Fundamentals 2015: Definition, Dialogue, Discovery, Dissemination planning recap

by Dev Seth · Published November 18, 2014 · Updated November 8, 2019

Fundamentals

Recap of symposium planning discussion at retreat Aug. 29-30:

Discussed multiple facets of the topic, “Fundamentals”. Interacted with texts on research, poetry/writing, language and the structure of it, literary portrayal of how to wind a watch. Unis at the retreat proposed ways to narrow down the theme. We have continued that narrowing and have come up with the 4 “D’s.”
We expect each group to include 3-4 people, including undergrads, grad students, and prof schoolers in each group, utilizing different formats, to be decided by the group

Recap of symposium planning discussion at Oct. 29 seminar:

1) Definition (please contact Ana Ugarte if interested in joining)

We all rely on definitions for our disciplines. Asking ourselves: what are these definitions? How did they start? Who defines (power issues)? From where are these fundamentals being defined? The fundamentals of identity: how do we define ourselves? Sexually, racially, ethnically, socially, etc? For example: a definition on beauty – how beauty has changed over time, how it’s defined in different cultures. Or a presentation on the periodic table.
Interested folks: Monica Arniella, Jihane Bettahi, Dejana Saric, Sanjukta Santra, and Chandler McMillan (all Trinity 2018), Greg Lyons (Comp Sci, Trinity 2017), Ashton Garner (Law School), Cesar Aviles (Nursing School)

Monica: maths, working with the impossible. Another possible topic: How we perceive ourselves as humans. Looking at ourselves from foreign lenses to overcome egocentrism. Fundamentals of human nature?
Ashton: Defining beauty socially and legally. Why do we feel compel to make definitions of beauty.
Zach: Defining words. Processes involved in making a dictionary. “Politics” behind a dictionary. Is it prescriptive, explicative…? There is always a phylosophy behind a dictionary. ALSO: Translating classical languages. Processes of translation. Gaps in meaning. Translating the New Testament for instance.
Gregg: equations: Is mathematics invented or discovered? Defining mathematics’ representations of things that exist outside humans construction? Does it matter who defines these principles or not?
Cesar: components of civilization (the four D remind him of fundamentals of civilization. Food supply, specialization of labor, government, cultures…
Jihane: maths. Who set the definitions of maths? How fundamental they are?
OTHER REFLECTIONS: Philosophical: reality and dream.
Our need to define (cognitive science issues). Why do we need to define things? Bring order, give a sense of order and meaning. What does it mean to define something?
History is about definitions.
How definitions vary depending on our own positioning regarding what needs to be defined. For example. Cesar: The way I perceive pancreatic cancer is different from the way someone else perceives it, like the patient. Your role in the situation there: the health care provider. Insurance…
DIfferent ways of defining. Analysis. Explanation. Relational. Subjective. Objective. Social agreement, consensus of society.

2) Dialogue (please contact Alex Oprea if interested in joining.)

Our theme considers the plurality of purposes served by dialogue and communication. On the one hand, dialogue can serve to discover the truth, to conduct better research through community-involvement or to reach consensus in a democratic society. On the other hand, dialogue can serve a strategic purpose in confirming and reproducing the existing hierarchies and power dynamics. A speaker’s choice of words, accent or jargon influences both other’s perception and their receptivity to her or his message. Our group therefore explores the complicated role of dialogue within and between communities and the ways we can harness dialogue for salutary social purposes.

Multiple facets: language and the structure of language – cognitive science behind it. Deliberative democracy, for instance. Literature: dialectics. Society and the way we communicate.
Interested folks: Sam Bagg (Political Science), Nikki Pelot (Biomedical Engineering), Lauren Chesson (Divinity School), Molly Copeland (Sociology), Saira Haider (Nicholas School of the Environment), Shadman Uddin (Trinity 2018)

Much of our group can be structured around the differences between strategic and honest dimensions of dialogue.

Sam plans to deal with the political theory work of Jurgen Habermas and Michel Foucault. While Habermas has repeatedly emphasized the ideal of communication and deliberation within a democracy, Foucault has often focused on the power dynamics concealed behind communicative acts.
Molly is interested in the way mainstream language is formed and the way it becomes decisive for classifying individuals based on status, class, education, etc. The vocabulary and the style of any given speaker tend to provide numerous ques about the reliability or trustworthiness of the message and thereby influence the audience’s perception, whether in dialogue or when disseminating information. Molly is also interested in the way these perceptions are reproduced in society through these very linguistic conventions.
Nikki’s background in neuroscience and human biology would allow her to provide the biological counterpart to Molly’s sociological analysis. By looking at studies of the way our brains process information depending on the language choices of the speaker, we can learn about our sometimes unconscious biases. Her presentation could help us learn more about our the ways in which we listen or speak.
Lauren has had extensive experience with social work and some of her projects have involved a high-degree of participation from the community. She helped us think about community-based participatory research and the way in which using members of the community to conduct research or disseminate information or provide liaisons among different groups in the community. In this situation, dialogue is once again a tool for getting at the truth or accomplishing reconciliation and not just a means for strategic power-play.

(NIKKI is also very interested in putting on a dance performance, but no final plans are available as of yet)

3) Discovery (please contact Chris Paul if interested in joining)

Where to begin? What do we seek? How do we identify basic building blocks? What fundamentals do we need to learn in order to do what we want to do.
Interested folks: Meg Shea (Physics), Nicole Solomon (Biostatistics), Jenny Chang (Pratt BME, 2017) , Chris Paul (Environmental Science & Policy), Bryce Gessell (Philosophy), Pratiksha Sharma (Trinity 2018)

methods and frameworks of discovery
prominent discoveries
participatory discovery
Particle colliders; quantum mechanics (two frameworks)
new methods – derivations and simulations
Recent Nobel Prizes- for discovery
Statistics solutions arise from specific problems (e.g. missing problems)
discovery process
deepest level discover of life
conclusions from simple models (organisms – e. coli)
Fundamental physics and philosophy – discussion
statistics – interactive exploration of question
Hans Rosling – stats exploration
Discovery using distributed computing- astrophysics
machine learning
visual puzzle to discover as group
BME – human body part analogs
Nobel Prize bingo
Disproving what we thought were fundamentals
What counts as a discovery? E.g. if there are other unobservable universes, does it matter?
Fundamentals of religion linking to Star Trek : indicative of our desire for discovery
is the desire for discovery fundamental?
End goal before you have the things to fill in
Movie night
causation as fundamental
how is discovery invalidated

4) Dissemination (please contact Alex Treyz if interested in joining)

Once we have defined, discussed, and discovered fundamentals, how do we disseminate fundamentals? What ideas get disseminated in a particular field? How do we disseminate fundamentals in the classroom? Examples: discussion of the current state of media – how is information disseminated today? Who are journalists in this new information age? Translating texts: what decisions do we make when adapting and disseminating a text in a new language?
Interested folks: Julia Mikhailova (Pratt Mechanical Engineering, 2015), Michaela Walker (Pratt BME, 2016), Kelly Meehan (Nicholas School of the Environment), Ezgi Ustundag (International Comparative Studies, Markets and Management, Trinity 2016) – potentially Callie (Public Policy, Journalism Certificate, Trinity 2016)?
Ideas
- The role of the health care provider and how it’s changed over the years. Web MD and the expert patient. Great that there’s access, but undermines the physician’s expertise. Loss of respect for physician’s knowledge. How that knowledge has disseminated has changed. The idea of a power dynamic – patients are so reliant on physician’s as gate keepers of health (Julia)
- Rise of viral media: buzzfeed as opposed to actual content. What does that say about how people process information? Trending news – is that what we look to/believe? Article in “Wired” about workers in developing nations employed by youtube, facebook, google etc that are responsible for removing content from the internet. No counseling for these people (Esge)
- The “dark” web – information that’s disseminated there.
- Are filters in media necessarily a bad thing when it comes to media? We are bombarded by information everyday, all the time. When is information too much?
- Lack of textbooks in several disciplines, where you rely on primary resources. Versus in primary school when we’re given textbooks (Esge)
- What is the value of a course taught in person, versus a MOUCS (online classes) or things like Khan Academy? (Michaela)
- Access to internet: is that a basic human right?
- Transparency in nations: what information is disseminated?
- Outreach and community organizing – graph theory – an ecological model used to think about other areas like social ecology. Determines which habitats you should protect in order to promote flourishing. Also for targeting terror networks. Interested in how non-profits to disseminate information – computer program that outlines who is connected to who (Kelly)
- With the dissemination of information, can you have an impartial jury on cases? Given the media’s portrayal? (Michaela)
- Pharaceutical sales – reps are chemists so they can accurately describe products? (Michaela)
- PR teams managing brand images (Esge)
- In Spain – a guy who successfully sued Google to take a result off of Google when you searched his name (Michaela).
- Translation – how much of the actual text are we really getting? Especially on children’s literature – what information is taken out? What cultural norms are not translatable? What elements of language aren’t translatable? How do we capture meter? Content? Two schools of thought: keep meter/sound or keep content (Esge). Translation of the “language of love” song. How do we say things in different languages? Some phrases/constructions are untranslatable (Michaela).
- How do you make dissemination equal across all playing fields, especially when people experience the world differently? How people receive ads? (Michaela) The lens of the person giving the information – power dynamics at play (Julia).
- Popular education – how we learn “skills” in families and in communities – we tend to rely less and less on community knowledge and look more to the “experts,” i.e. self-help books on parenting, websites on material.
- Internet: no longer need to be an “expert” to share information. That can be a great thing! But can also be damaging. Wikipedia, a peer reviewed site – is that an authoritative place to look for knowledge? (Michaela). So easily accessible, but a taboo for citing it in academic literature. (Julia).
- Fundamental responsibility of the state – keep us safe at all costs, or ensure freedom? Privacy issues (Esge)
- Present false information (Michaela)

Big Group discussion: Ideas from individual time shared with the larger group

Dissemination/Dialogue – mis-information that gets disseminated, from the media, lawyers. Or from a scientific point of view: information that is oversimplified to the point that it’s incorrect, or lost in translation (Nikki) Pressure in the sciences to publish quickly might lead to flawed studies, e.g. the study that stated vaccines lead to autism in children (Tori).
Discussion of physics misnomers – fundamentals of physics as we know it. At higher levels these rules break down. What do we decide are the fundamentals? Are there any? (Tamra)
Fundamental notions of liberty and the pursuit of happiness: where did those fundamentals come from? What happens when they do not exist, or break down?
Dialogue:
- the way dialogue/discourse can be used as a form of power/strategy versus the way dialogue/discourse can be used as a search for truth. Does one use preclued the other? How do you know when it’s one versus the other? (Sam)
- Dance – live?! 🙂 (Nikki)
- Explore how people who are involved in engineering and the sciences and those not involved – how they view themselves and each other? (Michaela)
Definition:
- The classes you take and the education you have changes your definition of self. Education can be used a tool for propaganda/to gain power (Jenny) Gendered ideas of academic performance – boys are good at math/science/engineering, girls at the humanities, etc. How expectations deliver results – behavior altered by expectation (Tori).
- Fundamentals of human behavior: is altruistic behavior selfless, or beneficial to the individual and thus selfish? (Tamra)
- How do the electronics in our lives actually work? Does it matter whether we understand or not? (Michaela) What is fundamental technical competency?
- where do we draw the lines between math, physics, and philosophy? (Meg) Or between bio-medical engineering and electrochemical engineering? What changes occur when you examine a discipline from another perspective? (Jenny)
What are the fundamentals of physics? How we explain them? (Bryce)
Dissemination:
- Education increases your confidence level drastically. Implications of this study (Alex O.)
- How the media impacts culture’s definitions of beauty? Thinking of eating disorders and body image issues.
Other ideas:
- Have a debate team during the Symposium (Nikki)
- Live audience/interactive demonstration. Engineers build something? (Jenny)

Potential Speakers (add those suggested at the retreat)

Jimmy Soni, former Uni who is a Managing Editor at the Huffington Post and former speech writer for the mayor of DC.
Al Goshaw – Physics Prof on Higgs-Boson.
Ronan Plesser – a string theorist physics professor
Sally Kornbluth – new Provost of Duke University, Prof. of Cell Biology. click here for her story of personal discovery vs. research discovery
Two keynote speakers in debate?
panel on fundamentals of tertiary education (Curriculum 2000 revamp)