2011 - 2012 Reflections 2

September 12, 2011
Today we read an article and talked about what what science education should really teach. The article stated that students should learn to detect bad science instead of learn about factual science. I, however, disagree with the article because after we know what bad science is, it doesn't necessarily mean that we know what good science. As a result, we still don't know what is good science.

September 14, 2011
Today we talked about whether scientists should be responsible of the inventions. I personally don't think that scientists should be responsible for their work unless their intention in the first place was meant to be bad. However, that poses another issue because how can we ever know the scientists' intention?

September 20, 2011
Today we did a social science claims activity in which we had to evaluate the two statements with their certainty, validity, and the difference of social science law to physical science law. As a result, I came to the conclusion that social science laws aren't universal and changes according to the situation and individuals. This shows that social science laws are limited compared to physical science laws. Hence, I think that when we learn about a social science law, we have to be aware of its validity because the laws may not necessarily apply to us.

September 22, 2011
Today in class we were divided into four groups to form four surveys of two topics with either positive or negative responses. We then had to send our surveys to other groups. By doing this activity, I realized that language can be very manipulative in order to steer people's responses towards one direction rather than the other. I think learning ToK is useful because we learn about how we should always be aware of the validity of the knowledge and information that are presented to us.

September 28, 2011
Today we watched two ToK sample presentations in class. I think the sample presentations made me a little scared whether my group is doing the right thing. We have our topic and knowledge issue, but I'm not very sure whether we are evaluating our main knowledge issue in the right way (or deeply enough). More work has to be done!

September 30, 2011
Today we went to Mr. Isley class because he was going to talk to us about psychology as an Area of Knowledge. He introduced the three parts of personality - id, ego, super-ego. I think it's a little bit daunting about how there are actually three parts of our personality instead of one. I wonder...if there's only one part of personality in our mind, then maybe we are easier to understand. But if just either one of our parts exists, that would be very scary, especially if only our id is the only of our personality.

October 4, 2011
We continued psychology with Mr. Isley and he told about the ink block test. The ink block test is used by psychologists to help them diagnose their patients' sicknesses. However, when the test is tested by the scientific method, the test is actually said to be not very valid and not very reliable. This emphasizes that social science is very subjective and that it could be dangerous if patients are diagnosed wrongly.

Source of image: http://www.alaska-in-pictures.com/data/media/22/mt-rainier-sunset-reflections_8723.jpg

What is Death?

IB Class: English

As an introduction to Philip Larkin's poem Aubade, Ms. MacArthur gave us all a slip of paper to write down what we we think will happen to us when we die. I wrote something like this: "When we die, those who are satisfied with their life will be reborn to a new life. Those who are unsatisfied with their life can choose to remain in the world as spirits." This is what I think could happen, but I have absolutely no confidence or proof that this is true.

Then, Ms. MacArthur collected our responses and gave us other people's response to reply with. The one that I received stated something along the lines like: "When I die, nothing is left. I will fertilize the earth and people will slowly forget me." Because there isn't any proof  of heaven/hell/spirit/reincarnation, I felt as if what the person said was most probably going to be true. Yet, I still want to believe that reincarnation exists. In Buddhism, reincarnation is actually a form of suffering, because we have to go through the pains of birth, growing old, sickness, and death. I, however, do not think that living as a human being is suffering, because why would I want to be dead when I could live to experience the pleasures of life?

In the end, no matter what we believe in, we will not know what will truly happen to us after we die and when we die, we cannot return to tell the living about how death is. How do people predict how death is? What do they base their beliefs on? How reliable and valid their beliefs and their evidence? Can we ever know about something that cannot be proven? Even with our four ways of knowing and different areas of knowledge, death remains as an enigma to us.

What is the Definition of Music?

IB Class: Music

When I searched "define: music" on Google, the following are some of the definitions given:

1 The art or science of combining vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion.

2 A sound perceived as pleasingly harmonious.

When I was in Grade 10, my music teacher defined as music as "the organization of sound and silence". I think these three definitions would raise questions among certain musicians, hence, is there a universal definition of music of which agreed upon by the majority of musicians?

The first definition describes music as an art or science. For many years, music has been categorized as performing arts. Why, then, is it a science? Is it because musicians use a way that is similar to the scientific method to produce music? For example, a musician has in his mind about what he wants his music to express [purpose/aim]. He predicts that the best style to write his music in is a ballad [hypothesis]. He starts to write his music [experimentation]. He finishes writing his music [results]. His music is published and the public likes his music [conclusion that conforms with hypothesis]. Does this process show that music is science then? Does anything that follows a process similar to the scientific method will be considered as a science? Because something is considered as a scientific claim if it can be falsified, then can music, in any possible, be falsified?

The second definition states that music is "pleasingly harmonious". Question: Are all music pleasing to the ear? As a music student, I can definitely say no. Hence, I believe that I can say that this definition of music is inaccurate. The teacher's definition classifies silence as music. Is silence music? Is that why we have rests (pauses) in music? John Cage strongly believes that silence contributes a huge part in music. In fact, in 1952, he composed a piece of music called 4'33'', which consists of three movements of silence (although actually John Cage wanted to show in that piece that music is the sounds created by the audience during his 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence). Till this day, the piece of music remains controversial.

As a result, who defines music? Whose definition of music is correct? How do we know what is music? All in all, whose definition of anything is correct and how do we know what we know is what we think we know?

Source of image: http://yogainmyschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Music.jpg

Wisdom of Life?

Out of Class

"一个人要获得实在的幸福，就必须既不太聪明，也不太傻。人们把这种介于聪明和傻之间的状态叫做生活的智慧。"

"If a person wants to gain real happiness, s/he should neither be too smart, nor to foolish. People call the state between intelligence and foolishness as the wisdom of life."

I agree with the quotation above about how to live life. I think when we know too much about the world, that's when we start to lose the world's beauty and see its ugliness. A possible analogy to this situation could be this: A child used to believe in Santa Claus. When the child grows up, s/he will learn that Santa Claus doesn't exist. 

In relationships with people, I think it's best to be both smart and foolish. We should be smart to know what's going on, but foolish to ignore the things that could hurt us. Maybe this is when I'm starting to block some of my perception and reason (WoKs), so that I do not see the certain imperfectness in relationships. Hence, when I know only partial truth, the partial truth becomes my personal truth and pragmatic truth. The partial truth that I know if sufficient to keep me happy and to prevent me from sadness. 

Some may disagree with me that being foolish and ignorant is the wrong way of living life. Some might think that purposefully being ignorant is just a way of escaping from the truth. Well, who decides what's the best and right way of living life? How is the absolute truth better than pragmatic truth or vice versa? Why can't we live in a way that conforms with ethical egoism? How and who decides that living with ethical egoism is right or wrong?

I accept the fact that sometimes being foolish promotes my happiness in the long run. If I become too smart in relationships, I will lose some people that I never want to lose.

Source of image: http://www.turnbacktogod.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/life-on-paper.jpg

Follow Your Heart and Intuition

Out of Class

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become."

Above is what I quoted from Steve Jobs' speech at Stanford University's graduation in 2005. As a senior in high school, when it is the time to apply to colleges, I feel the stress of the conflict of my intuition and others' opinions.

When I use my emotion (WoK), I feel that I want to to major in event management in university. I feel that I will only go to a school that offers that as a major. I feel that a school's name isn't as important as long as they have good internship and a good program. That isn't necessarily what others think. Others say that I should apply to schools with big names. Others say that I should major in business management in case I don't like event management in the future. Others say...

When I listen other people's opinions and try to make a judgment out of it, I use reason (WoK). These people who talk to me are more experienced in life than me, so there must be a certain level of truth in their words, right? They just want the best for me, hence I should follow their advice. This is when my emotion tries to overthrow my reason. Why do I feel miserable if I try to follow their advice? How do I decide which school is the best for me? Is just looking at a school's website sufficient? How much on the school's website can I trust? How much can I trust the school's representative (those who came to SSIS)? How do I know if I should follow my intuition or other people's advice?

I like Steve Jobs' quotation because that's exactly what I want to do. By connecting this to my previous blog entry, my super-ego is fighting against my id. I'm not very sure about what I should do at the moment. I need guidance. Hopefully soon enough I'll make a decision, a decision that conforms with my heart and intuition.

Source of image: http://www.apple.com/

The Id, Ego, and Super-ego

In Class

Mr. Isley talked to our class about psychology when Ms. Jackson was in Borneo for a WWW trip (lucky!). He introduced one of Sigmund Freud's theory - the Three Parts of Personality. The three parts of personality are our id, ego, and super-ego. Our id is our natural pleasure zone, essentially where our deepest desires lie. Our ego is what we show to the public, or what others see of us. Our ego consists of our rational thinking and logical mind. Last but not least, or super-ego is the part of us which holds our morality and rules.

As illustrated in the figure above, our three parts of personality is like an iceberg. The whole of our id is hidden underwater, half of our ego is seen, while only partial of our super-ego is above sea level. I then asked Mr. Isley, if our id is in the unconscious part of our mind, how much do we know about our id? I think I was asked who knows me the most, I would say myself. However, if most of our id is hidden, how much do we actually know about ourselves? In the public, we act with rational thought and in a way that society expects us to act. If our id is what we truly want, then does what we show in the public consider as fake?

In the four Ways of Knowing, emotion and reason are the ones that come from ourselves. If our super-ego exists, then our reason is not what we truly think, but rather how we are taught and expected to think. Does that then mean that emotion is the only way we can find out how we feel about things and matters? How does one then define how they feel through emotions? How are emotions determined? Does an accelerating heartbeat rate mean nervousness or something else? How can one decide? I guess the ultimate question is - how much do we know about ourselves?

Source of image: http://digitalciv.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/iceberg.jpg

Questionnaire - Negative Responses Regarding New Advisory System

In Class

Currently studying Social Sciences as an Area of Knowledge in class, our class was divided into four groups of which we were assigned one topic and one type of response that we were supposed to acquire. My group had to conduct a survey regarding the new advisory system and we had to come up with questions that would receive negative responses. The following are the five questions and their results:

1 Do you think class meetings/advisories are necessary? 3 Yes and 7 No
2 Does it bother you that class meetings/advisories are taking away your lunch time? 7 Yes 3 No
3 Do you think having class officers is useful? 7 Yes 3 No
4 Do you really listen to your advisory teachers during advisory? 4 Yes 6 No
5 Would you agree that last year's break time was longer and more useful? 3 Yes 7 No
6 Would you like to extend your current break time? 9 Yes 1 No

We acquired the results that we wanted in questions 1, 2, 4, and 6. Question 2 is like an illusion because other than Monday, our lunches are actually 55 minutes long - almost 1 hour! Our subjects felt as if their lunches were cut short because of class meetings or advisories, but last year we had tutorial/advisory everyday in the morning so in reality our lunches are much longer this year. Although we received satisfactory results in question 4, we also recognized that our subjects have the incentive to lie because they want to look good to the people who are reading their answers. This is called as the observer's effect. As a result, our results might not have been very accurate.

On the other hand, we didn't achieve the results that we wanted in questions 3 and 5. We later realized that some of our subjects had the obligation to choose "yes" in question 3 because they themselves are either part of student council or a class officer. Hence, of course they chose "yes" instead of "no". For question 5, it was our poor wording that made our results steered in the wrong direction.

Overall, I personally think that my group's survey was fairer than other groups' surveys because we didn't limit our options to only either positive or negative responses. Our subjects had full liberty to choose what they really wanted to answer, unless they had other reasons to lie on the survey. As a result, I learnt that surveys can be misleading due to the use of language. Hence, when reading results of surveys or statistics, we should always be aware that what we see may not always be the truth.

2011 - 2012 Terminology 2

1 Creationism versus Evolution
Creationists base their views on religious beliefs while those who believe in evolution base their beliefs on scientific evidence. Karl Popper thinks that evolution is science because theory comes first instead of observation.

2 Thomas Kuhn
The philosopher of science who introduced the term "paradigm shift" in science.

3 Reductionist Thinking
A form of explanation of science based on the idea that a complex system can be reduced to its simpler parts. This is a common way to try to explain things.

4 Coherence Theory
Something that is true when it fits with other theories. Scientific theory is true when it describes reality accurately.

5 Law of Large Numbers
If we get enough people, even though individuals are unpredictable, we can make accurate short term trends because the number of exceptions can be cancelled.

6 Three Parts of Personality
The three parts of personality are our id, superego, and ego. The id is our natural pleasure zone, the superego is our conscience in which we act to conform with society's rules, while the ego is what we show to other people.

7 The Rorschach Test
A ink block test conducted by psychologists to help diagnose their patients' sickness. This test is said to be not very reliable and valid after the scientific method is used to test it.

8 The Milgram Experiment
An experiment conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram to find out whether people will obey to authority figures to do actions that go against their conscience. The results show that people follow orders even though it conflicted with their moral beliefs.

9 The Stanford Prison Experiment
An experiment conducted by Professor Philip Zimbardo in August 1971 in order to find out whether good people will turn bad when put into an evil situation. The experiment was originally planned to take place for two weeks, but was stopped after 6 days because of ethical issues.

10 Observer Effect
People answer or act different than they naturally would because a person is watching or will read their answers. Social scientists want to minimize this effect in experiments.

11 Holism
The whole of a system is not equal to the sum of its parts.

12 Reductionism
We can understand and explain something by looking at its component parts (opposite of holism).