They aren't necessarily even jealous; they're just confused. "Why isn't someone who is *able* to do these things doing them? Why is he wasting time?" 10/
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Sometimes they will (again, with completely good intentions) tell Conway and/or people like him "you know, with your talents you can probably do some pretty important work." (I myself have gotten these comments, while doing "unimportant" work like consulting or blockchain) 11/
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So when Conway does his (amazing) work, he's really doing it as a "people's mathematician." He's doing what *he* sees as fun and important, which makes it a more "vulgar" form of mathematics. For professional mathematicians trained on "classy" mathematics, their taste buds.. 12/
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have also been trained (from their socially-constructed groups) to see "vulgar" math as less important, much in the way that a 90's classical TV critic may judge South Park or the Simpsons as "mainstream trash," or, as something deeply close to my heart, people saying that 13/
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.. "videogames cannot be art." When they play videogames, their brain is *trained* to tell them that this is *supposed* to be bad, because "respectable" people are not playings games but are reading books, or so they think. We mathematicians are no different. RIP. 14/14
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Addendum #1: Nuance is hard. I mean "(elite) mathematicians don't recognize Conway's work as real." I don't mean that the mathematical community doesn't recognize him; he is obviously (to everyone, mathematicians or not) a genius and popular.
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Replying to @krzhang
Hm. I think that Conway was not a mathematician. He was a computer scientist, a coder, a mostly autonomous intellectual explorer. He was brilliant, but he served a different aesthetic, just as economists or physicists do.
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Replying to @Plinz
That's a super interesting take; not sure if I agree yet, but "explorer" definitely resonates. I think all mathematicians fancy themselves explorers, but end up becoming landlords after they explore a slightly new place.
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Replying to @krzhang
It strikes me how different disciplines were founded not just to answer different questions, but to ask and answer them in very specific ways, upstream from defining methods. And being an autonomous intellect is universally frowned upon, unless you start a new discipline.
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Replying to @Plinz
Yeah, though I think there's a huge coevolution with methods (c.f. Bourbaki in math changing style of math drastically). +1 on autonomy. It makes me think of drug dealers. Trying to be a kingpin is universally frowned upon until you succeed, then you the king.
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We are talking about Wolfram, of course :) But it also applies to people like Fredkin that just have an issue with authority, and won't naturally gravitate to be someone's pupil and heir.
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