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Michael Langan

Post 1

Barton

Following your invitation, I have read your essay above and I have followed the links to the two articles. Here is a brief comment on those three things.

First of all, I'll just say that I find it interestingly inconsistent that in one paragraph you seem to be attacking people with high IQ scores while in the following paragraph you seem to be using a high IQ score as the primary basis for setting Mr. Langan forward as an authority.

In the first article, from ABCNews' website, it seems that Mr. Langan was given a standard IQ test which your own research should have indicated was not calibrated or reliable beyond the second or third standard deviation. Not that I doubt that Mr. Langan was capable of scoring somewhere around the figure quoted for him.

It was also interesting that Mr. Langan choose to use that opportunity to complain about intellectual descrimination.

In "On Absolute Truth and Knowledge," I read the whole article with some interest, but I'm afraid there are several fundamental errors in Mr. Langan's logic starting right from his choice of initial definitions and running through his attempt to prove that tautologies are the ultimate proof of truth for precisely the reasons that logicians regect tautologies as essentially useless. In his zeal to prove his point 'logically,' he seems to have completely failed to address the realtive framework within which he chose to work.

After just one reading, I can't be sure, of course, but it seems that what he offered there was essentially a teaser and justification for the article he referenced as "Introduction to the CTMU" so I am not particularly surprised that his treatment was not as rigorous as it might have been.

Your implication that my entire world view would shift and undego a fundamental paradigm shift, seems to be somewhat less than the case.

I will, of course, devote some time to "Introduction" when I have a chance.

Incidently, precisely where on h2g2 or anywhere else have you seen me refer to my IQ score? Just curious?

Barton


Michael Langan

Post 2

Playboy Reporter

Well, I'm glad you took the time to read it all. I wasn't specifically attacking those with 'high IQ's' : my 'attack' was directed at those opposing 'Renassiance values'

Chris is prepared to debate with all comers. But let me warn you: he's devoted practically his entire life to the study of philosophy. He would not post such an essay unless he were very very sure its conclusions were correct. And in a one-on-one debate , he would tear your world-view to peices.


Michael Langan

Post 3

Barton

Your understanding of Renaissance values is not mine, though I do not choose to debate you on your aparently religious dedication to those values.

I am not interested in debating Mr. Langan either whom you also seem to hold in semi-religious awe. The fact that he has devoted his life to philosophy does not guarantee that he has solved the problems of the ages any more than any other philosopher has.

What I have read so far does nothing to refute relativity, it merely takes a relative frame of reference in logic and then postulates that logic and particularly binary thinking has some commanding influence on the fact that the universe is filled with analog events which may be modeled in binary logic but not properly represented.

Having chosen logic as his battleground, he then postulates that the tenets of logic are incorrect while using them to prove his point. He uses self-referential structures as proof whithout refuting Russel who used logic to demonstrate that those very structures must by necessity be incomplete. Without rigorusly refuting Russel, he cannot begin to properly postulate that there can be any such thing as an absolute truth.

Is logic is wishful rather than rigorous. While his beliefs may constitute a new paradigm and a new logic, he has failed to demonstrate that and cannot do so in the space of a few pages on the web.

In short, he seems to believe that he has had some revelation. Good for him. I am not interested in worshipping at his feet as your writings here seem to indicate that you are.

Lastly, your judgement of my skills in a debate (which is not where anything about the real world is established) are, of course, yours to have and cherish. You have achieved them in ignorance and you have undoubtedly no intention of coming to worship at my feet either. I do not look for that from you or from anyone else.

In the thread on Truth, where you posted your invitation, I have been discussing the idea that absolute truth no longer can be said to exist and I have carefully considered each argument presented against the basic concept that scientific thought calls relativity and which I and others have observed also appears to influence each of our individual understsandings of the world and the life we appear to experience in it.

If you subscribe to Mr. Langan's fundamental postulate that if things are susceptible to relativistic interpretation then the entire universe must fall apart (which I take to mean that he cannot concieve of being wrong) then, please, enjoy your life and consult with Mr. Langan if you have any questions.

I do not, please allow me to enjoy mine.

Barton


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