Dining with Dinosaurs: Student Takeover
Imagine I believe that Dining with Dinosaurs is a place people have dinner, students can attend but never present. Assume that I have often been to Dining with Dinosaurs events and I have never seen a student presenting. So, I form the following justified belief: “Dining with Dinosaurs is an event where students are not allowed to act as presenters, or all Greek fellows (like me) are on time for dinner”!
It turns out that students can in fact deliver presentations at Dining with Dinosaurs events. However, by sheer coincidence, no Greek fellow has been late at the dinner. As such, my justified belief is still true … but it is by no means knowledge.
Jen Semler, DPhil student in Philosophy, used a very similar example to highlight that having justified beliefs (that could even turn out to be true) is not sufficient for knowledge. What then does constitute knowledge, and how do you define it? Questions like this could span a wide range of topics: politics, religion, ethics, economics, science to name just a few, and it is exactly the sort of questions that philosophers try to answer. To achieve this, philosophers develop arguments and try to evaluate them using logical reasoning and deductive arguments, conceptual analysis, and experimentation, going beyond paradoxes and potentially misleading justified beliefs.
Jen’s talk was inspiring, giving us a glimpse of what philosophers are after, and leaving us (or at least me) with the striking impression that philosophers and logicians are very close to each other. Or is this just an (un)justified belief?
Valley Lopez, MSc student in Nature, Society and Environmental Governance, took then over to discuss about “The nature of video games”. After some historical developments and a tour through games that have gained popularity over the years – a tour that undoubtedly sparked memories from the teenage years for some of us – Valley initiated the discussion on serious games.
It soon became apparent that games have a powerful ability to create virtual ecosystems. This unique feature, together with the tremendous advancements in computing power and graphics, have led to extremely accurate representation of reality. However, besides the scenery that acts like the operational environment for the gamers’ avatars, several games deal with socio-political issues. Among these, environmental games bring visibility to climate issues, pollution, and sustainability concerns. There is no doubt that such games have the power to expose gamers to virtual scenarios and emotions; however, it is less clear on whether this exposure offers a mechanism to trigger environmentally conscious actions in real life, or subconsciously makes cruel and catastrophic scenarios less outrageous.
Alina Mihalovits, DPhil student in Clinical Medicine, gave us an over-dinner introduction to the fundamentals of genetics and epigenetics, and their significance in cancer research. Through very helpful technological analogies, Alina highlighted the importance of both the DNA and epigenetic marks for cells to function properly.
Alina’s research concentrates on understanding the effect of mutations and epigenetic changes may have to target gene expression. Elucidating our understanding on such effects is of paramount importance: genetic and epigenetic data can reveal the origins and potentially the progression rates of cancer. At the same time, this may facilitate early detection, prediction, and personalized treatment approaches.
Trying to finish dinner, thinking about whether I would like a cup of coffee, or it is too late; chatting with my guests and wondering whether my daughters at home were already in bed, Jakub Hantabal took over to discuss about “Mastering the multitask”. Jakub discussed about strategies for effective time management across multiple projects. Task organization and prioritization constitute the cornerstone to achieve multi-tasking.
Managing multiple tasks in a professional manner is crucial for managing others and potentially being competent in today’s entrepreneurial sector. However, when is an individual mature enough to opt for multi-tasking? Does multi-tasking trade depth for breadth? Besides productivity, does it also bring happiness (as one of the questions was about)? As for the latter, this depends on everyone’s personality; however, Jakub seemed quite happy.
After these talks, I couldn’t prevent from thinking what philosophy, environmental games, cancer research and multi-tasking in entrepreneurship have in common. Soon I realized that I didn’t ask the correct question: do these topics leave anything out? Interestingly, these topics may not have direct features in common, but span almost all aspects of scientific curiosity across disciplines, same way that the Reuben’s main themes complement each other. More remarkably, it is great to see how well and vividly students can get this message across.
