Author: Mo Willems
Plot Summary: Mo Willems’ beloved characters Elephant and Piggie sense that someone is looking at them. Is it a monster? No, it’s a reader! They are in a book, they realize. How exciting! Piggie points out that being in a book means that they can, for example, make the reader say “banana” if the reader reads it aloud. This works! Piggie suggests that Elephant take a turn before the book ends. Elephant is taken aback. “The book ends?!” Piggie explains that all books end. Elephant is anxious about this. As the pages go by, Elephant protests that the book is going too fast: “I have more to give!” Then Piggie has an idea: they can just ask the reader to read the book again.
Posted In: Epistemology, Metaphysics
Plot Summary: Mo Willems’ beloved characters Elephant and Piggie sense that someone is looking at them. Is it a monster? No, it’s a reader! They are in a book, they realize. How exciting! Piggie points out that being in a book means that they can, for example, make the reader say “banana” if the reader reads it aloud. This works! Piggie suggests that Elephant take a turn before the book ends. Elephant is taken aback. “The book ends?!” Piggie explains that all books end. Elephant is anxious about this. As the pages go by, Elephant protests that the book is going too fast: “I have more to give!” Then Piggie has an idea: they can just ask the reader to read the book again.
Posted In: Epistemology, Metaphysics
Discussion Questions
Epistemology
- Could we be characters in a book or videogame?
- How can we know that we are or are not book or videogame characters?
- Would it be possible to be book or videogame characters and experience consciousness?
- Could we be in a dream?
- If life were a dream, would that matter? What would be different from the way life feels to us now?
Death
- Why does life end and people die?
- If you could live your life over again, would you? If so, how many times?
- Would you choose to live forever if you could?
- What does death mean for how we live our lives?
- What do you think happens when people die?
- Could we continue to exist in some form after death?
Mind and Body
- Are we our bodies, our minds, or our brains?
- What is the difference, if any, between the brain and the mind?
- Do our bodies control our minds, or do our minds control our bodies?
- Could our minds exist without our bodies?
Appearance and Reality
- Do we experience the real world or just our perceptions of it?
- Are our perceptions an accurate depiction of reality?
- What is the role of reason in understanding reality?
- Can we have knowledge of a reality independent of our perceptions?
- Are appearances illusions or are they a way to access reality?
- What does reality mean?
- What does it mean to be real?
- If we were book characters, would that make us less “real” than we believe ourselves to be now?
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