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The Art of Knowing: Expositions on Free Will and Select Essays
The Art of Knowing is a collection of remarkable philosophical essays by blue-collar cosmologist Christopher Michael Langan. Chris Langan writes with a clarity that enables him to present complex material in an accessible format without compromising depth of content. As usual, he imparts his message with wisdom and a characteristic touch of humor.
155 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2002
27 people are currently reading
346 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Michael Langan
11 books94 followersChristopher Michael Langan is a noted independant researcher and reality theorist whose extraordinary intellect has not prevented him from living a rough, unsheltered, and excitling life. He is best known for his groundbreaking theory of reality, the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU).
Challenged from early childhood by extreme poverty and inadequate schooling, after working as a cowboy, firefighter, construction worker, and bar bouncer in various nightclubs throughout the New York metropolitan area, he came to the attention of the media in 1999 for combining one of the world's highest IQs (estimated ~195-210) with limited formal education. He was described by some journalists as "the smartest man in America" or "in the world".
Having conducted original investigations in the fields including logic, mathematics, physics, cosmology, biology, philosophy, language theory, theology, economics, and the cognitive sciences, he has contributed articles on such topics to a number of scholarly journals and alternative intellectuals perdiodicals.
Challenged from early childhood by extreme poverty and inadequate schooling, after working as a cowboy, firefighter, construction worker, and bar bouncer in various nightclubs throughout the New York metropolitan area, he came to the attention of the media in 1999 for combining one of the world's highest IQs (estimated ~195-210) with limited formal education. He was described by some journalists as "the smartest man in America" or "in the world".
Having conducted original investigations in the fields including logic, mathematics, physics, cosmology, biology, philosophy, language theory, theology, economics, and the cognitive sciences, he has contributed articles on such topics to a number of scholarly journals and alternative intellectuals perdiodicals.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 13, 2022
I confess that reading Christopher Langan’s book, “The Art of Knowing”, presented quite a challenge to me. Given the tremendous depth and rigor of most of the writing in the book, it is not surprising to me that Langan’s IQ has been estimated at 195 to 210. Incidentally, information found on the internet offers estimates of the IQ of Karl Friedrich Gauss to be between 250 and 300. Of course, Gauss lived about a century and a half before the inception of any IQ tests. Thus, estimates of what IQ test scores he would have generated, if IQ tests had been available, have to remain highly subjective and speculative.
I find it extremely intriguing to read Mr. Langan’s analysis of free will. I confess to failing to fully grasp just what that analysis entails, but my impression is that he regards the freedom of the will to involve decisions (choices) that successively arise from the subconscious, but are still bona fide free choices. Although I am personally convinced of the existence of human free will, it is my conviction that neither Mr. Langan nor any other human being can ever genuinely decipher the profundity of the mystery of freedom. Paradoxes in that sphere are too rife to be amenable to being tackled by human intelligence. Incidentally, my conviction is that, notwithstanding the numerous theories proffered by philosophers and scientists concerning the nature of time, as in the case with free will, its true unraveling is possible only by superhuman intelligence.
I will quote from page 25 of Langan’s book, where he says:
“But as we have just observed, prediction and control are passive and active sides of the same coin;…”
I’m not sure that I grasp the full meaning of that assertion, but I do believe that there is a domain of reality in which prediction of the future transcends control over the specified future events. From my perspective, this is the case for the Divine (Ruler of the universe), whenever a creature who is granted (by the Creator) freedom of choice, is, at a temporal distance, going to make a given choice, and the Creator knows what the choice will be, but does so without any control that would determine the choice that’s made. In this case, prediction occurs without any control by the Predictor of the choice. Let me make it clear that I’m convinced that the Creator COULD control the choice, but freely grants creatures their own freedom to choose. No human being – unlike Langan’s imaginary character, Nukem – can ever predict, with certainty, choices that will be made by other people – unless there’s a case of Divine information (foreknowledge) revealed, by the Divine, to the human being. A Being Who exists with intelligence that can transcend all spacetime is not epistemologically restricted as are spatiotemporal beings. Mr. Langan might wish to take great issue with my assertions, but even if so, I would wish to counsel him to acknowledge the profound cognitive limitations of even the most brilliant of all human beings.
Since I’m a mathematical hobbyist, I’d hoped that Langan’s book might address his views on the nature of mathematics – whether his views conform to Platonism, nominalism, formalism, or whatever. While I have no doubts as to Langan’s mathematical prowess, I found relatively little in his book that bears philosophically on the nature of mathematics.
Overall, I’d be willing to declare that “The Art of Knowing” was the most challenging and enthralling reading I have done in a long time. Anyone who’s interested in reading deep and critical analyses of the nature of reality, I think, could be rewarded by reading this intriguing book.
I find it extremely intriguing to read Mr. Langan’s analysis of free will. I confess to failing to fully grasp just what that analysis entails, but my impression is that he regards the freedom of the will to involve decisions (choices) that successively arise from the subconscious, but are still bona fide free choices. Although I am personally convinced of the existence of human free will, it is my conviction that neither Mr. Langan nor any other human being can ever genuinely decipher the profundity of the mystery of freedom. Paradoxes in that sphere are too rife to be amenable to being tackled by human intelligence. Incidentally, my conviction is that, notwithstanding the numerous theories proffered by philosophers and scientists concerning the nature of time, as in the case with free will, its true unraveling is possible only by superhuman intelligence.
I will quote from page 25 of Langan’s book, where he says:
“But as we have just observed, prediction and control are passive and active sides of the same coin;…”
I’m not sure that I grasp the full meaning of that assertion, but I do believe that there is a domain of reality in which prediction of the future transcends control over the specified future events. From my perspective, this is the case for the Divine (Ruler of the universe), whenever a creature who is granted (by the Creator) freedom of choice, is, at a temporal distance, going to make a given choice, and the Creator knows what the choice will be, but does so without any control that would determine the choice that’s made. In this case, prediction occurs without any control by the Predictor of the choice. Let me make it clear that I’m convinced that the Creator COULD control the choice, but freely grants creatures their own freedom to choose. No human being – unlike Langan’s imaginary character, Nukem – can ever predict, with certainty, choices that will be made by other people – unless there’s a case of Divine information (foreknowledge) revealed, by the Divine, to the human being. A Being Who exists with intelligence that can transcend all spacetime is not epistemologically restricted as are spatiotemporal beings. Mr. Langan might wish to take great issue with my assertions, but even if so, I would wish to counsel him to acknowledge the profound cognitive limitations of even the most brilliant of all human beings.
Since I’m a mathematical hobbyist, I’d hoped that Langan’s book might address his views on the nature of mathematics – whether his views conform to Platonism, nominalism, formalism, or whatever. While I have no doubts as to Langan’s mathematical prowess, I found relatively little in his book that bears philosophically on the nature of mathematics.
Overall, I’d be willing to declare that “The Art of Knowing” was the most challenging and enthralling reading I have done in a long time. Anyone who’s interested in reading deep and critical analyses of the nature of reality, I think, could be rewarded by reading this intriguing book.
April 19, 2022
You think tautology is the enemy, kid? Don’t kid yourself. Everything is a tautology. You are a tautology. Reality is a super-tautology. Stop eating soy. Drop out of college and pick up a Bible. “I AM THAT I AM” – it’s all in there. Go herd goats in the mountains and meditate on this.
The CTMU succeeds where the Satanic-Masonic Enlightenment failed and provides an unshakeable philosophical foundation for defending reality itself and its 3 primary aspects: the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. To quote The Tree of Woe:
"We need to do better than our great ancestors did.
To defend the good, the beautiful, and the true we must be able to know what is actually good, beautiful, and true — and then we must be able to persuasively demonstrate that to others.
For the good, beautiful, and true to be actual, they must in some way be real. Thus, to defend their actuality, we must be able to defend their reality; and that requires defending a theory of moral realism, a theory of aesthetic realism, and a correspondence theory of truth against those who would say they the good, beautiful, and true do not really exist.
But to defend these theories of realism, we must be able to defend the objective and knowable existence of the real itself against those who would say that reality as a whole is subjective or unknowable.
And to be able to defend the knowable existence of reality, we must be able to defend the evidence of our senses and the conclusions of our reason from skepticism.
To be able to defend the evidence of our senses, we must be able to defend direct realism, or something like it; to be able to defend the conclusions of our reason, we must be able to defend the laws of thought.
So we must do more than just identify the natural order, we must identify how we have identified it, and then defend both the method and the outcome.
The Enlightenment failed to do this. It failed to defend the evidence of the senses, it failed to defend the laws of thought, it failed to defend moral realism, it failed to defend aesthetic realism, and it failed to defend the correspondence theory of truth. It failed on every front and was routed from the field.
We must do better than the Enlightenment. We cannot return to classical liberalism. There is no retreat; the bridges are burned; the way is blocked. We must advance."
(From: treeofwoe.substack.com/p/why-we-must-...)
This is exactly what the CTMU accomplishes and it marks a turning point in the history of our humanity, on par with the discovery of fire. No more shall we stumble in the dark recesses of our minds, fearing the unknown. For we have conquered our metaphysical horizons.
Favorite quotes:
But even as the gloom of radical skepticism cast its
pall over much of Europe, all was not lost. For if Hume was
the philosophical Little Engine That Could, he and his
followers were about to learn the meaning of Kant.
If you want to be intelligent, you have to be smart about it.
Self-determinism is a rather subtle concept. It means
that one determines one’s own path independently of general
laws of causality, where “independence” describes a
situation in which one is constrained by, but also free to
exploit at will, the laws of physics and biology. It therefore
implies that neither randomness nor the laws of causality
have the final word in the determination of reality; there is
enough room between them for human beings, who are
themselves parts of reality, to “get a word in edgewise”.
in order to be
“objective”, something must be real. On what real, objective
scale can reality be measured? If we define “reality” in the
most straightforward and tautological way, namely as “that
which contains all and only that which is real”, no such
thing as an external scale is possible. For by our definition,
anything real enough to quantify reality from the outside is
already included in reality and therefore on the inside! Since
this is a logical contradiction, the idea that reality can be
externally evaluated is logically invalid. This implies that in
order to possess meaningful existence and thus be capable of
supporting meaningful volition, reality must be “self-evaluating”.
All of its value scales must be internal to it, and
its meaning must be intrinsic.
So reality, being self-determinative but externally
unconstrained, possesses a global, self-enabling analogue of
free will that generates its own means of realization. If these
means can be utilized by human beings within reality, then
human beings possess free will, and because they are
included in reality, they can use it to contribute to the
realization of the global Self-structuring imperative.
Meanwhile, no matter what happens – no matter
what the danger that mankind will fall under the
domination of a tyrannical AI monster like those in the
movies mentioned above - we can take solace in one little
fact: the way things are going in our public schools, it is
virtually certain that no self-respecting machine will ever
pass the Turing Test. You see, such a machine will
immediately give itself away by its use of proper grammar.
The CTMU succeeds where the Satanic-Masonic Enlightenment failed and provides an unshakeable philosophical foundation for defending reality itself and its 3 primary aspects: the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. To quote The Tree of Woe:
"We need to do better than our great ancestors did.
To defend the good, the beautiful, and the true we must be able to know what is actually good, beautiful, and true — and then we must be able to persuasively demonstrate that to others.
For the good, beautiful, and true to be actual, they must in some way be real. Thus, to defend their actuality, we must be able to defend their reality; and that requires defending a theory of moral realism, a theory of aesthetic realism, and a correspondence theory of truth against those who would say they the good, beautiful, and true do not really exist.
But to defend these theories of realism, we must be able to defend the objective and knowable existence of the real itself against those who would say that reality as a whole is subjective or unknowable.
And to be able to defend the knowable existence of reality, we must be able to defend the evidence of our senses and the conclusions of our reason from skepticism.
To be able to defend the evidence of our senses, we must be able to defend direct realism, or something like it; to be able to defend the conclusions of our reason, we must be able to defend the laws of thought.
So we must do more than just identify the natural order, we must identify how we have identified it, and then defend both the method and the outcome.
The Enlightenment failed to do this. It failed to defend the evidence of the senses, it failed to defend the laws of thought, it failed to defend moral realism, it failed to defend aesthetic realism, and it failed to defend the correspondence theory of truth. It failed on every front and was routed from the field.
We must do better than the Enlightenment. We cannot return to classical liberalism. There is no retreat; the bridges are burned; the way is blocked. We must advance."
(From: treeofwoe.substack.com/p/why-we-must-...)
This is exactly what the CTMU accomplishes and it marks a turning point in the history of our humanity, on par with the discovery of fire. No more shall we stumble in the dark recesses of our minds, fearing the unknown. For we have conquered our metaphysical horizons.
Favorite quotes:
But even as the gloom of radical skepticism cast its
pall over much of Europe, all was not lost. For if Hume was
the philosophical Little Engine That Could, he and his
followers were about to learn the meaning of Kant.
If you want to be intelligent, you have to be smart about it.
Self-determinism is a rather subtle concept. It means
that one determines one’s own path independently of general
laws of causality, where “independence” describes a
situation in which one is constrained by, but also free to
exploit at will, the laws of physics and biology. It therefore
implies that neither randomness nor the laws of causality
have the final word in the determination of reality; there is
enough room between them for human beings, who are
themselves parts of reality, to “get a word in edgewise”.
in order to be
“objective”, something must be real. On what real, objective
scale can reality be measured? If we define “reality” in the
most straightforward and tautological way, namely as “that
which contains all and only that which is real”, no such
thing as an external scale is possible. For by our definition,
anything real enough to quantify reality from the outside is
already included in reality and therefore on the inside! Since
this is a logical contradiction, the idea that reality can be
externally evaluated is logically invalid. This implies that in
order to possess meaningful existence and thus be capable of
supporting meaningful volition, reality must be “self-evaluating”.
All of its value scales must be internal to it, and
its meaning must be intrinsic.
So reality, being self-determinative but externally
unconstrained, possesses a global, self-enabling analogue of
free will that generates its own means of realization. If these
means can be utilized by human beings within reality, then
human beings possess free will, and because they are
included in reality, they can use it to contribute to the
realization of the global Self-structuring imperative.
Meanwhile, no matter what happens – no matter
what the danger that mankind will fall under the
domination of a tyrannical AI monster like those in the
movies mentioned above - we can take solace in one little
fact: the way things are going in our public schools, it is
virtually certain that no self-respecting machine will ever
pass the Turing Test. You see, such a machine will
immediately give itself away by its use of proper grammar.
December 1, 2020
I need to read Langan's full CTMU published writing, but regardless of whether or not I agree with his arguments here presented, he writes it with a soulful and gleeful rejoice for humanity, to which I am undoubtedly immured with a sense of respect. The central notion of Langan's theory is two-fold:
1) As we are part of reality itself, we (or our consciousness) are part of its physics, thus free will descends from us as we appropriate the universe's will.
2) (1) is contextualized within the apparatus of a grammar on grammar. This is essentially the tenant that with each layer of cybernetics, choice reemerges in a mitigated way, but with its own language of self-consciousness on a micro (n-1, if you will) level (i.e. meta-game theory).
The central issue with (2) is that Langan relies on three levels (cosmic, macro-cosmic, physical), which is insufficient. (1) is essentially Hegel's leap of Faith, but with the notion that having a body is sufficient grounds to jump forward. Langan's argument on the notion of free will more or less aligns with Voltaire's, that free will is not equally distributed. I fundamentally agree with Langan that consciousness is equal to the same metaphysical substance as that which creates physical laws, but I also have to take issue with the length and timidity of its presentation. Langan also makes fundamentally nefarious uses of morality and establishes morality in solid ways that may prove, ultimately, futile if global warming(climate change) is real, as, like Communism or Fascism, the nation state will have bloodied its hands on a planetary proportion.
1) As we are part of reality itself, we (or our consciousness) are part of its physics, thus free will descends from us as we appropriate the universe's will.
2) (1) is contextualized within the apparatus of a grammar on grammar. This is essentially the tenant that with each layer of cybernetics, choice reemerges in a mitigated way, but with its own language of self-consciousness on a micro (n-1, if you will) level (i.e. meta-game theory).
The central issue with (2) is that Langan relies on three levels (cosmic, macro-cosmic, physical), which is insufficient. (1) is essentially Hegel's leap of Faith, but with the notion that having a body is sufficient grounds to jump forward. Langan's argument on the notion of free will more or less aligns with Voltaire's, that free will is not equally distributed. I fundamentally agree with Langan that consciousness is equal to the same metaphysical substance as that which creates physical laws, but I also have to take issue with the length and timidity of its presentation. Langan also makes fundamentally nefarious uses of morality and establishes morality in solid ways that may prove, ultimately, futile if global warming(climate change) is real, as, like Communism or Fascism, the nation state will have bloodied its hands on a planetary proportion.
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August 20, 2022The more I think of the contentment of the information from a source of information and the adaption to it you'll be able to connect it to the love of healthy strings which fully allows you to connect directly at presenter pattern in the knowing facts of the 100% accurate Max Pluck analysation of idea, in which fully enables you to adapt to the helpfulness on collaborating on string with musicians thus the information is new. We keep adding new information towards a old string of information until we can go in a 'Knowing' concept of the future where nothing surprise us no more, till we learn to accept the fact that we're evolving towards same location of the pattern. Quite often for different intentions which is often summarized as one of the 500 Meta String subject (VSI) we can go through to help the guidance of other see the fulfilment of participating vocabulary of 242 nations and also all music ever created, not also to mention the facts of important solutions that we lie ahead of going peaceful towards the same alignment of and go towards the same goal, mine goes more & more toward the Universe Table (EG) as the evolvement seems to be a massive start instead of massive scribbling of confusion. We get to see this evolvement in the conversation at daily basis these days. These are often words I'd describe my thought as they would be presented towards the author, in which we're looking for more books from.
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March 5, 2017Great read. He does a good job at keeping complex ideas simple enough to make a quick read-through. Though there are some terms that can't be avoided, and require some insight. Definitely readable, though I'm sure I'll be re-reading this one a few times...
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