The Philosophy of Computer Science (2013)(plato.stanford.edu) |
The Philosophy of Computer Science (2013)(plato.stanford.edu) |
He was, for a few examples, the first modern experimental psychologist in the Americas, the first metrologist to use a wave-length of light as a unit of measure, the inventor of the quincuncial projection of the sphere, the first known conceiver of the design and theory of an electric switching-circuit computer, and the founder of "the economy of research." He is the only system-building philosopher in the Americas who has been both competent and productive in logic, in mathematics, and in a wide range of sciences. If he has had any equals in that respect in the entire history of philosophy, they do not number more than two."
--Max H. Fisch in Sebeok, The Play of Musement
But if he wrote over 10,000 pages of publications and articles, how many of his claims and ideas were false, misleading, or inaccurate? Is genius measured by the number of ideas that don't come to fruition, or by lasting successes? We don't cite Darwin as a politician despite his writings about the politics of his time. Nor do we particularly praise Turing as an athlete despite his running hobby.
A century has passed and his work has been analyzed by a variety of academics. Pointers to capable critiques would be welcome.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sanders_Peirce
"Peirce considered himself, first and foremost, a logician. He made major contributions to logic, but logic for him encompassed much of that which is now called epistemology and philosophy of science. He saw logic as the formal branch of semiotics, of which he is a founder. As early as 1886 he saw that logical operations could be carried out by electrical switching circuits; the same idea was used decades later to produce digital computers."
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce/#con
"Currently, considerable interest is being taken in Peirce's ideas by researchers wholly outside the arena of academic philosophy. The interest comes from industry, business, technology, intelligence organizations, and the military; and it has resulted in the existence of a substantial number of agencies, institutes, businesses, and laboratories in which ongoing research into and development of Peircean concepts are being vigorously undertaken."
Also considering combining one of these majors with a more traditional CS or EECS degree.
On the other hand, if your university has some sort of interdisciplinary program that combines philosophy with computer science, cognitive science, or some other STEM field, then go for it. Just make sure that it's a stable, well-funded, populous program (not something that only exists for the sake of placating a particular professor), and that your degree looks sciencey enough, e.g. it says B.Sc. instead of B.A.
Of course, YMMV depending on your university and the availability (or lack thereof) of certain faculty members during your stay.
A lot of said programmes exist for exactly that reason.
On the basis of that experience, I would recommend focusing on a traditional CS or EECS degree, and take philosophy on the side.
By taking a traditional degree you will provide yourself with a deep, broad foundation from which to evaluate various philosophical mutterings, and will be well-positioned to realize just how imbecilic most of them are.
There is a mathematician's joke that be successful in math you need a pencil, a paper, and a garbage can, while to be successful in philosophy you only need a pencil and paper (philosophers publish their mistakes, and sometimes build careers on them.)
Philosophy does have uses. It encourages a certain kind of rigour in thinking, but the content of the subject is mostly philosopher's imaginations, and three hundred years of science has taught us that the human imagination is almost completely useless for understanding reality. What we can or cannot imagine is utterly unrelated to what actually is.
AJ Ayer, for example, could not imagine the kind of empirical test of metaphysical propositions that Bell showed we could actually perform. A willful ignorance of the poverty of imagination as a tool for understanding reality was the basis for the entire Positivist program, which was, unsurprisingly, a failure.
So stick with the core subject and extend your reach to philosophy. You'll be far better served that way, and when you do philosophize it will have a far higher chance of being insightful and useful rather than obvious nonsense to anyone actually in the field you are philosophizing about.
Most of the problems we class as "metaphysics" probably aren't empirically verifiable, but if a few turn out to be, it isn't a big problem for the positivist program. Their objection to metaphysics isn't as principled as you make it out to be. It just falls out of verificationist semantics.
So if a physicist manages to empirically verify a few things that might have seemend metaphysical, then cool, turns out they were doing physics not metaphysics.
Sometimes, reality is changed by the human imagination, e.g. by generating a new hypothesis to be tested by science.
Questions vs Answers: http://kiriakakis.net/comics/mused/a-day-at-the-park
I'd say CS/EECS major, Philsophy and Math minors with focuses in AI for everything.
You have the option after that for doing AI in a master's or PHD program.
Not everyone wants to follow the classic SV career path.
Standard degrees are great for producing hot-swappable collefe hires. After that diverse experience and background is what makes a career.
Biological Computer Lab: http://bcl.ece.illinois.edu/
Ethics: http://web.stanford.edu/group/SHR/4-2/text/foerster.html
If you're into game theory, consider CS and Statistics.
I'd probably pick CS, math or psychology as a good combination with philosophy. Theoretical physics is probably interesting as well but I don't know much about it. Quantum physics seems almost impossible without dipping into philosophy from my pop-QP point of view.
I'm mostly interested in science theory/epistemology/ontology though and know fairly little about other branches of philosophy. No formal education but I've talked to philosophers on campus and it's usually very interesting. I'd agree that a major benefit seems to be a sharpened thought process in general.
"Deduction proves that something must be; Induction shows that something actually is operative; Abduction merely suggests that something may be."
I'd argue that the previous poster's advice applies to ANY career path that isn't academia.