What Is Ruliology?

Stephen Wolfram just tried to make “ruliology” happen—his label for the study of simple rules and the patterns they produce, like tiny programs you run to see what they do. He calls it a clean, exact, new science with no wiggle room: run the rule, see the result, repeat. But the internet had other ideas, and the comments turned into equal parts seminar and stand‑up.

The spiciest thread was about ego and evidence. One top critique groaned about the sheer number of “I”s and “me”s and asked the big question: where’s the falsifiability—the test that proves it wrong? Another camp shrugged: new word, old ideas? skeptics said it sounds like things already covered in theoretical computer science (the academic study of how computation works). One commenter even dragged in Wolfram’s earlier book A New Kind of Science as Exhibit A for rebranding. There was also a vibe of “brand first, science later,” with jokes about inventing a word and then applauding its success. Meanwhile, curious onlookers hit a wall: paywall pain—fans lamented they can’t play with examples because Wolfram’s tools cost money. Between drinking‑game jokes about pronoun counts and genuine excitement for exploring patterns, the crowd split hard between “let people experiment” and “show us what’s actually new.”