We certainly reward scientists not so much for delivering fundamental insights, but for exemplary application of methods, usually with minimal returns for the way we understand the universe. A paradigmatic contribution is mostly seen as an advance in methodology, not in insight.
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Autonomous intellects (like Wolfram) exist, but they are insular, because they don't integrate well with scientific institutions, so the mainstream does not perceive them as relevant. We don't see schools of modernist thinkers (like the cyberneticians or first gen AI) any more.
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This is especially blatant in academic AI: researchers don't take interesting stances about psychology or philosophy as they did in the 1960ies. There is also no consequential disagreement, just methodological competition between a focus on statistics, logic, applications etc.
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This coincides with understanding scientists as generic: ideas were once thought to be creations of individuals, now we think science is done by whoever we pay to do so. Status in science does not result from a unique perspective, but from diligence in an affirmative environment.
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There are no more Wiener, Turing, Minsky, Chomsky, Solomonoff, etc., not because great thinkers no longer exist, but because society at large cannot tell a public speaker from a deep thinker, and academia itself stopped caring about them.
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How would you explain the Deutsch phemonena?
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How would you explain that there is one guy and not a discourse?
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What major shifts are you thinking of from the 70s?
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The end of modernism in society, and the dominance of Kuhn's "normal science" over the idea of scientific inquiry.
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We stopped asking the right questions.
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Individually, the questions are still being asked, but to make that relevant, it needs to be an institutional goal.
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