
Originally Posted by
KALSTER
The biggest problem I found was with his leap that the universe itself is conscious and then that this consciousness should be god. One could say it is aware of itself in a way through us, but that is not what he means. He obfuscates this leap with gobbledygook.
From what I understand of Langan's writings, his argument for the existence of God is as follows:
1. Reality is a self-contained set that consists of all that which is real.
2. It is possible to model all that which exists within reality.
3. The mind thatt models the entirety of reality is a super-intellect.
4. God is a super-intellect.
5. If the exact correspondence between mind and reality can be approached via a convergent analytic-synthetic propositional limit, then the limit exists, even though a contingent mind within reality can only approach the limit.
6. If the limit exists, than reality is a discription.
7. Because reality is isomorphic, than that description has a describer.
8. The describer is a super-intellect.
9. God is the super-intellect.
10. Therefore, God exists.
The burden of proof is demonstrating that proposition 5 is true; that is to say that the limit converges. In doing so, Langan would have effectively demonstrated that reality is a mind, specifically the mind of God. However, Langan has yet to prove that the limit converges, and doesn't consider the implications were the limit to diverge. Despite this, Langan continues to build onto his theory, ignoring for now the matter of proving that the limit converges.

Originally Posted by
KALSTER
get your point about genius. It reminds me of a quote at the bottom of his Wiki page: "Gladwell's profile of Langan mainly portrayed him as an example of an individual who failed to realize his potential in part because of poor social skills resulting from, in Gladwell's speculation, being raised in poverty."
I didn't mean to say that Langan is not necessarily a genius (I'm not sure), but only to say that whether one is a genius or not is not a matter of his or her level of intelligence.
Lewis Terman's study of 1,528 gifted individuals with IQs of at least 140 (the average IQ was 151) found that the majority of them earned higher incomes, were taller on average, healthier, more physically developed, and more socially adept than the general population. They also held positions of high prestige, such as corporate executives, physicians, dentists, or college professors.
However, there were two mathematical prodiges with IQs falling a few points short of the necessary requirement of a minimum IQ of 140. Although Terman was interested in these subjects, as a good scientist, he had to exclude them from his research. Both of these individuals would go on to become nobel laureates in physics and have wikipedia biographies, while none of Terman's 1,500+ subjects achieved such an accomplishment.
As you can see, genius is never the result of the level of g (which stands for general intelligence, and is what IQ tests attempt to measure), but the result of that individual's special characteristics along with a g threshold that is sufficient to allow the individual the background knowledge to understand the subject matter he or she is studying. The g threshold necessary for the potential of genius to exist is probably somewhere between 1.5 to 2.0 sigma (124 to 132 on the Stanford-Binet) above the mean.