a lesswrong: 47-minute read extolling the ambition and insights of Christopher Langan’s “CTMU”
a science blogger back in the day: not so impressed
[I]t’s sort of like saying “I’m going to fix the sink in my bathroom by replacing the leaky washer with the color blue”, or “I’m going to fly to the moon by correctly spelling my left leg.”
Langan, incidentally, is a 9/11 truther, a believer in the “white genocide” conspiracy theory and much more besides.
as a wannabe science/mathtist I totally feel the pain of realizing that I will probably never have any good, original ideas unless I actually dedicate my life to studying the works of people that actually had good, original ideas.
In these people, I see a version of me that didn’t tell myself that all my stupid theories of the universe and consciousness are total unfalsifiable wastes of time. It’s a type of “high-iq” psychosis.
It’s fun to stand on the shoulders of giants… and having the standard stuff down cold is the best way to convince experts that when you do have a zany idea, it might be worth considering.
A propos: John Baez’s https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/books.html (How to Learn Math and Physics)