Recollections of an Independent Thinker

Summary

Let me first point out that my title is consciously ambiguous. It reflects the marvelous imprecision that is possible with language. Am I the independent thinker or is someone else? Whose recollections are these anyway? And is the “of” equivalent to “about” or to “by”? And who here is “independent,” of what, or of whom?

In apposition to this observation, let me quote one for whom ambiguity is anathema:

“This may seem like an inflexible, cavalier attitude; I am convinced that nothing short of it can ever remove the ambiguity of ‘what is the problem?’ that has plagued probability theory for two centuries.”

E.T. Jaynes

I will touch upon the work of several independent thinkers tonight, but what I have to say is mostly, of course, about E. T. Jaynes. Those in this roomful of independent thinkers surely recognize both his independence and his originality. He is a man who has marched to a different drummer upon a road less traveled by. Those of us gathered here tonight, and many others in the world of science and engineering, now find themselves following in his footsteps.

Where many of us have had one career in one field, Ed Jaynes has had several. The broad collection of expertise from a wide variety of different disciplines in this gathering reflects this diversity of his ideas and their applications.