13
Cuil Theory

Cuil Theory

Part of a series on Reddit. [View Related Entries]

Updated Feb 07, 2022 at 03:16AM EST by Autumn Able.

Added Jun 05, 2009 at 12:44PM EDT by sunshine.

PROTIP: Press 'i' to view the image gallery, 'v' to view the video gallery, or 'r' to view a random entry.

This submission is currently being researched & evaluated!

You can help confirm this entry by contributing facts, media, and other evidence of notability and mutation.

About

Cuil Theory is a theoretical form of measurement resulting in an interesting form of pseudoscience.

Origin

Cuil Theory is derived from a post on Reddit on November 14th, 2008 (shown below).[1] At the time, the search engine Cuil had been in the news for not attaining its position as the 'Google-Killer'.


RedDyeNumber4 · 13 yr. ago · edited 13 yr. ago 3 ,2 & 12 More Can we make that a unit of measurement? One Cuil = One level of abstraction away from the reality of a situation. Example: You ask me for a Hamburger. 1 Cuil: if you asked me for a hamburger, and I gave you a raccoon. 2 Cuils: If you asked me for a hamburger, but it turns out I don't really exist. Where I was originally standing, a picture of a hamburger rests on the ground. 3 Cuils: You awake as a hamburger. You start screaming only to have special sauce fly from your lips. The world is in sepia. 4 Cuils: Why are we speaking German? A mime cries softly as he cradles a young cow. Your grandfather stares at you as the cow falls apart into patties. You look down only to see me with pickles for eyes, I am singing the song that gives birth to the universe. And so on. edit: other Cuil levels added for completeness. 5 Cuils: You ask for a hamburger, I give you a hamburger. You raise it to your lips and take a bite. Your eye twitches involuntarily. Across the street a father of three falls down the stairs. You swallow and look down at the hamburger in your hands. I give you a hamburger. You swallow and look down at the hamburger in your hands. You cannot swallow. There are children at the top of the stairs. A pickle shifts uneasily under the bun. I give you a hamburger. You look at my face, and I am pleading with you. The children are crying now. You raise the hamburger to your lips, tears stream down your face as you take a bite. I give you a hamburger. You are on your knees. You plead with me to go across the street. I hear only children's laughter. I give you a hamburger. You are screaming as you fall down the stairs. I am your child. You cannot see anything. You take a bite of the hamburger. The concrete rushes up to meet you. You awake with a start in your own bed. Your eye twitches involuntarily. I give you a hamburger. As you kill me, I do not make a sound. I give you a hamburger. 6 Cuils: You ask me for a hamburger. My attempt to reciprocate is cut brutally short as my body experiences a sudden lack of electrons. Across a variety of hidden dimensions you are dismayed. John Lennon hands me an apple, but it slips through my fingers. I am reborn as an ocelot. You disapprove. A crack echoes through the universe in defiance of conventional physics as cosmological background noise shifts from randomness to a perfect A Flat. Children everywhere stop what they are doing and hum along in perfect pitch with the background radiation. Birds fall from the sky as the sun engulfs the earth. You hesitate momentarily before allowing yourself to assume the locus of all knowledge. Entropy crumbles as you peruse the information contained within the universe. A small library in Phoenix ceases to exist. You stumble under the weight of everythingness, Your mouth opens up to cry out, and collapses around your body before blinking you out of the spatial plane. You exist only within the fourth dimension. The fountainhead of all knowledge rolls along the ground and collides with a small dog. My head tastes sideways as spacetime is reestablished, you blink back into the corporeal world disoriented, only for me to hand you a hamburger as my body collapses under the strain of reconstitution. The universe has reasserted itself. A particular small dog is fed steak for the rest of its natural life. You die in a freak accident moments later, and you soul works at the returns desk for the Phoenix library. You disapprove. Your disapproval sends ripples through the inter-dimensional void between life and death. A small child begins to cry as he walks toward the stairway where his father stands. edit2: We need a standard notation for Cuil to make calculations easier. I suggest the interrobang ?, but I'm open to any other suggestions. For those who are interested in helping to create a working Cuil Theory, come visit the new wiki at: http://cuiltheory.wikidot.com/ The password to gain wiki access once you register is "hamburger" 2.7k Give Award Share Report Save

Discussions on the internet about the quantum search results garnered from using Cuil were a staple of most social sites. One such discussion created a small mathematical and philosophical theory about how the search capabilities within Cuil could be used to represent a framework for analyzing small scale variations from consensus reality.

Due to Cuil's relatively inaccurate level of search quality compared to Google, Reddit users came to agree upon the "Cuil" becoming a new hypothetical unit of measurement representing one layer of abstraction from true reality. Reddit user RedDyeNumber4 presented a full list of hamburger-based scenarios in the epic thread.

To quote from the Cuil Theory Wikidot page:[2]

The popular conception of the Cuil is heavily informed by the thought of Immanuel Kant. In The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant lays out what he describes as his "Copernican Revolution". He insists that the world we experience is informed by the world as it truly is and the restraints of our own consciousness. Thus, we can never really know what's happening in the world as it truly exists except that it has a role in shaping the world that we experience. Kant believed this realization was similar to realizing that the sun, not earth, is at the center of the solar system.

Cuil Philosophers believe that as the study of Cuil advances, we'll approach an understanding that will show that the Cuil level of a situation is equivalent to the number of sets of limits of consciousness are being superimposed over the world as it really is.

For example, a 2 Cuil abstraction occurs when the world as it truly is informs a world of experience in conjunction with one set of consciousness constraints, and that the world of experience would then inform a second world of experience in conjunction with a second set of consciousness constraints.

More in-depth information about this philosophy can be found on the Cuil Theory Wiki.[3]

Spread

After an audio post was made, Cuil Theory started circulating around Tumblr.

The phrase "I give you a hamburger" caught on as a result.



Search Interest

External References

[1] Reddit – Police Raids Reveal 'Baby Farms

[2] Cuil Theory Wiki – Philosophy Of Cuil

[3] Cuil Theory Wiki – Cuil Theory Home and News

Related Entries 99 total


View All Related Entries

Recent Videos 4 total

Recent Images 11 total

 

Top Comments


+ Add a Comment

Comments (24)


Display Comments

Add a Comment


Greetings! You must login or signup first!