says "no one has ever worked out a simple formula for telling you whether a very big number is a prime number or what the next one will be." I think Christopher would like for life to be very simple. He would like for no one to lie and no one to use metaphors, but just like prime numbers life for Christopher is unpredictable and can completely change after one action. I think Christopher would like it if his life had more of a pattern instead of being so unpredictable.
I agree mostly with what Nico said. Life is unpredictable and things could happen out of no where, for no reason at all. Prime numbers are infinite, they never stop, just like the mysteries in life can be infinite and they never really stop either. Prime numbers are very confusing, so is life. Life is like a mystery mostly, a mystery that no one can solve or understand. When the dog dies, no one can understand
why it's dead and who exactly would want to kill the dog. This is when another mystery talks, as he says this is a miser mystery. It seems that Christopher likes mysteries and that he likes a good challenge. It seems that he wants to solve the musteries that he thinks of. He knows every
prime number up to 7,057. This shows that he knows a lot of mysteries and that he devoted to finding them out.
I think that Christopher says that life is not something that you can predict or be aware of until you are in the moment. In the first scene, when christopher picks up the dead dog and starts stroking its fur, the owner comes out and blasts him out "Let go of the dog" "Put the f**king dog down for christ's sake." Obviously Christopher was not trying to harm anything and had no bad intentions. But ANYone would have thought that Christopher had done the crime upon the dog. Prime numbers are also very rare in the number sequence. I think that this relates to life because you only live once. After that it's over. Prime numbers also take a long time to find. In some people's lives, it takes them a very long time to find themselves mentally, socially, and sometimes even physically. I think that Christopher's statement is a very elegant one and could spark up a huge conversation.
I think this means that there are rules of living but they aren't necessary to figure out and you never do figure them out. Life is spontaneous and unpredictable. I think it means that you should live life to the fullest because you never know what could happen just like his mother dying wasn't planned or expected. I don't think Christopher knows how to do this quite well yet. He often thinks before he does and he is very literal. Prime numbers are kind of random and there isn't one rule for them. This is just like life, there are rules but you will never find out what they are even if you spend your whole life trying to figure them out.
Christopher likes easy to figure out ideas. "I like this fact. It is something you can work out in your own mind just by looking at the sky above your head at night and thinking without having to ask anyone." The sky is like a prime number or life to him because it is something that is just given and doesn't really have a rule.
I agree with Nicholas, in the way that life is unpredictable, and is easy to get caught up in. Working out rules seems to make life even more complicated, and is almost like a puzzle. We see this puzzle when Christopher is talking about lies, and how he gets caught up in them, and how even one lie about what he had for breakfast, could make him scared of a rhino. Getting caught up in lies, is a puzzle- like situation, and trying to solve it is much like prime numbers, in there puzzle-like ways to solve.
Another example is on page 22-23, when he was talking about the time his mother died. We experience an unexpectedness in his memories, and how hearing that his mother is in the hospital is a situation where even making a card cannot solve it. This is an example of the ways that in life, trying to figure out what comes next, is not so simple. We can then connect this to prime numbers because there are no paterns; though experiencing what comes next is simple, predicting the next number takes a long time, and with the minimal effort most put into it, you generally just have to see what happens next.
To say that life is as complicated, as strange, as simple as math, is to say a lot. life is all these things, but to relate them to something as common as math is a different concept. through out the first 23 pages a lot is said Christopher and math and how it dominates his life and emoticons so for Christopher this is a perfect metaphor.
I sort of agree with Ari. I feel as if Christopher is a prime number, and the people that surround him are numbers that have factors besides one and itsself. Prime numbers are numbers that are not simple, and that is what Christophers life style is like, a lifestyle without simplicity. People seem to take advantage of Christopher, like the police officer.
On page 6 and 7, the police officer seems to know that Christopher has some sort of mental issue, but he just takes advantage of that, and keeps questioning him. This scene also relates to part of the quote "but you could never work out the rules." The police officer cannot figure out who this kid is, and does not listen, but instead puts him in jail.
I think it means that people should expect what isn't normally expected. It shows that life is a big roller coster. You know that it was fun, but there still is so much behind it that you feel is unexplainable. Some moments that relate to this metaphor is in the begging when christopher is wondering how the poodle was dead. And why someone would kill the dog. He is wondering why someone would do such an unexpected thing to this poor animal which brings me to my roller cost metaphor.
I think what the metaphor means is that in life, you go through it trying to figure out the right things to do to get the best outcome, and it can be really hard. In the end, there really is no right thing to do or way to live. With prime numbers there isn't an exact equation that tells you how to find a prime number, like life, you have to figure it out, and in the process it can be very hard.
One moment in the book where it shows the metaphor is when Christopher hits the policeman. It represents the metaphor because in prime numbers, it's all about figuring out the right equation to make that shows how to get a prime number, but it's not possible because there is no equation. In life and the instant where Christopher hits the policeman, he is learning what to do and figuring out what the answer is for the policeman touching him. But when he hits the policeman, he finds out it was the wrong thing to do because he had to go to the police station. In prime numbers you can keep trying to find out if a number is a prime number, but sometimes it is not and you were wrong. In life sometimes you make the wrong decision.
Christopher is in a way different than everybody else, he doesn't like to be touched, he doesn't understad humans and he really loves dogs. He thinks in a really complicated way, but still easy. The fact that he likes prime numbers is weird, but also really original. He thought of it himself and noe one else has ever thought about name each chapter with just prime numbers.
And when he says "They are very logical but you could never work out the rules." I think he means that life is like prime numbers, it is logical, but you can never figure out what is going to happen next.
Hanna :D
It’s quite unfeasible to find the rules of life unless you compose them yourself. I see the relationship between prime numbers and life because there are such endless possibilities and practically no rules; anything could happen. We can define prime numbers (because they are logical) therefore we can identify them from other numbers, but we only have but so many vague ideas on why and how these numbers work. Although Christopher says that life is logical it has many difficult and confusing aspects.
_Kai
I think what Christopher is trying to say is that most things in life are not imminent. For example he said that prime numbers make sense, but you have to know what they are first in order to understand them. The rules are the confusing part because most things in life don't have rules to find out what will eventually happen. Or things will just happen for no apparent reason. Most of time the reason why things happen cannot be explained.
This happens quite frequently in the book. For example when his mom died of a heart attack. She was as healthy as can be but she still had it. He could not explain why it had to be his mother but he knew what could have caused it. When he found the dog he decided to hug it because he felt bad for it. He is also an animal lover. When his neighbor found him like that she yelled at him because she assumed that he killed her dog. The police officer also assumed the same thing, so he arrested him. He could not explain why exactly they assumed this.
In the end the metaphor means that in life some things can be explained how, when, where, and why? But the others can only be explained just why? or just how? but never all of them. Things in life happen for a reason and sometimes meant not to be answered why? or how? or when? or where? You cannot always know what will happen in the future because life would be boring and people would not learn from mistakes and the world would a very strange place.
Christopher is obsessed with numerical accuracy and can’t understand figurative language or social expression; he also hates to be touched, especially when his mind is in overload. There’s a simple word for his case: autism. Because of this, the metaphor applies especially to his case because he can’t understand the basic rules and expressions of society. He is talking about the complexities of life and relating them to the complexities of the primes. Life is much more complicated for him than it is for a non-autistic person so this metaphor means more to him than it would to anyone else without his case. Some examples of where this metaphor apply are: when he hits the policeman, when Siobhan tries to explain what different facial expressions mean and he doesn’t understand them, at the police station when he is being interrogated, and when his father tries to explain to him what happened to his mother.
Christopher seems to be unable to relate to people, probably because of some developmental disability. He is smart but not very interactive, which is why he has trouble with the rules of life but finds prime numbers interesting. Unlike social rules, prime numbers follow basic patterns even if you can’t say what the rules are.
In many instances in this book, Christopher demonstrates an inability to decipher metaphors and phrases like “ hit the hay.” Christopher is a literalist and does not understand things that don’t mean exactly what they seem to mean.
When Christopher is dealing with the policemen even though he isn’t dealing with metaphors he is still confused and doesn’t understand how serious the situation is. “ ‘ Why were you holding the dog?’ he asked again. ‘I like dog,’ I said. ‘ Did you kill the dog?’ he asked. I said, ‘ I did not kill the dog.’ ‘ Is this your fork?’ he asked. I said, ‘ No.’ ” “The policeman took hold of my arm and lifted me onto my feet. I didn’t like him touching me like that. And that’s when I hit him.”
Christopher loves when things are in order, when they are predictable and and logical. He feels safe when things are known and open. He also understands that life is often difficult because most of the time it's quite complicated and hard to decipher. Prime numbers can be found out but it's quite difficult and rarely people can find extremely large prime numbers. There is no real rule to finding prime numbers as their is for many and most mathematical solutions have. Life has no formula, no simple way to understand everyone and everything in your life. Christopher is also explaining that life, like prime numbers, are infinite with no explanation or rule to it.
To Christopher prime numbers are his way of understanding life. Prime numbers have no pattern that they follow and they come up randomly. Life is the same way there is no pattern to it. There is no rhythm in life things are random and one cannot predict any of it. With prime numbers you cannot predict when the next one is coming up; you have to go through the process of finding them. Prime numbers just go on and on to infinity - the possibility of them are endless just like the possibilities in life are endless. This metaphor might relate to when Christopher's mother died. No one could have predicted that it was going to happen, it just did.
He thinks that in life you can never tell what is going to happen. In his life a lot of things happened to him fist thing was when Wellington was killed he went and picked the dog up he didn't really understand the consequences of picking up the dog if he got caught because people might blame him. Also his mother died but his dad did not directly mention it to him and also was very surprising to both of them she suddenly turned out to be in the hospital.
A prime number is between one and itself, as for Christopher it's as if he lives a life alone. And the only person who understands him is his helper .... she's the one in this situation. Prime numbers are scattered from the number 1 and beyond. Their is no rule to understanding how prime numbers appear randomly on a number board, and there are no rules to a prime number. And like life, there are no limits or rules. Surprising and shocking things happen each day for a purpose but their is no warning. And like prime numbers you don't get a warning to when they will appear. As for example when Christopher's mother died, there wasn't a warning, a sign, nothing. There was a reason for it which was destiny, but it will never be understood. And like a prime number they come and go, there is no understanding of the order they appear whenever and between the many numbers.
this is saying that life is full of twists and turns and you can never tell where the extensive road of your life is going even if you have been planning it for your whole life. it will always suprise you. just like math, you will think you have it down but then another rule will pop up just to trip you up in your ever going study. and furthermore we are learning more and more about our lives everyday we live them. you have to expect the unexpected because you can't just stick to one plan and hope that it will keep coming true. this shows itself a lot in the beginning of the book. one example is with murder of the dog. christopher used to see this dog a lot so it was a real shock when he found it dead, impaled on a fork. it was even more shocking when a moment later he was found cradling the dog and acuused of killing it.
I think what Christopher is trying to say is that life has no pattern know one's life is the same everyday. We can't know what will happen in our lives, Christopher is saying even if we spent most of your time trying to figure the rules or code of life it would not help becaus eeveryone is different, In the book he also says that no code hass that been made to figure all the prime numbers the same is for the human life. Some events that might realte to this is that his mom dies and that he is taking to jail all stuff that can not really be predicted by humans.
I believe that Christopher states that, “I think prime numbers are a lot like life” because this is how he wants life to be. He wants life to be logical and easy to interpret and figure out. For example, the mystery of who killed Wellington shows that Christopher can’t decipher a mystery of life. I have gotten the sense that Christopher enjoys being in control and having the answers to everything because it makes life easier to understand. Also, when Christopher had to refer to the emotion icons to read people’s emotions it showed that he has to have structures that show him the unpredictable ways of humans and life. This also proves how uncomfortable Christopher can get when around other people. His life seems very secluded to only relatives or close neighbors. And he never really mentions school, or friends. And he also has a problem when people touch him. But I thought that the way his father and he show their affection, this reveals a side of Christopher that is not usually expressed. But then again, there usually is an affectionate side to everyone, but others may have more difficulty expressing it. I feel that it is contradicting when he says that prime numbers are logical yet one can’t figure out the rules that refer to them. Because usually, when things seem logical, there is proof or rules leading up to the logic. I also get the sense that Christopher doesn’t like when things are sudden or unpredictable. Of course there is the scenario of his mother dying, but also when the police man suddenly grabbed his arm his reaction was very strong. This quote may or may not be a metaphor. I believe that it could be a metaphor about how life operates; saying that it is logical yet cannot be fully understood. But also, I would not consider this quote to be a metaphor because it is very straight on, he clearly states that life is like prime numbers. He believes this mainly because prime numbers have no definite pattern, much like life.
From this quote, one can sense Christopher's life style and attitude toward life. There is no way to fully understand prime numbers. They can only be divisible by one and itself. There are no hidden numbers, no tricks or secrets and no way to decipher a prime number into smaller pieces. This way, prime numbers are very mysterious and cannot be funny understood. This shows the way Christopher views life. He sees life as a confusing place that cannot be understood or broken down or divided into understandable pieces.
Christopher means that life is very hard to understand. You could keep on thinking and thinking about it and you could still never get it. I think he's trying to understand himself and why he can't understand other's emotions and why he can't pick up on clues that other people can get right away. He doesn't understand facial expressions or social hints that have meaning. In the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy these ancient people built a highly advanced computer to calculate the answer to the meaning of life and it came up with a number as if it was just an equation. I think this is kind of how Christopher sees the puzzle of life, simply as a math equation.
I think when Christopher says when a computer could spend a lifetime calculating one big prime number and could never come up with an equation to calculate all the prime numbers at once, it again relates to the quote. Meaning, you could spend a lifetime trying to figure out interact with others and solve the puzzle of human interactions as if it was a math problem.
I think that the metaphor means that like prime numbers life has no exact rules. Things can happen that are logical but no one can ever work out all the laws and rules of life. So examples are when the police officer found Christopher with the dog. The logical answer because he discovered it first was that Christopher had killed the dog but in truth he had found him dead. Another one is when Chris hit the cop. In Christopher's mind it was made sense because he kept getting touched. THe cop on the other hand didn't know why Chris hit him but he arrested him for attempting to a salt an officer. Life is unpredictable, unexpected things happen like death.
I think this quote means that though life is logical and scientific, in terms of how people are created, you could never figure out all the rules of how people can live better, and why people die and why people get sick, etc. I think a good example of this is when he talks about his mothers death and how she was sick. He doesn't seem to understand why this happened, logically it could be figured out but you can never understand why it happens to certain people. I think another example is the death of this dog. You understand of course how this dog dies but you can never understand all the things going on inside a person's head who would kill a dog, who as Christopher put it, is honest, innocent, and could not hurt anyone.
-Pablo
Christopher describes it as life. Life can be related to it as there is no rule to life. For example, why do people die? Also the act of being curious. If we knew the answer to life and death we would know everything there is to know.
Without knowing the answer you can not make a rule for it.
When he states his wonder on who killed the dog, he could not state who or what exactly killed "Wellington" and could not make a rule for finding the 'prime number' suspect. (p.2)
___________________________________
-well first of all its not a metaphor. (It's A simile)
I think that Christopher is implying that there is a simplicity to both life and prime numbers, to an extent. As Christopher showed the reader, potentially, one could find every prime number by creating a grind depicting all the numbers in the world. By removing numbers that are divisible by two, three, five, ect... one could potentially eliminate all the numbers that are not prime. This works to an extent. As the number's size increases, so does the difficulty to determine its factors. This is where this simple theory is defeated. Likewise, life is simple to an extent. Every individual is different in their physical, mental, and emotional, abilities. On the other hand most individuals can speak, think, and move. It is expected that as they are similar in these forms, each individual should be able to function in society, excelling at their own field of choice. As with the prime numbers, this all makes theoretical sense. But there are some humans who are incapacitated in certain forms, just as there are others who's intelectual capabilities far exceed the standard. Complications ensue.
It is evident that Christopher's brain far supasses an average 15-year-old's but yet he functions on a much different level. A computer could be dedicated to figuring out the mental patterns, reason for actions, and like's of this boy, but undoubtedly, it would fail at recreating the same characteristics of Christopher, as he is unique. Likewise as a computer is dedicated to finding new prime numbers, its takes much funding, and software to be able to carry out this task. Human habits, prime numbers, jokes and metaphors (both which Christopher expressed his distaste of) and very hard to understand, but there is an underlying simplicity in all.
I dont think that is a metaphor, more of an analogy... but ignoring that...
Christopher has trouble with associating with normal people. He appears to be extremely socially awkward so it does make sense that life would something you could puzzle on for hours and not figure out the 'whats' and 'whys' in life.
There is no apparent formula for figuring out a prime number that we know of, just as there is no guide line of having a perfect life that we know of. its all very unpredictable. The prime numbers seems to be the way he expresses his opinion of life. since it seems his feeling are pretty much not there. I dont know if it was a traumatic event that caused him to shut off his feelings but we will find out.
The metaphor means that anything is possible in life and it’s unpredictable. Also prime numbers seem to come up randomly and you can’t really tell what the next prime number will be. Prime numbers don’t have an absolute rule to follow. Examples from the book with things being unpredictable would be when his mother dies because Christopher’s mother was young and dying from a heart attack at the mid 30’s is pretty unpredictable for Christopher and his father. Another part in the book that was unpredictable was when he was wondering how the dog died and who could possibly kill the dog. Christopher really wants life to be logical and not so difficult because then it would a lot easier for him to under stand life and be safe.
-Brizz<3
Life- it means alot of things for alot of different people. For Christopher, he thinks that prime numbers are alot like life. I think that it is a reasonable way of saying how life is. Life for Christopher may mean that life is a logical thing, there arent any rules to them but when you think about it, there are rules, there are boundaries, there are all these different things that dont make total sense but makes perfect sense at the same time. It means to live life without rules but life your life with rules. I think that when you think about life alot, it gets more confusing and hard to understand just like prime numbers. The bigger the number gets, the harder it is to tell if it is a prime number or not.
-Emma ♥
He says that no matter how long you think about something complex, like prime numbers, you cannot figure out completely how they work or why this happens. Like others said, a moment that represents this is when the dog was killed. Neither we nor Christopher knows why or how this happened.
Post a Comment