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No headersPlease add your idea for a presentation or a discussion topic, in a few words. It can be something you'd like to hear about from other people, or something you'd like to present on, or a discussion you'd like to take part in.
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The expanding role of art in science and technology, both in helping to humanize and popularize science and technology advances and in helping to create advances with the increase in visualization, simulation and 3d data display. January's SEED magazine has a nice article, "The Future of Science is Art"
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Since we have some outreach people, writers, artists, bloggers, and other communicators of science I thought we could maybe do some sort of panel discussion about things you think everyone should know about science, or about common misconceptions. (eg. use of the word "theory" in a science context does NOT mean "I don't know, here's a wild guess.", or the discrepancy between science being presented as a list of finished facts/formulas in high school and the dynamics/discovery of actual research) - Eva
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I'd like to suggest a topic that can be a crossover point between art and science.
In literature one talks about tropes, which means substitutions, but which we commonly call metaphors. "My love is a rose" is the classic example. There is a list of different tropes of which metaphor is one—metonymy, synechodche, apostrophe, metalepsis, allegory, irony etc. etc., but the whole topic is very loose and even a bit arbitrary. I would like to add the following mathematical symbol to the list of tropes: = .
If we say that one term equals another we really mean that one term can be transformed into another, not that they are the same. I think that there are many, many very interesting implications for art, for science, and for an understanding of what the universe actually is. It is even possible to draw a parallel between the way works of art signify and mathematical "proof." I would love to give a ten minute presentation on this to a group that wanted to discuss the questions arising. Robert Linsley
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I like Robert's idea a lot. I'm interested in connections between modes of understanding such as mimesis (art) and thought experiments (physics). Also, connections between mimesis and mirror-neurons (neuroscience). Metaphor is a big part of all this.
Talking with Sachiko Hirosue recently, we both identified some skepticism about art/science collaborations (and of course, a deep interest as well). There are a few barriers to making connections. For one thing, contemporary art is as inpenetrable for the novice as science, but artists are generally more motivated to understand the cutting edge of science than scientists are to understand the cutting edge of art. There are also distracting superficial reasons for getting together, such as the motivation for scientists that artists can disseminate science (do outreach) to new audiences, or the motivation for artists that an attachment to science provides status and legitimacy (and bigger grants). There isn't anything inherently wrong with these things, but I hope our discussions will get past them. - sally
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Hey Campers, this is my first Scibar Camp and I am looking forward to it. I would like to see an interactive discussion on this/or similar question: How can "local" stores such as organic grocery stores, fair-trade cafes, and art studios use Web 2.0 to engage their neighborhood and near-hood patrons?
I think this subject is relevant due to the following four reasons:
1- Toronto is a collection of neighborhoods and vibrant neighborhoods will result in a reverberant TO; (example of one fast changing neighborhood is the Junction - the fastest growing neighborhood, according to Now Toronto (2007).
2- It ties into a key theme of the conference while engaging local business and entrepreneurs.
3- Dwelling on similar topic is relevant because it help us connect local to global, by that I mean, helps small businesses to leverage global technological and social phenomenon such as Web 2.0.
4- The last reason is more personal, I want to see my favorite neighborhood - I live in the Junction - chocolatier doing well and introducing new treats ! - Jijesh
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I'm thinking along the same general lines As Rob L, but way wonkier: not just an interface between science and art, but between science and religion. I'm wondering about a possible neurological basis for harnessing the religious impulse as a means of generating scientific insights. Split-brain studies have shown a kind of hemispheric-specialisation -- you all know the usual right-brain/left-brain cliches -- in which the right hemisphere tends to lack imagination while the left imposes patterns on noise. That can be good (when there are, in fact, patterns to be discovered) or bad (when there aren't really, but you see 'em anyway because an angry god at least lets you tell your kids where lightning comes from). And if you squint, you can kind of see an analogy with gene duplication, where the multiple copies of a gene gives natural selection free reign to experiment without jeopardising essential components.
Nowadays we're standing at the interface of science and philosophy. String theory's an example; it explains so much, but it's so damn hard (some might say impossible) to test empirically. What do you do in such cases? We might have to settle for thought experiments.
Problem is, conscious rumination ain't all it's cracked up to be. Everyone knows about scientific breakthroughs served up in dreams, and recent studies suggest that the subconcious mind is actually better at complex decision-making than the little dude who sits behind the eyes and takes credit for everything. At the same time, our brains didn't evolve to deal with the space between atoms or galaxies; natural selection was a lot more interested in predator avoidance and the spreading of genes. So we're now entering realms of science that we just aren't built to deal with.
Except that extra hemisphere's been noodling around with rapture and and all sorts of half-assed lateral associations all this time. And the nonconscious part of the mind, the part that turns benzene rings into snakes and epileptic seizures into visions of Armaggedon, the part that makes people in starched shirts thrash around speaking in tongues -- well, it's contributed a fair bit, whether we like it or not. Centuries of scientific rationality haven't been able to squash it. Maybe we could let it off the leash a bit. Maybe we could tweak it somehow, turn it to good instead of evil. somehow.
Anyway, it's pretty far out-- I'm actually playing with the idea for a science fiction novel I'm working on-- but I thought I'd throw it into the ring. I explore it in a bit more detail over here, if anyone's interested.
Thanks for your attention. I'm going to stop talking now.
Peter
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I'd like to see a discussion on the intersection of science and the political arena. We in North America are living at a time when we haven't seen a more anti-scentific bent to federal politics, in both Canada and the US. We have seen science advisors hired by previous administrations terminated, and federally appointed attachés with no scientific background act as a filter between scientist and layman, often in a detrimental fashion. National leaders dispute what the experts have said about stem cell therapy or climate change, or have at least downplayed them giving preference to religious or economic factors. Why has the political perception changed from a half century ago that that the scientific community can beneficially inform government policy, to the modern trend of being relegated to the backburner? - Tim
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Since there's all this interest in cognitive science & co, is anybody still interested in the good old paradox of the Chinese Room?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room
Sounds old fashioned, or may it stir interesting conversation? How many people know about it, or would like to know / discuss more?
Daniele
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I could live with a Chinese Room session. I've played around with variants on that in my own stuff. PW
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...eh eh, still getting used to this wiki....
ok, here is what I would like to see/discuss. I am interested in how the public reads science and/or interprets scientific recommendations inserted here and there in billboards, ads and everyday announcements. and in turn, what are the strategies used to transmit/criticize/represent science through ads, images, art etc..? I think my proposal is not too different from the topics I have read so far. maybe we can really organize some panel discussions. I am intrigued by Eva's idea: that could be an interesting experiment.
roberta
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I'm interested in talking about RSS.
The web is like an ocean of news. And if a drop falls somewhere, you won't know about it unless you go looking for it. With RSS, those drops come to you instead. That has got powerful and wide-ranging uses, from getting latest news updates; staying updated on your favorite blogs; receiving weather alerts; receiving your Facebook friends status updates; to tracking your sales leads or changes made to a wiki, and on and on. RSS is the glue which ties the new web and is increasingly becoming very widespread.
So I'm looking forward to sharing my point of view on RSS + demoing a RSS feed reader which I built (www.alertle.com) and having an open discussion with the audience on the topic. - Varun
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I would like to discuss Efficiency Risk and the Notion of Better.
I think that the pursuit of efficiency - across many social, science and technology domains - ends up leading us to a postion where our original goals are harder than ever to achieve. We live with the results we get and call them "unpredicted outcomes", or "unanticipated side effects".
But if we could predict and anticipate these results, then perhaps we could instead avoid these outcomes and side effects. (more at user:Chris.s)
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I'm interested in discussing Privacy and Anonymity Online in Web 2.0 and Social Networks. Many of these networks rely and you being who you say you are in order for others to trust what you say/rank/recommend/etc. Are we losing one of the great qualities of the internet - being someone else (or being no one at all aka 'anonymous coward')? And in losing this, are we providing a vast, semi-public, marketing database for corporations to data mine?
Submitted by John S.
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Thank you for your attension for my talk Saturday's morning session. If you want to know the MIMA-Search and the concept beyond re-construction knowledge, please access my blog.
Yutaka (Japanese)