What we call knowledge isoften our positive ignorance; ignorance our negative knowledge.
To me, this sentence means that those who share negative knowledge and opinions are considered negative, but if we agree with someone or someone carries positive opinions, they are considered knowledgeable.
This is why I place scale and connectivity among the four crucial elements of wildness. Diversity, thethird, is a blessing dependent largely on those two. Likewise, the fourth, the full presence of ecologicalprocesses such as predation, herbivory, competition, and pollination, exists only where scale andconnectivity allow diverse creatures to interact
Not only do living organisms depend on each other, but the processes in wildness depend on each other too.
What I mean by processes is the interactive dynamics of the system, the various activities that turn oneform of creature and one form of behavior and one form of matter and one form of energy into themakings of others. Those include photosynthesis, herbivory, pollination, parasitism, competition,predation, seed dispersal, and decomposition, among others. What I mean by connectivity is the linkagesand dependencies that such processes build among living creatures and their physical environments. WhatI mean by scale is the important reality that connectivity and processes—and biological diversity too—alldepend on the sheer size of the place where they exist. Big areas of natural landscape can accommodatemore kinds of creatures, more connectivity, and more processes than can small areas
Wildness is not just the living organisms that work together. It is the different behaviors and activities, the dependencies between each organisms, and more.
Wildness, as I see it, requires living creatures of many different forms entangled in a system of surgingand ebbing interactions, marked by fluctuations that depend on the near-infinite unpredictability ofindividual behavior as well as the finite predictability of biophysical and biochemical laws.
This connects back to the first paragraph. The first paragraph gave us an example about wildness, whereas this one gives us an explicit definition about wildness.
Wildness in its fullest sense has got to be big and complex and interactive anduncontrolled by humans. The best zoos can interest people in wildness, can illuminate wildness, can leadpeople toward wildness, but they can never replace it
This would be a good argument against zoos. Humans cannot replicate or enforce wildness when animals are in confined spaces, they can only show what wildness can be.
Foremost among thoseecological features are scale, connectivity, diversity, and certain processes. Put them together, and youhave a quality that can go by the word “wildness.”
Wildness is when a system is made up of different features that allow for the system to be able to self-suffice.
As Kierkegaard said, once a person is seen as aspec imen of a race or a species, at that very moment he ceases to be an ind ividual.Then there are no more ind ividuals but only specimens.
To me, I feel as though there is a difference between learning something general then applying that knowledge to something specific. For example, I want to be a nurse, but learning about all the different human body functions and actually working with patients are separate.
As a consequence of this double deprivation, theSarah Lawrence student who scores A in zoology is apt to know very little about adogfish. She is twice removed from the dogfish, once by the symbolic complex bywhich the dogfish is concealed, once again by the spoliation of the dogfish by theorywhich renders it invisible. Through no fault of zoology instructors, it is nevertheless afact that the zoology lab orato ry at Sarah Lawrenc e Co llege is one of the few places inthe world where it is all but impossible to see a dogfish.
To me, this means that one can have the tools, but not know what to do with them, even if they think they know.
W hat is the source of their anxiety during the visit?
Without reading after this, I hypothesize that the couple was feeling anxious because they didn't think they would get anything out of this trip originally and now they want to savor every second of this feeling.
It is now appa rent that as between the many m easures which may b e taken toovercome the op acity, the boredom, of the direct confrontation of the thing or creaturein its citadel o f symbolic investiture, som e are less authentic than o thers.
People may not explore outside the lines as they may want to know what they are getting themselves into, they may get bored, or they don't want to deal with any conflict.
It may be reco vered in a time o f national disaster
To me, this means that through tragedy, disaster, or something else negative, you can still find the beauty in something
For example, after a lifetime of avoiding the beatentrack and guided tours, a man may deliberately seek out the most beaten track o f all,the most commonp lace tour imaginable: he may visit the canyon by a Greyhound tourin the company of a party from Terre Haute
This passage suggests that with a different view, you can learn a lot. More specifically, if you go on the path most walked on, you can still learn a lot.
In other words, hesees the canyon by avoiding all the facilities for seeing the canyon
Since National Parks have set up what you should see, this individual decides to explore another area of the Grand Canyon. By doing this, he may gain the same pleasure that Cardenas saw.
W hy is it almost impossible to gaze directly at the Grand Canyon under thesecircumstances and see it for what it is—as one picks up a strange objec t from o ne’sback yard and gazes directly at it? It is almo st impossible because the Grand Canyon,the thing as it is, has been appropriated by the symbolic complex which has alreadybeen formed in the sightseer’s mind. Seeing the canyon under approved circumstancesis seeing the symb olic co mplex head on. T he thing is no longer the thing as itconfronted the Sp aniard ; it is rather that which has already been formulated—bypicture postcard , geography book, tourist folders, and the words Gra nd C any on. As aresult of this preformulation, the source of the sightseer’s pleasure undergoes a shift.W here the wonder and delight of the Spaniard arose from his penetration of the thingitself, from a progressive discovery of depths, patterns, colors, shadows, etc., now thesightseer measures his satisfaction by the d egree to w hich the canyo n con forms to thepreformed com plex
The Grand Canyon is not giving tourists the same feeling as the Spaniard felt because tourists have expectations on what the grand canyon will look like, and especially high standards.
A counterinfluence is at work, how ever, and itwould be nearer the truth to say that if the place is seen b y a million sightseers, a singlesightseer does not receive value P but a millionth part of value
To me, this quote says that even though a place is seen by many individuals, it may not be appreciated enough because so many individuals have already seen it.
To him it is beautiful because,being first, he has access to it and can see it for what it is.
This quote sticks out to me because it gives a more specfic meaning to the word "beautiful". Beauty is often described in looks of something but in this case, beauty is used to describe the rarity of something.