The 'organizing principal' that I have chosen is context. An example of context from the reading is the anecdote about the origin of X-rays. German physicist Wilheim Roentgen made this discovery when he was looking at a fogged photographic plate while he was working with some vacuum tubes. When he took an X-ray of his wife, he was able to see her bones and her wedding ring. By using context and taking the clues from the fogged plate that he had found earlier, Roentgen managed to create the X-ray and discover a way to help people with their broken bones.
An example that I have made of this principle is that I went online and looked up a sentence that contained a word that I did not know. I went on a web sight and found a sentence. The word was insouciance, and the sentence was: "His insouciance will come back to bite him, if he doesn't study he will have to repeat his grade." I immediately came to the conclusion that insouciance was another word for lazy. I thought that when the sentence was describing the possible failure of the student, and how his insouciance would hurt him, the word was suggesting his lack of effort. When I looked up the actual definition online, it was: "Casual lack of concern; indifference." I didn't get the true meaning of the word, but using the context clues of the sentence, I managed to come up with a definition that sends almost the same message.
This method that I used to find the definition of insouciance involved my sense perception because I had to use my sense of sight to read the word and I had to use my mind to process the information. Once I had read the words on the page, I used my brain to interpret the sentence and think up a possible definition for it. I then delved into my memory to dig up my common sense and I used the conclusion I came up with to estimate a possible definition for insouciance. Context is truly essential in the area of sense perception, and it helps us dig out the clues that are sometimes hidden to us throughout our lives.
SOURCES:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Can_you_give_me_hard_words_and_then_sentences_for_them
https://www.google.com/search?q=insouciance&rlz=1C1NNVC_enUS487US514&oq=insouciance&sugexp=chrome,mod=15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Monday, December 10, 2012
Sense Perception & Knowledge of the External World
3. To see "what is the case," the requirement is that the sight in question must be organized by the brain through these different methods. Context is when certain circumstances are formed into an event. An inference is when someone reaches a conclusion using the method of reasoning. A concept is a broad or abstract idea that is usually applied to a worldly topic. Experience is when a person goes through an event in their life and learns how to use that event to prepare for another situation that is similar to its predecessor. Interpretation is when a person absorbs an idea, and frames their own belief about what that idea really means. Those are the methods in which someone can use to see "what is the case."
4.What Nietzsche means by "the fallacy of the immaculate perception" is that there is no one correct view as to how something is seen, and there are many more views besides an accepted view. Joseph Jastrow proved this point by creating a drawing that was vague enough to be interpreted as several different things, which included either a rabbit or a duck. We have done this in class with the perception test. For example, when the slide of the cleaning woman was shown, it was made in such a way in which it could have been interpreted as several different views. For example, the drawing was so abstract that I interpreted the drawing as the head of an alien and a pair of chopsticks
7. When Abel says "to perceive is to solve a problem", he means that finding a permanent image when you are viewing a scene helps you truly function in the world. For example, if a tiger finds a man alone in the woods, perception is essential for that man's survival. If he has poor perception, the man will not be able to properly use and trust his vision, and the tiger will most likely kill him. However, if the man has good perception, he can see the threat that is in front of him, and he can trust his senses to properly deal with the situation at hand. That is what Abel means when he says "to perceive is to solve a problem."
8. The role of social conditioning in determining how things "naturally look" is that it causes the individual's views to be altered. If society tells an individual how something should look, that individual is going to be looking at that view as they think they are supposed to look at it. For example, when a toddler is asking his mother about cheese, she is going to tell him that it contains the color yellow. Therefore if the toddler sees a picture of red cheese, he is going to come to the conclusion that it is not the natural look of cheese, for he has been told that normal cheese is yellow. That is the role that social conditioning has in determining how things naturally look.
9. The significance about the Durer rhinoceros story is that it shows how Durer's carving threw human convention up in the air about what a rhino should look like. Durer used "second hand evidence" in order to create his interpretation of a rhino, and as a result, it may or may not have looked like a real rhino. The influence of convention took place when James Bruce drew a rhino. When he saw saw the rhino in Africa in 1790, Bruce thought it looked incredibly similar to Durer's carving. He was so influenced by the carving that when Bruce sketched the rhino, there was suspicion that he made it look more like Durer's work rather than the actual rhino. As a result, no zoologist can tell whether Bruce's drawing is truly a rhino or not. That is the significance about the Durer rhinoceros story, and that was how convention influenced James Bruce's drawing
11. When Abel writes "believing is seeing", he means that people gain their beliefs by being either seeing something, or being guided to see something to another's interpretations. For example, a woman is in a museum looking at a painting of a partly cloudy sky. The curator notices her observations and tells her that the cloud on the upper left hand corner of the painting is meant to be in the shape of an acorn. The woman, taking the curator's word to heart, makes an effort to prove that his statement is true. When she thinks she has seen the acorn, she believes that the cloud is truly shaped like an acorn. That is how believing is seeing.
4.What Nietzsche means by "the fallacy of the immaculate perception" is that there is no one correct view as to how something is seen, and there are many more views besides an accepted view. Joseph Jastrow proved this point by creating a drawing that was vague enough to be interpreted as several different things, which included either a rabbit or a duck. We have done this in class with the perception test. For example, when the slide of the cleaning woman was shown, it was made in such a way in which it could have been interpreted as several different views. For example, the drawing was so abstract that I interpreted the drawing as the head of an alien and a pair of chopsticks
7. When Abel says "to perceive is to solve a problem", he means that finding a permanent image when you are viewing a scene helps you truly function in the world. For example, if a tiger finds a man alone in the woods, perception is essential for that man's survival. If he has poor perception, the man will not be able to properly use and trust his vision, and the tiger will most likely kill him. However, if the man has good perception, he can see the threat that is in front of him, and he can trust his senses to properly deal with the situation at hand. That is what Abel means when he says "to perceive is to solve a problem."
8. The role of social conditioning in determining how things "naturally look" is that it causes the individual's views to be altered. If society tells an individual how something should look, that individual is going to be looking at that view as they think they are supposed to look at it. For example, when a toddler is asking his mother about cheese, she is going to tell him that it contains the color yellow. Therefore if the toddler sees a picture of red cheese, he is going to come to the conclusion that it is not the natural look of cheese, for he has been told that normal cheese is yellow. That is the role that social conditioning has in determining how things naturally look.
9. The significance about the Durer rhinoceros story is that it shows how Durer's carving threw human convention up in the air about what a rhino should look like. Durer used "second hand evidence" in order to create his interpretation of a rhino, and as a result, it may or may not have looked like a real rhino. The influence of convention took place when James Bruce drew a rhino. When he saw saw the rhino in Africa in 1790, Bruce thought it looked incredibly similar to Durer's carving. He was so influenced by the carving that when Bruce sketched the rhino, there was suspicion that he made it look more like Durer's work rather than the actual rhino. As a result, no zoologist can tell whether Bruce's drawing is truly a rhino or not. That is the significance about the Durer rhinoceros story, and that was how convention influenced James Bruce's drawing
11. When Abel writes "believing is seeing", he means that people gain their beliefs by being either seeing something, or being guided to see something to another's interpretations. For example, a woman is in a museum looking at a painting of a partly cloudy sky. The curator notices her observations and tells her that the cloud on the upper left hand corner of the painting is meant to be in the shape of an acorn. The woman, taking the curator's word to heart, makes an effort to prove that his statement is true. When she thinks she has seen the acorn, she believes that the cloud is truly shaped like an acorn. That is how believing is seeing.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
The Nature Of Knowledge
1. "Inferential learning mechanisms" refer to the workings of the baby's mind. Their brain absorbs the surroundings of its environment, and the baby constantly gains new ideas about life, however simple they may be. As the baby grows older, its brain gets more advanced, and the theories that it has formed about life grow more and more sophisticated. This article shows just how much humanity underestimates the knowledge of an infant's mind.
2. Once a baby turns one, it really starts to understand people. The baby begins to observe the direction in which people point. It also begins to discover how it should feel about something by seeing how the situation effects the people around them. Whenever a baby takes an object, it observes how their parents react to it, and then determine whether or not the object is good or bad. By eighteen months, the baby starts to realize that other people have aims that are different from its own.
Nevertheless, it is ignorant of the fact that other people have different beliefs than it does, for those beliefs are hidden away in the individual's mind. On average, babies are unable to lie until they reach age four. Before they reach that age, they cannot lie because they lack understanding of how to make an individual believe something.
3. The author assumes that babies are able to dismiss or embrace certain theories about the world. In an experiment in which a baby is shown a box of candy, it instantly believes that the box contains the yummy treats that they yearn for so dearly. However, once the baby opens the box, it will discover that pencils have replaced the candies, and it will be surprised that its theory has been proven wrong. Since this experiment no longer fits the evidence, the baby will conclude that candy boxes now hold pencils, and until it discovers the truth behind this experiment, its dismissal and acceptance of new theories will continue.
Also, babies can also draw conclusions as to what people like and don't like. For example, a woman named Betty showed some infants two foods, one she liked, and one she disliked. When she ate each type of food, she made a positive and negative face to show the baby which food met either her approval or disapproval. A theory began to form in the babies' minds on which food met which category. As a result they gave Betty the food that she desired. This proves that babies are little scientists who come up with new theories, however primitive they may be.
2. Once a baby turns one, it really starts to understand people. The baby begins to observe the direction in which people point. It also begins to discover how it should feel about something by seeing how the situation effects the people around them. Whenever a baby takes an object, it observes how their parents react to it, and then determine whether or not the object is good or bad. By eighteen months, the baby starts to realize that other people have aims that are different from its own.
Nevertheless, it is ignorant of the fact that other people have different beliefs than it does, for those beliefs are hidden away in the individual's mind. On average, babies are unable to lie until they reach age four. Before they reach that age, they cannot lie because they lack understanding of how to make an individual believe something.
3. The author assumes that babies are able to dismiss or embrace certain theories about the world. In an experiment in which a baby is shown a box of candy, it instantly believes that the box contains the yummy treats that they yearn for so dearly. However, once the baby opens the box, it will discover that pencils have replaced the candies, and it will be surprised that its theory has been proven wrong. Since this experiment no longer fits the evidence, the baby will conclude that candy boxes now hold pencils, and until it discovers the truth behind this experiment, its dismissal and acceptance of new theories will continue.
Also, babies can also draw conclusions as to what people like and don't like. For example, a woman named Betty showed some infants two foods, one she liked, and one she disliked. When she ate each type of food, she made a positive and negative face to show the baby which food met either her approval or disapproval. A theory began to form in the babies' minds on which food met which category. As a result they gave Betty the food that she desired. This proves that babies are little scientists who come up with new theories, however primitive they may be.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Intuition And Knowledge
1. What is meant by reading thin slices is that people judge certain situations by relying on their intuition. For example, when Warren Harding ran for president, people voted for him because he was tall, dark, and handsome. People just thought he looked like an excellent President. However, when Harding was elected president, the American population was unsatisfied with his work. This is what reading thin slices is about, jumping to a conclusion because a person's gut is telling them to do so.
2. Intuitive expertise is when a person is subconsciously reliant on their intuition. After a chess master has been practicing the game of chess for a very long time, the strategies he undertakes in order to win the game is second nature to him. When it is time to develop a strategy for the game, there are many moves that this master can undertake. However, since he has been playing the game for so long, the chess master uses intuition to determine the right move to make.
3. There are many perils of relying of intuition. If a person jumps to the wrong conclusion merely because they had a hunch that it is correct, the situation will not go over well. One also needs to keep the facts of the situation in their mind in order to accurately solve the problem. For example, one could get a wary feeling in their gut when they see a teenage boy giving a girl a gruesome smile. They might feel inclined to call the police and report this suspicious teenager. However, the peril on relying on their own feelings is that they wouldn't know that the girl he was staring at was his sister, and that the gruesome smile was an inside joke between the two of them. The boy would now have a criminal record, and it would all have been created under false pretenses. That is the reason why it is risky to only rely on intuition.
4. I think intuition is a fair justification for mistakes in desicion making if there are valid and moral reasons to support your arguement. One example is that a police officer shot and killed a man. The victim of the shooting was a convicted serial killer out on parole for good behavior. Three days after the killer had been released, another murder had been commited. The officer, more than a little suspicious, went to the man's house and to ask him some questions. The officer, thinking he has a gun, shoots him in the chest three times. When he inspects the body, he learns that the killer contained a gun. In a situation like that, the officer's intuition is potentially justified, for the man in question was proven to be a serial killer, and there was no reason to believe that he would not have ended the officer's life.
However, there are also examples of where intuition is not justified. When four police officers were driving a red car in the city, they saw a twenty two year old black immigrant standing outside his doorstep. They suspected that he was up to something, and pulled their car to a stop and approached him. Panicked, the man rushed inside and was most likely trying to pull out his ID. The officers thought it was a gun and shot him to death with forty-one bullets. They went over to his body and saw that there was no gun. This situation was not justified, for there was no probable cause to approach him in the first place. Even if that man was a threat, and even if he did have a gun, it was still barbaric to put that many bullets in him and tear apart his body like that. As it has been stated above, I think intuition is fair justification for ones mistakes if they have evidence and a moral standpoint to back it up.
2. Intuitive expertise is when a person is subconsciously reliant on their intuition. After a chess master has been practicing the game of chess for a very long time, the strategies he undertakes in order to win the game is second nature to him. When it is time to develop a strategy for the game, there are many moves that this master can undertake. However, since he has been playing the game for so long, the chess master uses intuition to determine the right move to make.
3. There are many perils of relying of intuition. If a person jumps to the wrong conclusion merely because they had a hunch that it is correct, the situation will not go over well. One also needs to keep the facts of the situation in their mind in order to accurately solve the problem. For example, one could get a wary feeling in their gut when they see a teenage boy giving a girl a gruesome smile. They might feel inclined to call the police and report this suspicious teenager. However, the peril on relying on their own feelings is that they wouldn't know that the girl he was staring at was his sister, and that the gruesome smile was an inside joke between the two of them. The boy would now have a criminal record, and it would all have been created under false pretenses. That is the reason why it is risky to only rely on intuition.
4. I think intuition is a fair justification for mistakes in desicion making if there are valid and moral reasons to support your arguement. One example is that a police officer shot and killed a man. The victim of the shooting was a convicted serial killer out on parole for good behavior. Three days after the killer had been released, another murder had been commited. The officer, more than a little suspicious, went to the man's house and to ask him some questions. The officer, thinking he has a gun, shoots him in the chest three times. When he inspects the body, he learns that the killer contained a gun. In a situation like that, the officer's intuition is potentially justified, for the man in question was proven to be a serial killer, and there was no reason to believe that he would not have ended the officer's life.
However, there are also examples of where intuition is not justified. When four police officers were driving a red car in the city, they saw a twenty two year old black immigrant standing outside his doorstep. They suspected that he was up to something, and pulled their car to a stop and approached him. Panicked, the man rushed inside and was most likely trying to pull out his ID. The officers thought it was a gun and shot him to death with forty-one bullets. They went over to his body and saw that there was no gun. This situation was not justified, for there was no probable cause to approach him in the first place. Even if that man was a threat, and even if he did have a gun, it was still barbaric to put that many bullets in him and tear apart his body like that. As it has been stated above, I think intuition is fair justification for ones mistakes if they have evidence and a moral standpoint to back it up.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Hidden Assumptions
1. I was surprised by my results. For the first test, it said that I have a moderate preference for light skinned people over dark skinned people. I totally disagree with that statement, for I believe that everyone in the world is equal. Even though I raised my eyebrows at this first result, the conclusion of the second test is what really shocked me. It said I had a strong preference for straight people in contrast to gay people. I strongly disagree with that statement, and I do not think that these tests are an accurate representation of who I am. Ever since I can remember, I have always believed that everyone on Earth is of equivalent value, and I do not believe that my view has changed after one computer simulation.
2. I do not feel that these tests say something about me that I should pay attention to. I know who I am as a person, and I know that I am not discriminatory against a person's race or sexuality. I do not think this test was an accurate representation of myself as a person.
3. Despite what has been mentioned above, I do believe these tests could be valid to an extent. I think the tests have some solid reasons for their results, but I believe that it makes a huge judgment that turned out to be untrue in my case. For example, when I took the skin color test, it gave me a questionaire. One of the questions was "What would you prefer your skin color to be" I chose the option in which my skin color would stay the same, and I informed the test that I was a white male. I chose this option not because I like one skin color better than another, but because I like myself just the way I am. If I were a black man, I would feel the exact same way. My suspicion is that from my answer, the test drew up a conclusion that wasn't true.
Also, I think I have another theory on why my sexuality test drew up the results that it did. I am straight, and I prefer the thought of myself bieng straight rather than bieng gay. However, that does not mean that I prefer straight people over gay people. I have friends who are gay, and I think that all individuals are equal in this universe. I believe it is wrong to discriminate against someone for bieng gay. Finally, I think a major reason I got these results is also due to the fact that my fingers sometimes act faster than I can process the data. This caused errors to be made and I suspect it had a large part in why this happened to me. Overall, the tests seem to have somewhat valid approaches to their conclusions, but since they lack the power to explore all the reasoning and depths into the human mind, they draw up results that are far off base to who the person really is.
4. One message that brings up this idea of racial dominance is the idea of segregation in America in the era of the Civil Rights Movement. Back in those days, white people treated black people unfairly, and they acted like their race was superior to that of the blacks. The only element that mattered in this message was the color of the individual's skin. It was wrong to assume such a thing. An individual's value should not be judged on the appearence of their skin.
In the town of Laramie, two people murdered a man because their victim was gay. Through this act, the killers sent out a message to the rest of society: gay people are inferior to straight people, and they must be punished for it. That statement is beyond contemptable. No one should be thought less of just because of their sexual preference.
Generalizations are known facts about certain groups of people, while steryotypes are assumptions that individuals make about those people.
5. One method we can use to combat false conclusions is to keep an open mind. If we listen to every side of the story, we can make sure our knowledge of a situation is accurate. Also, we can attempt to gain more evidence to further our hypotheses. If we have proof to back up our statements, society will be more inclined to believe our results. Those are the methods we need to use in order to gain accurate knowledge.
2. I do not feel that these tests say something about me that I should pay attention to. I know who I am as a person, and I know that I am not discriminatory against a person's race or sexuality. I do not think this test was an accurate representation of myself as a person.
3. Despite what has been mentioned above, I do believe these tests could be valid to an extent. I think the tests have some solid reasons for their results, but I believe that it makes a huge judgment that turned out to be untrue in my case. For example, when I took the skin color test, it gave me a questionaire. One of the questions was "What would you prefer your skin color to be" I chose the option in which my skin color would stay the same, and I informed the test that I was a white male. I chose this option not because I like one skin color better than another, but because I like myself just the way I am. If I were a black man, I would feel the exact same way. My suspicion is that from my answer, the test drew up a conclusion that wasn't true.
Also, I think I have another theory on why my sexuality test drew up the results that it did. I am straight, and I prefer the thought of myself bieng straight rather than bieng gay. However, that does not mean that I prefer straight people over gay people. I have friends who are gay, and I think that all individuals are equal in this universe. I believe it is wrong to discriminate against someone for bieng gay. Finally, I think a major reason I got these results is also due to the fact that my fingers sometimes act faster than I can process the data. This caused errors to be made and I suspect it had a large part in why this happened to me. Overall, the tests seem to have somewhat valid approaches to their conclusions, but since they lack the power to explore all the reasoning and depths into the human mind, they draw up results that are far off base to who the person really is.
4. One message that brings up this idea of racial dominance is the idea of segregation in America in the era of the Civil Rights Movement. Back in those days, white people treated black people unfairly, and they acted like their race was superior to that of the blacks. The only element that mattered in this message was the color of the individual's skin. It was wrong to assume such a thing. An individual's value should not be judged on the appearence of their skin.
In the town of Laramie, two people murdered a man because their victim was gay. Through this act, the killers sent out a message to the rest of society: gay people are inferior to straight people, and they must be punished for it. That statement is beyond contemptable. No one should be thought less of just because of their sexual preference.
Generalizations are known facts about certain groups of people, while steryotypes are assumptions that individuals make about those people.
5. One method we can use to combat false conclusions is to keep an open mind. If we listen to every side of the story, we can make sure our knowledge of a situation is accurate. Also, we can attempt to gain more evidence to further our hypotheses. If we have proof to back up our statements, society will be more inclined to believe our results. Those are the methods we need to use in order to gain accurate knowledge.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
What is TOK? Why TOK?
WHAT IS TOK?: TOK is the study of knowledge. It examines how organisms know the things they know. It examines the working of the mind and how individuals constantly gain new knowledge every day.
WHY TOK?: TOK is important because it gives us greater insight into the workings of the living mind and about how we know the things we know. It helps us fully expand our knowledge of the Universe and of life itself.
WHY TOK?: TOK is important because it gives us greater insight into the workings of the living mind and about how we know the things we know. It helps us fully expand our knowledge of the Universe and of life itself.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Self as a Knower
The Area of Knowledge (AOK) that I identify with the most is that of ethics. I feel as if this represents who I am because my main goal in life is to do the right thing. I analyze the conflicts between good and evil until I become blue in the face, and I constantly create scenarios in my mind in which my morality is tested. Part of my ethical traits come from my time as an IB student at SCPS. My main academic goal is to stay on the honor roll until I graduate college. However, there are many temptations that attempt to make me stray away from my goal. For example, I could give up my pursuit of academic accomplishments and spend my time playing video games. However, I know in my heart that this is not the right decision to make, and I know that in the long term, my perseverance will be rewarded. I don't think I've been a Theory of Knowledge (TOK) student that long to know how this fits into the cirriculum, but I am certain that we will delve into this subject eventually. I know that this is exploration of ethics is the one I most identify with.
The Way of Knowing (WOK) that I feel like I most identify with is reason. I feel as if there always need to be a reason for why something works the way it does. Whenever someone does something immoral, I can't understand why they have done the things that they have done without bieng able to see their point of view. As an IB and TOK student, I find it especially important to know the reason of things, for if we don't know the deeper meaning in our courses, we are missing a huge part of what we are learning. In TOK, I am taught why people think the way they do, and we are on a quest to discover why we know what we know. In my opinion, many of the ways that the world works can be very confusing until a reason rises from the the depths of bewilderment.
The Way of Knowing (WOK) that I feel like I most identify with is reason. I feel as if there always need to be a reason for why something works the way it does. Whenever someone does something immoral, I can't understand why they have done the things that they have done without bieng able to see their point of view. As an IB and TOK student, I find it especially important to know the reason of things, for if we don't know the deeper meaning in our courses, we are missing a huge part of what we are learning. In TOK, I am taught why people think the way they do, and we are on a quest to discover why we know what we know. In my opinion, many of the ways that the world works can be very confusing until a reason rises from the the depths of bewilderment.
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