TOK Presentation help, KQ.

[MartinJ]

I have started making my presentation which is next Wednesday. I have come up with this KQ: "How can we know if there is other intelligent life in the universe?". We have been on winter holiday almost the entire time I have worked on the presentation so it has been hard to get feedback from a teacher. I have heard some say this is to specific and it is hard to relate to multiple WOKs and AOKs with this KQ. My RLS is the "WOW! signal" recieved from outer space in 1977. 

[Vioh]

I have started making my presentation which is next Wednesday. I have come up with this KQ: "How can we know if there is other intelligent life in the universe?". We have been on winter holiday almost the entire time I have worked on the presentation so it has been hard to get feedback from a teacher. I have heard some say this is to specific and it is hard to relate to multiple WOKs and AOKs with this KQ. My RLS is the "WOW! signal" recieved from outer space in 1977. 

 

This question of your is a bit logically meaningless, because it presumes that we know. But the truth is, we don't know whether there is any other intelligent life out there in the universe. And how can we know something that we don't even know yet?

Another problem with this question is that it's a scientific question (i.e. a factual question); either there is other intelligent life or there isn't. Hence, you can have very little debate around this question. Besides, the answer to this question depends on the empirical evidence that we get, thus has nothing to do with any knowledge issues. So I would say that this question is not appropriate for TOK.

I honestly think you should completely abandon this idea, and go with another one. Good luck

[MartinJ]

Okay I got feedback from a TOK teacher on Reddit and he said it was a fine question and the RLS was good, but the KQ was not 'refined' enough to be used as a KQ. The concept was good, but it needed to be more open and easy to discuss TOK-wise.

 

One AOK you could implement is mathematics (statistics), and discuss how mathematics can be used to model the world and its limitations, probably also natural sciences. WOKs to use could be reason and faith? 

 

I really do not want to abandon the idea, but I am a bit stuck on how to formulate the KQ, sorry if this is not the response you were hoping for  

[Vioh]

Okay I got feedback from a TOK teacher on Reddit and he said it was a fine question and the RLS was good, but the KQ was not 'refined' enough to be used as a KQ. The concept was good, but it needed to be more open and easy to discuss TOK-wise.

 

One AOK you could implement is mathematics (statistics), and discuss how mathematics can be used to model the world and its limitations, probably also natural sciences. WOKs to use could be reason and faith? 

 

I really do not want to abandon the idea, but I am a bit stuck on how to formulate the KQ, sorry if this is not the response you were hoping for

 

Alright, as you seem to be quite determined to do this topic, I'll try to help you as best as I can.

I would recommend you to use the extraterrestrial life as your real-life example all the way through your presentation, because having it as the main topic is too narrow and it isn't a knowledge question. So based on the answer that your TOK teacher gave you, I think you can structure your presentation like this:

 

RLS: Anything relating to extraterrestrial life..... (mention especially signals from outer space, and what strategies do we use to aid our search for extraterrestrial life)

From the RLS, you can derive a mini question: "How can we use knowledge within mathematics to aid our search for other intelligent life out there in the universe?".

 

Then from this mini question, you can derive the main knowledge question for your whole presentation: "To what extent can we use mathematics to model the reality and predict the future within natural science?" This is the question that you need to focus on. You can try to discuss how accurate mathematical models are, or the possibility of using these models to predict the future. You can bring up the relationship between physics and mathematics. You can evaluate reasoning as the WOK in mathematics, and how reliable it is. There are plenty of examples that you can take. For instance, mathematical modelling in weather prediction, mathematical modelling of the spread of a disease (e.g. Ebola), mathematical modelling of some physical phenomena (e.g. resonance, heat equations, etc), or the mathematical nature of physical laws, etc.

 

Finally, you can relate back to your RLS by answering the original mini-question of how mathematics is used as an aid to search for intelligent life. Here you can bring up the Drake equation, and other mathematical techniques that have been developed to send messages to outer space.

 

That's how I would approach this topic based on the hint of your TOK teacher. Hope this helps! Good luck

[MartinJ]

 

Okay I got feedback from a TOK teacher on Reddit and he said it was a fine question and the RLS was good, but the KQ was not 'refined' enough to be used as a KQ. The concept was good, but it needed to be more open and easy to discuss TOK-wise.

 

One AOK you could implement is mathematics (statistics), and discuss how mathematics can be used to model the world and its limitations, probably also natural sciences. WOKs to use could be reason and faith? 

 

I really do not want to abandon the idea, but I am a bit stuck on how to formulate the KQ, sorry if this is not the response you were hoping for

 

Alright, as you seem to be quite determined to do this topic, I'll try to help you as best as I can.

I would recommend you to use the extraterrestrial life as your real-life example all the way through your presentation, because having it as the main topic is too narrow and it isn't a knowledge question. So based on the answer that your TOK teacher gave you, I think you can structure your presentation like this:

 

RLS: Anything relating to extraterrestrial life..... (mention especially signals from outer space, and what strategies do we use to aid our search for extraterrestrial life)

From the RLS, you can derive a mini question: "How can we use knowledge within mathematics to aid our search for other intelligent life out there in the universe?".

 

Then from this mini question, you can derive the main knowledge question for your whole presentation: "To what extent can we use mathematics to model the reality and predict the future within natural science?" This is the question that you need to focus on. You can try to discuss how accurate mathematical models are, or the possibility of using these models to predict the future. You can bring up the relationship between physics and mathematics. You can evaluate reasoning as the WOK in mathematics, and how reliable it is. There are plenty of examples that you can take. For instance, mathematical modelling in weather prediction, mathematical modelling of the spread of a disease (e.g. Ebola), mathematical modelling of some physical phenomena (e.g. resonance, heat equations, etc), or the mathematical nature of physical laws, etc.

 

Finally, you can relate back to your RLS by answering the original mini-question of how mathematics is used as an aid to search for intelligent life. Here you can bring up the Drake equation, and other mathematical techniques that have been developed to send messages to outer space.

 

That's how I would approach this topic based on the hint of your TOK teacher. Hope this helps! Good luck

 

 

Thanks a lot, I will have a tutor session with my TOK teacher this Thursday and present the ideas. The presentation you described with AOKs Mathematics and Natural sciences and WOK Reasoning and perhaps to bring some perspective WOK Faith, as different perspectives are needed for 7-10 points. 

 

The 2015 criteria seem a bit different from previous ones, so I'll check everything out with my teacher

 

Thanks a lot for the help!