sight, touch, smell, sound, taste as Ways of Knowing

As Dr Schaefer spoke today, he mentioned in passing the usage of "tactile memory" as a means in which med students learn of human anatomy. (He spoke of learning the feel of "normal" or "healthy" organs in order to determine illnesses and abnormalities).
This brought to mind a series of questions: How do you distinguish memory of different senses? Is there even a distinction? For example, if the "tactile" memory remembers an item as soft, but the "visual" memory forces you to recall the same object as having a rough exterior, what trumps the other?
I list the five 'sense-based memories' as ways of knowing in this order: tactile, taste, visual, smell, and sound. My opinions are based on my own experiences with the senses; I'm curious to see opinions of others.
To explain my preference of the senses as WOK:
The first is tactile, just because so much information can be gathered from studying an object with one's hands. For example, taking an object in one's hands (with all other senses disregarded), one can learn the shape, a general idea of the material, one can hazard a guess from the shape at the usage of the object.
2. Taste. This appears quite strange in list of importance, but it makes sense (at least for me...) With taste, one can do similar tests as the ones possible with the hands. Putting an object in one's mouth can help determine the texture, (possibly) the size, an idea of the material (metal, for example, has a distinct taste to another material, such as wood or plastic), the durability of the object.
3. Visual. The eyes can determine color, identify shape and use of the object, possibly texture, material. The eyes are limited as to they cannot directly contact the object; unlike touch or taste, the eye is limited to only what the object "seems" to look like: if I had a pencil, for example, carved out of wood, painted like a generic Number 2 pencil, complete with lead colored paint, shiny metallic paint, and pink paint for the rubber, my eyes could be deceived into believing that it's an actual pencil. But by feeling it (or by tasting the materials) I would be able to determine that a) it does not taste like lead at its tip, the pencil lead is not separating from the wood at my touch (or in my mouth) , it must not be a real pencil, and b) the eraser is not textured correctly, this is not a pencil.
4/5. To be completely honest, I find that smell and sound are rather close in validity. The nature of both senses is so determinant upon the item being studied that I feel that there is no fair way for me to judge one more useful than the other as a WOK.

How do you disagree/agree with these orders?

Ways of Knowing the Truth (and a Lie)

In TOK today, Mr. Perkins asked the question "what ways of knowing are used when lying?" and before I forgot how to communicate, this was my answer: ultimately, the same ways of knowing that are applied to a truth or even a belief are used for a lie. So, all ways of knowing are applied.

However, lying seems to involve both intuition and reasoning more so than determining the truth. Telling a lie entails understanding all perspectives of an argument so that the lie can be effective. Intuition determines how to phrase the lie while reasoning determines the extent of the lie.

Truth, on the other hand, can be "absolute," such that mere acknowledgment of the truth (just realizing that the truth exists) is enough and understanding the entire meaning is not necessary. The truth, then, uses all ways of knowing equally.

Same Teachers

A quick question I threw out mere seconds before the bell rang:

In math, how much of an obstacle to understanding, a problem of knowing, is it to have different teachers for each level and branch of mathematics? Would it be a help to have the same teacher for several levels, especially levels in succession, as you often do when in foreign language study?

Incarnational Epistemology and Snow

In class today we used the phrase "incarnational epistemology" to describe the way of knowing that comes about when a person moves beyond rote, formulaic, cut-and-paste methods to a deeper, intuitive, more personal and fluent way of knowing.

Along the way, I thought of the poem by Howard Nemerov's poem, "Because You Asked about the Line Between Prose and Poetry."

Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned to pieces of snow
Riding a gradient invisible
From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.

There came a moment that you couldn’t tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.

How does that happen for you? When does your knowledge of an area or subject move from "silver aslant to random, white, and slow?" In other words, when does your knowledge become deep, true, personal, fluent? How does that happen? Assuming that it has happened for you, in what areas, academic (math, science, languages, music, etc.) or otherwise (social, spiritual, interpersonal, romantic-relational, etc.) has it happened? Were you aware of the point when it happened, or only aware now that you look back on it?

What is mathematics?

This is in response to one of the questions posed in today's TOK class.

Which is the right answer:
Mathematics is the search for answers (with numbers/ of numbers/ by numbers).

I would argue that is is "by numbers" because the numbers only have meaning because we give them meaning. Mathematics, to me, seems to be a way for mankind to make abstract concepts like speed, predicting population growth, movement, etc. into concepts we can grasp. As a result the numbers help us quantify aspects of the world. The numbers allow us to make abstract concepts tangible and then understand their meaning. It is only by using numbers that we can think at a higher level.

You wouldn't understand...

One of the question Mr. Perkins posed in class today asked if the argument "You can't argue this because you aren't_____(fill in blank with something such as a race, sex, religion, etc)" is a valid point. Bobby mentioned that he thinks this is true in the case of abortion- he does not feel that he can position himself against abortion because he is, in fact, not a woman and will never personally have an unwanted pregnancy. However, I would argue that men can have a valid opinion on abortion for a couple different reasons. For one, abortion in many cases is an ethics issue, often based on religion. Many Christian (and other religious) men see abortion as being morally wrong according to their beliefs, and opinion having nothing to do with their experience or how the woman may feel. I am not stating my own opinion on the abortion question, but I do see how a man could validly argue that abortion is wrong. Even a "non-religious" man may argue that abortion is morally/ethically wrong.
Many of you are in the same English class as I am and probably remember the discussion last week we had regarding racism/hate. To recap, we were discussing the Kincaid essay (about her experience in an English colony and her resulting negative view of England) when a girl in the class posed a situation, asking if hers was equal or related to Kincaid's. The situation was this: "My mom's friend, who is black, hates all white people because as a result of slavery, she is unable to find information on her family heritage and ancestral culture. She can trace her family history as far back as their trip in the slave trade, but beyond that she knows nothing." I argued that her hate of an entire race is not justified just because of the past, giving other examples and backup as well. My point now, however is not my argument, but the response I was repeatedly given by the teacher, even when I stayed after class for a few minutes the next day to clarify a few things. Every time, my teacher told me "Well, you don't see it to be justified, but you cannot possibly understand how it really must feel because you are white and you were not enslaved." I found a few different problems in her argument, but that one that hit me the most was that I supposedly cannot argue that hate is not justified if I have not been in the person's situation. Therefore, I found it interesting that the point was revisited in TOK.
While perfect understanding in its purest form cannot possibly be achieved as we are unable to put ourselves exactly in each others shoes and our thoughts on things are all subjective to experience, I think that it is necessary to agree on the validity of some level of understanding. Obviously, yes, I am caucasian and have never persoanlly been enslaved, beaten, or anything of that sort. Whether my argument in class was right or wrong, should its validity be based upon the that idea? Can I therefore not have a valid opinion on subjects dealing with races besides my own?
What if no one was ever allowed to express an opinion about anything they have not personally experienced in full? We would never get anywhere as a united society if we could only have negative opinions on things we've experienced. Women would only be able to discuss women's rights with women because any man's opinion on the matter would not be valid. We would always have to assume that the other party is correct if they have experienced something we have not. (I would consider that to be fallacy of authority in some cases...)

The Pilate Question

In a comment on the previous post, stephaniee wrote, "since we have come to the consensus that there is only one truth, how can it be determined? it can't be by public belief. many people used to believe we lived in a earth centered universe and they were all wrong. so how can one determine among the many views what is true and what is not?"

This is a form of the famous question asked of Jesus by the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, "What is truth?"

My hat is off to stepaniee, for she has taken this discussion exactly where it needed to go, hence my copying of her comment to start a new post. I now leave it to you to discuss which ways of knowing are most useful in coming to determing the truth. As one guiding question, does it matter in what area of knowledge that truth is pursued?

Adjectives and Nouns

What an exciting class we had today! As we talked about "justified true belief," a long-standing definition of knowledge, someone used the phrase "accepted truth." This led to a fascinating discussion. Consider two sets of phrases, each phrase being composed of a noun and an adjective.

Set A

blue circle, graphite circle, thick-lined circle, square circle, triangular circle


Set B

blue truth, pencil truth, thick-lined truth, my truth, half truth


In set A, the first three items made sense, but in set B, the first three items were non-sensical. A circle is completely capable of being described by the adjectives "blue," "graphite," and "thick-liend," but clearly those adjectives make no sense when applied to the abstract noun, "truth."

In set A, the last two items are non-sensical because, as one student observed, the definition of a circle precluded that word's being modified by either of these adjectives. By definition, one cannot have a triangular circle.

What, then, about the last two items in set B? We hear the phrases "my truth" and "half truth" all the time, but do they make any sense? Can the word "truth" ever be modified by an adjective, or is there something about its definition that precludes such modification?

Interestingly, when pressed to come up with something that was true for person X and not true for person Y, while avoiding mere opinion, the class was hard pressed to find something. An early attempt by one girl was the sentence, "I am a girl," which she said would be untrue if I, her male teacher, spoke it. I suggested that self-reflexive sentences were a category unto themselves (pun intended?) and that we would set them aside for the time being. I would encourage anyone interested in these linguistico-philosophical puzzles to check out Douglas Hofstadter's Metamagical Themas.

Another student suggested that the word "truth" in a particular area, such as truth in mathematics, truth in religion, truth in history, might or might not be capable of accepting an adjective.

So where do you come down on this? Can the word "truth" take an adjective?