by James | May 27, 2014 | Exploration I
What methods will exist for changing current or future mandates, regulations and amending or rewriting the constitution?
As described earlier (e76) there should be regular committees who rewrite the rules and regulations to reflect the changes of thinking of the time, what was considered moral or scientific fact 40 years ago is very different to now.
The other time it would be necessary is if an individual calls into question a rule or procedure, in this case a new debate committee will be formed and the reasoning behind the old rule will be reviewed and discussions with those involved.
Each debate on changing the regulation needs a 2/3 majority for or against if this doesn’t occur the group is expanded until a consensus is voted on.
Ultimately if the issue is consistently undecided it will involve the entire community at which point if threatening to destabilize the community into camps there will be a think tank on a better third solution and the elected official in charge will make a decision with the larger majority.
Disputes of this nature should be avoided from the outset by not writing or creating regulations that divide opinions so radically.
by James | May 26, 2014 | Exploration I
What methods of teaching will be employed?
There are various themes in pedagogy that cater to different types of learner so classes should do their best to reflect these types in the classroom.
There should be a division between lectures and seminars/lab work, or theory and practice/debate. This means information is distributed en mass initally and the discussed in smaller groups for clarification.
As stated earlier (e8) students who are proficient in a topic, mitosis for example, should be able to help assist teaching those of a lower level covering that subject. By explaining a topic one comes to understand it better.
Each high level student will have a mentor he can refer or defer to in times of need and have dialogues with. A mentor must be at least a number of grades above the student.
E-learning will be progressively worked on as will videos created to explain all topics in the subject, complete with questions to assess comprehension and open questions that students might consider writing experiments for, contemplate on or engage in dialogue about.
New methodologies of teaching should constantly be assessed and debated. Also all new members should have some exposure to teaching seminars and lectures [not just participating].
[Note: In the years since I’ve written this the rise of MOOC’s and available resources for learning everything from code to languages has exploded across the internet, in this case these give the community nearly all the material required to created an extremely nuanced hierarchy of grades without lifting a finger. However, all free open projects should be given as much support as possible via the community to continually help and improve their services. I know these initial thoughts were written on buses and trains around town, each one of them could be the basis of whole books in themselves, however the good news is there is a huge wellspring of available resources now to help any community member learn an incredible amount even if they are the first in the community to express an interest in the field.]
by James | May 23, 2014 | Exploration I
What system of dialogue will be implemented?
The concern of a dialogue is not to win an argument but to forge a greater understanding of the matter being discussed. Aristotle described and classified 4 types of arguments didactic, dialectical, examination arguments and contentious arguments. It wasn’t until recently and Waltron’s research which modernized the thoughts behind dialogues (1998).
In the new dialectic an argument is always an argument “for a purpose” whether for one person or another’s benefit, each speaker may have a goal or motive.
Types of dialogue
| TYPE | INITIAL SITUATION | MAIN GOAL | PARTICIPANTS AIM |
| Persuasion dialogue | Conflicting points of view | Resolution such problems by verbal means | Persuade the other(s) in the dialogue |
| Negotiation | Conflict of interests and need for more cooperation | Making a deal | Get the best out of it for oneself |
| Inquiry | General ignorance | Growth of knowledge and agreement | Find a proof or destroy one |
| Deliberation | Need for action | Reach a decision | Influence outcome |
| Information seeking | Personal ignorance | Spreading knowledge and revealing postions | Gain, pass on, show or hide personal knowledge |
| Eristics | Conflict and antagonism | Reaching a, provisional, accommodation in a relationship | Strike the other party and win in the eyes of onlookers. |
The system used in the community will usually be an inquiry, persuasion or information seeking dialogue. To make it easier to tell when a dialogue has started key phrases might be worthwhile idea like “So we are discussing X now correct?” I need more research into dialogues before I write more entries.
[note: Dialogues are a form of discussion, not necessarily a debate, they were used as a teaching and reasoning method for thousands of years before falling out of vogue in recent times. The idea of discussing a principle with structured debate not just speaking louder or interrupting is a sorely required skill in the modern era. Remaining calm, noting logical fallacies in other arguments and our own is fundamental. It is especially useful in a community that actively seeks to improve itself, and where everyone should be able to voice an opinion.]
by James | May 17, 2014 | Exploration I
What methods will be used to monitor and decide the continuation of projects or research?
Some channels of research can take a long time to prove, disprove or found to be impossible or pointless. If time is the only issue this should not be considered an issue. Members have left the normal way of living to exist in a place of study and research, if they wish to spend 30 years of their life investing, time and effort into a theory it is their choice. However, should a commanding piece of evidence occur to completely negate their work or through its success make other other projects redundant the research / product is subject to review. Regular meetings and conferences should be organised meetings and conferences should be created where peers can discuss informally or to an audience the trials and results of their research all research and results are posted automatically online to the community and after the study is completed to the world for peer review.
All studies should be part of an open peer review service held within an extremely searchable format allowing people to quickly find relevant studies or similar experiments in the same area. These studies can subsequently linked to by on-line writers to show references the critiques of the paper, similar studies that have the same conclusion papers that have alternative or conflicting results.
The only significant barrier to continuing or starting research then is capital and the cost of obtaining the necessary equipment or tests (a CERN sized LHC is hard to find). In such cases it will depend of the size of the community, the R&D teams within the community and the importance of the research.
by James | May 15, 2014 | Exploration I
What fields of science, technology and education will the community endorse?
Due to primarily working on a practical development, skills and reasoning platform, there will initially be a focus on the areas of science, research and engineering (computer/electrical). With a broad base of the basic sciences mathematics and logical reasoning. Ultimately, the community should endorse, teach and promote all the legitimate forms of science and even assess the claims of things considered pseudo-sciences as well.
Initially the organisation will be small and this so this may result in certain certain subject or entire departments having only one person. In time these will fill to reasonable sizes and have more members to spread the duties among, the more time can be dedicated to unique and specialist areas.
There should be a special interest in promoting programming and computer science skills to every member as the ability to develop software is useful in almost any scientific discipline.
[note: computer science skills should also be taught as they should be the bread and butter skill of the community, allowing the community to work en mass on projects to improve them imagine having 5000 community members working on improving a project like Ubuntu or LibreOffice and the amazing strides those projects could make with simple bug fixes being implemented.
