Andrew+Roan

= = Andrew Roan

Theory of Knowledge Hannah Roberts September 4, 2009 - June, 2010

**Assignment 1** 1. I am 16 years of age. I am right at the point in life where I am extremely moldable, and for anyone with a strong enough hand, they could change everything I believe in. My attitude is could either be an asset to learning, or horrible to learning. If I were not to want to learn, my mind, due to the fact that I wouldn’t want to learn, just not care. I am impressed that you recognize how vulnerable you are to influence and yet I suspect that you have qualities in you that mean there are fundamental principles that you would not easily abandon. I do not mean specific beliefs such as "Iran should not be allowed to have nuclear weapons." or "Religious ceremonies should be allowed in public schools.", but broad underlying values such as "Honesty is extremely important to me." or "Societies should always strive for fairness." (I am not assuming that these are your values, I am only giving examples.) Although, having just written that, there is research that shows that if you disorientate or stress people enough, very few can remain faithful to their principles.
 * Part 1**

2. My first language is English. I speak Spanish, and I am attempting to learn French and Italian. Learning different languages almost forces you into learning about the culture of others, about the lives of others. Comparing your life to others brings perspective with it, thus changing your view on your situation and the information you receive

3. I am male. Males in most societies are seen as dominate, and therefore I relate (a lot of times) to male figures more than female. My expectations of my knowledge are that it equal, from both sides, fair. My expectations of education is that it is challenging, presents opinions/ points of view and facts and makes me prove and create my own opinion. I am glad that you wish to be in the position of having to justify (or where possible, prove) your opinions. Of course there are some opinions that are purely personal and, while you may wish to share or explain them, you should not have to defend or justify them ("I like Picasso's art.", "I dislike swimming." for example). However, I think it helps all of us (in fact I really think it helps life on earth!) if we have the intellectual discipline to examine our ideas and try to make them as well-founded, well-reasoned and well-balanced as possible.

4. I have grown up in an urban setting. Due to my upbringing in a urban setting, I have been raised around many different ethnicities, nationalities, cultures and parenting styles. It is because of the multitude of different that I have been exposed to different ideas, and many of those ideas have rubbed off onto my thoughts and thinking. Many people in the countryside, by contrast, may have been raised in a singular ideal, in a environment where there is only one answer, rather than the myriad that are presented by differences in sects of the population in the more major cities. This is an interesting point: the homogenous demography of some rural settings must make it3 much harder to be broadminded - not impossible, but difficult, especially if people don't have much access to external resources and information.

5. I am Christian, and this does deeply affect me, however I have meshed in many other religions beliefs in with my own. I think that my unique blend of religions sort of allows for me to see deeper into things, or maybe that is just my ego speaking. This is intriguing - what unique blend?

6. I belong to a fringe, crazy part of society called river scum. Basically, the point of this group is to be a nomad, moving from a true home (usually where you are going to college) and then working (or partying) non-stop all summer long, and then just return to a normal life of a college student. Basically, I just sit around for nine months in school, waiting for the party to begin. What do you learn from the party? Would you want to do this all year long if you could? Would the activities of the summer be sufficient to prepare you for an independent, self-sufficient and satisfactory adulthood, or does the time at school provide a necessary set of complimentary skills and information?

These are very thoughtful responses, thank you. 6/7 1. My schooling has been based around the Italian format of what is considered a “rounded” education. These classes that I am taking were chosen as the most important because with all of these basics, I could go on to expand and learn in many different fields or learn about all of the fields. We were given schooling in sports, though this was basic and was not focused on one sport in particular, it was more focused on getting out BPM up and burning off some energy
 * Part 2**

2. I have not personally found this “value” placed on subjects at our school outside of the different levels of classes offered (HL versus SL). Besides, the different levels of classes, there is no focus put on a particular class. The students may be asked to move into a harder class so they will be challenged, however it is truly up to the student as to what they want to do. HL classes are just harder, and so the attitude that comes with something being harder also comes.

3. No, RiverStone has created an environment similar to the IB diploma program from bottom to top.

4. The school has given the power to the teachers to decide how they want the students to address them; however, the school has mandated that a certain level of decency be forced upon clothing options. The expectations behind these are that the students treat their teachers (and others) with respect and decency (by wearing enough clothing).

5. These rules, to the best of my knowledge, have not been broken recently. There was one incident last year that involved several students drinking at a school function. The school suspended them for several weeks, and their names were not disseminated to the student body. The reason they weren’t expelled for breaking the law like this is that the immediately admitted responsibility for their actions. The reasoning behind not expelling them is that school is a learning process, and by accepting responsibility, they were learning.

6. RiverStone has truly two sections: those who are competitive and those who just do their best. In many circumstances with super-competitive students, it is the families that want the grades more. There is very rarely a student who get good grades and whose family doesn’t care. Marks at the school currently are made public, only in the case that the student makes all “As.”

7. I think that in terms of the education, subjects studied, marks and appropriate behavior teachers and students at RiverStone are almost exactly in sync. There is a sort of unspoken expectation of students at RiverStone to represent the school well: by both acting appropriately and having amazing marks. This expectation is known by all three parties (students, parents, and faculty) and it is expected that the students live up to it by both the teachers and parents.

8. The idea of a “good student” at RiverStone is a student who can balance school, have a social life, and be quite active in the community. Basically, the student works exceedingly hard all of the time and still manages to have a life of their own. The student is basically a god of the IB.

I found your answer to question 6 particularly insightful.

Word count: 968

September 26, 2009 Assignment 3

Question 1: Is the nature of sense perception such that, as Huxley suggests, sensations are essentially private and incommunicable? "By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies—all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable." Aldous Huxley (1954)

The nature of the senses is completely private and incommunicable. The senses are simply too individual to express to another person. For a simple example, lets say that person A is color blind, and person B is not. When one of them says the grass is orange, and one says that it is green, who is correct? Both are correct, simply put, because you are based off your perception and individual experiences. Lets take another example, say that both person A and B are not color blind, and both say the grass is green. Who can say that they are seeing the exact same shade of green? It is impossible to truly know if they are seeing the exact same shade. To make a corollary, Huxley mentions "fancies" in his quote. So, along those same line, who can say that any two people have the idea or feeling of love? Who can say that two people love each other the same way? The answer is simply that no one can, no one, because not a single person has felt all of the feelings of every single person in the history of Earth. The feelings, of all nature, are completely and utterly individual and private.

You seem to feel very strongly that we are "completed" isolated in our experiences one from another - i can see that we would never have complete certainty that what we experience is fully shared or understood by someone else, but we put an enormous amount of effort and trust in trying to connect with one another. This is the driving force behind all communication and I think we do achieve some level of meaningful exchange in the sense that we do achieve empathy, sympathy or just simple comprehension of another's thoughts. If we were not doing this to some extent, we would not be able to cooperate, to work together to achieve some common goal, to influence each other's behavior and attitudes, to have conversations that both sides seem to understand and that result in expected actions and so on. No, we can never communicate // exactly // what we are experiencing but we can get close enough to feel understood. Recent research on mirror neurons support the claim that we do in fact understand each others' experiences - when we watch someone undergoing a particular experience or performing a particular action, the exact same parts of our brains light up (even though we remain immobile or without the relevant externally applied sensations) as the person who is feeling/doing it "for real". This is not to say that I do not find a great deal of wisdom in Huxley's words, but just that I do not think the conclusions one draws from these insights need be so absolute.

Question 2: It is often claimed that information and communication technologies are blurring the traditional distinctions between simulation and reality. If this is so, what might be the consequences?

Am I writing this question? I am mentally, I know that because my mind tells me so, but am I //physically// writing this? That is the essence of this question. To tell the truth, I am not sure what the essence of this question is, but I think it is asking us to consider what makes an experience count as real, where does one draw the boundaries between actuality and simulation? So, for example, if a video game of a particular experience, say being hunted, can elicit all the same physical and mental responses (observable and measurable through body and brain monitoring) as the actual experience, can you claim to have experienced it "for real" or not? What criteria are you going to use for determining that something is a firsthand or secondhand experience? But to get back to the way you interpret the essence of this question - you are clearly seeing it in existentialist terms: like Descartes, you are saying I can't be sure of much except that I am thinking, and how am I going to respond to that possibility? Hence your answer.... Truly though, does it matter if it is simulation or reality? If we are to believe that what we take in through our senses comprises our reality, then it truly doesn't matter. If I everything physical is a simulation, and if I live my life in a manner that suites my mental needs and what my mind perceives to be my physical needs, am I not living a fulfilling life that is just as valuable as a life that is in reality? So, if a life in simulation is just a valuable as a life in reality, then it just doesn't matter if we are in a matrix type scenario or if we are actually here, if I am actually here, writing this. Both carry just as much validity in the argument of which is more real, and both are of equal importance. I tend to agree with you; bottom line, we can't be sure that we're not just brains in vats manipulated by some mischievous god, but since we can't know it, it doesn't matter (except that a certain amount of uncertainty can keep us from dogmatism - always a good thing in my opinion), we must get on with living the life we are experiencing - the only thing I would add as a balance to this, is that most feel a very fundamental need to believe that the "others" who move through our experiences are at least as real as we are.

Very thoughtful work, thank you. 6/7 Word Count: 377

Theory of Knowledge Hannah Roberts December 1, 2009
 * Assignment 2**

"Dream is Destiny"

This quote, in my opinion, truly asks the question that the movie is all about. It asks (in IB question format), "To what extent is a dream, reality?" The answer is, "Completely." A dream is as real as anything else. For example, could you not be dreaming right now? If you are, is it truly not as real as anything else? For another example, assume that you are sleeping and dreaming and you are having a completely insane dream with everyone else in the world mimicked, but you are able to fly and pass through walls and do whatever you may want. However, for everyone else, it is reality. They are awake. How is it not just as real? How is it not the truth? The answer is that that place is real, it is reality, wherever it may be. It is just a real for them as it is for you. Here, in my rambling spots, comes another idea: you are always awake. When you sleep, you leave one existence, and go to another. You are constantly awake, but not always here: in this universe, in this dimension. Perhaps, when you leave this awareness, you come up across the black wall that is constantly expanding this universe. Wherever you go, you are always aware. Perhaps also, you are dropped from that black curtain, dropping into random existence on random planets or plains of life, like a pinball dropped from the top of a pinball machine, falling back to a true existence, wherever that may be.

Your dreams must have a depth and texture to them that many people do not experience, or at least do not remember experiencing, which is not to say that I disagree with what you are writing - it's a fascinating idea, one that opens up whole realms of cognitive possibilities, and not one that we can be certain about either way. One difference between dreaming and waking experience that is very important to me is that waking life has a consistency and continuity that allows for a much greater sense of selfhood and a more purposeful and consciously chosen interaction with others and our environment. Our waking life is one in which those we encounter seem to remember what we remember (not precisely of course but in broad sweep), this gives a connectedness that dreams can never offer.