Funny you should ask… I had forgotten until recently … but actually I did start writing a “Chapter 13” … though I called it the Epilog. Its title was “The Future of the Science in This Book”.

I looked through it as I was writing my blog post today: https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2012/05/looking-to-the-future-of-a-new-kind-of-science/

And actually … as I look through it now, it has some fairly interesting things to say 🙂

Note that these were never finished or polished, but here are a couple of excerpts.

Principles:

• Always try to address the most obvious questions and find the simplest examples;
• Try to understand the root causes of things; do not be satisfied with technical explanations;
• Do not be bound by what has been done before, but try to understand it as fully as possible;
• Explain what you have done as clearly as possible, and with as little infrastructure as possible

Phases of the new science (when they begin): [these are my expectations]

• Absorption: try to understand what I have done in this book (first absorption completes in 2 years; more in 5 years)
• Make the first round of extensions: (2–3 years; finished in 10–15 years)
• Build major new directions (15–30 years)
• Small early stage technological applications (4–10 years)
• Major technological applications (10–25 years)
• Become a part of everyday thought (4–10 years)
• Become a standard part of basic science education (15–20 years)