2233dd

Hmmm. So I'm an IB ToK teacher and I'm reading this essay on "can a machine know" and I think, hmm, this kid's arguments sound a bit more precisely constructed than what I see from him typically. Lo and behold I find two of his paragraphs right here! Fancy that!

Guys, you need to do your own thinking. Fine, bounce ideas off others to cohere your own. But the point here is to develop your own thoughts. Stop depending so much on others to do your thinking for you. That's not the point of ToK. Find your own point of view. Do some work on your own part. Do your own knowing, knowers. It has to go through your own mind and come out the other end. Nobody eats a plate of barfed food. And that's what essays are when they're copied.

If you think your teachers can't tell when your ideas aren't yours, and if you think that we too don't have access to these message boards ourselves, you are incredibly naive. IB is worldwide. So is the Internet. So is this website.

Hate to prompt the bursting of the bubble of epistemic naivete, but seriously--I'm just a teacher, folks. Don't you think your IB assessor, who will have read hundreds of these same essays on the same topic, will smell the vomit stink of a copied idea when she happens upon one? You don't get rewarded for that kind of stuff.

Copying is is a pathetic whimper in an essay that rewards you for finding your own voice and following your own ideas.

Talk ideas with others, but do your OWN thinking in response. Stop being lazy and start trusting and developing your own thinking processes. I imagine that those who run this site wouldn't be pleased to find that their helpful discussion board is being turned into a "Free Cheap Essays on Cheaters.Com" kind of thing. Have some respect for your own mind and use it, IB students.