This is the Monty Python ‘witch scene’ from ‘The Holy Grail’– an entertaining clip where you can spot the multiple flaws in reasoning!

Deductive reasoning is any form of reasoning that moves from the general to the particular.

Here are three examples of syllogisms which contains two premises and a conclusion:

Premise 1: Typically men earn more money than women.

Premise 2:  I am a man.

Conclusion: Therefore I earn a lot of money.

Premise 1: I am human and I’m heterosexual.

Premise 2: You are a human.

Conclusion: You are heterosexual.

Premise 1: I am an IB student.

Premise 2: All IB students suffer from an unbearably large workload.

Conclusion: Therefore I must suffer from an unbearably large workload.

The arguments move from a general claim in premise 1 to a particular conclusion. In order for the conclusion to be true, both premises must be true and the argument must be valid. In the final example about IB students, you might consider the truth of premise 2 (few would dispute this!) and whether the argument valid?

You may want to invent your own syllogisms to try out different variations of true and untrue premises and valid and invalid arguments.

When you think about syllogisms consider:

1.      Are both premises either true or not true?

2.      Is the argument valid/ invalid?

Below are the prescribed essay titles for the May 2012 session. You need to write between 1200 and 1600 words on just one question.

1.      Knowledge is generated through the interaction of critical and creative thinking. Evaluate this statement in two areas of knowledge.

2.    Compare and contrast knowledge which can be expressed in words/symbols with knowledge that cannot be expressed in this way. Consider CAS and one or more areas of knowledge.

3.    Using history and at least one other area of knowledge, examine the claim that it is possible to attain knowledge despite problems of bias and selection.

4.    When should we discard explanations that are intuitively appealing?

5.    What is it about theories in the human sciences and natural sciences that makes them convincing?

6.    ‘It is more important to discover new ways of thinking about what is already known than to discover new data or facts’. To what extent would you agree with this claim?

7.    ‘The vocabulary we have does more than communicate our knowledge; it shapes what we can know’. Evaluate this claim with reference to different areas of knowledge.

8.    Analyse the strengths and weaknesses of using faith as a basis for knowledge in religion and in one area of knowledge from the ToK diagram.

9.    As an IB student, how has your learning of literature and science contributed to your understanding of individuals and societies?

10.  ‘Through different methods of justification, we can reach conclusions in ethics that are as well-supported as those provided in mathematics.’ To what extent would you agree?

If you are intersted in exploring TOK knowledge issues about the links between maths and art, you might conider this clip of film which suggests that the golden ratio in maths is the code behind celebrity face shapes that are considered to be beautiful. Useful for considering the idea that beauty is not just in the eye of the beholder.

The following Dove advert reveals how many picures we see in advertisements are actually the product of clever makeup and photoshopped images.  This is well worth watching if you want to consider the cultural dimensions of beauty. You might consider how else we might think of beauty and who cares if our notion of beauty is artificial. It may be worth thinking about how this is similar or different to other related examples.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U

In this entertaining 7 minute clip, this ‘creature comforts’  video on the arts deals with various viewpoints surrounding the nature of art.

The film begins with the claim, “Art is anything that anyone creates which evokes a reaction from someone else.”

Other claims made by the plasticine models include:

“Just becasue you say its art, it doesn’t mean it’s art…”

“the monkey that throws pooh, he’s making art, because he’s living the experience….that’s art…”

This is well worth watching…

Follow this link to find the TOK IB subject guide. It contains plenty of information about the nature of TOK, its aims, knowledge issues, areas of knowledge, how it is assessed and the matrix showing how it counts towards IB points.

http://xmltwo.ibo.org/publications/DP/General/dp_x_tokxx_guu_0603_1/xmltwo.ibo.org/dp2006-03/dp_x_tokxx_guu_0603_1_e/2.html

The IB store advertises this book by Tim Sprod and Antonia Melvin as follows:

“IB Prepared is a dynamic series of resources that helps students and teachers prepare for key elements of the IB programmes.
The first in the series to focus on the core requirements, Approach your assessment the IB way, provides practical support and guidance to help students prepare for their Diploma Programme theory of knowledge oral presentation and essay.”

http://store.ibo.org/download/IBPrep_TOK_Store_sample.pdf

TOK students may be interested in these ideas from Achilles and the tortoise to Schrodinger’s cat:

This free resource is taken from:

http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/history-the-arts/culture/philosophy

In this fanatstic series being broadcast on BBC2 on Sunday evenings, Prof Brian Cox in the first of five programmes here called ‘Wonders of the Universe’ examines the nature of time and its role in creating both the universe and ourselves.

The knowledge issues arising include, ‘How do we know how to measure time?’ and ‘How does our knowlegde of time affect our understanding of ourselves?’

The scientific discovery that the cosmos is 13 billion years old and that it’s taken that long for life to evolve implies that the existence of human life is possible for only a fraction of time; humans have only been here for 200,000 years. You might ask ‘what is the basis for this knowledge?’ and how does the narrative that ‘human life is only possible for a fraction of time’ affect the way we think about oursleves? Does it follow that there is no point to our lives? Or does it mean that we should find meaning in our identity as ‘the cosmos made conscious’?

It could also be worth considering these knowledge issues from different historical and cultural perspectives.

For the whole film follow the link to:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00zf9dh/Wonders_of_the_Universe_Destiny/

This is a fascinating programme – Horizon : What is one degree? In this video clip it shows how super-cooled liquids can simply pass through solid glass. ‘It’s a window on the world of quantum mechanics’ comments Ben Miller. In quantum physics things occur that might appear to be counter-intuitive.

In the same programme, (but not featured in this clip) Peter Atkins  of Oxford University put forward another counter-intuitive idea that everything in the universe is dispersing and that the spring of the universe ‘is collapsing into disorder.’  The idea of disorder driving the universe is a paradigm that seems to go against the intuition that everything has a purpose.  William Paley (1743-1805) proposed the idea that the universe is like a watch, driven by order and purpose. How might we distinguish between the deep intuitions that people have that the universe is a) collapsing into disorder or b) ordered and purposeful?

In this clip of 7:10 minutes, Ray Kurtzweil explains the term ‘singularity’ – ‘the moment when technological change becomes so rapid and profound, it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history.’ Singularity points to a paradigm shift which he predicts is on the horizon. It implications for human life are clearly outlined by Ray Kurtzweil who coined the term singularity. The conjecture that artificial intelligence will become more important than human intelligence potentially has massive and far-reaching implications for our us all.