PhD, 16th of November 2018

Dear all,

10 years ago I started my journey at the University of Turku, or 12 years ago in Aalto University (TKK, Teknillinen Korkeakoulu back then). I stepped into Turku Centre of Biotechnology as a summer intern in 2008 before my Bachelor's, without knowing much of anything, and I was handed over ChIP-seq data and so I became a "data scientist" (without even realizing it). I had no idea what is science (really), how it is done, what people in science are like, and I was frankly quite puzzled. Suddenly my project turned into a Bachelor's thesis at TKK and my first scientific paper, which is still probably my most cited publication. After a series of events I found myself a "PhD student" in 2013.

On Friday we got to celebrate the academic milestone that I now got the right to the title of a PhD after defending my thesis of applying mathematical modeling, statistics, and machine learning in prostate cancer. I hate titles to be frank, but I do value the ever-dripping hourglass of time and events that have come my way. The true meaning of PhD is not so much of the destination (a fancy title and/or "prestige" - I still smell as much of fart and sweat as before obtaining such a title), but rather much more about the journey. I am but a small man, but I dream that some day, somewhere, some patient undergoing a lethal disease will receive better treatment or advice because of something that might've been derived from my work. If there is even one such occurrence, this has been worth it - all else is dust in the wind. This journey is now at an interesting junction thanks to many colleagues (many of whom I am *extremely* happy to also call friends), hard work, mixture of success and failure, a good pinch of curiosity, something of a strange brew of luck and skill, sleepless nights, and special people like Essi without whom this wouldn't have been possible.

I tried to invite as many of you as possible to join me in the celebration, as it has luckily not been a hermit's journey. Thank you to all of you present and also absent, who brought meaning to this task. There were over 80 of you at the defense and over 60 at the Karonkka (the evening party; roughly translates to "Coronation" or "Crowning" in English), but I haven't forgotten the ones who couldn't make it in person.

I don't know where the winds will take me or those that are my companions in life. The following is Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken", which can be (mis)interpreted in many ways. I would say to me it's of the paths we take; looking back questioning our ways and choices, but with a glance to the future acknowledging that whether the road was the better or the worse, it was the path chosen in this gracefully granted sole life that we travel:


"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;


Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,


And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.


I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

Island

Island

When I was a child, I locked up in my cocoon

When I was an adolescent, I had no place to be

When I was a young adult, I feared losing my self

When I grew to be an adult, I became a cogwheel

I stepped deep into the river of discovery

I cast my hand into the stream of science

I tipped my toe by the ocean of mankind

I devoured a forefinger sip and then vomited

Albeit I've never found an another soul here-in

Every night some hidden stranger within me 

Sets ablaze the lamp in the lighthouse up-hill

-TDL, Dec '16

The Mensa-Dilemma

The Mensa-Dilemma

So I happened to bump into a friend's forum post with claimed high IQ from a Mensa test today and it reminded me of what I've dubbed 'the Mensa-Dilemma', first time like a year ago. I've been sometimes intrigued of taking a Mensa test, and being what I am, I've evaluated that I'd pass the test. By how much, that I wouldn't know. I could be delusional and might very well fail it as well, so that option has to be open. If I am delusional I'd estimate that I'd still be approximately at the borderline, by mirroring my academic/career/skill achievements in comparison to the common populace (if I remember right Mensa was supposed to be top 5%, 2.5% or 1%, forgot the exact quantile). IQs seem to be kind-of pitch in freebies in certain forums, with nothing to back it up with (i.e. proof), and even if there was, it is used in irrelevant contexts (a high IQ person may very well be incapable of functioning in a specific narrow field).

But what leads to the dilemma is that I loathe the term IQ. Reducing human intelligence (or artificial intelligence or what-ever sentient being in question) to a single numeric value is fundamentally absurd. I've always admired people like ancient Greek philosopher-mathematicians or people like Da Vinci, who were geniuses on multiple fields: inventor, painter, mathematician. Quite the genius, nobody can deny that. However, when projected to a single dimensional numeric value, which bases emphasis on logical thinking, they might've ended up being "mediocre geniuses". So a 170er could go to a 150er and boast in the smaller quantile digits of how they're in the 170er-club. Human mind is nearly incapable of compherehending extremely small or high numbers or probabilities, as well as distribution quantiles, thus in practice this 150er probably is just as smart as the 170er.

The mixture of loathing IQ and the intiguing curiousity of a Mensa-test result form the basis of what I called the Mensa-Dilemma, here as a 2x2 table:

.........Did I take a Mensa test?
................................._____Yes_(A)__________No_(B)_____
Did I pass?..............Yes_(1).|......A1......|.......B1.......|
.........................No__(2).|......A2......|.......B2.......|
.................................---------------------------------

The problem rises when I consider all the 4 possibilities, as I can only lose in this game:

- A1: I took a test and I passed test. I feel guilty for trying to prove myself, while already in the beginning I had already estimated that I'd quite easily pass the test. The margin by which I'd pass might affect my opinion. But most likely I'd just cancel my membership right away after feeding my curiousity, but in order to not go for a holier than thou -attitude, I'd probably only tell my wife about the whole thing. I'd regret taking the test because I was right right in the start, and I "lowered" myself in my own standards due low self-esteem or some strange need to prove myself. But it's only a test. People who throw around Mensa-stuff are generally doing it randomly and it only makes the conversations awkward or malicious.

- A2: So I took a test and I failed. This would of course be a big bump on my self esteem. So am I just a random stranger in the street? Why am I even considering philosophical, artistical, or natural scientific achievements, when I have been shown by a metric to be possibly only a mediocre citizen? That'd be hard to swallow. I might go into researching IQ tests more in detail and come up with a false explanation as to why this whole thing's a fiasco, but I don't think I'd fall that low.

- B1: So I never took the test, but if I did, I would pass. I will never find out that I would've passed the test (or by how much), and every time Mensa pops up, I will probably presume I would belong to B1-category - but I got nothing to back it up with. "Sure I could take a Mensa test and top it easily" sounds as vain as it can be.

- B2: So I never took the test, but if I did, I wouldn't even pass. I live in happy ignorance of my own mediocrity, but still I presumably consider myself to be á priori B1-class. It will probably affect my conclusions, behaviour, human interactions, et cetra. But there is always the scare in the back of my head, that what if I'm a B2'er? I must know, I couldn't be a B1'er... could I? Without the test, I would find myself somewhat restless.


So whatever I got, A1, A2, B1, or B2, I'd be discontent. I'd always find a way to be displeased of the outcome anyhow (and let's neglect the aspect of how high the result was, just the Mensa-eligible threshold). So that causes me a dilemma. There is no way I can 'win'.

In some applications, 'the only way to win is to not play at all'. I was thinking that'd probably be the solution in this problem. I'm not an expert in game theory, but however unfortunately here 'not playing' would fall into a choice for the category B, leading again to a B1 or B2, thus a loss.

In reality, amusingly, the only way for me to win is to add a category C, which stands for 'forgot the whole damn thing'. It has now happened to me twice. Approximately year ago I remembered Mensa and checked their local test times - and noticed that the coming Saturday had a single test coming up in my town. However, the week after I remember that particular test, and that I forgot to go to it - well, I won! My dilemma is still unsolved, so I don't have to pick anywhere in A1 - B2! Yay, C-category is the way to go. However now that I was reminded of this, I did check the test schedules again - and luckily there were no upcoming tests within a reasonable interval in our city. Victory, C-category again!

.........Did I take a Mensa test? ................................._____Yes_(A)__________No_(B)_____I forgot the thing (C)_ Did I pass?..............Yes_(1).|......A1......|.......B1.......|..........C1..........| .........................No__(2).|......A2......|.......B2.......|..........C2..........| .................................--------------------------------------------------------

This has so far guaranteed that I can sleep my nights in peace, to exaggerate:

- C1: Too bad, I would've been a Mensa member, but I forgot the whole thing and I'll continue my life like before. I don't think I'd lose anything.

- C2: Whew, I never got to know I wouldn't be eligible. Ignorance is bliss!

It's only a matter of time though when I consciously can't avoid C-category any more. I both wait and fear that day (again exaggeration, it's not really that big of a deal). For the time being I haven't ever taken a Mensa test. Here I completely omitted the factor of how much one would pass the test by (i.e. the exact value of IQ, not just the threshold). I hope I won't have to think about that any day soon.

I've heard rumors that people that attend to Mensa meetings are just like anybody. They play board games, talk about mundane things or sometimes more philosophical, but nothing out of the scope of e.g. a club for students of topic X in University. Maybe I'm shooting a fly with a cannon just because I want to shoot a cannon. Still, 'The Mensa-Dilemma' sounds pretty good, eh?