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We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute

writings.stephenwolfram.com

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Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute

#211

Post by mitko »

chrisseaton wrote: post #118
mitko wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably he comes off as big ego, which we are hardwired to resist. However I think a lot of that narcissism is confidence justified by his successes and track record, he’s created a lot of value for the world.

> However I think a lot of that narcissism is confidence Narcissism more often comes from hidden or repressed insecurity - the opposite of confidence.

Why not a mixture of both?

We all have insecurities- I’m sure even Mr Wolfram.

But success also leads to confidence. An entrepreneur has to pitch his brand and “wolfram” is his strongest brand.

Would love if someone massively successful explains what that feels like

Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute

#212

Post by tokai »

sjg007 wrote: post #198
tokai wrote: post #120

It's interesting with the sycophant outrage over criticism of Wolfram. With arguments ala "criticise his work not his person". But if you actually follow his work (scientific work, not his business) it is clear that there is a lot to critique, but not in a useful sense. Scholarly reviews of A New Kind of Science were universally negative. The usefulness of what he proposes is doubtful and it is unoriginal. He is unab…

Neural networks were basically negatively critiqued for decades. I think there is something to cellular automata and there's definitely a relationship between CAs and DNNs that is unexplored.

You NN 'example' is no applicable. Scientist haven't been discussing Wolframs ideas for decades, like they have with NNs. They are not engaging with his research. Bcs there is nothing substantial to latch on to and discuss. Just Wolfram making grandiose claims, citing improperly, and doing what he can to only communicate through venues he control without being a part of the scientific communities of the subjects he claims to revolutionize.

There might be a relationship between CAs and DNNs, but if you find it you can be sure that Wolfram will take the credit for it.

Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute

#213

Post by Barrera »

> Something remarkable has happened these past two years. For 45 years I’ve devoted myself to building a taller and taller tower of science and technology—which along the way has delivered many outputs of which I’m quite proud. But starting in 2020 with the unexpected breakthroughs of our Wolfram Physics Project we’ve jumped to a whole new level. And suddenly—yes, building on our multi-decade tower—it seems as if we’ve found a new paradigm that’s incredibly powerful, and that’s going to let us tackle an almost absurd range of longstanding questions in all sorts of areas of science.

An author who sets a piece up like that had better deliver the goods - big time. The author does not. You might expect that "new paradigm" of his to have rocked the scientific world. It hasn't.

The big idea is: "Multicomputation." And despite voluminous writing on the topic it's nothing more than noodling cellular automata in ways that have had no effect whatsoever on chemistry, physics, or biology.

Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute

#214

Post by fristechill »

logicchains wrote: post #179
xtiansimon wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does his ego effect anyone who doesn’t work for him? I read most of the announcement and he’s promising research papers and lecture/teaching materials. That’s good, no? Wolfram’s over the top next level ego, to be sure. But he’s on the side of science and reason, so he’s our ego-maniac.

>But he’s on the side of science and reason, so he’s our ego-maniac. Humility and the ability to recognise and accept when we're wrong is one of the fundamental characteristics of science. People with big egos are the enemies of science.

Humility before the truth is vital but not necessarily humility as expressed in one's public statements.

Indeed psychoticism was identified by the psychologist Hans Eysenck as one of the traits of genius, including scientific genius. Psychoticism is a package which includes associative thinking, creativity, disagreeableness, lack of empathy, antisocial nature, introversion, coldness, aggression, high self-esteem.

The problem is that most people are afraid of giving offence, of being ostracised by their colleagues and so on, and so they self-censor their original thoughts and never create anything fundamentally new and important.

So it's unsurprising that most of the great scientists in history had very difficult personalities (Faraday may have been an exception). I think the optimal approach is to study and benefit from the work of geniuses but have as little to do with them personally as possible. Leave them alone to their work.

Of course the fact that someone has a difficult personality does not mean he is a great thinker. However science has a mechanism for dealing with that via the publication system, where ideas that are wrong are eventually criticised and ultimately forgotten.

Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute

#215

Post by aj7 »

aero-glide2 wrote: post #43
aj7 wrote: post #28

I’ve had more downvotes sharing my opinions about cellular automata on HN than on any other topic, so I won’t make any here. Rather, I’d like to point out that I personally have not seen a single theory, not a single piece of a theory, known to be productive in explaining experimental data, recast with underlying cellular automata theory. If I am simply showing my ignorance, please enlighten me. Meanwhile, the clock…

I think it's a good thing to have a small percentage of scientists working on whacky theories, one of them might turn out to be true.

Note that at various times, Feynman and Ed Fredkin became enchanted with cellular automata. We’ve had some significant tries apart from Wolfram.

Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute

#216

Post by EricE »

logicchains wrote: post #179
xtiansimon wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does his ego effect anyone who doesn’t work for him? I read most of the announcement and he’s promising research papers and lecture/teaching materials. That’s good, no? Wolfram’s over the top next level ego, to be sure. But he’s on the side of science and reason, so he’s our ego-maniac.

>But he’s on the side of science and reason, so he’s our ego-maniac. Humility and the ability to recognise and accept when we're wrong is one of the fundamental characteristics of science. People with big egos are the enemies of science.

"People with big egos are the enemies of science." lol - history doesn't agree with this AT ALL.

Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute

#217

Post by emteycz »

Cyph0n wrote: post #22
froh wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've sent me down an interesting reading path, about a group of mathematicians working under the pseudonym "Nicolas Bourbaki" and lo and behold they do even have a web site these days: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Bourbaki https://www.bourbaki.fr/ Now how does that relate to Stephen Wolfram?

A group of mathematicians operating under a pseudonym is basically the exact opposite of a single mathematician naming everything after himself.

Only until the pseudonym becomes famous and it's basically the same thing.

Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute

#218

Post by emteycz »

pwdisswordfish9 wrote: post #54
froh wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've sent me down an interesting reading path, about a group of mathematicians working under the pseudonym "Nicolas Bourbaki" and lo and behold they do even have a web site these days: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Bourbaki https://www.bourbaki.fr/ Now how does that relate to Stephen Wolfram?

The joke is that the discoveries attributed to “Stephen Wolfram” are actually the work of multiple people, none of whom are actually named that.

Lol, welcome to science. If you really think the head author of a paper did the work, or that any of the authors did the majority of the work, or that the authors collectively did the majority of the work, or that who did the work is also mentioned as an author - you're in for a huge surprise.

Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute

#219

Post by JumpCrisscross »

abetusk wrote: post #202
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wolfram is arrogant, self centered and self congratulatory Not making a comparison in terms of contributions to science. But the same could be said about Newton and a host of other great (mostly) men of history. One of the most useful emotional filters I've learned to drop is the predisposition against zealous enthusiasm. Automatically dismissing it is as reductive as immediately submitting to it.

That's absolutely fair. We forgive and/or forget that arrogance when the contribution is significant. I will push back a bit and say that the arrogance of current and past scientists and engineers mostly comes across in dealing with them personally and, for the most part, they try to put their egos to the side to better communicate their ideas. Wolfram puts his ego front and center in his more recent scientific commu…

> they try to put their egos to the side to better communicate their ideas

Could this be a function of the eras' SNRs? When the principal mode of public and scientific discourse was curated print media and letters, one needed only so much pomp to decide you could deduce something grand about the world, and then upon having deduced it, convince your peers that you had in fact done so. In our modern era, to attract people and funding and attention, something more extreme may be needed. (Very, very loose hypothesis. It's probably just a personality thing.)

Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute

#220

Post by thirdwhrldPzz »

DantesKite wrote: post #73

Man these are some low-quality comments. You’d think Wolfram was torturing gerbils or something. I don’t mind criticisms of my favorite thinkers. I enjoy watching someone being taken to task in the battle of ideas so to speak, but apparently something about Wolfram just rubs people the wrong way, because they seem to lose the ability to make cogent arguments after reading him. As a simple example of what a healthy di…

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