That’s what someone said to me earlier today, when I talked about the importance of Greenberg. Not unexpected of course – but it makes no sense to be ignorant about him. When I asked for the reason behind this opinion, the smug self-satisfaction of ‘you don’t understand’ and ‘we’re past this’ comes to the fore; the rolling of the eyes, the satisfaction of defence in group discussion and so on…
Well ignore me then. I don’t defend Greenberg to be radical for the sake of being some sort of radical hipster – there is a genuine applicability there, even now in computation. In short; ‘Context’ is not a particularly helpful way of articulating novelty in expression.
Misconceptions can be avoided if you just read the material and be honest about it. Incidentally, the same can be said of Wolfram in fact: everyone who vaguely knows his work has in reality hardly read the 1,200 page book from cover to cover. “Wolfram harbours an idealist agenda of religious metaphysics”. Yeah, he kinda does, but that’s a really bad reading that understands one aspect and assumes everything else follows it. Same with Greenberg.
Actually read it please – Do it. Spend the time. Learn things. Be surprised.
(Someone actually asked me earlier exactly how much time one should put by to read and digest Wolfram’s NKS in full. I’ve been reading it since 2004, but realistically… 4 months I’d say. 1 month for the main text – the next three for the notes).
3 Comments
Hi Robert,
I had not heard this criticism of Wolfram before (the one concerning religious metaphysics). The criticisms I have heard have followed what Steven Weinberg and a few others said when the book came out (I give the citations in my Punctum book).
I think Wolfram is fairly indifferent to any religious implications of his work. He has only really hinted at the idea that the entire universe is a cellular automaton. But when he discusses the implications, he sounds more like people who have tried to work out the metaphysical implications of Quantum Physics rather than anyone with a religious agenda. In other words, he is just in this way asking ultimate questions. I have heard him give hints as to his current research on this topic online (by hints I mean 4-5 sentences in an interview), but at the rate at which Wolfram works and researches, I do not expect a new book until 2020. Then again, if anyone reads my book, perhaps the view of Wolfram will change.
I disagree with you about how to approach NKS. It is very much a deceptively large book. The print is large. Many pages are taken up with illustrations. It’s 800 pages of main text are really 400 pages. Wolfram has a very straightforward writing style. After all, it’s all written in the first person. I have seen him lecture online a few times. He simply reads from parts of NKS. But if you did not know that, you would think he was speaking extemporaneously. I was able to read it at a clip of 100 pages/day with not much effort. The notes I think are not very illuminating. They are only useful if one wants a lot of context and has a deep interest in the history of science. Almost all the key work and ideas are developed in the main text. I would only recommend someone skim quickly the notes. They only provide something other than background on a few occasions.
My 2 cents.
Noah
Hey Noah,
You may not have heard of it before, mainly as it’s a criticism levelled from ‘software studies’ and it’s implications from a cultural perspective. Matt Fuller and David Berry are the usual critics.
I definitely agree with you about the straight forward writing style being easy to read. Wolfram should definitely be commended in approaching a more democratic non-obscure method of communication. However, it’s one thing reading it, but absorbing it’s implications are another and that takes time. I’d even argue that the diagrams warrant more of a consideration than the text! (only because I study aesthetics and computer art!) And furthermore, getting your hands and executing his findings on an actual mathematica program and messing about with the codes, also illuminates his arguments in a more pragmatic style than simply reading.
The only reason as to why I put a time of four months, is simply because of the notes. I disagree about the notes being illuminating, only because they provide invaluable context to the main text (which is odd as Wolfram’s main discovery is anti-context). As you say, it totally depends if you want to understand Wolfram’s work contextually in metamathematics, quantum theory, etc and find out about it’s place in relation to those disciplines. For me, I couldn’t entirely grasp the nature of Wolfram’s discoveries until I read more about Turing, Godel, and chaos theory.
Hi Robert,
Interesting remarks. I think Turing and Godel are much more important for Chaitin than for Wolfram. Chaos theory is important here only as a contrast and foil. Wolfram is effectively toppling it. I think von Neumann is really the key precursor. Unfortunately, his key work is pretty much available if one has access to a good library. I find it unfortunate that Wolfram does not engage more so with von Neumann. But I have not read Wolfram’s first book except insofar as I have read select essays incorporated into it and made available elsewhere. So perhaps he attends to von N there.
The notes do provide context, but many readers I am guessing are already aware of that context. I did no find in the notes that Wolfram had any particular interesting takes on what he documents even if he demonstrates an ability to present things clearly and clearly has a grasp of most aspects of contemporary science and its history. There are also better texts on almost every subject he raises there.
Best,
Noah
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