Peter'a Academic Interests

My first academic sort of interest was biology. When I was a first year high school student, was fascinated by ferns, cells, photosynthesis, bryophytes and all of the other exciting terms. I used to spend all of my time on the bus to and from school reading my science books and books I'd borrowed from the library. By second year, my interests were moving more towards chemistry. Cell biology sort of led that way, and I wanted to know what made up the cells and why they worked the way they did: chemistry seemed to offer answers. But as I learnt more about molecules and atoms, and how substances reacted with each other, there seemed to be deeper answers in physics, which became my next love, along with mathematics. I loved mathematics because we could actually prove things. It wasn't just "maybe" or "might" but 100% certainty.

Oddly, I didn't much like English in high school. When I first read Shakespeare, it was a real pain. But I did OK at it and after leaving school, came to love even the books I'd hated when we read them in high school. Near the end of high school, one of my Catholic brother teachers, my math and physics teacher, in fact, introduced me to philosophy. I'm not sure why. Maybe he thought it would help me be a good Christian, but it ... to be continued after lunch and a nap. But I forgot until Crystal just reminded me. 


... didn't work out that way. It gave me good reasons so suspect that all the thousands of gods humans have ever believed in only have one thing in common: none of them actually exist. They are great stories, but none of those stories are true. I don't think that makes the stories useless, but I do think it's important to be honest about the claims that religions make, and not pretend they are true just because they are old. Old and written in a sacred book does not make anything true. The idea that Earth is at the centre of the universe, or that it's flat (not believed in the West since Aristotle) might be very old, but that is irrelevant to whether it is true or not.

When I went on to university, I continued studying mathematics and physics, but also started philosophy, which became my major. I still read in all areas of philosophy, but my interests gradually settled on logic and moral philosophy. The logic went well with the pure mathematics that I continued to love, and ethics seemed to have practical relevance to everything. But what I also realised, and continue to see more and more, is that although specialization is necessary, the distinctions between academic areas are very blurry: I don't think you could to moral philosophy well without also having some interest in psychology, economics, politics, and a host of other areas, and the logic that underlies critical thinking is essential everywhere.