*Prompt: What are the implications of having, or not having, knowledge?* ## Object 1: Fixing my own laptop ![[TOK Exhibition v2.png]] ### The Object This is my first laptop I bought in 2019. I have used it for several years until one day, the screen stops working whenever the lid opens beyond a certain agnle. It turned out that this model of laptop has a common design flaw that makes this type of problem common. And the solution is also fairly simple -- but it required opening the back cover and using a bit screwdriver. I spent an entire day learning and fixing, and succesfully fixed it by the end of the day. ### The Real-world Concext of the Object In the post-industrial age, most products we use in our daily life are produced by other people in other parts of the world. Most of them we don't quite understand how they work. Quoting the famou email Steve Jobs sent to himself -- I grow little of the food I eat [...]. I do not make any of my own clothing." In a world whre we have little knowledge over the objects we use daily, we have to depend on others -- grocery stores, laptop sellers, clothes stores. However, once we gained knowledge into how things really work, we have more control over solving problems and achieve goals on our own. ### The Prompt The prompt asks for the implications of having knowledge -- how does knowledge help our lives? What does knowledge do? ### The Relationship Between the Object & the Prompt My first object demonstrates that knowledge help us achieve our goals and improve our lives. It illustrates the fact that having more knowledge of how things work give us more autonomy into taking charge of how we interact with the objects and making them work the way we want, instead of having to rely on large corportaions or other producers. Knowledge is power, in the sense that having knowledge empower us to fix things and achieve our goals on our own. #### Fixing your life like fixing a laptop In a broader sense, having knowledge means being able to make our lives better. If you know how does a laptop works, you can fix it; similarly, if you know how do bigger things such as school, companies, or even societies at large work, you will be better at navigating them or tweaking them in the way you want, to achieve your goals. Ultimatley, my first object -- the laptop I fixed myself illustrates that one implication of having knowledge is that we are more able to achieve our goals and improve our lives. ## Object 2: Carbon footprint calculator / Media Campaign ### The Object This is a school project called "send a message to Earth" my friends and I did to spread awareness of climate change. We made a giant model of earth out of cupboard, and invited people to write on it what they want to say to the earth or to other people living sharing this planet. ### The Real-world Concext of the Object We did aim not to spread certain knowledge; rather, the point is to invite people to starting look at Earth from a different perspective. In our individual lives, we might feel that climate changing is such a distant thing. Individuals do not feel the impact when take a plane flight or use a plastic bag. However, only when we start looking as the world and the ecosystem as a whole, we start to see the problem and will have the motivation to change our behaviours. ### The Prompt The implication of having the knowledge that "earth in our common habitat we rely on" is immensely important -- Only if people jump out of their individual lives start looking at the Earth from a bigger picture, will they start to take responsibility for it and change their behaviours. ### The Relationship Between the Object & the Prompt Humans make decisions based our bounded rationality -- limited by our cognitive baises and only based on the information available to us. If we don't know that the climate change is actualy happening or how is it bad, we have no reason to change our behaviours. While having certain knowledge doesn't necessarily lead to certain behaviours, breaking free from our individual worlds and gaining knowledge of the bigger pricutre is the first step for people to aovid using plastic bags, take greener transportation, or take shorter showers, for instances. In essence, knowledge informs and drives our actions. The implication of having knowledge is better, more ethical decision-making that break free from our boudned rationality and start considering the bigger picture. In summary, my second object -- the "send a message to Earth" project contributes to the exhibition by showing that having knowledge is crucial for individuals to break free from boudned raiontality, make ethical decisions, and take better actions. ## Object 3: Chongqing's map ### The Object & Real World Context This is a Google Map of Chongqing, China. When I visited the city for the first time last year, initially, I fully relied on Google Map to navigate and blindly followed the GPS. Known as the "Mountain City" (山城) of China, Chongqing is defined by its vertically-complex landscape. Buildings rise in different layers on hillsides, and stairways and escalators make it extremely confusing. I keep arriving at the wrong level, and often found myself walking on a sky-bridge above where I am supposed to be. Later, I gradually gave up following the map, and instead began observing the real world more carefully, looking for roadsigns and directly asking people. Surprisingly, it made my navigation much easier, compared to staring at the map. ### Answering The Prompt Here, the map, as a symbol of knowledge is only a model rather than replication of the real world. Holding on the the knowledge actually makes my journey harder -- implying that sometimes, having knowledge impedes our understanding and navitgation of the real world. ### The Relationship Between the Object & the Prompt A map is precisely useful because of its simplifcation of the real world. In order to gain effective knowlege and make sense of the world by creating models, we inevitably need to ignore aspects that don't matter in order to foucs on the certain characterists that do. This is true to all knowledge. All of our knowledge is a model of the world, and all models are meant to be incomprehensive. Sometimes, using a certain prevents us from seeing the world as it truly is. For example, while the Newtonian physics help us understand the world at large, it prevents us from understanding the phenomenon we observe at the quantum level. In summary, Chongqing's map highlights the fact that all knowledge is only models, and sometimes having certain knowledge hurdles our investigation to truly understand and navigate the reality.