Why have rules if they're going to be broken

Every language definitely has its set of rules in terms of syntax, punctuation, grammar and vocab. That helps develop the language as a means of communication, so as to provide a guideline for people to communicate with each other.

Does simply having these rules means that we are all going to follow them? - Just like rules of anything, there are always going to be those who bend them or break them. I am going to focus on the English language as a case study to try and demonstrate this point. I think that now more than any other previous time, people are breaking the "rules" of written and spoken language. Rules of syntax, are constantly broken, both in an obvious and subtle way. In our pop culture, whether its contemporary rap songs, which have drastically increased in popularity, or whether its in movies and other interactions of our daily lives that would have an impact in developing our language; these "rules" are constantly being broken. For example, one of today's popular rap artists says in one of his songs : "Look at what I done; look at where I be." The phrase contradicts the language's grammar rules in terms of tenses, and yet, it is used and more importantly, its intent is understood by others. Especially teenagers, and especially online, they often purposely "mis-spell" words whether its for efficiency or because its just the thing to do...such as spelling "you" as u instead of y o u. There are also a lot of subtle, perhaps unintentional mistakes that lots of people from different age groups make. For example, most people say things such as "dispute about...." when it should technically be dispute over; also, most people say " if i was (bla)" when it should technically be if I were. "it is me" is also grammatically incorrect, it should be....it is I. These are just a few of many many examples that demonstrate the fact that we break the rules of language all the time.

So if we break these rules so much, why do we still have them? The thing is, that this set of rules needs to be established as starting point. Language needs to be unified in some way. It cannot simply be haphazard. There needs to be guidelines that people can follow, so as to ease communication. I think using an analogy would perfectly demonstrate my point:

The painting above is one of Picasso's. Many people would not guess that it is since he is more famous for his cubist style paintings. The thing is, one needs to master the rules before one can break them. Picasso had to practice conventional art and perfect it before he could go on to his more creative, "rule breaking" ideas of what art is. I think this is the case with language to a large extent. Otherwise, people would not understand each other. If i did not even know teh word "you"....i would not know that "u" meant you in the first place. So, when people have a good understanding of the language, and its rules, they can break them; but still have the ability to communicate and understand each other, therefore still maintaining the main purpose of its creation.

It is important to mention, that this is to some extent a generalization. Some people break the rules of language simply because they do not know them, or did not learn them. An example would be someone who picked up a language from the streets, from people who do not know the rules themselves. However, I think the fact that everyone else knows these rules, also gives these people the ability to break them, simply due to the fact that they would be understood.

Here is one of Picasso's more famous & unique paintings:

What is language?

Language does not simply say ideas, it creates ideas...

To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization.

To know a language, means to develop a capability to understand that culture's way of life, and therefore their way of thinking, which in turn changes the way that we think and our perceptions of the world. When one learns a new language his horizons are truly expanded. our awareness of a new outlook on life has potential to seriously alter our thought.

In a book called "Black skin, white masks" Franz Fanon examines the effect of language on colonized people. He believes that every colonized people, in other words, every people in whose soul an inferiority complex has been created by the death and burial of its local cultural originality-finds itself face to face with the language of the "civilizing nation;" that is, with the culture of the mother country. The colonized person adapts his standards to adopt the colonizing people's cultural standards. In doing so, his identity, and his mental boundaries that he has lived by his entire life by are profoundly shaken. He now has a new outlook on life. Once this man acquires the new language, he no longer feels at home among his people. He now feels like he is better than them, and does not want to be associated with their primitivism. He now faces a serious identity struggle. I would say that his ideas were definitely affected on many various levels because of language.

In the end of the day, whether from a cultural perpective or otherwise. Language is thought.

Presentations

I greatly enjoyed the presentations that were given by my fellow classmates. I think this was a really fun and engaging way to apply the concepts that we have learned so far in TOK to real life examples and situations. Hassan and Kiana's presentation about drugs was quite informative; it gave me insight into the reasons that people might turn to drugs to escape the reality that is infringed upon them. Although I now have a better understanding about the concepts and ideas behind the act, I do not really think that using drugs is the best way to discover ourselves or to become creative. I understand that the first time one uses drugs, one would feel this unique sensation that can no longer be repeated....but I actually think that turning to drugs to escape reality, discover ourselves, or awake our creative side makes us weaker. I personally believe that the power to escape this reality and our journey of self discovery should be something that comes from within, and not through chemicals that we inhale, smoke or inject. I think that the act of developing the adequate strength to escape this reality or to get in touch with a more spiritual, or to get to a deeper level of self understanding; and the perseverance that comes with that is part- a vital part in fact- of self discovery. Because if you think about it, its not really you, its the chemicals, and how they make you think/feel and act; if it was really who you are, you should be ab le to experience these thoughts without being under the effect of these chemicals. Nonetheless, i still see where the ideas, and the mentality come from.

The idea of meditation that was presented by Nastasja was one that appealed to me a bit more. I think that if one is able to reach that state, beyond the 'normal' or 'usual' ability of the mind and body, and if one is able to free himself form the constraints imposed by the two, then one has truly reached a higher level of thought and of self control and understanding. It is definitely more difficult to master though, and it might not work as well for most people, simply because of factors such as our expectations of what we should get out of the experience, this is an example of how this process is once again interrupted by our conscious thinking and of things and ideas that society instills and imposes upon us as individuals.

The presentation about the aboriginals in Australia was extremely interesting simply because it was something that i knew nothing about, so it was very exciting to get to know about a new way of perceiving life and what it means to a certain group of people....

The Truman Show

1. “We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented” Bearing in mind this quote from the film, what does this film teach us about perception? Consider our discussions surrounding the concept of illusion.

I strongly agree with this quotes, and i believe that it is perfectly illustrated through this movie. Truman is a man who really believes his world to be the real world. He grew up his entire life on a reality TV show, believing that his world was real, because that was what he was presented with his entire life. He had no reason to think or believe otherwise. Furthermore, he continues to believe so until he slowly begins to realize that some things don't fit in, at which point he slowly & reluctantly begins to question his world. We see that he doesn't directly assume that it isn't actually reality, for that is actually quite difficult to do. He realizes something going on, but he can't immediately figure it out (naturally.) Furthermore, the audience share his experience to a certain extent. At the beginning, we think that its all real, until we slowly begin to realize what is actually going on. We are very surprised when we see the size of the dome studio, at which point we are convinced that his entire world is literally manufactured. I think it is beyond our brains capability to question the information that it receives and the 'reality' that it is presented with. So the film basically teaches us that reality can in fact be subjective and is entirely based on the informaion that we are given. This movie exemplifies the fact that, what we perceive to be reality can be affected by external factors. More importantly it causes the audience to question their own 'realities' and wonder if there is more to it that what we do already know.

2. How does this link with the concept of our senses being the only link to the outside world?

Our senses are actually the connection between our brains and the outside world. We develop a perception of what our world is, based on the information that we receive from our senses. There might well be a bigger picture than what we do already know, but the reason that we do not question that possibility is due to the fact that we do not receive any information that insinuates it from our senses. At the end of the day, what we know and believe is limited by what our senses deliver to us. That is what we base our perception of reality on. In real life, there are people who believe that they have a sixth sense, those might be ones whose sense of feeling or intuition is stronger than that of the average person's. Often, they believe in a larger universe more strongly, simply due to the fact that they feel that they can feel it. In other words, they receive stronger information about that from their senses.

3. Give three real life examples where a person’s concept of reality is deliberately altered.

- Often, we believe certain things to be inappropriate for children for one reason or another. This is the perfect example of how reality can sometimes to be altered. A adults we consciously and deliberately choose not to inform children of somethings. Funny enough, to them these things aren't hidden, they simply do not exist. For example, often children do not understand the phenomenon of death, and they are never faced with it until they directly experience it through the death of someone they knew (even then they might not fully understand it) but the point is that prior to that point, to them, there is no such thing as death. They do not think about what happens after we grow...this is because of the limited information that we sometimes allow them to have. There are many other things that we do not tell them, which results in the fact that reality to an adult, is usually very different to what reality is to a child.

- We watch movies and read books knowing that they are not actually real. The authors and writers often make up these scenarios. But we are often so emerged in some movies and stories, and we relate so strongly and sympathize with the characters that we are willing to forget the fact that they are made up, and often use them for life lessons and inspiration. This concept is known as suspension of disbelief. There are many science fiction movies that are not meant to be realistic, and directors make the conscious decision to do that. They choose to alter our concepts of reality.

- The last example is so mundane that it might not even seem like one. The truth of the matter is, that as individuals,we often try to alter someone's perception of reality, almost on a daily basis. Think of every time you have tried to convince someone to do something for you, or tried to convince someone of your point of view. We often try to make others have a certain image of something...for example, as students, we often want our teachers to have a certain image of us that they view very positively. As a result, students often act very differently in classes than they do among friends. To a teacher, the reality is, that student X is a very serious person (because student X knows that this teacher likes serious students) Although, to this person's friends, s/he could be the most light hearted person. Examples such as this one are soooo common in our everyday lives.

The truth is, people almost always try to manipulate reality in some way, shape or form.

A Beautiful Mind

A Beautiful Mind is basically a biography about John Nash, who was a brilliant mathematician that eventually became schizophrenic. In his own mind, Nash had an image about how his life was. At the beginning we think that everything that is happening is real, but we then realize that it was all a part of his imagination. The people he sees and meets, are not seen or heard by others. But what I personally think is so brilliant about this movie is the way that the audience firstly thinks that everything is real. So to us, people he saw were actually there, they were reality. But when we learn about his schizophrenia, our idea of reality changes. We now think that this picture was all painted in his mind, and is not truly reality. This movie basically conveys the concept that reality is not one defined viewpoint. Reality is a concept that is often viewed as something standard and agreed upon. This movie examines how reality can be different from one person to another. At the end of the day, our reality is based on the information that we are given and choose to accept. It might well be that there is a whole new race of 'super humans' that live underground. Many people would respond to this saying that that is impossible..."no one lives there, and thats reality." But what is reality? We do not think an idea like this one, or many other things (aliens etc) are real because we have not found them or seen them. So to us, the reality is that no one lives underneath the earth. But does this really guarantee that there isn't? We don't really know, because our reality is very much limited by the information that we have. & even that can be different from person to person, as can be seen from this movie and many others such as Minority Report and The Truman Show.

Through your eyes

How do we view the world? I think most people don't really question the world or how our perspectives came to be. Most people's lives are so fast paced that they rarely have time to slow down and wonder. I would say that most people are realists. They believe their senses and believe that all the information that they receive is accurate. If they ever slowed down to think about it, they would quickly come to the realization that that is not the case. On the complete other end of the scale, there are the skeptics that question everything that the human race 'knows.' They believe that nothing is actually real, they doubt everything and look at nothing with complete certainty. The third way to look at things is called relativism. Relativists basically believe that we can know things, but what we know is restricted by what our senses tell us.

When we first started talking about these different ways of viewing our knowledge of the world, i automatically thought that i would be a relativist. I know that we cant believe everything, and i am aware of the problems of human perception; but on the other hand, i also think that our perception and our views are not 100% flawed. I believe that we can rely on our senses to give us somewhat reliable information, that we can trust, and base our lives upon. However, the more i began thinking about this, the more i began to realize that we (& me personally) cant exactly be categorized in this way. We are all realists when it comes to some things. I think that very few people would argue that the clothes that we are wearing are not really there, or are some sort of visual illusion, and that we are all naked in reality. At the same time, we are skeptical of some things, especially due to the fact that there is no clear distinction between skepticism and doubt. It is human nature to question or doubt new foreign ideas. We have previously explored this idea through examples such as Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Therefore, we all doubt some things. What these things are could be different from person to person, but i believe we all oppose or doubt at least one idea. This could range form the existence of ghosts to the existence of God. As for relativism, i think that it is the most applicable view that would help us make sense of the world around us; but at the same time, i think that we sometimes go to those extremes, especially if it was something that is more based on belief rather than knowledge.

Ghosts and the media

I think the answer would probably be yes. Most people have a very negative image of ghosts. Most ghosts that are shown in movies or even children’s cartoons are usually portrayed to be evil. I think this is why ghosts are so affiliated with fear and darkness. Once again, I think this all relates to fear of the unknown. Anything we cannot see or somehow sense is bad. That’s actually very common human behavior. We usually don’t like the idea of not knowing, or being in the dark. No one knows weather ghosts truly exist or not, or at least it cannot be easily proven. I think this is the main reason that ghosts are usually portrayed to be so negative in general. On the other hand however, there are some cartoons and TV shows that challenge this interpretation, some try to justify their existence, while others depict them as friendly and loving.