PZ comments on Langan's CTMU

Paul Zielinski comments on Chris Langan's CTMU (9/5/14)........

Having carefully reviewed Chris Langan's CTMU synopsis (annotated copy attached), with a sympathetic and open minded attitude, here is my overall take on the contents.

What is the general approach taken by the CTMU? Essentially, using what appear to be Kantian methods of abstraction from existing knowledge, the CTMU attempts to revive what amounts to a hybrid of logicism and formalism in the traditional foundations of mathematics, claiming to be able to derive set theory (and therefore the whole of mathematics) entirely from logical tautologies. It then expands the scope of this hybrid logicist/formalist thesis to the entire framework of objective reality (arrived at by what the CTMU calls the "scientific method"), by "syntactical" rules of inference that are abstracted from certain accepted scientific theories (as specifically interpreted by J. A. Wheeler). It is then simply asserted without any proof based on computational-linguistic considerations that a set of syntactical rules can be found from which the whole of objective reality, interpreted according to Wheeler's principles, can be developed as a "grammar of reality" with the aid of a self-generating, self-reflecting syntactical machine, the so-called "SCSPL". The "SCSPL" comprises the basic syntax of reality augmented by a "supertautological structure", which latter dynamically and reflexively unfolds the truth content of set of fundamental absolute truths (logical axioms) in the form of logical tautologies, so as to optimize something called "general utility" in an inherently teleological manner. This leads to a purely syntactical definition of cognitive reality in which the world essentially designs itself, and in which intelligence unfolds in an autonomous goal-oriented process of cosmic evolution by self-selection.

Here are what I see as the salient features of the CTMU:

1. The World consists of Objective Information:  Taking its cues from Wheeler's "It from Bit", "Observer-Participant", and "Word as Self-Excited Circuit" theses, the CTMU assumes that the world and its contents (the "IT") is reducible to information encoded in binary digital form (the "BIT"); and that such objective information is the product of acts of observation involving human observers (reality as a "self-excited circuit" implementing quantum theoretic observer-participation; "infocognition").

2. Objective information is Processed into Reality by Human Cognition:  Objective information produced in this manner is cognitively processed by the human mind into a perceived reality that is coherently intersubjective. Nothing outside this realm has any objective meaning. Nothing outside of this cognitive reality is to be considered "real".

3. Cognitive Reality is defined by a Language, whose Tautological and Inferential Syntactic Structure Mirrors the Syntactic Structure of the World:  The CTMU assumes that the syntactic structure of the language of cognitive reality is reflected in the syntactic structure of the World, the World being conceived as a set of Wheelerian observational-participatory events that yield objective information.

4.  The Syntactic Structure of Reality is Generated Entirely from Logical Tautologies by a Self-Reflexive Self-Generating Supertautological Structure enshrined in the "SCSPL":  Both the tautological truth content, and the rules of inference required to dynamically generate the whole of human cognitive reality, are included in the syntactical structure  of the SCSPL. The supertautological structure of the SCSPL contains a "generative grammar" sufficient to generate the whole of cognitive reality in a dynamic process of self-directed evolution.

5. The syntactic process of linguistic self-determination and self-generation of cognitive reality through the SCSPL is guided by a "telesis" defined as optimization of "general utility": The SCPL includes syntactic rules of optimization of something called "general utility" that result in a self-determinative teleological evolution of cognitive reality that mirrors the teleological evolution of the cosmos, facilitated by a mechanism of "telic feedback".

Based on these posited features of the envisioned "SCSPL" language of reality, the CTMU claims without proof or even with the aid of a single concrete example to be able to recover all of Wheeler's principles and the answer all of Wheeler's open questions (as set out in his book "Beyond the Black Hole") based entirely on SCSPL syntactic rules of inference/generative grammar applied to purely logical tautologies. The CTMU also claims to be able to support and recover "intelligent design", not only in the specific context of biological evolution, but as to the evolution of the cosmos as a whole.

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So what in the CTMU do I think might be of value to your program?

As to the general approach, I don't find it even to be plausible, let alone convincing. The widely acknowledged failure of logicism and formalism in the foundations of mathematics is well known and understood by the mainstream -- and yet that doesn't seem to have deterred Langan in the slightest from making grandiose claims for his loosely defined (and not yet constructed) self-referential self-generating "SCSPL". If even set theory (and therefore mathematics) cannot be recovered statically from certain truths in the form of purely logical tautologies by the rules of deductive inference (i.e, from pure syntax), then why would anyone in the business take seriously Chris's claims to be able to generate all of science from some ill-defined hybrid of logicism and formalism? Especially in view of the fact that Chris has not exhibited a single rigorous technical implementation of even one of his claims.

Here are some specific (claimed but not demonstrated) features of the CTMU that I think might be of interest to you:

A. Based on a principle of "syndiffeonesis" (unity of opposites), it is argued that the cognitive reality generated by the SCSPL implies a dual-aspect monistic ontology in which only one substance -- objective information arising from "infocognition" -- is ultimately real. This is definitely an "immaterialist" Wheelerian thesis.

B. CTMU cognitive reality configures itself by "telic recursion" according to the requirement that it initially self-select from a background of undifferentiated ontological potential. This means that the universe essentially arises from an undifferentiated "ur-stuff" of pure potential by spontaneous self-selection, created by the initial telic recursion event represented as the "MU form". This starting point appears to corresponds to the apeiron of classical cosmogony, in the sense of the primitive undifferentiated "beginning" of all logically differentiated being. Thus in Biblical terms the SCSPL plays the role of the "word" or the "logos", with the initial undifferentiated ontological potential playing the role of the "waters".

C. In the CTMU, syntax and its content are recursively related. Thus syntax generates content, while content generates syntax. Syntactically generated objects can themselves be models for syntactical theorems.

D. "Conspansive duality" and "Syndiffeonesis" applied in combination as the "Multiplex Unity" principle allow inversion of space and time into a monadic collection of coherent perspectives as dual aspects of a monistic infocognitive ontology. This is a distinctly Leibnizian feature of the CTMU.

E. "Conspansive duality" supports an abstract "general covariance" principle in which the expansion of space is deemed "equivalent" to the contraction of matter. The CTMU claims, based on this principle, to generated cosmic expansion from tautological truth. More generally, objects and relations between objects stand in a dual relationship, such that either can be taken as primary, with both pictures being considered as dual aspects of a single underlying infocognitive reality.

F. The syntactical rules of self-generation operate at every level of the cognitive reality unfolded by the SCSPL, and thus the syntactic structure of this reality is inherently self-similar (something like a "logical fractal").

G. Wheeler's Principles -- especially "IT from BIT" and the World as a self-excited infocognitive circuit -- regardless of whether they actually can be generated by the "SCSPL".

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I'm attaching an annotated copy of Chris's CTMU Summary, plus an informative review paper by Linsky and Zaita on neo-logicism that explains the failure of the logicist program and outlines three proposals for reviving it.

OK, now on to Maldacena's AdS/CFT and Strominger's dS/CFT correspondence models as the basis for a generalized holographic principle.