Is conscience a more powerful motivator than money, fame or power?
Is conscience a more powerful motivator than money, fame or power? While money, fame, or power can be motivators for an action, one's conscience is a more powerful motivator. When money, fame, or power is a motivator for an action, negative changes occur; however, when conscience is the motivator, positive changes occur. Many examples of this can be found in American history. The American civil rights movement occurred during the 20th century. Despite the violence that occurred during the period, there were many leaders and activists known for their self-sacrifice and boldness who contributed to the integration of the society. One figure that contributed greatly to the success of the civil rights movement is Rosa Parks. She became known because she sat in the wrong section of a segregated bus and refused to move when she was told to move by the white people. Rosa Parks knew she was going to be punished for her bold act, but she fought for her rights. Rosa Parks did not back down and did what was right, playing a key role in the effort to bring equality to everyone. It is obvious that she did not do this for money or power. Another person who played a crucial role in the success of the American civil rights movement is Martin Luther King Jr. He, like Rosa Parks, decided to act upon his beliefs. Under his leadership, thousands of African Americans rallied - most notably for
How Much of One's Knowledge Depends on Interaction With Other Knowers?
How Much of One's Knowledge Depends on Interaction With Other Knowers? Most of a person's knowledge comes from and depends upon interaction with others. Imagine a person who lives in a small windowless room with black walls and no light or doors, but only a tiny flap that food and drink is given through. How would this person have any knowledge of the outside world? How would he think of things if he knows no language? Would he know that he was a human, or that there were others? He would only know his instincts and would only perform natural primitive behaviors. Another person, raised in the outside world would have knowledge the other does not have, because of how he was taught and what he learned from the world. Also, elders and peers pass on knowledge to younger people. Children go to school and gain knowledge of science, mathematics, history and many other things. The teachers that teach them also may add in something that they have found out to the children's knowledge, as did the teachers who taught those teachers, and so on until the first teacher, whoever that was. Every new teacher, whether it is a parent, a friend, a stranger, or a professor, passes a little of the knowledge gained from their lives onto others, causing a sort of snowball effect that has gone on since the beginning of time. At times, some person finds something brand new that no one ever
Does news provide unbiased facts or manipulated stories?
Harsh Patel It’s news, but is it true? I found the article, “It’s news, but is it true?” quite intriguing because I am often fooled by the misleading information on the news myself. I already knew the presence of “a new study” is made in science but I never really questioned its validity as more so its precision. In a section of the article, it states that up to 45 high-profile medical research findings all claimed to have found something that worked. However an epidemiologist John Lonannidis concludes that, “when finding were tested further, in larger and better controlled studies, almost a third turned out to be either wrong, or much weaker than the initial claim.” Evidently, the scientific research to resolve an epidemic is often an exaggeration of what it claims and in many cases the research cannot support its claim that it sets out. Therefore, the misinterpretation of information often misleads us to believe in invalid and inaccurate information in which we should use our reasoning in conjunction with logic to assess information before deeming it true. The media could care less if they are providing incorrect information because their only concern is receiving money from the news. I know that media is able to inadvertently oversimplify, misrepresent, or overdramatize scientific results. This becomes the prominent reason for only publishing ‘initial
Is it easier to have the courage of your convictions or to have the courage to question your convictions?
Is it easier to have the courage to of your convictions or to have the courage to question your convictions? While for some, having the courage of their convictions may be difficult, many times the courage to question those convictions is even harder. If you have the courage of your convictions, you are brave enough to act upon what you feel is right, despite any pressure from family members or peers. Most people who have difficulty acquiring the courage of their convictions are holding back due to the fear of judgment or failure. For instance, I do not wish to continue my journey in college. I feel as though college restricts me from living my life to its fullest. But, what will my parents think? What happens if I drop out and all becomes chaos? However, I feel with all my heart that college isn't for me. Okay, I've decided. I am going to drop out. No turning back. This is it. In a situation like this, having the courage of your conviction may be a challenge, especially when considering the consequences. But once you've establish what is 'right', your belief cannot easily be shaken. It takes plenty of courage to avert one's beliefs even when presented with evidence that one is wrong. I thought I was right, but I was wrong. I can admit this on an intellectual level, but on a spiritual level, I was still right. For instance, I felt that I should keep the stray I found in
12 Angry Men
Year 12 Theory of Knowledge Mr. Etheridge 2 Angry Men 30th September, 2009 Medora Choi 12AM Can the film 12 Angry Men "tell the truth" better than other Arts such as Literature or other Areas of Knowledge such as History? Truth in this film 12 Angry Men can be varied from time to time. During the discussion within the juries, there were tension points, where they all debate the real truth on this case. Did the nineteen year old boy stab his own father with a unique switchblade? Was he guilty or not guilty? The film attempts to tell the truth through different juries' point of view, alternatively, it can be done better if the truth was told by using Literature because it can be more detailed on each jury and the proof to support their own statements can be longer and clearer. With different interpretations of what "telling the truth" implies, different areas of knowledge would serve for the appropriate interpretations. If defining "telling the truth" only means presenting or revealing the truth, then whichever area that presents the best would be considered the best at telling the truth. Harold Pinter, a Nobel Prize winner for literature, stated in his 2005 Nobel lecture "the real truth is that there never is any such thing as one truth to be found in dramatic art. There are many." Applying this to the film 12 Angry Men, it maybe easier for the readers to understand if
Dreams vs. Reality
In order to discuss this topic, I would like to put the main focus on lucid dreaming. How do we distinguish what we see to what we "see" when we dream? How we see things in real life is not just through perception, but you create the final image of being through the other senses, such as smell, hearing, taste, just as much as seeing. For example, when we dream you cannot know, unless you have mastered lucid dreaming, that what is going on, is in fact, a dream. When you know the technique of lucid dreaming you have control over your dream, and over that "parallel universe" that is supposed to represent a different world from the real one. You create the scenery, you define yourself, and you choose who and what is happening in it. If we look at the rational side of the answer to this question, it would seem quite easy to truly answer it, but the problem is how to explain what actually is going in your head during dreaming and well, living, when it is acknowledged that we can very easily fool our senses to make what is going on, believable. The dream is like an idea, it all starts in your mind, the difference being, you can create a whole new world with the dreams. The very visible difference between reality and dreams is where the saying of pinching each other to know if something is real came from. We all know that no matter how realistic the dream looks and even feels,
ToK Essay - Knowledge through Rationalism and Empiricism
ToK Essay - Knowledge through Rationalism and Empiricism What is knowledge? Knowledge is defined in different ways, it is defined as “the psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning” by Princeton or “expertise, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education” by the Oxford English Dictionary. Either way, there are two sectors of philosophy that attempt to undermine knowledge by authority, rationalism and empiricism. Rationalism is the view that certain knowledge can be discovered through experience and reason alone. Reason may be defined as the process of using known facts to conclude new ones. In this section of philosophy, it is divided into induction, wherein reasoning the hypothesis is always tentative and prone to changes, and deduction, in which the conclusion follows from the general statement. There are problems with each of these. Firstly, the limit to induction is that it’s about the human need to look for patterns in observations over time therefore having to be careful that our need to categorise and classify doesn’t lead us to seeing what isn’t really there. Furthermore, the arguments against deductive logic is that you must have absolute certainty towards your decision as well as having a valid and logical point. Empiricism suggests that all knowledge is derived by our senses. There are various types of
How important are the opinions of experts in the search for knowledge?
People find out new things all the time - Everyone could do it | We're all knower's, so everyone matters - We can learn from each other | How important are the opinions of experts in the search for knowledge? | | Things we know now Knowledge areas comes from "experts" | | eg. Physics, Math Books, computers- We use computers | | | | | To discover new things | Experts ------------------------------------------------------- Albert Einstein, Archimedes | | Not always right | | I would never have figured out the | things they discovered. So we do need "experts" Many theories been proven wrong | | We learn things from experts What makes an expert right and what makes him/her an expert? How important are the opinions of experts in the search for knowledge? In this sentence the key words are: important, opinions, experts, the search and knowledge. When we use the word "important" in this situation we mean if the opinion of an expert actually matters. Either they are important or they're not. With "opinions" we mean the opinions of experts when it comes to knowledge. For example their theories and their beliefs (eg.
Role of emotion
Many people may believe that without emotion we are paralyzed. However it is also possible that too much emotion can hinder us as well. Without emotion life might be considered insignificant or boring. Contrarily, a life with emotion may actually serve as a handicap. The word emotion is derived from the french émouvoir. This French word is derived from its Latin root; emovere. Emovere is the root of the English word motivation. Subsequently, emotion has some correlation with motivation, thus a life without emotion may very well be a life without motivation. What would life be without motivation? Without motivation people would live vacantly through monotonous activities living a rather mundane lifestyle. But even further, without motivation - there would be no significance in any task, this could affect our government systems, our global awareness, and also, our art forms. A lack of motivation and emotion may rob us of our ability to create or recognize art. Without art, what would life become? There is no doubt that life without emotion would be humdrum. On the other hand, life with too much emotion may serve as an obstacle to our lives. Emotion can be linked with our individual personalities and there are various disorders involving too many personalities; in other words; disorders involving too much emotion. To illustrate, Schizophrenia is a multi-personality disorder
T.O.K. Question: Should scientists be held responsible for the negative impacts of their discoveries?
Theory of Knowledge Journal Question: Should scientists be held responsible for the negative impacts of their discoveries? This question has been debated for quite a while today and there are arguments on both sides, one stating that yes they are responsible and others that state that they are not. This perspective will deal with the fact that scientists are not responsible for the impacts of their discoveries. Scientists attempt to uncover the knowledge that humans do not yet know by the use of the scientific method. Scientists reveal the truths that humans have not yet found and are doing so to further the understanding of the universe. The fact of the matter is that scientists shouldn't be held responsible for the use of their breakthroughs. A prominent example of this would be the discovery of nuclear fission. The Italian scientist Enrico Fermi has originally intended to create the first transuranic element, which he attempted to do by bombarding uranium with neutrons. Later Hahn and Strassman of Germany continued the process and created krypton and barium. Later this discovery would be used as a means to create the atomic bomb, as someone had thought that it could be used as a weapon. Hence, the scientist who started it, Fermi cannot be held responsible for the creation of the atomic bomb because he only sought to uncover an element with a greater mass than uranium.