Emotions

From the image above, we can see that we can classify emotions according to the basic emotions that we had from the beginning and this emotions are: Rage, Loathing, Grief, Amusement, Terror, Ecstasy  Admiration and Vigilance. From this basic emotions, other more complex have derived. I believe that this theory about emotions is correct, yet it is a scientific way of putting emotions but not understanding them truly.  Humans have always tried to find a reason for everything that surrounds us and always found that there is more to understand, more logic behind and therefore we may not be able to understand emotions entirely at least not yet.

Phineas Gage

Phineas Gage was an American railroad construction foreman that was working on September 14th 1848 by gang blasting rock whilst preparing the roadbed for Rutland & Burlington Railroad.

In order to set a blast, it involved boring a hole deep into a body of rock; adding blasting powder, a fuse, and sand; then compacting this charge into the hole using a tamping iron—a large iron rod. Apparently, Phineas forgot to set sand, which was used as means of protection against the explosion, and this set a forehand the explosion causing the iron rod to go straight into his head and damaged the left frontal lobe.

Amazingly, Phineas survived the accident without much damage physically, but emotionally, he was a completely different person as he now lied, gambled, bullied and generally became more aggressive  something that he never was before the accident.


   (Picture of Phineas Gage after the accident.)

From this case, we can see that our senses can be changed and therefore our perspectives of the world changes with it as well, but also that our emotions are crucial for our humanity and without them we become into something completely different, as in the case of Phineas Gage.

Cultures

Many of our different perspectives are determined by factors that are external to us, such as the way we were raised or the different countries we live in and one of the main factors that contribute for our different perspectives are the cultures of our families or the cultures we grew up in. For example in Papua New Guinea, there's a tribe called Lars Krutak and for every young male initiate, they undergo a ritual which is held in a "spirit house". The ritual is basically cutting the skin of the young male in patterns which symbolizes power within their culture. This ritual to us it might seem as unnecessary and especially very painful, but to that tribe, they find pride in their young male bearing this skin patterns as it represents not only power, as mentioned above, but also it is of vital importance in their economics and their politics. 

From this example, we can determine that each one of us has different perspectives thanks to the different cultures that we were raised in. 

TOK Seminar

Sensory perception was a common idea we touched during the first and second class of TOK, we asked ourselves this intriguing question:

Is it possible to know anything, based purely on sensory perception?

and this is what i responded:

No, I believe that knowledge is not purely based on the sensory perception, due to the different perspectives of different people and the different emotions that each one has about the world that we live in, therefore the knowledge that we gain through sensory perception is biased. But I also believe that the sensory perception is necessary for our human condition and for us to “survive” in this world.

Later on during the class, we learned of descartes a philosopher which reasoned not to rely on sensory perspectives because he thought that it was incorrect and therefore he only used reason to try and gain knowledge, but according to my answer I thought that this way of seeing the world is not the most accurate because we need both our sensory perceptions and our reason to try and see the world in a scientific way and also in a more sentimental way. We need our humanity to reason and we need our reason for our humanity, or else we would just have a constant way of seeing the world and other perspectives would be vanished such as any artist that expresses its feelings through any means. 

TOK First Class

Theory Of Knowledge or TOK is a way of learning about knowledge that surrounds us and it can be applied in any subject including science. In the first class we learned what was empiricism which is the study of knowledge we experience and that it will conform one of the key words throughout this TOK course. We also learned that we rely on our senses when we experience the world but we also questioned ourselves if this is truly the right way of experiencing the world around us, because of the different perspectives and emotions that each one has of the world. The world is biased when we compare it with every individuals point of view, but then again we wouldn't be able to see the world if we didn't have our senses to permit contact with everything that surrounds us and that is what I beleive that this first TOK class has taught me.