"They mustn't have had many good submissions" - impostor syndrome and negative assumptions

A couple of months go, I sent off an abstract to a CFP for a conference and this week I got an email saying I'd been accepted/invited to present my work there. "Hooray!" I thought - which was almost immediately followed by the thought "Maybe they didn't have many good submissions." I astonished even myself with my instantaneous self-doubt! "Maybe they're desperate for speakers?" I wondered, and "Maybe their reviewing procedures are biased?" I asked myself as I recalled the double-blind review procedure.

I can, through an act of will - and in defiance of my inner critic - insist to myself "No, my work was selected because it was good, not because they are desperate or careless with their selections", but it does sometimes feel forced and disingenuous to say that to myself. 

Of course, I recognise that my self-doubts are impostor syndrome, plain and simple (but if I recognise I have it, then I realise I'm good, and if I know I'm good then I don't have impostor syndrome!) 

Anecdotally, impostor syndrome seems commonplace among high achieving people. As kids, they see coming second as failure; getting 98% in a test just shows you weren't perfect; and no matter how well they do, still the feeling remains inside them that it's simply not good enough. Does this come from the school system? (I've seen the 'Two stars and a wish' strategy all over the place - ie each piece of work receives two positive comments and one suggestion for how it could be improved further.) I think self-doubt is perhaps reinforced by a school system which of course wants to push children to make progress. If my teachers hadn't reminded me that I needed to put capital letters after a full stop, I probably wouldn't do it now. But it can't be just the school who are to blame, as there are many kids who (outwardly, at least) aren't self-critical. But so often these aren't the kids who are getting 95% and just have a positive self-image; they are the kids who are getting 45% but just don't care that they're doing badly. There really does seem to be a correlation between high achievers and the feeling that one isn't (yet) good enough. 

Some self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy is probably what causes the high achieving - or at least helps it along. I work hard, achieve well, feel like it's still not good enough, and so work harder and achieve more. It's a good recipe for high achievement!

John Stuart Mill (I ❤️ Mill!) wrote that it's better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. In many ways, it seems to be true - the esteemed but sometimes dissatisfying life of high achievers does seem to be of a higher quality than the satisfaction a 'fool' gets from, say, reality TV and beer. I'd hope that achievement and happiness are not mutually exclusive, but if they are, then for my son I'd choose happiness over achievement every time. 

But what of my own impostor syndrome? Well, I suppose I really ought to heed the advice I've given to various kids about taking pride in your achievements and accepting praise and compliments with good grace. So I'll say this (even though it feels boastful and forced): if I've been chosen to speak at a conference, it's because I'm good enough to do so. I'm awesome!!

Beginning my PhD

Secure funding from M3C for PhD study - Check!
Attend orientation residential session by M3C - Check!
Start work on PhD --- umm...

So, it's the end of September, and it's time for me to start work on my PhD. Having been on the residential session through M3C earlier this week, I've met numerous other students at the start of their PhD journey. We have been warned not to be overwhelmed by the magnitude of what we need to produce (i.e. an 80,000-100,000 word thesis), and to be honest, I don't really feel overwhelmed by it, so that's a good thing. I've produced work of similar lengths before, and when it's broken down into chapters, and I need to produce 12,000 words about a particular idea, that is not overwhelming at all. Producing quantity of work has never been a problem for me.

...It's producing quality of work which is my difficulty! But even that is something which I can evidently do, based on some of my MA work, so quality is something that I can produce, given enough time - hopefully.

My issue is this: I don't know what I'm going to argue. Some people are setting out on their PhD journey with a clear understanding of what they are going to argue. For example, they're going to argue that abortion due to foetal abnormality is an act of hermeneutical injustice, or that the work of Chaucer helps us better understand Islamic radicalisation of teenage boys, or that machine-generated musical compositions can improve the overall wellbeing of people with autism. But I'm not in such a clear position. I know my PhD will establish (or attempt to establish) what consent is, and how an AI robot ought to conceive of consent - and the same for harm. But as things stand, I don't know how an AI robot ought to conceive of consent or harm. Hopefully that will come with time, because "I don't know; it's all a matter of opinion" isn't a good conclusion for a PhD thesis!

Massive thanks to M3C (soon to be M4C) for all the
lovely money and incredible opportunities to conduct
awesome research and make a difference in the world.

I'm starting out now, looking at some legal conceptions of consent (ie laws on sexual offences) and I'll read some articles on consent and take it from there. For me, the joy of philosophy is and has always been the search for answers, more so than the answers themselves. It's just as well really, as definitive answers in philosophy are as rare as rocking horse sh!t. But I am so excited to be starting out on PhD study, it really is like a dream come true for me. Having been to the M3C residential the other day and rubbed shoulders with people who are far younger and far more intelligent than me, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't feeling a slight sense of impostor syndrome. But I guess somebody thinks I'm good enough to do this, so objectively, I probably am good enough. I am just so, so pleased that I'm being fully funded by M3C (I'm resisting the urge to say 'lucky' as it implies a randomness or lack of desert which is not a principle of AHRC funding). So for the next 3 years I get to study what I want to study: can there be anything better in life? I don't think so... well, except maybe chocolate!

Let the search for answers commence!!

Best. Conference. Ever.

A couple of days ago, I returned home from what was, as the title of this post suggests, the best conference ever. Now admittedly, I've not been to loads and loads of conferences (maybe 10?) so I don't have much frame of reference, but I think I can say with some confidence that this was the best conference ever. I fear that few or no conferences will ever come close to the very high standard which has now been set.

I shan't name names, because it may only embarrass those involved, and I wouldn't want them to be the targets of conference-envy (is that even a thing?!) Anyway, the conference was held in Portland, Oregon, on the west coast of the USA. I think America is a fantastic country anyway; I've spent around 5 months there in total, and have visited 8 States (Oregon is number 9!)

The 5-day conference is an annual event, meaning that several of the attendees have known each other for some time - some for as long as 25 years - although I didn't realise this until a few days in. As one might expect from a conference, it involved different speakers presenting papers on a range of related (ish) topics; presentations began at 9am each day, and some days continued on until 9pm (other days we finished earlier at 5, 6, or 7pm). So on paper it was a fairly gruelling schedule... but almost all of the papers were really interesting, and so it didn't feel gruelling at all. There were about 25 or so people there at any one time, and we ate lunch together, we went out for dinner together in the evenings, and for drinks afterwards, and they were so welcoming and so much fun to be around. Sometimes when there is an established group of friends, it all gets a bit cliquey and newcomers are sidelined (sometimes unintentionally) as old friends want to catch up with one another, but this really didn't feel like that at all: I was welcomed into the group with open arms, and it felt like I was meeting up with a group of friends I'd known for years. Ah, they were great people!

The people I met were - almost without exception - left-wing liberals, atheists, Trump-hating, anti-gun, immigrant-sympathetic, they believed that climate change is happening, and children should be vaccinated. The news (or is it "Fake News"??) would have me believe that Americans are none of these things. At any rate, no one expressed any right-wing, creationist, Trump-supporting... (etc) views. I guess I wasn't seeing a representative sample of the population, but I'm not complaining.

Conferences I've been to in the UK have primarily consisted of people clicking through a powerpoint and talking about it, but it would seem that the American style of presentation is somewhat different: "presenting a paper" can mean to literally read through an essay word-for-word (with the standard 30 minutes of Q&A afterwards, of course). My style of presentation felt somewhat at odds with this standard: I suppose that 14 years of teaching A-Levels has got me used to a more informal style of presentation which might appear low-brow or inarticulate to some viewers, so that was a concern... but thankfully my concern was unwarranted and a couple of other delegates described my presentation as "a breath of fresh air" and "the highlight of the week". A wife of one of the speakers said to me "I'm a non-philosopher, and I can tell you, I find so many presentations dull because I just don't understand them -- but I understood yours! It was great!" I'm taking that as a compliment.

Portland is a great city, and felt really safe. I've been to New York City and I did not feel safe there; once darkness descended I felt anxious that I might get attacked or shot! OK, I was 20 and it was my first time travelling alone, but still, there seemed to be a lot of gang members on the streets at night. But Portland was really lovely place, and I didn't worry at all about getting shot!

So overall, it was a fantastic experience, and I felt genuinely sad at the end of it. It's going to be pretty hard for any conference to top it. However, it's an annual event, so maybe I'll manage to attend again next year...? To quote my sister (who was being sarcastic when she heard I'd be travelling all the way to the USA to present my paper) "people must really want to hear about sex robots!"

Conference presentations

Well, it seems like it's all go at the moment, in a good way. Last month I responded to four calls for papers / abstracts, and I've had word that I've been accepted by two of them. I suppose lots of students get invited to speak at lots of conferences, but it's the first time I've been accepted, so quite exciting, and hopefully it's the first of many such experiences.

One event is an interdisciplinary graduate research event at UoN, and the other is a philosophy conference focusing on philosophy and current events, in the USA. I was thinking to myself that the UoN conference was probably not all that competitive so not that much of an achievement, but then, there are over 8000 postgraduate students here at Nottingham uni, so perhaps I ought to give myself more credit. There's no way for me to know how many applied to either event anyway, so maybe I should just feel pleased. I'm not posting the exact details on here (yet) in case it all falls apart! I'm quietly hopeful but sensibly cautious. I'm not sure how these things are funded: who pays for the flights, accommodation and suchlike for the conference in the USA where I'm due to speak? I hope it's not me.

I also presented at the PGR seminar this week (that's not an achievement though; any philosophy postgrad student can present; there are a group of about 8 of us who regularly attend, and so the audience is usually only about 10 people.) At the two upcoming events, I'll be presenting the same paper that I presented at the PGR seminar; it's one which I've been working on for my MA dissertation. It's about sexbots and some intrinsic wrongs associated with a particular type of sexbot. The presentation went well, I think. Lots of questions pressing me on the distinction between a robot which intentionally represents someone, and a robot which accidentally resembles someone.

If I am able to proceed with my PhD, I plan to be studying a whole lot more socio-political-ethical-legal issues surrounding sexbots and other (non-sexual) lifelike robots. Aside from the fact that it's fascinating and exciting and what I always hoped I could research when I saw things like I Robot and Star Trek, one great thing about my research is how current it is. Hopefully the philosophical investigations into robots won't just be a flash in the pan, because building my career on a mere trend could be problematic. But I am versatile and I have wide-ranging philosophical interests, so even if I am not researching robot ethics for the next 20 years, there will be no shortage of issues I want to write about.

I just hope that these conferences go well. Sometimes I feel as though other people are so much more cut out for this than I am. That seems unfounded though, given that teaching involves (in part) presenting to an audience, and given my extensive experience in that, then it's just implausible to suggest that I'm not cut out for this. Nonetheless, the feelings of inadequacy persist. Maybe they'll dissipate in time; if these upcoming presentations go well, it will help. I've had some academic / funding disappointments recently, so hopefully some better times are on their way. I'm not referring to it as luck, as I think very little of what happens in academia is down to luck, but that's another post for another day.