pact

14/03/2016

PATC is not some serious, legally bonding document (as it is easy to think) but a very helpful method when it comes to finding sources for our favorite activity, obtaining knowledge. 

Purpose-Why the source is produced?

Author-Do we know anything about the author of the source we are using?

Context-Are there any other sources that would back up this one?

Tone-Are we reading dry facts or emotional opinions?

To be honest, PACT is not some new, magical invention that was discovered like washing machine, but something that was exiting for a long amount of time before it was named. According to my observations most teenagers are skeptical so they unconsciously use PACT when reading newspapers or articles online. I think that PACT should be mentioned in every school curriculum not only IB and it should be done in middle school, when kids are crating their personalities individually and not with their home habits. I would help with so much aspects of growing up because as I already said PACT is universal and can be used not only for historical sources but also for medical online sites. 

history oh history

29/02/2016

What subject starts with "H" and has been dreaded by me since I was 10? History!

 At the beginning of this school year I marched confidently into the glorious hall of our schools looking at all this poor people who were about to spent entire year learning about long and for most parts boring events and failures of dead men and here was I. The happiest person it this school. Well, at least that is what I thought until I discovered thrilling and exiting parts of IB that I was warned about but somehow I missed all of the warnings. Anyway, I managed to deal with the difficulties of an average IB student and then... History happened. To me more precise tok lessons involving History. I will run through the subject of history briefly since I can't pay attention to it. Here we go.

On that lesson I realized how bias is our history. During WWII the amount of propaganda existing all over the world made it hard to tell what really happened during some events. For example, photographs were manipulated in a way that if some figure occurring on one photograph was not beneficial to the whole event it was erased and people who were not present there and just known the event from the photograph can still live to this day in lie. Al off the tok lessons made me think about how easy it is to manipulate other people and I think I started develop trust issues when it comes to the things I learn at school. Also I know now that the problem with changing someone’s mind when the idea is heavily rooted in that person's mind is not only my problem, but the widely occurring issue. And this is why war happens and why society gets divided and racism and basically a lot bad things in history happened because people couldn't cooperate.

reasoning

Reasoning is the way we put together fact and events in our brain and make them work together as a logical whole. Logical is a very important part of this definition. Why? We will get to this.

First of all, there are this important terms that we must know and remember. Induction and 

Deduction. They sound almost the same to me but as I now know, they aren't. Induction is assuming some fact basing on the greater group to which these fact apply. For example: 98% of children likes sweets therefore the kid I just met will probably enjoy chocolate he is about to buy. Deduction is in my opinion a little bit like a mathematic equation. If A equals B and B equals C then A equals C as well.  Obviously, the results of our inductive and deductive reasoning will not be right because exceptions are almost always existing. The statement - every dog I know has a tail so your dog also have a tail- can be incorrect. This particular dog could be a victim of an accident and in result he has no tail. Deduction and induction may lead to prejudice as we approach new problems with experience from the past. "Every blue eyed person I met was a murderer so she must be as well!"

It all starts to be confusing as we dive into it. But here is why I said LOGIC is important. We can't just blindly connect the dots and believe that the picture is correct. We must follow the numbers next to these dots and that way we will end up with a nicely drawn picture. Also it is important not to connect dots with squares because it will create nonsense and false ideas. "Potato has skin, I have skin, therefore I am a potato.". It makes no sense because we connected squares with dots. Speaking more clearly; we connected facts that have nothing to do with each other and we got an answer which is complete absurd. 

emotions emotions emotions

08/02/2016

How to use emotions? 

Fear and disgust are both are responsible for keeping us away from my potential danger. For example; while you walking through the woods after sunset and you hear some suspicious noise, your heart starts to beat faster, you might feel cold, your muscles get tense and you became more alert. That is called fear. Your adrenal glands produce adrenaline which is responsible for fight-or-flight response. In moment of fear you can either run away or fight and both of these solutions are more likely to keep you safe than just walking through these woods without any concern about possible danger. The same goes for disgust. When you pick up your favorite dish and you see some white or green fur you won't eat it. Your brain knows that this "fur" is mould and there is possibility that after consuming that used-to-be delicious slice of pizza you can end up dead. Or at least at the hospital bed. 

Disgust prevents human from taking harmful actions but the problem is that disgust and fear are the easiest emotions to manipulate. You learn them through the association and that feature has been used repeatedly in history. During WWII German Nazi decided that the best way for spreading hatred towards Jews is to start from the youngest age. It resulted in crating anti-Semitic children book when they described how and why Jews are disgusting. Of course, the word "disgusting" was never used. It was the smart move because people were not aware of the fact that the emotions they felt were created by other people and not because of biological factors.

What is interesting, disgust is not only manipulated through vivid descriptions or  nasty images where you are shown and presented clearly what is your threat. Some researches were carried out and the proven that liberal people are harder to disgust than conservative. That explains why sometimes the political views are extreme. If used in correct way during voting, our senses would manipulate the voters o choose certain political party. Thankfully it is illegal, because I can't imagine the world where my own immune system and natural instincts that are meant to keep me safe, would be used to manipulate my thoughts. Or maybe they already are and I just can't see it?