There is a claim that Christopher Langan is the smartest man in the US. However, he also claims that intelligent design and evolution are compatible … really!! … in that case, I can only suggest that he is perhaps not as smart as some consider him to be.
OK, to be fair let’s clarify something – Intelligence and rationality are not the same thing. What can sometimes happen, as in this case, is that very smart people can dream up clever ways of rationalizing utterly absurd ideas.
The problem with IQ, is that it only measures your cognitive potential, not your actual grasp of reality. The higher it is, the more probable it is that you can justify and rationalize almost any crazy idea. To illustrate that point, he does not appear to understand what a theory actually is as the word would be normally used within a scientific context because he has in effect redefined it. (Unless you are really curious, I’d skip that last link). Bizarrely, in there he appears to be using the word “theory” where most of the scientifically literate would use “hypothesis”, and that can be either due to simply not knowing, or may in fact be a deliberate ploy, all part of a word game, to justify some wacky conclusion.
OK, back on topic … the evidence that Chris Langan is as smart as he claims to be is … well, when he was tested it was discovered that he is rather good at doing IQ tests. There does also appear to be a lot of evidence indicating that he touts completely kooky ideas and concepts.
So why am I babbling away about him?
When faced with the observation that “the smartest” man in the US believes in God, and has supposedly proven that he exists, I can only respond with the observation that he also appears to believe and rationalize a lot of other strange stuff as well.
Still not convinced that he is an eccentric? well here is a nice dissection of Mr Langan’s CTMU claim.
To recap: this “theory” of his has three problems, each of which is individually enough to discard it; with the three of them together, it’s a virtual masterpiece of crap.
- The “theory” consists mostly of word-games – arguing about the meanings of words like “universe” and “inclusion”, without actually explaining anything about how the universe works. It’s a theory with no predictive or descriptive value.
- The “theory” is defined by creating a new version of set theory, whose axioms are never stated, and whose specific goal guarantees that it will be an unsound theory. Unsound mathematical theories are useless: every possible statement is provable in an unsound theory.
- The author doesn’t understand the difference between syntax and semantics, between objects and models, or between statements and facts – and because of that, the basic statements in his theory are utterly meaningless.
The last link is of specific interest, because Mr Langan turns up in the comments section and is clearly not a happy chap. He proceeds to spew a rather large quantity of ad-hominem ridden bullshit. Perhaps if he had gone with, “No you are wrong because … “, and proceeded to lay out a rebuttal, then it might be appropriate to cut him a bit of slack.
Bottom Line: Smart? Of course. But right? I’m not convinced.
I always thought he was parroting Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, trying, in other words to re-state it by referencing what proposition 6.54 tells us:
“My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly.”
In other words, he wrote a bunch of bullshit hoping, I believe, that you the reader would see ironic turn and “surmount” them, so to speak, and thus, end up seeing the world aright…anyway…
alt.right is totally h0m0
vincentalewis . ok fake god boy
Why are you so butt-hurt? You’re a typical monkey at the zoo flinging poo.
This is at the top so I’m replying to it….Christopher Langdon does not describe the actual story but the fact that there is a story when he describes anything. He essentially breaks apart or annihilates it and makes it obsolete as an idea before the actual content of the idea manifests it’s meaning by breaking apart the way you deliver it or the actual action of it or the way you think of it or the way you stumble upon it and deliver it in verbal form. His foundation of the way he looks at things, specifically things that we cannot prove absolutely or haven’t been able to even begin to understand at all or fathom such as infinity, are just “theories,” but theories are unsound, which means none of it is provable. So because there is a fallacy within a theory, theories in themselves are fallacious and can never sound or true. All in all, hes using logical argumentation to destroy the existence of a theory in itself. Weird. He’s not really proving any of them wrong…but because a limb has frostbite, the person has frostbite as a whole.
Consider the hypothesis (in theory) a possibility that any higher intelligence walking on this planet has his own well met plenipotentiary childhood dreams when growing up, putting these well mend creative compounds together as understandable none mainstream ideas into any recognition is rather a harsh reality on its own, that said on its own is a reality, from that we are only sensitive to the future, or may just be only to the past, what memory aligns reality into anyone’s reality anyway, and not per say an Illusionary of positive mental phenomena of flow of time from future to past ones reality. What if we are Pseudo living organisms? So what we like to believe is that we can define reality with thoughts, meanwhile we should actually have the capacity to do so with contrast towards what was mend as reality, in which where we should be not absorbing light, we should also express light (contrast of what we are of reality as life). With this said non arbitrary, who understood what he wrote down and actually saw the gaps what he was trying to say, and knew what even he forgot to connect seeing his part of that reality, trying to mind who actually uses up his energy or passes this on as available energy, could we form any reality by all means be the faith of axiom through that reality or gain ground for nihilistic reversal.
A true genius must be able to translate his ideas to be understood to a lay audience, He must give examples of the daily life of that audience. Someone who hides under the smoke of abstract phrases, he is convincing himself only
Langan senses what is correct, but it is clear that he has failed to adequately understand what he is observing. If he did he would simply ask of others, one question: “what is ZERO?”
The CTMU tries to provide a mathematical model of semantics and semiotics (meaning). Langan believes he is discussing more than the ‘mere’ meaning of symbols. As he would say, his theory is a matter of science, not semantics (eventhough semantics is a science). It is possible (though not necessarily true) that he understands semiotic relationships (relationships between signs such as words, shapes, numerals, etc.) on a deeper level than most people do, and due to this he believes that he notices something about meaning that most people do not — that meaning is a metaphysical substance, that meaning is part of the fabric of reality itself, that reality has a sytnax. No, but that is how humans understand reality, as inherently meaningful.
I cannot believe that this thread is still eliciting comment. Take it from one whose IQ cannot be adequately measured: there is always a god. All religions aside, if one is unable to reason why that is unequivocally so, then one shall forever remain the child of a science whose “logic” claiming that common sense and reason do not exist, and that it has “proven” that a progeny has no parents. And having been nothing here of the former and all spoken here, in the latter, proves itself unworthy of further intellectual consideration or conversation.
Christopher Langan has not provided any proof of his IQ-scores , also the importance of IQ-test scores is disputed.
Because he didn’t have anything to show for he used a cheap trick to get attention: Climing high IQ test scores.
His “paper” is flawed on so many levels, the math is weak, it’s filled with wild statements that he asserts to be true without providing any evidence of it being so. Its probably the worst “scientific” paper I’ve read in my life.
I do believe he has a focused mind but in the same time skewed (if that make sence?) , he is relying to much on his fantasy.
To claim he is the smartest man alive is just absurd.
makes sense.
Im swedish :)
Can someone post his paper? I’ve been scouring the internet looking for it and it always leads to a dead link. Wtf is going on??? Did he retract it because it was BS?
The CTMU is neither contingent nor irrational rubbish or world salad, but necessary truth. You seem to be anything but smart and honest enough to understand that. Here is no criticism which is based on what the author of the CTMU actually means.
So, this is just another grandiose, unsubstantiated claim. Merely posting a comment assertuas that it’s “necessary truth” isn’t demonstrating anything, aside from the fact that you have this opinion.
I too am rather sceptical of this article. NASA executive Robert N. Seitz is reportedly impressed with Langan’s theory but people with less lofty intellects obviously assume that an objectively measured mega genius must be rationalising something if they don’t like with the conclusion. It sounds like someone saying that Usain Bolt must have cheated if he beats them in a race and they don’t like it. Interestingly people accept that good runners get better outcomes in races but not that smarter people get better outcomes in thinking. Research has shown that morons believe smart people are stupid. It looks like people with slightly more ability think smart people are rationalising anything they don’t understand or get wrong.
Like most people, I have the informed opinion that Langan spouts a whole lot of bullsh*t basically. I read his CTMU. Utter rubbish. Read it years ago. If you look up many of the words he uses, they don’t even remotely make sense, or they are for something totally unrelated. For example, in one of his videos, he called us humans “endomorphic images of God”. MW dictionary defines endomorpic as follows:
“Definition of endomorphic. 1 : of or relating to the component in W. H. Sheldon’s classification of body types that measures the massiveness of the digestive viscera and the body’s degree of roundedness and softness. 2 : having a heavy rounded body build often with a marked tendency to become fat.”
So what Langan is saying (profoundly, I might add), is that we humans are a “heavy, rounded body, with a marked tendency to become fat – image of God.”
Really? Or did he mean the first definition. In which case, Langan effectively says that we humans are a “body classification measuring the massiveness of the digestive viscera – image of God”.
This use of the word doesn’t even make sense when you try and put the meaning of the word he used into the context of the sentence he spoke.
I could go on and on like this for days of typing, pointing out similar use or misuse of words that show that he seems to be plucking words out of thin air that are less common, just to obfuscate and sound smart.
Nothing personal against the man, but as for the evidence that he is smart? Or an IQ of 190-210? All the evidence I have read of his work and in his videos tells any thinking and intelligent person that he is not manifesting high-IQ intelligence in any way.
I searched high and low for the actual evidence of his purported IQ score, and all I could find were web archives of news articles with just text discussion of supposed people who gave him the test. No evidence at all, just archives of second-hand news reports that reference people that may or may not exist that supposedly said they tested him. Wow! The first rule in academic credibility is to verify your source. No sources at all can be found, only archives of second hand news reports. C’mon! Surely BS flags must be raised by now?
As for his CTMU. Mostly it looks just like Schizophasia – or a word salad. He also uses words that are made up, or made up in context, not unlike neologisms with people suffering schizophrenia, that is, made up words. He doesn’t have schizophrenia, he is too focussed and has a level of rationality within all the nonsense, but he certainly has delusions and fantasy.
Langan mentioned on his website many years ago that he thought he had found a solution to one of the top outstanding unsolved maths problems – the P vs NP Problem – but haven’t heard anything more. Well, if he was able to solve that problem, then I’d retract pretty much everything I’ve written here. But funny, a real-world, difficult problem that has evaded the best minds in the world for many, many decades, and yet we hear nothing except “oh, I’m pretty sure I’ve solved it”. Really? A million bucks is there for you, Mr. Langan. Just submit your proof. Lol.
To finish, Mr. Langan’s CTMU has one other major issue that needs to be addressed. If it is a theory of everything, then he needs to show us how he managed to get around Gödel’s incompleteness theorem – basically, if you have a theory of everything, then Gödel’s incompleteness theorem has been proved wrong. That is to say, Mr. Langan has managed to have a self-contained theory that is both complete, and consistent. That in itself is a major mathematical discovery, as, pre-CTMU days, any logical system or mathematical formulation of such a system will either be incomplete, or, if it is “complete”, will have logical inconsistencies that render the system false.
I wish him all the best, but as for his work to date? Only useful if you want to practice your own critical thinking skills.
Hey Justin, an endomorphism is a real concept in mathematics, in particular with regards to an abstraction of set and group theory known as category theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endomorphism), the statement that humans are endomorphic images of God seem to be a fancy way of saying that human beings are panentheistic transformations applied by God in and of themselves. With that being said, it’s a pretty meaningless statement. Saying a generic philosophical concept such as “Human beings are God’s set transforming into the set of God” in a precisely mathematical/logical statement means nothing. Saying human beings are an image of the set of “God” into the set of “God” generates no verifiable information which makes it true.
You know I’ve noticed in all of his interviews and online statements he is very careful to NEVER disclose any specific details about anything that he knows with regards to other scientific fields or even his outlandish statements about how he left college because “he could teach them more than they could teach him”. He definitely knows some things, but there seems be something seriously off about him. He comes off as one of those NPD individuals with a constant need to be liked and venerated. Even the whole bit about him being a bartender/farmer genius man reeks of a man desperately trying to prove something special about himself. And of course the brain dead reporters will never actually do any fact checking so now everyone has automatically accepted his “profound” intellect. You want to see a person actually making serious progress in a wide variety of scientific and logical fields? \
Terence Tao. That’s a REAL genius. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Tao)
Even more so, various highly prominent experts in mathematics, computer science and physics have repeatedly claimed his CTMU theory is a load of steaming turd. Is the entire community of these people of such low intellect in comparison that they can’t comprehend the true ground breaking revelations brought forth by the one true intellectual God Chris Langan? I highly doubt it.
Thank you “Not Chris Langan”. Justin was so quick to trash this paper that his confirmation bias overruled his rational ability to research. I do not have a strong grasp on mathematics, but just doing a ten minute google search on the different interpretations of the word endomorphism yielded the terminology Langan was trying to apply to his description of humans. I think his whole paper is only critiqued because Langan jumps around with specific terminology that can only be properly conveyed if the reader were familiar with the subjects from which the terms are derived from. Case in point being Justin’s statement above. Langan needs to “dumb down” his paper and readers need to set aside their silly pride in order to really appreciate the paper. I wish I could personally speak with Langan so he could help me better grasp his model.
IQ isn’t a measure of anything. “Measure” is a metaphor in this context, e.g. “the measure of man”. Taken literally, you would have no reason to reject the idea that you can physically measure how much of an asshole someone is, or how strongly they feel about stale bread, or how nice they are. Intelligence is not a cognitive capacity. It’s a character trait. It’s how well, efficiently or impressively a person uses cognitive capacities. This is not quantifiable, and it is context dependent. An athlete is intelligent, in the context of a sport. A physicist is intelligence, in the context of academia.
Then again, if Langan is right (though the ctmu is not necessary but contingent) metaphors are not a cognitive event, but part of the mind of God. Perhaps that means Langan believes his IQ score is a sign from God in some respect. I don’t know.
I’ll tell you what I do know. Langan has studied philosophy but doesn’t know the difference between necessary and contingent truth. This is shown by his belief that he has proven God exists through maths and logics. But he only has described a possible world in which God exists. Maybe the description can be used in physics or maybe it can’t, but the important thing to note is that physicists don’t need the CTMU to do physics. That means the truth of CTMU is contingent, not necessary. So, he hasn’t proved anything, except maybe that there is a possible world where God exists. Is that possible world our universe? Who knows? Chris Langan hasn’t done any experiments and his theory can’t be tested by experiments. You have to take it on faith.
Another problem with Chris is that he supports Eugenics, and apparently the idea of the Bell Curve. Because his support for eugenics is to get rid of the ‘stupid people’. He also has said that there ‘appears to be a correlation’ between the size of a person’s head and their cognitive capacities.
Finally, someone with the balls to tell the truth. Langan could be smart (I highly doubt that), but he obviously doesn’t know that even theoretical physicists’ ideas must be tested through experiments for it to be proven true. Even in math, things that are theoretically sound can be ridiculous in real life. And Langan’s ideas are not even mathematically sound. Langan’s “theory” is no more than an untested, and untestable (see Karl Popper) idea that is rooted in the mind of a narcissist failure of an “intellectual” desperately seeking attention.
People tend to correlate “good” or “smart” in one thing to mean “good” or “smart” in everything. But often, domain knowledge is just that, domain knowledge. There are scientists, and mahematicians (with far greater contributions than Langan) who spout completely idiot ideas. For example, Serge Lang, the great French number theorist, was an AIDS-denialist. Just because he was great at math, doesn’t mean he knows anything about biology.
Thought experiment: Langan wants a meritocracy. OK, forget about his supposedly “high IQ” (which is actually very trainable – see Rick Rosner). Judge the merits of his ideas. Since we are questioning the CTMU, we should look at his CTMU. And when you look at it, you see his argument hinges on his desire for the language of the universe to be repetitive and elegant. This is as close to being a scientist as he comes.
“Because these repetitive patterns or universal laws simultaneously describe multiple instances or states of nature, they can be regarded as distributed “instructions” from which self instantiations of nature cannot deviate”
Scientist want nature to be regular. Langan wants nature to be regular. Scientists do not use the argument that some of nature is regular to mean that all of nature is. Langan does.
Scientists do not fit data to theories. Langan does. This is where he is wrong. What’s worse is that his ideas are old, used up. Every Christian before him has already made the argument for intelligent design because they are things which are regular in nature and thus that means GOD made this universe.
I’m not saying that you can’t believe in religion. In fact, there may be a God. It’s possible. Right now, the evidence does not suggest that. As a Christian, I have faith, but I don’t think that I have evidence for it. That’s what it’s faith. Langan is smearing the good name of God by arguing that everything can be reduced to some “proof” through language, something which he desires, but cannot demonstrate. He’s just pathetic.
“The author doesn’t understand the difference between syntax and semantics, between objects and models, or between statements and facts – and because of that, the basic statements in his theory are utterly meaningless. ”
Actually he understands those concepts very well. Far better than you do because he seems to have a very specific idea of the statements and facts he’s utilizing.
Its amazing how many atheist scientists are so ignorant, and yet so harsh on other religious people because of their “blind faith” in Jesus, Muhammad, etc . Blindly believing in something (i.e. science, Christ, etc) with a closed mind is ignorant. Intelligent people are open to the opposite view. The fact that you started doubting Langans intelligence (and started insulting him instead of using a better argument) shows me that you are an egocentric being with many insecurities (Obviously you feel you are smarter, so I will ask you to read up on theDunning–Kruger effect) . He provided what he believes is proof, now you should do the same. Just because you don’t understand something does not make it untrue. I’ve read Langans “theory” and I do agree with a lot of what he said. You may have a different opinion, which is good, but you should find a better way of defending your views.
The great psychologist Fritz Perls had the perfect word for what Langan is doing – Elephantshit.
Elephantshit is no mere bullshit, but is something far grander, and includes most intellectualising that goes on, theorizing, high-level discussions on religion, and CTMU.
Everyone has encountered the type of personality that feels the need to show off, lord it over others, talk above others using incomprehensible jargon and so forth. When Langan
finally manages to deal with his terrible, impoverished upbringing, we may see some genuinely superb contributions to knowledge.
Until then, Langan’s work as a doorman is of far greater benefit to civilization.
If you scroll down you will see quite a few Elephantshit merchants.
“What can sometimes happen, as in this case, is that very smart people can dream up clever ways of rationalizing utterly absurd ideas.” Likewise, “skepticism” does not equal intelligence. Thanks!
the author is a typical atheist idiot who isn’t intelligent enough to understand science and the necessity for God
You automatically discredit his intelligence for suggesting that a single creator could invent evolution? Well, by that principle, I will automatically stop reading this article if that’s how much thought you’re going to put into what you’re saying. Here I was thinking I was going to hear actual information on the guy rather than immediate ridicule in the very first sentence.
The answers of Chris Langan, or any finite being venturing an
answer to an infinite testability, remain irrelevant to the question,
do they not?
If it is a question that forms and informs the answers, then is
not God or an Omni-Science (omniscience) a question?
In the history of all questions, has there ever been a question that
was wrong? In the future of all questions, will there ever be a question
that is untrue?
Any finite being venturing an answer to an infinite testability;
any scientific or philosophical view that has proven “not”;
as objective to a reality as a realization or an imagination as
imaginary, what is the difference between a Being that imagines
themselves to be a god, and a Being that realizes what they
are?
Given that IQ is what IQ tests measure, I didn’t have huge difficulty following his thoughts, which go in a non-traditional way. He appears to be a strict determinist, one who postulates that cause necessarily precedes effect. Quantum mechanics doesn’t alter that reality, but we don’t understand the causal principles behind if for a number of reasons.
But I agree with him that Darwinism is not complete and Behe’s irreducible complexity look pretty true to me. But even a probability has reality when it becomes 1 (as opposed to a value less than 1). As a computer scientist I deal with pseudo-randomness, but not true randomness. I think Langan would say that is because if you dig deeply enough, a causal chain will be observed. But Heisenberg implies we’re not going to get that far…
Chris Langan is one of the most intelligent men in the world, and “the” most intelligent man in North America.
So it is claimed from some alleged IQ scores. Why does that matter? Why are you simply asserting this here? People already realize that this is what is being claimed about him, HENCE the article being written. You are not providing anything new to the conversation. Why are you such a follower of his that you would just post a drone like assertion with no substance?
“Christopher Langan is the smartest man. He is our leader. Do what he says because he is good at IQ tests. Christopher Langan is the smartest man. He is our leader. I was told this is true, so it must be true. I was told IQ scores rule all, so he is right and you are wrong. Submit to Christopher Langan. He is the smartest man. He is our leader. Follow him down his wormhole of redefined word salad. He is smart. Hur dee Hur…”
Relax…
His I.Q. is measured between 195 – 210. I sincerely wish that websites would stop listing him at simply “195”. The median is more than likely closer to the truth, so he does have an I.Q. in excess of 200+.
Who measured his IQ to be that high? I only see him claiming that. If you could link to a reliable source, which provides information about verified testing that was done, that would be great.
Also, IQ scores only indicate how good someone is at taking IQ tests. There are many important cognitive functions which IQ tests aren’t designed to asses.
And he has still failed in methods of communication, and he is guilty of circular reasoning. He also equates metaphor with truth.
The guy may be intelligent… in SOME ways, but so what? So many people have this misguided tendency to default their agreement to the claims of someone with an alleged high IQ. His CTMU is a word salad of redefined terms and circular assumptions about ID.
I forgot to ask…why do you care? Have you confirmed the results of these alleged tests? Why are you so invested in his IQ scores? Do you understand why there is a variance? IQ scores are not precise. Simply because it is claimed that on X test he was given a 195, and on Y test he was given 210, it doesn’t mean he is actually at the median between those two. It’s not as simple as that.
Reality – The writer is an idiot.
If this man truly is on a par with the greats then it is a shame that his religious pathology has prevented him from contributing any science of note. Science isn’t just about fancy wordplay; that’s precisely what it’s not about. It’s about data and hard work and quantifying error and predictive power. As far as I can tell Langan has achieved none of those things, nor is he interested in doing so. He could score a 300 on some arbitrary test for all I care. Let him prove some mathematical theorem of note or contribute to a problem of physics. Until that happens he’s at best a waste and at worst a fraud.
The guy is a bought off con. Alexander Hamilton suffered from the same ignorant narcissism as this moron. He’s a Bell Curve bullshit artist
Would you care what someone thought about your scientific ideas if they were mentally retarded? You would simply conclude that they didn’t possess the mental ability to understand them. See where I’m going with this?
To really dumb mother effers, really smart mother effers sound like really crazy mother effers
Nobody demonstrated that this guy is really smart, only that he did well on an IQ test. While there is some correlation between them, they are not synonymous qualities. Before you declare his genius apparent, maybe you should let him publish and be peer-reviewed. If there’s any value to his work, it will show. If not he will be another in a LONG line of people with bad ideas who captured and/or reinforced the imagination of the the hoi polloi.
Also, Josh:
Science and mathematics are progressive endeavors because they have a method built into them to get around closed-mindedness, not because smart people don’t “have” it. Everybody is closed-minded to a certain extent. Some people just suffer from it a bit more.
It cuts both ways: other people are too open-minded and will believe anybody who comes their way.
Close mindedness. Smart people don’t have it… Science isn’t a religion
What those three points support what he’s saying
He is infinitely smarter than you. It’s so funny how scientist claim to be so smart but they can’t even get simple math right.
It’s funny when know-it-alls use the singular(scientist) instead of plural because they cant get simple grammar right.
i reckon howard berg (the speed reader) is the smartest man alive, although ive no idea on his views about god or anything theres no wikipedia article on him and all he ever talks about is reading…
I take it your are implying he can’t be smart because he believes in a higher power? You must not understand science yourself I presume. You know the whole E=MC2. Pure energy can never die or disapate only change shape. Why can’t you have evolution with intelligent design? Look at us, (humans) a little over 100 yrs ago we rode horses. Now we have hover boards and have transported matter at almost the speed of light. Don’t we create?? Different species, computers and medical. We can scrape a man off the road and fix him all in 100 years. So the Universe is so vast and our math doesn’t even add up right so your idea that we are almighty is beyond laughable. There is a God and it’s that energy that can’t die and it is infinitely more intelligent than humans, we are bugs.
Who are you talking to? Who said we are almighty? Anyway, intelligence has a definition, and energy doesn’t fit that. Why are you equivocating energy with god?
I listened to a 3 part YouTube of him talking and was quite disturbed by some of his ideas, spoken by a true irrational, arrogant Mensa member. For ex: He states that freedom is not a right but a privaledge, but people act as if it’s a right. Wow. Freedom is neither. It’s the state of the human mind. We have the freedom to choose, say yes or no, think in whatever ways we want.
Another one is how he uses logic, sans rationality and experience, to state how a bigger head equals more intelligence (but also stating it hasn’t been proven, just to give himself an argument out). I’m here to tell you I know people with much larger heads than me who can’t fight their way out of a paper bag.
I don’t think he’s the smartest person alive because intelligence encompasses more areas of the mind, not just outdated narrow IQ tests. I know a few Mensa people given into very strange fear based or self engrossed ideas that fall short of including the world around them, thus I state the word arrogant; no real perceptions or vision of effects.
Thank you for speaking out.
I agree that he seems…self satisfied… in his own intellectual capacity. Perhaps that bothers me because his I.Q. is so much higher than mine, I don’t know. The hallmark of intelligence is realizing how little you know in so far as the ocean of truth is concerned. The way he smugly says that Charles Darwin was “way down in the dumps at a 135 I.Q.” is absolutely pathetic and shows his beef with Darwin right out the gate. Truly pathetic. Who, in their right mind, doesn’t respect Charles Darwin? A scientist by any real definition and someone who revolutionized the way we see ourselves as humans and the way we see all other life forms. Not to mention the statement was rude, plainly speaking, and highly arrogant. You would think the smartest man alive would be smarter than that. He basically stated that even brilliant people are far beneath him. My I.Q. is somewhere between 130 and 135 and I don’t call people who are clearly not on my level intellectual “dumps”. He knows that people with an I.Q. of 135 are labelled “near genius” by pretty much all I.Q. tests that exist, and that they are in 97-98th percentile of American citizens in terms of I.Q., so to say what he said is ignorant. You can have an I.Q. of 135 and be a genius. Genius is not a matter of I.Q. It’s a label, really, often given retroactively. Chris has had to give himself that label because he has not earned it. History will be the judge of Chris Langan. I hope he does something great for the human race. A mind like his, if it is what he would have us think–an equal of Einstein or Newton, will no doubt make MONUMENTAL discoveries. Sir Isaac Newton went into retreat from the Bubonic plague for 18 months and in that shirt time he invented calculus, the field of optics, and gained insight into the laws of planetary motion. This event is regarded by intellectuals the world over as the most startling display of human intelligence that has ever occurred in recorded history. When Langan makes revolutionary breakthroughs in science, mathematics, philosophy, astronomy, physics, etc. then we will know the truth. After all, who else if not the smartest man alive can make such breakthroughs.
Maybe all it takes is an open-mind to consider the possibility that “intelligent design and evolution are compatible”. Isn’t being able to think BEYOND a sign of intelligence? Doubt but keep pondering!
People always protect their turf. Religious or non religious. Some brave souls actually want to “know”. And they change as their inquiry leads them to change their views ( former Atheist Apologist Anthony Flew becoming a Deist comes to mind).
Why not interview Chris Langan, and have him answer your “hard” questions about his theory?
Considering the possibility of ID, is one thing. Asserting that ID is a fact, is another thing. And being able to “think beyond” is a sign that someone has an active imagination, which isn’t necessarily an indication that said person is particularly intelligent.
the fact that intelligent design is only known/existed to our single species of ape that has existed for a tiny fraction of the entire universe’s life span and is not provable in any way shape or form leads it to probably being false
That’s an unsubstantiated assertion and an argument from ignorance. You don’t know that ID is only “known/existed to our single species”. And the fact we haven’t seen it anywhere else doesn’t neccesitate that it’s actually not anywhere else, nor does it give us a measure for probability, considering our limited scope. However, saying that it hasn’t been sufficiently demonstrated is enough.
There are several spelling errors in this article.
Please fix them.
Spelling and grammar. The irony is palitable.
I am honestly not sure if you are just this exceedingly intelligent and are therefore dripping more irony than you know what to do with, or if you are the world record holder for “largest log in one’s own eye”.
Why don’t you interview him? Debate him?
This thread will simply not die. I can’t even comment on the idiocies displayed by either side of these issues. I have not seen a single person quoted here who spoke with anything even remotely resembling “intelligence”, other than myself. And yes, I will say that, because yes I am smarter than any of you. (PhD, Mensa…an IQ in the top 10,000 people living today on planet Earth, blah….blah…blah. If you don’t believe me, I don’t care.) To those who argue that what I have to say is not relevant, or that I am an inbred mother-lover, I don’t care. The idea that passive aggression is some form of “ultimate logic” can’t be any more insane. All refuted thus: Let the preceding and following words be considered to have been the response to all further comments. Now how long will you go. how many iterations and idiocies will be uttered in response? Each permutation only indicating a greater and greater stupidity. Knock yourselves out… : )
Do you even realize the difference between “intelligence” and “logic” versus common sense and reason? Because if you did, you would understand why “intellect” and the “logic” born from it produce such insanities as the thought and comment “I DO NOT EXIST”. If you can not instantly grasp why this is fallacious, I can’t even respond to you because you lack the brain cells to understand. Period. Relate a spiritualism to a science so that both are codified in a “TOE” (theory of everything)? what is “God”? How do we define “God”? (For crying out loud). To exist you must love and be loved. Love just a “silly emotion”? A “trick of glands and hormones”? No, idiots, love is a function. A mathematical reality as well. Here is your “Super Theory” of “everything” : That which does not love and is not loved, does not exist or will cease to exist shortly. This based not in the ramblings of Wordsworth and other poets, but also as an evolutionary aspect of mathematical probability and psychology. Yes, the MIND. forgot about that one didn’t you… : ) A TOE? The mathematical (scientific) and spiritual application of the following statement (and if your synapses don’t fire quickly enough to “get it”, that is not my problem…) ” LOVE DIVIDES AND SUBTRACTS NOTHING! “
Intimidated that there is an intelligence far beyond your own? Humbling isn’t it? ;-)
Being a skeptic doesn’t necessarily mean that you have an inflated ego, but considering most people who disagree with you to be idiots probably does.
Mr. Chameleon,
OK, now THAT was truly funny…. : )
WD…You’ve no clue how silly you are. You didn’t mention entropy and how we live in a negatively entropic local ‘universe’ due to the sun’s energy input here, and how it creates a pressure toward higher levels of organization. That’s what love is, thermodynamically. Easy enough to explain, but you instead berate before the fact. I’m sure you have some kind of higher dimensional curved space nonsense explanation why that behavior is prophylactic, but it’s really just being lazy.
As for your PhD, it shows you can please the committee that granted it, nothing more.
And you’re Jewish…who gives a damn.
So, you’ve asserted that “love” is a function, but how exactly are you defining it? What exactly is this function, and why is it necessary for existence? How can you demonstrate that “love” is necessary to exist?
Also, (unless you can elaborate, and/or reword to correct a possible misunderstanding here) it seems as though you have contradicted yourself. You said: “To exist you must love and be loved”. Yet you ALSO contradictorily said: “That which does not love and is not loved, does not exist or will cease to exist shortly”. So…which is it? Because, if something will “cease to exist shortly”, that means it currently DOES exist. Yet, according to you, “To exist you must love and be loved”. Therefore, it shouldn’t exist at all.
Also, how are you defining existence? Do mosquitos exist? Do mosquitos love, and are they themselves loved? Do all humans love? How have you determined this to be true?
You can claim whatever you want about your intelligence, but based collectively on your lack of detail, logical flaws, and poor grammar, I simply do not believe your claims. Irrespective of what I believe, self aggrandizement is simply a rhetorical element, and does nothing to support the validity of your claims. I am of the opinion that it isn’t working very well for you as a rhetorical device either.
Eric,
Ah yes, as predicted. How many iterations will you go… : ) There are no contradictions in my assertions if you understand the concept of “then” and “now”, as well as the global implications of the statement.
Now, Eric…I really did not have to respond to this at all, but I am afraid I am going to have to pick on you a bit in order to make a point about 99.999% of those humans who consider themselves highly intelligent. I am sure you are convinced that you are highly intelligent and that your comments were “deep” and fraught with erudition. They were not. Not even a little bit.
This may bruise the ego a bit, but not one thing you said was a mark of an intelligence greater than needed to pump gas at the local filling station. You assume that you are quite bright because you are convinced (as many are) that a simple passive-aggressive loop is a superior logic, when it is as simple as an amoeba. All that is required of this “intellect” is to shift the definition (or the words) and then claim that the premises do not apply or require a clarification which you make sure is impossible. It is an absurdum loop and that is all. The village idiot could do it. You simply attack and pick apart a premise claiming it as “mere rhetoric” or an improper or incomplete definition of the terms applied (terms you conveniently shifted in order to bolster what you say enough that it won’t appear too blatantly idiotic…)
Eric, if I met you in person, and we sat and had coffee and discussed this, I would show you that the base of your logic ultimately reduces to you claiming that I can not prove that you exist. Your argument never varies much from its single thought which is to deny to absurdum, common sense and reason in favor of your ego being “right”. You argue the ego in the argument and not the truth of the statements. And I will tell you also, because I have done it many times. I would loop you in to your own logic and reduce you to literally screaming at me the only thing you ever asserted at all, which was not even an argument, but simply screaming over and over again ” “NOT, NOT, NOT, NOT!”
It is an ego that is convinced of an intellect and knowledge it does not posses. You believe you are intelligent when you assert that I can not prove that you are not incorrect. Loop the loop my friend. All I see is a monkey screaming and shaking his bone at the sky. That is how smart you showed yourself to be. And I know in advance your mind won’t accept that, and you will respond as all passive aggression shall, wielding your wondrous loop and comparing yourself to Aristotle and Plato…I really needn’t reply further. Proceed with your iterations, but you are being a BAD MONKEY! : )
And while you are gearing up for the next bone shaking, maybe this will shake you up in in relation to the “logic” you think you are using, and the “intellect” you think you have. I could have just as easily argued that you would claim I could not prove that you were not, not incorrect, which is an inversion of what I said before. Your “logic” works either way because it is only one idiocy over and over again : The argument ” I AM NOT INCORRECT”. Until you understand why that can be “true” in logic and an absolute idiocy in the eyes of common sense and reason, no one can help you, monkey boy… : )
So…you have not addressed the issues I brought up, at all. I asked you about specific points, and you avoided all of them, to merely make false assertions about opinions I have not stated, and attack strawmen. You laboriously spout rhetoric, and avoid actually addressing the points. You claim that I probably think myself to be highly intelligent, and this is a false assertion. However, YOU have claimed YOURSELF to be highly intelligent, but you have yet to substantiate these claims, and you work to solidify your name in the opposite direction, with every bit of nonsense you offer.
You make baseless assertions about vague concepts such as “love”, and then when questioned about them, you give no substantive rebuttal or explanation whatsoever. You simply CLAIM that you could “show me about the base of my logic” if we sat down in a “coffee shop”, yet you give nothing to that effect here. You are full of basic ad hominems and elementary rhetoric, so far.
I have not “shifted definitions” at all. Where are you claiming I have done so?
You are deluding yourself if you think you have made any real argument here. Poisoning the well and strawmen are two of the weakest and most transparent of fallacies, and that’s about all you have given so far. Keep avoiding. That must be satisfying.
Someone who makes sense..Thanks Eric…I was starting to get a headache…
You healed me!
“This thread will simply not die”. Quit complaining and shut up; Don’t contribute. So contradictory and unintelligent, WD.
That is the point. : ) I can only shake my head sadly at your response. There was not a single thing that was contradictory in what I stated. Nothing was unclear. The problem lies in your use of a flawed logic in the basic assumptions that form how you viewed the statements, how you think in general and how you formed your response. It is currently part and parcel of the basic cognitive paradigm of most human beings and it produces erroneous thinking. Any truly intelligent person would have never argued with my statement, because they would have immediately realized that to prove it incorrect, they would have to prove that they themselves, do not exist. You are correct about one thing. I can not contribute further because you simply lack the intellectual base needed to comprehend what is being said. By choice actually, not by genetics entirely….: ) The truth is never insulting. it is simply the truth. As of a necessity, all the rest from me to you is silence…………….
Another, simpler way to describe it is that to those intelligent enough to understand what I said, no further explanation or defense is necessary. To those who lack the intelligence to understand what was said, either by choice or by design, no further explanation or argument will ever be sufficient.
You’re a fool. You are merely deluding yourself, or trolling. I have exposed the logical flaws in your argument, and you have done nothing to correct them. You have only asserted that you are intelligent and that anyone who disagrees with you is simply not intelligent. This is just nonsense, baseless self aggrandizing, not a sound argument. Anyone can clearly see where I have shown your argument to be flawed, and if YOU can’t understand that, then YOUR intelligence is insufficient.
Wouldn’t someone supposedly as smart as yourself be able to influence the lesser minded population? Surely you should possess some better understanding of the masses along with some skill of rhetoric to influence them by. You have failed miserably in that arena. Secondly, I don’t see any evidence to higher reasoning from your post and I just got really bored typing so just f off
I stumbled across this page when I was looking to see if/how Mr. Langan addresses Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem with his own CTMU theory, as I experienced difficulty proceeding in the paper with this nagging concept in my mind. I want to give the man’s theory a fair shake and I was afraid that my immediate thoughts about the two were coloring my interpretation of the CTMU Theory. So bear in mind that I have not read the entire paper by Mr. Langan yet; simply because I stopped to investigate my immediate skepticism/concerns with reconciling the two. Therefore, I do not have sufficient information at the moment to comment on my thoughts regarding CTMU. I do find it to be interesting, at the very least because we know that our current mainstream models are flawed and/or incomplete. So my the following is only regarding the contents of the writings posted by “Dave.” (Whom I’m not sure if this is the author of the opinion-piece or merely someone who posted it without reference.)
On the issue of God: I know only of a video or two in which I’ve heard Mr. Langan reply in a direct affirmative when asked about if he thinks that God exists. I do not know if this was edited or if Mr. Langan was replying with more respect to brevity than explanation. I was turned off by this seemingly curt response to this question. Personally, I do not think it is very responsible of a person to answer such a question without first asking how questioner defines “God.” In my experience, I have never encountered any definition of that word that is either illogical or incomprehensibly vague. I am currently of the opinion that anyone proclaiming to be able to even define “God” is most likely delusional. It may be that I am presumptuous in my thinking that the human mind is incapable of providing a satisfactory definition of something resembling what I have been told God is.
While the author of the piece above does make some important distinctions regarding a few items (e.g. results of an IQ test a and association with correct interpretations of reality), there are a few glaring issues with the author’s post that undermined their credibility to me:
“To illustrate that point, he does not appear to understand what a theory actually is and the word would be normally used because he has in effect redefined it. (Unless you are really curious, I’d skip that last link).”
An apparent grammatical error (excusable) forced me to read this sentence twice to try and understand what the author meant. But more importantly, the statement which links to a paper by Mr. Langar that is being used by the author as a reference to illustrate their point, is immediately followed by a recommendation for readers to not look into that unless they are “really curious.” That is not a scientifically responsible manner to make a criticism. And it prompted me to read the entire document posted by Mr. Langan. I did not find the issue that the author alludes to. I thought that Mr. Langan actually attempted to “refine” rather than “redefine” the concept of what the word ‘theory’ means.
Lastly the author lists as their #3 “recap” of “crap”:
“The author doesn’t understand the difference between syntax and semantics, between objects and models, or between statements and facts – and because of that, the basic statements in his theory are utterly meaningless.”
Unless I’m way off base, the author states that Mr. Langan “doesn’t understand the difference between…statements and facts…” Ok, it appears that the author made a statement that they think is factual about Mr. Langan’s capacity to differentiate between a statement and a fact (when they differ.) They are not guilty of the exact accusation they levied. That is quite remarkable, considering how they use terms like “kook”, “crap”, “bullshit”, etc. I would be embarrassed if I said or wrote anything resembling this level of hypocrisy.
My goodness, grammatical/spelling errors noted at the following locations of my comment:
So [s]my[/s] the following is only regarding the contents of the writings posted by “Dave.”
“But more importantly, the statement which links to a paper by Mr. [i]Langan[/i]”
This is simply a compilation of statements, un-cited and completely worthless for any sort of review of the model. Also, what you don’t seem to understand, is that it is a model. He is trying to define axioms for reality based on logical rationalism. The point is that physics, with set axioms cannot observe itself, he is trying to find axioms fir the nature of physics, which exist outside of physics. He lays these suggestions down from rationalism, them tests them.
So you’re basically saying that since you don’t agree with him; “He’s wrong and not smart and you are.”?
The rest of this article is just double talk mixed in with word salad.