Monday, August 11, 2014
Blog on Perspectives
Choose one idea from thinking about maps, Plato's Cave, the distinctions I've made in class, comments people have made in class, or any of the other texts and sources we've looked at. From that starting point, elaborate your thinking about this idea, showing how it might apply to one of your subject areas, a real world situation, your own experience, or another text you have read or watched.
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Blog on Perspectives - Pedro Hannud
ReplyDeleteIn Plato's allegory of the cave, we saw how the three men had no idea of what the shapes and shadows behind them were, they only saw distorted views of them and imagined based on their experiences what each shadow was. When one of them was unchained and brought to light and the real word, he couldn't believe what he saw and how everything looked like in real life, so he went back running to the cave to tell to his friends how everything was and how wrong they were about their previous ideas. Although he tried to come back and tell his friends of what he had seen, his friends did not understand him nor recognized him because he was only another distorted shadow shown in the wall as all the others. Plato's cave idea can be seen in many different occasions, for example when someone that lives in a small country where the people have certain beliefs and ideas about the world and and other cultures sets of to a foreign land to learn more about new cultures. This person will be exposed to new ideas and will become smarter and gain much more knowledge about how things work in other places, thus understanding other cultures and how they think. When this person goes back to the land he lived, and tells all other citizens of his small town about the ideas he has experienced and how people were he visited or lived really think, the people in his small community might think he has gone insane or has become weird. This happens because as Plato's suggests, the ways of how people live and think in the other countries are really only shadows for the citizens that have never seen and experienced them, and when one goes out and comes back to explain, they believe he is not the same, in fact, he has become one of those "shadows" as well, thus being rejected or criticized by the members of his former society. Plato's allegory shows how people that have knowledge and try to take the others out of the "cave", sometimes are seen as threats or crazy, when they only have more knowledge or a better ideas than the others around him/her. One very good example of someone reaching in the cave to take people out of it is Galileo when he said the world was round. Because his ideas were so different and seemed so "insane", he was seen as a threat by the church because he opposed their ideas instead of agreeing with them, when he only had discovered the truth and had knowledge that other people around him did not.
Blog on Perspectives - Erik Larsen
ReplyDeleteWhen we went over the concept of maps in class, and how people based maps of ones they had already seen, I suspected that it would eventually lead to poor map quality. Much like the game telephone, where a message is passed from one person to the next, in a circle. The message is really ever the same at the end. As the understanding of the land develops, though, then maps become more precise. Another idea on maps that I started thinking about was the idea that maps are unfair and bias towards more developed countries. If i were to design a map to prevent this, I would make a map that is flat and perfectly round. I scale every land mass as accurately as possible. Because of the maps round shape, it would have no defined up or down. The reading of the “Allegory of the cave” also sparked my interest. But this time, I thought of the real life aspect of this story. I realize that it is just a story and that it was meant to prove a point. The idea however, that i pulled out of the story was that you can’t know something is bad before you try it. That applies to a lot of things, but when you assume something, it can sometimes make an as-(out of)-u-(and)-me. When your friend tries a new activity and says its really great and you should try it, normally all you can think of is the negative effect of what the activity entails. Like what your friend could have done with his time, or how much worked he/she needed to do, or how much knowledge he/she needed ahead of time. It is because of our lack of knowledge for the activity that we only assume it is a waste of time or no fun at all. Just as in the story, were when the man left the cave, then came back to tell the others, there was no physical way to explain to them what was “out” there. The other men could only see the negative effects, like the fact that he could not see in the dark, or that (in the other men’s perspectives) he had lost his mind. I wondered how many things I have passed up because of what I assumed.
I thought that watching the presentations of the "Map Yourself' project was amazing. Since people were given the freedom of doing whatever they wanted and the teacher was not allowed to give any of the students feedback, we had to be creative. Each person drew what they though was a map for them. One person made a map that looked like blue prints for a factory and explained how they are organized and showed it in the map itself. Another person made a subway station route and in each destination names one of their characteristics or one of their goals. It was interesting to see all this because people interpreted their assignment in their own way and were free to do what they believed was fitting for them. This whole assignment showed the different perspectives people have about the world and themselves. One of the guiding questions that was asked during class was: what were the things that you left out of your map. Some people said all their negative traits and what they did not like because it did not make them feel happy to think about those things, while others left them and explained how those things were the foundation of their person. Once again demonstrating the different thought process that goes on people's mind while doing this quick project.
ReplyDeleteEven before giving this assignment, we needed to draw the map of the word as we remember it. According to the results of this experiment and the TOK text book, a lot of people had different perceptions. What tended to happen is the people, who were from a certain country and their continent better and more detailed than other people if the fact that in their schools they always leaned the idea of patriotism that leads to precipitation and the way people see something according to their surroundings and the believes that were given to them at an early age.
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ReplyDeleteI found Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" a very interesting text. I had never read anything of the sort before, and, although hard to comprehend, I found it very amusing. The different ideas and images created by the text are things that normally a "normal" person would think regularly. The idea of questioning reality and what you actually know in life through the example of the prisoners was quite intriguing. It made perfect sense even though at first it was kind of weird. It made me think about what if I was in such position, and how I would react. Would I do the same thing as the prisoner? Would my fellow prisoners recognize me? I kept asking myself what if this happened, or what if that happened, would the prisoner react differently? The fact that the concept was hard to grasp made me wonder about possible alternatives of what was happening, or if really this was accurate at all. I asked myself: what if Plato was wrong? Even though it may have been just me being a bit narrow minded, like I am usually, maybe, since it is part of me to be curious as well and it is within my nature to question everything in life and take on different perspectives, it may have been a valid point to make. What if any theory of the world is not the reality, but perhaps the reality we want to see? Or perhaps the only reality we can see?
ReplyDeleteThese first TOK classes have been extremely interesting, as it forces people outside of their comfort zone and adopt new perspectives. I believe these news perspectives will be very important for all the IB subjects, but most importantly, for life after the IB. The map exercise was an important example to show us what different ways of thinking there are, and how a simple idea can change the way you think about everything. I am really looking forward to expand the ways I see things, and use the knowledge I gain from TOK and apply it to the way I think in other subjects and other things in my personal life.