"Our Universe May be a Giant Hologram" and "Nature and the Environment"

Physicist Brian Greene in his essay “Our Universe May be a Giant Hologram” makes the argument that the world and the realities that are happening everyday around us are solely a depiction of another universe that is far off in the distance. He argues that what happens here in this universe is simply a shadow of the events taking place in another universe. While reading this essay I was initially confused at first but then I realized that if this is true then reality is actually false. I feel that my sense of reality is not really mine but someone else’s who is in another universe; it’s kind of like you are just imitating something that is being imitated in some different universe. Well if this is the case, then should we be responsible for our actions? Because if we are just following what is being done somewhere else we really don’t have any control over our life.

On the other hand Edward Abbey in his essay “Nature and the Environment” portrays his relationship with nature and his surrounding environment. I believe that Abbey has a very positive relationship with his environment and the creatures within it. He practically lives in a desert in the middle of nowhere where he is immune to being face to face with scary creatures such as snakes every day. Although he is at risk of being bitten he decides not to kill the rattlesnake beneath the doorstep because he is humanist and would “rather kill a man than a snake.”  He further decides to let mice roam in his trailer because they “don’t disturb [him] and are welcome to [his] crumbs and leavings. Although Abbey feels connected to the environment and its creatures at the same time he has a sort of isolation from them. This is depicted when he gets attached to the gopher snake and lets the snake “wrap himself around [his] waist and rest on [his] belt.” But when the gopher snake comes back to the trailer after disappearing with a mate he finds them engaged in a “ritual dance” or a “pas de deux.” His curiosity leads him to get closer and “see the whole thing” but is discovered by the snakes that stop dancing and go to him to discover him. After the snakes are done with their discovery, they “veer and race away” from him. Abbey attempts to chase them but realizes that he should “let them go in peace.” I feel that it is beneficial to experience the world like Abbey because you are more open to more interpretations and for someone like me who does not like bugs and other creatures it is a way to discover something new and possibly better. Abbey is comfortable with the unknown because if he wanted to know everything to the root he would have followed the snakes to know where they were going and what they were doing but he chose to let go. This in return I feel lets the elements of “sympathy, mutual aid, symbiosis, and continuity” exist.
               Both of these essays have some sort of bewilderment factor that exists within them. In “Our Universe May be a Giant Hologram” bewilderment is shown in the fact that we are lost in our own universe because our perception of things is not the reality but just a mirroring image of the instances taking place in another universe. To make sense of the occurrences around us we have to make sense of the other universe. Contrasting this in “Nature and the Environment” bewilderment is present in the idea that the emotions that are felt by animals are different or unknown to humans because of the fact that we are not one of them. This is the same for animals. As humans we are not able to understand what an animal is saying or why they do something and this is confusing to us because we like to have a set stone answer for everything. These ideas affect me personally because I don’t like open-endedness; I like to have a certain answer or a correct answer for things. It really messes with my mind that confusion is necessary to understand concepts.