Knowledge and Technology

The TOK course offers five optional themes, of which a class studies two: knowledge and technology, language, politics, religion, and indigenous societies. Each theme applies the same knowledge framework, scope, perspectives, methods and tools, ethics, to a domain where knowledge and human life meet in interesting ways. This lesson examines the first: knowledge and technology.

Technology reshapes what and how we know

Technology is not a neutral container for pre-existing knowledge; it changes the knowledge itself. The scope of what can be known expands with new instruments: the microscope revealed cells, the telescope distant galaxies, and computation now models climates and genomes beyond unaided human reach. At the same time, technology changes the methods of knowing, from memorizing to