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Welcome: The Great Filmosophers 2.0

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Dear Guest, We welcome you to join in on this wondrous blog and explore with us the realm of ancient Philosophical truths through KANT emoporary films and media. In this edition, The Great Filmosophers 2.0, we will be exploring and asking the question, “Are we Free in this World?” This question pertains the great ordeal known as Free Will vs Determinism, which has been a debate that’s been debated for over centuries. Yet there are many people today who still are unsure what to believe. What are Free Will and Determinism you might ask? Great Question! Let’s define and see what these two phenomena are. The idea behind free will states that we, as humans beings, have the freedom and leeway to act the way we choose and desire to. Our actions and consequences are based on our own rationales and decisions we make, making us responsible. On the other hand, determinism is the idea that our actions are predestined to occur based on past events, (similar to the universal princip...
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Film 1: Run Lola Run

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Run Lola Run, the Plot Summary in Brief Taking place in Berlin, Germany, Lola (the main character), receives a phone call from her boyfriend Manni who desperately asks for her help to raise $100,000 in 20 minutes to pay back Ronnie, his corporal boss. If not, Manni will be killed. Panicked, Manni finally decides to rob a grocery store in order to get the cash back, but Lola, who hopes to prevent Manni from doing so, tries to help by rushing to his aid. The film circles around this single, 20 minute event three times, as each time, when Lola runs, she learns from experience and gets closer to success. Let's take a look in how Philosophy and Free WIll vs. Determinism are linked within the film.
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Run Lola Run: Free Will vs. Determinism Argument #1

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Both the ideas of Free Will and Determinism are present within the film. While some may be a bit more subtle than others, here is an example of a scene that I’ve extracted and chose to focus on. In the beginning of the movie, when Manni is panicked on the phone by having lost $100,000 on the subway to pay back his boss, he decides to rob a local grocery to revive the money. Manni: “So find 100,000 in 20 minutes… [and meet me] At 12:00 by the water tower around the corner or he will kill me. Nobody escapes Ronnie. He’ll rub me out, and all that’s left of me will be 100,000 ashes.” [——— ] Lola: "Stay put in the booth, I’ll come over to you as soon as possible, I’ll figure out a way to raise 100000 by noon” Manni: “I’m going to rob the bank right here and right now… Or no, I’ll rob the grocery store instead..." This is a perfect example that argues both for the Free Will and Determinism argument. A a libertarianism could claim how Manni has the "free will”...
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Run Lola Run: Free Will vs. Determinism Argument #2

Example #2: Each time Lola is running, she encounters different bystanders or strangers each time. What follows is a series of snapshots, which are glimpses into the future of each of the bystander’s lives of what happens when they encounter Lola running. For example, Lola bumps into a blonde elderly lady during her run, and we as viewers get a scoop on what happens to her in the future: In Run 1. She is stealing a child after her miscarriage In Run 2. Winning the lottery and living lavishly            In Run 3. Praying in the church of God and being baptised as a religious being I thought that the film’s use of this was quite unique. I interpreted that it was communicating with us how one person or a “minor occurrence” can have a huge impact on our fate. On each run, we see that the lady’s outcomes were different. In this case, it was Lola, whose presence seemed to have a drastic effect on the people’s lives. This ki...
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Run Lola Run: Free Will vs. Determinism Argument #3

Another example and scene in the film that demonstrates this is on Lola’s second run where she obtains a gun from the cop and uses it to threaten father (at gunpoint) to give her $100,000 in cash. Lola obviously didn’t have to take the gun from the cop if she didn’t want to, but she did anyway base on her own desire to do so. This demonstrates the idea of free will again. However, from a determinist lens perspective, perhaps her action in doing so was determined. Based on how she had to come up with the $100000 to save Manni, her taking the gun to use age leverage was sparked by a previous action/experience that drove her to do so. Thus, since this happened on her second run/attempt, she had learned lessons previously from past run, which allowed her to experience empiricism. In following this scene and idea, I wanted to connect and point out something out that I also recognized in the film. Tykwer uses a bit of animation in this film, which can be seen the clip below. As viewers...
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Eureka! It's a Groundhog Day Connection!

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In order to stop Manni from robbing the grocery store, this forces Lola to run to Manni’s aid in hopes of saving the day and his life all within 20 minutes. Each of the three versions of the 20 minutes in which Lola runs start out like each other, with a very similar sequence and action pattern, but then diverge to have different outcomes. In the first run, Lola is shot and fails. In the second run, Manni is shot dead which causes Lola to fail. In the third and final run, both Lola and Manni are successful in regaining the money to give to Ronnie, and they end up living. Like our last blog post for last unit, I thought this film had a similar concept towards the film of Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray as Phil Conners. Living in an endless cycle of Groundhog Day on repeat, Phil’s days, routines, and interactions are always the same or similar to rest, but with different outcomes. But does Phil really have “Free Will?” What do you guys think? I mean, he can do whatever actio...
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Reflection

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The 1998 film of Run Lola Run, directed by Tom Tykwer, opens with series philosophical questions for the viewer to think about. "Who are we, Where do we come from, Where are we going, How do we know what we think we know, Why do we believe anything at all?" * Like we discussed in class, questions help to further and give meaning to our knowledge, education, morals, and beliefs. These questions, I thought, were well integrated with the connection to Philosophy, since both these questions and the topic of Philosophy have very subjective answers. In the film Run Lola Run, the movie does not directly answer these philosophical and life questions for us, but rather, we must figure the answers out on our own. It is important that we come to terms with our own understanding, trust our knowledge, and be satisfied with what we believe in, and not what anyone else tells us. In tying this together with what I learned this semester, I wanted to relate this to the first a...
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