Theory of Knowledge Blog by Dhaval
Wednesday 26 March 2014
Science and uncertainity
It is about the uncertainty in science and as we move on in this world new inventions and discoveries occur and so the limitations in science change. For e.g. first there was only the geocentric model of the universe and then as the research was conducted further they found that the planets are revolving around the sun not the earth and then the scientists found that it is the heliocentric universe galaxy or milky-way and so science has no real conclusion because it changes according to the time and that's why science is based on uncertainty and i always thought that behind a tradition,religion,custom there is a science but it changes.It was quite hard to believe that "science is uncertain" but somehow still i think science can prove but also believe the fact that it changes according to time.
Monday 3 March 2014
I Learnt about the indigenous knowledge systems in the class and according to my research Indigenous
knowledge (IK) is the local knowledge – knowledge that is unique
to a given culture or society. IK contrasts with the international knowledge
system generated by universities, research institutions and private
firms. It is the basis for local-level decision making in agriculture,
health care, food preparation, education, natural-resource management,
and a host of other activities in rural communities.
My example is about the Indigenous
knowledge systems in the Igbo traditional agriculture. we have a slight idea about the Igbo culture because of the novel things fall apart.So now about the agriculture as the people of igbo culture believed that going to a farm and growing yams is a work of manhood and they made varieties of foods using those yams.
'kola nuts' that play a significant role in the socio-cultural and socio-economic lives of igbo people. Important ceremonies like marriage,funeral,wedding and child naming are marked on the breaking of kola nuts.kola nuts are also used as a symbol of warm and acceptance of visitors.To keep the kola nuts fresh they use the banana leaves and in occasions like marriage to make soups the use the ripened seeds of castor oil by using the banana leaves which is used for ripening them fast
so as they consider these things as a part of their culture and as globalization has occurred some of people do not believe in the igbo tradition and some do. People of igbo culture are found in Africa and believe that kola nuts are apart of their as a part of its culture.
Monday 20 January 2014
IS HISTORY A SCIENCE ?
History is such a thing which can be experienced once only but whereas science is a subject that can be experienced in our day to day life (for e.g. we are always on the earth attracted towards it due to gravitational force, technology we consume in our day to day life remembered every time and the food we eat digestion all has a scientific proof, but the fact that they were discovered in history.)
History is such a thing which can be experienced once only but whereas science is a subject that can be experienced in our day to day life (for e.g. we are always on the earth attracted towards it due to gravitational force, technology we consume in our day to day life remembered every time and the food we eat digestion all has a scientific proof, but the fact that they were discovered in history.)
A simple question who came first the chicken or the egg ?
It is a question that has vexed philosophers since the Greeks. But it seems we may now have the answer to the beguilingly simple question: "Which came first?"Its the egg
A man imagines two non-chicken parents getting together and giving rise to the first individual of a new species because of a genetic mutation. "The first chicken must have differed from its parents by some genetic change, perhaps a very subtle one, but one which caused this bird to be the first ever to fulfil our criteria for truly being a chicken," said Prof Brookfield.
but science proved that the chicken came first because it coontains such a protein without which a egg can't hatch.
Here they do not match but maybe both are right at their own places.
history has many wonders in the world like a pyramid historians think that they might have very nice engineers that could build such enormous structures which are hard to build today they preserved the body of their pharaohs (kings) and can still be found the same today maybe people used science in history....
Monday 2 December 2013
Moral Dilemmas:
The first aspect we looked at are Moral Dilemmas. A dilemma is a problem, but a moral dilemma is where you must chose between two good things.
We then looked at the difference between Ethics and Morals. I had never truly been able to state what this different is, as I had just come to get my own “definition” from experience. I guessed that both are about wrong and right, but that ethics is more of a systematic approach. This proved to be close to the actual definition: That morality is our assumed values of right and wrong, while ethics attempts to provide a systematic and rational justification for these judgements.
Examples :
A man who acts to be a civilian but is a undercover terrorist and now is helping the government,but he actually is a dancer by profession and his wife doubts him so she sends a detective around him when she finds that he goes to masjid for praying while he is a hindu , and then one day some people come and catch him and her wife then they the ones who kidnapped him and his wife ask their boss whether to come and see if they have caught the right person or not ,his boss is a enemy of him because he has finished Al-Queda and has ran off. At the time he begged let me read namaz one time and requested to open his hand cuffs he started reading namaz and then started killing people.
so according to me i think it was a threat among muslim people whether this should happen or not after reading the namaz he started killing people that was unethical because how can you kill someone after rading namaz that's a sin commited according to muslims that's why they opposed this film when it was launched and the producer gave almost his everything and won the case that was done by the muslims on that film, named vishwaroopam. So he was in a moral dilemma he was not able to decide whether he should read namaz and then start killing or he shuldn't have done it what was good ? but to save his nation and people he had to do it and he took a way of justice and started killing people to save his nation and be unethical with his own religion.
However, do these principles always apply? Is it okay to steal if your life is on the line? The problem is that these rules are very general, and it is difficult to apply them to specific situations. I believe that if somebody is about to starve to death, it is immoral for their neighbor to have extra food and keep it for themselves, so I think in that case it would be justified.
However, there are some universal, or “Golden” rules, which can be generalised to any situation. A common example is “Treat others as you would want to be treated” This rule can be used for any situation, and is one of the most common and basic moral rules.
The first aspect we looked at are Moral Dilemmas. A dilemma is a problem, but a moral dilemma is where you must chose between two good things.
We then looked at the difference between Ethics and Morals. I had never truly been able to state what this different is, as I had just come to get my own “definition” from experience. I guessed that both are about wrong and right, but that ethics is more of a systematic approach. This proved to be close to the actual definition: That morality is our assumed values of right and wrong, while ethics attempts to provide a systematic and rational justification for these judgements.
Examples :
A man who acts to be a civilian but is a undercover terrorist and now is helping the government,but he actually is a dancer by profession and his wife doubts him so she sends a detective around him when she finds that he goes to masjid for praying while he is a hindu , and then one day some people come and catch him and her wife then they the ones who kidnapped him and his wife ask their boss whether to come and see if they have caught the right person or not ,his boss is a enemy of him because he has finished Al-Queda and has ran off. At the time he begged let me read namaz one time and requested to open his hand cuffs he started reading namaz and then started killing people.
so according to me i think it was a threat among muslim people whether this should happen or not after reading the namaz he started killing people that was unethical because how can you kill someone after rading namaz that's a sin commited according to muslims that's why they opposed this film when it was launched and the producer gave almost his everything and won the case that was done by the muslims on that film, named vishwaroopam. So he was in a moral dilemma he was not able to decide whether he should read namaz and then start killing or he shuldn't have done it what was good ? but to save his nation and people he had to do it and he took a way of justice and started killing people to save his nation and be unethical with his own religion.
However, do these principles always apply? Is it okay to steal if your life is on the line? The problem is that these rules are very general, and it is difficult to apply them to specific situations. I believe that if somebody is about to starve to death, it is immoral for their neighbor to have extra food and keep it for themselves, so I think in that case it would be justified.
However, there are some universal, or “Golden” rules, which can be generalised to any situation. A common example is “Treat others as you would want to be treated” This rule can be used for any situation, and is one of the most common and basic moral rules.
Wednesday 13 November 2013
Greg craven's logic :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zORv8wwiadQ - His video
He talks about applying game theory to the "decision paralysis" people have surrounding the global warming debate, using a "decision grid." He explores misunderstandings most people have about the nature of science, and whether or not science can provide certainty about important questions facing society. He emphasizes as a starting point the acknowledgement, whether one is a skeptic of global warming or a "panicked activist," that one could be wrong about global warming. He argues that the evidence is not what is most important in the climate change debate, because each side has "evidence" to support its conclusions. He talks about "confirmation bias," and how it makes it difficult to find out the truth about global warming. He explains why it is less important to personally live "green," and why others kinds of social environmentalist activism is more important. He details why America's mobilization in World War II and also modern social networking on the internet are the only two things that give him hope regarding responsibly responding to climate change.It is also helpful in business decisions.
A woman affected with color blindness marries a unaffected person so what is the probability for being color blind. Mother-XBXb and father is Xby.
()Decision Paralysis:
A condition of not being able to decide on a matter when there is no clear cut best option. It leads to an ever longer period of gather more information in the hope that more information will guide the decision maker to an option that is clearly better. Exactly the same as "Analysis Paralysis".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zORv8wwiadQ - His video
He talks about applying game theory to the "decision paralysis" people have surrounding the global warming debate, using a "decision grid." He explores misunderstandings most people have about the nature of science, and whether or not science can provide certainty about important questions facing society. He emphasizes as a starting point the acknowledgement, whether one is a skeptic of global warming or a "panicked activist," that one could be wrong about global warming. He argues that the evidence is not what is most important in the climate change debate, because each side has "evidence" to support its conclusions. He talks about "confirmation bias," and how it makes it difficult to find out the truth about global warming. He explains why it is less important to personally live "green," and why others kinds of social environmentalist activism is more important. He details why America's mobilization in World War II and also modern social networking on the internet are the only two things that give him hope regarding responsibly responding to climate change.It is also helpful in business decisions.
A woman affected with color blindness marries a unaffected person so what is the probability for being color blind. Mother-XBXb and father is Xby.
|
Key: B-not affected by color
blindness b-affected by color blindness. | ||||||||||||
()Decision Paralysis:
A condition of not being able to decide on a matter when there is no clear cut best option. It leads to an ever longer period of gather more information in the hope that more information will guide the decision maker to an option that is clearly better. Exactly the same as "Analysis Paralysis".
Thursday 10 October 2013
Horizon Illusions - Is Seeing Believing?
Horizon explores the strange and wonderful world of illusions - and reveals the tricks they play on our senses and why they fool us. But all this trickery has a serious purpose. It's helping scientists to create a new understanding of how our senses work - not as individual senses, but connected together.
Examples-
It can appear to spin in both directions because the sequence of 2-dimensional images on your eye is identical for a 3-D diamond spinning either to the left or to the right. When we look at the spinning diamond, our brain doesn't actually know which way it is spinning. And because both directions of motion are possible, it bounces between the two options depending on where in the diamond we are looking.
2.Brightness Illusion - colours out of place
If you put the mask on the picture you will see that they are in fact the same brightness.
This happens because our brain does not create its perceptions of brightness from only the intensity of a single surface or light in a scene, but according to the relationships between all the surfaces and lights in the scene. In other words the brain always uses context to figure out what's in front of it.
3.Impossible Slopes - depth perception
We see the balls appear to roll up the slopes of the model towards the middle.
This is because all the information in the image is consistent with the supporting legs of the model standing at right angles to the floor. Because of this, the brain interprets the middle leg as being the tallest leg in the model. Which means the ramps must actually slope upwards. As a result, the rolling balls appear to roll up - now down, which they really are.
Because the image hitting the retina is only 2 dimensional, in order to see the world in 3D, our brain must create its 3D perception based on its past experience of the most likely 3D configuration given the 2D image. Sometimes this means even perceiving a world that goes against the laws of physics.
When you change your perspective you see the slopes actually point downwards into the middle.
![](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l679j56GkeA/UlbhnUwjNII/AAAAAAAAAG4/L2AbFmYZP9w/s200/246553810_smfiu-l.gif)
Monday 7 October 2013
Reflection on language
I first of
all think that it is very difficult to define the word language. I, personally,
think that it is a form of communication using symbols and your vocal chords. I think that there is a difference between language and communication. As language is a form of communication. For example a monkey peeing
on a tree to mark its territory is communication, however it is not using
language as someone talking to someone on the phone would be communicating but
also using language. When it comes to the problem ‘can you know something
without language?’ I think that you can, because you have your eyes and you can
recognize it. Also how are babies supposed to learn anything without language?
Another thing I found interesting was the concept that your amount of language
depends on where you are from and what your climate. For example in England it
rains a lot so you have many words for rain, such as drizzle or spitting, or
raining cats and dogs, however, in for example Egypt, there is probably only
one word for rain. So in many ways language is a way of knowing for to know you
have to communicate.
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