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http://knowledgebase.ctmu.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Langan_CTMU_0929021-1.pdf

...the CTMU describes reality as a Self-Configuring Self-Processing Language or SCSPL, a reflexive intrinsic language characterized not only by self-reference and recursive self-definition, but full self-configuration and selfexecution (reflexive read-write functionality). CTMU

The CTMU describes reality in such a way that a more basic or generic process is impossible to develop, at least given the known laws of physics.

I should add that without reference to the text's main body, the Abstract portion of the CTMU may be impossible to decipher and that Langan's writing is very difficult to quote directly without also generating a wall of text. The above quote is about as simple as the CTMU gets. Langan uses neologisms, yet these are always clearly defined in the text and accord to generic principles as outlined in the CTMU text.

A cursory search for the CTMU on Googlelag returns a bunch of self-righteous science "fan boys" attacking the CTMU, yet not a single one makes any formal arguments against the CTMU. Without their own "theory of reality" (basis) to argue from, CTMU critics seem only capable of outright naysaying, while promoting themselves or their favorite celebrity scientists as the only possible solution to scientific inquiries.

http://knowledgebase.ctmu.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Langan_CTMU_0929021-1.pdf >*...the CTMU describes reality as a Self-Configuring Self-Processing Language or SCSPL, a reflexive intrinsic language characterized not only by self-reference and recursive self-definition, but full self-configuration and selfexecution (reflexive read-write functionality).* CTMU The CTMU describes reality in such a way that a more basic or generic process is impossible to develop, at least given the known laws of physics. I should add that without reference to the text's main body, the Abstract portion of the CTMU may be impossible to decipher and that Langan's writing is very difficult to quote directly without also generating a wall of text. The above quote is about as simple as the CTMU gets. Langan uses neologisms, yet these are always clearly defined in the text and accord to generic principles as outlined in the CTMU text. A cursory search for the CTMU on Googlelag returns a bunch of self-righteous science "fan boys" attacking the CTMU, yet not a single one makes any formal arguments against the CTMU. Without their own "theory of reality" (basis) to argue from, CTMU critics seem only capable of outright naysaying, while promoting themselves or their favorite celebrity scientists as the only possible solution to scientific inquiries.

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[–] • 0 pt

So where does gravity come in? Or is this with the absence of gravity. John Titor spoke of this factor in the old school internet days: http://www.johntitor.com/

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The CTMU describes reality as a "self simulation", it being the fist and only complete "simulation" model of reality. Forces like Gravity have NEVER been coherently described by scientists. The entire search for an "aether" was an attempt to find a coherent medium for forces, but only resulted in Einstein's Relativity, which advanced thinking, but doesn't resolve the issue (of self containment).

Briefly, Relativity requires "infinitesimal" elements for its calculation, yet the theory of "curved space" doesn't support the existence of infinitesimals.

Forces are an antiquated term without a model exhibiting why they ought to exist. The CTMU resolves this deficiency by replacing the notion of forces with "programming". I'll try to use a couple of quotes to clarify the issue...

Originally called the Computation-Theoretic Model of the Universe, the CTMU was initially defined on a hierarchical nesting of universal computers, the Nested Simulation Tableau or NeST, which tentatively described spacetime as stratified virtual reality in order to resolve a decision-theoretic paradox put forth by Los Alamos physicist William Newcomb. C.M.Langan

Where physical fields of force control or program dynamical geometry, and programming is logically stratified as in NeST, fields become layered stacks of parallel distributive programming that decompose into field strata (conspansive layers) related by an intrinsic requantization function inhering in, and logically inherited from, the most primitive and connective layer of the stack. ibid

The conspansion model is the inversion of an "expanding" universe where object "move through space along world lines". The inverted model generates Venn diagrams, the circles of which represent "layered stacks of parallel distributive programming". The accompanying image describes the basics of developing a conspansion diagram, namely by rotating a Minkowski space-time diagram by 90 degrees...

https://ist6-3.filesor.com/pimpandhost.com/1/_/_/_/1/a/n/j/x/anjxi/di-QVQE4Z.png

Note that ANY transformation of state (ie motion, duration) can be equivalently modeled in the above Venn-diagramatic fashion, and thereby any portion or totality of the universe can be equivalently modeled as a Venn diagram. Because state-transformations are quantum (digital) in nature, no finer "detail" of state-transformations could be derived, and hence the manifold structure implied by the conspansion diagram is the literal canonical history of all reality in one structure, allowing for a coherent model of causality, up to and including ontogenesis.

[–] • 0 pt (edited )

@PS @KingOfWhiteAmerica

I would highly recommend reading this entry:

http://ctmucommunity.org/wiki/Cognitive-Theoretic_Model_of_the_Universe

It is actually fairly unbelievable, but if I am understanding this theory correctly, it meshes in staggering ways with the things we have been discussing for months.

He is trying to attach a truth property to reality which is essentially tautological, and which overall seems to adhere to a Thomistic metaphysics (indeed, it even equates reality with mind and by extension proves God, that is, according to the framework).

Peace, you might especially like the 'unbound telesis' component, which seems to correspond with Thomistic potentia.

What you may be inclined to disagree with would be his underlying axiom of closure which says that God cannot itself be separate from reality. The question, of course, becomes how to situate God within reality.

This is where I find this theory of 'conspansion' really, really interesting...I don't know that anyone has made the connection yet between this and Neo-platonic cosmology, but the overall idea of recursive layers superimposing on each other inwardly might mesh with emanationist cosmology so that what we end up with is something closer to panenpsychism.

The basic idea of conspansion is that the universe could not logically be expanding spatially or temporally outward - after all, what would it be expanding into? You'd leave open the explanation for the space-time manifold itself, which would necessarily create a causal contradiction. From non-reality, you'd have to derive the causal information for the manifold.

Now, if you happen to read it, hold in mind what I have been saying about dual-aspect monism and my ideas about mental properties. Langan uses duality between freedom and constraint to define concepts, where I have been using the phrases 'privacy and publicity'. I think they could be related, and that the whole theory would jibe with hylemorphism generally.

It kind of feels like someone took Neo-Platonism and Thomism and updated the description for the 21st century. I mean, he doesn't call it by name, but The Principle of Resemblance is one of his three main axioms. Seriously, I think this might just be Aquinas and the Meister written in modern terminology for a computer age.

Thanks for the post Zerothic.

[–] • 0 pt (edited )

The question, of course, becomes how to situate God within reality

Langan uses duality between freedom and constraint to define concepts, where I have been using the phrases 'privacy and publicity'

I love the CTMU, but I'm a bit miffed at Langan's "folksy" treatment of the God question, as if he's trying to preserve the sanctity of traditional religion. Langan makes no mention that Conspansion is concpetually identical to Reincarnation, which lets me know about his cultural bias on the issue.

How is God to be situated? By Langan's account, God = G.O.D. ("Global Operator-Designer"). But according to the CTMU's logic, God can't be other than "UBT" (Unbound Telesis), a connection which Langan never seems to make. Rather, Langan promotes the "Global Operator" aspect of God as a reflexive causal component of reality, which to my mind may as well be describing "Satan", not God.

The actual means of God's situation in reality is quite simple really. UBT = eternally pure stasis, namely owing to the lack of any external compliment by which UBT could be measured or observed in any way. No information = zero entropy = pure stasis = pure freedom (from constraint).

Shamans, Mystics, Buddhists and the like have known this for centuries: that the empty mind, free of of sensory content, memories, and emotions, quite readily and automatically defaults to the Absolute nature of reality (ie, the absolute nature of Mind), which as I've already discussed is an eternally pure stasis.

The word "Zen", or actually "Chan" in Chinese, when etymologically reduced to its component characters, means "alone, simply and exhaustively with the cosmos", offering a description of monastic plurality, and the privative means by which it can be realized, just not in public.

So by my analysis, the nature of God, which is UBT, which is eternally pure stasis, can't be publically displayed or demonstrated, because being the Absolute state without compliment, nothing could "be there" to witness it.

[–] • 0 pt

Very fascinating. This does contain many elements we have been discussing.

It strikes me that a distinction has to be made - between distinctions. There is nature/supernature, and reality/unreality. I would say, traditionally, God is "separate" from creation only insofar as He is supernature, while His creation is nature, while He is not separate from reality insofar as He is the One reality, and His creation participates in this. So God is transcendent and immanent.

So in that sense I would say I do not take issue with Langan's assertion that there is no "external" creator, since he is speaking in the context of reality, not "nature"-traditionally conceived, and so God is obviously not "external" in that case.

In June of 2019, he presented and published a reinterpretation of quantum mechanics within the CTMU framework. It was first published in the Proceedings of the Foundations of Mind VIII and the journals, Bionoetics and Cosmos & History.

I would like to get my hands on this. Based on that page reference, I bet it would accord well with Smith's own perspective. This "new kind of causation" referenced whereby "the system brings itself into existence as a means of atemporal communication between its past and future whereby law and state, syntax and informational content, generate and refine each other across time to maximize total systemic self-utility" is inseparable from Smith and Borella's vertical causation, which is how Smith resolves the Quantum Enigma in the first place. This Langan's "new causation" is likewise atemporal, I sense they are talking about the same thing, especially with the way he refers to "telors" - i.e., people:

observer-participants in the ongoing creation of reality. Telors possess independent volition and constructive, creative intelligence or "sentience". In the CTMU, the distributed laws of physics do not fully determine reality; they are supplemented by "meta-laws" created by telors as reality evolves. This ability of telors is constrained by factors including locality, interference, and the probabilistic limits of the laws of physics.

which is what I have been stressing to ARM about the "non-natural" causal significance of the free will - Dennett's "cop-out" just does not suffice.

I also find his thoughts on unbound telesis to be basically untenable without the Trinity:

Because UBT is a medium of pure potential, everything is possible within it. This means that anything which is able to "recognize itself" as existing, will in fact exist from its own vantage. However, the requirements for doing so are, asserts Langan, more stringent than is normally supposed. Because UBT is unstructured, the only possibilities which can actualize from it are those with sufficient internal structure to create and configure themselves. So in the CTMU, reality, rather than being uncaused or externally caused, is self-caused, and constrained by the structure it needs to create and configure itself, that of SCSPL.

Self-causation is one of those laughable philosophical ideas...unless you're talking about God Himself. Atheist philosophers try to argue that the universe is self-caused, but this is totally ridiculous, because they perceive the universe to exist independent of, or rather, without God. But unless the object of self-causation is exactly what classical theism asserts God to be, the very notion of self-causation is an absurdity. As EMJ says, "it would have to exist before it existed!" But there is no "before" with God; He is eternal. But His creation is not; or rather, His creation, with time, emerges out of the unbound telesis through His recognition of Himself. And so only with a Being, a One, a Mind that is God could such a term be meaningfully used - and it would have to be used in a Trinitarian sense, where God is, and knows Himself as an image of Himself, and also is this knowing, this self-reference, this self-causation (insofar as this knowing is both eternal and within time.

I love that he jettisons the relativistic / context-shifting cop-out also. This is what moderns do to get around Aquinas - they deny the first principles themselves. But as Langan rightly notes, insofar as a principle is first and necessary, it is also self-evident - meaning it is the definition of insanity to reject it.

Metaphysical Autology Principle - reality is closed with respect to all internally relevant operations. In other words, everything essential to reality, including everything needed to describe or explain it, is contained in reality itself.

So as the Meister, and Aquinas, and many Catholic saints all affirm - God is the One, He is reality.

Mind Equals Reality Principle - mind and reality are ultimately inseparable to the extent that they share common rules of structure and processing. In particular, (a) reality is comprehensive with respect to mind (our minds are part of reality), and (b) reality conforms to the categories of mind.

I think this axiom is the underlying theme of most of what you've been saying for the past year. I also think it accords with anthropic realism, and what I've been saying about how the universe exists for us. Thus Gibson's ecological perception, and non-bifurcationism, likewise come into play. Basically, qualia are not evolutive accidents; they actually exist, since they are actually perceived - there is no mind-world duality, no bifurcation.

Multiplex Unity Principle - reality is consistent by virtue of the mutually inclusive relationship between itself (unity) and its contents (multiplicity). Each part of reality contains a description of the whole, in the form of a common set of structural and functional rules.

Reality is One and many; One insofar is has only One source, One cause, One principle, and insofar as all creatures relate to the One; and many insofar as there are a multiplicity of creatures, as there are many nothings, many negations, many emanations. The Meister says that we must negate the negations in order to peel away the multiplicity and find the one.

Thank you @Zerothic for posting about the CTMU. Much food for thought.

@KingOfWhiteAmerica