“It is only knowledge produced with difficulty that we truly value.” To what extent do you agree with this statement?

[hannah529]

I have chosen this topic to write this essay on. “It is only knowledge produced with difficulty that we truly value.” To what extent do you agree with this statement?

I understand it to a certain extent, but I am having difficulty going in depth about it, especially when it comes the WOK and AOK.

Any help will be greatly appreciated. I also have to fill out this TOK Essay Planning Frame. Can someone look over it and help me out. I have attached the file. Your thoughts on this question is welcomed. What do you have to say about this Question?

Thank you!

ToK Essay Planning 2016.docx

[mushroom]

Hmm, that's interesting...

Well, I realize that knowledge produced with difficulty would be impressive, and so a great respect is held for knowledge obtained with difficulty. People do like to be respected, and so it is only natural that many would hold a greater value for knowledge gotten through difficulty. However, here comes the issue of how you want to define difficulty in gaining knowledge. Now, for example, the idea that objects fall towards the ground due to gravity is a commonly-held idea and many think that as one only needs to observe falling objects to determine as much, it must not have been too difficult to develop the idea. But the thing is, in the past, people did not arrive at that conclusion as easily and it was many theories, such as Eratosthenes's idea of objects having a 'natural place', that existed before it became widely accepted that objects will fall towards the ground due to the force of gravity the Earth exerts on them. This theory of Newton's was hugely impressive both now and back when he developed it, but was it truly through difficulty that he arrived at the conclusion of gravity? After all, legend tells of the story of the falling apple and the instantaneous development of the theory of gravity. Obviously this cannot be accepted as a valid source, but it does suggest the discovery of gravity was not as difficult as one might think and only required a bit of thinking and logic on Newton's part. Sure, others were unable to develop the idea, but was what he did really that difficult? Rare, for sure, but difficult? Developing his theory was not particularly physically exerting, nor were crazy difficult tests used in the development of the theory; it was all simply cold, hard logic. Where to draw the line between knowledge that was obtained through difficulty and easily-obtained knowledge? I think exploring that in one part of your essay would be quite interesting.

That's quite the topic you have there! Best of luck with your essay!!

Edited October 24, 2016 by mushroom

[hannah529]

That really just opened my mind to the question. I was stuck around valuing passions, such as swimming that comes to me naturally ( I truly value) and something I worked for or that was difficult, such as learning certain math concepts or learning writing techniques ( I value that too). This helped me to realize that I can also compare certain aspects from our time to history. I also came up with two Ways of Knowing - Emotion and Reason ( I will need more), I believe they play an important role in valuing certain knowledge. I am still stuck on Areas of Knowing, have to work on that. I also looked into Intrinsic and Extrinsic situations - like valuing a certain knowledge that will lead to money (extrinsic) and valuing a certain knowledge for love and passion (intrinsic). 

Thank you so much!!!

Any other comments are truly welcomed. 

[Snipas]

Hi! I have chosen the same essay title as you. I understood it as they only wanted us to discuss knowledge produced for the first time (scientific discoveries etc. That is what my ToK teacher said too), so me learning a mathematical formula in the book would not be relevant (because one has to differentiate between gaining/obtaining knowledge and producing knowledge), but the "accidental" discovery of penicillin would be interesting to discuss. Another interesting topic to discuss is say ex. the Nazi experiments conducted under ww2, they were difficult and have advanced our knowledge in cryonics (and more), however, is the knowledge valued by us as humans knowing how the experiments were conducted? If one can define value as something one appreciates, can one from a moral point of view say that one value the knowledge gained from the horrible experiments done by the Nazis?

First of all one could ask if all knowledge produced with difficulty is valued. If you conclude that not all knowledge is valued or at least not valued as much (etc, one can speak of practical value and in that sense, the knowledge of electricity is far more important in every-day use than say the discovery of how ultrasonic velocity of cheddar cheese as affected by temperature is...) then you could go on with the example of penicillin or other similar "accidental" discoveries (which one could argue was produced with ease as the scientist actually just forgot something in his lab for a time and when he came back and investigated it the discovery of penicillin was made), and conclude if you want that the value of knowledge is not neccessarily proportional to the difficulty of producing it. 

 

Hope that helps or give you any ideas. (sorry for bad english...)

Edited October 25, 2016 by Snipas

[hannah529]

That really did help and very well thought out and elaborated! I think I took the wrong idea of the question, by putting it in the sense of school (math concepts). I really like the penicillin idea. That is true - penicillin (the knowledge of it is truly valuable despite being produced with ease).

Your thoughts gave me other ideas - Saccharin (Artificial Sweetener), LSD as a drug. 

On the more fun side - potato chips and chocolate chip cookies - but I think I am going to stick to the ideas above (more serious ones).

Thanks a lot, now I have a better idea of knowing where I want to focus my essay (scientific discoveries/first time discoveries). Thank-you!!

 

Any other comments are truly welcomed!

[elene]

I actually chose the same topic, with focus on ethics and history as my AOK and emotion and reason as my WOK, in other words, almost the same as you. I think we have somewhat of the same difficulties, because I am not sure what to include in my essay. I am trying to evaluate how our emotions influence the ethical choices we make, while we use reason to deduct historical events. My teacher told our class that we should use famous philosophers etc that we already have discussed in class, but I am not sure who to include and which theories I should focus on. Also, I think the topic is very open, so it is hard to narrow it down. At the same time, it is difficult to find enough good material to write about. 

Hopefully we can help each other further on, and good luck!

[hannah529]

You are very correct, the topic is very open and it will be difficult to narrow it down. Our class had one on ones with our TOK teacher, and it was really helpful. Try to break down what you really want to focus on. Try looking for a TOK Essay Planning Frame (our teacher provided it for us). After you have that really key in on your Knowledge question. I decided to stick to factors of the knowledge. Since you are more focused on emotion you can look into - how a person is emotionally attached to a certain task can help determine the value the person holds of the knowledge whether it is through difficulty or through ease. Does emotional draining mark the task as difficult or other factors? AND then reason can be - the process by  how the knowledge was created. 

Surely I hope we can stay as assistants for each other and Good luck to you too!!

[hannah529]

What are the factors that cause the production of knowledge to be difficult? Define difficult

Does anyone have ideas on this? Any suggestions/thoughts?

Any other comments are truly welcomed!

[Harley]

i chose the same essay. 

my teacher said that we can discuss about religion and how we value it. for eg - the bible and with how much difficulty it help spread the religion. 

 

[Amina13]

On October 25, 2016 at 9:49 PM, Snipas said:

can one from a moral point of view say that one value the knowledge gained from the horrible experiments done by the Nazis?

 

 

And here comes the another interesting point to discuss: what does value mean? is it the same with "liking" something? not necessarily. In fact, one can value the horrible experiments Nazi did as they have a significant impact on today's science, yet not admire. 

That's the reason why we should define the word 'value' in the essay -- I believe it is about the impact of the knowledge in our life. That is what we truly value -- it has less to do with the amount of effort put by producer, and more about its effect on us. 

[Nomenclature]

10 hours ago, Amina13 said:

And here comes the another interesting point to discuss: what does value mean? is it the same with "liking" something? not necessarily. In fact, one can value the horrible experiments Nazi did as they have a significant impact on today's science, yet not admire. 

That's the reason why we should define the word 'value' in the essay -- I believe it is about the impact of the knowledge in our life. That is what we truly value -- it has less to do with the amount of effort put by producer, and more about its effect on us. 

Sorry for being slightly pedantic, but the idea that Nazi experiments helped or advanced scientific knowledge knowledge is a completely false. The experiments were thinly disguised torture methods that gave inaccurate, biased, and unimportant information that largely only served to make the victims suffer. For a well-written and interesting discussion of the topic, this post on AskHistorians Reddit was superb.

[Amina13]

3 hours ago, Nomenclature said:

Sorry for being slightly pedantic, but the idea that Nazi experiments helped or advanced scientific knowledge knowledge is a completely false. The experiments were thinly disguised torture methods that gave inaccurate, biased, and unimportant information that largely only served to make the victims suffer. For a well-written and interesting discussion of the topic, this post on AskHistorians Reddit was superb.

 

 

I actually did not know about this. I haven't made a research about this before, but only learned about the Nazi medical experiments in History lessons, which we only looked over. Morally, ethically and even religiously speaking these experiments are atrocious. Additionally, even these experiments were unscientifically sound as there are methodological inconsistencies in how the results were obtained. 

Thank you for clarification. 

[Nomenclature]

7 hours ago, Amina13 said:

I actually did not know about this. I haven't made a research about this before, but only learned about the Nazi medical experiments in History lessons, which we only looked over. Morally, ethically and even religiously speaking these experiments are atrocious. Additionally, even these experiments were unscientifically sound as there are methodological inconsistencies in how the results were obtained. 

Thank you for clarification. 

No problem. I'm fascinated by popular myths that dominate historical discussion. I like learning how mistaken I am about history. One of my favorite things we learned in 20th Century world history that I was largely ignorant of was about the murky conduct of the Allies that largely gets overshadowed. False equivalency is also a real danger when learning this, but I remember being disgusted about learning about the firebombing of civilian Tokyo (and to a lesser extant also of Germany) and how little focus on that is in popular U.S. conceptions of the war. The average American today probably doesn't know anything about that I didn't completely understand its extant until we covered it.

Also, to go back to your original post, I definitely agree. I didn't do this essay prompt, but it's really interesting and open to interpretation. Defining your focus in the intro will only bode well for you.