To what extent does memory influence in making a decision?

In a recent family meal, my mother scolded my sister and I for making the same little mistake over and over again. This is the reason why this question came up to my mind.

Decision-making mostly involves reasoning whenever the decision is important and not instant, or intuition when it is. Gathering and analysing facts to reach a conclusion is definitely the best way to reach the best possible solution, but does memory play a role in it?

Anon, (2016). (image) Available at: http://dleadershipgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/201502-This-Way-That-Way-Sign.jpg (Accessed 23 Dec. 2016)

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Let’s get an easy example to analyse this situation. Imagine you tried cauliflower a couple weeks ago and didn’t like it at all. If you go to a restaurant and it comes with a main dish, you will not eat it and even less ask for this food. Since flavours are almost impossible to remember, this means you remember not liking it and this memory leads you not to making the decision of eating it. Therefore, memory is definitely used.

However, if we look at another and less basic example, such as making a mistake in a maths exam the situation gets a bit more complicated. Imagine we get a formula wrong and 0,25 marks are taken off. It is almost an insignificant drop in the mark and that’s why we might repeat the same mistake in the following exam. Nonetheless, if that was the reason why we failed, things would be different. Since it’s a shocking and important mistake, we would remember it, revise the correct formula and it is quite certain we won’t repeat it again.

To sum up, I consider memory a determinant factor when deciding and I believe the reason why we might make the same mistakes is because they haven’t had enough impact on us for us to remember them.

Bibliography

• Medical Daily. (2016). You’re More Likely To Choose Food You Remember: Study. [online] Available at: http://www.medicaldaily.com/how-memory-influences-decision-making-we-are-biased-toward-remembered-food-options-334506 [Accessed 23 Dec. 2016].
• 2011-2016, (. (2016). Effective Decision Making | SkillsYouNeed. [online] Skillsyouneed.com. Available at: http://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/decision-making.html [Accessed 23 Dec. 2016].

What role does emotional knowledge play in ethics?

Ethics is a system of moral principles. It determines what is good for society, so its basis is mostly set in empathy. Specialist in this area determine what is moral or not by imagining how people would feel in different situations, which certainly involves imagination, but does it involve emotion too?

We talked about this in the last TOK lesson and while we were discussing it a question came up to my mind: what about the role of emotion when being empathetic?

Emotion is the knowledge we gain through feelings. We know something is good because we feel happy about it, we may hate rainy days because we get bored then, we know we love our parents because we experiment that feeling…

Since ethics aim is making people happy (which is one of the six main emotions), the way people feel must be essential in this AOK.

Let’s get an example to try to understand this question. Were philosophers to question themselves whether giving money to charity is moral or not, they would imagine themselves suffering the situations poor people deal with. Imagination would be required. However, the “motor” of their decision are feelings. Feeling empathy for people means understanding their feelings, being able to experiment them imaginarily. Nonetheless, how can we feel sad for the poor if we have never felt sad?

To sum up, I consider emotion a vital source to get to ethical conclusions, even other ways of knowing such as imagination or reason are also required. Specifically in the example of empathy, emotional knowledge is a really important information to bear in mind.

Is it possible to acquire knowledge through music?

Last weekend I was listening to the song “Where is the love?” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FotCW5OIFZc) with my friends and one of them asked what the KKK was. I knew it was the Ku Klux Klan because I learnt it in my History class and so I told her. However, if you paid attention to the lyrics you could guess it was a racist organization in the USA, which is basically its definition.

“In the USA, the big CIA fighting

The Bloods and The Crips and the KKK

But if you only have love for your own race

Then you only leave space to discriminate”1

This situation led me to this blogpost question “Is it actually possible to acquire knowledge through music?”. The truth is music “is an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color”¹. If music is an art which expresses ideas, then knowledge must be shared from the author to the listener. This means the listener acquires knowledge by listening to songs.

Nonetheless, you can also obtain information without paying attention to the lyrics. The most important elements of music (rhythm, melody…) also transmit ideas normally related to emotions. For example, sad songs often have a slow rhythm, words are pronounced in a long way and there are normally stops in between verses. Just by listening to this you could determine whether the song is sad or happy, whether it is demanding and complaining or thanking…  Besides, since music expresses the author’s feelings, you could know how the author felt when composing the song thus you’d be acquiring knowledge.

After having analyzed the ways knowledge can be transmitted through songs, I consider you can definitely gain knowledge by listening to music and, moreover, I believe songs transmit even more than words.

1. Dictionary.com. (2016). the definition of music. [online] Available at: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/music [Accessed 20 Nov. 2016].

Are our beliefs still knowledge even if they are not true?

This week, one of our English debate topics was scientology, a new religion based on the “the study and handling of the spirit in relationship to itself, others and all of life”, where each member discovers their own beliefs by reading books or attending to lectures. The funny fact is it was founded by a science-fiction author and it venerates an alien called Xenu. Despite this, famous actors such as John Tavolta and Tom Cruise are involved in this religion.

To my mind, those people believe in an unrealistic, science-fiction world. However, they truly think that is true. That is to say, for me what they know is “incorrect” knowledge, but for them it is correct.

Knowledge is (as Plato once said) a “justified, true belief”. Therefore, if what scientologists belief is untrue, can it be considered as knowledge?

Considering a religion is based on faith (the weirdest way of knowing since it can’t be proved) what those religious people worship can’t really be justified. The main problem we have in religions is no one knows whether what they believe is or isn’t true because of this reason. In this case, I’m analysing scientology, but doesn’t the same thing happen with a Muslim? I am Catholic and so I have a Christian point of view, a Christian faith, so for me any other religion is “fake”. Nonetheless, were I a Muslim, I would consider Islam the “true” religion, the “true” knowledge.

In conclusion, what scientologists believe can be considered as knowledge because, as in any other religion, there’s no proof that what they believe is untrue.

Bibliography: 

• Sebastian, S., Kitching, J. and Sims, R. (2014). Theory of Knowledge. 2nd ed. Harlow, Essex: Penelope Lyons.

 

• Scientology.org. (2016). Official Church of Scientology: Religion Definition, L. Ron Hubbard, Spiritual Being, Religious Beliefs. [online] Available at: http://www.scientology.org/what-is-scientology/basic-principles-of-scientology/a-description-of-scientology.html [Accessed 28 Oct. 2016].

To what extent are graphics a source of gaining knowledge in social sciences?

 

Supply and demand model. (2016). [image] Available at: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/eb/Supply-demand-right-shift-demand.svg/2000px-Supply-demand-right-shift-demand.svg.png [Accessed 23 Oct. 2016].

After studying Economics for about two months, I’ve realised every single concept can be summarized in a graph: there’s a demand and supply curve, another one that shows how firms allocate their resources, a market equilibrium diagram… Besides, they don’t only show concepts, but are also used in statistics. More to the point, graphs are a key resource in a science that “studies the manner in which people behave and influence the world”¹.

Consequently, if every concept can be shown by a graph, isn’t it a source to gain knowledge? To my mind, it definitely is. Charts aren’t only sources from which we acquire knowledge, but we also use some WOK to understand them. First of all, we use sense perception to see the graphic, we use language to understand the measured data, we use reason to relate it to the previous knowledge we have and we use reason to make sure the data falls into place. Since many WOK are needed to understand a chart and a Way of Knowing is a mean to gain knowledge, we can assume a graph makes us acquire knowledge.

However, charts don’t give much detail and since they are quite specific, the reader must have an idea about the subject to understand them. If they are shown to a person who has never heard of economics, they may not be understood. Let’s take an example. After a banker looks at a graph that shows the track of the stocks from Banco Santander since 2000 up to that day, he/she will know whether it has been successful or not. The banker will then know something else, he/she will have acquired knowledge. Nonetheless, if it is shown to a kid they mightn’t even know what it is.

In conclusion, graphs are sources of knowing as long as they are understood and whenever they give the reader new information.

Bibliography: Esrc.ac.uk. (2016). What is social science? – Economic and Social Research Council. [online] Available at: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/about-us/what-is-social-science/ [Accessed 23 Oct. 2016].

WHAT IS TOK?

TOK is a unique IB Programme subject that studies knowledge from different angles. It examines the origins, methods, validity and nature of knowledge and different ways of knowing, plus the relationships between its various areas. Besides, it gives a huge importance to questions which don’t necessarily need to have a unique right answer.

It was founded by Alec Peterson in 1960s because there was a dispute between the French (who wanted to include philosophy) and the British (who opposed to that idea). However, they both agreed a subject which involved critical thinking should be included in order to connect all the IB subjects and give the students an international view.

Theory Of Knowledge combined with the extended essay gives you up to 3 points.  It is also claimed to be the most useful when entering university since it makes students gain a different may of thinking  in the diverse world perspectives, linking contents from various subjects.

Bibliography: Sebastian, S., Kitching, J. and Sims, R. (2014). Theory of Knowledge. 2nd ed. Harlow, Essex: Penelope Lyons.