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I found this argument and concept very exciting. I've always been passionate and interested in learning and developing understanding of different cultures, and what different cultures find sacred. In the two main cultures I was raised in (American and Omani), mathematics plays an important role in education and careers. It had never occurred to me that individuals around the world could view mathematics in a religious and holy light. The Bamana priests found their sand divinations so sacred that they wouldn't share their "secrets" with Eglash. Only his initiation into Bamana priesthood allowed him access to the secrets. The fact that the Bamana priests guarded their divinations so much demonstrates the significance they believe mathematics has, and correlates with the spiritual qualities they believe mathematics to have. While this belief of math having divine qualities is new to me, it has been recurrent in mathematical history. Funnily enough, it sounds like Cantor believed himself to be a "mathematical prophet". Whether we believe his claim to be true or not, he also considered math a divine matter, and provided us with mathematical concepts that have come to shape our technology-driven, modern world. I've struggled with math as an academic subject, consistently viewing it as something that "needs to be done" rather than something that is fascinating and representative of culture and identity. What Eglash is doing by connecting individuals with their "mathematical cultural heritage" is inspiring. It is providing a new backdrop for mathematical education and is (I believe) fundamental to developing deeper understandings of mathematics in cultures.

What I thought was interesting was that he brought up that mathematics is in nature and it is there consciously however we are unconscious about it. All the examples from Africa explains mathematics in real life and in their culture however they do not take it as "mathematics", they just do it. They know about the mathematics that goes into the process though Englash went back the process to see the mathematics in it. This was interesting people with more developed technology goes back to understand the mathematics behind what people in Africa do in their daily life. I never thought mathematics can connect to nature or some people's daily life. To me, mathematics seemed very abstract and I just couldn't see it connecting with mathematics because I believed things that happens in nature are more spontaneous and without any particular patterns. Now I think I understand when people say "we need mathematics for everything" and "we cannot live without mathematics", though we need most subjects that we learn in school. We tend to just think about a subject in the particular class room when we should paying more attention outside of class to see how it connects to us and how most things in life is from what we learn in school.

I found this TED Talk very interesting, and after watching this and especially after today's TOK class, I am starting to realize the mathematical concepts in different situations and environments around me. One things that Mr Eglash said that really intrigued me was the function of the fractals in the villages of Cameroon. He explained and showed a diagram illustrating how the houses in a village all circle the leader's home in the middle, who is in the middle of his family within the bigger circle. Even the houses on the outside are surrounded by other houses in a circle, and I found the reason behind this mathematical layout very interesting. Eglash explained how when people went deeper and deeper in the cirles, they had to be more polite and respectful. Also the more important people were in the centre of the circles. These two factors highlight how mathematics is used as a form of representing social hierarchy/discrimination, as social class and importance in the society is reflected through one's position in the multiple fractals. Also, another thing that I found interesting goes back to a central debate we discussed in class: was mathematics invented or discovered? Eglash told us how the people in these various African tribes had told him that they had not known what fractals were, they had just shaped their villages this way because they looked attractive and interesting, and in my opinion fulfilled their social representational needs. But we have made something out of shapes within shapes, we have given thm names, applications and intellectual importance. But these African villages have given them applications and importance as well, without even knowing what they were. But a question arises: do we even know what they are? We have given them meaning through our interpretations and perceptions, but how can we know whether 'our' fractionals are the same as 'their' fractionals? Do we need to mathematically understand what something is in order to find it useful

Enjoy this engaging exploration into how art redefines culture. I think you will find this an interesting discussion on race and identity.

Considering the nature of the topic discussed, I feel that it is important to consider the definitions of the terms "African", "ethnicity" and "museum". The first term, to me in this video, seems to indicate people descended from sub-Saharan Africans, regardless of their actually cultural or political affinity to this area of the world. This leads onto defining the term "ethnicity", one which I feel has next to no scientific foundation, and rather is a relic of the era of colonization. For the sake of the reflection however, I will temporarily accept Thelma Golden's usage of the term for those who are descended from sub-Saharan Africans. Finally, a museum is a place where people can go to see exhibits of culturally and academically important pieces of human discovery or creation. In consideration of Thelma Golden's lecture, I feel that the issue of identity is a prominent theme throughout it, from the term "Black Masculinity" to the mentioning of the Harlem Renaissance. All of these factors tie in together to show what Golden wants to emphasize, which is that she believes that African-American culture is something that offers much to artists for discussion and for exhibition. This is an issue that matters a lot to me, as many parts of my life revolve around the issue of exploitation of human beings. Perhaps this is why I was drawn to making my extended essay on the Zanzibari revolution, as I felt that I had never investigated the idea of African nationalism and pride in history. In consideration of the issue of ethnic identity, my personal belief is that someone is a person before all other things, and that cultural, "ethnic" and other labels only serve to destroy the individual in society. I am not saying that I am unique, far from it, but I believe that one's art should identify with one's personal passions or with humanity as a whole, rather than with a specific, and often very loose-knit group. Overall, I feel that Thelma's presentation brought up an interesting

The video to me was quite interesting as it explores the art movement in the concerned ethnicity. Perhaps was seemed most curious to me was when Golden brought up the anecdote of the art pieces by Leon Golub and Robert Colescott. The presumptions made from the woman who judged the pieces strikes upon the notions of history and concurrent ethnic-specific views upon them. The fact that the woman assigned the ethnic identities and the attitudes that were supposedly portrayed in the pieces exemplifies the variability in the interpretation of art pieces. Without context, some things can be blatantly misinterpreted which certainly puts into question of other works of art in all forms and origin. If we always apply preconceived notions and ideas into the interpretation of art, is there a boundary to what we may still deem to be a valid interpretation? Certainly, in this case, such misinterpretations hinder the original intentions of the artists.

Situation based on Heinz dilemma: There has been a shoot out at a college and there has been several severe injuries. The closest emergency hospital is full: all the OR are full, the emergency room and they had to convert that room into an OR. All the doctors are working on every patients. There are still several patients that are coming in the ER and there is no room left. The police and the doctors find out that the doctors in OR 1 are performing a heart surgery on the shooter. What should the doctors do? Should they continue or leave him to help other patients? There several patients who need surgeries and that OR could be used to save them. What is the moral thing to do?

Honestly morality is such a vast principle. We all might share the same connotation on what morality is, but at the same time it might differ. This is because we have all belong to different cultural backgrounds and when we make a decision about whether it's morally acceptable/appropriate or inappropriate, those factors influence our decision. As aleks and baqar mentioned, the sense of morality differs within people. In my culture, some people might think love marriages are immoral and go against cultural values. I've inherited the same cultural background and values but my sense of morality has been influenced by other cultures. Therefore, i think love marriages are definitely moral. Like discussed earlier, who really decides what's morally right? Will there ever be a mutual sense of morality? Referring to one of the principles mentioned in the article, Altruism. I could relate it to one of the quotes i strongly believe in. 'As you sow so shall you reap' - stated in the Bible.

The article i decided to reflect on is "What Makes Us Moral" because I interestingly realized that the article made me raise more questions than give me answers, that exactly makes us moral. The article explores two kinds of people, which are basically the bad and the good, and tried to link up morality to the actions of certain people. Sometimes morality plays a big part in a person's life and towards what actions they may commit, but sometimes, a person's badness or goodness, can over shadow universal morality. Examples were given at the bottom of page 30 and 31, which both famous and infamous people who have acted and changed the world, whether it was positively or destructively. In the article, there was a very interesting observation made about an example of a child at school. The example was about how the child would react to him having to obey the rule of not eating in class, and of him listening to his teacher if she told him to push another student off his chair. This shows that morality is part of everyone's school of thought, and then determines the actions one will decided to make. Unless someone decides they want to be bad, and want to hurt other people, morality overshadows any kind of bad though, just like the teacher's request of pushing another child of his chair made made the student hesitate, and realize that he had no valid reason to do that, but his teacher's demand. Most people's intentions are good because we all feel like we have a certain standard to live up to, and a limit of a particular behaviour we owe to each other and the people around us. On the other hand, there are always people who aren't as stable, people who suffer from clinical sanity for example, as stated under the section of "Why We Turn Bad". Where morality comes from is still to be researched and understood, because there was never a rule book or "morality" book made in order to mentor the human society, but that hasn't stopped the vast majority of people having common thou

Required Viewing

I found the ideas presented in Sam Harris' TED talk extremely intriguing and thought-provoking. I was very captivated by his concept of moral-genius in the same fashion as it applies to genius in any other scientific subject area. I found that his ideas accurately applied to the real-world, where people's subjective opinions of morality, fueled by cultural stimulus, interfered with the goal of human well-being. This led me to wonder what the causes of such ideas and actions. I came up with a possible explanation for the phenomenon. Moral questions rely heavily on social aspects which is expected since our sense of morality is shaped by our interactions with our community and ourselves. When we talk of the subject of morality and what we perceive as morally right and morally wrong, we encounter several different distinct, morally correct answers to solve moral problems. There is a certain range of actions that we would distinguish as morally correct. In a scientific-based subject such as physics, as Harris discussed in his presentation, the answers to questions are concrete and precise. This is due to a lack of social interaction in order to achieve an answer, the range of correct answers which is present in moral questions is now eliminated. I believe that this is due to the fact that social interactions are not part of the journey to reach the answer. This allows physicists or people in general to dismiss incorrect answers to questions without hesitation, if an answer is incorrect, a clear demonstration of the faulty logic that caused the deduction of the incorrect answer may be explored. Morality however, may not be explored using the same procedure. People are afraid to point out the faultiness in the deduction of moral answers of other people because they do not want to dismiss the moral beliefs of other people in fear of insulting them by discounting their beliefs. I find this similar to what occurs in a subject such as English. English is also a subject which

I think that what Harris has presented is an interesting point of view, but I think that his viewpoint on moral topics are quite narrow minded, because of the fact if that morals are not determined through scientific concepts. I feel that when he continues to think about these topics he only considers the points of view out of practicality, instead of looking at peoples emotions and the morals that they have based them of off. Personally I believe that morals are based of not only religions, but also the community that people reside in, as often we base what we do on our surroundings, as we don't want to be ostracized by our community. For example, one of the theories Harris offers it to look at the idea of moral leaders just like we have leaders in religion, but I think that what he might fail to understand is that morality, is much more fluid and abstract than basic science, as there are many variables which differ at the same time. I think one of the main problems with having "moral leaders" might be the fact that they will not take the culture into consideration.

The idea presented here is very interesting, increasing the depths of historical analysis through digital statistics and other forms of measurement. This provides a different dimension to studying history, as normally it revolves around studying various human factors before and after an event, the possible advent of math incorporated in the subject would enable a new and greater understanding of a particular time period, while also allowing for future speculation of events that could lead to prevention of potentially negative ones. The only problem with this talk is it is short and leaves the viewer with unanswered doubts (intentional?), such as how can one be certain that algorithms based on the past where circumstances were entirely different are reliable for predicting future events?

Jean Baptiste Michel comments on the human ability to "perceive quantities" (2:30, the mathematics of history), he goes on to explain his point with this analogy; committing 10,000 soldiers to a battle in which already 1,000 soldiers have been committed previously, is relatively an enormous quantity of soldiers to the war. On the other hand, committing 10,000 soldiers to a battle in which already 100,000 soldiers have been previously committed is a relatively low quantity in terms of war. I found this to be interesting, in how our mathematical process affects our perception of history. War is a prominent fixture in human history, while death is a way in which people can relate to history, mathematics plays a prominent part in understanding and quantifying an emotional response from an individual. Michel states to the that large numbers of casualties in war's are proportional to the relative stakes, so therefore the larger the number of casualties, mathematically could have less emotional impact to an individual. This is becomes an issue when studying war's and conflicts in our history. While we inherently bring greater importance to events in which many casualties occurred yet are unable to emotionally connect due to our mathematical and statistical reasoning and perception.

I really liked this TED Talk because it looked at history in a way that I never thought would be possible - through mathematics. I found it interesting that humans behave in systematic, mathematical ways, even though we don't think we do. Natural sciences such as physics and chemistry all have some mathematical bases or phenomena that can be explained in terms of maths. Social sciences, such as economics, history and psychology are rarely ever explained in terms of mathematics. It seems illogical to think that humans behave in a systematic manner. However, I think that if this idea of mathematics being a part of history becomes popularized, this could help us in many ways. In the beginning, we would be able to understand the patterns in history, we'd be able to understand part of the human thinking process, such as the perception of quantities and how it affects our decisions, as Jean-Baptiste Michel said. Later on, however, we would be able to predict the future and possibly prevent unfavourable outcomes. I think the systematic way of looking at history may be a big step for humanity. (Although, it may cause us to act like robots, which may lead to other implications.)