ToK Journal 2016-2018

Last week I was going back home with two of my brothers and my dad from the family trip. As we were talking, suddenly I realized that my little brother, who is now seven, kept asking many questions and when my other brother or I answered to his question he still waited for my father's answer. Firstly I thought that it might be because our dad is his role model and then he believes that my father has greater knowledge so  naturally he is more likely than me to answer correctly. This got me thinking about experts. In this situation, my dad was an expert and my little brother-a person which desired knowledge. We can observe that in media, especially tv news or in newspapers, when analyzing a global, political or any other issue mostly the experts occur and provide not also the historical facts and scientific theories, but also their point of view. Of course in the ideal world, when each person thinks critically and independently, he or she can create their own opinion by looking for ...

    But really, am I? On my last ToK classes we are discussing a lot about the language. How language affects our world's view and our beliefs, the problems with translations and meaning of the words ect. So as I heard about those obstacles and problems that language is, I started wondering (because on my classes we also talked about different languages and untranslatable words) about limitations that I have because of speaking my native language. Is my mother's tongue a set of beliefs and emotions of my forefathers? Because the language I am using now, was once invented and words were made up to express certain feelings and needs. Of course it is always changing and current society is adapting the language to its needs. However, the past can still affect language. For example, if the country was once full of farmers, then in the language may exist more farmer's words in comparison to, for example, to country in which the majority of citizens work as miners. 

  Language is vague. We might want to say in Spanish that we love someone we say te quiero we also mean I choose you . Many other examples of ambiguity of language may be risen form different languages which prove that every language is vague. One world can mean two different things and it can cause discord between people. As we know, language is based on generalisations. We know how the table should look like so we name nearly any wooden object with four legs a table.  Generalisations make our lives easier, so we do not need to say that we see a wooden thing with four wooden legs, we simply assume that it is a table. Thus on the one hand generalisations facilitates humans' communication but on the other hand it can make it more difficult and cause discord. From this assumption the question may arise: To what extend generalisations are helpful and when they are simply obstacles? Obviously, we would not be able to function in every-day life with simple generalisations of ...

 Can we see what a bare human eye cannot see? We may say that we do it right now, but in reality we don't. If a bare human eye can't see a particular thing then scientists and engineers cooperate to invent a technology that will enable humans to do so. Miroscopes, telescopes- they were produced to enable humans to see what is not possible to be seen for a human eye. But is it possible for humans to gain knowledge in sciences when they cannot actually see a phenomenon?  There are scientists that claim a possible knowledge claims without actually seeing a phenomenon, however, it is never called a fact. Even apart from sciences, in every day life people usually do not believe if they have not seen that. For example, 2 weeks ago when the US elections ended I was at school and my friend told me that Donald Trump won the elections. I could not believe that. Even though I knew he was a strong candidate, but the media that I was surrounded, social media, celebrities talk...

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...