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The book has quite a few citations: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&cites=31...
It also had a quite a large marketing campaign behind it. Last I checked most objective scientific writing didn't come with a hype machine attached.
There has been a lot of speculation that the universe is a simulation. If Wolfram manages to ascertain the rules and network that "runs" the universe, then the question becomes whether a universe is a simulation, or just acts like one. Is there a difference between something that has only computational rules and structure and a computer program?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The book has quite a few citations: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&cites=31...
It also had a quite a large marketing campaign behind it. Last I checked most objective scientific writing didn't come with a hype machine attached.
You might find this review of Wolfram's book interesting: http://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/nks.pdf
When the book first came out, I remember there was an air of skepticism surrounding some of its concepts. Has the view towards the book by the science community changed much in the years since? I'm not a physicist, but have always been interested in Wolfram's work out of curiosity from a comp sci perspective.
So if our universe is essentially computational, what are the implications of Godel's incompleteness theorem? Doesn't this mean there must be an infinite number of axioms our universe is generated from?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It also had a quite a large marketing campaign behind it. Last I checked most objective scientific writing didn't come with a hype machine attached.
wow that is incredibly naive. You think people in academia don't actively try to promote and position their work? Let alone the book and journal publishers, and conference organizers that have an obvious interest in all this.
Wolfram has used his business to unduly promote his research. There is a huge difference between him and a professor making the rounds.
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wow that is incredibly naive. You think people in academia don't actively try to promote and position their work? Let alone the book and journal publishers, and conference organizers that have an obvious interest in all this.
Case in point: you're kovasb@wolfram.com, I'm not an academic. Wolfram has used his business to unduly promote his research. There is a huge difference between him and a professor making the rounds.
That his research was funded through success in the market rather than government subsidies doesn't imply any 'unduliness' to me, but attitudes may vary.
Wow, he's turning into a crackpot: long, rambling articles with no introduction or conclusions that have no math or results to speak of, furtive mentions of how the rest of the physics community can't grasp how brilliant and far-out his remarkable work is (which could be because he doesn't publish, doesn't collaborate, doesn't go to conferences, and basically doesn't actually participate in the research community).
Doesn't look like Wolfram scores very high on Baez's index, although Wolfram does get the 50 point item.