What do I really love?

[gusl]

I am thinking about applying for an Economics PhD, but given the choice, I would study AI first. The problem is that the good AI schools may not have a space for me, due to a combination of factors, which I won't go into now.

If I want to become a specialist in both AI and Economics, the idea is to study AI first because it's good to be technical first and soften later (please challenge me on this).

But I really don't know what I want afterall. Ideally, I would study both econ and AI, but let's take it one thing at a time.
So, what fascinates me more? Well, this week I think I hit something when I described my one enduring passion as epistemology (See also two entries ago). It's been more or less related to most of my interests, since high school.

How My Interests are Connected with Epistemology (and other areas of philosophy)

From the file below, my CS interests file, I can see that:

* most of the AI interests are strongly epistemological

* under systems, I am interested in formalizing and standardizing ways of modeling things (programs, data)

* under theory
* information theory is about the structure of the world (this sounds bad, help me here). Chaitin is the Gödel of information theory.
* the cryptography research that interests me is like "I can't make one, but know it when I see one" and "I know it but I can't teach it", which is an interesting epistemological state (zero-knowledge proofs, etc.)
* category theory and model theory are about very general mathematical structures: you can talk across areas of mathematics with them.
* A logic is a set of laws for reasoning.

* under applications, you can see:
* Formalization of Existing Mathematics
* Formalization/Structuring/Tagging of Legacy Knowledge: the job that slipped from my hands right after I left Amazon.
* Intelligent Learning Environments: systems that teach. Can we make computers teach people interactively (assume no AI)? Can we structure knowledge in such a way?

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My areas on Interest, by Gustavo Lacerda

I know very little about most areas listed here.
As for the others, marked "*", I know almost nothing, but they sound interesting nonetheless.


AI
--

Machine Learning
Beliefs: Bayesian networks*, belief revision*
Knowledge Representation
Planning
Automated Reasoning, Theorem-Proving


Systems / Software Engineering
------------------------------

Integrated Computing System (TUNES)
Reflection, Introspection
Verification
Data Models, XML, SQL
UML
Programming by Contract
Functional Programming


Philosophy
----------

Epistemology, Causality (see Judea Pearl)


Theory
------

Logic and Complexity
Models of Computation*
Information Theory, Chaitin
Cryptography
Category Theory, Model Theory*, Chu Spaces*
Logics


Application Domains
-------------------

Music
Natural Language
Formalization of Mathematics (Projects like QED and NuPRL)
Physical Reasoning
Economic Reasoning
Scientific Discovery
Formalization/Structuring/Tagging of Legacy Knowledge
Educational Systems: Intelligent Learning Environments
Ubiquitous Computing
Cybernetics, Cognitive Aids, biofeedback