Today i read an article from the The Independant by Peter Popham. He wrote about langauge and how tribal, unique and culture specirfic langauge is dying out. He also mentions Noam Chomsky, the psychologist who famously wrote a review, competely rejecting BF Skinners work on langauge, and instead proprosing a new idea that langauge was an innate skill.
Langauges around the world are dying out. Why? Because he believs no one speaks them. Lanaguges from remote regions around the world, such as the native american lanagauge of Catabawa. are dying out. Globalisation is the main cause. People no longer live in these remote region because of an ever growing economy, and an ever changing lifestyle. A Researcher, took the last two members of an Ethiopian tribe out, who spoke the Gaat langauge. They went to a city, out of their native jungle. They then cought a cold and died. The Gaat langauge is no more.
Globalisation is causing langauges to die out, researchers reckon at a rate of 100 native langauges a year. The increasing ability of english speaks, aswell as manderin chinese and hindi, are reducing the amount of speakers of these native lanaguges.
Noam Chomsky's ideas however would suggest that these langauges could be relearnt. He disagrees at the idea of Tabula Rasa, the idea of a blank canvas. He believed that the ability to learning a langauge is innate. People have an ability at birth to learn these languages.
He believed in critical periods in peoples lives, where they could different aspects of language at different periods of their lives. Younger ages picking up sound, then basic grammar, sentences etc,etc.
To sum up....
Languages are dying out, fast because of globalisation, however Noam Chomsky believes that these lanaguages might not be lost for ever...
Thursday, 5 March 2009
Tuesday, 20 January 2009
Occams Razor
Recently, we have developed a knowledge and understanding in Theory of Knowledge of the idea of Occams razor.
It all relates to our work on perception.
Occams razor is a concept, which can best be summed up by the following.
One is standing in an a field, and behind you here a whinney, or a neigh. You'd turn, assuming to find a horse. In fact there is a Zebra.
This a completely rational assertion, because from experience, the most likely thing to be found in a field making a similar sort of noise, is a Horse. Our experience would suggest to us that a Horse making the noise is the most acceptable and rational explaination.
This is the idea of occams razor. That we assume the most likely, or rational outcome, for something that we havent percieved yet.
It all relates to our work on perception.
Occams razor is a concept, which can best be summed up by the following.
One is standing in an a field, and behind you here a whinney, or a neigh. You'd turn, assuming to find a horse. In fact there is a Zebra.
This a completely rational assertion, because from experience, the most likely thing to be found in a field making a similar sort of noise, is a Horse. Our experience would suggest to us that a Horse making the noise is the most acceptable and rational explaination.
This is the idea of occams razor. That we assume the most likely, or rational outcome, for something that we havent percieved yet.
Wednesday, 22 October 2008
TOK - Sight
In the last two lessons of TOK, we have been looking at the world, throught sight. We watched a DVD, of a rather old National Geographic documentry, called the "Invisible World." Procduced - what i can only guess from the vast array of short shorts and large collars -the seventies, some of the stuff we watched seemed a little outdated, and obselete because of it's age, however it still made interesting reading.
We looked at the world, through means of sight, that our own eyes can't see. Such, rather minute things, or things that happen too fast or slow.
What we percieve is only a very small proprotion of the world. A person with 20:20 vision can only see things, down to about a grain of sand in size. Any smaller, and we use the aid of microscopes, which technically we ourselves are not actually percieving.
The aid of microscopes enables us to examine things hundreds of times smaller than a grain of sand, such is bacteria or tiny dustmites roming our carpets and curtains.
Things that happen incredibly slowy, are also difficult to percieve from the naked eye. The moudling of an apple, is rather difficult to see, however, filmed and played at higher speed, we can see what happens to the orange much clearer. The aging of a boy to man, can also be examined, taking a picture every year, for 20 years, will give us a good idea of how someone ages. A process which might take 20 years, can be sped up in real time, to examine how someone has grown. This is where we all found the video to bve a slightly flawed, the suggested subject of this speeding up of growth, at the age of 12 had a mole on his face, rather near his ear. at 13, the mole appeared to move, and again at 14,15, 16. at each stage of growth, we watched the mole move, down his face to his neck. Bizarre, the moving mole..
Slowing down the things, the aid of cameras with increadible shutter speads, enables us to see things such as a bullet, crashing though an apple, and shredding it into many tiny pieces. This was quite spectacular to watch. Slowing down real time images, also gives us a chance to see that the horse, in full flight, has all 4 of its legs off the ground. In real time however, it is almost imposible to see this.
In summary of this video, there is so much of the world, we cannot see and percieve. George Berkley would argue, because we cannot see it, it is not there.
We then, threw off our ties, strapped them infront of our eyes, and went for a wander round the school with some our partner guides. This, despite being an incredibly fun excersize, gave us a different perspective of the school. Not knowing, where the hell we were...
I, led Adam around the school into the common room, into the toilet and up the stairs. He also managed to shove into and manhandle many a small child.
Where does this relate to TOK? Well, some would argue that we gain knowledge through experience. Specifically John Locke (not the LOST charcter), who is an empericist. Because we were blindfolded, we could not know where we were, or who was taking us round?
TOK continues to be a QI subject, with some certainly interesting lesson plans. (photocopying hands...)
Tuesday, 30 September 2008
The Senses - TOK
This lesson we talked about the idea of the senses, how much we use them, and rely on them, and how the senses of animals differ from our own. We each had to produce presentations on an animal of our choice and present how their senses differ from ours, and how they have specifically enhanced senses for things like hunting, feeding and seeing. These different senses were portrayed by everyone through acting, a speech or in some cases, through the medium of dance.
As humans, are senses are probably considered completely normal, and nothing other than. We have good senses, in every area of which we sense: Smell, Sight, Tastes, Touch and Audible. For the normal person, all these are perfectly satisfactory, and enable us to live at a good level. We have a well rounded system, which allows us to sense and perceive. Our senses however can be slightly impaired, people need glasses often, hearing aids, or lack of smell all together.
The fact we are all different, and that the level of which we sense can vary, albeit only by a small amount, would suggest the way in which we perceive is completely different. We can only perceive the world in which we live, through our own eyes so to speak. Our perception and judgement of the world should in theory be completely different from the next persons. The only ideas and perceptions of the world we can trust are our own.
To try and get a feel for how animals perceive the world will be quite difficult. We must first research how these animals perceive, through their different types of senses. With the majority of animals, they have a heightened sense of something, but a weekend, or just average sense of something else.
In investigated insects, specifically the fly, and another student I’ve been paired up with (Paul Roullion-Miller [spelling?] has investigated the snake.
The Fly, at a first thought, is rather agile creature, often avoiding the vicious swing of our fly swat, suggesting it has good sight for starters, to spot the oncoming mesh of plastic. Also, the idea of flies swarming around some excrement comes to mind, which might suggest something of the idea of smell or a good tolerance of taste, to consume so much dog muck.
In reality, the fly does have great sight, each eye with 3,000 different lenses, giving it superb peripheral vision. Each eye has a ‘flicker fusion,’ or to you and, how many times it refreshes its view; of 300 times per second. Compare this with our flicker rate, of 60 times a second; we get a great idea of quite how brilliant they can see, and how they always seem to dodge the flailing arm, trying to swat a fly on our neck, on a hot day.
Some flies, also has a remarkable sense of taste, with a lot of taste receptors on their small bodies. The blowfly has 3,000 taste receptors on its feet. These miniscule feet, between them contain 3,000 taste receptors, astonishingly. This would explain why you’ll find a dozen or so flies crawling around over some horse manure.
My student buddy, researched the snake. You hear a lot about the snake sensing through it’s tongue, and having infa-red vision. And this is true.
The snakes ability to sense a change in temperature is extraordinary. Pit-vipers have a heat-sensitive organ between the eyes and the nostrils about 0.5 cm deep. This organ has a membrane containing 7,000 nerve endings that respond to temperature changes as small as 0.002-0.003 Celsius. This ability to sense threats, or something attacking, is probably why they seem to have such good reactions, when feeling threatened by something or someone about to strike them.
Snakes however don’t have any ears. Snakes cannot hear the whistle of the snake charmer, instead they will probably be responding to the movement of the whistle. What they lack in audible sense, they gain in their ability to sense heat through touch.
They do not taste, instead use their tongues to being smells into the mouth, and then analyse them as to whether they are tasty or not.
So many different beings have so many different ways of sensing, at different levels and different abilities. In some cases it, creatures don’t sense at all.
This brings me on to how can we trust our senses? Are our senses truly accurate at portraying the world around us. In reality the world could stink on the foulest most disgusting smells, we just haven’t the ability to sense it; this might be why the fly has such a high tolerance to foul smells, from rubbish or excrement. How can we say, that the world around is, is as it really is? How can we say that the world we experience is the “Real World?”
We can’t is the plain answer. We can only perceive the world, through us, no one else, no other being or species. And each species will always have these different levels of sense, giving some species superior strengths of sense (mouthful), and others less such a good ability.
Which is why, when I become King, or God (whether or not he or she or it is real or not) I will breed Flies, Snakes, Humans, Tigers, Fish, Trees and bacterium (and other such species), to form a super being, to rule all. It certainly will be, “all sensing, all dancing”
As humans, are senses are probably considered completely normal, and nothing other than. We have good senses, in every area of which we sense: Smell, Sight, Tastes, Touch and Audible. For the normal person, all these are perfectly satisfactory, and enable us to live at a good level. We have a well rounded system, which allows us to sense and perceive. Our senses however can be slightly impaired, people need glasses often, hearing aids, or lack of smell all together.
The fact we are all different, and that the level of which we sense can vary, albeit only by a small amount, would suggest the way in which we perceive is completely different. We can only perceive the world in which we live, through our own eyes so to speak. Our perception and judgement of the world should in theory be completely different from the next persons. The only ideas and perceptions of the world we can trust are our own.
To try and get a feel for how animals perceive the world will be quite difficult. We must first research how these animals perceive, through their different types of senses. With the majority of animals, they have a heightened sense of something, but a weekend, or just average sense of something else.
In investigated insects, specifically the fly, and another student I’ve been paired up with (Paul Roullion-Miller [spelling?] has investigated the snake.
The Fly, at a first thought, is rather agile creature, often avoiding the vicious swing of our fly swat, suggesting it has good sight for starters, to spot the oncoming mesh of plastic. Also, the idea of flies swarming around some excrement comes to mind, which might suggest something of the idea of smell or a good tolerance of taste, to consume so much dog muck.
In reality, the fly does have great sight, each eye with 3,000 different lenses, giving it superb peripheral vision. Each eye has a ‘flicker fusion,’ or to you and, how many times it refreshes its view; of 300 times per second. Compare this with our flicker rate, of 60 times a second; we get a great idea of quite how brilliant they can see, and how they always seem to dodge the flailing arm, trying to swat a fly on our neck, on a hot day.
Some flies, also has a remarkable sense of taste, with a lot of taste receptors on their small bodies. The blowfly has 3,000 taste receptors on its feet. These miniscule feet, between them contain 3,000 taste receptors, astonishingly. This would explain why you’ll find a dozen or so flies crawling around over some horse manure.
My student buddy, researched the snake. You hear a lot about the snake sensing through it’s tongue, and having infa-red vision. And this is true.
The snakes ability to sense a change in temperature is extraordinary. Pit-vipers have a heat-sensitive organ between the eyes and the nostrils about 0.5 cm deep. This organ has a membrane containing 7,000 nerve endings that respond to temperature changes as small as 0.002-0.003 Celsius. This ability to sense threats, or something attacking, is probably why they seem to have such good reactions, when feeling threatened by something or someone about to strike them.
Snakes however don’t have any ears. Snakes cannot hear the whistle of the snake charmer, instead they will probably be responding to the movement of the whistle. What they lack in audible sense, they gain in their ability to sense heat through touch.
They do not taste, instead use their tongues to being smells into the mouth, and then analyse them as to whether they are tasty or not.
So many different beings have so many different ways of sensing, at different levels and different abilities. In some cases it, creatures don’t sense at all.
This brings me on to how can we trust our senses? Are our senses truly accurate at portraying the world around us. In reality the world could stink on the foulest most disgusting smells, we just haven’t the ability to sense it; this might be why the fly has such a high tolerance to foul smells, from rubbish or excrement. How can we say, that the world around is, is as it really is? How can we say that the world we experience is the “Real World?”
We can’t is the plain answer. We can only perceive the world, through us, no one else, no other being or species. And each species will always have these different levels of sense, giving some species superior strengths of sense (mouthful), and others less such a good ability.
Which is why, when I become King, or God (whether or not he or she or it is real or not) I will breed Flies, Snakes, Humans, Tigers, Fish, Trees and bacterium (and other such species), to form a super being, to rule all. It certainly will be, “all sensing, all dancing”
Introduction (One Post Late)
This is my Theory of Knowledge (TOK) blog, where i will keep a journal of what i have been doing in my IB TOK lessons. Unfortunately, i was unaware we had to make a journal of these lessons, which is why it came so late. Ah well, onward and upward.
Theory of knowledge lesson recap
In this lesson we discussed many things regarding whether or not the world we live in really exists. Arguing what is real, how can we be sure it is real and whether or not what does exist is 100% truthful or genuine. We had done some background reading, reading Descartes Meditations II, which gave us a base for discussing the existence of man, the world and the universe we live in. The idea that what can be defined as real, when we are not even sure that we ourselves are real was used a lot in the background reading. The example of Wax as well, being of a solid, hard coloured form, can then change to become a liquid form, with a different colour and texture. How can anything that changes its form so dramatically are classed by us as “Real.”
There are 4 ways of knowing, understanding and gaining knowledge. Through: perception, emotion, reason and language; we can obtain knowledge. Different areas of knowledge are as follows: Mathematics, Natural Science, Social Science, History, the arts and Ethics.
We then learnt of scepticism, the idea that everything should be questioned. There are two types of scepticism: Local, and Global. Local being things closer to home, such as “Is that a bird or a plane”. Where our perception and emotions have been put into question by things locally. Global scepticism is where things are questioned on a wider scale, such as “What am I, why am I here” etc, etc. These questions are often unanswerable; as they would seem to date back before any one can remember, thus why don’t have an answer. Global scepticism would affect our reasoning and language, as how can we be sure that what we are told is right and wrong, are in fact just that, or how can we be sure the words we speak, read and write, have any meaning at all.
It is through the ideas of scepticism, that we have reason to believe everything we thought we knew is wrong.
For example, how can we be sure that events in history actually happened? 1066, the battle of Hastings, how can we be sure that such a bloody battle for power actually happened. Arguably, there is the Bayeux tapestry in Northern France, however, how can we be sure that that is an accurate portrayal of events, and wasn’t just an artist having a play around with a needle and thread. Or perception of this event is that it happened a long time ago for sure, however how can we trust our perception, our senses.
There are many optical illusions that highlight this. For example, the picture bellow right:
The lines appear to be curved or wonky, however, looking closer into the picture reveals that the lines are actually perfectly parallel. How can we trust our senses and perception? If our perception leads us into believing one thing, when it is actually the opposite (for example believing the lines are curved) then how can we trust or believe in anything at all?
Watching the hit movie, “The Matrix” could also lead us into deep thought about what is and what isn’t. Is the world we live in today, just a series of illusions, and pictures, pulled over our eyes to hide us from the truth? Who can be sure of any of this? Are we not just people, hooked up to one big machine, which is constantly feeding bogus information into, forcing us to believe that the world we live in now, is real.
But what is real? How can you define Real? Are we even real?
Descartes, “I think, therefore I Am,” would suggest that we are beings, but whether we are 100% what we believe ourselves to be now, or just a machine that tells us what we are and what we think, I don’t know, and neither does anyone else, so this is why I’m guessing the IB has a subject about it.
There are 4 ways of knowing, understanding and gaining knowledge. Through: perception, emotion, reason and language; we can obtain knowledge. Different areas of knowledge are as follows: Mathematics, Natural Science, Social Science, History, the arts and Ethics.
We then learnt of scepticism, the idea that everything should be questioned. There are two types of scepticism: Local, and Global. Local being things closer to home, such as “Is that a bird or a plane”. Where our perception and emotions have been put into question by things locally. Global scepticism is where things are questioned on a wider scale, such as “What am I, why am I here” etc, etc. These questions are often unanswerable; as they would seem to date back before any one can remember, thus why don’t have an answer. Global scepticism would affect our reasoning and language, as how can we be sure that what we are told is right and wrong, are in fact just that, or how can we be sure the words we speak, read and write, have any meaning at all.
It is through the ideas of scepticism, that we have reason to believe everything we thought we knew is wrong.
For example, how can we be sure that events in history actually happened? 1066, the battle of Hastings, how can we be sure that such a bloody battle for power actually happened. Arguably, there is the Bayeux tapestry in Northern France, however, how can we be sure that that is an accurate portrayal of events, and wasn’t just an artist having a play around with a needle and thread. Or perception of this event is that it happened a long time ago for sure, however how can we trust our perception, our senses.
There are many optical illusions that highlight this. For example, the picture bellow right:
The lines appear to be curved or wonky, however, looking closer into the picture reveals that the lines are actually perfectly parallel. How can we trust our senses and perception? If our perception leads us into believing one thing, when it is actually the opposite (for example believing the lines are curved) then how can we trust or believe in anything at all?
Watching the hit movie, “The Matrix” could also lead us into deep thought about what is and what isn’t. Is the world we live in today, just a series of illusions, and pictures, pulled over our eyes to hide us from the truth? Who can be sure of any of this? Are we not just people, hooked up to one big machine, which is constantly feeding bogus information into, forcing us to believe that the world we live in now, is real.
But what is real? How can you define Real? Are we even real?
Descartes, “I think, therefore I Am,” would suggest that we are beings, but whether we are 100% what we believe ourselves to be now, or just a machine that tells us what we are and what we think, I don’t know, and neither does anyone else, so this is why I’m guessing the IB has a subject about it.
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