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Comment by d--b | Hacker News Reader

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...

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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.

>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 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.

"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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

Your conclusion does not follow from your premise.

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