Knowledge Questions

1. Emotions have a rational basis. This claim, is quite controversial because this depends on each person's idea of rationality.

2. Emotions can never be correct or incorrect. The claim that emotions can be correct or incorrect,  collapses on itself because who gets to decided what is correct or incorrect. Unlike Maths, or Physics there is usually not just one "correct answer, which is dictated by evidence and research. However, there can be a socially "correct" emotion, which again varies from society to society.

3.  Language, can't fully express emotions. This is because with each different language, there are usually different experiences which that linguistic society experiences, meaning they have different word for different feelings. In the German society, there is a word which means "Homesick of the country you have never been to". Personally, I have never had this emotion, but does that mean

... the emotion doesn't exist?

The mysteries of Language

1. Do we need to know a definition of a word, in order to understand its meaning? 

After many debates and conversations in class, my opinion is set on the fact that you don't need the definition of a word to know its meaning. I say this for two reasons. My first reason, is based on the activity that we did in class today. In the activity, one person had to act out situations using no words and the other had to guess what's going on.  My partner and I managed to crack 6 situations, using no words at all. We found that displaying emotions, or doing an activity helped give the words in the situation away. The second reason, is the fact the question I thought to myself. For every single word I learnt, did I know its definition? Obviously, my answer was no, which further leads me to believe we don't need the definition of a word to understand its meaning.



2. Do words have meanings or do we give them meanings?

In my opinion we give words meaning. A humorous example of this would be the word "wicked". To illustrate this, I would like to use Hip Teen Sam enact a situation with his mate Bill.

Sam : Bro, did you see the new movie "Boss Killz"? It was wicked man!
Bill: Sure was!

But, if Sam was to use the word wicked sometime back in the 1950's and Bill was from that time period:

Sam: Man, did you see Pele's goal, that was wicked!
Bill: No man, I think Pele is a nice human being. (Snickers at crazy Sam)

As you can see from this example, wicked has two different meanings. But in the more modern example, us humans have given wicked a new meaning.

Wicked!

Time

Can we go back in time?

What is time?

What does time mean to different people?

Is time really money?

I would want to answer all those questions, if only I had the time. (Pun Intended) According to the article, these local Piraha tribesmen have absolutely no measurement of time and even numbers. For them, life is always spontaneous and this or that. In fact, even after a linguist tried to teach the Portuguese counting till 10, none could repeat them after a coaching of almost 8 months. Furthermore, the Piraha tribes people give their children names based on the traits they feel their offspring shares with an elder of the tribe. Shockingly, these people even manage to forget their grandparents names, because what matters to them is only the present and "here and now'.

Personally, I have a completely opposite view from the tribes people because in my Indian culture, numbers are a pretty big deal. This is because, firstly we invented the numbers (that's right) and secondly, we are a society which live in a very rushed society. The rushed society is similar to the Piraha's, however in Indian society, the rush means we have lots of things to do, thus we need to allocate time. Allocating time means numbers, and organizing meeting at certain times and etc. However, Time personally to me is the most precious asset in the whole world. This is because it is one of the only things on Earth that can't be bought. Time gives us a purpose and a meaning on this earth, and when measured and used correctly, helps organize our lives.

Knowledge Questions and Claims

Article Link - http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/08/opinions/wells-fargo-fine-rushkoff/index.html

Article Description - This article talks about the huge credit card fraud that the Wells Fargo employees in the U.S have been doing. Wells Fargo is a huge bank based in the U.S. The fraud that these employees have been doing is opening credit card accounts for their unaware customers. By doing this, the employees meet sales targets and receive sales bonuses.

I think the Knowledge Claims in this Passage would be -

More than 5300 employees have been laid off for engaging in this fraud
More than 1.5 million fraud credit card accounts have been made for unaware customers.


I think the Knowledge Questions in this Passage would be -

To what extent can we trust banks with consumer safety?
How can we make sure that our money is safe with banks?

Is there a Perfect Map?

The World Map, is a highly interesting item because of its significance worldwide. Everybody and anybody who belongs on Earth, has someplace on the Map. Since I was 5 I was taught with the basic map which provides a more general view, however had never challenged the fact that it could have been made with some bias in mind.This was brought up in the Second TOK class where, European biased was showcased with their preference of being the center of the map. Then, we viewed a map which had America at the center and talked about how it would mainly be used by Americans as compared to others. However, the thing I found the most interesting in the class was when the sizes of countries were discussed I found out that Russia was much less superior to Africa in terms of Area, however on the World Map it appears much larger. This lesson now encourages me to not believe everything on face value and inquire more.