Analysis Of Kathleen Moore's Wild Comfort: The Solace Of Nature

Ignorance is bliss. Often people hide behind what they wish to believe. The truth demands discomfort and people prefer comfort to truth.(Compound) In this world of conditioning, the Controllers keep any kind of truth from the people. Regardless, very few actually attempt to discover the truth. In the novel, Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley provides several examples of the truths individuals refuse in order to live in ignorance and bliss.

Heavily influenced by Max Weber, Peter Berger was interested in the meaning of social structures. Berger’s concern with the meaning societies give to the world is apparent throughout his book The Sacred Canopy (1967), in which he drew on the sociology of knowledge to explain the sociological roots of religious beliefs. His main goal is to convince readers that religion is a historical product, it is created by us and has the power to govern us.

“You were put on this earth to achieve your greatest self, to live out your purpose and to do it courageously.” This quote by Dr. Steve Maraboli states that life has a purpose that you have to reach out to. The objects in life are growth and the discovery of new things, and that can’t happen unless you push your limitations. The main character, Jonas, in Lois Lowry’s The Giver goes through a similar encounter when he is specially selected as the Receiver of Memories for his community. With his assignment as the Receiver, Jonas begins to see his community differently and its absence in color, feeling, and choices. In order to live your life, you have to uncover new things, and when that happens, it will open a door for more things to discover.

In “The Belief Engine”, Alcock (1951) highlighted the necessity of skepticism by revealing the malfunction of brain activities when making judgments. He indicated that people automatically generate false beliefs and neglect the truthfulness of the issue. In “Occult Beliefs”, Singer and Benassi (1981) suggested that occult beliefs are indestructible; people tend to invent an explanation to satisfy their own beliefs, which relates to Alcock’s proposal of our brains acting as a “belief engine” (Alcock, 1995). The authors in both articles attempted to explain how people invent these “magical thinking” (Alcock, 1995), and why those beliefs outweigh scientific explanations.

Heavily influenced by Max Weber, Peter Berger was interested in finding the meaning of social structures. This theme is apparent throughout his book The Sacred Canopy (1967), in which he drew on the sociology of knowledge to explain the sociological roots of religious beliefs. His main goal is to convince readers that religion is a historical product, it is created by us, yet also has the power to govern us.

One of the biggest mysteries for the human race isn’t what is on Earth, or even in the solar system, but what is beyond. Although powerful telescopes, such as the Mauna Kea Observatories, can see incredibly far, they’re only able to see roughly 46 billion light years in any one direction, making the diameter of the observable universe, or the part of the universe that humans can observe with telescopes, roughly 92 billion light years. Since the universe as a whole is so vast, scientists are unable to estimate the actual size (Redd, 2013) and possibly will never be able to do so if it continues to expand. In the Milky Way galaxy alone, there are an estimated 8.8 billion stars with habitable Earth-like planets (Borenstein, 2013), which greatly

It's a remarkable fact that science took hundreds of years to come up with a theory to explain the origins of the universe. There's something quintessentially human about asking the question "where does the world come from?". Perhaps because it's a deeper, more fundamental version of "where do I come from?". Yet for most of human history, the answers to such empowered simple question could only be tempted by religion.

The courage to venture into the unknown is a quality found in the hearts of those who bring opportunity into our world. This pure, unblemished faith is seen in revered explorers throughout history. Marco Polo, Ferdinand Magellan, Lewis and Clark, and Neil Armstrong were each faced with impossible tasks, and each enlightened humanity through their endeavors. Our restrictive sphere of knowledge is grappled with by these individuals, is twisted and expanded, constantly in a motion opposed by skeptics and traditionalists. How brave, how courageous these heroes are, to see the world as it is, and to transform into what they envision it to be. This vision was seen in the man who, despite all challenges and resistance, sailed into dangerous uncharted waters with nothing but his own faith. It is also shared,

Crow Country by Kate Constable is a story of Sadie Hazzard, a girl who slips into the past to right the old wrongs and prevents it from reoccurring in the present time. The author successfully reveals the best and worst of Australians to a great extent through reflecting values that are found in contemporary Australian society and the past such as integrity, respect and acceptance. Gerald Mortlock displays the worst acts when he neglects the value of respect, however, Lachie and Ellie show Australians at their best.

Growing up, Equality has wondered what is beyond what he has been told. “We wished to know… about all the things” (23). He has asked so many questions- unlike the others- which the teachers forbade it. According to the council, curiosity is selfish- since it cannot give rest and once answered, more questions come. The Council does not like curiosity; it could lead to the revelation of the Unspeakable Times.

The book, Into The Wild, provides the most popular and detailed outline of Chris McCandless’ adventures. Through the examination of this book, it can be seen that Chris McCandless is a transcendentalist. A transcendentalist is a person who seeks to find their relation to the universe through a direct relationship with God and nature and believes in the tenets of transcendentalism. The validity of McCandless being a transcendentalist can be seen in his time in the Detrital Valley. In addition to examining whether McCandless is a transcendentalist, it is helpful to self-reflect and determine if I am a transcendentalist. It is difficult for me to self-reflect, but through the examination of my time in the woods hunting and my current ideology,

The passage from John M. Barry’s The Great Influenza explores the significance of certainty and uncertainty to scientific experimentation and research. The author’s employment of metaphor, repetition, and semantic inversion helps to reinforce the claim that, “to be a scientist requires not only intelligence and curiosity, but passion, patience, creativity, self-sufficiency, and courage”.

made central to evolutionary theory could never, they affirmed, create an intelligent being such as a man. Evolution could not, on its own, prompted by blind and chance forces, create anything so splendid. It was precisely at this point of radical doubt that Kubrick and Clarke began their famous story of a journey beyond the stars.

Whilst the knower’s perspective is always essential in the pursuit of knowledge, it’s essence is greater in some areas of knowledge than others. Perspective shapes both what we pursue in knowledge and it affects how we interpret pursued knowledge. Whilst the latter has greater influence over subjective areas such as the arts and history, the former affects even the pursuit of knowledge in more objective areas such as the natural sciences and maths. What’s more, for knowledge to be knowledge, there must be a knower. Each individual knower gains knowledge through the ways of knowing reason and emotion (amongst others); these ways of knowing shape and are shaped by our perspective. More often than not, the knowledge that we pursue has been given to us by another knower, especially in areas of knowledge like history; in this case the previous knowers perspective also shapes our pursuit of knowledge. Thus, in areas of knowledge where shared knowledge is pivotal we draw upon a shared perspective, not just that of the individual knower. Due to perspective affecting knowledge in such a magnitude of ways, it is essential in all areas of knowledge. Through exploring the pursuit of knowledge in three different areas of knowledge: the arts, history and the natural sciences, it becomes apparent, that although to different extents, perspective is essential in shaping each.

The human brain will never fail to fascinate me; our brain never fully shuts off, even when we are sleeping our brains continue to work, these powerhouses are also very good at imagination and the imitation of others. Wendell Berry brings important aspects of imagination in his essay “God, Science and Imagination”. Berry talks about how imagination is key in believing in science and/or religion and also claims that imagination helps us understand things we cannot see or do not have factual proof. Berry believes imagination is “the power to make us see, and to see, moreover, things that without it would be unseeable” (25). On the other hand, Susan Blackmore talks about the replication of others humans naturally do in her essay “Strange Creatures”.