4 ms·

Cognitive Theoretic Model of the Universe

12 points by ice_man 17y ago

ice_man 17y ago
It was written by this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ak5Lr3qkW0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ak5Lr3qkW0 An illustrative image of who he is: http://onemansblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/chris-langan-iq-comparison.jpg http://onemansblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/chris-lang...
- RevRal 17y ago
  "Perhaps men of genius are the only true men.... Without the help of the real man, we should have found out almost nothing at all.... And the rest of us -- what are we? Teachable animals." Huxley on Sidis
- 10ren 17y ago
  That video is a chilling cautionary tale.
  - pohl 17y ago
    Yes...a cautionary tale about giving too much weight to the Intelligence Quotient metric, and how it might lend a semblance of credibility to conservative agitprop dismissive of Darwin, the university system, and progressive federal expenditures. ;-)
  - jcapote 17y ago
    I think I would've been a bully rather than a hacker had I met someone this arrogant and pretentious in high school. The only amusing part of that video is when he tells the story of getting chained to a truck and dragged up the street. Clearly, that didn't happen enough times.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
etherael 17y ago
This fellow seems a little intellectually insecure to me, his style of writing / communication displayed in both the youtube videos and his theory, he appears to be making it complex to illustrate that he's capable of grasping complex things, rather than needing to illustrate actually complex ideas. The finishing points about "god" without ever really nailing down an empirical definition of the term beyond "indeterminate omnipresent universey type stuff" strikes me as kind of disingenuous also. Still, I don't doubt he has some mental agility, and it certainly looks like the world has dealt him a harsh hand, and I'm quite familiar with what circumstance can do personally.
- pohl 17y ago
  I agree, and though I wouldn't presume to place myself anywhere north of the meaty center of the bell curve, I'm nevertheless confident that I can see the Achilles Heel in his world view: he does not hold logic to be a mere tool - one that can be misused, and one with intrinsic limitations. [1] Logic can be misused because it is only as good as one's starting assumptions. Moreover, even when you have some very nice sets of initial axioms, like those of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, logic necessarily leads you (if you can follow Gödel) to the conclusion that any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete. And, it strikes me, that elementary arithmetic is small potatoes in in comparison to the grandiose goal of obviating faith through a logically-proven god. This guy might be fun to have a beer with, though. [1] I didn't come to this conclusion through the linked article alone. Watch the youtube video that ice_man posted, and you'll see it in the first 60 seconds of him talking. This video, by the way, is an excellent study in propaganda filmmaking techniques. (Watch all 3 parts.)
  - etherael 17y ago
    Your last comment piqued my interest, in what sense did you take it as a propaganda piece?
- overzeroe 17y ago
  Wow, I wish I could upvote your comment twice. Well, not really, but it just made my morning to see someone being so reasonable (as in your last sentences) instead of just yelling "He's a pretentious idiot who can't talk clearly".
diiq 17y ago
I am always disappointed when someone cloaks their ideas in such thick intellectual veneer. I can't do justice to someone else's voice, but a few minutes were all that was necessary to make the first paragraph sound like a person: (translated from semi-scientific posturing) "One of the things that makes us human is thinking about the big picture. Unfortunately, it's easy to make simple mistakes in the attempt think about the biggest picture: the universe. (Please understand that by 'the universe', I mean to say everything; it makes no sense to me to speak of things that aren't a part of the universe.) I sometimes unthinkingly imagine about the universe as the collection of all the things that exist; and that makes sense, doesn't it? Maybe not. What about pi? The relationship between a the diameter of a circle and it's circumference appears in all kinds of surprising places --- it seems like it is an inherent part of the universe. Pi doesn't exist on it's own, though; at least, I can't imagine pi, floating in space all by itself. Pi seems to be a part of the fabric in which everything else exists. Any theory of the universe must take that fabric into account as well. As far as anyone can tell, the laws that underly the universe, the fabric, is the same everywhere. The fabric unifies the universe. So if I try to think about the universe sensibly, I can't talk about anything outside of it (a philosopher might say 'use monism instead of dualism'), and I must explain the unified whole (holism rather than reductionism)." Chris Langan, wherever you are, you can do it! Don't be afraid to show your ideas to the world naked as the moment you thought them. The worst you can do is be wrong, and that's not bad at all.
- chrischen 17y ago
  Perhaps simple to him just seems complex to you and me, and he simply can't help it.
- ellyagg 17y ago
  Do you read scientific journals much? Papers are usually filled with long, grammatically complex sentences full of obscure technical jargon. Given the subject matter, it seems a bit silly to hold the author to a different standard.
  - diiq 17y ago
    I do, and they disappoint me for the same reason; I work in a machine research lab, and we work very hard to write papers which are both clear and publishable. I hold every writer to the same standard --- communicate in the clearest possible way. Sometimes the form/content relationship requires difficult prose, but that is surely a rare occurrence outside of modern fiction. He published online, and suffered from no external pressure to obfuscate at all; if he made simple things complex it was from an inability to communicate or a desire to conceal.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
chrischen 17y ago
Just a tidbit, his wikipedia page says he's a creationist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Langan#Ideas.2C_affiliations.2C_and_publications http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Langan#Ideas.2C_aff... I think his argument is that creationism and evolution are not mutually exclusive. So he does believe in evolution.
jcapote 17y ago
I can't take more than 2 minutes of this guy... "I am closer to absolute truth than any man before me" get over yourself. source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ak5Lr3qkW0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ak5Lr3qkW0
tokenadult 17y ago
This link http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/history.html http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/history.html gives historical background on the persons who form unvalidated high-IQ societies.
amichail 17y ago
Some very smart people use questionable theories to get attention (and perhaps a lot of money too). In a way, it's a logical use of their brainpower. Is his theory falsifiable in any way?
- ellyagg 17y ago
  Elsewhere I've seen him claim that he can make new predictions about the natural world based on his theory, which suggests it's falsifiable. Sadly, the true nature of the universe and all existence doesn't have enough bearing on my life to follow up on it.
d4ft 17y ago
I think Malcolm Gladwell talks about this guy a little in Outliers and attributes much of his personality to his upbringing. One might query whether by virtue of being that intelligent, one is already predisposed to isolation and intellectual elitism, but perhaps in this case it is neither here nor there. I have always found (and believe mostly) that brilliant people can describe their ideas (at least generally) in ways us normal knuckle draggers can understand. I would be interested in a capsule summary of CTMU for the common man. However, this intellectual ego-stroking in the videos etc. makes me think Mr. Langan would never so corrupt his lofty ideas.
RevRal 17y ago
Chris is a very warm, loving guy. The beef some people have with him for very irrelevant reasons, they need to get over it.

12 points by ice_man 17y ago

It was written by this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ak5Lr3qkW0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ak5Lr3qkW0 An illustrative image of who he is: http://onemansblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/chris-langan-iq-comparison.jpg http://onemansblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/chris-lang...

RevRal 17y ago
"Perhaps men of genius are the only true men.... Without the help of the real man, we should have found out almost nothing at all.... And the rest of us -- what are we? Teachable animals." Huxley on Sidis
10ren 17y ago
That video is a chilling cautionary tale.
- pohl 17y ago
  Yes...a cautionary tale about giving too much weight to the Intelligence Quotient metric, and how it might lend a semblance of credibility to conservative agitprop dismissive of Darwin, the university system, and progressive federal expenditures. ;-)
- jcapote 17y ago
  I think I would've been a bully rather than a hacker had I met someone this arrogant and pretentious in high school. The only amusing part of that video is when he tells the story of getting chained to a truck and dragged up the street. Clearly, that didn't happen enough times.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

etherael 17y ago

This fellow seems a little intellectually insecure to me, his style of writing / communication displayed in both the youtube videos and his theory, he appears to be making it complex to illustrate that he's capable of grasping complex things, rather than needing to illustrate actually complex ideas. The finishing points about "god" without ever really nailing down an empirical definition of the term beyond "indeterminate omnipresent universey type stuff" strikes me as kind of disingenuous also. Still, I don't doubt he has some mental agility, and it certainly looks like the world has dealt him a harsh hand, and I'm quite familiar with what circumstance can do personally.

pohl 17y ago
I agree, and though I wouldn't presume to place myself anywhere north of the meaty center of the bell curve, I'm nevertheless confident that I can see the Achilles Heel in his world view: he does not hold logic to be a mere tool - one that can be misused, and one with intrinsic limitations. [1] Logic can be misused because it is only as good as one's starting assumptions. Moreover, even when you have some very nice sets of initial axioms, like those of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, logic necessarily leads you (if you can follow Gödel) to the conclusion that any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete. And, it strikes me, that elementary arithmetic is small potatoes in in comparison to the grandiose goal of obviating faith through a logically-proven god. This guy might be fun to have a beer with, though. [1] I didn't come to this conclusion through the linked article alone. Watch the youtube video that ice_man posted, and you'll see it in the first 60 seconds of him talking. This video, by the way, is an excellent study in propaganda filmmaking techniques. (Watch all 3 parts.)
- etherael 17y ago
  Your last comment piqued my interest, in what sense did you take it as a propaganda piece?
overzeroe 17y ago
Wow, I wish I could upvote your comment twice. Well, not really, but it just made my morning to see someone being so reasonable (as in your last sentences) instead of just yelling "He's a pretentious idiot who can't talk clearly".

diiq 17y ago

I am always disappointed when someone cloaks their ideas in such thick intellectual veneer. I can't do justice to someone else's voice, but a few minutes were all that was necessary to make the first paragraph sound like a person: (translated from semi-scientific posturing) "One of the things that makes us human is thinking about the big picture. Unfortunately, it's easy to make simple mistakes in the attempt think about the biggest picture: the universe. (Please understand that by 'the universe', I mean to say everything; it makes no sense to me to speak of things that aren't a part of the universe.) I sometimes unthinkingly imagine about the universe as the collection of all the things that exist; and that makes sense, doesn't it? Maybe not. What about pi? The relationship between a the diameter of a circle and it's circumference appears in all kinds of surprising places --- it seems like it is an inherent part of the universe. Pi doesn't exist on it's own, though; at least, I can't imagine pi, floating in space all by itself. Pi seems to be a part of the fabric in which everything else exists. Any theory of the universe must take that fabric into account as well. As far as anyone can tell, the laws that underly the universe, the fabric, is the same everywhere. The fabric unifies the universe. So if I try to think about the universe sensibly, I can't talk about anything outside of it (a philosopher might say 'use monism instead of dualism'), and I must explain the unified whole (holism rather than reductionism)." Chris Langan, wherever you are, you can do it! Don't be afraid to show your ideas to the world naked as the moment you thought them. The worst you can do is be wrong, and that's not bad at all.

chrischen 17y ago
Perhaps simple to him just seems complex to you and me, and he simply can't help it.
ellyagg 17y ago
Do you read scientific journals much? Papers are usually filled with long, grammatically complex sentences full of obscure technical jargon. Given the subject matter, it seems a bit silly to hold the author to a different standard.
- diiq 17y ago
  I do, and they disappoint me for the same reason; I work in a machine research lab, and we work very hard to write papers which are both clear and publishable. I hold every writer to the same standard --- communicate in the clearest possible way. Sometimes the form/content relationship requires difficult prose, but that is surely a rare occurrence outside of modern fiction. He published online, and suffered from no external pressure to obfuscate at all; if he made simple things complex it was from an inability to communicate or a desire to conceal.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

chrischen 17y ago

Just a tidbit, his wikipedia page says he's a creationist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Langan#Ideas.2C_affiliations.2C_and_publications http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Langan#Ideas.2C_aff... I think his argument is that creationism and evolution are not mutually exclusive. So he does believe in evolution.

jcapote 17y ago

I can't take more than 2 minutes of this guy... "I am closer to absolute truth than any man before me" get over yourself. source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ak5Lr3qkW0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ak5Lr3qkW0

tokenadult 17y ago

This link http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/history.html http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/history.html gives historical background on the persons who form unvalidated high-IQ societies.

amichail 17y ago

Some very smart people use questionable theories to get attention (and perhaps a lot of money too). In a way, it's a logical use of their brainpower. Is his theory falsifiable in any way?

ellyagg 17y ago
Elsewhere I've seen him claim that he can make new predictions about the natural world based on his theory, which suggests it's falsifiable. Sadly, the true nature of the universe and all existence doesn't have enough bearing on my life to follow up on it.

d4ft 17y ago

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

RevRal 17y ago

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