
Kurt Gödel is Laughing His Ass Off Right Now - chadaustin
http://chrishecker.com/Kurt_Gödel_is_Laughing_His_Ass_Off_Right_Now
======
DanielBMarkham
So this post was about how Wolfram has a big ego?

That's it?

Nothing wrong with a big ego, is there? Self-promotion is still okay in the
world? We're still free to toot our own horn? Write our own resumes, pitch our
own products, spin our own political ideas, sell our own worldviews?

And what, exactly, does Godel have to do with any of that? I take it the idea
is that Godel was the _real_ genius?

If we're going to be measuring who's really smart, maybe we'd want to wait a
few hundred years.

I admire people with big egos and positive attitudes. We could use more of
them in the world. I don't buy into their self-image, but I admire it.
Positive mental attitude -- the idea that you're capable of making something
really big -- is what's going to keep you hacking on that startup long after
others would have quit. Arrogance, on the other hand, is a different matter.
But this post had nothing to say about arrogance.

Just wondering how it got so many upvotes. I guess Wolfram must have a natural
ability to tick people off?

~~~
michael_dorfman
There's a line between "big ego" and "delusion", and it appears that Wolfram
has crossed it. Innovation requires big ego and positive attitude, but it also
requires some contact with reality, and the ability to appreciate with
humility the achievements of others.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
innovation, _in your opinion_ requires those things.

I'll use musicians as an example because they're most fresh in my mind. Good
grief, take a look at some of the people we all acknowledge as being
innovators: Motzart, who said he wrote great music like cows pee -- it was
just his thing. Beethoven, who used to play performances that would make
people cry -- and then would yell at the crowd for being such naves. Berlioz
-- "At least I have the modesty to admit that lack of modesty is one of my
failings."

Delusion is one of those things, especially with really smart people, that's
easy to assume and hard to prove. Humility and all of that are wonderful
social skills, but they are by no means a prerequisite for being a paradigm-
changing person or leaving great innovations to society. The lack of them just
makes one unpleasant, and I never said Wolfram was a pleasant person to be
around.

And the kicker is -- _their degree of popularity or acceptance by their peers
in their own time was no indication of the contribution they eventually made_.
Their popularity and acceptance waxed and waned just like everyone else's:
based on a bunch of social factors.

~~~
jimbokun
"Humility and all of that are wonderful social skills, but they are by no
means a prerequisite for being a paradigm-changing person or leaving great
innovations to society."

Social skills are paramount for all but solitary achievements. And great
innovations are rarely paradigm-changing innovations.

An interesting contrast is Steve Jobs. Jobs is legendarily arrogant. But I
would be surprised to see an outright self-protestation of his brilliance or
greatness. Of Apple and Apple products, yes, but not Jobs praising Jobs.
Instead, his great skill is flattering, motivating and persuading others. I do
not think you can dispute that this has led to much paradigm-changing
innovation.

Perhaps the problem is not that Wolfram is arrogant, but that he is so
clumsily and self-apparently so. Wolfram has accomplished much, but it is
possible he could achieve much more with a modicum of social skills.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
I don't know Wolfram, and I doubt you do, so I can assume that perhaps he is
clumsily arrogant. Makes sense to me.

I'm also not a math genius, and I doubt most of the folks on HN are either. I
also lack the perspective of viewing Wolfram's works from a couple of hundred
years out.

Given all of that, why would I want to hold Wolfram in any more disdain than
the guy at the local softball game who thinks he was the best baseball player
since Hank Aaron? If anything, such people are fun to be around -- at least
until you've heard all of their stories. They certainly don't deserve mockery.
If you've got a problem with how somebody treats you because they are
arrogant, that's one thing. But if you're just out there tearing somebody else
down because they're an easy target -- they're clumsily arrogant -- get a grip
and start treating total strangers better.

I thought about mentioning Jobs. Goodness knows there are a lot of technology
types that think they are God's gift to mankind as well. We just don't hear
about them so much.

I think it's disturbing that we are all turning into hate-mongers: we define
ourselves by who we mock and hate. Wolfram is cool to hate, so let's all pile
on him. Bill Gates is the epitome of evil, so let's have at him too. It goes
on and on.

These are human beings, precious other people. Would you want to be treated
this way in a public forum by some writer looking to score points from his
social group?

It's clanning at it's worst -- made out to be light and funny. Kind of like
picking on the slow kid at school. Wolfram isn't any good at self-promoting!
What a self-deluded idiot. I guess that's what struck me about the article.

I don't know one way or the other, but I know I'd rather talk about Wolfram's
ideas than the man himself.

~~~
arakyd
I don't know Wolfram either, but I have read reviews of _A New Kind of
Science_ by experts who are competent to judge, and they all say that the book
is full of old ideas that Wolfram claims sole credit for. The only really
impressive bit in it was a proof that was done by one of his research
assistants. Wolfram sued the guy to keep him from publishing until the book
came out. He's also sued other academics who have so much as dared to sniff
around what he considers his territory. So, yeah, he's clumsily arrogant in
ways that are especially odious to his academic peers, and he doesn't have the
sort of ground breaking accomplishments that might incline people to overlook
such things.

Is that a reason to hate the guy? No, I agree with you, don't be hatin'. It's
unbecoming, and a waste of time. (Hecker's website is down, so I can't say if
that's what he was doing.) If you really are defining yourself by who you
hate, you are a pathetic individual who should be mocked yourself (but not
hated). Wolfram is a brilliant, brilliant guy, and his company has written
some pretty cool and impressive software, after all. What hast thou
accomplished, O mocker?

But I don't believe in giving arrogant people the benefit of the doubt just
because we don't have a couple hundred years of perspective on their ideas
either. The number of people who warrant that kind of treatment can be counted
on the fingers of one hand, and they were almost always overlooked because
they were out of the mainstream and were not able to get anyone to pay
attention to their ideas. Wolfram has had no problem getting people to pay
attention to his ideas, and while they are not exactly mainstream, they are in
some well known tributaries. They aren't misunderstood or ignored, just
unsubstantiated, or not new, or wrong, for the most part. There's not
necessarily any shame in that. Science is hard. But when you add a massive
ego....

A certain amount of arrogance can be a useful thing and a lot of really smart
people are also arrogant, but I would be very careful about using it as a sign
of people who are likely to have good ideas, or who deserve any sort of
deference. There are much better things to go by, and much worse things to
mock.

A decent summary of Wolfram's scientific ideas can be found here:
<http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/reviews/wolfram/>

~~~
DanielBMarkham
_A certain amount of arrogance can be a useful thing and a lot of really smart
people are also arrogant, but I would be very careful about using it as a sign
of people who are likely to have good ideas, or who deserve any sort of
deference. There are much better things to go by, and much worse things to
mock._

How about we leaving mocking people to other folks, then? Quite frankly I
could care less if Wolfram gets along with his scientific peers, is a genius,
is an idiot, is nice to strangers, or kicks his dog around at night. Let's
just assume he is an intelligent person acting as best he can. If one of us
gets to know him, and thinks he has some kind of personality problem, then by
all means take him out and have a talk.

This is not giving people the benefit of the doubt. Even if Wolfram is all the
bad things people are saying here, it doesn't matter. If you can't find it in
your heart to give somebody the benefit of the doubt, just treat them
decently. Even arrogant jerks can be treated with respect.

Am I missing something here? Because it sounding a lot to me like you're
making the case "yeah, but he's a really bad jerk, and it isn't so bad to pick
on those"

But that can't be right, can it? Because labels like "really bad jerk" can
easily be stretched to fit lots of people.

I'm done here. I had no intention of defending Wolfram, only common sense.
Perhaps tomorrow there will be some new really bad person that we can throw
stones at. But we'll be sure first that they're really bad.

~~~
michael_nielsen
The people who care the most are people in fields adjacent to what Wolfram
works on. They have an excellent reason to care: Wolfram has appropriated many
things they've been saying far longer than he. Since their livelihood depends
on their reputation for discovery, it's easy to see why they get annoyed and
upset.

------
WilliamLP
In all but a few situations (for example learning something completely new)
being modest is simply a waste of time. I have come to believe that the
effects of "overconfidence" are almost overwhelmingly positive. If I look at
almost anyone I admire, I see that they have, and have probably had for a long
time, a very high sense of their own worth. (For example, look at Paul Graham.
Did it take audacity to say he was working on a "100 year language"?)

The reason why this took a long time for me to learn, is that being confident
triggers an instinct in people to knock that person down and challenge them.
See, for example, these comments. Nietzsche described this very well. It makes
sense because there can only be a few leaders.

Personally, I'm trying to get back a sort of youthful impudence I used to
have. It's a personality trait that is awakened when reading about how
Wolfram, when he was a university student, in a debate, pointed to a stack of
CS books including TAoCP and the Dragon book and said something like "I'm
going to read these and then soon I will know all that you know". It's
arrogant beyond belief but it also makes me think "fuck yeah". I think that
part of me is far more valuable than the part that just wants to behave, be
nice, and get upmodded in places like this for going along with a crowd and
making sure that everything is said in veneered careful way that will be
approved by elders in suits.

~~~
dinkumthinkum
I totally disagree. Saying you are working on a 100 year language, ie being
openly ambitiousis not the same thing as saying "I'm one of the most important
scientists today. I'm really one of a kind." it seems silly to equate the two.
And I don't think great scientists typically do that. They usually talk of
standing on the shoulders of giants or being humble programmers.

~~~
WilliamLP
> They usually talk of standing on the shoulders of giants

Hah, you think Isaac Newton wasn't an egomaniac?

~~~
dinkumthinkum
Where did I say that? Out of what dime novel did you learn about logic? Great
scientists usually do talk of standing on the shoulders of giant and exhibit
humility. Simply because I used a phrase that has been attributed to Newton
does not mean that I am referring to or only to Newton or that I am naive
about him.

If you want to debate me that all great scientists really do go around saying
"Look at me I'm so great; I'm the most important working scientist of the age"
then I would love to have that discussion. However, I doubt that is the case
as you are simply presumptuous and want to make snide little comments because
you some little factoid about Newton that, by the way, most readers of HN
probably know this too. "Hah, you aren't special."

~~~
WilliamLP
> If you want to debate me that all great scientists really do go around
> saying "Look at me I'm so great; I'm the most important working scientist of
> the age"

I really think most of the really great scientists have consistently _thought_
that to some degree. Some of them have been better or worse at internalizing,
and had different degrees of political sensibility.

------
swombat
Amusing, though I didn't quite get why this would make Kurt Gödel laugh his
ass off...? Anyone care to enlighten me?

~~~
bitdiddle
I also completely miss the connection and I clearly wouldn't put those two in
the same league. Godel was a very thoughtful if troubled soul who totally
shook the foundations of mathematics.

~~~
ulf
Probably most people would not put those two in the same league, but I suspect
the author thinks that Stephen Wolfram himself would certainly do so.

~~~
HSO
No, that would require a modicum of modesty. I think Mr Wolfram compared
himself somewhere in writing to Newton himself, but I cannot recall where I
read that.

~~~
pierrefar
A few interesting search results here:

<http://www.google.com/search?q=Wolfram+newton>

------
frazerb
Such a huge ego, and I see that Wolfram is still at Alpha. Shouldn't we at
least wait for WolframBeta ? Maybe he will have been able to iron out these
ego discrepancies by then. ;)

------
fiaz
I really don't understand the purpose of this article. Sure, Wolfram has a
super huge (and possibly fragile) ego...does that in some way make the author
feel less secure such that he has to invest time in trying to convince the
world that Wolfram "ain't all that"?

I really feel compelled to point this out because as of now, this headline is
#2.

~~~
HSO
This comment has a certain irony to it... do you feel "compelled to point this
out" because the article "in some way make[s you] feel less secure such that
[you have] to invest time in trying to convince the world that [the article]
"ain't all that"?" Or why don't you just ignore it if it is so off?

~~~
fiaz
and there you have it...the redditization of HN...

edit: I should add that yes, this article does make me feel less secure about
the quality of articles making it to the top of HN (hence the very last
statement in the original comment).

~~~
HSO
Fair enough. but then you should push for HN letting us downvote articles too,
not only comments. I don't know how much impact one comment will have on
whether an article (or class of articles) makes the frontpage. And by the way,
please don't be prissy, I was just making a little fun.

------
ivom
There is another blog entry about Wolfram's ego, where the guy goes even
further and proposes that the unit of "ego" be called Wolfram:

[http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2009/04/monumental_egos....](http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2009/04/monumental_egos.html)

------
cturner
This is quite genuine.

I don't particularly care about advanced maths and don't have any interesting
questions to ask when faced with Alpha.

It's getting mentioned all the time. I've now seen may mentions of ways that
it fails. Is there anything that it is actually notably good at? People are
obviously excited enough to be giving grief - is there a type of problem at
which it is strong in a way that hasn't yet been done on the web?

It's quite cool to be able to type in 'sin 5' and the like but google does
that already.

~~~
arakyd
I can't think of much to use Alpha for yet either, but I think it represents a
significant accomplishment nevertheless, in a frontiers of knowledge
representation/interaction sort of way. Doug Lenat describes it as halfway
between Google and his Cyc project on the generality <-> sophistication
spectrum (see link), which is a fairly impressive accomplishment (it can do a
lot more than just 'sin 5'). It may not end up being much more useful than Cyc
is at the moment, but it's still an advance. This stuff will get better, but
we still have to go through the intermediate steps.

[http://www.semanticuniverse.com/blogs-i-was-positively-
impre...](http://www.semanticuniverse.com/blogs-i-was-positively-impressed-
wolfram-alpha.html)

------
quizzical
The most perplexing thing for me is that Stephen Wolfram's kind of hyperbolic
self promotion is something I normally see coming from companies that are
trying to mask their lack of success. I actually think that Mathematica is an
interesting and educational tool to use. Too bad it is a failure at
affordability. Wolfram Alpha is not much to boast about in my opinion, but
certainly an "answer engine" is a great goal and I would love to see more
innovation here.

------
req2
Those aren't adjectives.

------
philelly
this is an amusing article that points out some of the more classic examples
of wolfram's risible self-promotion. it's odd, however, that this critique
comes from someone whose own webpage offers 3 headshots of himself, including
one at the astronomic resolution of 1650x2135.
(<http://chrishecker.com/Image:Checker-headshot-closed.png>)

------
DannoHung
Shameless self promotion has gotten him pretty far, so I can at least see why
he'd not stop.

I mean, hell, he's better off than Godel ended up, right?

~~~
TriinT
_"I mean, hell, he's better off than Godel ended up, right?"_

So far, at least. In 20 or 30 years we will know the answer to that...

------
callmeed
_"Anders Sandberg wrote a wonderful article proposing the Wolfram as the unit
of ego measurement."_

I put my own ego at 74 milliwolframs ...

------
TriinT
Unlike Wolfram, Gödel did groundbreaking work. Gödel was revolutionary.
Wolfram is quite smart, but other than _Mathematica_ , I don't really think he
has achieved much at all. Any comparison between the two men is ridiculous.
They are in entirely different leagues.

------
chanux
<http://virl.com/2f0b5/>

