(no subject)

[gusl]

Judea Pearl has pretty cool stuff on causality. Perhaps I should apply for a PhD there too? I should be getting started with my applications.

(At UCLA, I would be close to many LJ people.)

Btw, when I talk about a "logic of experimental design", what I have in mind is:

A system for relating possible experiments and causal probabilistic models.

The kind of things we should be able to talk about include:

* observables
* confounding
* causation, distinct from correlation
* controlled variables (Pearl's do(.))
* noise (can always be modelled as the effect of an unseen factor)
* probabilities

And it would be nice to be able to talk about theoretical entities. This way we could distinguish between measurement noise and randomness in the process we are actually observing (not in practice, but in the theory).

i.e. essentially the sort of methodological questions that real scientists discuss. (This is why call myself an AI person: I like to formalize things I can do, and then teach a computer to do them. This has something to do with me being into phenomenology (i.e. introspection) ).

"phenomonologist": my excuse for being ...(what do you call someone too interested in his own mind?). It's not my fault: exploring my consciousness is so interesting...

Comments

[alsoname.livejournal.com]

You should apply.

However, and I don't want to discourage you, here is a warning: The University of California has experienced extreme budget cuts, which has a negative effect on acceptance rates for international grad students. I had a friend who applied to two UC campuses earlier this year. UCLA accepted her, but the financial aid package they were able to offer her wouldn't have been enough for her to support herself. That was really disappointing!

But still, apply! At the very least, UCLA might (help) pay for your trip to California, just to check to campus out.

[rdore.livejournal.com]

I can confirm this trend is real. In the math department here in Berkeley, both the number of total new graduate students and the fraction of new students who aren't american is apparently much less than in past years.