Anthology of Ideas

This Pullman trilogy is technically for children, but as recent books such as Harry Potter have shown us, the children’s section doesn’t mean it is childish writing. While anyone can appreciate the story in these books, I think only an adult can truly appreciate what is happening on so many levels and the subtle nudges towards our own world that Pullman litters throughout the book. The story itself is about a young girl growing up privileged in a world where each person has their own daemon (literally their soul), these daemon take the from of animals and are a persons constant companion their entire lives until eventually they both die.

This book asks the questions what would Einstein’s dreams be like leading up to the publishing of the Theory of Relativity. Lightman is kind enough to give us quite a few short stories that are written in a powerful and insightful way. The stories includes scenarios such as what would happen if time ran at different speeds in different towns. Although the stories on the surface sound fanciful and utter rubbish they dig deep into modern society and in a very subtle way critique they way people live their lives.

While both Guatama and Mahavira followed a similar patterns in life, there were small differences in Mahavira’s and Gautama’s life from the beginning. For example, the mothers of Gautama and Mahavira both had dreams that foretold that the boys would either become great religious leaders or great warriors. Mahavira’s mother dreamed that the baby was conceived in the Brahmin Devanda’s womb and then later transferred to her body; Gautama’s mother dreamed that a white elephant holding a lotus flower entered her body.

I. Introduction and Definitions Is the human propensity for violence caused by culture or our very instincts? More specifically, does “modern” cultural constructs such as video games cause aggression? The second question is easy to answer, but the first is much harder because the argument of “nature versus nurture” has existed before Darwin and is no closer to being resolved today. Their are three major sides to the debate: the first (represented here by Robert W.