Blog 4

This book, The Field, has put a lot of things into perspective for me. Although, I may have not gotten some of the ideas in the readings at first, the class discussions helped me see things from a different point of view. In a way, I've gained a lot of new knowledge from this book. Most of the knowledge is about ideas I would have never have taken the time to sit down and actually think about. I really enjoyed Chapter 10 because Elisabeth was engaging in a study that some people would just rather not talk about and leave that kind of subject alone. It was interesting to read about that results with the healers. They say things happen for a reason and most things you can't control but it is really interesting to read about what that outcome of a prayer can actually do for a person. When I pray about someone and a few days later, they are doing better in whatever aspect it may have been, I sometimes like to think that my prayer actually worked and was 'heard.' However, when this does happen.. I'm not sure if it was just by luck that things started getting better for that certain person or if it was actually by faith. I was really intrigued by the group of people who were given a specific person to pray for. All they were told was their name.. not what was wrong with them, how old they were, or their background for that matter. The amount of prayer given to each person seemed to help their process of healing. However, reading this chapter also made me re-think things. If prayer helped those people so much, then how come we are constantly faced with hard situations throughout our lifetime, but knowing that there are a handful of people out there praying for me, somehow the situations just don't seem to get better. I still really liked this chapter, but it is one of those give or take kind of things. I'm still a huge believer of prayer, I guess it's just how you look at it. We have to accept reality and learn to deal with the hand we are dealt with.

Chapter 11 also caught my attention, especially with the O.J. case. I never really took much thought about how computers/devices can pick up on people's emotions. When I started reading the chapter and came across all of this.. my mind went straight to Michael Jackson's death. I started to wonder what the computers would pick up on that situation. The reason I'm curious is because there was so much controversy throughout his lifetime and I just wondered how people's reactions were to this event. The Superbowl idea kind of made me chuckle a little bit.. isn't there something more interesting our there? Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge football fan [GO STEELERS! :) ] but I'm curious.. why football? I also find it interesting how they had a hard time getting accurate readings due to the countless commercial breaks. Can there not be any interruptions while trying to get a reading on something? I'm glad they talked about the Gaia Hypothesis in this chapter because I just recently learned about it in my Earth Science class.. so I felt as if I actually knew what they were talking about! I didn't really care too much for Chapter 12, I actually found it kind of pointless. I guess that's because I'm not really interested in the whole space ordeal.

All-in-all, the book was okay. In some chapters, I felt as if it was too far in depth for me to understand certain concepts. I know it was necessary for McTarrgart to talk about the experiments and all of that.. but I felt as if some of this stuff was out of my league. A lot of interesting facts and like I said, I feel as if I gained a lot of new and different knowledge. On to the next book...