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purplecat40 Years ago Oxford decided to offer a degree in Mathematics and Philosophy. This weekend past there were celebrations.
When I was 17 I decided I wanted to study Mathematics and Philosophy at Merton, as did AD. We met at interview. Under the exciting Oxford interview system we both ended up being offered places at Somerville (then an all female college) which we both accepted. AD decided to take a year out, so I went up the year before she did.
We were both tutored in logic by Derek Goldrei who I vaguely feel should have a Wikipedia page, but doesn't. When I graduated a previous Somerville Maths and Philosopher, called SP, was also collecting her MA and Derek, in one of those inspired moments said to me: "SP did Maths and Philosophy. She went to Edinburgh to do Artificial Intelligence. You're a bit like her. You should go to Edinburgh and do Artificial Intelligence."
So I went to Edinburgh and did Artificial Intelligence. AD also went to Edinburgh to study Cognitive Science and we hared a flat for a year. I went on to study for my PhD in the same research group SP had studied her PhD within. SP now works as a research scientist for Hewlett Packard.
Fast forward nearly 20 years (and doesn't that make me feel old) and we arrive at MP40. These days AD is a lecturer in Philosophy and she'd been invited to speak at the Philosophy half of the celebrations and suggested we should both go to the reunion and meet up. This seemed like a good idea since I could combine it with a visit to my parents and so along I toddled.
SP was also there and it struck me as interesting that of the 40 or so graduates who turned up, three of us were former tutees of Derek's from Somerville who had ended up on in the various Edinburgh programs related to Artificial Intelligence. Derek was also there - he went up to Oxford in 1967 but had switched onto the brand new Mathematics and Philosophy degree in 1969 for his final year in order, apparently, to avoid a particularly bad applied Mathematics tutor. Derek had cut his hair which AD felt made him look grown-up. I think Derek just about coped with this, given he has now retired (for some value of retired which applies to academics and doesn't seem to mean anything at all).
On Saturday we had two talks from the Mathematics side. Dana Scott, whose Notes on the Formlization of Logic I still have on my bookshelves, talked about Lattice Theory (and did not recommend Wikipedia although he did not entirely object to the pages on Lattices and Hasse Diagrams) and then Angus McIntyre talked (less accessibly - at least for this former Maths and Philosopher) about exponentiation. Sunday was then a series of talks by alumni of the program who have gone on to academic careers in Philosophy. I missed the last two of these but enjoyed most of the earlier ones. Mary Leng, who is at Liverpool I already know. We were linked up by the indefatigable networking efforts of Aaron Sloman. She talked about the nature of mathematical knowledge and, excitingly, tried to convince us there are no such things as numbers. AD talked about different ways to tease out the formal semantic meaning of "All" (as in "All kittens are born blind") as opposed to "All the" (as in "All the kittens have white paws"). There was even a talk on the philosophical approach to Joint Action based on the notions of Belief, Desire and Intention - which of course I tangle with regularly since all the programming languages I work with these days use those notions. For lunch on Sunday, all the women present, sat in the Philosophy sub-fac garden and talked about children, and the difficulties of juggling the academic "two-body" problem. I assume the men-folk were still seriously debating the nature of mathematical practice...
On Saturday evening there was a Garden Party, followed by a Champagne Reception and then dinner at St. Anne's where we had several after dinner speeches, including Dana Scott's amusing anecdotes about mathematicians and philosophers:
David Hilbert, it seems, was your typical absentminded academic and, when he moved house, his wife carefully put several notes in his pockets with the new address. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, he walked home to his old house. The door was open and he went in. He was standing in an empty living room when a little girl entered.
"Little girl," he said, "do you know where the people who used to live here have gone?"
"Daddy," said the little girl, "Mummy has sent me to fetch you home."
When I was 17 I decided I wanted to study Mathematics and Philosophy at Merton, as did AD. We met at interview. Under the exciting Oxford interview system we both ended up being offered places at Somerville (then an all female college) which we both accepted. AD decided to take a year out, so I went up the year before she did.
We were both tutored in logic by Derek Goldrei who I vaguely feel should have a Wikipedia page, but doesn't. When I graduated a previous Somerville Maths and Philosopher, called SP, was also collecting her MA and Derek, in one of those inspired moments said to me: "SP did Maths and Philosophy. She went to Edinburgh to do Artificial Intelligence. You're a bit like her. You should go to Edinburgh and do Artificial Intelligence."
So I went to Edinburgh and did Artificial Intelligence. AD also went to Edinburgh to study Cognitive Science and we hared a flat for a year. I went on to study for my PhD in the same research group SP had studied her PhD within. SP now works as a research scientist for Hewlett Packard.
Fast forward nearly 20 years (and doesn't that make me feel old) and we arrive at MP40. These days AD is a lecturer in Philosophy and she'd been invited to speak at the Philosophy half of the celebrations and suggested we should both go to the reunion and meet up. This seemed like a good idea since I could combine it with a visit to my parents and so along I toddled.
SP was also there and it struck me as interesting that of the 40 or so graduates who turned up, three of us were former tutees of Derek's from Somerville who had ended up on in the various Edinburgh programs related to Artificial Intelligence. Derek was also there - he went up to Oxford in 1967 but had switched onto the brand new Mathematics and Philosophy degree in 1969 for his final year in order, apparently, to avoid a particularly bad applied Mathematics tutor. Derek had cut his hair which AD felt made him look grown-up. I think Derek just about coped with this, given he has now retired (for some value of retired which applies to academics and doesn't seem to mean anything at all).
On Saturday we had two talks from the Mathematics side. Dana Scott, whose Notes on the Formlization of Logic I still have on my bookshelves, talked about Lattice Theory (and did not recommend Wikipedia although he did not entirely object to the pages on Lattices and Hasse Diagrams) and then Angus McIntyre talked (less accessibly - at least for this former Maths and Philosopher) about exponentiation. Sunday was then a series of talks by alumni of the program who have gone on to academic careers in Philosophy. I missed the last two of these but enjoyed most of the earlier ones. Mary Leng, who is at Liverpool I already know. We were linked up by the indefatigable networking efforts of Aaron Sloman. She talked about the nature of mathematical knowledge and, excitingly, tried to convince us there are no such things as numbers. AD talked about different ways to tease out the formal semantic meaning of "All" (as in "All kittens are born blind") as opposed to "All the" (as in "All the kittens have white paws"). There was even a talk on the philosophical approach to Joint Action based on the notions of Belief, Desire and Intention - which of course I tangle with regularly since all the programming languages I work with these days use those notions. For lunch on Sunday, all the women present, sat in the Philosophy sub-fac garden and talked about children, and the difficulties of juggling the academic "two-body" problem. I assume the men-folk were still seriously debating the nature of mathematical practice...
On Saturday evening there was a Garden Party, followed by a Champagne Reception and then dinner at St. Anne's where we had several after dinner speeches, including Dana Scott's amusing anecdotes about mathematicians and philosophers:
David Hilbert, it seems, was your typical absentminded academic and, when he moved house, his wife carefully put several notes in his pockets with the new address. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, he walked home to his old house. The door was open and he went in. He was standing in an empty living room when a little girl entered.
"Little girl," he said, "do you know where the people who used to live here have gone?"
"Daddy," said the little girl, "Mummy has sent me to fetch you home."