January 2018 – Lorenzo's portfolio

Intuition: can we rely on it?

piroz86711@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg me, thoughts, TOK January 31, 2018 0 Comment

I consider intuition as a way of knowing that can be reliable only in situations where there are the right premises. We affirm that a problem or a situation can be either solved or understood using intuition when we come up with a conclusion that we just feel it’s right, apparently with no logical reasoning to support it. I think that intuition, as a way of knowing, can be distinguished into two branches:

Intuition as automatic reasonings = In some occasions, as in the example analyzed in TOK class, intuition can be defined as a very rapid reasoning that a person can elaborate, based on the many experiences he/she had on that area of interest. Because of the understanding developed in the specific area, he/she can quickly solve the issue by just looking at it, requiring no time to comprehend and analyze the controversy. I think this type of intuition can be very reliable and, if understood its reasoning, can lead to the same answer as a slower logical reasoning.

Inexplicable Intuition = There has been, at least once in everybody’s lifetime, a moment in which we just knew the answer, an instant where an idea appears in your mind faster than normal thinking, resulting as right. There is no logical explanation for such thing as this kind of intuition and therefore there is no right answer to what extent we can rely on it.

Ultimately I think intuition should play a role in our acquisition of knowledge only in some certain areas of knowledge, not all of them. Intuition can be easily associated with “The Arts”. How many time we heard talking about pieces of art, or pieces of theatre, or great scenes in films where the artist just felt the way the artwork needed to be addressed to. Intuition is required, in this case, to purely express feelings and emotions that would have been modified and forced if thought too much. On the other side, it is not recommended to apply intuition as a way of knowledge to Mathematics or Natural Sciences because it would be placed in contrast with the objective reasoning required in these areas.

TOK- Describe a time when you made a bad decision

piroz86711@gapps.uwcsea.edu.sg creativity, me, thoughts, TOK January 10, 2018January 10, 2018 0 Comment

I have always liked cinema theatres. On November I started searching for a nice cinema theatre to go to in Singapore because until that time I only saw mall cinemas or IMAX which I don’t personally like because they are too dispersive and crowded for me. Thanks to my researches I discovered a cinema near to the stadium called “The projector”. I checked online tickets prices for regular screenings and I found out that the price for one ticket is 15 but they have 5 Singapore dollars discount for students. The price for me would have been 10 dollars which, translated into euro, is equal to 7.5 euro. Evaluating that I used to pay 5 euro to go to the cinema in Italy I concluded that going to the cinema it’s way more expensive in Singapore than in my city so I decided to search my movie online.

Reflecting now, after have been listening to Dan Gilbert talks about mistakes we regularly make on evaluating odds and values, I understood I made the error of confronting this new price and students discount with what I was used to paying in the past without considering the context that that price had. This cinema in Singapore is the only one that offers no-blockbuster movies and it has no the same size as the other multiplex in the city. At the end, I now realize that paying 2.5 more euro to have a cinema like that it is not such an insane idea as I thought before because it is offering something unique between all others offers which make it gains value.

Analyzing the reasoning of my choice through a syllogism it is possible to better understand the mistake I did:

The kind of cinema I like costs 5 euro

The kind of cinema I like in Singapore costs 7.5 euro

Therefore

Singapore cinema is too expensive

Without context, this syllogism may seem right but the problem here is that I am only comparing the price with what I was used to paying and I am not considering the new context I am in now, that in this case is Singapore. For this reason, I did not go to the cinema for all this time thinking that this price was too much and I couldn’t afford 2.5 euro of difference. I have now understood that it is important to consider all aspects of an offer, comprehending the reason of that cost, not just only comparing with my little experience.

I think I’m going to the cinema this weekend.