Oksana Popadiuk

Ways Of Knowing
December 8, 2014

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Reflective Essay
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In life, there is always something more to be learned. There is something new to learn
about somebody else, or a group of people, or an entirely different culture. There is something
new to learn about ourselves and the way we communicate and the way we think. Life is the accumulation of relationships. Whether its your relationship with your family, your friends, your
colleagues or yourself. Its critical that we dont ever stop trying to learn about these different
relationships, because that is ultimately what keeps our lives moving forward and being present
through the process.
Ways of knowing was a really wonderful way for me to stay aware of the relationships in
my life. I find myself thinking of the material far beyond the class setting. Its applicable to my
work life, my home life, my friendships and even romantic relationships. This is the type of college experience one hopes to have, but is also the type of learning experience that is essential to
maintaining active participation in ones own life. Without being a participant in your life, what
are you? Who are you? I dont ever want to lose sight of that, and Ways of Knowing gives me the
tools so that I dont ever have to.
Lets do a little re-cap: we began the year in the social sciences where we focused on studying individual and cultural identity. This was a great way to begin my time at Portland State be-

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cause if gave me the opportunity to orient myself in my community, my culture, and in my own
beliefs. I found that the topics we talked about in class stayed active in my mind even when I was
not in classroom. In return, I was able to bring my experiences outside of the classroom and use
them in my essays and class discussions. My overall experience in this part of Ways of Knowing
was that I was in constant reflection of my identity and the identity of those around me. We were
given the space to just wonder.
Next we moved to Ways of Knowing in the humanities. Here we asked to be specific.
Every time we said or wrote something, our professor challenged to clarify and specify until
there was no possible way we would could be misinterpreted. This usually resulted in not one,
not two, but sometimes three revisions of an essay. Sometimes with the ultimate feedback being
okay, this is better, but next time be even MORE specific. I often found myself wondering if it
was possible to be any more specific. This phase in Ways of Knowing presented much more frustration for me, but in that I found growth. I was appreciative of challenge. I began to realize that
its NEVER a bad thing to be painfully specific. For the first time, I began to respect a more analytical way of writing. Before, I more than often relied on conveying my feelings about a situation in order to argue my point. If theres nothing else I can take away from this class, its that
that is no way to prove your point. People win arguments by using facts and precision.
The final section of Ways of Knowing was probably my favorite and my least favorite at
the same time. It encompassed areas that I am much less comfortable with and had a really challenging time studying and understanding. I had the hardest time with statistics and probability.
This was most frustrating to me because I understood the concepts but was unable to quite figure
out the equations and how to apply the numbers from a real situation. However using statistics

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and probability was one of the most intriguing ways to understand the world Ive ever learned
about. I loved learning how to formulate an argument using math and science because it ensured
that your ideas were solid and factual. I can safely say that from now on I will make sure my
ideas and arguments are constructed with clear and valid premises that directly connect to my
claim.
We got to exorcise this way of thinking by doing debates at the end of the quarter. When
actually put into a situation like that, I found that it was really difficult to think on my toes while
constructing valid, strong arguments. I am grateful for the opportunity to learn about so many
different ways of thinking and knowing about the world. This class has helped me identify with
what I actually believe in and how I want to understand the world around me. Since 1500 words
is way too long for this essay, Ill end by inserting a section of the paper I wrote on my debate,
since it was one of my favorite parts of this whole year.
The con team argued that purpose and meaning are matters of conceptual thinking, which
was exercised long before scientific thinking, meaning that science cant say anything about purpose and meaning. Our lack of scientific knowledge up until we began to think scientifically had
absolutely no bearing on our sense of purpose. The pro team began their argument with their
main claim, that science ultimately cannot inform our beliefs about the purpose of the universe
under the premises that scientific thinking cannot be applied to ideas about purpose and meaning
since purpose and meaning were originally formed through conceptual thinking and alternative
belief systems. A sense of purpose and belief of why we are here is not tangible or testable, therefore science cannot measure its truthfulness or accuracy. They are two completely separate domains of thinking about the world. To clarify, the pro team defined since as the intellectual and

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practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical
and natural world through observation and experiment. This was followed by defining purpose
as the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. The pro
team explained how the vary definitions of these two words are evidence that science can gives
us facts, but it doesnt have the authority to tell us what we should do with these facts. This augment is easily backed up by Stephen Goulds theory of NOMA. The idea that science and conceptual thinking deal with two totally separate domains of thinking and one cannot provide answers to the other. Lastly, the con team wrapped up their argument by explaining our place in the
Cosmic Calendar, a method of visualizing the lifespan of the universe which was introduced to
us by Carl Sagan. If you were to visualize the universe in a calendar year, the big bang would
occur on January 1st, 13.8 billion years ago. The first forms of life would not appear until september 21st, 3.8 billion years ago. This means that for about 10 billion years, the earth did not
inhabit life at all. Primitive humans would not appear until December 31st on the 22nd our. And
modern science has only been a way of knowing for the last second in the calendar. There are
few main points to take away from this: the first is that humans have only had the opportunity to
live in much less attempt to understand the universe for about two hours in the cosmic calendar.
Within that short time, scientific knowledge has only been a part of our thinking for one second.
For the rest of our existence before scientific thinking, we used other beliefs systems and conceptual thinking to find purpose. Lastly, the likelihood that we have enough scientific knowledge to
understand the universe entirely is slim, and the chances of us surviving long enough to gain that
knowledge is even less likely. In summary, not only does science not have the authority to inform

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us of our purpose, but we will also never have the chance to gain enough scientific information if
it could.
Ultimately, the debate comes down the an analysis of simplicity. Both teams were asked
what the universe would look like if there was a purpose. The pro team argued that if there was a
purpose to the universe, living conditions on earth would be much safer and sustainable to all life
forms. The con team argued that it would look no different, and maybe one day a life form will
be around the observe and collect sufficient data to begin the analyze what the purpose might be.
As far as simplicity goes, the pro teams argument is more simple, which makes their stance more
probable. However, the con team could argue that if, after ALL of the scientific data had been
collected and the result was that there is not purpose, even more questions could arise. For example, how do we live a life if we know we have no purpose? To which the pro team expertly
replied, that just because its likely that the universe doesnt have an ultimate purpose, doesnt
mean we cant find purpose in our lives. For example, you can still have goals and intention in
life while knowing that your role in the vast universe is random.
Thanks for Portland State for a wonderful first year in college, I am beyond excited for the
years to come!

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