My UWCSEA Learning Journey

First object: Diary

These are my diary notes that I have been using since Grade 5 which means I have been noting my main events for more than five years. There are many people who write diaries for tracking the small things and thoughts that people have thought of or felt.

Many people learn from the past events where they have done something wrong. By writing a diary, it allows people to reflect on themselves and improve the knowledge of how the person can do in certain circumstances which leads them to improve infinitely. In addition to that, there is many different evidence which proves that writing the thoughts can destress themselves as well as improving the person’s creativity. This idea was developed from the belief that a diary can be a good source to destress. Based on this belief, scientific evidence has proven that diary entries are good for mental health.

I think this object shows that the current knowledge is an improvement upon the past knowledge because as I mentioned before, we can always refer back to what we have done wrongly and will help us not to repeat the same mistake again. By writing a diary, there will be a record of yourself, thus, it is a useful source to analyse yourself and trends of your behaviour through the past events. These can show how past knowledge that we gained from our experiences allow us to improve on the current knowledge of what happens when we do certain things in a certain way. Furthermore, it can be evidence of it since it also shows how psychological fields have improved based on the past knowledge.

Second object: Ptolemaic theory map

This object is a world map which was written during the 2nd century AD. This map was written in the era when people believed ptolemaic theory.  The map also represents how people thought the earth is flat and there is an unknown world/ creature living at the edge of the world. In this map, the unknown creature is represented as humans who are blowing winds towards the earth. 

These theories are now changed and proved by multiple different types of evidence including mathematical and scientific evidence. Ptolemaic theories have been denied by Copernicus. He thought ptolemaic theory is too contrived, thus, he has researched by himself to satisfy his doughnuts. Also, the belief that the earth is flat has been officially rejected by Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián Elcanoand in the 16th century when they went on a trip around the world.  

This object can be the object to prove that current knowledge is an improvement from the past knowledge. This is because the new knowledge is built up from the current knowledge. Copernicus questioned the previous theory and thought carefully what does not fit the idea, thus, he was able to come up with an idea that was able to be proven later on via scientific, mathematical and technical evidence. In addition, it communicates how gaining wider range of knowledges caused the theory to be proven by evidence. Due to the knowledges we had about astronomy and machinery enabled us to predict more precise data and to physically go to space.

Q. Does some knowledge belong only to particular communities of knowers?

I have chosen Japanese amulet as my object to consider about in ToK. In my opinion, it symbolises the belief that Japanese still have even though not many people are not Buddhist anymore.

In Japan, this amulet is sold in shrines which Japan have a lot all around the country. There are multiple function for amulets such as education, health, love life and happiness in general. In Japanese tradition, we visit shrine every year at the beginning of the year for praying for a good year. However, we sometimes visit shrines which are historically famous and when we do so, we buy the amulet for souvenir. When the function of the amulet have been achieved or when it is one year buying, we bring it to shrine for “Otakiage” which is burning it in a certain way to thank the god.

I think this is a really obvious and clear examples of believes that we have. There are no specific evidence which proves Buddhism or the power of the amulet, thus it is only the people’s belief that they can protect us. Considering these, I think these have a big affect in our mental relieve since we feel like we are protected by something even it is not proven by scientific evidence.