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A big part of the problem is that Chaitin is a shameless self-promoter. He is the Bruce Schneier of Algorithmic Complexity. Actually, no, Schneier is not nearly

A big part of the problem is that Chaitin is a shameless self-promoter. He is the Bruce Schneier of Algorithmic Complexity. Actually, no, Schneier is not nearly as bad. Let me quote from the highest voted Amazon review of his book: "Let the author speak for himself. From page 7, "Gödel's 1931 work on incompleteness, Turing's 1936 work on uncomputability, and my own work on the role of information, randomness and complexity have shown increasingly emphatically that the role that Hilbert envisioned for formalism in mathematics is best served by computer programming languages[.]" Imagine if a working composer wrote, "Bach's preludes and fugues, Beethoven's symphonies, and my own string quartets have shown increasingly emphatically..." This man's reputation in his declared field is nowhere near his apparent stature in his own mind. The ideas discussed in this book are worthy of late-night musings over a nice brandy, or maybe a Scientific American article, but only after extensive revision. They are not ready for publication in a monograph. "

jhancock 18y ago
I assume you weren't really picking on Schneier. He's a self-promotor in a pretty healthy sense. He has written much content on the human aspects of security useful to laymen. He does so without being arrogant or saying "I invented this". All in all, a good educator that doesn't talk down to his audience and can explain things so that his "grandmother could understand" (my favorite Einstein principle). He has interwoven this practice into his business, the beneficiary of his self-promotion, which seems to have done well for him. I might even recommend Schneier as the poster-boy of healthy entrepreneurial self-promotion.
- randomwalker 18y ago
  No, didn't mean to pick on Schneier. He's a self promoter, but the analogy breaks down after that.
neilc 18y ago
This man's reputation in his declared field is nowhere near his apparent stature in his own mind Really? He is one of the coinventors of Kolmogorov complexity, and Kolmogorov complexity certainly does shed a lot of light on the relationship between information, randomness, and complexity. While he is clearly a big ego and a shameless self-promoter, I think it's also fair to say that he is among the foremost experts on K-complexity and related topics.

jhancock 18y ago

I assume you weren't really picking on Schneier. He's a self-promotor in a pretty healthy sense. He has written much content on the human aspects of security useful to laymen. He does so without being arrogant or saying "I invented this". All in all, a good educator that doesn't talk down to his audience and can explain things so that his "grandmother could understand" (my favorite Einstein principle). He has interwoven this practice into his business, the beneficiary of his self-promotion, which seems to have done well for him. I might even recommend Schneier as the poster-boy of healthy entrepreneurial self-promotion.

randomwalker 18y ago
No, didn't mean to pick on Schneier. He's a self promoter, but the analogy breaks down after that.

neilc 18y ago

This man's reputation in his declared field is nowhere near his apparent stature in his own mind Really? He is one of the coinventors of Kolmogorov complexity, and Kolmogorov complexity certainly does shed a lot of light on the relationship between information, randomness, and complexity. While he is clearly a big ego and a shameless self-promoter, I think it's also fair to say that he is among the foremost experts on K-complexity and related topics.