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Oxford announces new degree in Computer Science and Philosophy

comlab.ox.ac.uk

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Re: Oxford announces new degree in Computer Science and Philosophy

#151

Post by jacques_chester »

endtime wrote: post #64
mayank wrote: post #17

Caveat: this is an anecdote, and your mileage may vary, but I think it illustrates a point of contention in the "two cultures". As a computer science major in the US, I once took a "philosophy of mind" course out of a genuine multi-faceted interest in AI. I was working on undergraduate machine learning research at the time, so I used to pore over the green Norvig/Stewart AI book like a religious text. Unfortunately,…

There are places to discuss these issues intelligently and philosophically; lesswrong.com comes to mind. I agree it's a shame that the classroom debate isn't better, but undergrads are really at the beginning of their intellectual maturation, and many of them think of philosophy class not as a place to learn how to think about things but as an arena in which they must defend their own naive intuition. (I also took a…

> ... many of them think of philosophy class not as a place to learn how to think about things but as an arena in which they must defend their own naive intuition.

Isn't this why the Socratic method was invented? Rather than simply argue, Socrates asked questions and let his interlocutors draw their own conclusions.

Re: Oxford announces new degree in Computer Science and Philosophy

#152

Post by derrida »

This is only reasonable, after all, philosophers at the beginning of the 20th century are responsible for theories about languages and logic that directly lead to the computer. If only those wanking on about "the semantic web" cared to look at some of the philosophy done since the 70s by folks such as Saul Kripke, they might discover that the idea of semantically competent computers is as likely as conscious computers.

Re: Oxford announces new degree in Computer Science and Philosophy

#153

Post by chrisaycock »

haliax wrote: post #133
chrisaycock wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several Oxonians on HN from the looks of it. I read for my DPhil in Computing, as did @cperciva.

Which College were you at? I went to New!

Christ Church

Re: Oxford announces new degree in Computer Science and Philosophy

#154

Post by jph00 »

I majored in philosophy at university. My business partner has a PhD in computer science. When we started working together, we discovered that we had studied many of the same things - Godel's theorem, the halting problem, boolean logic, etc. Much of his overlapping stuff came from a subject called "Theory of Computation", whereas mine came from "Formal Logic" and "Metamathematics".

I think the idea of combining the fields is really brilliant. Nowadays I do a lot of programming (I founded a couple of businesses that are software-focussed), and would love to have had just this kind of educational background.

Re: Oxford announces new degree in Computer Science and Philosophy

#155

Post by keiferski »

Many of you are confusing "analytic" philosophy with all of philosophy. There are numerous distinct schools, with distinct thinkers and lines of thought. Assuming that a single quality applies to a uniform field of "philosophy" is completely misguided. There is no such thing as a uniform field of philosophy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_philosophy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_philosophy

Re: Oxford announces new degree in Computer Science and Philosophy

#156

Post by scott_s »

krakensden wrote: post #136
Confusion wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that physics is being taught the way philosophy is. It's just that with physics, there's clear evidence that previous approaches fell short and there is no need to dwell on them for a long time. However, in introductory classes, you still go into the reasons that previous approaches were wrong. Why do we need to postulate such things as atoms? Knowing why advances were needed makes it much clearer why the c…

I think there's a real difference between teaching wrong-but-very-useful things like Newtonian mechanics and teaching wrong-and-not-at-all-useful things like the four elements.

I also think it's unfair to characterize Newtonian mechanics as "wrong." Under the right circumstances - ones that apply to a lot of day-to-day scenarios - it accurately predicts what will happen. Not so much with the four elements. They, in fact, do not have any predictive power.

Re: Oxford announces new degree in Computer Science and Philosophy

#158

Post by epochwolf »

quinndupont wrote: post #134

How many people on Hacker News have actually studied philosophy? Judging by the top-ranked comments it seems like a) few have studied philosophy seriously, and b) few seem to think there is much value in philosophy. (And by "seriously", I mean beyond a passing understanding of philosophy of mind. If you haven't read the better part of the canon, including boring folk such as Kant or Descartes, that isn't being seriou…

I took a few classes and probably could have written exactly what PG wrote[1] on it.

[1]: http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html

Re: Oxford announces new degree in Computer Science and Philosophy

#159

Post by rdouble »

etherealG wrote: post #29
rdouble wrote: post #19

I did a math and philosophy double major. The danger of a degree like this is that the stark reality of a programming job will seem unbearably boring in comparison to what you studied in school.

I would say you have the wrong type of programming job then. Some can be massively creative and require "philosophical" thought. Areas that come to mind are the ones in computer science which bleed over naturally into philosophy, e.g. AI.

I'm not sure the philosophy/AI crossover in the 1980s and 90s was all that useful. Things may have improved, but I doubt it. You're better off studying applied statistics if you want to get into AI. Even Wittgenstein told his students that studying philosophy is a waste of time and they should become car mechanics, instead.

"If you're studying geology, which is all facts, as soon as you get out of school you forget it all, but philosophy you remember just enough to screw you up for the rest of your life." --Steve Martin

Re: Oxford announces new degree in Computer Science and Philosophy

#160

Post by ubernostrum »

chrisaycock wrote: post #24
mayank wrote: post #17

Caveat: this is an anecdote, and your mileage may vary, but I think it illustrates a point of contention in the "two cultures". As a computer science major in the US, I once took a "philosophy of mind" course out of a genuine multi-faceted interest in AI. I was working on undergraduate machine learning research at the time, so I used to pore over the green Norvig/Stewart AI book like a religious text. Unfortunately,…

Paul Graham wrote an essay a few years ago about his very frustration with this: http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html

And has rightly been yelled at by people who've actually studied philosophy, myself included:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1051121

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