J. Andrew Ross

Writer and Philosopher

I was born in England in 1949 and lived in Poole in southern England until 1969. I was a pupil at Poole Grammar School. There I took eight O-levels, three A-levels, and the Oxford entrance exam.

As a teenager I was interested in science, the Space Race and the Apollo project, World War II and the Cold War, motorbikes and girls. My first bike, in 1966, was a BSA Bantam. Soon after I passed my motorbike-riding test I replaced it with a Triumph Tiger Cub, which I then rebuilt and customized.

In the summer of 1968, I was awarded A-grade A-levels in Pure Mathematics, Applied Maths, and Physics, and an S-level Credit in Pure Maths. That summer, the school sent me as its delegate to an international young scientists congress in London.

In December 1968, I was awarded the Stapledon Exhibition to read Physics at Exeter College Oxford.

In early 1969, I worked as a bus conductor for the Hants and Dorset Omnibus Company. I earned enough money to buy a car, a Renault Dauphine, and to pass my driving test. Then I sold the car and went on a hitch-hiking tour around Europe with two schoolfriends.

From 1969 to 1972, I was an undergraduate at Exeter College Oxford. In October 1969, I matriculated at the University of Oxford. In the summer 1970, I took Second Class Honour Moderations in Physics and Philosophy.

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 Kant (Kritik der reinen Vernunft) and Bertrand Russell plus Ludwig Wittgenstein (logical atomism and the Tractatus), I was awarded Second Class Honours in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. My grades for the elective papers were good but the rest were mixed, so I missed a First.

From 1972 to 1974, I studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science. I was awarded a Leverhulme Studentship to study for a two-year Master’s degree in Logic and Scientific Method in the department founded by Karl Popper. The head of department was Imre Lakatos, who had developed a Popperian philosophy of mathematics and science. I studied especially the works of Popper, Gödel, Quine and 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. I supplemented my LSE studies with participation at seminars in other London colleges, mostly University College.

In 1974, I completed my Master of Science studies, with papers in Advanced Scientific Method, Elements of Mathematical Logic, and Philosophy of Mathematics, and distinguished thesis titled Logical Foundations for Probability Theory. In the thesis, I used a Carnap semantics for inductive logic and Kripke semantics for modal logic to build a logical foundation for probability theory. I was awarded the degree of Master of Science in Logic and Scientific Method from the University of London.

In the summer of 1974, I traveled to Berlin. I taught English as a Foreign Language at the Hartnackschule, and also worked my way through Hegel’s masterpiece, Phänomenologie des Geistes, in German and English, in the American Memorial Library at Hallesches Tor.

From 1974 to 1977, I pursued graduate studies at the University of Oxford. I was awarded an Amelia Jackson Studentship from Exeter College and started by studying for a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in Philosophy, which is now called a Master of Philosophy degree.

In 1975, I wrote a draft book titled Dialectical Logic. In it, I tried to demonstrate the logical open-endedness of propositional logic, predicate logic, arithmetic, set theory, and truth theory. Since the work began with a quotation from Lenin and ended with one from Mao Zedong, it was not calculated to appeal to conventional readers and is better left unread.

In 1975, I published three book reviews in the Oxford University magazine Isis. The first was on the novel Dead Babies by Martin Amis. The second was on The Central Questions of Philosophy by Alfred Ayer. The third was on the autobiography Unended Quest by Karl Popper.

In 1976, I completed my Bachelor of Philosophy studies with papers in Original Authorities for the Rise of Mathematical Logic, Philosophy of Mathematics, and Social and Political Philosophies of Hegel and Marx, and a thesis titled Truth and Provability. In the thesis, I applied an open-ended sequence of restricted logical calculi to arithmetic and set theory to accommodate the problems of self-reference illustrated by Gödel’s incompleteness theorem. I was awarded a distinction for both the papers and the thesis, and received warm congratulations all round. Robin Gandy at the Mathematics Institute was my tutor for mathematics in 1974–75. Crispin Wright at All Souls College was my tutor for philosophy in 1975–77.

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, more formalized and detailed draft of my ill-fated 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.

In 1977, I decided to join the Civil Service, initially as an Administration Trainee. I did well in the exams and was posted to the Ministry of Defence in central London. 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 both young and already known to me: John Bell, a mathematical logician from Oxford who now lectured in London, and Daniel Isaacson, the Oxford Reader in Philosophy of Mathematics. They gave the work as sympathetic a reading as it deserved and invited me to resubmit.

In Q3 1978, I resigned from the Ministry. This was undoubtedly a good move, painful as it was. In early 1979, I wrote a quick novel and called it Fireball. It was a ripping yarn, utter nonsense but fun. In the coming months a succession of publishers politely rejected it.

In Q2 1979, I returned to London and got a job as an advertising representative for a journal called Electron published by the International Publishing Corporation, based on the South Bank. While there, I also wrote for their journal Data Processing. Despite the pleasure of a company car, this was not right for me, and I resigned to write my thesis anew in late 1979.

In Q1 1980, I finished and submitted the thesis, and did temporary clerical work for the Institute of Administrative Accounting and Data Processing in the Strand, just opposite the Savoy Hotel. The Institute was computerizing its records, and needed someone with a clear mind and a sharp eye to mark up its files.

In Q2 1980, 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 teaching vacation students in Oxford. It was a pleasant summer.

The time came for the viva voce exam on my thesis. The examiners were Edward Craig from Cambridge and Michael Inwood, an Oxford man whose seminars on Hegel some years earlier I had attended with some pleasure. Graciously enough, they accepted my thesis Dialectical Logic for the degree of Master of Letters.

In Q3 1980, I moved back to London and started work as a tutor of A-level Physics at the Davis, Laing and Dick Tutorial College in Notting Hill Gate. It was good to be busy with physics again. I was in charge of the laboratory and set up some good experiments. The job was temporary, with a contract for two terms.

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

in Q2 1981, unemployed again, I typed out a 500-page draft for an autobiography based on my diaries, as an attempt to find out what I really wanted to do with my life.

From summer 1981 to summer 1982, for one year, I taught English as a Foreign Language at the Green English Conversation School, based in Shizuoka City, Japan. I bought all three volumes of the Feynman Lectures on Physics, then read them carefully from beginning to end.

In Q3 1982, refreshed, I returned to England to start again. Getting a job is not always easy, and I had to wait a while, reading more physics and writing notes for a novel about Japan. I started writing a sci-fi novel but the idea soon unraveled.

In Q1 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, southwest of London, where an élite group of Iraqi military cadets were being given a fast-track education.

In the summer of 1984, I moved back to London, as a housemaster at the Lansdowne college in Kensington, where a group of undergraduates from Florida were getting the star treatment. During the day job with A-level students from all over the globe, I was in charge of the physics lab. I moved to the Lansdowne dormitory in Notting Hill Gate, with more Americans.

In Q1 1986, I moved to Crouch End in northeast London, where I tried to get my novel ideas together. In the summer, in a pleasant apartment in Putney in southwest London, I wrote a draft novel titled Made in Japan. Not good enough, as a few literary agents politely said.

In Q2 1987, to have a fresh record of my academic standing, I sat the U.S. Graduate Record Examination in London. My scores: Verbal 790 (top 1%), Quantitative 800 (top 1%), Analytical 700 (top 8%), Physics 890 (top 6%). 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.

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. The products were mostly in English, but at work we spoke German. I studied German in evening classes at the local Volkshochschule. In 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 posh penthouse apartment on the lower East Side. In 1989, I published an article titled Springer’s Tower of Power in the Springer New York magazine Springboard.

In Q4 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 could do more and help sort out tricky technical details. The work was satisfying and the environment pleasant. I stayed in the department until I left Springer at the end of 1998. My boss was Dr. Hans Wössner, who had studied at the Munich Institute of Technology under Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Friedrich L. Bauer. I worked directly with Prof. Bauer on his Springer book Decrypted Secrets.

In 1991, I published an article, 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.

From 1992 to 1998, 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.

I was working on a science fiction novel titled Lifeball. I wrote using Microsoft Word on a Macintosh LCII. In 1993, I wrote a blockbuster 800-page draft.

In 1995, I finally completed Lifeball, to create the 432-page paperback edition that appeared in 1996. A New York agent tried her best to place it for a while, but to no avail.

All this work with scientific ideas and academic publications reawakened my interest in professional philosophy. I realized that the fallow years had allowed my own ideas to grow far enough to be worth following.

In August 1997, at the suggestion of Springer author Alwyn Scott, I participated at the Brain and Self Workshop held in Elsinore, Denmark, as 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 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, which was and is one of the biggest success stories in the German business scene.

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.

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

In 2001, I became a certified support engineer and conducted several 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 attended the next Toward a Science of Consciousness conference, held in Skövde, Sweden. I drove to this one, in my 1998 Honda Accord, over the new bridge linking Denmark to Sweden. I presented a 20-minute talk illustrated with a smoothly animated PowerPoint show.

In April 2002, I attended the next Toward a Science of Consciousness conference, again at Tucson, Arizona. After the T2K event, this could only be an anticlimax, but it was a good one. I presented a poster. Soon after my return, I wrote a review of recent books by Ted Honderich and Colin McGinn.

At SAP in 2002, I took an active role in the creation of a new series of online sets of multimedia materials designed to enable consultants to train themselves on new releases of SAP products. In September, I moved from a small apartment in a crowded suburb near Heidelberg to a large apartment on the west bank of the Rhine.

Also in September 2002, I attended 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 was sufficiently inspired by this event to write a very detailed review of the proceedings for the Journal of Consciousness Studies.

In 2003, I started work as a Developer in SAP, now back in Walldorf, on intelligent search and classification tools and technology.

In July, I attended my next consciousness conference, Towards a Science of Consciousness: Between Phenomenology and Neuroscience, held in Prague, Czech Republic. There I met Johnjoe McFadden – we kept in touch for long afterwards. I also enjoyed a pleasant conversation with Arthur Piper, which inspired me to write the brief essay Business at the Speed of Evolution for one of his journals.

In September, 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 and became inspired by the potential scope of the upcoming Semantic Web revolution.

In July, SAP sent me on two more business trips. In early July 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. My teaching experience and consciousness workouts had given me pretty good skills for this sort of assignment, even though my grasp of the technology itself was patchy. 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 late 2004, I completed work on my book Mindworlds, which collected a miscellany of papers on consciousness and related studies that I had written over the previous ten years.

In 2006, I worked hard to support the rollout of my SAP NetWeaver TREX team's new product, the
SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence Accelerator.

In the summer of 2006, I attended the ASSC conference at St Anne's College, Oxford, and experienced the exchange later recorded in my JCS essay Will robots see humans as dinosaurs?

In 2008, I published a review of the controversy on consciousness between Ted Honderich and Colin McGinn in the JCS, and a mathematical paper (with my SAP team colleague Gerhard Hill) on database theory in The VLDB Journal (a Springer journal). My book for SAP Press on my SAP team's flagship product, the SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator, is scheduled for publication in late 2008.