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

Bartender, bodybuilder bouncer
 and
brainiac

Post 11. 01/24/2018 continued . . .

Theory of Everything

An Ideal Theory of Reality

Not surprisingly, this brash proposition has run into opposition from both religious and scientific defenders of the faith1. As a certified non-genius, I’m not qualified to judge the technical arguments. And I can’t follow all the mathematical jargon and semantic wordplay. But it sounds very similar to the reasoning behind my own Mind-based model of the cosmos2. It seems to be a philosophical theory derived from current scientific models, but I doubt that it could ever be proven true in any scientific sense. Nevertheless, it sounds like it could be true, as a model to explain how the world works, both physically and meta-physically, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Anyway, since I’m not likely to ever understand how he arrived at his “absolute truths”, I’ll just take it as evidence that great minds run in the same channels.

As I did in the Enformationism thesis, Langan begins with the assumption that the current paradigm of physical evolution is true, as far as it goes, but then reaches beyond the mundane mechanisms of materialism to conclude that the cosmos is essentially a story unfolding in the Mind of God. Langan uses three “metalogical principles” or axioms in order to relate his metaphysical Logic to physical Reality. For those casually interested in such abstruse theories of “god, the universe, and everything”, I’ve added a few comments here from my own perspective :

1. Metaphysical Autology
He assumes that the physical universe is a closed system. As long as the mathematical Singularity did not introduce any physical substance into the Big Bang, that is true. Presumably, encoding immaterial information does not count.
2. Mind Equals Reality
The universe is defined by the total information it contains. Science says that energy cannot be created or destroyed. So if energy = information, the universal system is still processing the data-set it received from the Singularity.
3. Multiplex Unity
Diversity adds up to Unity. All of the various parts of the universe form a ”mutually-inclusive relationship” between its individual parts and the singular whole, between us and G*D. Hence, collectively we are G*D, and G*D is us.

The CTMU has lately been a hot topic on the Quora forum. Here's one critique that summarized Langan's paradoxical view of creation :

<< The question of why reality exists is sometimes taken to be unanswerable or meaningless: reality "just exists", it is held, and no further explanation can be given. Alternatively, it is sometimes held that reality exists because it was created by something outside of it, an external creator. Langan opposes both views, arguing that were reality to lack an explanation, it would be acausal and could not sustain itself, whereas for an external creator to create reality, the creator itself would have to be real, and therefore inside reality by definition, contradicting the premise.>>

Post 11 continued . . . click Next

1. Math Critique :
“Stripped down to its basics, the CTMU is just yet another postmodern "perception defines the universe" idea.”
http://goodmath.scientopia.org/2011/02/11/another-crank-comes-to-visit-the-cognitive-theoretic-model-of-the-universe/

2. Quora opinion :
“Langan’s approach is similar to Spinozism as it is a mathematical proof of God; please do consider that it is possible to approach God with mathe-matics in manner akin to what Spinoza did, though Langan’s mathematics is considerably much more advanced. It should be noted Langan’s God is much closer to traditional theism as opposed to Spinozism among other differences.”
___anonymous

Axiom :
A statement that is taken to be true, without any attempt at proof, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments.

Cognitive Theoretic Model of the Universe
http://www.ctmu.org/

“As a philosopher might put it, the scientist and the mathematician work on opposite sides of the Cartesian divider between mental and physical reality.”

“How, then, can we ever form a true picture of reality?  . . .  Since logic consists of the rules of thought, i.e. of mind, what we would really be doing is interpreting reality in a generic theory of mind based on logic.  By definition, the result would be a cognitive-theoretic model of the universe.“