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Today in our studio, we have an old friend.

I'm just curious because even as early as your bachelor years, you were doing philosophy already, but what sparked that initial interest like when you chose major for your bachelors study, for your undergraduate study, what made you choose philosophy?

I think philosophy is a little bit self-selecting. You have to be a certain kind of person to choose it.

When you say self-selecting, is it one of those things like it's not so much as you select that philosophy selected you.

Yes, all that it's may be part of my character to study philosophy I guess.

I think some people can't help but continue to have those questions that children have. So children will always ask just yesterday, I was waiting to go into somewhere that wasn't open yet and there was a child and they were asking their parents, why isn't it open? And they're like because it's not time yet. And the child saying why isn't it time yet? Then they'd say everything has to happen at a certain time, and he's like, why, why can't everything happen all at once? Like why do they have to happen in order? And then the parent, the mother just said, do you want to look at some pictures on the phone? And The child said, yeah let's look at some videos or pictures on the phone.

But unfortunately, I'm one of those children that says no, I want that answer to the question like why, why do things happen? And you carry on asking the annoying questions, they're more interesting than the pictures on the phone.

Oh. I see. Yeah, one of those highly inquisitive souls basically.

Right. Right or highly annoying, I think, is the other way of describing.

I bet your parents say that about you, but you know it's like the major that we study or the field that we're in, the type of jobs that we do, they all make an impact or imprint on us, right? So studying philosophy and even this almost like getting into religious study territory, how has this changed you or do you think it has changed you or your perspectives, your personality at all over the years?

Yeah of course.

It’s kind of has to, and I think there are definitely a lot of philosophy books, whether it's the Laozi or whether it's JS Mill on liberty or Nāgārjuna...those books after you read them, yeah, you're a completely different person.

So I could change so many times, but I think the best way of putting it perhaps is the more you read or the more you see, the less you know. So it gives you a lot more space to play with ideas, accept things that are may be very different to the things that you were raised to the belief.

Once you've seen lots of different types of ideas, it becomes very easy to accept new ones. Of course Sometimes you accept them for a while, look at them and think no, actually I can't accept this, right? Maybe if it's something particularly nasty, but you at least have this ability to just hold an idea in your mind and look at it without having that immediate reaction.

At least to entertain it. Right?

There you go, perfect.

Yeah, to entertain those ideas, to entertain different or ideas completely opposite to your original perspective. It sounds like, can I describe it as a really humbling experience because you described it as the more you see, the more you learn, the less you feel that you know.

Yeah. I think it's funny because it does different things to different people. I know some people that study philosophy and then they...

They become arrogant writers.

Right. It is quite personal. But I think yeah for me I would say it's humbling. I definitely I started out in my teenage years. You know you read two philosophy books and you think that you’re Socrates or Confucius or whoever, right?

So I definitely started out as someone very annoying, but I think over time I've become less annoying and hopefully anyway, and also more willing to engage with different types of people and different types of ideas as well that not everybody has the time and energy to write a 500 page book on philosophy.

But that doesn't mean that they don't have any interesting ideas if you talk to them and especially if you're careful and you listen when you talk to them, then lots of people have interesting philosophical insights, I think.

Yeah, I would say that is such a great summary or such a great feeling that you just described. I also feel the same although we're not in the same field. But I feel like the more you learn about the world, the more you read. It is a humbling experience that it makes you less arrogant or less likely to be arrogant because you know that the more you know the more you are aware of the fact that you are so ignorant.

Right. And also because you read one book and usually these books are written by some of the smartest people in history, right? So they're quite convincing.

So you read one book and you think WOW this person must be right you know that's so smart and the book is so great, and then you read another book that directly contradicts the other book. They think no, so then you change, I think you change so many times you convinced by so many different arguments that over time build something up in your way you realize or maybe tomorrow I'm gonna read another book and I'll change my opinion on something that I thought I'd never change my opinion on.

That sounds like an amazing experience. But let's still I think we were talking about something that's quite abstract, but let's just bring it down to the pragmatic side of it. So you're doing this PhD, how long is it? When are you gonna actually get your degree?

So there's a little bit of time creep, the time kind of seems to creep longer and longer. So originally they said 5 years, you do the degree in 5 years, but then they said, actually some people take longer, and then I asked what the average time until graduation was. And they said 7 years. And that's the average.

What?

So lots of people take longer... (seven?) 7 years. Yeah seven years.

Did they wait till you get to the university to tell you, look, it's not 5 years it is 7 years.

They told me after I had been accepted into the program. But before I had confirmed my acceptance, so they were honest about it.

I know that the whole doing a degree, especially at postgraduate stage, you have the idea of a purely research degree and a taught degree. So is this a purely research degree that you don't have to go to any courses? You just have to read and talk to your supervisor or tutor?

Yeah, the American’s is very different because with the British, the PhD is usually just research, and it's 3 years 3 research.

yeah.

In America. You do that at the end. You do 3 maybe 4 years of research, but the Americans they roll in a taught masters at the beginning, but they turn that into a PhD later.

So This is technically like my third masters. Right? You have to do 60 credits of courses here, yeah which is a lot of courses, and then a lot of research as well. So it's one of those...just a lot overall.

And to do... to get that degree, to get the final PhD degree, what kind of criteria do you have to meet?

Wow. OK. There's so many, there’s required courses, there’s the different levels of the courses, you have to get credits for independent study credits for... there's like they divided into the first 30 and second 30 credits. It's a very comprehensive system and it aims to be quite diverse as well. So You have to take courses outside of your department.

Oh, I see.

Yeah. So you really like it I mean it is a lot more comprehensive, I think than the English or the Chinese systems in terms of the variety of different things that you have to do and how intensive they are.

What about the doctoral dissertation? Like how long does it have to be?

They say usually around like 60 to 90 is the kind of normal, but it seems like it really does depend.

So I know some people do things in logic and they’re kind of shorter because there's lots of logical symbols and this kind of thing, I know some people that are more kind of literary in the focus and that they do a lot more because it takes that long literary analysis.

So I think it's one of those things. I'm sure there's somewhere in the rule book. There's like an absolute minimum and an absolute maximum. But I think it really depends on what you're gonna focus on for the dissertation.

I see. 7 years wow. So are we seriously thinking that basically after that is just naturally going into a career in academia?

I think maybe, right, I don't know. We'll see what happens is a long time. And I think I like the idea of the 逍遥游, the free and easy wandering as we call it the name of the first chapter of the Zhuangzi. Yeah, I let things happen.

So you'll just be 逍遥游 in the world.

Right. And that can include....

And the world of philosophy.

Right.right. That can definitely include an academic position and it doesn't always mean you have to travel to lots of different places. Right? It’s more of an attitude of let things happen. Don't... 7 years is a long time. I don't need to worry about that now. I think in 7 years I'll have a better idea of where I should be.

Yeah. You sound surprisingly chilled for someone who is facing 7 years of this. But I mean it’s something you love, right?

Right.