TOK Presentation

The aim of our presentation was to prove the relation between art (as an area of knowledge) and language (as a way of knowing) . In order to explore fully explore the relation between the two a range of experiments were carried out within the group. Our team was divided into different groups that carried experiments in each of the arts considered by the IB program (music, visual arts, cinematography and dance) in order to involve the audience and shoe them real examples of how art and language are related. From the feedback that the group had it was clear that the interaction with the crowd wasn't sufficient and that the experiments weren't as creative. However the relation between art and language was clearly expressed and understood by most of the members of the audience, making the presentation a success. 

The group worked in different teams in order to fully address each type of art. In general this idea worked perfectly to fully explain the relation  between or area of knowledge and way of knowing by presenting sufficient and optimum information. However each group had lots of information for which the final presentation was  too long, affecting the final outcome. The team also lacked organization since some of the members uploaded their information at last minute, delaying the conclusion of the group as a whole.

If I could do this experiment again we would need to improve the organization of the team. Having all the information on time would have given us the opportunity to practice the presentation and fully arrange the amount of time that each group needed to address their ideas. Hence making our presentation much more clear, optimum and complete.

One of the  learnings that I got from this experience was how much patience  and respect is needed when working within a team with different ideas, cultures and believes. I learned that the context of the persons affects the way in which they see and understand a piece of art. However we have to take into consideration that as a society we have set some parameters that make people unconsciously see and express art in certain ways such as the ones presented ( cinematography, music, visual arts and dance) 

HISTORY

When we started talking about history in our TOK class i was pretty surprise because i always thought of history as a "science", a subject with clear facts and no discussion at all. However getting to know more about it, t got pretty clear why were we talking about it. The history of the world is what makes it what it is today, we couldn't fully understand the world today if we didn't study were we come from, but what happens if what is told that happened is not actually what happened? Our task for today was to think weather rewriting history should happen or not. This topic completely changed my idea of history being an exact science, this is because we will ever really know if what we think that happened is what really happened. Weather or not history should be rewritten is a pretty controversial topic since every country that wants to do it has different reasons. In my opinion is impossible to do decide if it is correct or not, i personally believe that it has to depend on the different situations of each country. Some country have being harshly affected by others in the past, and these type of success sometime need to be forgotten in order for the country to move on and progress. However if the country has the power of getting up after being suffering attacks from other countries I think people should be proud of it and it should be something to remember. As well as if a nation did something wrong, for example the nazis in Germany, this was one of the most terrible acts humanity has seen and many believe that it needs to be left in the past by rewriting what happened, however i don't think it should be possible. For me this situations even though they emphasize the bad stuff of the country it also shows how there are good people too, that there is many people that differ with that kind of massacre and that at the end thats the people who won against this murderess. 

SCIENCE AS A WAY OF KNOWING

Today in class we saw a video from Ted talks, talking about how useful is Science as a way of knowing. The guy doing the presentation though that science could be successfully as a way of thinking because of what we know about emotions and the brain. This made me think that maybe some day we would be able to know for sore what is morally good and what is not. This might happen because we know which parts of the brain relate to which emotion. There are electronics devices that can tell us which part of the brain reacts according different situations.  However I think that this is impossible; yes we are all equal physically, but not mentally. All of us have being through different situations that might have change our way of feeling and seeing life.

 I think there is not an actual way to prove that all humans react the same to different stations. I personally believe that even though science works as a way of knowing in many aspects, it helps us understand the tangible things of world, moral and feelings, in the other hand cant be determined by it. 

We are too much humans in this world, we all live in different ecosystems, and have to interact with different people, this sometimes causes diseases or alterations of the human body that make us different to others. If these alterations occur in our body, why cant it happen in our mind and in the way we react to emotions as well.

Here we have an article about a scientist called Edward Teller. The article talks about how science can be used as way of knowing, giving proves that morality, even though it seams impossible, might be easier than we think.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/280/5367/1200.full

PERSUASION AND PROPAGANDA

We started our last tok lesson by talking about what is a propaganda and how is it used, and how persuasion is used in propaganda. We defined persuasion as to induce someone to do or believe something thorough reasoning arguments. Propaganda was defined as information used to promote political cause or point of view.

This lesson had me thinking that in our daily life we see propagandas everyday, all day and sometimes we are not even aware of it. I got scared when I started thinking that maybe I think the way I do because somebody wanted me to, somebody induce me to do it. It is true that we think the way we do because or parents taught us to do it, but they were induced by propaganda too. Our last tok class made me think a lot of weather the decisions that we make are truly our own or someone choose them for us. Deciding to have babes, deciding what food to eat, what cloths to wear, everything is influenced by either someone else or organizations such as the government. This made me realize that propaganda is not only used to advertise products or politic views, it made me realize that even we are creating our own propagandas all the time. We share our ideas and our ways of being with the world all the time. This ideas and ways of being might influence someones actions of decisions as well creating a chain reaction.

There is propaganda in the music we listen, schools, the books we read, movies, articles, everything, but who decides what to make public and what should people keep for themselves? But then who controls this? is the government actually controlling everything? or is it just part of human interaction?.

Here is an article that i found about human persuasion. This article teaches how to persuade people into thinking or believing in what you want them to believe. The writer gives advices that according to him will lead you to success.

Human persuasion leads to success


If techniques like this are using day by day by massive organizations human rights are being violated. Me might not be as free as we think we are.