Purpose of an Argument

The purpose of an argument cannot be defined as being only one. In some situations, arguments exist to criticize a certain group of people whereas some arguments exist to champion and empower others. Also, arguments can take in places, but they are mostly existent in debates or in discussions; in this case, the prime purpose of arguing is to convince the other party. Moreover, there are many ways one can argue through. One might argue by creating an emotion attachment, one might argue with reasoning, or one might even argue through fallacies. However, in proper debates, where formality is highly required, arguing with reasoning is the most effective and also appropriate way. In this blog post, I will explain why this is the case.

Although all our 'WOKs' are biased, reasoning and logic are the least biased. This is because reasoning and logic are based on knowledge that are objective and believed to be true. For example, in a political debate, although many fallacies and pathos are used among advocates, their arguments sound incredible and unconvincing if reasoning is laid as a foundation. Rather than just denouncing the other candidate, which is the ad hominem fallacy, it is more effective if the candidate exhibits abundant knowledge of that topic. Also, in many debates, especially those related to politics, the black and white fallacy is highly apparent. Even though there are many potential solutions to a problem, all the candidates seem to stick to only 2 decisions, one opposing the other.

Blog Entry #3 Imagination and Culture

Imagination and Culture...
What is an Imagination and what is a Culture? 

According to Dictionary.com, it says
Imagination is,
1. the faculty of imagining, or of forming mental images or concepts of what is not actually present to the senses.
2. the action or process of forming such images or concept

and, Culture is, 

1.the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society.

Thus, How does this affect how we perceive the world?
From what I see and know, I think that imagination and culture shape us to be one-dimensional:limiting us to see the world of two-dimensions and three-dimensions. Because people tend to mis-think that other people believe in the way you do, this often creates misconceptions, and these misconceptions arise from imagination and culture. 

As an example from the Podcast we have been assigned to do, a rainbow is a great example of an one-dimensional example. From what many people believe, a rainbow comprises colors of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, navy, and purple. 

However, this is not true. How do we know this? Has anyone proved that rainbows comprise these colors? If he/she did, how can they trust their ideas? In reality, humans can never trust their things they perceive, but they have proved and validated through faith and repetition. 

let's change the subject of this situation, being a colorblind person who can only perceive 5% of the colors that a normal can perceive. To narrow it down, this person cannot distinguish between the 3 fundamental colors: red, blue, yellow. If this person sees the rainbow, what will it look like? The "Typical" rainbow normal people perceive? or even white and black? I do not know. But surely it won't be the same as normal people see because the colors of a rainbow is combination of the fundamental colors. Can we still conclude that rainbow has diverse colors?

Another example of an one-dimesion thought that imagination has created is the misconception Energy. 

In physics, we learn about the law of conservation of energy, which claims that energy can neither be created or destroyed, but can be either transmitted or transformed. Assuming that this law is faultlessly true, thus credible, what we believe and see isn't what exactly IS happening. 

For example, when a bubble pops, is the bubble gone? Well, visually yes. But, in response to the law? No, It is transformed into different energies such as sound energy and majority are dissolved into air particles, becoming neutral energies. So why do we think bubbles disappear? This is because we rely on our imagination too much. 

Along with this, culture is also a powerful source on which we depend. Because culture varies throughout different countries, people from different culture often clash due to misunderstandings. 

In many Asian cultures, bowing is a very common act, whereas it is not in western cultures. So, when they see a person bow, they will perceive differently, and lead to different judgments. 

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Widely, people have continuously have asked the same question over and over until they realized that they were wandering in a maze without any exit. Image below is what I call the never-ending staircase, which represents our certainty of knowledge very well. Like the image below, our knowledge had been and still is ended up with no exist, in this case, no answers. But as I have said, people have made their own exits, either digging up the ground or inventing a plane to escape from the staircase to find 'answers' which they aren't even sure if they exist or not. They have never tried to stick with what they have had.

There is a statement or saying that is spread all around the world but has not been discussed thoroughly into its profoundness: 'Everyone makes mistakes'.
So, if everyone makes mistakes, when (Time and date), why and how did they make one. Also, can our knowledge be a mistake? To clarify this, can there be mistakes when we acquire knowledge? If there is, what can we rely on?

The biggest solution people of any field has come with throughout history is the combination of repetition and faith. As people have done similar things in similar ways, people started to find a significance in the pattern of surroundings. This sometimes included mistakes.  In social science, through examining human behaviors in different situations throughout history, people have determined this as an universal behavior that people have in common, which required them to inject faith on it. One example of a pattern of mistake examined by humans is in the concept of invention. Thomas Edison, when he tried to create the light bulb, it took him around billion attempts, all of them being unsuccessful, to be successful. Through repetition of mistakes, he grew faith that those mistakes were lessons to him that he should never approach it the same he did.

So, to make something certain in human sense, all people should agree that something is certain as if it has been promised by everyone.

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In TOK class, our class was thrown questions that really sounded simple but not simple. It went:

How do I know _____ ?

Can we know for certain?

Thrown back by the question, I was totally lost; However, Mr. Aaron soon taught us the 'Ways of Knowing': Reason, Emotion, language, Imagination, Perception, Faith, Memory, Intuition

Out of these ways, I found 'Faith' the most significant because without faith, the other 7 ways seemed useless. For example, in order to trust our memories, we need to believe in ourselves that our memories are right although they are not virtually reliable. 

More than this, we learned about 'The Cosmic Calendar' which condensed the period from the beginning of this universe until today and expressed in a calendar. It looks somethings like this:

     Perhaps, the first impression when I first saw this calendar was full of misapprehension. Because the calendar comprised too many things, it was hard to interpret. However, it got even worse when I understood the calendar.

      First of all, the credibility of this calendar was the first to be doubted. How did the creator, Carl Sagon, create this Calendar? Through what sources and information? Moreover, 'Why' did he create this calendar? For what purpose? 

      Secondly, if this calendar were to be accurate, it just proved to me that I am just a speck that has existed just for the last nano-milliseconds. 

     Another glimpse It had brought to me was that It allowed me to answer the controversy of whether the creation theory or the evolution theory is more explainable. Despite my bias of supporting the creation theory, I had to admit that the Cosmic Calendar explicitly showed that evolution was what led human these days to be as how we are now.  However, assuming that this Calendar is absolutely correct, I want to ask the readers of this post to answer my question: How did the big band theory happen? If this question is too hard, Did the big bang just happen as a coincidence? 

Along with a calendar, we explored the world of Maps and how it is linked with TOK

The first Map we were given was 'The Mercator Projection' which was made in 1956

http://www.math.ubc.ca/~israel/m103/mercator/mercator.html

  With the Map, we had to find out what were biased in this map. Here are things I found biased

-The fact that Europe is situated in the center of the Map, which implies the superiority Europeans had in that time of era

-Why is the size of Antarctica massive? I think this is because at that time, Europeans had not had enough technology to sail to Antarctica but they had seen the slight silhouette or heard of Antarctica and had decided to assume the size of Antarctica. This shows the inaccuracy of the map

-There are some islands missing which also implies the imprecision of the map

Along with these points, Mr. Aaron pointed out what utterly showed the ultimate flaw of the map/

It was the size of Africa compared to any other continents. I learned that, in reality, the size of Africa is as big as many countries combined. For more information see the next image:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/simoncrerar/africa-is-immense

Isn't it shocking? It is almost 10 most gigantic countries all combined in one and there is still space left in between. 

Not only this map but other maps were given as examples and we were told to identify problems for everyone of them. Therefore, through this activity, we learned there is no such thing as a perfect map.

If there were to be a perfect map, it would have to scale up to the size of this Earth. Also, Instead of it's flat rectangular diagram, the diagram should be 3 dimensional. So, what is this asking for? That's right an exact replicate of this Earth. The same size, the same environment, and even a single dot of soil.  

However, with these inaccurate and imprecise maps, we were able to discover the world this much and I would totally say it is an outstanding job. So, does a map needs to be perfect? I say no. If a map contains what is needed, it is doing the right job. 

I want to give an example as a response to the map above. From the first look, many will agree that that is a very inaccurate and imprecise map which contains flaws in everything: The trees, compass, river, hills. It even looks a map made for prank. Despite its ambiguity, it is undertaking its role as a map and doing what is needed. 

When this is applied to TOK, It is not about finding out answers, but it is about proving the answers explaining how and why it is the 'correct' answer. This concept could be applied in different subjects too. In Math, when we learn about different graphs (Linear, Quadratic, and etc) it is crucial to know for what purposes the graphs were made and how each graph is different from one another. Doing this will allow you, me and us to travel without a perfect map as we will anticipate what we will confront in our journey. 

To sum up, It is not about the Map! It is about the use of Maps

Likely, It is not about the Knowledge! It is about proving the Knowledge!