{"id":480,"date":"2016-03-07T21:26:03","date_gmt":"2016-03-08T03:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/?p=480"},"modified":"2016-03-07T21:26:03","modified_gmt":"2016-03-08T03:26:03","slug":"from-computer-science-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/2016\/03\/07\/from-computer-science-to\/","title":{"rendered":"From computer science to …"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many months ago I read an article on Douglas Hofstadter, a name I’d heard since high school when my friend read G\u00f6del, Escher, Bach<\/a><\/i>. At the time I thought he was probably one of those overrated thinkers who writes inspiring, popular, but empty books. And I thought that all the way up until I read that article, “The Man Who Would Teach Machines to Think<\/a>,” and soon after, “An interview with Douglas R. Hofstadter<\/a>.” I learned that we seem to share a paradigm of artificial intelligence that’s out of style right now, one based more on semantics than on statistics. I hadn’t even known he worked in AI or that it was the subject of GEB.<\/p>\n

So I looked up where he worked–University of Indiana Bloomington (okay, bump that one way up my list). Not in the computer science department, though–in cognitive science. Well, whatever. Maybe I could still interact with him if I ended up there, if he hasn’t retired and moved away by that point.<\/p>\n

After finding the articles, from time to time I’d look a little more into his research group, The Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition<\/a>. I bought GEB, made a note of his other books, set up a Google alert for news about him, and searched for his doctoral students on social media. Then on a whim a couple of weeks ago I took a closer look at his field, cognitive science. I’d heard of it in connection with AI, but it seemed like a hazy subject, and I’d disregarded it.<\/p>\n

Now I visited the site of the Cognitive Science Society<\/a> and read their mission statement: to foster cooperation among fields such as “Artificial Intelligence, Linguistics, Anthropology, Psychology, Neuroscience, Philosophy, and Education.” I did a mental double-take. They’d just listed half my interests. And their definition of cognitive science reminded me of what I’ve recently come to see as one of my primary agendas, to understand the mind.<\/p>\n

I was intrigued, and the researchy wheels of my mind immediately started spinning. Could this be a home for me? I had to learn more! So I’ve decided to investigate cognitive science as a possible career field instead of computer science. It’s only a slight shift, since the two overlap, but it might be a better fit. I bought an intro textbook, Jos\u00e9 Luis Berm\u00fadez’s Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Science of the Mind<\/a>, which I’ve been reading; made a list of key questions about the field; and began to search for grad programs. As I learn, I’m making a list of pros and cons. I’ll probably post my assessment once I have a better sense of the issues. But it looks promising.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many months ago I read an article on Douglas Hofstadter, a name I’d heard since high school when my friend read G\u00f6del, Escher, Bach. At the time I thought he was probably one of those overrated thinkers who writes inspiring, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[103,104,82,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-career","category-cognitive-science","category-grad-school","category-life_updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":483,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480\/revisions\/483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thinkulum.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}