Good morning teachers and fellow students.

Today, for my TOK presentation,

I will be discussing the inaccuracy of the creation of knowledge.
The real-life situation I will be examining is a sexual assault case evaluated by
Julia Shaw. According to an article written by Emma Bryce for WIRED on 22 July
2017, Julia Shaw, a criminal psychologist, became involved in solving a case related
to two women who were supposed sexually assaulted by an older female relative in
approximately 1975. However, given the peculiarity of the assaulter, the sudden
recollection of these repressed memories forty years later and the shared memories
between the sisters, Shaw concluded that this account was highly unreliable, and
may have been a false memory.
At the bottom of the ladder of abstraction, my real life situation can be
generalised to include all cases of sexual assault. This can be further generalised to
include all instances of crime and subsequently all misdeeds. This can be further
generalised to include all errors since misdeeds are the result of an error of
judgement. Finally, at the top of the ladder of abstraction, errors can be generalised
into inaccuracy, which is the topic my knowledge question is concerned with.
Consequently, my knowledge question is “to what extent is the creation of
knowledge inaccurate?”
When Shaw first received the case, she noticed several characteristics of the
victims' recount that caused her to doubt the validity of their claims. Given the forty
year gap between the supposed crime and their recount and how the perpetrator
was female in their recollection, despite how most sexual assaulters are male, it
raised suspicions of how reliable their recount was. However, the reasoning behind
Shaw’s suspicions was based on her research into false memories as a criminal
psychologist and pre-existing trends of such cases. While such reasoning is mostly
accurate, it does not account for anomalies, so her evaluation may not be completely
reliable.
My knowledge claim is "Some ways of knowing are inherently superior to
others when considering the breadth of their usefulness and reliability." To discuss
this, I will be examining this in regards to reasoning and emotion.
Reasoning can be divided into three types - inductive, deductive and
abductive. Inductive reasoning is concerned with applying universal truths to specific
situations and is often used in mathematics, especially when applying formulas to
solve specific problems. Deductive reasoning is concerned with creating universal
truths from specific situations. Abductive reasoning is akin to theorising and
hypothesising - it is concerned with finding the cause for an effect. Deductive and
abductive reasoning are often used in the natural and human sciences for different
purposes. Deductive reasoning is used to achieve conclusions from the data
gathered during experiments and studies, whereas abductive reasoning is often
used to form the hypotheses for experiments and studies.
However, each type of reasoning also has its own inherent flaws. For
instance, inductive reasoning often uses trends or patterns to examine specific
occurrences. While this is mostly accurate, it also means that it cannot account for
anomalies, of which I will expand on later. Deductive reasoning is similar - the
suggested universal truth or generalisation is only created using examples that the
knowledge creator is aware of. As a result, there is always the possibility of an
exception that could negate the validity of the claim. Alternatively, the knowledge
created by abductive reasoning can be subjective - despite how evidence can
support claims made through abductive reasoning, there is almost always an
alternate explanation that will have at least slight validity until one is fully proven.
An example of this is a problem I encountered when studying complex
numbers for Mathematics. Recently, I started to study complex numbers and I
encountered two formulae which link imaginary and real numbers together. These
two formulae are Euler’s identity and Euler’s formula. Using these two formulae, it is
possible to solve this problem - finding the value of i^i, “i” of which is the square root
of -1. Intuitively, this seems preposterous - how could you raise an imaginary number
to the power of an imaginary number? Well, if you use these two formulae, you get a
surprisingly elegant solution - e^(-π/2). And e^(-5π/2). Aaaaaaaaaaaand e^(-9π/2)
etc. The point is, i^i has infinitely many solutions, which can be expressed like this.
Once again, intuitively, this seems incredibly contradictory - how could a finitie
expression like i^i not have a finite number of solutions? However, if you work this
out the whole way through, you get this solution, so through reasoning, this makes
sense. Consequently, the principal issue is whether to have faith in this knowledge
created through reasoning - of which forms the basis of mathematics as an area of
knowledge - or our intuition, which is known to be unreliable and inaccurate.
In contrast, emotion is highly subjective - it is unique to the individual. Emotion
acts like a sixth sense and is instinctive - it is not about proving, it is about feeling.
Because of this, knowledge created about a single concept, idea or object using
emotion can be highly varied and is more personal than the shared knowledge
created by reasoning. As a result, it is nearly impossible to use emotion to perform
objective analysis. This is why knowledge created through reasoning is so widely
accepted, while emotion is not.
As an example, consider the area of knowledge ethics. One of the central
debates in ethics is whether something doing good or something feeling good takes
precedence. While both are significant, in many situations emotion takes
precedence, as our moral compasses are often governed by emotion.
My counterclaim is "All ways of knowing have flaws, thus no one way of
knowing is superior to any other." To discuss this, I will be exploring this viewpoint
through language and memory.
Language is irrevocably valuable to the creation and distribution of
knowledge, including the transformation of personal knowledge into shared
knowledge. However, the central issue with language with regards to objectively
conveying information is that it is inextricably linked to emotion, because of the
positive and negative connotations many words have. For example, consider the
words terrorist and freedom-fighter. These two words are used to describe the exact
same idea, but have VERY different connotations and are used from different
perspectives. For instance, to a member of ISIS who supports their cause, ISIS
members are freedom-fighters, actively fighting against the system for what - in their
opinion - is a brighter future. However, from an outsider’s perspective, ISIS members
are terrorists, actively seeking to destroy societal structures to create a world akin to
their own desires. This means that knowledge conveyed through language is open to
interpretation, and the resultant knowledge can be very subjective.
Similarly, memory - along with language - allow knowledge to persist through
time. However, while memories may seem inflexible, they are actually highly
complex and malleable. For example, memories can change as you age or as your
worldview or ideology changes. They can even change through constant suggestion.
Emotion can also play a massive role in how memories are formed. In particular, you
would remember an event differently if you were angry during the event rather than
happy - it’s highly subjective.
As an example, consider the trigger warnings Harvard law students request to
be used during lectures involving the discussion of sexual assault. These trigger
warnings are an emphatic and intuitive response to the trauma suffered by sexual
assault victims, and are used to warn sexual assault victims of content or
discussions that may trigger traumatic memories. However, psychological research
papers into PTSD suggest that the exact opposite is true - that trigger warnings not
only stunt the personal growth of sufferers of PTSD due to paranoia, but rather
encourage exposure to discussions about sexual assault to aid them in personal
growth and to loosen the grip their PTSD has on them. Alternatively, you could argue
that because reasoning is only capable of objective analysis, it seems paradoxical to
consider an objective analysis of personal growth reliable, as personal growth is
emotional by nature. Hence, because they are both flawed, this question arises -
should we have faith in reason or emotion and intuition?
Despite this counterclaim being a perfectly valid argument, I disagree with the
principle that all ways of knowing are equal. For instance, the reason why reasoning
is highly regarded when creating knowledge is because it is mostly independent of
the spontaneity of opinion and emotion. Consequently, it is not heavily influenced by
subjectivity, and the diversity of contradicting knowledge about a single concept is
relatively limited compared to other ways of knowing, hence why it is used in the
areas of knowledge of mathematics and the natural and human sciences. On the
contrary, emotion is used in a very different capacity. Because it’s so heavily
influenced by subjectivity, there is a large variety of contradicting knowledge about a
single concept, and it is all opinionated, as a result, it is not highly regarded. Hence,
it is only used in areas of knowledge that encourage personal interpretation, such as
art and literature. In the context of my real life situation, because of the lack of
influence subjectivity has on reason, it is more reliable than the knowledge created
from the memory of the two sisters.
 In summary, the inaccuracy of knowledge is entirely dependent on the
methods used to create it and the ways of knowing involved. In the context of my
real life situation, because of the two women's questionable recount combined with
her research into false memories and the general nature of sexual assault cases,
Shaw concluded that the recount was most likely a false memory and was highly
unreliable. However, you could also argue that Shaw's basis for her reasoning is also
flawed and that her conclusion is not necessarily accurate, as general trends do not
account for anomalies and the processes behind research, such as the scientific
method, also have their own flaws.
This conclusion is applicable to all real-life situations involving the creation of
knowledge, such as academic studies, artwork interpretation, people's recollections
of past events or even school projects.