The Tang Papers investigate how contradictions arise in system descriptions when representational roles are conflated, and how these contradictions can often be clarified through disciplined representational separation.
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 collapses when 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 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 within system 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.
Research Archive
https://www.dancescape.com/research
Zenodo Collection
https://zenodo.org/communities/tang-papers-program
About
Lit Meng (Robert) Tang is an independent researcher based in Burlington, Ontario, Canada.
His 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.
Across history, periods of peace and conflict often appear to move in waves. Long stretches of stability can suddenly give way to instability. Institutions that once held systems together begin
For decades, quantum entanglement was described as instantaneous. Two particles become correlated. Measure one, and the other responds immediately—no matter how far apart they are. Einstein famously called this “spooky
Why measuring things often makes them worse This essay expands the diagnostic idea introduced in my recent Medium piece on AI and metric failure. 👉 When Chasing Numbers Makes Everything
A Coordination Perspective on AI’s Acceleration: Did we cross into the AI Singularity? In recent months, a shared psychological condition has quietly settled across technical communities, institutions, and the public
Why confusing phase and scalar language makes AI seem more human than it is When people hear that an AI system has hallucinated, they usually imagine something human. They picture