Senses: seeing

How do the 5 senses work? Pick 1 and find out about it and blog.

Out of the 5 senses, I picked seeing. Eyes are a very important aspect in our lives. Imagine living without eyes, a life without seeing. It would be difficult! So heres my information on how we see...

Light rays are reflected off an object and then enter the eye through the cornea. The cornea bends the light and passes it through the pupil.
The iris, opens and closes (expanding or contracting the pupil) to adjust the amount of light passing through.
The light then passes through the lens, which changes shape so it can focus the rays on the retina at the back of the eye.
The retina is a thin layer of tissue at the back of the eye that contains several tiny light-sensitive nerve cells called rods and cones. Cones detect colors and fine details. Rods allow the eyes to detect motion and help us see in dim light and at night. These cells in the retina convert the light into electrical impulses.
The optic nerve sends these impulses to the brain where the image is produced.

Interesting facts about the eyes:

• Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
• You blink your eyes about 20,000 times a day.
• Each of your eyes has 120 million rods, which help you see in black and white.

Here is a website with some interesting facts!!
http://www.visionhelp.com/facts.htm


=) Jennica

Pick one of your GCSE subjects. What sorts of ‘knowledge’ and/or ‘truths’ does this subject convey? Reflecting upon your personal experience, how did you acquire your knowledge in this subject? Was it in an experiential, propositional or practical manner? Was it in more than one way? Remember Calvin and his wisdom about rocks.

I believe one of the most intriguing subjects you could ever come across or have the advantage to be taught, is definitely Psychology. It is considered as a science, purely known as the 'science of the mind', and alongside Chemistry, Physics and Biology, it is very much related to trial, error, stumbling across answers or testing theories or mostly provable explanations, rather than replying on judgement or opinions that could be biased.

As for being related to science, it hold a desire upon certain individuals to require the 'definite and final answers' to be shown through 'evidence'. How these scientists acquire this evidence? Now that is the struggle (just as people have struggles with pronouncing certain words when learning new languages), as you may run a countless number of experiments, and don't find the answers that you truly need, only later discovering that the answers have found you instead! I was certainly in this position as well, being able to run complex experiments, and acquiring my knowledge through trial and error or the proving or disapproving of a hypothesis/prediction, quite the practical and experiential subject, as it involves yourself participating by trying to understand complex behaviours, as well as finding out new or unexpected information from the experiment through the participants.

Psychology is all about wacky experiments that dig deep inside of the brain for cues/clues to behaviour and why we behave in a certain way from other mammals, mental abilities and disabilities, how we learn, and incorporate many of our daily mental processes into life (and being able to cope with them!) Psychology also conveys the history of many famous psychologists that have previously run their own experiments and have found answers that psychologists in the modern day have manipulated further to find out more details about the human mind. A lot of Ethics are involved in psychology as well, in the prevention of deceit, bodily harm, or mental/physical/emotional distress.

Throughout my past two years of learning Psychology, it has been one of my favourite subjects, in allowing me to be able to research, explore and thoroughly understand the darkest corners of the human mind.

How does our 5 sense work?

Our senses are sight, smell, taste, hear, and touch. These senses play an important part in our lives. Without one of these senses, humans will gradually feel lonely and isolated in this world. Sense is a way of communicating. It allows us to understand and gain knowledge.

What is 'sight'?
Definition: an instance visual perception; anything that is seen; the ability to see; a optical instrument for aiding the eye in aiming; the act of looking; seeing or observing.
To me, sight is the most important sense out of the five. I tend to remember things better visually especially images that appeal to me a lot. For example, the scenes of Kenya; the sky, land and the people. I think that vision is the best and easiest way to communicate with other people as our eyes allow us to distinguish colors, shapes, expressions, emotions… etc. If you loose the ability to hear but if you can still see, you can identify what is happening that can't be denied.

Sense of Touch

Most – if not all – of us know that human beings have 5 senses. These 5 senses are out sense of sound, sight, smell, taste, and touch. Each sense has its own purpose to help us be aware of the environment around us. However, which of these senses are more important than others? That is a question to which different people have different opinions on. The main focus of this essay will be on the sense of touch.

Touch is the oldest and most primal sense. Our biggest organ, our skin, is not just for protection, but it is also in charge of exposing us to the sense of touch. Our skin let’s us feel the difference between a soft carpet and a hard floor. This is due to the 50 touch receptors for every square centimeter, together with the 5 million sensory cells on our skin.

According to scientists, we have 3 layers of skin, the outermost layer, the middle layer and the innermost layer. These 3 layers form the epidermis. Each of these layers has a specific function to perform.

The innermost layer is where new cells are produced by cell division. In the middle layer, there are living cells that are pushed towards the outermost layer, where they die and flatten. The outermost layer is made of dead cells. They wear off all the time, as they are replaced by new cells.

It is a known fact that a baby can actually die due to lack of touch. Also, that the amount of time a baby is touched also affects the size of the baby’s brain. A baby who is touched less will probably get a brain about 20% smaller than those who are touched a lot. It is also a scientific fact that babies that are touched more often grow up healthier and better than those touched less often. ‘Better’ in a sense that, babies who are touched frequently develop higher IQs than those that less often touched.

How do the 5 senses work? Pick 1 and find out about it (consult 3 sources) and blog.

Taste

Tell me!

As one of the imfamous senses, taste, formally known as gustation, intelinks with smell to help the brain create a beautiful perception of flavour, in which it separates an savoury item, into categories such as sweet, sour, spicy, salty and bitter.

As all humans on this planet know, you acquire flavour with the sensory organ called the 'tongue', in which receptor cells for taste are found, and is part of the central nervous system.

Neuroscientists and Psychophysicists are in close relation with studying the brain's response to signals sent from the tongue when a compound is detected. These special 'life scientists', have discovered regions within the tongue that are 'taste specific', as seen in the map of taste receptors below.Did you know?
A supertaster is a person whose sense of taste is signficicantly more acute than average! It has been clinically tested that Women, in the Asian, African and South American regions are amongst these top tasters. Although it may seem very 'cool' to have millions of taste buds crammed in what seems to be a rather small organ, it comes with the price of turning into a 'picky eater' due to the heightened taste of foods, such being able to taste the extreme bitterness of dark chocolate, even if it's mixed with other ingredients.

That tastes horrible!
Ah, the aftertaste! The persistence of a sensation of flavour even after the stimulating substance has passed, however, not all are pleasant, such as a person hating the long-lasting tuna taste in their mouth and his or her friends staying well away from his/her breath!

Factors affecting taste perception
Aging
Vision impairments
Hormonal Influences
Genetic Variations
Oral temperature
Drugs and Chemicals
Central Nervous System Tumours
Plugged noses

Any illnesses relating to taste?
Like any other sense, it comes with its weaknesses or illnesses that come along with it, such as ageusia which is the complete loss of taste (just like a man/woman who is blind, losing his or her sense organ, the eyes). Other illnesses relating to taste include hypogeusia (partial loss of taste), Parageusia (having unplesant tastes despite good food) and dysgeusia (having inaccurate tastes, such as being given a hot chili, and one can only be able to taste the sweetness of it instead of the spicyness etc)

How do the 5 senses work? Pick 1 and find out about it (consult 3 sources) and blog.

All five senses; sight, smell, taste, hear, touch, play an important role in all our lives. Without even one, people get lost in the world, for some only at first, but unfortunately for others, they feel lost for the rest of their lives. Those who get over the lost feeling, gradually learn to use their other senses for survival. The nerves in our nose, skin, tongue, eyes, and ears take in all of the different things around our environment. They bring all the different sights, smells, feelings, sounds, and tastes together and send messages to tell our brain what they are like. The brain then processes the information and lets us know what we are smelling, seeing, feeling, hearing, or tasting.

How do we smell?
Every time we breathe, air flows through the nasal cavity. The shelves of bones make the air flow down through the back of the mouth into the throat. Some air that flows into our mouths pass the olfactory organs. Odour molecules in the air will pass by and get stuck to the mucus in our nose. The sensory hairs sense the odour and transmit messages to our brain. Our brain, therefore knows the odour. The smell receptor cell is located high up behind our noses. The receptor is sensitive to chemicals in the mucus in our noses.

What disorders/diseases are associated with smell?
There are many smell diseases/disorders. One of them is Sinusitis. People of all ages can have Sinusitis. It is when there is an inflammation or infection of the air pockets on either side of and behind the nose. It is caused by viruses, fungi, and possible allergies. Another disease/disorder is phantom sensations. People of all ages also can have this. Phantom sensations are when there is presence of unpleasant or disordered tastes and smells. They can also be the presence of tastes or smells that others do not even perceive. Lastly, halitosis (also occurs to people of all ages) is when there are burning sensations in your mouth or nose. It can be a perception of bad breath.

Interesting fact:
Humans can distinguish more than 10,000 different smells (odorants), which are detected by specialized olfactory receptor neurons lining the nose.... It is thought that there are hundreds of different olfactory receptors, each encoded by a different gene and each recognizing different odorants.

Pick one of your GCSE or ESF Advanced Diploma (other than ToK) subjects. What sorts of ‘knowledge’ and/or ‘truths’ does this subject convey? Reflecting upon your personal experience, how did you acquire your knowledge in this subject? Was it in an experiential, propositional or practical manner? Was it in more than one way? Remember Calvin and his wisdom about rocks.

I think that Spanish is a very unique subject, just like all languages. The reason for this uniqueness is that it is based on simple memorizing what’s given to you, so you can use it to communicate to people in different forms i.e. orally, or by writing etc… As I mentioned above, this is obviously the case in all languages. This in turn makes it a type of practical knowledge, as you rely on teachers and textbooks to teach you everything you need to know about Spanish. However it can also be experiential knowledge, as you can go to Spain for a year or so and you will learn to understand and speak at least basic day-to-day Spanish. I don’t really think it is propositional knowledge, as you can find out facts about Spain and learn from them but to actually learn Spanish as a modern language would be more to do with practical and experiential knowledge.

I have been learning Spanish for 6 years now, and I have never been to Spain so I haven’t directly acquired my knowledge about this subject experientially. What I think counts as experiential knowledge is that I have done listening exams and listening tasks throughout. This is experiential knowledge because by doing the listening exercises, I have become more familiar with the way Spanish people speak i.e. their accent, their speed of speaking etc…I have also watched a Spanish movie or two which again is experiential knowledge as like with the listening tasks, I became more familiar with their way of speaking. All in all, I think I have learnt majority of my Spanish using practical knowledge, as I learnt Spanish from my Spanish teachers I have had throughout my time at KGV, as well as through textbooks.

•Pick one of your GCSE or ESF Advanced Diploma (other than ToK) subjects.What sorts of ‘knowledge’ and/or ‘truths’ does this subject convey?Reflecting upon your personal experience, how did you acquire your knowledge in this subject. Was it in an experiential, propositional or practical manner. Was it in more than one way? Remember Calvin and his wisdom about rocks.

I think Psychology is one subjects in which I've learnt from and can relate to personally. In psychology we learnt that children go through a few phases of forming attachments with their parents (mothers, in specific) Starting from the first month, they slowly form attachments, expressing that in different ways. I have a baby cousin, who went through exactly those stages, and I watched it all happen in front of my eyes. In our lesson, we were taught of psychologists who came up with these theories and they're experiments to prove their hypothesis, but it never means as much, unless you face it yourself!
I acquired this knowledge in an experiential manner.
In psychology, we were taught different ways of learning. An example I will give, is classical conditioning, whereby you learn a behaviour by associating it with other things. Pablo introduced this idea, and did an experiment on a dog. At first he presented food in front of the dog, and noticed the dog producing a lot of saliva. When he rang a bell, the dog didn't respond in any way. After presenting the food WITH the bell a few times, he noticed the dog would salivate on the sound of the bell ALONE.
This is true, as I have experienced this before too and this is very common in everyday life as well. If you are constantly faced with 2 items put together, eventually, they both cause the same reaction. It may sound funny, but its true. And it can all be proven, by experiencing, hence I aquired this through an experiential manner.

The subject that I’ve chose is Psychology. This subject allows you to learn about behaviors and how to communicate with other people. Other than gaining knowledge from the textbook, this knowledge allows you to apply it to real life. It is useful because we always meet new people and often needs to communicate with new people in a new environment. For example, I’ve learned about ‘learning’ which explains how we learn through the association between stimulus and response (classical conditioning) or learning by experience (operant conditioning). This also really allows me to think the way we learn and how do we know we learn something as what theory of knowledge is about.

The main idea in ‘learning’ in psychology is that we learn through classical and operant conditionings. Meaning, we learn by forming an association between stimulus and a response or we learn by experience. Other than that, punishment or reinforcement could affect whether that particular will be repeated.

The truth that this subject conveys is that it shows real information or attempts to their theory to suggest their thoughts. For example, in ‘learning’, a famous psychologist called Skinner support his theory that animals can learn behavior by rewards

Biology

To me, biology is about life and the living things that make up what we call ‘nature’. From the smallest organisms, to human beings, to the largest creature on the planet, biology tells us “what makes things tick”. Biology also tells us how and why organisms work in a particular way. Combined, these two make us aware of all the magnificent creatures around us. By studying biology, we acquire knowledge in three different forms.

Through biology, we gain experiential knowledge through direct or face-to-face contact with the subject. We perform experiments examining different specimens to understand their composition, their behaviour, their very essence. For example, what are present in a plant cell? By performing an experiment where you use a microscope and the inner epidermis of a plant (for example, an onion) soaked in iodine solution, you can examine the composition of the cell.

Another method to expand our knowledge in biology is from having practical knowledge of the subject. This is a skill or proficiency you develop about the subject as time passes. For example, in biology, you need to acquire specific knowledge in order to perform an analysis. Usually this knowledge comes from cumulative experience gained over time. Such skills include being able to distinguish between the different organelles (contents in a cell), the proper use of a microscope, etc. These skills are acquired through experimentation. In time, you become very proficient in doing the experiment, that you may say that “you just know it”.

The last form of knowledge is what we call propositional knowledge. Here is where your textbooks, friends, and teachers come together. This is knowledge of facts, or truths, or knowledge stated in propositions. Propositions, facts and truths come from many sources – friends, teachers, classmates, textbooks, and even television programs like National Geographic. So how do you know a whale is a mammal, and not a fish? That’s because textbooks, teachers, scientists and friends tell you so.

Biology is the study of living organisms. What knowledge we gain from it can be divided into 3 groups – experiential, practical, and propositional knowledge. There is something to gain with each kind of knowledge. But the real value comes when all three meet. Together they convey knowledge more effectively, a deeper understanding of the world we live in, and the creatures that inhabit what we call ‘nature’.

Hello class. I look forward to reading your posts. You have been asked to

•Pick one of your GCSE or ESF Advanced Diploma (other than ToK) subjects.
What sorts of ‘knowledge’ and/or ‘truths’ does this subject convey?

Reflecting upon your personal experience, how did you acquire your knowledge in this subject. Was it in an experiential, propositional or practical manner. Was it in more than one way? Remember Calvin and his wisdom about rocks.

After you have uploaded your ideas, please feel free to read your classmates views and discuss further if you wish.

Cheers

Mr Moore

Knowers & Knowing

1. 'Shall I teach you what knowledge is? When you know a thing, to recognise that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to recognise that you do not know it. That is knowledge.' (Confucius)
2. 'Where there is shouting there is no true knowledge.' (Leonardo da Vinci)
3. 'Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.' (Martin Luther King)
4. 'Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding.' (Francois de La Rochefoucald)
5. 'Education is learning what you didn’t even know you didn’t know.' (Daniel J. Boorstin)
6. 'It is very good for a man to talk about what he does not understand; as long as he understands that he does not understand it.' (G. K. Chesterton)
7. 'Those who are convinced they have a monopoly on The Truth always feel that they are only saving the world when they slaughter the heretics.' (Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.)
8. 'A very popular error – having the courage of one’s convictions; rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack upon one’s convictions.' (Anon)
9. 'There are many who know many things, yet are lacking in wisdom.' (Democritus)
10. 'The most important truths are likely to be those which… society at that time least wants to hear.' (W. H. Auden)
11. 'Never assume the obvious is true.' (William Safire)
12. 'The criterion of truth is that it works even if nobody is prepared to acknowledge it.' (Ludwig von Mises)
13. 'The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.' (Anais Nin)
14. 'If one is estranged from oneself, then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others.' (Anne Morrow Lindbergh)
15. 'Now there is one outstandingly important fact regarding Spaceship Earth, and that is that no instruction book came with it.' (Buckminster Fuller)
16. 'Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.' (Carl Jung)
17. 'The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.' (Eden Phillpotts)
18. 'The dumbest people I know are those who know it all.' (Malcolm Forbes)
19. 'Self-knowledge is like a garden. If it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested.' (Ghanaian proverb)
20. 'In times of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future: the learned find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.' (Eric Hoffer)
21. 'The more you know the less you understand.' (Tao Le Ching)