TOK Journal #6, Date of Writing: 11/03/10, Topic: Science's Finest Hour

In a book called White Noise, by Don Delillo, there are some very relevant TOK questions asked. The extract we were asked to write upon details a conversation between father and son, in a car, about rain. The son argues with his father; how do we know it is rain? What tells us that this stuff falling around us is rain? How do we know? Because it is wet? But here in the car it is dry, this 'rain' is not getting us wet in here.... it goes on, but the main question being asked is how do we know? How do we know rain is rain?

A valid question by all means, but how do we go about answering a question such as this? In TOK, there are 5 primary ways of knowing, several of which are particularly valid here: past experience, logic, and perception. Our perception - our senses - tell us that the substance is falling from the sky, in what we call droplets, that it is wet, that it is cold etc. etc. Our logic tells us that it is falling from the sky because of gravity, because it is falling here in these conditions that I perceive and these conditions are the same over there the same stuff must also be happening etc. etc, and our past experiences tell us that - based on our perception and logic - this stuff is called rain. Can we be certain? Not really. Why not? Because our senses can fool us. Our logic can fail us. Our past experiances can be wrong or incorrectly recalled.

To conclude, I would like to reinforce that the question the child asks his father is very valid, and I would also like to point out that we really cannot be certain, cannot be certain that rain is rain. In fact, we cannot be certain of anything our senses tell us, anything our logic reasons out for us, anything we recall.... but we can be relatively certain, as certain as it is possible to be, and I guess that's just gonna have to be enough for me :)