My Personal Knowledge.

   Lately because (of course) my ToK classes I've been thinking a lot about personal knowledge. But specifically about peer pressure. 
   However, what interested me more was how we tend to adjust not only your knowledge as opinions and thoughts, but also your knowledge about ourselves. About who we are, what we are like, what we want to do and what we hate to do. Because it is easier to agree on one thing rather than argue and discuss about it, we prefer to quickly change our minds and do not dive into the topic that is, maybe uncomfortable or tabu for us. Of course, there are lots of great people who are stubborn (but in a good way) and have strong, convincing arguments.
  As I was thinking about it more and more I suddenly recalled the video that I watched maybe a year ago. It was about introversion (video below). Maybe at first look it doesn't seem to do much with knowledge and gaining it, but as I thought about this topic deeper, I understood that the biggest problem that introverts have to face is pressure coming from the society.




Our personal knowledge about ourselves, our preferences and our personality is attacked by all kinds of pressure from the outside. So, can we prevent our personal knowledge from being discredited?
Or should we just accept that peer pressure as an obstacle for the personal knowledge?


   Right now, I'll change a little bit my way of thinking. Let's consider some obstacles to personal knowledge. We know the those obstacles (including peer pressure) exists. We are constantly trying to avoid them. And as a result, we try to improve our knowledge and do not be so susceptible to that  pressure. 
Hence, is it possible to say that we know all the challenges that our knowledge faces? 
Can a knower say that maybe he is not 100%  objective, but at least he know his limitations? 
There is a danger that claiming such a thing may bring the certainty that person knows everything. This may also be a reason to stop being curious and inquiring. Because the knowledge and awareness that we have lots of knowledge yet to explore and discover may push the society forwards much more.

The beauty of what we'll never know

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why we might never find all the answers

Image
 Since I was little I always loved sci-fi movies. Expolring the universe and interstellar journeys fascinates me even right now. Recently, I've been particularly interested in the first human journey to Mars. right now NASA with cooperation with other international companies are testing new rockets and technology that would be able to take men kind to Mars in the near future. I watched plenty of documentaries and conferences about the obstacles that right now unables NASA to complete this mission. 2 particularly interesting videos about sending humans to Mars which made me think about this issue   As I was watching I thought a lot about the obstacles that scientists need to overcome in order to send humans to Mars. Of course the cause of these obstacles is our current knowledge which unables scientists to produce more technologically developed devices.  But what is really an obstacle? Is it our knowledge or is it the important materials which do not exist?...
Read more

Way of knowing: Language

Image
On last week's ToK classes we were discussing ways of knowing. What interested me the most was language. Language is a way of passing on information, knowledge but also our thought and beliefs to other people. We can ''implant'' our thought into somebody's mind. (as Mark Pagel said in this TED Talk: Language in terms of acquiring knowledge is powerful. Without it we wouldn't be able to learn as quickly as we do it now. School, universities but also other people use language as a main tool to teach others. However, this powerful tool not only can help us acquire knowledge so can the language influence our lives? Because we are constantly surround with words and various language structures, people often use them to influence others. To by using emotional language create an image in somebody's mind that will help convince this person that something is either right or wrong. We often see it in political, religious and controversial speeches. So if ot...
Read more

Simplified knowledge?

Image
This week (12-18.09) I started my ToK classes. We've studied problems of knowlege and the example of the maps and how our culture influence our perception of the world. Europeans see Europe in the center of Earth when at the same time an American can be use to maps that show America in the centre. The Earth is a spheare so we cannot really say what is truerly ''in the center''. This idea really hit me. I started thinking how much our culture influence on our knowledge? Is a culture sometimes a part o knowledge? Map used before discovering America. Another thing that intriceted me was an idea or maybe a statement, that knowledge is simplified. Bringing back the maps example: of course it is not possible for us to create real 1:1 map of the world- firstly, that kind of map it is simply not possible to make and secondly, it would be completly useless for us. So for the usefulness of the maps they are simplified. And the same is with many other areas of...
Read more