A moral dilemma

Embryonic stem cells 

Embryonic stem cell treatment is when an early embtryo is destroyed to obtain it's cells and replacing them with diffrebciated cells lost due to injury and disease. 

Embryonic stem cells research poses a moral dilemma: 

providing the duty to prevent or reduce suffering or the duty to respect the value of human life. 

Now imagine you are a Parkinson or Alzheimer's patient and the only way to relieve the disease symptoms is to replace the lost brain cells is with embryonic stem cells. Would u kill a possible human being when it is an embryo and get your normal life back by recovering from the disease or would u not get the treatment but save the death of an embryo? 

Reflection on Greg Craven's logic

Greg's logic evolves around the opportunity of identifying the possible outcomes of a certain issue. In his example he explains and identifies the possible outcomes of global warming.

Greg's logic makes it easier and simpler to make up a decision , since we are revealed and aware to the following consequences of our decision in which therefore helps us to come up with the most ideal decision. He narrows the options down into 2 columns which gives us to options to chose from. Although in option A we could ultimately save the earth from global warming, there will be a great money loss if global warming does not eventually happen. In option B there could be a less money loss but still some money can be lost if there will be global warming. Even though most people will chose option A to be safe I think that it can cause a great economical depression which can affect most of the work in many different ways .

An example using his logic is if a natural disaster is happening in a country and Uganda wants to send troops to help the injured people. If they send the aid troops there could be a great help on the other country and many lives could be saved however the people that are going to help can be caught in the natural disaster. On the other hand  if aid is not sent a lot of people will not get enough medical help and people can die or get even more injured but the troops will not get caught in very dangerous situation.

Is seeing believing?

Seeing is an important feature  to believing. when people don't see they may not fully believe. this can be explained in an example like when a person hears about an event but has not been there to see what happened may not fully believe the person that told him about the event. another example is when people often say 'show me', they want to see it in order to believe that it is true . However does believing what you see means that it is true? not necessarily. When the media shows pictures of hurt people and children, the viewers mostly believe and assume that what is said is true even without knowing what really happened. this can be an example that what we see is not necessarily the truth. Also seeing can change other perceptions; it is very easy to trick a persons sense of taste by changing the colours of food and drinks. This shows us how unreliable our sense of vision can be. We believe things using past experiences and memories and therefore relating the present to the past. A person may know that green food and drinks are not normal and therefore may taste it differently than what it actually is.

language and thought

Does a language shape how you think?
There are many ways in which a language can shape how you think. one way is the amount of words and adjectives we know. the more adjectives we know the more we are able to express ourselves and describe things around us and the more extensive we can think. Another way is the way the language associates with words. for example many languages make objects either feminine or masculine. This makes the language speaker to think as the object in a certain way. Also some languages have different tones for different objects which also effects the speakers thinking about the object. Moreover there are different ways in which different languages describe directions (south, north, west, east or left and right) this affects the way people think and see the environment and the see world. 

Can a concept exist without words to describe it?
This can be argued on. however a tribe called Amondawa has a language that lacks any terms that associate with time or space. there are no words for ages or dates or even directions however it does not mean that the people of the tribe do not have a sense of time or space they just did not have technologies such as calenders to make the concept have actual words.


identify the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and its limits

Sapir Whorf's hypothesis states that 'languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey'. There are many different language spoken around the world and each language is structured differently. This affects our perception on the environment, people, objects and concepts like time and space. it affects our view on the whole world. 

Language

Why is the ruthless totalitarian regime, described in Orwell’s novel purging Oldspeak and imposing Newspeak? What assumptions are being made about the relationship between language and thought?

He wants to get rid of all 'useless' words such as synonyms, antonyms or any words that are not necessary to still have a communicative language. words such as bad can be replaced with ungood and excellent can be replaced with plusgood, therefore using the same word and reducing the amount of words in the language. He says that the less words in a language, the less people are going to think and thinking in his mind is not needed. 

Identify a good knowledge question for your chosen real life situation

1. knowledge claim:  technology experts claim that in the future the management of our social networks will be dynamic and automated.
2. Topic: future technology
3. Ask and implicit question about the situation:  what do we know about social networks?
4. Formulate an open-ended question about knowledge in the context of the real life situation:  what does it tell us about the development of technology?
5. Formulate an explicit open-ended question about knowledge using TOK concepts: how can experience, memory and history of technological development allow us to predict the future development of technology?

Creating a knowledge question using the ladder of abstraction

1. knowledge claim: Mr Moussay's grandfather says that the fruits on his trees are ripening earlier and earlier in the year and that this must be due to global warming. 
2. Topic: Global warming. 
3. Ask and implicit question about the situation: what does earlier ripening tell us about global warming?. 
4. Formulate an open-ended question about knowledge in the context of the real life situation: how does global warming cause the fruits to ripen?.
5. Formulate an explicit open-ended question about knowledge using TOK concepts: what roles do reason and evidence play in identifying the cause of changes in nature?

IB Subjects

My first TOK assignment is to rank my IB subjects from 1 to 6 in terms of importance. My six IB subjects are art, biology, literature, Spanish, maths and ITGS.  Thinking of the most important subjects is not a very easy thing to do. Am i supposed to say what is the most important subject to me? to my parents? or important in terms of my future? Personally my favorite subject is art. This is because its my best way to express myself. however my parents and probably most of the people i know would say that it is the least important subject since it will not help me as much as my other subjects in my future. So in terms of my future I would say that maths is my most important subject since it is involved in everything in everyday life (even though its my least favorite subject). The second most important subject would be English. English is one of the most spoken languages in the world and as a person that did not come from an English speaking country, i believe that it is very important for every student all around the world to learn the language in order to communicate wherever they go. The third most important subject would probably be Spanish.Just like knowing English, knowing another language is always a good advantage when going to other countries. Biology is my fourth important subject for the simple reason that students and people in general should know what exactly is going on inside them and around them. My fifth important subject is ITGS. As a very fast developing world in terms of technology, i believe that knowing the influences of the rapid technology changes is very important to understand and know how to deal with our future as it l develops. And lastly the sixth important subject is art and not because it is not important to me but from what i think and what i was told from many people, most students that do art as an ib subject will not proceed with it in the future in terms of a career.