Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

Single eternal deity
or
turtles
all
the
way
down
?

Post 11. January 24, 2018

Theory of Everything

Cognitive-Theoretic Model of Universe

The Enformationism thesis is a sort of Theory of Everything (TOE), in the sense that G*D is supposed to be the cosmic All, of which our world is a small part. But it is not a scientific model of reality, and it does not claim to be the absolute Truth. Instead, it is merely a framework for my personal under-standing of the enigmatic world I found myself wandering in, like a stranger in a strange land, as an unfledged babe. It's also a response to the babble of rival theories-of-ultimate-reality -- religious & scientific -- that only added to the mystery.

My first TOE, of course, was the mother's-milk myth of my upbringing. But soon after the age of reason, I discovered that there were actually thousands of variations on that same belief system : the Abrahamic, chosen-people tradition. Due to their dogmatic stance though, those creeds tended to be mutually-exclusive, and hence canceled-out. Plus, there are also many other competing TOEs, based on variations on the spooky assumptions of Spiritualism, or the magical metaphors of Mysticism, or even some far-out speculations of Science.

To my pragmatic mind, most of the supernatural theories required too much faith in unpredictable occult powers, that seem to work as expected only about half the time. Which caused many believers in petitioning-prayer or mind-over-matter to subconsciously resign themselves to unpredictable implacable Fate : "Thy will be done". If miracles & magic are no more reliable than random chance, then those preternatural powers may exist only in wishful imagination, as self-fulfilling expectations. Despite desultory disappointments though, hope-against-hope keeps the faithful coming back to the dry trough anticipating at least occasional gratification.

In addition to all of those formal religious doctrines, there have been numerous attempts to discover, or create, a non-spiritual scientific Theory of Everything, based on the mundane assumptions of Materialism & Darwinism. Recently I came across a "new kind of reality theory", that is founded on a unique interpretation of the modern scientific paradigm, but which concludes that there is a god after all. Since it's a freewheeling  mash-up of Religion & Science & philosophical speculation, this TOE has some things in common with my own Enformationism worldview; in particular, a key role for ubiquitous Information.

Here's the Wikipedia summary of Christopher Langan’s alternative reality theory :

The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe or CTMU is a philosophical theory of the relationship between mind and reality. Its author, Christopher Michael Langan, has been billed as "the smartest man in America", with an IQ reported by 20/20 and other media sources to have been measured at around 195. Langan created the CTMU in the mid-1980s while working as a bar bouncer on Long Island. Among his claims for the theory are that it constitutes absolute truth, provides the logical framework of a Theory of Everything, and proves the existence of God.

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