tok journal #2

2/22/2013

Ways of Knowing / Perception.

Answer the following question. Remember to use your own experience as a means for illustrating your points of view. DEADLINE: Sunday, Feb. 24

Given the partially subjective nature of sense-perception, how can different knowers ever agree on what is perceived? Do people with different cultural or linguistic backgrounds live, in some sense, in different worlds?

Enjoy. If you're really curious about how different our worlds have been thought to be by some theorists, depending on our language, culture (worldviews and experiences, even perception, are always mediated by language), check out the so-called Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.

18 Comments

Saperthan Sivasuthan

2/22/2013 09:39:52 am

Our surroundings is based on different cultural or linguistic backgrounds. We all think differently, like something differently, want to do something differently.
The different cultures learns different things with their contrasting of knowledge. I am a Norwegian- Sri Lankan Tamil, and I know how the both cultures differ from each other from my knowledge. It differs constantly through the food, cultural behaving, feasts, language and expectations. The language plays also an important role for the culture, and it is how cultures have been differed. Some language hear softly like French and English, and some others the opposite like Arabian and Somalian, but no one wants to disagree that their language sounds weird, and the language is also mostly regarded as the person's identity, and it plays an important role for everyone. I want to ask you something, "Why do we call a thing differently in a different languages, even we both see the same thing?" From this question you might understand that language can differ how we see different things in a linguistic background. Voiture or Car, is the same thing as we know, but it comes from different languages, like this words mean the same thing in French and English. So why is it different? And finally I want to tell you that language is one sort of our knowledge.

How does culture make sense in different worlds?
It is based on how your culture feel it is comfortable, some cultures won't have any tolerance, but in some cultures you can do more than what other cultures prefer to do, but why is it like that? It could be because of the geographical position, and where you in the world you live. Food plays also an important role, and what kind of food you prefer is based on your culture, since I know that in my culture, they are used to eat spicy foods than sweat foods, but in some European culture, they do not like to eat spicy food, but rather sweet food. In addition to this, the last thing I want to mention is feasts. We all is used to do it in a different way, and religion plays also an important role in many factors how these feasts are so different from its cultures and languages.

saperthan sivasuthan

2/22/2013 09:40:47 am

is a feast*

Yuri ( Zheng Ge )

2/22/2013 10:39:22 am

In my opinion, I think culture is a background knowledge and what suits one’s way of thinking( I mean like we learn what objects and symbols belong to ' our people' and when we see these symbols I recognize them as my own). Language is a way or a tool of how people understand each other. For instance, some gestural movements could mean different things in different culture. When you shake your head in you home country, for me, like in China, it will means that I deny something. However, if you shake your head in Indian, it kind of you agree with something. There is no wrong or correct, it just because of the different culture. I also think culture really have a big role in the perceptual process because sometimes you don’t feel comfortable when hearing, seeing, or smelling things that you are not used to. I think that is one of the proof that culture do have a role in the process. From what I believe, people with different culture doesn’t mean that they have their own different world. It’s just that they have different ways of thinking, different ways of learning, understanding, and also different ways of expressing their feelings. But any culture or linguistic backgrounds wouldn’t make anyone have their own world, because any culture can still be understood by everyone because of language. In my viewpoint, different knowers can agree on what is being perceived by explaining themselves to each other. People with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds do live in the same world but they experience things specific to their culture and location as well as general things experienced by all people. Even though we face a problem that there are thousands of language we have, but there is something that everybody just will understand,for example,we will still be able to communicate by using our body language.

Sabina Lenskaya

2/22/2013 12:28:50 pm

No one can be sure he sees, hears, tastes, and feels the same things in the world as others do. At some point person questions himself is he seeing it “the right way”. The feeling that the perception is not trustworthy comes from the need to describe the world to others. Communications reveals many weak sides of our ability to fully describe what we experience with our senses. For example, our eyes give us the greatest amount of information about the world, but we hardly can make another person see what we did only by describing the experience. The reason is the amount of details and our emotions, which affect our speech. The person who listens to the description is more influenced by the emotions in the speech. However, the main problem lies in the fact he is made to see what he hears. When such a contradiction appears, people start to feel uncertain if they have the same perception of the reality as others do. There is a game, in which a person should describe an object or an event briefly and the participants need to guess what he is talking about. When the agreement is reached they announce the answer. If they guessed right the speaker gets no points, if wrong then he gets the point. This game is an example how different people agree on what the other one percepts. They often get it right, so it shows that it is possible to percept the world in a similar way. This game varies through the countries, and since many archetypes are similar throughout the world it is possible to play in it with people of different nationalities. People face with different things such as weather, clothes, food depending on the part of the globe they live in. So people from US would react differently on Chinese culture then people from Taiwan would. Even though everyone sees, hears and tastes the same things there, they react on them from their own perspective based on cultural experiences. So in some way, everyone lives in the world he is most used to and reacts with surprise on worlds of others. Therefore, the question here is not how everyone sees, hears, tastes or feels the world, but how they react on what they percept.

Alicia Ordoñez

2/23/2013 04:42:42 am

In fact, they will never completely agree on what they perceive. The way we perceive the world is based on our senses. Our senses develop as we grow up and are influence by every little detail of our lives, since we were babies. Our childhood plays a very important role on the way we perceive the world because it is when we experience everything for the very first time. I am sure that we all remember the first time we did or tried something new, it is unforgettable. During our childhood is when we are building our own world by touching, feeling, tasting, seeing, hearing... and we will never stop building it. There is so much to do and try out there. We will also change our mind about things that we didn’t like in the past, as a reason of a bad experience or a bad memory, but then someone encourages you to try it again and you might like it, even thought you had a bad memory of it. Actually, our world is built by memories and images. Everyone has been raised on a different way and has passed through different experiences. At the end, you will never find someone who will agree with you on everything that we perceive but you may find someone who perceives the world in a very similar way as you do. Maybe because you have a past in common or because you passed through similar experiences… who knows?
As I was saying, the way we are raised, our roots, our culture and background determinates our way of seeing and perceiving the world. So yes, people with different cultural or linguistic backgrounds live, in some sense, in different worlds. I mean, it is obvious. We are the living example. EF is the living example. Chinese people see in a different way than Norwegians the fact of coming to NY to study because, as my Chinese friend explained me one day, here they have much more opportunities of being successful. It is also expensive and they have to travel a long way. However, the Norwegians come here with a scholarship, and then they continue their studies in their home country, where they have lots of opportunities of being successful. They were raised in different countries, one richer than the other, so they have different thoughts about coming here. Ones appreciate it more than the others

Tu Hoang

2/23/2013 08:51:38 am

The way of perception
In my opinion you cultural background influences you way of perception because every culture has its own tradition in every things e.g food.
Let us take the example of food because I think it is the best example to differ your sense perception. Every culture has their own food , in China or Vietnam for example it is normal in some region to eat dogs but in Europe it is mocked or discussing to eat dogs because in Europe dogs are your best friends. Your learn it from the beginning that dogs are your best friend in Europe. But I think in every culture has the same rules for perception. In every culture it is bad to kill another person because it is rule to live in a society.
Another point of another of perception is our language. I raised up with 2 different languages Vietnamese and German. If I want to translate something from German in Vietnamese it sometimes does not make sense at all. But every language has their similarities. I think this is necessary for communicate.
My dad and I went to Paris and took a cap my dad could not talk English or French at all but he was able to talk with the driver it was maybe the funniest thing that I saw in my life but one of the most impressive things too because I thought about that and I think if you are able to use your body you can communicate with everybody on the world.
Every culture has their differences but also their similarities which make us able perceive thing in the same way.

Arthur Yeremenko

2/23/2013 01:01:40 pm

Each of us perceives world in a unique and different from the others way. All the things that we see, hear, touch or even smell to some extend add up to the image of the world that we build in our heads. As we all come from different places, born in different times and have different experiences (even with the things that we had in common), we see world in the way that is very specific to us. Besides perceiving different things, we also interpret them in various ways. This means that we can never be certain that when we talk to someone they really understand what we are talking about. In fact, most of the time we talk about quite different things. My point of view is that it happens partially because of the language, which, spoken or written is the main medium through we exchange information with each other. While using the language, we put all the information we associate with the word just in one or only a few words and don’t explain the entire context. Most of the things that we associate with that word are lost and there is nothing more than the basic concept behind it. So whenever I say a word, you visualize it in a different way. For instance, I can say that I like mountaineering. However, when I talk about a mountain, what you and I see are two different things. I grew up in the city, which is surrounded by mountains and have been to many other mountains around the world. However, you might be coming from a place where there are no mountains at all and you have no idea what I am talking about. Or maybe you have been mountaineering too (even in the places), but you had a different experience because of the countless factors that affected your visit. Therefore, it is almost impossible for people to look and interpret things in the same way, and what is more, it is not only about different knowers and their visions. I am quite confident that Arthur fifteen years from now will see almost everything differently from the Arthur that I am now. As if this is not enough, let’s not forget that neither present Arthur nor future one can be 100% certain in what he perceives. Additionally, I can mention to make it clear that it is impossible to really agree on what is perceived, is that even if we see the same things our reasoning skills will make us react to even absolutely the same things in a different way.

All of the things above make me think that the real question is “to what extend can we agree what is perceived?” There is no universal answer for this. I believe, however, that if things such as age, nationality, gender, social group and some others are similar between the people, chances are they understand each other in a much clearer way.

Simonberry (Haotong Wang)

2/24/2013 12:44:12 am

Background Depends Ways of Knowing / Perception
In this world, there are lots of ways of knowing, make different opinions, thinks and different things happen. Until now, we cannot say which one is correct or which one is incorrect because different background and society makes people have different thinking ways.
For example, Almost Chinese students do not really like raise their hands and answer teacher’s questions or ask some questions to teacher during the class because we think that is kind of the defiance, to challenge teacher’s authority, to find the problem to teachers. So, in almost Chinese classes, when teacher is teaching, everybody just take the notes and remember the way to save the problem or just remember the knowledge. In the western countries, almost students like talking during the class. They like answering the questions, asking the questions to get more information, or discuss in their group, to find the way to save the problem. These two ways both are working in the world, we could not say which one is correct or which one is incorrect. Eastern countries are kind of conservatism and western countries are very open, these two different societies, make people get different education, have different way to get knowledge. However, they both have positive and negative part, Chinese students have very solid basis for knowledge that from their hard working, remember the notes and knowledge from their teachers. Western students have very good imagined, they can think about different ways to solve the problem, different opinions to think one thing, to get new and interesting ideas. Every coin has two sides, in another side, Chinese students are not really good at imagine and eastern students do not have really solid basis, especially in math.
These different cultures also make people have different perceptions. Another example is from religion. In Buddhism, we believe the good heart of the people at the beginning, and we have preexistence and afterlife that means people have the life before you come to this world an when you die, you will get a new life, is the cycle and never changes. So, why somebody was born in poor people’s family and somebody have very expensive and rich parents, it depends your action, do badly things or nice things. In Christian, people believe they bring the sin come the world, so they should pray I the church, hope god excuse them. They also believe when people die, they will go to heaven if they believe god and do nice things, and somebody will go to hell after they die because they make so many badly things. These are absolute different perceptions to life from people, we can not say which one is correct or which one is incorrect because everything that they believe and thinking, have their reason and principle.
In this wonderful world, there are different ways of knowing and perception, it depends your background, include your nationality, religions, family and other else.

Dennis

2/24/2013 06:16:58 am

Everyone knows the world differently. Some of them were born in different times, some have diferent cultures and different beliefes. Everyone has it's own understanding of the world.
In my opinion we are using information differently, so for different people different things mean differently. Some people interpret not like everyone. I think that sometimes people can agree what is percieved, because of language, culture, place of living and etc. Cultures are teaching different things. One culture believe in god, another in buddha, another in Egypt Gods, people are unique, that is why we precieve the world differently.

Claudia Rey

2/24/2013 06:17:23 am

Anything that we see, or we feel or we hear , anyone is going to perceive it the way we do.
Each person is different , it depends on the culture, religion , ways of thinking… each person perceive what surrounds them in a different way than another.
Of course it’s possible that different knowers agree on what they perceive, but that is more likely to happen if both have the same beliefs.
The people that have different backgrounds, have a different perception of the world.
In our everyday life, we have examples, we live in an international school where a Norwegian can see a problem in a different way than a Chinese of Spanish person do. This way I agree and confirm the statement which says people with a different culture and background live in different worlds.

Yura ( Tien Dung Nguyen)

2/24/2013 06:48:22 am

Perception and cultural background are connected with each other. Culture is different in every countries. Sometimes it can be similar, but mostly it is different. For example, the way of greeting in different countries are different. So let take a greeting difference. For example in Korea people have to bow; it is the traditional Korean greeting, although it is often accompanied by a handshake among men. To show respect when shaking hands, support your right forearm with your left hand. Korean women usually nod slightly and will not shake hands with Western men. Western women may offer their hand to a Korean man. Bow when departing. Younger people wave (move their arm from side to side). In countries such as France or Russia the greeting between man and woman is kissing each other cheeks. Men are shaking their arms and woman are also kiss each other cheeks.
Another one would be the language, because it is my own experience. I am Vietnamese and Russia and I speak both of these languages frequently, plus I am studying English. That’s mean I can communicate with everybody, who speaks these languages. But my parents can’t. When we were in UK. My parents can not speak English at all, but they use to communicate by saying something in Vietnamese or Russian and showing by fingers. That was vey nice to watch it and after that I just realized that everybody can talk with each other even they do not know something.
Like I said if you do not have the same culture, but something in common. Like our activity, we can easily communicate, by using our perception.

Benjamin Oh

2/24/2013 09:01:32 am

I think people with different cultures and languages live in the different world. Even if people have the same perceptions based on the subjects, it can be understood differently because of their different cultures. The gesture can be really good example for it. Making a circle with hands can be one of it. In Korea, if you make a circle with your hands, it means "okay", or "I got it". However, in some country such as Brazil, you must not do that motion because it means "f*** you", which is really humiliated word. Also the belief of the certain culture makes different too. The number is the most common examples of it. In Asian countries which usually were influenced by China, number 4 is the number of death so most of them think that 4 is harmful. It is because pronunciation of 4 is the same as that of death in Chinese. In fact, in Korea, 4th floor in the elevator is represented differently because the producers of elevators think that 4 is not good for them. On the other hand, Europeans who usually believe in Bible think that number 13 is really bad number because 13 is related to Jesus's death. In fact, there is even a horror movie called "Friday The 13th." However, number 4 is nothing for them while 13 is nothing for most Asian people.
In addition, people have tendencies that they hate something that they are not used to. For example, Chinese people love food called Tufu. One of the tufu smells a lot but because Chinese people eat them frequently they don't realize the strength of the odors. However, other countries' people have never smelled them before so when they smell them, they reacted awfully. For instance, in this Lunar New Year, a lot of Chinese-spoken students in EF ordered that tufu. They enjoyed it but not for others because the awfully strong smell was full of the hallway. A lot of foreigners actually suffered to go out of the hallways.
Therefore, my whole point was that it is true that every people has different understandings even if they perceive the exact same subject because of their backgrounds such as culture and language.

Emily Huang

2/24/2013 12:08:11 pm

The cultural or linguistic backgrounds have a great influence on how everyone sees this world. Everyone has different values, different point of view, and different ways of judging things because of that. Our value is based on our cultural and linguistic backgrounds and our own experiences, so everyone's value differs. Then how can people with different values agree upon something? The cultural backgrounds might be different, but for the big concepts of the values might not differ that much. For example, no matter how different each culture is, we all value our lives. Also, for some countries that speak the same language, the linguistic backgrounds are not that different. There might be some slight differences, but in general, it is the same. Looking at the big picture, we would all agree on the basic values. The experiences that we have been through would also determine our value. Similar experiences would lead to a somewhat similar point of view. The cultural or linguistic backgrounds of course causes different perceptions. Every different culture and language has its own background and that is what makes all of them different. For example, in English- speaking countries, calling elder people "Mr." and "Mrs." or even "Ms." is considered basic manners, while in Spanish- speaking countries, that would be considered too polite. Despite all the differences in the culture and language though, we are still living in the same world.

Lucia

2/24/2013 12:27:12 pm

I think that the way we perceive things have to do with the place we come from. For example, I grew up eating spicy food, but when I moved to a different country when I was little people didn't there and thought it was very strange. Out background are very important for our growth as a person. If you grew up in a religious family the chances are that you will see things differently than if you grew up in a non-religious family. Since we were little we associate images with words, no matter where we go or what language do you speak, so if an american and an italian see the same thing, they are probably thinking about the same thing, but in a different language, it's just a way of expressing their feelings and their way of thinking, which is different. I think it also has to do the experience that we have, of our senses, maybe someone hasn't seen something that I have , and I associate that image with a word, and here comes our cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
It's interesting how even though in a way, language is a barrier,( if we are perceiving things the same way as someone else, but we don't realize because of language) ,some cultures from the past had similar thoughts about life, they had the same approach and had the same values, so we can see that even though we have different cultural or linguistic backgrounds, we are more similar than we think we are.

Hanne Grotle Nore

2/24/2013 03:07:37 pm

In our world it is impossible to be absolutely certain about something because our senses are limited. It is also impossible to know if we see, smell, feel, taste or hear the same things. However, we recognize the same because we have categorized this particular thing we sense in the same category as other human beings. Humans have a peculiar need to categorize everything and I think this need comes from the uncertainty of our senses. One´s perception of the world is pieced together by cultural background, the people in one´s life, knowledge and much more, this is why one´s perception of the world is so subjective. Our senses are a limitation because we have knowledge about so much that we cannot see with our eyes or comprehend with our minds. The fact that we can never know how our fellow human being´s perspective on the world is is dizzying. A good example is the way we look at colors; our minds register the color of an object faster than we can understand, however, I can never be sure that my perception of red is equal to any others. I have simply learned that this color category is called red, but the image others have might be another color. I may see red and you might see blue, but the color is called red for both. Perhaps there is no color at all.
Everyone have their own perception of the world and that view will continue being subjective. However, people from the same cultural and linguistic backgrounds might share views that are somewhat more similar than the ones that don´t share this. The sharing is a result of opinions, state of mind, interest and beliefs that can be more similar for people from the same culture. In addition, people with the same linguistic abilities can more easily share their perceptions and views with each other. I think knowers can agree on what is perceived because of common knowledge and ability to categorize phenomenons so that they can be considered the same.

Tan Kwan Shieh

2/24/2013 11:45:45 pm

For me, different cultures have their own ways of thinking and perceiving information and how they see something. I believe that different cultures have their own believes and from what I think, these believes have no right or wrong. If there was a right believe and that the believe of another culture as most of the time they are different and in their own situations the believe is the most rational. From culture to culture, I do believe that even though they have different believes, they still believe in the same things like math and science.

In order for all the cultures to believe in the same thing, communication among cultures is the most crucial part. It is important that there is discussion among the cultures, or each culture will just have their own way of thinking. Common knowledge will still be the same among cultures as whatever you believe, we all know that our solar system has a sun. Somethings are just true and cultures must just accept it.

Felipe Mindermann

2/25/2013 08:21:41 am

In my opinion, culture plays a big role in believe, and with different culture comes different belief. They all have their own way of thinking, and not that the communications between different cultures would be impossible, it is just difficult with the differences.
Cultures have their own way of thinking and believes, but we can not declare these as right or wrong. Gestures, emotions, words with pronunciation- everything could get interpreted differently in other cultures, and this is what makes the communication between them so hard. From different places on the earth, other people have other opinions about your belief specific.

Anmol Patel

6/14/2013 12:21:43 am

I believe that the base of the vocabulary in all languages remains almost constant. The basic forms of expression remain the same and hence the way you perceive most things also remains the same. However when comparing a native language to a foreign language, the switch between languages plays a vital role. In the native language, perceiving and acting plays a simultaneous role but in a foreign language, we first perceive and after careful consideration and evaluation, we act or speak. Moreover, I believe language would also act as a barrier when trying to communicate a kind of experience. For example, an Indian fluent in both his native language and French would certainly have a different description of his or her experience of the city Paris compared to a person native to France. The fact that two languages also carry cultural and regional connotations cannot be overlooked and these are what make the perceptions of things different when switching between two languages. Therefore I strongly believe that the extent to which a person perceives things differently when switching between two languages is significant however this significant widens even more when trying to communicate about that perception over merely experiencing it.

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