There are two separate subjects that I intend to concentrate on: philosophy and music.Whew. I have two years for this.
Philosophy would be my main pursuit, and the philosophy I intend to do would be in the analytic tradition. In the next two years, I plan to focus on epistemology, logic, the philosophy of mind (and all the subjects of cognitive science on which it touches), perception, experimental philosophy, the philosophy of science, and metaphilosophy. In essence, I am interested in answering the dual questions of how humans perceive, reason about, and understand the world around them--and futhermore how we ought to do these things. My interest in these questions comes from my belief that they are the fundamental questions in philosophy and science, since as we're the one's investigating philosophical and scientific questions, all such investigations are determined by the way that we think (and knowing whether that's the way we ought to think would determine how much we can trust our conclusions). I am also very interested in ethics and political philosophy (which I view as really being the same thing on different scales) and extremely interested in the philosophy of religion and atheology (theology from an atheist standpoint). (Indeed, in regards to the latter, I find that one of my primary motivations for doing philosophy is in trying to develop and defend an atheistic, physicalist/materialist [with qualifications] understanding of the universe and human experience.)
The academic and career path I see myself taking as of now involve graduate studies in philosophy and, ultimately, a teaching position. As such, I also plan to gain the sort of broad understanding of the field of philosophy that would allow me to pursue this path.
In regards to music, my focus for the next two years would be on developing the skills to turn my ideas into full-fledged compositions, learning the techniques of audio recording and production and the science of acoustics, and learning the techniques of electronic music production. I'm also very interested, though it might not be specifically addressed my course of study, in becoming familiar with a wide range of musical forms, including those from different eras, non-Classical, non-Western, and even non-Human, and analyzing these forms in a musicological, music-theoretical way, and the investigation of music as an object of scientific study (how do we perceive it, what does it do to us, why does it do those things things to us, etc.). I would also develop my own skills in piano and vocal performance. In regards the learning the techniques of audio recording and production and the science of acoustics, my hope is that this will give me a set of skills that I can use to support myself to some extent doing something I'd enjoy. The music component of my Div II would probably be secondary to the philosophy component.
Finally, some side interests of mine which I would like to get a chance to explore bear mentioning: mathematics, religions themselves (as distinguished from the philosophy of), and the philosophy of education and educational reform. I also think it would be important for me to have at least a basic understanding of computers as such understanding will be extremely helpful in the world of the future.
Well, anyways, another important thing I need to do here is plug the band I am in with my brother. NamelessWonder. You should check us out because we're awesome. Really.
Anyways, anything else you might want to know may or may not be revealed in blog posts.
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