Sunday, November 18, 2007

My Thoughts on "Jabberwocky"

The genre of the poem is fantasy. It is quite obvious because there is no creature that looks like the "Jabberwocky" as originally illustrated in the Looking Glass. The poem is constructed of many words that I can't find in the dictionary and words that I found but have never heard of before, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. However, I do get the plot of the poem:
A young man travelled through the woods one day, in which lived a lot of dangerous creatures. His mother had warned him so. When he was resting, the Jabberwocky attacks. But he fought it and killed it in the end. Then he brings home the creature's chopped off head to show off his bravery.

With many unknown words, the poem appears to be very weird to me. This makes me think that something we don't acknowledge doesn't make it false. Maybe the poet is trying to express that knowledge is infinite and there is yet so much which we don't know, or, that we shouldn't judge something as being weird just because it doesn't make sense to us.

Monday, November 12, 2007

To What Extent is Sense Preception an Accurrate Ways of Knowing - Elise Tam

Sense perception is a way of knowing as with senses we learn many things such has how something looks, sound, feel, taste and smell. However, without our understanding and reason we do not know what we are seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling.

During class, we watched videos where they "trick" our perception. Colour changes were being made while we were focused on a particular action or object. Even so we do not "see" the changes, I think we do perceive the changes of color and things that we are not focused on but our reason and understanding ignore it and push it to the back. As we are focused onto other things, our mind believes that what we see is insignificant.

Most of us are all born with our senses; however unlucky individuals may not be born with fully functional senses such as people with hearing disability. This does not affect our learning of knowledge through senses as there are other senses to replace that sense lost such as for hearing disability, we can see and learn to read lips. However, losing all senses would be impossible to use senses as a way of knowing and that person would have trouble with communicating and understanding the world around us.

Conclusion, without sense perception it would be very hard to know knowledge as sense is the primary basic factor to it. We are still able to survive without one of our senses but can you imagine not having all? We would be unable to do many of the things we do now. It is the fault of our reason that we could get perception wrong; therefore it is an accurate way of knowing.

Word Count: 283

To What Extent is Sense Perception an Accurate way of Knowing?

I believe that sense perception is a pretty accurate way of knowing because afterall, we can only taste, smell, hear, touch and see things around us so we must make do with what we are provided with because if we were to not believe in our senses at all then how would one be able to live each day.
Of course our senses may not always be as accurate or 'safe' as we expected because from the "card changing magic trick" which our sight senses immediatly tell us to look out for the card changing but infact whilst the so called "trick" was being performed, the whole stage and setting was changed which during most of the time, I myself could not notice. This brings highlights the harsh reality as to wether we can really trust our sense perception because by switching the situation with something in our daily lives,the outcome could be disasterous or even tradgic. The other astonishing point is that we can focus so hard that we shut out other senses which could give a more accurate evaluation of the situation, because in the video, after watching through the second time, the noise made by the crew in the background is actually quite obvious but because we focus on trying to figure out the magic trick, we tend to channel all our attention for the use of one sense and deem other things as insignificant such as the noise.
Overall, I don't think that our sense perceptions are an inaccurate way of knowing because they can be accurate but to a certain degree to how much we focus on something. The point we can take from such videos as the card changing magic trick or the gorilla clip is that yes we can focus and be as "accurate" as possible in a sense, but what it is trying to say is that by focusing so hard, we may tend to shut out our other senses which shows how inaccurate we may be to the 'real picture' which in the card changing magic trick, isn't really the cards that we should be worrying about!
To what extent is sense perception an accurate way of knowing?

Sense perception, i think is like a guide for us to make decisions, but not the one which gives the answer for the decision. However it is suprising to see people, keeping on depending on the sense perception to seek for answer.
I would like to say we seriously shouldn't fully depend on it. We have to make overall decision from our knowledge, using the evidence given by the sense perception. I feel like the life is like full of problem solving questions; to make sure we make the decisions right, sense perception should be used as a small guide/half broken compass (?).

First of all, we have to know sense perception, these sharpest tool of ours can even make mistakes. For example, the class was given a video and was told to count how many times people in white t-shirt were passing. From the video screen, there were few people wearing white and some wearing black t-shirts. One person from two teams was given a basket ball. Then the video started and all the people were starting to concerntrate on how many times people were passing the ball. After few minutes, the teacher stopped the video and asked the class first about the number of passes. Of course they were able to answer this first. However, the next question, they weren't able to answer. The next question from the teacher was 'what did you see also?'
Well, everybody was only concerntrating on the ball, so nobody was able to answer the question. So then the teacher replayed the video. Now all the people were able to understand the teacher's question. There was a gorrilla, it actually passed through the players and disappeared. It was so easy enough to see but nobody noticed it. It made the most of the students feel slight dumb as they didn't see the gorilla which was right in front of them. Therefore sense perception shouldn't be trusted fully.

However, even though, sense perception makes mistakes, but we still need them half fully. For example, there is a person driving a car and is using the map as the only source which tells the direction of the place. This person has no idea where the place is. However, the person knows that the map s/he is holding right now has some mistakes and because of the map s/he already had been lost few times .But without the map, the person will be having no idea of the place s/he is situated in. Therefore, the person has no choice but to use the map to get extra information about the place but decides not to fully believe it and uses it as a guide to make an overall decision by her/himself. Sense perception is like that map. Even though, it makes mistakes (makes wrong decisions), like the map, sense perception is the best source to support us from making an overall decision.

It is very suprising by the fact that our sense perception, our most reliable source even makes mistakes. It is very depressing to know that our last ever source even is unreliable. However, we still need them and is the best source for supporting us on making the best decision.

Sense perception - deceiving?

I believe that sense perception is an accurate way of knowing on a practical scale. This is because there would be no other way of gaining new knowledge in this universe. Reason alone can draw new knowledge but only if that knowledge was derived from our sense perception. On a practical scale, we can use our senses for gathering knowledge in everyday life and therefore be able to manage it.

The accuracy of our sense perceptions and how much we can trust it therefore depends on our experiential knowledge we have gained from the past.

Immediately, from the very start of our lives, our sense perception is not entirely accurate. Our brain, for example, makes up part of what we see in our field of vision. This is the blind spot which is caused by a lack of photosensitive receptor cells.

Television is an example of how our senses can deceive our way of knowing. It can replicate sounds in reality and what we see in reality. It can show what is really happening in reality and it can give us information through our senses that fool our way of knowing. For example the great spaghetti hoax in 1957 on the BBC led television viewers to believe that spaghetti came from spaghetti trees.

Our senses can never be used to perceive everything in reality. For example, our sense of sight cannot perceive ultraviolet light waves. We may see the effects of ultraviolet light waves such as exposing photographic film but we must use reason to deduce what has happened in order to understand it. This view was argued by Kant in that we should not be one-sided with our way of knowing the world but that we should be autonomous and draw from reason and from our senses.

To What Extent is Sense of Perception an Accurate Way of Knowing?

In psychology, perception is defined as the interpretation of information received through our sensations.

When we see things it is not our eyes that 'see' but our brain. The way we 'perceive' or in other words, interpret things can be distorted by our previous knowledge or by our surroundings. Prejudice and discrimination are also based on this - we generalise what we've learnt in the past and then judge things by the same basic simply on the way they look. When thinking of it this way, perception becomes an inaccurate and biased way of knowing. In addition, it is a common belief that we 'see' only what we want to see and what we are told to see.

This belief leads to quite frightening thoughts. How much of what we 'perceive' in everyday life should we believe and trust in? And how much do we manage to miss without noticing such as in the gorilla experiment and the card colour changing experiment? When looking at it in this perspective our perception is not accurate at all and we are easily tricked by it.

In conclusion, I don't think that we can measure to what extent perception is accurate as there are also many other factors that may affect what we know. As mentioned before, we have past experience first of all and when put in different situations the things we see or notice will also be different.

As odd as it sounds, I do not believe there is any accurate way of knowing whether our senses are an accurate presentation of the world. This is because I think that everyone's minds have a little "glitch" and therefore somehow has an impact on the way we see/perscieve the world.

You may see something that is not there, it could have been just a leaf buzzing by and not a super-intellegent microbug sent out by an underground organisation to destroy all of you shoes. Your brain is wired to see, do, feel, taste and hear to a certain extent but when we are constrating we miss things because our minds are more concerned with what we are giving all of our attention to. When we do see something, a leaf buzzing by for example, our minds make an assumtion and try to "guess" what we just saw. Of course we cannot rely on our senses 100% otherwise a large percentage of Earth's population would believe that 'The Sound of Music' is being preformed live under their beds and not think it is just their imagination. Scary stuff, eh?

To What Extent is Sense of Perception an Accurate Way of Knowing?

Our sense of perception is our only option for perceiving the world we come into contact with everyday. The absence of any of our senses can lead to chaos since we were born to rely on them. Although they may seem very useful, there are examples when we miss out something that is around us because our attention has been diverted into a different thing. For instance, many people missed out the Gorilla when trying to count the number of passes made. Our attention has been diverted onto the ball instead of the scenery as a whole, and thus we miss out on the gorilla. Another example of the flaws of our senses is the card changing magic trick. When we see the name of this video, our brains automatically divert all our attention onto the colour of the card instead of the scenary as a whole again. And therefore, we miss out on the colour changes on the background. Even though our ears hear the crew attempting to change the colours, our brain automatically perceives it to be some insignificant noise which we can ignore.

I believe that our senses are only accurate to a certain extent when our attention is diverted to a certain object. I think the evidence is not trying to disprove the accuracy of our senses but is only trying to tell us not to focus on a point in a way that we ignore the things that are happening around us.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

To What Extent is Sense of Perception an Accurate Way of Knowing?

Sense of perception is an important way of knowing, for sure, because without it there is much that we would not otherwise be able to learn. How accurate it is is totally different. Our sense of perception is accurate in that most times it tells us what we need to know. For example we wanted to know what the texture of an orange was, both its skin and the fruit itself. We would use our hands and be able to feel that the orange was not quite smooth, and was slightly bumpy. Through our tasting, we would be able to know that the orange is sweet, and possibly slightly sour. In this sense, it is an accurate way of knowing, because it provides us with an accurate feel of what an orange is like. Sense is an accurate way of knowing, because it gathers experience from all over to provide us with a knowledge bank of how different things look, taste, feel, smell, or sound like.

However, when these senses are fooled into thinking that an object is something else, then it is not accurate. For example, if we were not allowed to use any other senses other than our sight, and there were two glasses. One is filled with water, the other clear vinegar, we could easily be fooled into believing the glass with water was actually vinegar. This information is clearly false, and so causes our sight to not be an accurate way of knowing. Also, senses are useful only as long as we can actually sense them. This is to say that, quite often we simply overlook things and do not notice it. What we do not notice, cannot be known to us, and so cannot be an accurate way of knowing.

It is evident that our senses are very important to us in our daily lives, and that we rely on them a lot. However, there are instances where these senses fail us as an accurate way of knowing, and must use other methods as our accurate way of knowing.

To what extent is sense of perception an accurate way of knowing?

In my point of view, our sense of perception is an accurate way of knowing to the extent that one can see, smell, hear, taste and touch. I believe that without the perception of senses, we don’t learn anything as life would be impossible without them. In a way, all the five senses are inter-connected to learning something. For example, cooking, we use our sight to learn from television and we use our ears to listen to the instructions. We use our smell, taste and touch when cooking the food. Finally, one perfects the art of cooking. In other words, one learns cooking with an accurate sense of perception and the use of all five senses.

In Tok lesson, we saw a video of two teams passing the basketball, one team in white and the other in black where while we all are focusing on the number of times the ball was passed, we didn’t realize that a gorilla walks by, dances and we had no clue of it. It may be that my sight is not accurate however when we watch the video of the "best changing color card trick ever", we don’t see that the t-shirt colors of the host changes, the table cover changes and the back-ground changes too. This doesn’t mean that we doubt our sense of perception, all it is that our senses can focus on only one thing and not everything at once.

Though it is true that our senses can trick us, when we come to think of it, our senses keep us safe when there is a danger and as we grow up we learn to use it more accurately. Therefore, even though our senses are not accurate, our way of learning through them is definitely accurate.

To what extent is sense perception an accurate way of knowing?

Our sense of perception is something which humans rely on to learn and react. However, there are cases when we are deceived only because we aren't concentrating on it. For example, the gorilla in the basketball experiment was something which our visual senses didn't see because we were merely concentrating on the number of times the basketball was being passed. What makes it interesting is how we easily our senses of perception can be tricked when we are told or shown something to concentrate on. In the case of the magic card trick video, we weren’t told anything about what to watch out for however the title of the video ,the colour changing card trick, lead us to concentrating solely on the cards which meant we ‘shut out’ what was going on in the background. Such subtle changes can make a significant difference as shown in the past such as Hitler’s influence to kill the Jews. Although our sense of perception is has flaws, we have no other options but to trust our senses in making the correct decision.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

ToK Homework Task 2

To what extent is sense perception an accurate way of knowing?

Although as incredible as our senses are, they indeed have faults. Our senses seemingly allow us to view the world in a number of ways, objectively. However the exercising of these methods to experience sensations can lead to misconceptions and errors, even for the very ‘sharpest’ of us. Therefore it can be argued that the appreciation of the physical approach can be harmful. But then again what other approaches are there? If anyone of us were devoid of all five existing senses (i.e. sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste) how else would we communicate with the rest of the world? How would we continue learning and thus knowing about new things? We could presume and make groundless assumptions but then again what would warrant such speculations? This however only applies to future considerations. By building on past knowledge we can accept or reject projected ‘truths’, with only our mind defining our verdict. However to be shifted towards such projected ‘truths’ one must be familiar with some form of evidence or drive no matter how minimal. Evidence which is physical which again counters this argument. In conclusion it would seem sense perception is not an entirely accurate way of knowing but that we unconditionally rely upon it.

Word Count: 205

To what extent is sense perception an accurate way of knowing?

With the red-tinted glasses experiment from Sophie’s World as an example, we can say that what our mind learns from our five senses doesn’t necessarily have to be the truth. Whether we think our senses are telling us the truth is up to our personal judgment.

I think that my senses are an accurate way of knowing, because life would be impossible if we don’t have any of them. The gorilla video experiment in TOK lesson didn’t change my view on the reliability of our senses. We weren’t able to spot the gorilla because we weren’t concentrating, which was due to our mind thinking to focus on the basketball. When we focus, it’s not our senses that are doing so but our brain. The image of the gorilla would have been seen by our sight, but our mind blocked it out. Basically, our brain controls our senses. Although I have to admit that we focused our eyes on the ball because we listened to Ms Woollett. It is very scary how sometimes we just take orders that are aimed to make us not notice some truths, without even knowing so. Another example, from my everyday life, is that I don’t hear what someone is saying to me when I concentrate on watching television. What that person says would sound like some slurred up sound to me, instead of words that have meanings. Again, it was because I diverted my mind on something else.

Of course, people may argue that our senses and the brain work together for us to “experience”, and so it can be our senses’ fault. But if we don’t rely on our senses, how else can we learn things? There is no other way, so I say our senses are our most accurate way of knowing.

Monday, October 29, 2007

'The more you know the less you understand.' (Tao Le Ching)

I think that this statement is completely true as you may know alot but not understand why something in particular happens.
Say, for example, you know that all matter in the universe is made up of microscopic particles, I bet you're saying "well, okay everyone knows that, so what?" But the thing is do you know what the particals are made up out of? And of course, the answer is "protons, nutrons and electrons" but the question is what are the protons, nutrons and electrons made up of? And so on and so forth. But the question is why? Why is all matter made up out of atoms, why do particles have postive and negative charges? The human quest for knowledge and wondering is forever endless.
So take a second and actually THINK about it. You know the sky is blue and heck you might even know why, and if you do good for you, but do you understand why it is blue? Why isn't it green? You may know someone does something but do you know why? Do you understand why?
Think about it.

ToK Homework Task

- Pick one of your IB or ESF Advanced Diploma subjects
- What sorts of ‘knowledge’ and/or ‘truths’ does this subject convey?


My higher level subject of Spanish conveys the 3rd type of knowledge – Prepositional knowledge. Although, it seems that virtually all my subjects require such knowledge, apart from perhaps Physical Eduction which would probably be classified as Practical knowledge.

Prepositional knowledge is the “knowledge of facts or truth stated in prepositions; entirely language dependent”. It cannot really be learnt by a direct face-to-face encounter with the language effectively and can’t really be classified as a skill or proficiency either. The subject is taught through reading and writing tasks as well as class discussion in the language, incorporating both listening and speaking skills. Through this, facts and truth are communicated and a satisfactory understanding of these facts and truths are required for success at the subject. Furthermore the subject itself, a modern language, seems to fit the definition of Prepositional knowledge rather perfectly as it simply couldn’t be understood without an encounter with the language either at a textual or oral level. It is language dependant as a fluency of the language can’t be ascertained unless contact with it is existent. Unlike many other subjects which may depend largely upon a relatively looser knowledge of facts and a valid opinion such as English Literature. Languages require greater precision and fall in league with such subjects as Mathematics or any one of the sciences as a standard of accuracy is vital. Accuracy which is void of opinions (although incorporates them into the teaching programme). Through a gradual acquisition of this precision experience is achieved as well as knowledge.

Word Count: 255

Friday, October 12, 2007

'Now there is one outstandingly important fact regarding Spaceship Earth, and that is that no instruction book came with it.' (Buckminster Fuller)

Here, is a good use of a metaphor. As there is no hard copy guide to life on Earth, this is probably why people create a God in their mind, to whom they turn to for guidence and security. Maybe God is the pilot of our "spaceship" and there is no need for us to have a copy of this "instruction book". But personally, I think that this quote can explain how we get knowledge of things.

How do we know about "Spaceship Earth" to operate it?
When we were first born into our world called Earth, we are clueless about it. However, we come to learn about it by exploring and experiencing, which we would then share this knowledge to others. This means that some of our knowledge came from personal experiences and some from other people informing us.

How do we live on "Spaceship Earth"?
We weren't born with the knowledge of death. So we wouldn't be thinking to survive. But we are born with the instincts on how to survive. We feel hungry and our reasoning would tell us to eat. When a child is drowning, his natural reaction is to kick and paddle. Therefore I believe that we also obtain knowledge from reasoning of the mind.

Monday, October 8, 2007

'The dumbest people I know are those who know it all.' (Malcolm Forbes)

I think that this quote pretty much sums it all up. People who believe they know everything, are usually the ones that really no nothing at all. They simply delude themselves to make themselves feel that they know more than they do. It is impossible to know it all in a world that is constantly changing and where so many things happen all at the same time. By saying that " you know it all" , you are in effect saying that you know what so and so is doing at this exact moment.

It is one thing to know, and another to know it all.

Malcom Forbe's quote

I would like to agree Malcom Forbe's point.
noone ever can 'know it all', so it doesn't seem that he really thinks there are people who know it all. I think, he infers his dislike of people who shows off with their knowledge and doesn't seem to accept that there are more knowledges s/he still needs to learn.

Nobody can know it all, even an intelligent person cannot know it all as new knowledges appear every time and we, people natuarally forget things because of causal reasons like old age, not using this knowledge much etc. For example, my mother. She's a very intelligent, well educated person who has a job of a teacher, well respected by people. However, she still doesn't know how to use the computer even though I taught her so many times! It was very confusing for me, as I am her daughter, who doesn't have alot of knowledge, knowing how to use computer very well. Maybe my mother doesn't know how to use the computer because of her old age.

Socrates, the famous philosopher plus who used to be the most intelligent person in the world in the past, even didn't accept the fact of himself being the most intelligent one in the world. He thought, there were more knowledges he needed to learn therefore, he kept on asking people, trying to gain more knowledge. Even this person, freaking intelligent still denies of knowing it all. So, I think, Malcom Forbe's quote means people who acknowledges that s/he knows all is actually arrogant and doesn't have alot of knowledge.

response about CJ's reaction "freaking me out!"

-This reaction comes form the 'west wing' as she says this when she realises that the international world map is not the most accurate one and the most accurate map is actually a map called the peterson map, which doesn't really look right-

*When I looked at the peterson map, first, like CJ did, I thought, there was something wrong and it wasn't right. Every time in my mind, I had a vision of the international world map, which Britain was in the middle. This peterson map, instead didn't have Britain in the middle and some how some countries' sizes didn't look accurate. However, after knowing the truth, I was only able to give out a "WOW" and "no way!". I acutally couldn't believe myself this map was the most accurate one.

Yes, it definitely does freak Cj and even most other people out.
It's gives this reaction the most because, we, people had been educated and had to believe that the not-real map is the actual one through out most of our lives. Then oneday, we figure out that this map is actually not true and we had been believing this like a stupid idiot for most of our lives. We would feel very confused, annoyed and overall decide not to believe on the things we had seen and were taught. This would be the negative effect on learning the actual truth however the positive effect is that some people will learn on how to recognise the truth and the false and also learn on thinking in a philosophical way. Overall, it is very interesting to know the actual truth about things which people didnt recognize for such a long time!

'The dumbest people I know are those who know it all.' (Malcolm Forbes)

'The dumbest people I know are those who know it all.' (Malcolm Forbes)

To me 'The dumbest people I know are those who know it all", this quote means that those who think they know everything are the dumbest people. This is because they think they know it all and believe there is nothing they do not know while in fact, they do not know that there are many things that they do not know and therefore they do not know it all which makes them the dumbest.

This could also mean that knowledge needs a wide perspective and open mind. If you think you know everything, it means you know nothing.

Sunday, October 7, 2007

'Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.' (Martin Luther King)

In my opinion, "sincere ignorance" and "conscientious stupidity" in this context is to become oblivious in terms of knowledge. Without knowledge, many things cannot be achieved.


“Ignorance” is referred to the lack of knowledge or education. Knowledge is comprised of 3 elements - Adversity Quotient(AQ), Emotional Quotient(EQ) and Intelligence Quotient(IQ). Adversity Quotient is the ability to cope with adversity, emotional quotient is the ability of self control and intelligence quotient is basically a measure for intelligence. If either of these is missing, there is only ignorance. Knowledge does not necessarily have a direct relationship with intelligence or wisdom. To be knowledgeable is not only to be smart but it is also to be able to make the correct decisions in situations. Without knowledge, wrong choices are being made and that is the reason for its danger.


As Martin Luther has stated, “nothing is more dangerous than sincere ignorance”. Money cannot be earned without intelligence; friends cannot be made without self-control; survival in this society is impossible without the ability to cope with adversity. As you can see, knowledge is the only key to success; without knowledge, nothing can be done.

In response to what CJ says

What C.J. had said on the West Wing when she saw the Gall-Peters projection of the world was based on what she had learnt in her life.

The Gall-Peters map was presented in the 1967 when Mercator’s projection of the world was dominant. It would have taken considerable years before the former map was adopted in US public education. C.J. had been used Mercator’s world map from the start of her education to when she had a job so she was surprised to see the Galls-Peters map. This is similar to a paradigm shift in history when a dominant concept, in this case the projection of the world, changes. Other paradigm shifts include the introduction of germ theory.

Overall, this reflects the old colonial European influence on the world. Mercator’s projection had been introduced in 1569 and made generations like C.J. become so ‘used to’ it that they almost reject any other views.

“Self-knowledge is like a garden. If it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested.” (Ghanaian proverb)

From my point of view, this quote in poetic terms is like a simile where self knowledge is like a “garden”. “If it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested.”

Self Knowledge” is commonly used in philosophy to refer to knowledge of one’s particular mental states, including one’s beliefs, desires, and sensations. This knowledge is importantly different from the knowledge about the world external to oneself, including other’s thoughts. For example, if self-knowledge includes our beliefs, which would also include the religion and culture which I follow. From the very beginning my parents have told me what the different festivals are and what kind of religious beliefs we follow. For instance, being a Hindu, we do eat meat but we don’t eat beef because we pray to the cow. This is notified to us from the very beginning and so now we abide the rule and try not to say that we are not aware of it. This refers to the quote that, Self knowledge, in this case our beliefs is cultivated in us – notified to us by the society as well as by our parents and therefore it is harvested in us – we only follow this knowledge when we are told and we strictly abide to it. Moreover, I also believe that Self-Knowledge also includes one’s desire, in simple sense desire is cultivated within us, we desire to want something and until we don’t do so, it cannot be fulfilled – harvested. Another meaning of self-knowledge is sensations; this is basically like introspection which is the process by which one forms beliefs about their own mental states. We might form the belief that someone else is happy on the basis of perception, for example, by perceiving their behavior. However, a person typically does not have to observe their own behavior in order to determine whether they are happy. Rather, one makes the determination by introspection which is to "look within". In terms of the quote, it is cultivated within us to perceive our sensations as well as how others might be feeling. However, it is not always harvested within us, if our perception says one is happy, it doesn’t mean that they are happy, it can be that they are pretending or hiding their feelings for various reasons.

To conclude, I totally agree with the quotation “Self knowledge is like a garden. If it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested”. As I mentioned, it includes our beliefs, desires and sensations rather than the knowledge about the world. In this case, beliefs, desires and sensations are cultivated within us and are mostly harvested.

Friday, September 28, 2007

Knowers & Knowing


  1. 'Shall I teach you what knowledge is? When you know a thing, to recognise that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to recognise that you do not know it. That is knowledge.' (Confucius)
  2. Where there is shouting there is no true knowledge.' (Leonardo da Vinci)
  3. 'Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.' (Martin Luther King)
  4. 'Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding.' (Francois de La Rochefoucald)
  5. 'Education is learning what you didn’t even know you didn’t know.' (Daniel J. Boorstin)
  6. 'It is very good for a man to talk about what he does not understand; as long as he understands that he does not understand it.' (G. K. Chesterton)
  7. 'Those who are convinced they have a monopoly on The Truth always feel that they are only saving the world when they slaughter the heretics.' (Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.)
  8. 'A very popular error – having the courage of one’s convictions; rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack upon one’s convictions.' (Anon)
  9. 'There are many who know many things, yet are lacking in wisdom.' (Democritus)
  10. 'The most important truths are likely to be those which… society at that time least wants to hear.' (W. H. Auden)
  11. 'Never assume the obvious is true.' (William Safire)
  12. 'The criterion of truth is that it works even if nobody is prepared to acknowledge it.' (Ludwig von Mises)
  13. 'The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.' (Anais Nin)
  14. 'If one is estranged from oneself, then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others.' (Anne Morrow Lindbergh)
  15. 'Now there is one outstandingly important fact regarding Spaceship Earth, and that is that no instruction book came with it.' (Buckminster Fuller)
  16. 'Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.' (Carl Jung)
  17. 'The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.' (Eden Phillpotts)
  18. 'The dumbest people I know are those who know it all.' (Malcolm Forbes)
  19. 'Self-knowledge is like a garden. If it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested.' (Ghanaian proverb)
  20. 'In times of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future: the learned find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.' (Eric Hoffer)
  21. 'The more you know the less you understand.' (Tao Le Ching)