Collaboratively building concepts: Difference between revisions
wikademia>Saidkassem New page: == Conceptualizing happens everyday == To conceptualize is to engage in the art of constructing a mental image or model of something that cannot be easily defined or measured using phys... |
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== Conceptualizing happens everyday == | == Conceptualizing happens everyday == | ||
To conceptualize is to engage in the art of constructing a mental image or model of something that cannot be easily defined or measured using physical methods. For example, a "dog" is not a concept because it visible object that takes up | To conceptualize is to engage in the art of constructing a mental image or model of something that cannot be easily defined or measured using physical methods. For example, a "dog" is not a concept because it is a visible object that takes up a presence in physical space. | ||
Concepts, in this sense, are usually ''ideas'' that are shared across societies. The idea of "happiness" is a concept that most people from Peru to Pakistan will recognize under on similar terms. It is only when discussing the particulars of what may constitute happiness, does one begin to observe a divergence in the way different societies conceive the mental models that fuel concepts of "happiness" for them. For example, in some societies, there may be a close relationship between the dual concepts of "vocational success" and "happiness", whereas in others, there may be no obvious correlation. | Concepts, in this sense, are usually ''ideas'' that are shared across societies. The idea of "happiness" is a concept that most people from Peru to Pakistan will recognize under on similar terms. It is only when discussing the particulars of what may constitute happiness, does one begin to observe a divergence in the way different societies conceive the mental models that fuel concepts of "happiness" for them. For example, in some societies, there may be a close relationship between the dual concepts of "vocational success" and "happiness", whereas in others, there may be no obvious correlation. | ||
== The Exercise: Backing away from knowledge, or "conceptualizing from scratch" == | |||
This exercise would still harness the powers of Wiki collaboration, but departs drastically from the Wikipedia model in one sense: the exercise, rather than drawing from the genealogy of produced knowledge (that has already cast its definitions onto concepts), it is attempting to start all over again, from scratch. Since the introduction of the Gutenberg Press, there may have been, let's say, 678 books written to serve the purpose of explaining what happiness is. The traditional encyclopedic task then, is to synthesize all the authoritative literature on happiness into a knowledge compendium. Wikipedia's ["happiness"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness article, does exactly just that. | |||
Revision as of 19:25, 22 December 2006
Conceptualizing happens everyday
To conceptualize is to engage in the art of constructing a mental image or model of something that cannot be easily defined or measured using physical methods. For example, a "dog" is not a concept because it is a visible object that takes up a presence in physical space.
Concepts, in this sense, are usually ideas that are shared across societies. The idea of "happiness" is a concept that most people from Peru to Pakistan will recognize under on similar terms. It is only when discussing the particulars of what may constitute happiness, does one begin to observe a divergence in the way different societies conceive the mental models that fuel concepts of "happiness" for them. For example, in some societies, there may be a close relationship between the dual concepts of "vocational success" and "happiness", whereas in others, there may be no obvious correlation.
The Exercise: Backing away from knowledge, or "conceptualizing from scratch"
This exercise would still harness the powers of Wiki collaboration, but departs drastically from the Wikipedia model in one sense: the exercise, rather than drawing from the genealogy of produced knowledge (that has already cast its definitions onto concepts), it is attempting to start all over again, from scratch. Since the introduction of the Gutenberg Press, there may have been, let's say, 678 books written to serve the purpose of explaining what happiness is. The traditional encyclopedic task then, is to synthesize all the authoritative literature on happiness into a knowledge compendium. Wikipedia's ["happiness"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happiness article, does exactly just that.