TOK HW Due 12.02.09

Pg 52.
1. a. Triangle: Three straight lines that are enclosed completely so that it becomes a shape.
b. Table: Furniture that has a flat top that's held up by legs and such. People usually write or eat on top of these, since it has a flat surface.
c. Love: A feeling where one person looks at another in a special light, and where that other person is liked very much by that one person.

2. I think that there would be no way to explain the colour red to a blind person, because the blind person does not have any idea on what colour is, and what shaps are. Although some things can be felt, giving the blind person an idea, red cannot be felt, and it cannoy really be visualized without already having to seen the colour red. this suggests that definitions cannot mean a thing if one does not understand the concepts behind it. If the person who is listening to the definition cannot connect at all with the definition being given, there is no real way that the definition could be fully grasped.

Pg. 56
1. a: "Planes that are in flight are dangerous." to "It is dangerous to fly a plane."
b: "They saw Mrs. Jones and also a dog sitting under the table." to "They say both Mrs. Jones and the dog sitting under the table."
c: "Bob tickled the man who was with the feather duster." to "Using the feather duster, Bob tickled the man."
d: "Refuse, the food that is to be dicarded, is to be put into the basket." to "To refuse, to resist, to be put into the basket."
e: "Mia wanted to see the pop star actually sing really badly (a lot)." to "Mia wanted to see the pop star sing really badly (off-tune)."
f: "Going to visit relatives can be boring." to "Relatives that are visiting can be very boring."
g: "Many monetarily poor students are on scholarships." to "Many people who are poor in condition are on scholarships."
h: "Johnny ate the bacon that was on the sofa." to "Johnny, who was on the sofa, ate the bacon."
i: "I didn't sleep in the same house as my spouse." to "I didn't have sexual intercourse with my spouse."
j: "I saw her duck, the animal." to "I saw her do the action of ducking."

2. If one puts the correct punctuation, such as a comma, then they will know if the one thing is modifying one thing or the other.

3. A man walked into a bar. Ouch. [The man could have either walked into a bar, as in a pole, or a bar to drink.]
*This joke should be said, not written* How long (or the name Hao Long) is a Chinese man.

This is about ORBITZTRAVEL. This states that Orbitz is the best choice there is just because of the hotel offer. The others were very happy that they got the discount while the person who didn't was very sad. There was a very limited amount of information. Also, this was an example of Hasty Generalization in the fact that there was only one man who was said for not getting the discount, and that was supposed to represent everyone else who did not have Orbitz. There is also an Appeal to Popularity, because everyone around the man who didn't get the discount were extremely happy, and it was the popular view. Becuase of this, people might be tempted to buy the product, since it was a popular view.

What Was I Thinking

Just like it says in "What Was I Thinking", I think it is true that people really just go with whatever is given to them, or whatever they see. Just like how people look at the prices and see the value of the item as it is, people learn to just take everything in the world in just as it is given to them. Their minds are so easily tricked into not thinking much. They never take the time to really think about things.

People learn to accept things such as prices. One example is clothing. We just see the price tag and we usually take it as it is. Abercrombie sometimes sells T-Shirts for $20, when it really can be bought for around $5 or sometimes even less. However, we just simply look at the brand, and we accept the price. We dare not to argue with what society has been telling us. We just learn to accept. Honestly I do not think that it is a good thing to accept things as they are because we should learn how to think for ourselves, and we should be reasonable with things such as prices. Also, just as how people are easily deceived, the mind is easily deceived as well.

There was one experiment explained in the article where the victims were told to write down the last two digits of their social security number. Afterwards, the tester was to ask the test takers to write down reasonable prices for some things. The people were unconsciously affected by the last two digits of their social security number, and put down every price within that range. This just shows how much the brain tries to make connections, and how much the mind can be easily affected. We should learn to really think things through instead of going about on our things in such a flippant manner. People should try to train their minds to be quicker with things.

As the years go by, people are starting to get lazier and lazier. They start to become very lazy even with their thinking, and they start to accept whatever is given to them, accepting it as the truth. Tests have shown that people are very used to accepting things as they are, and that everything around the people influence them, even something as random as the last two digits of one’s Social Security Number. This has come to show that people are becoming more accepting as well as thinking less.

Love is a Fallacy

There are eight types of fallacies listed in the story Love is a Fallacy. They are the following:

-Dicto Simpliciter: an argument based on an unqualified generalization. This is when someone makes an argument based on a generalization. However, that generalization is very off, because there can be other arguments based on that.

i.e. Milk is good for you, because it builds strong bones and it helps your body. However, some people are lactose intolerant, so in that case, milk can be very bad for them.

-Hasty Generalization: It is just using too little information, and basing a huge generalization on that. In other words, the number of samples being tested is too small to figure out anything.

i.e. I love music. She loves music, and because of this, everyone loves music.

-Post Hoc: Believing that something happened because of something else when those two have a high chance of not being related at all.

i.e. There is a spider, and when i tell it to move left, it moves left, and when I say right, it moves right. However, i take off its legs, and then give them the same commands, but it doesn't move at all. Therefore, if you take off all of the spider's legs, it cannot hear.

-Contradictory Premises: There are two premises that contradict one another, but they are happening at the same time. So therefore, there can be no interaction or a conclusion.

i.e. What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?

-Ad Misericordiam: This is when one relies on another's sympathy and pity to argue things.

i.e. I deserve to get a good grade on the project (which I was notified of a month ago) I didn't do, because my dad died, and right now my family is in a very bad situation where they are extremely destitute; we can't even eat three meals a day.

-False Analogy: The analogies cannot even connect to each other, yet it is still used as an analogy to throw people off.

i.e. Not bringing your pencil and paper to class is like a soldier going to war without a gun.

-Hypothesis Contrary to Fact: Saying what could have happened in the future, when it cannot be changed.

i.e. If Josef Stalin was taken out of the picture, the Cold War would have never happened.

-Poisoning the Well: When one condescends another person, and says negative things about them, saying that whatever they say is wrong.

i.e. That guy always does something that seems suspicious. So no one should get close to him.

The Five Other Logical Fallacies:

-Appeal to Authority: Just because a person is an authority in a certain subject does not mean that all of his/her claims are true.

i.e. A doctor who makes false claims so that he could get money off of his patients.

-Appeal to Fear: This is when someone uses fear to get another to do or believe something, when it has nothing to do with the claim.

i.e. A man who says that people should believe in God or else they will go to hell.

-Appeal to Flattery: This is when someone flatters another, and because of that, the other person feels good and does whatever that someone wants them to do.

i.e. Complementing the principal on how well he runs the school, then asking him to lessen your punishment.

-Appeal to Popularity: This is when people believe something merely because it is a popular view.

i.e. People once believed that the sun revolved around the earth, because it was a popular view.

-Appeal to Ridicule: This is when one ridicules an opposing claim so that people will support one's claims.

i.e. "Obama said that he will bring back the troops from Iraq once he is elected president. HAHA. And that's just ridiculous."