Fascinating conversation; just keeps getting better.
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2013/apr/16/mapping-brain/
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This blog post about wine-tasting is filled with ‘earthy’ language (in other words, obscenity and profanity) but it does suggest some interesting TOK questions. http://io9.com/wine-tasting-is-bullshit-heres-why-496098276 Be the first to like. Like Unlike Most of what you need to know, right here: http://prezi.com/7nugodcso5zd/tok-presentation-tips/ Be the first to like. Like Unlike I have added a new page to the blog where you can find quotations particularly relevant to TOK. You can click on this link http://ericmacknight.com/ibtok/?page_id=6018 to see it, or use the linkbar underneath the photo. Be the first to like. Like Unlike His most disputed work was “The Historian and History” (1964), a witty indictment of American historians. In the book he observed wryly that there were then 15 “trained and presumably productive” people with doctorates in the field for every year of the nation’s history. That is far more than is necessary, he argued, especially [...] Pierre smiled, Natasha began to laugh, but Nicholas knitted his brows still more and began proving to Pierre that there was no prospect of any great change and that all the danger he spoke of existed only in his imagination. Pierre maintained the contrary, and as his mental faculties were greater and [...] Benjamin Franklin—printer, entrepreneur, scientist, inventor, community organizer, revolutionary, diplomat, celebrity—wrote one of the earliest autobiographies. In it he tells a story from his youth that neatly illustrates the value of reason in our lives. I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from Boston, being becalm’d off Block Island, our people [...] Does Robert Fulghum begin to make a case here for a universal ethical code? All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at [...] David Bordwell is one of the world’s great authorities on filmmaking. If you are interested in how movies work, you can do no better than to read him. Lucky for all of us, he has a blog, and this article on how to watch an art film is as good a place to jump [...] A fascinating essay by Roger Ebert, the American film critic. 1 person likes this post. Like Unlike The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle has crossed over from physics to become a sort of ‘common knowledge’ like Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ or Freud’s ideas about neurosis or the ‘Oedipal complex’. This article from ars technica, however—“Demolishing Heisenberg with clever math and experiments”—makes the Uncertainty Principle seem much less than certain. 1 person likes this post. Beau Lotto’s 2009 TED Talk is here: http://www.ted.com/talks/beau_lotto_optical_illusions_show_how_we_see.html. No subtitles, but click on “Show Transcript” and you can have a written version in Chinese and Korean and lots of other languages. This 2012 TED blog post may also interest you: http://blog.ted.com/2012/06/26/science-is-play-beau-lotto-and-amy-otoole-at-tedglobal-2012/ Be the first to like. Like Unlike “Researchers have been able to take over an animal’s brain, instruct it to turn in any direction they choose, and even to implant false sensory information, fooling the animal into thinking food was nearby.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120924102658.htm 1 person likes this post. Like Unlike Here are the links from today’s TOK class: Leonard Lopate’s interview with Mark Matousek: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2011/aug/23/what-makes-us-good/ Eve Ensler’s TED Talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/eve_ensler_on_happiness_in_body_and_soul.html Paul Graham’s essay, “What You Can’t Say” http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html Be the first to like. Like Unlike Write a post in which you consider the following question: Where do our ideas about human rights come from? Are they rooted in something universal to all people, like human nature or divine law? Or are they rooted in a particular culture, or a particular religion, or a certain group or class of society [...] While we are thinking about street names, you might be interested in this post I wrote a while back proposing that schools do something similar—especially since DCSZ is opening a new Senior School campus in the coming months. http://ericmacknight.com/wordpress/?p=557 Be the first to like. Like Unlike Source: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/the-ashtray-this-contest-of-interpretation-part-5/ For those who truly believe that truth is subjective or relative (along with everything else), ask yourself the question – is ultimate guilt or innocence of a crime a matter of opinion? Is it relative? Is it subjective? A jury might decide you’re guilty of a crime that you haven’t committed. You’re [...] A rejoinder to Andy Fletcher’s argument, here: http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/02/a-brief-history-of-the-multiverse.ars Be the first to like. Like Unlike http://www.edge.org/responses/what-is-your-favorite-deep-elegant-or-beautiful-explanation My favourite is by Carl Zimmer: “A Hot Young Earth: Unquestionably Beautiful and Stunningly Wrong“. Before that, Einstein and the scientific method, among others, make appearances. Well worth reading! Be the first to like. Like Unlike I came across this site via Steven Pinker, the renowned Harvard psychologist. If you are interested in brain science, genetics, and intelligence, have a look! https://www.cog-genomics.org/about/ Be the first to like. Like Unlike I received this comment by email. —etm I have been reading about the thoughts on intuition on your site and find most of them do not actually reflect what intuition is in my experience. Many speak about intuition coming from deep in the subconscious or from life experience, but when I teach about intuition, [...] In his TED talk, ‘Queerer than we can suppose’, Richard Dawkins suggests that we may be more like waves than physical objects. He describes a crescent-shaped sand dune in Africa that moves about 17 metres each year. The grains of sand that make up the dune are constantly changing—being added to or removed from [...] Two links to this TEDTalk, should you want to watch it again: 1. In my Dropbox folder, here: http://db.tt/fPAXLtXp. The path is Video / Science & Technology / Sense Perception. It’s the first one in that folder. 2. From the TED site, here: Beau Lotto. If you watch on the TED site, you [...] This piece from Daily Writing Tips makes clear the hazards of repeating ‘what everybody knows’. Be the first to like. Like Unlike I will be team-teaching TOK part-time this year, so this blog’s name has been changed to reflect the fact that the course is now team-taught at Dulwich College Suzhou. The lead teacher is Julie Connah, assisted by Alan Connah and myself. Older content was written by me and my students at Suzhou Singapore International [...] Perhaps it will be useful for me to summarize the main points I argued in today’s class. I disagree with van de Lagemaat when he speaks of three theories of truth. The first, which he calls the ‘correspondence theory’, seems to me to be simply the definition of truth: if what I say matches [...] I would like you to have another go at the question, “Is art subjective?” But this time I want you to choose a specific art form to analyze consider all the different ways in which that art form is experienced by creators, performers, critics, readers and audiences, etc., and be clear about which of [...] After skimming through the posts and comment that have appeared so far, all I can say is . . . http://www.patfullerton.com/lh/movies/finemess.html etm Be the first to like. Like Unlike A week from tomorrow, on xxxxxxxxxxx, Wednesday, Dec. 8th, SSIS will host a special presentation by Mr. Andy Fletcher entitled “LIFE, THE UNIVERSE AND EVERYTHING”. Time: 10:30 – 1:30 Place: Theatre A preview of the presentation is here: http://web.mac.com/kamfletch/LUE/Life,_the_Universe_and_Everything_Overview.html Mr. Fletcher has been giving TOK presentations for nearly 20 years. You can read about [...] Please remember to check at least one category for each of your blog posts! Xie xie a! 1 person likes this post. Like Unlike Listen to the first episode of Brett Hall’s TOKCast podcast, introducing TOK in his own inimitable Australian way. You can find the podcast in three different places: http://web.me.com/tokteacher/tokcast/Podcast/Podcast.html (scroll down to the first episode) On DragonNet In my public folder, here: http://public.me.com/ericmacknight Path: Audio / TOK Podcasts / TOKCast (Brett Hall) If you have a [...] In response to another post on the IBO’s forum for TOK teachers, Greta Timmers, a former colleague of mine who teaches in The Netherlands, had this response, which may help students understand what is being asked for: Criterion D asks “how the question could be approached from different perspectives and how their implications should [...] The TOK oral presentation requires that students focus on a ‘real-life situation’ that raises one or more ‘knowledge issues’ and then analyze how those questions might be considered, with explicit reference to appropriate Areas of Knowledge and Ways of Knowing. Here are a few ideas for ‘real-life situations’ that raise knowledge issues. Suggest additions [...] Brett Hall teaches TOK—in Australia, judging by his accent—and has produced a series of podcasts introducing key TOK concepts. They are designed to be useful to students, and you might find them very helpful. You can find the links here: http://web.me.com/tokteacher/tokcast/Podcast/Podcast.html. His FAQ page is pretty amusing, too. Be the first to like. Like Unlike Another possible topic for an oral presentation: a teenaged author, accused of plagiarism, says she’s part of a new culture that’s all about ‘authenticity’, not ‘originality’. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/world/europe/12germany.html Be the first to like. Like Unlike There may be an interesting oral presentation somewhere in here: David Bowie predicted that because of internet and piracy, copyright is going to be dead in ten years. You agree? No. If copyright dies, if patents die, if the protection of intellectual property is eroded, then people will stop investing. That hurts everyone. People [...] I have uploaded to my public folder an excerpt from the May 2008 TOK Subject Report that describes in some detail what is desired for the Oral Presentation. The url, as usual, is http://public.me.com/ericmacknight and the path is Handouts / TOK. You should definitely have a look at this before getting into any serious [...] On Thursday we did a post-mortem on last week’s essay exercise, “What is art?” Today after dealing with essay cover sheets we had a brief discussion on the question, “Is art political?” Comments open until next Wednesday after lunch. Be the first to like. Like Unlike On Thursday we did some practice argumentation with an essay response outlining how one would address the question, “What Is Art?”. Today we read through part of Stanley Fish’s article, “French Theory in America”, explaining the basic ideas behind deconstructionism. Please finish reading the article on your own and then leave a comment here. [...] Today in class we watched a TEDTalk video by Richard Dawkins entitled, “The Universe Is Queerer Than We Can Suppose”. If you missed it, you can watch it online here: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/richard_dawkins_on_our_queer_universe.html Friday’s class is cancelled so that students can work on other things. Next week we will begin on the TOK oral presentations. Be the first to like. Mr. Acosta generously paid us an all-too brief visit to talk about music and how we judge it. I will post the links, etc., that he sends me in an update to this post. Meanwhile, fire away: what’s your take on music? Be the first to like. Like Unlike |
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