(TB) Reading Reponse

1: Aristotle was the first scientist who observed animals and began separating them based on their qualities. He put them into categories of "Blood Bearing" and "Blood less" and even considered plants as bloodless animals. The dragons and other mystical creatures are almost educated guesses. People told much folklore of creatures so Aristotle and Pliny took interest in the possibility of these animals existing or possibly witnessing them first hand.


2: There was a new urgency to classify because there were new travel technologies that allowed for new territories and species to be discovered. People became interested in the natural world and finding an order to the specimen in the world around them. Linnaeus was given the name "Little Oracle" because he had a gift at acutely describing the world around him-he was far more precise at organizing the natural world than anyone before him.  


3: Honestly I really enjoyed listening to all of the deffinitions. I think it is very interesting that everyone has their own interpretations to what natural history is. Doug Levey and Terry Wheeler's conversation and relationship with art and natural history was the most interesting to me. Personally natural history is the way people currently and in the past have perceived the world and details around them. I like to try to understand why artist choose the passionate subjects of their focus out of all the things in the world to create. I think these reflections artist create are codes for understanding the complexities around us, and really, that is what connected each of the talks: the world is beautifully complex and worth trying to understand.

4: I really like this quote from Dillard's chapter "Seeing": "...if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get." I think that if we try to simplify things, we are only lying to ourselves. Everything is complex. All of the objects, buildings, animals, landscapes, people- all of this is history. We can dive deep into anything to find its structure and meaning. I find much of my happiness by trying to solve as much of my curiosities as possible and leave the unanswerable unanswered. I also like the quote "I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck." in relationship to the first quote. I think we must remain open to the "simple" moments of life in order to understand beauty. This relates to the Natural Histories Project because all of the people talking about the world are pointing out all of the small details that make our world so special and worth conserving.