
Cognitive Theoretic Model of the Universe - ice_man
http://www.megafoundation.org/CTMU/Articles/IntroCTMU.htm
======
etherael
This fellow seems a little intellectually insecure to me, his style of writing
/ communication displayed in both the youtube videos and his theory, he
appears to be making it complex to illustrate that he's capable of grasping
complex things, rather than needing to illustrate actually complex ideas.

The finishing points about "god" without ever really nailing down an empirical
definition of the term beyond "indeterminate omnipresent universey type stuff"
strikes me as kind of disingenuous also.

Still, I don't doubt he has some mental agility, and it certainly looks like
the world has dealt him a harsh hand, and I'm quite familiar with what
circumstance can do personally.

~~~
ellyagg
It's disappointing that the highest rated comment is essentially ad hominem.
I've been aware of the CTMU for many years and was hoping smart folks would
engage his ideas. Sadly, it appears the intellectual insecurity here is as
great as that attributed to Langan.

Arrogance and insecurity may be regrettable traits for getting along with
people, but are irrelevant to the truth of a matter. Truth/falsity should be
judged on its merits.

> Still, I don't doubt he has some mental agility

Pretty condescending. That's sort of like finding someone who has a vertical
leap 8 inches greater than Michael Jordan and saying "I don't doubt he has
some athleticism..." Maybe you don't think transcendent jumping ability
necessarily makes you a good basketball player, but you'd sure give someone
with that trait a harder look. In a similar vein, you may not think an IQ
score is the final word in apprehending great truths, but you should certainly
take a little extra care, I'd think.

At least, when I encounter analysis by someone who is significantly smarter
than I am, and I don't fully understand their claims, my first impulse isn't
to be dismissive or make ill-defined, hand-wavy criticisms.

~~~
etherael
I was not under the impression that anything about what he was saying was
difficult to understand, merely that it was poorly communicated, I do not see
any original ideas here or concepts that have not been covered in more
exacting details in various philosophy courses.

I don't mean to heap ad hominem on him, I'm simply pointing out that if one is
trying to present their ideas then they ought to present them clearly without
recourse to attempting to make themselves appear more complex and
sophisticated. There are even examples on this very thread of people
illustrating much the same ideas as in the original article in a better
format.

From a personal perspective, I have a lot of sympathy for him, I watched the
entire series of youtube videos about him and I find it something approaching
an indictment of humanity that this guy is a bouncer.

I think your dismissive rebuke is just not digging deep enough.

------
ice_man
It was written by this guy: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ak5Lr3qkW0>

An illustrative image of who he is: [http://onemansblog.com/wp-
content/uploads/2007/11/chris-lang...](http://onemansblog.com/wp-
content/uploads/2007/11/chris-langan-iq-comparison.jpg)

~~~
10ren
That video is a chilling cautionary tale.

~~~
pohl
Yes...a cautionary tale about giving too much weight to the Intelligence
Quotient metric, and how it might lend a semblance of credibility to
conservative agitprop dismissive of Darwin, the university system, and
progressive federal expenditures. ;-)

------
diiq
I am always disappointed when someone cloaks their ideas in such thick
intellectual veneer. I can't do justice to someone else's voice, but a few
minutes were all that was necessary to make the first paragraph sound like a
person:

(translated from semi-scientific posturing) "One of the things that makes us
human is thinking about the big picture. Unfortunately, it's easy to make
simple mistakes in the attempt think about the biggest picture: the universe.
(Please understand that by 'the universe', I mean to say _everything_ ; it
makes no sense to me to speak of things that aren't a part of the universe.) I
sometimes unthinkingly imagine about the universe as the collection of all the
things that exist; and that makes sense, doesn't it? Maybe not. What about pi?
The relationship between a the diameter of a circle and it's circumference
appears in all kinds of surprising places --- it seems like it is an inherent
part of the universe. Pi doesn't exist on it's own, though; at least, I can't
imagine pi, floating in space all by itself. Pi seems to be a part of the
fabric in which everything else exists. Any theory of the universe must take
that _fabric_ into account as well. As far as anyone can tell, the laws that
underly the universe, the fabric, is the same everywhere. The fabric unifies
the universe. So if I try to think about the universe sensibly, I can't talk
about anything outside of it (a philosopher might say 'use monism instead of
dualism'), and I must explain the unified whole (holism rather than
reductionism)."

Chris Langan, wherever you are, you can do it! Don't be afraid to show your
ideas to the world naked as the moment you thought them. The worst you can do
is be wrong, and that's not bad at all.

~~~
ellyagg
Do you read scientific journals much? Papers are usually filled with long,
grammatically complex sentences full of obscure technical jargon. Given the
subject matter, it seems a bit silly to hold the author to a different
standard.

~~~
diiq
I do, and they disappoint me for the same reason; I work in a machine research
lab, and we work very hard to write papers which are both clear and
publishable. I hold _every_ writer to the same standard --- communicate in the
clearest possible way. Sometimes the form/content relationship requires
difficult prose, but that is surely a rare occurrence outside of modern
fiction.

He published online, and suffered from no external pressure to obfuscate at
all; if he made simple things complex it was from an inability to communicate
or a desire to conceal.

------
chrischen
Just a tidbit, his wikipedia page says he's a creationist.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Langan#Ideas.2C_aff...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Langan#Ideas.2C_affiliations.2C_and_publications)

I think his argument is that creationism and evolution are not mutually
exclusive. So he does believe in evolution.

------
d4ft
I think Malcolm Gladwell talks about this guy a little in Outliers and
attributes much of his personality to his upbringing. One might query whether
by virtue of being that intelligent, one is already predisposed to isolation
and intellectual elitism, but perhaps in this case it is neither here nor
there. I have always found (and believe mostly) that brilliant people can
describe their ideas (at least generally) in ways us normal knuckle draggers
can understand. I would be interested in a capsule summary of CTMU for the
common man. However, this intellectual ego-stroking in the videos etc. makes
me think Mr. Langan would never so corrupt his lofty ideas.

------
jcapote
I can't take more than 2 minutes of this guy...

"I am closer to absolute truth than any man before me"

get over yourself.

source: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ak5Lr3qkW0>

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tokenadult
This link

<http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/history.html>

gives historical background on the persons who form unvalidated high-IQ
societies.

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amichail
Some very smart people use questionable theories to get attention (and perhaps
a lot of money too). In a way, it's a logical use of their brainpower.

Is his theory falsifiable in any way?

~~~
ellyagg
Elsewhere I've seen him claim that he can make new predictions about the
natural world based on his theory, which suggests it's falsifiable. Sadly, the
true nature of the universe and all existence doesn't have enough bearing on
my life to follow up on it.

------
RevRal
Chris is a very warm, loving guy. The beef some people have with him for very
irrelevant reasons, they need to get over it.

