'Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.' (Martin Luther King)
The quote above by Martin Luther King implies that being ignorant and unaware with stupidity works out to be the most dangerous outlook in the world. Carrying forward an oblivious attitude preventing one to understand the various cultures, people, global issues, religions around the world will only cause, or deepen tribulations. Hence being ignorant with what is around us pays of as being the most dangerous aspect. I would have to agree with this quote, because unawareness often does lead to misunderstandings but also enhances problems. For example if more people were less ignorant about excess waste and Hong Kong landfills filling up, they would perhaps decide to recycle and produce less waste. Not knowing, in this case could be lethal. Another example would be how a common courtesy for one culture is an offense for others. These examples demonstrate how a gap in knowledge can lead to serious consequences. In the same way I do believe that my view of knowledge is rather limited.
We often blindly follow what society and figures in authority show us is right. The episode of west wing revealed how maps showed third world countries smaller than they actually were implying they were less significant. Most of us would go on to believe what a printed map would show us unintentionally surrending to conscientious stupidity. This ultimately would end up dangerous. Sharing everyone’s ‘map of the world’ I came to learn how everyone shared a varied view on their center of the world. Again with the school knowledge activity no two people interpreted their school life knowledge in the same way. This taking me to a conclusion that all of us have a different perception, and referring back to the quote, showing ignorance to other viewpoints will only wind up as dangerous. Without being aware of issues around us, and other believes that surround ones personal opinion will only work out harmful.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Chloe Chan - Knowers and Knowing
'Self-knowledge is like a garden. If it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested.' (Ghanaian proverb)
Brainstorm:
Knowledge is only knowing
Wisdom is understanding
Learning is not enough
3 Key words:
Garden
Cultivated
Harvested
Main message:
We have to understand and not only know something. Through understanding we get the full potential of our knowledge.
Paraphrase:
We may have the basis to which knowledge can be placed and only know many things, but building on knowledge in itself is not enough. We must act to develop our knowledge further in order for it to be really successful. By doing this, knowledge will become wisdom.
Opinion:
In accordance to the west wing clips where knowledge is questioned and it is concluded that knowledge is not perfect, I think this quotation shows that perhaps the reason why knowledge is not always right, is because we do not fully understand the knowledge we acquire. By connecting the quotation to the exercises I think the action of ‘cultivating’ maybe to explore our learnt knowledge deeper and to question it. In connection to my view of knowledge (where knowledge should be accurate and it is hard to accept different theories that contradict my previous knowledge,) I think this quotation is correct in saying that knowledge isn’t much alone. This quotation suggests that what we learn in school is only the basis, where knowledge is only built and we don’t really learn how to apply the knowledge. It hints that school does not help us develop our knowledge and experiences. This in turn tells us that we can’t really be fully successful just by acquiring knowledge from school.
Brainstorm:
Knowledge is only knowing
Wisdom is understanding
Learning is not enough
3 Key words:
Garden
Cultivated
Harvested
Main message:
We have to understand and not only know something. Through understanding we get the full potential of our knowledge.
Paraphrase:
We may have the basis to which knowledge can be placed and only know many things, but building on knowledge in itself is not enough. We must act to develop our knowledge further in order for it to be really successful. By doing this, knowledge will become wisdom.
Opinion:
In accordance to the west wing clips where knowledge is questioned and it is concluded that knowledge is not perfect, I think this quotation shows that perhaps the reason why knowledge is not always right, is because we do not fully understand the knowledge we acquire. By connecting the quotation to the exercises I think the action of ‘cultivating’ maybe to explore our learnt knowledge deeper and to question it. In connection to my view of knowledge (where knowledge should be accurate and it is hard to accept different theories that contradict my previous knowledge,) I think this quotation is correct in saying that knowledge isn’t much alone. This quotation suggests that what we learn in school is only the basis, where knowledge is only built and we don’t really learn how to apply the knowledge. It hints that school does not help us develop our knowledge and experiences. This in turn tells us that we can’t really be fully successful just by acquiring knowledge from school.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Yixia Gu: Response to Knowers and Knowing
'Education is learning what you didn’t even know you didn’t know.' (Daniel J. Boorstin).
This phrase is a very interesting one, because how do we acknowledge or realize that we actually don't know something if we haven't been taught to recognize this uncertainty? Once we receive education, we are simultaneously enlightened in our thoughts and how we view the world, and at this point we find that there are actually many things we haven't come across upon in experience. This quotation of Daniel J. Borrstin is suggests that the original, fundamental purpose and existence of Education is simply to open doors of the 'unknown' in a world of the apparent 'known'.
Education as defined, is the power of reasoning and judgment to prepare ourselves for intellectually mature life. This, I believe is a valid point in my view of knowledge: if a person walked through a garden and didn’t know what the bunches of ‘colourful-many petalled-thing on a stalk’ was, he or she wouldn’t be able to appreciate the ‘flowers’ in the garden fully- the apparent ignorance limited their perspective, and only allowed them to see ‘flowers’ as lovely colourful things. Take sports for instance, perhaps playing basketball may seem easy enough; the players dribbling balls and passing them with agility and ease. However, once I actually had a basketball lesson, I realized that I didn’t actually have the knowledge of handling the ball or playing it properly which was reflected during the basketball games. This example ties in quite well with our lives as students. One of the reasons why there were a range of pictures of ‘school knowledge’ was because each us valued the knowledge from school environment differently. We were influenced by our preferences and we are eclectic in learning “what we didn’t know, and the things we appeared on the paper could have been due to their importance in paving the way for greater depth in understanding. Thus, Education to me is also learning to know.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Jason Herrera : Knowers & Knowing - Interpretation of Knowledge
'Shall I teach you what knowledge is? When you know a thing, to recognize that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to recognize that you do not know it. That is knowledge.' (Confucius)
Confucius is one of the greatest minds in ancient China. He came up with influential ideas about respect and the family which people in China still see as virtues today. The quotation above is Confucius' interpretation of knowledge. He is basically saying that knowledge is one-self realizing whether you know something or not. 'When you know a thing, to recognize that you know it' means that when you know a thing, you must identify it as something you've seen before and you should stick to your own perception of the knowledge, and 'When you do not know a thing, to recognize that you do not know it.' means that when you don’t know something; you must identify it as something that you haven’t seen before, and important that you must learn from it.
From the West Wing videos I watched last lesson, the new world maps stunned me a little as it is something I’ve never seen before and it goes against what I’ve been taught at school at an early age. I do agree with Confucius’ quote from above which is to admit to something that you do not know and hence learn it. When I first saw the new maps, I thought it was ridiculous and wondered why would they change the old atlas? However, the geographers then explain why they should change the new maps; it was all because of the interpretation of knowledge. Because there are people with different interpretations of the map, they came to a thought that all countries above the equator are more developed than those below. However, I stuck to my interpretation of the atlas because I believe it is the right one. Thinking of Confucius’ quote, I came to realize that students in school have been learning this way too, that every student admits to something they don’t know and learns it and that they stick to their own perceptions of a knowledge which made us come up with unique ideas.
Confucius is one of the greatest minds in ancient China. He came up with influential ideas about respect and the family which people in China still see as virtues today. The quotation above is Confucius' interpretation of knowledge. He is basically saying that knowledge is one-self realizing whether you know something or not. 'When you know a thing, to recognize that you know it' means that when you know a thing, you must identify it as something you've seen before and you should stick to your own perception of the knowledge, and 'When you do not know a thing, to recognize that you do not know it.' means that when you don’t know something; you must identify it as something that you haven’t seen before, and important that you must learn from it.
From the West Wing videos I watched last lesson, the new world maps stunned me a little as it is something I’ve never seen before and it goes against what I’ve been taught at school at an early age. I do agree with Confucius’ quote from above which is to admit to something that you do not know and hence learn it. When I first saw the new maps, I thought it was ridiculous and wondered why would they change the old atlas? However, the geographers then explain why they should change the new maps; it was all because of the interpretation of knowledge. Because there are people with different interpretations of the map, they came to a thought that all countries above the equator are more developed than those below. However, I stuck to my interpretation of the atlas because I believe it is the right one. Thinking of Confucius’ quote, I came to realize that students in school have been learning this way too, that every student admits to something they don’t know and learns it and that they stick to their own perceptions of a knowledge which made us come up with unique ideas.
Norbert Poon- Knowers and Knowing
'˜Education is learning what you didn'™t even know you didn't know.'™-(Daniel J. Boorstin)
This quote reminds me that education is almost infinite, because there are so many things that one can learn, and very often, you don’t even know that such things exist. This is why education always beyond what one knows and beyond what they have learnt before.
The main message here really is telling us there are a lot to learn, so much that one life time is not enough and so much that we don't even know they exist.
What this quotes really means is that education should be very fascinating to everyone, and very broad. A student is always exploring beyond what they already know, and it might also be hinting if education doesn’t interest you, you are better off not studying.
I totally agree to this. Speaking as a student and representing all students, we are always learning new aspects of everything in life that we didn’t know exist. And because we don'€™t know them, we have constantly been given information. Just like in one episode of a series '€˜The West Wing'€™, we didn'€™t know the world could have been drawn according to the power of each country, or depending on the version of the map, the history of a country or continent. We didn'€™t know the world could be different to the map, because we were told the map represents the world since we were small. This all depends on one'€™s view of knowledge, their perspective to what knowledge is. Bringing it back to the quote, we can bring up many different arguments that make us think there are many things we can explore, and that brings us to the infinity.
Robert Win: Knowers and Knowing
One of the quotations which stands out to me is "There are many who know many things, yet are lacking in wisdom." (Democritus). Democritus states that knowledge and wisdom are not the same thing and are two different things, which contrasts with what many people consider as wise, today and often think the two are somehow the same thing.
The 3 key words within the quote are "many", "know" and "wisdom". The main message of the quote is (as i mentioned above), knowing many things does not make one wise. It also suggests that there are many people who know many things, but if knowing many things made one wise, there would be many wise people, and what Democritus is trying to say is that there are not and may never be many wise people in the world.
I agree with Democritus' statement, that knowledge is not wisdom and that there are not many wise people in the world. I believe that knowledge is something one learns, finds out, or is told by another person. This makes it information which is not discovered or experienced directly by ones self. Wisdom on the other hand, is information one discovers purely by themselves, or by doing and finding out something, with no influence from others, or if one were to challenge what one has been taught since birthand what others say and believe is correct, making it very difficult for one to be truly 'wise'.
During the 1st TOK lesson we had, we watched a clip about the different possible maps that the US public schools could adopt, in the TV series 'The West Wing'. These maps of the world were all different, and showed the sizes, shapes and locations of countries and the world differently. The creators of each map, one could say, were 'wise', as they came up with their own view of what the world actually looks like. Although they may have based their view on information provided by others, they have shown wisdom by unaccepting what others have taught them about what the world looks like. One map which showed the Southern hemisphere on top, and the Northern hemisphere at the bottom, sparked a discussion between the characters in the video about which hemisphere should be at the top of the map. One of the characters mentioned that the map was "wrong" as the top of the world (in her view) is north and has always been north. However, her opinion of the map suggests that she has only considered what is correct from what she has been taught since childhood, thus she accepts that North is 'at the top' and rules out any other ideas which may show that what she has been taught is not quite correct.
This character demonstrates knowledge, which is a contrasts to the the creator of the 'upside down map' who shows wisdom as he/she (the map creator) would have also been brought up and taught that North is at the top, but has created his/her own theory and view of what the world map should look like, showing that he/she has challenged what he/she has been taught, and what others think is correct.
The 3 key words within the quote are "many", "know" and "wisdom". The main message of the quote is (as i mentioned above), knowing many things does not make one wise. It also suggests that there are many people who know many things, but if knowing many things made one wise, there would be many wise people, and what Democritus is trying to say is that there are not and may never be many wise people in the world.
I agree with Democritus' statement, that knowledge is not wisdom and that there are not many wise people in the world. I believe that knowledge is something one learns, finds out, or is told by another person. This makes it information which is not discovered or experienced directly by ones self. Wisdom on the other hand, is information one discovers purely by themselves, or by doing and finding out something, with no influence from others, or if one were to challenge what one has been taught since birthand what others say and believe is correct, making it very difficult for one to be truly 'wise'.
During the 1st TOK lesson we had, we watched a clip about the different possible maps that the US public schools could adopt, in the TV series 'The West Wing'. These maps of the world were all different, and showed the sizes, shapes and locations of countries and the world differently. The creators of each map, one could say, were 'wise', as they came up with their own view of what the world actually looks like. Although they may have based their view on information provided by others, they have shown wisdom by unaccepting what others have taught them about what the world looks like. One map which showed the Southern hemisphere on top, and the Northern hemisphere at the bottom, sparked a discussion between the characters in the video about which hemisphere should be at the top of the map. One of the characters mentioned that the map was "wrong" as the top of the world (in her view) is north and has always been north. However, her opinion of the map suggests that she has only considered what is correct from what she has been taught since childhood, thus she accepts that North is 'at the top' and rules out any other ideas which may show that what she has been taught is not quite correct.
This character demonstrates knowledge, which is a contrasts to the the creator of the 'upside down map' who shows wisdom as he/she (the map creator) would have also been brought up and taught that North is at the top, but has created his/her own theory and view of what the world map should look like, showing that he/she has challenged what he/she has been taught, and what others think is correct.
Jacqui.W - Knowers & Knowing
'The more you know the less you understand.' (Tao Le Ching)
I think that what Tao Le Ching means is that the more we know about something, meaning the opinions and thoughts from other people about that thing, the less we'll understand the original concept of that thing and the original message it's conveying as well as our own personal thoughts and opinions of that thing. Or another way to think of it is, by knowing more, you don't necessarily become wiser and understand more about life.
"The more you know the less you understand" - This quote explores knowledge and wisdom. I think what Tao Le Ching is talking about is that, if we know more data, this does not necessarily mean we gain more knowledge and understand life more. The whole point of gaining knowledge is to understand life more and live our life. Some think that by knowing the most means they are 'the smartest'. But what correlation does this have to understanding life and living life? Just by being smart and getting a good job doesnt show that they understand even the simplest things of life like who they are and why they're here.
Here is a way to interpret the quote:
There is a person in a poor, starving country who wants to be the president and he tells people that if he becomes the president, he'll give everyone food for free. At this point, he knows the people are starving and need food therefore using his knowledge he says he'll give them food to solve the problem. But this shows he doesn't understand the whole situation yet. He hasn't realised that the way to get food is to have resources and grow food, or to buy food, and in the condition the country is in now, it's hard to get resources as everyone is starving with no energy to farm food. If they had energy to farm food, they don't have the resources needed in order to farm food and without the resources, it's simply impossible to farm. Whereas if this person was not aiming to be the next president a just a normal, struggling, starving to death citizen, he would realise and understand that in order to fill up his stomach and survive, he'd have to get resources and grow food. To reach this understanding, he didn't have to 'know more' to reach it.
This shows exactly what the quote means and what Tao Le Ching is trying to show the reader. By knowing more, it doesn't mean you become wiser and understand more. Overall, this is what I think Tao Le Ching means by his quote. This shows that Tao Le Ching thinks of knowledge not by its quantity but by the quality of it. I think by applying this to life as a student it shows that students don't have to be the one that can list out every president's name, or be the one that knows the dictionary off by heart to be the wisest.
I think that what Tao Le Ching means is that the more we know about something, meaning the opinions and thoughts from other people about that thing, the less we'll understand the original concept of that thing and the original message it's conveying as well as our own personal thoughts and opinions of that thing. Or another way to think of it is, by knowing more, you don't necessarily become wiser and understand more about life.
"The more you know the less you understand" - This quote explores knowledge and wisdom. I think what Tao Le Ching is talking about is that, if we know more data, this does not necessarily mean we gain more knowledge and understand life more. The whole point of gaining knowledge is to understand life more and live our life. Some think that by knowing the most means they are 'the smartest'. But what correlation does this have to understanding life and living life? Just by being smart and getting a good job doesnt show that they understand even the simplest things of life like who they are and why they're here.
Here is a way to interpret the quote:
There is a person in a poor, starving country who wants to be the president and he tells people that if he becomes the president, he'll give everyone food for free. At this point, he knows the people are starving and need food therefore using his knowledge he says he'll give them food to solve the problem. But this shows he doesn't understand the whole situation yet. He hasn't realised that the way to get food is to have resources and grow food, or to buy food, and in the condition the country is in now, it's hard to get resources as everyone is starving with no energy to farm food. If they had energy to farm food, they don't have the resources needed in order to farm food and without the resources, it's simply impossible to farm. Whereas if this person was not aiming to be the next president a just a normal, struggling, starving to death citizen, he would realise and understand that in order to fill up his stomach and survive, he'd have to get resources and grow food. To reach this understanding, he didn't have to 'know more' to reach it.
This shows exactly what the quote means and what Tao Le Ching is trying to show the reader. By knowing more, it doesn't mean you become wiser and understand more. Overall, this is what I think Tao Le Ching means by his quote. This shows that Tao Le Ching thinks of knowledge not by its quantity but by the quality of it. I think by applying this to life as a student it shows that students don't have to be the one that can list out every president's name, or be the one that knows the dictionary off by heart to be the wisest.
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