Prescribed Titles 2016 Discussion

[Yugalarex]

Hi guys - I've been poking around and I haven't been able to find a forum for this but I thought it might be a good idea to have a worldwide discussion about the recently released theory of knowledge titles. Thought this might be a good idea so we can read other people's perspectives and perhaps see other aspects to look at. Let me know if this already exists and I'll take it down :/.

 

1. “In gaining knowledge, each area of knowledge uses a network of ways of knowing.†Discuss this statement with reference to two areas of Knowledge.
2. “Knowledge within a discipline develops according to the principles of natural selection.†How useful is this metaphor?
3. “The knower’s perspective is essential in the pursuit of knowledge.†To what extent do you agree?
4. “Without application in the world, the value of knowledge is greatly diminished.†Consider this claim with respect to two areas of knowledge.
5. To what extent do the concepts that we use shape the conclusions that we reach?
6. “In knowledge there is always a trade-off between accuracy and simplicity.†Evaluate this statement in relation to two areas of knowledge.

So let's organize this a bit, if you want to add to the discussion start the reply off with the title number.

 

 

[harihrrnn]

I think the first question makes a lot of sense. And its in a easily understandable way. Every area of knowledge has a ways of knowing. We just need prove this statement with two areas of knowledge. And i also think except the first and the second question, all other questions are made complicated.   

[Yugalarex]

I think the first question makes a lot of sense. And its in a easily understandable way. Every area of knowledge has a ways of knowing. We just need prove this statement with two areas of knowledge. And i also think except the first and the second question, all other questions are made complicated.   

 

Speaking of the second title - it's quite interesting because I believe that knowledge does develop according to the principles of natural selection. Just for those of you who don't know - natural selection is Darwin's theory of evolution, where only those who are best adapted to their environment survive to reproduce and pass on their desirable traits.

 

Knowledge is much like this, only knowledge that is 'true' or 'justified' survives to be taught to the next generation. Only the best knowledge survives. When a theory is falsified, it is falsified by a new more accurate theory which will be passed on instead.

 

Nature of science statement from the HL Biology Syllabus (first examination 2016), unit 5.4:

• Falsification of theories with one theory being superseded by another – plant families have been reclassified as a result of evidence from cladistics.

Knowledge that is falsified is superseded by other knowledge.

[loba]

each year they get more complicated. anyways, im really interested in the second and last topics. but im most likely going to write about the second one since im a psychology student and we have discussed evolution quit a lot, and it does actually make sense to say that knowledge does develop according to the principles of natural selection.

my TOK teacher said to stay away from number 6 though as its really vague and can be misunderstood.

 

about the second topic, my teacher said that it means in his perspective that mainstream knowledge is most likely to develop as its the strongest known, while other forms of knowledge that aren't as popular might fade. 

however, i kinda understood it in a different way. i thought of it more of like as a person develops so does knowledge in order to cope with new needs and according to the principles of natural selection. like for example in the future the earth might become really polluted and people would need new needs in order to cope with that situation so specific knowledge in the area of knowledge natural sciences needs to develop specifically in physics and environmental studies in order to convey peoples new needs in solving pollution. thus the knowledge for natural sciences develops according to the principles of natural selection as its strongly needed, and other forms of knowledge in other areas of knowledge might be less needed so they might fade and be replaced.

 

i took natural selection here as in the meaning of this example:

if there are animals with long legs and animals  with short legs that need to run away from predators in order to survive, the ones with long legs are the ones that will survive as they are the stronger, thus soon there wont be many or any animals with short legs as they couldn't survive. thus when those animals reproduce only long legged animals will be born. 

 

so i need opinions, is what im saying really far away from the second topic or should i just stick to it not what my teacher said????

[Vioh]

about the second topic, my teacher said that it means in his perspective that mainstream knowledge is most likely to develop as its the strongest known, while other forms of knowledge that aren't as popular might fade. 

however, i kinda understood it in a different way. i thought of it more of like as a person develops so does knowledge in order to cope with new needs and according to the principles of natural selection. like for example in the future the earth might become really polluted and people would need new needs in order to cope with that situation so specific knowledge in the area of knowledge natural sciences needs to develop specifically in physics and environmental studies in order to convey peoples new needs in solving pollution. thus the knowledge for natural sciences develops according to the principles of natural selection as its strongly needed, and other forms of knowledge in other areas of knowledge might be less needed so they might fade and be replaced.

 

i took natural selection here as in the meaning of this example:

if there are animals with long legs and animals  with short legs that need to run away from predators in order to survive, the ones with long legs are the ones that will survive as they are the stronger, thus soon there wont be many or any animals with short legs as they couldn't survive. thus when those animals reproduce only long legged animals will be born. 

 

so i need opinions, is what im saying really far away from the second topic or should i just stick to it not what my teacher said????

 

No, I think you've misinterpreted the question. Question 2 specifically asks you to present how knowledge within one discipline develops. So if you plan to compare biology/environmental science with other areas of knowledge, then you are not really answering the question.

What your teacher said about the topic is quite alright. Of course, that doesn't mean that your teacher's interpretation is the only one. And you are free to come up with your own. Just make sure that you are answering what the question actually asks.

 

In my opinion, I only agree with the statement in question 2 to some extent. As far as I understand the theory of evolution, natural selection starts from some genetic mutations within the population, which more or less happen by chance. On the other hand, human knowledge doesn't have that property. For example, in science, there is usually a variety of different scientific theories that are used to describe the same phenomenon, because scientists are always actively searching for alternative theories. And only empirical experimentation can decide which theory is the correct one. So I guess what I'm saying here is that while animal evolution is driven by natural selection (which heavily relies on the element of chance), the evolution of human knowledge is driven by humans who consciously seek for a better knowledge.

I don't know if my above point makes any sense, but ..... well, lucky that I don't have to do TOK ever again!

[El :3]

With question 6, you can consider Occam's Razor - it ties in really well to do with simplicity. It's kinda like title 4 for the November session this year (I loved that title so much!) Also, consider what simplicity is - is anything truly simple? Can you find simplicity within accuracy, and accuracy within simplicity? How do you draw the line between simplicity and accuracy?

[Vioh]

 

Question 2 specifically asks you to present how knowledge within one discipline develops.

 

But it says "within a discipline". Doesn't this invite us to compare and contrast various AOK to see to what extent this metaphor is applicable in the various AOKs?

On a related note, would it be too much to consider 3 or even 4 AOKs for Title 2?

 

 

Well yes, you are allowed to compare and contrast various AOKs. But for each AOK, you are supposed to evaluate the metaphor in question 2 within that particular AOK. So let's suppose that I've chosen my AOKs to be Natural Science and Art. Then as an example, it's alright to make this statement: "Knowledge within natural science develops just like natural selection, while knowledge within art doesn't".

 

The problem here is that loba was planning to evaluate the metaphor based on the whole human knowledge in its entirety, and trying to show, for example, that knowledge within the AOK of environmental biology will become superior than the knowledge within other AOKs. And this is the wrong approach because the question does not ask us to do that.

 

Normally, it's recommended to use only 2 AOKs. Having said that, I've seen several essays with 3 AOKs and they all turned out fine. But you definitely shouldn't consider 4 AOKs; that would be too much! Generally, you should remember that it's quality rather than quantity that matters.

[Yugalarex]

Does anyone have any thoughts on the third title - knower's perspective?

[Blackcurrant]

What are yours, first?

[DuffsterCole]

I think the first question makes a lot of sense. And its in a easily understandable way. Every area of knowledge has a ways of knowing. We just need prove this statement with two areas of knowledge. And i also think except the first and the second question, all other questions are made complicated.   

Really? My TOK teacher told us to stay away from it because of the difficulty of making counterclaims. When do you ever use just one WOK in an AOK? 

Edited October 4, 2015 by DuffsterCole

[harihrrnn]

 

I think the first question makes a lot of sense. And its in a easily understandable way. Every area of knowledge has a ways of knowing. We just need prove this statement with two areas of knowledge. And i also think except the first and the second question, all other questions are made complicated.   

Really? My TOK teacher told us to stay away from it because of the difficulty of making counterclaims. When do you ever use just one WOK in an AOK? 

 

Bro read the question properly its clearly says "a network of ways of knowing".  In gaining knowledge, each area of knowledge uses a "network of ways of knowing.† And i don't think so it's hard to make counter claims.It's like the basic rule in TOK, every AOK uses a ways of knowing ( they did not mention 1). so just explain it with your real life example. I don't find anything hard in it. And they asked us to discuss this statement using two areas of knowledge. It's pretty easy according to me. ​ 

[traveller]

Titles - 2, 3

 

Okay well I am at a crossroad.

 

Mainly, I really like title 2 and 3 both and now I seriously cannot decide between the two. And then I also like title 4, but Im convincing myself that I like it less so the process of elimination is easier.

 

For title 2, I read the many very interesting perspectives posted earlier on this discussion. At first, I thought that the question referred to natural selection from the POV of the more useful (hence 'stronger') knowledge being the surviving knowledge and the less useful knowledge going 'extinct', so to say. But then there comes the issue that the usefulness of knowledge is highly subjective; the knowledge of art may be useless to a mathematician, for example. I particularly liked what someone previously said about natural selection being based on chance whereas knowledge develops by humans consciously seeking it out; could that be related then to artificial selection? Whereby we choose which knowledge to keep and survive, and we scrap outdated or falsified theories? I dont know if it's just me but I feel like this title relates to the 4th title; knowledge with no application is valueless and hence does not survive (and this can be later argued on).

What are your thoughts on this title?

 

For title 3, I see an endless ocean of possible spins to take on this question. But I feel like my interpretation is wrong. I'm thinking that the knower's perspective will greatly alter the way he interpret's the knowledge. For example, a religious person may interpret something, lets say rain during dry season, as a miracle; whereas a non-religious person might interpret the same event as a coincidence or something more scientific based. Or another example; the concept that history is written by the victors. Does that mean that the knowledge we study within history is solely from one perspective? Can we ever have knowledge in history WITHOUT a perspective?

Again I feel like this question is related to title 5; the perspectives we have, ergo the bias we have, greatly changes our pursuit of knowledge. You could argue that every knower's perspective IS essential because combining all of these perspectives together will give us a fuller picture.

I am also trying to figure out how I can relate this back to personal/shared knowledge.

 

 

Help guys! I dont know which of these two titles to pick! Im sort of leaning towards 2, i dont know...

[Kamen rider baron]

What do you guys think of the knowledge without application one? I agree with since knowledge is supposed to help us advance or have beneficial outcomes which can only be done through application. If knowledge isn't applied, then it yields no results which makes it useless. Think of like the story of the miser and his gold at the end where he was told the gold was useless since he didn't use it for anything, knowledge is like that

[Vioh]

What do you guys think of the knowledge without application one? I agree with since knowledge is supposed to help us advance or have beneficial outcomes which can only be done through application. If knowledge isn't applied, then it yields no results which makes it useless. Think of like the story of the miser and his gold at the end where he was told the gold was useless since he didn't use it for anything, knowledge is like that

 

I disagree with you that knowledge can't exist without application because this point of view turns out to be quite problematic.

1. Usefulness is subjective (as traveller has already pointed out): Some knowledge might be useful to somebody, but useless to other people. For example, the knowledge in quantum mechanics is completely useless to a banker or an economist, but extremely important to a person working with computer circuits.
2. How can we decide which knowledge is useful? Or more importantly when do we decide whether a knowledge is useful or not? When the electron was discovered, nobody could think of any use for it. Would they then decide that the knowledge about the electrons is useless and not worth pursuing? Or when imaginary number was discovered/invented, it seemed to be absolutely useless because imaginary number is after all…. imaginary. So would you say back then that imaginary number is useless? Obviously not. Hence, I think that it's highly problematic if you think of "usefulness" as something intrinsic to knowledge.
3. You claim that knowledge must have "beneficial outcomes which can only be done through application". I don't think that's true because I think knowledge can be beneficial even without application. Learning about the Big Bang, for example, doesn't bring any applications (as far as I know), but it's still beneficial because we now have a better understanding of how the universe works, and I think that's worth celebrating.

I would also like to stress that linking applications to knowledge is not only problematic, but it's also detrimental to the progress of science as well. I have plenty of evidence to support this. NASA funding has recently been cut down, to have more money for stuff like military, or banking, etc. Clearly the US government doesn't think that science is "useful" enough to get such a big funding. Many US politicians also opposed against US participation at CERN because apparently, they thought that fundamental science doesn't bring any useful applications to the world. But hey, remember that without fundamental science, there would be no applied science.

 

 

For title 2, I read the many very interesting perspectives posted earlier on this discussion. At first, I thought that the question referred to natural selection from the POV of the more useful (hence 'stronger') knowledge being the surviving knowledge and the less useful knowledge going 'extinct', so to say. But then there comes the issue that the usefulness of knowledge is highly subjective; the knowledge of art may be useless to a mathematician, for example. I particularly liked what someone previously said about natural selection being based on chance whereas knowledge develops by humans consciously seeking it out; could that be related then to artificial selection? Whereby we choose which knowledge to keep and survive, and we scrap outdated or falsified theories? I dont know if it's just me but I feel like this title relates to the 4th title; knowledge with no application is valueless and hence does not survive (and this can be later argued on). What are your thoughts on this title?

 

You might have misunderstood me when I wrote that "the evolution of human knowledge is driven by humans who consciously seek for a better knowledge". What I meant was quite the opposite of what you referred to as "artificial selection".

 

Roughly speaking, the theory of evolution states that evolution takes place in 3 different stages:

(1) Random mutations --> (2) Select genes according to the genes' adaptability to the environment --> (3) Evolved species

 

Similarly, the evolution of human knowledge can also be divided into 3 stages:

(1) Seeking for different hypotheses (or theories) --> (2) Select better theories by comparing them to the actual evidence --> (3) Evolved knowledge

 

From my point of view, evolution of species and evolution of knowledge are similar in the second and third stage, but different in the first stage. The second stage is similar because for the evolution of species, we want to select genes that are best fit to the environment; and for the evolution of knowledge, we select the knowledge that is best fit to the evidence (at least that's how it is in maths, natural science, and social science). On the other hand, there is a difference in the first stage. While mutations happen randomly in the evolution of species, we – as humans – actively & consciously seek for different hypotheses, predictions and theories before we use the evidence to select the better theories. In other words, it's not natural selection vs. artificial selection (as the process of selection is kinda the same in both), but the difference lies in what that kick start of the process of selection (if you know what I mean). This is a small difference, but I think it's worth mentioning.

Edited October 16, 2015 by Vioh

[98ib2016]

For number 5 which concepts could I use? 

[avalinelegato]

For number 5 which concepts could I use? 

 

That depends on how you define "concepts".

[Yugalarex]

What are yours, first?

 

I think that it is because knowledge is gained through personal experience. I've somehow come to the conclusion that all knowers are human and therefore their knowledge is subject to personal perspective (basically schema theory).

[Kamen rider baron]

Well as I know learned, knowledge without application is not entirerly useless due to its potential application, and in my answer I was specifically looking at two fields in mind like the natural science(chemistry/biology) and mathematics

[kristinemjs]

I have chosen question number 3, "The knower’s perspective is essential in the pursuit of knowledge"

I found the website that helped me when choosing my AOK and WOK, so I thought I might as well share it:

 

https://www.goconqr.com/en/p/3529510--the-knower-s-perspective-is-essential-in-the-pursuit-of-knowledge---to-what-extent-do-you-agree-with-this-statement--mind_maps

 

I think I am going to use these: 

 

- Natural Sciences

  Reason

 

- Religion

  Faith

 

- Human Sciences

  Emotion

 

Any suggestions on examples I can use in my essay? I was thinking about Evolution, Dolly the sheep and freedom of speech. 

[redpanda_19]

What do you guys think of the knowledge without application one? I agree with since knowledge is supposed to help us advance or have beneficial outcomes which can only be done through application. If knowledge isn't applied, then it yields no results which makes it useless. Think of like the story of the miser and his gold at the end where he was told the gold was useless since he didn't use it for anything, knowledge is like that

I agree with Vioh. Value is subjective; it depends on the knower. In many cases the value is unquantifiable. As I am also doing question 4, I focused on the following areas of knowledge, arts and mathematics. The application of art may not be as practical as say, mathematical modeling of an epidemic, but it cannot be said its value is incomparable. Art inspires ideas - look at how music inspired Einstein.