No subject

[integer at www.god-emil.dk]

p.s.

A little more..


Fred's anonymous friend wrote:
***
Perhaps the most lasting contribution of this book might be as an example of
the fact that playing with software however powerful is no substitute for
thought.

Certainly a good example of why anything claiming to be science should be
treated with extreme caution unless it's main claims have been peer reviewed
by an authoritive publication.
 ***

I think both these comments are quite "off"

Wolfram's book certainly reveals a huge amount of deep thought on various
complexity-related issues.  Clearly, his programming was jogged by his
thought, and vice versa, in many feedback loops over many years.

And, it is a much more interesting book than the vast majority of
peer-reviewed books or journal papers.  Peer review is not exactly a
foolproof guarantee of quality.  More so, in my view, it's a guarantee of
conformity, and a modestly successful quality filter.  Each chapter of
Wolfram's book could have been published as 5 or so papers in quality
refereed journals (but he would have had to take out the self-aggrandizing
asides, as well as some of the more useful informal comments)

He claims he has done 3 times as much as he has done.  But nevertheless,
what he *has* done is pretty interesting, in many different areas.

It will be a shame if his tone is found so annoying that the truly
intriguing ideas sprinkled throughout the book are ignored by the scientific
community.  He really will have stabbed himself in the ass then, huh...