The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe or CTMU (pronounced "cat-mew") is the first self-simulation theory of the relationship between mind and reality by Christopher Michael Langan.

The universe is a Self-Configuring Self-Processing Language (Chris Langan)

The Author = The Universe

The CTMU saves us from many conundrums that stem from the idea that reality was a tangible thing that had one specific, outside creator.

Materialist smooth brains like to argue that if God created the universe then who created God? This is self-inflicted mental retardation reeking with ignorance. A chosen misunderstanding, usually introduced with the words “Oh, so you’re saying…“.

No, that’s not what I’m saying.

If reality is defined as everything there is, it would indeed be tricky to define the creator of that as being something outside. Materialists find their whole identity in repeatedly projecting this misunderstanding onto anyone dumb enough to try to help them.

Let me help you.

The universe is both the author and the book. It is a story writing itself. You may not like this definition but don’t confuse your thinking it is trivial with thinking it is incorrect. Accept this thought and go with it.

The biggest issue with all kinds of simulation theories is, that they require some sort of framework that runs the simulation. If reality is a computer simulation then what computer is it running on? This line of thinking forces you into the next layer of abstraction where now you have to explain how the computer that simulates reality is itself being simulated. You’re stuck with the same question in another dimension.

Well, what computer is the simulation running on that simulates the computer that runs the simulation?

It’s dumb and I shouldn’t have to point that out. This is what Chris calls:

Metaphysical Autology: Reality is self-contained; no external creator needed

God didn’t make the pudding, God is in the pudding.

The CTMU rejects the idea of a simulation and says

The universe is not a simulation, it is a syntactic-semantic unity.

So in other words a self-simulation, and we may just say that the universe is both singular ("author") and plural ("content") which Chris calls Multiplex Unity.

It means same, same but different and you can imagine it like a fractal. The same fractal produces different shapes and colors depending on what you look at and how deep you zoom into it but it never stops being the same thing, no matter how deep you go.

In terms of quantum soup, the universe is a single broth (unity) that becomes distinct flavors (multiplexity) when "observed". The same soup that you find dull might be too salty for your grandma. The same vegetable that you find overcooked might be undercooked for somebody else.

The CTMU terminology for the quantum soup is unbound telesis. A state of infinite potential.

UBT (unbound telesis) is the broth, observation adds the ‘flavors’ of reality.

Now just imagine the broth preparing itself and you have the perfect analogy.

The Language = Math + Logic

We’ve covered the author and the book but what is the language that is written? Quite simply, it is math and logic itself. They are a set of rules by which its construction and manipulation is being guided, just like grammar is guiding the flow of natural language.

Reality is a syntactic-semantic language where mathematics and logic are the irreducible grammar. Syntax (math/logic) generates semantics (meaning).

Though maybe hard to wrap your head around at first, let me throw in a funny little fact to meditate on.

The GNU compiler collection (gcc) that is used to compile most C and C++ programs is itself written in C. How does that make you feel? It tickles your brain for a moment and then you move on. Now what’s so hard to accept about the idea that reality is a language that is using math and logic to compile itself while it’s running?

It is self-creating and self-processing.

The observable laws of physics are what Langan calls Syntactic Operators. The fact that a sentence has a subject and object is not something that we somehow discovered. It’s just how grammar works. Similarly, the number π is not discovered, it just is what it is. Math isn’t invented, it’s the universe’s grammar.

Particles are ‘words’; forces are ‘verbs’. (CTMU Glossary)

Materialists think math is a tool, as if a monkey with a wrench could build the universe. Math is not a tool but the mere bones of the universe. The universe was running on math before humans even existed. The same can’t be said about the wrench.

The Plot = Evolution

“Reality evolves via telic recursion, a self-configuring process where syntactic states refine toward coherence.” (Langan, CTMU Overview)

Telic means towards a goal, so the opposite of random. Let’s take a moment of silence for all the materialists whose buttocks just clenched when they read this.

So even though this whole play is far from being deterministic, it is indeed loosely following a certain script, which Langan calls syntactic attractor. It doesn’t exactly know it’s own next step but it kind of knows where it wants to go. It seeks coherence and it finds itself in a constant state of debugging. Mistakes are allowed but they will be corrected.

Pretty much the same loop you find yourself in throughout your own life but on a greater scale. Like you grow as a person through seeking coherence, the universe grows as a whole.

Evolution is the process of attaining coherence and the goal of that process is to get closer to God. The universe is fulfilling its destiny and in the process, you are fulfilling yours.

You co-author this story called your life but only so far as you align with your own destiny. The more you deviate from it, the more you will be forced to walk back. Every step you take will ultimately bring you closer to your destiny, no matter which direction you chose.

"Reality is a error-correcting code. Telic recursion is its debugger."

How it works:

• Step 1: A syntactic state (e.g., a physical law) generates potential outcomes.

• Step 2: Incoherent outcomes (paradoxes/contradictions) are automatically pruned.

• Step 3: Surviving states feed back into the system as new "rules."

And so the plot keeps evolving while biological evolution is just another symptom of telic recursion in the biosphere.

But what is the ink that brings all of this onto paper? What are paper, ink, and reality actually made of?

You’ve guessed it. It is consciousness itself. Reality is a love letter written to itself.

"Semantic content (meaning) requires a syntactic medium (physics), just as ink requires paper—but in SCSPL, the ink and paper are mutually generative." (CTMU Glossary)

Consciousness isn’t just the ink, it’s the paper becoming the ink writing itself. It is how the universe perceives itself.

M=R (Mind=Reality)

In the CTMU there is no distinguishing between mind and reality. They are codependent and can be seen as two different angles of looking at the same thing.

"Mind and reality are not just correlated but identical. Perception is reality’s self-reading mechanism." (CTMU, 2002)

This means that mind (cognition) is not just an observer of the universe (reality) around it but an active participant in creating reality.

Your consciousness isn't observing reality, it's reality locating itself. Mind is reality’s self-locating GPS, where “You are here” creates here.

"The universe is a self-excited circuit where observation and existence coincide." (Langan, 2017)

You might think this is far-fetched, but it is actually one of the major claims of quantum mechanics and has been proven in the double-slit experiment. The double-slit experiment isn't just "spooky action", it is conspansive duality in action

If you’ve never heard of it, look it up and give it a quick read. It’s an experiment with a truly unpredictable result that can be interpreted as proof for free will, as it implies particles choose paths. Observation creates position (M=R)

Since we’re doing the top-down abstract modeling kind of thing here, we don’t really care about proof or experiments, so if that’s what you’re looking for, you’re on your own.

In case you still doubt the fact that you have free will in general, let me inform you that you’re just retarded. You're not just wrong, you're willfully blind. You’ve just contradicted yourself by exercising free will.

Conspansive Duality: The Cosmic Pulse

The mechanism behind M=R is what Langan calls Conspansive Duality which describes an interplay between expansion (actualized reality) and contraction (potential states).

Referring back to the double-slit experiment, this mirrors the wave-particle duality in quantum mechanics but extends it to a cosmological scale, where reality is both discrete (localized) and continuous (distributed).

Discrete, because we can observe that at the smallest scale, reality comes in little packages, or, as we say, it is quantised. However, our experience of reality is continuous. It’s not like we experience the world through some sort of frame rate, but rather, as Eckhart Tolle would say, “It is always now“.

Expansion (Conspansion) represents the actualization of reality, like a cosmic computation. The unfolding of space, time, and matter, similar to the Big Bang but continuous. The Vedics call this the cosmic breath, where Maha-Visnu’s exhaling is associated with the creation and manifestation of the Brahmanda universes. In this case, the analogy between the CTMU, quantum mechanics, and Vedic cosmology is rather obvious.

"Conspansion is ontological compression: the universe ‘zooms in’ on itself to resolve states." (Langan)

It will get a bit more spicy in the next one, but we shall unpack even that.

Contraction (Potentialization) represents the collapse of possibilities back into a latent state, like quantum decoherence or perceptual resolution. This could at first glance represent two seemingly different concepts, namely Wavefunction Collapse and the Vedic concept of Cosmic Dissolution (Pralaya). Let me spoiler right away: it is both.

Option A: Contraction as Wavefunction Collapse (Illusion of Time)

If contraction represents the collapse of the wave function, then every observation collapses possibilities into a single moment. This means only through observation is the moment born. Therefore, observation creates the illusion of time. Time is an emergent artifact of this recursive contraction/expansion process (similar to Carlo Rovelli’s relational time in quantum gravity).

The CTMU says the universe resolves itself through perception, creating the appearance of time via conspansive feedback loops.

This mirrors the Maya of time. The illusion of linear succession in a fundamentally timeless reality, as in Advaita Vedanta.

Option B: Contraction as Cosmic Dissolution (Pralaya)

If contraction represents Pralaya, then the universe isn’t just locally collapsing, it is fully reabsorbing into potential. Imagine it like a black hole evaporating or Brahman withdrawing manifestation. In Vedic terms this is called the Night of Brahma, when the universe dissolves back into the unmanifest.

The CTMU would say the Self-Configuring Language resets its state, recycling information into a new cycle of expansion.

Synthesis

This means conspansive duality operates at both micro (quantum) and macro (cosmic) scales.

On a quantum level, contraction is wavefunction collapse, creating time as we experience it. On a cosmic level, contraction is universal potentialization, like a big crunch or return to singularity.

This mirrors Vedic fractal cosmology, where there is a day of Brahma (Kalpa) and a night of Brahma (Pralaya), but within each Kalpa, there are smaller cycles (Manvantaras), just as quantum collapses happen within the larger universe.

So whether contraction is quantum collapse or cosmic dissolution, the core idea is that time is not fundamental, it’s a side effect of conspansive processing.

Time is how SCSPL renders reality in a sequence of perceptual frames. This aligns the CTMU with Vedic cyclical time, quantum physics, and digital physics (universe as a self-resetting computation).

CTMU vs. Vedas

There is still a difference between Langan’s views and the Vedas, as in the CTMU feedback loops are recursive, not literal rebirth, as in the Vedas. Vedic cycles can be seen as metaphors for SCSPL’s state resets, however, the CTMU does not state literal cycles of reincarnation.

What does that mean? You tell me!

Anyway consciousness is fundamental and isn’t just a side effect of the material but rather the material and time itself are side effects of consciousness.

“Time is syntax masquerading as semantics” (Langan)

So what does it mean to fulfill your destiny? Fulfilling your destiny isn’t finding purpose, it’s debugging your state vector until it compiles.

If the concept of telic recursion naturally drives you towards your destiny but your free will still permits you to deviate, how do you measure the gap? By what metric do you judge your actions in any given moment if you can’t always see them in perspective to the greater goal?

Extrapolation requires computation so you can’t always think your actions through till the end. You simply don’t have enough time to do that for every single step of the recursion. If you want to know what is good and what isn’t, in any particular moment of crisis, you need to be able to answer that question instantaneously.

"A physical state is possible if and only if it satisfies the syntactic constraints of SCSPL." (Langan, 2002)

Now from your local point of reference, what is a point that can be reached instantaneously? Against what can you contrast yourself immediately?

Correct. Back into yourself. Coherence refers to a state of self-consistent, self-contained logical unity.

Reality has a built in debugging mechanism that will only allow coherent states. Since it is however not deterministic, you are allowed to explore the illusion of incoherence. Imagine a camera live fed to a screen and pointed at that screen. Your classic video feedback image.

If you wobble the camera in front of the screen, the image will never stop sinking into a hole. It will however curve in the early frames.

The camera’s wobble is your free will. The perceptual operator syntax of SCSPL that lets you edit reality’s self-rendering. The fractal’s inevitability is telic recursion’s attractor. You’re not choosing the dot’s path, you’re choosing how to wobble within the syntax.

You have some sort of control over the image but it fundamentally does what it does and you’re left with a sense of awe.

Recursion always happens stepwise and your free will represents the wobble of the camera. If you want to manipulate what is happening at the “deepest” frame, you do so by manipulating every single frame that comes in front of it. The recursive nature of the universe will save you time as all you have to do is align yourself with yourself, which is infinitely more easy than trying to figure out every possible state of the universe and judging them one by one.

This is M=R in action: your self-alignment IS the universe self-configuring.

Let’s explore the video feedback analogy even further.

Let’s say the blue center of the feedback loop happens to be in the center of the physical screen. The camera is pointed at the screen perfectly straight and centered. Now you want to move the blue dot to the top right corner.

How do you actually do that?

In order to move the last frame, that technically represents the center of the fractal, you will have to manipulate an infinite amount of frames in front of it. Do you actually calculate the change in position of the first frame and then from that the second and so on? Obviously you don’t since that would require an infinite amount of time and you would generate compounding errors.

Luckily the universe has a built in error-correction mechanism that is going to save you here.

"Telic recursion actively eliminates incoherent state transitions."
— CTMU Glossary ("Telic Recursion")

What you do is you lean into the recursion and exploit its own nature by directly understanding the relationship between the last frame and your degree of freedom, which is in this case the angle of the camera.

By carefully moving the camera in different directions, you learn how to manipulate one thing only, in order to let the universe manipulate an infinite amount of in-between frames for you.

You strive to achieve coherence within yourself and the universe around you will fall into place, the way its syntax permits.

You align yourself with yourself and thereby get closer to God.