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Hi Dick,
I just wanted to comment on the things you said about Chris Langan. Hope you don't mind.
I have read his stuff and am of the opinion that he thinks he knows a lot more than can be well defended.
I'm of the same opinion, and that actually left me a bit disappointed. Can't a guy with an IQ that high do any better?
That said, I think focusing on his assumptions kind of misses his point. What I do get from his CTMU is that he's trying to demonstrate that if you do science the right way you must necessarily include the concept of God in your explanation of reality. In that sense, his theory is not much different from your paper, even though you seem to shy away from saying that out loud.
***** Paul:
Chris has concluded that the universe itself is sentient and that it comes to understand itself in a reflexive way. In his picture, this understanding adds information back into the universe enlarging it. The thus enlarged universe again comes to understand itself.
*****
Think about that for a while! Is it not completely equivalent to the presumption that he is the universe!
I don't take it that way, I think you are misunderstanding him. What Chris is saying is that you just can't avoid using the concept of 'mind' to explain the universe just as much as you can't avoid using 'mind' to explain yourself. The separation between subjective and objective is somewhat artificial, nothing is objective unless perceived by a subject, and no subject exists separate from the objects being perceived.
Until otherwise demonstrated, I place it within the category of that Great Original Dilemma! Something which is currently beyond explanation.
Now one thing that Chris says which I find extremely interesting is that in his opinion there is no such thing as something which can't be explained. According to him, if you know about it then an explanation necessarily exists. It's quite similar, in my opinion, to your idea of communicable concepts - the only things that cannot be explained are the things we are not aware of. Those shouldn't bother anyone.
What I have shown is that it matters not. Physics is true and cannot be false.
I understand that, but there's more to life than physics. You say everything that is not physics should be dealt with by our subconscious alone. I think most people would disagree with that, myself included. What I think is important is to keep things in context; that is, if it's not physics then you don't know if it's true, but that doesn't mean it's useless knowledge.
Having established that fact, let us build on it and see what else may be said with honest faith.
Ironically, the point I think you stress most frequently is that nothing can be said with honest faith, except things which are true by definition. That makes conscious thinking either useless or purely tautological, doesn't it?
Think about that.
Aurino |
