TOK ESSAY: How do historians and human scientists give knowledge meaning through story telling?
1. Giving knowledge meaning?
1.1. What is knowledge?
1.1.1. Knowledge is individual and very vast, it may be hard to define what exactly it is and its features
1.1.1.1. It may seem vague and abstract , but it probably has a place of origin and context - you just need to find it based on what you know and how you know.
1.1.2. As its subjective to the knower, for each person, there must be some parts that are crystal clear and very well defines - something or some concept they understand fully or well - but then each individual would have an area of knowledge which they struggle to grasp, or have never tried to understand at all. It may be a concept that they always find hard to understand - for e.g. Physics in the sciences, or a certain time in history where people acted a certain way that the knower cant fathom why - or it may be a topic that they never got exposed to - like rocket science!
1.1.3. Left on its own, its quite a vague topic, and thats why it needs to have a context and backgroud to give it meaning
1.2. What does it mean to give it meaning?
1.2.1. Giving it meaninf is to define it properly?
1.2.2. without a proper boundary, background or categorization, it can be hard to differentiate knowledge and make connections based on it.
1.2.3. its like looking at jumbled puzzle pieces? all the knowledge that you have it still there, but you can only make connections and make sense of the bigger, whole picture once all the pieces are separated,in their respective places and connected to their appropriate counter parts.
1.2.3.1. The more pieces you keep connecting, the more it starts to make sense and you can finally use it!!!
1.2.3.2. you cant just start making a sense of it when you look at 1000 different pieces, but if you simplify what you are looking for, you can start to make sense of it. For example - deducing that two pieces with similar shades of blue would probably go together
1.2.4. giving it context!
1.2.4.1. relating it to all your other knowledge!
1.2.4.2. You cant start building a puzzle unless you have ATLEAST a vague idea - if not full - of what you're building.
1.2.4.2.1. A blue piece can ve the sky or the ocean, but if you know that the puzzle has pieces that look like fish, or is an underwater scene, it is likely that it would be a water piece.
1.3. How does giving knowledge meaning differ between 2 AOKs?
1.3.1. HISTORY
1.3.2. SCIENCES
2. How does story telling differ between the AOKs?
2.1. What is considered a story in each?
2.2. How does delivery differ?
2.3. How does the purpose differ?
2.3.1. Sciences
2.3.1.1. to simplify and communicate with nonexpert audiences to make it easier for them to grasp a scientific concept
2.3.2. History
3. How does story telling give meaning to knowledge?
3.1. What does story telling entail
3.1.1. Story telling is like weaving pieces of information together to create a timeline of when, how and why each instance happened - it follows a particular structure, which take place over a particular time period and impact particular characters
3.1.2. It helps you understand all the knowledge presented to you better as you are able to connect each instance to the next. Each consequence can be related to the reason of it because of another action that took place
3.1.2.1. It can help you relate it to all your other knowledge/ experiences that you have in your life to understand it better
3.1.2.2. CAUSE AND EFFECT RELATIONSHIP
3.1.3. You are able to explain each action better because you understand why it happened
3.1.4. CAN BE VIEWED AS MANIPULATIVE THOOOOOO
3.2. It can be used as a simplification of a concept
3.2.1. relating a complex situation to an everyday one to teach morals !
3.2.2. Relating complex concept/action/understanding to a simple reasoning through a story to make the listener understand a reasoning behind an action
3.3. How do stories justify or support knowledge?
3.3.1. Just by providing a person with pieces of knowledge and information, the person wont be able to make sense of it at all.
3.3.1.1. Each instance/happening has VARIOUS perspectives, but a story helps you put it all in one piece, as it focuses on one or two perspectives, and relates the relevant information from those perspectives and what it meant to each party/side/individual, instead of giving a jumbled pile of info from all perspectivews
3.4. Make them a part OF the story itself so the person puts themself in that place (a change on perspective
3.4.1. listening about someone elses actions - its not easy to understand why they would do it. But when you put yourself in their shoes and understand their personlaity, chracteristics, situation and backgroud - you make sense of a situation (ITS EASIER TO INTERPRET)
3.4.2. INCREASES COMPREHENSION, INTEREST AND ENGAGEMENT
3.5. Can be slightly PERSUASIVE
3.5.1. you are creating a perspective for a person who's reading the story, and are therefore providing them with so much information and justification for each action that is taken, that it persuades or influences the reader. They'd think of all the background and context of the character (which they are isualising as themselves) and therefore find alll the actions as GOOD, not BAD.
3.5.2. You get to highlight the GOOD points - which are better and beneficial for the character whose perspective the story is from - and also put all the BAD points in a detrimental light (basically cherry picking).
4. Specific examples?
4.1. Sciences
4.1.1. Children's story books
4.1.1.1. explaining ecosystems with the help of personification * of animals and how they live together, help each other, survive off each other and depend on each other
4.1.2. Research paper
4.1.3. Mass media content
4.1.3.1. news articles on platforms such as BBC (more of narratives)
4.1.3.1.1. Vaccination articles
4.1.4. Psychology
4.1.4.1. A psychologist may use a story to understand the other person's thoughts
4.1.4.1.1. publishing such an article/book can help the readers relate
4.1.4.2. A criminal psychologist may use a narrative method to outline a criminal's thoughts
4.1.4.2.1. this would lead to the public understanding (NOT APPROVING) the timeline and cause of the crimes better
4.1.4.2.2. It can also lead to the solving of a crime, as you can predict the next step of the criminal
4.1.5. Big Bang Theory
4.1.5.1. how would you explain such a complex concept to a non-expert? they don't have the same clarity or knowledge in that field as a scientist
4.1.5.1.1. thus the scientist makes a story providing all the background to the reader, and then explains how a star was born, how it imploded and created the earth as we know it.
4.2. History
4.2.1. War
4.2.1.1. Highlighting the troubles and problems of countries (e.g. GERMANY) and its background,context, conflicts and other important info to make the reader/listener understand or make sense of all the decisions/actions made by the leader/government/power body, the public and all the other things like protests,climax, solution,etc.
4.2.1.1.1. The story could be told from one country's perspective and help the reader understand what THAT particular country went through, or from a different country's perspective - like USA - which joined in later in the war due their own set of reasons ( they were being disturbed/ wanted to help)
4.2.1.2. Creating a timeline - from where the conflict first started (1920s or the WWI) which lead to bigger problems (Hitler's rule, Nazis, Discrimination against Jews). This then lead to resistance - Protests,etc - and THE CLIMAX - the WWII (1939-45). Other characters were introduced - USA - and finally the solution was presented END OF WAR
5. Natural sciences
5.1. USED IN COMMUNICATION OF SCIENCES - NOT REALLY USED TO OBTAIN KNOWLEDGE
5.1.1. When scientists need to tell the media/public about sth, storytelling simplifies it
5.1.2. Stories wont really help in research and DATA collection that is used to obtain scientific knowledge though.
5.2. Its easier to get to people and make them understand than formal language - as non experts will get bored if they dont understand it!
6. History
6.1. wants to set a perspective
6.2. explain reasons for why it happened
6.3. Interpretation is really important for historians - as they were not actually present in the past, but are making sense of what they think happened by looking at what remains they have
6.3.1. In such cases, written records are some of the few evidences that remain - which may be presented in the form of a narrative/story from the writers point of view
7. CONCEPTS
7.1. Interpretation
7.1.1. One of the biggest factors- A story can relate pieces of info together to TOTALLY change the interpretation of an object/situation. (by providing reasoning and a valid structure)
7.2. Truth
7.2.1. They can transform disputable claims into indisputable ones(not by 100%), by providing proper reasoning,structure,and a cause-and-effect relationship between things AS EVIDENCE!! thus making people believe it further
7.2.2. It can also be used as evidence to CONTRADICT something that is widely believed or accepted by the same things mentioned above as it provides a perspective, reasoning and a clear timeline of what happened to make it easier to interpret, THUS MAKING IT MORE BELIEVABLE.
7.3. Explanation
7.4. Perspective
7.5. CUlture
7.6. Justification
7.6.1. Claims themselves cannot be considered as knowledge, but JUSTIFIED VALID ones can make it more believable. Stories have the power to do that
7.6.2. CAUSE-AND -EFFECT relationship provide a good justification in addition to a good structure
8. How does is it same?
8.1. Dinosaur?
8.1.1. a scientific phenomenon that occured in the past !