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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 yo

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 15y ago
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.

sb 15y ago

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.