J. Andrew Ross

Writer and Philosopher

1949–1969: Poole

I was born in November 1949 in southern England. My father was from Northumberland, and worked as an engineer. My mother was from Yorkshire, and worked as a secretary. I have a sister, who is two years younger than me. When I was still too young to remember, we moved to Poole, Dorset, on the south coast of England, where I lived until 1969.

My father circa 1949	My mother circa 1949
Me circa 1961	My sister circa 1967

From the age of 11 to the age of 19, I was a pupil at Poole Grammar School. There I sat Ordinary-level exams (three in 1965, five in 1966), Advanced-level exams (1968), and the Oxford entrance exam (also 1968).

At age 12, I was deeply impressed by a visit to the Science Museum in London. My reading at that time included science fiction, history, and light technical books about ships and aircraft. In the Boy Scouts, my proficiency badge was for aircraft spotting. My interest in war machines bloomed into a passion for plastic modeling.

As a teenager, I cut a nerdish figure, academically good and sometimes outstanding but not obviously a genius. I had a high IQ and used to read books about relativity and quantum physics but I didn't really understand them. I had no evident prowess at sports and no great charisma. I enjoyed a series of girlfriends but remained chaste throughout the sixties.

From 1966 to 1968, I earned pocket money by working as a stockroom boy at Woolworths on Saturdays. In the summers of 1966 and 1967, I worked as a seaside seller of tea and ice-creams for the Bournemouth Beach Catering corporation. I developed an interest in motorcycles, and rode and restored a pair of old British bikes, first a BSA Bantam and then a Triumph Tiger Cub.

BSA Bantam	Triumph Tiger Cub

My school career ended quite well:

In the summer of 1968, the school sent me as its delegate to an international young scientists' congress in London. This was a landmark event for my imagination. In December 1968, I was awarded the Stapledon Exhibition to read Physics at Exeter College Oxford.

For the first half of 1969, I worked as a bus conductor for the Hants and Dorset Omnibus Company. I also bought an old car, a Renault Dauphine, and learned to drive.

Model of a double-decker bus like the ones I worked on	Renault Dauphine like the one I drove

In the long, hot summer, two other Oxbridge-bound schoolfriends and I hitch-hiked around Europe. We watched Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong step onto the Moon on television on a ship in the Adriatic Sea.

1969–1972: Oxford 1

In October 1969, I matriculated at the University of Oxford. I studied for three years at Exeter College Oxford. I cultivated a hippy biker look, read a lot of big novels, and decided I could best transmit the spirit of Apollo into the future by authoring some good books.
 

Exeter College Oxford, dining hall
 
In 1970, I joined the Oxford University branch of the United Nations Association and helped to organize a student rock music club called Stonehenge. In the summer I took Second Class Honour Moderations in Physics and Philosophy, then returned to Poole to work as a laborer in a steel factory. In the fall changed my major to Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), with an emphasis on philosophy. I read a lot of philosophy and numerous literary novels and I enjoyed the latest rock music. For my 21st birthday, I bought myself a typewriter, an Imperial Olympia.

In early 1971, I met a fellow student called Judy. We went on to spend the next four years together. They were very good years. Judy studied PPE too, with an emphasis on politics.
 

 
Group photo at Poole schoolfriend's wedding, 1971, from left: schoolfriend Steve, me, my mother, schoolfriend Graham, schoolfriend Paul, my Oxford girlfriend Judy
 
In 1972, after elective study in the philosophy of mind and the respective philosophies of Immanuel Kant (mainly Kritik der reinen Vernunft) and Bertrand Russell plus Ludwig Wittgenstein (from Principia Mathematica to the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus), I was awarded Second Class Honours. I won a Leverhulme Studentship to study for a two-year Master's degree in Logic and Scientific Method in the department founded by Karl Popper at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

1972–1974: London 1

In autumn 1972, I started work at the London School of Economics. The head of department was Imre Lakatos, who had developed a Popperian philosophy of mathematics and science. I studied Quine's works in depth and enjoyed the buzz around the works of Noam Chomsky and Saul Kripke.

In 1973, I did some part-time lecturing on Fundamental and Integrative Studies in the Department of Accounting and Finance at the North East London Polytechnic. My own studies began to focus on Hegel and set theory. I envisioned the closure of the cumulative hierarchy of sets into a strange loop analogous to the looping of dialectical hierarchies in Hegeliana.

In 1974, I completed my Master of Science studies:
 
   Papers:
      Advanced Scientific Method
      Elements of Mathematical Logic
      Philosophy of Mathematics
   Thesis (distinguished): Logical Foundations for Probability Theory
      Carnap semantics for inductive logic and Kripke semantics for modal logic are used to build a
      logical foundation for probability theory.
 
In the summer of 1974, Judy and I traveled to Berlin. I taught English as a Foreign Language and also worked my way through Hegel's masterpiece, Phänomenologie des Geistes, in German and English. Later in the year, I was awarded the Master of Science degree in Logic and Scientific Method from the University of London.

1974–1977: Oxford 2

In October 1974, I returned to the University of Oxford to pursue graduate studies. I was awarded an Amelia Jackson Studentship from Exeter College and studied for a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in Philosophy.

In 1975, I wrote a draft book entitled Dialectical Logic. In it, I tried to demonstrate the logical open-endedness of propositional logic, predicate logic, arithmetic, set theory, and truth theory.

In 1976, I completed my Bachelor of Philosophy studies:
 
   Papers:
      Original Authorities for the Rise of Mathematical Logic
      Philosophy of Mathematics
      Social and Political Philosophies of Hegel and Marx
   Thesis : Truth and Provability
      An open-ended sequence of restricted logical calculi is applied to arithmetic and set theory to
      accommodate the problems of self-reference illustrated by Gödel's incompleteness theorem.
 
I was awarded a distinction. Robin Gandy at the Mathematics Institute had been my tutor for mathematics in 1974–75. Crispin Wright at All Souls College was my tutor for philosophy in 1975–77. The Oxford Bachelor of Philosophy degree is worth somewhat more than a Master of Philosophy degree elsewhere and is considered a sufficient and final qualification for teaching philosophy. I spent the summer reading Iris Murdoch novels.

In the academic year 1976–77, I continued my studies at Oxford, now registered for a Doctor of Philosophy degree, and did part-time work as a tutor in logic and philosophy at St. Anne's College Oxford. I wrote another draft of my book Dialectical Logic. The argument now culminated in a new, open-ended, evolutionary theory of facts that unfolded in a constructive universe where time was realized layer by layer behind a moving present moment.

I decided to join the Civil Service as what they called a high flyer, initially as an Administration Trainee. I was posted to the Ministry of Defence in central London.

1977–1981: London 2

In October 1977, I started work at the Ministry of Defence in London. My work there is subject to the Official Secrets Acts.

I submitted my new draft of Dialectical Logic as a doctoral thesis and was examined on it in June 1978. My examiners were John Bell and Daniel Isaacson. They gave the work as sympathetic a reading as it deserved and invited me to resubmit, as and when I could produce something more polished. To make time to do so, I resigned from the Ministry.

In early 1979, I wrote a quick novel called Fireball. It was a ripping yarn, utter nonsense but fun. In the coming months a succession of publishers politely rejected it.

Then I returned to London and got a job as an advertising representative for an electronics journal called Electron, published by the International Publishing Corporation. While there, I also wrote for their journal Data Processing. I resigned to write my thesis anew in late 1979. With minimal length, math-free dialog form, and few references, the typescript was more or less completed by the end of the year.

In early 1980, I submitted the thesis. I did temporary clerical work for the Institute of Administrative Accounting and Data Processing in London. I moved back to Oxford and took a short course in teaching English as a Foreign Language at the Oxford Intensive School of English, then spent the summer at the school teaching students who were visiting Oxford. It was a pleasant summer. My thesis examiners were Edward Craig and Michael Inwood. They accepted my Socratic dialog Dialectical Logic for the degree of Master of Letters.

In September 1980, I moved back to London and started work as a tutor of Advanced-level Physics at the Davis, Laing and Dick Tutorial College in Notting Hill Gate.

In November 1980, at the University of Oxford degree ceremony at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, I was formally awarded certificates for the following degrees:
 
   Master of Arts
   Bachelor/Master of Philosophy
   Master of Letters

1981–1987: From Japan to Germany

In summer 1981, I flew to Japan. For a year, I taught English as a Foreign Language at the Green English Conversation School, based in Shizuoka City. While there I worked through all three volumes of the Feynman Lectures on Physics. Refreshed, I returned to England in the summer of 1982. Getting a job took a while, and I read more physics and wrote notes for a novel.

In January 1983, I started work as a tutor of A-level physics and mathematics for Lansdowne Tutors, a small college based in London. For the first 18 months I worked as a housemaster at their residential campus in Woking.

In the summer of 1984, I moved back to London, as a housemaster at a Lansdowne residential college in Kensington. During the day job with A-level students from all over the globe, I was in charge of the physics lab. Then I moved to the Lansdowne dormitory in Notting Hill Gate.

In early 1986, to become more independent, I moved out, first to Crouch End in east London, and then to Putney in southwest London. I wrote a draft novel entitled Made in Japan. Not good enough, as a few literary agents politely said.

In the second quarter of 1987, to have a fresh record of my academic standing, I sat the U.S. Graduate Record Examination in London:

Soon afterward, I was offered the financed opportunity to study for a Ph.D. at Stanford University in California, but just a few days before the offer arrived I had accepted a job in Heidelberg, Germany.

1987–1998: Heidelberg

In June 1987, I moved to Germany. I started work as the promotion editor for physics and economics books and journals at the academic publisher Springer-Verlag based in Heidelberg. I was responsible for promoting new products by planning and writing brochures and newsletters and serving at conference exhibitions.

I studied German in evening classes at the local Volkshochschule. In spring 1988, I was awarded the ICC/Goethe Institut Zertifikat Deutsch als Fremdsprache with the top grade (sehr gut).

Over Christmas/New Year 1988–89, I traveled to New York to see the sights. I stayed in a smart penthouse apartment on the lower East Side and visited the Springer offices. In 1989, I published an article entitled "Springer's Tower of Power" in the Springer New York magazine Springboard.

Later in 1989, within Springer-Verlag, I moved to the computer science editorial department. There, essentially as a copy editor, I helped academic authors and editors to get their books together. This was mostly a matter of language and presentation, though sometimes I helped sort out technical details. I stayed in the department for almost a decade, until I left Springer at the end of 1998. My senior colleague in the department was Dr. Hans Wössner, who had studied at the Munich Institute of Technology under Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Friedrich L. Bauer.

In 1991, I published The Globall Hyperatlas — a development proposal in the Computer Graphics Society journal The Visual Computer. This was an idea for an electronic globe consisting of a fixed glass sphere mounted like a lightbulb on a baseplate and covered on the inside with a few million pixels. Online, and with a trackball remote control and the right software, it would show interactive real-time images of the Earth from space or thematic global maps with a zoom feature for close-ups and drilldowns.

From 1992, I managed and desk-edited new proceedings volumes in the NATO ASI Series F on computer and systems sciences, which included the NATO Special Programme on Advanced Educational Technology.

Since 1990, I had been working on a novel called Lifeball. In 1993, I wrote an 800-page draft. I called it "Lifeball — Proceedings and Prophecies on Planet Earth" and hand-made sixteen hardback copies.

In 1994, I edited Lifeball down to some 500 pages and improved the style. I called it "Lifeball — Birth of a New God" and made fifty paperback copies. A New York agent tried to place it but gave up in early 1995.

In 1995, I revised Lifeball one last time, to create the 432-page paperback edition that appeared in 1996. An enthusiastic and professional New York agent tried her best to place it for a while, but again to no avail.

Perhaps the high point of my time at Springer was the work over several years in collaboration with Professor Friedrich Bauer in Munich on his book Decrypted Secrets — Methods and Maxims of Cryptology (1997).

In August 1997, at the suggestion of Springer author Alwyn Scott, I participated at the Brain and Self Workshop held in Elsinore, Denmark, which was part of the conference series Toward a Science of Consciousness sponsored by the Department of Consciousness Studies at the University of Arizona.

In 1998, I joined the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC), and participated at the next ASSC conference, The Neural Correlates of Consciousness, held in Bremen, Germany, in June 1998.

The Springer directors did not take up my offer to focus on books and journals devoted to consciousness studies. I used my interest in computers and computing to land a documentation job at SAP.

1999–2009: Walldorf

In January 1999, I reported for work at SAP AG, in Walldorf, Germany. I was hired as an Information Developer in a department called Technical Core Competence (TCC) and was responsible, together with a few others, for editing, translating, writing, and coordinating technical documentation.

In April 2000, I took time off work to attend the conference Toward a Science of Consciousness, held in Tucson, Arizona. This was a magical experience. University of Arizona philosophy professor David Chalmers was the master of ceremonies and the presiding genius of the whole conference series.

Later in 2000, I moved with SAP Support to the new company campus at St. Leon-Rot, a ten-minute drive south of Walldorf. I focused on preparing training materials for courses held at the adjacent SAP University.

In 2001, I became a certified support engineer and began to conduct remote EarlyWatch Check sessions for paying customers. I learned to handle the SAP tools for technical authors and editors, and to maintain online content in the company intranet.

In August 2001, I delivered a talk at the next Toward a Science of Consciousness conference, held in Skövde, Sweden. Among the highlights of the conference for me were conversations with Peter Farleigh, Scott Hagan, Basil Hiley, Susan Greenfield, and Ted Honderich. Also at the conference was a charming lady whom I met up with again in Stockholm, Heidelberg, Prague, London, and Oxford.

In April 2002, I attended the next Toward a Science of Consciousness conference, again at Tucson, Arizona. I presented a poster, although its contents left David Chalmers, Stuart Hameroff, and many others puzzled. Soon after my return, I wrote a review of recent books by Ted Honderich and Colin McGinn for the Journal of Consciousness Studies (JCS).

At SAP in 2002, I took an active role in the creation of a new series of online learning maps designed to enable consultants to train themselves on new releases of SAP products using a mixture of multimedia materials.

In September, I moved from a small apartment near Heidelberg to a large apartment on the west bank of the Rhine, sharing a house with an SAP colleague. My new company car was a BMW 318 Ci sports coupé.

Also in September 2002, I took time off work to attend the conference The Self: From Soul to Brain, organized by the New York Academy of Sciences and held at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. I wrote a detailed review of the proceedings for the JCS.

In 2003, I started work as a Developer in SAP, now back in Walldorf, on intelligent search and classification tools and technology, and on new ideas for the Semantic Web such as the ontology language OWL.

In July 2003, I attended my next consciousness conference, this one entitled Towards a Science of Consciousness: Between Phenomenology and Neuroscience, and held in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic. There I met Johnjoe McFadden. I also met Arthur Piper, who invited me to write a brief essay for one of his journals.

In September 2003, I went as an SAP delegate to the conference DC-2003 on Dublin Core metadata held in Seattle. The conference program included a pleasant formal dinner at Microsoft in Redmond.

In May 2004, I spent a week at a fine hotel in New York City, courtesy of SAP. A colleague from my SAP team and I served as SAP delegates for the 13th World Wide Web conference. There I exchanged a few words with Tim Berners-Lee. But our conference was utterly upstaged by the Daytime Emmy Awards ceremony in the same hotel.

In July 2004, SAP sent me on two more business trips. I traveled with two of my colleagues from SAP Walldorf to the SAP Labs in Atlanta, Georgia, to deliver a training course to our American colleagues on search technology. Two weeks later, another SAP Walldorf colleague and I traveled to Sheffield, England, as delegates to the 27th annual international ACM Special Interest Group conference on research and development in information retrieval (SIGIR).

In August 2004, I studied Roger Penrose's new book The Road to Reality and wrote a detailed review of it for the JCS.

In October 2004, I published my works so far on the theme of consciousness as an online book called Mindworlds.

In 2005, I worked hard for SAP on the introduction of my team's new flagship product, which became known as the SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence Accelerator.

In 2006, I attended the tenth ASSC conference at St. Anne's College in Oxford. This was a sentimental return to the college where I had taught philosophy thirty years earlier. Highlights of the conference for me were conversations with Daniel Dennett, David Rosenthal, and David Edelman. A conversion with Claude Pasquini that he related in his conference report in the JCS prompted me to write another essay for the JCS, entitled: Will robots see humans as dinosaurs?

Starting in 2006, I began to think about religion. I read Dan Dennett's fine book Breaking the Spell and then Sam Harris' polemical manifesto on religion, The End of Faith. From January 2007 to summer 2008, I blogged actively on the On Faith web forum hosted by the Washington Post and Newsweek, and then on Sam Harris' own web forum.

At the end of 2007, I wrote another JCS essay on the works of Ted Honderich and Colin McGinn, called Hitting on Consciousness.

During these years, I also put real effort into my SAP work. In 2008, team colleague Gerhard Hill and I published a paper, Reducing Outer Joins, in the Springer VLDB journal. Later in 2008, I published my (third) book SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator, via SAP Press as volume 42 in their SAP Essentials series.

In early 2009, I packaged all my On Faith and Sam Harris forum posts into a book format and presented them as a rough draft for my (fourth) book Godblogs.

In early 2009, I prepared a thoroughly revised second edition of my (second) book Mindworlds and arranged for its publication by Imprint Academic.

In June 2009, I attended ASSC XIII in Berlin.

In late 2009, I helped SAP team colleagues prepare several technical papers for publication.

2009-2010: Schwetzingen

In November 2009, I celebrated my 60th birthday and retired with a golden handshake from SAP.


My car

In January 2010, my new book Mindworlds became available from Imprint Academic and Amazon.

In early 2010, I wrote my next book, G.O.D. Is Great.

My publications

Article about me in SAP World, December 2007
PDF: 2 pages, 105 KB

My curriculum vitae
PDF: 2 pages, 60 KB