As human beings it sometimes appears that we are subject to our psychology as opposed to having control over it. Almost every decision we make, every thought that crosses our minds, every emotion that affects us has been created by an invisible process by our brain, a brain that doesn 't feel the need to explain its reasoning to us. Whether or not God exists, it is clear that we are beholden to forces we do not, and can not control. This was something I felt more than ever in our past couple weeks of humanities. In this time I learned that perception and scale are permanently bonded. It is only by coming to grips with scale up close, and far away that we may find balance in our perspective. We need to see things from far away to understand them, but it is by looking at them up close that we make them feel human and real. Without either of these perspectives we stunt our potential understanding as learners, as thinkers, and as people who understand what it means to be alive as humans.
It is sometimes hard to see the point of looking at things up close. Why would we deliberately miss so much of the picture by focusing on just one small piece of it? I believe that an up close viewpoint is important to maintain to prevent psychic numbing and to maintain the humanity of events that we have no direct connection with. When learning about the history of the universe and of life zooming out too much can prevent you from empathizing with people from history. We have a tendency as
Sense perception is a way to gain information by using our sense: touch, feel, taste, see, hear, and smell, it is a way of knowing. When it comes to ways of knowing, like sense perception, it is questionable whether or not it affects us in a positive or negative way. It can be argued if it is leading us in the wrong direction. If you see it, do you believe it?
Neil Degrasse Tyson points out in his article “Cosmic Perspective”, first published in the Natural Magazine in 2007, that if every human were to truly comprehend how stupendous and interraled the universe is to us, our perspective on humanity would shift from a focus on our distinctions to our connections. Tyson explores through many examples of the “cosmic perspective” to prove just how closely associated we are with the universe.
The way we perceive objects depends on different things. One thing that changes the way we view things is monocular depth cues. Monocular depth cues are cues on depth perception that are accessible only to one eye at a time. There are actually a couple of different monocular depth cues. The ones that I will cover will be size constancy, aerial perspective, linear perspective, and texture gradient. Size constancy refers to the tendency to perceive an object or objects as the same size regardless of it being near or far. For example, the imagineers at Walt Disney World use this with their Christmas tree to make it appear bigger. At the bottom of the tree, they place ornaments that are huge. Since people see the huge ornaments at the bottom of
The Power of God Humankind has no choice in the end, and all of us are forced to live with a predetermined future. Whether if you agree with this or not, in the american classic Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston humanity is forced to accept this idea. Man kind can do nothing against the power of god, and no matter what else happens, God always has the final say in the end. God is a representation of nature, and is also a representation of all things that man cannot control. The first example is Sam and walter are talking about caution versus nature “Naw it ait, it’s nature, cause nature makes caution.
To be able to see the full picture with clarity, we need to take a few steps back and see things from a different perspective.
Throughout recorded history, man has sought explanations for the various phenomena that occur in every facet of nature, and when no obvious answer is forthcoming, still a theory is often proposed. These explanatory theories, often taking the form of stories or chronicles, are usually linked to some sort of mysticism or divine intervention. By ascribing that which he does not understand to the gods’ will at work, man avoids facing up to his own lack of knowledge in a given area, and also draws comfort from assuming that the universe does indeed function under the guidance of divine beings. Thus the explanatory accounts that man crafts enhance his own security, quelling the fear of chaos that
Zooming In- Highlights a scene and triggers audience (especially when it is explicit). Makes it real for the viewers.
This is startling because if we are compared to something smaller than what we recognize to be the most minuscule on Earth, then how little is our understanding of God and the universe? This leaves us with the feeling that we have only the tiniest understanding of God. Taylor's “Prologue” and “Upon a Wasp Chilled with Cold,” reiterates the idea of how microscopic we are, considering Taylor depicts the wasp with human qualities like a “pettycoat” and a “satin jacket” (148). However, by comparing ourselves to this tiny wasp there we can still admire the beauty in its creation, giving us hope as though it's existence was something
People look at things from far away and close up because in doing so, people get multiple perspectives on whatever they are looking at, either the big picture, or for details.
Have you ever eaten a taco? If so, then you know that before you eat it you’d want to know what is inside and how it looks as a whole. You’d want to see the details of the ingredients, and you’d also want to see the external features. The same goes for other things like events that have happened. When we look at things from far away and close up we gain different perspectives. If we look at things from close up we are able to get detail and information, but it doesn’t give us the full picture. Meanwhile looking at things from far away gives us the entire picture, but it doesn’t give us the external attributes and details. When we look at it from both perspectives, we’re able to have a better defined and well processed idea of what we’re looking
In the essay “The Loss of the Creature”, Walker Percy highlights his observations on how people perceive the world. He argues that we have lost original, self-driven learning because people only measure their experiences based on other people’s expectations. He states how these preconceived expectations of our experiences give way to a symbolic complex. This complex is set by what people or “Layman” believe the experts have set. Therefore, their experience is only validated if people feel that they have met those criteria. He believes that people can only have a true experience if they forgo all those preconceived expectations and biases. Only then can people truly experience something at face value.
In her explanation, Lady Philosophy states that God is in ultimate control of the universe. She also introduces the idea that while humans are temporal beings, God lives outside of time. The world, to God, is viewed as an instantaneous event and there is no past, present, or future. Therefore, while they do not have the ability to fully understand God and his perspective, humans have free will and the ability to control their life. Building upon these ideas, I would say that humans have yet to fully understand the aspects of the earth, nevertheless the universe. Consequently, it’s not difficult to believe that humans are not yet able to understand the forces that dictate our universe. Humanity’s inability to fully comprehend, or perhaps see evidence for, God is not because of God nonexistence, rather it is the choice of God that we remain in the shadows of greater understanding. Therefore, humans must hold faith, rather than doubt, in the greater powers of the
In today’s day and age we tend to be trapped by the people around us and can’t free ourselves so we can ponder or discover new things about the world. We are stopped from viewing things in a different perspective because society tells us there’s only one way to look at things. Plato describes in his allegory, “How could they see anything but the shadows if they were never
From the beginning of time, the power of sight has been crucial to how we live in and interpret the world. In Genesis chapter one, verse thirty-one, “God saw all that He had made, and it was very good” (ESV), and in Genesis chapter three, verse seven, we realize the shame and fall of man when, “the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked” (ESV). Generation after generation, our eyes have been used as a window to see the differences between what was good and beautiful in the world, and likewise what was wicked and ugly in the world. Time and time again we are told to metaphorically open our eyes and look at the world around us so we can truly live, or that we are missing the big picture because we aren’t looking hard
The balance in my world is achieved by these fundamental beliefs: God exists, and yet evil exists; all humanity does have free will and all these beliefs contribute to the development of a meaning for life. All of these beliefs are components of each other, an interdependent relationship that creates my personal philosophy. Each value's participation in my final belief is measured and balanced