TOK Ｅｓｓａｙ

Yuanzhi(Joshua) Ma

Theory of knowledge

DP

Question: Humans are pattern seeking animals and we are adapt at finding patterns whether they exist or not. Discuss the knowledge question raised by this idea.

Humans are lazy. We always try to approach tasks through simpler means, limiting the work needed. For example, students always try to copy and paste during essays, marathon runners always run for the shortest route and teachers always try to find similarities between curriculums so they don’t need to come up with new teaching plans. Laziness is the biggest motivation behind human evolution, and one of the biggest tricks of being lazy is to seeking for patterns. Patterns are very useful specially when eliminating repeated process, In TOK class we have learnt different areas of knowing, In the following paragraphs I’m going to explain how is patterns applied the aspect of math and arts.

What is 1+2+3+4+5+…….+100? Hours of tedious work will be required if we do the math in our head. Even if we have a calculator it will still take a wile just by inputting the numbers. Huge ambitions for solving the problem might lead you to the answer— 5050. However what about 1+2+3..+1000 or even a million? As numbers approaches infinity, ambitions are usually limited. How can humans able to solve problems like this? We seek for patterns! The sum of the fist an last term is equal to the second plus the second last so on, this allows us to simply this problem by finding how many terms are in the series? This is the sum of a finite arithmetic series which was discovered by Gauss in 1700s before the invention of calculators. By summarizing his result we can create a formula that is able to calculate any finite number’s sum, which is shown below:

📷

This formula is the result of mathematical pattern, it is also conspicuous that this pattern exist and it has made our lives much easier. Indeed patterns make our lives much easier. There are a lot more examples in the mathematical field. Such as the the creation of standard deviation,Humans find it is hard to determine how sparse the data is and by finding similarities between data we are able to come up with standard deviation. Other math concepts such as: integration in calculus are based on patterns. Most of the discovery in math field is created by seeking for patterns, therefore can be concluded that seeking for patterns are very common in the development of mathematics. 📷📷

Patterns are also shown in the field of art, juxtaposition and other techniques are used. The discovery and use of patterns can be dated back to thousands of years ago, according to ancient Chinese folk stories, the emperor is asking artists to create a new carpet in 5 days. As a artist saw the deadline approaches, he decided to rotate and paste the small piece in to a big piece. The emperor enjoyed his work very much and therefore he advocate the use of patterns nationally. Paper cutting and other art forms are great presentation of the use of patters in the area of arts.

One of the biggest difference between humans and “other animals” is that human have the ability to think and break down huge tasks in to smaller ones. This is applied at anytime in anywhere.