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Notes on re-creation (demerging?) of this article 1

I did a pretty thorough review of the WP:RS on the CTMU (Google Scholar, Google Books, Microsoft Academic, even a blogosphere search), and I believe there is enough for it to pass the WP:GNG now. For those that are curious, all of the sources I found but deemed not RSy enough for this article are in User_talk:Scarpy/Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe. I suspect this article will be contentious, so let me point out a few things I was careful to do in the re-creation of this article.

1. Langan is not used as a source for any of the information in this version. I did this for several reasons (a) his material is published variously in Noesis, PCID (Progress in Complexity, Information and Design), Cosmos and History (of these three only Cosmos and History has a CiteScore and it's 0.3) in some self-published books, and in one chapter in a book edited by William A. Dembski (b) I didn't want to run afoul of WP:SOAP WP:MISSION WP:PROMO or WP:PEACOCK (c) it's worth noting that the CTMU has a life outside of Langan's material.
2. As I've said elsewhere, Ben Goertzel and Mark Chu-Carroll are RS as WP:REPUTABLE states, 'source' has multiple meanings. In the citations here, while the blogs themselves are not reliable sources, the authors are confirmed and are reliable sources.
3. I debated how to include more of the criticisms of the CTMU that Mark Chu-Carroll made, but was at a loss for how to integrate it without breaking WP:NOCRIT and making a criticism section. If you're a better writer than me, feel free to have a go at it.
4. I realize Klee Irwin is a controversial figure, but the other two authors (Marcelo M. Amaral and David Chester) on the paper from Quantum Gravity Research are legit. Entropy has a CiteScore or 3.7 and is the 87 percentile (8th of 62) in Mathematical Physics journals.
5. I don't believe either of the PhD theses cited run afoul of WP:SCHOLARSHIP in the context that they're used.
6. Armein Z.R. Langi is a PhD in Indonesia and a guru besar (professor)

- Scarpy (talk) 02:46, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

I almost forgot - I paid a translator on Fiverr to translate the bit in German in to English. You can see it here. - Scarpy (talk) 03:10, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

The sourcing is incredibly thin. I do not believe that GNG is anywhere near satisfied here, and there certainly isn't enough to substantiate a whole article separate from Christopher Langan. Dembski is a creationist, not a reliable source about anything scientific. Entropy is a journal with ... issues and shouldn't be relied upon for anything even approaching the fringe. The "International Conference on Information and Communication Technology for Smart Society" is not going to have high standards for writing about metaphysics, and even there, Langan gets barely a passing mention. The thesis by Schofield mentions the CTMU exactly once, giving it half a sentence in a footnote (and misspelling Langan's name). The thesis by Fusco is about theology and shows no indication that it was even proofread by a scientist — and since the CTMU is being sold as a scientific revolution, that matters. XOR'easter (talk) 20:51, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

You will need to gain a much larger consensus than this. Please start a WP:RfC rather than acting unilaterally. jps (talk) 20:52, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

ජපස the "consensus" you're talking about in this edit summary was 14 years ago before any of the sources that were cited in this version of the article were published. It doesn't apply, replacing the redirect with out consensus on the new article in this talk page strikes me as ANI worthy. I'll add I spent 40+ hours and my own money researching and writing the new version of article. An WP:RfC makes absolutely no sense here as there's no expectation that the editors from 2006 when the decision was made are currently active and the content they were disputing in 2006 is entirely different. I'm going to restore the article. If you revert again will take this to ANI. - Scarpy (talk) 03:38, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

XOR'easter I only see one issue raised with Entropy in the links you sent. If there's a problem with it the place to raise it would be in the WP:RSN. The rest of your objections I believe I addressed in my first post, save for the bit about "selling" the CTMU, which is a straw man here. Perhaps some CTMU-related sources claim it's a "scientific revolution," but none of them are used as sources this version of the article and none of the text in the new version describe is as anything like that. I believe if you'll honestly compare the sources to the information that accompanies them in the article you'll see this. - Scarpy (talk) 03:38, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Sorry you spent a lot of time and money(!) to write a poor article that doesn't even mention the person who authored the proposal in its lede, but there you go. Get consensus that this is worth spinning off. Maybe start by adding to the article on Christopher Langan and do the proper WP:CFORK. I don't think you've got a leg to stand on here. jps (talk) 03:53, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

ජපස I addressed mentioning Langan as little as possible in this version of the CTMU in the first comment in this thread. It's not a content fork, so WP:CFORK does not apply - Scarpy (talk) 03:58, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

It's not a content fork because you did not follow the procedure and add content you thought was relevant to the appropriate article. The idea is Langan's. It is not anyone else's. jps (talk) 04:00, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

ANI Notice - Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#User_Redirecting_Cognitive-Theoretic_Model_of_the_Universe_to_Christopher_Langan_without_consensus_on_talk_page. - Scarpy (talk) 04:32, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

The links regarding Entropy demonstrate that they've published garbage repeatedly. I've seen the occasional paper by respected scientists there, but their peer-review process seems to be about nil, and anything there should be regarded as something like an arXiv post, i.e., basically self-published. The fact that the sources have to be scraped from the bottom of the publishing barrel is a solid indicator that the CTMU is not a notable proposal. Nothing has been published in a reputable scientific journal about it since the previous consensus was established, so there is no reason to take that consensus to no longer be in effect. XOR'easter (talk) 04:12, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Moreover, the blog posts by Chu-Carroll are scathing. Merely saying that they claim he material published on the CTMU uses terminology and neologisms in a way that makes it difficult to understand seriously misrepresents their contents and, by not summarizing them accurately, violates NPOV. Chu-Carroll says things like, What does he conclude from this pointless exercise? That playing word-games doesn’t tell you anything about the universe? No, that makes too much sense. That naive set theory perhaps isn’t a great model for the physical universe? No, still too much sense. No, he concludes that this problem of word-games means that set theory is wrong, and must be expanded to include the contradiction of the largest thing being both smaller than its powerset and larger than its powerset. Yes, the solution is to take an unsound mathematical theory, and make it doubly unsound. This isn't just a complaint about neologisms. XOR'easter (talk) 04:19, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

You are completely correct about Mark Chu-Carroll and this was the third point I mentioned in my first comment I debated how to include more of the criticisms of the CTMU that Mark Chu-Carroll made, but was at a loss for how to integrate it without breaking WP:NOCRIT and making a criticism section. If you're a better writer than me, feel free to have a go at it. it's also worth contrasting Mark's response with Ben's response.

I believe you are less correct about Entropy. The links you've provided show that they may have made a mistake publishing one article about glyphosate but not that they regularly publish poor articles. Their CiteScore speaks otherwise on this point. - Scarpy (talk) 04:39, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

The links regarding Entropy are not just about the glyphosate incident. The third recalls the glyphosate business and also argues quite thoroughly that the very paper cited as evidence of the CTMU's notability is bunkum. I could point to other examples of their failure as a peer-reviewed publication . As for the CiteScore metric, it's just a metric: it doesn't indicate respectability. Garbage papers in marginal journals can elevate it, for example. (It's also rigged in favor of Elsevier, but that's a matter for another day.) XOR'easter (talk) 04:57, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

It's also worth noting that a Google Scholar search for "Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe" finds only 57 results, many of them by Langan himself, and the others either preprints (random PDFs on the web that GS happened to scrape) or "published" in fake journals like NeuroQuantology. Contrast this situation with an actual physics theory, a minority view but one taken seriously, like Relational quantum mechanics. There you get over 800 results, by a variety of authors, the majority of them peer-reviewed. There's just no notability case to be made for the CTMU. XOR'easter (talk) 05:10, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

XOR'easter You may have a point about Entropy and usefulness of CiteScore. But if you look at Misplaced Pages guidelines, e.g. WP:SJ it specifically mentions in the section "Searching for good sources" For scientific journals, you can find good journals at https://www.scopus.com/sources This free service allows you to put in the subject area of research (e.g., genetics) and see a list of ranked journals. You can also check the CiteScore percentiles and SCImago Journal Rank ("prestige") of any already-cited journals by switching the search to title or ISSN and searching for the journal you want to review. (For these metrics, bigger numbers are better, so a journal with a CiteScore percentile of 60% is cited more often than 60% of journals in that subject area.) ... so, look, you may be right about CiteScore, but you would also be contradicting WP:SJ. What you're saying here and whether or not Entropy should be considered a reliable source seems outside of the scope of this discussion.

I tend to use things like CiteScore because you can't quantify a journal's reputation from articles in scienceblogs, retractionwatch, etc. The idea behind something like CiteScore is that no journal is perfect, but that some are better than others and it's nice to have metrics to rank them in terms of reliability. I have no doubt that Entropy's reputation isn't perfect, but the question is relative to other journals how bad is it and how can you quantify this? - Scarpy (talk) 05:31, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, I went through every single one of those Google Scholar results (and then some) see User_talk:Scarpy/Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe. I read much of each of those Google Scholar results too and I didn't include the nonsense from journals like NeuroQuantology. But you're talking about something different than Misplaced Pages guidelines. WP:N doesn't say "if something is talking about metaphysics it should be at least as popular relational quantum mechanics and can't have been brought up in a journal like NeuroQuantology." What WP:N is talking about is coverage reliable secondary sources. What's in the new version is coverage in secondary sources that normally pass WP:RS. Perhaps Entropy is debatable, but it's te kind of journal you would use following the aforementioned logic in WP:SJ. The other way to look at something like this is that it's slowly been gaining notability over the last 10 years (as most of the citations are from 2010 or later) and it has met this threshold. Notability isn't saying that something is scientifically valid (or we wouldn't have articles on irreducible complexity) and nothing in the new version of the article is claiming that it is. - 05:31, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

The comparison to Relational quantum mechanics is relevant because it shows what coverage in reliable sources looks like for ideas on the outer frontiers of physics. It's not what the coverage of the CTMU looks like.

I have no doubt that Entropy's reputation isn't perfect, but the question is relative to other journals how bad is it — It's published by MDPI, so the answer starts at "not great" and can only go downhill from there. The other sources are worse. If all that has accumulated over an entire decade is a smattering of mentions in gray literature by people who are not subject-matter experts in the subjects necessary to evaluate an idea, it's not a notable idea. Maybe in another 10 years it'll be the new irreducible complexity or the new EmDrive, but not yet.

Notes on re-creation (demerging?) of this article 2

The proposed article begins, The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU) is a metaphysical theory of reality — and this is already a POV statement, since it is far from universally agreed upon that the CTMU is even coherent enough to be called a "theory". The seminal paper published on the CTMU is likewise highly charged. Intentionally or not, all of the content is written as though intelligent design were a legitimate scientific theory and the CTMU a helpful elaboration upon it. This is trying to spin moldy straw into gold. XOR'easter (talk) 05:44, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

XOR'easter there's no reason all coverage on things that are in "the outer frontiers of physics" should look the same. I also wouldn't place this in the outer frontiers of physics. It's more philosophy/theology.

It's published by MDPI, so the answer starts at "not great" and can only go downhill from there. Again, this may be correct but there's nothing in WP:SJ about "avoid things published by MDPI." The guidance there is to look at things like the CiteScore. Maybe that guidance sucks, but it's what Misplaced Pages's guidelines currently are.

The bit about the seminal paper on the CTMU is my attempt at paraphrasing the German (translated as) "In several writings, mainly in a 56-page paper, Langan presents the CTMU." It goes on to discuss that it's placed in "an essay in a Christian American creationist anthology." I'm open to changing that, but it's faithful to the original source. This is the translated bit of the section I paid for but I'm open to rewording it.

and this is already a POV statement, since it is far from universally agreed upon that the CTMU is even coherent enough to be called a "theory" two points here (1) that's the language the the sources use and (2) you're talking about a Scientific theory, and no one is claiming the CTMU is a scientific theory. Ben made this pretty clear, and it could be mentioned in the article. "As Langan himself affirms, what he’s putting forth is a philosophy, not a scientific theory."

Intentionally or not, all of the content is written as though intelligent design were a legitimate scientific theory and the CTMU a helpful elaboration upon it. That's bizarre to me because (a) that's not at all what I intended or how I read the proposed version of the article and (b) if you've listened to how I quote Christopher Hitchens among friends, I doubt I ever sound like a proponent of intelligent design.

But if that's at all how it came across then I believe would benefit from your input on that point so it's not misleading to others. - Scarpy (talk) 06:13, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

WP:SJ is an essay, not a guideline (and certainly not a policy). It is in no way binding. (I don't think I've even heard it invoked before.) It does have some good advice to offer; for example, Even the best physics journal is an unreliable source for statements about politics, and top-quality political journals are poor sources for statements about physics. So if the CTMU is "philosophy" instead of a scientific theory, then we shouldn't be looking in journals that purport to be about mathematical physics, should we? Likewise, it advises, There is no "magic" or "good" number for impact factors. And, Even the most prestigious and highly reputable journals have published embarrassingly bad papers, and many disreputable journals have published good quality papers by reputable researchers. Finding journals with good reputations is only part of the work in deciding what sources to use when you are building articles.

I picked Relational quantum mechanics as a comparison point because, as an interpretation of quantum mechanics, it spills over into philosophy and/or metaphysics. It's in the same range of things that the CTMU is trying to enter, unlike theories that lie within physics more narrowly construed, like massive gravity or the Georgi–Glashow model (to pick a couple examples that sprang to mind).

As for the rest, well, what can I say? It read like it took Intelligent Design as a scientific theory, and that the CTMU was too (a "theory of everything" means a scientific one). If that's not the impression you wanted to convey, then another round of revision would have been required. XOR'easter (talk) 06:26, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

XOR'easter That's a fair point WP:SJ is an essay, not a guideline, and it's true that a math and physics journal would not be a best source for a philosophy article (but it also doesn't mean that it would be irrelevant).

If that's not the impression you wanted to convey, then another round of revision would have been required. yes I think that's clear now.

Maybe I can frame this another way. When people Google CTMU, who do you want to explain it to them? Of course, if the CTMU is non-notable, then not Misplaced Pages. But I think even removing some of the sources this still passes the WP:GNG. Maybe we can agree on a few points as a way forward.

(1) The CTMU is not a scientific theory and shouldn't be framed in the article like one.

(2) It shouldn't leave the reader with an impression that it's advocating intelligent design.

(3) We remove the material referenced by the Entropy article, Dembski and Schofield and re-write.

(4) We include more material from Mark Chu-Carroll.

How does that sound? - Scarpy (talk) 07:09, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Nevermind. I give up. I've sank to much time and money in to this article. Sunk cost fallacy and all. This is all going off my watch lists. - Scarpy (talk) 09:00, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

I may come back to this someday. - Scarpy (talk) 20:16, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Notes on re-creation (demerging?) of this article 3

In my opinion, we have reached the point where the same points are being made over and over, and those who continue to disagree should drop the WP:STICK. --20:57, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Request for comment: on the notability of the CTMU in 2020 with sources published after 2006 and "unredirect" of this page to Christopher Langan

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following list: Religion and philosophy When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

In 2006 two articles were written on the Cognitive Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU). They didn't pass AfD at the time. One was Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Cognitive_Theoretic_Model_of_the_Universe (without the hypen) and the other was this one Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Cognitive-Theoretic_Model_of_the_Universe (with the hypen). The result of the later discussion was a redirect of this page to Christopher Langan, the author of the CTMU. Since 2006 more as been written about the CTMU and there are now more several secondary sources discussing it. There was a "2020 version" of the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe this article posted this week in place of this redirect but that has since been replaced with a redirect to Christopher Langan again. This RfC is to see if there if consensus can be generated on the notability of the CTMU with the WP:RS published since 2006, and if deemed notability should the redirect be replaced with a new version of the article along the lines of the one posted this week? - Scarpy (talk) 05:53, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

• No and no. For reasons detailed above, the smattering of new sources accumulated since the previous consensus was established do not amount to a case for notability. Moreover, the new version of the article violated WP:FRINGE and WP:NPOV and would be a poor starting point even if notability were agreed upon. XOR'easter (talk) 05:56, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Comment I put a lot of work in to giving the material WP:DUE weight, and I don't see any violations of WP:FRINGE or WP:NPOV but am of course open to re-writing or rewording anything I may have missed. - Scarpy (talk) 06:22, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

I believe that the portion of WP:FRINGE that this violates is "A Misplaced Pages article should not make a fringe theory appear more notable or more widely accepted than it is." You may find my essay at WP:1AM to be helpful. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:15, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Guy Macon. I'm more well-acquainted with WP:FRINGE now than I was when I was researching the article and understand these criticisms. This was the first time it was relevant to anything I've written from scratch before.

You may not have intended here, to my ears (eyes?) the tone and content here wasn't as helpful as the suggestions from but XOR'easter and PaoleoNeonate. They had similar concerns but took the time to point out specific wording in the article that they took issue with.

WP:1AM is a helpful essay. What I find more illuminating is Special:WhatLinksHere/Wikipedia:1AM. I often see pattern in the pages where it's linked that a similar cast of characters are involved for a similar class of issues on Misplaced Pages in a way that follows a routine. When things become routine, they become depersonalized. While your essay is somewhat a counter-balance to this, it's also a bit of a symptom of depersonalization in the sense that it's part of a stock/boilerplate/routine response. I think of essays like WP:DTTR and WP:DTA in the sense that they both advocate for a more personalized approach to help create a more congenial environment. I get that many admins (and probably others) believe that the founding values of Misplaced Pages have compromised its success and may take harder line, especially on WP:FRINGE issues. My constructive criticism is that the hard line approach should be less of a default and to take things on more of a case by case basis. There's a point of diminishing returns when the 'M' becomes so many more times larger than the '1' that it seems to be less about the goals of creating encyclopedic content and more about schadenfreude. - Scarpy (talk) 21:53, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

• No still fails WP:GNG even with the new sources. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:17, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
• No, it's as un-notable as ever it was. The material is pure fringe, too. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:03, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Comment If the primary concern is the WP:FRINGEiness, a rewrite can address that. For people saying this does not pass the WP:GNG. Removing the sources contested by XOR'easter, we have 4-5 independent, reliable, sources giving the topic significant coverage. David Redvaldsen, Menzler, Goertzel, and Chu-Carroll and I believe we can count Fusco since this is not a scientific theory. yes, it's not the list of Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign non-political endorsements but it is multiple WP:RS. - Scarpy (talk) 08:01, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Again, no. Three of those are blogs (two of which are by the same person and thus constitute one source for notability), and then there are a few paragraphs in two books. Just create a section of his page specifically for CTMU and redirect this page to that. --tronvillain (talk) 03:52, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

And I didn't even notice "Fusco": a thesis submitted for a doctorate in theology, in which nothing even vaguely resembling extensive coverage of CTMU exists. No. --tronvillain (talk) 14:01, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

• No. It's a one-man theory with no credible evidenbce of wider acceptance. The sources remain terrible. Self-published exposition by Langan, and larglely self-published critique. There is no "there" there. Guy (help!) 08:43, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
• No. Judging from the last incarnation of the article, this is just a description of what space the theory occupies (a sort of meta view of the topic), and the cited sources that I looked at largely talk (with a degree of dubiousness) about whether aspects of the "theory" can make any sense and whether it is even a theory, and put a lot of focus on Christopher Langan. In all, this is really about Christopher Langan's expression of something quirky, not about the topic described by the title. A better title for the real topic here would have been "Christopher Langan's CTMU" or similar. The topic itself (the content of the theory) is less notable than the existence of the theory (people discussing whether it has any merit). All this makes me think that this belongs in a section of Christopher Langan, and no way should be an article in its own right. —Quondum 11:58, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
• No - Looking through the references on that recreated article, it doesn't even come close to achieving notability for a fringe theory. As far as I could tell, the only ones explicitly about the theory (rather than offhand mentions) were three blogs, two of which were about how it was nonsense (from the same person). Now, you can achieve notability based on criticism, but that's not in any sense sufficient coverage. --tronvillain (talk) 12:29, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
• No. It has the expected depth and quality of sourcing for a fringe theory, which is to say: not enough for a standalone article. We should maintain the redirect to Christopher Langan. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:15, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
• No - I read the proposed version and looked at its sources. It's still suboptimal and lacks deserved criticism (if reliable secondary sources don't abound for that, it's an indication of lack of notability). The current version also uncritically asserts as facts claims like "As the CTMU indicates, creation occurs through a self-replicating feature of the universe"... Then it falls in apologetics like yes it's religious, but not necessarily the god you know... And uncritically goes on with the role of language as proposed (as opposed to concepts of the mind to apply to reality assessment, reality must somehow be derived from it, rather than our conception of it). The sources are generally suboptimal (and I have the impression that the linked Nils Melzer would be another person)? —PaleoNeonate – 16:18, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I think I googled something like “Misplaced Pages Nils Menzler” and a combination of autocomplete, dyslexia and haste lead me to link incorrectly. The correct author has a blog here: https://ifm.blogs.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/index.php/institut/personen/rieger/promotionsprojekte/nils-menzler-die-materialitaet-der-esoterik-die-rhetorik-esoterischer-apparate/ - Scarpy (talk) 18:59, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

• No - One man = one pet theory = one Misplaced Pages article. GPinkerton (talk) 05:17, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
• Yes to the notability of the CTMU and a new version of the article. The theory has appeared in peer-reviewed journals (e.g. and has received coverage in the mainstream media (e.g. ). This does not mean it is accepted by most experts, but per WP:FRINGE, Just because an idea is not accepted by most experts does not mean it should be removed from Misplaced Pages. The threshold for whether a topic should be included in Misplaced Pages as an article is generally covered by notability guidelines. These guidelines require the topic to have received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. Since this is true of the CTMU (see above), it is notable. The new draft by Scarpy could serve as a starting point for further development. Tim Smith (talk) 02:47, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
  • We don't actually know anything about the peer-review standards of Cosmos and History (which have been disputed); an inquiry at WP:RSN might be the right venue to sort that out. But that source is WP:PRIMARY anyway. Ideas don't become notable just by being published, no matter what journal publishes them; they have to be noticed, and a blurb in a pop-science magazine (scarcely a full story) is thin grounds for saying that people have paid serious attention. The Popular Science blurb could be added to Christopher Langan#Ideas and beliefs. XOR'easter (talk) 17:24, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
    • The blurb in Popular Science is effectively a sidebar to an article about the author, so that article is not about CTMU. Nor does the sidebar talk about the content of CTMU but rather only of the author's approach to it (making it an extension of the interview), a second point against this being about CTMU. So it is a stretch to claim that CTMU itself is covered by Popular Science, irrespective of its (lack of) credibility as a mainstream publication. There is just no way that this can be regarded as "significant coverage in reliable sources" or even contributory coverage of CTMU. —Quondum 18:11, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Regarding Cosmos and History, it is included in Scopus (thereby meeting WP:JOURNALCRIT), and also in ESCI , which Clarivate (publisher of Journal Citation Reports) characterizes as "a trusted set of journals" which "contains quality publications, selected by our expert in-house editors for editorial rigor and best practice at a journal level" . Furthermore, per WP:PRIMARY, Primary sources may or may not be independent sources. In this case, the journal is indeed independent of the CTMU. Thus, it is a reliable, independent source for the theory's notability.

Regarding Popular Science, the CTMU is referenced repeatedly throughout the article, not just in a sidebar. Indeed, the article begins:

He's a working class guy with an IQ that's off the charts. What does he have to say about science? Everything—a theory of everything, that is.

Regardless, per WP:GNG, Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material. Additionally, per WP:FRINGE, Reliable sources on Misplaced Pages may include magazines published by respected publishing houses. Popular Science was published by Time Inc. and has won multiple awards, including the American Society of Magazine Editors award for General Excellence. Thus, it too is a reliable, independent source for the theory's notability. Tim Smith (talk) 02:51, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

An article written by the inventor of the CTMU cannot be an independent source about the CTMU. XOR'easter (talk) 05:39, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Again, primary does not mean non-independent (WP:IS). The Cosmos and History paper is a primary source about the CTMU, but an independent source for its notability, because the journal is independent of the theory and its author. Tim Smith (talk) 02:14, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Tim, I have carefully re-read the Popular Science article, trying to find what you might construe as a "more than a trivial mention". Every mention is just that: a mention. The main article (which is just an interview) talks around it without even mentioning what theory they are referring to; one has to infer that. The side-panel mentions the CTMU, but only gives a very general idea that it is supposedly a "theory of everything", which I'm sure you'll concede is misleading, since you have already conceded that the theory it is in the realm of philosophy, and I would say that a theory of everything would by definition have greater predictive power and be more a more complete than the Standard Model. Misnomer aside, Popular Science seems to have as a significant objective finding new and unfamiliar topics for their immediate interest value, and I would say that it is a safe bet that more than 80% of what it has covered has faded into obscurity and never achieved notability. If you have failed to find any other mainstream coverage in the 19 years since the article appeared, I think we have pretty much found the textbook case of a non-notable topic. —Quondum 12:38, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Regarding "more than a trivial mention", the article contains not just a mention, but an entire section about the theory, titled "Science Works in Mysterious Ways: Christopher Langan's theory grapples with some of the murkiest questions about our universe."

Regarding "faded into obscurity", there is mainstream coverage of the CTMU from both before and after the Popular Science article. But in any case, per WP:NTEMP, Notability is not temporary; once a topic has been the subject of "significant coverage" in accordance with the general notability guideline, it does not need to have ongoing coverage.

Regarding "theory of everything", I do not concede that it is misleading to apply it to a philosophical theory like the CTMU. Here is what Popular Science says:

Physicists often use the term "theory of everything" to describe one of their holy grails, a theory that would be capable of unifying the laws that govern the universe. When Langan says everything, though, he means everything: from quantum mechanics to consciousness.

In fact, our own article says that the use of the term in physics "gives a very misleading impression", pointing out that physical theories "generally do not account for the apparent phenomena of consciousness or free will, which are instead often the subject of philosophy and religion." Tim Smith (talk) 02:14, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

The "entire section" is impressive in its superficiality, quoting only one person for commentary, who admits that he has nothing to say. If any scientific project of mine received such a superficial write-up, I would think that I did not motivate them to care. I might even be a little hurt. XOR'easter (talk) 04:53, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

The Popular Science sidebar is about the CTMU (well, Langan and the CTMU), but if it constitutes significant coverage, it does so barely. You'd want a very large pile of coverage at that level to show notability. --tronvillain (talk) 17:17, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes. There's a lot of interest in the CTMU and people would like to understand it better. I’d like to give just one example, that of Quora, which surely is noticeable enough (with its active Misplaced Pages article) and can be used as a source of information. If I am right, in 2016 Mr. Langan set up an account on Quora in response to many questions appearing there about his work. During his two years there he answered approx. 250 questions, generated 1.2 milion content views and had 1,657 followers. I was one of them and found many of Mr. Langan's answers very interesting and original, for example this one:

What is logical theology? How does it relate to Chris Langan and the CTMU?

Since 2018, questions about the CTMU haven't stopped flowing in; the last question was asked on 13th June 2020. People want to know more about it and Mr. Langan himself; there IS popular demand. If I may present some interesting numbers to support this claim. Upon checking the following Topics on Quora and all questions asked in relation to them, the following results present themselves:

• Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU): 905 questions;
• Chris Langan: 807 questions; there is an overlap with the CTMU category but it's not an absolute one, so we can definitely add a few questions to those 905… .

Please compare the above with the relatively low interest in the below related Quora Topics which are, nevertheless, present on Misplaced Pages.

• Simulation Argument: 36 questions;
• Simulation Hypothesis: 276 questions;

The latter having even its own article Simulation hypothesis.

I haven't mentioned this topic accidentally. It's important to recognize that Mr. Langan is the originator of the term “self-simulation” in the reality-theoretic context, and has always followed this path by positing that the Universe is monic (dual-aspect monism) and exhausting logical consequences of this fact.

Interviews with Mr. Langan are also popular (from YouTube):

with Spike Jonze, 50,154 views;
with Steve Patterson, 15,878 views, or the same interview on another channel, 29,468 views;
People Speak Radio, 48,546 views;
Coast to Coast AM, 80 949 views.

Mr. Langan has published various articles (including the ones in the peer-reviewed C&H with many noticeable scholars in its Editorial Team) and answered hundreds of questions about his theory on numerous websites. His position has been consistent over the years and the answers I have seen are very satisfying. He is a logician, metaphysician (in a precisely-defined sense), philosopher, and thinker whose contributions deserve to be recognized.

If there is an article on Misplaced Pages about Simulation Hypothesis (276) there definitely should be a separate article about the CTMU (905) on Misplaced Pages.

People want to know more about the CTMU and I believe Misplaced Pages should support this wish in order to be consistent with what it is presenting itself to be.

I'd like to vote in favour of the CTMU article publication. --Mich.Szczesny (talk) 22:49, 15 July 2020 (UTC) — Mich.Szczesny (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

This is not a vote, and Quora is not a reliable source. XOR'easter (talk) 23:07, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

The simulation hypothesis is far from a single person's ideas and even has importance in culture, it's difficult to compare with CTMU in relation to notability. —PaleoNeonate – 23:57, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Langan publishing articles, answering questions on websites, and being interviewed in various self-published sources and on Coast to Coast AM (the home of fringe topics) is not an argument for the CTMU having it's own page—Langan already has his own page. And numbers on Quora carry essentially zero weight on Misplaced Pages. --tronvillain (talk) 12:52, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes. The CTMU has gained steady popularity including coverage on mainstream media and podcasts as stated above. A moderate number of works of Langan were also published on a peer-reviewed journal Cosmos and History, whose editorial board consists of notable academics including a Nobel Prize winner. The CTMU was also cited on Klee Irwin's Self-Simulation hypothesis, I think that's enough back-up for the notability of the CTMU and definitely qualifies a re-creation of the article on Misplaced Pages. --Johnnyyiu (talk) 04:24, 16 July 2020 (UTC) — Johnnyyiu (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

• Those sources have already been discussed and do not add up to a case for notability. Langan himself can "publish" however much he feels like; what matters is demonstrable influence, of which there is not enough. XOR'easter (talk) 06:20, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes. My argument is the following notable material into which the CTMU found its way. The quotation marks for the verb "publish" in the above comment are not justified at all if you don't mind me saying so:

a) Quote: >>There are many beautifully written papers in the series with both Fritjof Capra and Chris Langan achieving record numbers of downloads.<< (https://www.cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/727/1191 )

b) Quote: >>I include three papers – one each by Leanne Whitney, Jack duVall and Chris Langan – from our “21st century sacred” session on Oct 5 2017 in honour of the Benedicitine monk Sean O Duinn, who passed away on Oct 9 2017 at 83, and we were grateful to have the privilege of honouring him."What have we found out in our 4 years and 150+ papers from over 100 authors? It is worth pointing out that some of our authors do not have Ph.D’s; in fact, Chris Langan, perhaps the most downloaded, does not have a degree. However, Chris has one of the highest IQ’s ever recorded and incredible discipline as he alternates farmwork in Wyoming with research. What was more important for us was to get a range of viewpoints on critical issues of life and mind that conventional academia is not addressing.<< (https://www.cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/viewFile/677/1149)

a) and b) are not primary sources, but secondary sources. They were written about the author of the CTMU by someone else (an academic who publishes, does research etc.) in a reliable source (Cosmos and History journal, more specifically in the proceedings of an academic group known as “Foundations of Mind”). The quotes come from Seán Ó Nualláin who’s mentioned, e.g., here: https://www.interaliamag.org/author/seanonuallain/. It is noteworthy for the CTMU theory because the FOM group contains notable academics. Cosmos and History is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal of natural and social philosophy and this is the editorial team: https://www.cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/about/editorialTeam

“In terms of downloads (150,000 per year), annual page views (27 million+) ,and peer-reviewed papers (more than 100 in its first 3 years, from March 2014 to March 2017), Foundations of Mind is now the world’s leading science of mind research group. While centered on cognitive science, it has featured many papers on the quantum mechanics view of mind, the foundations of physics and biology, and indeed ecology and health as manifestations of mind. Its most recent proceedings volume, published in March 2017, received a total of 4,333 downloads in its first month, with the top papers receiving 750+, about what ACM papers typically take 25 years to achieve.” (see: http://foundationsofmind.org/ and search for it, you find it where it reads "The New AI Scare") Notable members of FOM are, for example: Seán O Nualláin, Stuart Hammeroff (http://foundationsofmind.org/ - third last entry), Henry Stapp (https://www.bionoetics.org/foundations-of-mind-iv), Fred Alan Wolf (https://www.bionoetics.org/product-page/premium-access-placeholder), Stuart Kauffman (https://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/63219 & https://www.bionoetics.org/foundations-of-mind-i), Paul J Werbos (https://www.bionoetics.org/product-page/premium-access-placeholder)

Further evidence for FOM membership of Chris and his CTMU theory:

“This Premium Membership includes not only all 16 full papers from Foundations of Mind 8. (...) 7. Christopher Langan,...” https://www.bionoetics.org/product-page/premium-access-placeholder

“Foundations of Mind V The New AI Scare (...) Metareligion as the Human Singularity Christopher Langan…” https://www.bionoetics.org/foundations-of-mind-v

“The "Foundations of Mind" series (O Nualláin 2014a, 2015, 2016a, 2016b, 2017, 2018) which began in 2014 is now the most downloaded series of conferences proceedings in the history of modern science of mind and possibly alt science in general. Perhaps not coincidentally, it is also the most various and here we review it. (...) The Metaformal System: Completing the Theory of Language Christopher Langan…” https://www.bionoetics.org/foundations-of-mind-vii

“Foundations of Mind IV Quantum Mechanics meets (...) An Introduction to Mathematical Metaphysics Christopher Langan…” https://www.bionoetics.org/foundations-of-mind-iv

“Our new proceedings volume featuring Chris Langan (whose interview with Spike Jonze can be seen here), Paul Werbos (who invented deep learning), and many others, is also included in the Premium package. These are peer-reviewed papers not available elsewhere.” https://www.bionoetics.org/

Furthermore:

There is this: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jonathan_Mize2 “I am currently working in advancing the novel and currently neglected metaphysical framework of Langan’s Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU). More specifically, I am interested in advancing CTMU-informed methods of social and normative analysis.”

This: https://books.google.de/books?id=KwSjDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41&dq=ctmu+chris+langan&source=bl&ots=mX_TWFMlzE&sig=ACfU3U3Y8OTyzVrOnZOPxMWNQSItsduNyg&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj82KuosbbpAhWMCuwKHfKZCtEQ6AEwFHoECDkQAQ#v=onepage&q=ctmu%20chris%20langan&f=false

And this: https://medium.com/@variantofone/explaining-the-ctmu-cognitive-theoretic-model-of-the-universe-163a89fc5841--Moripheles (talk) 07:32, 16 July 2020 (UTC)— Moripheles (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Notability isn't inherited: establishing Christopher Langan as notable does not establish the CTMU as sufficiently notable to merit a standalone article. But let's see... a)not extensive coverage of CTMU (it doesn't even mention it by name) b)not extensive coverage of CTMU (again, it doesn't even mention it by name). Those are no help to resurrecting this page, and the "further evidence" is similarly unhelpful. So, we're left with the "furthermore" section: a ResearchGate profile is nothing, a self-published piece on Medium is nothing, and while the Menzler mention is something, it's already been discussed above. So... no. --tronvillain (talk) 13:12, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Through all this, I am struck by the absence of a source for any real content that such an article would need. What we have are several sources talking about Langan and mentioning that he originated CTMU, and giving general opinions about the latter in some instances (mainly from Langan himself). However, we would be hard-pressed to come up with any assessment about what the CTMU actually says (this is what we need proper secondary sources for). As it was before becoming a redirect, it was like a big hole in the middle of a description of the metaphysical context it presumably fits into. Aside from the non-notability discussion, I see this as a severe obstacle to the creation of an article. There seems to be an argument "this has some popularity, so it deserves a page", but what purpose would such a page even serve in the encyclopaedic sense? None that I can see, until we can find a secondary source with real content on what the CTMU is really. —Quondum 13:28, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Quondum, I've noticed that too (along with the arrival of accounts that don't seem to have edited much else, which makes me suspect canvassing — maybe this got mentioned on a CTMU Facebook fan group, or something). XOR'easter (talk) 15:54, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Yup, the thought had occurred to me that there might be the perception that weight of numbers might swing the issue. I have no idea why they should be so intent on a separate article on this; it has the feel of trying to create a sense of credibility, which is not what WP is for. Not that it is important. I have also wondered at the amount of time established editors are bothering to devote to this. —Quondum 16:03, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

... but what purpose would such a page even serve ... WP:PROMOTION, of course. —PaleoNeonate – 20:50, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes. Misplaced Pages maintains a lower notability requirement for new articles than the above opponents here seem to realize. So one shouldn't get too caught up in the fact that the CTMU "isn't as important as Langan claims", or "is just a bunch of nonsense", when all we need to know is that (a) the CTMU has been around for decades, with hundreds of thousands of words written about it (b) has received attention from academia and the press and (c) compares favorably in depth and notoriety to similar theories which already do have articles (e.g., William James Sidis' The Animate and the Inanimate).

The self-appointed gatekeepers of Misplaced Pages who insist on keeping it free of "crackpot theories" should stop allowing their personal issues with Langan and his theory to detract from Misplaced Pages's mission, which has always been far broader than that of any other website. Misplaced Pages hosts many utterly obscure articles on topics which very few are even aware, and thus an article covering one of the very few "theories of everything", authored by someone widely reported as having the world's highest IQ, clearly qualifies.

Siagos (talk) 15:07, 16 July 2020 (UTC) — Siagos (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

No, Misplaced Pages maintains exactly the notability requirement for new articles that we are trying to uphold here. Frankly, The Animate and the Inanimate looks like it should be deleted, too; or at least redirected to William James Sidis, because there appears to be basically nothing to say about it, beyond a line or two that could easily fit into the latter article. So, in fact, the situation is exactly analogous to the one here. XOR'easter (talk) 15:41, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Do you realize how easy it would be for me to provide links to dozens (and if I had the time, thousands) of other weird, obscure Misplaced Pages articles proving that its notability requirement is, in fact, quite low? It's certainly not so high that a theory of the universe addressing every major question in philosophy doesn't make the cut. The only reason you think so is because you really, really don't like the CTMU, and think it's a waste of time. Well, there's a lot here on Misplaced Pages that I regard as a "waste of time" which I'm not tempted to remove. Let people read about the things they want to. There is a huge population of people who would love to learn about the CTMU, as you can probably tell from the overflow of support it's receiving. Siagos (talk) 16:30, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

By all means, nominate those articles for deletion or redirect, but they are not an argument for reducing notability requirements (especially not for a fringe topic). And no, it's not that I "really, really don't like the CTMU, and think it's a waste of time." Fringe topics have a place on Misplaced Pages... if they have sufficient notability—I've looked at deletion discussions for pages that are obvious nonsense and voted "Keep" because I've been able to find extensive coverage in reliable independent sources, but that's not the case here. --tronvillain (talk) 17:19, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS and WP:POINT appear to apply in this context, —PaleoNeonate – 20:42, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

... allowing their personal issues with Langan ... I think none of us non-single-purpose-account editors know the man. You may also want to discuss content rather then editors (and read WP:PA). As for notability and fringe, they're Misplaced Pages policies, not the personal concepts of some editors. —PaleoNeonate – 20:46, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes. There is obviously no comparison between the amount of material covering the CTMU in 2020 as compared to 2006; yet, in 2006 we were able to discuss the merits of the entry without being summarily shut down by a coordinated clique bent on minimizing the reality of the situation by redirecting to a defamatory section of Langan's bio. Let's open this up to have a real discussion and wait for some less involved admins and editors to weigh in. TIA DrL (talk) 18:18, 16 July 2020 (UTC)— DrL (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Reality Check

Pardon me, but we may have a few misconceptions here. Perhaps I can help clear them up.

The first involves the meaning of "Theory of Everything". While some people imagine that its meaning is a matter of semantic preference, it's actually more cut and dried. First, it refers to no existing theory of physics. In particular, it does not refer to a unified field theory, the usual meaning of "TOE" in physics. To justify such a label, the UFT in question would have to establish that nothing, living or nonliving, exists in any measure beyond the unified field, which is something that a UFT simply doesn't do. Nor does the Standard Model qualify - it peters out beyond the first 10^-43 seconds of cosmic evolution, prior to which the quantum nature of gravity and/or spacetime itself must be considered. Although just a tiny fraction of a second is omitted, it is too important to leave out.

Rather, a "theory of everything" is a theory of reality in its entirety on all scales, living and nonliving alike. Such a theory is called an ontology. The reasoning is very simple: where the attribute describing everything in reality is reality, existence, or being, a "theory of everything" is a theory supporting attributions of reality, existence, or being, i.e., an ontology. Where ontology, epistemology, and (sometimes) cosmology are classified together as "metaphysics", it is also true that a theory of everything is metaphysical. Equipped with a proper theory of metaphysics, we can then ask how the Standard Model and various other physical theories might be interpreted therein. That's what the CTMU is - it's a powerful metaphysical framework in which physical theories can be interpreted, thus explaining how physical reality is modeled in metaphysical reality (or if one likes, metaphysically "simulated" according to the CTMU Reality Self-Simulation Principle).

As for mention in mainstream sources, consider "Teleology and Modernity", a philosophical anthology published by Routledge in 2019. It devotes three pages to the CTMU.

https://www.routledge.com/Teleology-and-Modernity/Gibson-OBrien-Turda/p/book/9780815351030

Here's a sample (from Chapter 10):

"A possible way forward for intelligent design is to adopt the cognitive theoretic model of the universe (CTMU), a highly teleological attempt at a unified theory of physical reality. The CTMU is the brainchild of Christopher Michael Langan, an independent scholar who, like Darwin, has no academic affiliation. ... Neo-Darwinism is the current orthodoxy among biologists, whereas intelligent design is not highly regarded. However, the CTMU gives intelligent design a possible way out of its difficulty. The CTMU postulates that Creation occurs gradually through the universe self-replicating features of itself within itself. Thus, the "irreducible complexity" occurs not from the bottom up with simple features becoming complex, but instead top down with with a holographic image of the universe being inculcated into organisms which are in a sense new, rather than modified versions of previous life. Natural selection still takes place in the sense that the universe chooses which which of its features to replicate in the new design. Intelligence appears in animals and humans, but it must already have existed in the universe before life capable of cognition appeared. If laws are used to explain conditions, then the laws themselves must be explained. This links well to the argument for design because the physical laws of the universe must have appeared from somewhere before they began to be used in shaping the universe."

Now, this description is neither perfect nor complete - the CTMU is a profoundly new and original theory, it is vastly better-structured and better-integrated than any other theory of its kind, and such a theory isn't so easy to understand. But the above sample does, after all, touch on several key features of the CTMU. In other words, it is simply not the case that the CTMU is merely being "mentioned". Distinctive features of the theory are given, and its potential importance is clearly stated.

I've been repeatedly informed that Misplaced Pages is not a forum for arguing content, and that the issue is notability and mention in one or more "reliable sources". Whether the CTMU is mainstream or just a "fringe theory" / intellectual curiosity, Oxford Brookes University and Routledge would seem to be reliable sources. It is not the degree of mainstream acceptance of the CTMU that is important; all that matters is that mainstream academics have noticed and discussed it, and even if they're a little underexposed to it and/or muddled about some aspects of it or even totally unimpressed with it, that should make no difference at all. The important thing is that the CTMU is deemed worthy of discussion, and by Misplaced Pages standards, that should be that.

As usual, I can't rule out the possibility that there's something I'm not seeing. Perhaps I've somehow gotten lost in the fog once again and failed to grok some esoteric rationale that allows, nay forces Misplaced Pages to slam the door in the face of the CTMU and all who appreciate it yet again. In which case, all I can do is ask what I've missed. Chris Langan (talk) 04:26, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

"And all who appreciate it" is a very, very short list. Routledge is publisher, not a reliable source. Oxford Brookes is a polytechnic, and last time I checked does not endorse this so-called CTMU, or any other version of creationism. The claim that Charles Darwin had "no academic affiliation" is clear red flag of someone who doesn't know what they're talking about. Darwin was an alumnus of two ancient universities and was affiliated with the Geological Society of London (of which he was Secretary and a Fellow and from which he received the Wollaston Medal), the Zoological Society of London, was a Fellow of the Royal Society (receiving its Royal Medal and its Copley Medal), a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, a Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society, and a member of, among others, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Academy of Belgium, the American Philosophical Society, the Lincean Academy, and the Athenaeum Club. The whole thing reeks of the "they laughed at Galileo too" canard that fringe theorists love to trot out when referring to themselves or their pet ideas or those of others. The important thing is that we already have an article dealing with this subject, and that is Chris Langan. GPinkerton (talk) 06:54, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

"It is not enough to wear the mantle of Galileo: that you be persecuted by an unkind establishment. You must also be right." -Robert L. Park --tronvillain (talk) 14:18, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Chris Langan I made two mistakes when I wrote the recent version of this article. One was because I didn't know better, the other I feel super dumb about because I should have known better. I'm hoping if I explain the latter one it will give you some helpful context here.

I believe there's a good argument that the CTMU passes the WP:GNG, what I failed to sufficiently account for was WP:FRINGE. To the GNG point, let me give you an example, in 2017 I was watching Narcos and was surprised to see Javier Peña didn't have an article. I did the samething I did here -- searched Google Scholar, Google Books and other places you would find WP:RS as was also surprised at how little there was written about him at the time, but there were four reliable, secondary, independent sources and I wrote the article using those. From a notability perspective, it's thin but passes WP:GNG. No one has cared enough to challenge it, probably because the Javier Peña article is not a WP:FRINGE (or in other categories where people would be more stringent).

I should have know better regarding WP:FRINGE because I had a few exchanges about it less than a year ago. See Talk:Craniosacral_therapy/Archive_2#Some_constructive_criticism_on_the_quality_of_collaboration_here, User_talk:Someguy1221#CST_and_the_like and the third section here (that section has since been removed I believe was not archived). All three of these are worth a read, especially the bits from Carl Sagan in the last link.

There's a group of people on Misplaced Pages who are valuable and do good work monitoring WP:FRINGEy articles, but can be too strident and sometimes "come down hard like a ton of bricks on someone as soon as they make a mistake" while coordinating others to come and do the same. There's very little application of the principle of charity, and that's some of what we're seeing here.

At any rate, for an article on the CTMU to "pass WP:FRINGE" among other things it would need to be written something like the article on craniosacral therapy (CST) where the bulk of the article is explaining why you shouldn't take CST seriously (which to be clear on the point of CST I completely agree with and entirely makes sense based on the RS). There would also need to be enough sources critical of the CTMU to make this abundantly possible.... or the CTMU would have to become mainstream enough to not be WP:FRINGE.

The path to each of these outcomes is a long one. One option might be to do what was done for the Clarice Phelps Misplaced Pages article and put it in Draft space where as new sources become available they can be vetted by those interested. Another would be to expand the section in the Chris Langan article until it justifies a content fork. But all of these depend on more being written in WP:RS about the CTMU outside of Misplaced Pages.

The CTMU seems interesting to me. I do make mistakes from time to time, but I'm not a dummy. Ben Goertzel is way smarter than me, I don't think he would have been so engaged about the CTMU if there wasn't something interesting to be engaged about. But until some things change I just don't see it having a Misplaced Pages article in the near future. I'm going to work on some non-WP:FRINGE things for awhile, but would circle back to this in 12-24 months and see if anything's changed. I know that seems like a long time, and to be fair it is, but it's about the pace that these things move at. - Scarpy (talk) 20:11, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

I really do think that the existing material could be expanded into a titled "CTMU" section on Langan's page). --tronvillain (talk) 21:16, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

While I have the impression that some of the above may be exaggerated, I agree with most of it and thank you for the collegial attitude despite some potentially lost work, Scarpy. Noone will contest that it's a particularly difficult area to edit. —PaleoNeonate – 00:25, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Tronvillain, there was one last time I looked. And anything more than that is WP:UNDUE. Googling "Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe" quoted yields fewer than 100 hits, not even two pages of unique results. We have articles on notable bollocks, but this doesn't seem to be notable. Guy (help!) 21:37, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

On the contrary, googling "Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe" quoted yields "About 21,000 results". I'm guessing you tried to get to the end, and the results cut off. That also happens for other topics. For example, if I google "theory of relativity" quoted and go to the last page, there are only 162 results. By this standard, the CTMU is over 50% as notable as the theory of relativity. Tim Smith (talk) 03:57, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Google hit counts are not going to be informative here (and are seldom very informative anywhere). Google Scholar, which is at least slightly selective, finds 150,000 results for "theory of relativity", 109,000 for the narrower term "special relativity", and 48 for the CTMU. All of those have already been discussed on this page; none rise to the level of being in-depth, independent, reliably published sources about the CTMU instead of Langan's life story. (Michael Behe's irreducible complexity, which was at least taken seriously enough to be debunked, has a GS hit count over 3,000, which gives some sense of the detectable difference between notable and non-notable fringe ideas. Fussing over exact numbers is likely to be counterproductive, but looking at the orders of magnitude is revealing.) XOR'easter (talk) 07:03, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Just a reminder that scholarly sources are only one source of notability for the CTMU. It is also notable for its coverage in the popular media, including newspapers, magazines, and TV shows. Tim Smith (talk) 04:59, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Tim, are you being deliberately disingenuous here? It does not help when you ignore of the "About 7,100,000 results" displayed by Google for the quoted phrase and skip over 16 pages to find what is clearly a bug in Google to bolster your position. As XOR'easter says, the actual figures are not of real significance, but it is up to you to acknowledge your "mistake" if you hope that what you say is to retain any credibility. —Quondum 12:09, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Not at all. Guy claimed that 'Googling "Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe" quoted yields fewer than 100 hits', concluding that "this doesn't seem to be notable". I pointed out that it actually yields "About 21,000 results", and guessed that he arrived at "fewer than 100" by trying to page to the end. If you do that with "theory of relativity", you get 162 results (compared to 92 for the CTMU). The figure for the CTMU is 57% as high as the one for the theory of relativity. Obviously, this calls into question the use of this figure as an indicator of notability or lack thereof ("this doesn't seem to be notable"), unless you think that the CTMU is actually 57% as notable as the theory of relativity. Please assume good faith. Tim Smith (talk) 04:59, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

I agree that first expanding the biography would be the natural way, especially that any CTMU notability is currently inherited and the BLP article is unlikely to get deleted. What is WP:DUE to include there is of course another matter. —PaleoNeonate – 00:19, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

It's been tweaked a little since I last looked at it, and it does seem that the redirect should go to that section rather than simply the page itself. --tronvillain (talk) 22:54, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Tronvillain here (redirect to section instead of page). - Scarpy (talk) 00:24, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't see why not, —PaleoNeonate – 00:27, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Pinging Guy Macon who did the last edit for his impression, —PaleoNeonate – 00:30, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:54, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

No objection here. XOR'easter (talk) 07:02, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Tronvillain, I agree with that. Guy (help!) 13:36, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

This solution is woefully inadequate. Not only does your redirect point to an insignificant mention of what has become an increasingly important theory, but the section is conflated with violations of WP:BPL - using remarks allegedly made by Langan on social media to denigrate him and the CTMU. This discussion is by no means over. The extensive mention by this Oxford publication (as cited by Langan above), in addition to other mentions in RS (both popular and academic) is more than enough to justify a separate entry for the CTMU. DrL (talk) 18:11, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

@DrL: quick note to point out the Oxford Brookes University has nothing at all to do with the University of Oxford, despite its being in the same city. GPinkerton (talk) 00:31, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

@DrL: Can you provide specifics around these other mentions in reliable sourcing? I agree with the editors above that the mention in Teleology and Modernity is not sufficient to justify a standalone article, and we'll need more than just handwaving about other sources to evaluate the existence of significant coverage. GorillaWarfare (talk) 16:32, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for this good suggestion. I will have a look and add some material to the talk page as I have time. Just figured I'd weigh in. DrL (talk) 00:04, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare and DrL I created a draft space version of the article as it will be helpful for editors to have a list of sources used without needing to check edit summaries and for editors to demonstrate proposed changes to wording and content concretely rather than abstractly. See Draft:Cognitive-Theoretic_Model_Universe#References. For a non-WP:FRINGE article, sources of these kinds would not have been so controversial. For people that are curious I whittled these 11 away from dozens of them that I left in a scratchpad here.

If there’s enough reasonable editors I think some of this material could be couched in a more WP:FRINGE-sympathetic way and we could approach a consensus that way, or the same tact could be taken for expanding the section in Langan’s article. - Scarpy (talk) 18:43, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Scarpy, right now, there is one minor credible academic source that gives more than a passing mention of CTMU. We have lots of articles on notable bollocks (e.g. homeopathy) but this topic attracts the interest of exactly zero actively publishing researchers. There is nothing in the peer-reviewed literature, the critiques are equally in popular science and skepticism pages not journals. There is no "there" there. Your own article shows it: the first proposition is in a creationist fake journal, the major discussions are self-published. Guy (help!) 19:04, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't know that we can be sure that "there's no there there", Guy. It's very easy to find things like this out there:

https://www.beekmanschool.org/articles/we-are-universe-experiencing-itself

Quote: Panpsychism, from Misplaced Pages, is the view that consciousness, mind or soul (psyche) is a universal and primordial feature of all things. (https://en.wikipedia.org/Panpsychism). Another article for Medium is about Chris Langan’s Cognitive Theoretic Model of the Universe.(https://medium.com/@variantofone/explaining-the-ctmu-cognitive-theoretic-model-of-the-universe-163a89fc5841).

In this article the author attempts to explain a theory that states that reality is a “self aware, self conscious construct, aka it is intelligent.” Through a discussion starting with the birth of reality from quantum foam deciding its own set of laws all the way to the neurons in our brains and their constituent atoms, the author states that atoms are information processors since the brain is an information processor. And as such, atoms have a real (although extremely low level) form of intelligence. And since all atoms are within the bounds of reality and receive radiation from each other, “this everywhere, at all times, perceiving itself in an act of contemplation or self modeling (which is what minds do).” He goes on to state, “Reality is everywhere self similar and self processing, a symmetry.”

Once again, this goes into the distinctive content of the CTMU, so it's not just a passing mention coupled to my name.

Yes, the Beekman School has a page here on Misplaced Pages, so it's "notable", and having been educating NYC students for nearly a century, it's not unreliable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/The_Beekman_School

How much of this kind of thing are we willing to dismiss? Or to put it another way, how many nontrivial references from notable / reliable sources will be necessary to get the CTMU - which is far from "bollocks", by the way - the dedicated article it deserves? 216.139.113.98 (talk) 21:48, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

A website that recycles a Medium blog post, which is not a reliable source, is not a reliable source. Real scientific theories do not need "support" by scraping together mentions on random web pages, particularly those that take Deepak Chopra seriously. XOR'easter (talk) 22:57, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Well, let's see how it's received when it's published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, shall we? Guy (help!) 23:07, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Gary made a legitimate point: if morphic fields are not independently notable apart from Rupert Sheldrake, then the CTMU is not independently notable apart from Langan. The same IP has repeatedly tried to suppress this comparison. Presumably we have multiple editors from the same location, leading to a somewhat entertaining spectacle. XOR'easter (talk) 23:13, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

A comment with regard to "Teleology and Modernity". By looking at Misplaced Pages's standards in the section What counts as a reliable source, there can be very little doubt that we are dealing with a reliable source here. I think it's quite clear. Routledge is a global publishing house founded in 1836, which has published, among others, works of Einstein, Russell, Popper, or Wittgenstein. I'd call it a reliable publisher. As to the Oxford Brookes University, it's in the Top 50 UK Universities (2021): University League Tables 2021.--Mich.Szczesny (talk) 18:07, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

I doubt its reliability. Academic publishers put out a fantastic quantity of marginalia: conference proceedings are a prime example of books that are printed because libraries will buy them, and Teleology and Modernity appears to fall into that category (The foundation for this volume originates in two workshops ... devoted to the exploration of the relationship between science, history, religion and philosophy, etc.). Without an evaluation of this book specifically, I would not trust it as a source on a fringe/controversial topic. Published only last year, it appears too recent to have attracted documentable scrutiny (e.g., scholarly book reviews available on JSTOR). Moreover, the chapter itself says, The CTMU is described in brief here only as a curiosity; even if we took the collection as a reliable source, by its own admission, it brings nothing significant to the table. XOR'easter (talk) 18:33, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Mich.Szczesny, it might be reliable for trivia about CTMU but it does not establish notability, because, in the end, this is a purportedly scientific theory that has never been published (or indeed discussed) in a reputable scientific journal. Guy (help!) 23:15, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

A small point with repeating here no one is purporting that the CTMU is a scientific theory.

While I'm here -- to the IPs and single purpose accounts (e.g. Moripheles, Siagos, DrL, Johnnyyiu) -- you're not helping your cause here. My advice would be to spend some more time on Misplaced Pages outside of this area and while you do that to familiarize yourselves with the processes involved in editing. Meaning, for example, anytime you see a link prefixed with 'WP:', if you're not already intimately familiar with it, read it carefully three times. Edit some other articles and participate in some other discussions. When you've collected several months (really maybe a year or so) of experience maybe come back to things like this. For the most part, the kind of things you're saying on this talk page are the kind of arguments more experienced editors would know to specifically avoid. It's like the Misplaced Pages equivalent of "the dog ate my homework." It's important to have a frame of reference. :) - Scarpy (talk) 20:57, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Scarpy, Langan is. But what I don't really understand is why he and DrL have re-emerged fomr under their respective rocks to start this farcical argument again. Nothing has actually changed since the original deletion. CTMU is a fringe theory with exactly one proponent, that is very occasionally mentioned in passing in some sources on the fringes of academic discourse. The "sources" you marshalled for your draft were mainly blogs. As your draft shows, we can't cover CTMU in a standalone article because there is a complete absence of reality-based commentary on it in reliable sources. Guy (help!) 11:36, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

JzG I believe you are incorrect. As Langan himself affirms, what he’s putting forth is a philosophy, not a scientific theory. It’s not really a new kind of “theory of everything”, it’s a mathematically semi-formalized metaphysics As far as I can tell Ben's summary is accurate here. I've read quite a bit about the CTMU at this point and have never seen Langan describe it as a scientific theory. If I missed it, please correct me.

Sure, 3 of the 11 sources were an AI researcher and a mathematician blogging about the CTMU, but as we seemed to agree under non-BLP non-FRINGE circumstances those would be RS. It's the same reasoning people use to cite Science-Based Medicine (which I believe I've seen cited in WP:FRINGEish articles before).

In the meantime it was covered in two scholarly books, and was a significant part of a Ph.D. thesis. While both yourself and XOR'easter make some excellent points about MDPI journals that I was unaware of, it is worth mentioning even on the new version of Beall's list, MDPI is "Excluded – decide after reading"... but okay, fine, we're in WP:FRINGE territory, so we want to be hard-nosed here. No MDPI, no Ph.D. thesis.

So if we're just talking about the Menzler and Redvaldsen sources... If Nothing = 0, 2 != 0 and 2 > 1. So, things have changed since 2006. We can argue about how much, but it is covered in more than one WP:RS even by WP:FRINGE standards. Something is not nothing. - Scarpy (talk) 20:42, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

@Scarpy: Just so I'm sure we're on the same page, can you clarify which source you're referring to when you mention the non-MDPI scholarly source? The Teleology and Modernity book? GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:58, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare Menzler, Nils (25 July 2019). "Chapter 2: Theoretische Vorarbeiten § 2.2 »Paraphysik«, »Parawissenschaft« und »Pseudowissenschaft«". Techno-Esoterik in der säkularisierten Moderne: Überzeugungsstrategien, Apparate und die Formung des modernen Subjekts (in German). Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. pp. 41–43. doi:10.1007/978-3-658-27303-3. ISBN 978-3-658-27302-6. and David Redvaldsen (31 July 2019). "Chapter 5: Charles Darwin and the argument for design". In William Gibson; Dan O'Brien; Marius Turda (eds.). Teleology and Modernity. Taylor & Francis. pp. 197–202. ISBN 978-1-351-14186-4.. I paid someone Fiverr to have Menzler's text translated (which did come out a bit better than Google's) text is here. - Scarpy (talk) 21:21, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Scarpy, this is thin gruel, my friend. What we want is substantial coverage of the topic in mainstream sources, that discuss its validity, rather than merely citing it as an interesting curiosity. Guy (help!) 22:28, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

JzG Yes, it's thin. A thin person is still a person. If we had articles showing it's validity it wouldn't be WP:FRINGE and we wouldn't be having this conversation. A notable curiosity is notable. A point that I started making to XOR'easter earlier -- if you Google CTMU now and Google shows you similar things to my results, 9 of the first 10 hits are all things from CTMU-proponents and the other one of the is a link to this talk page. Would it not be better to have somewhere that puts the CTMU in an encyclopedia context that implies "okay, here's a summary of what's in the reputable scholarly literature and it's, ____ you'll note that there's note much of it" rather than lending to the perception/magnitude of it's Streisand effect? Put another way, people are going to Google this topic, who would you prefer to have explain it to them? - Scarpy (talk) 23:03, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Scarpy, we have sufficient sources for a section in the article on Langan. We do not have sufficient sources for a standalone article, as your draft pretty much proves. We can cover bollocks on Misplaced Pages as long as it's notable bollocks, a qualifier for which is reality-based critique in mainstream sources discussing its status. All we have here is a few mentions, mostly in passing.

Google returns 82 unique hits (less than for "morphic resonance", which is an obvious benchmark here). Most results are blogs and forums (as per your draft). There is simply no evidence that this is notable beyond Langan. Guy (help!) 07:33, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. I agree with JzG and others that those two new sources do not tip the scales towards warranting a separate article. As for the argument that we ought to have an article on it because sourcing outside of Misplaced Pages is poor or slanted, I'm surprised that's not listed in WP:ATA–the existence of slanted sourcing elsewhere does not change Misplaced Pages's inclusion criteria. Furthermore, at least for me, when I Google "Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe", the first result in a big box is a link to the Christopher Langan article. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:39, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

I just Googled the phrase in an incognito browser window, and I got the same big box. (Also in the first 10 results is this Quora answer.) XOR'easter (talk) 23:48, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Is Misplaced Pages a vehicle for insulting BLP subjects and their wives and misrepresenting their ideas?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Pardon me, but I just have a few suggestions that I think could move the debate in a positive direction.

1. Langan has never presented the CTMU as anything but a metaphysical (philosophical) theory, period. By virtue of its unique structure, it has scientific ramifications, but calling it a "scientific theory" would be a secondary classification. (If anyone here has a hard time with this distinction, I'd be happy to help. Just ask.) See, for example:

https://religions.wiki/index.php/Cognitive-Theoretic_Model_of_the_Universe

(No, it's not necessarily notable or reliable except to the extent that any wiki is, including this one. But it's a source, and it seems accurate.)

2. Single purpose accounts are annoying, no doubt ... except when free rein is given to single-purpose trolls, one of whom ("Gary") posted 11 (eleven) hostile or impertinent edits in a row on July 17 and was then cited approvingly in an authoritative tone. Despite this editor having been repeatedly blocked for trolling, the trolling continues. Surely everyone understands that when single-purpose troll accounts are tolerated, single-purpose corrective accounts may spring into existence. Not everyone is willing to be trolled, libeled, or slandered for months on end while building up his or her "Misplaced Pages reputation".

3. It is simply not true that "there is a complete absence of reality-based commentary on in reliable sources." Come on now. Popular Science, Cosmos and History, the Oxford Brookes University Philosophy Department, the Beekman School (no, citing an article from "medium" does not equate to being an article in "medium"), Religions.wiki, and so on may not be reliable by the standards of some Misplaced Pages editors, but that's debatable at the very least. So perhaps we could dispense with the pretense that calling them "reliable" is some sort of joke.

The following remarks are necessary, but not personal.

4. One expects statements like " and DrL have re-emerged from under their respective rocks" from impulsive people with axes to grind, not Misplaced Pages administrators. In case anyone hasn't noticed, such insults actually make those who use them look much worse than those to whom they are applied.

5. Some people here seem to be emotionally involved regarding Langan and the CTMU despite also seeming to have not the vaguest idea what the CTMU actually is or what it actually says. Of those disparaging it as "bollocks" and the like, none seem to have the slightest understanding of it - they even misclassify it, implying that they don't know the first thing about it. Perhaps it would be better to stick with specific Misplaced Pages rules and how they impact the debate.

6. I see that at least one admin here seems to admit to having been around for the first deletion of this article, which was accomplished under false pretenses (i.e., that CTMU = "Intelligent Design Creationism"). Generically speaking - and this does not necessarily apply to the particular administrator in question - if one was here in 2006, participated in the deletion, was complicit in misrepresenting the theory as "Intelligent Design Creationism", and is still bent out of shape after 15 years, perhaps conscientious recusal might be a good idea. Please consider passing the baton to people with open minds.

Thanks to everyone here for entertaining these suggestions. I'll certainly understand if no one has the time to reply, so no worries! Ctmu (talk) 18:40, 21 July 2020 (UTC) — Ctmu (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

"religions.wiki" is self-evidently not a reliable source, being full of unattributed, pseudonymous and anonymous user-generated content. It contributes exactly zero to the notability of the CTMU. The reliability of the other sources has already been debated to death in the discussions above. As for "Gary", I have no idea who he was. The same IP address that left the comment signed "Gary" also deleted it and left a disparaging remark about him along with some word salad. I don't know if this is one person having themselves a laugh by trolling and counter-trolling in opposite directions, or if there's drama in a house in Dumfries. Frankly, I don't care. The point that "Gary" made in the first place — the comparison to Rupert Sheldrake — was a good one. I myself was not present for the deletion of the article in 2006, but reading the discussion that led to it makes clear that it was not deleted under false pretenses. It was deleted, twice, because it failed to meet Misplaced Pages's notability standards. XOR'easter (talk) 19:05, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

I remember a few months ago discussing the issue of SPAs on this talk page at AN: Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive318#Christopher Langan. Sadly community sanctions were not authorized, but a handful of SPAs were topic banned. If the SPA issue continues it may be worth reviving that conversation, because having the same conversation over and over again with people who are generally not familiar with how Misplaced Pages works and solely interested in either the CTMU/Langan being portrayed less or negatively on-wiki, or with people who wish to see positive/more coverage of the CTMU/Langan, is becoming exhausting. Surely everyone understands that when single-purpose troll accounts are tolerated, single-purpose corrective accounts may spring into existence is not a productive mindset. GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:10, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

The supply of SPA's on this topic appears inexhaustible. XOR'easter (talk) 19:32, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Given the fishiness of this comment, I asked a checkuser colleague to see what was going on. Unsurprisingly, User:Ctmu is a sock of either Chris Langan or DrL: Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/DrL. GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:38, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Oh wow, I didn't even notice that it was a different username, and just read it in the voice of the previous section. --tronvillain (talk) 19:56, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

To build on my last point, sock-puppet accounts are not helping proponents of a CTMU article here. I know there's been some trolling, but two wrongs don't make a right. While there are sometimes legitimate uses of sock-puppet accounts (e.g. WP:SOCKLEGIT) they should always be declared and I don't believe any of them apply here. I would encourage all of you to use only one account. My advice about editing outside of Langan/CTMU areas to get a better understanding of Misplaced Pages before attempting to edit in those areas again I still believe is good, and I think now would be an excellent time to start applying it. I'm also not sure if bollocks should always be taken strictly in a pejorative sense. It's not my English dialect, but I get the impression it's sometimes used with a sense of humor/irony. - Scarpy (talk) 21:31, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

It really doesn't matter if the CTMU is a philosophical theory or a scientific theory; either way, it's a fringe theory, it doesn't appear to be sufficiently notable to merit its own article. The "Gary" and IP spam was weird, but even with it all gone, the comparison to Rupert Sheldrake and morphic resonance is apt. I don't think anyone's saying there's absolutely no coverage, just that there's not enough coverage to describe it as "significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject." There certainly isn't anything approaching significant "reality-based commentary on in reliable sources." Looking back, I suppose that might describe Menzler. I can't speak for anyone else, but I have no significant emotional involvement with the topic—it's just another non-notable fringe subject among many that people would like to promote by having a standalone page. --tronvillain (talk)19:56, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Yep. The only "emotional involvement" that I can find in myself is faint SPA-induced irritation alternating with an equally vague sense of amusement. I mean, the business with the IP arguing against itself was pretty entertaining. But when there are only two published sources that even approach independence and reliability, and one of them admits straight up that it's talking about the topic in brief here only as a curiosity ... I mean, I've written papers that have gotten that amount of attention over that span of time. I call them my failures. XOR'easter (talk) 21:39, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

XOR'easter I don't doubt it, looking at your Misplaced Pages history is impressive. I would cut the CTMU some slack here because it comes mostly from outside of the Academy. - Scarpy (talk) 22:04, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

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