Cube presentation IB TOK

[cuberookie]

Hi everyone, i'm a cuber from HK and also am a student doing IB diploma programme (IBDP), there's a subject called Theory of Knowledge (TOK) and we are to do a presentation on it. generally people do international events with controversy to it and 'theory of knowledge' and 'ways of knowing' but i want to do a ppt related to the rubiks cube, i have some ideas on what the topic would be but am worried that it isnt a 'TOK' presentation, this question is generally directed to people who also take ib and TOK, any suggestions to what i could do my presentation on?

(i've thought of 'how do we know the rubik's cube is actually hard?')

 

[sneaklyfox]

Could you not check with your professor whether the topic is suitable?

 

[Chree]

I think it would be very difficult to link Epistemology and the Rubik's Cube in a meaningful way. You couldn't replace "Solving the Cube' with "Baking a cake", and as far as TOK is concerned, there's probably no difference there.

Knowledge is 'justified true belief', epistemology being the search for that, you may be able to discuss how it is that we know what the Rubik's Cube is. So when you start asking questions like "How do we know the Rubik's Cube is actually hard?"... well... is it? It can be learned through systems of recognition. People that haven't learned these systems may believe that it's Hard, but that belief may not necessarily be justified if they haven't made any serious effort to learn a system for solving it. Most people here would probably find the cube quite easy at this point. They could be justified in saying "The cube is not hard". Or, as some philosopher could say at this point... are they?

Besides that, if you really wanna do this (which I still think would be difficult to do)... I'd recommend either trying to use the cube as an analogy for Knowledge, or to apply TOK to How we Know things about the Cube. Since many of the things we know about the cube are mathematical, you could take a foundationalist approach. But because the cube itself is such a complex emergent thing, any option might be an overreach.

 

[PenguinsDontFly]

Yeah just ask tok teacher. Cant wait to take tok in g. 11. Few years.

 

[Hypocrism]

Having done the IB, I'm sure you could make something up for TOK and spin it to cover cubing. How about:

-How do we know what God's number is on a 3x3? (here you would be talking about the algorithmic/inductive/mathematical ways that we can (and have done) narrow down possible ranges for a value. This is reasonably similar to how we have a confidence interval in science, but you could discuss the differences between the two ways of knowing. I quite like this one actually.)
-How might we find out which mainstream speedcubing method is the fastest? (This would be about subjective knowledge, and how we can try to compare things objectively when there is a lot of subjectivity involved. This would be very philosophical and quite suitable, if you can come up with enough content)

 

[Dene]

The only thing I can think of is comparing the algorithms we use to methodology used in scientific research. i.e. following a set procedure to uncover a solution.

 

[GuRoux]

yea im in year 12 and just started the IB course, not sure how many people like tok, can be quite boring at times, a little bit depends on the teacher

theory of knowledge seem pretty boring to me. doesn't seem like there is much to it.

 

[cuberookie]

Could you not check with your professor whether the topic is suitable?

actually, i did ask my teacher but then as he isnt really familiar with the cube, he wouldnt really know what i could discuss or any questions i can ask, i think my main aim is to also try and educate teachers/friends about the cube because i think im the only cuber in my school

 

[cuberookie]

The only thing I can think of is comparing the algorithms we use to methodology used in scientific research. i.e. following a set procedure to uncover a solution.

sounds pretty cool, might do this one, ill have to double check with my teacher first though, thanks for the suggestion!

 

[cuberookie]

Having done the IB, I'm sure you could make something up for TOK and spin it to cover cubing. How about:

-How do we know what God's number is on a 3x3? (here you would be talking about the algorithmic/inductive/mathematical ways that we can (and have done) narrow down possible ranges for a value. This is reasonably similar to how we have a confidence interval in science, but you could discuss the differences between the two ways of knowing. I quite like this one actually.)
-How might we find out which mainstream speedcubing method is the fastest? (This would be about subjective knowledge, and how we can try to compare things objectively when there is a lot of subjectivity involved. This would be very philosophical and quite suitable, if you can come up with enough content)

both sound pretty interesting and i think i might end up doing one of the two, but im not too clear on some of the theories behind this, eg how god's number was calculated (i only take STD maths and my teacher has forbidden me to do my IA on the cube as she said it is extremely complicated) I also dont really understand (forgive me for being thick) the part about a confidence interval in science, could you please explain more? thanks a lot