March 19, 2012
Abandon all hope, ye who enter this thread
by Dave Maier
Christopher Langan's Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU) (which, my Ivy doctorate in philosophy notwithstanding, I am utterly incompetent to evaluate) is either a god-awful pretentious mishmash of meshugas, or the most profound metaphysical discovery in history, or something in between. On another day, we might discuss the very real philosophical and metaphilosophical issues involved in the CTMU and its reception.
But that day, my friends, is not today. Today we celebrate, in all its scrumtrilescent glory, an Intertubes train wreck of jaw-dropping scope and power.
On February 11, 2011, blogger Mark Chu-Carroll, a computer scientist at Google, posted on his blog another in a continuing series of posts about amusing internet cranks.
Stripped down to its basics, the CTMU is just yet another postmodern "perception defines the universe" idea."
Sets are a tool that we use to construct abstract models that describe things. The universe isn't a set; it's the universe. And yet a huge part of his argument is, ultimately, based on "disproving" the idea that the universe is a set, based on silly word-games.
This is pure muddle. It's hard to figure out what he even thinks he's doing. It's clear that he believes he's inventing a new kind of set theory, which he calls a "self-processing language", and he goes on to get very muddled about the differences between syntax and semantics, and between a model and what it models. I have no idea what he means by "replacing set-theoretic objects with syntactic operators" - but I do know that what he wrote makes no sense - it's sort of like saying "I'm going to fix the sink in my bathroom by replacing the leaky washer with the color blue", or "I'm going to fly to the moon by correctly spelling my left leg."
Thereafter follows a comment thread for the ages – a multivolume epic with unforgettable characters and deathless prose, slabs of impenetrable verbiage, earnest confessions, wisecracks, vicious personal insults, and a tragic end.
The first comment asks "Could he be trying to pull a reverse-Sokal on us?"
Further discussion centers on the distinction between sets and their contents, which Mark had picked out as Chris's central confusion.
A commenter called Race Traitor helpfully links to an Amazon page called "So You'd Like To Learn Advanced Mathematics on Your Own" and suggests that Chris check it out. allOrNothing responds to this that "Your comment is so condescending the spittle flying from your mouth feels like rain."
What I love about this thread is the way what might be, for all we know so far, a minor semantic quibble (about the use of "set") gets out of hand almost immediately, and mushrooms beyond all conceivable expectation. It's like you can see the trains being carefully assembled and reverently set on their tracks, revved up to full speed (starting miles away for this very purpose) and let loose, the ensuing fiasco unfolding in slow motion over the space of months.
Here Chris could presumably have said "okay, if you want to use "set" that way, let me put it another way for you." And he sort of does; but mainly, he lists Mark's Errors:"If Mark does not desist in his nonsense, it may well turn out to be something he regrets for the rest of his life."
Mark is not having this:"What a load of ad-hominem ridden bullshit."
Again I remove the substantive remarks, as they are not the sort of thing that goes well with popcorn; basically, Mark restates his central point:
As I've frequently said on this blog: the worst math is no math. And that's a pretty good description of your writing. There are lots of mathematical words, but they're used in ways that just make no sense. They look impressive, but when you try to burrow down to get to their meaning, they don't make sense. They muddle together fundamental concepts in nonsensical ways; they blur the distinctions between things that are necessarily distinct.
[insert accelerating train sounds here]
Of course, you won't actually address any of these problems. You'll just wave your hands around and insult me some more. I remain uncertain of just how it is that doing that somehow defends the validity of your theory, but that's probably just because I'm not as smart as you.
On 2/17, Chris provides another exhaustive analysis, loaded with carefully worded digs and faint-praise damnation. It contains a total (unenumerated this time) of twelve attributed Errors:"If I pop in here again, it will be strictly as an undeserved favor. Good day to all of you."
Much discussion follows (I have to elide here, or we'll never get to the good stuff), summarized pithily by MikeTheInfidel: "You can take your 'undeserved favor' and shove it right up your ass."
– but then another defender shows up, and there is more – much more – about sets.
Mark and Chris trade accusations of unintelligibility. Chris shares a joke; the punchline reads
“Wayull, Lurleen,” he drawled after a long and satisfying gulp, “some of ‘em *SAYud* they was. But you know how them @#$$%&s lie!”
Things settle down a bit, and by mid-March it looks like the thread is petering out. (Ha!) For nearly a month the final comment is:
Mr "The Smartest Man in the Room" with an ego to make up for the lack of even basic genius is indulging in Post Hoc Reasoning and Question Begging with the smell of liniment in his nostrils and possibly suffering the side effects of steroids.
But the ad steroidem argument will not be the last word.
I have more delicious excerpts than I can possibly use.
6/27: "[Something John said] means you're asserting that nothing exists. I think you'll have a hard time proving this."
Reply: "Oh, my god. I though the logic could not get any worse. You seemed reasonable."
7/25: Julia_L writes:
"OK, I get it. And if I don't, surely someone will point that out and call me a poopyhead(PH)."
Her conclusion:
"There is no paradox in a finite Universe and the rest of Lagan's extrapolations are not required. However, two plus two DOES equal five and I AM the Queen of England."More back and forth about reality. Shodo namechecks Dr. Bronner. "Seriously, if I had a nickle for every time I came up with a "profound" idea after a few bong rips, sitting on my porch then I would have about $77.45."
Copernicus, Ptolemy and String Theory ("an abomination") are discussed. John Fringe's "mocking tone" is not appreciated ("Good bye sir").
7/28: Mark returns for a brief reprise of his main point.
8/1: Chris responds. His prose is (for our purposes if not his) a joy. Space runs short: I will simply link. Twelve Errors, with a "little sermon" at the end. Its peroration:
if Mark [...] continues to pop off because a few diehard sycophants appear willing to cover for him and get his back even when the springs and cogs and gear oil spray out of his ears, then there’s always a risk that sooner or later, at a time to be determined by fate (and/or me), he’ll learn the unpleasant taste of crow. Raw crow, with the feathers and the mites.
A bravura performance.
Mark replies immediately, but briefly; no quarter asked nor given. Chris replies line by line. The trains may by this point be truly said to have collided; yet the debris has only begun to scatter.
You can’t BS your way out of the pickle you’ve gotten yourself into here. You may as well lie down and play dead.
Stay down, Mark. Don't even try to get up.
On 8/3, Tim shows up. Up to now we have seen nothing. Nothing!
I am a metaphysian. And, so that my boldness is revealed up front, I will let you know that, in your regard, I hope to inject some fundamental REASON in to the debate.
You have been warned.
Briefly, Chris, you underestimate the force behind Kant’s noumenon. Materialism can only be bested by I’dealism. That is, reality is at bottom idea! There is no matter as such! “matter” is, rather, information representing real I’dea. I say I’dea, singular, because … give me a moment please.
Take all the time you like. It's only August.
8/5: Still no word from Mark. Maybe he's staying down. In the meantime Chris returns to say that he knows [Robert] Pirsig well ("clearly a very bright man") but that w/r/t the MoQ, "comparing it to the CTMU would be like comparing a Ford Model T to the Starship Enterprise."
On 8/11 we meet Jeremy Jae. This guy is great.
I can say now that the CTMU is the most amazing holonic theory of reality I have seen; this is the metaphysics of the future. The CTMU alone is obviously [...] the workings of creative genius. It [is] an omnidimensional model of reality (which is nearly impossible for current humanity to penetrate since it is a complete model in fact it may even be overcomplete.) There are several prophetic insights I can see within the CTMU that give us a better understanding of our current gnosis on natural language in man and artificial intelligence that ties directly into my own view of reality and a theory I am working on involving cellular automata and the evolution of physical form by AI.
8/23: Chris himself returns:"It appears that the confusion persists."
Unfortunately, it seems that
most CTMU critics resemble obnoxious schoolchildren on the rampage, popping off about this or that awful grownup in a way reminiscent of the movie series "Children of the Corn", or perhaps the old Star Trek episode "Miri", the sci-fi tale of a mirror-Earth in which [...] ragtag death-squads of prepubescent rug rats [...], unafraid of spankings and unwilling to toe the line for anyone displaying any degree of mental and emotional maturity, occupy themselves with tracking down and liquidating any grownups - derisively referred to as "grups" - of whom they get wind.
8/31: Jeremy Jae links to "a video I made in 2003 about 'eidetic evolution', a theory of how mental images generate all form in reality."
Rubix is unimpressed:
Who the heck voiced that video? The Cave of Wonders?
TOUCH ONLY THE LAMP.
Anyways, what you're saying is BS.
On September 1, a further momentous showdown begins. Chris: "Good Lord Almighty." He makes a connection between "John Fringe" and John Noble's mad-scientist character on Fringe. I love that show!
9/3: Chris explains his SIWOTI syndrome:
some [readers] erroneously assume that your critique is some sort of expert consensus, as opposed to the aimless bloviation of just another opinionated part-time blogger whose “math expertise” is confined to writing boilerplate code, and who is weighted down by the bursting load of pseudonymous toadies in his pants.
Even though anonymous critics and their ringleaders are a dime a dozen and notorious for spewing smelly mud like ruptured sewage lines, the bunch of you are simply beyond the pale. Obviously, any hostility associated with your squirting behavior falls on your heads alone.
You, Mark Chu-Carroll, are definitely the primary troll here; the juvenile trolls only gathered because they smelled meat. You might as well live under a bridge, polish your scales, and gobble up unwary billygoats.
9/6: Rubix is getting frustrated:
Will you guys please quit plugging up the thread with huge spamwalls of text and keep to the topic at hand? Share that stuff over email or something.
9/14: A new commenter (not me, I swear, though I couldn't have put it better myself):
I'm leaving this comment only to say that, despite the sheer intimidating length of the comment thread, this sort of thing is like porn. The messy kind that may leave you feeling slightly dirty at the end an in need of a bath with sold scrubbing, but thoroughly enjoyable throughout the actual act of perusal.
Glorious metaphysics porn.
9/28: Chris, in response to Mark:
Generally speaking, the typical defender of the CTMU is a model citizen if not an absolute saint next to the typical CTMU critic, who would evidently lie, cheat, steal, and pimp his sister, mother, and grandmother in order to get over on the theory, smear its author, and express his hatred of God and religion.
9/28: TUNAPOLOCS:
What is the difference between a mathematician and a metaphysician? They both have paper and pencil, but mathematicians have a garbage can.
Rubix accuses Chris, openly this time, of lying about his (perfect) SAT score. Pathological liar, extreme bitterness, childhood demons, insecure and likely jealous, petty, narcissistic liar, ego-stroking and attention-seeking, disrespectful, disgusting disgrace, unjustly self-entitled. Whew! Chris isn't going to like that!
Isotelesis quotes Chris discussing the "ERSU, short for Expanding Rubber Sheet Universe [and the] USRE (ERSU spelled backwards), short for Universe as a Self-Representational Entity." More: Prigogine [where has he been all this time??], Eric Jantsch, Hermann Haken. Gertzel's Chaotic Logic. The Necker cube, as discussed by Atmanspacher and Filk. Alternative approaches to bistable perception.
TUNAPOLOCS posts a block of text which looks like it comes from the Postmodernism Generator, and indeed: "8942852 individual pieces of bullshit generated since this program's inception on November 11, 1998"
Back (darn nesting, ruins the chronology) to 9/29: another wall of text from isotelesis. Then another.
Rubix protests: "Posting paragraphs is okay if they're short, but you're just posting huge globs. [...] This isn't my blog, but jeez."
isotelesis, 9/30: "It seems MarkCC agrees with Chris Langan on at least one point, the universe can be modeled by an intrinsic, self-scaling, multi-attribute/constraint satisfying information synthesizer."
Mark: "Why on earth would you say that?" Oooh, bad question. The ensuing slab of text is a leviathan, a behemoth, a doomsday machine. Rubix: "lol. Yeah, that wasn't predictable at all."
9/30: Rubix admits defeat:
Anyways, all I will say is that Chris Langan is by **far** the best troll I've ever seen. For that, I have to give him credit. [...] He's uncrackable. I've wasted a great deal of time trying to get him to admit his scam, but he's just too persistent. I yield, Chris. You win.
On 10/3, after yet another salvo from Chris against "Chubix," Mark disemvowels Chris's next post, which now ends like this: "Hv nc d."
Mark:"I've been blogging for a long time, but I've got to say you're one of the most profoundly, pointlessly, and arrogantly idiotic people I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with."
Reply: "Mark, you're a full of it as a Thanksgiving turkey. [...] All in all, you’re a stain on the Internet, your mother, and the planet Earth." Yes, he went there!
The ban-hammer is unsheathed and displayed:
Let me make something abundantly clear to you. [...] If you want to keep playing these idiot games where you spew insults, you're welcome to waste your time, but they'll hit the bit-bucket, unread.
On 10/5, Chris is again disemvoweled. Mark explains that Chris had threatened legal action. Chris's reply, in which he accuses Mrk of cnsrshp, is likewise disemvoweled. A further reply has apparently been autodisemvoweled.
Isotelesis returns with another slab about the Yoneda Lemma, and another about RDF semantics and the the lattice approach of Formal Concept Analysis of Ganter and Wille, not to mention the distributed logic of Information Flow of Barwise and Seligman. I keep expecting Fartov and Belcher, but no such luck.
More. More still. Mark: "For goodness sake, don't you have anything better to do with your time than copy-and-paste what seem to be entire books?"
10/14: flaneur: "I find all of this very entertaining."
November is very eventful, with more slabs from mereotelic aka isotelesis, and a new commenter who engages with Mark at length (civilly). Nothing more from Chris.
I have omitted some classic exchanges, including two hilarious parodies (by John Fringe) of other commenters' "arguments", but I have already overstayed my welcome here today. I leave the penultimate words to Tim [11/27]:
I continue to confidently suspect that Langan's CTMU is missing a degree of complexity. What is self-configuring and self-processing is thee i'dea ("I am"), and "language" doesn't fully capture it. Langan, I think, gives short shrift to the syndiffeonic meduim, and endorses his unbound telesis (UBT), but thee i'dea must be self-bounding, so, in short, I don't think he can properly arrive at an understanding of Jesus' "above". And should I suspect other than that the "Iron Rod" with which the "victor" will "smash" "the nations" [below] is the Plank scale?! (See Revelation 2:27, and the context! {and should I suspect other than that "Jezebel" is materialism, qua the lie "universe"?})
11/28: Shadonis to Tim: "I think you're crazy."
Comments are closed on 11/30, as (Mark informs us on a subsequent post), the drain on the server when commenters refresh was getting out of hand. They're still at it, I think, on that new post, but alas, the thrill is gone.
Posted by Dave Maier at 12:50 AM | Permalink
Comments
The president signed an Executive Order on Friday that has me wondering the same thing Dave Maier wonders about CTMU.
It supposedly invokes not only the military draft, but also eminent domain on steroids.
The comments on that Executive Order are likely to have a pattern not unlike the comments on CTMU.
Except, of course, the one by Mikeb above ... but who knows?
Posted by: Dredd | Mar 19, 2012 8:10:42 AM
Ha ha! Hilarious stuff, Dave. Coincidentally, today I noticed the comments header of a blog (this one) which reads:
"Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous."
I think we may soon need such a label at 3QD too! :-)
Posted by: Abbas Raza | Mar 19, 2012 9:03:58 AM
Thanks Abbas! I should repeat that I cannot capture in such a short post the real effect of wading around in this thread. First, it just goes on and on; there are 1000+ comments over 10 months. And the juxtapositions are great: a long exchange of erudite insults ("pseudomathematical Van Helsing","amalgamation of every douchebag Philosophy 101 student you ran into back in college"), followed by yet another wall of text about neo-Scholasticism or morphic resonance or the Gentzen calculus. It's totally addictive (but not for everyone, I must admit).
Posted by: Dave M | Mar 19, 2012 10:32:34 AM
I have not yet formed an opinion on the CTMU having not read it through, but what I
have read so far does not seem to bode too well for the thesis.
I would be interested in Mr. Langan's personal story and how got to where he is right now. He is not proposing this out of an academic institution and so it is certainly an intriguing matter as to how and why he got to the point where is right now with regards to this thesis and with his career (more comments to follow at the link above). I read a little bit about Langan in Gladwell's book. One can certainly learn a little something from this episode even if it has nothing to do with physics
Posted by: Anand Manikutty | Mar 19, 2012 3:18:00 PM
CTMU is not a viable theory. Enough said.
Posted by: Anand Manikutty | Mar 19, 2012 4:18:34 PM
CTMU is basically wrong. It takes some thinking, but the flaw in the logic is very much there.
The CTMU thesis claims that there is a contradiction just because a powerset has been defined. Think about the following question : can we assume that given a mathematical entity, and given something 'real' that it has been mapped to something, any function defined on the set also corresponds to something real? No. It does not follow.
In this case, a mathematical entity has been defined - a set corresponding to 'reality'. Why should the power set of that set correspond to anything 'real'? It can be just something that has been mathematically defined, but lacks any 'reality' as such.
Posted by: Anand Manikutty | Mar 19, 2012 5:37:00 PM
I predict Chris will discover this thread, and then...
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 19, 2012 8:16:50 PM
Anand, you should check out the thread in question at Mark's blog. There is quite a bit of talk about sets in the early going, including Chris's substantive remarks to critics (before the fur really starts to fly). "Anonymous" is one of Chris's more coherent defenders, so look for his remarks too (farther down).
As for Chris's personal story, I think an interview with Errol Morris is also on YouTube, but I haven't watched it. From what I do know I can agree that it's an interesting story. Chris has some pungent opinions on academia which he shares at length (surprise) on Mark's thread.
And it's easy for you to say "enough said", but tell that to the participants on the thread, like isotelesis, who seems not to know the meaning of the word ("enough"). I mean, SIWOTI!
Carlos, Chris is certainly welcome here, but as I mentioned our subject today is not the CTMU (or it wasn't until Anand showed up ...). He shouldn't want to yell at me, if that's your implication – I'm not the one calling him names. Go over there and check it out yourself - you'd fit right in.
Posted by: Dave M | Mar 19, 2012 10:03:42 PM
No, that wasn't my implication. And as much as I love fitting in, I don't have a dog there that I can see.
This *theory* reminds me of Dr. Elliot McGucken.
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 20, 2012 1:10:02 PM
Who?
"“Dr.” McGucken” is a nutball that also uses other names & is the ostensible author of the crackpot “moving dimensions” theory,"
Moving Dimensions
Please note, like you, I am not the one calling anyone names.
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 20, 2012 1:22:34 PM
Hi, I'm koinotely/isotelesis/mereotelic/teleoplection (banned four times while trying to focus on the content of his work and still working to find common ground with other ideas.)
The main reason MarkCC went after Chris Langan was his "guilt by association" of publishing his paper in the "ID" journal Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design. So critics of christian fundamentalist creationism are often quick to jump to conclusions about the CTMU and vilify him, I think Chris deserves some respect and a greater effortto try to understand him and his ideas. I think research in anticipatory systems and named sets will support the CTMU in the future, I also think there is reason to investigate his ideas seriously as someone of the Baha'i Faith, as there are some similarities regarding the harmony of science and religion and the ultimate oneness of truth and reality. I plan to write a paper on these similarities later this year, although there is much I still don't fully comprehend about Langan's ideas, it doesn't help when people get distract by superficial aspects and don't bother to dig deeper.
http://www.commongroundgroup.net/forum/?mingleforumaction=viewtopic&t=16
"Doris A. PA from proxy.aol.com at 5:19pm ET
Hi Chris, I was wondering what religious denomination you are, if any?
Chris Langan at 5:20pm ET
I would have to be considered nondenominational now, because I can't afford to let my logical approach to theology be prejudiced by religious dogma. But most of my religious exposure in the past has been Christian. I'm a respecter of all faiths, among peoples everywhere.
...
Samuel from lndn1.on.wave.home.com at 5:39pm ET
Hi Chris, you mentioned that the universe behaves in certain ways like a mind. Can you elaborate on this?
Chris Langan at 5:41pm ET
The mind works according to the principles of mathematics, including inductive and deductive logic. This goes back to Kant who held that the human mind has categories of perception and cognition. These categories are constraints on phenomenal reality. But phenomenal reality is the only reality we can know. Therefore, constraints on mind function as constraints on reality and systems that function according to similar constraints are similar in function.
...
Sharon from tnt1.morristown.tn.da.uu.net at 5:42pm ET
Chris, Do you believe in creation science or evolution?
Chris Langan at 5:45pm ET
I believe in the theory of evolution, but I believe as well in the allegorical truth of creation theory. In other words, I believe that evolution, including the principle of natural selection, is one of the tools used by God to create mankind. Mankind is then a participant in the creation of the universe itself, so that we have a closed loop. I believe that there is a level on which science and religious metaphor are mutually compatible.
...
Moderator at 6:03pm ET
Chris do you have any final thoughts?
Chris Langan at 6:08pm ET
I'm very concerned about helping others who face some of the problems that I faced when I was growing up. That's what the Mega Foundation is about--gifted people helping gifted people. The profoundly gifted are the greatest and most cost effective resource that we as a species possess, and we should do everything in our power to see that they are not wasted. At the same time, every human being, regardless of IQ, has a microcosm in his or her mind and the abilities of ordinary people are in a sense as important as those of the gifted. If we all work together to solve the world's problems, future generations of mankind will have a much healthier planet to inherit.
http://web.archive.org/web/20000816004851/www.abcnews.go.com/onair/2020/2020_991210_iq_chat.html
“As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.” – Max Planck, the founder of quantum theory. He won Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness.” – Max Planck
“Physics gives rise to observer-participant, observer-participant gives rise to information, information gives rise to physics.” – John Archibald Wheeler, physicist.
Posted by: Hamid | Mar 20, 2012 3:08:25 PM
Isotelesis, my man! Good of you to show up here. Wow, it's like meeting a character from a book or something – awesome. I didn't realize that you kept being banned. Mark had showed amazement at your slabs of text, but never even threatened banning that I remember. (I don't know how Abbas feels about them, but maybe we'll find out.)
I am reluctant to get into it here, but I will say that I agree with you that the similarities between CTMU and ID are superficial and that this can be distracting in the way that you say. However, I don't agree even that Mark "went after" Chris at all (i.e. in the sense I think you mean), let alone because of his "guilt by association" with ID. Given what Mark believes about the CTMU – that it is a mere "muddle" caused by careless use of set-theoretic terminology (roughly, running together a set qua set vs. a collection of objects; those who are interested can check out Mark's own formulation in the early strata of the thread, and see also Anand's comment above) – that alone is enough to earn Chris a post in the "crank" series, along with other such math-abusers like disprovers of Cantor's diagonal argument and people who deny that 0.9999... = 1. (There are some great threads on each of these issues too, with knock-down-drag-outs in the comments, but nothing approaching our own.) ID only came up later.
Posted by: Dave M | Mar 21, 2012 12:58:39 AM
Now, now, Dave. There's no reason to run on and on about how the comments on someone else’s blog ran on and on.
The long, or better yet, the short of it is just this: Mark Chu-Carroll, functioning in his self-appointed capacity as a loud-mouthed hothead and self-styled expert on set theory, model theory, and other branches of mathematics about which he evidently knows next to nothing, got himself good and squashed, period.
Now, I understand that some would dispute this summary. However, facts remain facts.
Incidentally, I notice that this blog, the existence of which I was just today informed in an email, has what look like enthusiastic endorsements from several high-powered atheist-materialists and others of controversial bent.
Are those for real? I mean, with people like that reading this blog, shouldn't you be careful? After all, one of them might lose his head, bumble out of his ivory tower hidey-hole in a fit of antireligious zeal, and subsequently awaken to find himself standing in bare-bottomed glory alongside the impetuous Mark. Not a good or comfortable place to be, one would think.
[PS: You know, I've been thinking of starting up a blog myself. Why continue to pump up the moribund blogs of critics by responding to them as a commentator? Which, of course, raises a couple of questions from the critical perspective. (1) Do you want to be famous? (2) If so, what do you want to be famous AS?]
Posted by: Chris Langan | Mar 21, 2012 2:51:32 PM
Hi Chris, thanks for stopping by.
I certainly agree with you that facts remain facts. However, even if what you say about who squashed whom is one of them, there are so many, many others on display there, and of such glorious extravagance, that I thought some readers might be entertained if I spent my monthly allotment of space (= one one-bazillionth of that taken up by the thread in question) sharing my appreciation for everyone's efforts there. And I do indeed mean everyone's, as full-on train wrecks take a good dozen regular contributors if they are to keep debris flying through the air for a full ten months.
So your summary is not really to the point here. I can understand why you would prefer
but from the reader's perspective: bo-ring. Yes it's selfish but I never claimed otherwise.I must admit that I am not as smart (nor, as you would say, as S.M.A.R.T.; the only one of those people who is a hero of mine own is David Byrne) as 3QD's friends and endorsers, and in any case I would have to let them speak for themselves. But why wouldn't they be real? Most of the time this blog is an aggregator of items of interest to a literate public, and I think the editors do a bang-up job. Plus the other columnists are great. So yes, they're real.
Actually, I would love to see Richard Dawkins take you on. But that's because I suspect that would result in a train wreck of such transcendent magnitude that it would stand to Mark's little tempest in an internet teapot as Chernobyl would to that time I spilled a whole glass of milk on the carpet. So I thank you for your concern, but please don't throw me in that briar patch.
I would totally read your blog. Seriously. But please don't moderate the comments. Commenti blogem reddit.
Posted by: Dave M | Mar 21, 2012 4:31:27 PM
Oops, reddunt. Sorry, Miss Gulamarian!
Posted by: Dave M | Mar 21, 2012 5:15:06 PM
Yes ... well, it must be quite frustrating for a Columbia PhD in philosophy to have no idea what's going on with something like the CTMU. (I know it would be for me.)
Meanwhile, suffice it to say that the Chu-Carroll "train wreck" is what must ultimately happen when truth (e.g., the CTMU) meets a pack of group-thinking internet jackals who refuse to give it an inch, and worse, fight it with every dirty trick at their disposal.
Now, I certainly don't want to flog a dead horse here. But regarding your confessed inability to distinguish between certain facts (e.g., "Mark was crushed on several key points of mathematics") and non-facts (e.g., "Mark and his gaggle of vicious no-name sycophants held their own against Langan!"), you have only two constructive solutions: educate yourself, or defer to authority. (Standing pat would be nonconstructive.)
Of course, I don't fool myself that you'd ever seek an authoritative finding on this matter, as it might prove embarrassing to you and your friends. But to do so, you'd need to line up one or more reputable mathematicians (scientists, philosophers) willing to argue Mark's "points" under their own names in the full light of day (you probably wouldn't be able to complete this step, as no sane, reputable academic would risk it all for the sake of Mark's half-baked opinions). Then you would recruit a panel of moderators acceptable to both sides, prepare a forum, and let the dialogue begin. Finally, you would be edified by the spectacle of Mark's champions being methodically crushed like dimwitted bugs, mixing their juices with Mark's in a swirling vortex narrowing on a strategically located floor drain.
I predict that you will ignore this option on the pretext that your interest is strictly limited to the "entertainment value" of it all. But there's a problem with that: your ill-advised assertion, just above my own recent comment, that I "earned" a place on some list of "cranks".
Here’s a piece of well-meant advice for you, Dave. If you don't want to find your illustrious Columbia philosophy PhD rear end in a sling of metaphysical proportions, try to refrain from such glaring displays of bias in widely-read public fora. They can get you into trouble.
[Re your suggestion that I not moderate the comments in a blog of my own, I don't consider that practical - there are more anti-CTMU cockroaches out there in cyberspace than there are feet to stomp them, and if they were permitted to generate unlimited ad hominem noise, there would be no chance whatsoever of transmitting any worthwhile information or achieving a constructive outcome. But I do see where you're coming from, and would naturally welcome any comments of a constructive nature.]
Posted by: Chris Langan | Mar 22, 2012 1:12:38 PM
Dave, what fresh blight hast thou brought unto and frickin' upon us?
Clearly, these people crave the oxygen of attention (which you have unfortunately given them) as if their lives depended on it. And they also clearly don't have day jobs.
Now do let them return to their well-deserved obscurity rather than extending this conversation further will you?
Some of them seem to have rather pathetically mistaken our laughing at them and making fun of them for actually being interested in the nonsense they are spouting. :-)))
Posted by: Abbas Raza | Mar 22, 2012 5:23:59 PM
Ooh, sorry Abbas – as you know that was not my intent. Let me just say this one thing. It will show that you and I disagree, but I know you and I are okay with that!
Chris – Abbas wants us to knock it off, but I did want to correct you on one thing, from which it may be that the rest follows. We can take this over to my own blog, should I make a relevant post. (I should warn you that no one reads it because I rarely post.) In any case I promise not to claim that you ran away because I crushed you with my superior arguments.
I think you have misread my earlier comment. isotelesis had suggested, just above, that Mark had "gone after" you because you had published in an ID journal. That didn't seem right to me, as the issue of ID only came up later in the thread. After all, Mark is a theist himself (you may have disputed this during the thread, I forget, but he's been explicit about it for a while, and I believe him). I think we have a perfectly good alternate explanation for Mark's attack on you, and that's what I said to isotelesis (emphasis added):
"Given what Mark believes about the CTMU – that it is a mere "muddle" [...] – that alone is enough to earn Chris a post in the "crank" series" – i.e., by Mark's lights, which is what isotelesis and I were discussing. Mark's (implicit) assertion; not mine.
This is clearly relevant to my disagreement with isotelesis about Mark's motivations, but says nothing at all about my own view, which you are therefore wrong to impugn as "biased" at all, let alone "glaringly" so. Sorry not to have been clearer, but I was talking to isotelesis, who may very well have understood me, not to you. Let me spell it out for you: I don't think you're a crank. Does that help?
In any case I can't see why I should be "embarrassed" if the CTMU turns out to be correct, or if its defenders crush its attackers in a swirling vortex or whatever. I simply don't have an opinion on the matter. I also don't see why you care what I think. I'm not an expert in your field (which is also why I'm not that concerned with the CTMU – I have my own rather different problems to worry about and my reading list is long enough as it is). So I'm not "ignoring" your suggestion (as you predict), but if you want someone to organize a debate or something, you should probably get someone else.
I concede your point about your blog, but I do find that the best blogs have comments. Go ahead and moderate them, but that's hard and timeconsuming to do well and you might find that it's not worth it. I hope you do though.
Posted by: Dave M | Mar 22, 2012 7:18:17 PM
Explanation accepted, Dave. I’ll merely point out two salient facts.
(1) Mark did indeed “go after me”, peashooters blazing. I didn’t know him from Adam when he posted his initial critique under the title “Two For One: Crackpot Physics and Crackpot Set Theory”. By the time I took note of its existence, this pungent screed had been splattering the monitor screens of the world for three years on two separate websites, attracting dozens of derisive comments.
Then, when I finally got around to responding, the irrepressible little imp immediately interpreted this as an opportunity to slap up yet another screed with an even more insulting title.
(2) You say that you never meant to call me a “crank”. But if not, then in your sentence
"...that alone is enough to earn Chris a post in the ‘crank’ series, along with other such math-abusers like disprovers of Cantor's diagonal argument and people who deny that 0.9999... = 1,”
it was overkill to follow my name with “other such math abusers...”. It’s a simple matter of style and politesse. When you go too far in your efforts to depict the rationalizations or mental state of someone who has been guilty of insulting behavior, you may at some point be perceived as supporting and gratuitously repeating the insults.
Which brings us to Abbas, who is listed as the Founding Editor of this (meta)blog and is apparently your fellow Columbia University philosophy graduate.
Abbas, may I ask that you exercise just a little of what normally passes for editorial responsibility in this kind of venue, and refrain from lumping me in with those who
"...seem to have rather pathetically mistaken our laughing at them and making fun of them for actually being interested in the nonsense they are spouting"?
While I respect your forthrightness, I presently have no reason to think that you actually care about science or philosophy at all, except as they impact your personal worldview, whatever that might be, and vocational activities - your “day job”, as you might put it from your command console up there in the Italian Alps. Obviously, that goes for my own writings in spades, call them what you will.
In any case, rather than display parallel bias, please feel free to let Dave answer for his own opinions (or not; I don’t care whether he responds again). I merely dropped by after the fact to comment, very calmly I might add, on remarks that you and he had already published. As most of us understand it, that’s the purpose of a "comments" section.
That being understood, I hope there are no hard feelings, and that springtime finds you floating on a fresh-scented carpet of Edelweiss.
Posted by: Chris Langan | Mar 22, 2012 10:02:00 PM
Your admission of evaluative incompetence betrays your implicit denigration of the work in the beginning of the post.
If you are true to your claims of wishing to inject no bias into the discussion, then you should retract those claims. As you yourself have stated, this is not a thread for discussing the contents of the theory/model.
For the sake of impartiality, this is my personal advice.
Posted by: Frank Aiello | Mar 23, 2012 5:18:52 AM
Thanks, Chris, it is indeed very lovely here this spring. All best, Abbas :-)
Posted by: Abbas Raza | Mar 23, 2012 6:19:04 AM
Don't say you weren't warned.
"Your admission of evaluative incompetence betrays your implicit denigration of the work in the beginning of the post."
Well stated sir, but...
He said it was potentially "the most profound metaphysical discovery in history" or, something else. Not good enough?
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 23, 2012 8:50:36 AM
My point was simply that I believe it would be best for the sake of objectivity if all judgements of the contents of the work were left out of the post.
The theory is not the topic of the post, and therefore the initial comments on the work seem to be erroneous.
Posted by: Frank Aiello | Mar 23, 2012 9:09:16 AM
"the most profound metaphysical discovery in history" says exactly nothing..... An empty statement.
List for me the three greatest 'metaphysical discoveries' in history and their follow-on benefits to the global population in terms of lives saved/improved.... Hmmmmm
Posted by: MattInOz | Mar 23, 2012 7:09:48 PM
I'm sure there's a better answer than this one, but...
This reminds me of a gag from Krauss' awesome Universe from nothing lecture: "I just had an awesome idea. What if all matter and energy is made of tiny vibrating strings?" "Okay. What would that imply?" "I dunno."
Posted by: Carlos | Mar 24, 2012 9:44:35 AM
Hi! I'm John Fringe. Just saying 'hello!' to everyone XD
Posted by: John Fringe | Apr 1, 2012 10:56:41 AM
Hi John, thanks for dropping by! (Not really John Noble, I assume ...).
Posted by: Dave M | Apr 2, 2012 12:43:53 AM
Hi Chris! Nice to see you. I found out that there's a mistake in your theory, but couldn't tell you since Mark kicked you out of the other thread.
You believe the CTMU to meet Wheeler’s 1979 criteria for reality theory. (p. 49) One of the criteria is called Law Without Law / Order From Disorder. It states: “Concisely, nothing can be taken as given when it comes to cosmogony.” (p. 8)
You also require the CTMU to have a logical property called comprehensiveness. According to you, the comprehensiveness of the CTMU means, that the CTMU “applies to everything that can be coherently perceived or conceived”. The CTMU attains comprehensiveness by the Mind Equals Reality Principle. This principle “makes the syntax of this theory comprehensive by ensuring that nothing which can be cognitively or perceptually recognized as a part of reality is excluded for want of syntax”. (p. 15)
In the end of this text document, I have attached a treatise by Timo Kiviluoto. The treatise presents a mathematical reason why a reality theory can either be comprehensive or satisfy the “Law Without Law” condition, but not both. In addition, Robert Pirsig, the developer of the Metaphysics of Quality, seems to have known this all along. But his way of expressing this knowledge may indeed have been “nebulous”, like you call it.
A nonrelativizably used predicate it used as if it were to not belong to any particular theory. For example, let us form a concept, whose intension is: “a number whose successor is 0″.
If the concept “a number whose successor is 0″ is used relativizably, its usage is such, that in some way or the other, it’s clear to us, in what context should we place it. If the context is the theory of natural numbers, we determine the concept to not refer to anything, because that theory does not contain negative numbers. But if the context is the theory of integers, we determine the concept to refer to the number -1.
However, if the concept is used nonrelativizably, we do not know, which theory should be used as context. As a result, we might end up making one argument as if “a number whose successor is 0″ refers to -1, and another argument as if “a number whose successor is 0″ refers to nothing, and treat them as if they were to belong to the same theory. Consequently, we might argue that theory to be inconsistent, even if it weren’t.
If a nonrelativizably used predicate is introduced to a theory, the result can be superficially similar to that theory being inconsistent. But on a closer look, something different takes place.
In an inconsistent theory, the statement “The Moon is made of cheese” is both true and false, and relativizable proof can be presented for that. But if a nonrelativizably used predicate is introduced to a theory, this rarely grants us a serious opportunity to claim, that it is both true and false that the Moon is made of cheese. If it did, our entire conception of reality should apparently be broken when we encounter a nonrelativizably used predicate.
Because we are sane even though we have encountered nonrelativizably used predicates, they cannot be argued to break our conception of reality by turning it completely inconsistent. Even if they do turn it inconsistent, they seem to do so only to a nonrelativizable extent.
Attempts to solve the problem of induction have so far failed, because the concept of “relevance”, as it is used in that discussion, is a nonrelativizably used predicate. That means nonrelativizability has serious implications, that are readily observed by someone familiar with metaphysics. To be sure, maybe “relevance” is not used nonrelativizably, and we have just not yet managed to pinpoint the meaning of the concept. But before we do manage to do that, I cannot be proven wrong when I state that concept to be used nonrelativizably.
If the scope of the CTMU extends to contain nonrelativizably used predicates, the theory still cannot be determined to “apply” to them. They are just arbitrarily included within the scope of the CTMU without anyone knowing, what does it mean to state that the CTMU “applies” to them. The CTMU does not bestow any relativizable meaning on them. Consequently, the CTMU cannot be proven comprehensive. It is comprehensive if the Mind Equals Reality Principle is assumed as an axiom. But to do so would be arbitrary. And if so is nevertheless done, the CTMU does not satisfy Wheeler’s Law Without Law criterion: “nothing can be taken as given when it comes to cosmogony.”
Nonrelativizably used predicates cannot be proven to not exist. The Metaphysical Autology Principle could be stated as an axiom, which would entail the nonexistence of nonrelativizably used predicates. This principle “tautologically renders this syntax closed or self-cotained in the definitive, descriptive and interpretational senses”. (p. 15) But it would be arbitrary to have such an axiom, and the CTMU would again fail to fulfill Law Without Law.
The treatise
Let there be a language ℒ, which is a set of well-formed sentences, i.e. sequences of some pre-defined symbols formed by given well-defined recursive rules. Henceforth we write simply “sentences” instead of “well-formed sentences”. A theory is a set Γ of sentences, which are called theorems. Based on certain basic theorems, or axioms, deductive arguments can be made, and the results are also to be taken as theorems.
We can think that the set Γ is at least potentially closed, i.e. that it contains all logical consequences of its axioms. Note that for the purposes of this article, we do not have to do so. In practice any collection of explicit deduced theorems of a theory Γ is always open. Even if A and A ⇒ B belonged to the deduced portion of a potential theory Γ, B would not have to belong to it. This would be the case if B had not yet been deduced.
Let us demonstrate this with the case of the not-yet-resolved Goldbach conjecture. Suppose either it or its negation follows logically from the Peano axioms. Let Gc be some sentence describing the Goldbach conjencture. Should there now be a human actor deducing theorems of the theory based on the these axioms, he or she would necessarily hold either Gc or its negation ¬Gc as a theorem. This is however (probably) not the case for any real human actor, at least at the time of the writing of this article.
Very often, however, we may suppose that our theories are closed, as this makes the formalization of theories simpler and hardly does any real harm to the generality of our thinking.
A predicate is a sentence p(x), with one free variable x. The variable can naturally be something else than x. For example, x+2=4 or “the person y, who was the President of Finland in 1998” are predicates. By the word “predicate” we refer also to more informal expressions which could be interpreted as predicates. For example, the expressions 4-2 and “the President of Finland in 1998” can be understood to correspond with the aforementioned predicates. Rather generally and informally speaking, we can think that predicates are descriptions of some elements in the universe of our discourse.
Historically our usage of the concept “predicate” somewhat resembles the denotation methodology of Bertrand Russell’s theory of definite descriptions[1]. However, the definition above suffices for our current purposes and does not rest on the details of the aforementioned theory, so the reader is not required to be aware of these.
The extension of a given predicate in a theory Γ is the whole of elements a, for which some theorem of Γ is formed if the free variable of the predicate is substituted with a. Generally speaking, the extension of a predicate can be empty, it can have only one element, or it can have many elements.
Existence is a property of a predicate. A predicate exists in a theory Γ if and only if the formal sentence ∃x(p(x)) is a theorem of Γ. This is equivalent to the extension of the predicate p(x) being nonempty.
Let us have a universally logically valid predicate, such as p(x) ⇒ p(x), which is an instance of the tautology A ⇒ A of propositional logic. Its extension in theory Γ is now called the domain of the theory. The domain contains all elements which can be in an extension of some predicate. This is so because a logically valid predicate is always a theorem when any symbol denoting any given element is substituted for its free variable; thus this element is in its extension.
Let us have theory Γ and a predicate p(x) of the same language ℒ. Γ is relativized to the predicate p(x) in the following way: In every sentence φ of Γ, every subsentence of the form ∀y(ψ) is substituted by the modified form ∀y(p(y) ⇒ ψ) and every subsentence of the form ∃y(ψ) by the modified form ∃y(p(y) ∧ ψ). Should the thus obtained sentence φ' be an open sentence, i.e. should it have at least one free variable, we proceed next by listing these free variables and denoting them by, say, y_{1}, ... , y_{i}. Here it holds that i=1 iff there’s but one free variable. Now we substitute the sentence of our current phase of modifications, φ', by the form p(y_{1}) ∧ ... ∧ p(y _{i} ) ⇒ φ'. Repeating this procedure for every sentence φ of Γ yields a new set of sentences Γ'. Finally, for every function symbol f of u variables in the language ℒ, a sentence of the form ∀x_{1}, ... , x_{u}(p(x _{1}) ∧ ... ∧ p(x_{u}) ⇒ p(f(x _{1} , ... , x_{u}))) is added to Γ' to complete the relativization.
What does relativization to a predicate p(x) do to the theory Γ, intuitively speaking? Every structure of the form ∀y(ψ) can be interpreted informally as the statement “for every y it holds that ψ“. This is transformed into the statement “for every y, for which p(y) holds, it holds that ψ”. Every structure of the form ∃y(ψ) amounts to the statement “there is y in such a way that ψ” in the same aforementioned informal interpretation. The modified interpretation, on the other hand, says: “there is y, for which it holds that p(y), in such a way that ψ”.
If the old theorem of has free variables after these modifications, it states informally, that by substituting in it any term for one of these free variables, provided the term is free for this variable, a theorem of Γ results. The new sentence produced by the next step of the relativization process thus states that this applies to all terms t, which are free for the variable in question, to whom it holds that p(t). Finally it is added that for every function f(x_{1} , ... , x_{u}) it holds that if the parameters of this function are in the extension of the predicate p(x), so is the result, i.e. f(x_{1} , ... , x_{u}). In other words, relativizing Γ to p(x) forces Γ to refer exclusively to those elements x for whom it holds that p(x).
[1] Russell, Bertrand, On Denoting. Mind, New Series, Vol. 14, No. 56. (Oct., 1905), pp. 479–493.
Please note that _{x} is a typographical convention intended to be the equivalent of writing x in subscript. Subscript is not supported in this blog.
You can fix the CTMU by saying it doesn't satisfy Law Without Law. After all, isn't it arbitrary to ban arbitrariness?
Posted by: Tuukka Virtaperko | Apr 23, 2012 12:06:05 PM
Sorry!
"If the old theorem of has free variables..."
This should have been: "If the old theorem of Γ has free variables..."
Posted by: Tuukka Virtaperko | Apr 23, 2012 12:09:40 PM
Tuuka, I'm afraid that you've made some mistakes here. The rather elementary nature of these mistakes suggests that your understanding of the CTMU is inadequate for the purpose of locating "errors" in it.
By the way, I've read all of Mark's CTMU threads, just as I warned him I would in case he and his friends and/or sockpuppets were foolish enough to compound certain reprehensible and possibly dangerous lines of misbehavior, so this isn't the first time I've seen your complaints. For what it's worth, I doubt that this forum is any more appropriate than Mark's for discussing them.
If I were you, I'd take this opportunity to let it drop, do a little more homework, and only then go back to the drawing boards for another try (if desired). I don't think you're a bad sort of fellow, but my patience has been considerably eroded of late, and I'd hate to have to categorize you as an opponent.
Meanwhile, no harm done.
Posted by: Chris Langan | May 1, 2012 3:12:03 PM
Mr. Langan,
I similarly disagree with Tuukka's qualm with the CTMU.
However, both Tuukka and I would greatly benefit in understanding the CTMU further if *you* could spell out what is wrong with his criticism.
Posted by: Christian DP | May 1, 2012 8:23:14 PM
Hi!
Mr Langan,
How much potential do you think there is in the work of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_de_Grey
Are you aware of the existience of conscious reincarnation and astral projection?
Have you attempted to study the subject?
Posted by: llama | May 5, 2012 4:56:44 AM
llama:
I'm sure there must be some good place on the interweb for these matters to be discussed, but as Chris has already pointed out, this is not that place.
If anyone does know a good place for such discussion, let that person post a link.
Posted by: Dave M | May 5, 2012 8:56:15 PM
How private should this forum be?
Posted by: llama | May 6, 2012 7:07:53 AM
How private should the forum or place for discussion be?
Posted by: llama | May 6, 2012 7:08:25 AM
http://frontpage.tuukkavirtaperko.net/contact/
Posted by: llama | May 6, 2012 7:58:20 PM
Chris:
If they are elementary, it's surely no big deal for you to point them out?
But you rather spend your time arguing with people, who don't even know what "metaphysics" means?
How about this forum: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/ctmu-discussion
Which parts of the CTMU should I specifically study more?
I have noticed you have received a lot of feedback, that could be considered really bad, as the commenters have not apparently even known, what metaphysics is. The critics at Mark's blog thought the CTMU is supposed to be an ordinary mathematical theory, and then were bewildered that the notion of "set" is not well-defined. Well, I don't have a problem with your use of the concept "set". But it's not my fault others treated you badly.
This isn't a social quarrel for me. I don't care about being labeled an "opponent". I would like to exchange thoughts, not assessments of social relations. Right now, the feedback you have given contains no arguments. I don't want to cross you, but I'd like to understand the CTMU, and unless give me a hand here, you may convince many others but probably not me.
Posted by: Tuukka Virtaperko | May 7, 2012 6:44:07 AM
Chris,
feel free to correspond with me privately. If you use the contact form once, you'll get my e-mail address. Not that it would be that hard to obtain anyway, but I don't like to post it plaintext, as I already receive more spam than needed for the entertainment value.
Posted by: Tuukka Virtaperko | May 7, 2012 6:46:06 AM
Chris,
you have said:
Are self-defining predicates nonrelativizably used predicates?
Is it in any way relevant here that there are formal set theories (NF being possibly the most notable) which permit the universal set?
Posted by: Tuukka Virtaperko | May 7, 2012 7:03:50 AM
Very well then, Tuuka.
Your first and most elementary mistake is your evident assumption that you can undermine any purportedly “absolute” theory with relativization. If this were true, then it would apply even to the theory governing relativization, namely (higher-order) predicate logic. But it doesn’t. That's because any relativization is a form of predication, and predicate logic comprehensively governs all forms of predication.
The theory of predicate logic applies under all relativizations that might be predicated of any given argument. Because it stands above any particular relativization, it can be "unrelativizably used" without fear of generating contradictions. So we know immediately that certain predicates, e.g. predicate logic itself, can be “unrelativizably used”.
As the CTMU is a straightforward model-theoretic extension of predicate logic called a "supertautology", you can't relativize your way out of the CTMU either. (You go on to make several related mistakes with regard to specific CTMU properties, e.g. comprehensiveness and support for Wheeler's "Law Without Law", and principles, e.g. M=R and MAP; they fail on basically the same grounds.)
And now, regarding my responsibility to debate critics of my work, I'd like to make two things clear.
First, almost every debate in which I have ever participated on the CTMU has quickly filled up with anonymous gadflies attracted by the prospect of arguing with me, insulting me, spewing specious nonsense related to their childish pictures of the world, and sometimes falsely claiming priority or credit for my work. As this has occurred despite all assurances to the contrary, I no longer entertain such assurances.
Secondly, as I have found most Internet debates regarding my work to be thankless wastes of my time, I now try to restrict my Internet CTMU discussions to relatively well-known individuals in widely-read, well-documented venues in which there can be no confusion regarding who I am, who they are, what my work says, and who wrote my work.
By "well-known individuals", I mean people who must be careful what they say, because if they were to resort to lies or libel, or to display ignorance regarding things they should know, it would reflect poorly on their real-world reputations. That way, it's not just my reputation at stake; it's theirs as well. Thus, symmetry and fairness have at least a chance to prevail.
In case you find this policy hard to fathom, let's try a little thought experiment. Suppose for a moment that you think you see mistakes in the work of Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett, both of whom reportedly read this blog. Now suppose that you enter your corrections in some thread here in the expectation that they'll take note. Should you expect a response?
Of course, you'd get no response from either of them; they're too big and important for that. In fact, they're so big and important, and you so small and insignificant by comparison, that they'd be enhancing your personal reputation merely by publicly recognizing your existence, let alone validating you as a critic. (We know that this is true because it has been said in their names, and to their knowledge, with no disagreement from them and what appears to be their near-perfect compliance.)
Now ask yourself whether you're entitled to expect a response from somebody who has been on as many TV networks as Messrs. Dawkins and Dennett (from the US, UK, and Canada to Brazil and the People’s Republic of China), but in addition, actually has a coherent model of reality and thus actually stands a chance of backing up what he says.
As the answer would appear to be “no”, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t be so quick to assume that you have some sort of special claim on my time and knowledge. You don’t. When I attend to your critiques or respond to you in any way, I’m doing you something very much like a favor.
Please try to remember this in the future.
Posted by: Chris Langan | May 7, 2012 12:44:58 PM
As the CTMU is a straightforward model-theoretic extension of predicate logic called a "supertautology", you can't relativize your way out of the CTMU either.
Then why hasn't it been published in a mainstream journal on logic, model theory, or any other branch of mathematics? (correct me if I'm wrong) Are you claiming to have shown any new mathematical results, or is it just supposed to be some sort of novel philosophical interpretation of existing mathematical results developed by others? If you are claiming to have developed any new mathematics, surely professional mathematicians are in a better position to judge the mathematical content (which should be possible to divorce from philosophical claims) than a random assortment of internet commentators.
Posted by: Jesse M. | May 7, 2012 7:14:17 PM
Let's just say that Chris has had his fair share of disappointments when it comes to academic affairs, and sensibly so. Without going into all of the details, it may be fair to say that academia is little more than a glorified profit institution, where matters of actual intellectual inquiry and original thought are often secondary (or even irrelevant) to academia's profit incentives.
Let's just put it this way: he has his reasons, regardless of whether you think those reasons are justified or supported.
Posted by: F.J. A. | May 7, 2012 9:38:50 PM
Well, even if he didn't want to submit to a journal he could still write the sort of paper that would be aimed at people with technical training in mathematics (i.e. more formal symbolic formulations, less imprecise natural-language explanations), and publish it on his website or something. Surely "academia" is not such a powerful force of brainwashing that every single person who goes to school to get advanced training in mathematics becomes more interested in profit than truth. What's the point of proclaiming that you've made a great mathematical discovery but not ever writing it out in precise terms that could convince a skeptical but open-minded trained mathematician?
Posted by: Jesse M. | May 7, 2012 10:52:37 PM
he could still write the sort of paper that would be aimed at people with technical training in mathematics
How this would stop his ideas from being leaked out and published by academics?
I believe Chris desires his work to be released to the public in a very specific way.
Posted by: llama - Ramit Kalra | May 8, 2012 5:33:48 AM
How this would stop his ideas from being leaked out and published by academics?
If there was a clear publication/copyright date on the work (there are ways to ensure there can be no controversy about dates, like registering the copyright with the govt.), how could anyone plagiarize it and expect to get away with it? If you're not talking about academics stealing credit but just about them discussing his ideas in published works, I'd think he would want that sort of wider discussion.
I believe Chris desires his work to be released to the public in a very specific way.
So you think he will never publish the mathematical details behind his claims, and just expects his followers to take it on faith that all of his verbal claims can be backed up by precise mathematics?
Posted by: Jesse M. | May 8, 2012 1:26:50 PM
I'll begin with the easier task, that is, replying to others than Langan.
Don't expect too much from academic philosophy. There are lots and lots of people disappointed in the academia, including me and Pirsig. The academy's failure to appreciate the CTMU doesn't tell much about the CTMU. Langan, Pirsig, Northrop, Jung and I have all had problems with academics thinking our work is "complicated" or nonsense and leaving it at that.
They don't always become brainwashed. Sometimes they become more or less psychotic, like Pirsig and Jung. Usually, I guess they just leave the academia, with various consequences.
Well, it would be nice if he published the math.
Posted by: Tuukka Virtaperko | May 8, 2012 1:54:22 PM
Profit and institutional factors may dictate which mathematics is more heavily pursued (even then, not nearly to the same degree as they do in other sciences), but they certainly don't override truth. Mathematicians don't face the dilemma of choosing either profit or truth, because their job is essentially to discover true statements.
I doubt Mr. Langan would disagree.
I also wish he would make a greater effort to disseminate his ideas, and further elucidate the CTMU. If the CTMU is as important as Langan claims,--I suspect it is--it certainly requires more than a 56-page paper.
The writing in said paper is dense, its ideas are novel, and the implications are subtle. The CTMU is screaming for a more comprehensive treatment.
The bloggers criticizing it are clearly unqualified to make an assessment of the CTMU, but that shouldn't prevent Mr. Langan from outright engagement with the online community. Some of us are immensely interested in the CMTU (e.g., Tuukka and myself) and genuinely want to understand it more fully.
Are we entitled to it? No. But I think he's doing himself a disservice. As it stands now, the CTMU is being left by the wayside.
My hope is that he will continue to (self-)publish his ideas in some form or another.
Posted by: Christian DP | May 8, 2012 2:17:53 PM
Langan, Pirsig, Northrop, Jung and I have all had problems with academics thinking our work is "complicated" or nonsense and leaving it at that.
All the people you mention besides Langan were publishing more philosophical (or perhaps psychological) ideas, where the criteria for acceptance are much, much more subjective than in math. And I thought Langan's main claim to be an innovator was based on his claim that his theory could be expressed in some kind of precise mathematical form (why else would he make comments like this one about Pirsig's Metaphysics of Quality: "comparing it to the CTMU would be like comparing a Ford Model T to the Starship Enterprise"?) Are you saying that even if Langan's claims to have some sort of quasi-mathematical theory of everything turned out to be completely bogus, you would still see him as an important innovator? If so, can you summarize some important conceptual innovation you think he has presented which doesn't involve any technical logical/mathematical jargon?
Posted by: Jesse M. | May 8, 2012 2:22:05 PM
This is still going on. That says something about something but I'm too confused to figure out what.
Posted by: bjm | May 8, 2012 3:35:48 PM
If Chris is still around, I'd like to ask: is he going to publish the book "Design for a Universe" that was mentioned in one of his interviews (IIRC)? (Or some equivalent "big book" type of thing?)
I for one would love to see more from Chris than the stuff that's already available. The existing CTMU paper is an introduction and a promissory note (a point that often seems lost in these debates). Isn't it about time we had the fully developed model?
Posted by: P. George Stewart | May 8, 2012 8:20:35 PM
Jesse M:
In my opinion, Langan has overemphasized the mathematical aspects of the CTMU, or he has not yet published most of his work. I would not refute the statement that Lagnan is the worst of the listed authors. But he is definitely not worse than some prestigious academic philosophers, such as Graham Priest or Nicholas Rescher. As far as we are concerned of the foundations of metaphysics, he even outsmarts Carnap, who basically ended up saying there can't be any metaphysics.
The CTMU paper from the ISCID journal is somewhat better than Rescher's Rationality (1989), yet Rescher is hailed as the youngest person to ever have obtained a Ph. D. of Philosophy from Princeton, blah blah, having written over 400 articles and a hundred books. Even the negative tone of writing is similar between Rescher and Langan, with Langan being actually less annoying and pompous. So why is this Rescher hailed as some sort of an embodiment of philosophy, and Langan regarded as a nincompoop by academics? That sounds wrong.
I have no problem with this statement, as the Starship Enterprise is fictional.
Langan's contribution is important to me, personally. I would not have returned to philosophy and developed the SOQ if I had not seen Langan developing "supertautology", which is the same thing I was trying to develop five years ago. When I saw someone else making the same mistake as I did, I managed to regain my sense of self-worth as a philosopher despite having made a serious mistake earlier. Anything I could say about this would not necessarily be perceived as thanks by Langan, but I would like to assure that my feeling of gratitude is nevertheless genuine, even if I felt that emotion due to a reason not everyone agrees with.
The CTMU is something of an embodiment of the mistakes of Langan's predecessors. If we reject it, we are only being unfair if we don't also reject the supremacy of the stagnant Western philosophical tradition and finally focus on constructive non-essentialist metaphysics.
The funny thing in this is, that if the academia is going to reject the CTMU, it will contribute to its own downfall. Here, the academia is not primarily a scientific entity in pursuit of knowledge - rather, it resembles more like an animal struggling to survive. It is in the survival interest of the academic tradition to ignore the CTMU to as great extent as possible.
If the academia cannot ignore the CTMU, it can adopt it. This is inconvenient, as it will portray the academia as mediocre and unable to recognize accomplishment until non-academic discourse forces it to do so. It would also make the academia an advocate of a theory which is used to support eugenics and totalitarianism. The association between the CTMU and creationism adds to the inconvenience, although it's not a real credibility problem for the academia, if they themselves just understand that it's not.
The academia can also reject the CTMU. It can do this summarily and without "proper trial", but this would undermine its reputation as an authority that searches for knowledge. However, if the academia gives the CTMU a proper trial and then rejects it, the reasons for rejecting the CTMU could be used against the entire Western philosophical tradition itself.
Langan could very well have created the academic catch-22 of the century. In order for this plot to succeed, the CTMU should be given as much attention as possible, because the more attention the CTMU gets, the more ridiculous and isolated the academia will look like if it ignores it.
Posted by: Tuukka Virtaperko | May 9, 2012 9:43:21 AM
Chris,
Just a quick recap. I'm pretty sure you know this already, but this is also for the other readers:
Suppose we use the predicate "a number, whose successor is 0" relativizably. If so, we know, whether this predicate is to be placed in the theory of natural numbers, or in the theory if integers. In the former case, the extension of the predicate is empty - in the latter, it's non-empty. But if we use nonrelativizably the predicate "a number, whose successor is 0", we do not know, in which context should it be placed. Therefore, we can argue the predicate to be empty, and to be non-empty, which usually is a contradiction.
There. Now, let's get to what you wrote. I didn't claim I can undermine any purportedly absolute theory with relativization. If I did, I would believe I can undermine just about any theory, and not the CTMU in particular. That would make me the generic skeptic, whose argumentation is usually irrelevant.
You said:
What do you mean? I see the following options:
1. "Any given argument" means "any given argument of predicate logic". How about lambda calculus then? Not all arguments are based on predicate logic. In fact, as predicate logic includes the "anything follows from a contradiction" -property, not much of natural language works like predicate logic. In real life, we don't believe that when a person utters an inconsistency, he implies, that the moon is made of cheese. Instead, natural language works more like relevance logic.
2. "Any given argument" refers not only to an arbitrary statement of predicate logic, but also to any statement that can be obtained by expanding the theory of predicate logic. If so, the predicate "any given argument" is a nonrelativizably used predicate. If we nevertheless make the assumption, that we just somehow know what "any given argument" means, your statement expresses an arbitrary belief. If this statement is a part of the CTMU, I would like to know, what do you mean by stating that the CTMU satisfies Law Without Law.
My intention was not necessarily to criticize the CTMU, but also to present a question. Relativizability gives reasonable grounds to argue, that M=R and MAP are not true. This is not to say that they were not true. Metaphysics is used to define truth, so metaphysical theories themselves cannot be subjected to assessments of truth and falsehood - that would require a "meta-metaphysics", which would apparently defeat the purpose of having metaphysics in the first place. I'm sure you know this already. But as it is perfectly reasonable to devise a metaphysical theory, that does not include M=R or MAP or both, I'm not sure what you mean by stating the CTMU is in accordance with "Law Without Law".
Is "Law Without Law" intended to be the same thing as Occam's razor, then? The same thing that eliminated the cosmological constant from Einstein's work? (There is renewed interest in that constant, though, but it did not surface in Einstein's lifetime.) Or, much more interestingly, are there some non-formal but observable phenomena, which make it unreasonable to develop metaphysics without M=R and MAP, despite the fact that the relativizability issue gives some credibility to the idea that M=R and MAP are not necessary?
About the other things, then.
I do not require you to answer every critique of the CTMU, as most of them truly do seem like a waste of time. I do not require you to have this discussion with me publicly, but so far, that's what we have done. I don't know how your policy or code of conduct is relevant for me. If you do not wish to discuss this, you will not do so. I may still try to have a discussion with you. That does not mean I'd demand you to answer my inquiries. It only means I think I should try to communicate with you.
If you experience some kind of adversity (waste of time, etc.) by having this discussion with me, I don't find myself entitled to demand you to do it anyway. But if you choose to do it anyway, I am not responsible for your choice. If you require assurance that I'm not a total dolt, maybe you might want to take a look at my work. As you can see, the website is not yet complete.
Posted by: Tuukka Virtaperko | May 9, 2012 10:17:07 AM
Tuuka Virtaperko:
I have no problem with this statement, as the Starship Enterprise is fictional.
That's true, but the objects used in analogies always contain features which are peripheral to the intent of the person making the analogy. I think the intent of the analogy was to express some idea that he was using far more sophisticated "technology" (mathematical stucture, presumably) to express similar ideas to Pirsig, he wasn't using the analogy to express the idea that his theory was more "fictional" than Pirsig's. Do you really find the second reading plausible, especially given the statement's bragging tone? I think his point would have been unaltered if he had compared his theory to a supersonic jet and Pirsig's to the Wright brothers' plane.
I asked:
If so, can you summarize some important conceptual innovation you think he has presented which doesn't involve any technical logical/mathematical jargon?
Tuukka replied:
The CTMU is something of an embodiment of the mistakes of Langan's predecessors. If we reject it, we are only being unfair if we don't also reject the supremacy of the stagnant Western philosophical tradition and finally focus on constructive non-essentialist metaphysics.
This seems like a totally non-specific answer. Can you give some specific idea of Langan's which you think would be philosophically "important" somehow, either as a new innovation or at least as a new way of thinking about ideas already present in the "Western philosophical tradition", even if all his claims to mathematical formalization were revealed as incorrect or incoherent? What are some important ideas that remain in Langan's work if you strip it of all the mathematical-sounding jargon (and allusions to existing mathematical concepts like Godel's theorem)? Please give one or more specific examples.
Also, without specifics I have no idea what you mean when you make rather grandiose-sounding assertions like "The CTMU is something of an embodiment of the mistakes of Langan's predecessors. If we reject it, we are only being unfair if we don't also reject the supremacy of the stagnant Western philosophical tradition" and "if the academia gives the CTMU a proper trial and then rejects it, the reasons for rejecting the CTMU could be used against the entire Western philosophical tradition itself." Why? What if the CTMU is rejected on the basis of its mathematical-sounding jargon being incoherent? These statements of yours could only be justified if you could present some core philosophical ideas of the CTMU that don't depend on any of the mathematical claims, and show that it's impossible to reject these core philosophical ideas without rejecting "the entire Western philosophical tradition." (and if none of the core ideas are actually novel but already existed in this tradition, then why would they deserve the new name "CTMU"?)
I'm also curious what you mean when you present "constructive non-essentialist metaphysics" as an alternative to the Western philosophical tradition, as it seems to me there have been plenty of non-essentialist philosophers in the Western tradition, like all those who advocate versions of process philosophy. But perhaps I misunderstand what you mean by "essentialist" (and I don't know what you mean by "constructive", unless you're talking about mathematical constructivism).
Posted by: Jesse M. | May 9, 2012 12:32:32 PM
Tuukka, you’ve made a few more mistakes here. To your credit, they are of a kind that you wouldn’t even know how to make if you knew nothing at all about your subject matter.
Despite the mistakes, I have to give you additional credit for two things.
First, you’re a straightforward sort of fellow with at least enough courage and intellectual honesty to use your full real name in public.
Secondly, even though you don’t fully understand the CTMU, you understand somewhat more of it than most, and you seem to acknowledge that the CTMU is in some way important. If this is accurate, then it indicates a certain amount of intelligence.
A bit of advice. You are now being harangued by an anonymous gadfly of the sort that never fails to show up in any CTMU-related discussion. These gadflies are entirely parasitic; they never contribute anything substantive, but at best, merely pretend to do so. They are always annoying, but some are worse than others. Some are cunning, street-smart little buggers in a polemical, content-free sort of way, and if one is ignorant or unwary, they can almost appear to be saying something of value (whereas in reality, this is virtually never the case).
Don’t play its game with it until it comes out of the shadows with real, verifiable information regarding itself, thus showing that it is willing to put its money where its mouth is. (If it does that, I'll be sure to swat it for you, a prospect of which it is no doubt aware.) If you allow it to do so, it will merely continue to practice self-concealment as it does its best to muddy the water, outputting progressively more asinine, basically ad hominem nonsense until all that remains is a Chu-Carroll “train wreck”, complete with terminal censorship.
I don’t know about you, but I’m getting very impatient with that sort of thing. If you value my conversation at all, take care to maintain a healthy distance from the fly. Trust me, it will only end up biting you if you feed it.
Posted by: Chris Langan | May 9, 2012 2:03:36 PM
Don’t play its game with it until it comes out of the shadows with real, verifiable information regarding itself, thus showing that it is willing to put its money where its mouth is. (If it does that, I'll be sure to swat it for you, a prospect of which it is no doubt aware.)
It really is pretty trollish to attack me in this dehumanizing way (comparing me to an insect, referring to me as "it") before even requesting identifying information, leaving aside the fact that anonymity is a commonly-accepted practice on the internet. Anyway, as if it makes any difference, "Jesse M." is short for Jesse Mazer (it's a pretty unique name so feel free to google for facebook page, personal website, random comments made in other forums etc., though I don't see why any of that would be interesting or relevant) and I don't claim any professional credentials in philosophy or mathematics, I'm just an interested amateur (my undergraduate degree was in physics so I have a better-than-average knowledge of math, but that's about it). Note that when I suggested it's difficult to take your mathematical claims seriously until you publish a technical paper that can be evaluated by professionals, I didn't claim that I would be in a position to evaluate it myself; in a fairly cut-and-dried field like mathematics though, I think it's reasonable for the layman to place a lot of faith in professional judgment.
Posted by: Jesse M. | May 9, 2012 2:20:39 PM
I do not tend to suppose people have said things I would not like, unless they have said them clearly. I am aware that Langan could have meant what you said, but so what?
The CTMU is essentialist (reality is language), but it's semi-mathematical approach expresses so clearly the assumptions behind essentialism that these unwise assumptions begin to seem unwise, like they should. Why do I say the assumptions seem unwise? Well, I've found philosophy to be much more interesting without them, and so have various Buddhist authors, such as Nagarjuna in his The Fundamentals of the Middle Way. In Pirsig's Metaphysics of Quality, the traditional problems of essentialism are avoided with the concept of Dynamic Quality. The concept has perhaps little analytic use, but it seems good for clearing misconceptions.
That depends on how do we exactly argue the CTMU to be incoherent.
What are the mathematical claims of the CTMU? The CTMU paper does not seem to present any. According to the CTMU paper, reality is an SCSPL whose grammar is formed of telic recursion. Such grammars do not necessarily belong to the realm of mathematics, if mathematics is understood as a normative science.
In process philosophy, the following holds:
That's pretty fine, but the following seems like an adulteration:
The "fire" is supposed to be non-object and a no-thing, but then they go on to try to define it. What does this mean?
Maybe the definitions are some sort of metaphoric illustrations. In this case, they do not interest me. They are not analytic, and their value as poetry seems low, too. If process philosophy is only about writing boring poems about the fire, I don't like it.
Or maybe the definitions are what they look like: definitions. In this case, Heraclitus has been misunderstood as an essentialist.
I like philosophy to combine the elements of process philosophy and essentialism, in that philosophical theories are constructed to be aware of their own limitations. The CTMU and most of Western philosophy are not -- they insist they have no limitations or are unable to conceptualize the limitations they do have.
The gettier problem is perfectly good philosophy, and Eintalu's 2001 doctoral dissertation on the problem of induction is that, too. And Gödel's incompleteness theorems are also good philosophy. But these share the trait of proving that something, which people thought to be true or to exist, is not true or does not exist. Hence, they are deconstructive. I would like philosophy to be constructive -- to introduce new ideas -- and I like the Metaphysics of Quality by Robert Pirsig, because it goes into that direction.
Posted by: Tuukka Virtaperko | May 9, 2012 3:12:13 PM
OK then, “Jesse Mazer” (if that’s really your name, which you seem to admit is presently impossible to verify - I'll give you one more chance to address this problem before evicting you from my side of the discussion).
As a philosophical and mathematical amateur claiming to possess academic credentials in “physics”, you probably have no idea how academia works with respect to complete outsiders – not just people without academic credentials, mind you, but people who may have been actively excluded from academia by roughly the same exclusionary methods that HUAC used during the McCarthy Era (secret eyes-only folders and dossiers, behind-closed-doors reports and discussions, and so on – if you ever heard your grade school teachers threaten students to the effect that some form of misbehavior would “go on your permanent record”, I refer to the college-level analogue).
Here, in my limited experience – and everyone’s experience is limited, is it not? – is how it works.
Academia filters its input by content and context. The CTMU is already widely known to have philosophical (and theological) content not in conformance with academic consensus. (Why is this "widely known"? Because I said as much on national television, more than once, and wrote as much in several places as well.) That alone makes it ineligible for explicit academic support, and thus renders academic publication all but irrelevant. Delusions to the contrary notwithstanding, academic journals do not publish work by nonacademics bearing negatively on academic consensus, or weighing decisively on issues regarding which academia is officially agnostic.
Obviously, empirical observation alone is enough to confirm this for any reasonable person. However, if anyone knows of an academic journal that handles such matters differently but is nevertheless well-respected by most academics, just spill the beans and I'll be happy to drop the editor an email. (I’m out of the academic loop, so I don’t exactly have such information at my fingertips.) While I personally don’t see an immediate need for a flurry of pro forma chicken-scratching, I’m getting a little tired of this nonsense, so just point out the journal, and if I find it suitable, I’ll be happy to provide plenty of mathematical squiggles in which even the most hard-boiled CTMU critics can finally soak their aching heads.
On a related note, you seem to think that the CTMU is free of mathematics. However, that the CTMU is “mathematical” is quite obvious from its inclusion of mathematical terminology. If you believe that the terminology was wrongly or vapidly used, or fails to specify a unique mathematical structure, then the burden is on you to explain how we can know this to be the case.
Of course, that will be a problem for you, as the symbolic rendition of any meaningful formal structure in mathematics is merely shorthand for a set of natural-language definitions, usually those of variables, constants, relational and operational symbols, and auxiliary typography, often accumulated through a compounding sequence of successively less primitive and more heavily-defined structures. Mathematically, symbolic expression offers nothing extra of a substantive nature. At best, it offers an efficient shorthand for purposes of computational convenience; at worst, it confuses and obfuscates from the perspective of those unfamiliar with the operative symbology (as can be readily attested by those who have read many advanced mathematics papers, including professional mathematicians who dare to venture outside their specialties).
I don't blame you for not knowing these things, "Jesse". I do, however, blame you for the derisive tone of your comments and your general (bad) attitude, which seems to imply that you've taken it all into account when in point of fact, you've obviously failed to do so.
I therefore request that you butt out of the discussion, as there's really no need for the kind of comments you've been making here (at least from my own perspective as a central participant in said discussion).
Fair enough? (Or would you rather pull a "Chu-Carroll" on us and display your spectacular ignorance regarding basic mathematical terminology, in which case I fail to see what's in it for anybody but you?)
Posted by: Chris Langan | May 9, 2012 3:23:45 PM
Chris,
well, it seems Jesse introduced himself, and I'm not very picky about with whom I talk. I haven't tended to run into such severe arguments with people as you have. There have been some exceptions, such as my ancient arguments with Bodvar Skutvik. Generally, I don't require people to get everything right the first time, and I avoid negative thoughts of people even in situations where I could establish a cogent argument that the person I'm discussing with is not smart. I haven't always been this way, but taking a very offensive approach tends to polarize the debate and make people resort to rhetoric in situations where logic would also be appropriate, which is too bad. In any case, I was initially informed of your theory by an anonymous commentator, so I don't quite feel resentment towards them.
I see you did not answer my question.
Posted by: Tuukka Virtaperko | May 9, 2012 3:26:26 PM
I do not tend to suppose people have said things I would not like, unless they have said them clearly. I am aware that Langan could have meant what you said, but so what?
There's always some amount of ambiguity in natural-language statements, some reliance on the fact that the audience will be able to distinguish "reasonable" interpretations from unreasonable ones. Are you saying you never understand any analogy unless it is followed by a detailed explanation of what features are supposed to be significant and which aren't?
The CTMU is essentialist (reality is language), but it's semi-mathematical approach expresses so clearly the assumptions behind essentialism
Again you're being completely non-specific. "Assumptions" such as...?
In Pirsig's Metaphysics of Quality, the traditional problems of essentialism are avoided with the concept of Dynamic Quality.
How does the concept avoid these problems? If you say Chris' theory is essentialist because it says everything is language, is Pirsig's MOQ not saying everything is Quality? (I recall he postulated both "dynamic" and "static" forms) Also, are you just using "essentialism" as a synonym for monism, basically the idea that all of reality is different variations of the same "type" of thing, whether language or matter or mind? Normally essentialism means something rather different, I understand it to mean the idea that reality is composed of distinct types of "things" which each have "essential" properties that are clearly distinguished from other non-essential properties (for example, a religious person might say that a soul is an essential property of a "person", while having two legs is a feature found in most people but isn't really essential since you can still be a "person" if you've lost a leg).
What are the mathematical claims of the CTMU? The CTMU paper does not seem to present any. According to the CTMU paper, reality is an SCSPL whose grammar is formed of telic recursion. Such grammars do not necessarily belong to the realm of mathematics, if mathematics is understood as a normative science.
Any set of formal rules for manipulating symbols is a part of mathematics. I only understand the word "grammar" in terms of some set of rules for deciding whether a string of symbols is grammatical or not...if this is the sense you're using it above, what are the symbols and what are the rules? Likewise I only understand "recursion" in terms of the idea of a function being fed its own output back as input through repeated iterations, what is the function and what are the inputs and output? (and what distinguishes "telic" recursion from other forms?) If you're not using these words in their usual mathematical sense, then I have no idea what "reality is an SCSPL whose grammar is formed of telic recursion" could even mean.
The "fire" is supposed to be non-object and a no-thing, but then they go on to try to define it. What does this mean?
What does "defining" it have to do with whether it's an object/thing? You can distinguish between different types of weather systems without denying that they are all "processes" in the sense that they are patterns of motion in air molecules, and a process philosopher would go further and say everything, including the molecules themselves, is a type of process (perhaps a pattern of causal relationships between "events" which have no distinguishing features other than their place in the causal network).
Posted by: Jesse M. | May 9, 2012 3:54:34 PM
For some background, Chris, ""Jesse"" is a longstanding audience member at 3QD and shows great rationality and insight usually, except when she disagrees with me.
Asking her to butt out of the conversation is a bit ironic, as while this conversation was perhaps tangentially about you, but only that, it was certainly never intended to include you (risky bit of business that; I warned them this would happen).
This post was never intended to be (merely) a discussion, review, or critique, of yet another incoherent incomprehensible theory of everything. It was intended to bear witness to what can happen when a certain class of internet denizen get together to sort these sorts of things out using ad hominems rather than rhetoric.
Don't you have a blog or something?
Posted by: Carlos | May 9, 2012 4:37:07 PM
I am using 'rhetoric' in its higher sense in this case, to mean persuasive discourse, as opposed to the lower meaning of bombastic verbal bullying (mere rhetoric, empty rhetoric). I'm sure you know the difference.
Posted by: Carlos | May 9, 2012 4:46:06 PM
I'm terribly sorry, Carlos, but my work and I are hardly "tangential to the discussion". Maybe you'd better scroll back up to the top of the page, and then start reading.
By the way, as I've tried to make clear, merely being "a longstanding audience member at 3QD" is not good enough to qualify for any sort of protracted discussion with me. That's because many of the miscreants who have disrupted past CTMU threads have been, or claimed to be, "longstanding audience members" of the fora in which these disruptions occurred.
I'm sorry if I my previous attempts to explain this were too incoherent or incomprehensible for you.
At any rate, now you know (I hope).
Posted by: Chris Langan | May 9, 2012 4:48:28 PM
Carlos,
What is incoherent a/b the CTMU? It must be comprehensible to some degree, since you've ostensibly managed to understand where it goes wrong and thus what exactly renders it incoherent.
As for Einstein's dictum, it's important to remember it has limited application with respect to subject matter and/or audience.
Posted by: Christian DP | May 9, 2012 5:28:51 PM
I'm assuming you mean incoherent b/c of a technical/logical defect. If not, then I retract the first part of my previous response.
It is possible you were just being redundant by describing the CTMU as both incomprehensible *and* incoherent.
Posted by: Christian DP | May 9, 2012 5:34:10 PM
Chris,
if my question is irrelevant due to mistaken assumptions, feel free to explain the mistakes instead.
Jesse,
No. I'm saying it's not very useful for me to start going all ARRRR! on Chris for some metaphor he dropped quite casually, when there are more interesting things to discuss. Maybe Chris was right about you. :D It serves little purpose to go picking a fight with people just for the sake of it. Being right in a debate is usually less relevant for me than the debate being interesting. Even if I felt I'm right and the other guy is wrong, I might not deem that an interesting topic of discussion at all.
Assumptions such as reality ought to be perceived in terms of one or more essences, which are somehow more "real" than any other conceivable essences, or more true than nihilism.
Dynamic Quality is a nonrelativizably used predicate, and Pirsig stresses it is undefinable. As such, it has no analytic use as a metaphysical category. From an analytical standpoint, the statement that reality consists of static quality and Dynamic Quality is meaningful if interpreted to mean, that all nonrelativizably used predicates are equivalent. This can't be proven, but it's okay as an assumption, because it makes some sense to have one nonrelativizably used predicate in a metaphysical theory, but little sense to have multiple nonrelativizably used predicates, which are not assumed equivalent, and an elaborate discussion of their mutual differences. The latter would be reasonable maybe when making tentative speculations intended to arrive at a creative flash of insight, but to present something like that as a conclusive philosophical statement or a grand theory seems a bit suspicious to me. I could accept it if the theory were really good, but I doubt it can be very good.
Some MOQists are essentialists, but I'm not. Pirsig says the theory of the MOQ is subordinate to the indefinable Dynamic Quality, which means people are free to abandon the MOQ if they find it moral to do so, and that under such circumstances, the act of abandoning the MOQ is in accordance with the MOQ. To give some perspective, this is quite different from how Rescher describes rationality. Rescher stresses, that abandoning rationality is absolutely immoral from the viewpoint of rationality, and furthermore, that all other points of view are unvirtuous, that is, bad or evil.
Pirsig's statement that everything consists of Quality is, to me, a rhetorical statement that conveys no analytic meaning, but does the job of discouraging the reader from thinking of the MOQ as an extension of materialism, idealism or Cartesian dualism, which would be a mistake.
No. If I speak of essentialism, and provide only monisms as examples, it does not follow that I claim all essentialism to be monism.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Me neither. They are straight from Langan's CTMU paper. As I don't know what they are, I can't assert that they are mathematical. What I'm saying is that Chris's way of using these concepts seems such, that it is impossible for anyone to know, what they are. Such use of concepts is commonplace and widely accepted in academic philosophy, which is a very bad thing! The problem of induction has been subjected to scrutiny ever since Hume, and can be traced back to antiquity, and scholars are really trying to solve it, even though it has never been defined any better than the CTMU! So why is the CTMU nonsense, and mainstream academic philosophy is not?
I'd say the "real" problem of induction is, whether the problem of induction exists or not. But most of the literature concerning the problem of induction seems to assume that it does, and then try to solve it. The prospects of succeeding at that seem rather dim.
Generally speaking, if something "is a thing", it is a relativizably used predicate. Nonrelativizably used predicates cannot be demonstrated to have any properties. Yet the interpretators of process philosophy go on to describe the properties of processes.
That's why I said process philosophy is not interesting in itself. Too little can be said about it. But to understand the point of process philosophy would allow a person to develop "constructive non-essentialist" philosophy (for the lack of a better expression), which is just like essentialist philosophy except that it acknowledges its own limitations. If a theory acknowledges its limitations, it does not encourage people to simply discard any observations that contradict the theory, or to proceed with the unwarranted expectation that although the theory does not explain these observations now, it surely will do so in the future, after we have understood it better. In other words, abandoning essentialism helps us abandon arbitrary conceptions. That's why I find it hard to believe any essentialist theory such as the CTMU could be a Wheeler-style reality theory that satisfies "Law Without Law".
Posted by: Tuukka Virtaperko | May 9, 2012 5:39:16 PM
"I'm terribly sorry, Carlos, but my work and I are hardly "tangential to the discussion". Maybe you'd better scroll back up to the top of the page, and then start reading."
You mean the very top Chris?
Recreating the train wreck on these pages might be instructive, as a simulation of an accident might be, where we can witness how others are drawn in, but since there is little doubt that no clarification of the "theory" will manifest itself, the subject remains the style, and not the original subject matter. It's fine to assert that nobody can understand your theory even well enough to be not even wrong about it, but then why continue?
Posted by: Carlos | May 9, 2012 7:21:49 PM
Carlos - that was the post. The discussion is below it. The discussion may be orthogonal to the post, but Chris's views are surely relevant to the discussion, and he is welcome to contribute to it as he sees fit. Although I still hope that someone will find a better venue ...
Posted by: Dave M | May 9, 2012 7:31:01 PM
Not so sure Michael Frayn and Tom Stoppard have had no hand in this. You are an incomparable host, Dave.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | May 9, 2012 9:09:29 PM
Elatia -
Funny that you say this even as I continue to usher everyone out the door! Thanks for coming, everyone, but I really have to get up early tomorrow (*yawn*). There's an all-night diner around the corner, I think ...
Posted by: Dave M | May 9, 2012 9:35:10 PM
Well, Dave -- I meant it in a valedictory way, not a one-more-drink-pulleez kind of way. I hope they find the diner...
Posted by: Elatia Harris | May 9, 2012 9:43:18 PM
Yes Dave, as you say. My question to Chris was more a poke at his style of discourse that it was a suggestion that perhaps he too, should butt out, although I was on post-surgical pain meds when I wrote it so I might have been less clear than usual.
Posted by: Carlos | May 10, 2012 6:48:45 AM
Tuukka,
Let's take your example: "the number whose successor is 0".
The statement is an abbreviation of the *well-defined* predicate "the number whose successor is 0_i". Here the subscript i denotes the set that 0_i is a member of.
The i is a placeholder that takes on a specific value when it is uttered or written, either by dint of context or if it is stated explicitly. Otherwise, it is not a well-defined predicate.
What we are considering (I'm using your two examples, but there are infinitely more) are the two *distinct* predicates at the semantic level: "the number whose successor is 0_z" (where z is the set of integers) and "the number whose successor is 0_n" (where n is the set of natural numbers).
0_z and 0_n share many similar properties, and they are colloquially deemed to be same (hence, we drop the subscript), but I assure you they are two distinct mathematical objects.
In fact, they're usually viewed as the unique additive identity in their respective algebraic structures.
We can create a map between the two structures so that 0_z and 0_n can be used interchangeably for all practical purposes, but it is important to remember that they're different.
Does the predicate "the town that I live in" also raise the same issue as your example? Does "P(X)"?
If I say that I'm using "P(X)" nonrelativizably, does this lead to a contradiction?
When we talk a/b predicates, we're talking a/b a subset of well-defined functions. So how does the ambiguity of an improper predicate bear on the CTMU?
Posted by: Christian Dipoce | May 10, 2012 10:59:45 AM
Christian,
if we speak of a number, whose successor is 0, without ever specifying, even implicitly, whether we are operating in the theory of natural numbers or the theory of integers, we don't know whether it refers to 0_z or 0_n. Furthermore, we don't necessarily know it can refer to only 0_z or 0_n without producing an inconsistency. In order to avoid an inconsistency, it might be necessary to have that predicate to occasionally refer to 0_z and, at other times, to 0_n. In this case, we do not necessarily know which instances of the predicate "a number, whose successor is 0" refer to 0_z and which to 0_n. There could be multiple ways to replace instances of "a number, whose successor is 0" with either 0_z or 0_n in such a way that we end up having an argument which does not lead to a contradiction, but if the author has not specified, which one of those ways does he mean, we don't necessarily know what message did the author try to convey with his argument.
No predicate arises the relativizability issue in and of itself. A certain way of using a predicate does. I explained this in the previous paragraph. The supertautology in the CTMU is specific enough that the supertautology can be deemed a nonrelativizably used predicate. Even this is not the core of the problem I presented.
The core of the problem is that it makes no sense to say the CTMU satisfies "Law Without Law", that is, it has no arbitrary assumptions, if we assume M=R. According to M=R, the CTMU bestows some meaning on everything that is real, yet I have no idea how it's supposed to bestow meaning on nonrelativizably used preciates. I don't require all meaning to be formally logical, but the CTMU paper does not specify other kind of meaning that I could identify.
According to MAP, there are no nonrelativizably used predicates. But this again seems like an arbitrary assumption, which makes the CTMU fail to satisfy "Law Without Law". If it's not arbitrary, how does Langan arrive at this conclusion?
Posted by: Tuukka Virtaperko | May 10, 2012 12:09:40 PM
Tuuka,
"A number whose successor is 0" is an improperly formed predicate if no further specification is granted. If it is used nonrelativizably, then "0" denotes a class of mathematical objects: 0_z, 0_n, etc. (There are infinitely many additive identities). The defect in the predicate is that the successor function has an indeterminate argument b/c of the constraint that it have a value which is invalid (i.e., a value outside of its codomain).
In this respect, it is equivalent to the sentence "a number whose successor is a triangle".
Posted by: Christian Dipoce | May 10, 2012 1:34:15 PM
Christian,
No, unless there are theories in which a number's successor actually is a triangle, and the author who used the expression "a number whose successor is a triangle" could have conceivably been believed to refer to them.
What Langan does in the supertautology of CTMU is he tries to refer to an infinite number of metatheories of the CTMU. How does he go on to make any statements of an infinite number of metatheories? For example, do these metatheories have some sort of "waveform" or general structure. If so, what's it like? As far as I understand, the CTMU paper does not answer these questions, so Langan just describes an infinite amount of metatheories without saying anything definite of their properties. And presents this as a very important thing. But if the metatheories cannot be demonstrated to have any properties, the value of this achievement is null. Things are defined by their properties, and to assert that something exists but to not ascribe any properties to it is a waste of oxygen.
Posted by: Tuukka Virtaperko | May 10, 2012 5:13:13 PM
I would be ecspecially interested of properties which indicate that the infinite metatheories have a regular structure in which they relate to each other, and that this structure has form that can be expressed with formal logic and mathematics. I would be interested of that because the SOQ has such features, and I find none in the work of Langan.
Posted by: Tuukka Virtaperko | May 10, 2012 5:18:06 PM
Christian is right, Tuukka.
For present purposes, we can start by distinguishing two kinds of predicate: (1) predicates immediately required for the recognition of (perceptual or cognitive) reality, and (2) predicates which are induced from the immediate recognition of reality.
Any induced predicate requires some kind of scaffolding by which induction is supported; the only real way to define an induction operator and specify its products (induced predicates) is to provide that kind of support. Granted, the scientific establishment has long been skirting this requirement - until recently, it has had no choice in the matter - but logic is logic, and logic is something to which science must eventually answer.
I'll be more specific. You're trying to construct a predicate, "the successor of 0" (where 0 = 0_i, as Christian observes), which itself requires a supporting framework or "model" in which it is properly interpreted. Unfortunately, you refuse to specify the value of the index, i.e., the model you intend. Then, while making no effort to remedy the situation, you try to construct an even more complex predicate involving supposed conflicts among the values of i with respect to the original predicate. And then, for the grand finale, you try to blame it all on the CTMU, which is so-derived as to accommodate all possible interpretative relativizations.
Conveniently enough, this leads us directly to "Law Without Law", which means:
"There is nothing prior or external to natural law itself from which natural Law could have arisen."
The CTMU and SCSPL describe the structure imposed on reality by this ontological, in fact logical, requirement. That is, in the context of perceptual (observational, scientific) reality, any naïve formulation of predicate logic must be made inductively idempotent, i.e., implicitly "self-extending" through the CTMU. Otherwise, global reality-theoretic applications of predicate logic are not supported.
As there's no way out, why not save yourself some trouble and reconcile yourself to the adamantine nucleus of 21st century reality theory? After all, it's been firmly ensconced in the popular culture for over a decade now, and was first announced over a decade before that.
(To blunt any further outbreaks of academic snobbery in the 3QD audience, I should probably add that to object to the CTMU on the grounds that it hasn't been published in what most academics consider a respectable academic journal is not only beside the point, it's terribly dishonest and hypocritical. That's because the CTMU-shaped hole in the academic literature is, at this point, academia's own fault.)
Posted by: Chris Langan | May 10, 2012 6:06:54 PM
Are sensory experiences (etc.) the extensions of these predicates? If so, I understand these predicates are nonrelativizably used, too, but that's not a problem, as formal logic is not even intended to solve the symbol grounding problem.
Relativizability issues only become a problem with abstract theories, such as Berkeley's master argument, which are claimed to "prove" something about reality, as if reality were a collection of axioms that can be known by a human.
Are predicates of the type (1) extensions of these predicates always, possibly or never?
Emphasis mine.
According to whom does it "require" a model? Are you saying that incompletely defined predicates are really completely defined predicates, and it is I who have, perhaps maliciously, omitted a part of their definition? That's not how it appears to me. I only wrote an incompletely defined predicate without having any idea what the alleged complete predicate would have been.
You seem to assert that the predicate really was well-defined, but I only defined a part of it. Yet I do not know, what the well-defined predicate would have been. If neither you nor I know that, who has access to information about what the predicate "really" was?
Nonrelativizably used predicates are probably required for creativity. For example, at the time of Galilei, physical "force" was thought to be something that keeps bodies in motion. But Galilei observed cannon balls to keep moving after the explosion, that sent them to motion, ceases to exert a force on them. He had various hypotheses intended to solve this contradiction between theory and observation. Eventually he ended up with the modern notion that force causes changes in velocity and acceleration, but is not a requirement of sustaining movement.
In order to accomplish this, Galilei had to use the predicate "force" nonrelativizably for a while. For example, he maybe had to think the sentence: "Force causes changes in velocity and acceleration, but is not a requirement of sustaining movement." Now, when he was mid-way of thinking this sentence, it looked like this: "Force causes changes in velocity... " At this moment, which maybe lasted only for a fraction of a second, "force" was definitely a nonrelativizably used predicate, because Galilei had not yet finished the new theory about "force", but was in the process of constructing it.
Maybe that didn't take so long. But in the case of the problem of induction, we have spent three centuries in a situation where a relativizable use has not been found for all predicates that are thought to be necessary for defining the problem. So it would be pretty hard to argue that we can simply pay no attention to nonrelativizably used predicates, because to use such predicates is a "temporary" state of affairs. Three hundred years is not very temporary, as it even exceeds the human lifespan.
Emphasis mine. I did not intend a model. I specifically intended to provide an example of a nonrelativizably used predicate, which does not obviously belog to a model, as this was the very thing needed to explain the notion of nonrelativizability. It wouldn't have been useful to provide an example that has nothing to do with the principle it's supposed to exemplify.
I don't think it was a genuinely interesting question whether some 0_i used in a random example really was 0_n or 0_z. :D Are you actually saying it would have been more important to solve that mystery than to give an example of the notion of relativizability?
I have no need to blame the CTMU, but I'd like to know how the CTMU accommodates all possible interpretative relativizations. I couldn't figure out this from your work or from your comments so far. So, the other option would be that I just walk away without understanding the CTMU. That doesn't seem like a very good idea to me.
Not even nonrelativizably used predicates? How do you prove that? Or do you just assume it?
Doesn't seem like a logical "requirement" to me, unless you answer my previous question. Assumption, maybe, but not a requirement in the sense that we could not have any other kind of reasonable ontology.
Ten years in philosophy is like ten seconds in a hockey match. I recall you said the Metaphysics of Quality is "nebulous", as if it were hard to comprehend. But that's so far my tradition, and it's older than the CTMU. I made more sense of it than I made from the CTMU. If metaphysical theories are assessed according to whether their authors are famous, rich or otherwise socially successful, you don't obviously prevail over Pirsig, who wrote a best-selling novel of his thoughts. But I have so far found the Metaphysics of Quality to be a better foundation for philosophy, and that's why I stick with it for now.
Academic snobbery tends to be a sad sight...
Posted by: Tuukka Virtaperko | May 12, 2012 7:17:00 AM
Tuukka,
"According to whom does it "require" a model?"
It doesn't require a model. It's just that without one, "a number whose successor is 0" constitutes nothing more than unintelligible marks on a computer screen, i.e., it isn't a predicate.
Posted by: Christian Dipoce | May 12, 2012 5:50:06 PM
"I think you have misread my earlier comment. isotelesis had suggested, just above, that Mark had "gone after" you because you had published in an ID journal. That didn't seem right to me, as the issue of ID only came up later in the thread." -Dave Maier
Actually I remember following MarCC's blog posts on Intelligent Design and Dembski's work long before he ever commented on the CTMU, and I remember specifically a post in which a commentator on his blog brought up the CTMU in a thread as another ID or "creationist" theory which should be given similar treatment.
"I was asked by a reader to take a look at yet another crackpot theory of everything. This time, it's the Cognitive Theoretic Model of the Universe." - MarkCC
- "isotelesis"
Posted by: Hamid | May 13, 2012 1:41:56 AM
The following two comments were from MarkCC's blog, so the association of the CTMU with the ISCID was clear from the earliest post.
"Ah, the ISCID — such a paragon of scholarship. This post reminds me of one of the siller abuses of mathematical jargon I've stumbled across in my Net voyages, the "Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe" by Christopher Michael Langan. (You might remember him: he's that guy from TV. You know, the bar bouncer with the genius IQ, like the real-life version of Good Will Hunting? Yeah, that guy.) He contributed an essay on "causality and teleologic evolution" to Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals who find Darwinism Unconvincing, and the "CTMU" was published in — wait for it — Progress in Complexity, Information and Design (September 2002), the world-renowned journal of ISCID itself.
Insofar as mere mortals can comprehend, the CTMU resembles poorly digested Platonism; by beginning with "logical tautologies" — or what he calls tautologies — Langan proceeds to derive the whole structure of the Cosmos, subsuming Hubble and Goedel alike in a mishmash of pseudophysics and pseudophilosophy. It's really a barrel of laughs, and a fine illustration of MarkCC's maxim that the worst math is no math at all.
Proving, if we ever needed more proof, that IQ is as IQ does.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | November 1, 2006 5:35 PM
...
Mark, I just wanted to say that I really enjoy your blog and your posts! They are really good, especially when you analyze and comment fallacies among many, creationists, are doing.
Since you are well versed in mathematics, logic, computer science and such, would you mind analyzing the CTMU by Chistopher Langan? Since this guy is supposed to have really high IQ (whatever that means) and additionally developed a theory of everything (TOE) that is heavily built on scientific/mathematical/logical jargon and thought processes that I believe you are able to understand to a certain high degree.
Here is a link for starters: http://megafoundation.org/CTMU/Articles/IntroCTMU.htm
Thanks again for your blog Mark!
Posted by: Kiriel | February 20, 2008 3:52 PM"
Posted by: Hamid | May 13, 2012 1:59:54 AM
"Actually, I would love to see Richard Dawkins take you on." - Dave M.
So would I, because I think it's possible for Dawkins and Langan to find common ground...not on the issue of God or evolution, that really would not be a productive conversation at this point probably, and it would be a waste of both their times, and there are vested interests in keeping the conversation simplistic. Rather it should be on the topic of simulation in life and the universe.
I don't plan to post too much here, but since you mentioned Dawkins as some kind of mortal enemy of Langan, I thought it was kind of ironic how in principle there could have been fruitful exchange of ideas, although I don't blame anyone for being less than optimistic.
"Guided missles, for example, appear to search actively for their target, and when they have it in range they seem to pursue it, taking account of its evasive twists and turns, and sometimes even 'predicting' or 'anticipating them'. The details of how this is done is not worth getting into. They involve negative feedback of various kinds, 'feed-forward', and other principles well understood by engineers and now known to be extensively involved in the working of living bodies." - The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins
http://tinyurl.com/6nr9k89
"In a feedforward system, on the other hand, system behavior is preset, according to some model relating present inputs to their predicted outcomes. The essence of a feedforward system, then, is that the present change of state is determined by an anticipated future state, derived in accordance with some internal model of the world." - Robert Rosen's anticipatory systems
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1864160&show=html
"As the slug’s primitive example shows, our awareness of time depends on the extent to which our mental models of reality reflect change. To see an object change, one must recall its former state for comparison to its present state, and to do that, one must recall one’s former perception of it. Because perception is an interaction between self and environment, this amounts to bringing one’s former self into conjunction with one’s present self. That past and present selves can be brought into conjunction across a temporal interval implies that momentary selves remain sufficiently alike to be conjoined; that they can intersect at any given moment to compare content means that the intersection is changeless. So when self is generalized as the intersection of all momentary selves, it acquires a property called time invariance. It is the rock of perception, the unchanging observation post from which the net of temporal connections is cast and to which it remains anchored. Indeed, it is the fabric from which the net is woven, its relationship with the environment serving as the universal template for all temporal relationships." - A Very Brief History of Time, Langan
"Such a neuron, and brain or network of such neurons (in relation to a particular weighting strategy or model) would therefore behave respectively as a) a neural net, and b) as what Rosen defines as an anticipatory system, containing a model of itself with a view to computing its present state, as a function of the prediction of the model, which Dubois has shown is a methodology which facilitates the rapid iteration of such a learning/adaptive system to the desired problem solution.
One such model of the neuron providing an explanation of all the basic physiological features of actual neurons listed in III above, is based on quantum holography. Here, phase is not only the essential parameter of physical significance, as in the postulated model of quantum neural information processing, but the essential means by which holograms ie the 3 dimensional representations of objects maybe encoded, decoded or transmitted."
http://www.bcs.org/content/ConWebDoc/16186
"Like the Andromedans, the genes can do only their best in advance by building a fast executive computer for themselves, and programming it in advance with rules and 'advice' to cope with as many eventualities as they can 'anticipate'. But life, like the game of chess, offers to many different possible eventualities for all of them to be anticipated. Like the chess programmer, the genes have to 'instruct' their survival machines not in specifics, but in general strategies and tricks of the living trade.
As J.Z. Young has pointed out, the genes have to perform a task analogous to prediction.
...
One of the most interesting methods of predicting the future is simulation." - Selfish Genes and Selfish Memes, Richard Dawkins
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lormand/phil/teach/rand/readings/Dawkins%20-%20Selfish%20Genes%20and%20Selfish%20Memes%20%28highlights%29.pdf
"It is suggested therefore that to achieve a rapid movement of the requisite quality the controller must be proactive because the time scales of events (fast evolving movement versus slow fed back consequences of the movement) prohibit the controller from being reactive. An ability to simulate or emulate the proprioceptive details of the rapidly unfolding movement would help. So-called forward models are promoted for this purpose (e.g., Miall and Wolpert, 1996). As a causal representation of a limb, a forward model can reproduce the limb's dynamics given the motor commands to the limb (generated by an inverse model) and the limb's current state. More specifically for current purposes, it can provide a kind of mock feedback as surrogate for the actual feedback—a representation of a fast voluntary movement's time evolution able to support quick anticipatory adjustments that ensure control."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2827858/
"When I first heard the idea of "it from bit" as a young physicist, I thought Wheeler must be crazy. The concept of a world made up of information just sounded strange, and (although I did not know it at the time) I was not the only one who thought so. However, sometimes crazy ideas turn out to be true, and Wheeler has been proved right before. As Feynman said, "When I was [Wheeler's] student, I discovered that if you take one of his crazy ideas and you unwrap the layers of craziness from it one after another, like lifting layers off an onion, at the heart of the idea you will often find a powerful kernel of truth." Indeed, another of Wheeler's "crazy" ideas — his suggestion that a positron can be treated as an electron moving backwards in time — played a role in Feynman later winning a Nobel prize.
As for my own collaboration on adinkras, the path my colleagues and I have trod since the early 2000s has led me to conclude that codes play a previously unsuspected role in equations that possess the property of supersymmetry. This unsuspected connection suggests that these codes may be ubiquitous in nature, and could even be embedded in the essence of reality. If this is the case, we might have something in common with the Matrix science-fiction films, which depict a world where everything human beings experience is the product of a virtual-reality-generating computer network." - Uncovering the Codes for Reality with S. James Gates Jr.
http://being.publicradio.org/programs/2012/codes-for-reality/gates-symbolsofpower.shtml
"As far as concerns the possibility of a stratified simulation in which a universe is simulated within a universe... and so on, this may be feasible...but to come up with a theory of reality, one must go directly to the most basic level of the simulation. This level is by nature reflexive, and in this sense, the universe can be described as a "self-simulation"." - Langan
http://www.iscid.org/christopherlangan-chat.php
"In this kind of duality, associated with something called conspansive duality, objects can be “dualized” to spatiotemporal transducers, and the physical universe internally “simulated” by its material contents."
http://www.iscid.org/papers/Langan_CTMU_092902.pdf
"The self-design and self-modeling capacity of nature suggests that the universe is a kind of stratified “self-simulation” in which the physical and logico-telic aspects of reality can be regarded as respectively “simulated” and “simulative” in a generalized quantum-computational sense. This makes SCSPL relevant to self-organization, emergence and other complexity-theoretic phenomena increasingly attractive to the proponents of neo-Darwinism and other causally-challenged theories." - Cheating the Millennium: The Mounting Explanatory Debts of Scientific Naturalism, Langan
"Where emergent properties are merely latent properties of the teleo-syntactic medium of emergence, the mysteries of emergent phenomena are reduced to just two: how are emergent properties anticipated in the syntactic structure of their medium of emergence, and why are they not expressed except under specific conditions involving (e.g.) degree of systemic complexity?" - Langan
http://www.iscid.org/papers/Langan_CTMU_092902.pdf
Posted by: Hamid | May 13, 2012 3:56:56 AM
Christian,
If all nonrelativizably used predicates were definitely unintelligible, nonrelativizable use of predicates would be of no help with creativity, and my two examples, one regarding Galilei and the other regarding the problem of induction, would not work for some reason. On what grounds do you state it as knowledge that the symbols constitute nothing more than unintelligible characters? In what way are these characters unintelligible? They don't appear to be randomly generated.
There is no logical way to affirm that nonrelativizably used predicates have or don't have some property. Therefore, there's no logical argument for such predicates to not be predicates, or to be predicates. I just call them "predicates" now, because I am using formal logic to demonstrate what does it mean to state that no properties can be ascribed to them. But the formalisms are not about the meanings of the nonrelativizably used "predicates" themselves -- only about the nonrelativizable way of using predicates, that precludes them from having logical meaning. Nonrelativizably used predicates are what some authors call no-things. But logically, "no-thingness" does not arise from a definition, but from a way of using what seems like a predicate, regardless of whether it actually is a predicate.
In any case, if you were right in that nonrelativizably used predicates are not predicates, "reality" in the CTMU wouldn't be a predicate, either. If "reality" is not a predicate in the first place, how can it be a self-defining predicate, as Langan reports it to be?
Posted by: Tuukka Virtaperko | May 13, 2012 8:12:07 AM
You continue to make mistakes regarding my theory, Tuukka.
I don't want to have to deal "the hard way" with your erroneous CTMU pronouncements. But in return for my going the gentler route, could you please try to catch some of your own errors before I have to do it for you?
Thanks.
Posted by: Chris Langan | May 13, 2012 8:57:12 AM
Tuukka, I would take your example to be similar to the following. Take the statement: ∀x P(x). Until you have specified a universe and an interpretation (e.g. universe: numbers, P(x): x is prime), it is a meaningless statement.
The sentence "the number whose successor is zero" is meaningless because you have not specified a universe. It is directly analogous to the previous example.
Posted by: Frank Aiello | May 13, 2012 9:02:02 AM
Tuukka,
I never said "nonrelativizably used predicates are not predicates".
If a predicate is used absolutely/'nonrelativizably', then it concerns *all* possible models of interpretation for said predicate.
It appears you've convinced yourself that a 'nonrelativizable' predicate has no model of interpretation. In which case, all I can suggest is that you review some of these technical terms and concepts. These misunderstandings at the elementary level are not going to serve you well in trying to understand the CTMU.
Posted by: Christian Dipoce | May 13, 2012 9:06:36 AM
Hamid: " 'Actually, I would love to see Richard Dawkins take you on.' - Dave M.
"So would I, because I think it's possible for Dawkins and Langan to find common ground...not on the issue of God or evolution, that really would not be a productive conversation at this point probably, and it would be a waste of both their times, and there are vested interests in keeping the conversation simplistic. Rather it should be on the topic of simulation in life and the universe."
Hamid, the notion that Richard Dawkins and I should get together in a spirit of reconciliation is touching.
However, although I'd be perfectly willing to participate in such an exercise (especially if I could do it over the net – this ranch is over a hundred miles from the nearest major airport), Dawkins would not. Being a darling of the academic establishment, he is in a position to hide himself away inside the ivory tower from those who disagree with him, especially nonacademics, and will almost certainly do so in my case. Why? Because his pet issue is the question of the existence of God, and he very well understands that on this particular question, it's not the Discovery Institute or William Lane Craig about whom he most needs to worry.
Against (e.g.) Craig, Dawkins would be up against a very capable debater who knows well how to blunt and deflect standard attacks on theism. Because Dawkins himself is a very capable debater who knows how to deliver such attacks with great wit and aplomb, the likely outcome would be a draw ... just as it usually is in such contests, with neither side having a clear and decisive advantage. But against me, Dawkins would be far more likely to emerge the clear loser. That's because I have a well-developed logical picture of reality, and this is just the kind of advantage that could break the symmetry.
Let me put this as succinctly as possible: in any fair, content-based debate against me regarding Dawkins' pet issue, the existence or nonexistence of God, he would lose. He would lose even if he joined forces with Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Larry Krauss, Steven Pinker, and a slew of other top (atheistic) academics skimmed from the cream of the university system. Why would they lose? Because, despite any and all assumptions to the contrary, they lack a well-developed logical understanding of reality, and any fair, content-based debate is ultimately decided by logic.
Many people are under the illusion that Dawkins and company possess a logic-based picture of the world. But they certainly do not. If such a discussion were allowed to proceed without content-free polemics, rhetorical diversions, playing to audience bias, staged disruptions, and so on, this could be unequivocally demonstrated. In fact, it would be a shut-out. In very short order, I'd be washing up while Dawkins and his friends pondered that which haunts their dreams: the new prospects for logical theism and world religious unity unleashed by their fondness for atheistic grandstanding.
No, I wouldn’t be looking for a debate between Dawkins and me. He's simply not up to it. Besides, it would amount to something very much like "cruelty to academics", and who wants to be guilty of that? ;-)
Posted by: Chris Langan | May 13, 2012 9:15:54 AM
Dear Chris,
Since you are quite confident in your ability to obliterate all atheistic arguments, I am curious how you would address the problem of suffering?
That is, why would a benevolent God allow the extraordinary amount of suffering we witness in this world? Your response to this would be rather enlightening, since it seems it is a question that theologians have grappled with for centuries if not longer.
Posted by: F.J.A. | May 13, 2012 9:46:25 AM
Who are you, F.J.A.?
Posted by: Chris Langan | May 13, 2012 9:49:10 AM
Frank J. Aiello. I am can be verified through google search by searching the aforementioned name followed by IQ, where it can be verified that I am a member of various high IQ societies, along with my physical location.
Posted by: Frank Aiello | May 13, 2012 9:52:07 AM
Is it even possible to provide a qualitative resolution to the problem of evil?
Anonymous (who went by the moniker Mysterium on reddit) told me that the CTMU states that all bad shit will eventually "cancel out."
Posted by: Ramit Kalra | May 13, 2012 10:10:57 AM
Very well then, Frank.
For essentially logical reasons, reality incorporates variously-bounded levels of freedom. Accordingly, bad things can happen, even to good people. That's what "freedom" means; goodness or teleology, not being universally determined (at least on localized scales), can be counterinstantiated.
As a conduit of reality, man too is free. He therefore has the following choice: either cooperate intelligently to reduce and/or make the best of whatever pain intrudes into the world, or not. Unfortunately, man often compounds his pain through errors of commission or omission. To blame God for this is irrational and irresponsible. It is also to fail a certain kind of test inherent in the nature of existence.
Of course, there's more to it than that, but this will have to do for now.
I'm writing a book on this and other topics. If you want to see more of my theodical reasoning - for example, the full explanation of why the universe is logically required to incorporate freedom - you'll have to wait for the book, which I'll probably be publishing and distributing through a certain nonprofit foundation. The publication date has not yet been set, but should probably come within a year.
Posted by: Chris Langan | May 13, 2012 10:41:49 AM
How does one donate to the mega foundation?
Posted by: Ramit Kalra | May 13, 2012 11:11:54 AM
Chris Langan,
I'm glad to hear that you'll be publishing a new book! I purchased your e-book "The Art of Knowing" awhile back and found it very insightful.
Posted by: Christian Dipoce | May 13, 2012 11:26:29 AM
Are natural disasters caused by demons?
Posted by: Ramit Kalra | May 13, 2012 11:39:09 AM
Kalra, from what I've just read, it seems Chris would attribute "natural evils" to the inherent freedom of the universe. I'm not sure I find these claims sufficiently convincing. If typical theological discourse is indicative of anything, we already know there are seemingly some pretty substantial conflicts with the idea of freedom and omniscience. Perhaps we will just have to wait for the book and see.
Posted by: F.J.A. | May 13, 2012 11:49:32 AM
Kalra, from what I've just read, it seems Chris would attribute "natural evils" to the inherent freedom of the universe.
The way I read it, I thought it resolved the issue on a more general level.
Posted by: Ramit Kalra | May 13, 2012 11:54:01 AM
Chris,
Apparently not, as I've already invested a substantial amount of effort and don't know how to continue. But I do not expect a discussion with you to feel like a punishment ("the hard way").
Posted by: Tuukka Virtaperko | May 13, 2012 11:55:26 AM
Frank,
You're on the right track, and perhaps already got it right, but I'd say they are of indefinite meaning, not meaningless. 98+++- is meaningless as an arithmetic statement, but in an unspecified universe (ie. not necessarily arithmetic) there's no logical way to argue that the statement is meaningless, even if it were.
Christian,
The above should make it clear that is not the case.
Posted by: Tuukka Virtaperko | May 13, 2012 12:09:42 PM
Tuukka,
"The above should make it clear that is not the case."
The above along with most of your other posts are so riddled with misconceptions and blunders that Chris probably realizes that CTMU-specific discussion at this point would be unfruitful.
You appear only only vaguely acquainted with what a predicate actually is, completely unaware of the distinction between syntax and semantics, and clueless as to how models permit meaning.
We're at an impasse until you get a better handle on the rudiments.
Posted by: Christian Dipoce | May 13, 2012 7:15:14 PM
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