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I've been thinking about how this week's discussion applies to real life. Our look into classification could be a model for how we look at other issues outside of the classroom. For example, our decision of scale is extremely important; it dictates how similar two different objects/bodies will appear. If we look at living things at the scale of an angstrom, they all appear the same: a bunch of atoms... carbon, nitrogen, etc. If we look at living things from a great distance, say from the stratosphere, then the living beings we can see will again all look the same [for example, a human and a giraffe will both appear to us as a dot]. In the same way, outside of the classroom, if we examine an issue too closely we lose the context of the issue and practicality goes out of the window. If we examine an issue from too great a distance we tend to generalize and, once again, our observations are skewed and our conclusions potentially invalidated. There seems to be an important balance to be struck; our decision of scale proves a very important task. We must ask ourselves what exactly we are looking for and which scale will likely get us the "most right" obseravtions.

I've also been thinking about the idea of connectedness. It has been said in the classroom and in the forum that we are more related to bacteria than plants. Isn't this entirely dependent on what classification system you are using? For example, if I looked solely at the size of all three organisms (plants, bacteria, and humans) humans and plants would be more closely related than humans with bacteria. It all depends, again, on our decision of scale, on what we are looking for. Like everything, it is all relative.

Finally, I was glad we spent so much time on scale and space and the like. The size and complexity of our lives keeps me in constant amazement. I am particularly interested in the idea of following physical objects all the way "up" or "down." For example, we can follow humans all the way down through skin and bones and hair and muscle fibers and stomach acids and macromolecules and molecules all the way down to the carbon atoms that compose our bodies. But what is the atom made out of? Is our physicality an infinite regress? The idea is a bit tautological, maybe even elementary, but it holds my attention every time I think about physical space.