The Tang Papers investigate how contradictions arise when representational roles are conflated across system description and interpretation, and how these contradictions can be resolved through disciplined separation of scalar, phase, and experiential layers.

In a world where artificial intelligence can produce convincing responses, organizations struggle to stay aligned, and scientific models resist unification, apparent coherence and structural consistency are often mistaken for the same thing.

The Tang Papers extend this diagnostic approach across three layers:

• continuous variation (scalar)
• discrete configuration (phase)
• observer-dependent interpretation (experiential)

Most confusion arises when these layers are not separated.

Independent researcher exploring how representation, coordination, and time organize across complex systems.

My work examines a recurring pattern across science, technology, organizations, and human learning:

Systems often fail not because they lack capability —
but because coordination breaks down as scale, speed, or abstraction increases.

Many contradictions that appear in complex systems arise when different representational roles are confused.

For example:

Scalar descriptions

• quantity
• speed
• accumulation
• measurement

are often applied to phenomena that are fundamentally phase-based, involving:

coordination

• rhythm
• synchronization
• boundary alignment
• structural coherence over time

When this happens, systems may remain technically correct while becoming structurally incoherent or paradoxical.

This diagnostic perspective forms the basis of the Tang Papers research program.

The most recent extension of this work, Relational Coherence Theory (RCT), formalizes the experiential layer — explaining how meaning is interpreted, reconfigured, and persists across time within observer-dependent systems.

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Start Here

If you’re new to this work, begin with the question that matches your situation:

• Why does this feel off, even when it looks right?
→ Phase Drift

• How does structure actually form?
→ The Loom

• Why does meaning keep changing over time?
→ Relational Coherence Theory (RCT)

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The Tang Papers Research Program

The Tang Papers are an open-access research program exploring how contradictions arise in system descriptions and how they can be clarified through representational discipline.

The program develops a diagnostic framework called:

Phase–Scalar Reconstruction (PSR)
which examines how representational roles are assigned — and where they are incorrectly conflated across scalar, phase, and experiential descriptions

The work spans multiple domains including:

• physics interpretation
• artificial intelligence systems
• organizational coordination
• temporal modeling
• human movement and learning

Formal research papers in the Tang Papers corpus are archived with persistent DOIs.

The framework is not a theory of what systems are, but a method for identifying how they are described, coordinated, and interpreted.

Research Archive
https://www.dancescape.com/research

Zenodo Collection
https://zenodo.org/communities/tang-papers-program

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About

Lit Meng (Robert) Tang is an independent researcher based in Burlington, Ontario, Canada.

My work combines perspectives from mathematics, systems thinking, embodied practice, and cross-domain inquiry.

B.Sc. Mathematics — McMaster University
MBA — Schulich School of Business

Before beginning independent research, Robert worked in marketing and communications in the software industry, translating complex technical concepts into public-facing narratives.

He is also a former Canadian & North American Ballroom Champion and co-founder of danceScape, a dance education community where movement is used to develop confidence, coordination, and connection.

Long-term observation of rhythm, anticipation, and coordination in human movement helped shape many of the questions explored in the Tang Papers research program.

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