Dr Tchock Posted November 15, 2009 Report Share Posted November 15, 2009 (edited) Sorry to add to the list of threads about TOK presentation titles, but I have a mock run-through of my presentation in a few weeks time and I'm hesitating about what I should do with the title I've been thinking of doing it on. I wanted to do something like 'how does emotion affect our reasoning in decision making?' but I think it may be too general... what do you think?As a back-up (in case the title above IS too general), I was thinking of focusing on ethical decisions, with a title like 'how does emotion affect our ethical/moral reasoning?' but I feel that there isn't enough to talk about in this topic...EDIT: A while ago, I also thought about doing one on music, with the question 'is dissonant music really music?' but it would be quite hard to talk about it in a way which is friendly to people who don't know music theory... would it be worth giving it a go, or should I just stick with the titles above? Edited November 15, 2009 by Dr Tchock Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandwich Posted November 15, 2009 Report Share Posted November 15, 2009 'how does emotion affect our reasoning in decision making?^^ That is rather a general title but also a very interesting topic. I did a similar themed presentation myself -- I did mine on charitable giving and how we make the decision as to which charity we give our money/time to. As part of that I discussed emotion rather a lot as obviously it's probably the most important factor when it comes to giving money away.My suggestion would therefore be altering your question to narrow it down by making it an analysis of a practical application of decision making. Kinda what I did with my one, but obviously there're plenty of situations (especially for instance in medical ethics, if that interests you!) where you can analyse the knowledge and ways of knowing etc etc we use to make decisions. The other bonus of making it a practical situation of any sort is that you can discuss the interactions and effect of many different areas of knowledge & ways of knowing, not just emotion. That makes it into more of an argument/discussion as opposed to just a description, too.The music one would be very interesting, if you can think of a way to make it TOK-ish In my experience, even if nobody else has a clue about music theory, it's absolutely fine for them to sit there and be bored out of their brains provided you reckon you can get a good mark with your topic ;O It does help if people engage, but if not the teachers have to engage with whatever you pick, whether they're familiar or not! Obviously you can do brief definitions etc. if you wish. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Tchock Posted November 17, 2009 Author Report Share Posted November 17, 2009 Thanks for the reply I took your advice on focusing in a single area, and I've been planning to do it on our judgements over punishment for criminals - for instance, whenever a horrific crime is mentioned in the news, people call for the culprit to 'be hanged'... but they only demand that because they're angry about the crime committed. So should their opinions be trusted?In my presentation I would just be going on about things like that... my only problem is linking it to knowledge itself. Would it work as a TOK presentation?Hummm, I think my topic is pretty much decided now, but I'm wondering how I could present it. I saw some of the presentations from the rest of the group yesterday and, although they were doing it in pairs, they were quite creative and interesting to watch. One pair did their presentation as a kind of act, where they both argued against each other as representatives of certain groups in society, and another did theirs as a kind of chat show, where they discussed the knowledge issues and received text messages (fakes, obviously) suggesting other points of view.I am doing it on my own, but would there be any way of making it a bit more creative and original? Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mahuta ♥ Posted November 26, 2009 Report Share Posted November 26, 2009 I don't know how it goes with you guys, but why does the title worry you? The title you're a suggesting is more like a TOK essay one, which might be what the supervisor is going to say. What I am thinking is, why don't you use the idea of 'decision making' influenced by emotion, but on a real life issue. I think it would be more interesting that way, because otherwise it seems to me as if it is going to sound like a TOK lecture if you know what I mean. I am just suggesting so don't take it as a bad comment from me.I just got to learn that TOK presentation are supposed to be entertaining. I enjoyed doing both of mine because they were about topics I found great interest in. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Tchock Posted November 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted November 29, 2009 That's kind of what I'm planning to do. I'm looking at crime and punishment and I'm going to examine a couple of questions about how reason affects our emotion... for instance, if a person is murdered, their family will probably be angry towards the murderer, and in some cases, they might call for the murderer to be hanged. But we can see in that instance that the family are saying that purely because of their emotions. They are distressed, and their anger causes them to want the murderer to be killed. But isn't it better if we use reason to judge criminals? That's basically what I'm going to look at. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Tchock Posted November 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted November 29, 2009 Okay, I've basically given a few stats to say that a lot of people are still in favour of bringing back the death penalty, said that emotion affects their views and I've given some examples of people being led by emotions and making rash, silly decisions. I'm also going to look at how religion affects our ability to reason in this case, and what influence the media might have. However, my presentation only goes up to about 8 minutes in length, maybe 9... does anyone have any ideas of things I could add to it to make it longer? I really can't think of anything and I'm stuck for things to talk about... Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stereoisomer Posted March 11, 2010 Report Share Posted March 11, 2010 I did a similar topic for my practice TOK presentation (mine was based on ethical decisions) and I received negative feedback. Or to be exact, I received zero for my knowledge issue. 0 out of 5... My teacher said that my knowledge issue was way too broad. And it would take "a philosopher 2 days to figure out the answer to that question".I think you should try to be a little specific. I personally think that is actually a good topic, but you just really need to narrow it down slightly. Reply Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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