Collaboratively building concepts

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 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 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 "knowledge-building 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 format. Wikipedia's happiness article does exactly just that.

As noble as that may be, this particular exercise isn't about building on top of the shoulders of giants anymore. This exercise is ideal for forcing student's 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-shared ideas out there that can and should be re-thought, as a mental exercise: terrorism, freedom, modernity, god-- to name a few.

Conceptualizing within the context of this article means to draw 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. You are now in the position of producing knowledge from the first link onward.

The benefits of collaboratively building concepts

• Co-participants get to discover how their own mental models for understanding purportedly "obvious" characteristics of a given concept will interact with others. They may find commonalities or differences. They may refine their mental images.

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

How the Conceptualization exercise would work in the Wikiversity

• Guidelines (let's propose some here)