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> This is the norm for outsider art/thought and is what allows it to sometimes prove revolutionary. The idea that outsider artists and thinker weren't often ex

> This is the norm for outsider art/thought and is what allows it to sometimes prove revolutionary. The idea that outsider artists and thinker weren't often extremely aware of ongoing and historical conversations around what they're talking about, especially the revolutionary ones, is just not true. Almost all avant-garde or very far on the edge thinkers understand the canons of their trades and practices deeply. That's how they're able to place their thinking and work in context as radical and outsider --- they're "breaking the rules" by knowing them. > It’s a long view process and needn’t be rushed. It’s not like Wolfram’s at risk of giving up his efforts for being an outsider this way. That's precisely why I think he should interact with the work and history that's already been done in the areas he's working in. If there's no rush, why write these blog posts in the style of breathless private rants instead of finely honed and elegant arguments?

swatcoder 4y ago
Avant garde work and outsider work aren’t the same thing, although those identifying with avant garde are often the ones that find and share the value in outsider work.
AnimalMuppet 4y ago
I think the deal is that Wolfram thinks he doesn't need the canon. He thinks he's so smart that he doesn't need to read it, and that it would be a waste of his time. (Or so I suspect.)
- analog31 4y ago
  Perhaps not necessarily so much that he's so smart, but that he will soon have the technology at his disposal to overcome needing the canon. There has actually been a widespread belief, for decades, that computers (loosely defined) will soon eliminate the need for experts. His belief puts him in good company with many laypeople, middle managers, etc.
karmakaze 4y ago
> they're "breaking the rules" by knowing them. Ramanujan
comboy 4y ago
> edge thinkers understand the canons of their trades and practices deeply Yes but not from others and not from books. If you look at correspondence between some brilliant math and physics minds they are often discovering that they arrived at the same things independently. I'm not advocating reinventing the wheel, but life is too short to learn what all other smart people had to say on given topic. You end up being expert on what was written by whom instead of learning the thing. I'm sure you've met those people. Subtleties of new discoveries are ignored because "well obviously, John wrote about that in 1928". Plus you get stuck in local minima along with the rest, because for even smal improvement it may be necessary to use completely different framework, a way of looking at the thing. And just knowing vocabulary that others have used you are already stuck within their framework. We think in patterns, we name them. If you were thought a name for some range of colors between red and orange, you would think of it as something clearly distinct than both red and orange, just as you are unlikely to accept that brown is just dark orange.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  > but life is too short to learn what all other smart people had to say on given topic. You could just reach out to those people who are on the cutting edge and discuss your ideas… they’ll accelerate your work without you having to read / research the entire corpus yourself.
  - comboy 4y ago
    It doesn't scale, only a few chosen can do that and I think that's what Wolfram is trying to do here. But when you are using a different framework, learning it and creating a mapping is usually just too expensive for other experts. So you get ignored until you can no longer be ignored.
    - andsoitis 4y ago
      Wolfram could easily reach out to the top 10 experts in the field to bounce ideas off of each other. The cumulative time would be nothing in comparison to going down dead-end paths he could've avoided. I'll add something more: having dialog with others help you iterate and explore new surface area much more rapidly than sitting at your desk or walking in your garden alone.
deleted 4y ago
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swatcoder 4y ago

Avant garde work and outsider work aren’t the same thing, although those identifying with avant garde are often the ones that find and share the value in outsider work.

AnimalMuppet 4y ago

I think the deal is that Wolfram thinks he doesn't need the canon. He thinks he's so smart that he doesn't need to read it, and that it would be a waste of his time. (Or so I suspect.)

analog31 4y ago
Perhaps not necessarily so much that he's so smart, but that he will soon have the technology at his disposal to overcome needing the canon. There has actually been a widespread belief, for decades, that computers (loosely defined) will soon eliminate the need for experts. His belief puts him in good company with many laypeople, middle managers, etc.

karmakaze 4y ago

> they're "breaking the rules" by knowing them. Ramanujan

comboy 4y ago

> edge thinkers understand the canons of their trades and practices deeply Yes but not from others and not from books. If you look at correspondence between some brilliant math and physics minds they are often discovering that they arrived at the same things independently. I'm not advocating reinventing the wheel, but life is too short to learn what all other smart people had to say on given topic. You end up being expert on what was written by whom instead of learning the thing. I'm sure you've met those people. Subtleties of new discoveries are ignored because "well obviously, John wrote about that in 1928". Plus you get stuck in local minima along with the rest, because for even smal improvement it may be necessary to use completely different framework, a way of looking at the thing. And just knowing vocabulary that others have used you are already stuck within their framework. We think in patterns, we name them. If you were thought a name for some range of colors between red and orange, you would think of it as something clearly distinct than both red and orange, just as you are unlikely to accept that brown is just dark orange.

andsoitis 4y ago
> but life is too short to learn what all other smart people had to say on given topic. You could just reach out to those people who are on the cutting edge and discuss your ideas… they’ll accelerate your work without you having to read / research the entire corpus yourself.
- comboy 4y ago
  It doesn't scale, only a few chosen can do that and I think that's what Wolfram is trying to do here. But when you are using a different framework, learning it and creating a mapping is usually just too expensive for other experts. So you get ignored until you can no longer be ignored.
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    Wolfram could easily reach out to the top 10 experts in the field to bounce ideas off of each other. The cumulative time would be nothing in comparison to going down dead-end paths he could've avoided. I'll add something more: having dialog with others help you iterate and explore new surface area much more rapidly than sitting at your desk or walking in your garden alone.

deleted 4y ago

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