Definitely would achieve more if he open sourced mathematica
We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute
251–260 of 376 posts
Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute
#252Man 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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Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
He didn't seem arrogant to me from the Lex podcasts. He seems to have no problem admitting when he doesn't know something or when he was wrong. Maybe his overuse of the "I" pronoun gives the wrong impression?
More the overuse of his name to name other things and the fact he has been talking about revolutioning science for at least 2 facades without doing it.
I think it depends what you mean by arrogant. To me, naming things after yourself is a bit of vanity. But I also see the advantage of building a brand with a consistent meaning. You may not believe everything Wolfram has to say, but I think that the naming here conveys a clear meaning to users.
Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
My problem with Wolfram is that every time I hear him talk or read him, I end up spending 15-20 minutes and come out the other end confused. I studied physics in my undergrad, I have a graduate degree in math, I've shipped large features on planet-scale systems. I'm no genius, certainly nowhere close to Dr. Wolfram, but I don't think I'm far from your average HN reader in reading comprehension ability. I've read 35 p…
Wolfram deserves accolades for Mathematica. It's a magnificent achievement and he's kept his company alive and thriving and people use Wolfram (the company) tools everyday to do productive stuff. BUT... Wolfram (the man) is very much an outsider when it comes to physics. This started 20 years ago when he published a "A New Kind of Science". It was a lengthy but ultimately not useful exploration of cellular automata (…
It may or may not be correct, but to get hung up on the ego and the name on the paper is a big mistake. Read the ideas. Maybe they're too weird to understand. But don't condemn them because where they came from. Find the flaws and do it scientifically.
Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute
#255Wolfram wolfram wolfram wolfram! Wolfram’s wolfram wolfram, wolfram wolfram. Wolfram wolfram? Wolfram wolfram wolfram wolfram.
Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
And just to add on top of this - there is to the best of my knowledge little if any research that shows that the current practice of publication and peer review is actually effective at weeding out bad science. The current replication crisis in psychology and other fields would suggest that it's actually quite bad at it. For a community that is supposed to be based on the ideal of experimentation and falsifiability,…
> The current replication crisis in psychology and other fields would suggest that it's actually quite bad at it. Not saying that you're necessarily wrong but be careful not to compare apples to oranges: There is a huge difference between fields like math & physics on the one hand and fields like psychology on the other.
Definitely, but both use peer review.
Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can be passionate and arrogant.
He didn't seem arrogant to me from the Lex podcasts. He seems to have no problem admitting when he doesn't know something or when he was wrong. Maybe his overuse of the "I" pronoun gives the wrong impression?
He does his own thing and is very confident of said thing. I really admire his approach, and I truly hope he can discover something.
Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute
#258Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute
#259Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute
#260I’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…
Hey, I do really weird math for unspecified reasons. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/28da/6507acf40f892b95ee61a7... Cellular Automata are, in essence, a type of mathematical function called a “Chaos Map”, aside from the cool name it’s also a WYSIWYG name, a chaos map is a mapping of how a fractal expands or changes across space time. A great example very germane to this site is the Hacker Glider from Conway’s game o…
> "Let’s bring it all together now. By studying cellular automata, we can observe patterns which correspond to a chaotic map of those patterns. By looking at that, we are able to make deeper inferences about the overall total pattern by knowing that what we observe in a small scale will also exist at n+1 scale."
Okay, this follows themes of fractal self-similarity, very interesting stuff. However, the next leap sounds completely unsupported. One reason is that physics often doesn't scale like this (see gravity and why we don't have elephant-sized ants):
> "Meaning, when we see the loner slime mold evolve the other parts, it’s reasonable to infer through scale that loner humans may also contribute evolutionary information."
The cellular automata stuff sounds valid mathematically, though I'm no expert, but the leap to other areas of science? Even the jump to slime mold evolution... I mean, where is the valuable addition? Slime mold evolution doesn't seem to require any cellular automata theory to understand. It's an interesting biological system that has aspects of both independent microbial cellular life as well as multicellular cooperation under stress conditions.
Plus the tedious self-promotion, I've know academics like that, the type who march into every room tooting their own horn and banging their drum. Working for people like that is a big mistake for many reasons. For example, if your results disagree with theirs they'll go overboard trying to sabotage you. Your only possible roles in that situation will be those of loyal sycophant, or, if you don't follow along, excommunicated heretic.