Nathan Bice
Nathan Bice
Data Science Manager: Emerging Talent
Rockstar Games
PhD, Philosophy
Columbia University
BA, Mathematics and Philosophy
University of Wisconsin: Madison
New York, NY
About
I am currently the Data Science Manager of Emerging Talent at Rockstar Games. I am expanding and developing Rockstar's world-class data science and analytics team while also contributing to ongoing analytics projects. My main project is to build and lead a top-notch data science internship program.
I also have extensive academic experience in mathematics and philosophy and recently completed my PhD. Much of my academic work focuses on logic and the foundations of mathematics. I'm especially interested in the ways in which logic, mathematics, and formal languages (first-order logic, programming languages, etc.) relate to the structure and function of the mind. Naturally, I am very interested in artificial intelligence.
With that said, my interests stretch across most areas of philosophy. Much of my dissertation was motivated by my work on aspects of the structure of consciousness and some of my historical work on Immanuel Kant, both of which made appearances in the dissertation from time to time. I also have a strong interest in contemporary ethics.
Over the past six years I have also worked as a Senior Data Scientist at Artefact, a Management Consultant and later a Senior Manager at American Express, and a Data Scientist at BDIPlus.
Academic Research
Dissertation
Thoughts About Thoughts: The Structure of Fregean Propositions
This dissertation is about the structure of thought. Following Gottlob Frege, I define a thought as the sort of content relevant to determining whether an assertion is true or false. The historical component of the dissertation involves interpreting Frege’s actual views on the structure of thought. I argue that Frege did not think that a thought has a unique decomposition into its component senses, but rather the same thought can be decomposed into senses in a variety of distinct ways. I extend Frege’s position and use it to develop an account of the hierarchy of senses, the senses expressed by indexicals and demonstratives, and the distinction between logical and non-logical structure.
I also provide an original interpretation of some important aspects of Frege's initial publication on mathematical logic (the Begriffsschrift of 1879, which is widely regarded as containing the very first formal system of mathematical logic). Finally, I discuss various connections with the nature of meta-representation, our capacity for reflective judgment, some aspects of the structure of conscious experience, the way we perceive regions of space and durations of time, and our conscious awareness of our own perceptions and events of thinking.
Gottlob Frege is one of the most important figures in the history of mathematics and philosophy and arguably an essential precursor to computer science (via Russell/Whitehead, Gödel, and Turing). I believe he deserves wider recognition beyond philosophy, logic, and the history of mathematics.
Recent Talks
2024
"LLMs, Hallucinations, and Meta-Representation"
Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking (AILACT)
Panel Topic: The Uses and Limitations of ChatGPT in Critical Thinking, Argumentation and Elementary Logical Reasoning
Chair: Lloyd Carr (Rivier University)
Fellow Panelists: Jeff Buechner (Rutgers University---Newark and The Saul Kripke Center, CUNY, The Graduate Center), Ned Hall (Harvard University)
Discussant: Adam Elga (Princeton University)
American Philosophical Association Eastern Division Meeting, January 17, 2024
2023
"The Value of Kant's Concept of an Object for Contemporary Realists and Idealists Alike"
Existence, Cognition, Action: Kant's Legacy for the 21st Century
University of Belgrade, March 2, 2023
Works in Progress
This essay is a heavily-modified version of the first chapter of my dissertation. I haven't decided whether to submit it for publication. Here is the abstract:
This paper defends an interpretation of Gottlob Frege’s views on the structure of thought. I argue that Frege did not think that a thought has a unique decomposition into its component senses, but rather the same thought can be decomposed into senses in multiple, distinct ways. These multiple decompositions will often have distinct logical forms. I also argue against Michael Dummett and others that Frege was committed to the sense of a predicate being a function from the sense of a name (or names) to a complete thought. I defend my Frege interpretation against a puzzle often discussed in the Frege literature; namely, that the Multiple Decompositions Thesis is incompatible with Frege’s stated view that a thought is built up out of its component senses as parts. I provide textual evidence and argument that Frege thought of the part/whole relation in such a way that a whole can be analyzed into (or built up out of) parts in multiple, distinct ways, thus dissolving the puzzle. I conclude with discussion of every sort of example of multiple decompositions that can be found in Frege's work.
In this paper I argue that Gottlob Frege's Grundgesetze can be modified in order to avoid the infamous contradiction while maintaining his often-blamed Basic Law V in a way that allows for the construction of the natural numbers and proofs of the Dedekind-Peano axioms. In particular, one can use Frege's actual definitions and carry out Frege's actual proofs. In order to do so, however, I must add axioms asserting the existence of various functions and relations.
Comments appreciated, especially if you spot a mathematical error! I don't intend to publish this paper prior to simplifying the semantics and axiomatic system.
Ranking Theory and Stalnaker's Counterexample
In this older paper from late 2009 I motivate Ranking Theory and defend it from an objection due to Robert Stalnaker. Here is the abstract:
In a recent article (Stalnaker, 2009), Robert Stalnaker presented a general counterexample to several popular accounts of iterated belief revision, including Ranking Theory. In this paper, I will argue that Stalnaker’s counterexample fails as a counterexample to the standard Ranking-Theoretic account of iterated revision. In particular, I will argue that his counterexample cannot be expressed in a Ranking-Theoretic framework, and the most plausible modifications to his counterexample that allow it to be expressed in such a framework either do not result in the counterintuitive conclusion as Stalnaker claims or do result in this conclusion, but it is no longer counterintuitive. I will begin this paper with a brief introduction to AGM Belief Revision, followed by an introduction to Ranking Theory as motivated by problems in the AGM framework. I will then discuss a recent paper (Hild and Spohn, 2008) which attempts to give an operational definition of ranks in terms of iterated contraction functions via measurement theory. I will end with discussion of the Stalnaker counterexample.
Old Evidence, Belief Revision, and Ranking Theory
This essay is my undergraduate honors thesis from December of 2008. While I no longer stand by all of its claims, it does contain a proof that corrects a lacuna in (Hild and Spohn 2008). Here is the abstract:
The advantages of Bayesian Epistemology are well-known, as are its difficulties. After briefly introducing Bayesian Epistemology and making a few remarks concerning dichotomous belief, I will focus on the infamous Problem of Old Evidence. I will first examine several attempts to resolve the Problem of Old Evidence and in the process introduce both AGM Belief Revision and Ranking Theory. I will conclude by presenting a novel Ranking-Theoretic resolution of the problem.
Professional Appointments
Member, Committee on Non-Academic Careers, 2024 - 2027
American Philosophical Association
https://www.apaonline.org/group/nonacademic
Education
Columbia University, New York, NY
Philosophy, Ph.D.
Dissertation:
“Thoughts about Thoughts: The Structure of Fregean Propositions”
University of Wisconsin: Madison, Madison, WI
Mathematics and Philosophy, B.A.
(Comprehensive Honors)
Honors Thesis on formal models of belief revision:
Experience
Rockstar Games New York, NY
Data Science Manager - Emerging Talent July 2022 – Present
I am expanding and developing Rockstar's world-class data science and analytics team. My main project is to build and lead a top-notch data science internship program. I also contribute to a variety of analytics projects.
Artefact New York, NY
Senior Data Scientist October 2021 – June 2022
I served as lead data scientist and technical subject matter expert for U.S. consulting engagements, primarily servicing clients in digital marketing, data transformation, and digital media.
American Express New York, NY
Senior Manager - Risk Management April 2019 – October 2021
I engaged in research and used cutting-edge machine learning models in order to improve AmEx’s ability to predict default and detect fraud.
Management Consultant February 2018 – March 2019
I was the primary global trainer for American Express employees working with the big data ecosystem, including data extraction, analytics, and machine learning using Hive, PySpark, Python, and SAS.
BDIPlus New York, NY
Data Scientist December 2017 – March 2019
I used cutting-edge machine learning to develop predictive models and clustering algorithms, in addition to performing general analytics and software development.