DCSZ TOK Class Blog

This advertisement supporting Barry Goldwater relies intensively on emotion and perception as “ways of knowing”. Feeding off of America’s fear of communism, the tv spot depicts Khrushchev delivering a violent speech to the Russian people in which he exclaims “We will bury you!” and demands that the children of Russia remain good communists. In [...]

In last TOK class, we talked about emotion as a way of knowing. From my point of view, all subjects in a group 6 (art, music, theather, film, music, dance) related to emotion. Any people can express their feelings, mood through these items.

So, i think emotion plays important role in our life, [...]

If my brain was stimulated from birth, there would be no way for me to fabricate sensory perception and “natural” behavior. Our minds do not inform us of our needs and wants, but society and experience make clear our objectives. We aren’t programmed knowing the difference between right and wrong, we are told, and [...]

Listening to the talk between Lopate and Matousek was quite eye opening for me. During this talk M explains why emotions are the main foundation for living an ethical life, M also explains that without emotions, humans cannot be ethically ‘good’.

In some ways I agree with this idea that humanbeings need emotion. [...]

In the talk between Lopate and Matousek, Mark Matousek explains why he believe that emotions are the foundation of ethical life and that without emotions, human beings cannot be “good people”. In the talk Matousek examines morality from a scientific, sociological, and anthropological viewpoint.

I agree that “emotions are the foundation of ethical [...]

I agree with David, Human Rights don’t really exist. They’re a brilliant idea on paper, but they just don’t apply perfectly all the time.

I believe that Human Rights and what we all think we are entitled to, are nestled into our culture. Being brought up within certain cultures will influence the rights [...]

Human rights do not really exist. Human rights have only been thought up as a response to hardship endured under governments. I’m not sure who said it, but I remember someone saying “if freedom is not enjoyed by everyone, then it is a privilege and not a right”.

Furthering on from my discussion with [...]

Through this task, i realised how hard it must be for leaders of countries/law makers. When creating laws regarding anything that is a touchy ethical subject, they will have such a hard job! No two cases will be the same. For example, one woman may have been brutally raped and wishes to abort the [...]

This exercise allowed me to consider other peoples perspectives, even in the most bazar situations. It made me think about the consequences from a utilitarian approach, religious approach etc before coming to an instant conclusion according to what i think. Something that a leader of a country would need in order to set regulation [...]

Through this exercise I have learned that ethics are not morals. It seems easy to mistake morals and ethics to be the same or at least related, but what is unmistakable is that ethical models are only models for human behavior – not models for being good people. We often say “that is unethical” [...]

This is how i rated the people. 1 being the best 5 being the worst.

1=L. the reasoning why i thought the Lady was the best is because she did everything she could just to get back to the man she loved even if it meant sleeping with another man and paying a double [...]

After class the other day, i found it really interesting sitting in the common room, listening to everyone sharing their opinions on why certain characters were worse than others. I took on board what others were saying, but i still stand by my original decision; Best; The woman This woman did all she could [...]

I hate this word, it’s used so much through everything, and within history everything is biased. Psychology the researches can be biased thus compromising the study for our use. Our lesson on bias hasn’t really changed what I thought I know about bias. I guess its psychology that helped me be definitive in my [...]

Regarding the axioms: Rene Magritee a french artist who said drew a pipe (a smoking pipe) and beneath it wrote (but in french) “This is not a pipe”. Because it was a drawing of a pipe, but not an actual pipe. You cannot smoke it.

But the points we draw are not points. They’re [...]

I enjoyed doing my presentation, although i did get a crappy grade. In hindsight there are countless things i would do differently, but hey, hindsight is a wonderful thing! I think my biggest flaw was not showing two sides of the argument. This is something i feel can be easily overcome and I know [...]

I feel like everyone did well.

I myself did not expect myself to do well. I had prepared and read it back to myself (why I didn’t need any notes), but without notes I was pretty lost for words at points. I repeated stuff such as “basically…” and “so what that means is…”. This [...]

I learnt a lot from these presentations, from both the students that presented them, but also from the feedback i was given after i did my presentation. The most useful piece of advise that i was given was to not answer the question as if its a history presentation, but to think more about [...]

Allegory of the cave: I found this really interesting and it made me questions whats “real” and whats not. The dictionary definition of “real” is something to be actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed. However the question we get from this is how do we know if [...]

Math is important because it is the most widely used subject in the world. Every career uses some sort of math. More importantly, doing math helps the mind to reason and organized complicated situations or problems into clear, simple, and logical steps making life a whole lot easier! Thus, as students learn more math, [...]

I, like a lot of people, believe that story telling is the root of pretty much everything. The details we know about the history of the world, our familys, our personal history all comes from people telling us variations of stories, leaving us to group the information together and determine our own idea, making [...]

-cultures and beliefs by reading religious books such as the bible and other biographies we get a better insight into different religions and cultures

-vocabulary expand by reading books of literature it expands your vocabulary

-to know were not alone if you suffer from a certain sickness or disability you can read biographies or [...]

I’ve split my city into male and female named streets/avenues/roads/lanes/drives because I believe that they have all been equally influential. Instead of focusing on science or music or history, i’ve done a mix 

I’ll start with Women,

Norma Jeane Avenue – Marilyn Monroe. A beautiful sex icon for years. I’ve put [...]

1) Ronaldo Boulevard

One of the top paid footballers ever known, scored 41 goals in a single premier league season.

2)Messi Street

The most paid footballer in the world, the youngest player to receive the ball o dor 3 times. Scored 50 goals in a single season in La Liga. Beat the record of Barcelona’s top [...]

Okay, this seems like an interesting task! I’ve decided that I would like to name my streets after famous people who’ve changed history in some way. I’m quite apprehensive about writing changing history as we’re just discussing what history is and all, but to clear it up, I just mean that they did something [...]

Instead of naming the streets of my city with the names of all kinds of memorable people throughout history, I will focus on musicians.  You could think of the city as split into districts that pay homage to musicians of different genres in music.

In the oldest part of town (kind of like Suzhou’s [...]

1) Amy Tan Boulevard She is someone I look up to and think would be a good role model to many girls so she can be named after a Boulevard.

2) Helen Keller Street She is such an amazing person because she accomplished so much and had such faith in herself when she [...]

Bold: biggest road Underlined: middle-sized Plain: normal road.

1.         Mahatma Gandhi

He led non-violence movement Satyagraha in South Africa in order to go against the unfair practices of England towards Indian inhabitants. This acknowledged humanity that justice could prevail without the use of violence.

2.         Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. was [...]

Naming streets, boulevards, avenues and roads in a town after people?… Sounds fun

Before doing that, lets define boulevard, streets and roads:

Boulevard: Two lanes in each direction seperated by a median of trees or greenery

Avenue: Two lanes in each direction in a nicer part of town

Street: Any number of lanes in [...]

From the ID found on the body we can assume that the person is Mark Pullen, unless it was planted there for reasons unknown. From the evidence gathered we can map out his planned timeline. We know that he is an English studies student at Darwin college University of Kent at Canterbury, and we [...]

The mystery of Mark Pullen; I have a theory for this death.

My first theory is that mark could not catch a bus to Cathy’s party so he decided to walk (this explains the smart clothes). Along the road he was walking on the wrong side so with the traffic, and a “boy racer” [...]

I think there are many possibilities for what had happened with the death of this youth on Friday June 6th. The document written by George Ryder had never mention the name of this youth. It is definitely possible that this man is Mark Pullen, because the content of the wallet belongs to a man named Mark [...]

Mark Pullen From the contents of the victim’s wallet, it is safe to assume that he is/ was Mark Pullen. However, this is not a concrete fact unless we did some form of DNA recognition on his body. The contents of his wallet also suggests that he is a university student. Also through the [...]

By looking at the contents of the victim’s wallet, we can conclude that he should be Mark Pullen. Unless someone named Mark Pullen lost his wallet and it ended up with the victim. However, it would be pretty obvious that it was him the victim looked like the image in the picture.

Assuming that [...]

On Friday 6th June, he firstly went to dental appointment at 9:15 am. Afterwards he Cricket club meeting on 1:30 pm which ended around 2pm. Then he went to English literature tutorial from 2:30 to 4:00 pm, and he wasn’t seen until he was found in the ditch around 9:00~9:30 pm, on his way [...]

In my opinion history is The study of past events, Particularly in human affairs and according to this definition i dont see any major links between any of the subjects. However you could say that when looking at art you sometimes have to look at historical sculptures and pieces of art. A good example [...]

I think the different type of history we address to have a different stand point between art and science. I think History as subject for study tend share similarities with science. The historical evidences in the forms of documents, films, tape, photographs and etc. are carefully evaluated for their reliability and credibility. Then, interpretations are drawn from those [...]

“History is written by the winners”

Personally I disagree with this quote. Of course it is true that certain events of the history with clear winners and losers have been depicted by winners as glorious moment. Losers tend to remain quiet since they don’t want to blemish their historic records. However, nowadays attempt to [...]

This week we’ve discussed about the differences between “History” and “history”. “history” can referred to past events that engage a global or of social importance. These events that happened in the the past cannot be changed, but “History” as a subject or human’s story can be changed. I like what George Orwell had written: “History is written by [...]

‘Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it’ -Oscar Wilde

I think this quotation from Oscar Wilde suggests that history can be made by anyone, but it will not necessarily be remembered by people. This is similar to the concept that everyone can write, but not everyone is a writer. This phrase struck [...]

“The dead were and are not. Their place knows them no more and is ours today… The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that once, on this earth, once, on this familiar spot of ground, waked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by [...]

After reading the passage “Body ritual among the Nacirema” by Horace Miner, I had a brief discussion with Averil about the usage of words in the writing. The author uses vague words like “magical potions” and “charms” to describe the rituals of Nacirema. I thought there is a lack of appreciation towards the Nacirema culture because [...]

I thought the Nacirema article was really interesting. It sounded so completely disgusting and weird when I first read it. And in the end, like all else ToK, I found myself completely wrong and looking like a fool.

It makes complete sense though. When we look at another culture completely alian to our own, [...]