Singular Answers

There is a human need to find singular answers to questions. There are, unfortunately and ironically, several kinds of 'singular'.

There is the 'singular' that is an apparently unique answer, the lazy form of which is the generic answer decorated and customised to look different from all other variants of the generic original.

There is the 'singular' that is odd, eccentric, deliberately made different from the usual. And in a culture of such singular tropisms, it is likely to be fairly common.

There is the 'singular' that assumes a convergent approach based on rules. That being so, it boils down to a multiplicity of interpretations or expressions of such rules.

And there are many more. But some, it should be said, are better than others.

Writing a TOK Essay (Part II): The Pattern

This post is a follow-up to the previous (and rather long-ago) one on this subject.

There are many people, I've noticed from site traffic analysis, looking through this blog for help in meeting unreasonable deadlines and other such animals. A lot of them seem to be using search engines to find help with specific questions (normally typed in verbatim from the list. But using search engines on the questions themselves tends to turn up a rather mixed bag of stuff, from the useful to the not-so useful.

My own responses to the questions on that list can be found here and in the links appended at the end of that post. However, they are responses and not answers. (And oh yes, by the way, do read the copyright notice in the sidebar — the rules are here; essentially, you can copy anything on this blog as long as you cite it properly in this format: [URL] on the blog 'Findings' by AMC (last accessed on [date]) .)

The intention of this post, therefore, is to shed some light on how I arrived at those responses and how I would have proceeded if I had the job of answering the questions instead.

Essentially, if you've read through my responses, you'll realise that quite apart from the personal level at which those responses are written (and the odd and sometimes personal examples provided), there is a certain general sequence or pattern:

1. Define the terms and attempt to identify the obvious meaning, any implicit meanings, and any linguistic/logical potential traps in the question.
2. Write a paragraph in which you expose the intention of the question as far as you are concerned.
3. The key intention is normally a relation of questions like 'How do you know something?' — this is a knowledge issue. The issue might be something else, but it is always epistemological; it is something to do with the reasons for thinking that something is 'knowledge'.
4. The answer to such a question would then be of the form 'I know something because...' — this is a knowledge claim. The claim might be something else, but it is always a working theory or argument that resolves the issue earlier identified as the key intention of the question.
5. If the question has identified a specific area of knowledge (or more than one) and/or a specific way of knowing (or more than one), then determine how these are related to the issue and the proof of the claim that resolves the issue.
6. If the question seems somewhat unbounded by such considerations, choose your own areas of knowledge and ways of knowing, taking care to ensure that you can define them exactly. Bear in mind that some disciplines (e.g. history, language, philosophy, mathematics) are master disciplines from which others are derived — science, for example, used to be a combination of natural history and natural philosophy, expressed in language and explicated in mathematical terms.
7. Now show how your thinking about these areas and ways of knowing proves the claim.
8. Since this is quite tough to do rigorously, you might also want to show how you may be able to disprove the claim or show that you can't really prove it no matter how you try (for some logical reason). These things are counterclaims, and they show that you have thought through at least two sides of the issue.
9. Look at what you've written, and summarise the argument as tightly as possible, showing how you've attempted to answer the question. Then state your conclusion, which logically follows from all you've written and is the direct answer to the question, and you're done.

All schools which teach this kind of stuff give you a general template or some ideas like these about how to answer such questions. What you have to do is work hard on the material that you're using to answer the question. Filling in a template haphazardly will probably get you a C; showing careful thought in fluent and coherent manner will help you do much better.

Well, that's the pattern. I remember that I drew this in great and colourful detail in class once; someone actually took a photograph of it, and I wonder if that person still has it. Haha...

Responses 001 (2009-2010)

This is the first of a series of brief responses to the list of questions given earlier.

Question:

To what extent is truth different in mathematics, the arts and ethics?

Response:

My instinct at first was to note that mathematics seeks consistency and hence 'rigs' the game to ensure that the premises and rules are always consistent. The answer to any problem in mathematics should therefore always be the same (or at least, consist of the same set of outcomes). In mathematics, truth is the state of having come to a conclusion that is fully and exhaustively consistent with all the initial rules and parameters. The tool for evaluating this state is reason; other tools are peripheral, although some have said that mathematics tries for linguistic consistency. Haha. The point about mathematics, I suppose, is that if you accept the initial conditions (the rules, logic, elements etc) then you are forced to accept the conclusion(s). Most people do.

In the arts, this 'truth' definition is not true; the rules are fully mutable and the elements are inconsistent in effect. Consider aesthetics: symmetry is pleasing, too much is not; contrast is pleasing, too much is not; harmony is pleasing, too much is not... and so on. It is always possible to debate the conclusions. Generally the first impact of the arts is to produce a reflexive physiological response. Reason comes later, and is often used to justify that initial response. This means that the first input is sensory, but the first response is emotional; the reason kicks in later, already biased (and allowed to remain so because of the mutability of the rules); and if you must, you try to convert this to language in order to communicate your response. Truth thus consists of subjective consistency, and perhaps not even that.

Ethics occupies some sort of middle ground. An ethical code is the integration of individual moral codes; this is why morality shades into ethics – a common morality simply means that each person's individual values and moral responses tallies with each other person's. The point at which realisation of this common morality occurs, and hence defines a code of responses common to the community, is the point at which an ethical basis emerges. Ethics is the study of the interaction of individual moralities in order to determine what everyone will agree to be the 'best' outcome. The problem with 'best' is that this is debateable, and the grounds for debate tend to stem from empathy and emotion as much as from reason. However, since it requires multiple perspectives, it tends to have a more broadly accepted 'truth' than the arts.

Comments?

Quickstep

The other day, a client asked me, "So why did you step down in 2004?"

As usual, I made no conclusive reply. The evidence is very clear. Read all my posts from August to October 2004, see what might have caused it, decide for yourself. I keep every bit of evidence from that time in a hard-copy file. Every bit. I was trained as a qualitative researcher, and I recorded many things. In twelve sets of files, too.

People might say things, but it is what they wrote that survives, and I will not publish it. Here, or anywhere else. Yet. And I have published nothing, have written no anonymous letters, and am occasionally furious (a sinful state, for which I am sorry) at the idea (conceived of, I am sure, by the ignorant and unreasonable) that I have done such things.

I never doubted my allegiances, my qualities, or my directions. I never lost respect for the respectable, or courage for the challenge. I have always been answerable in full for my own actions. I have always taken full responsibility. And I have never harmed my institution in any demonstrable way. I carry no burden of shame or guilt, because what God has forgiven and justified need not burden you once it is gone, and because sometimes there is no reason for it. This is what I call a holistic re-education.

But these clients keep asking questions like, "So why did you step down in 2006?"

The answers are the same.