Week 2 of TOK

Continued with the real ToK class as our teacher got back from her holiday.Ooh how i wish i was on holiday and year 11 would just be a bad dream. xD Well reality kicks in now and time to break through all obstacles and pursue my dreams.

Back to the point. As stated in the title second week of Tok (smile…act natural). We got into the terms of ToK such as Real Life Situation (RLS), Knowledge Issue (KI), Key Terms (KT). This are they basics of ToK. Oh there is still one more Ways of Knowing (WoK). That basically makes up the foundations of ToK. Glad that was established…or not.xD Well this just means that there will be more to do in the future.

In ToK, there are only 4 WoKs, Reason, Language, Perseption and Emotion and if thats not enough, we were told there are actually 12 GROUPS!!! (Logical, empirical, authority, memory, faith, moral, introspection, empathy, conscience, practice, aquaintance, and instinct) I mean memorizing 4 is bad enough but to have 12? Fortunately we will be applying most of this in ToK and it will help us…I hope. As the name implies, ways of knowing is how an individual obtain a piece of data from daily life.

The first Knowledge Issue we faced was “Do either sets of WoK satisfy and covers it all?” Well most of us said no and i agree with that because there must be other ways we obtain our knowledge. I mean curiousity can be counted as a WoK right?

The next Knowledge Issue was “Do all these WoK provide equal certainty? I would say no to that because there are so many type of groups where the knowledge can be obtained from. Fopr example, “The Arts” (An area of knowledge) would basically see emotion and language as being most useful out of the 4 main WoK in ToK and “Ethnics” will lean more on reason and perception. Basically different types of knowledge will lean on different types of WoK.

We were also given a few Key Terms:

Propositional Knowledge: To be counted as knowledge a believe must be a true believe.

Objective Knowledge: Knowledge that has become the possession of society.

Dogmatism: An attitude which demands that what is claimed as knowledge be accepted without criticism.

Rational Knowledge: Knowledge based upon open requiry and subject to open debate and testing.

Practical Knowledge: Knowledge which is pimarily acquired for some useful purpose.

Theoretical Knowledge: Knowledge which is of on immediate practical value but which acquired simply because of a desire to know.

Finally we were left with 4 more Knowledge Issues.

What should we know?

Is knowledge absolute?

Are there things we can never know?

Which is more important knowing or believing?

First question responce. We should know what we feel that is important to us. For example a mathematician would think feel that everything regarding math is important but a nun would think that her believes to god is important. We all have different priorities in our life.

Second question responce. Knowledge is important in life but experience is also equally important. IF one knows how to pilot a plane or drive a car but he or she does would not be able to fully master the skill without experience. Like what happened in America where a pilot did an emergency landing in the Hudson river. He was a very experieced and due to his 20k hours of flight experience he manage to save everyone on board.

Of course there are always things that we were won’t know like where does air come from? Does god truly exist? All this questions are subject to an individuals view on it but most of it are just speculation and there is no true answer to this questions.

Knowing or believing? Knowing would be more important then believing because knowing comes from believing and knowing has a basic foundation and proof to it but believing is based on ones feelings towards the matter. Proven issues tend to be more realistic then believes.

Everyone will have different views on the matter above but thats the beauty of ToK. Always expect the unexpected.

Well thats all for now. The next update would be next week. The earliest would be on Friday and the latest would be on Sunday. Enjoy life to the fullest and live through it the way you want it.

Bush Fire Crisis in Victoria, Australia (Update) (Day 4 and 5)

Okay,
Sorry for not updating this piece of news yesterday as I was really busy trying to get maths in my head. Really tiring all those numbers and symbols just makes you wanna stop everything and head out for a walk. Honestly it was really tiring.

Enough of that.
Bush Fire update....
Well you can't expect good news i suppose because the fires are still going around and destroying everything they touch. Even though the temperature is like 20 degrees Celsius the land is still dry and everything catches fire easily. It is believed that arsonist are responsible for most of the bush fire.

This is really shocking. I mean seriously why would someone actually place so many lives on the line just to obtain their dose of adrenaline rush and excitement. Not only lives are lost but but many wildlife were killed in this fire because of this people. Being a very dry country during summer made matters worst. The wildlife that survived are now facing shortage of food and water. Many of them needed help from the vets to treat their burn wounds. Just looking at their hopelessness is really painful.

The death toll now stands at around 200 people and it is expected to escalate to 300. With more then 1033 homes burned down and over 250000 hectares of forest were also swallowed by the fire. However, this is far from over as many more bodies are yet to be discovered and the disaster is still far from over.

That's all.
Hopefully i can update this tomorrow.

Bush Fire Crisis in Victoria, Australia (Update) (Day 3)

The death toll has escalated to 131 and the number is expected to rise above 170, more then 700 house were lost in the fire and countless people are homeless with only the shirts on their back as the had lost everything they owned.

It was really a sorrowful atmosphere as people who lost their homes were crying and devastated by it. To most of them most of this does not seem true enough to believe as most of them lost everything the ever had in a matter of minutes. However this were the lucky people.

Some people who lost their homes also lost their loved ones such as their kids or parents as they stayed back to try to fight to save their home. Some even lost their lives in their very own car as they tried to retreat at the very last minute which proved to be a very dangerous option.

Till today, there are still over 20 bush fires ravaging through the lands while 5 of it are still uncontainable. The government have dispatched relieve aid and donations are being collected to deal with the aftermath. More then 3500 firemen were dispatched and there are still more to come. 35 helicopters were used to battle this fire and interstate aids were given to Victoria as Melbourne faces the worst bush fire crisis since Ash Wednesday.

That's all for the updates and all we can do now is pray for the safety of life and property.

Bush Fire Crisis in Victoria, Australia (Update)

Day 2 of the the Bush fire crisis,
Fires continue to ravage the land destroying properties and homes.
6 fires are still uncontrollable and threatening towns and densely populated areas.
There was a confirm of 24 deaths and there is a fear that the deaths may escalate to 40.

Due to that scale of the crisis, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has placed the army on standby to assist the CFA if the fire were to worsen. The weather today shows a positive side with the possibility of rain which would greatly assist the efforts to contain the fire.

The temperature has dropped from 47 degrees Celsius yesterday to 25 degrees Celsius and the winds have slowed down greatly compared to yesterday which was blowing at a speed of 100km/h.

However there is still the danger which threatens the country as this crisis is said to be worst then Ash Wednesday which took place on 16 February 1983.

That is all for the updates. Let us pray that this crisis will be over soon.

Bush Fire Crisis in Victoria, Australia

It's such a sad story,
Today was the hottest day recorded in the history of Victoria (Melbourne) man it went up to 47 degrees Celsius!!! It was windy which for some people would be good news but for most people in Melbourne it just made matters worst.

Winds blew up to 100km/h spreading the fire so fast that house burn down in lest then a minute. Due to the season which is summer, lots of grasses and trees were dry and dead. This acted as a fuel for the fire to feed on. Add the winds to that and u get a disaster.

Lots of people lost their homes, life stock and assets. It was truly sad. There was news coverage from noon till night as updates after updates come in bringing good news and bad news. The worst news was when there was confirmed reports on the change in wind directions (worst case scenario for the CFA (local firemen)).

At first the fire was burning in a diameter of 1km which was bad enough but the wind change would have changed it into a 2okm diameter. Luckily that did not happen. Things started to get better towards the end of the day. Cold winds were blowing over bringing humidity to the area and slowing down the spread of the fire.

However, the firemen are still fighting more then 10 fires spread out across Victoria which is still ravaging through the region which could last through the night. This crisis could possibly be at the same scale as Ash Wednesday (The worst bushfire in history).

That's all for now. May the worst be over soon.

Well, Well, Well, First Week of TOK.

What can i say?

Theory of Knowledge (TOK) has been something very different for me. I mean it demands so much attention and participation in the classes. This is the first class that I've been in where the productivity depends on not only the teacher but every student in the class including myself.

The class was very engaging and everyone had their own opinion. It actually makes you question what you really know about a certain topic and it helps open your eyes to the wider world out there. Being in an international school really helps broaden the range of topics we could discuss in class.

Even though there is the whole language barrier thing going on because of the different backgrounds each student has, it was still a very good learning process. We did laugh at some mistakes and silly things but it just spiced things up.

For the first week of TOK, All I could say was ... WOW

If you don't really know what TOK is about, it's a subject in the IBO diploma.

For more information you can visit http://www.ibo.org/