Courses Can a computer illiterate graduate in theoretical physics?

[Pleonasm]

Nowhere will you find me objecting to the vital component of computers in modern physics. To the contrary, I wrote it's clearly intrinsic judging from this thread and my previous knowledge of the natural sciences. My question was how much.

However, since you guys clearly challenge me, becoming a philosophy doctorate does not entail programming of any sort as part of the job description. One of my graduations will be in philosophy, and I will be a doctorate with a position in the department. My professor of theoretical philosophy praised a text I wrote overnight, comparing me to other great thinkers. This being while I suffer from great depressions and haven't even got started. My asperger was not a plea to sympathy, it was explaining how I am very different.

The purpose of the thread was to ask a question, not to advocate anything. You guys are seeing ghosts...

 

[QuantumCurt]

No, philosophy isn't likely to require much of anything in the way of programming...depending on the field. If one is working in formal logic, computer science can often be a closely related field. Epistemological thought can often involve computers and programming as an example in a discussion of what the nature of knowledge is. John Searle's famous Chinese Room Argument is essentially a question of whether or not computers can be said to have knowledge or to actually know something. And to properly analyze this argument, one must have an understanding of how computers perform tasks. Many other areas of debate in epistemology utilize computers as examples as well. In making such an argument, an understanding of what computers are, and how they actually work in a technical sense is of great importance. If one is working in complex formal logic or areas of modal logic, one often has to analyze long strings of logical statements, which is often performed algorithmically via a computer program. In general, formal logic is basically how a computer works. It's very related to philosophy.

I'm honestly hard pressed to think of a single academic field that wouldn't greatly benefit by knowing how to write code.

In either case, I'm not really sure why you keep bringing up examples like psychology, economics, philosophy, and other fields that are not the fields you are proposing entering.

 

[Pleonasm]

No, philosophy isn't likely to require much of anything in the way of programming...depending on the field. If one is working in formal logic, computer science can often be a closely related field. Epistemological thought can often involve computers and programming as an example in a discussion of what the nature of knowledge is. John Searle's famous Chinese Room Argument is essentially a question of whether or not computers can be said to have knowledge or to actually know something. And to properly analyze this argument, one must have an understanding of how computers perform tasks. Many other areas of debate in epistemology utilize computers as examples as well. In making such an argument, an understanding of what computers are, and how they actually work in a technical sense is of great importance. If one is working in complex formal logic or areas of modal logic, one often has to analyze long strings of logical statements, which is often performed algorithmically via a computer program. In general, formal logic is basically how a computer works. It's very related to philosophy.

While formal logic may be intrinsic to philosophical argumentation, formal logic involving programming is most certainly not. It is optional.

In either case, I'm not really sure why you keep bringing up examples like psychology, economics, philosophy, and other fields that are not the fields you are proposing entering.

It's for the simple fact that some people ruled out a computer illiterate from any academia. I don't consider a person capable of switching on the computer, using word, emailing and other such things to be anywhere near programming capabilities. Your comparisons are laughable. Such a person could very well be a computer illiterate.

 

[QuantumCurt]

Having a professional quality socket set isn't intrinsic to being an auto mechanic, but it sure does make things easier when one has the best tools for the job at their disposal, rather than a 16 piece socket set from a dollar store.

Formal logic involving programming is not intrinsic to philosophical argumentation. You're right about that. I never suggested that this was the case.

However, you said:

However, since you guys clearly challenge me, becoming a philosophy doctorate does not entail programming of any sort as part of the job description.

Are you suggesting that philosophy will never entail any type of programming? I provided a couple of examples to show that this is not the case. I was not in any sense suggesting that programming was intrinsic to doing philosophy. I was simply showing you that even this field has numerous connections to programming, even if they are not a central aspect of the field itself. I'll again revert to my earlier example of the McDonald's worker that doesn't know how to wash dishes. It's important to have skills, and to be able to adapt those skills to various jobs.

Please answer this question - If you get a job working in the field of math, physics, philosophy, economics, psychology or any of these other fields that you've mentioned, and end up encountering a project that involves some computer programming...what will you do?

Will you just accept that you're not capable of doing the job? Or will you adapt to it and learn the skills necessary to do it? If the latter, wouldn't it be easier to have learned some programming already?

 

[Pleonasm]

Having a professional quality socket set isn't intrinsic to being an auto mechanic, but it sure does make things easier when one has the best tools for the job at their disposal, rather than a 16 piece socket set from a dollar store.

Formal logic involving programming is not intrinsic to philosophical argumentation. You're right about that. I never suggested that this was the case.

However, you said:
Are you suggesting that philosophy will never entail any type of programming? I provided a couple of examples to show that this is not the case. I was not in any sense suggesting that programming was intrinsic to doing philosophy. I was simply showing you that even this field has numerous connections to programming, even if they are not a central aspect of the field itself. I'll again revert to my earlier example of the McDonald's worker that doesn't know how to wash dishes. It's important to have skills, and to be able to adapt those skills to various jobs.

Please answer this question - If you get a job working in the field of math, physics, philosophy, economics, psychology or any of these other fields that you've mentioned, and end up encountering a project that involves some computer programming...what will you do?

Will you just accept that you're not capable of doing the job? Or will you adapt to it and learn the skills necessary to do it? If the latter, wouldn't it be easier to have learned some programming already?

I would not be assigned to programming lectures of any sort in philosophy, since it's not my area of specialty. Such courses are quite rare as well (you will find at most one such course in an entire program). I would of course have to adjust in your hypothetical scenario if they were to force me. Maybe a future girlfriend would help out.

As to physics: I wouldn't be eligible to teach without it. The only "merit" I have in physics so far is corresponding with Frank Tipler. He was once a highly esteemed general relativist. But I am by no means as confident in physics as in philosophy.

 

[QuantumCurt]

If you assume that you will indeed get the professorship that you aspire to obtain. There are a lot more people applying for those jobs than there are jobs available though. It's important to have a plan B on hand.

It sounds like you've got it all figured out, so I'm not going to continue trying to convince you. But it seems like you have some deeply rooted defiance and resistance to learning something that is of benefit in essentially every single field of academia. It's challenging for you, and that's okay. Things don't always come easily, but we often gain the most from the things that challenge us the most. A couple of programming courses, or even a single programming course would only take up a small portion of your life, and yet it would automatically make you more qualified for many areas of basically all of the fields that you have expressed an interest in. You've basically changed your future goals a few times within this thread in avoidance of computer programming. You went from becoming a theoretical physicist to becoming a tenured philosophy professor that gets first pick of the courses they'd like to teach. That's a pretty radical turn of events. I strongly recommend evaluating your motives in avoiding learning something so incredibly beneficial.

 

[clope023]

There is no such thing as a theoretical physicist? Haha. You mean other than the fact that there is a theoretical physics graduate school? Astrophysics, on the other hand, is located in the astronomy department.

There's a difference between astronomers and astrophysicists but micromass is correct, there's no such thing as a general theoretical physicist any more. One specializes in a particular branch of physics like astrophysics, plasma physics, condensed matter physics, atomic physics, etc and you can become a theorist based on that specialization. The only thing a theoretical physics grad school existing means is that organization specializes in theory work about the myriad sub-fields of physics; no one does theory about the whole of physics. And yes, theoreticians do programming to test and verify the models they build with their equations.

 

[Pleonasm]

There's a difference between astronomers and astrophysicists but micromass is correct, there's no such thing as a general theoretical physicist any more. .

http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae296.cfm

"Astronomy is the study of the universe beyond the Earth's atmosphere. The main branches are astrometry, celestial mechanics, and astrophysics."

Lawrence Krauss refers to himself in the past as "we theorists" when he was a particle physicist. You are simply wrong in saying that there are no theoretical physicist. An astrophysicist does not use computing in the same way as a theoretical physicist (graduating in a theoretical physics school).

 

[clope023]

http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae296.cfm

"Astronomy is the study of the universe beyond the Earth's atmosphere. The main branches are astrometry, celestial mechanics, and astrophysics."

Lawrence Krauss refers to himself in the past as "we theorists" when he was a particle physicist. You are simply wrong in saying that there are no theoretical physicist. An astrophysicist does not use computing in the same way as a theoretical physicist (graduating in a theoretical physics school).

Nope, you're still wrong, an astronomer works on different things than an astrophysicist, despite the fact that they both work on things related to space.

Krauss is a cosmologist, and yes he would say 'we theorists' when talking about people who do theory work in physics, which encompasses the spectrum of people who do theory work in all of the sub branches of physics.

You don't know what you're talking about; there is no such thing as a general theoretical physicisist, there are theorists inside the different sub-fields of physics. A theoretical astrophysicist actually will use computing in a very similar way to theorists in other sub-fields, since the equations used in astrophysics is the same as for some other fields (fluids for instance).

 

[cgk]

Pleonasm, this is getting boring. I am tempted to say "great trolling! 9/10, slightly raged." But, unfortunately, I know people who think and argue like this in the real world, so I am not even sure if this is a caricature or a real mental problem.

 

[micromass]

So let me clarify my previous statement. Of course theoretical physics exists. But what I wanted to say (and perhaps didn't word well) is that the denomination "theoretical physics" is pretty meaningless. Certainly when discussing the question "What computer knowledge do I need for theoretical physics." It's just too broad.

 

[radium]

As a grad student in theoretical physics (which is what my degree will say), there are different subfields of theoretical physics which people specialize in. There are some rare cases where professors work in several different subfields (one of the professor at Chicago is a very good example), but they all started in one subfield and are able to work in several because there are often some similarities in many problems. Like the dissipation in a nonfermi liquid or a black hole can be studied with similar methods to those in fluid mechanics and things like the Higgs mechanism simultaneously occurs in condensed matter systems (actually where it was first discovered) and in particle physics.

 

[berkeman]

Thread closed for Moderation...

 

[Drakkith]

This thread appears to have run its course and will remain locked.