Reviews for A New Kind of Science

The average rating for A New Kind of Science based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-10-18 00:00:00 Solo Flyin Flawed but magnificent. It was difficult to get past Wolfram's outsized ego, but I was finally able to do so by alternately considering it sympathetically (thinking of him as desperately seeking validation) and comically (his statements of priority and the importance of his work are so over the top it's really kind of entertaining). I also had some strong issues with Wolfram's discussion on natural selection, as well as his discussion of intelligence and life (he would have benefited from a reading of Maturana and Varela). And his principle of computational equivalence doesn't seem to recognize that something like a brain in effect channels computations toward unlikely computations that simpler but "computationally equivalent" systems do not. Despite these reservations, the book is a wonder, and seeing him deftly redefine such fundamental concepts as randomness and to effectively provide a proof of Godel's theorem in the span of a few short pages using substitution systems was to see a small miracle of human thought. His discussion regarding the limitations of current mathematics (that this field has in fact only explored a small portion of "math space") was fascinating as was his exercise in translating axiomatic systems into automata-like conceptions. Beyond specific insights and deep analysis, the sheer amount of methodological work involved in Wolfram's explorations is humbling. In short, while this book and Wolfram's vision would have benefited greatly from a restraint on his egotistical ramblings, I do think this is a very important contribution that that will likely spur creative research far into the future.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-09-09 00:00:00 Jhone Kiri More like "A New Kind of Ego". Wolfram's inflated ego dominated this book so much that I found it unreadable and started skimming. What's worse is his self-aggrandizement is undeserved. Wolfram did not discover Cellular Automata, nor was he the first to see potential in them, so basically he's a pretender. In addition, others who have worked in this field have written without the egotism. The book is short on content. There was some info there, but nothing to justify the title or the bloated length. I wonder how short the book would have been had he cut out the self-promotion?