Senoir Visit

The one most important piece of advice I took away from the seniors’ visit was about procrastination and how even though it was unavoidable you should do your best not to make it a regular thing in the IB program. To follow this advise I can plan my time wisely and make sure I get my work in on time. laziness might keep me from following this advise.

Riddles

In Mr. Andre’s presentation in TOk I learned about the process of reasoning and different ways to go about it such as tables and vendiagrams. I really njoyed the riddles, the challenge was fun. These riddles related to Black Bear because they showed that different views of situations produce different methods of reasoning.

Egyptograms

I enjoyed the Egyptogram exercise. I thought it was interesting the way it challenged us to use our reasoning in increasingly difficult situations. It was very enjoyable to complete the activities and feel satisfied that reason had been successfully applied to solve a problem. It was like putting a puzzle together or playing a word game in the newspaper. It was very fun and interesting to actively use reasoning and it helped to learn more about it firs hand. The story at the end of the Egyptogram packet was very interesting as well. I was surprised at first that the Easterners could not answer the Westerners’ syllogism. However I soon realized that this was because of the significant difference in the two cultures. While the Westerners had the opportunities to observe their world in great detail do to the excess time they have on their hands, the Easterners only had the time to pay attention to the most crucial things, things that helped them survive. Therefore the Easterners did not pay attention to the little details around them and so the syllogism, which requires you to notice little details to be able to reason, would seem pointless to them. I believe this is why they did not answer it in the way the Westerners wanted them to.

Reason:

We use prior knowledge
We make assumptions/ premises we infer from past experiences
We take a premise and then apply it so that a conclusion must follow

Rationalists – those who believe reason is the ideal way to achieve knowledge
vs
Empiricists – those who believe perception is the ideal way to achieve knowledge

Truth – what is the case ie property of statements, must be public, eternal, individual

Justify – we do this using reason, perception, language, authority

Logic – something is either valid or invalid, reason uses logic

Deduction – from a general claim to a specific claim

Induction – from a specific claim to a general claim

Syllogism – takes premise one and premise two and forms a logical conclusion, Rationalists believe they preserve truth but do not create it

Premise one
All dogs are mammals

Premise two
Fido is a dog

Conclusion
Therefore Fido is a mammal

Involving three terms that occur twice, dog, mammal. Fido

Involving a quantifier, all, some

Other examples
All A’s are B’s, Some A’s are C’s, Therefore some B’s are C’s
All A’s are B’s, All B’s are C’s, Therefore all A’s are C’s
All Bobos have dogs, No doctors have dogs, Therefore no Bobos are doctors