Thursday, April 25, 2013
Stretch the Net, Tighten Your Grasp
As you continue to hone your Knowledge Question composition skills, let's search farther afield for their sources. For Tuesday morning (30 April), please find a moment of knowledge that you do not yet fully
comprehend. You needn't limit yourself to instances of rational, academic confusion; if emotion is a way of knowing, mustn't it also be a way of not yet knowing? In working, then, to understand this knowledge moment, work also to understand
the nature of its components. In so doing, relate that moment of newly acquired knowledge (with which
you may still be wrestling) to another in a different area of
knowledge. Then, you guessed it, document the entire process in a post
that culminates in a Knowledge Question. Remember in your documentation
to consider the ways the process was shaped by your role as the unique
knower.
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One question that I have not fully understood is: How can we consider if a person is knowledgeable? In order to answer this question, I have to understand what knowledge means. According to dictionary.com, knowledge has a couple slightly different definitions; some of them focus more on the knowledge in text, but others include the knowledge gained through experience and awareness. For me, I believe that the nature of knowledge can be everything in our life, from what we learn from the books to what we get from our lives. Thus, in my opinion, the word knowledge should be a combination of both academic knowledge and knowledge in life. When I think about the knowledge in my life, I often relate it to the common sense. Does it count as a kind of knowledge as well? If not, why not? However, common sense can be very different for different groups of people, so if it is a knowledge, what is a true knowledge? Does knowledge have a true or false answer? From that, I remember the book we read in English class called “The Woman in the Dunes”. Niki Jumpei, the protagonist in the book, strongly believes that sand is dry in the beginning based on what he has learned from books. Because of that, when the woman first tells him that sand can be wet, he does not believe it at all. He thinks that the woman is joking. However, after he gets used to the life in the sandpit, he realizes that sand can be wet, and it can even be used to clean the plates. Is that also a knowledge? The woman and Niki Jumpei use different ways of knowing, and they end up with different conclusions. Can both of their conclusions be considered knowledge? From this process of thinking, I extract a knowledge question: How can the ways of knowing impact the knowledge?
ReplyDeleteIf we can’t KNOW whether we KNOW or not, how can we KNOW if we exist? We have been tackling this “how do we know that we know” question this entire year, and yes, there are many ways to “know” however it is very difficult to also understand IF we do know what we know, how can we bring that to the next level. How we know we know this is because of many other senses and people, but then how do we KNOW if those things are real, and then how is everything else real. Are we real and how do we know if we are? I know that legally my birthday is July 18, 1996 because it is written on legal documents, but I don’t actually know when my real birthday is. Because of this how do I know if I was actually born in the month of July? Maybe my birthday is in June and legally I didn’t exist for an entire month...This is something that always interests me but puzzles me at the same time, because there are many moments where I wonder if I am alive and ACTUALLY something, or am a little ant to some other “thing” in the universe. We can look at the situation from a few different perspectives because we may be just little ants or we can be what ever we want to be. I’m not quite sure how this can relate to my initial piece of knowledge but this KQ formed: How can knowledge hurt you?
ReplyDeleteThis weekend, instead of doing laundry, I spent my time playing video games in the common room. In one particular video game, Final Fantasy X, I needed to level up one of the characters, Tidus, so that he could wield the final Ultima Weapon which would allow me to finish the game. The only way I could do that was to go out into the battle field and fight the hardest and most powerful monsters. In my quest to level up even faster, I surfed the intertubes and discovered that any experience points gained in the battle were equally distributed among the three fighters at the time of the battle, regardless of which character had more hits or which one dealt the final blow. The logical explanation would be to incapacitate the two other characters and leave Tidus alive so that he could hoard all of the experience points. In battle, Tidus could literally attack and kill his own party and also cure the monsters so that the battle would last longer, giving him more experience points. However, wasn't that cheating the game? Wasn't it the point of the entire game for Tidus to work with his team mates against the monster? There had been nothing in the storyline to hint at the fact that I would need to pit characters against each other and work at preserving a monster's life. If I hadn't come across the tidbit of knowledge on the intertubes, I wouldn't have even known that it was possible for me to give such a command of attack. I understood that it was possible, but I didn't understand why the game would be fashioned in such a way as to let players cheat their way through levels. This event led me to consider how effectively players had construed the game's intent; which was not at all effectively.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I had not considered this idea before because I was not accustomed to looking at walkthroughs or using shortcuts in a game. Or perhaps it was I who was misunderstanding the intent of the game. Either way, the strategies and methods one considers when attempting to solve a problem are different based on the individual knower and his/her previous experiences.
The understanding and misunderstanding of intent also led me to consider the novels we read in English class and many people's frustrations in understanding symbols, allusions and allegories. At times, it is the author's intent to express more than the words that are written on the page, and at times, it is the author's intent to express only that which has been written. In both cases, there are individuals who either attempt to find meaning where it is not present, or take objects at face value when they are meant to be analyzed. There can be a misunderstanding of intent in both cases, which led me to consider the knowledge question:
To what extent does the creator's intent shape the recipient's understanding?
This weekend I went to my sister’s dance competition to watch her dances and to hang out with my friends. While I was backstage and while on stage for awards, I was surrounded by dancers from my studio. They looked like the girls I knew. They dressed the same. However the way they treated their parents, friends, dance teachers, and anyone they ran in to at the competition was outrageous! They had no respect for themselves or for those around them. I sure hope I was never like that. When I was dancing at this studio and competing I remember looking up at my dance teachers and respecting them anywhere we went. If they told me to do anything I did to the greatest strength that I could achieve. There were competition rules that we needed to follow in order to remain part of the team. These rules were never spoken but they were heavily implied. This confusion of what happened to these silent rules cumulated into a knowledge question. To what extent is one conscious of their ignorance?
ReplyDelete**Conscious may not be the perfect word that I am looking for**
I watched “A Beautiful Mind” this weekend. One concept that I’ve had interest in that appeared in the film was the conviction that nothing is absolute, but then I thought about how self-contradicting that belief is. My thought process afterwards was as such: what if I already know the truth that I seek? If that’s so, and I’m denying myself happiness, my life will have been wasted. Should I throw away my morality and live as I please and accept the consequences in the afterlife, if there is one? If this life is cruel, why should the afterlife be any different, right? There’s no way of knowing—yet. Thus, it is best for one to live as he or she pleases because I’m sure that if indeed the higher power is fair and logical, it or they will see through beings’ desire to attain a place near it or them and look at the true character of the individual, beneath all deeds: ill or good. I then got to wonder how logical people could believe in a deity or deities. How could it be logical to believe in something that cannot be proven with reason? If anything, the most logical reason that comes to mind is that everything was one big science experiment gone wrong and “God” did not intend for evolution and such. In the acceptance speech made in the movie by John Nash he said: “What truly is logic? Who decides reason? My quest has taken me to the physical, the metaphysical, the delusional, and back. I have made the most important discovery of my career - the most important discovery of my life. It is only in the mysterious equations of love that any logic or reasons can be found.” It was when Nash asked for proof that Alicia loved him and the dialogue: “Alicia: How big is the universe? Nash: Infinite. Alicia: How do you know? Nash: I know because all the data indicates it's infinite. Alicia: But it hasn't been proven yet. Nash: No. Alicia: You haven't seen it. Nash: No. Alicia: How do you know for sure? Nash: I don't, I just believe it. Alicia: It's the same with love I guess,” occurred that I understood that I saw the correlation between knowing through logic and love, what Nash, or at least movie-Nash, felt were one and the same.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I then contemplated love as a way of knowing. Couldn’t it provide false knowledge? Furthermore, if that’s true, isn’t false knowledge not knowledge at all? As it has been said, “Love is blinding.” Once one falls out of love, he or she can see more clearly the person he or she was in love with and the events that happened in the duration of his or her affair. Onward, I saw pain as a primary way of knowing because if anything is real, it has to be pain because science can often be proven wrong, but you cannot deny when you’re feeling pain. As a result of reflecting on pain as a contender in the competition to be regarded as the real way of knowing, I ruminated on the likelihood of time being the verifiable way of knowing. Time is more powerful, more substantial to existence than most of us imagine it to be. What you were and are not now cannot be said to be true about you now. For example, you were seven years old, but you are not now. You were a baby, but are not now and will not be again, physically speaking. What holds true for the past does not necessarily hold true in the present or future. If forever and eternity do not exist, doesn’t that mean everything will in the end be false because nothing will exist and so, nothing we accept now will hold true then? The only fact will be that there is nothing and time’s history. Time will not even exist any more. All there will be will be unspoken past, empty present and nonexistent future. The objective will be left. But then, if there is a present, won’t there always be a future? There may be nothing in the present or future, but there will always be a past, present and future. Time is the only infinite. Only time can tell. You can only know with time.
DeleteI don’t really know what lies ahead, but I believe there will always be an ahead. Maybe with science and time my belief will become knowledge. All I know for now is that I know I don’t know, or at least that I don’t know whether I know what’s true or not yet.
Finally, I present to you: “What makes time so powerful?”
As a knower, or knowledge seeker, I like to consider the least conventional idea the most. This is how I entertain myself. Then, I compare the conventional idea to the non. I suppose I seek to do this and so, my knowledge is shaped by my ways of approach.
Delete"Out!"
ReplyDelete"Uhh... excuse me.. I'm certain that was in."
"If you're talking about your serve, then no, it was out by a LONG shot."
"I'm afraid you're mistaken. We both saw that ball hit the line. We ALL saw that ball hit the line. That. Was In."
Hi, I'm Caroline Lord, and I'm confused about a lot of things. One thing I'm certain of, though, was that Winchendon's serve was way out of the service box. It wasn't even near the line! Or was it...? In all honesty, it may have hit the line. Which would have made it in. Which would have won them the point. But really, what certainty can there be in a split-second's worth of rubber-to-concrete contact? In tennis, the in-ness or out-ness of a ball is in the eye of the beholder, and in this case the eye was mine. But I was still confused. And I had a TOK post coming up. So I dug deeper. When I called the ball out, I saw what I wanted to see. Obviously I wanted the point. Obviously the ball was close enough to the line to cause confusion. But what if it hadn't been out? For the brief moment before I called it out, I was certain of my decision. My opponent's emphatic protestation, however, made me question that. What if it had been in and in my desperation I had tricked myself into thinking it was not? It wouldn't be a difficult situation to understand. Second serve, ball on/almost past the line. You call it out. But this made me wonder - how often does this type of thing happen?
I can think of too many situations where the combination of uncertainty and ambition can cause a person to come up with a skewed version of what has happened in actuality which best suits them. And in truth, what is reality but humanity's subjective interpretation of what's happening around them? Because everything is subject to the interpretation of humans who always have #1 in mind, we can never be sure about a moment of knowledge. My question, therefore, is as follows: How does a person's motivations and emotions impact what they see as reality?
Also, props to Elizabeth for her KQ - I think it's a really important to keep in mind when approaching any area of knowledge. Nice one!
A moment of confusion I faced this weekend took place in the car while I was listening to iheartradio. I have always loved Pit Bull’s music, so when “I Know You Want Me” (Calle Ocho) came on I was ready to jam. One of the things I enjoy most when I listen to a song of his is that he includes Spanish words and phrases in his lyrics. One phrase he uses a lot is “dale”. I first heard this phrase outside of his music last year during Spanish class when we were learning commands. Jess told us that this command means “give it to me”. In my head I related it to Pit Bull’s lyrics, and mistakenly in a sexual context. Now I have realized why I assumed this, because most pop songs have a sexual connotation. Back to my moment, after the song was over there was a feature on where the broadcasters were talking to Pit Bull about what dale actually meant. He explained that dale was just something he said, that it did not really mean anything, and that sometimes he said it in regular conversation. So at that moment I felt a little stupid for assuming, but this made me question my way of knowing and understanding language.
ReplyDeleteKQ- To what extent can we trust our perception of language?
Thinking about this idea I thought back to our English class. While reading “The Stranger” by Albert Camus I had trouble understanding the complexity of the novel and the why it was written. At first I just assumed that the book was written about a weird cruel man. Now I have realized that this is because I was not aware of the context the novel was written in. By writing the novel in the first person Camus excludes the option to fully understand Algerian culture at the time. So, Camus’ language may have been plain and straight forward, but he was writing about a much more complex idea.
This all relates because in both situations I assumed the meaning of the language, but was eventually proved wrong.