{"id":755,"date":"2011-09-06T10:32:22","date_gmt":"2011-09-06T15:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=755"},"modified":"2017-01-13T06:57:28","modified_gmt":"2017-01-13T11:57:28","slug":"6-893-philosophy-and-theoretical-computer-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=755","title":{"rendered":"6.893 Philosophy and Theoretical Computer Science"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I thought I&#8217;d let <em>Shtetl-Optimized<\/em> readers know about an experimental new course I&#8217;m teaching this fall (starting tomorrow): <a href=\"http:\/\/stellar.mit.edu\/S\/course\/6\/fa11\/6.893\/index.html\">6.893 Philosophy and Theoretical Computer Science<\/a>.\u00a0 The course was directly inspired by my <a href=\"http:\/\/eccc.hpi-web.de\/report\/2011\/108\/\">Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity<\/a> essay, and will cover many of the same topics.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s the description:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">This new offering will examine the relevance of modern theoretical computer science to traditional questions in philosophy, and conversely, what philosophy can contribute to theoretical computer science. \u00a0Topics include: the status of the Church-Turing Thesis and its modern polynomial-time variants; quantum computing and the interpretation of quantum mechanics; complexity aspects of the strong-AI and free-will debates; complexity aspects of Darwinian evolution; the claim that &#8220;computation is physical&#8221;; the analog\/digital distinction in computer science and physics; Kolmogorov complexity and the foundations of probability; computational learning theory and the problem of induction; bounded rationality and common knowledge; new notions of proof (probabilistic, interactive, zero-knowledge, quantum) and the nature of mathematical knowledge.\u00a0 Intended for graduate students and advanced undergraduates in computer science, philosophy, mathematics, and physics. \u00a0Participation and discussion are an essential part of the course.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to follow remotely, the <a href=\"https:\/\/stellar.mit.edu\/S\/course\/6\/fa11\/6.893\/index.html\">course homepage<\/a> has links to lots of interesting readings, and students will also be posting their personal reactions to the class discussions as the semester progresses.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Update (Sept. 7):<\/strong><\/span> By overwhelming request not only from readers but from students in the class, and with several of those students&#8217; extremely kind assistance, we <em>will<\/em> be making audio recordings&#8212;although the audio quality probably won&#8217;t be great.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I thought I&#8217;d let Shtetl-Optimized readers know about an experimental new course I&#8217;m teaching this fall (starting tomorrow): 6.893 Philosophy and Theoretical Computer Science.\u00a0 The course was directly inspired by my Why Philosophers Should Care About Computational Complexity essay, and will cover many of the same topics.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s the description: This new offering will examine [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[10,31,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventures-in-meatspace","category-announcements","category-complexity"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=755"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":761,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755\/revisions\/761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}