TOK Talk

Prompt 29. Who owns knowledge?

LY’s first response: “Those who study, those who learn, those who share” is not a bad start. I wish this were the world we lived in, but somehow I think the answer is far more complicated and often influenced by power (for good and for bad) more than we care to acknowledge.

What is ownership? That it ‘belongs’ to you? Can knowledge even be owned?

Pioneers, inventors, artists, discoverers of new knowledge - do they own the knowledge they produce, create or discover? If whoever was first gets the credit, does that mean they own the knowledge? Once knowledge is shared, does it belong to other knowers that know it too? What knowledge belongs to the common good? Is knowing something the same as owning it? This discussion raised Issues of social responsibility that comes with creating and sharing (or not sharing) new knowledge.

After we think about the question: Who owns knowledge? So many other important questions get raised: What do we do with it? How do we care for it? …LY asks but “so what”? We discussed the ways we value original ideas in different cultures. Zooming out, thinking about the implications of ownership and access, but also the responsibility for protection and upkeep that comes with ownership. Is the onus on the creator or user of knowledge? In a sense, are both ‘owners’?

Links in this talk can be found at www.TOKTalk.org

Guests: Donna Gee, Liu Yu

Music: Hilary Ng playing in the hallway at school

This is one that I could discuss endlessly. Who doesn’t love imagination? I actually recorded this (and a few more episodes) nearly a year ago and have been waiting for the right time. Now seems like the right time for this one, especially as we’re talking about the role of imagination in allowing us to understand and empathize with circumstances outside of our own world.

We did go down a little LOTR rabbit hole in this one, let me know if you agree with what we said! But to bring it back to TOK, we talked about imagination in arts, literature, science, history... But we also just discussed the nature of imagining - how do we all imagine differently? Is your imagination a blank canvas? An audio box? Is it a recreation of senses in your mind? How much does it infiltrate your daily narrative? What is imagination? How is it different from reasoning or brainstorming? Are logic and imagination different versions of a similar way of thinking? Is it enough that imagination plays the role of fun and entertainment in producing knowledge about the world? Does it just make things more real and more fun?

I really enjoyed this conversation and am immensely grateful for my guests on this (and all episodes) as well as the musicians that help me to put these together. If you’re interested in joining me, please contact me via www.toktalk.org and fill out the contact form.

Links we discussed can be found on www.toktalk.org

Guests: Brett Fisher, Monica Wahl

Music: Hilary Ng playing in the hallway at school

I met with Jon Rees, another TOK Teacher (as well as teacher of Human Technologies and IB English) here in Hong Kong, and we discussed TOK Exhibition Prompt 23: How important are material tools in the production or acquisition of knowledge?

It was a fascinating discussion! Students, you need to be careful in this question about the difference between producing knowledge and producing things. While there is a connection (knowledge is needed to produce things), it is not an obvious connection so an exploration of the knowledge being produced (not just the thing) is required here. I think it would be very hard to argue that material tools (and conceptual tools by extension?) are not essential - and yet there’s room for exploration as you can hear from our conversation. I hope to talk with Mr. Rees again soon, as it was a very interesting and thought provoking conversation.

Books & Resources that we referenced and discussed in relation to this talk (for links to all of these, check out www.TOKTalk.org):

‘Sapiens’ by Yuval Noah Harari - this book is essentially an exploration of the role of material tools in the development of humankind, but is especially interesting when he talks about “fictional realities”.

‘Techno Feudalism’ by Yanis Varoufakis - he does a great job from a Marxist perspective explaining how his father taught him the concept of historical materialism, how technological development creates the tools/conditions for the advancement of the socio-cultural context. Then who controls the means of production, power/authority.

‘How to Understand E= MC2’ by Christophe Galfard

‘The Sane Society’ by Eric Fromm - criticism of our focus on consumption in a nuclear age where we can annihilate ourselves

‘Song of the Cell’ by Siddhartha Mukherjee - deep exploration of our understanding of biology - the first chapters are specifically focused on development of the microscope and its influence on the entire field of microbiology and beyond

‘Guns Germs Steel’ by Jared Diamond outlines the theory of geographic determinism, and thus the access to materials and the tools we can therefore make are everything in the development of humankind

‘Knowledge Illusion’ by Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach - the illusion of explanatory depth, mistaking shared knowledge for our own

Justice with Michael Sandel

Little Museum of the World in Chai Wan - A time machine for building peace

‘The Vanishing Face of Gaia’, by James Lovelock - essential wake-up call for humankind

‘Donut Economics’ by Kate Raworth - a hopeful perspective! Nibbling away what we need (not beyond our planetary boundaries)

Special Guest: Jon Rees

Music from the ISF Student Brass Band playing outside the school gate one morning in December 2023

May 2024 TOK Essay Title 3 Nothing is more exciting than fresh ideas, so why are areas of knowledge often so slow to adopt them? Discuss with reference to the human sciences and one other area of knowledge.

What is the difference between an idea and knowledge? What is slow or fast in terms of ideas? What contexts affect the timeframe? Slow for what? Who?

What does it mean to “adopt” an idea? How is that different from acceptance? When does an idea become a theory or law? What makes an idea fresh? What about the possibilities they represent is both exciting and causes disciplines to pause before adopting them?

Guests: Brett Fisher and Garrett McKee

Sounds from rice fields in Bali

May 2024 TOK Essay Title 5 Do we need custodians of knowledge? Discuss with reference to two areas of knowledge.

I met with Kevin and recorded this, but I had a technical malfunction so the recording was lost. I’ve tried to recapture the essence of our conversation as best as I could. We unpacked some really interesting questions: How does one become a ‘custodian’ of knowledge? Who has the authority or right? Who decides what is protected? What about knowledge that has been lost or discluded? What other great truths and insights are we not hearing because of the selectivity? As custodians, how do we weigh up this choice? What if we didn’t have custodians of knowledge? What about knowledge that might be dangerous?

Links from our conversation:

CNN interview - last of a family of Peruvian Potato farmers https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2021/10/25/potato-custodians-peru-spc-intl-c2e.cnn

Académie Française: https://www.academie-francaise.fr/

How to contribute to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contributing_to_Wikipedia

Guest: Kevin Hoye (though as the original episode was lost, his actual voice is not featured, only his ideas as I have tried to faithfully represent them)

Music: Jingle Bell Rock as recorded by the Brown School Shoes in December 2018… no it's not the holidays yet.

May 2024 TOK Essay Title 2: How can we reconcile the opposing demands for specialization and generalization in the production of knowledge? Discuss with reference to mathematics and one other area of knowledge.

This is a tough one that requires some confidence to write about examples with confidence in mathematics. A good investigation would offer an exploration of ways that the demands are reconciled. Why do the demands oppose? Are they really opposing demands? Why do we need both specialization and generalization? If one way to reconcile these demands is to create systems and improve communication within and across knowledge communities, what does this actually look like in the real world? Are we (knowledge communities) actually able to reconcile these demands?

Link from our discussion:

Clay Mathematics Institute Millennium Prize Problems: https://www.claymath.org/millennium-problems/

Guest: Martin Brown

Music: random sounds that could be so much better. Do you have music you'd like featured? Please contact me through the form at www.TOKTalk.org

May 2024 TOK Essay Title 6 Are we too quick to assume that the most recent evidence is inevitably the strongest? Discuss with reference to the natural sciences and one other area of knowledge.

Be careful here with this title that you’re really talking about evidence and not the interpretation of evidence in the form of theories! This one is worth a listen just for how we talk about ways to approach TOK Essay Titles in general, nearer to the end.

One more word about the arts after further consideration: recent evidence could be uncovered in the arts in many ways, for example the use of x-ray can uncover new evidence about artists’ intentions, techniques and processes. Check out the Art News article linked below.

Links from our discussion:

Scientific American Article about Neutrinos https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/particles-found-to-travel/

Einstein theory of relativity & the eclipse that proved his ideas: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/total-solar-eclipse-100-years-ago-proved-einsteins-general-relativity-180972278/

Infinite Monkey Cage Podcast talking about Covid Science happening in real time: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001f4lp

Art News article about x-rays and underpaintings https://news.artnet.com/art-world/hidden-paintings-x-ray-2176965

Guest: Rhodri George

Music: sounds recorded on the beach in Pak Lap and a random bass line from Garage Band... I need more music!

May 2024 TOK Essay Title 1: Is subjectivity overly celebrated in the arts but unfairly condemned in history? Discuss with reference to the arts and history.

Be careful with this title: you need to really interrogate assumptions about the role of subjectivity in both arts and history. Think about instances where subjectivity may be overly celebrated in the arts and where objectivity could be of value. Likewise, think about where subjectivity is condemned and where it might also have value in history. I really like this title and look forward to hearing your thoughts on it (and reading your essays!)

Guests: Kevin Hoye, Robert Scheer

Today we talked about TOK Exhibition prompt 14: Does some knowledge belong only to particular communities of knowers? This is a good one with links to religious knowledge, and secret knowledge only shared by communities… We discuss the idea of preserving some knowledge, why some knowledge does (and perhaps should?) only belong to particular communities, and the blurry line where protecting knowledge becomes gatekeeping. This is a really good one, and left me with a lot more questions than answers. An interesting link to this year’s TOK Essay titles too!

Guest: Dr. Rachel Oser

Music: cover of Taylor Swift Love Story from Grade 9 students around a campfire.

你為什麼會覺得某種存在很美？美感的根源和本质是什么？美感是个人、某种文化所特有的、还是整个世界共有的？帶著這些問題，我們特意邀請了王紅櫻老師、賀瑜老師、吳玥老師參與了這一期的知識論清談。期間老師們對於藝術與美的討論有趣有深刻，期待大家收聽。能夠完成這一話題的討論與後期製作，離不開Ms OSANN、苗曉龍老師的大力支持。鞠躬、致謝。

In this Mandarin episode of TOK Talk, Mr. Sun invited Mandarin Language Teachers Mr. Wang, Ms. He, and Ms. Wu to discuss important questions about beauty: Why do we think certain things are beautiful? What is the origin and nature of a sense of beauty? Is this sense specific to the individual or to the culture, or is it universal? A profound discussion on art and beauty The discussion and post-production of this topic cannot be completed without the strong support of Ms Osann and Miao Xiaolong.

Hosts: 孫秀東 Mr. Sun

Guests: 王紅櫻老師、賀瑜老師、吳玥老師

Music: 王美婷老師