
Why you should quit your technology job and get a Ph.D. in the humanities - drewda
http://chronicle.com/article/From-Technologist-to/128231/#
======
patio11
Rich technologists are _exactly_ the type of people who should get PhDs in the
humanities, since they require either a) you to have sufficient resources to
live a life of leisure or b) external support by an organization which has a
pile of rent and a big desire to spend some to signal status. Sell your
startup, go get a degree in English. Become a Scholar in Residence at e.g.
Google, do some pathbreaking anthropological work about youths' use of mobile
devices. Whatever.

If you actually work for a living, though, this is _terrible_ advice.

------
zdw
_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.

~~~
_delirium
Despite actually being a big fan of the humanities (though a computer
scientist myself), it's sadly not really what the median humanities degree
gets you either. You _can_ learn a lot of interesting stuff and become well-
rounded, like in many fields. But, also like in many fields, you can also
become the world's foremost expert on an extremely narrow subject that may or
may not be even on the right track to anything. I believe this is one of
several reasons for the big dropout rate in humanities PhDs--- signed up for
the broad education in philosophy and knowledge, but dropped out when it
became clear that it was a path to becoming the world's expert on Gendered
Discourse in the Hungarian Mining Industry, 1872-1876; or perhaps on a very
narrow technical problem in analytic philosophy.

~~~
noblethrasher
> but dropped out when it became clear that it was a path to becoming the
> world's expert on Gendered Discourse in the Hungarian Mining Industry,
> 1872-1876; or perhaps on a very narrow technical problem in analytic
> philosophy.

On the other hand, it's not so dispiriting when you consider that you'd
probably be the world's foremost authority on the topic... forever.

------
gwern
> If you are worried about your career, I must tell you that getting a
> humanities Ph.D. is not only not a danger to your employability, it is quite
> the opposite. I believe there no surer path to leaping dramatically forward
> in your career than to earn a Ph.D. in the humanities. Because the thought
> leaders in our industry are not the ones who plodded dully, step by step, up
> the career ladder. The leaders are the ones who took chances and developed
> unique perspectives.

Apparently when he abandoned his sophomore technologist beliefs, he also
abandoned the need to provide evidence.

------
jobeirne
_To a young undergraduate, frustrated with the lack of rapid progress on tough
philosophical questions, AI seemed like the great hope, the panacea—the escape
from the frustrations of thinking._

Yeah, that'll go away in short order after taking a few AI classes.

~~~
Jach
It might also give you a clear insight on so-called tough philosophical
questions.

~~~
Retric
Yea, after studding AI I find most philosophical debate boring. There may be
interesting areas in philosophy outside arguing about unspecified definitions
but I have not found any.

Consider the Chinese room argument, where is the brain? It's the arrangement
of all the players and their rule sets. What is consciousness, it's their
internal state etc.

~~~
derrida
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.

~~~
Retric
"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 ideas as physical objects but parsing
into something meaningful requires a lot of context.

Redness seems to refer to some sort of external stimulus, but both redness and
red are really internal qualifications of some external stimulus. So, I can
point you to a red filter that looks at color codes and compares them to
FF0000. If I then run that filter on FF0000 I get an internal state of 100%.
But what that does not create something with emotions and your linking them in
that sentence so what's wrong? I would suggest it's not the fact that the code
does not produce emotion that's the problem it's your assumption that anything
that understands redness must include an emotional context. Still, if you want
both a test for redness and an emotional response you could code a simple AI
with competing goals who responds emotionally to increasing amounts of red in
it's environment.

Granted, you could then argue that such a simplistic representation of
internal state is to simplistic a response to cover the full range of
emotions. But a that point your not talking about 'redness of red' in the
abstract but getting into mimicking your personal emotional responses. Which
could be done to some reasonable level of accuracy.

PS: I could also have completely missed what you where trying to communicate,
but I hope that line of reasoning demonstrated what I was talking about.
Namely that in the context of AI you can translate abstract philosophical
ideas into a meaningful context but they stop being interesting somewhere in
the process.

~~~
Confusion
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/>

~~~
Retric
Human emotion is an complex internal biochemical reaction. Suggesting it has
some deeper meaning from what is actually going on is naive.

Suppose you walk into a room who's walls are covered in fresh blood. Now
Suppose instead you walked into an identical room that was identical room
except the blood was green. What separates those two rooms is at some level a
simple color filter, but your internal responses are going to be vary
different. If you could slow down time and look at the individual responses to
each room you could watch as the red or green information propagated around
your individual neurons.

But at what part of that does 'redness' apply? The individual rods and cones
independently respond to photons but you have to go into post processing
before the concept of red is separate from white or black. If you look at the
way neurons work there is some computation involved and comparison between
individual sensor neurons but at some point that neuron fires and guess what
that's what redness means. It's the internal state of on ore more neurons
looking at those signals. Now you can ask about memory but it terns out that's
a recording of internal states which is not really a copy of some RGB value
but a copy of some of your internal state while the event was gong on. And
when it comes to language you are communicating internal physical states. You
can describe your dopamine levels in flowery language but there are underlying
physical processes which your are describing.

Having said all that you could talk about the platonic ideal form for redness,
but just because what he said sounds like it has meaning does not mean it
does. He did not understand what was going on so he built up complex ideas
that don't apply in the abstract instead he is describing your internal
classification of things. When I look at this picture my internal chair
classifier goes off etc.

PS: I am of course greatly simplifying my description of how the brain works
but from a philosophical perspective the details are not vary important.

------
lsb
As one who's gotten a Master's in Classics, I can say that my timeline for
reference is about 3000 years, and more if I think about Egyptian papryri, and
Indo-European Poetics. Most technical people have a timeline of only about 50
to 75 years, maximum, and it's quite a beneficial change of perspective.

~~~
zyfo
This is a very good point. Reading old philosophers really open ones eyes to
the things that have changed little in human culture throughout the centuries
or even millenniums.

------
zwieback
Why does everything have to be so extreme - what's wrong with studying some
humanities without quitting your job?

~~~
burgerbrain
What's wrong with that is that it's common sense, non-offensive, and won't get
pageviews. ;)

------
cbo
If the only reason to do so is to become a "rounded, open, and engaged
intellectual citizen", why not just read a few books?

Advanced humanities degrees are great, if you're into advanced humanities.

------
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?

------
iamelgringo
Why not read a bunch of books instead?

If the point is to become a well rounded person, think widely and read widely,
then getting a PhD isn't going to help you much. I think of PhD's as very
driven, focused, able to take a lot of abuse, able to write and research for
several years. I don't think of them as particularly well rounded.

In particular, getting a PhD in Philosophy from Stanford after a BS in CS from
Columbia and an MS from MIT is going to give you a couple of survey courses in
Philosophy, and then a very deep knowledge of a very, very narrow band of
philosophy..

 _I learned how the quantifiable, individualistic, ahistorical—that is,
computational—view I had of cognition failed to account for whole expanses of
cognitive experience (including, say, most of Shakespeare). I learned how
pragmatist and contextualist perspectives better reflect the diversity and
flexibility of our linguistic practices than do formal language models._

QED.

If the point is to be well read, well rounded, and be able to think broadly
about a variety of topics, then... read a book. Read a lot of books. Read
broadly. Read widely. Read people that you disagree with. Argue with writers.

Read literature, comparative religions, philosophy, cultural anthropology,
sociology, history, science fiction, mythology, fantasy, psychology,
biography, poetry.

Read Carl Jung, Freud, Neitsche, Marx, Kant, Dickenson, Poe, Emerson,
Hawthorne, Plato, Aristotle, the Bhagvad Gita, the Koran, the Tao, The Tao of
Poo, Luther, Martin Luther King, Tolstoy and Doestoyevsky, Adams, St. John of
the Cross, the Mystics--Christian, Bhuddist, Kabbalist, and Sufi, Gleick,
Feynman, Shakespeare, Chaucer.

Chances are, if they say it's a "classic" it's probably hung around for a long
time because it's good. (Except for Kant. He couldn't write worth crap). And,
in reading we learn that we are not alone. We learn that perhaps creating a
True AI isn't something to be desired anyway. We learn that maybe
consciousness is more than a deterministic bunch of bio-chemical reactions
taking place in our frontal lobes that can be modeled via neural networks and
computer processors. And, we start to wonder, if perhaps as the poets
proclaim... there something called a Soul. And if there is a Soul, can we
actually create that via silicon, light, magnetics and electricity?

You can get that education in $1.50 in late charges at the library. You don't
have to spend 3 years and $150k at Stanford working on your Phd.

~~~
sb
While I agree with your suggestion of reading books (which is IMHO in general
a good advice), I have to sort of disagree with your description of a PhD: The
goal of getting a PhD at least in science, technology, engineering and
mathematics is to autonomously advance the state-of-the-art of any chosen
field, to contribute new knowledge to humanity without a supervisor giving
directions.

Now, the process of advancing the state-of-the-art is unusually hard and there
exists a good deal of very good write-ups of the intricacies involved (such as
"So long and thanks for the PhD") which requires people to be driven and
focused. But, at the same time, before actually starting the research that
gets them their PhDs, gradute students spend time in advanced courses and
later on read lots of research papers and additional textbooks. This is an
invaluable process of unsupervised learning (hence the first paragraph), and I
think that getting a PhD also gives you the abilities and experience to
autonomously go from zero knowledge in an area to contributing new knowledge
by reading. Of course, studying at a university saves you a lot of time,
because somebody else--the professor--who is already very knowledgeable in the
target area has already broken down his knowledge in edible--and ideally
pedagogically-sound--pieces ready to be sucked up. But if time is not of the
essence, and since you are already a driven and focused person, you should be
able to do it by yourself.

So this was (quite unexpectedly) rather long, a more detailed discussion and
probably a very good book to read for anybody can be found in: Mortimer Jerome
Adler's wonderful "How to read a book". A brief summary for tl;dr reasons: I
love and totally support your reading advice, but since the PhD experience
enables you to work your way through literature in unknown territory, it might
very well be worth the effort.

------
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.

~~~
aik
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.

------
dfc
I have a lot of friends who are in the middle of their dissertations or
freshly minted philosophy PhDs. From what they tell me the job market for
philosophy profs is awful; in fact the job market for any professorial (tenure
track mainly but also non-tenure) positions in the humanities is not a lot
better.

------
simonsarris
Man this guy seems to take his train of thought to a bit of an extreme.

"Hard distinctions make bad philosophy" - John McCarthy (inventor of Lisp,
coined the term "AI")

I did both. I got a degree in Computer Science and Philosophy. I loved it. But
I didn't have to do something drastic to get there. I enjoy humanities
greatly, so I incorporated them into my study along with technology.

------
jarek
As an aside, this is the fourth time this article has been posted to HN, and I
say this as the person who posted it the second time around, a day after it
first failed to gain traction, with a slightly modified URL.

------
ctl
This article is almost 100% fluff.

------
zeteo
I'm really curious how he used his philosophy studies to "make major progress
in AI". I've spent several years avidly reading philosophy, and ultimately
found the field quite sterile. Granted it raises interesting questions, but
the answers are too varied and contested to be of much practical use.

The only example the article gives is "when you have a question, we connect
you to another person who can give you a live answer". But this seems more
like avoiding the problem than like major progress in AI.

------
chegra84
There is nothing wrong with suggesting something radical. At the same time,
you have to be able to show the strength of your beliefs. A strong signal of
belief is your willingness to place money behind an idea. Probably the best
example of someone placing money behind a radical idea is Peter Thiel when he
created Thiel Fellowship.

I think you would be well received if you were to offer full scholarship and
stipend equal to the participants salary.

------
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...

------
ahi
The guy is a bit of a masochist isn't he? Bouncing from one intractable
problem to the next.

------
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...](http://christianmarks.wordpress.com/2011/06/18/exit-interview-2/)

------
phyllotaxis
The sentiment is unimpeachable- but the advice isn't. Get the education, and
the perspective that come with it- absolutely. But it doesn't require a
retreat to academia for several years to gain it anymore.

The internet is the collective knowledge and experience of all humanity. To
seek this information is wise and wonderful- but I respectfully suggest that
dropping ones life to go back to school, chained anew in debt, isn't necessary
for the attainment of that wisdom.

~~~
gruseom
I don't see the internet as a source of wisdom, or even knowledge, depending
on what one means by the word. Information, certainly. But the mental habits
that the internet as a mass medium fosters are antithetical to study and
reflection.

I love the internet, not least because of the ease with which I can obtain
information that used to take hours in the library. But obtaining specific
facts is not the same thing as learning or thinking.

From observing myself and others, I believe that something is wrong. I'm
getting way more brain stimulation from the internet than I used to without
it, but in terms of things that matter to me in the long run -- growth and
learning -- it is of poor quality. I remember the quality of a life spent with
books, and this is definitely not it. I feel like I'm experiencing my own
atrophy, and it dismays me. Sometimes I think that one of these days I should
post a list of books to HN and promise not to come back until I've read them.

So no, consuming information from the internet is in practice nothing like
getting an education in the humanities, for anyone whose brain is wired like
mine and those of people I know.

Books are food, the internet is a drug.

~~~
karamazov
It all depends on what you view with the Internet, just like the quality of a
life spent with books depends on exactly what books you're reading. If all you
read is romance novels, you won't be stimulating yourself adequately; the same
is true online. If you choose to access only brief news articles and simulator
entries, for example, you may learn a lot; but you won't stretch your mind.

Every now and again read something difficult; something that makes you think
and leaves you confused. You'll learn more in the long run. A great place
start, if you happen to be interested in math, is Terence Tao's blog, and a
number of the blogs he links to. (At the least, I find it challenging; the
blog is over at <http://terrytao.wordpress.com/> .)

~~~
gruseom
This is the sort of platitude that it's comfortable for everybody to agree on:
it's just the quality of the material that matters, so just read better stuff.
Well, no. That isn't the only thing that matters. The medium also has an
effect. The internet is an excellent medium for random access to specific
things and a poor medium for substantial thought and reflection. It's a mile
wide and an inch deep.

Tao's blog is excellent, but how does one acquire the background necessary to
understand his mathematical posts? By rolling up one's sleeves and doing hard
work, most of which is likely done away from the internet. And this is the
kind of thing that spending a lot of time on the internet makes it harder to
do. That's my experience, anyway, as well as my observation of others'.

------
michaelochurch
A few things ignored:

A. The PhD concept, like academia itself, is broken. For most people, it's 5-7
years to get narrow training for an industry that has sold out a generation
and a half and probably won't exist, in any meaningful way, in 40 years on
account of how badly it has treated young entrants. The last time a disaster
as bad as the academic job market occurred in the U.S., two countries got
invaded.

B. You'd think the philosophy degree would give him the ability to avoid
inverted-causality fallacies, e.g. "I know how to think a certain way
_because_ I got a philosophy Ph.D."

Don't get me wrong. I think there can be a lot of value in a Ph.D. program.
But I think for a successful person in technology, it's a really bad idea from
a career perspective. I'll focus on this:

 _Because the thought leaders in our industry are not the ones who plodded
dully, step by step, up the career ladder. The leaders are the ones who took
chances and developed unique perspectives._

Does he really think that everyone who takes 5-7 years off to pursue a
humanities Ph.D. gets some kind of magical career rocket fuel that propels him
or her into a decision-making role where broad-based perspective is crucial? I
doubt it.

Now, I will agree that society would benefit immensely if our leaders
(including in technology) actually understood the humanities, and many don't.
On the other hand, that doesn't mean that taking 5-7 years off to study
philosophy increases your chance of becoming one of those leaders; I think it
lowers it, sadly.

