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Indian man of 100 goes back to university for PhD

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Indian man of 100 goes back to university for PhD

#21

Post by pavel_lishin »

vog wrote: post #16
swah wrote: post #12

I thought folks here would criticize him from taking the place from someone who would have time to use his knowledge. So why didn't this happen? Do you guys think knowledge has intrinsic value by itself?

> Do you guys think knowledge has intrinsic value by itself? While knowledge may have no intrinsic value, the act of learning does! Exciting and satisfying your curiosity is one of the best things you to can do for your brain. And staying mentally healthy in old age is something very valuable. It's definitely better than just watching TV, playing cards or solving crossword puzzles. Learning is more comparable with tr…

While knowledge may have no intrinsic value

Was very tempted to stop reading your comment right there.

Re: Indian man of 100 goes back to university for PhD

#22

Post by mahmud »

BrandonM wrote: post #20
mahmud wrote: post #9

Like any successful PhD, his main drive is vanity :-)

I disagree. See mechanical_fish's comment below: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1811011 In a way, it makes more sense for an elder to get a PhD than someone in his youth.

You missed the part where he said wants a "Dr." prefix before his name. I didn't do any analysis, just took the man on his word.

Re: Indian man of 100 goes back to university for PhD

#23

Post by BrandonM »

mahmud wrote: post #22
BrandonM wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. See mechanical_fish's comment below: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1811011 In a way, it makes more sense for an elder to get a PhD than someone in his youth.

You missed the part where he said wants a "Dr." prefix before his name. I didn't do any analysis, just took the man on his word.

Ahh, my mistake.

Re: Indian man of 100 goes back to university for PhD

#25

Post by vog »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #21
vog wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you guys think knowledge has intrinsic value by itself? While knowledge may have no intrinsic value, the act of learning does! Exciting and satisfying your curiosity is one of the best things you to can do for your brain. And staying mentally healthy in old age is something very valuable. It's definitely better than just watching TV, playing cards or solving crossword puzzles. Learning is more comparable with tr…

While knowledge may have no intrinsic value Was very tempted to stop reading your comment right there.

There is a lot of knowledge (to which I count in particular all proven facts) that has no value at all for me.

For example, take every kind tabloid press. Well, at least the true part of it. Even then, I simply don't care whether some people who I don't even know cheat their spouse, had cosmetic surgery or whatever.

Another example are sports statistics. At least for me, those are absolutely uninteresting. Okay, memorizing them is a nice exercise for the brain, but so is memorizing hundreds of digits of pi, too. (which is also useless, BTW, because we need at most 35 digits of pi for any practical calculation)

Re: Indian man of 100 goes back to university for PhD

#26

Post by vog »

zephyrfalcon wrote: post #17
swah wrote: post #12

I thought folks here would criticize him from taking the place from someone who would have time to use his knowledge. So why didn't this happen? Do you guys think knowledge has intrinsic value by itself?

That reminds me of this quote [0]: "You're a real gold-mine of useless information, you know that, Beldin?" Silk said. "There's no such thing as useless information, Kheldar," Beldin sniffed. [0] David Eddings, the Mallereon book 5, The Seeress of Kell [...of all places]

> There's no such thing as useless information

I disagree completely with that. I just summarized some examples of useless knowledge in http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1813796

Re: Indian man of 100 goes back to university for PhD

#28

Post by sensemaker »

mahmud wrote: post #22
BrandonM wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. See mechanical_fish's comment below: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1811011 In a way, it makes more sense for an elder to get a PhD than someone in his youth.

You missed the part where he said wants a "Dr." prefix before his name. I didn't do any analysis, just took the man on his word.

The problem with the statement is 'Like any successful PhD' ... There should be some analysis to back that up.

Re: Indian man of 100 goes back to university for PhD

#29

Post by sensemaker »

vog wrote: post #25
pavel_lishin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While knowledge may have no intrinsic value Was very tempted to stop reading your comment right there.

There is a lot of knowledge (to which I count in particular all proven facts) that has no value at all for me. For example, take every kind tabloid press. Well, at least the true part of it. Even then, I simply don't care whether some people who I don't even know cheat their spouse, had cosmetic surgery or whatever. Another example are sports statistics. At least for me, those are absolutely uninteresting. Okay, memo…

I don't think how it's useful to you matters, since we're talking about "intrinsic" value of knowledge. Unless I misunderstood the meaning of the word.
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