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.<p>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.<p>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.
It was written by this guy: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ak5Lr3qkW0" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ak5Lr3qkW0</a><p>An illustrative image of who he is: <a href="http://onemansblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/chris-langan-iq-comparison.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://onemansblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/chris-lang...</a>
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:<p>(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 <i>everything</i>; 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 <i>fabric</i> 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)."<p>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.
Just a tidbit, his wikipedia page says he's a creationist.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Langan#Ideas.2C_affiliations.2C_and_publications" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Langan#Ideas.2C_aff...</a><p>I think his argument is that creationism and evolution are not mutually exclusive. So he does believe in evolution.
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.
I can't take more than 2 minutes of this guy...<p>"I am closer to absolute truth than any man before me"<p>get over yourself.<p>source: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ak5Lr3qkW0" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ak5Lr3qkW0</a>
This link<p><a href="http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/history.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/history.html</a><p>gives historical background on the persons who form unvalidated high-IQ societies.
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.<p>Is his theory falsifiable in any way?