IB TOK Essay Prompt 3 (May 2023 Exam Session), High school final essays of Philosophy

Download IB TOK Essay Prompt 3 (May 2023 Exam Session) and more High school final essays Philosophy in PDF only on Docsity! jvg384 - 1 Word Count: 1511 3. Does it matter if our acquisition of knowledge happens in “bubbles” where some information and voices are excluded? Discuss with reference to two areas of knowledge. The occurrence of knowledge acquisition in “bubbles” where some information and voices are excluded matters to some extent in the areas of History and Mathematics. Within the PT, a bubble represents a metaphor for a semipermeable barrier separating knowledge such as secluding certain perspectives and information in their own secluded area, removing them from collective knowledge. Exclusion in both mathematics and history implies intent to raise and maintain the barriers between knowledge. In History and Mathematics, barriers that matter will influence our knowledge perceptions. In the PT, acquisition, learning or gaining knowledge, could be impacted by the membrane impeding access to knowledge. In History, the Uighur Genocide was happening in a knowledge stronghold kept by the Chinese government who wanted to remain secretive, this was breached by reporters who burst the barriers around the knowledge. The bubbles’ inside is an isolated knowledge sphere that exists as the physical territory into which the Uighur genocide occurs but also the as the territory where the knowledge exists. Simultaneously Mathematics, knowledge bubbles exist in probability in the stock market and in poker. In both the stock market and poker, participants maintain barriers around knowing what hand players possess, demonstrating the barrier’s importance. Knowledge bubbles matter in history because excluding information and voices from the collective historical account renders human’s history incomplete. In China, The jvg384 - 2 Word Count: 1511 CCP endeavored to isolate their attempted genocide on the Uighur people by contorting our knowledge of what happened in the Xinjiang region by censoring the press. Journalists reporting on human rights abuses had previously been reporting on the situation, but the Chinese government forced them out by pressuring them with propaganda and harassment. The Chinese government uses force to create a sphere around their country and present this perspective on historical knowledge that excludes the Uighur genocide. Conflicting, evidence-based narratives created by journalists broke through the censorship and informed the western world of the atrocities committed however domestically, these exposés were censored as well. The CCP uses force in the form of threats to journalists and suppression of unfavorable publications instead of evidence to reinforce its claims which impacts the overall knowledge body. Those who already understand the atrocities committed disregard the governments’ claims as false and unsupported by evidence, especially with the strong claims indicating their culpability. However, living under this brute force censorship distorts the Chinese citizen’s knowledge as they view the claims supported only by threat to be equally or truer as those from foreign reporters based on fact. We gather historical knowledge by evaluating many perspectives for plausibility collecting evidence in the form of contemporary accounts or media. We synthesize this into the collective historical knowledge we have. This body constantly changes as new perspectives which were before outside the historical knowledge bubble break through and contribute to the historical narrative. Historians strive to interpret history and come as close to an objective historical account as possible by refining their interpretations as they come across new information, something that is clearly made difficult by the governments’ jvg384 - 5 Word Count: 1511 have. In poker, each party receives a hand of cards, not knowing what the other has, and must either possess the dominant hand, or outwit the other parties to win with a disadvantage. There should be no intersections of the knowledge scopes making the outcome pure probability. Each player operates with the methods and tools of their intuition, queues/tells given by other parties and card counting comprise inputs that lead each party to come to their own interpretations of the best moves. Each player operates under the same conditions, with the same limited knowledge of the other's situation, therefore, despite each player existing in their own sphere, it doesn't matter for the decision-making process or impact the likelihood of any given outcome. Of course, in poker, more experienced players or talented players will be privy to more information than new players which contributes to their decisions such as players who count cards or players who can read tells who would be more likely to win than other players but ceteris paribus, with two equally skilled players, knowledge bubbles do not matter. These barriers to knowledge matter so soon as they are breached. In a situation where one party holds information about another player as potentially happened in a recent televised poker match. In this match, a player was allegedly using a device to signal the cars that another player had which would give her a definitive advantage because those barricades to knowledge have now crossed. Like the insider trading fiasco, a party who has access to extra information not held by others creates an uneven playing ground, meaning the barrier now matters because one barrier has a direct effect on the outcome of the situation meaning that inequitable access to the knowledge leads to that impediment to knowledge acquisition mattering. jvg384 - 6 Word Count: 1511 Though commonly regarded as vastly different subjects with different criteria for accepting knowledge, History and Math, specifically the statistics and probability portion, share a degree of uncertainty and a heavy reliance on interpretation to arrive at knowledge. The ethical implications differ however, In Mathematics, maintaining exclusionary knowledge spheres makes probability-based scenarios like the stock market and poker games fairer whereas in History, excluding voices and information from the collective historical knowledge diminishes the knowledges’ quality and tends to be unfair for those left out. The differences in ethical implications demonstrate that there is not one correct answer to the question “does it matter if our acquisition of knowledge happens in “bubbles”'' because the answer varies. Knowledge bubbles can be both beneficial and harmful with two primary discriminators between the two being the intent of those who erect the barriers between knowledge and the effect the exclusion has on knowledge as a whole. jvg384 - 7 Word Count: 1511 Works Cited Cluff, Mathew. "Learn How to Use Poker Probability to Up Your Winnings." 888 Poker, 29 Apr. 2020, www.888poker.com/magazine/strategy/how-to-use-poker-probability. Accessed 21 Oct. 2022. Goldstein, Mathew, and David Yaffe-Bellany. "Ex-Coinbase Employee and 2 Others Charged With Insider Trading of Crypto Assets." New York Times, 21 July 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/07/21/business/insider-trading-crypto-coinbase.html. Accessed 20 Oct. 2022. Owens, Jason. "Did she or didn't she? Breaking down the cheating allegation and $269K hand rocking the poker world." Yahoo! Sports, 5 Oct. 2022, sports.yahoo.com/did-she-or- didnt-she-breaking-down-the-cheating-allegations-and-269-k-hand-rocking-the-poker- world-223234800.html. Accessed 22 Oct. 2022. Wee, Sui-Lee. "French journalist forced to leave China after article on troubled Xinjiang." Reuters, 30 Dec. 2015, www.reuters.com/article/us-china-france-media/french-journalist- forced-to-leave-china-after-article-on-troubled-xinjiang-idUKKBN0UE08720151231. Accessed 28 Sept. 2022.