New TOK Essay
Topic 3: There are no absolute distinctions between what is true and what is false. Discuss this claim.
I’d always believed that the truth was a rather simple idea. To me, it was something that was true or correct or existing in this world. But after all the discussions in TOK, with family and with friends, and after deep rumination on the subject, I’ve realized that’s it’s a much more broad, complex and often mind-boggling concept. However, now I see that there are essentially three main factors that lead us to accepting something as the truth: a strong emotional belief, our senses (particularly sight) and applied logic and reasoning. These are in fact three of the ways of knowing. Language is used to aid the acceptance
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The belief may have been cultivated by family, religion, culture or any other external factor but the fact remains that it is accepted as a truth mainly because of the strong emotions associated with it. However, these same emotions are incredibly varied between people because of the differences in family, religion, culture and other factors. Hence, there are also people (atheists) that have strong emotions against the existence of God. As this difference in beliefs between people exists and will most probably always exist because of the diversity of our world, emotional belief as a truth cannot be absolute. It is relative to the person believing the truth.
Applied logic and reasoning is fundamental to determining axioms, formulas and concepts in Math that are considered to be truths. In Math HL, we have a topic called induction whereby the goal is to prove a certain formula or equation. We can prove the formula, but on all occasions, it is only true within a certain domain, i.e. for a certain set of values. This shows that the formula is not an absolute truth but relative to the variables involved. But let’s also consider the simplest equation known to man: 1 + 1 = 2. Isn’t this an absolute truth? I used to believe so, until I discovered that a pile of sand + a
b. EXPLAIN how the total revenue test can be used to determine if a demand curve is elastic or inelastic. Use two graphs with numerical examples in your response. ( ____/5)
Implementation of a computer system to replace paper documentation would require the involvement of an interdisciplinary team. This team would be comprised of several members, each with a specific job. The first member selected would be a Clinical Nurse Informaticist. This team member would be charged with giving valuable input on the software needed for nurses to properly care for and chart on their patients. With the knowledge of nursing practice and informatics, this team member would very valuable in bringing the two together in the most efficient way possible. The next team
People try to understand the world through perception of experiences that they encounter. These encounters include either living through the experience first hand or the experience being conveyed by another person. Our perception weeds out main ideas from those experiences deeming them realistic and if so labels them truths. However, our perception of the obtained truth from those experiences is not always credible because as a recipient we are restricted to the amount of experience we can retain. Meaning the perceptions of the labeled truths is a result of our translation of incomplete experiences into new perception resulting from what he or she could retain from the original experience. Those incomplete experiences give rise to new
Michael Dorsey is a young New York actor that’s very talented but has managed to turn every producer in the country against him because he likes to do things his way or no way. His agent can’t seem to find him anything after a tomato commercial that Michael lost because he didn’t feel the tomato wasn’t “properly motivated.” A popular soap opera has an opening for a woman part Michael auditions as “Miss Dorothy” and gets the part becoming widely known. He falls for a co-actor, Julie, on the show and they become very close, Julie’s father also becomes close to Dorothy and proposes. Michael decides to end Dorothy live on the show when he reveals that Dorothy is really Michael. In the end he talks to
1. Which accounting method best reflects the economic reality? Put another way, which accounting numbers – the GAAP or non-GAAP numbers best reflects economic reality? [10 points]
Writing has many tools and devices that can be used to influence the purpose and meaning of the a piece of work. In the two pieces of work, "Private License Plate Scanners Amassing Vast Databases Open to Highest Bidders-which is written in a way that it is anti-license plate tracking- and "Who Has the Right to Track You?'-which is written to be for license plate tracking- many different tools and devices are used by the authors. These pieces of work describe the benefits and drawbacks of collecting data and tracking fellow citizens, but use different forms of pathos, ethos, and logos to portray what they are trying to say. Also, both articles state how many are opposed to this tracking, arguing that it is against the First Amendment,
Have you ever been driving in a car with a child who asked a million questions starting with “why”? Regardless of how well you think you answered their question, they will ask why the answer to that question is what it is, and so on and so forth. This is characteristic of all human beings; children just are not as restrained and willing to ask whatever questions comes to their minds, while adults are more inclined to accept the first level answer and question it no further. However in the back of our minds we all want to know the truth, and we will eventually conjure up a reason why what we accept as truth, in fact, the truth. Two very prominent philosophers, René Descartes, and William James were concerned with truth and how people come to believe and accept something as true or false. They believed that there is a very definite truth, but they mapped out different routes in order to get to the place where truth could be found.
To transform a good company to great company is all manages' dream, but only few of them make it. To find out the core factors which lead to a good company became a great company is very difficult, because in different era, different industry companies face different opportunities and threats. To begin the research for the Good-to-Great study, Jim Collins and his research team searched for companies that: performed at or below the general stock market for at least fifteen years; then at a transition point began to pull away from the competition, and sustained returns of at least 3 times the general market for the next fifteen years. He started with a list of 1,435 companies and found eleven that met his criteria.
We are taught a brief overview of truth and language from a young age, but we are left to recognize our own reality as we grow older. Truth is taught, but not quite the same way as language. Language is taught to us so we can communicate with those around us and differs regionally, but truth differs for each and every person. Every person develops their own overarching truths as they go through their lives. Truth is much like reality in that way.
"Good is the enemy of great” is the first sentence in Jim Collins book; Good to Great, Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Other Don’t. Jim Collins says, because good is the enemy of great, is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. This book is packed with leading edge thinking, understandable examples, and data to support the conclusions. It is a challenge for CEOs, entrepreneurs and leaders to show evidence of the discipline required to shift their companies from Good to Great.
However, belief in God requires faith. Faith is needed in order for one to accept the existence of the Divine. The existence of God is controversial (and unlikely) for one who has no basis of faith. This is because reason cannot explain faith. Reason cannot explain the existence of something that it has no basis for. This relates back to Descartes “cogito ergo sum,” meaning, “I think, therefore I am.” Although Descartes was concerned with knowledge of the individual, this can relate to God. To think that there exists a God inherently assumes that there is such a force in the universe. Given that religion is a collective practice and an act of obedience to God performed by many people for centuries, it seems horrendous to assume that so many people have been wrong about their experience and belief. One can come to this conclusion through deduction by moving from general to specific; millions of people cannot simply be wrong in believing that there is a
When it comes to defining what is the truth, we often find ourselves at an impasse. However, there have been theories formulated to best answer this dreaded question. To best understand what exactly truth is, it is best to get to the root definition of what is classified as truth. As James states it, “Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events” (142). His stance is seemingly logical; the truth is usually defined as a universal notion that we can all agree on and we can’t deny facts. Nevertheless, there are certain things that are not necessarily ‘made’ true but discovered to be the truth. In this paper, I will first explore James’ viewpoint in regards to this claim (as well as his supporting claims); I will then discuss
Do we really know what the “truth” is? How can we distinguish what the truth is in real life? Are you every completely sure of the truth? In the Question of the Truth Unit we read a variety of selections based off of people’s perception of the truth, though in many of these selections the truth wasn’t what people expected. These selections help develop a contrast between how things seem on the surface, and how they really are. A couple of these selections accept the surface appearance of things as embodying reality and not the actual truth.
The first issue is what actually is truth? There are many things that we perceive to be true, depending on perspective or our beliefs, which differ from one person to the next, known as
Traditional Chinese medicine, or TCM, is one of the oldest systems of medicine to exist among humans, and it is extremely prominent to this day. According to legend, the system has been in use since the third millennium BCE. The views of such an old system differ greatly from those found in modern western medicine. Perhaps most prominent is the fact that TCM focuses more on the patient than the illness. The system considers the human to be a microcosm of the universe, implying that the body is affected by the traditional Taoist forces of yin and yang, the five elements, and Qi in the same way the cosmos are. Each of these forces act upon the “zang fu,” or organ system, directly influencing a patient’s health. Healers use qigong to assist in the restoration of stability in the body. Achieving balance, both internally and externally, is the most important aspect of healing in TCM.