Weekly Blogpost #19

Thursday, December 19th, 2013

The Knowledge of Emotions

I wonder how much emotions are part of personal knowledge, and how much is part of shared knowledge...

I know, I am always mentioning emotions when it comes talking about knowledge. But emotions intrigue me the most. It seems to be the way of knowing I am the most familiar with, yet at the same time it is one that is difficult to define and is covered in ambiguity.

Emotions are felt and expressed by individuals, no doubt on that. If I feel anger, I alone feel and express the anger. The people around me, though they may share the emotion of anger, express it in their own unique ways, apart from my mine. Already, there is the question of "shared" and "personal". Is anger shared in the sense that the group of people are feeling the same emotion at the same time for a mutual reason? Or is anger personal because it is distinctly felt for each individual? 

If we keep on, I may have particular intentions behind the way that I convey my emotions, to transmit my emotions in a certain way. But then, the way that the people receive my anger is distinct for each person. This process of personal to shared to personal is similar to a phone game. The message being transmitted goes through so many intermediaries that the content of its message may be much altered and distorted by the time it reaches destination. 

And then, people may learn to feel or express themselves in certain ways from different people. Learning to feel... Isn't weird to think of it that way? Learning to be angry, learning to be sad, learning to be happy, learning to love. I wonder how one would feel without the possibility of emotions, either feeling or expressing. How would life be when one loses a way to communicate to the world, to show what one feels?

BBT 18

Friday, December 13th, 2013

Why does it seem that reason and math are so very closely linked?

Why are they a good pair?

Math has incorporated our way of reasoning things. Math becomes a language, a process of deduction, that has a logical sequence. This builds a certainty that attracts many people into using it as a way to think. Math also is a language that helps us visualize things. For example, when we count, try to categorize, we usually use a mathematical process (addition, division,...) in order to figure the final amount. Math helps us explain, rationalize, because of the certainty it builds with its clearly defined and seemingly universally accepted language. A person on one side of the globe may understand the mathematical reasoning of someone from the other side (except for minor writing differences), understand the process of the conclusion. Words, that may create ambiguity and have their major power from the source of their open interpretation, do not allow these clear-cut definitions to emerge. Furthermore, math has defined terms. There is usually not much confusion about the "x" that we are talking about, because one of the requirements in math is to have all terms defined. This provides proofs, that are usually irrevocable if the mathematical reasoning and processes behind are correctly performed and carried out. Finally, math defines the absolutes. Of course, zero and infinity are concepts that are open to interpretation. However, math does not necessarily require the grasp of these concepts. It requires that one knows how to apply them in the equation, to have an understanding of the purpose. 

Math does not ask people to question the reasoning, and this paradox is what makes math an appealing way of reasoning. 

Weekly Blogpost #18

Monday, December 9th, 2013

The Pleasure-as-a-driving-force Concept

"Il faut manger pour vivre et non pas vivre pour manger." 

This is the quote I remembered during AP World. It was said in Moliere's play "The Miser". It states that one has to eat to live and not eat to live. It is true that many humans nowadays (I say many because it is not the case for all) do not live in order to survive. Nowadays, many of us are driven by the pleasure principle. Most of the people around me live to eat, in the sense that they do things for the sake of doing them, not in order to survive, not for a deeper purpose. The thing is, most of us, or at least the people around me, do not see the necessity of struggling to survive. We have things besides us, we do not need to fight in order to have food upon our table.

This just made me think about the point society arrived nowadays. Whereas people, in the past, needed to focus their efforts, consecrate their knowledge, in order to optimize their chances of survival, people nowadays have the liberty to think about more "trivial" things. 

But then, in some sense, technology became a big part of our lives, almost to the point that we cannot survive without technology. Some people may argue that this is psychological, that were we to try, we would manage to go along without technology. But then, who knows? Are we really driven by pleasure principle, or is that "source of pleasure" actually becoming a source of survival?

Weekly Blogpost #17

Sunday, December 8th, 2013

Questioning the certainty of Math

I will take the opportunity of this post to answer your question about whether it is a good or a bad thing to question the certainty of math. At least in my opinion.

As a confession, I have to say I had felt somewhat shattered when I first came upon this realization. "Wait, so the only subject where I was sure everything I would do, all the solutions I come up with, are certain and absolutely right may actually not be so?". But then, as I thought about it more, I was happy and became increasingly drawn to math because of its questionable quality. If math was all certainty, there would not be experts and professors seeking new properties under the name of math. We would already know all the answers, all the formulas, and there would be no need for more. 

Many people during our last class's discussion raised the idea that math was everywhere, found in nature. I partly agree with this claim, yet disagree a little as well. As I had said before, the concepts of math are found in nature. Look at a snail's shell or leaves: perfect geometry. Consider the universe: reflected in the concepts of infinity. Examine the half-lives, or cellular fission: there will not be a nothingness, a "zero", as there is matter left all the time when the particles separate in half (the only way to obtain zero is by having zero at the beginning, in the numerator, of the division). But then, had we not given these mathematical terms, these names, to the processes we find, would we be able to talk about math? We would be describing the terms and the concepts in question, yet they would not be under the language we use when we are mathematically speaking. Math is still a language, and therefore, the way that we communicated in math has been invented by us. Though the concepts have been discovered, the name that we give the concepts, the way that we communicate what we have discovered and found and encountered, have been thought up by us. 

The uncertainty in math gives us the curiosity to do math. If math were an absolute paradigm of only truths, there would not be the need to look for the answers. We would just have to grab a book, or a record, that contains all the answers that we seek in order to get to the truth, the knowledge that we are seeking for. The uncertainty of the concepts behind math combined with the unquestionable logical reasoning behind mathematical processes are the magical components of math that may enchant us, or maybe inspire fear in us.

BBT 17

Friday, December 6th, 2013

What does floor 0 mean? Should elevators use 0?

Some countries use floor 0 for the main floor, the main floor meaning the bottom floor above ground, before the floors going underground. Other countries substitute the floor 0 to lobby and other equivalents, or floor 1.

Before, in my young age, I had asked about the meaning of a floor 0. The floor 0 had struck me when I compared the use of the term "floor 0" with the use of "lobby" or "floor 1". 0 was used in many apartments and buildings in France, though more modern apartments and buildings used lobby; Korea used 1 most of the times, though some modern buildings began using lobby instead. Now however, I really do wonder about the meaning of a floor 0. Oh, I feel that by the end of this year, with half the term for ToK, I am going to end up having weird, or unconventional and "original", debates with people. The way that I see it, following my experiences with a couple of different systems, I think the use of lobby is better than the use of 0. The thing is, yes, of course 0 is before 1, following the concept of the number line. However, 0 is not the same as the other numbers. 

Homework from Week #16

Wednesday, December 4th, 2013

Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea

1) Why is zero such a dangerous idea?
Zero has properties different from other numbers. It means infinity and void simultaneously. The concept of zero is one that is very abstract, as if zero pertained to another world, a world of its own. Zero also has the power to connect and create, but also to destroy and render null. It has much substance, much meaning, much depth and complexity, yet at the same time embodies a void and emptiness. This mix of paradoxes, the circumlocution of the concepts of infinity and nothingness (also subjects to much debate and misunderstanding and confusion) at the same time creates a certain mysticism and uncertainty to zero, and makes it seem dangerous.
2) Was zero discovered or invented?
The concept of zero always existed (in some way). The designation of the concept as zero was invented.
3) What did reading about zero make you think about?
I had not realized how much zero can be subject to much questioning and wonders. I hadn't thought about zero under certain of the presented perspectives, especially the one about the multiplication. One of the most powerful properties that we use in math is the ZPP, or the Zero Product Property. It is true that thinking of a simple circular shape, known as zero, can render void an entire number, no matter how long and big, or how infinitely long and small. But then, in AP Calculus, I have been questioning similar topics over and over. We always end up talking about the concept of infinity and limits, and all. This also included zero, but we never really expanded the terms in depth. We mentioned these characteristics, but never named them concretely.
You know, following Pre-Calculus and AP Calculus and now ToK, I am increasingly drawn to the conclusion that maybe math may not all be about certainty only after all. The logic, the reasoning, behind math is certain, unquestionable. But the concepts themselves are open to much uncertainties and doubts.

Weekly Blogpost #16

Saturday, November 30th, 2013

Living a Story

A book, or rather books, I enjoyed in the past were the ones making up the Inkheart trilogy. The centerplot of the trilogy lay in the protagonist Mo's and his daughter Meggie's ability to read bring words to life. After a series of events, the two, along with many other characters, end up in the middle of the story plot of a book set in the fantasy world of Inkheart.

The reason this reminded of ToK? As I was rereading the last book, Inkdeath, a particular line that went like this, "As she received the news of her mother pregnant with a sibling, Meggie wondered whether the child would belong to the real world or the world of the book. But then, maybe even the other world she considered real had been part of a story as well.". This triggered the idea of a Brain in a Vat, and the ultimate question of "What is reality? How do we know anything is real?". 

I never don't question the reality I am living in. Whether I am living in the real world or in an imaginary world created by words written in a book or in a digital world programmed by computers and people, the world I am living in, the life I am leading, is my reality. And I will make the best out of the reality I have. I will strive for the best ending in my reality, the story I belong in and am developing.