WOK: Emotion

Emotion vs Cognition
In this lecture, the justification for emotion as a way of knowing was that although emotion is a illogical, subjective, the existence of qualia (the physical reactions emotions produce) means that there is a stimulus passing through the mind, and although unconscious, it is not less subjective than perception eg. perceiving color is subjective. It involves information being processed before stimulus arrives at the perception. The emotion also has knowledge such as instincts which can be vital for survival.

Another argument was that emotion gives knowledge meaning. Logic follows an emotional reaction, and arousal is essential to all mental functions. Boredom is the lack of emotion, and knowledge has no meaning if it does not arouse emotion.

I feel this argument in a broader philosophical sense is valid, but in a practical sense, weak. If it is emotion that gives knowledge meaning, it would mean for example people who find maths boring, do not find meaning in knowing maths. This is not necessarily true. I have times when although I am not interested in something, but I know the importance of knowing it, so I learn it. There may be no immediate emotional arousal when the knowledge is acquired by individuals.
However it is true that if there was no emotion behind all the knowledge we have, knowledge probably would not have been created. We search for knowledge because we want to, because we need to, and those are emotional reactions.

Language II

Swearing

As a part of using language as a means of knowing, we looked at the implications of swearing. In the day-to-day life we use it normally as strong means of expressing. We also looked at the literal meanings of swear words in different languages:

English=sexual

French=sexual

Quebecois=religious

Dutch=disease

Swedish=religious+ sexual

Danish=Devil, Satan, Hell

Finnish=Devil, illness

Japanese=animal+ sexual

There seems to be a similarity, that most of these are sources of fear.

However I think  the word ‘swearing’ in itself already reflects the English language and culture, and trying to look at the different swear words in different languages already specifies what we mean by swearing. In French we would call these words ‘gros mots’, and in Japanese we would just call this type of language ‘dirty’. I agree that most languages will have ‘bad’ and ‘taboo’ words to express strong emotion, but especially as we get away from the European languages and look at languages of completely different origins, this doesn’t apply directly the way ‘swear words’ have a role in English.

Humor

Humor is strongly linked to language and culture. My personal experience about this is again from my origins, Japanese. There is a type of comedy (like stand-up comedy or ironic humor) that exists only in Japan, which consists of being silly going along with a joke, and someone else intervening and saying the ‘punch line’. This sounds really weird in any other language and is completely alien to even cultures closer to Japanese like Korea or China. There is also an expression, “Go get laughter even if it sacrifices yourself (physically)”,  which explains the Japanese TV shows where people do the craziest things. 

Language

For language we had lectures by three different teachers, who looked at different aspects of language in TOK: different languages and perception through language, how language is used to manipulate etc.

I feel that perception of the world through different languages is a really significant part of our lives (as students of an international school). Most of us are polyglots, and we have a feel for different registers, such as colloquial, academic etc. The school we are in is bilingual, and by speaking both English and French, we all have a feel for different cultures as well. I think understanding a language helps get an insight into the culture relating to the language, because there are expressions and notions in different languages which translation destroys. For example French is a very flowery expressive language compared to languages such as German, English, Spanish, because it was originally the language of the diplomats. This is really true (statement from experience), because a sentence in English could take twice as long in French.

There was also a really interesting example that links language and perception.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b71rT9fU-I
This tribe has a different system for naming colors, which in fact allows them to distinguish colors that we can't easily. I also experience this when I talk Japanese and English: for example the word 悔しい(kuyashii) in Japanese describes an emotion between frustration and regret, which I don't know how to describe in English, and I actually feel most people that don't speak Japanese don't feel this exact emotion. It links to the quote, "If you can't say it, you don't know it".

Subjective knowledge

Today in TOK I came to realize how much the importance of different types of knowledge is subjective and personal. In an exercise where we were given the IB hexagon subjects and ranked them in order that we thought was closer to the Truth, my three top subjects were my Higher Level subjects: Maths, Physics, and Art. If I were to justify my reasons for each of them, I would find my personal views and preferences would interfere.

This was really interesting because, although for example maths is thought to be close to the truth by many people, personal taste could change this opinion. For a person who feels maths is less significant in their life, maths would seem further away from the truth.

Also, I honestly can agree with the quote by Louis Armstrong, "Man, if you have to ask what it is, you'll never know." I've been through personal experiences where whether or not a person 'feels it', or 'gets it' really changes their knowledge and perception. I think this is appears in most art forms; Personally I see this most in music, where I have a wide range of taste. If a person likes one genre but doesn't like another because he doesn't 'get it', he'll never know. When a picture paints a thousand words but an interviewer has to ask an artist why what he has done is good, the interviewer will never know. 

This relates to how personal opinion affects our perception, because a person may not be able to see the importance of something, due to 'not getting it' or 'not feeling it'. I think understanding this helps in trying to create compromise and enables people to empathize. 

Breyten Breytenbach

We had a guest speaker at school for TOK: Mr.Breyten Breytenbach.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breyten_Breytenbach
He had a very interesting life and perspective to share with us; an unimaginable experience compared to the world we live in. Mr. Breytenbach was an activist opposing the Apartheid rule in South Africa.

He mentions when he lived in South Africa, he lived in a privileged part of the country- which he called a 'false paradise'. It was a place referred to as 'multi-cultural', but it was on the verge of violence. "70% of the people in South Africa couldn't participate in the country's normal activities," he told us. Mr.Breytenbach describes his younger self, when he was a protester and went to exile, as idealistic.

In the 80's/90's, Nelson Mandela was released, and a new government was formed. The Apartheid government Mr. Breytenbach opposed, came to an end.

However, his opinion was that even now, South Africa is not out of the 'woods'. The systems that South Africa uses (administrative, political, economical) are not functioning as they should be. The idealism of when Nelson Mandela was in power died down, and the country is not united, and going forwards. And when things aren't going well, people look back at their differences: ethnicity, values etc.

He believes there is no Truth he cold imply on anybody else. There is tension between belief people adhere to, and the structure people do believe in. A Buddhist concept he likes is that people are closest to the truth only when he is not attached to it (eg. has his own views on the subject)
A life without attachment is the perfect life. But sometimes the illusions in life can be worth them as they are so beautiful.

I enjoyed listening to Mr.Breytenbach, because he has an insight that is meaningful, and has experience which works as its evidence, which has the power to convince. I felt that similar to what he witnessed, in the modern world there is also a lot of idealism, and people are united not with the same ideals, but are united because  they blame the same thing, often the government.
For example, I still don't quite understand what the recent Wall Street protests are about. At times it seems like people just hate bankers, at other times people want a better distribution of wealth because the richest are rich, and now because there was violence in a protest and there were victims.


Mr.Breytenbach had an opinion which I enjoyed, which was that the protests had a short-sighted view: it was not engaging to make a world a better place, and a young rebellion doesn't bring about compromise.

I understand that something has to be done, an initiative has to take place, to bring about change. Nonetheless is there really a point if we all don't really aim towards the same objectives and ideals, and just work together temporarily to crush whatever we have now?
I know I'm not idealistic, but I don't think the world is getting worse. I don't feel its getting better, but if I were to choose the world 50 years ago and the world now, I would choose now.

Perception & Ways of Knowing (Logical Reasoning)

Perception

• trust senses => better combined. 
• illusion
• empiricism
• 'tabula rasa'
• perception filters => subjectivity (view of the world)
• empathy
• confirmation bias

Growing up in an international environment, I think the difference in perception is something I've dealt with more than most my whole life. Although I do know that we live in a 'bubble'- being in an affluent country- I feel that I've met people who've come from such different backgrounds I can emphasize or at least understand there are so many ways of thinking out there I don't or can't understand. 

I also feel that my Japanese background helps me understand this: Japan has such a different secluded culture, which I have not grown up in but understand a lot of, which I know most 'foreigners' (most people who've lived in Japan would understand this notion) just won't understand. 

Ways of Knowing: Logical Reasoning

• Argument/Premise/Conclusion
• Sound Logic
• A valid/true argument
• A logical fallacy
• Inductive/Deductive Logic
• Inductive Sufficiency
• Fallacy:
• Appeal to fear & false choice
• Ad hominem
• False Clause

My bringing up gives me strong opinions on this subject. My mother is strong at deductive logic (a=b, b=c, thus a=c is a favorite phrase of hers), and because of this both my brother (identical to my mother) and my mother are rather genius mathematicians. Although I don't have this talent, I've been raised to use sound logic with my mother, who gets rather irritated with illogical things. I am more a person with inductive logic, which comes from my father. As for fallacies, I am almost oblivious to most fallacies: I just don't seem to see them when people around me pick up fallacies.