Definitely would achieve more if he open sourced mathematica
Would it be profitable, though?
We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute
281–290 of 376 posts
Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute
#282Man 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…
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…
Would you say Wolfram provides low epistemic legibility[] ?
Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute
#283Man 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…
“new model for understanding reality...the meta-rules that undergird not just our Universe, but all possible Universes...” Is there any evidence whatsoever that he’s accomplished these things? He’s been at this for decades. Is there any prediction of any natural phenomenon? Did he predict a new elementary particle? Can he predict the flow of water through a pipe? Is there a quantitative connection with anything in th…
> is this any kind of science?
It's the "new kind of science". /s
Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could say the same things about string theory. One could envision an alternate timeline where cellular automata is the darling of academia, and Dr. Steven Ramwolf is the lone iconoclast raving about D-branes.
People do say the exact same thing about string theory. They challenge it to show that it’s science. There may be some experiments in the not too distant future; we’ll see what happens. At least string theory makes some predictions and is relativistically correct.
> makes some predictions and is relativistically correct.
Many of which are obviously wrong. We do not observe 11-dimensional world.
Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute
#285Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can be passionate and arrogant.
Is arrogance a fatal flaw? Can we not look past it and appreciate the wisdom and ideas?
If the ideas are really all he claims they are, sure. If they're just a gloss on cellular automata and don't actually deliver anything new, then all that's left is the arrogance.
Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute
#286Earlier quoted context omitted.
> show where it’s wrong Do you know the expression "not even wrong"?
They're trying to come up with a new way of modelling the foundations of physics. In order to be "even wrong", they need to make falsifiable predictions. As far as I can tell, they're not at (or claiming to be at) that level of maturity of the model, they seem to be slowly working toward feature parity with existing models. Whether they ever achieve that remains to be seen. Whether they manage to coalesce all this in…
It's an old reference, see e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/sep/19/ideas.g2
Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can be passionate and arrogant.
Is arrogance a fatal flaw? Can we not look past it and appreciate the wisdom and ideas?
To quote famed philosopher Kid Rock: it’s not bragging if you can back it up.
“Developing a fundamental theory of physics“ is not something Mr. Wolfram can back up.
Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pointing out character flaws is not an ad hominem in itself. Stop calling everything an ad hominem, folks.
Modular ethical argument. There is nothing of substance but attention to the character judgement in the message.
Is a judgement of character not "of substance"? Where is the substance in an erroneous accusation of ad-hominem?
Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute
#289Lots of comments about his "arrogance" but i just see someone passionate, judge for yourself! He has three long interviews on Lex Fridmans youtube channel! I greatly enjoyed watching those those. 1:[Stephen Wolfram: Cellular Automata, Computation, and Physics]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez773teNFYA ) 2:[Stephen Wolfram: Fundamental Theory of Physics, Life, and the Universe]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t1_…
Wolfram is very smart and a really compelling interview.
He's also an arrogant asshole and his arrogance has greatly hindered what he's been able to accomplish. After doing a lot of interesting work in the 1970s and 1980s (including creating Mathematica), he's done very little of note since then. His books and writings have had no impact on the physics or scientific community.
Re: We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute
#290Man 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…
> Richard Feynman himself frequently collaborated with Wolfram By way of a historical note relevant to the current topic, there was a funny exchange between Wolfram and Feynman recorded in the collection of Feynman's letters edited by his daughter. Wolfram started a letter with "Dear Feynman", I imagine because English public school boys don't use first names that much, and floated the idea of starting a scientific i…
I've talked with Wolfram a couple of times about New Kind of Science, in 5-10 minute chunks, at various points in its evolution, spanning 20 years. I listened as he did the same with others.
With a couple of exceptions, none of these people were over 0.1 on Wolfram scale when it comes to physics or even math, but I never got the impression that he thought that any of us were stupid fools.
If anything, he seemed overeager to help us understand and even seemed interested in what we thought.
And no, he doesn't have the social skills to fake this. (He also didn't have any incentive to do so in that context.)
He may be more dismissive of folks who are above 0.7 Wolfram. (He wasn't dismissive of the 0.5 Wolfram I know, even though that person was somewhat dismissive of him.)