Collaboratively building concepts

Conceptualizing happens everyday

To conceptualize is to engage in the art of constructing a mental image or model of something that defies the visible. For example, the singular term "dog" is not a concept because it is not deemed a product of the mind, but rather, the assigned description of an object. A dog doesn't become concept until one begins to assess it's value as a valid form of cuisine, or generally speaking, when one attaches attributes to objects.

Concepts, in this sense, are usually ideas, often fuzzy, that are shared across societies. The idea of "happiness" is a concept that most people from Peru to Pakistan will recognize on similar ("intersubjective") standards. 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 shape 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.

Even under circumstances of extreme agreement over the nature of a concept between two thinkers, there is still room to explore the specific shape and form these concepts take within the cognizer's mental imagery. Chances are, the way they measure what is and what is not a part of the concept, diverges at a certain point. This is to say, in other words, that the human mind understands concepts by relating it to information previously acquired through lived experience. Understanding through association has the effect of "coloring" cognition. In other words, we are seeing the same "thing," but we are all seeing it a bit differently since we cannot escape our life narrative which imbues the field of vision/imagination with our social and personal mental constructs.

First Exercise: Backing away from knowledge or "Blind Concept Building"

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 format. Wikipedia's happiness article does exactly just that.

As noble as that may be, this particular exercise isn't about "standing on the shoulders of giants". Rather, the exercise, by design, guides students to think through the legacy of human-made mental constructs (thanks to literature and research) of the phenomena and ideas that constitute our lived experiences. There are so many socially accepted ideas already existing as "stable" knowledge or concept that can, and should be, re-conceived by way of the conceptualization process: such concepts exist under terms like terrorism, freedom, war, modernity, God-- to name a few.

Conceptualizing within the context of this project entails drawing from one's inner voice when searching for the right language to explain a concept. Imagine having to write a book on a newly discovered emotion, but you are confined to a jail cell that affords you no access to any books or reference materials. Students placed into this exercise would now be in the position of producing knowledge from the first link onward.

Students would be specifically asked to produce definitions for concepts through collaborative composition under similar guidelines used to craft exploratory essays (thesis, supporting arguments, conclusion, etc..). Students would italicize what they believe to be the thesis, or the irreducible, core essence of the concept's definition.

During the crafting of the "concepts" article, it is the facilitator's role to make sure participants are insulating their definitions from tautological explanations and external sources (reference works, literature, research) which relieves participants of the burden of explication (hence "blind" concept building).

Second exercise: Citation-supported concept building

This second exercise can either be an alternative or supplement to blind concept building. This time, participants are allowed to propose definitions for concepts that are supported with research of primary reference materials. As with college research papers, citing encyclopedias, dictionaries and other derivative sources are not allowed. It would be fair to equate this with collaborative research; however, unlike the traditional collaborations found within academic and corporate research communities, the Wikiversity is opening itself to new participant pools that combine a diverse multitude of minds.

How the Conceptualization exercise would work in the Wikiversity

• Hotwords

In his essay "Is the Wikipedia neutral?", Joseph Reagle explains that Wikipedia's "Neutral Point of View"-- the guideline which stresses objective, unbiased, fair writing-- functions primarily as a "heat shield". Points of View and knowledge creation, by definition, don't go well together, so Wikipedia relies on "neutrality" as a convention to keep the collaborative process well oiled.

But this is not Wikipedia. This is Wikiversity, where the learning process takes precedent over the ability to present neat, ready-to-consume knowledge products. Quickly, if everything is designed just right, participants will begin to converge on "hotwords," and things indeed will become quite hot.

Potential concepts worth exploring

• Justice

• Heaven (inspired by Barbara Walter's recent ABC documentary covering what Heaven means to several communities, religious and non)

• War

• Righteousness

• Apartheid (Jimmy Carter has sparked a furor over his use of the term "apartheid" to characterize Palestinian living today under the Israeli state

• Human Nature (sin)

The benefits of collaboratively building concepts

• Co-participants expose, share their thought processes. By doing this, they discover how their own mental models (that aid in understanding purportedly "obvious" characteristics of a given concept) fare in a comparative learning environment. They may find commonalities or differences, thus prompting the reconstruction or refinement of their concepts.

• Without any sources to draw (and depend) from, participants are strengthening their own critical thinking and composition skills.

Sources

• Earl R. Babbie, The Practice of Social Research (Wadsworth Publishing, 2003). Chapter 5: Conceptualization Processes.

• Steven H. Chaffee, Explication (Communication Concepts) (Sage Publications, Inc, 1991).

• Lévi-Strauss, Claude. The savage mind (The Nature of human society series). University of Chicago Press, 1966.

• Ivana Markovà, Dialogicality and Social Representations: the dynamics of mind (Cambridge University, 2003).

Suggested future readings

• Deutscher, Guy, The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention, Metropolitan Books, 2005

• Novak, J. D. & A. J. Cañas, The Theory Underlying Concept Maps and How to Construct Them, Technical Report IHMC CmapTools 2006-01, Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, 2006", available at: http://cmap.ihmc.us/Publications/ResearchPapers/TheoryUnderlyingConceptMaps.pdf.

• Wilson, Edward O. Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. Reprint edition, Vintage, 1999.