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TOK Talk

TOK Talk

​AN ORIGINAL PODCAST FOR TEACHERS, STUDENTS AND OTHER CURIOUS PEOPLE

Who owns knowledge?

6/3/2024

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TOK Talk · Who Owns Knowledge?
39 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 to dig deeper referenced in this talk:

  • Polio vaccine unpatented
  • Tang and Song Dynasty Artists  - CORRECTION - I was wrong about some details in our discussion - there are many individual artists known during the Song Dynasty (960–1279). What is interesting about it is how much their work built on tradition - shared knowledge of painting at the time seems to be of utmost importance.
  • Kaizen The act of always improving
​
Guests: Donna Gee, Liu Yu 
Music: Hilary Ng playing in the hallway at school


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PROMPT 23. HOW IMPORTANT ARE MATERIAL TOOLS IN THE PRODUCTION OR ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE?

2/16/2024

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TOK Talk · How important are Material Tools?
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:
  • ‘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”.  For a quicker insight, watch this: Why humans run the world TED talk with Yuval Noah Harari ​
  • ‘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)

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

Thank you to Waffling Beans for letting us use your space to record!
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Intro to Ethics

12/31/2018

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​This episode I give an introduction to four main theories or perspectives on ethics: Virtue ethics, Deontological Ethics, Consequentialism and Utilitarianism, and Moral Relativism. I discuss these theories in relation to current situations such as the MeToo Movement and Self-driving cars. I love ethics... so this will be the first of several episodes looking at how ethics shapes knowledge in other areas.
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    Podcast
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    Emily Osann
    TOK Coordinator 
    Teacher of TOK & Visual Arts based in Hong Kong

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