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Christopher Langan

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For the actor and writer, see Chris Langham.

Christopher Langan
Langan in 2017
Born (1952-03-25) March 25, 1952 (age 72)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Education
OccupationHorse rancher
Known forHigh IQ
SpouseGina Lynne LoSasso

Christopher Michael Langan (born March 25, 1952) is an American horse rancher and former bar bouncer, known for scoring highly on an IQ test that gained him entry to a high IQ society, and for being formerly listed in the Guinness Book of Records high IQ section under the pseudonym of Eric Hart, alongside Marilyn vos Savant and Keith Raniere. The record was discontinued in 1990, as high IQs are considered too unreliable to document as world records. However, Langan then became a biographical subject in Malcolm Gladwell's book, Outliers: The Story of Success (2008), in which the journalist sought to understand why Langan's high IQ had not led to greater success in life. The book compared him with Robert Oppenheimer, and focused on their respective environments.

Langan has spent many years working on a hypothesis that reality is a self simulation. He calls the theory the Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU). The thesis is self published and Langan has no academic qualifications, having twice dropped out of college. He has been interviewed and has self published his views on various matters, including his belief in eugenics to prevent genetic degradation in a technological world, opposition to inter-racial relationships, the 9/11 Truther movement and other conspiracy theories that have gained him a following amongst the alt-right.

Biography

Langan was born in 1952 in San Francisco, California. His mother, Mary Langan-Hansen (née Chappelle, 1932–2014), was the daughter of a wealthy shipping executive but was cut off from her family. Langan's biological father left before he was born, and is said to have died in Mexico. Langan's mother married three more times, and had a son by each husband. Her second husband was murdered, and her third killed himself. Langan grew up with the fourth husband Jack Langan, who has been described as a "failed journalist" who used a bullwhip as a disciplinary measure and went on drinking sprees, disappearing from the house, locking the kitchen cabinets so the four boys could not get to the food in them. The family was very poor; Langan recalls that they all had only one set of clothes each. The family moved around, living for a while in a teepee on an Indian reservation, then later in Virginia City, Nevada. When the children were in grade school, the family moved to Bozeman, Montana, where Langan spent most of his childhood.[1]: 91–92 

Langan attended high school, but spent his last years engaged mostly in independent study. He did so after his teachers denied his request for more challenging material. According to Langan, he began teaching himself "advanced math, physics, philosophy, Latin, and Greek".[2] He earned a perfect score on the SAT despite taking a nap during the test.[1]: 70–73 

Langan was offered two full scholarships, one to Reed College in Oregon and the other to the University of Chicago.[1]: 92  He chose the former, which he later called "a big mistake". He had a "real case of culture shock" in the unfamiliar urban setting. He explained that in his first semester he earned all As but that he lost his scholarship after his mother did not send in the necessary financial information.[3] Langan withdrew before final exams in his second semester and received all Fs.

Langan returned to Bozeman and worked as a forest service firefighter for 18 months before enrolling at Montana State University–Bozeman.[1]: 93  Faced with financial and transportation problems, and believing that he could teach his professors more than they could teach him, he dropped out.[2] He took a string of labor-intensive jobs for some time, and by his mid-40s had been a construction worker, cowboy, forest service ranger, farmhand, and, for over twenty years, a bouncer on Long Island.[2] He also worked for the technology company Virtual Logistix.[4]

In comparing the lack of academic and life success of Langan to the successes of Robert Oppenheimer, journalist Malcolm Gladwell, in his 2008 book Outliers, points to the background and social skills of the two men. Oppenheimer was raised in a wealthy cosmopolitan environment, and Gladwell argues that such an environment gave help along the way and allowed Oppenheimer to gain a social savvy that Langan lacked, and prevented him from progressing academically. He had had little or no guidance from his parents or his teachers, and never developed the social skills needed to cope with and overcome his challenges.[1]: 108–115 

In 1999, Langan and others formed a non-profit corporation named the Mega Foundation for those with IQs of 164 or above.[5][6][4] He went through litigation with the Mega Society over use of its name, Mega Society East, and his publication of a journal also called Noesis.[7][8] He was required to cease use of the Mega Society East name but retained control of the Mega Foundation domain names.[9] Under the auspices of the Mega Foundation, he sat on the Society of Fellows of the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID), an intelligent design advocacy organisation, until its dissolution.[10]

In 2008, he appeared on the game show 1 vs. 100 and won $250,000.[1] He used the proceeds to purchase a horse farm in Missouri, where he now lives with his wife Gina (née LoSasso), a clinical neuropsychologist.[11]: 141, 147 

Chris Langan

IQ testing

In 1986 Langan took an IQ test, the Mega Test, under the pseudonym of Eric Hart,[12] his score admitting him to membership of the Hoeflin Research Group, later to become the Mega Society. He continued to use that pseudonym for some time in his membership of the Mega Society, and was listed in the Guinness Book of Records along with Marilyn vos Savant and Keith Raniere as one of just three people to have scored so highly on the test.[13]: 16  It later transpired that Langan, among others, had taken the Mega Test more than once by using a pseudonym. His first test score, under the name of Langan, was 42 out of 48 and his second attempt, as Hart, was 47.[12] The Mega Test was designed only to be taken once.[14][15] Membership of the Mega Society was meant to be for those with scores of 43 and upwards. A score of 42 on the Mega Test was originally designed to yield a predicted IQ value of 173-174, although data analysed from test takers led to a renorming of this and a 163-174 range[15][12]. Further renorming work has suggested the range may be 159-169.[16]

Mensa, the high IQ society, never accepted Mega Test scores for entry into the society.[14] IQ testing at the tail of the normal distribution has been criticised as being dubious as there are insufficient normative cases upon which to base a statistically justified rank-ordering.[17][18] The Mega Test, among other IQ tests, has been criticised for blurring specific domain knowledge with generalised intelligence, although "most psychologists can agree that they measure something valuable."[19]

The Mega Test's attempt to measure high IQ at the tail of the normal distribution has been academically evaluated. Although it is an innovative attempt to create a test that would evaluate very high IQ, the nature of the test—self administered without time limit, which was chosen for pragmatic reasons—would not necessarily measure general intelligence, but could measure resourcefulness or some other factor. The frequent renorming of the test by its author was non standard but also innovative. Nevertheless it contained well known statistical flaws, such as sample self selection. The analysis could not therefore validate the conclusions. Attempts to eke out discrimination at the hundredth or thousandth percentile were clearly overwhelmed by the test's standard error, given that there were only 48 questions. The questions, too, were criticised for being structured with insufficient sensitivity to the detection of knowledge, because of the question format used. The test was thus described as not so much number crunching as "nothing short of number pulverisation".[20]

In 1990 the Guinness book of records dropped the listing of highest IQ, deeming high IQ scores to be too unreliable to document.[21]

Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe

Langan has developed a hypothesis he terms the "Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe" (CTMU)[2][4][22] which he maintains "explains the connection between mind and reality, therefore the presence of cognition and universe in the same phrase".[23] He self-published a book on this theory in 2002.[24] He refers to this thesis as "a true 'theory of everything', a cross between John Archibald Wheeler's 'Participatory Universe' and Stephen Hawking's 'Imaginary Time' theory of cosmology,"[2] additionally contending that with the CTMU he "can prove the existence of god, the soul and an afterlife, using mathematics."[5][6]

Langan's thesis is a form of ontological idealism, and a particular form of idealism known as panpsychism. It is a synthesis of three ideas:

  1. reality is made of information in the form of language: a syntactic grammar that exists in and of itself;
  2. reality is transtemporal: things from one time can influence things in other times; and
  3. reality, being a self simulation, contains a substrate of this information, a panconsciousness that emerges from within - that is, from the creator or simulator itself.[25]: 2 

The concept of the universe as a self-simulation is not a new one. David Finkelstein introduced the modern formulation in The Space–Time Code (1969).[25]: 2 [26]

Personal views

Langan has spoken about his personal and political views in a series of interviews, and has published his views on various matters in the book FAQs About Reality (2021).[27] Asked what he would do if he were in charge, Langan stated his first priority would be to set up an "anti-dysgenics" project, and would prevent people from "breeding as incontinently as they like."[28]: 18:45  He argues that this would be to practice "genetic hygiene to prevent genomic degradation and reverse evolution" owing to technological advances suspending the process of natural selection.[27]: §80 

Langan's support of conspiracy theories, including the 9/11 Truther movement, as well as his opposition to interracial relationships, have contributed to his gaining a following among members of the alt-right and others on the far right.[29][30] Langan has claimed that the George W. Bush administration staged the 9/11 attacks in order to distract the public from learning about the CTMU. Journalists have described some of Langan's Internet posts as containing "thinly veiled" antisemitism[29] and making antisemitic "dog whistles".[30]

In 2020, Langan endorsed Donald Trump for President of the United States.[31]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Gladwell, Malcolm (2008). Outliers: The Story of Success. Little, Brown. ISBN 978-0-316-04034-1. Retrieved July 21, 2020.
  2. ^ a b c d e Sager, Mike (November 1, 1999). "The Smartest Man in America". Esquire. Archived from the original on February 25, 2020.
  3. ^ Livermore, Shawn (September 29, 2020). Average Joe: Be the Silicon Valley Tech Genius. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-119-61887-4.
  4. ^ a b c Quain, John R. (November 2001). "Wise Guy". Popular Science. Bonnier Corporation: 64–67. ISSN 0161-7370.
  5. ^ a b McFadden, Cynthia (December 9, 1999). "The Smart Guy". 20/20. Archived from the original on August 17, 2000. Retrieved February 24, 2020.
  6. ^ a b "An Official Genius". 20/20. December 9, 1999. Archived from the original on August 17, 2000. Retrieved February 24, 2020.
  7. ^ Jacobsen, Scott Douglas (October 31, 2024). "Entemake Aman (阿曼) on American High-I.Q. Societies and Tests". The Good Men Project. Retrieved November 24, 2024.
  8. ^ Anderson, Leighton M.; Brady, David A. (March 25, 2003). "Mega Society Judgement" (PDF). Insight Publishing. Retrieved November 24, 2024.
  9. ^ Miranda, David P. (January 30, 2004). "ICANN National Arbitration Forum - Decision" (PDF). Insight Publishing. Retrieved November 24, 2024.
  10. ^ "ISCID - Fellows". May 10, 2013. Archived from the original on May 10, 2013. Retrieved November 25, 2024.
  11. ^ Feavel, Douglas (April 13, 2020). Uncommon Character: Stories of Ordinary Men and Women Who Have Done the Extraordinary. Aneko Press. ISBN 978-1-62245-688-8.
  12. ^ a b c Jacobsen, Scott Douglas (October 22, 2020). "Second Pass of the World Intelligence Network 3.13-4.8 Sigma Societies". News Intervention. Retrieved November 20, 2024.
  13. ^ McWhirter, Norris; McFarlan, Donald (1988). The Guinness book of records : 1989. Enfield, Middlesex : Guinness Pub. ISBN 978-0-85112-878-8. Retrieved November 18, 2024.
  14. ^ a b Morris, Scott (April 1985). "The One in a Million IQ Test". Omni Magazine. Retrieved November 18, 2024.
  15. ^ a b Miyaguchi, Darryl (November 1, 1997). "Mega Test Norms". miyaguchi.4sigma.org. Retrieved November 20, 2024. See note 5.
  16. ^ Jacobsen, Scott Douglas (January 3, 2021). "IQ Reportage in the Popular Media - Fads and Fun of a Dying Popularity". News Intervention. Retrieved November 20, 2024.
  17. ^ Perleth, Christoph; Schatz, Tanja; Mönks, Franz J. (2000). "Early Identification of High Ability". In Heller, Kurt A.; Mönks, Franz J.; Sternberg, Robert J.; et al. (eds.). International Handbook of Giftedness and Talent (2nd ed.). Amsterdam: Pergamon. p. 301. ISBN 978-0-08-043796-5. norm tables that provide you with such extreme values are constructed on the basis of random extrapolation and smoothing but not on the basis of empirical data of representative samples.
  18. ^ Urbina, Susana (2011). "Chapter 2: Tests of Intelligence". In Sternberg, Robert J.; Kaufman, Scott Barry (eds.). The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 20–38. ISBN 9780521739115. [Curve-fitting] is just one of the reasons to be suspicious of reported IQ scores much higher than 160
  19. ^ Aviv, Rachel (July 25, 2006). "The Intelligencer". The Village Voice. Retrieved November 18, 2024.
  20. ^ Carlson, Roger D. (1991). "The Mega Test". In Keyser, Daniel; Sweetland, Richard (eds.). Test Critiques. Vol. VIII. Kansas City (MO): Test Corporation of America. pp. 431–435. ISBN 0-89079-254-2. ISSN 1553-9121. Although the approach that Hoeflin takes is interesting, inventive, intellectually stimulating, and internally consistent, it violates many good psychometric principles by overinterpreting the weak data of a self-selected sample.
  21. ^ Saunders, Toby; Howard, Tilda (November 1, 2024). "This is the highest IQ recorded in the world in 2024". www.sciencefocus.com. Retrieved November 22, 2024.
  22. ^ Ray, Preston (November 15, 2006). "Meet the smartest man in America". KMOV. Archived from the original on June 7, 2007. Retrieved February 24, 2020.
  23. ^ Langan, Chris (December 10, 1999). "Off The Charts" (Interview). Interviewed by Aaron Henry. Archived from the original on August 16, 2000.
  24. ^ Langan, Christopher Michael (June 1, 2002). The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe: A New Kind of Reality Theory. Mega Foundation Press. ISBN 978-0-9719162-2-7.
  25. ^ a b Irwin, Klee; Amaral, Marcelo; Chester, David (February 21, 2020). "The Self-Simulation Hypothesis Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics". Entropy. 22 (2): 247. doi:10.3390/e22020247. PMC 7516678. PMID 33286021.
  26. ^ Finkelstein, David (August 25, 1969). "Space-Time Code". Physical Review. 184 (5): 1261–1271. doi:10.1103/PhysRev.184.1261.
  27. ^ a b Langan, Christopher Michael (January 31, 2021). FAQs About Reality: Chris Langan's Social Media Posts, Book 1: Quora. Mega Foundation Press.
  28. ^ Langan, Christopher (July 24, 2020). "First Person" (Interview). Interviewed by Errol Morris. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  29. ^ a b Ward, Justin (March 18, 2019). "More Smarter". The Baffler. Retrieved June 7, 2020.
  30. ^ a b Feldman, Ari (March 20, 2019). "The Man With The World's Highest IQ, Christopher Langan, Is Gaining A Following On The Far Right". The Forward. Archived from the original on February 15, 2020. Retrieved February 24, 2020.
  31. ^ Logos Sogol (July 13, 2020). Christopher Langan on Donald Trump. Retrieved October 20, 2024 – via YouTube.

Primary Sources

  • Hart, Eric (April 1986). "Autobiographical Sketch" (PDF). Titania, the Journal of the Titan Society (2): 3.
  • Langan, Christopher Michael (June 1, 2002). The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe: A New Kind of Reality Theory. Mega Foundation Press. ISBN 978-0-9719162-2-7.
  • Langan, Christopher (July 24, 2020). "First Person" (Interview). Interviewed by Errol Morris. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  • Langdon, Kevin (March 2002). "Reply to Glen Wooton". Noesis (156). Retrieved November 18, 2024.
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