For the next few days, when I went to tie my hair back into a pony tail, or did that thing where I would run my hair down the ponytail, to straighten it out, my hand kept going. I was so used to having my hair being so long, and would think “Oh yeah… my hair is shorter now”. It was the same way when I brushed my hair, my arm kept going for another few inches, just out of habit.

When your brain is so used to doing something for so long, it kind of goes into “autopilot” when doing everyday tasks. An example of this is when there was problems with the faucet at my house, so my dad took the handle off. The next morning, when I went to get a glass of water, I looked right at where the handle should be, then tried to grab it. Of course, it wasn’t there and I was confused for half a second. However, I was used to doing the same thing everyday, so even when I looked at where the handle should be, it didn’t register that it wasn’t there. Doing things out of habit kind of creates a separate reality for your brain, a reality where things stay constant. So, whether you’re aware something changed, in a way, you really aren’t until you make a new habit to accept that change.

Even though this is outside out immediate realm of perception, I can say that it is very likely that every human culture has to use some type of language. Even though some people in the world might not use a spoken language, it is still necessary for them to use some type of language if they are trying to communicate with another person. They would have to use another form of language, body language, (like sign language), or written language. Otherwise, it would be near impossible to get their message across to another person. We can know this by trying it ourselves. For example, try to think of a game like charades or pictionary. The purpose is to communicate your message without using a spoken language. If you couldn’t use any type of language in those games, then you would have no way of communicating.

In any group of people, no matter how large or small, it is necessary for them to use any type of language in order for them to survive. If there is any type of situation where people depended on one another, communication would be key.

This can be justified as a TOK knowledge issue because it focuses on more than one knowledge area. It covers language, art and also history. Art is a language itself, it is telling people ideas, or even what to think without directly saying it to them, it’s just more of a subconscious message. For example, in the video we watched of North Korea, there were posters, pictures and mureals of Kim Jong Il all over the capitol city as well as in the schools and workplaces. He was portrayed as a powerful leader, sometimes he would be smiling. This gives the residents of the city only one view of him. All of the stories they told the children were about how much of a wonderful person he was. If this was the only way Il was portrayed, this can also impact the history of North Korea. Some people might not even be aware that the stories aren’t true or that he might not be as great as he seems.

So, the issue of art interacting with history and language in North Korea is suitable as a knowledge issue because it includes more than one knowledge area, and has the potential for up to three, Its acceptable if answers make sense and are treated in a TOK point of view, and don’t seem biased or unrelated, trivial, etc.

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I don’t think that historians are looking to lie to us and make us beleive what they think really happened. They just want to share theirie history. I don’t  believe that they are out there to brainwash us. If anything is wrong with the history book, the person was most likely misinformed, and got their facts wrong. Teachers and students have no choice to trust these sources. Its not like we can go back in time to see how the pyramids were actually built or if the moon landing was real. It takes time and research to figure these things out.

Maybe in the future, somebody will admit that the moon landing was fake, or research will show some pretty serious proof. Then after that, all history books will be questioned and rewritten. But, the government lies all of the time, so people shouldn’t be surprised if something like the moon landing was fake. You would think that history would be something that is relatively constant, however, it can change as a result of new facts and information.

Out of all different form of language (written, spoken, and body language), written would probably be the best to convinve a person that the earth was round. That way, I can just take a peice of paper, and draw out the world as a sphere, with recognizable continents on it.Of course, I could draw a generic map of the world as flat, and than draw a big “No” symbol over it.

Well, that probably won’t convince them all the way, so I might have to resort to just grabbing a basket ball and drawing the continents on it. I might have to resort to actually writing words, explaining that if the world was flat, you’d just fall off over the side! But, the most effective way would probably to use all three, but I think that it would be possible to get by either just one or two.

Another peice, a oil pastel painting of Slash —> http://campnorth.tv/artwork/1893 , was critiqued for not exploring “different angles and views”. She absent-mindedly pointed to the center of the canvas, then the corners, bottom and top. “I noticed that your art comes from here, here, and….here. And is viewed from the front.” I was a bit taken back. Last time I checked, subjects are GENERALLY viewed from the front. And, she pointed to every section of the canvas, so I don’t know if she wants me to paint on the back next time. I’m not going out of my way to be abstract and art-studenty.

As a result, art does not excite me anymore. I’m sick of looking at my own work. After that critique, I can only see the things wrong with my work. After all that, I don’t even know what I did right. Arcadia went through an exam as well, and came out looking just as confused as I was.

Analyzing art shouldn’t have to be painful. It shouldn’t detract from the overall quality of the work. Did the artist actually intend for their work to be torn apart and examined like that? Its not like anybody would know the true meaning behind a peice of work, except for the artists themself. Maybe they just want to paint a certain subject because they like it. Or maybe they’re just not “controversial” enough, according “real artists”.

 Maybe I’ll just create a peice of art dedicated to the hypocracy of IB, and see if they like the ”controversy” then.

Think about it. The constellations are natural, the stars have alwasy been there and it took a person to figure out that they resemble a horse, or a polar bear, etc. Humans are the ones who noticed these mathmatical patterns and turned them into constants. But nature doesn’t always abide by the constants. For example the golden ratio doesn’t alway apply to every single person. And artists and architects just used it because it looked ‘aesthecially pleasing’. But that just proves the theory that it is man-made. We all know that proportions aren’t always perfect, and that buildings are man-made. Mathmatical constants are just ways for humans to feel like nature has its constants; which isn’t always true. Nature doesn’t always abide by the laws of mathmatics, it experiences constant changes.

Take the bible for example; the stories aren’t necessarily true. I’m pretty doubtful there were talking snakes or earth was created in a matter of days, etc, as this does not fit into anything modern science can explain. However, the stories in the bible were written to have people learn important lessons or meaning by reading them. They learn from the motives and actions of the characters, what is good, or ethical for their religion, and also what is bad or unethical. So, while religion isn’t necessarily accepted by other sciences, it can be accepted into human sciences, which has a broad enough definition to accept many other knowledge areas.

When determining the answer to an ethical questions, one might come across some sort of a “grey area”. Not everything is black and white. Is there a point when something is considered more wrong or more right? Or is it just at “its all okay, or none of it is”?

An example of how ethical questions can be quantified is on the issue of theft. If a person steals five dollars from the cash register at work, some people might shrug it off. However, if a person steals fifty, or a hundred dollars, most people would make a bigger deal out of it. Does the fact that the person stole fifty dollars make it more wrong than if they stole only five? When does theft go from ignorable to unacceptable?

Another situation is on the issue of abortion. Some people belive that abortion is wrong, no matter how old the fetus is. They believe life begins at conception. However, some people belive that at a few weeks old, the fetus is not conscious, therefore it is not alive, and abortion wouldn’t necessarily be “murder”. But what exactly is “murder”? When does someone turn from a clump of cells into ”life”? There are no explicit answers that any science or religion will agree upon, it all comes down to the morals and ethics of each individual. They have to rely on their beliefs to sort through all of the shades of grey and decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong.