Philosophers With Laptops - Superweek 2018
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From Plato to Alain De Boton, philosophers have been the people tasked with finding truth, and bringing it to the masses. To a web analyst, that pursuit of truth should sound familiar: it's the job of web analytics to shine a light in the corners that reveal truth about human behaviour. In this fun and informative talk, Damion looks at how the history of philosophy has parallels with analytics best practice, and along the way ponders on whether the Digital Analytics industry might just have found an incredibly rare thing that nobody thought existed: an actual use for a philosophy graduate.
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Philosophers With Laptops - Superweek 2018
- 4. What are we talking about?
- 5. What are we talking about? Philo - love of Sophos - knowledge Study of philosophy as "knowledge about knowledge"
- 6. Philosophy aims to find the nature of truth and knowledge, as well as life's value and importance.
- 7. Philosophy aims to find the nature of truth and knowledge, as well as life's value and importance. Stemming from wonder, curiosity and the desire to know and understand, philosophy is a form of structured inquiry.
- 12. An extremely selective history of philosophy
- 14. “The ultimate nature of reality is number” The first data scientist Refused to eat beans Pythagoras c570-480BC
- 15. “The ultimate nature of reality is number” The first data scientist Refused to eat beans Pythagoras c570-480BC
- 16. Deductive Reasoning Where you take two self-evident statements and move to a non-self evident conclusion Pythagoras c570-480BC
- 17. Deductive Reasoning It isn’t raining in Melbourne. If it isn’t raining in Melbourne, Percy won’t be carrying an umbrella. Therefore, Percy won’t be carrying an umbrella. Pythagoras c570-480BC
- 18. Deductive Reasoning Our cross-domain tracking is broken. If our cross-domain tracking is broken, we won’t be able to report on conversions. So I have no numbers for you today. Pythagoras c570-480BC
- 20. Socrates meets time travellers, circa 400BC, colorized
- 21. “The unexamined life is not worth living.” …isn’t this the whole point of analytics? Has anyone ever heard of a client not examining their analytics? :) Socrates c470-399BC
- 22. Logical Reasoning He hated sophism (cash for wisdom) He preferred logical reasoning (actually thinking) Socrates c470-399BC
- 23. Logical Reasoning What if Facebook ads aren’t always the best channel? Why don’t we A/B test that step on the checkout? Socrates c470-399BC
- 26. Pharma company that thought everyone wanted organic products Plato 428-348BC Analytics Simulation
- 28. William of Occam 1285 - 1347 4.
- 29. “Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity” Given two theories that equally explain the data, one should choose the theory that posits the minimum number of entities Or: The simplest explanation is probably the right one William of Occam 1285 - 1347
- 30. Or: The simplest explanation is probably the right one William of Occam 1285 - 1347
- 31. The simplest explanation is probably the right one... William of Occam 1285 - 1347
- 32. William of Occam 1285 - 1347
- 34. Utopia - 1516 A magical land with no personal property Thomas More 1478 - 1535
- 37. There’s got to be a “better” Web Analysts are Ambassadors for Utopia Thomas More 1478 - 1535
- 38. Utopia Nobody works for more than six hours a day! Thomas More 1478 - 1535
- 40. “The repetitive occurrence of an incident does not guarantee that the same thing will happen again” Francis Bacon 1561 - 1626
- 41. “The repetitive occurrence of an incident does not guarantee that the same thing will happen again” Francis Bacon 1561 - 1626
- 42. Instead of looking for positives that confirm a hypothesis... Look for negatives that disprove a hypothesis. Francis Bacon 1561 - 1626
- 43. In search of negatives Human nature = look for what confirms Analytics doesn’t always have to corroborate itself Francis Bacon 1561 - 1626
- 45. “I think, therefore I am” Always ill, and would often be bed-ridden until lunchtime When not ill, he would often be bed-ridden until lunchtime Paid for by the King of Spain to sit there and think up interesting things Descartes 1596-1650
- 46. What’s real and what can we trust? Descartes 1596-1650
- 47. What’s real and what can we trust? Descartes 1596-1650
- 48. What’s real and what can we trust? Don’t trust your sense organs, as they have deceived you in the past Descartes 1596-1650
- 49. What’s real and what can we trust? Don’t trust the implementation Find a second source of numbers Descartes 1596-1650
- 50. What’s real and what can we trust? 2+3 = 5 A father must always be older than his son Descartes 1596-1650
- 52. What’s real and what can we trust? Facebook ad clicks and conversions will always be over-reported Doubleclick ad clicks and conversions will always be over-reported etc. Descartes 1596-1650
- 53. John Locke 1632 - 1704 8.
- 54. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Understanding is defined as the way in which the human mind collects, organises, classifies and ultimately makes judgements based on sense-data John Locke 1632 - 1704
- 55. A solutions design document! A solutions design document sets the way in which the analytics platform collects, organises, classifies and ultimately makes judgements based on sense-data John Locke 1632 - 1704
- 57. “Amongst the conditions of life, error might be one” aka Ted Talk Friedrich Nietzsche 1844 - 1900
- 58. We embrace errors Failure, error and correction are fundamental Is there another career that would tolerate failure so readily? Friedrich Nietzsche 1844 - 1900
- 60. Sound familiar? Those who knew him assumed he was either a madman or a genius. He was known for working himself up into fits of frustration, pacing about the room decrying his own stupidity.Ludwig Wittgenstein 1881 - 1951
- 61. Language as consensus Language isn’t real “in the world” And that doesn’t matter We communicate based on agreed models Ludwig Wittgenstein 1881 - 1951
- 62. Attribution! Attribution Models aren’t real -- just something we agree on* *Attribution Models will never be agreed on :( Ludwig Wittgenstein 1881 - 1951
- 64. Have we found a use for a philosophy major?
- 65. Why philosophy majors make good analysts Consistency Reasoning without knowing it Open to new ideas and new thinking Vastly lower salary expectations than data majors
- 66. Not as easy as we hoped... schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com
- 67. Not as easy as we hoped... schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com
- 70. You are all philosophers
- 72. Stemming from wonder, curiosity and the desire to know and understand, philosophy is a form of structured inquiry.
- 73. Stemming from wonder, curiosity and the desire to know and understand, philosophy is a form of structured inquiry.
- 74. Stemming from wonder, curiosity and the desire to know and understand, philosophy is a form of structured inquiry. slides: philosopherswithlaptops.com @thatsdamion