Our first TOK class started
with a really interesting question, How was the weather this weekend? For us
this question sounded a little obvious so we were very confident with our
answers but this lead us to a surprisingly very interesting questions, Should we
actually depend in our senses for knowledge like how was the weather? or, Why
are we so comfortable depending on the facts that we get from our senses? After
trying to answer this questions with things like, that’s what it was taught to
use since we were born or, our senses are our direct interaction to the world.
Later on the teacher showed us a picture by Pablo Picasso for about 20 seconds.
After seen the picture for a while she asked 10 questions about the picture to
which we all responded in completely different ways .Considering that everybody
saw the picture in different ways and got interesting and concentrated in
different parts of the painting brought ideas like “just because we all see the
same signals doesn’t mean that the knowledge we get from them is the same” or
how our environment and our past or even sometimes our perspectives can change
the meaning of signals given by our senses. By the end of the class the whole
idea of senses changed a lot for me Personally it made me think, if everything
is actually as we see it or just as the picture form Pablo Picasso we are just
seeing the world in our own perspective, getting the signals of the world each
of us in a different way.
Here we have a Beau Lotto showing us some optical illusions. With this optical illusions he is showing us how we can't or we should always relay in our senses.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/beau_lotto_optical_illusions_show_how_we_see.html
Language started when people started needing to
communicate among each other. LAnguage is not only speaking, it can also be for
example sing language, we can say things through mimic, or by music. But is it
impossible to communicate with someone who doesn't talk the same language as we
do? This was the main topic of our last tok class and it made me think a lot. In
my opinion if we want to communicate with someone we will find the way to do it.
It you really think it through, when humanity first started there was no actual
language, this started by the need of communication and sharing of ideas, so if
this happens to us with a person who speaks a different language or uses sing
language i really think that our instincts will come out and we would find that
way to communicate with each other.
Swearing
Todays TOK lesson was really unexpected. The teacher stared by yelling a swear word at us, from which we were pretty amused and confused. The topic for this lesson was swearing. The lesson really made me think about where do this words come from?, why are they consider so bad for our society?, Could we lie with out swear words? Are they necessary to fully express ourselves?. For started we read an article by Bill Brysoris that talk about different swear words being use around the world, and how old some of this words are. It is pretty fascinating to think how simple words like "cow" are considered an insult in some parts of the world while in others is not more than an actual animal. An interesting idea that came in to my mind when talking about this in class was, could we actually live without using swear words? And yes maybe we can but it is so much easier to use them, they can help us describe emotions in a pretty much easier, simple an quicker way, for example if you get hurt is much more easier to describe this pain by yelling something like "fuck" than screaming " I just hit myself and it hurts a lot", also the fact of using the swear word helps you to express the intensity of what your feeling. . Are we always join to need these words to fully express ourselves? Are they really an important part of our vocabulary?
Here we have an article from the BBC that talks about the difference between cultures, (the british and the germans) and how something considered son normal in culture, for example little talks, can be consider rude in other cultures.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13545386
