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| {{mergeto|Christopher Michael Langan}} | {{mergeto|Christopher Michael Langan}} | ||
| The '''Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe''' or '''CTMU''' (pronounced "cat-mew") is |
The '''Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe''' or '''CTMU''' (pronounced "cat-mew") is the collected work of a blue-collar self-described genius ]. The CTMU rose to media attention in 1999, buoyed by interest in Langan's extremely high IQ.<ref>. ''20/20'' gave Langan an IQ test and reported that "his score was off the charts, too high to be measured. Neuropsychologist Dr. Bob Novelly was astounded", saying, "Chris is the highest individual that I have ever measured in 25 years of doing this." Sager 1999, Wigmore 2000, and Brabham 2001 also make much of Langan's IQ.</ref> Among Langan's claims for the theory are that it constitutes ], provides the logical framework of a ], and proves the existence of ]. | ||
| ==History== | ==History== | ||
| Of limited means and largely self-taught, Langan created the CTMU in the mid-1980s while working as a nightclub bouncer on ]. |
Of limited means and largely self-taught, Langan created the CTMU in the mid-1980s while working as a nightclub bouncer on ]. His first paper on the theory, "The Resolution of Newcomb's Paradox", appeared in the December 1989–January 1990 issue of ''Noesis'', the journal of the Noetic Society, a ] to which Langan belonged.<ref>Langan 1989–1990.</ref> Over the next decade Langan refined his work, continuing to publish and discuss it in high-IQ journals. | ||
| For most of the 1990s, knowledge of the CTMU was limited to high-IQ societies. Wider recognition for Langan and his theory began in 1999, when '']'' magazine published a profile of |
For most of the 1990s, knowledge of the CTMU was limited to high-IQ societies. Wider recognition for Langan and his theory began in 1999, when '']'' magazine published a profile of Langan and other members of the high-IQ community.<ref name=Sager>Sager 1999.</ref> Billing Langan as "the smartest man in America", the article's account of the weight-lifting bouncer and his Theory of Everything sparked a flurry of media interest. Articles and interviews highlighting Langan and the CTMU appeared in '']'',<ref name=Quain>.</ref> '']'',<ref name=Wigmore>Wigmore 2000.</ref> '']'',<ref name=Brabham>Brabham 2001.</ref> '']'',<ref>O'Connell 2001.</ref> and elsewhere. Langan was featured on '']''<ref name=McFadden>.</ref> and interviewed on ]' ''First Person''.<ref>Morris 2001.</ref> | ||
| By 2002 the CTMU had drawn the attention of the ] organization ], the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design. Langan was made a fellow of the society and in September 2002 published in its online journal a 56-page paper, "The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe: A New Kind of Reality Theory".<ref>.</ref> Langan's paper "Cheating the Millennium: The Mounting Explanatory Debts of Scientific Naturalism", relating the CTMU to existing theories of ], appeared in the 2004 anthology ''Uncommon Dissent''.<ref>Langan 2004.</ref> | By 2002 the CTMU had drawn the attention of the ] organization ], the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design. Langan was made a fellow of the society and in September 2002 published in its online journal a 56-page paper, "The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe: A New Kind of Reality Theory".<ref>.</ref> Langan's paper "Cheating the Millennium: The Mounting Explanatory Debts of Scientific Naturalism", relating the CTMU to existing theories of ], appeared in the 2004 anthology ''Uncommon Dissent''.<ref>Langan 2004.</ref> The ] considers the advocacy of intelligent design to be ]<ref>National Science Teachers Association, a professional association of 55,000 science teachers and administrators in a 2005 press release: "We stand with the nation's leading scientific organizations and scientists, including Dr. John Marburger, the president's top science advisor, in stating that intelligent design is not science.…It is simply not fair to present pseudoscience to students in the science classroom." National Science Teachers Association Press Release August 3 2005 </ref> or ].<ref>"Biologists aren’t alarmed by intelligent design’s arrival in Dover and elsewhere because they have all sworn allegiance to atheistic materialism; they’re alarmed because intelligent design is junk science." H. Allen Orr. Annals of Science. New Yorker May 2005. Also, ] Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism.</ref> | ||
| Langan has maintained an extensive online presence, debating the CTMU in forums across the Internet and posting papers on his . He |
Langan has maintained an extensive online presence, debating the CTMU in forums across the Internet and posting papers on his . He also claims to have written an unpublished book about the CTMU called ''Design for a Universe''.<ref name=Quain/> | ||
| ==Overview of CTMU== | |||
| ==Structure== | |||
| ⚫ | Unlike scientific theories, which rely on observation to establish their correspondence with reality, the CTMU is a ] treatise that is supposed to apply ], in all ]. In fact, claims Langan, "any other valid theory of reality will necessarily equate to the CTMU up to ]; whatever it adds will come by way of specificity, not generality".<ref>Langan 2002, p. 53, n. 6.</ref> Verification of the CTMU is made "largely rationalistic" by its claimed tautological nature, so that "much of the theory has to be proven like a math theorem rather than confirmed on a lab bench". | ||
| Prominent among the tools of ] are the ] (associated with ], ], and ]), and the ] (associated with ], ], and the ]). The axiomatic method derives theorems from axioms, but alternative axioms can yield contradictory theorems (as with ] and ]). The scientific method infers laws from observations, but future observations can break these laws (creating the ]). Such methodological limitations have led some theorists to conclude that all knowledge is relative: to arbitrary axioms or to restricted observations. | |||
| Langan argues that reality has an explanation through ]. Similar to the ] he believes that "something" created reality, and is directly relevant to reality.<ref>Langan 2002, p. 21.</ref> Reality, Langan argues, requires as a condition of its existence not merely logical consistency, but also "] consistency". | |||
| The CTMU is an attempt to circumvent these limitations and achieve absolute knowledge. Langan writes: | |||
| In the CTMU, reality is a ] ] consisting of one substance (infocognition) with two aspects (information and cognition); space is a configuration of syntactic operators, and time is the activity of these operators as they process themselves and each other. The CTMU therefore supports a kind of ]. | |||
| <blockquote>"What I mean by 'absolute' is precisely this: (1) you can't relativize your way out of it by changing the context; (2) finding it in error equates to destroying your own basis for inference. These criteria are built into the theory from the ground up using some very effective, that is to say ironclad, techniques. Logically, there is no way out."</blockquote> | |||
| ⚫ | ==Reception and Criticism== | ||
| The CTMU, Langan says, is based on logical ]. In 2-valued ], a tautology is a statement that is true under every assignment of "true" and "false" to the variables within it. For example, "A or not-A" (the ]) is a tautology because it is true regardless of whether A is true or false. Langan argues that all meaningful theories conform to 2-valued logic<ref>Langan 2002, p. 13. Langan argues that "even so-called "nonstandard" logics, e.g. modal, fuzzy, and many-valued logics, must be expressed in terms of fundamental two-valued logic to make sense."</ref>, and that because the axioms and theorems of 2-valued logic are tautological, tautologies "define the truth concept for all of the sciences. From mathematics and physics to biology and psychology, logical tautologies reign supreme and inviolable". | |||
| Despite its extensive coverage and prominent placement in high-profile media sources,<ref name=Sager/><ref name=McFadden/><ref name=Wigmore/><ref name=Brabham/><ref name=Quain/> the CTMU has received no notable, reputable attention. Unsurprisingly, in view of its bold claims, the theory has not however escaped controversy on the Internet, where anonymous discussion-board participants range from supporters hailing the CTMU as a major breakthrough and praising its author for his brilliance, to critics hurling scorn and invectives at Langan and pronouncing his theory incomprehensible and blatantly incorrect on a number of grounds, to neutral bystanders preferring to reserve judgement until the publication of ''Design for a Universe''. | |||
| Langan further holds that logical tautologies constitute absolute knowledge in the sense of his criteria above.<ref>Langan 2002, p. 13.</ref> That is, where "changing the context" amounts to changing truth assignments to contextual variables, tautologies are true in every context. And where "your own basis for inference" includes 2-valued logic, logically disproving a tautology requires use of the tautology itself, destroying the inference. Accordingly Langan calls tautologies self-evident or "self-proving".<ref>Langan 2002, p. 50.</ref> | |||
| ⚫ | Langan believes that theoretical physicists use "unverifiable mathematical conjecture" to overcome what he considers to be a lack of information about the subatomic and and cosmic realms, and says that they should consider the logical implications of what they are doing before formulating cosmological theories (Quain, 2001). Langan does not address the fact that ] ] and ] have successfully predicted a host of empirical results, such as the existence of ], ], and ], to name but a tiny few. There is also an extensive literature on the logical and categorial foundations of ], which casts some of the pronouncements made by Langan in the ] article about him in a different light. | ||
| Tautologies are sometimes dismissed as "empty", "vacuous", and "uninformative" on the grounds that they tell us nothing about the world. Disagreeing, Langan adjoins to logic three ] principles (described below), intended to relate logic to reality. Langan calls the CTMU a "supertautology"<ref>Langan 2002, pp. 15, 31–32.</ref> | |||
| ⚫ | Unlike scientific theories, which rely on observation to establish their correspondence with reality, the CTMU is |
||
| In the CTMU, reality takes the form of an ] Langan calls a "Self-Configuring Self-Processing Language" or SCSPL.<ref>Langan 2002, pp. 42–47.</ref> The CTMU blends elements of various branches of advanced mathematics, including ], ], ], ], and the logic of ]. Langan's public writings are meant to be relatively accessible{{dubious}}, and for that reason, he says, tend to avoid heavy use of symbolic notation in favor of informal characterization. Nonetheless, he claims, the CTMU is ] and ], SCSPL is ], and he "can reduce that entire 56 page paper to variables and functional, operational and relational symbols". | |||
| ==Axioms== | |||
| Langan defines reality as all possible scientific observations as well as cognitive apparatus. Associated with this definition is a concept Langan calls the Reality Principle: "reality contains all and only that which is real".<ref name=Langan2002p16/> That is, reality is self-contained. | |||
| The three ] principles used in the CTMU to relate logic to reality are: | |||
| * Metaphysical Autology Principle (associated with ]), or "MAP" | |||
| * Mind Equals Reality Principle (associated with ]), or "M=R" | |||
| * Multiplex Unity Principle (associated with ]), or "MU" | |||
| According to Langan, they are tautological ] and necessarily modeled by reality as a condition of its existence. Langan notes that while they are independent, "the premise of axiomatic independence is itself a rather flimsy concept. These principles are actually rather strongly related in the sense that they can to some extent be inferred from each other in a reality-theoretic context". | |||
| MAP says that everything essential to reality, including everything needed to describe it, is contained in reality itself. MAP is implied, Langan argues, by the definition of reality: were anything outside of reality relevant to it, it would be included by the definition and therefore inside reality. | |||
| M=R says that reality is comprehensive enough to describe itself. Langan rejects Kantian ] as oxymoronic "inconceivable concepts" and holds that phenomenal reality, as the only reality we can know, is the only reality there is. Accordingly, reality relates to our minds as a "distributed ]". | |||
| MU says that reality is consistent because of the mutually inclusive relationship between itself and its contents. The consistency of reality is implied, Langan argues, by the stability of perception: a single irresolvable paradox of the form "A = not-A" would destroy the information content of reality, making it impossible to perceive. | |||
| ==Origins== | |||
| Langan argues that were reality to lack an explanation, it would be acausal and could not sustain itself, whereas were something outside of reality to have created it, it would be relevant to reality and therefore inside reality by definition.<ref>Langan 2002, p. 21.</ref> | |||
| The CTMU treats the ] in the context of "freedom" and "constraint". Concepts are defined by constraints specifying their structure. Consequently, Langan argues, the only concept not in need of structural explanation is one with no constraints, and no structure to explain. In the CTMU, this concept is called "Unbound Telesis" or UBT.<ref>Langan 2004, p. 252.</ref> | |||
| Because, Langan argues, UBT is a medium of pure potential, everything is possible within it, and this means that what can exist, does exist. However, the requirements for existence are, asserts Langan, more stringent than is normally supposed. Because UBT is unstructured, the only possibilities which can actualize from it are those with sufficient internal structure to create and configure themselves. So in the CTMU, reality, rather than being uncaused or externally caused, is self-caused, and constrained by the structure it needs to create and configure itself, that of SCSPL. | |||
| The above reasoning, holds Langan, resolves the '']'' or "something-from-nothing" paradox. The paradox arises when "nothing" is taken to exclude not just "something", but the ''potential'' for "something". Because exclusion of potential is a constraint, "nothing" in this sense requires its own explanation, and cannot serve as an ontological groundstate. But when "nothing" is viewed as unconstrained potential or UBT,<ref>Langan 2002, p. 27.</ref> asserts Langan, reality arises inevitably from it. | |||
| ==Teleology== | |||
| Reality, Langan argues, requires as a condition of its existence not merely logical consistency, but also "] consistency". To arise from UBT, he says, reality needs a function to distinguish ''what it is'' from ''what it is not''—to "select itself" for existence.<ref name=Langan2002p42>Langan 2002, p. 42.</ref> This requirement, the "Telic Principle", generalizes the well-known ]: whereas the anthropic principle addresses the degree to which human existence constrains reality, the Telic Principle addresses the way in which reality tautologically constrains itself.<ref>Langan 2002, pp. 37–38.</ref> | |||
| Because reality is self-contained, it serves as its own selection function. That is, the function, that which it selects, and the act of selection itself are identical; "existence is everywhere the choice to exist"<ref name=Langan2002p42/> and "reality triples as choice, chooser and chosen". Langan explores the logic of this arrangement: " large part of the CTMU is about what happens when functions, including choice, generative and causal functions, are looped so that input coincides with output coincides with functional syntax". | |||
| The requirement that reality serve as its own selection function gives it a reflexive form whose goal is to self-actualize. This "MU form" is the starting configuration of SCSPL ].<ref name=Langan2002p42/> With "existence and its amplification" as its sole imperative, reality selects its "future" by maximizing a parameter Langan calls "generalized ]". The CTMU is therefore a teleological theory in which the purpose of reality is to optimally self-actualize.<ref>Langan 2002, p. 37; Langan 2004, p. 253.</ref> | |||
| Because reality inherits distributive freedom from UBT, parts of reality can deviate from the teleology of reality as a whole. Unable therefore to maximize utility directly, reality instead maximizes ''potential'' utility, "setting things up" for maximum benefits should teleology be pursued. Langan takes generalized utility as the basis of a system of ], defining goodness as that which furthers teleology and extending the ] to fit the stratified structure of SCSPL. | |||
| ==Evolution== | |||
| In the CTMU, reality evolves by "telic recursion", a metacausal generalization of ordinary ] suited to pre-informational contexts. Telic recursion occurs in two stages, one primary and global, the other secondary and local. The primary stage creates the distributed laws, including the ], which reality obeys, while the secondary stage creates nondistributed, ''ad hoc'' supplements to those laws as reality transitions from state to state.<ref>Langan 2002, pp. 35–37.</ref> | |||
| Guided by the Telic Principle, telic recursion seeks to maximize generalized utility through "telic ]" between past and future states. This potential for ] extends back to the very origin of reality, so that in effect, "the system brings itself into existence as a means of atemporal communication between its past and future whereby law and state, syntax and informational content, generate and refine each other across time to maximize total systemic self-utility."<ref>Langan 2002, pp. 6–7.</ref> | |||
| The CTMU relates ], ], and ] through a process Langan calls "conspansion"—"material contraction qua spatial expansion".<ref>Langan 2002, pp. 27–30.</ref> Because reality is self-contained, argues Langan, its external size and duration are undefined, and it cannot expand: it has nothing to expand ''into'', and nothing to expand ''during''. Mainstream cosmologists hold that expansion need not occur externally,<ref>.</ref> invoking results from ] like Gauss' ] to show that the ] metric can change without reference to an embedding space. Langan asserts that mainstream models nonetheless fall short of full self-containment, arguing that they fail to "conserve spacetime", employ a ] concept of motion, and cannot intrinsically explain the creation of the spacetime manifold itself. | |||
| In Langan's model, reality stratifies inwardly into a superposition of sequentially related states, each state topologically contained by, but descriptively containing, the one preceding it, and parallelized with respect to its successors. In the resulting "conspansive spacetime", rather than reality expanding relative to its contents, its contents contract relative to it, and time speeds up to preserve the laws of physics—an idea adumbrated in 1933 by ].<ref>Eddington 1933, pp. 90–92; Langan 2002, p. 27. In Eddington's words: "Smaller and smaller. Faster and faster." Though he does not accept what he calls the theory of the "shrinking atom", he plays with the implications.</ref> The point, says Langan, is to retain the valid relationships of conventional spacetime while changing their ''interpretations'' so as to resolve paradoxes of cosmology and physics. | |||
| Conspansion alternates between two phases: a generative phase in which events produce new possibilities, and a selective phase in which possibilities collapse into new events. The alternation occurs at a fixed conspansion rate ''c'', understood as the rate at which reality creates itself and identified by Langan with the ] in a vacuum. Langan associates conspansive alternation with ], and asserts that the CTMU constitutes a new ] called "Sum Over Futures".<ref>Langan 2002, p. 28, diagram caption.</ref> | |||
| ==Mind== | |||
| The fundamental entity of SCSPL reality is the "syntactic operator", or unit of self-processing ].<ref>Langan 2002, p. 20.</ref> Because, argues Langan, ] is just the specific form of ] that occurs in a mind, information processing can be described as "generalized cognition" and self-processing information as "infocognition".<ref>Langan 2002, pp. 19, 33.</ref> So in the CTMU, reality is a ] consisting of one substance (infocognition) with two aspects (information and cognition); space is a configuration of syntactic operators, and time is the activity of these operators as they process themselves and each other. | |||
| The CTMU therefore supports a kind of ]. Although every part of SCSPL has a cognitive aspect, the mental capabilities of a given subsystem depend on its structure. Langan distinguishes three "levels of self-cognition": subordinate, agentive, and global.<ref>Langan 2002, p. 33.</ref> The lowest of these levels, subordinate, encompasses low-complexity objects such as rocks. In the CTMU, rocks are cognitive in the generalized sense—their molecules interact, thereby processing information—but they do not possess ] or any intrinisic ability to optimize their environment. | |||
| The next level of self-cognition, which includes humans, is that of agents or "telors": observer-participants in the ongoing creation of reality.<ref>Langan 2002, p. 36.</ref> Telors possess independent volition and constructive, creative intelligence or "sentience". In the CTMU, the distributed ] do not fully determine reality; they are supplemented by "meta-laws" created by telors as reality evolves. This ability of telors is constrained by factors including locality, interference, and the fact that it must occur within the probabilistic limits of the laws of physics. | |||
| The third and highest level of self-cognition, the global level, is that of reality itself. This level possesses three formal properties of SCSPL: "syntactic self-distribution" (analogous to ]), "perfect autotransductive reflexivity" (analogous to ]), and "self-configuration up to freedom" (analogous to ]). Because these are theological attributes, Langan describes reality as "the mind of God". So, claims Langan, because the CTMU constitutes absolute truth—because it is founded on tautology and supported by logical and mathematical reasoning—it proves the existence of God.<ref>.</ref> | |||
| In short, the CTMU construes physical interaction as information processing, regards information processing as a generalization of human cognition, and assigns cognitive classifications to information processors—from rocks, to humans, to reality itself—based on their structure. | |||
| ⚫ | ==Criticism== | ||
| The CTMU has received no notable, reputable assessment to date. Because the ''ISCID'' promotes the idea of intelligent design, which is regarded by the ] as ] or ], its journal is considered a questionable source by many scholars. See ] and ] for details. | |||
| ⚫ | Langan believes that theoretical physicists use "unverifiable mathematical conjecture" to overcome what he considers to be a lack of information about the subatomic and and cosmic realms, and says that they should consider the logical implications of what they are doing before formulating cosmological theories (Quain, 2001). Langan does not address the fact that ] ] and ] have successfully predicted a host of empirical results, such as the existence of ], ], and ]. There is also an extensive literature on the logical and categorial foundations of ], which |
||
| ==Further reading== | ==Further reading== | ||
| The most comprehensive paper on the CTMU is the 56-page . A shorter explication is the . |
The most comprehensive paper on the CTMU is the 56-page . A shorter explication, but still quite detailed, is the . For people seeking a gentler introduction, there are . | ||
| ==References== | ==References== | ||
| * Brabham, Dennis. (], ]). |
* Brabham, Dennis. (], ]). "The Smart Guy". ''Newsday''. | ||
| * Eddington, Arthur. (1933). ''The Expanding Universe: Astronomy's 'Great Debate', 1900-1931.'' Cambridge University Press. | |||
| * Langan, Christopher M. (December 1989–January 1990). "The Resolution of Newcomb's Paradox." ''Noesis'' No. 44. | * Langan, Christopher M. (December 1989–January 1990). "The Resolution of Newcomb's Paradox." ''Noesis'' No. 44. | ||
| * Langan, Christopher M. (1999). . ''Ubiquity'' Vol. 1, No. 1. | * Langan, Christopher M. (1999). . ''Ubiquity'' Vol. 1, No. 1. | ||
| * Langan, Christopher M. (2002). . ''Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design'' '''1.2–1.3'''. | * Langan, Christopher M. (2002). . ''Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design'' '''1.2–1.3'''. | ||
| * Langan, Christopher M. (2004). |
* Langan, Christopher M. (2004). "Cheating the Millennium: The Mounting Explanatory Debts of Scientific Naturalism". In ''Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing'', edited by William Dembski. ISI Books. | ||
| * McFadden, Cynthia. (], ]). . ''20/20''. | * McFadden, Cynthia. (], ]). . ''20/20''. | ||
| * Morris, Errol. (], ]). "The Smartest Man in the World". ''First Person''. | * Morris, Errol. (], ]). "The Smartest Man in the World". ''First Person''. | ||
| * O'Connell, Jeff. (May 2001). |
* O'Connell, Jeff. (May 2001). "Mister Universe". ''Muscle & Fitness''. | ||
| * Quain, John R. (], ]). . ''Popular Science''. | * Quain, John R. (], ]). . ''Popular Science''. | ||
| * Sager, Mike. (November 1999). "The Smartest Man in America". ''Esquire''. | * Sager, Mike. (November 1999). "The Smartest Man in America". ''Esquire''. | ||
| * Wigmore, Barry. (], ]). "Einstein's brain, King Kong's body". ''The Times''. | * Wigmore, Barry. (], ]). "Einstein's brain, King Kong's body". ''The Times''. | ||
| Line 135: | Line 64: | ||
| </div> | </div> | ||
| ] ] ] | ] ] ] | ||
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The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe or CTMU (pronounced "cat-mew") is the collected work of a blue-collar self-described genius Christopher Michael Langan. The CTMU rose to media attention in 1999, buoyed by interest in Langan's extremely high IQ. Among Langan's claims for the theory are that it constitutes absolute truth, provides the logical framework of a Theory of Everything, and proves the existence of God.
History
Of limited means and largely self-taught, Langan created the CTMU in the mid-1980s while working as a nightclub bouncer on Long Island. His first paper on the theory, "The Resolution of Newcomb's Paradox", appeared in the December 1989–January 1990 issue of Noesis, the journal of the Noetic Society, a high-IQ society to which Langan belonged. Over the next decade Langan refined his work, continuing to publish and discuss it in high-IQ journals.
For most of the 1990s, knowledge of the CTMU was limited to high-IQ societies. Wider recognition for Langan and his theory began in 1999, when Esquire magazine published a profile of Langan and other members of the high-IQ community. Billing Langan as "the smartest man in America", the article's account of the weight-lifting bouncer and his Theory of Everything sparked a flurry of media interest. Articles and interviews highlighting Langan and the CTMU appeared in Popular Science, The Times, Newsday, Muscle & Fitness, and elsewhere. Langan was featured on 20/20 and interviewed on Errol Morris' First Person.
By 2002 the CTMU had drawn the attention of the intelligent design organization ISCID, the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design. Langan was made a fellow of the society and in September 2002 published in its online journal a 56-page paper, "The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe: A New Kind of Reality Theory". Langan's paper "Cheating the Millennium: The Mounting Explanatory Debts of Scientific Naturalism", relating the CTMU to existing theories of causality, appeared in the 2004 anthology Uncommon Dissent. The scientific community considers the advocacy of intelligent design to be pseudoscience or junk science.
Langan has maintained an extensive online presence, debating the CTMU in forums across the Internet and posting papers on his Web site. He also claims to have written an unpublished book about the CTMU called Design for a Universe.
Overview of CTMU
Unlike scientific theories, which rely on observation to establish their correspondence with reality, the CTMU is a scholastic treatise that is supposed to apply apodictically, in all possible worlds. In fact, claims Langan, "any other valid theory of reality will necessarily equate to the CTMU up to isomorphism; whatever it adds will come by way of specificity, not generality". Verification of the CTMU is made "largely rationalistic" by its claimed tautological nature, so that "much of the theory has to be proven like a math theorem rather than confirmed on a lab bench".
Langan argues that reality has an explanation through causality. Similar to the teleological argument he believes that "something" created reality, and is directly relevant to reality. Reality, Langan argues, requires as a condition of its existence not merely logical consistency, but also "teleological consistency".
In the CTMU, reality is a dual-aspect monism consisting of one substance (infocognition) with two aspects (information and cognition); space is a configuration of syntactic operators, and time is the activity of these operators as they process themselves and each other. The CTMU therefore supports a kind of panpsychism.
Reception and Criticism
Despite its extensive coverage and prominent placement in high-profile media sources, the CTMU has received no notable, reputable attention. Unsurprisingly, in view of its bold claims, the theory has not however escaped controversy on the Internet, where anonymous discussion-board participants range from supporters hailing the CTMU as a major breakthrough and praising its author for his brilliance, to critics hurling scorn and invectives at Langan and pronouncing his theory incomprehensible and blatantly incorrect on a number of grounds, to neutral bystanders preferring to reserve judgement until the publication of Design for a Universe.
Langan believes that theoretical physicists use "unverifiable mathematical conjecture" to overcome what he considers to be a lack of information about the subatomic and and cosmic realms, and says that they should consider the logical implications of what they are doing before formulating cosmological theories (Quain, 2001). Langan does not address the fact that mainstream theoretical physics and physical cosmology have successfully predicted a host of empirical results, such as the existence of positrons, Neptune, and cosmic background radiation, to name but a tiny few. There is also an extensive literature on the logical and categorial foundations of mathematical physics, which casts some of the pronouncements made by Langan in the Popular Science article about him in a different light.
Further reading
The most comprehensive paper on the CTMU is the 56-page "A New Kind of Reality Theory". A shorter explication, but still quite detailed, is the "Introduction to the CTMU". For people seeking a gentler introduction, there are questions and answers.
References
- Brabham, Dennis. (August 21, 2001). "The Smart Guy". Newsday.
- Langan, Christopher M. (December 1989–January 1990). "The Resolution of Newcomb's Paradox." Noesis No. 44.
- Langan, Christopher M. (1999). "Introduction to the CTMU". Ubiquity Vol. 1, No. 1.
- Langan, Christopher M. (2002). "The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe: A New Kind of Reality Theory". Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design 1.2–1.3.
- Langan, Christopher M. (2004). "Cheating the Millennium: The Mounting Explanatory Debts of Scientific Naturalism". In Uncommon Dissent: Intellectuals Who Find Darwinism Unconvincing, edited by William Dembski. ISI Books.
- McFadden, Cynthia. (December 9, 1999). "The Smart Guy". 20/20.
- Morris, Errol. (August 14, 2001). "The Smartest Man in the World". First Person.
- O'Connell, Jeff. (May 2001). "Mister Universe". Muscle & Fitness.
- Quain, John R. (October 14, 2001). "Wise Guy". Popular Science.
- Sager, Mike. (November 1999). "The Smartest Man in America". Esquire.
- Wigmore, Barry. (February 7, 2000). "Einstein's brain, King Kong's body". The Times.
External links
- Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe official site
- Christopher Langan biography at ISCID
Notes
- McFadden 1999. 20/20 gave Langan an IQ test and reported that "his score was off the charts, too high to be measured. Neuropsychologist Dr. Bob Novelly was astounded", saying, "Chris is the highest individual that I have ever measured in 25 years of doing this." Sager 1999, Wigmore 2000, and Brabham 2001 also make much of Langan's IQ.
- Langan 1989–1990.
- ^ Sager 1999.
- ^ Quain 2001.
- ^ Wigmore 2000.
- ^ Brabham 2001.
- O'Connell 2001.
- ^ McFadden 1999.
- Morris 2001.
- Langan 2002.
- Langan 2004.
- National Science Teachers Association, a professional association of 55,000 science teachers and administrators in a 2005 press release: "We stand with the nation's leading scientific organizations and scientists, including Dr. John Marburger, the president's top science advisor, in stating that intelligent design is not science.…It is simply not fair to present pseudoscience to students in the science classroom." National Science Teachers Association Disappointed About Intelligent Design Comments Made by President Bush National Science Teachers Association Press Release August 3 2005
- "Biologists aren’t alarmed by intelligent design’s arrival in Dover and elsewhere because they have all sworn allegiance to atheistic materialism; they’re alarmed because intelligent design is junk science." H. Allen Orr. Annals of Science. New Yorker May 2005.Devolution—Why intelligent design isn't. Also, Robert T. Pennock Tower of Babel: The Evidence Against the New Creationism.
- Langan 2002, p. 53, n. 6.
- Langan 2002, p. 21.