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Why you should quit your technology job and get a Ph.D. in the humanities

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Re: Why you should quit your technology job and get a Ph.D. in the humanities

#31

Post by keypusher »

This advice is ridiculous. First, I don't believe the intent of most Ph.D programs is even to create "a rounded, open, and engaged intellectual citizen". I know quite a few people with doctorate degrees, and while most were quite happy with their educational experience, I doubt they would describe it as he frames it. Second, most of the great programmers I know are deeply interested in the humanities and tend to be quite well read in many disciplines. They just prefer to spend their creative energies and career creating software.

Furthermore, I am highly skeptical of the idea that you need a Ph.D to have a meaningful understanding of the humanities. Despite his assertions about the "thought leaders", it seems to me that those who have made the most progress on the big questions in the last 100+ years did so through science and technology, not through the humanities.

Re: Why you should quit your technology job and get a Ph.D. in the humanities

#32

Post by yid »

Retric wrote: post #29
derrida wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, if you have the philosophical Q's figured out, could you send me the lisp code for the 'redness of red', I need my latest program to have phenomenal feeling.

"Purple air sounds like rage." Is grammatically correct and passes a wide range of linguistic filters, yet for some reason it has zero meaning. Still read it a few times, it feels like there should be some meaning there. This get's at a core problem with language. Language is based around the assumption that something meaningful is trying to be communicated so we rarely bother with much precision. You can refer to id…

"Purple air sounds like rage."

Take some acid, and that sentence might make perfect sense.

Re: Why you should quit your technology job and get a Ph.D. in the humanities

#33

Post by aik »

keypusher wrote: post #31

This advice is ridiculous. First, I don't believe the intent of most Ph.D programs is even to create "a rounded, open, and engaged intellectual citizen". I know quite a few people with doctorate degrees, and while most were quite happy with their educational experience, I doubt they would describe it as he frames it. Second, most of the great programmers I know are deeply interested in the humanities and tend to be q…

Completely agree. I find the article slightly silly in that what he is suggesting is the same thing as the purpose of any Liberal Arts degree... to create a "rounded, open, and engaged intellectual citizen."

It's interesting how we've fallen so out of touch with what our universities were created for in the first place, or rather that we're never told what we're going to school for and what our options are.

Re: Why you should quit your technology job and get a Ph.D. in the humanities

#34

Post by forkandwait »

I wish I thought that getting an advanced degree in the humanities would give you a background in the (ever evolving group of) classics, but I am afraid academics must specialize and so don't actually get to be well-rounded (Oh, I don't do Plato, I just do Kant...) I have always found my advisors to be disturbed that I thought it important to read widely...

Re: Why you should quit your technology job and get a Ph.D. in the humanities

#35

Post by Natsu »

Retric wrote: post #29
derrida wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, if you have the philosophical Q's figured out, could you send me the lisp code for the 'redness of red', I need my latest program to have phenomenal feeling.

"Purple air sounds like rage." Is grammatically correct and passes a wide range of linguistic filters, yet for some reason it has zero meaning. Still read it a few times, it feels like there should be some meaning there. This get's at a core problem with language. Language is based around the assumption that something meaningful is trying to be communicated so we rarely bother with much precision. You can refer to id…

> "Purple air sounds like rage." Is grammatically correct and passes a wide range of linguistic filters, yet for some reason it has zero meaning. Still read it a few times, it feels like there should be some meaning there.

It does have some meaning, in that it implies that the one who wrote it has synesthesia.

Re: Why you should quit your technology job and get a Ph.D. in the humanities

#36

Post by ChristianMarks »

The author has the good fortune to assume the critical stance of the philosopher and to enjoy unfettered intellectual freedom within a corporate institution such as Google. I myself prefer not to uncritically internalize the values of the workplace. My saying so at my own place of work was not appreciated, and culminated in an exit interview, a dramatization of which is available here: http://christianmarks.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/exit-intervie...

Re: Why you should quit your technology job and get a Ph.D. in the humanities

#37

Post by davidw »

yid wrote: post #32
Retric wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Purple air sounds like rage." Is grammatically correct and passes a wide range of linguistic filters, yet for some reason it has zero meaning. Still read it a few times, it feels like there should be some meaning there. This get's at a core problem with language. Language is based around the assumption that something meaningful is trying to be communicated so we rarely bother with much precision. You can refer to id…

"Purple air sounds like rage." Take some acid, and that sentence might make perfect sense.

If someone like John Lennon had uttered that phrase, people would do their utmost to find some meaning in it.

Re: Why you should quit your technology job and get a Ph.D. in the humanities

#38

Post by Confusion »

Retric wrote: post #29
derrida wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, if you have the philosophical Q's figured out, could you send me the lisp code for the 'redness of red', I need my latest program to have phenomenal feeling.

"Purple air sounds like rage." Is grammatically correct and passes a wide range of linguistic filters, yet for some reason it has zero meaning. Still read it a few times, it feels like there should be some meaning there. This get's at a core problem with language. Language is based around the assumption that something meaningful is trying to be communicated so we rarely bother with much precision. You can refer to id…

The problem of qualia[1] is about the relation between knowledge of a phenomenon and experiences of that phenomenon. 'Emotion' has nothing to do with it, unless you consider the mental state that is the result of 'the perception of something blue' to be a distinct emotional state, in which case your usage of the word 'emotion' deviates from the common way[2] it is used.

I'm sorry if this seems unsubstantiated and unsatisfactory, but I'm afraid that you just do not yet understand the profoundness of the problem 'derrida' refers to. Your proposed way of attacking the problem is too naive.

[1] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/ [2] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/emotion/

Re: Why you should quit your technology job and get a Ph.D. in the humanities

#39

Post by sayemm »

Damon Horowitz is an extremely talented and smart guy who's proven himself in the startup world, but I don't think he's giving the best advice here.

He mentions Steve Jobs at the end as a technologist who's clear evidence of the importance of a liberal arts education. Jobs does credit a lot of Apple's design to that calligraphy class he walked into in his early days (while he was a college drop-out)... but if there's anything to be gleaned from the best and brightest, and the most creative, in industry, it's that they're self-taught - their creativity isn't a product of the humanities in academia.

Who was the last Philosophy PhD who went on to start the next great tech company? Or do anything particularly innovative?

Re: Why you should quit your technology job and get a Ph.D. in the humanities

#40

Post by InclinedPlane »

zdw wrote: post #2

I see a humanities degree as nothing less than a rite of passage to intellectual adulthood. A way of evolving from a sophomoric wonderer and critic into a rounded, open, and engaged intellectual citizen. This is somewhat insulting to to those of us who, despite being "sophmoric" technologists, are actually quite well rounded.

I studied Mathematics, Chemistry, and Computer Science in college. I'd put my well-roundedness and intellectualism up against ANY humanities degree holder in the blink of an eye.

Furthermore, I do not consent to the core conceit that a college humanities program is either a good, reliable, or even sufficient mechanism for instilling humanities values and knowledge or even the fundamental skills of intellectualism, critical thinking, and basic reasoning.

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