I like the ideas he talks about in NKS. But much like the problem I have with the US software patent system, most/all of what's in it thats good is not novel, and what's novel is not necessarily good. I too, and I'm sure many others, independently had notions about how nature works more like a process of steps, with patterns, rather than a set of static equations, and that therefore computer programs may be better at modeling them. And that organic lifeforms, in particular, may in a sense just be computer programs, except ones running on natural-made parts rather than man-made ones.

Wolfram just has an arrogant position that he somehow brought them down from the mountain top for us mere mortals to consume. He didn't. He isn't. Smart man? Yes. Good ideas? Yes. Novel? No.