Responses (Nov 2015) — Summary

The list of IB TOK Prescribed Titles for November 2015 will be collected in this post.

Topic Titles:

1. “The main reason knowledge is produced is to solve problems.” To what extent do you agree with this statement?
2. Assess the advantages and disadvantages of using models to produce knowledge of the world.
3. “Without the group to verify it, knowledge is not possible.” Discuss.
4. “In some areas of knowledge we try to reduce a complex whole to simple components, but in others we try to integrate simple components into a complex whole.” Discuss this distinction with reference to two areas of knowledge.
5. “No knowledge can be produced by a single way of knowing.” Discuss.
6. Is explanation a prerequisite for prediction? Explore this question in relation to two areas of knowledge.

Responses:

This list is even more intriguing than the previous one because the questions adopt a more contentious slant. The emphasis seems to be one of debate, in which Yes/No positions are key for questions 3-6, whereas questions 1-2 are general and broadly discursive.

Responses (May 2015) — Summary

The list of IB TOK Prescribed Titles for May 2015 (with some of my personal brief responses) will be collected in this post.

Topic Titles:

1. There is no such thing as a neutral question. Evaluate this statement with reference to two areas of knowledge.
2. “There are only two ways in which humankind can produce knowledge: through passive observation or through active experiment.” To what extent do you agree with this statement?
3. “There is no reason why we cannot link facts and theories across disciplines and create a common groundwork of explanation.” To what extent do you agree with this statement?
4. With reference to two areas of knowledge discuss the way in which shared knowledge can shape personal knowledge.
5. “Ways of knowing are a check on our instinctive judgments.” To what extent do you agree with this statement?
6. “The whole point of knowledge is to produce both meaning and purpose in our personal lives.” To what extent do you agree with this statement?

Responses:

This list is intriguing because the questions are a lot broader and more interesting than usual. The emphasis continues to move in a direction away from specific disciplines/AOKs and toward more holistic challenges. I'll add specific responses after a decent period of time has elapsed, as usual.

Responses (November 2014) — Summary

The list of IB TOK Prescribed Titles for November 2014 (with some of my personal brief responses) is collected in this post.

Topic Titles

1. “Some areas of knowledge seek to describe the world, whereas others seek to transform it.” Explore this claim with reference to two areas of knowledge.  
2. “Knowledge takes the form of a combination of stories and facts.” How accurate is this claim in two areas of knowledge?  
3. “In the production of knowledge, it is only because emotion works so well that reason can work at all.” To what extent would you agree with this claim in two areas of knowledge?  
4. “To gain an understanding of the world we need to make use of stereotypes.” With reference to two areas of knowledge, to what extent do you agree with this statement?  
5. “The task of history is the discovering of the constant and universal principles of human nature.” To what extent are history and one other area of knowledge successful in this task?  
6. “We may agree about general standards in the arts but disagree as to whether a particular work has artistic merit. In ethics the situation is reversed: we may disagree about ethical theories but we all know an unethical action when we see one.” Discuss.  

Responses:

There are two general frameworks that may be of use here. The first is to consider the uses of information: describe, explain, predict, invent/imagine, connect, transform; these can be remembered using the acronym DEPICT. The second is the hierarchy of knowledge construction and use: data given context or value is information; information that is tested for validity, reliability and utility becomes knowledge; knowledge used in the best possible way in a certain situation is called wisdom — these can be remembered using the mnemonic DIKW.

I will, as usual frame some responses here after a decent period of time.

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That time having passed, here are some useful notes.

T1 really requires a clear understanding of description vs transformation, as well as a simple definition of the world. To describe is to detail one's apprehension (sensory perception, emotional response etc) of things in a way that contains some kind of truth—the truth that is inherent in a particular AOK. For example, from the AOK viewpoint of the arts, the truth is largely aesthetic, based on how good a work is at evoking a desired response from its audience. To transform is to change things in a way that is contingent on the working-out of the AOK; to use the same example of the arts, this would mean that the arts not only seek to describe an aesthetic truth but to present it in a way that forces people to react to it, to acknowledge it, to change in response to it.

T2 is pretty basic—stories are narratives, facts are the singular elements used to fill out and construct the narratives. A fact need not be true in all senses; after all, 'fact' comes from the Latin word meaning 'to make' (e.g. as in 'manufacture' = 'make by hand', 'factory' = a place where things are made, 'factor' = an element, component or guiding principle used in making something). Hence, in Gothic novels, you might say 'vampires drink blood' is a fact. All forms of knowledge are composed of narrative structures (hence there is a 'literature' in any discipline) given substance by their own facts. The question really requires some kind of analysis about how (much) these two things combine in two specific AOKs in order to create the knowledge we associated with those AOKs.

T3 looks difficult, but the key to it is to understand what emotion is. Emotion is the set of biochemical and physiological responses that accompany a change in psychological state. The inputs that trigger such responses can be sensory (i.e. via the nervous system) or mnemonic (from memories) or imaginative (from consideration of non-actual scenarios and ideas). Reasoning, on the other hand, is a process by which a person decides or attempts to form logical connections between things—events, facts, processes, data, and so on. The impulse to actually do such a thing is almost always emotional. This is the basic level of the argument. However, at a more advanced level, emotion allows humans to make quick judgements (cf. 'gut feel') when digesting huge amounts of data, thus simplifying the situation (whether accurately or not) when considering complex cases. In different AOKs, these things have different levels of application, and that should be discussed.

T4 requires an understanding of stereotypes. The original meaning of the term is that of a solid object used to make an imprint or used as a mould for producing identical copies. 'Stereo' is from the Greek for 3D (as in 'stereophonic' = having the properties of 3D-sound) and 'type' has one of its usual meanings—the original form of something (as in 'typeface', 'typical'). The question therefore is asking us to evaluate how useful the deployment of 'master images' or 'standard prototypes' is in different AOKs. The usual social definition of stereotypes as rudimentary descriptive templates for groups of people can only be used in the humanities/human sciences AOKs, so beware.

T5 requires an understanding of history as a discipline. History is a purely descriptive and explanatory art. It does NOT make predictions; once it does, it is treading the ground of the human sciences. For example, economic history is the history of human evaluation, transaction and resource allocation in the realm of goods and services. Once this is used to predict human behaviour, it becomes economics. Same for social history and sociology, political history and political science, and many others. The question then is whether such an approach (description and explanation of human events in a chronological matrix) can actually uncover general principles applicable to all humans, and whether another AOK's approach might be better or worse at this.

T6 is hard only for students who cannot define 'the arts'—or those who cannot differentiate between morality, law, ethics and similar constructs. Since the arts are all forms of human action designed to produce something that conveys emotion or produces a desired emotional response, the question is whether humans do indeed have general artistic standards or can produce specific evaluations of merit. The answer is, as always, in between—you can have scores in gymnastics, choir competitions, karate, platform diving, dance, pottery... and they will all have some variance. But some have very tight rubrics of performance, relative to others. Ethics, being a socially-constructed sometimes-philosophical basis for evaluating 'right behaviour' in a human social context, suffers similar issues. It is clearly wrong to steal in a society which has property rights; it is impossible to steal in a society that doesn't have such rights. It's the student's job to define both these areas and craft a nice debate.

Responses (May 2014) — Summary

The list of IB TOK Prescribed Titles for May 2014 (with some of my personal brief responses) is collected in this post.

Topic Titles

1. Ethical judgments limit the methods available in the production of knowledge in both the arts and the natural sciences. Discuss.  
2. "When the only tool you have is a hammer, all problems begin to resemble nails” (Abraham Maslow). How might this apply to ways of knowing, as tools, in the pursuit of knowledge?  
3. "Knowledge is nothing more the systematic organization of facts.” Discuss this statement in relation to two areas of knowledge.  
4. "That which is accepted as knowledge today is sometimes discarded tomorrow.” Consider some of the knowledge issues raised by this statement in two areas of knowledge.  
5. "The historian’s task is to understand the past; the human scientist, by contrast, is looking to change the future.” To what extent is this true in these two areas of knowledge?  
6. "A skeptic is one who is willing to question any knowledge claim, asking for clarity in definition, consistency in logic and adequacy of evidence” (adapted from Paul Kurtz, 1994). Evaluate this approach in two areas of knowledge.  

Responses:

Clearly, the emphasis on specific areas of knowledge and ways of knowing has almost completely disappeared as the IB prepares to transit to their new TOK model. This means a return to basics. Here are some deliberately short responses.

1. An ethical judgment is a judgment based on the composite morality of a social environment. That is, you can argue that any method that can legitimately be used in knowledge production (based on what a discipline considers to be legitimate) is also bound by what society deems legitimate. We are thus talking about the intersection between what methodologies fit the definition of an area of knowledge (e.g. the various forms of scientific method in the AOK of the natural sciences) and what methodologies fit the range of actions which a society considers to be moral actions.

2. Consider a way of knowing (e.g. sensory perception) and the associated methodologies linked to it (in this case, mostly empirical observation and related methods). If this is your only tool, then you would think that only empirical observation would allow you to pursue knowledge. You would dismiss all other phenomena as being less valid and/or less reliable.

3. Is knowledge just 'stamp collecting'? (I invite students to look for the source of this idea.) If so, then all you need to do is find the right organisation of facts and you have an area of knowledge. But what defines an area of knowledge? This is a key knowledge issue, and it can be resolved by asking questions (similar to those I have answered elsewhere in this blog) such as, "What is the difference between the humanities and the arts?"

4. Well, clearly we need to know what knowledge is, and whether it can be said to become not-knowledge. One argument is that, if you 'know' something and it is later found to be false, you never really 'knew' it. For example, if you thought that lead and gold atoms behaved the way they do because of purely classical reasons, and then learnt (as we did only about 20 years ago) that they did so because of effects related to Einsteinian relativity, did you ever know anything about these atoms?

5. This is an interesting question. History, unlike the sciences, has only descriptive and explanatory theories. Once it develops predictive theories, we call it sociology or political science — examples of human sciences. Why is this so? Again, I've answered that question elsewhere in this blog.

6. I really don't like this kind of question. Consider what would happen if a) you failed to define 'skeptic' properly, and/or b) you considered this approach skeptically (i.e. being skeptical about skepticism). Can you be skeptical about skepticism at all? If so, why not? And if not, why so?

Responses (Nov 2013) — Summary

The list of IB TOK Prescribed Titles for November 2013 (with some of my personal brief responses) is collected in this post.

Titles

1. "In the natural sciences progress can be made, but in the arts this is not possible.” To what extent do you agree? 
2. “Technology both enables us to produce knowledge and limits the knowledge that is produced.” Discuss with reference to two areas of knowledge. 
3. “Every attempt to know the world rests on a set of assumptions that cannot be tested.” Examine this proposition in relation to two areas of knowledge. 
4. “Knowledge gives us a sense of who we are.” To what extent is this true in the human sciences and one other area of knowledge? 
5. “... our knowledge is only a collection of scraps and fragments that we put together into a pleasing design, and often the discovery of one new fragment would cause us to alter utterly the whole design” (Morris Bishop). To what extent is this true in history and one other area of knowledge? 
6. “The methods used to produce knowledge depend on the use to which it will be put.” Discuss this statement in relation to two areas of knowledge.

Responses:

#1: You have to define progress first, probably in relation to knowledge. Once that is defined, then your definitions of the natural sciences and the arts as knowledge-pursuits leading to 'progress' will frame your subsequent argument. This is actually a rather traditional question, a bit thin.

#2: This is related to the general statement '[Tech] X produces knowledge Y using methodology Z that is inherent in X or intrinsic to X'. That is, the title statement implies that technology has a knowledge-constructing function, but that the form it takes necessarily defines the kind of knowledge constructed. It's a good solid question.

#3: In order to answer this kind of question, you need to be able to define the set of assumptions on which a given area of knowledge is based. You need to show how an AOK is an 'attempt to know the world' and how you would test assumptions (in general as well as in particular).

#4: This is the easiest question, apart from 6 which is equally traditional. An AOK is in some sense a human perspective, and as such it makes claims that define humanity implicitly and/or explicitly. This 'gives us a sense of who we are', or at least, attempts to do so. This is what needs to be explored — how successfully does the AOK accomplish this? Some AOKs aren't obviously directed at humanity.

#5: This is a bit of an intellectual joke. Does Bishop mean a collage, a mosaic, or a jigsaw-puzzle? This one requires you to think about how a design can be 'pleasing' (which hints at the role of emotion in knowledge-construction) and how easy/difficult it is to cause a paradigm shift in history or another AOK.

#6: This is a related to the general statement 'Desired outcome A requires knowledge base B which is constructed through methodology C'. Hence it discusses how functionalist ('the use to which it will be put') a particular AOK is — some kinds of knowledge may be seen as having no direct/intended use.

I'll follow up on some (possibly all) of these questions in the days ahead.

A Theory about Theory of Knowledge

Over the last fifteen years, I've had the pleasure of investigating the way in which students theorize about knowledge. The odd thing is that the more they think about what they know and how they know it (or how they think they know it), the less coherently they express this. It's almost as if they have drunk too deep of the stuff and are repenting in the gutter.

That has to be the reason why I'm seeing a particularly disturbing phenomenon more and more. Essays my students write tend to be linear and at best two-dimensional, despite the many thoughts they seem to have in the classroom. It's as if they are deliberately putting on blinkers in order to avoid distractions, in order to plough a long, lean furrow.

This leads to essays in which a line of argument about knowledge is advanced and pursued through thick and thin, but without a broader context and without much engagement with other aspects of knowledge.

At the end of the line, one finds a single glowing point of conclusion, like the last glow of an ember before the dark snuffs it out. It's all rather depressing.

My theory is that students are afraid of looking at knowledge. It is as if, having grown up in an atmosphere of air, they are suddenly having to think about breathing, about fighting for every breath and attempting to scent the aromas of nitrogen and oxygen. It is as if they think they will die if they cannot adequately chart the movement of air through every alveolus in the lung. And so, they fall back on a description of process, rather than a picture of relationships.

A 1500-word essay on breathing would be beyond them, but a 1500-word chocolate-box assortment of linked facts amounting to a description of how air passes into the lung and emerges depleted — ah, that is what they can do with some confidence.

That is why, the day before the essays are due, students can still ask me questions like, "What's my conclusion supposed to be?" or "Are there any implications to what I've said?" or "What is my knowledge issue?" They've forgotten how to think, because they're thinking too hard and too narrowly about thought. Like the millipede who became paralysed after being asked, "Which leg do you move first when you wake up?" they are paralysed by having to describe how they know how they know.

Responses 004 (Nov 2012)

The infamous list has thrown up an uneven field of obstacles as usual. Obstacle Question #4 asks: What counts as knowledge in the arts? Discuss by comparing to one other area of knowledge.

This is a hoary old chestnut, so to speak. The debate over what constitutes 'the arts', and hence by extension what counts as knowledge in the arts, is a very old one. The crafty Greeks got around it by using the word technë, which means 'art', 'craft' and 'skill' all at once. Their legacy is a range of modern words, including 'technology', 'technique', 'technical', and 'polytechnic', which are all supposed to have something to do with the arts but seem more to do with the sciences these days.

The picture is complicated by classical ideas of what constituted the arts. Here is a list of what the Greeks thought the arts were, in the personifications of the Nine Muses. Included were agriculture, astronomy, geometry and history.

Indeed, history and philosophy are the parents of the sciences — the natural sciences are the descendants of the disciplines which we used to call 'natural history' and 'natural philosophy'; the term 'natural science' in its present-day meaning is relatively new and was not often the term of choice till perhaps the late 19th century. [See Ngram here.]

This argues for a response that contrasts the arts with the sciences, using technology and engineering, architecture and design, as battlefields. It also means that whoever answers this question might have to draw a line of some sort between 'arts' and 'humanities' — not to mention the line between 'technology' and 'science'. Haha.

That said, how do we define knowledge in the arts themselves? I would argue that there are at least two kinds of knowledge: procedural knowledge (how it is done) and conceptual knowledge (what it is that is done) — for example, knowledge of how to paint vs knowledge of what painting is, or knowledge of how to write poetry vs knowledge of what poetry is. (We require most teachers of visual or performing arts to be practitioners to some extent; sadly, this is less true of the language arts.) How else can artistic (or 'aesthetic') knowledge be defined?

My instinct tells me that this essay topic is an easy one to handle. But it will require a disciplined approach that draws on personal experience and interpretation, coupled with the ability to examine disciplines critically.

Responses 003 (Nov 2012)

The short list for the year ahead has this as Question 3: "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand." — Albert Einstein. Do you agree?

I think this question is one of those trivial ones which can be made important by deliberately introducing extra material. So let's dispense with the trivial approach first.

Knowledge does not exist without information, and information does not exist without data. At each stage, the questions of validity, reliability, utility, generalisability, transferability (etc., etc.) intervene in an attempt to prove or disprove the various claims that arise (whether actual or potential). Hence the only way to claim knowledge is to subject it to tests of some kind of reality — something that contrasts or is contrasted with imagination. Without imagination, i.e. the capacity to create images/imagery or otherwise imagine, we cannot test knowledge. Knowledge therefore has no importance without imagination.

In fact, etymologically and historially, the image or imago is the ideal or fully-developed concept of something. The real is merely the sub-standard shadow in Plato's cave. We see this usage in the relationship between (for example) real and ideal gases.

At this point, we can concede completely that Einstein was right. However, as always, a case can be made for negotiating on the basis of 'important'. What does 'important' mean?

'Important', from Latin importare, is used to indicate something 'brought in', 'brought into the discussion'. This explains why 'import' can mean 'significance' as well as 'something shipped in'. When we say something is 'of import' or 'important', we are saying that it is a point to be noted, or that we should pay attention to it.

And that is why knowledge might be thought of as more important than imagination — knowledge is reality as far as we can confirm it, and is thus the basis of our action in this world. It introduces the key points to be considered in what we do, as opposed to imagination, which is what we might aspire to (or have realised that we can never attain).

The argument then, it seems to me, is whether the real is of greater value (practical or otherwise) than the ideal. It's a good debate to have. While the idea of an ideal gas allows us to conceptualise many things, no such gas exists — we have to solve problems in reality based on real gases.

Responses 002 (Nov 2012)

The Nov 2012 list really throws up some interesting problems. Here is Question 2 on the list: "It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts." — Arthur Conan Doyle. Consider the extent to which this statement may be true in two or more areas of knowledge.

(Note: As usual, the context of this statement is not supposed to be important. For the more conscientious amongst us, this quote comes from Conan Doyle's 1891 Sherlock Holmes story, A Scandal In Bohemia, in which Holmes is bested by the lady adventurer Irene Adler.)

The context which is important, however, is our consideration of the statement in terms of what a theory is supposed to be in different areas of knowledge. Here are a few thoughts.

In most conceptualisations of the scientific method, we're supposed to build theory from empirical data or reasoning from basic principles. It's either induction or deduction, repeated and mixed up, which generates theory. It isn't considered scientific to generate theory without any data at all, since you cannot even generate a problem statement or question that is of scientific value without some initial data. Why? Because a scientific claim must be testable, and we only know what a reasonable test is if we have some data to work with.

On the other hand, let's consider the arts. We'll have to define the arts as disciplines in which something material (a text, a narrative, an artifact etc) is created in order to induce a response (almost always emotional) based on somebody's sensory perceptions. A theory in the arts can be scientific in nature, if it is an analytical theory. However, a theory about what an artist thinks art is can seem spontaneously enacted through what he does. It's when people respond to that, that data are generated. The artist may not have any obvious foundations of data on which his theory of 'this is art' is built. He might be using his emotions as a guide, for example, or his intuitions, or his faith in his own arbitrary principles.

Other disciplines fall somewhere in between. All disciplines work with data; the question is whether data must precede theory (and thus be its foundation, as in the 'grounded theory' approach beloved of some research in the human sciences) or whether theory can be constructed before any data is received. It might be a chicken-and-egg kind of problem, requiring much thought before the obvious 'chicken came first' conclusion arises.

In this statement, however, is a lot more material for debate. You would have to think about 'capital mistake' (which implies 'fatal error'), 'insensibly' (by which Conan Doyle would have meant 'subconsciously', rather than 'irrationally', I think), and 'twist' (as in apply torque to deform, but not in a literal sense).

I suspect this question will be attempted by Sherlock Holmes fans, amateur investigators, and people who just want a no-holds-barred dust-up of the old-fashioned kind. A lot of fun, a lot of risk. "Two or more areas of knowledge," forsooth.

Knowledge Industrialisation

The future is rooted in the past; the present is that infinitesimally thin membrane between them. Thus it is that knowledge, that curious construction of what we think we know, is one of the threads that holds us secure within the tapestry of time.

There are jobs that have risen and fallen in prestige, careers that have teetered and tossed from pillar to post, from architecture to horticulture. There are professions that have split and joined, from barbering to surgery and pharmacy to witchcraft. Some disciplines have updated themselves, some need no updating; the ceramicist and the fashionista are in as high demand these days as they were in the time of Nebuchadnezzar.

But just as there is nothing new under the sun, so too there is nothing new about career guidance. No matter what ebbs and flows human endeavour brings, the man who knows who to hire for what job, and the man who knows what must be known (and who knows it) — these are the ones you want, or failing which, want to be. Only the polymaths will make order from chaos across the burning universe, even though the statistical points which are specialist will give them the bricks to do it with.

And that is why there is a need to teach people about knowledge definition, construction, management and utilisation. That is why people must be taught that data is not information unless it is given significance, and that information is not knowledge unless it has a relevant context. Those who teach these things and those who learn and use these things will never go out of style, will always have a job and a living, will always be able to get a life and keep it.

What is a Religion?

When dealing with students from a particular kind of institution, I often find that they have the same woolly or imprecise ideas about religion. For example, if they're from a parochial Christian school, they all think that a discussion of religion begins with their own peculiar subsect(ion) of Christianity.

But religion is easy to define more accurately, by anchoring the definition around four points. This has the virtue of coupling accuracy with precision; we can now say what a religion is, and what exactly makes it so.

A religion requires at least four elements:

1. A belief in the supernatural; that is, things which to some extent cannot be examined using the natural sciences. Whether such things can exist is debateable, but one could place abstracts (such as justice, love or peace) in this category on the basis of empiricism.
2. A belief that the supernatural can somehow interact with the natural, even though the natural cannot interrogate the supernatural.
3. A belief that this supernatural interaction has necessary consequences on human behaviour. This would define elements of human morality.
4. A belief that these moral consequences can be usefully codified as a guideline for human behaviour.

Without any one of these four belief elements, a construct purporting to be a religion cannot be one.

A religion, therefore, is based on a set of practical behaviours and attitudes centred around the detailed working-out of these four beliefs. When such a set is recognisable as such, and can be effectively transmitted as a reasonably similar package from one person to another, a religion has been established.

A religion is therefore the product of a) these four beliefs, b) the details of these beliefs, c) the construction of a behavioural construct demonstrating these beliefs, d) the self-recognised consistency of this construct, and e) the effective propagation of this construct. If one of these fails, the religion becomes defunct.

Now, a word on faith. Faith is belief without a necessary sufficiency of evidence. Since belief in the supernatural is a criterion for a religion, and the supernatural is by definition not admissible as evidence in any arena of discussion based on the natural, all religions are faith-based. What is not so obvious is that many other human knowledge endeavours are faith-based too, but we do not make that as clear as when we are discussing religion.

We also try to reduce the amount of faith required in many of these other areas of human experience, except perhaps in the aesthetic disciplines. Religious morality and behaviour is thus very much close kin to aesthetics. Theology, on the other hand, is the religious equivalent of mathematics. See this post for elaboration.

Terminus: SF&F

Often, this blog has posts about the boundaries between different areas of knowledge. In memory of Roger Zelazny, this post will quote from the dialogue between the god Yama and the monkey Tak. They discuss the nature of the beings known as demons, and this is how the discussion goes:

They sat in Yama's chambers, having taken a light meal there. Yama leaned back in his chair, a glass of the Buddha's wine in his left hand, a half-filled decanter in his right.

"Then the one called Raltariki is really a demon?" asked Tak.

"Yes – and no," said Yama, "If by 'demon' you mean a malefic, supernatural creature, possessed of great powers, life span and the ability to temporarily assume virtually any shape – then the answer is no. This is the generally accepted definition, but it is untrue in one respect."

"Oh? And what may that be?"

"It is not a supernatural creature."

"But it is all those other things?"

"Yes."

"Then I fail to see what difference it makes whether it be supernatural or not – so long as it is malefic, possesses great powers and life span and has the ability to change its shape at will."

"Ah, but it makes a great deal of difference, you see. It is the difference between the unknown and the unknowable, between science and fantasy – it is a matter of essence. The four points of the compass be logic, knowledge, wisdom and the unknown. Some do bow in that final direction. Others advance upon it. To bow before the one is to lose sight of the three. I may submit to the unknown, but never to the unknowable. The man who bows in that final direction is either a saint or a fool. I have no use for either."

It is that curious last paragraph to which I must draw the reader's attention. Four points of the compass? It is interesting indeed, and perhaps it shows more insight into the mind of Zelazny's Death-god than anything else. Four choices, and the one choice Death would never choose. But that begs the question, "Which one would Death choose?"

Areas of Knowledge

Too often these days, it seems, I am asked what a way of thinking is, or what a way of knowing is. There is a whole group of terms that need defining here, but yet they cannot be defined narrowly.

'Thought', to begin with, is the process of data transfer in the brain. Whether this is thought of as a chemical phenomenon or an electrical one (it is both), conscious or subconscious, the fact remains that all would agree that the state of a brain before a thought, and the state of the same brain after, cannot be the same. Something has changed, and we prefer to think of it in terms of data (at the very least).

A 'way of thinking' is therefore a pattern (or process, or procedure) involving data transfers that bear similar characteristics and follow (or appear to follow, or are aimed at, or appear to be aimed at) the same direction, intention, purpose or goal. In the abstract, a way of thinking is a pattern that exists with or without real data transfers. It can be hypothetical or actual, practical or not.

'Knowledge', according to at least one theory, is the contextualised framing of validated information. 'Information', in turn, arises from data that have been structured (formulated or 'informed', that is, placed in a formation) or given form. 'Data' (singular = 'datum') are elements processed by a system that change the state of a system. We can be more exacting in our definitions, especially if we are cognitive scientists or computer scientists, but these definitions are deliberately broad in order to allow for more possibilities.

A 'way of knowing' is therefore a pattern (or process, or procedure) involving the collection of data which can be made into information and then contextualised into knowledge. There are many ways of knowing, but for humans these can be divided into two groups: intrinsic (i.e., involving processes taking place entirely in the human body) and extrinsic (i.e., with some attempt at processing outside the human body or which need external standards for validation).

Generally, sensory perception and emotional response are intrinsic ways of knowing and cannot be shared very efficiently, while formal reasoning and language are extrinsic ways of knowing and can be shared a lot more efficiently. One way of looking at this might be that we have developed the extrinsic ways of knowing in order to share the intrinsic ways of knowing. You can argue that reason is intrinsic, and this is probably true, but there's no way to tell that a person engages in formal reasoning unless it's expressed; everything about human reasoning, strictly speaking, is a 'black box' effect without external validation.

Which brings me to 'areas of knowledge'. As mentioned elsewhere in this blog, an area of knowledge is defined in terms of parametric characteristics. Essentially, an area of knowledge is an array of knowledge chunks or pieces that share common characteristics such that they can be connected together into a 'body of knowledge'. This can normally described in some short general definition, e.g. 'History is about chaps while geography is about maps' or something like that.

There are larger areas of knowledge which follow very general paradigms, and smaller sub-areas. For example, 'aesthetics' is a huge area of knowledge that is based on the emotional response to sensory perception. Within 'aesthetics' are sub-areas such as 'music' or 'sculpture'. Within 'music' you would find smaller areas concerning its historical basis, instrumentation and instrument use, works and description and analysis of works, and so on. You can have a very tiny area of knowledge such as '17th-century musical works performed by double-reeded instruments and workmen's tools in anechoic chambers' or something like that.

And there I will stop for a while to gather my breath. I suspect that with the coming round of TOK topics, I will need all the creative energy I can store. If such energy does indeed exist and can be stored, that is.

Reason

An old joke, which I have not been able to adequately source, says this: "The effective IQ of a committee is the highest individual IQ divided by the number of members." This, of course, goes against memes like the wisdom of crowds or the virtues of democracy. But that is only because it is the flip side of such memes: crowds are also mobs, and democracies can be tyrannies from a majority which might be less qualified to make decisions.

I have been in meetings at which reasonable, intelligent and articulate members have cobbled together compromises which are untenable and inadequate; at which said members seem to have consumed too many cream-puffs, which seem to have gone to their heads; at which said heads have turned to gossip-churning mush incapable of strategic planning. And thus, anecdotally, the old joke can indeed seem true.

The world has invested itself in faith of a secular kind — money, machines, meritocracy. This is not surprising, since 'secular' means 'worldly'. What is surprising even though it should not be is that this faith relies on a system of the world that could only be held together by perfect knowledge delivered without mediation — literally 'immediate' — but such a system does not exist. We have put our faith in illusion, as a Buddhist might say; the ancient Israelite would say, "He hangeth the world upon nothing."

The system has never worked, but the closest approximation of its perfect working has been to benefit of those possessing the most powerful means of attaining knowledge. Knowledge is indeed power, although its sinews might be illusion and materiel.

But nobody has perfect knowledge, and that is why, as we come asymptotically closer to that point, we teeter ever more precariously at the abyss of the catastrophe. Should we fall into it, it is not singularity we will achieve, but nullity. The sky will unfold, the scroll will unroll.

And that will be an end to reason, or any pretense at reasoning.

Knowledge Claims and the Theory of Knowledge

As I walk into the stream
For cerebral hygiene
The pollution of the meme
Seems pungently too keen.

What we claim is essentially both an assertion about reality and our assertion of will over reality. If we believe our claims are likely, there must be reasons. These are often couched in terms of evidence.

But note well: 'evidence' comes from the Latin for 'what I see', and 'couched' is about sleeping. Our claims are sometimes adventitious growths planted in a flowerbed, and as defining of reality as a pilchard is definitive of sharks. This last point is something that you might get from Hall's The Raw Shark Texts, by the way.

When you claim something, or add your clamour to the din (or clams to your dinner), you are trying your best to reclaim order from the sea of chaos. You are like one of Moorcock's von Beks, living in a citadel on a spur of solidity and holding things together by ritual and will.

Without underpinnings, a justification and framework for your claims, your claims will fall flat and be washed away in chaos. Hence be very careful when making claims, and also understand that the affirmation or denial of your claims will decide your answer to your knowledge issue.

For example, if your knowledge issue is, "How do we know if bees understand honey?" then your claims might be: 1) bees have cognitive ability to make sense out of chemical perception, 2) honeys have differences that can be distinguished by chemical perception. Your conclusion (after presenting the evidence) might be 1 - yes, 2 - also yes, 3 - the bees' ability and perception are sufficient to note those differences and their behaviour will change because of this. Hence, bees do indeed understand honey, in at least one sense of the phrase.

The bees are yes, the best.

Knowledge Issues and the Theory of Knowledge

In some old and troubled dream
I load my magazine
Thirty cartridges now seem
Too much for what they mean.

The true test of reality is death, because termination falsifies the dream. The problem then is subjective observation, because if you're dead, you have no way to personally verify the test outcome. It is a terrible situation to be in, which is why ontology should always precede epistemology.

That said, the question "How do we know (that)... ?" is the most important question of knowledge. It is possible to begin all knowledge issues with these words. More importantly, answering such questions requires the verification (or falsification) of claims, and the exercise of attempting to do this always tells you something more than you knew before.

Therefore, when stuck for a way to start an essay, ask yourself the question of how you would find out the answer to it. This applies both to explicit questions (e.g. "Freedom of speech is a necessary human right. Why is this (not) so? Discuss.") and implicit questions (e.g. "Write short notes on garlic cultivation and its significance to human existence.").

The second question, of course, is: "How do we conceive, construct and communicate a convincing answer to an unknown target audience?" This is something for another day.

Language as a Way of Knowing

Lector, si argumentum requiris, circumspice. Or something like that.

Reason as a Way of Knowing

Reason is the way in which we console ourselves that the universe is congruent with our brain's model of it. It seems to work. But it is not so much a way of knowing as a way with which we define a certain kind of indirect knowing.

Reason as most people have it is apparently the linking of facts and ideas so that they appear to meet certain tests. Knowledge based on reason will generally meet the tests of validity and reliability, transferability and generalisability, and perhaps the tighter tests of coherence and congruence demanded by pure logic.

Two main processes operate in what we call reason: induction, which is based on experience and empirical knowledge; and deduction, which is based on rules and axioms. The former assumes that if we have observed prior cases, we can use those cases to formulate rules and generate norms; the latter assumes that if we have rules, we can use those to classify and determine (or delineate) the cases we are presented with.

The provisional conclusions we must draw are called inferences; the possible conclusions we may draw are called implications. This roughly outlines the concept of reason, and also fixes the boundaries of the kind of knowledge it can provide.

Reason suffers from two problems: simply put, deduction requires rules and axioms, and we assume these are right before we apply them; induction requires a critical number of cases, but this is not always known, and we do not always know what cases are relevant. In theory, both should cancel each other's defects out. In practice, this is not always so.

Nevertheless, apart from even more abstruse considerations concerning the nature of reality, reason (by its own self-defined coherence and consistency) is the best bet we have of making useful sense of the world — which doesn't say much, but says enough.

Senses as a Way of Knowing

Throughout the scaffolding and steel of our bodies runs the silver line of nerve and axon, of filament and spark. The largest mass of this hides in the storehouse, the granary of our heads; but the mass outside is greater than the complex clump within.

The senses are not the ineffable chemical ocean of our emotional selves, but they are the main source of input, the neural net that shifts like a littoral at the periphery, sending messages up the shingle and through the tiny grains along the beach. The senses are directed messengers, sensitive each one of them to specific things that turn them on or off, or more on or less on, moron or lesson.

We have many senses: sight and sound, smell and taste and touch — these five kings claimed the kingdom centuries ago. But they are not infallible, and they are not alone. We have balance and temperature, location and motion, hunger and pain, and a host of other minor players which occasionally may take the stage and steal a scene.

The senses give us data, one datum at a time or many; data by themselves do not constitute information unless a context is woven to give them meaning. And when that meaning is verified, when definition and validity, generalisability and reliability, utility and transferability are all satisfied, the meaning becomes knowledge.

Sensory perception on its own is not knowledge, but it is a way to knowledge. It provides ceaseless, ever self-censored increments of material. From the many strands of sense, each of us builds a structure, weaves a tapestry, crafts a framework. It is the way we know what seems to be, the material underpinning of reality.

Emotion as a Way of Knowing

Let us define emotion: it is the sum of the changes of your body as it experiences things; it is the product of those changes as the standpoint of your mind shifts, like shadow of a sundial as clouds cover the sun.

If emotion is a way of knowing, what knowledge does it lead us to? If it is a way, what kind of way — is it a broad thoroughfare or a narrow lane, an iron bridge or a wooden plank?

I sit and try to feel. There is no emotion that does not have the tides of the body, blood, bone, brain, brawn throbbing and pulsing behind it. There can be feelings without emotion, but no emotions without feelings. And each tendril of the emotional experience changes the world.

Emotion teaches you how a body, in all its chemical and biological and physical complexity, responds to the world of sense and being before the straitjackets of sensibility and reason confine it. Emotion bypasses the careful chalice of language, and spills that fluid into the world.

If emotion is a way of knowing, it leads us to knowledge of self, and how the self is the mirror of the other. It helps us to know the world without thinking about what it means in itself, but what it is, and what it means, to us.

Emotion is the manifold path which blazes like fire or spins like web across the forest of complexity. It joins point to unconnected point, it defies the voice of (t)reason. It outraces the slowness of induction, which teaches by accumulated experience and example; it outflanks the lethal thrust of deduction, which teaches by rule and law. It helps us to an intuitive conclusion before the unfolding of the story is complete.

And, if it is all that, it is also unreliable, sometimes scornful of validity, on occasion spectacularly unuseful. But it is the truest portion of ourselves, the bulk of what we are inside.