TOK Assignment 1
These two books – “The Philosophical Baby” and “The Inside of a Dog” look interesting because they seem to provide opportunities to apply some of the concepts we have been discussing in TOK class in a wider context. When we looked at sense perception in TOK, we were primarily thinking about ourselves as grown human beings, but by looking at babies and dogs we can perhaps not just gain some insights about them but also some deeper understanding of ourselves.
Some fundamental knowledge issues that apply to the research described on both dogs and babies are: how can we know the nature of the experiences of others, especially when these others are not capable of telling us directly? And even if they could tell us, to what extent would we then be justified in claiming to know these experiences? These two books illustrate some ways in which we can at least make a start in trying to overcome some of the difficulties.
With humans, most of the sense data we receive and act upon comes through our eyes and sense of sight. When we discussed the idea of perception as representations in the mind, we probably found it easy to think about it this way – there is an object in the real world and there is an “image” of it in our minds. But a dog’s dominant perceptions are smells – and it is perhaps harder for us to comprehend the relationship between sense data (a chemical) and perceptions (the smell) in this case. The review of the book also shows how different kinds of sense data can result in different kinds of perceptions – if we continue to perceive a stationary object our perception doesn’t necessarily change with time, but if we continuously smell it our perception does change because odours become weaker with time. These apparent differences between the experiences of dogs and humans suggest that possibly they live in worlds more divergent than we might have thought.
The book on babies seems to make a different point. We talked in class about how our perceptions might be influenced by prior experiences, no doubt held in our minds by memory – thus we construct our perceptions. This is helpful to us because we know how to handle perceptions by directing our attention to them in the manner to which we have become accustomed, rather than every experience appearing to be new and confusing. But this is just what it is like to be a baby (or is it – how can we know?) – the baby has few experiences with which to filter perceptions and limited ability to make a conscious choice of what to attend to. Perhaps this means that babies provide evidence for perceptual realism but grow into evidence for constructivism! As the review states, this is likely to be an exhausting business, but it means that, when cued representations become detached, the baby’s imagination is freer to roam in creative ways. If creative imagination is part of what it means to be conscious, then maybe we could say that babies are more conscious than adults. This for me is the most surprising and interesting insight from the review.
This argument brings to mind the idea of realists and constructivists.
ReplyDeleteReferee A is more of a constructivists because he decides to see a goal his way which might not even be a goal per se but because such people are in a sort of a world of their own he chooses when to call a foul a foul. He is as a result very subjective.
Referee B is more of a realist as he sees things and situations the way they are.He is more objective and sees things as they are but then again how are we really sure that his own preference does not influence him to be bias in calling a foul a foul? For example if a Man U fan and a Chelsea fan are both watching a match and a Man U player commits a foul it is more likely that the fan will deny the foul.
Referee C represents more of an authority. It is just like how we believe authorities in our quest for knowledge. For example in trying to prove that the pineapple juice was actually pineapple, one of our evidence was that the FOODS AND DRUGS BOARD of Ghana had approved of it. this like when the referee says its no foul until i call them fouls.
Also I agree with an.hayford that language may play a role in determinig their understanding of a foul.
Getting back to the baby and the dog, please read the response at the head of this thread - it is intended to give you some guidance about the sort of writing we expect in this course at this stage.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with the fact that dogs live in a more divergent world. I believe that their high ability to sense smells that grow faint with time may help them to have an idea of the past. For example, a dog smells faint vestiges of its master’s perfume while strutting around a corner of the house and is immediately able to know how long ago its master walked past that spot and runs to catch up with him. All I am saying is that the use of the sense of smell as a major sensory tool enables dogs not only to perceive the present but also the past, unlike humans.
ReplyDeleteI believe that our predominant sense greatly affects the way we perceive the world. This is because, if you take a dog for instance, because they do not have forvea and are not good at seeing things in front of them ,their olfactory sense dominates its perception and thus they "see the world through their noses" i.e. they tell the time by sniffing smells as compared to humans who are able to distinguish day and night by just observing the clouds. While reading the articles, i begun to think about the fact that in the article about the dogs Horowitz mentions the fact that a hammer does not exist in a dog's world because it does not overlap with something meaningful to the dog. However, is this the way all dogs perceive a hammer? What if a hammer actually means something to another dog. Or could it be that if a dog's sense of smell is not relatively strong it wouldn't perceive things as another with a strong sense of smell. Also, the fact that unicorns are considered a fairy tale image to humans. Could it mean that the same way not all dogs might perceive a hammer the same way, maybe unicorns really do exist and actually connected with something meaningful to one person and so they perceive it that way and write about it in fairy tales etc. so the only way we see it as fictional is because it hasn't yet overlapped with something meaningful to us. It's difficult to really understand how we perceive because due to Horowitz we live in our own self bubble.
ReplyDeleteI believe that sense organs are responsible for the way animals (both human and others) perceive their surrounding. They construct most part of their world depending on their strongest and advanced sense organ. As mentioned on the passage dogs have higher number of olfactory cells than human being ,as the result when they both see the same new experience we human beings tend to give a representation (icon)on our memory since our sense of sight is the strongest of all others, however a dog keeps a sensed data for the smell of the new experience , this all is involuntary procces.However I believe that there is also a cued representation on a dogs mind that is captured at the same time when that particular sensed data for the smell is caught, I think that is why my dog usually barks and shows some movement when he sees the picture of a bone on a TV ,which is usually distinguished for dogs through smell far before they see it. Depending on this knowledge (experience) ,dogs and human mind finish things by its own once it get small information, by referring in to the past.
ReplyDeleteThe article (what is inside big baby’s head?)Discuses that there is a small difference in the way we human beings perceive realities, I think the writer is constructivist because he believes that a baby has more consciousness than an adult because he has not yet finished building his own world which again makes the writer subjectivist because he believes we could have a separate world. Based on this resource we can generalized knowledge can be shared (even distorted knowledge) and separate as well. That is why I think the baby could not see totally different world from an adult.
i agree with Achiaa that our strongest sense determines our very nature. they serve as tools for certain areas of life. for instance due to its fascinating sense of smell the dog will be well vested with time periods, they can easily tell when something happened. however in an area where there is no smell, i think dogs will be really lost because they can detect very high pitched sounds but not the direction from which they came.
ReplyDeletebut the amazing thing about sense perception is that even when one sense is down the others are there to validate and confirm the information received.
however i wonder how the scientists were able to draw these conclusions in the two articles when they never had the chance to enter the dog or the baby's head (to know what is inside the head of another species or even another person, the most reliable thing to do is enter its head, which is rather absurd!)
Lianne Griffin.
i think our sense is what will how we perceive things. we see the same world, but interpret it in accordance to our strongest sense. for example dogs having their olfactory sense being their strongest makes them not experience what we humans do cause they acquire their knowledge mostly using their olfactory sense. sense perception i would say is the base of it all.
ReplyDeleteJust a brief comment I would like to say that sense perception is was determines how dogs and babies work although we can never know exactly what someone or an animal is thinking it is safe to assume that their body language and emotions gives us a foundation to build onto .It is highly complex to digest what is virtual and real as Horowitz stated we all live in our own bubble however I feel as if we are unaware of this fact.
ReplyDeleteOur senses are major tools that help both humans and organisms in finding out about the world.The example of the dog and how it views the worlds gives us an insight to how our senses assist us in learning about our surroundings.For babies from experience i think they depend more on sight.If what they see is scary they may cry or scream or if you appear funny to them they will laugh.Talking about emotions i think that animals too have emotions because sometimes when am a bit sad my dog too acts the same and also when am being attacked it becomes angry,there it responds to certain stimulus and then expresses the emotion,
ReplyDelete