Sandeep s TOK Essay

Name: Sandeep.J.Ramanathan
Class: 11­D

“Some areas of knowledge seek to describe the world, whereas others seek to transform it”
When we do activities in our common day to day life, we tend to come across many areas of knowledge. There are a few that seek to describe the world, explain how the world had been created and how the people and their culture have evolved and there are a few that seek to transform the world and make it better place for living. When you take electricity in physics for example, it has transformed the world and made the world electricity dependent when compared to the people in the past. ARGUMENT 1:
When we observe our present scenario, we can see that technology has been the dominant area of knowledge which has lead to the rapid transformation of the world. MAIN EXAMPLE:
In the 1900’s people travelled a lot and waited for long hours to buy products and book tickets.
They used to move from library to library to gather information for a topic but at present, due to the invention of the internet, everybody sits at home and does everything. It is less time consuming, more systematic and is found to be a very effective way of dealing with things. Right now everything can be done on the internet which has given a major leap towards the transformation of the world and has hence become dominant over the other areas of knowledge. COUNTER ARGUMENT:
Even though technology has lead to a rapid transformation in development, it is the culture and the art that has helped them to reach such a position. Art is something which touches the emotions compared to technology. When we take a painting, different people interpret it in different ways and this leads to the transformation in moral science. Every technology goes through the art and that is how it becomes famous. If the public didn’t like the art of

communication, he/she would have never used it. Art and culture runs along with technology.
They both help define each other. ARGUMENT 2:
Can we interpret that the areas of knowledge that seek to transform the world are more important than the areas of knowledge that seek to describe it, when seen in our day to day life ? MAIN EXAMPLE:
When we take the area of robotics and electronics, it has developed drastically in the past decade.
It has transformed the world and it is because of one important subject and that is mathematics.
Mathematics has helped transform the world into a whole new perspective in which people can look at things. Now­a­days people use machines and computers to cure many diseases. It is mathematics that helped shape all this knowledge which has helped transform the world by developing such significant yet remarkable things. Because of this, Mathematics has become a very important area of knowledge for every person and he or she feels that mathematics is the most important subject to lead a good life. Math has also helped to develop software. A lot of theories which can’t be physically proved such as the god’s particle have been proved with mathematics. Mathematics is so important that, now­a­days if a theory has to be proved, the scientist must prove it experimentally and mathematically.

COUNTER ARGUMENT:
If historians were not there and if there was no knowledge of the past, no one would have ever knew about the world to actually come to a position where they can develop it. The only reason why robotics in medicine became a major hit was because scientists learnt from the past about what mistakes doctors and physicists made and they corrected their mistakes. In the past, there was slow production and that led to a lot of problems for the consumers but Henry Ford, owner of a car company understood this problem and he made a belt where a lot of workers could work quickly at the same model to increase the speed. This shows that without history which is an area of knowledge that describes the world, the world could have never been transformed by

mathematics to the way it is now. This shows that knowledge that describes the world is as important as knowledge that transforms it!

CONCLUSION:
There is not only one area of knowledge that can be dominant in transforming the world. All the areas of knowledge are interdependent with one another and each help define the other better.
Technology and scientific development make life simpler and easier and various art forms try to impart moral values and reasoning skills into us. To have a better life we need both. Like the mind and heart work together, science and art also go together in their own exquisite way! And, the areas of knowledge that seek to describe the world do not just end with a chronological sequence of what happens in our past but also paves our way to a better future. Areas of knowledge that seek to describe the world are as important as areas of knowledge that seek to transform it.