We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute(writings.stephenwolfram.com)
writings.stephenwolfram.com
We’ve got a science opportunity overload: Launching the Wolfram Institute
https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2022/04/weve-got-a-science-opportunity-overload-its-time-to-launch-the-wolfram-institute/
375 comments
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?
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.
My opinion about him changed for good after watching some of those podcasts, it could be he has a very special writing style
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.
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.
“Developing a fundamental theory of physics“ is not something Mr. Wolfram can back up.
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.
Arrogance is not a flaw as far as public perception is concerned. Look at actors, sports personalities, and musicians; however, in this case, we have someone who is working on his cockamamie theories without the support of the scientific community, and the arrogance just wraps everything up in an awful package.
It is a shame because Stephen Wolfram is immensely gifted and has already achieved what many of us in the tech world can only dream about. Mathematica, despite all its flaws, is a fantastic piece of software. Wolfram has no need to scream "I've revolutionized physics!" to the four winds. It's tragic to see an exceptional mind descend into madness.
It is a shame because Stephen Wolfram is immensely gifted and has already achieved what many of us in the tech world can only dream about. Mathematica, despite all its flaws, is a fantastic piece of software. Wolfram has no need to scream "I've revolutionized physics!" to the four winds. It's tragic to see an exceptional mind descend into madness.
Must we ignore it and only appreciate the wisdom and ideas? Or can we talk about both?
Ask Socrates.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
>An author who sets a piece up like that had better deliver the goods - big time. The author does not.
That's been my impression of Stephen Wolfram and what he does in general. He has some accomplishments but his ego is comically large by comparison with those. Very hard to take him seriously.
That's been my impression of Stephen Wolfram and what he does in general. He has some accomplishments but his ego is comically large by comparison with those. Very hard to take him seriously.
Very hard? You miswrote. You meant impossible.
I'd say that gradient descent and deep learning have made obsolete whatever cellular automata stuff Wolfram has come up with. Neural nets can approximate any function. Cellular automata has a much more limited range that only includes the generation of some interesting pictures and not much else of interest, IMHO.
To be charitable, if he had some way to mathematically slide between and combine networks of cellular automata, he might have something, but it would probably just end up reinventing deep learning and neural nets on a slightly different set of primitives.
To be charitable, if he had some way to mathematically slide between and combine networks of cellular automata, he might have something, but it would probably just end up reinventing deep learning and neural nets on a slightly different set of primitives.
Cellular automata can be Turing complete, so they cover at least the entire range of a neural net, and more if it's not recurrent.
That's not fully true that multicomputation and Wolfram's research with cellular automata and combinators is nothing more than noodling. I think there are some very interesting applications coming soon and the decentralized VPN product NKN/NKS/nConnect is doing something with Wolfram's research in application that I think has wider applications than their current model.
This discussion between the CEO of NKN and Wolfram is pretty good. [0]
I am not saying it is the most important thing happening in "multicomputation" but I think there's a lot that this approach can lead to when we start talking about using clusters of computers, GPUs, TPUs, cell phones, edge devices, etc in a secure fashion. I think there's something to it, but I am also an idiot and could be very wrong.
[0] https://medium.com/nknetwork/stephen-wolfram-creator-of-nks-...
This discussion between the CEO of NKN and Wolfram is pretty good. [0]
I am not saying it is the most important thing happening in "multicomputation" but I think there's a lot that this approach can lead to when we start talking about using clusters of computers, GPUs, TPUs, cell phones, edge devices, etc in a secure fashion. I think there's something to it, but I am also an idiot and could be very wrong.
[0] https://medium.com/nknetwork/stephen-wolfram-creator-of-nks-...
> it's nothing more than noodling cellular automata in ways that have had no effect whatsoever on chemistry, physics, or biology.
I mean, you could at least read a bit about what his Multicomputation stuff is really studying. CA are not being noodled there.
I mean, you could at least read a bit about what his Multicomputation stuff is really studying. CA are not being noodled there.
For those of us that are not going to read Wolfram's papers, what is multicomputation?
In short, Wolfram uses this term to describe distributed local state updates of a global state space. In his particular model, the global state space is a hypergraph, and the state updates are replacements of some local subgraphs with other subgraphs. This happens in parallel in all sorts of places, which is a not-too-surprising generalization of cellular automata.
And that's it. It's not very deep, and nobody outside his sphere of influence uses this term for that purpose.
The thing with Stephen Wolfram is that he invents all those terms, uses them as if they are standard terminology in the field (of physics or computer science) while freely mixing them with _actual_ standard terminology. That goes for "branchial graph", "rurial space", "principle of computational equivalence" and also "multicomputation". He is just diving deeper and deeper into his own buzzwordial space.
And that's it. It's not very deep, and nobody outside his sphere of influence uses this term for that purpose.
The thing with Stephen Wolfram is that he invents all those terms, uses them as if they are standard terminology in the field (of physics or computer science) while freely mixing them with _actual_ standard terminology. That goes for "branchial graph", "rurial space", "principle of computational equivalence" and also "multicomputation". He is just diving deeper and deeper into his own buzzwordial space.
Seconded -- I don't have much interest in reading the guy's own writing at this point, but I'll gladly read a concise summary that leaves out all the boasting since I assume there might be some actual "content" buried in there.
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 discussion could look like: Wolfram didn’t believe black holes were real for the longest time, or at least, had some skepticism about that. One could’ve had a reasonable debate, pointing out where he may have erred (up until he changed his mind). Like a proper scientist does.
But vilifying him for wanting to create a research institute is absurd. I have never seen such petty anger at the idea of doing more scientific research.
He’s done a fantastic job creating a new model for understanding reality, some of which suggest interesting physical structures underlying our Universe. He’s changed my understanding of evolution completely with his insights on computational irreducibility and complexity.
And he’s laying the groundwork for understanding the meta-rules that undergird not just our Universe, but all possible Universes. It’s fantastic stuff.
The great Richard Feynman himself frequently collaborated with Wolfram and talked about Rule 30, the foundational insight that spurred Wolfram to create a New Kind of Science. Calling him delusional or a fraud is Wittengtein’s Ruler in action: It says far more about you than it does about him.
I always click on a Wolfram thread, and occasionally you do get interesting insights and even informed disagreements, but this is just disgraceful to be honest.
There’s true evil in the world. Truly despicable sins. Calibrate your outrage towards that.
If you disagree with Wolfram, read his work, steelman it, and show where it’s wrong in a way worthy of scientific skepticism and empiricism.
Otherwise you’re worse than what you think he is.
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 discussion could look like: Wolfram didn’t believe black holes were real for the longest time, or at least, had some skepticism about that. One could’ve had a reasonable debate, pointing out where he may have erred (up until he changed his mind). Like a proper scientist does.
But vilifying him for wanting to create a research institute is absurd. I have never seen such petty anger at the idea of doing more scientific research.
He’s done a fantastic job creating a new model for understanding reality, some of which suggest interesting physical structures underlying our Universe. He’s changed my understanding of evolution completely with his insights on computational irreducibility and complexity.
And he’s laying the groundwork for understanding the meta-rules that undergird not just our Universe, but all possible Universes. It’s fantastic stuff.
The great Richard Feynman himself frequently collaborated with Wolfram and talked about Rule 30, the foundational insight that spurred Wolfram to create a New Kind of Science. Calling him delusional or a fraud is Wittengtein’s Ruler in action: It says far more about you than it does about him.
I always click on a Wolfram thread, and occasionally you do get interesting insights and even informed disagreements, but this is just disgraceful to be honest.
There’s true evil in the world. Truly despicable sins. Calibrate your outrage towards that.
If you disagree with Wolfram, read his work, steelman it, and show where it’s wrong in a way worthy of scientific skepticism and empiricism.
Otherwise you’re worse than what you think he is.
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 paragraphs in a post about founding a research institute and I don't know what was said there that couldn't have been conveyed in two or three paragraphs instead.
It is my default opinion that people who use lot word when few word do trick do so to cover up the fact that they have very little content of actual value. That might not be the case with Wolfram, who has quite a track record, but to me the burden of proof is still on him.
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 paragraphs in a post about founding a research institute and I don't know what was said there that couldn't have been conveyed in two or three paragraphs instead.
It is my default opinion that people who use lot word when few word do trick do so to cover up the fact that they have very little content of actual value. That might not be the case with Wolfram, who has quite a track record, but to me the burden of proof is still on him.
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 (some of the fractal-like graphics were pretty cool at the time, but that's about it). Even that was perfectly fine, a rich guy with a vanity hobby doing some weird but interesting stuff, so what?
But lately he's really doubled down on the "theory of everything" stuff with his "hypergraph" idea. To be honest, it IS a bit cringe-worthy. To call this pursuit "The Fundamental Theory of Physics"... geezus, that takes a level of ego that makes one's mouth drop.
But you know what, it's still fine. It's not like he is applying for grants and competing with other worthwhile science for funding. His "staff" for this endeavor are his paid employees. AFAIK, he has no collaborators in academia (and no, multi-hour Twitch streams where he firehoses PHD level math jargon to the general public DON'T COUNT as collaboration).
Now he wants to launch an institute? Still fine by me as long as the funding it comes out of Wolfram's pocket and doesn't detract from more worthwhile non-vanity research.
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 (some of the fractal-like graphics were pretty cool at the time, but that's about it). Even that was perfectly fine, a rich guy with a vanity hobby doing some weird but interesting stuff, so what?
But lately he's really doubled down on the "theory of everything" stuff with his "hypergraph" idea. To be honest, it IS a bit cringe-worthy. To call this pursuit "The Fundamental Theory of Physics"... geezus, that takes a level of ego that makes one's mouth drop.
But you know what, it's still fine. It's not like he is applying for grants and competing with other worthwhile science for funding. His "staff" for this endeavor are his paid employees. AFAIK, he has no collaborators in academia (and no, multi-hour Twitch streams where he firehoses PHD level math jargon to the general public DON'T COUNT as collaboration).
Now he wants to launch an institute? Still fine by me as long as the funding it comes out of Wolfram's pocket and doesn't detract from more worthwhile non-vanity research.
I suppose you are not familiar with his early career as a physicist, publishing in the field since he was 15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Wolfram#Early_career
That doesn’t tell us much about the quality of the work under discussion.
No. But I'm replying to the OP argument that his physics career began with the book.
No, I was trying to say that the book was when he first demonstrated that he was very much an outsider. Even by then he had been out of academia for a long time, busy building his company and making his fortune.
That was 40+ years ago.
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.
There are only so many hours in a day. If we spend all of them thoroughly debunking known quacks nothing else will ever get done.
Stephen Wolfram hasn’t yet achieved full quack status where it’s best to dismiss him out of hand, but he has been moving in that direction for some time.
Stephen Wolfram hasn’t yet achieved full quack status where it’s best to dismiss him out of hand, but he has been moving in that direction for some time.
It's an interesting idea but it's still very nascent and speculative.
In these last couple of years, Wolfram has been talking about a "universe building kit". He posits that universes (including our own universe) and it's time evolution can be described by relatively simple "hypergraph" that modifies itself and that fully describes physical laws including the concepts that would unify general relativity and quantum mechanics. His thinking is that we just have to somehow "find" that hypergraph and we'll know everything all the way back to "t=0".
Not surprisingly, the physics community doesn't seem interested in dropping whatever they're doing and pursuing this. But like I said, it's OK. The only gripe I would have is if he started trying to getting funding from sources which other scientific researchers use now. The concern is that he would just roll out his obscurantist papers and talks and convince people with the purse-strings to fork over money for this idea that COULD HAVE GONE towards more legitimate pursuits. As it is now, high-energy physics already gets what many consider to be "too much" funding and it's been rather fruitful. This hypergraph stuff... meh.
In these last couple of years, Wolfram has been talking about a "universe building kit". He posits that universes (including our own universe) and it's time evolution can be described by relatively simple "hypergraph" that modifies itself and that fully describes physical laws including the concepts that would unify general relativity and quantum mechanics. His thinking is that we just have to somehow "find" that hypergraph and we'll know everything all the way back to "t=0".
Not surprisingly, the physics community doesn't seem interested in dropping whatever they're doing and pursuing this. But like I said, it's OK. The only gripe I would have is if he started trying to getting funding from sources which other scientific researchers use now. The concern is that he would just roll out his obscurantist papers and talks and convince people with the purse-strings to fork over money for this idea that COULD HAVE GONE towards more legitimate pursuits. As it is now, high-energy physics already gets what many consider to be "too much" funding and it's been rather fruitful. This hypergraph stuff... meh.
Try reading his one year update instead[1]
"But now this deflection is not in physical space but in branchial space. The fundamental underlying mathematical structure is the same in both cases. But the interpretation in terms of traditional physics is different. And in what to me is a singularly beautiful result of our models it turns out that what gives the Einstein equations in physical space gives the Feynman path integral in branchial space. Or in other words, quantum mechanics is the same as general relativity, except in branchial space rather than physical space."
Most of this stuff is mind-bending to me the same way statistical quantum mechanics, information theory or higher-dimensional physics are. But I always come away from reading about it with a feeling of "there could be something here, and I'm glad someone is exploring it further"
https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/04/the-wolfram-phys...
"But now this deflection is not in physical space but in branchial space. The fundamental underlying mathematical structure is the same in both cases. But the interpretation in terms of traditional physics is different. And in what to me is a singularly beautiful result of our models it turns out that what gives the Einstein equations in physical space gives the Feynman path integral in branchial space. Or in other words, quantum mechanics is the same as general relativity, except in branchial space rather than physical space."
Most of this stuff is mind-bending to me the same way statistical quantum mechanics, information theory or higher-dimensional physics are. But I always come away from reading about it with a feeling of "there could be something here, and I'm glad someone is exploring it further"
https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/04/the-wolfram-phys...
It sure sounds promising. Lots of things do. This is why we have peer review and standard publishing practices.
This idea never sat right with me. Only one of Einsteins paper's went through the now standard practice, and he was upset that it did.
Peer review is useful, but let's not pretend it's the only way forward for a theory of everything. It's a very, very modern practice. We did a lot of great physics before it existed.
Nearly everything wolfram does is available to anyone who is interested (including code!).
Peer review is useful, but let's not pretend it's the only way forward for a theory of everything. It's a very, very modern practice. We did a lot of great physics before it existed.
Nearly everything wolfram does is available to anyone who is interested (including code!).
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, scientists are surprisingly willing to just accept at face value, that the current process is sound, without actually scrutinizing this hypothesis.
> 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.
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.
But peer review works completely differently in math & physics than in psychology. In math and (theoretical) physics, practically all results (claims) can in principle be reproduced (tested) by other people. Sure reviewers are usually short on time and won't verify every single detail but at the same time – being experts in their fields – they tend to be extremely good at distinguishing the "easy" arguments from more intricate ones and can usually come up with rough arguments as to why (or why not) a given new result makes sense in light of existing results & literature.
I don't think it is accurate to use problems in the field of psychology to indict peer review in math or physics.
The reviewer was Tolman (or Robertson I think Tolman), and it was arguably one of his most important ones.
It's not about peer review, it's about making predictions. Theories that make predictions that come out true are good ("correct"). Peer review is a poor substitute.
Peer review is just a heuristic people use to spend time more efficiently: You know that if a paper is peer reviewed, it's more likely to be worthwhile spending time actively engaging with it than if it weren't.
But that's only statistical - if you want to quickly screen thousands of research papers and the only signal you have is peer review and maybe citation graph - and doesn't apply to specific papers or the research program of a specific person.
But that's only statistical - if you want to quickly screen thousands of research papers and the only signal you have is peer review and maybe citation graph - and doesn't apply to specific papers or the research program of a specific person.
He writes in a very marketing-informed way.
He clearly point to (his) previous work, clearly and repeatedly remembers the reader how amazing is the things he is trying to do, and shameless link (both in text and via hiperlinks) to his own enterprises and current initiatives.
I suppose this is some kind of mental template he uses when writing (think about someone writing a paper: the forma and hidden rules, the necessary and obligatory parts).
Of course I cannot vouch for his science but heck! the man is spending his own money, not trying to sell you anything (other than Mathematica) and has an impressive track record since he was a kid! Let’s give him some space to do his things.
He clearly point to (his) previous work, clearly and repeatedly remembers the reader how amazing is the things he is trying to do, and shameless link (both in text and via hiperlinks) to his own enterprises and current initiatives.
I suppose this is some kind of mental template he uses when writing (think about someone writing a paper: the forma and hidden rules, the necessary and obligatory parts).
Of course I cannot vouch for his science but heck! the man is spending his own money, not trying to sell you anything (other than Mathematica) and has an impressive track record since he was a kid! Let’s give him some space to do his things.
> He writes in a very marketing-informed way.
I'm going to borrow this phrase. I always struggle with dismissing BS without being abrasive.
I'm going to borrow this phrase. I always struggle with dismissing BS without being abrasive.
Thank you for posting this - I read the article too and was left feeling somewhat "dumb" and confused by all the scientific and market speak babble thrown in there. I was doubting my own intelligence for a bit there ... :)
Would you say Wolfram provides low epistemic legibility[] ?
[] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30802349
[] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30802349
I really appreciated the concept of "epistemic legibility" as a virtue. Arguments are most valuable when they are clear and concise. It makes them easier to refute if wrong and easier to extend/apply if correct.
As far as I know, the phrase was coined here: https://acesounderglass.com/2022/02/07/epistemic-legibility/
As far as I know, the phrase was coined here: https://acesounderglass.com/2022/02/07/epistemic-legibility/
> 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 institute. Feynman replied in a letter starting "Dear Wolfram" that Wolfram was unlikely to succeed in any leadership capacity because he regards normal people as "stupid fools", and therefore should stick to academic work. Feynman's daughter added the editorial comment that Feynman was disproved by Wolfram's subsequent entrepreneurial success.
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 institute. Feynman replied in a letter starting "Dear Wolfram" that Wolfram was unlikely to succeed in any leadership capacity because he regards normal people as "stupid fools", and therefore should stick to academic work. Feynman's daughter added the editorial comment that Feynman was disproved by Wolfram's subsequent entrepreneurial success.
What the letter from Feynman to Wolfram^ actually said was:
> You say you want to create your own environment - but you will not be doing that: you will create (perhaps!) an environment that you might like to work in - but you will not be working in this environment - you will be administrating it - and the administration environment is not what you seek - is it? You won't enjoy administrating people because you won't succeed in it.
> You don't understand "ordinary people". To you they are "stupid fools" - so you will not tolerate them or treat their foibles with tolerance or patience - but will drive yourself wild (or they will drive you wild) trying to deal with them in an effective way.
I've never worked for SW but judging by e.g. the employee comments for WR on Glassdoor^, this seems pretty on-the-nose to me.
^ https://www.cantorsparadise.com/richard-feynmans-advice-to-a...
^ https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Wolfram-Research-Reviews-E...
> You say you want to create your own environment - but you will not be doing that: you will create (perhaps!) an environment that you might like to work in - but you will not be working in this environment - you will be administrating it - and the administration environment is not what you seek - is it? You won't enjoy administrating people because you won't succeed in it.
> You don't understand "ordinary people". To you they are "stupid fools" - so you will not tolerate them or treat their foibles with tolerance or patience - but will drive yourself wild (or they will drive you wild) trying to deal with them in an effective way.
I've never worked for SW but judging by e.g. the employee comments for WR on Glassdoor^, this seems pretty on-the-nose to me.
^ https://www.cantorsparadise.com/richard-feynmans-advice-to-a...
^ https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Wolfram-Research-Reviews-E...
The letters can be found here:
https://www.cantorsparadise.com/richard-feynmans-advice-to-a...
Also worth reading Feyman's recommendation letter at the bottom
https://www.cantorsparadise.com/richard-feynmans-advice-to-a...
Also worth reading Feyman's recommendation letter at the bottom
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.)
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.)
I'm also surprised by the extreme negativity. This work is something that nerds like me should be interested in! It's basically a generalisation of physics: So far physics was assuming a mathematical foundation for the universe. It makes perfect sense to ask if it can be generalised and look for a procedural foundation. It's shocking to me that only Wolfram's company is pursuing such a logical alternative. And in my opinion his multiway graph approach is an elegant generalisation of what a procedural foundation could be like by trying to maximally reduce the assumptions made in the basic rule set (it's not a cellular automaton, even though everyone seems to be assuming it is)
I agree that Wolfram gets a lot of unnecessary hate by people online and the scientific community and that Wolfram has a lot of interesting things to say but I also see why the community at large bashes on him so regularly. Wolfram is arrogant, self centered and self congratulatory. I often find that I have to really work to find the content in what Wolfram says after wading through what sounds like marketing. I'm often wondering why Wolfram just doesn't talk about the research or ideas he's trying to push instead of trying to tell me why I need to know it's really important.
To me, Wolfram treats science and discovery as a kind of business opportunity while pretending it's for the greater good. Open source, peer review, transparency, etc. all give way to his "strong man" personality.
Not to fall afoul of Wittgenstein's ruler, I think Wolfram got right the principle of Turing Machine Equivalence. The idea that Turing machine completeness is the norm, rather than the exception, is something that I think people at large don't really understand or accept (and which I think is correct and profound). I will point out that there's work to be done here in trying to prove TME for other 1D cellular automata, not just rule 110, to further cement this point in these toy systems.
A fundamental thing that I think Wolfram got wrong is that something fundamentally new needs to supplant scientific discovery and mathematics. Often times discrete systems turn into continuous systems, and vice versa, so throwing out everything and starting over seems counterproductive. I'm in favor of bringing computational tools, both symbolic and numerical, in helping discovery but this is already happening. I also don't understand how this can be done if scientific discovery and tooling isn't democratized in the way that open source focuses on.
I think framing Wolfram solely in terms of his marketing for Mathematica and his ANKoS book is overly reductive but I also think it perverts his research, the way he presents his research and explains a lot of why people can come away with that feeling that he's a con artist.
To me, Wolfram treats science and discovery as a kind of business opportunity while pretending it's for the greater good. Open source, peer review, transparency, etc. all give way to his "strong man" personality.
Not to fall afoul of Wittgenstein's ruler, I think Wolfram got right the principle of Turing Machine Equivalence. The idea that Turing machine completeness is the norm, rather than the exception, is something that I think people at large don't really understand or accept (and which I think is correct and profound). I will point out that there's work to be done here in trying to prove TME for other 1D cellular automata, not just rule 110, to further cement this point in these toy systems.
A fundamental thing that I think Wolfram got wrong is that something fundamentally new needs to supplant scientific discovery and mathematics. Often times discrete systems turn into continuous systems, and vice versa, so throwing out everything and starting over seems counterproductive. I'm in favor of bringing computational tools, both symbolic and numerical, in helping discovery but this is already happening. I also don't understand how this can be done if scientific discovery and tooling isn't democratized in the way that open source focuses on.
I think framing Wolfram solely in terms of his marketing for Mathematica and his ANKoS book is overly reductive but I also think it perverts his research, the way he presents his research and explains a lot of why people can come away with that feeling that he's a con artist.
> 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.
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 communications (the CA collected papers didn't have this problem, as far as I can remember). It's been a while since I looked at ANKoS but, as I remember, the scientific ideas are intertwined with his editorializing. The editorializing gets in the way of understanding what actual fundamental scientific ideas he's trying to push forward.
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 communications (the CA collected papers didn't have this problem, as far as I can remember). It's been a while since I looked at ANKoS but, as I remember, the scientific ideas are intertwined with his editorializing. The editorializing gets in the way of understanding what actual fundamental scientific ideas he's trying to push forward.
> 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.)
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.)
He is not just "creating a research institute". He basically claims to have solved all of science.
Case in point: Yesterday he streamed a "History of Science and Technology Q&A" session. [1] Is it about the history of science and technology? No! It's a sales pitch for his new institute! As if he is the singularity that all of science and technology have culminated in. So obviously when talking about history of science and technology all you need to talk about is cellular automata and Stephen Wolfram's role in it.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEMFxPWzVU8
Watch it, it's enlightening.
Case in point: Yesterday he streamed a "History of Science and Technology Q&A" session. [1] Is it about the history of science and technology? No! It's a sales pitch for his new institute! As if he is the singularity that all of science and technology have culminated in. So obviously when talking about history of science and technology all you need to talk about is cellular automata and Stephen Wolfram's role in it.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEMFxPWzVU8
Watch it, it's enlightening.
Wolfram is well known for... lets just say... tooting his own horn. It can get comical. I saw a drinking game once. Take a drink every time he opens a sentence with a self-congratulation about discovering something. Take two drinks when he talks about being a child prodigy. Etc...
He's human. Let him be human. Evaluate his work and the work of others that he promotes on its merit. Let the work be more important than whatever personality flaws he has.
The worst allegation IRL I've heard about him is a tendency to give the impression that he discovered all of this stuff when he did not. He did do a good chunk of brilliant original work in the field but for example A New Kind of Science contains work by dozens of others. He did eventually revise the book to add a ton of citations that were not explicit in the original edition.
In keeping with his writing style, he definitely exaggerates the impact and significance of some of this work. Nevertheless I think there are some incredible insights here. I wouldn't be surprised if this whole field (complexity / emergence / cellular automata / computational physics / informatics) does indeed end up solving a lot of serious issues in physics and other fields.
I'm fond of the umbrella term "informatics" for all of it. There's some thinking around informatics as a branch of physics that studies information qua information.
He's human. Let him be human. Evaluate his work and the work of others that he promotes on its merit. Let the work be more important than whatever personality flaws he has.
The worst allegation IRL I've heard about him is a tendency to give the impression that he discovered all of this stuff when he did not. He did do a good chunk of brilliant original work in the field but for example A New Kind of Science contains work by dozens of others. He did eventually revise the book to add a ton of citations that were not explicit in the original edition.
In keeping with his writing style, he definitely exaggerates the impact and significance of some of this work. Nevertheless I think there are some incredible insights here. I wouldn't be surprised if this whole field (complexity / emergence / cellular automata / computational physics / informatics) does indeed end up solving a lot of serious issues in physics and other fields.
I'm fond of the umbrella term "informatics" for all of it. There's some thinking around informatics as a branch of physics that studies information qua information.
> The worst allegation IRL I've heard about him is a tendency to give the impression that he discovered all of this stuff when he did not.
Yeah, but it's worse than that. It's not just that he uses his employees' work and acts as if it's his. He takes ideas from the physics field, rephrases them in the terminology of his "physics" and then acts as if he came up with this!
Example: In a podcast from last year with Sean Correll, who is one of the people in the world who knows quantum mechanics best, Wolfram gave a short summary of his theories ("our models") and then goes on to describe "branchial space" and "rurial space". In a way as if that's a new discovery and he came up with it and "it turns out" and "I recently realized" and "we've discovered" (with "we" always meaning himself). You can really hear Correll hardly being able to hold it together. This brilliant idea has been around in physics for many decades, one of its flavour being the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics which Correll has given very good and accessible popular-science presentations about. It's just nonsense that Wolfram "discovered" this. He not just recycles it but more so in a way that's not helpful.
This all is not just "human". It's disingenuous.
Yeah, but it's worse than that. It's not just that he uses his employees' work and acts as if it's his. He takes ideas from the physics field, rephrases them in the terminology of his "physics" and then acts as if he came up with this!
Example: In a podcast from last year with Sean Correll, who is one of the people in the world who knows quantum mechanics best, Wolfram gave a short summary of his theories ("our models") and then goes on to describe "branchial space" and "rurial space". In a way as if that's a new discovery and he came up with it and "it turns out" and "I recently realized" and "we've discovered" (with "we" always meaning himself). You can really hear Correll hardly being able to hold it together. This brilliant idea has been around in physics for many decades, one of its flavour being the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics which Correll has given very good and accessible popular-science presentations about. It's just nonsense that Wolfram "discovered" this. He not just recycles it but more so in a way that's not helpful.
This all is not just "human". It's disingenuous.
>Stephen Wolfram hosts a live and unscripted Ask Me Anything about the history of science and technology for all ages.
I dont get why people wanna frame wolfram so badly as a negative arrogant actor.
He is answering viewer questions, his subscriber audience is ofcourse asking certain wolfram physics related questions. Timestamps: 00:00 Start stream 1:49 SW begins talking and introduces Wolfram Institute 22:58 Do you have a sense of the skills that an incoming fellow to the Wolfram Institute will have? What would effective preparation for Institute-type work be? 29:23 What is the emerald functionality that was mentioned for biological/cellular computational explorations? 32:55 and what about around the world overseas and in other countries? 33:05 You get some wonderful things out of pursuing science just for the sake of it. There are pejorative terms for this, like 'fishing trips' and 'stamp collecting', but such pursuits led to PCR technology just because someone was curious about thermophile bacteria 44:53 activity overseas & in other countries in regards to outreach programs in cooperation with education systems...you were mentioning some campaigns you had going on 51:03 Will there be more active development on the computational capabilities of Wolfram Mathematica with the Wolfram Institute? 52:53 British physics is more Geometry guild vs American physics is more Group theory and particle physics Guild 54:08 What is your opinion about experimental mathematics and its relationship with classical "mainstream" mathematics? 1:17:05 I often hear that science needs philosophy to justify it. What are some historical examples of this? 1:32:27 i think in a lot of places in history the role of academic pursuit was that a philosopher's role, but academic pursuit has attained a large amount of "division of labor" 1:34:22 Philosophy and Mathematical logic are starting to overlap more. Tarskis Semantics relates Formal logic to topology just like math and computer langauges 1:36:22 Are there inherently philosophical ideas (i.e. cannot be turned into a scientific one like the question of motion)? Can we distinguish them outright without knowing future scientific development?
I dont get why people wanna frame wolfram so badly as a negative arrogant actor.
He is answering viewer questions, his subscriber audience is ofcourse asking certain wolfram physics related questions. Timestamps: 00:00 Start stream 1:49 SW begins talking and introduces Wolfram Institute 22:58 Do you have a sense of the skills that an incoming fellow to the Wolfram Institute will have? What would effective preparation for Institute-type work be? 29:23 What is the emerald functionality that was mentioned for biological/cellular computational explorations? 32:55 and what about around the world overseas and in other countries? 33:05 You get some wonderful things out of pursuing science just for the sake of it. There are pejorative terms for this, like 'fishing trips' and 'stamp collecting', but such pursuits led to PCR technology just because someone was curious about thermophile bacteria 44:53 activity overseas & in other countries in regards to outreach programs in cooperation with education systems...you were mentioning some campaigns you had going on 51:03 Will there be more active development on the computational capabilities of Wolfram Mathematica with the Wolfram Institute? 52:53 British physics is more Geometry guild vs American physics is more Group theory and particle physics Guild 54:08 What is your opinion about experimental mathematics and its relationship with classical "mainstream" mathematics? 1:17:05 I often hear that science needs philosophy to justify it. What are some historical examples of this? 1:32:27 i think in a lot of places in history the role of academic pursuit was that a philosopher's role, but academic pursuit has attained a large amount of "division of labor" 1:34:22 Philosophy and Mathematical logic are starting to overlap more. Tarskis Semantics relates Formal logic to topology just like math and computer langauges 1:36:22 Are there inherently philosophical ideas (i.e. cannot be turned into a scientific one like the question of motion)? Can we distinguish them outright without knowing future scientific development?
> He’s done a fantastic job creating a new model for understanding reality, some of which suggest interesting physical structures underlying our Universe. He’s changed my understanding of evolution completely with his insights on computational irreducibility and complexity.
> And he’s laying the groundwork for understanding the meta-rules that undergird not just our Universe, but all possible Universes. It’s fantastic stuff.
What are you basing this on? This is the key point: so far, he has only vaguely gestured to such a model, built a whole mathematical tower around it, and is now claiming that this is directly applicable in vastly different domains. If this were a random forum poster saying it, it would smell to high heavens of someone who has no idea what they're speaking about noticing vague similarities between domains and hand waving a mathematical framework that would explain those similarities into being. This being Stephen Wolfram, he definitely knows something about those domains, but I still think it's almost impossible for his claims to be right.
At the very best, he has come up with a powerful mathematical abstraction, perhaps akin to Category Theory: something which can be used to model and relate extremely different phenomena, and allow insights from one domain to be used in another; but which typically doesn't in itself create much knowledge directly. Edit: to be clear, this would be an extraordinary achievement in itself. But it wouldn't "revolutionize science".
Otherwise, when you claim your model can be used equally well in the foundations of physics, economics, pure mathematics, evolutionary biology, computer science and chemistry - it's entirely on you to first prove this absolutely extraordinary claim. Making it with a gentle wave of the hand towards the future and then asking for money to get there raises all possible red flags.
> And he’s laying the groundwork for understanding the meta-rules that undergird not just our Universe, but all possible Universes. It’s fantastic stuff.
What are you basing this on? This is the key point: so far, he has only vaguely gestured to such a model, built a whole mathematical tower around it, and is now claiming that this is directly applicable in vastly different domains. If this were a random forum poster saying it, it would smell to high heavens of someone who has no idea what they're speaking about noticing vague similarities between domains and hand waving a mathematical framework that would explain those similarities into being. This being Stephen Wolfram, he definitely knows something about those domains, but I still think it's almost impossible for his claims to be right.
At the very best, he has come up with a powerful mathematical abstraction, perhaps akin to Category Theory: something which can be used to model and relate extremely different phenomena, and allow insights from one domain to be used in another; but which typically doesn't in itself create much knowledge directly. Edit: to be clear, this would be an extraordinary achievement in itself. But it wouldn't "revolutionize science".
Otherwise, when you claim your model can be used equally well in the foundations of physics, economics, pure mathematics, evolutionary biology, computer science and chemistry - it's entirely on you to first prove this absolutely extraordinary claim. Making it with a gentle wave of the hand towards the future and then asking for money to get there raises all possible red flags.
Oh come on!
We call him delusional cause he has lost all humility. He is utterly convinced that he discovered the underlying mechanism of literally everything from physics to eceonomics. Delusion of grandeur is a well-known psychological condition, and no matter what you think of the science, it's hard to argue that Wolfram doesn't have it.
Why can't he just say: "hey I've got this idea, it's crazy, but you know what? I am going to pursue it and see where it leads, anyone wants to join?" Noone would be annoyed by that.
Whether being delusional affects the way you work, I would tend to think so, but you can think otherwise...
We call him delusional cause he has lost all humility. He is utterly convinced that he discovered the underlying mechanism of literally everything from physics to eceonomics. Delusion of grandeur is a well-known psychological condition, and no matter what you think of the science, it's hard to argue that Wolfram doesn't have it.
Why can't he just say: "hey I've got this idea, it's crazy, but you know what? I am going to pursue it and see where it leads, anyone wants to join?" Noone would be annoyed by that.
Whether being delusional affects the way you work, I would tend to think so, but you can think otherwise...
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.
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.
I have interacted with Dr Wolf-ram, and I dont like being spoken down to, or given direct orders by a stranger. Plenty of criticism here today, very well-deserved by my limited and direct experience.
>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 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.
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.
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"People with big egos are the enemies of science." lol - history doesn't agree with this AT ALL.
Written history is a re-creation of past events and big egos are entertaining.
Claude Shannon coined the word bit and fathered Information Theory. But very few know his name, despite his huge influence on our daily lives.
This is a long winded way of saying, written history is probably half right at best.
Ten years ago I watched a pay-per-view boxing match. At the end, the fighter said "I'm not the greatest but I'll fight the greatest".
2 minutes later the local news misquoted him as saying "I am the greatest".
Claude Shannon coined the word bit and fathered Information Theory. But very few know his name, despite his huge influence on our daily lives.
This is a long winded way of saying, written history is probably half right at best.
Ten years ago I watched a pay-per-view boxing match. At the end, the fighter said "I'm not the greatest but I'll fight the greatest".
2 minutes later the local news misquoted him as saying "I am the greatest".
You're describing generally positive traits, not specific to science. Science was pushed forward by many kinds of people, many of them obnoxious, arrogant, racists, etc. You can't disqualify Wolfram as scientist by pointing to his bad personality characteristics.
Do you have more substance to your argument than an ad hominem? This is trite.
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?
The most direct path to prove my point would be to start calling you names.
only if you consider that a judgement of character (or at least, one equivalent to the OP).
Can you fully expand on the things you say rather than leaving them cryptic? I'm having to guess what point you are making.
Can you fully expand on the things you say rather than leaving them cryptic? I'm having to guess what point you are making.
No I cannot fully expand on what I say. I can not predict the full extent of how you will interpret my words. You need good faith to be more valuable that a programmable object. This is why you assume the best about a person and if you overestimate then you carry the discussion forward.
This is why unquestioning criticism, judgement, is of no substance.
This is why unquestioning criticism, judgement, is of no substance.
Your conclusion does not follow from your premise.
The web/media representation of Stephen Wolfram somehow seems (I never had a chance to know him personally so I have no idea if he even creates such an impression, let alone actually does) like he has a "huge ego". Whenever someone produces such an impression (which can often be an unfortunate coincidence, I wouldn't expect popular ideas about people to be reliably related to their actual characters), "egos" of all the other people ignite in trying to demonstrate they are "more huge". All the reason and meaningful discussion is lost at this point, no matter how clever and educated the people involved are and what they actually achieved/contributed.
By the way I wish more people would create research institutes so there would be more free competition and less bureaucracy in research. There are many talented people who could do some useful/interesting research but ~80% of them probably won't manage with all the obstacles on the path to actual research (including the obstacles which effectively filter subjects and other parameters of research to what's trending in Nature).
By the way I wish more people would create research institutes so there would be more free competition and less bureaucracy in research. There are many talented people who could do some useful/interesting research but ~80% of them probably won't manage with all the obstacles on the path to actual research (including the obstacles which effectively filter subjects and other parameters of research to what's trending in Nature).
I've met him twice, personally.
He was very kind, humble and approachable.
So very much smarter than I'll ever be, yet I never once got the feeling he was looking down on me.
He was very kind, humble and approachable.
So very much smarter than I'll ever be, yet I never once got the feeling he was looking down on me.
Thank you for sharing this. I always imagined him this way but a confirmation by who met him personally produces a nice feeling. By the way an idea just hit me: Stephen Wolfram probably has a great understanding of how does popular image of a person evolves and lives loosely dependent on their real selves: to me it feels like it's a lot like the cellular automata he described in "A New Kind of Science". We can hardly produce a reliable and concise quantification of popular sentiment surrounding a person but if we could the mechanics would probably be similar.
I honestly think it is that his academic accomplishments in youth combined with the work he has done since is just triggering to people who have their identity wrapped up in being the smart kid. Since he names his companies after himself, knocking him for being "egotistical" is an easy attack to feel better about oneself for not having a PhD from Caltech at 20 with Feynman advising.
I have listened to hours of him on Lex Fridman and he doesn't come off as egotistical or arrogant in the least.
I have listened to hours of him on Lex Fridman and he doesn't come off as egotistical or arrogant in the least.
Isn't naming your business after yourself a common, centuries-old convention?
IMO all of the comments about Wolfram as a topic are low quality, including this one.
The topic of the post is the "Wolfram Institute". I'm happy to see more investment in R&D, period. Good on Wolfram.
I will probably never seek out a job at the Wolfram Institute because I believe the title is true -- there is an abundance of scientific opportunity. Working on Wolfram's agenda would not be the best use of my time, in part because the Wolfram Institute likely won't have the resources or interest to exploit the scientific opportunities about which I'm most excited.
This is less a reflection on Wolfram than on the state of the world. Theoretical Physics of the sort Wolfram was imbued in his early career had its moment half a century ago, but has not produced fruit in a long time. I doubt that will change -- in part because even if all the stated problems were solved... so what? Similarly, computation systems seem to have hit a fevered pitch in the 2010s and are now approaching a plateau.
There are exciting opportunities in the life sciences, in robotics, and in AI. But the Wolfram Institute would be a bad place to work on those things, and in particular likely does not have the funding or expertise to do ground-breaking work in the life sciences.
I'm sure there are many who disagree with me, and I hope they find the Wolfram Institute to be a happy and productive place to do meaningful work.
The topic of the post is the "Wolfram Institute". I'm happy to see more investment in R&D, period. Good on Wolfram.
I will probably never seek out a job at the Wolfram Institute because I believe the title is true -- there is an abundance of scientific opportunity. Working on Wolfram's agenda would not be the best use of my time, in part because the Wolfram Institute likely won't have the resources or interest to exploit the scientific opportunities about which I'm most excited.
This is less a reflection on Wolfram than on the state of the world. Theoretical Physics of the sort Wolfram was imbued in his early career had its moment half a century ago, but has not produced fruit in a long time. I doubt that will change -- in part because even if all the stated problems were solved... so what? Similarly, computation systems seem to have hit a fevered pitch in the 2010s and are now approaching a plateau.
There are exciting opportunities in the life sciences, in robotics, and in AI. But the Wolfram Institute would be a bad place to work on those things, and in particular likely does not have the funding or expertise to do ground-breaking work in the life sciences.
I'm sure there are many who disagree with me, and I hope they find the Wolfram Institute to be a happy and productive place to do meaningful work.
> computation systems seem to have hit a fevered pitch in the 2010s
What do you mean?
What do you mean?
Computer algebra systems and so on in particular. The sort of stuff Wolfram made is fortune on.
I also think "pure software" entering adulthood. The peak might last decades to come, but it's definitely not 1990 or 2010 anymore. CS still has lots of exciting things in the fire, but most of them involve more than "pure software". If that makes sense.
I also think "pure software" entering adulthood. The peak might last decades to come, but it's definitely not 1990 or 2010 anymore. CS still has lots of exciting things in the fire, but most of them involve more than "pure software". If that makes sense.
There was once a book, "100 Authors Against Einstein"[0]. Expect opposition against everything you do. Those who are against are just typically more vocal than those who don't know yet. Those who support Wolfram typically are busy doing research and don't care about commenting, they have better things to do than answer every naysayer 1v1. I'm in the "we'll see" camp, but I don't like naysayers.
[0] https://archive.org/details/HundertAutorenGegenEinstein
[0] https://archive.org/details/HundertAutorenGegenEinstein
> Those who support Wolfram typically are busy doing research and don't care about commenting
Who is doing NKS-based research these days?
Who is doing NKS-based research these days?
That's a reasonable question.. I think it's worth considering the users of Mathematica as near or overlapping. It might be possible to go through GitHub and find the number of Mathematica projects and then categorize them to get an approximation.
Also, this is very tenuous, but I see a lot of similarity between Wolfram's automata (not this new work) and Lattice Boltzmann methods. Both have been around since the 70s/80s and it makes me wonder a little about primacy but a lot about where he's gotten to with all this. Very intriguing
Also, this is very tenuous, but I see a lot of similarity between Wolfram's automata (not this new work) and Lattice Boltzmann methods. Both have been around since the 70s/80s and it makes me wonder a little about primacy but a lot about where he's gotten to with all this. Very intriguing
> I think it's worth considering the users of Mathematica as near or overlapping.
Mathematica predates any kind of statement of NKS by over a decade (and SMP nearly a decade before that). Moreover, I don't see any evidence Mathematica is becoming more "NKS-y" over time; it's a usual sort of moribund enterprise tooling, just for a highly selective enterprise. I don't see any real connection, other than some possible post-hoc handwaving.
Coming from the other side, Mathematica's relevance to modern physics seems at a 10-20 year nadir. (E.g. from what I can tell it missed the boat entirely on the data-crunching nature of many modern experiments, and its proprietary nature makes it difficult to integrate into increasingly-complex pipelines.) So if NKS - a theory of physics - is being researched, it's either having little success or it's not related to Mathematica use.
Mathematica predates any kind of statement of NKS by over a decade (and SMP nearly a decade before that). Moreover, I don't see any evidence Mathematica is becoming more "NKS-y" over time; it's a usual sort of moribund enterprise tooling, just for a highly selective enterprise. I don't see any real connection, other than some possible post-hoc handwaving.
Coming from the other side, Mathematica's relevance to modern physics seems at a 10-20 year nadir. (E.g. from what I can tell it missed the boat entirely on the data-crunching nature of many modern experiments, and its proprietary nature makes it difficult to integrate into increasingly-complex pipelines.) So if NKS - a theory of physics - is being researched, it's either having little success or it's not related to Mathematica use.
I didn't know about SMP. Cool!
Yeah, NKS clearly came after Mathematica, but I think there's a strong through-line there that goes back to his early work and connects directly to this meta-math stuff he's doing now.
The core language is a pattern matching substitution system, and that's what he eventually distills into his 1d automata and then generalizes to meta-math.
"at the core of Mathematica is the notion of storing collections of rules in which each rule specifies how to transform all pieces of data that are similar enough to match a single Mathematica pattern. And the success of Mathematica provides considerable evidence for the power of this kind of approach." https://www.wolframscience.com/nks/p627--human-thinking/
It's been a while since I read NKS but I recall him saying he started playing with automata earlier and getting some of the ideas for NKS then, but then did Wolfram Research/Mathematica for some time while he was noodling. I think that's kinda supported by his timeline:
Did find this though. Looks neat!
https://github.com/FeynCalc/feyncalc maintained by: https://github.com/vsht
[1] https://github.com/search?q=language%3AMathematica&type=Repo... [2] https://github.com/search?q=language%3AMathematica+physics&t...
Yeah, NKS clearly came after Mathematica, but I think there's a strong through-line there that goes back to his early work and connects directly to this meta-math stuff he's doing now.
The core language is a pattern matching substitution system, and that's what he eventually distills into his 1d automata and then generalizes to meta-math.
"at the core of Mathematica is the notion of storing collections of rules in which each rule specifies how to transform all pieces of data that are similar enough to match a single Mathematica pattern. And the success of Mathematica provides considerable evidence for the power of this kind of approach." https://www.wolframscience.com/nks/p627--human-thinking/
It's been a while since I read NKS but I recall him saying he started playing with automata earlier and getting some of the ideas for NKS then, but then did Wolfram Research/Mathematica for some time while he was noodling. I think that's kinda supported by his timeline:
https://www.wolframscience.com/nks/notes-1-4--timeline/
7,833 repos using Mathematica [1]
363 repos of that containing "physics" [2]
Did find this though. Looks neat!
https://github.com/FeynCalc/feyncalc maintained by: https://github.com/vsht
[1] https://github.com/search?q=language%3AMathematica&type=Repo... [2] https://github.com/search?q=language%3AMathematica+physics&t...
I think you'll get a more accurate view of things reading contemporary sources than his post-hoc justifications of why Mathematica was really NKS all along. If anything, Mathematica also missed the boat on proof assistants, which it should have totally nailed - so if anything, any NKS ideology embodied in Mathematica held it back here as the field verged to being grounded in type theory. (But more likely - ordinary large codebase too difficult to adapt.)
I don't think GitHub will be able to tell you much about how physicists are working one way or another. Physicists in general, and also mathematicians and researching engineers who I suspect make up the bulk of most Mathematica users, don't use GitHub.
I don't think GitHub will be able to tell you much about how physicists are working one way or another. Physicists in general, and also mathematicians and researching engineers who I suspect make up the bulk of most Mathematica users, don't use GitHub.
I try to read everything Wolfram has written and generally finds his writings quite enjoyable.
After reading lots of hsi writings, I noticed one thing which I don't like. It seems like he always tries to belittle other giants (albeit in indirect ways) and project himself as an ultimate intellectual. Even in one of his writing about Feynman, he tried to show that even Feynman sometimed couldn't match his genius. Nevertheless, I still do enjoy his writings.
After reading lots of hsi writings, I noticed one thing which I don't like. It seems like he always tries to belittle other giants (albeit in indirect ways) and project himself as an ultimate intellectual. Even in one of his writing about Feynman, he tried to show that even Feynman sometimed couldn't match his genius. Nevertheless, I still do enjoy his writings.
Maybe he simply can't escape his impostor syndrome. It's not always nefarious.
“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 the physical world, aside from pretty pictures generated by a computer?
In other words, is this any kind of science?
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 the physical world, aside from pretty pictures generated by a computer?
In other words, is this any kind of science?
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.
String theory has been around since the late 1960s. To date, has it made a single prediction which was later experimentally found to true? (i.e. aside from "predicting" the existence of particles which were already known to physics)
(Edit: given the large umbrella it encompasses, I suppose you could consider things like AdS/CFT correspondence, where a direct "domain transform" with quantum field theory is proven, to be a useful tool that in some instances furthered QFT. But such results are scant given the enormous amount of brainpower allocated to string theory as a whole.)
No. That’s why I said that people “challenge it to show that it’s science.” Why are you bringing up string theory as if I’m defending it?
I'm just suggesting that Wolfram's "theory" belongs in the same category as string theory. On some level it is probably a useful tool to understand something about science, say, beyond Deepak Chopra-esque woo-woo ("We are all energy, we are all vibrations", etc.) But it's not currently obvious that there's a there there.
I think it’s worse in the sense that I alluded to when I mentioned “relativistically correct.”
> makes some predictions and is relativistically correct.
Many of which are obviously wrong. We do not observe 11-dimensional world.
Many of which are obviously wrong. We do not observe 11-dimensional world.
> is this any kind of science?
It's the "new kind of science". /s
It's the "new kind of science". /s
Yeah, I don't get it. He's a guy who runs a business to support his hobby, both pretty harmless. Bonus points for creating and sharing enjoyable and useful things and ideas. I'll debate his ideas, but I'm not gonna tell him what to do with his life.
There is a quote (written 20 years ago) about Wolfram that sums up why people feel that way towards him,
> There’s a tradition of scientists approaching senility to come up with grand, improbable theories. Wolfram is unusual in that he’s doing this in his 40s.
> There’s a tradition of scientists approaching senility to come up with grand, improbable theories. Wolfram is unusual in that he’s doing this in his 40s.
A true prodigy then.
Well this blog article is crackpot science. It doesn't matter that Wolfram created Mathematica or that he was a good scientist before. There are many examples of good scientists, even Nobel prizes, that became crackpot scientists.
Science simply doesn't work like that.
Science simply doesn't work like that.
It's attempting to come up with a new way to model observable physical phenomena. If that's not science, then neither are Feynman diagrams, complex numbers or even calculus.
Whether it will prove useful like the above models still remains to be seen, but calling it "not science" seems ahistoric. Let's see if they can evolve the theory to the point where it can make novel predictions. If it never makes one, then the model is not useful. If it makes one but is proven wrong, then at least it will be wrong (rather than "not even wrong"). If it makes one and is proven right, then we will have made a big leap forward in our understanding of the universe.
I'm ok with either of these outcomes, but I don't get why anyone would want this thought experiment stopped before one of them is reached.
Whether it will prove useful like the above models still remains to be seen, but calling it "not science" seems ahistoric. Let's see if they can evolve the theory to the point where it can make novel predictions. If it never makes one, then the model is not useful. If it makes one but is proven wrong, then at least it will be wrong (rather than "not even wrong"). If it makes one and is proven right, then we will have made a big leap forward in our understanding of the universe.
I'm ok with either of these outcomes, but I don't get why anyone would want this thought experiment stopped before one of them is reached.
When you work in a research institute, you get used of receiving messages of people thinking they have a new theoritical model explaining physics. But that's not how science works. When you're a scientist you work on a specific topic of a specific branch of a specific science. Then you publish your work in one of the mainstream revue of your field. Then if your work is interesting, other scientists use your article to gain more comprehension and as a base of their own work. Rarely but sometimes your work is so fundamental that it can be used in other fields.
But you simply don't just say that you're revolutioning physics, biology, economy and the rest. A truly revolutionary work is deemed revolutionary not by yourself but by the other scientists and the impact on the field.
And Wolfram is not some kind of ermite lost in the middle of Siberia. He knows how that work and he has the credentials and the money to publish where he wants.
But you simply don't just say that you're revolutioning physics, biology, economy and the rest. A truly revolutionary work is deemed revolutionary not by yourself but by the other scientists and the impact on the field.
And Wolfram is not some kind of ermite lost in the middle of Siberia. He knows how that work and he has the credentials and the money to publish where he wants.
Universities and science academies are full of guys loudly announcing their revolutions. Wolfram uses his own money for it - I respect that.
Wolfram is saying that the new multicomputational paradigm that, he is heavily intellectually invested in and paying for the R&D himself, MIGHT revolutionize physics biology economy and the rest. This blog post is about scaling up the efforts, by founding an institute, to see if this new paradigm can actually deliver.
So weird for the hackernews audience to hate on this mans idea's so much. Its worth a shot no?
Elon Musk is often hailed a hero for paradigm shifting to reusable rockets and wanting to use this to colonize mars. But try and do a paradigm shift in physics, out of pocket, and the haters come out in droves.
I say let the man have a go at it. We might learn something!
So weird for the hackernews audience to hate on this mans idea's so much. Its worth a shot no?
Elon Musk is often hailed a hero for paradigm shifting to reusable rockets and wanting to use this to colonize mars. But try and do a paradigm shift in physics, out of pocket, and the haters come out in droves.
I say let the man have a go at it. We might learn something!
Note also that nobody is doing anything to stop him to do what he wants.
> Calling him delusional or a fraud is Wittengtein’s Ruler in action: It says far more about you than it does about him.
Do you think it's impossible for him to be a skilled mathematician and delusional?
Do you think smart, successful business owners are incapable of committing fraud?
The interminable negative reactions to anything Wolfram does are boring, but the counter-impulse to "he's done good math, so this can't be a fraud" is outright dangerous.
> But vilifying him for wanting to create a research institute is absurd.
I think many noted plagiarists trying to open a research institute would get a similar response.
Do you think it's impossible for him to be a skilled mathematician and delusional?
Do you think smart, successful business owners are incapable of committing fraud?
The interminable negative reactions to anything Wolfram does are boring, but the counter-impulse to "he's done good math, so this can't be a fraud" is outright dangerous.
> But vilifying him for wanting to create a research institute is absurd.
I think many noted plagiarists trying to open a research institute would get a similar response.
Part of it is that his writing is unclear. Not the technical parts, but generally. It's long and full of clauses and often a few sentence fragments shoved together with dashes. It's just taxing to read his prose.
Combined with some bravado and deep technical jargon, the reader is forgivably resentful of the entire experience.
Combined with some bravado and deep technical jargon, the reader is forgivably resentful of the entire experience.
Innovation largely comes from contrarians. If HN is polarized on a topic, to me that just signals it's probably worth MORE attention, not less.
From that perspective, overwhelming negative comments are a useful data point.
From that perspective, overwhelming negative comments are a useful data point.
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It’s possible that Wolfram has some latent narcissism, and this is what people don’t enjoy. Perhaps they are even jealous. I don’t make that speculation based on any “petty” aspects of his personality or communication, but rather the sweeping and self sufficient way he develops his theories. If he’s doing valuable science, I for one would like to cheer him on.
I'd cut Stephen Wolfram some slack if he published his work in a peer reviewed journal - like a proper scientist does.
The problem is nobody understands even very basic physics. The public has to rely entirely on personality and comments from people who seem to be respected, but the actual physics itself is a complete black box.
We can't read his work, we are years of study away from that point.
All people are going to do is shut up(My preferred option), immediately dismiss it because some other physicist did, or heap praise on it because it's "Far out and groovy and must be good if those dirty no good mainstream people hate it".
And people often aren't that good at shutting their mouths....
We can't read his work, we are years of study away from that point.
All people are going to do is shut up(My preferred option), immediately dismiss it because some other physicist did, or heap praise on it because it's "Far out and groovy and must be good if those dirty no good mainstream people hate it".
And people often aren't that good at shutting their mouths....
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> He’s changed my understanding of evolution completely with his insights on computational irreducibility and complexity.
Quote you please elaborate on that? Or perhaps quote a piece of work that refers to your statement? Thank you :)
Quote you please elaborate on that? Or perhaps quote a piece of work that refers to your statement? Thank you :)
Well put. He might be right, he's more likely wrong (and that's not a judgement on the quality of the ideas). But bottom line is we will never get anywhere without thinkers like him.
Exactly. Why can’t we focus on the ideas and not the person?
(Unless the person is relevant to the idea but in most cases this is not true).
Everyone is so eager to pile on. It lowers the quality of the discussion.
(Unless the person is relevant to the idea but in most cases this is not true).
Everyone is so eager to pile on. It lowers the quality of the discussion.
It's not very useful to post some top-level like this addressed to "some low-quality comments". Can you point out the post to which you are referring?
Holy moly, thank you thank you thank you for putting into words how I've been feeling about these perennial negging on Wolfram.
Dude and company has done some amazing things.
Dude and company has done some amazing things.
> show where it’s wrong
Do you know the expression "not even 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 into a single coherent theory remains to be seen. Whether they manage to make novel, falsifiable predictions or not remains to be seen. And if they do, whether these predictions will be falsified or not also remains to be seen.
Long story short, I don't see why being "not even wrong" at this phase is some great sin.
Long story short, I don't see why being "not even wrong" at this phase is some great sin.
"Not even wrong, but still making all these grand claims about revolutionizing everything" is a bit worse than just "not even wrong", though.
I mean, take quantum loop gravity. It might revolutionize, not everything, but quite a bit. Last I checked, it was as the same stage - not mature enough to make actual predictions. But it was touting itself as "there might be something here, and if there is, it could be really important", not as "we hold the secrets to everything".
I guess what I'm looking for is "under promise, over deliver". When you over promise your scientific theory, it stops looking like science and starts looking like marketing. That's... you know what a code smell is? That's a science smell. The more it looks like marketing, the more skeptical I am of it as science.
I mean, take quantum loop gravity. It might revolutionize, not everything, but quite a bit. Last I checked, it was as the same stage - not mature enough to make actual predictions. But it was touting itself as "there might be something here, and if there is, it could be really important", not as "we hold the secrets to everything".
I guess what I'm looking for is "under promise, over deliver". When you over promise your scientific theory, it stops looking like science and starts looking like marketing. That's... you know what a code smell is? That's a science smell. The more it looks like marketing, the more skeptical I am of it as science.
It's an old reference, see e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/sep/19/ideas.g2
If you want to talk about Wolfram's physics, please do.
There’s true evil in the world. Truly despicable sins. Calibrate your outrage towards that.
Funny how "focus on true evil in the world" doesn't apply to stanning rich weirdos on HN...
Very well put. You can replace Wolfram with Elon Musk and the same comment applies beautifully
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Haters gonna hate.
I rolled my eyes when I saw this link posted with hundreds of comments, ofc not because of Wolfram but because it's been this reaction for 20 years. People demand mediocrity and are furious when they don't get it.* Projection is a real thing.
What's cool about Wolfram is his priority is his work, not peoples' opinions of his work. I know he cares, and sometimes maybe it affects his stance, but he's not letting it stop him from exploring. He's a hero.
*Mediocrity in the outgroup. When ingroup it carries prestige for you by association
I rolled my eyes when I saw this link posted with hundreds of comments, ofc not because of Wolfram but because it's been this reaction for 20 years. People demand mediocrity and are furious when they don't get it.* Projection is a real thing.
What's cool about Wolfram is his priority is his work, not peoples' opinions of his work. I know he cares, and sometimes maybe it affects his stance, but he's not letting it stop him from exploring. He's a hero.
*Mediocrity in the outgroup. When ingroup it carries prestige for you by association
> People demand mediocrity and are furious when they don't get it.
Remember that people have different preferences.
Those objecting to Wolfram tend to be those who appreciate a "quiet confidence" style, which lets your work stand for itself rather than needing you to function as its hype man. To such people, Wolfram's general presentation style reads as puffery-covering-mediocrity -- someone who truly had what he claims wouldn't need to spend so much time talking themself up. (Note that the major point made across much of the criticism of his new science here is, approximately, "I'll believe it when I see it".)
Of course, opinions vary. There are others who think that someone who's great should promote themselves as much as their work deserves, and to them Wolfram is perfectly reasonable.
If you want an example of this divide outside of the science field, look at Trump. Depending on your own preferences, and for similar presentational reasons as Wolfram, he either reads as a tough and competent man or as wildly insecure.
Remember that people have different preferences.
Those objecting to Wolfram tend to be those who appreciate a "quiet confidence" style, which lets your work stand for itself rather than needing you to function as its hype man. To such people, Wolfram's general presentation style reads as puffery-covering-mediocrity -- someone who truly had what he claims wouldn't need to spend so much time talking themself up. (Note that the major point made across much of the criticism of his new science here is, approximately, "I'll believe it when I see it".)
Of course, opinions vary. There are others who think that someone who's great should promote themselves as much as their work deserves, and to them Wolfram is perfectly reasonable.
If you want an example of this divide outside of the science field, look at Trump. Depending on your own preferences, and for similar presentational reasons as Wolfram, he either reads as a tough and competent man or as wildly insecure.
Basically agreed, but isn't that preference usually context dependent?
People like to let the work stand for itself.. that feels like it's from a cloistered environment where everyone is tenured and respected and get their fair time to present their work and get its due attention. Which is fine and dandy and I'm glad we have that.
There's also people who are not in that environment who sometimes have something important to say and will definitely be ignored if they follow the same rules.
To follow your analogy.. was what Trump had to say actually important? Maybe some of it, but mostly it was all hot air, misleading, demonstrably false and occasionally dangerous. As OP is pointing out, Wolfram is none of those things.
People like to let the work stand for itself.. that feels like it's from a cloistered environment where everyone is tenured and respected and get their fair time to present their work and get its due attention. Which is fine and dandy and I'm glad we have that.
There's also people who are not in that environment who sometimes have something important to say and will definitely be ignored if they follow the same rules.
To follow your analogy.. was what Trump had to say actually important? Maybe some of it, but mostly it was all hot air, misleading, demonstrably false and occasionally dangerous. As OP is pointing out, Wolfram is none of those things.
I think it's somewhat context-dependent, but people do have a general preference that applies across situations.
Particularly if it's a topic where you don't have the expertise needed to evaluate what someone says, falling back on presentational heuristics is pretty common. For Wolfram, I'm not a dual-PhD in math and physics, so I think I'm not qualified to really understand his claims. Thus thinking "this person's communication style makes me think of people who're exaggerating their achievements" colors my view of his likely correctness -- not enough to come out and say he's wrong myself (since I don't know), but rather to make me sit back and wait for someone who sounds more trustworthy to validate it.
I do admit it's a difficult situation, because if you do sincerely believe that you've come up with something that'll revolutionize all of science, it's difficult to say that in a humble way. (I feel I could do better at that than Wolfram, though, particularly if we take this article as representative of his style. :D)
To continue the Trump analogy... a lot of the people who believed what he was saying didn't have any deep knowledge of, say, immigration policy; they just heard someone who was giving (to them) "I am a confident and capable person" signals who was saying something was important, and they trusted that in part because of this bias.
Particularly if it's a topic where you don't have the expertise needed to evaluate what someone says, falling back on presentational heuristics is pretty common. For Wolfram, I'm not a dual-PhD in math and physics, so I think I'm not qualified to really understand his claims. Thus thinking "this person's communication style makes me think of people who're exaggerating their achievements" colors my view of his likely correctness -- not enough to come out and say he's wrong myself (since I don't know), but rather to make me sit back and wait for someone who sounds more trustworthy to validate it.
I do admit it's a difficult situation, because if you do sincerely believe that you've come up with something that'll revolutionize all of science, it's difficult to say that in a humble way. (I feel I could do better at that than Wolfram, though, particularly if we take this article as representative of his style. :D)
To continue the Trump analogy... a lot of the people who believed what he was saying didn't have any deep knowledge of, say, immigration policy; they just heard someone who was giving (to them) "I am a confident and capable person" signals who was saying something was important, and they trusted that in part because of this bias.
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 is ticking.
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.
Plus it's not like Wolfram is taking resources away from other scientists as he is funded from his company. If Wolfram wasn't doing this he'd be CEO'ing his company, there's no cost to the public for Wolfram exploring this and potentially huge gains - though unlikely.
That was true about the Wolfram Physics Project. But now, the Wolfram Institute will compete for research funding, as he explains in the blog post. In fact, this is the whole point of creating the Institute: WPP couldn't scale up as it was eating too much of his own money, and he believes he needs to scale this up to actually bring the work to fruition.
> So far we’ve basically been incubating the Wolfram Institute within our existing organization, with me effectively footing the bill. But as we launch the full Wolfram Institute we need a larger scale of support, and we’re counting on having a network of people and organizations to provide that.
> So far we’ve basically been incubating the Wolfram Institute within our existing organization, with me effectively footing the bill. But as we launch the full Wolfram Institute we need a larger scale of support, and we’re counting on having a network of people and organizations to provide that.
He is taking resources by not properly attributing work, actually. One of the big criticisms of NKS was the lack of a real bibliography and there was the whole Wolfram v. Cook debacle on top. As I recall, the book still doesn't credit cook for the proof.
Money is not the only resource. Scientist time is another resource, and probably a lot more important when it comes to Physics. Any private venture such as this necessarily (a) takes up scientist time, (b) provides training to scientists that can be applied to other problems later on, (c) as a second order effect, molds the public's perception of science in a certain way.
(a), (b) or (c) could individually be positive or negative to society. And their net could be positive or negative.
I don't know what these values are for Wolfram's work, but we can definitely make this sort of nuanced analysis.
(a), (b) or (c) could individually be positive or negative to society. And their net could be positive or negative.
I don't know what these values are for Wolfram's work, but we can definitely make this sort of nuanced analysis.
There’s no such thing as a limited supply of scientists, whose precious time is to be carefully allocated. For all I know, Wolfram might be creating new scientists from people who otherwise might not choose to pursue corrupt academia route.
Note that at various times, Feynman and Ed Fredkin became enchanted with cellular automata. We’ve had some significant tries apart from Wolfram.
We should also note when high credibility scientists work on something for a while and then drop it altogether.
Scientists, yes.
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 of life. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glider_(Conway%27s_Life) The Glider is a pattern which we can observe within the game, and we can see that it represents a function related to the overall chaotic map of the game itself. In English, Doc! All the patterns the game can make are the chaos map. Studying the individual patterns shows both how they are created and interact with other patterns. Here’s an overlapping example: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200318143635.h...
Within the Chaotic map of slime mold evolution, it’s the loner pattern which informs the other parts of the map.
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. 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. We can test that theory, and then either continue to investigate from a positive or negative delta.
The benefit of learning about and using CA isn’t that it’s abstract but rather it creates meaning from the raw chaos of life which we deal with every day.
Practically it can lead to better encryption like I linked above, superior understanding and prediction of weather, and for those who are able to view the patterns of the small as a whole: it can reveal truths which I would call mathematically spiritual.
Thanks for reading I hope I changed your mind!
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 of life. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glider_(Conway%27s_Life) The Glider is a pattern which we can observe within the game, and we can see that it represents a function related to the overall chaotic map of the game itself. In English, Doc! All the patterns the game can make are the chaos map. Studying the individual patterns shows both how they are created and interact with other patterns. Here’s an overlapping example: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200318143635.h...
Within the Chaotic map of slime mold evolution, it’s the loner pattern which informs the other parts of the map.
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. 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. We can test that theory, and then either continue to investigate from a positive or negative delta.
The benefit of learning about and using CA isn’t that it’s abstract but rather it creates meaning from the raw chaos of life which we deal with every day.
Practically it can lead to better encryption like I linked above, superior understanding and prediction of weather, and for those who are able to view the patterns of the small as a whole: it can reveal truths which I would call mathematically spiritual.
Thanks for reading I hope I changed your mind!
> Practically it can lead to better encryption like I linked above, superior understanding and prediction of weather
This is the problem. Maybe it will, but as of yet nobody has figured out a practical application beyond "helping us appreciate nature" (replace nature with any chaotic system).
We are pretty good with weather prediction and getting better all the time. The fundamental problem is the chaotic nature. CA does practically help us in anyway there.
Fractals on the other hand has so many practical applications. Just the other day I was applying factual theory to the prediction of criminal activity.
Maybe all CA needs to do is help us appreciate nature and simple machines.
This is the problem. Maybe it will, but as of yet nobody has figured out a practical application beyond "helping us appreciate nature" (replace nature with any chaotic system).
We are pretty good with weather prediction and getting better all the time. The fundamental problem is the chaotic nature. CA does practically help us in anyway there.
Fractals on the other hand has so many practical applications. Just the other day I was applying factual theory to the prediction of criminal activity.
Maybe all CA needs to do is help us appreciate nature and simple machines.
> This is the problem. Maybe it will, but as of yet nobody has figured out a practical application beyond "helping us appreciate nature" (replace nature with any chaotic system).
Why is this a problem? Doing maths purely for its own sake is as valid and useful as painting a picture, or cooking a delicious meal instead of just eating dry bread.
If that's not good enough for you, there are plenty of examples of maths that was considered useless at the time but ended up finding a use years, decades, or centuries later.
Why is this a problem? Doing maths purely for its own sake is as valid and useful as painting a picture, or cooking a delicious meal instead of just eating dry bread.
If that's not good enough for you, there are plenty of examples of maths that was considered useless at the time but ended up finding a use years, decades, or centuries later.
> Why is this a problem? Doing maths purely for its own sake is as valid and useful as painting a picture, or cooking a delicious meal instead of just eating dry bread.
It's a problem because Wolfram named his book A New Kind of Science, not A New Kind of Doing Maths Purely for Its Own Sake.
If Wolfram just went around saying "hey, cellular automata are fun and interesting for their own sake` he wouldn't get the hate he does.
It's a problem because Wolfram named his book A New Kind of Science, not A New Kind of Doing Maths Purely for Its Own Sake.
If Wolfram just went around saying "hey, cellular automata are fun and interesting for their own sake` he wouldn't get the hate he does.
It's a problem when someone is claiming that a technique Solves the Big Problems when it clearly doesn't.
Maybe it will one day, and no one is saying it's not an interesting avenue to explore.
But making grandiose claims is not doing science. Making novel falsifiable concrete predictions is science, and Wolfram hasn't made enough of those to justify the extreme self-regard.
Maybe it will one day, and no one is saying it's not an interesting avenue to explore.
But making grandiose claims is not doing science. Making novel falsifiable concrete predictions is science, and Wolfram hasn't made enough of those to justify the extreme self-regard.
I strongly agree with the spirit of what you're saying, but:
> making grandiose claims is not doing science. Making novel falsifiable concrete predictions is science
It seems to me that making grandiose claims is absolutely essential to science every now and then. A good example is when Einstein made the grandiose (and unfalsifiable) claim that the mathematical theory of relativity already worked out by Lorentz and Poincare and whoever was best seen as the denial of the existence of simultaneity etc., a claim which obviously turned out to be very fruitful since it lead to General Relativity.
However (and this is one reason I so strongly argee with the spirit of what you're saying), (a) there isn't room for very much of this stuff, (b) Einstein was much better at it than Wolfram is, and (c) Einstein was listened to because at the same time (ha ha) as he was making grandiose claims he was making unarguably gobsmacking breakthroughs in atomic theory and quantum mechanics.
> making grandiose claims is not doing science. Making novel falsifiable concrete predictions is science
It seems to me that making grandiose claims is absolutely essential to science every now and then. A good example is when Einstein made the grandiose (and unfalsifiable) claim that the mathematical theory of relativity already worked out by Lorentz and Poincare and whoever was best seen as the denial of the existence of simultaneity etc., a claim which obviously turned out to be very fruitful since it lead to General Relativity.
However (and this is one reason I so strongly argee with the spirit of what you're saying), (a) there isn't room for very much of this stuff, (b) Einstein was much better at it than Wolfram is, and (c) Einstein was listened to because at the same time (ha ha) as he was making grandiose claims he was making unarguably gobsmacking breakthroughs in atomic theory and quantum mechanics.
I think it is fair to assert that if maybe one day it will solve big problems, that it should have solved a little problem already.
Quantum mechanics rapidly gained credibility because once its formalism became established, it was easy to show how classical mechanics came out of it in a limit.
Quantum mechanics rapidly gained credibility because once its formalism became established, it was easy to show how classical mechanics came out of it in a limit.
> Why is this a problem? Doing maths purely for its own sake is as valid and useful as painting a picture, or cooking a delicious meal instead of just eating dry bread.
Nothing is wrong with this at all. I never wrote nor even implied there was anything wrong with this.
If you had read to the end of my comment you would have seen I wrote:
> Maybe all CA needs to do is help us appreciate nature and simple machines.
So looks like we are in agreement in appreciating the beauty of maths.
Nothing is wrong with this at all. I never wrote nor even implied there was anything wrong with this.
If you had read to the end of my comment you would have seen I wrote:
> Maybe all CA needs to do is help us appreciate nature and simple machines.
So looks like we are in agreement in appreciating the beauty of maths.
You are certainly right. But what I was referring to was CA being linked to physics, but without any tangible link.
From your first link:
> The digital images can be converted to binary data and encrypted with Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). However, the high correlation between adjacent pixels may still be kept after encrypting a digital image without considering the property of digital images.
What do you mean by this? It sounds like it’s suggesting that, e.g., the AES-CBC ciphertext of an image has detectable internal correlations. In other words, AES is completely broken as a cipher. Surely I’m misinterpreting the claim here.
> The digital images can be converted to binary data and encrypted with Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). However, the high correlation between adjacent pixels may still be kept after encrypting a digital image without considering the property of digital images.
What do you mean by this? It sounds like it’s suggesting that, e.g., the AES-CBC ciphertext of an image has detectable internal correlations. In other words, AES is completely broken as a cipher. Surely I’m misinterpreting the claim here.
Yeah, this paper is a good representation of the whole "chaos cryptography" theme — snake oil cryptography invented by authors who don't even attempt to study cryptography before producing their bullshit and publishing it in sketchy or generalist, unrelated to cryptography, journals.
In this particular paper:
1. The motivation for "image encryption" is completely wrong, as you pointed out.
2. There is no secret key. The "key" is produced by hashing the image with SHA-256.
3. Claim: "No any useful information can be acquired from encrypted images". Actually: since this is convergent encryption (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_encryption, "key" derived from SHA-256 of data), encrypting any two equal images will produce the same ciphertext, globally.
4. Finally, the actual "key" can't be more than 64 bits, since SHA-256(image) is then split into two groups of 32-bit words, which are xored together to produce two key values. Thus, this whole "encryption" scheme is limited to 64-bit security (probably even less than that). We don't even have to analyze the whole "chaos" system they invented to conclude that it's insecure.
In this particular paper:
1. The motivation for "image encryption" is completely wrong, as you pointed out.
2. There is no secret key. The "key" is produced by hashing the image with SHA-256.
3. Claim: "No any useful information can be acquired from encrypted images". Actually: since this is convergent encryption (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_encryption, "key" derived from SHA-256 of data), encrypting any two equal images will produce the same ciphertext, globally.
4. Finally, the actual "key" can't be more than 64 bits, since SHA-256(image) is then split into two groups of 32-bit words, which are xored together to produce two key values. Thus, this whole "encryption" scheme is limited to 64-bit security (probably even less than that). We don't even have to analyze the whole "chaos" system they invented to conclude that it's insecure.
I guess they’re referring to AES-ECB, which is notoriously weak at encrypting images (it’s weak in general of course, just most obviously with respect to images): https://words.filippo.io/the-ecb-penguin/.
But I don’t think the same is true of the other AES cipher modes.
But I don’t think the same is true of the other AES cipher modes.
I work on weather prediction, both with traditional simulation methods and machine learning. I have not seen any examples of cellular automata used for useful predictions in this space.
> "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.
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.
>a chaos map is a mapping of how a fractal expands or changes across space time.
My jaw actually dropped in real life when I read this line. It fits so well. Thank you so much for this explanation.
My jaw actually dropped in real life when I read this line. It fits so well. Thank you so much for this explanation.
So then is it less of a proof mechanism and more of a simulation one?
I have the man's magnum opus on my shelf. Cheeky graduation present from a friend. Never managed to enjoy reading it unfortunately but it makes for a great paper weight. I also occasionally use it as a laptop stand. It's big and heavy and oddly convenient for that.
This press release is a bit long, incoherent, and manages an impressive number of buzzwords that I don't normally associate with cellular automata. Can somebody maybe translate this to English, filter out the narcissist self glorification and actually explain what it is this institute is planning to actually do? I bet it's something like cellular automata all the way down.
This press release is a bit long, incoherent, and manages an impressive number of buzzwords that I don't normally associate with cellular automata. Can somebody maybe translate this to English, filter out the narcissist self glorification and actually explain what it is this institute is planning to actually do? I bet it's something like cellular automata all the way down.
I recommend his Lex Friedman interviews on youtube. I've been reading and listening to Wolfram for some time and Lex manages to somehow get the most out of him.
The ego is annoying and personally I don't think that New Kind of Science is very high in information density (may be my ignorance), but Wolfram definitely has many many great insights to offer if you are able to just ignore the remarks about him being the first in the world that did that 30 years ago in computer science, physics and biology.
He did and keeps doing amazing things that are indeed much ahead of the competition.
This is not a new pattern, I've posted this link before HN but I want to repeat it so many times [1] - we are standing on shoulders of jerks (I do not think Wolfram is a jerk btw, but people clearly have some problem with his way of being)
1. https://youtu.be/bsgWSPWX-6A?t=650
The ego is annoying and personally I don't think that New Kind of Science is very high in information density (may be my ignorance), but Wolfram definitely has many many great insights to offer if you are able to just ignore the remarks about him being the first in the world that did that 30 years ago in computer science, physics and biology.
He did and keeps doing amazing things that are indeed much ahead of the competition.
This is not a new pattern, I've posted this link before HN but I want to repeat it so many times [1] - we are standing on shoulders of jerks (I do not think Wolfram is a jerk btw, but people clearly have some problem with his way of being)
1. https://youtu.be/bsgWSPWX-6A?t=650
“Witness me”
Let us concede that in the last 20 years, the number of mentions of "I" in his writing has decreased, and there are more mentions of "We".
As much as a cellular automata, and computation in general, fan as I am, and after having read a fair amount of his work... I am still not convinced that Wolfram is not just a rich crack pot.
As much as a cellular automata, and computation in general, fan as I am, and after having read a fair amount of his work... I am still not convinced that Wolfram is not just a rich crack pot.
As rich eccentrics go, I much prefer the ones trying to advance science (like Wolfram) or medicine (like Gates) to the ones just building more superyachts and lobbying corrupt politicians.
I don't really understand the animosity toward Stephen Wolfram on HN - has he done something evil or been super rude to someone? Maybe he has a big ego, but I think that's probably true of a lot of - if not most - of the rich and/or influential people that are discussed on here, whether Bezos, Gates, Jobs, Musk or Stallman. It takes a certain hubris to think you can make a dent in the universe. Why is that if your hubris is to believe you can make a billion dollar startup, HN is all "you go girl!" but if someone wants to do theoretical physics, they really need to check their ego?
I don't know if cellular automata as a foundation of physics will turn out to be a revolution or a dud. I do know that we've been looking for a unified theory of quantum gravity for many decades to no avail. If somebody is motivated to come at the thing from a new perspective, then more power to them. Are they likely to succeed? Of course not, statistically the vast majority of theories don't. But just working to provide new perspectives is a worthwhile goal, and I'm glad he's working on it.
I don't really understand the animosity toward Stephen Wolfram on HN - has he done something evil or been super rude to someone? Maybe he has a big ego, but I think that's probably true of a lot of - if not most - of the rich and/or influential people that are discussed on here, whether Bezos, Gates, Jobs, Musk or Stallman. It takes a certain hubris to think you can make a dent in the universe. Why is that if your hubris is to believe you can make a billion dollar startup, HN is all "you go girl!" but if someone wants to do theoretical physics, they really need to check their ego?
I don't know if cellular automata as a foundation of physics will turn out to be a revolution or a dud. I do know that we've been looking for a unified theory of quantum gravity for many decades to no avail. If somebody is motivated to come at the thing from a new perspective, then more power to them. Are they likely to succeed? Of course not, statistically the vast majority of theories don't. But just working to provide new perspectives is a worthwhile goal, and I'm glad he's working on it.
The issue is he makes a bunch of apparently empty claims about his hypergraph stuff being related to physics. The pictures are pretty and the hypergraph stuff is perhaps interesting in its own right, but with all the hand waving about QM and GR, I looked pretty hard a couple of years ago and couldn't find any explanation of the most familiar QM phenomena like the double slit experiment. It's almost like free association. I'd like to see this new theory solve one problem, and by that I don't mean an open research problem. I mean pick any homework problem from an introductory QM course and apply this stuff to it. As Feynman used to say, you have to get the numbers out. As far as I can tell, that hasn't happened.
> I looked pretty hard a couple of years ago and couldn't find any explanation of the most familiar QM phenomena like the double slit experiment
I was following links from the OP, and while reading his Wolfram Physics one year update[1] I came across this:
https://www.wolframphysics.org/bulletins/2020/08/a-short-not...
[1] https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/04/the-wolfram-phys...
I was following links from the OP, and while reading his Wolfram Physics one year update[1] I came across this:
https://www.wolframphysics.org/bulletins/2020/08/a-short-not...
[1] https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/04/the-wolfram-phys...
Thanks, that helps, I haven't made sense of it yet but at least it shows that the issue isn't being ignored.
Even that would prove nothing. Wolfram himself makes a pretty big deal about how cellular automata, being Turing-complete, can model anything. I can give you any number of cellular automata that model our current understanding of quantum physics right now, no problem. It only becomes interesting if it can make different, better predictions than our existing theories.
> I can give you any number of cellular automata that model our current understanding of quantum physics right now, no problem
Ok, I'm interested in seeing something like that. If you have a link, I'll take a look--thanks. (If you're thinking of 't Hooft's, then I know about it, but its predictions are in serious conflict with mainstream physics, from what I understand).
Ok, I'm interested in seeing something like that. If you have a link, I'll take a look--thanks. (If you're thinking of 't Hooft's, then I know about it, but its predictions are in serious conflict with mainstream physics, from what I understand).
It's not really that interesting. Can you write it in a computer program? Then you can write it in a cellular automata, because many of them are Turing complete:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_110#The_proof_of_universa... https://conwaylife.com/wiki/Turing_machine
And yes, this is a cheap trick. That's the point. "Porting" our current theories to some new, whacky substrate, peeking at the textbooks all the while, is Not Interesting and will not lead to new results.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_110#The_proof_of_universa... https://conwaylife.com/wiki/Turing_machine
And yes, this is a cheap trick. That's the point. "Porting" our current theories to some new, whacky substrate, peeking at the textbooks all the while, is Not Interesting and will not lead to new results.
No I don't see how to implement QM as a computer program while preserving basic complexity invariants of Turing machines. That is the point of quantum computing: that the complexity classes for quantum computers are different than those for Turing machines. If you take the view that that the whole Universe is one gigantic entangled quantum state, the cellular automaton simulation would get pretty bogged down.
Quantum Computers are no more powerful than Turing Machines, complexity has little to do with this. Quantum Mechanics, being a linear theory (if we exclude measurement) is actually relatively easy to describe computationally. The computations are incredibly slow, but otherwise they are perfectly in line with any other formulation of the theory.
> Quantum Computers are no more powerful than Turing Machines
They are more powerful in the sense that P-time for quantum computers (aka BQP) is hypothesized to be larger than P-time for Turing machines. That is different from every classical model of computation (RAM machines, etc.) that we usually talk about. It's hard to call something a cellular automaton if it has to expand exponentially in size as it evolves. Thus, 't Hooft concretely predicts that if his CA model is right, then quantum computers can't work. Idk whether Wolfram addresses this issue.
They are more powerful in the sense that P-time for quantum computers (aka BQP) is hypothesized to be larger than P-time for Turing machines. That is different from every classical model of computation (RAM machines, etc.) that we usually talk about. It's hard to call something a cellular automaton if it has to expand exponentially in size as it evolves. Thus, 't Hooft concretely predicts that if his CA model is right, then quantum computers can't work. Idk whether Wolfram addresses this issue.
You are conflating multiple unrelated issues.
As using CA like a substrate is clearly "theory free" in the sense it doesn't impose any restrictions on how calculations should be done, do you concede that CA doesn't actually provide any theory as the OP lamented?
...concede it? That was my point...
Wolfram's new physics is based on "hypergraphs", not quite cellular automata, but the point stand that they are an entirely general framework, and therefore useless for the stated purpose.
Wolfram's new physics is based on "hypergraphs", not quite cellular automata, but the point stand that they are an entirely general framework, and therefore useless for the stated purpose.
With the correct initial state, any Turing complete cellular automata (like CGoL) can model any computable system. We can computationally model prevailing quantum models (albeit incredibly slowly), so an unbounded CGoL field would fit the criteria.
> I don't really understand the animosity toward Stephen Wolfram on HN - has he done something evil or been super rude to someone?
He's super rude to pretty much the entire scientific community, by essentially pretending to have invented cellular automata and ignoring everyone else's contributions - even to the point of suppressing them by wielding the legal axe of copyright law:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30941559
He's super rude to pretty much the entire scientific community, by essentially pretending to have invented cellular automata and ignoring everyone else's contributions - even to the point of suppressing them by wielding the legal axe of copyright law:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30941559
To me that reads mostly like the royal "we", as in "We, Stephen Wolfram". Especially when saying things like "Wolfram Research has been geared towards making things we think up into products".
He does have some genuinely good ideas. But they're not reinventing every field of science, technology, and knowledge every few months as his writing would have you believe.
So, smarter than the average crackpot. But not "not a crackpot".
So, smarter than the average crackpot. But not "not a crackpot".
Let him do his thing, he supports many employees for a living, and does meaningful work occassionally. There are many people that are far more problematic for the society than Mr. Wolfram. He hasn't done any harm to anyone. Let him chill in peace.
> He hasn't done any harm to anyone.
Reading posts from former employees and plagiarism accusations (look up Matthew Cook) suggests otherwise.
I remember this being discussed on HN before as well, even though the search function is not bringing up anything.
Reading posts from former employees and plagiarism accusations (look up Matthew Cook) suggests otherwise.
I remember this being discussed on HN before as well, even though the search function is not bringing up anything.
I worked with Matthew Cook at ETH Zürich after he left wolfram for that reason. Cooks proof of the Turing completeness of the 110 rule [1] is in my opinion the only interesting piece in the new kind of science book. The dispute emerged from wolfram handling this not with science in mind, but capitalism. Putting an NDA on the publication of cook, to frame himself as the source.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_110
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_110
And what is wrong with that? Most of the internet is filled with poor crack pots, some of them are even here amongst us.
I'd rather be a rich dick than a poor schmuck. Pee into the wind Sir Wolfram, godspeed! Doesn't seem super different to how most grant money is awarded.
I'd rather be a rich dick than a poor schmuck. Pee into the wind Sir Wolfram, godspeed! Doesn't seem super different to how most grant money is awarded.
Is he a genius or a crackpot? Yes.
I think Law of Jante summarizes the 'zeitgeist' of HN comments towards this man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
The goal should be always to understand and discuss ideas, despite egos. As hard that can be practically, anything else is unproductive and not worth persuing.
His thoughts and theories are something to not ignore, but to follow with the same skepticism as any revolutionary claim should be. That should be irrespective of the author.
But we need to give value to new ideas and have a small dose of optimism, that way we can be open to true innovation and paradigm shifts.
But there is nothing bad that Wolfram's mind is powerful. I doubt anyone here would dare to try to create something as complicated as it's Wolfram service.
The goal should be always to understand and discuss ideas, despite egos. As hard that can be practically, anything else is unproductive and not worth persuing.
His thoughts and theories are something to not ignore, but to follow with the same skepticism as any revolutionary claim should be. That should be irrespective of the author.
But we need to give value to new ideas and have a small dose of optimism, that way we can be open to true innovation and paradigm shifts.
But there is nothing bad that Wolfram's mind is powerful. I doubt anyone here would dare to try to create something as complicated as it's Wolfram service.
>Law of Jante summarizes the 'zeitgeist'
Why do you feel the need to dress up your comment to be something more than "you guys are just jealous."? Most of the comments criticizing Wolfram in this comment section discuss A New Kind of Science, cellular automata and hypergraphs but yours has no reference to any of the ideas discussed. Your post fluffs Wolfram to an absurd degree without ever actually providing any specific idea that is revolutionary or great.
>I doubt anyone here would dare to try to create something as complicated as it's Wolfram service.
Complicated is not a virtue.
Why do you feel the need to dress up your comment to be something more than "you guys are just jealous."? Most of the comments criticizing Wolfram in this comment section discuss A New Kind of Science, cellular automata and hypergraphs but yours has no reference to any of the ideas discussed. Your post fluffs Wolfram to an absurd degree without ever actually providing any specific idea that is revolutionary or great.
>I doubt anyone here would dare to try to create something as complicated as it's Wolfram service.
Complicated is not a virtue.
With all due respect fellow HN reader, I never said his idea was great or revolutionary.
When I posted my comment, most comments I read then haven't tried to discuss any specific points nor his ideas, and my comment was for those. Most were discrediting the guy just based on his personality.
No matter how big this man's ego are, and I also think it is, he has proven himself a creator so far and to be passionate on those topics. For me, that's enough to not dismiss him as crazy or charlatan, especially so early.
My main point here is not aimed to defend or "fluff" Wolfram – I don't care about him personally. It is only about how our society does not have a healthy culture on receiving new ideas.
Let him and his team pursue his research – if this turns up to be something remarkable, time will show us – and humanity will benefit from it.
I posted "Law of Jante" as I see this happening over and over again. Different contexts, same "boohoo, this person think they're better than us".
>Complicated is not a virtue. That is not correct.
Complicated just means a complex 'something'. If the complexity of 'something' is accidental or not, that is another topic and is not even subject to moral judgment IMO.
Now, to develop complex software in a complex domain over several years, this is something hard and only someone sane can do that. So I'm just optimistic and open to see what his team will output from all this.
Have a great weekend!
When I posted my comment, most comments I read then haven't tried to discuss any specific points nor his ideas, and my comment was for those. Most were discrediting the guy just based on his personality.
No matter how big this man's ego are, and I also think it is, he has proven himself a creator so far and to be passionate on those topics. For me, that's enough to not dismiss him as crazy or charlatan, especially so early.
My main point here is not aimed to defend or "fluff" Wolfram – I don't care about him personally. It is only about how our society does not have a healthy culture on receiving new ideas.
Let him and his team pursue his research – if this turns up to be something remarkable, time will show us – and humanity will benefit from it.
I posted "Law of Jante" as I see this happening over and over again. Different contexts, same "boohoo, this person think they're better than us".
>Complicated is not a virtue. That is not correct.
Complicated just means a complex 'something'. If the complexity of 'something' is accidental or not, that is another topic and is not even subject to moral judgment IMO.
Now, to develop complex software in a complex domain over several years, this is something hard and only someone sane can do that. So I'm just optimistic and open to see what his team will output from all this.
Have a great weekend!
It must feel terribly vindicating to be shunned by IAS for pursuing unpopular research, ridiculed by your intellectual heroes for lacking social graces, branded a charlatan your entire professional career by the academic establishment despite running a profitable company for over three decades, then funding a rival institute to pursue the original research you had set out to do 40 years ago.
>branded a charlatan your entire professional career by the academic establishment despite running a profitable company for over three decades
Those two features are not mutually exclusive.
Those two features are not mutually exclusive.
They are if your customers are mostly academic researchers.
"Still not sure which will become self-aware first: Wolfram Alpha, or Stephen Wolfram"
The more I hear about Stephen Wolfram's schemes to name things after Stephen Wolfram, the more admirative I grow of Nicolas Bourbaki and wished he were publishing amazing math software these days.
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?
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.
The difference is capitalism.
The name has some prestige, but it would be difficult for "Nicolas Bourbaki" to leverage "his" mathematical fame to accumulate wealth in a way that allows "him" to advocate a particularly fringe theory of, say, virology.
Wolfram, on the other hand, can leverage Mathematica to get rich, and use his riches to continue to push NKS, despite zero (or less) interest from physicists.
The name has some prestige, but it would be difficult for "Nicolas Bourbaki" to leverage "his" mathematical fame to accumulate wealth in a way that allows "him" to advocate a particularly fringe theory of, say, virology.
Wolfram, on the other hand, can leverage Mathematica to get rich, and use his riches to continue to push NKS, despite zero (or less) interest from physicists.
Nobody has to listen to Wolfram. Close his graphomaniac blog and forget about him.
On the other hand, academic credit (not merit) will get you much further than money in many cases - and the lack of it (while not lacking merit) is a serious impediment on the progress of many scientific projects.
The difference? Socialism. Wolfram uses his own taxed income to further his goals, while meritless scientists use the broken system of academia and the income from taxes (that should've been used to further real science) to accomplish theirs.
On the other hand, academic credit (not merit) will get you much further than money in many cases - and the lack of it (while not lacking merit) is a serious impediment on the progress of many scientific projects.
The difference? Socialism. Wolfram uses his own taxed income to further his goals, while meritless scientists use the broken system of academia and the income from taxes (that should've been used to further real science) to accomplish theirs.
The joke is that the discoveries attributed to “Stephen Wolfram” are actually the work of multiple people, none of whom are actually named that.
I mean, I studied maths and physics at uni. My recollection is that science is littered with things named after specific people when in actual fact multiple people put in hours and hours of work to making these discoveries. But only one name gets slapped on it.
‘Maxwell’s’ equations are a great example. Calculus is also a prime example (d/dx f(x) vs f’(x)). I’m pretty sure Gauss was a fantastic mathematician, but too much is named after him and a lot of recognition taken away from others who greatly contributed.
It’s not a new phenomena. I don’t think it’s great for things to be named after specific people at any point history, but it’s happened before and it’ll continue to happen.
‘Maxwell’s’ equations are a great example. Calculus is also a prime example (d/dx f(x) vs f’(x)). I’m pretty sure Gauss was a fantastic mathematician, but too much is named after him and a lot of recognition taken away from others who greatly contributed.
It’s not a new phenomena. I don’t think it’s great for things to be named after specific people at any point history, but it’s happened before and it’ll continue to happen.
The saying goes that a mathematical theorem is named after the first person to discover it after Gauss.
I heard that said of euler.
John von Nuemann comes to mind, Edison of course...
seems history is written by the patent submitters
seems history is written by the patent submitters
And Charles Darwin (about 600 years late): https://extendedevolutionarysynthesis.com/resources/timeline...
> John von Nuemann
Are you saying that some of the work attributed to Neumann was not his? Are there any examples?
Are you saying that some of the work attributed to Neumann was not his? Are there any examples?
The famed "von Neumann" architecture refers to a write-up he was asked to do to update the Army on progress on the ENIAC. He didn't even intend to publish it, the ENIAC was classified, it was Goldstine that published it with their names on it. See the "controversies" section here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Draft_of_a_Report_on_t...
The book "Pioneer Programmer" by ENIAC programmer Jean Jennings Bartik goes into detail about the egos at play in taking credit for the work done by Eckert & Mauchly.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Draft_of_a_Report_on_t...
The book "Pioneer Programmer" by ENIAC programmer Jean Jennings Bartik goes into detail about the egos at play in taking credit for the work done by Eckert & Mauchly.
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.
Why didn't a group like this emerged in software?
My opinion is that you obviously don't pay for free and/or open software with money but you do pay with the fatigue of bearing the creators ideological and personal whims. Software requires maintenance and support. It is not a do it once and do it perfectly. Also let's not forget about us the users who constantly attempt to dictate the path the software is heading.
If you can take away the criticism, maintenability and support commitment, you can create Bourbaki-esque softwares. Case in point - GNU utilities like cat, ls, sed etc.
My opinion is that you obviously don't pay for free and/or open software with money but you do pay with the fatigue of bearing the creators ideological and personal whims. Software requires maintenance and support. It is not a do it once and do it perfectly. Also let's not forget about us the users who constantly attempt to dictate the path the software is heading.
If you can take away the criticism, maintenability and support commitment, you can create Bourbaki-esque softwares. Case in point - GNU utilities like cat, ls, sed etc.
I tried to start a group like this for mathematical software: https://trac.sagemath.org/#AccountNamesMappedtoRealNames
Freax
I've read through this very carefully and it's very difficult for me to understand what exactly he thinks is a breakthrough. Generally when we're talking about breakthroughs in physics in theoretical physics we're often talking about a new idea that links previous ideas, or an emergent property from a theory that we can then test. I've read a bit about it, and it seems to boil down to "Model things as a graph and simple set of rules about how that graph changes over time steps", and doing this if you plug in the right stuff you get something you recognise from somewhere else in physics. Which seems both unsurprising, and not a break through? It's like an ML problem, you don't get credit for predicting things that have already happened. Does anyone know where this approach is pushing forward the totality of physics?
He seems to believe that trying to base science in terms of cellular automata will turn up something new and interesting. It hasn't yet, but he sees hints that similar patterns crop up at a wide variety of scales when you frame it the way he does.
Few scientists seem to agree with him on that, and it hasn't produced any novel results. To borrow an old joke, "His book contains much that is new and much that is interesting. But that which is new is not interesting, and that which is interesting is not new." Nothing seems to have been forthcoming in the decades since it was published.
On the other hand, he produced at least one very important thing in the past, and presumably has gobs of money. So he's welcome to pursue his idea. Most scientists don't think it will pan out, but it's his time and his money to waste. He's trying to recruit people, and I would caution that it's probably a waste of time -- as would people far more qualified than me. Still... it's also their time to spend/waste.
Few scientists seem to agree with him on that, and it hasn't produced any novel results. To borrow an old joke, "His book contains much that is new and much that is interesting. But that which is new is not interesting, and that which is interesting is not new." Nothing seems to have been forthcoming in the decades since it was published.
On the other hand, he produced at least one very important thing in the past, and presumably has gobs of money. So he's welcome to pursue his idea. Most scientists don't think it will pan out, but it's his time and his money to waste. He's trying to recruit people, and I would caution that it's probably a waste of time -- as would people far more qualified than me. Still... it's also their time to spend/waste.
It's kind of sad for me. I read and read but could not get the gist of the institute. Can someone write a summary?
If you scroll down a bit, I think the 26th paragraph comes closest to lucidity:
- "What will the Wolfram Institute be like? There’ll be a leadership core, which, yes, I’m signing up to head. But the main meat of the institute will be a collection of researchers and fellows, working on particular, managed projects—together with students at multiple levels from high school to graduate school. We’ll be doing open science, so there’ll be lots of livestreaming and lots of open tools produced. There’ll be lots of working materials and academic papers published, and whenever we manage to make a big step forward our plan is to present it to the world using the immediate and accessible approach to exposition that I’ve developed."
- "What will the Wolfram Institute be like? There’ll be a leadership core, which, yes, I’m signing up to head. But the main meat of the institute will be a collection of researchers and fellows, working on particular, managed projects—together with students at multiple levels from high school to graduate school. We’ll be doing open science, so there’ll be lots of livestreaming and lots of open tools produced. There’ll be lots of working materials and academic papers published, and whenever we manage to make a big step forward our plan is to present it to the world using the immediate and accessible approach to exposition that I’ve developed."
This sounds like it was written by a business school undergrad student who regrets not choosing a STEM major and is a subscriber to Lex Fridman, 2 minute paper, veritesium....and now they want to "disrupt" the world with AI research.
[deleted]
The tossout of “open science” and “open tools” without any explanation is a red flag. Translation: “we’re looking for people who might be convinced to work for free if we promise to give some shit away”. Open science is tantamount to Facebook w/data theft for anyone involved at a sub-professional level of name recognition.
Sounds like they will just be publishing their results and tools for free under a permissive license. I can't see very much wrong with that.
I think you're assuming too much. They don't go deep into it because they're used to it - they do tons of live coding/science livestreams, for example. And they pay money and the wage is not bad.
hahahahaha. I needed this today!
Thanks!
His writing style reminds me of those sites that want to sell you information but won't tell you unless you "buy it today for the low price of $19.99(or whatever price)." :)
His writing style reminds me of those sites that want to sell you information but won't tell you unless you "buy it today for the low price of $19.99(or whatever price)." :)
That sounds amazing! I wish they'd study something like energy storage or cheap imaging mmWave radar, or portable chemical analyzers, or any of those supposedly world changing things that seem to totally vanish without a trace again whenever anyone makes a breakthrough.
Hopefully it's not just this?new physics thing.
Hopefully it's not just this?new physics thing.
I think he was pretty clear that the Wolfram Institute, headed by Stephen Wolfram, has the single purpose of exploring the Wolfram Multicomputation model as a new foundation for all of science and mathematics. To do so, it is going to apply Wolfram's methods for productivity that have made Wolfram Research a successful company, and Wolfram Physics Project a successful delivery. Also of note, any major discoveries will be shared to the world in Wolframs clear and simple exposition style.
In short, maybe this leads somewhere, who knows, but right now it looks like a massive vanity project. It also looks like it has a good chance to start derailing other people's money from actual research into Wolfram Pet Theories.
In short, maybe this leads somewhere, who knows, but right now it looks like a massive vanity project. It also looks like it has a good chance to start derailing other people's money from actual research into Wolfram Pet Theories.
You can't deny it he has been very productive over the years. If he can pass on what has made him so productive, on to the next research generation, that's a definite plus for his institute.
I can't tell if you're being serious or sarcastic when you say "Wolfram's clear and simple exposition style"
Can you link me an example?
Can you link me an example?
It is very much sarcasm on my part, but I was explicitly paraphrasing what is definitely an honest belief from the article:
"[...] whenever we manage to make a big step forward our plan is to present it to the world using the immediate and accessible approach to exposition that I’ve developed."
"[...] whenever we manage to make a big step forward our plan is to present it to the world using the immediate and accessible approach to exposition that I’ve developed."
very much sarcasm
What sounds amazing ? That's just handwaving
Even people who don't care much for cellular automata must respect Mathematica. So seeing that they plan to develop a lot of "open tools" is interesting. Even if nothing comes of the research itself, the tools they develop could be valuable.
> must respect Mathematica.
Respect a closed-source software which you can't easily check and improve, for academic work? No. It's a tool, not an academic achievement.
Respect a closed-source software which you can't easily check and improve, for academic work? No. It's a tool, not an academic achievement.
I thought it was just me! It reads like something Trump might write; lots of superlatives, little substance.
I used Wolfram Alpha a lot while I was in college and liked it a lot. So I am surprised to see the hatred toward this man in the comments. Can anyone enlighten me why he is delusional and why he has lost it?
> Can anyone enlighten me why he is delusional and why he has lost it?
DISCLAIMER: Views not necessarily my own
I think it would be hard to try to pinpoint a single point in time where "he lost it". Stephen Wolfram grew up as a mathematician/physicist wunderkind, so as it's often the case for people that produced highly praised work early in their life, it's hard to transition to a life with humbleness and where output is received with anything else than praise.
In the past he has made a number of outlandish claims that didn't bear fruit (predictably so), to an extent that one would think that only a delusional person could make them.
E.g. he did a lot of work on cellular automata, and wrote a book titled "A new kind of science", in which he predicted that cellular automata would revolutionize all kinds of natural sciences (hint: that didn't happen). He later made similar claims for Wolfram Alpha revolutionizing search engines, and the Wolfram language revolutionizing programming.
DISCLAIMER: Views not necessarily my own
I think it would be hard to try to pinpoint a single point in time where "he lost it". Stephen Wolfram grew up as a mathematician/physicist wunderkind, so as it's often the case for people that produced highly praised work early in their life, it's hard to transition to a life with humbleness and where output is received with anything else than praise.
In the past he has made a number of outlandish claims that didn't bear fruit (predictably so), to an extent that one would think that only a delusional person could make them.
E.g. he did a lot of work on cellular automata, and wrote a book titled "A new kind of science", in which he predicted that cellular automata would revolutionize all kinds of natural sciences (hint: that didn't happen). He later made similar claims for Wolfram Alpha revolutionizing search engines, and the Wolfram language revolutionizing programming.
Wolfram Alpha isn't "revolutionary" perhaps, but it's surprisingly useful for some queries. There's the obvious use-case of solving mathematical problems. But you can also use it to (for instance) count the number of weeks from 3rd August 2022 to 7th January 2023. It often "just works" for these kinds of things.
It's funny; 99% of my interactions with Wolfram Alpha are about dates.
There are two Stephen Wolframs: the one who makes useful software (Mathematica, Wolfram Alpha), and the one who fancies himself an academic. His success in the former lets him avoid humility in the latter, and this conflict is where the problems come in.
Wolfram is by any measure a successful academic. One general issue though is that particle physics basically hit a dead end. The future was in simulation (hence Mathematica) and then the idea that the universe is computational and if it is how could it be and how might it work.
This multi computational idea seems to draw from the double slit experiment where observation collapses the wave function and the multi-probability path history based on the observer. This is saying that computations can be modeled similarly. And this type of model handles non-determinism in general and "threads of time" apparently. Interesting. Ambitious but very interesting.
This multi computational idea seems to draw from the double slit experiment where observation collapses the wave function and the multi-probability path history based on the observer. This is saying that computations can be modeled similarly. And this type of model handles non-determinism in general and "threads of time" apparently. Interesting. Ambitious but very interesting.
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 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 [...]
Funny, I see it as the entire opposite: very extreme insecurity, the need to constantly remind us that, yes, truly, he was there, he pioneered this, it _is_ amazing and awesome and will revolutionize everything, believe me, and it's only second to this other thing, which we must remind you, I invented.
A confident person would strip away the fluff and just get on with the message?
Funny, I see it as the entire opposite: very extreme insecurity, the need to constantly remind us that, yes, truly, he was there, he pioneered this, it _is_ amazing and awesome and will revolutionize everything, believe me, and it's only second to this other thing, which we must remind you, I invented.
A confident person would strip away the fluff and just get on with the message?
> However I think a lot of that narcissism is confidence
Narcissism more often comes from hidden or repressed insecurity - the opposite of 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
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
i can't, but i don't care about him. apparently he's pissed some people off. naturally, when his name comes up, it gets noticed by those people. especially when he's starting his own institute... named after himself.
Could anyone ELI5 the general ideas that Wolfram has been talking about the last few years?
I read the (original) announcement post, and the visuals are very interesting and full of neat geometric structures but it's so far over my head I haven't a clue what he's talking about.
It's some sort of theory about fundamental structures/relationships that underlie "everything"? How mathematically viable/potentially-legitimate is this?
His work doesn't read like a nutjob to me but I also don't have the credibility to judge.
I read the (original) announcement post, and the visuals are very interesting and full of neat geometric structures but it's so far over my head I haven't a clue what he's talking about.
It's some sort of theory about fundamental structures/relationships that underlie "everything"? How mathematically viable/potentially-legitimate is this?
His work doesn't read like a nutjob to me but I also don't have the credibility to judge.
What’s with the hate? Let the man do his research. It’s not tax payer dollars. The number of tax-dollar paid academics who are doing research as “useless” as his (useless defined by the haters) vastly outnumber the ones at Wolfram.
Alan Kay has part of the answer in this talk [0] where elucidates the errors taken by formal Comp Sci education.
He claims there was a battle in the university between testable curriculum centered around Algorithms and builder curriculums based around hardware and distributed systems, and says it's a shame that algorithms won out.
[0] Alan Kay : July 2007 : A Conversation with CMU Faculty & Students https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFc379hu--8
He claims there was a battle in the university between testable curriculum centered around Algorithms and builder curriculums based around hardware and distributed systems, and says it's a shame that algorithms won out.
[0] Alan Kay : July 2007 : A Conversation with CMU Faculty & Students https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFc379hu--8
Thank you for sharing that link!
I don't understand all these comments saying "Sure Wolfram may be arrogant, but he has achieved amazing things". "lets look at his work and ideas not him as a person".
... What does this even mean? Steven Wolfram has never achieved a single thing in science or mathematics. Absolutely no one has ever said otherwise, except for Steven Wolfram himself.
I used to think he was a failed scientist who, at least, was good with computers and software, but after seeing the decline in the quality of Mathematica, and the hairbrain schemes he has been leading there instead of improving his core software, it has become clear to me that he wasn't even the one responsible for Mathematica being so great, and whoever it was has now left the company.
... What does this even mean? Steven Wolfram has never achieved a single thing in science or mathematics. Absolutely no one has ever said otherwise, except for Steven Wolfram himself.
I used to think he was a failed scientist who, at least, was good with computers and software, but after seeing the decline in the quality of Mathematica, and the hairbrain schemes he has been leading there instead of improving his core software, it has become clear to me that he wasn't even the one responsible for Mathematica being so great, and whoever it was has now left the company.
Feynman wrote something in the sense Wolfram did invent an interesting way to implement quantum chromodynamics on a computer, so he did something contributory to science.
You are going to need a very specific citation for that because, if he did, no one working in physics today has heard of it.
> decline in the quality of Mathematica
Has Mathematica gone down in quality lately?
Has Mathematica gone down in quality lately?
Every release is more bloated, runs more slowly, non of the old problems fixed or improved (e.g. still can't handle large files well and every release handling of graphics gets slower). The user manual has gone from being one the best I have ever seen to being terrible for all the new sections for the new functionality they implemented. A lot of the new functionality is badly designed, not like the old stuff which was incredible. The actual useful stuff like interfacing with external code is so old that it barely works anymore (like interfacing with c# compiled later than 2010)...etc.
First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they... I forget the rest but sometimes they just keep laughing at you for a long time.
This guy is full-on crank at this point. His newer kind of science is going to revolutionize everything, I’m sure.
> We want to use our new paradigm to basically rewrite the foundations of several important fields of science. As with the Physics Project there’ll no doubt be tremendous synergy with existing approaches and the communities around them.
Cellular automatons are going to do all of this?
> We want to use our new paradigm to basically rewrite the foundations of several important fields of science. As with the Physics Project there’ll no doubt be tremendous synergy with existing approaches and the communities around them.
Cellular automatons are going to do all of this?
It's Branchial Graphs and Multiway Causal Graphs now.
I find it interesting. He has a lot to prove but good on him for trying to make progress. Who knows what this could lead to.
I find it interesting. He has a lot to prove but good on him for trying to make progress. Who knows what this could lead to.
I saw Wolfram give a live talk after launching his big ass book on cellular automata being the foundation of all things. It seemed far fetched and I don’t think anyone outside of his egosphere takes the concept seriously. Let alone understands it.
What he is trying to do is that he is trying to create a computational theory to explain the world. As opposed to pure mathematics which isn't computational. Not really that crazy.
He may be off putting at times but when he gets in to it he can be very interesting to listen to.
He may be off putting at times but when he gets in to it he can be very interesting to listen to.
Pure math isn’t computational? o_O
(Constructivist mathematics is a thing, and it is pretty easy to formulate physics in a constructivist framework. Many serious quantum theoreticians do.)
(Constructivist mathematics is a thing, and it is pretty easy to formulate physics in a constructivist framework. Many serious quantum theoreticians do.)
My current layman pseudo-insight into this: Why in mathematics do we want to approximate non-linear functions by linear functions? Why do we not have sufficient theory to understand complex non-linear phenomena? Perhaps a different paradigm is required.
We do have ways of solving many classes of complex, non-linear functions. There are whole fields of math devoted to this. Pure math is full of non-linearity.
However in the realm of applied math, linear functions rather uniquely have a set of standard algorithms which work on all classes of linear functions, which make them very, very easy to work with. And any non-linear function can be approximated to whatever level of detail you want just by adding more (linear) parameters. You can try solving your non-linear function slightly more exactly... but why bother?
It's like saying "why don't we have other models of computation besides a Turing machine?" to which the answer is: "we do. but every computation can be represented as a Turing machine, so why bother?"
However in the realm of applied math, linear functions rather uniquely have a set of standard algorithms which work on all classes of linear functions, which make them very, very easy to work with. And any non-linear function can be approximated to whatever level of detail you want just by adding more (linear) parameters. You can try solving your non-linear function slightly more exactly... but why bother?
It's like saying "why don't we have other models of computation besides a Turing machine?" to which the answer is: "we do. but every computation can be represented as a Turing machine, so why bother?"
- we don't.
- because if we had those tools we would not call them "compkex nonlinear phenomena".
- maybe, but what makes you think this one is the one?
- because if we had those tools we would not call them "compkex nonlinear phenomena".
- maybe, but what makes you think this one is the one?
Well no. It doesn't say how to progress from one state to another. It just tells us how numbers relate to each other.
This isn't perfect but something like, math express things while computation progresses things.
You could argue that a particular mathematical framework is computational but I'm just trying to exemplify a distinction.
This isn't perfect but something like, math express things while computation progresses things.
You could argue that a particular mathematical framework is computational but I'm just trying to exemplify a distinction.
I don't think this is an accurate take on math. Beyond the fact that a lot of math fields deal explicitly with state updates (e.g. discrete math), there is also the constructionist framework for mathematical foundations which removes "non-computational" theorems like that law of the excluded middle. When you do this you get a form of math where all proofs are necessarily computational and there is a viable direct translation into code. It is not generally why many constructivist mathematicians are interested in that framework, but it is a nice side-effect.
I think your intuitions about how math works is an unfortunate side effect of how math is often taught, and not so much reflected in mathematics itself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(philosophy_of_...
I think your intuitions about how math works is an unfortunate side effect of how math is often taught, and not so much reflected in mathematics itself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism_(philosophy_of_...
Let's not mention the questionable ego driven naming scheme for the place.
No, it seems like hypergraphs should do this.
I know that he has a lot of credentials (and more and better than mine) but it's still read like some crackpot science blog article
"Why shouldn't Dr. X claim that he has originated a completely new theory of physics?"
Because nobody has seen any prediction of any physical phenomenon based on this work.
"Why are you so filled with hatred toward Dr. X?"
Wait, what? I thought you wanted to talk about physics.
Because nobody has seen any prediction of any physical phenomenon based on this work.
"Why are you so filled with hatred toward Dr. X?"
Wait, what? I thought you wanted to talk about physics.
Wolfram wolfram wolfram wolfram! Wolfram’s wolfram wolfram, wolfram wolfram. Wolfram wolfram? Wolfram wolfram wolfram wolfram.
Looks like you've discovered the Wolfram Calculus, a universal model of computation in which all the laws of physics can be derived from the simple, irreducible existence of Wolfram, the Self of all selves.
Either he is onto something or not, but his ego is going to scare any sane person away.
You have to be a little crazy to work on something this ambitious for any length of time because it is not mainstream and probably hard to get grants for in the traditional sense.
DNNs faced and still face enormous criticism from statisticians, mathematicians and it was only after proof of their utility that academics could no longer ignore them.
DNNs faced and still face enormous criticism from statisticians, mathematicians and it was only after proof of their utility that academics could no longer ignore them.
Out of the thousand amazing breakthroughs in the history of science or mathematics I can think of zero that said they were in the text itself. Show not tell.
“It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.”
Watson and Crick’s one sentence paragraph towards the end of their 1.5-page paper on the structure of DNA, that explained the mechanism of heredity and thus evolution in living things, and won them a Nobel Prize.
These guys didn’t take the opportunity to share the glory with Franklin that they should have, but they sure did render a wonderfully genteel understatement of the import of their work.
Watson and Crick’s one sentence paragraph towards the end of their 1.5-page paper on the structure of DNA, that explained the mechanism of heredity and thus evolution in living things, and won them a Nobel Prize.
These guys didn’t take the opportunity to share the glory with Franklin that they should have, but they sure did render a wonderfully genteel understatement of the import of their work.
"The above proposition is occasionally useful."
From Principia Mathematica, several hundred pages in, after proving that 1+1=2
From Principia Mathematica, several hundred pages in, after proving that 1+1=2
The idea that cellular automaton can form a foundation for physics that mathematics can't seems incredibly unlikely. Mathematica is a useful program, but his claims are a bit over the top compared to the critiques from fellow scientists.
Well all CAs are math so I am not sure what you mean here. CAs are basically state space in time models that may exhibit some general predictable behaviors that can be described by math.
I'm not sure why comments mention CA. His physics theory and the multicomputation stuff does not make use of CA's (at least no more than any other abstract machine).
In spite of all the negativity, I admire Stephen because he has done what many of us want to achieve, namely: Billion dollar SW company that is privately owned, that now enables him to pursue his intellectual interests.
every time i read his writing, i think of this scene from Zoolander: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0brvXcCPbzM
Stephen Woflram have been pushing his cellular automata for 20 years now (A New Kind of Science came out in 2002). Can you point me to a single useful result that came out of it?
The text really has some cult leadership vibes to it IMHO.
Good luck with this venture, I think a lot of minds have contributed to progress in these fields and sharing both the labors and the fruits is important.
Could be a fun ask HN: What would happen if Mr. Wolfram and Mr. Musk would have to share the same room for a while?
Good question. Wolfram shared some time with Steve Jobs once and Mathematica happened.
/jk of cause, but it actually was Jobs who came up with the idea for the name.
/jk of cause, but it actually was Jobs who came up with the idea for the name.
I know Mathematica was first on the NeXT, but never considered their meeting; anywhere I can read more about that?
I believe that it’s mentioned in some of Wolframs blog posts, but my search failed me. But it’s covered by the guardian here https://amp.theguardian.com/theobserver/2011/dec/11/steve-jo...
Tesla Model W would lift-off from that building after a short while.
But seriously - I think they'd find a common language. Both are set in their ways and these ways are far from each other, but I don't think they'd fight, verbally or not.
But seriously - I think they'd find a common language. Both are set in their ways and these ways are far from each other, but I don't think they'd fight, verbally or not.
Things would get physical very quickly, probably ending with Musk strangling Wolfram due to his advanced age.
One man emerges, twice as large.
Stephen Wolfram basically lives my dream as an "entrepreneurial scientist". He is successful in academia and business and has his own money to fund his own research ideas. I am nowhere near as prolific as he is but I have to admire him for how he managed to pursue his dreams.
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/alabama/alndce/5:2021cv004...
He's just running out the back door because of this case...
He's just running out the back door because of this case...
https://youtu.be/F3hPvusB0ds
For those who are turned off by "cerebritiesh" (pronounced the way Taleb fan of Wolfie would, or perhaps Sean Connery if he had the chance to meet the old dog in person)
But who secretly indulge in Nobel laureate fanboyism
Here is a video of 't Hooft talking about cell autos & quanta. I don't understand it but boy am I happy to see properly labelled figures for self-styled adults.
Dutch prof has the homely charm of mashed potatoes which goes well with dreams of Illinois corn fields (near the Wolfie homebase) should you fall asleep
For those who are turned off by "cerebritiesh" (pronounced the way Taleb fan of Wolfie would, or perhaps Sean Connery if he had the chance to meet the old dog in person)
But who secretly indulge in Nobel laureate fanboyism
Here is a video of 't Hooft talking about cell autos & quanta. I don't understand it but boy am I happy to see properly labelled figures for self-styled adults.
Dutch prof has the homely charm of mashed potatoes which goes well with dreams of Illinois corn fields (near the Wolfie homebase) should you fall asleep
I'm not smart enough to judge work of such momentous significance.
Is this for real, or is this guy a wealthy quack? It just seems like I would have heard more about it if it was real.
Or are we living through a Galileo moment where a genius is laboring outside the established institutions and is closer to the truth than the establishment?
My neo-cortex is just not capable enough to judge these things, but I hope smarter people here can chime in.
Is this for real, or is this guy a wealthy quack? It just seems like I would have heard more about it if it was real.
Or are we living through a Galileo moment where a genius is laboring outside the established institutions and is closer to the truth than the establishment?
My neo-cortex is just not capable enough to judge these things, but I hope smarter people here can chime in.
I like to a certain extent and admire Mathematica and Alpha (I dislike their closeness) BUT one thing I fear are "centered universities", by their own name they MUST be universal so public and open, not backed by anyone in particular. That's remain the same for anything alike.
BTW for those who read French I suggest: Libérez votre cerveau! by Idriss Aberkane on teaching and developing knowledge.
BTW for those who read French I suggest: Libérez votre cerveau! by Idriss Aberkane on teaching and developing knowledge.
I'm not knowledgeable enough to have an opinion on the physics project, but I find it interesting how polarized HN is about it.
For some people it's a whole new world that will lead to new findings, for others it seems like they compare it to them having invented a new language and acting busy "translating" everything that was already discovered to this new language and being surprised they can.
Funny how even mathematics and physics can be so subjective when most people can't actually work through the math themselves and only depend on "expert" opinion.
For some people it's a whole new world that will lead to new findings, for others it seems like they compare it to them having invented a new language and acting busy "translating" everything that was already discovered to this new language and being surprised they can.
Funny how even mathematics and physics can be so subjective when most people can't actually work through the math themselves and only depend on "expert" opinion.
I think it's hard to take anyone seriously when claiming that they have a new model that will revolutionize the foundations of particle physics, molecular biology, metamathematics, economics, evolutionary biology, complexity theory, and others. Of course it's possible, but the magnitude of the claims about vastly disparate fields feels more like someone who only has a bird's-eye view and sees shallow similarities.
Importantly though, neither I nor anyone commenting on Wolfram's plans and thoughts are engaging in mathematics or physics. If anything, the arguments around are mostly to do with the philosophy or sociology of science - looking at how discoveries have usually worked throughout history and comparing that to Wolframs work. To go into the math, you must have some belief that it is worthwhile to spend your time to do quite difficult work, and most arguments around here are about why his work currently doesn't seem to pass that mark. EDIT: to put a number on how difficult engaging with the actual maths and physics would be, according to the article, the Wolfram Research Project has currently published 700 pages worth of discoveries.
To be honest about my own feelings, when I see him claiming his new model will explain what mathematics is - it makes me think he's only a few years away from claiming it explains the meaning of life and why there is something instead of nothing. Perhaps even squaring the circle and computing the number of angels that fit on the head of a pin...
Importantly though, neither I nor anyone commenting on Wolfram's plans and thoughts are engaging in mathematics or physics. If anything, the arguments around are mostly to do with the philosophy or sociology of science - looking at how discoveries have usually worked throughout history and comparing that to Wolframs work. To go into the math, you must have some belief that it is worthwhile to spend your time to do quite difficult work, and most arguments around here are about why his work currently doesn't seem to pass that mark. EDIT: to put a number on how difficult engaging with the actual maths and physics would be, according to the article, the Wolfram Research Project has currently published 700 pages worth of discoveries.
To be honest about my own feelings, when I see him claiming his new model will explain what mathematics is - it makes me think he's only a few years away from claiming it explains the meaning of life and why there is something instead of nothing. Perhaps even squaring the circle and computing the number of angels that fit on the head of a pin...
I don’t think that’s true.
People are both extremely annoyed by the arrogance of the man and very cautious at criticizing the science he’s doing.
Since Shannon, a computational approach to fundamental physics has been appealing. But the way Wolframs maps his own obsession with cellular automata to anything is suspicious. The claims of breakthrough are also suspicious since I don’t think any if the claims have had a chance to be tested experimentally.
People are both extremely annoyed by the arrogance of the man and very cautious at criticizing the science he’s doing.
Since Shannon, a computational approach to fundamental physics has been appealing. But the way Wolframs maps his own obsession with cellular automata to anything is suspicious. The claims of breakthrough are also suspicious since I don’t think any if the claims have had a chance to be tested experimentally.
You raise an interesting issue. If we can accept that substantive scientists vary in their involvement in self-marketing, does the degree one engages in popular self-marketing affect the kind of attention one receives? And the validity of criticism within that attention set?
Related to your point, if Wolfram hadn’t had the history he did, would Hacker News general suspicious reaction still be present? And would his status affect our perceptions of validity of the criticism.
Granted, what drew me to this thought was the recent treatment of Eric Weinstein, an occasional podcast collaborator (if hostile) of Stephen Wolfram. I won’t rehash it all here, but a critic of Weinstein who is trained in physics countered him in writing. Then when Weinstein moved onto another area, the critic submitted another arxiv piece attacking his second product (an econ talk given in Chicago).
Now, I don’t think much of Weinstein, but the critic’s second attack created doubt about the motives of his first. Was this a defense of science, or a serial attacker obsessed with Eric Weinstein?
Circling back, I think these issue will inevitably arise when a person is actively self marketing their contribution to science, whatever its quality.
Related to your point, if Wolfram hadn’t had the history he did, would Hacker News general suspicious reaction still be present? And would his status affect our perceptions of validity of the criticism.
Granted, what drew me to this thought was the recent treatment of Eric Weinstein, an occasional podcast collaborator (if hostile) of Stephen Wolfram. I won’t rehash it all here, but a critic of Weinstein who is trained in physics countered him in writing. Then when Weinstein moved onto another area, the critic submitted another arxiv piece attacking his second product (an econ talk given in Chicago).
Now, I don’t think much of Weinstein, but the critic’s second attack created doubt about the motives of his first. Was this a defense of science, or a serial attacker obsessed with Eric Weinstein?
Circling back, I think these issue will inevitably arise when a person is actively self marketing their contribution to science, whatever its quality.
> Related to your point, if Wolfram hadn’t had the history he did, would Hacker News general suspicious reaction still be present?
Without Wolfram's history, would he even be mentioned here?
Without Wolfram's history, would he even be mentioned here?
You will find, I think, the gradient you allude to, to be inversely proportional to the level of physics that the reviewer has attained. Now this could have “political” implications: people with a lot invested in conventional physics might be hostile as a means of protecting that investment.
But I think not.
But I think not.
Say what you like about Wolfram, and I know I certainly have, but in his defense he appears to have not been personally connected to Jeffery Epstein.
Did anyone else read this hoping for an invitation for nerds like us to Do Awesome Science and Change The World? Disappointed
The one thing that unites mathematicians throughout history and field is the pursuit of beauty. And by some happenstance the most beautiful theories are often found to be useful in the real world. Human beings are embedded and embodied in this admittedly beautiful fractally complex existence. Somehow it doesn't seem surprising for us to be attracted to patterns that can manifest in our reality.
If anything, finite automata are beautiful.
If anything, finite automata are beautiful.
I have question: how I could use data from Wolfram pages with opensource software, best with Python libraries?
What an excellent article title. [edit] Perchance, why? Why is the Wolfram Institute Necessary?
How can anyone read this and admire this man? 'A new paradigm' this, I I I that.
Sounds interesting And I’m looking forwards to seeing what this brings along.
I came across this today:
https://www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/academic/all/
"Note: Since 1987, Stephen Wolfram’s intellectual efforts have not primarily been reported in academic articles."
To be clear - no serious scientist believes that a scholarly output which is composed predominantly of non-peer reviewed publications is a serious or valid output.
Essentially, Wolfram is a glorified blogger who runs a tech company. That's not nothing, but it doesn't make someone a scientific leader.
https://www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/academic/all/
"Note: Since 1987, Stephen Wolfram’s intellectual efforts have not primarily been reported in academic articles."
To be clear - no serious scientist believes that a scholarly output which is composed predominantly of non-peer reviewed publications is a serious or valid output.
Essentially, Wolfram is a glorified blogger who runs a tech company. That's not nothing, but it doesn't make someone a scientific leader.
Ideas being subjected to peer review != the institutionalized "Peer Review Process(TM)"
Ideas being subjected to peer review \approx the institutionalized "Peer Review Process(TM)"
This guy is so full of himself. He is going to explode anytime.
Definitely would achieve more if he open sourced mathematica
Would it be profitable, though?
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Can someone ELI5 this for me please?
can someone TL;DR this?
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 unable to engage with other scientists in a way that furthers his program. And he is know to use academic shadow writers. I can't wrap my head a around why anyone would defend a self-centred entrepreneur that purchase the scientific relevance he couldn't work up organically (Sending thousands of copies of your own book to academic libraries all over the world is very much not in the spirit of science).
With HN's obsession with “founders” of startups, it's perhaps not surprising that Wolfram gets so much sympathy here. It's hero worship.
I think Wolfram is a victim of his own success. His achievements in software have let him avoid the necessary humility in being an academic.
I think Wolfram is a victim of his own success. His achievements in software have let him avoid the necessary humility in being an academic.
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.
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.
I am not sure where you have been but NNs were panned from the late 80s until 2012 basically. What I am saying that negative critiques mean very little if anything. CAs have also been around since the 1970s.
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I’m not hating on the man, as I do not care enough about him or his alleged behaviors or alleged personality traits to hate any of it, but let’s all be honest here and recognize that we’ve reached the “Is it GPT-3 or is it Stephen Wolfram?” singularity.
He produces enormous, voluminous, prodigious quantities of words, usually built around a very interesting core prompt, that seem to imply that they may point to something that will definitely be significant, using words that certainly carry a suggested context of the scent of sciencemath, and this goes on forever, but goes nowhere.
You can definitely be smarter and see farther and clearer than your critics and your peers, but at the “end of the day” you have to deliver something actionable, a result, a real change.
Where has this occurred?
He produces enormous, voluminous, prodigious quantities of words, usually built around a very interesting core prompt, that seem to imply that they may point to something that will definitely be significant, using words that certainly carry a suggested context of the scent of sciencemath, and this goes on forever, but goes nowhere.
You can definitely be smarter and see farther and clearer than your critics and your peers, but at the “end of the day” you have to deliver something actionable, a result, a real change.
Where has this occurred?
> let’s all be honest here and recognize that we’ve reached the “Is it GPT-3 or is it Stephen Wolfram?” singularity.
Damn, that's such a great way of putting it!
Damn, that's such a great way of putting it!
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I've been hearing/seeing Stephen Wolfram's name for about 2 decades. Each time I see it, it's associated with some supposed incredible breakthrough in math, science, physics, or perhaps a combination of those; and that's it. There's never any application to the real world, there's never any great discovery that enlightens or improves the common man's life. You could argue I'm not smart enough to understand his work, but I could argue he's not smart enough to make the importance of his work comprehensible to dumb people like me.
Well, the majority of academic work in physics is not at all enlightening to the "common man". And yet Wolfram's career has benefited and enlightened the common man 100x more than the average academic through Wolfram Alpha and Mathematica alone.
Is it though?
Cmd+F: "free speech"
Oh thank god, it's not one of "those" institutes.
Oh thank god, it's not one of "those" institutes.
This is sad for whoever is signing up to work on this. The man is delusional. The claims of revolutionizing everything from physics to economics are a clear evidence that the man lost it.
He’s just a guru now.
He’s just a guru now.
Wolfram software is awesome! It beats any other software and it's why they charge for it. It's worth it. Education about computers, science and math made easier to manipulate. Fact based results.
If you google something you get jumbled results. Wolfram either you get it right with some facts back at your query. Or you get nil. You can be confident that it's a fact staring at you. You can cross reference and check it too! that's something google can't do.
Expand your world, try out Wolfram.
Wolfram behooves truth it seems people are afraid of the truth. Hence the comments here.
Being able to do your own research and learn programming. I haven't seen a better documentation for software compared to Wolfram's.
He's beyond time in the future. Wolfram's software was used on the ISS to do some real world calculations to make a course correction. It helped me understand programming and computers. I look forward to wolfram adventures.
Computer literacy can be understood and learned using Wolfram.
If you google something you get jumbled results. Wolfram either you get it right with some facts back at your query. Or you get nil. You can be confident that it's a fact staring at you. You can cross reference and check it too! that's something google can't do.
Expand your world, try out Wolfram.
Wolfram behooves truth it seems people are afraid of the truth. Hence the comments here.
Being able to do your own research and learn programming. I haven't seen a better documentation for software compared to Wolfram's.
He's beyond time in the future. Wolfram's software was used on the ISS to do some real world calculations to make a course correction. It helped me understand programming and computers. I look forward to wolfram adventures.
Computer literacy can be understood and learned using Wolfram.
This reads like a comment generated by Wolfram's version of GPT3 trained only on his own writing.
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_ffaFXao)
3: [Stephen Wolfram: Complexity and the Fabric of Reality ](https://youtu.be/4-SGpEInX_c)