Area of Knowledge: HISTORY

Who discovered America???

1. Find evidence for and against any claim made.
2. What is your conclusion on the discovery of America?
3. What do you think of History as an area of knowledge?

TOK Presentation

aashna, shubha and i(Ramya) will be working on our TOK Presentation together. our topic is:
Does god have a place in the future world.

Presentation Topic

As informed to me by a valuable member of our TOK class, Shloka Mehta, Shloka and I will be working alongwith Rahul Sheth for the TOK presentation.
The topic all three of us (rather, two of us.. no prizes for guessing which 2) have decided to work on is Topic 1:
"True knowledge can be gained only through experience"
We hope to bring out more than you'll expect from this presentation at the superficial level.

TOK Sample Essay-truth

“Truth is that which the community ultimately settles down” Charles Pierce. Analyse and evaluate this claim. To understand what truth is, we must know what not truth is. Hypothesis, theories and prophecies are not truth because they are only one person or group’s idea or claim which has not been empirically proved yet. So if truth does not comprise of these, the question arises that what does truth comprise of? This shall be discussed in this essay.
There are three main stages of finding truth. The first is people’s opinions. Truth is discovered only when people think about a possibility and experimentally verify it. Thus we see that if people did not opinionate and think of possibilities, truth could never be discovered. The second stage is experiments. Experiments are derived from either curiosity or disbelief. When people are curious about the unknown, they think of possible explanations or hypothesis. They also hypothesize when they do not believe a previously existing fact. These hypotheses are then experimentally verified to either give a back-up to the existing claim or disprove an existing claim, thereby creating new “truth”. The third stage is a change in the communities’ way of thinking. Once a hypothesis has been proved or disproved, it is important that others know about and believe it. If a fact has been disproved and nobody knows about it, it is futile as people will continue to believe the previous fact. Therefore, only when the community s aware and believes in a discovery can it be termed as truth. These three stages can be seen in any experiment. First a claim is made on the basis of observation and personal opinion. This is then verified experimentally and proved or disproved. Then a report on the experiment is written and published to let others know of the discovery. Only then is the discovery considered true.
To evaluate the statement made by Charles Peirce, let us break up the statement into four integral components. The first component is the word community. As seen earlier, the community is constantly trying to prove and disprove claims and existing beliefs, this being a result of their curiosity and skepticism. Therefore, the community itself is never fully satisfied with truth or facts. They continuously revise and confirm their knowledge, thereby showing that they can never know all truth. Yet, at any given point of time, it is the community that plays the key role in defining truth because it is the community that believes in that truth later on. When discussing the question of truth, we see that people are the deciding factor in defining truth. When there is doubt, it is the community that dispels it and formulates “new truth”. In this way, we can confirm that community does have the ruling hand in choosing truth.
The second component is the word “ultimately”. This word introduces the perplexity of time. It is an undisputed fact that time is never-ending. When a word such as “ultimately” is used, it gives us an idea that there is an ultimate time or an end to time, a contradiction to popular belief. Therefore, we can understand two very different opinions from this word. The first understanding is that Peirce believed in an end to time. The word ‘ultimately’ shows an ultimatum or an end to time. Yet, if time has an end, it would show that life too has an end, a highly debatable topic. The second understanding is that truth can never be settled because there is no ultimate time because it has no end. From this opinion, we see that truth is always transforming to fit the current belief system and scientific discoveries. This can be seen as true because through time, we have seen one fact after the other being transformed. For example, till the introduction of evolution, people believed in creationism as a reason for our existence. But, when the newer generation of people needed a more precise and definite reason and once fossils started to be discovered, the theory of evolution replaced creationism as the latest truth. From this, we see that time plays an important role in defining truth. We can also see that truth is ever-changing, and will be settled only when time comes to an end or at the time of the ultimatum.
The third component is the phrase “settles down”. It can be observed over time that people are never satisfied with what they know. They are constantly trying to find new strategies in business, mathematical laws or new facts in history. This shows that one is never satisfied with all the existing facts. There is a thirst for more knowledge that is never quenched. There is always scope for doubt and scepticism. Therefore, at no point in time do people settle down and believe one fact. They are always trying to know more. For example, up until recently, everyone believed that Neil Armstrong actually did land on the moon. When people started observing the footage more closely and examining it, they realised flaws such as the flag waving even though thee is no wind in outer space or the shadows of the astronauts facing the wrong direction. This kind of example shows that people are not so innocent as to believe everything that is told to them. Inquisitiveness forces the human kind to think beyond the realm of our understanding to explore new genres of knowledge and unearth more mysteries of life. Yet, if we see, at any point in time, truth is what everyone unanimously believes because there is none who can provide objective knowledge that contradicts the truth claim. If this is understood, we can see that at a given point in time, truth is a collectively believed piece of knowledge.
The last component is the ever debatable concept of truth. It must be understood that truth can never be doubted, but, because of our inquisitiveness there is no knowledge that is not doubted. Therefore, can it be assumed that there is no truth? From common understanding, we know that such a thing as truth does exist because it is a commonly used word. A common man may define truth as something that has been proven. But, there have been many cases where something that has been proven has been tested and found to be wrong. For example, the atomic structure was explained through the plum pie model. This was considered true till the atom was compared to the solar system in structure, which was a more appropriate example. Here we see the metamorphosis of truth over time. Therefore, we can understand that truth changes over time, and therefore is never permanent.
The statement made discusses the key factors that determine whether any belief is truth or not. From the previous paragraphs, we see how the community, time, and people’s curiosity play a key role in determining truth. With time, truth evolves and changes. Curiosity challenges and support truth. Community decided what they want to and do not want to believe and therefore decide truth. This is very clearly brought out in the statement made by Charles Peirce. Yet, I feel this definition of truth only applies to truth at any point in time. This is because there are many paradigm shifts that have taken place and continue to take place in different arenas of knowledge. If what we believe is truth right now is defined, then Charles Peirce’s statement would be an accurate explanation as it takes into consideration the changes that occur in facts through time. Therefore, i agree with the statement made by Charles Peirce that truth is that which the community ultimately settles down to.

word count-1,279

TOK Sample Essay- Shloka

“Truth is that to which the community ultimately settles down to”
-Charles Pierce

Truth cannot be defined to in any certain terms. There are many versions of truth, there are degrees of truth and types of truth. The statement “tell me the truth”differs from the statement “the truth about …”. The community plays an important role in highlighting the difference between something false, and something correct, but because “community” tends to encompass a large number of people, there are versions of correct that emerge. The version of the correct events which seem to leave the least degree of uncertainty become what is proclaimed as “truth”.

Pierce’s perspective on truth is befitting one idea of what truth is. History shows us examples that directly reflect Pierce’s belief regarding what truth is. In the 16th century, Copernicus claimed that contrary to popular belief, the earth was not the center of the solar system. He noticed this by observing planetary motion and brought it to the attention of the Church, which chose not to believe this, insisting that the earth was the center. The community at that time did in fact believe that the earth was the centre and for the 16th century that indeed was the truth. Today we know that the earth in not the center of the solar system, but the sun is. This knowledge makes the 16th century belief into a lie!

Another example of the same is Nazi Germany. Hitler believed that gypsies, homosexuals and Jews were “genetically inferior”. The Nazi’s believed this as well, and propagated this belief. Society became convinced of this belief, and for that time it was ‘true’. Once again, truth had conveniently become what the Nazi community wanted it to be, despite having little evidence to promote it. The question that arises from these examples is why did the community settle to these version and take them to be truth. In both instances, there was one powerful figure who propagated an idea. Perhaps the cult of these figures (the Pope and Hitler) allowed for the permutation of belief. However, it cannot be denied that these versions fit in with the other assumption made at that time. Lets take for example the belief that homosexuals were genetically inferior, and analyse it using the truth tests of pragmatism and coherence. Was it a coherent belief? For its time it was, because there was little knowledge regarding the same, and people believed that loving someone of the same sex was something that was obviously wrong. Was it pragmatic? Yes, because when two people of the same sex came together they were incapable of reproducing. If they couldn’t reproduce, then the human race couldn’t continue. Considering that these people were probably saying that they didn’t choose to be homosexual, regardless of whether this was true or not, people ultimately attributed this to their genes. Then, it was in fact practical or pragmatic to believe that they were “genetically inferior”. Today, however, beliefs have changed, predjudices have been altered, and homosexuals are no longer considered to be genetically inferior. In fact, there is an ongoing argument as to whether homosexuality is the result of nature or nurture. In this instance, the community is divided regarding this. Does this mean that there is no truth, in keeping with Peirce’s belief? Obviously, that cannot be the case, as despite the argument, there has to be some truth. It just means that we haven’t found the truth yet.

There is a constant quest for the truth, and no one can ever know for sure that they have found it. Versions of truth do exist, but who can claim to know the whole truth? Recently, it was discovered that Ivan Pavlov when writing about his famous classical conditioning experiment, mentioned that he called the process classical conditional, or something to that effect. However, during translation, that was altered to conditioned, giving it a sense of permanence. Although there might seem to be little difference, the fact is that many in the psychological community are not aware that the terms they attribute to Pavlov were not really used by Pavlov himself! This leads to the emergence of language, and its importance in knowing the truth. To understand the importance of langauge in knowing the truth, lets consider the field of science. In sciences, such as physics or chemistry, it is important to define every term, every action before an experiment is carried out. This is done to ensure that should the experiment be repeated somewhere else, there is no confusion or ambiguity as to the results found or apparatus used. For example, take the terms EMF (elctromotive force) and consider PD (potential difference). Both these terms are commanly used when discussing electricity, and although the units for both are the same, they mean to different things. This is like a sub-distinction, but its necessary to correctly and accurately describe the state of an electric circuit. In keeping with the idea that truth can be that which is correct and accurate, language plays a crucil role to help reduce some part of the uncertainty related to knowing something as an entity.

While on the subject of science, it is hard to ignore that most of science itself is not based on concrete proof. The most basic theory of science would be the molecular the theory, and the belief that all matter is made up of molecules, which are the smallest independent units. Later, the atom was discovered, following which nucleons were discovered, leading to creation of the Atomic Theory, which has also not been proven. Despite this, both these theories have formed the foundation for the development of newer beliefs, and the knowledge about the everyday working of things. The main criterion for a scientific theory seems to coherence, as all these theories fit in with each other, leading to the creation of an acceptable argument about the working and functioning of day to day life. Should any evidence be discovered countering these theories, the community will be thrown into a state of chaos, as fundamental beliefs will be challenged.

So what would be the repercussions of a chaotic community? In fact, what is community? Community, is what I consider to be a large group of people who interact with each other. There are various communities, such as psychological or scientific or theosophical, and people can belong to more than one community. Community encompasses caste, culture and religion. To unleash chaos in a community would mean to live in a form of dystopia, where nothing makes sense, where the world morphs into an unsolvable riddle rather than a puzzle with a missing piece. All that remains is the answer, but without the questions that help us understand what we were trying to find. There would be no system of belief, no logical foundation, not even education. And every man would have his own form of mosaic knowledge, put together on the basis of experience.

Keeping this mind, Charles Pierce’s statement appears to both highly profound and ironic. It is profound because it acknowledges the importance of having a common system of beliefs, one which can be called the “truth” because majority of a community believe in it, and because it allows for the progression of knowledge. It epitomizes the concept of truth for convenience, where we might choose to appropriate parts of a theory or parts of a working model to create a new one. Its not unlike creating a new recipe, when we know which ingriedients we like, and which complement each other. Its all a question of finding the balance, finding something that is believable but has its own ambiguous shades which prevent it from being countered. However, the statement is ironic because it acknowledges that sometimes the the “truth” is nothing but common belief, with little to verify it. Peirce’s statemet essentially suggests that while the community’s version of the truth might not be the truest truth, it is that which is easy to believe, defend and develop on.

Word Count: 1,340 words

TOK Sample Essay- Somiran

"Truth is that to which the community ultimately settles down" (Charles Peirce). Analyse and evaluate this claim.
Truth is often very closely associated with beliefs. Each person's beliefs are influenced by a number of environmental factors. The family structure, social and religious ideas and even cultural background plays an important part in defining an individual's belief. All these factors which influence our beliefs, in a collective form, can be called “community”. The truth, as we know it today, is nothing but something we are comfortable with. Something which seems to easily fit with the rest of our beliefs (Coherence truth test) is thought to be true by a majority of us. This general pattern of long-standing beliefs being accepted as the truth has greatly changed the way we perceive things to be. Often times, only because we so strongly believe in a particular idea, we refuse to be open minded to any answer other than ours. It is possible that we know is not true at all, yet since it is the easiest way of knowing things, we feel good about it. This brings us to the questions about the ways of knowing and their limitations. The truth is not evident to us in many cases and factors such as perception, emotion and language form obstacles in our way of attaining the truth. Emotion stops us from seeing a situation objectively and perception shows us what we want to see, not what actually is. Thus truth, in its true form, becomes elusive.
We often see that what a "community ultimately settles down to" is accepted as the truth. This is a problem encountered in the way of knowing related to the social sciences. Various assumptions are made under which conditions are studied (in subjects like psychology and economics). The so called "truth" that we obtain from these studies is thought to be universally acceptable and people forget the assumptions that were laid down before drawing any conclusions. However, it is the idea which gets most readily acknowledged by society which finally contributes to the truth.
In the natural sciences as well, various things which the community has been accustomed to has been thought to be true and often used as the foundation for further analysis and evaluation. The atomic model of chemistry which consists of a nucleus in the centre containing nucleons and being orbited by electrons is a hypothesis. No scientist has seen an atom till today yet the atomic model was created and is used as the basis for all the studies pertaining to atomic bonding, nuclear physics and nanotechnology. Thus the community, over a period of time, has ‘grown’ into this system of knowledge. It is completely coherent with all other theories in chemistry and thus, practically speaking, there is no reason to change this. This gives us an examples of how what the community believes to be true may actual be more beneficial to us than the actual truth itself. What if we were to discover the non existence of nucleons and presence of something totally different? What if these findings could not be generalised into a body of knowledge? Thus, accepting the current atomic model (which may not be true) is convenient.
However, there are cases where the morphing of beliefs with the truth may not be best for people. This particular applies in cases of strong belief such as religion or superstition. High levels of religious fanaticism often arise from age old beliefs and customs which are accepted to be the “right” way of living. In the process of strongly believing in superstitions, people often end up narrowing down their outlook on the world. Also, there is a general belief among people that whatever the majority believes is right. It is not impossible (even though it may be highly unlikely) for a whole sect of people to be completely blind to the truth. For example, people in the Middle Ages believed that the Earth was flat and that the Sun revolved around the Earth among various other things. There had to be a time when there was a certain individual who denied the communal belief and went on to discover the truth. Thus accepting whatever is told to us and whatever is laid down in front of us on a platter is not always the best thing do. Many of the things we know today may also be untrue and there might be a time in the future when these beliefs are destroyed.
This brings us to the question of why do we accept whatever meets the eye to be true? It is hard to point out the truth in an objective manner. There is no way of knowing the absolute truth about the universe, our lives, or the things that happen around us. What we humans, over the years, have done is created various models, made generalizations and drawn conclusions in the patterns we see around us. We know that every time a ball is dropped from a cliff, it will (and most definitely will) fall into the valley below. This, we now call gravity. We can see that the sun rises in a particular direction every day (which we call east) and sets on the opposite end of the sky (which we call west) every evening. Thus we reach the conclusion that our planet rotates about its own axis in a particular direction.
All these conclusions which humans make are, to the greatest extent, corresponding with our other beliefs. If someone was to define gravity as a repelling force rather than an attractive one it would not be coherent with the fact that objects fall down to the earth when left from a height above it. However, to make it coherent, one could lay down the fact that gravity is a repulsive force from the sky. Thus anything that is taken closer to the sky would be repelled from it by this force called “gravity”. As we can see, coherence is important in shaping up which of our beliefs are finally accepted as true. Another one of the truth tests is the pragmatic test which states that anything that is practical to believe in is the truth. This too seems to fit in with all the assumptions we make in the different areas of knowledge. They apply to the world around us and thus these theories are practical. Often times, religious beliefs fail this test of pragmatism since killing people or discriminating against them based on which god they believe in is by no means practical!
Thus it is clearly evident that there are various barriers we face in attaining the truth.The idea of Peirce that "Truth is that to which the community ultimately settles down" is accurate to a very large extent. I believe that what Peirce says here is something that humans have been doing for a very long time. As mentioned before, truth can hardly be classified or defined in an objective manner. Then what is the truth? Peirce succeeds in answering this question in a very practical way. Humans do settle down to a convenient and practical sort of reasoning which fits perfectly into the picture of the world. It takes a lot of time to displace these beliefs from our minds that have been so well moulded in with the rest of our beliefs. Community chooses its own truth based on whatever works best for them. This is exactly what Peirce says. The process of settling down to a certain belief over time does lead to it being called the truth.

1265 words!

"Truth is what the society ultimately settles down"

"Truth is what the society ultimately settles down for" Charles Peirce
This is not true because the society is very large and has so many castes and so it would be very difficult to make all individuals to collectively agree to a particular issue. There are however some claims like "the earth is flat" that whole societies agreed to.

Tok Essay Plan:
"Truth is what the community ultimately settles down"
Charles Peirce

Starting on a larger scale, many believe that the existence of the human race is driven only by the desire to get to the "Ultimate Truth" - what truth really is.

The “Truth” itself is a very ambigous concept – different people perceive various situations in their own unique way and thus interpret and describe incidents differently. This affects the “definition” of truth as what is true for one person may not entirely be true for everyone.

The sense of justice is heavily influenced by what everyone believes to be the “truth”. For example, militants fighting for Kashmiri independence are veiwed as terrorists by the rest of India, but as heroes and matrys by most Kashmiris. Indian independence fighters were labelled terrorists by the British but were heroes for the rest of India. The British call the First War of Independence (1857) the Sepoy Revolt. What really is true?

Unconsciously, everyone searches for their inner truth, what they are headed towards. And this is where the community comes in. every culture, every community, has a differnet way of getting to that truth. I believe that the main pathway to get to the truth, for every culture, is religion. Each religion is only a different path to get to that light at the end, what people call Nirvana or Salvation.

As we talk about religion, the question of God arises. What is God? A concpet created so that people have something to hang on to when everything seems hopeless? Is God another name for the Ultimate Truth?

There is enough proof to suggest that the people of the world, collectively, have not really settled down to what the truth is. People used to belive that the earth was flat; it turned out to be round centuries later. People also belived that the earth was the centre of the solar system, with all the planets, the sun and moon revolving around it. They believed this theory for quite some time, in other words, they “settled down” to the belief.

But it was not the truth.

We now believe that the sun is the centre of our solar system. But is that really the “truth”?

Therefore, what a community settles down to believing may be the truth for that particular community but not the “real truth” that exists.

WHEN SHOULD WE TRUST OUR SENSES TO GIVE US THE TRUTH

Senses are the physiological methods of perception. There are times when senses do not give us the truth and others where they are able to give us the truth.
There are times when our senses make us feel that there is a presence behind us but there is actually no presence. This is because sometimes our senses are mistaken and this effect can be increased if the person is on some kind of drug or is drunk. When someone is drunk the senses do not work properly and so a drunken person cannot usually judge the distance between two objects. There are times when our senses misguide us into thinking that a liquid is cold when it is actually hot. There are some cases when our senses make us feel that someone is calling us when there is actually no one behind us. These are the times when our senses are not able to give us the truth.

ToK essay plan

“truth is what the community ultimately settles down.” (Charles Peirce, US)
----In my opinion, truth is NOT what the community ultimately settles down to.

History provides enough evidence to prove my stand.
Many years before the Age of Thinking and the Renaissance, the entire Western world believed that the world was flat. The events that followed in the years to come proved that the world is in fact spherical.
Copernicus… before his time, everyone believed that the Earth was the centre of the universe… this was again proved wrong by Copernicus..
There are countless other examples of generally accepted facts being proved false.

The ultimate truth… AN IMPOSSIBLE GOAL?????
In many cases, it is not possible to find out the actual truth.. for eg, the actual structure of the atom can never be found out… all we can do is make theories that correspond to other established, observable facts… such theories are assumed to be true as they are able to explain the various behaviors of atoms and correspond with other explanations of matters.
An example of this the extremely contentious issue about the existence of God. Although many people have claimed that they have seen God, there is no way we can provide empirical evidence about God’s existence. Some people say that God exists because it is impossible to prove that He does not exist. This is an argument ad-ignorantium.

Herd mentality
To a great extent, what the community collectively believes in is regarded as the truth. No human can exist in isolation, and we generally have the tendency to accept what is generally accepted. We are always influenced by the thoughts of others, especially if a large number of people support the argument. This ‘herd mentality’ often prevents the actual truth from being discovered.
Religion affects millions of people worldwide.. blind beliefs are characteristic of many religions… many religious beliefs are totally devoid of reason…. All the myths are not true.. in the Mahabharata for example, there are stories of people flying during fights etc…

mothman prophecies

ToK analysis of Mothman Prophecies

The Mothman prophecies is an example of how various things come together to formulate one’s beliefs. In the story, a tall, mysterious man arrives at the doorstep of a couple in Virginia. It was a dark stormy night, and the mysterious guest’s car had broken down on the way. He wanted to make a telephone call and knocked on the nearest doorstep.
The couple was quite taken aback when they first saw the mysterious stranger. Since they had never come across a tall, bearded man on a stormy night before, they perceived him to be someone dangerous. The image of the man was frightening, and thus it aroused emotions of fear in the couple.
The prevailing religious beliefs supported the existence of the devil. The image of the stranger immediately reminded them of the devil. The couple then told their experience to their friends. They too reasoned that the image of the stranger was coherent to the concept of an evil devil. Also, an accident took place in the days that followed. This further convinced the couple and their friends that it was in fact the devil who had given them a surprise visit and done an evil deed in the form of an accident. In this case, the coherence truth test was utilized.
This is a fitting example of how our perception is strongly influenced by our expectations and existing beliefs.

“Truth is that which the community ultimately settles down”

Introduction
Define Truth – What is truth in your terms?
According to you how does it affect the community? Give Examples Related to someone in a political party and how that person proves true points in a false manner.
Does the community actually settle down once it is told the truth?
Body
Explain how truth depends on the belief of the person that is what is true and what is false leaving the scientific and mathematical proofs.
Something that is true for someone can be false for the other person.
Is it good to lie to keep the community quiet and hide the original facts from them?
Can the community be easily fooled?
Will a lie make a person feel guilty?
Conclusion
Truth is something what on feels is right and believes in it and it does not make one feel guilty of what one has done.
It is also something that is justified and is a proven fact, which the others also believe in.
In the end it can be said truth is not and idea nor is it a feeling it is just what is right

TOK - Essay 1

"Truth is that to which the community ultimately settles down" (Charles Peirce). Analyse and evaluate this claim.

TOK ESSAY
TOPIC NO. 8 - To understand something you need to rely on your own experience and culture. Does this mean that it is impossible to have objective knowledge?
Experience and culture influnce your beliefs, which in turn effects the way you perceive things.
What may be 'correct' for someone of a particular culture, might seem wrong to someone from another culture.
But not all our ideas and reactions to a particular situation are influenced by our experience, on certain occassions we do use our objectve knowledge.
I'd like to give both view points i.e. For and Against the statement.
This statement is true to a certain extent - (give 2 egs.)
Justify your examples
In what context is it false?

TOK Essay title

I would most probably like to do the 8th title:
"To understand something you need to rely on your own experience and culture. Does this mea that it is impossible to have objective knowledge?"
I agree with this title as our own experience and culture influence the way we live our lives, our thoughts and our actions. It also affects the way we interact with others and the way we percieve other's interaction with us. Culture and to a certain extent, religion, also affect our understanding. I will discuss this using examples in my essay.

TOK essay plan

would like to do the 5th title in the list which is" in expanding the Field of knowledge we but increase the horizon of ignorance(Henry Miller). is this true?"
In this essay,i would first explain what findings does come under the title of field of knowledge and what i have understood as the horizon of ignorance. then i would like to discuss how our knowledge is based on assumptions. this could be illustrated by the example of any scientific research is based upon assumptions such as there is no friction acting on the body or the mass of the electrons are negligible. i could also write about the four ways of knowing and how each of them have their limitations and flaws because of which we can never be completely sure of what we know. also, even if any believed "fact" passes the three truth tests, it still has chances of being flawed as the truth tests too have their limitations. Also, for any belief to in fact be true, it is necessary that no assumptions are made while proving them. As there are many forces acting on us at any point of time and it is almost impossible to identify each and every one of them and quantify them, our knowledge can never be without any flaws. then, i could go on to show that with every new piece of knowledge, we seem to be disproving what was previous knowledge (world is flat etc.). in this way, what we were sure of and certain about changes to an uncertainty, resulting in ignorance as that is one less thing we know for sure. in this way, expanding the Field of knowledge results in an increase in the horizon of ignorance.

I will most probably do topic no.2 ie When should we trust our senses to give us truth.Through this topic I will try and look at the times when our senses do not give us the truth and those that give us truth. Then I will analyse these to see as to why sometimes our senses are not able to give us truth and also see if there are any factors that affect our senses and stop them from showing the truth at times.

i would like to do my ToK esssay on topic no 6 -"compare and contrast our approach to knowledge about the past with our approach to knowledge about the future."

From the discussions in class with Mr. Nicklin and Mr. Issack it became obvious that our approach to the past and the future is quite different, simply because in case of the past we can rely on books, personal reports and other pieces of evidence. in case of the future, we have to rely mostly on conjectures and theories. Simply put, we can only predict the future, whereas we have comparatively more solid information for researching history. I would like to explore this field in greater depth using a ToK approach.

Theory of Knowledge- Presrcibed Titles

At this point in time, the title which appeals to me the most is number 8
"To understand something you need to rely on your experience and culture. Does this mean that it is impossible to have objective knowledge?"

I strongly agree with this statement. according to me, our past experiences play a vital part in determining what we think about the world and things around us. I will, with examples, try to demonstrate how knowledge in the truly objective form is hard to have. However there are boubnd to be exceptions.

TOK Essay Topic

Most probably I will do the third topic
'Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of reason as a way of knowing'
In this essay I will be discussing the strengths of reason such as through reason we can think step by step in sequences and also it help us solve problems. it makes us think and analyse problems. we can look at a situation from different points of view. reason also helps us differentiate what is right and what is wrong. Weaknesses of reason are that it can make us think like machines. EMotion also plays a role. we also tend to leave out certain factors. For example if a child has done something wrong he should be punished but there may be other factors such as emotional stress or the boy is young and aware that his act is wrong. Reason would call for punishment.
'The heart has its own reason that reason (of the brain) knows nothing of'

The excerpt from Mothman Prophecies heard in class was about an encounter that couple had one night. It was a stormy night and the couple was alone at home. A frightening man, dressed completely in black, appeared at their doorstep and requested to use their phone. Afraid of whom he may be, they refused the request. The couple related this incident only to a few people who they knew they could confide in. a few days later the couple passed away in an accident. The friend that knew of the encounter that night immediately related the incident to an appearance of Satan, the devil or Beelzebub. In this incident, the four ways of knowing work together in convincing the friends that their superstition was true. The couple judged the man by his appearance and therefore came upon a conclusion about who he is only from what they perceived. They then related the incident to their friends, who came upon the knowledge through language. Once the couple died, the friends used reasoning (although it may not have given them the correct understanding) to connect the two event that took place. Finally, the friends experienced the emotion of fear that convinced them that it must have been the devil (whom they feared) who brought the ill fate upon their friends, the couple. The couple’s death is a negative event, which could have occurred due to a negative power, and the devil is a negative power. All parts seem to fit, and their belief passes the test of coherence. But, it is true that even the tests of knowledge are flawed and incomplete. Also, it is important that any belief, such as the one discussed, passes all three tests of knowledge to be considered justified and true. Also, the existence of the devil is a belief in society that may not necessarily be true. Yet it is an accepted notion which some people mistake for knowledge. This belief passes the test pragmatism and coherence as it explains the cause of any negative event, but it has yet to be proved and therefore cannot be considered justified true belief. This incident also shows the power of emotion and belief in our understanding as it was these two ways of knowing that dominated the knowledge claims made by the friend in the excerpt and caused to have a flawed view of the whole incident.

TOK Prescribed Titles

Refer to the handout on the TOK prescribed titles and select one title tentatively . (Choose the one you feel most comfortable with at this stage.)
Kindly indicate both the number and the essay title.

Mothman Prophecies

In class we dealt with the topic of a supernatural occurrence. We listened to an excerpt of the book “The Mothman Prophecies” by John A Keel. This excerpt dealt with a unusual situation a couple faced in 1967. a couple in West Virginia encounter a stranger in the middle of a rainy night. This stranger, dressed in black from head to toe, requests to use their phone due to a car breakdown. Due to his menacing appearance, the couple reject his request and close the door in his face. When they confided their neighbours and friends, all agreed that they had encountered the Mothman, or the Devil. Furthermore, about a week later, the couple die in a car accident. They soon link that the reason why the couple was died was because they and encountered the Devil. The reasoning made by the society could be coherent to the belief and what actually happens, however, the incident could also be a coincidence. I believe that what happened was nothing but a coincidence. However, due to societies beliefs and norms during the 60’s many people were under the influence that the Devil did exist. They related his appearance and his mysterious entry and exist as a sign, some form of an indicator that HE was the reason the couple perished in the car crash. However, if we reason it out, there are too many questions raised to agree with the society’s belief – does the Devil exist? Who is he? Or she? Why did he/she visit that particular couple? Why did they die exactly a week later, in a car crash that too? Without the correct proof no clear conclusion can be made, only assumptions based on belief. The man could have been anyone, he could have actually been a person stranded in the middle of the night. It was because they society did not have a grounded argument or evidence for the visit; they linked it to the Devil. This shows how people’s beliefs and thoughts were easily accepted amongst the society – linking two very different situations to make them fit somehow. There could have been a number of different reasons why the couple died.

Mothman Prophecies

The knowledge claims made by the couple are that they have seen a devil which is absolutely wrong because devils do not exist. It is totally wrong to consider anyone dressed in black completely is a devil. They had a wrong belief that they had seen a devil. It was just the time at which the person came to their house and the colour of clothes the person was wearing made their fear change in to their belief. But as far as what I know and what I am taught there is no such thing as a devil on this earth and the couple could have formed a wrong impression of the person whom they saw.
If we carefully try understanding what had happened is that the couple got scared and closed the door when the person in black asked if he could use their phone to make a call. It is the dull brain of the couple who thought he was a devil and shut the door. They did not even help the person who was facing the problem because his car broke down. I agree that anyone would get scared about a man wearing complete black and knocking at the door late in the night. Anyone would shut the door and would not go out of way to help the person but it is craziness if anyone spreads a rumour that they have seen a devil because they have seen someone black late in the night and the people(friends) believing what is told to them are bigger fools.
The fear that the couple faced was one of the major reasons for them not to know what actually happened. According to the story we come to know that the friends believe what is told to them what by the couple and without seeing what actually happened they blindly believe what is told to them and it spread by the word of mouth that the devil existed.
Further listening to the story we come to know that the couple died in an accident when they were travelling over a bridge but their friends and the people in that area thought that it was because they saw a devil they both died. A man in black knocking at your door and the couples friends blame the man who asked for help for the accident resulting in the death of the couple. There is no relevance according to me whatsoever it was just an accident and as per their destiny they had to die the knocking of the man to the death has no connection. I mean we cannot even call it a coincidence if we properly analyze the situation the death is nowhere connected to a man knocking at the door late in night.
The couple probably can consider the human at their door as a devil but as far as their friends are concerned it is their foolishness to believe someone saying something like that. I would like to conclude by saying what believe that is – “Seeing is believing” so according to me it was totally stupid of the friends to believe the couple .Now I guess people would question me about the existence of God because no one has seen God but I think God exists and I feel it is my upbringing that makes me believe e that God exists.

THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES

THE MOTHMAN PROPHECIES

The extract from the ‘Mothman Prophecies’ by John Keel, highlights two important aspects of TOK – i) Reason and Belief; ii) Truth and Superstition.
A tall man, wearing black clothes on a rainy night, was perhaps an image created by the people of Virginia to describe how the devil looked. The people of Virginia ‘believed’ in the existence of the devil. It was perhaps a superstition in the country carried down from generations, but it was now considered to be the ‘truth’.
The couple had encountered a stranger who resembled their image of a devil - a tall man, wearing black clothes on a rainy night. The couple was so taken aback by what they saw, that they believed that it was the devil. To confirm their belief, they narrated the incident to their friends, who agreed that the couple had encountered the devil.
Few days later, when the couple died in a fatal accident, their friends said that the devil was responsible for their death. They reasoned themselves that if the couple hadn’t seen the devil, they would have still been safe.
Just as the people of Virginia had a belief, I too have mine, I believe that there’s no such thing as the Devil, and so that night the couple could not have encountered the ‘devil’. Their accident was a mere coincidence that had occurred a few days after meeting the stranger. The couple was destined to die that day and so they did die.
The existence of the devil has not been proved till today. Those who believe in it have chosen to do so, and vice versa. Thus, belief in the ‘Devil’ depends upon each one’s personal opinion and perspective.
Co-incidences happen too – if I throw the apple on the floor and at the same time a bomb is dropped on country A by B, it doesn’t mean that my apple caused the apple to fall. Each of the incidents was independent in their existence and not a cause or outcome of the other. Similarly, the couple’s fatal accident and their encounter with the stranger were two different incidents.
I’d like to end with a quote by Deepak Chopra “There’s a conspiracy of co-incidences that weaves the web of Karma or destiny and creates an individual’s personal life – mine, or yours.”

TOK Assembly- Script & Cast

SKIT – TOK ASSEMBLY

Characters:
Psychologist- Somiran
Detective- Jeet
Audience people (3) - Aashna, Ramya, Rahul Sheth

Psychologist’s office. Waiting for patient

Detective enters

Detective: Doctor! The world has lost all reason! Nobody understands my amazing intellect!!

Psychologist: maybe I will. Please elaborate.

Detective: It all started that day……….

…..I was investigating the murder of young Mr and Mrs Blah. I was about to crack the case when the police inspector’s nine year old cracked it before me!!

Psychologist: But what were the case details?

Detective (stands up and starts pacing): the couple lived in a round house with their maid, butler and cook. They were found murdered one morning. When questioned, the cook claimed to be chopping vegetables with a knife in the kitchen, the butler was polishing Mr’s axe, while the maid was sweeping the corners of the house. I knew it was the cook, but the darn child claimed she knew better! (Ask the audience) Do you know who she said the murderer was??

Aashna: THE MAID!!
A round house has no corners. The maid was lying, of course!!

Detective is stunned for a moment (stunned actions and music)

Detective: Okaayyy.. (Fuming): the second case is much harder, a true test of intelligence and reasoning.

Psychologist: Calm down and tell me what happened

Detective: Ms. Blah came to with a complaint that she had been swindled out of her cats. She said that the real estate agent promised to sell her a square room with a cat in every corner, with 3 cats in front of each and a cat at the end of each tail. She said that the room she got had fewer cats than she was promised, and according to me she was right, and the man was lying. But again! The young lady’s even younger sister cracked this one and walked with the credit proving the man innocent. (To the audience) How many cats do you think she was due?

Rahul: 32!! Of course

Ramya: no, duh! The answer is 4! Think about it. 4 corners for a square. 1 cat in each corner. 3 corners in front of each one corner therefore 3 cats in front of each cat. Each cat is attached or, at the end of, its own tail! Therefore, there were 4 cats due!

Detective faints.

Psychologist: to reach a conclusion, to know an answer, reasoning is very important. Knowledge and arguments devoid of reason do not withstand the truth tests of coherence and correspondence. Reason is a primary means of confirming beliefs. Knowing, that knowledge is justified true belief, we know that Reasoning and logic are two tools necessary to make a knowledge claim. As seen, reasoning is a skill that one develops…(wry smile) unless of course you are like Detective XxxxX

Mothman Prophecies

The Mothman Prophecies

The extract of the Mothman Prophecies which we heard described an incident that saw the amalgamation of superstition, coincidence and paranormal belief. The excerpt highlighted an instance at which a couple was visited in the dark of night by an unexpected visitor, dressed in morbid albeit formal attire. The appearance of the stranger formed the basis for the impression the couple formed of him, highlighting how perception can form the basis for judgment. There appears little to indicate why the stranger approached their house, but because of his apparel and the atmosphere outside, the couple perceived him to be threatening. This laid the platform for the development of fear; an emotion. The atmosphere was stormy and windy, and the setting was complimented by the nature of the town in which it was not a usual occurrence for random strangers to approach. The obvious novelty of the situation would have led to the development and production of many emotions, foremost of which would have been fear. It was this fear that would have haunted the couple, and reminded them of the incident, rather than having them forget it immediately. Emotion can therefore be attributed as the cause for the almost omnipresent nature of the memory that continued to be with the couple long after that fateful night. The 4 ways of knowing contributed in equal part to taking the situation to its climax; at least the rising point of the extract. Reason too cannot be ignored. Keeping in mind that the couple had been educated it is apparent that they had an idea and a belief as per the existence of the devil. Was that man really the devil? According to the reasoning of the couple and their friends, he was. Although the reasoning was clouded by religious bias, and knowledge of possibility, the couple obviously reasoned out the visit of the stranger to befitting with their belief in the paranormal, and the concept of the devil. This belief would therefore have been strengthened by the occurrence of this incident; despite acknowledging that from a rational perspective the incident could have been a mere coincidence and happened to anybody else.
Knowledge has been defined as justified true belief. Was the couple’s belied justified? Perhaps. Was it true? The question poses an inherent tautology which is best left unanswered, up to personal opinion. The couple however, believed that it was true, and this led to the involvement of the fourth way of knowing: language. As the couple narrated the incident to their friends, they only had the basis of their interpretation of the event was based on the narration they received. Whether it was exaggerated or inaccurate in parts it is difficult to say. In keeping with the vehement belief the couple had, when considered with the time period (1967), superstition and belief in the paranormal world, it can be determined that the couple believed that it was knowledge that they had been visited by the devil. This “knowledge” was propagated by them, and therefore, when they died in the bridge collapse the immediate conclusion reached was that it had been the fulfillment of the foreboding and foreshadowing apparition they had witnessed. How did one reach this conclusion? It seems apparent that by using coherence the couple’s friends put two and two together to try and explain their sudden demise. However, in keeping with the same they did not consider the others who had also died during the incident, one of the primary pieces of evidence which suggests that it was in fact, nothing more than a coincidence. This leads me to believe, that the friends reasoning too was to a certain extent clouded by emotion, because about 40 years into the future and from a completely unbiased perspective it appears to me that their death was nothing more than a mere coincidence, albeit one in a series which would be rare but not impossible. I cannot say with absolute conviction that they had been visited by the devil, and therefore I cannot relate the two incidents. It appears therefore, that the two events may have been entirely unrelated, and that the couple and their friends may have been victims of their own blind beliefs.

The Mothman Prophecies

We listened to the story from John Keel’s The Mothman Prophecies which deals with paranormal occurrences. The story leads to much discussion and argument from a TOK point of view and leads us to ask the eternal question – Can we believe everything that we see?”

In the excerpt, a couple in West Virginia encounters a “fearsome apparition” in the middle of a rainy night. The apparition was a stranger, dressed in black, requesting to use the phone since his car had broken down. The couple assume that he is the devil incarnate himself and shut the door on his face. The couple’s friends agree that they had encountered the Mothman. The belief is further strengthened by the fact that the couple die in a fatal car incident. However, according to me, the encounter with the stranger had nothing to do with the couple’s death. It was a matter of coincidence which served to fuel a belief of the Virginian people.

I think that the couple presumed that the stranger was the devil because that is what they wanted to believe. Mark Twain famously said that ‘you cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.’ The Virginians in the 1960s had a preconceived superstition and they seemed to link all unusual happenings to it. There can be two reasons attributed to it.

The first is the ‘post hoc ergo propter hoc’ fallacy which is based upon the mistaken notion that simply because one thing happens after another, the first event was a cause of the second event. However, many events follow sequential patterns without being causally related.

The second reason can be that ‘believing is seeing’ rather than the other way around. We do not shape our beliefs on the basis of what we see; rather, what we see is influenced by our beliefs. Often, we do not see what is there, but rather what we want to or expect to see. The stranger could have been genuinely seeking the help of the couple but they saw him as the devil because they wanted to see that. The whole setting of a stormy night, the black clothes and the strange accent could have also supplemented their perception of the stranger as the devil.

The reasoning of the couple and their friends seems illogical to me. Their belief in the devil cannot be justified, but at the same time, it cannot be disproved either. According to me, a mere stranger stranded in the middle of a rainy night, was mistaken to be the devil since the people of West Virginia believed in the devil. The couple’s death was unrelated to the mysterious man’s appearance at the doorstep. According to me, their death cannot be explained through that incident but the people in that time wanted to believe that and so they did.

I will end with a quote by William James – “Whilst part of what we perceive comes through our senses from the object before us, another part (and it may be the larger part) always comes out of our own mind.”

The Mothman Prophecies - John A. Keel

The excerpt of the book “The Mothman Prophecies” by John A. Keel which we heard dealt with a supernatural occurring. It revealed the superstitions of society at the time (1967). A superstition is a belief not based on knowledge (from a TOK perspective, NO belief is knowledge). It weighs more importance of certain happenings and finds patterns in these string of events to justify something. In this excerpt, it is believed by the friends of the couple that the couple had encountered the devil himself. The cause for their death is attributed to this encounter of theirs. This reasoning by society could be coherent to what actually happened but there lies a difference between coherence of events, and a coincidence. It seems to me, personally, that what really happened was nothing but a coincidence. I cannot obviously explain the presence of the hooded man at the couple’s door late one night and his rather mysterious disappearance, but it is hard to believe that it was the devil himself. It raises too many questions which haven’t been answered to date. Who is the devil? Is there a devil? There’s no proof for it, there’s no proof against it, so there is much point in arguing about it but the fact is, from a rational point of view the accident suffered by the couple could have been suffered by anyone else. I’m sure in the time span between their encounter and their death, various other deaths (or a few at least) would have occurred in West Virginia. How might society put a reason on those deaths?
By my reckoning, this event goes down as a mere coincidence. It is not evident from the extract whether others had similar encounters with the devil. It might have been any person who was stranded in the middle of the night albeit a little scary in appearance.
This type of baseless reasoning by the society at that time just reflects how easily people accepted things. They were ready to put two unrelated things (to me, at least) together and make it seem like something ominous.

Thank You

Dear All,

First, my thanks go to Mr Nicklin for the introduction last Friday and for handing over to me. I will do everything possible to continue the excellent work he has been doing so far.

I also thank Shloka for adding me on this blog. And thank you all for your participation in class this afternoon.

I hoped you enjoyed our session today.

The aim of the lesson - and the following assignment - is to help you review and apply what you have learnt so far.

So here we go:

We have listened to the strange story of a stranger in the night in West Virginia in 1967. A mysterious figure, all in black, knocked at the door of a couple on that rainy night. In a deep voice and with a strange accent, he told them that his car had broken down and asked to use their phone. The terrified couple shut the door in the face of the fearsome apparition, saying there was no phone in the house. The next day they told their friends about the incident...

Analyse the story that you have heard today from a TOK perspective.

1. What are the knowledge claims made by
a. the couple,
b. their friends?

2. What do you believe really happened?

3. Justify your belief.

Cheers!

The Truman Story
A TOK and FRESCIPLACT reflection
Foreign and Military One of the main themes is space and time. The organisers have created an ‘artificial’ space in which Truman lives. Truman gets hints that this world does not ‘correspond’ with reality when, for example, people break in on events with placards saying that it is a TV show, and one of the actresses tries to warn him. He also sees in a lift the back of the scenery. In every other sense the world that has been created is ‘coherent’ and so acceptable as true. This idea suggests to us that the world of a small American community is so close to being hermetically sealed the film makers can make us believe that life in a community which IS hermetically sealed is capable of being confused with reality for the span of Truman’s life (about 25 years?). Confusion about space and time is to be expected in a country where geography is not taught in schools.
Religion and Ideas. The film is a reflection on freedom. To paraphrase Rousseau: Truman ‘thinks himself free, but is … a slave…’. Religious and libertarian opinion in the USA would unite against such a proposal if a TV company ever made it. In another sense the film is about solipsism. Truman is, indeed, the only real person there, but not in the sense that solipsists imagine. The film does not propose that the people with whom Truman interacts are imaginary, but that they are insincere. The figure of the TV director is God-like, and causes us to reflect on the probable unpleasantness of a man-made God if indeed he were a reality. In the film Truman is an individual without sin, and as such is a suitable sacrificial lamb on the altar of TV revenue. In reality, though, Truman is himself an actor, and so equally ‘unreal’. From Christianity the audience has imbibed the idea of free-will, which Truman is shown being denied. Would an Islamic version be less controversial, since Truman would be required to accept whatever was thrown at him as ‘the will of Allah’?
Economics The setting up of the deception would have required vast sums of money, but frequent comments on ‘ratings’ show that the investment is expected to show a profit. In this sense the film is a left-wing critique of the things that capitalism does to people. The film does not raise any of the important issues of poverty in the modern world, having been placed in an affluent American environment.
Social Truman has been placed in a Western, post-Christian, bourgeois, relatively wealthy environment. The show is to entertain an audience, so the film is commenting on the taste of an audience which happily watches the cold-blooded deception and exploitation of a human being. ‘Oh, Brave New World’, it seems to be saying, ‘that hath such people in it!’ It seeks to curry favour with the real audience (us) by making us feel superior to the audience watching Truman in the film. One may query whether the film audience’s response corresponds with one’s appreciation of the real range of human responses. Crowds of radicals surely would have been assaulting the studio premises on a daily basis! The main issue raised is of corporate responsibility. There are no issues of class, crime or education in the community, and only a hint of gender issue in the arguments Truman has with his wife. The film accepts American assumptions about lifestyle, and raises, for example, no ecological issues.
Constitutional: The experiment would be illegal under any system of law, because it proposed the abduction of an infant and his false imprisonment for 25 years. Multiple crimes in the area of child protection and civil liberty have been committed. Pretending that a TV company could override this is surely part of a Hollywood agenda which states that authority is all a plot arranged by the powerful, laws are a sham and no-one is on the side of the ‘little man’. This agenda makes the work of local agencies like police, schools and housing departments more difficult than it need be. We reflect that the film takes advantage of the popular gullibility about the power of science and technology. A theme of the film is the distance that exists between people who really wield power and have knowledge and people of average ability and restricted experience. The existence of such a gap is worrying for democracy. The film undermines democracy firstly by impugning the motives of those in authority and secondly by portraying an ‘electorate’ which is cruel and supine.
Individual The idea that we might ourselves be ‘Trumans’ is a paranoid delusion. ‘The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars (or, as in this case, in the corporate wickedness of TV companies) but in ourselves’. The film fails to explain how it is possible to have controlled the other individuals with whom Truman comes into contact. The main problem here is not with the adults, but with the children with whom the infant Truman would have played and gone to school. I have taught many children who have not travelled more than a few miles from where they attend school, but I have never taught a class in which everyone was in that condition. These children would themselves have had to be similarly deluded, or they would certainly have commented to Truman on their ‘journey to school’.
Points of View: The Film makers – making money themselves by appealing to the section of society which believes that we are all just pawns in corporate games. Universal rightists who think that Truman has a right to choose between real things. ‘Luvvies’ – like all drama, the view of reality is the view of the sort of people who go in for acting. Their prejudices about teachers, doctors, lawyers and policemen are presented to the audience as ‘truths’, and are difficult to challenge because they control the main media ouitlets. An anti-English agenda is an obvious component of many American films made in the last twenty years (Braveheart, and ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ are obvious examples)
Language Truman = True Man? ‘Trumania’ = the instinct to form a hypothesis which corresponds with observed reality? Trumania = TOK?
Alternative Hypothesis The film suggests that our lives might be like Truman’s, and the alternative is that they are not. I am, as always, willing to bet that no-one will find a rip in our sky.
Cause, Change and Similarity Truman’s plight is caused by the wickedness of others, and his ‘break-out’ is a triumph of TOK because the lack of correspondence between observed reality and the explanation caused the downfall of the explanation. Truman changes as a result of his experiences. We are asked to reflect on similarities between Truman’s plight and our own. I would draw attention to two other cinematic works: the first is ‘The last Emperor’ which portrays Henry Pu Yi, the last emperor of China, immured in his palace for ten or twelve years in the erroneous belief, perpetuated by the palace establishment, that he is the ruler of China. In fact of course the government has passed to various worlards and nationalists. The emperor ends up as a tour guide under the communist regime (in the film, in reality, actually I believe, the gardener in his own palace). The other film is a series on British TV called ‘Seven Up’ where a group of children from different social classes was brought together and interviewed. The process was repeated at seven year intervals until the subjects were 42 years old. After that it was discontinued because some of the individuals’ lives had assumed tragic proportions, and many of them felt that the programme was a millstone round their necks. Real ‘reality’ was too painful to be good entertainment. ‘The Truman Story’ in the classic American way, looks forward to a happy ending where Truman is happier in touch with ‘real’ reality than he was with illusory ‘reality’.
Time The film refers to changes through time, for example to the more sophisticated camera devices. If it had begun 30 or so years ago it is very doubtful that the range of illusions seen in the film could have been managed at that time if indeed they could be managed today. Can a tsunami be generated on a film set even now? If it be alleged that the film is set in the future, then why are there so many indications that it is not. (Mobile phone technology dates films very precisely these days).

Dear All,

I shall not be teaching you TOK this term. Thank you for your company last term and I wish you well in the subject.

I leave you with another quote from 'Straight and Crooked Thinking' which has stuck in my mind for forty years or so.

'I am firm, thou art obstinate, he is pigheaded...'

Regards

Hugh Nicklin

Straight and Crooked Thinking

Dear All,

Seeing Ramya in Crossword reminded me to look this book up on Amazon. They have copies, but they are £20 plus (1600 Rs) plus postage.

However, the following quote has always stuck in my memory as characteristic of what the books is saying:

(1) 'Full on the casement shone the wintry moon,
Throwing warm gules on Madeleine's fair breast'

(2) 'Through the stained glass window the moonlight made red marks on Jane's chest'.

(3) 'There was an effect on the female's thorax caused by the selective transmission of light through pigmented glass'.

Happy New Year.

Hugh Nicklin