Paradigmatic progress in the sciences has stalled since the 1970ies. There is disagreement about whether we have just figured out all the relevant paradigms, or whether we shifted from answering questions (which is cross disciplinary) to applying methods (cementing disciplines).
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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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Replying to @Plinz @CorvanCrowing
It gets even harder when well-known deep thinkers turn into neocons hiding behind their reputation, ... like e.g. Peter Sloterdijk. How I miss speakers like Hoimar von Dithfurt. Ok, that‘s a bit of a German scope - sorry if you never heard of them.
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Sloterdijk achieved a PhD in philosophy. I doubt it gets much more formal than that ...
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I did not mean that he does not have enough credentials, but that he cannot think in a formal language.
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