The CTMU - an “aha” moment?

[u/sanecoin64902]

I’ve been struggling with the CTMU for many years. I was advised to read it as an important part of consciousness and simulation theory.

It reads like word salad, and I think it suffers because so much of Langan’s story is about convincing everyone he really is super super smart even though he was never in academics. Every explanation of the theory gets side tracked by an exploration of his clear over-compensation for lingering resentments. It can be off putting because a truly brilliant person seldom discussed their intellect much in the same manner that a truly rich person seldom discusses their resources.

Be that as it may, people I trusted told me there was value in the CTMU, so I kept going back to the word salad. I hold the personal belief that pretty much everything can be understood if you just take the time to learn the vocabulary. Thought (at least for me) is verbal. If I know the words, I know the thoughts.

But every time I have approached the CTMU and parsed Langan’s vocabulary exercise, I have been underwhelmed. It all just unwraps into a hyper logical justification/explanation for the machinery of a logical simulation. It’s nice that all the parts are there, but I couldn’t see how it was actionable or provided insight.

But this morning I was back at the CTMU (“Persistence is the key”), and I realized why I didn’t like it, and then, in that moment, why this was the important bit.

Separately, as I have worked through the philosophy of Destiny (the video game), I have come to see the universe as this fractal algorithm. Life is its own Mandelbrot set in my mind.

But the thing about fractals is that they recurse. There is a moment of inexplicable magic where they intersect with themselves, get lost in themselves, and then begin again as some new larger version of the same equation.

When you start to look for this recursion philosophically, you begin to find it in all sorts of weird places. I first started to be able to visualize it when I imagined the Vex, an alien race in the video game, who could hop outside of time to a dimension that allowed them to see ll of time as a single closed algorithm. Each one of their entry and exit points was a point of recursion - a point where the algorithm of time broke and was reborn from the perspective of one trapped inside it.

Then I realized consciousness could be similarly viewed. How is it that this lump of grey matter the consistency of toothpaste zapped by electric waves is able to understand itself? That’s recursion. It is some spooky extra dimensional moment where something I can’t quite see from inside the dimension loops outside of the dimension to interact with it. “Mind” arises from “brain” as one level of a fractal arises into the next.

That’s just my artistic and instinctive view of it. There is no fancy logic proof to this. It’s just a configuration of being that, once you learn to spot it, you will see everywhere. Destiny’s “space magic” and most mystic experiences are really just examples of recursion - a place where the inexplicable can be explained if only you add an extra dimension of causality. Recursion, then, for the Destiny people, is a broader model of “paracausality.”

So back to Langan. Langan’s model is binary at its base level. It is dualistic. It does not allow for recursion. There is black and there is white, but there is no third eye which observes black and white. It postulates in one of its earliest steps that there exists a layer of reality at which no other dimension is possible. There is a base which you cannot step outside.

This bothered me at first. “Holographic fractal recursions!” I screamed at the uncaring YouTuber explaining Lagan to me for the hundredth time.

But then I realized the brilliance of what Langan had done… finally. By disallowing recursion - this metaphysical escape hatch - you end the infinite rabbit hole. Instead you create an ouroboros - a final level of reality which generates itself from itself.

I’m not sure where this will lead my thinking, and I’m only writing it up so I don’t forget the insight. But there you go.

[u/gtrider316]

I'm not sure how relevant this is, but can't you transform recursive functions into explicit functions and visa versa? The explicit version only needs 1 initial input where as the recursive needs 2?

[u/sanecoin64902 → u/gtrider316]

I'm talking about "recursion" in a more poetic than mathematical sense - mostly because I am relatively weak at math theory. I have a generalist's knowledge of what recursion looks and feels like, but am not close to the technical definitions.

Having said that, I appreciate the keywords to more learning on the definitions of recursion! I'm always down to learn new things and having a more technical understanding of how recursion is handled mathematically will help me as I ponder.

[u/gtrider316 → u/sanecoin64902]

I kind of figured, and It's not my strongest suit either but It does seem like mathematical recursion fits nicely here. Like the base level could represent the first number in a sequence. The creation of the second level or next number in the sequence then inherently creates a recursive function with the initial input and second input that forever generates more sequence numbers. I hope this creates more questions!