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Dear igravious, We're so much alike, it's scary. I, too, studied philosophy and math. I, too, am currently pursuing grad studies in the humanities (in my cas

by rwl 16y ago

Dear igravious, We're so much alike, it's scary. I, too, studied philosophy and math. I, too, am currently pursuing grad studies in the humanities (in my case, a philosophy PhD program). I, too, am a mostly self-taught programmer. And I, too, suffer from being unable to finish programming projects. (I say this because I don't have a whole lot of advice to offer, but I am glad you asked the question, and I will eagerly follow the answers that others post. I wonder how many others like us there are here on HN?) In addition to what others have said about setting arbitrary deadlines for yourself, here are a few ideas: 1) Get a job that has involves doing some programming. It doesn't have to be at a startup. Since you are in academia, a good place to look would be in labs. (I used to work in a psych lab, myself -- psychologists seem more willing to hire people with philosophy degrees.) I don't know what your research is on, but if there's a way you could connect it with empirical studies, there are probably many labs that would give you a chance to work on it in exchange for working in the lab. And labs always need better programmers. (My guess is that, if you have any sense of code aesthetics, you will be shocked and horrified by the code you find in any working lab. The effort involved in debugging it will be motivation enough to write your own, improved version.) 2) Become reliant on one or a few pieces of Free software. (For me, these are Emacs and Org Mode.) If they are totally indispensable to how you work, you'll notice problems more frequently, and you'll be motivated to fix those problems -- all the way to the end. Lots of people say, "if you want to learn to code, work on an open source project," but for me, that's hard advice to follow in the abstract. It's much easier to follow through when I know the fix will actually help me solve a problem.

igravious 16y ago
Dear rwl, Wow. A clone of me floating in cyberspace. You know I used to get funny looks from my philosophy classmates when I answered their question, "so what's your other subject?" (you take two subjects at degree level where I'm from). Nearly everybody combines philosophy and literature or philosophy and sociology or philosophy psychology, you get the idea. But math? What has philosophy go to do with math? I dunno, ask Bertrand Russel. Ask Frege. Ask Descartes. Ask Leibniz. :) And then I'd tell them that I used to work in IT as a software tester and developer and they'd look at me as if I had two heads. In some parts of the world this is considered a lot stranger than other parts. In Spain (where I've had the good fortune to have lived) people think you are _really strange_ if you study one discipline and work at something else. You get less funny looks in northern Europe. I wonder what your PhD program is? I'm pursuing a Master (in Digital Culture as I mentioned elsewhere here) at the moment. For my thesis I'm combining my love of IT and math and philosophy by researching open source (free software I mean) mathematical tools. Like Richard Stallman I see free software as an ethical issue, which is how I rope philosophy into it :) For my Bachelor's degree I wrote a paper on the philosophy of the infinitesimal calculus and intuitionism! So I always manage to draw together the various intellectual pieces that make up the puzzle of ... whatever the puzzle is. Right now what gets me very excited is intuitionistic type theory and the Curry-Howard correspondence because again this area of logic/epistemology can be looked at through comp-sci glasses, philosophical glasses and mathematical glasses. I realize all this is totally unrelated to my original question - apologies to all for that but it's not everyday one meets one's clone in cyberspace.
- rwl 16y ago
  I wonder what your PhD program is? Well, I haven't got a specific focus or dissertation topic yet. (Not sure how it works in Europe, but here in the U.S., a Ph.D. typically involves doing coursework first, which is where I'm at.) But I will probably do something in philosophy of language and/or philosophical logic. Like Richard Stallman I see free software as an ethical issue, which is how I rope philosophy into it Me too. So far, I haven't had a whole lot of luck convincing other philosophers that there is an ethical issue to be examined, though. Mostly, they see me as getting inexplicably cranky due to my esoteric interests... For my Bachelor's degree I wrote a paper on the philosophy of the infinitesimal calculus and intuitionism! ... Right now what gets me very excited is intuitionistic type theory and the Curry-Howard correspondence Sounds fascinating. I have been thinking about intuitionism a bit lately too. I'm on the fence: classical logic clearly proves too much; but doesn't intuitionism prove too little? :)
  - igravious 16y ago
    Sorry for the late reply. I think (but am not 100% sure) that by the time your PhD comes around you have all your coursework out of the way and only attend department seminars for PhD candidates, post-docs, professors and the like. I'll send my research into the matter as it goes forward where I take a proper look at the ethical nature of free software. It's not just some philosophers and programmers and business managers who don't see it as an ethical issue. But this is the case for a lot of social conventions that aren't widespread, like vegetarianism. "classical logic clearly proves too much; but doesn't intuitionism prove too little?" I've never seen the difference formulated like this. But I see what you mean. Intuitionism restricts your proofs (in mathematics anyhow) to constructive proofs so, for instance, proof by contradiction is generally not permissible. But my feeling is that classical proofs don't tell you very much. For finite models they both work, where potential infinities (or stuff with recursive properties) are involved I feel that intuitionism stops you coming to needlessly silly conclusions. Sorry if this is all a bit vague. I'd have to show you what I mean by addressing it to a particular area.

by rwl 16y ago

igravious 16y ago

Dear rwl, Wow. A clone of me floating in cyberspace. You know I used to get funny looks from my philosophy classmates when I answered their question, "so what's your other subject?" (you take two subjects at degree level where I'm from). Nearly everybody combines philosophy and literature or philosophy and sociology or philosophy psychology, you get the idea. But math? What has philosophy go to do with math? I dunno, ask Bertrand Russel. Ask Frege. Ask Descartes. Ask Leibniz. :) And then I'd tell them that I used to work in IT as a software tester and developer and they'd look at me as if I had two heads. In some parts of the world this is considered a lot stranger than other parts. In Spain (where I've had the good fortune to have lived) people think you are _really strange_ if you study one discipline and work at something else. You get less funny looks in northern Europe. I wonder what your PhD program is? I'm pursuing a Master (in Digital Culture as I mentioned elsewhere here) at the moment. For my thesis I'm combining my love of IT and math and philosophy by researching open source (free software I mean) mathematical tools. Like Richard Stallman I see free software as an ethical issue, which is how I rope philosophy into it :) For my Bachelor's degree I wrote a paper on the philosophy of the infinitesimal calculus and intuitionism! So I always manage to draw together the various intellectual pieces that make up the puzzle of ... whatever the puzzle is. Right now what gets me very excited is intuitionistic type theory and the Curry-Howard correspondence because again this area of logic/epistemology can be looked at through comp-sci glasses, philosophical glasses and mathematical glasses. I realize all this is totally unrelated to my original question - apologies to all for that but it's not everyday one meets one's clone in cyberspace.

rwl 16y ago
I wonder what your PhD program is? Well, I haven't got a specific focus or dissertation topic yet. (Not sure how it works in Europe, but here in the U.S., a Ph.D. typically involves doing coursework first, which is where I'm at.) But I will probably do something in philosophy of language and/or philosophical logic. Like Richard Stallman I see free software as an ethical issue, which is how I rope philosophy into it Me too. So far, I haven't had a whole lot of luck convincing other philosophers that there is an ethical issue to be examined, though. Mostly, they see me as getting inexplicably cranky due to my esoteric interests... For my Bachelor's degree I wrote a paper on the philosophy of the infinitesimal calculus and intuitionism! ... Right now what gets me very excited is intuitionistic type theory and the Curry-Howard correspondence Sounds fascinating. I have been thinking about intuitionism a bit lately too. I'm on the fence: classical logic clearly proves too much; but doesn't intuitionism prove too little? :)
- igravious 16y ago
  Sorry for the late reply. I think (but am not 100% sure) that by the time your PhD comes around you have all your coursework out of the way and only attend department seminars for PhD candidates, post-docs, professors and the like. I'll send my research into the matter as it goes forward where I take a proper look at the ethical nature of free software. It's not just some philosophers and programmers and business managers who don't see it as an ethical issue. But this is the case for a lot of social conventions that aren't widespread, like vegetarianism. "classical logic clearly proves too much; but doesn't intuitionism prove too little?" I've never seen the difference formulated like this. But I see what you mean. Intuitionism restricts your proofs (in mathematics anyhow) to constructive proofs so, for instance, proof by contradiction is generally not permissible. But my feeling is that classical proofs don't tell you very much. For finite models they both work, where potential infinities (or stuff with recursive properties) are involved I feel that intuitionism stops you coming to needlessly silly conclusions. Sorry if this is all a bit vague. I'd have to show you what I mean by addressing it to a particular area.