Welcome to the World Knowledge Dialogue Online News 2008 Edition

The World Knowledge Dialogue Symposium 2008

The format of the second WKD symposium takes into account the various lessons learned during the first edition. As in the 2006 event, this one takes its queue from two topics selected by the international scientific board for their relevance to issues of great concern for all branches of present-day society:

1) COLLABORATIVE BEHAVIOUR, ALTRUISM AND CONFLICT: from animal behaviour to economics and prevention of violence.

2) COLLECTIVE NETWORK KNOWLEDGE AND HUMAN INDIVIDUAL INTELLIGENCE: convergences and divergences.

This framework being set, both themes will provide the starting points of an innovative, experimental, interdisciplinary dialogue. After a first roundtable debate defining our objectives and possible epistemological approaches, the two topics will be explored in presentations by internationally recognized scholars, who will concentrate not only on the "knowns", but also on the "unknowns" of their respective fields.

It is the latter which will is likely to be particularly revealing and propitious to an interdisciplinary approach: With one full day being dedicated to each topic, there will be ample time for structured and free discussions in parallel workshops. These sessions will be complemented by free abstract sessions in the field of interdisciplinary research and education, and by public lectures given by two world leaders in interdisciplinary work. On the last day, leading personalities from the humanities will attempt to put the results of the presentations and workshops into an epistemological perspective. E.O. Wilson, the Scientist in Residence of this year's symposium and one of the world's foremost driving forces for an interdisciplinary conception of knowledge will close the proceedings with his own summary.

A few concluding comments: From a general point of view, all knowledge acquisition proceeds through the same basic mental processes, including among others, perception, memory, introspective consciousness, a priori reasoning, testimonial transmission. Each question we ask, each answer we obtain, combines these same basic elements in its own way. It must be therefore be possible to define the framework that allows to identify commonalities between how a social science student and a budding internet developer perceive tomorrow's world of shared knowledge and how to achieve it. Similarly, there must be points of convergence between the ways a primatologist, an experimental economist and a leading figure from the political world observe altruistic or conflict behaviour. 

Our aim is to step aside of possible wars in the fields of science or of ideology: we choose to perceive the generally accepted limits in one field, be they limits of a question or the limits of a method, as corresponding to the intellectual wealth in an adjacent field. We propose that the humble transgression of boundaries between one territory and another will promote responsibility and lead to reciprocal enlightenment and enrichment.

How do we reach for new horizons?

Practically, the first speaker will describe his findings ("what I discovered"), the factual state of understanding ("what we know"), as well as the limits thereof ("what we don't know"), and finally the potential for new developments ("who can help").

The speakers from the other disciplines will give an account of their own understanding of the topic, identify points of misunderstanding, propose new ways and means to enrich the field with new knowledge from their cultural domain.

It is essential that people from all disciplines understand an explanation or a question from one field. Of course, we do have participants with different backgrounds (i.e. from economic and political fields), but our main targets are the scientists. We hope participants will be empowered to go back to their lab or office and change something, even a very little thing, in their way of doing research. The dialogue in Crans-Montana should broaden their horizons and provide them with material upon which to reflect and build.

As in 2006, true to the concept of bridging the gap between natural and social sciences, the reports you read on this site themselves have been written by volunteer writers, many of them scientists themselves.