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PHS IB TOK at Play!
The purpose of this blog is to open a discussion forum for ideas, ramblings, debates, and random thoughts that pass through the heads of the students presently in Poudre High School's Theory of Knowledge Program.
PHS IB TOK at Play!
Post Conversation Threads and Ideas from PHS
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1. Read for Understanding
1. Read for Understanding
2. Challenge Ideas, not People
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3. Use TOK Skills to Justify Arguments
4. Expect the same from your peers
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Blog Archive
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2008
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August
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- "Allegory of the Cave" Question #1
- "Allegory of the Cave" Question #2
- "Allegory of the Cave" Question #3
- René Descartes
- For all my fellow bookworms...
- Does God Exist?
- Open Minds
- Is the exclusion of developing countries from grou...
- Alrighty... lets fire up some discussion. IS freed...
- The PHS ToK web page
- What do you believe now?
- What did you believe?
- What did you notice about yourself?
- A new year, A few big changes
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August
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56 comments:
Why haven't I learned this yet?
Let's talk about the spritiual part! I'm an eclectic, agnostic paganm, meaning I believe that the earth, along with all things in nature, have something more to them than just earth, water, air...all that business. I also believe in the power of belief, meaning that the more belief is compounded in something, the more likely it is for that thing to be true, or to happen, or whatever. Combine these two, along with my wretched idealism and the fact that I honestly care about pretty much everyone (no joke - people, I care about most of you and will wonder about what happened to you when I'm thirty), you get someone who feels obliged to do something large and positive in the world, something that will help the environment and improve people's lives, at the same time.
I learned that i never really justify what i think. Instead I say what I would like to call "neutral statements." Though I can't say all my statements follow that claim, but most the time i will make a claim that both gives the opposition of both or more sides of a question or arguement which in turns makes me think about it more and consider which side I find to be stronger in justification. But that side is rarely apparent to me. I almost feel that my opinion slips away as I try to accept more opinions. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing...yet.
So...you used to say things without thinking so much, but now that you do think about them, you see both sides? And thusly side with whichever seems to be the better of the two options?
I learned that I can be an extremely cynical person. I'm not necessarily pessimistic, but I'm one of those "guilty until proven innocent" types of people.
I am a wishful thinker which can make me really gullible.
I have learned that i trust and believe almost everyone which can make me gullible at times. Also now i am so confussed and i have no idea what i know! LOL
I noticed that, although I'm willing to compromise on some beliefs, there are a few that are completely non-negotiable with me. They are the things that I know through experience,revelation and authority hold true and they are what define some of the most essential parts of my person.
I noticed that I'm a fairly spiritual person, even though I don't adhere to any particular religious thought. While I am not a person of faith, I am a person who recognizes the significance of spirituality and feeling connected with everything and everyone.
I noticed that I tend to think I'm smart because I'm in IB and I take certain classes. In actuality, I don't know much about anything. As I learned more about myself, others, and knowledge, I realized I don't know anything at all, because there's so much more out there.
I learned that I do not like talking about myself. It makes me feel weird. I would just rather focus on somebody or something else.
I learned that I can be a very stuborn person, and that's not really in a good way. I always try to keep an open mind, but now and then I find that I cannot negatiate. I simply stick with my belief, even sometimes, when I find out that I am wrong!
Writing the knower profile kind of made me feel like i'm a bit too optomistic. For example, speaking about my gender and how it affects my expectations about knowledge and education. Being a female in this century makes me want so much more out of life and education than I imagine women from back in the day did. Is that optomism? I think that it has to do with how I believe a woman needs an education in order to prosper in this country. I hope that makes some sense.
I realized I really don't like learning how to do new things, and that I hate making mistakes that people can see. I spent a week in an empty pool teaching myself how to do the butterfly stroke because I didn't want the other lap swimmers to watch me struggle. It sucked.
By doing this assignment, I have realized that my family is an incredibly strange mix of people. It's odd to me that we can be so close and yet come from so many backgrounds and believe so many different things. It makes me feel a little lost...
I realized that I don't know myself nearly as well as I thought I did. If that makes sense. Like when we first got the assignment I was reading the questions we had to answer and I was thinking this will be so easy. I always thought I was one of those people who is super in touch with themselves and what they think. But as soon as I started trying to write my answers I just felt like everything I was trying to say sounded stupid. I know what I believe to be true and I know what I think is true, but there are very few things I KNOW to be true. That's kind of an unsettling realization for me.
This activity made me realize how callow and naive I really am. I am fairly dependent upon my family, and thus I probably feel that the world is a much more idyllic place than it may be. My knowledge about the quality of life, and to some extent, economics has been affected by this fact as well.
I noticed that I am a person very much influenced by family opinions and ties. They affect more of my life than I realized and if I plan to make it through this class and life outside of Fort Collins, I need to find what I believe and why. I can certainly justify certain beliefs of mine with more than just the authority of my family as I have had experiences which have reinforced what they taught me, but others do not have the same justifications. Hopefully this class will help me find those....or possibly the absence of any.
Though I wouldn't consider it an epiphany, something about myself which I noticed while writing about myself was that many of my beliefs and ways of thinking have underwent fairly drastic changes for reasons which I cannot quite remember. This sort of makes sense considering that growth, which I would attribute said changes to, is something that occurs as a gradual process, and not necessarily as a solitary memorable event.
One thing i noticed when writer my profiler paper, was that i don't really ever think about myself and thoughts, or ideas as an individual. I don't think of things thatcan affect they way my views are shared in the world.
I was very surprised to find that i do, in fact, have a very solid idea of who i am and where i belong. I was one of those people who always felt like i was wandering around randomly in my life, but it seems that where i come from has had a profound effect on how i see myself. I do have rather high expectations, but perhaps that is something positive to shoot for. I'm also a bit shocked about how many theories about life i have, and I've been noticing more and more how much i like to listen to people's problems, and try to heal them; i can't seem to leave a "problem" alone until I've done all i can.
When writing my “personal profile as a knower”, I realized that when analyzing myself it becomes very difficult for me to think. Who am I? Am I my own person, am I who my parents me to be, or what other people want me to be? I had a really hard time answering the questions. Overall, I guess I don’t really know myself that well. Through this assignment I learned that I think and analyze things way too much. If I were just to act and stop thinking so much, I think I would get so much more accomplished. In the life that I live right now, I hesitate and I don’t let myself guide my own life. I am very dependent on others and that is why I think I hesitate and over analyze things.
I noticed that I don't let many things affect my opinions or beliefs other than the things I've learned from how I've been raised, and what I've been taught about religion. That makes me feel more confident as an individual because I know now that I'm not very vulnerable to who or what I'm surrouned by. Also, I know now that what I feel important is really what I subconsiously base my decisions, values and beliefs on.
I more accurately defined my spritual beliefs. Instead of "atheist" (which still holds true), I realized I really don't care. There is just too much to do and worry about during life, so I don't really need to add worrying about what happens after it. I don't know why many people are so concerned about something they will never know (what happens after death). I choose to spend my mental energy on other things.
i learned that i am really bad at wrapping my head around other peoples ideas. while i was writing my personal knower profile thingymabob, i had a really hard time with answering how my gender affects how i see the world and what expectations i have about my knowledge and education. So, i asked my family for help. my sister went into this really complicated thing about how it affects it hugely because of my role as a woman in society and how i expect to grow up and become a house mother and then she was going on talking about women in India. i basically have no idea what she said, but in the end, i decided that being a female doesn't affect my expectations about my knowledge and education. i believe that because of today's society, as an american, being female doesn't stop me from going as far in my education as i want to. i could go just as far as a man, and i am able to comprehend just as much as a man could. i then thought about the whole 'view of the world thing' and i thought at first that because i am a woman, I must be more emotional than a man when i think about the world. i then had a conversation with a certain boy, and realized, that he was WAY more emotional then i am. so overall, i don't think that being a female affects how i see the world or my expectations i have about my knowledge and education because i think of myself on the same level as any other man.
I learned that i need a justification of some sort for everything. I can not "take it on faith". I am unable to simply believe in something with no evidence at all. also, I discovered that realized that the environment in which I grew up has greatly affected how I interact with other people. From living out in the edge of nowhere for my entire life, i now prefer to be alone most of the time. Prior to this assignment, I had never really thought about why I prefer solitude to being around other people. Good to know this class is making me think.
I noticed that it is very hard for me to write down my own thoughts. I begin to think about how I came to those specific beliefs and then I start to contradict myself. This is because I am so influenced by the people around me and especially my family. I feel like I can't call them my own beliefs but my parent's beliefs. It almost makes me confused as to who I am, but I think thats the reason I'm looking forward to this class, so that I can come to my own conclusions in the end based off of pure justifications.
While writing my Knower Profile, I noticed which personal experiences have informed my religious beliefs. When I was younger, I was ashamed of being an atheist, and I yearned for a religion as a way to attain a sense of belonging. But while writing my Knower Profile, condensing my most fundamental beliefs into two pages, I observed my personal religious development, which was eerie (viewing one's life from a third person, that is). I now realize that I cannot reject my atheism any more than I can reject the legitimacy of those fundamental experiences. My life experiences are just as valid as those of people who are religious, and I cannot be ashamed simply because I am an atheist in a society where religion is valued as a judge of moral character. If anything, I should proselytize just as openly and proudly as people who are religious are able to, and I believe I have the right to do so without undue judgement in this society.
What i really learned about myself is that i think about my opinion a lot but i somehow have a hard time sharing it. It's not that i dont want to, but i feel that my thoughts make more sense inside my head than out of it.
After doing my Knower Profile, I realized how strange it is to put your beliefs into words on a piece of paper. I'm so used to having to explain, or wanting to explain, my beliefs to people orally, that writing them down makes them seem more impersonal. It feels like I'm writing a character profile instead of my own personal profile. Although I felt strange writing it, it's probably a great way to organize yourself and what you believe in on paper, so that you're forced to actually look at yourself and put it into coherent thought.
The one that felt the strangest to talk about for me was my spiritual world view. I usually avoid explaining it to people and when a survey asks for my religion I also avoid checking anything there. This was the first time I was forced to actually put into words my spiritual world view.
I learned that sometimes it's really hard for me to share my beleifs with others because they are so important to me and so much a part of me. I find it really hard to share something very close to my heart with the knowledge that people will challenge it and that i will have to defend it, but in writing the blog in particular i learned a lot about why i beleive things, and justifying my beleifs has made me understand myself and my beleifs better than i did before.
While writing my learner profile I learned that I actually still have alot to learn about myself. Those seemly simple questions sometimes stumped me to my very core. I found that I am indeed a complex individual, and, on occaision, I should perhaps ponder myself a bit more deeply.
While writing my learner profile i learned two things. one, that i am biased like crazy. i am a white, well off american. i try not to let this affect my views, but listing all the ways that it does really brought out how racist i am. wow. i gotta work on that.
When I was doing my learner profile, I learned that I don't really know why I believe what I do, or at least that I never really thought about how I came to believe what I do. I guess that I just sort of assumed that my beliefs came from somewhere inside, if that makes sense, and never really tried to pinpoint the outside factors that influence them, and when I did I found it a little difficult to actually articulate why I believe what I do. I guess I think of my beliefs as a sort of gut feeling and it is hard to put into words the real reasons why they have been ingrained, so to speak, within me, even though they really define who I am. Since they are so important and central to me as a person, I expected them to be easy to talk about but they really aren't.
Looking at the time it took me to complete my knowledge profile, I learned that as even though some days I may spend long periods of time considering the way the world works, and what my place in it may be, and what I think of it, and occasionally debating it with other people, I've never really thought about it in the level of detail that the profile asked me to, and nor have I ever really reached a conclusion, making writing down my thoughts very difficult, as I wasn't - and still am not - quite sure what they are... but that's what ToK's for, to find that out.
Also, I had never before given much thought to how much my almost life-long bilinguality may have affected my knowledge, and the viewpoints that I choose to take... I'm still not quite sure how much it's affected me, but I would now definitely say that my origins, and the additional language that accompanied them have shaped the Ilya people know today more than anything else in my life.
I thought it was interesting that I kept focusing on only a few aspects of my personality and background, and leave much of what most people would consider fundamental parts of me out because I didn't think they affected me that much. It should be interesting to find out what I think about the person that I am now in a few years...because probably some of the things I left out have actually had huge impacts on my development and I just can't see that yet. Also, like Laura (Pfiester), I'm more spiritual than I tend to let on, and I see the importance of feeling connected, regardless of whether or not the world actually is as interconnected as we both wish and dread (and physics and religion lead the same direction here: both searching for a unified theory of everything).
I've always known that I have strong beliefs in many things, but I never noticed how many beliefs I have. It was suprising for me once I took the time to sit down and reflect upon many of these beliefs.
I noticed that a lot of people, including myself, do not have proper justifications for a lot of the stuff they 'know'. For most people this does not matter but for me it does. While I was thinking about everything I 'know' I realized that a lot of the things do not have proper justifications, they are just things i believe. Its kind of hard to wrap your head around the fact that there are certain things that we do not really know and may never know.
While writing my "Personal Knower Biography," I realized how greatly affected I am by the cultural clashes of my Iraqi heritage and the fact that I was born and raised in the United States. Because I was born here in Fort Collins, Colorado, I do hold many very American behaviors. And the fact that both of my parents come from the land of Iraq also greatly influences my life, values, beliefs, and behaviors. It is strange to think that when I was learning to speak I would mix both Arabic and English to form a sort of "Arabenglish" when speaking to my parents. The personal profile helped me realize the fact that I seem to be a "Global Nomad" in a sense that I am part of both American and Iraqi culture, while not claiming complete ownership in either.
Some people say that now they don't "know" nearly as much as they used to. Neither do I. The thing is, I don't really care if something I "knew" I now only "believe." I still feel the same way towards it, it's just a different word.
But I think I expected that. I didn't ever consider however, that knowing another language could affect you knowledge more than just knowing another language. I always just figured it was a way to get ideas across to new people, but I never really thought about how you might discover new ideas that are unique to that language.
I leanrned that while I was growing up having an open mind has out weighed my religion. I was Christian, but there were some things I couldn't accept that I was told were true. In a way I closed my mind to them, but I haven't ruled them out completely. So really, I've just opened up many more possibilies of truth than the ones I was first introduced to.
i already knew that i am a very grounded person and i for the most part know what i believe in and why so i didn't really make any discoveries from these questions except for the fact that i don't really know anything...
Today in class Mr. Malone brought something up that made me realize that I kind of forgot to write about the influence of the generation that I grew up with in my Knower Profile. I didn't mention how much my judgment of my security and of other people has changed as a result of 9/11 and recent school shootings. I also realized that my age, or rather the time period that I have grown up in, has greatly influenced my outlook on issues such as war because my opinions from growing up during the Iraq war could be very different from someone who grew up during World War II or the Vietnam War. I learned, like many of you have mentioned, that it is really hard to describe what I know and how I know it.
I learned that there is always room to question. No matter how sure I am about something, whether it is belief or fact, I can also come up with something that questions it and makes me rethink what I have said. This has made me very unsure of myself, but I'm ok with that. It makes me want to learn more about myself and the way I think.
I noticed that I, and really any one for that matter, has the ability to convince themselves of anything. All you have to do is look for evidence that supports your claim, and you often to that naturally.
I've noticed that I really don't want to dig deep into my personality and life because I know I'll find things I hate, so I'll just keep trying to live day to day without going that way again and maybe it will work this time.
Ok... When after i wrote my little bio, and it was litte, I realized that honestly i dont know about myself all that much. I grew up in a middle class family and I grew up in a church. SO i have been going all my life. When I answered the prompts, I just put answers because really I have just been christian all my life and I have pretty conservative views. I realize that through this class, I will be able to question myself and this will help me so much more in faith aspect because I can justify what i believe in. While writing the bio, I honestly did the bare minimum. Don't ask me why, but I can say that i did. I can now look back and realize that that was just a cop out because I dont know why my gender or age would be significant. I dont know why I believe in God past the experiences and the emotion (I still have my faith and will for many years) however I never even thought of the questions about other gods or higher beings. I realized that I have been sheltered to believe in a certain thing no matter what...
i learned that i am very sure about what i believe and don't question it. i learned that i think that every factor in you life affect how you are and what you believe... which makes me wonder how anybody can ever agree on anything because we are all so different
One thing that occured to me while doing my Knower Biography was that experience builds how we approach situations and what we know as beliefs. I believe that the way we look at the world and other situations has a basis to our memory and experiences. For example my experience in Finland changed how I look at going off to college, also about my motivation to do something with my life and travel more. If I went to another foreign exchange I would look at it different and handle it better. Another example would be your experiences as a child with your parents. Your parents form the way you handle and look at situations. As you grow you may change those beliefs but they are the basis of your knowledge.
I have to admit that after doing the Knower Biography I've grown very uneasy about some of my beliefs that I've held true for a while but I am starting to understand more of who I am as a knower. One thing I can attribute to what in my mind is an interesting insight into the world that I can give is that I was raised without much outside influence. My parents never took me to church nor did they talk politics with me at all. I developed my own beliefs. Both of my parents are lawyers and are fairly liberal but I'm actually much further to the left than either of them.
I have to admit that after doing the Knower Biography I've grown very uneasy about some of my beliefs that I've held true for a while but I am starting to understand more of who I am as a knower. One thing I can attribute to what in my mind is an interesting insight into the world that I can give is that I was raised without much outside influence. My parents never took me to church nor did they talk politics with me at all. I developed my own beliefs. Both of my parents are lawyers and are fairly liberal but I'm actually much further to the left than either of them.
While I was doing the Knower Biography, I realized that I don’t really like thinking about what I believe. Perhaps I don’t really except what I believe in yet, and I am still searching for something better. There are many justifications for many different beliefs that I have heard, and a lot of them make sense to me.
I haven’t paid that much attention to what I believe for a long time, and questioned why I believe what I do.
I've always known how my opinions are changeable- swayed by the people I talk to and their logical arguments in support of their opinions. It bothered me. I could never be sure that what I thought was really what I thought, or just my reaction to other's reactions. It made me avoid actually deciding anything. I would just try to avoid anything where I actually had to make a stance. I could discuss things and play devil's advocate for someone easily, but I just couldn't decide what I thought.
Doing the Knower Biography, though, it made me realize just how much I have been able to decide things for myself. I know what I know. Of course, I won't take a stance on anything I don't know much about and haven't discussed, but I've gotten so much better at deciding my mind.
I learned that I don't question the knowledge that I'm given in school and at home. I just accept everything as valid and different knowledge on the same issue as equally valid. I realized I don't really know who to properly justify what I believe to be true.
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