Edited by author 05-19-2002 02:54 PM
Like many reviewers Kurzweil is working hard to find something nice to say. Wired quotes a more blunt Freeman Dyson: "Worthless!". http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.06/wolfram_pr.html

Seems like Wolfram has duplicated the results of Stuart Kauffman. Take a simple binary model that can be adjusted from chaos to stasis. Tune the model until you see an "interesting" pattern. Conclude that you have found the answer to life, the universe, and everything.

No you won't Cory. It's over a thousand pages long. You don't have time for it and it's overrated.

Kurzweil's article basically says Wolfram has some points but it's mostly hype. Some of Kurzweil's points against Wolfram's book are that Wolfram doesn't explain how a simple Class 4 Cellular Automaton that can generate the 110 rule cannot generate insects, humans and Chopin preludes. Sure it generates a computer but no software. Also Wolfram seems to not have noticed that his main thesis that 'complexity arises out of simple rules' has been around for a long time and was not invented by him.

What doesn't blow Kurzweil's mind? Every pop-science and wacky tranhumanist speel gets him to write or say something. Its like New Age for geeks.

I haven't read Wolfram, but Kurzweil isn't exactly the acid test.