Smartest man's website

[wolfhnd]

Found this guy interesting

http://www.ctmu.org

[Faradave]

Based upon their primer, it seems a cross between mysticism and philosophy to me. It will be attractive to those who lack a preexisting disposition (perhaps "bias") such as my own. There doesn't seem much here which would be measurable, even in principle. So, I believe their use of ToE is misleading, as it is now more commonly applied to physics.

[wolfhnd]

Based upon their primer, it seems a cross between mysticism and philosophy to me. It will be attractive to those who lack a preexisting disposition (perhaps "bias") such as my own. There doesn't seem much here which would be measurable, even in principle. So, I believe their use of ToE is misleading, as it is now more commonly applied to physics.

Kind of what I thought, probably should not of put it in anything science.

The only thing interesting here is the idea of "high intelligence" people joining together outside the conventional institutions to solve problems.

[Braininvat]

Last I read about Langan, he has Asperger's and was considered unhirable by academic and research institutions. This is not to say some with Asperger's can't successfully navigate such jobs, but Langan has a rather serious personality disorder and, IIRC, was fired rather quickly from the only job he had. To have people joining together, you need people who are capable of working with others....and those people are generally already working in conventional institutions. Some of which happen to have groups of "high intelligence" people working together in a flexible structure to solve problems - e.g. IAS/Princeton, Santa Fe Inst., Brookings, et al. I will look at the OP link soon.

[hyksos]

Every time Christopher M. Langan is discussed on the internet, more and more details of his sordid personal life emerge.


I had the terrible displeasure of interacting with a person in a chat room who is a die-hard fan of Langan. The chatter's obsession with Langan at fist seemed like trolling for about 4 months to a year. Later, his fan-boyism was so intense, that some of us (including me) believed the chatter was actually Langan himself using a screen name.

This chatter's obsession was eventually resolved. He was a deeply spiritual person who had deep anti-technology and anti-science political beliefs. He had learned very carefully about how to hide this aspect of himself in conversation. But after several years , these strange beliefs bubbled to the surface.

Langan's written work is almost or entirely written for internet blogs and newsgroups (which aren't used anymore). His writing contains no citations to outside work, and no Abstracts. He freely uses neologisms, or redefines established words from math, and does not indicate this to the reader in any way.

His writing looks like mathematics, or maybe set theory, or perhaps he is discussing cosmology? It is difficult to tell. When pressed to ask which discipline Langan believes he is doing work in, he denies all categorization, and says he is working in some kind of "reality theory" that transcends all existing disciplines known to universities.

When exposed to this convenient dodging enough times, you realize what is really going on. Langan is a crackpot who avoids any responsibility by disallowing his work to come under scrutiny. Through a convenient denial that he is engaging in ANY established discipline known to academia. So the mathematicians cannot critique his work, because he is "not doing math". And the physicists cannot critique his work because he is "not doing physics". And the philosophers cannot critique his work, because he is "not doing philosophy". In exasperation, you might press him to answer the question: then what are you doing?

His answer is that he is doing 'reality theory' -- and that he is the only human on earth doing it. {insert marginal sidebar on Stephen Wolfram on his more bloviating days.}

Regulars at this forum may recognize some of the buzzwords Langan has littered all over his essays. Words such as "tautology" , "topological" and phrases like "is isomorphic to". It is obvious that Langan has had some kind of exposure to the foundations of mathematics (also known as "proof theory" depending on institutional context). For a minute you might be seduced into thinking you are reading an essay on the foundations of Set Theory.

To really disentangle Chris Langan, you need some exposure to a branch of math called Model Theory. If you study math up far enough to get into model theory, you will suddenly see where Langan is getting all his material. You should remain aware : Langan himself never cites actual model theory theorems, and never openly admits he is writing Model Theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_theory

[wolfhnd]

I meant to come back and thank you all for commenting. I wonder if his mental condition Braininvat mentioned accounts for his "spirituality".