I have a variety of informal academic interests, loosely categorized into groups below:

These interests are naturally intertwined in many ways. Some, but not all, of the connections between this diverse body of topics is diagrammed below.

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See this blog post for some of my thoughts on an Islamic Philosophy of Education.

An overarching theme that unifies many of my seemingly unrelated interests is the discovery of underlying truths and meaning and the process by which that discovery takes place. Philosophy of science and machine learning are typically associated with the discovery of underlying truths, but I also make the claim that the philosophy of religion, esotericism, and education are undeniably related to this as well. Just as the scientist seeks to disover something about the nature of the universe and the machine tries to find the underlying mechanism by which some data is generated, the believer tries to discover meaning in her life, and the student seeks to find new knowledge and situate that knowledge in a web of meaning. Similarly, I am trying here (and with the diagram above) to situate the diverse bodies of knowledge that interest me into a cohesive network. Meta, isn't it?

Moreover, I am interested in a second-order phenomenon where multiple truth discovery processes work together in harmony: an intelligent tutoring system tries to understand the thought process of the student and determine what the student needs to learn while the student herself tries to learn. The tutor and student have different but symbiotic objectives; the student might be much better at learning mathematics, but the tutor might be much better at figuring out how the student should learn mathematics. Similarly, the historian of science unravels truths about a scientist who himself unraveled truths about reality centuries ago.

Case Study:
A concrete example that combines nearly all of the areas in the diagram above is an ongoing interest of mine in studying the alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan. His work combines science, religion, and esoteric philosophy in an intricate way that makes him an enigma for historians. But while I attempt to find out whether or not he even existed, and why he wrote such and such words, I'm also discovering connections between seemingly disparate pieces of knowledge. I get a glimpse of what Jabir might have been thinking when he did what he did; but I will never know what Jabir really thought. That's the beauty of it; Jabir's writings will inspire in me a new idea or two, perhaps ideas Jabir never had himself. Those ideas might blossom in the form of a new machine learning algorithm, a new philosophical theory of education, or a new perspective with which to better understand my own existence in the grand scheme of things. This inspiration is a form of education itself. Incidentally, Jabir's enigmatic writing style was meant to be educative and that's just one more reason I'm fascinated by the works of Jabir:

Know this: when my Master [i.e. Imam Jafar as-Sadiq (as)], may God be pleased with him, told me to compose these books, he instructed me to arrange them in a certain hierarchical order that I am not at liberty to change. Of course you know what some of his intentions were when he set up the hierarchy of these books, but their ensemble you do not know . . . Do not be disheartened then, my brother, if you happen to find a speech about religion in the very middle of which there is a speech about alchemy, a speech whose conclusion is not reached; or perhaps a speech about alchemy that is followed by a speech about religion but where the bases of the speech on religion are never set; or even a speech about devotion of some other subject that belongs to these sciences and arts that we treat of in these books of divine character. For all our developments that are offered to you in the course of these books, our Master . . . had intentions that I am not allowed to disclose to you. If I disclosed what they contain, you would be like Jabir ibn Hayyan. But from the moment that you were like him, you would no longer have any more need than does he for these things to be disclosed to you. Understand this.

From Jabir's Kitab al-Majid. Translation adapted and modified from The Divine Guide in Early Shiism: The Sources of Esotericism in Islam by Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, which itself was translated by David Streight.