Let’s Talk Time, Space & AI｜XPANSE 2024

The world, by definition, is standalone and self-sufficient: there is nothing outside of the world meddling in the world.

At the foundations of the world lies, not a mathematical system, but what created, moves and knows (what human beings would symbolically represent as) the mathematical system.

What created, moves and knows the mathematical system is the world itself, and the parts of the world (particles, atoms, molecules and living things including human beings). These creative, conscious parts only exist in the context of the whole.

But what created, moves and knows computer systems/ AIs is human beings, who thousands of years ago created and started using, manmade written and spoken symbols, and recently created and programmed machines to process these manmade symbols. These computer systems, like all manmade systems, only exist in the context of human beings: they are not standalone and self-sufficient.

It is disappointing when physicists and other people fail to look at the bigger picture context in which things like mathematical laws of nature exist, and the bigger picture context in which computers/ AIs exist, and try to claim that these laws and AIs could be standalone and self-sufficient.

Lorraine Ford
The most fundamental aspects of the world are, not a mathematical structure, but what created, knows and moves the mathematical structure.

There is nothing natural about a mathematical structure:

• Factually, mathematics is manmade, and mathematical symbols are manmade, and the existence of mathematics relies on human consciousness and creativity; and
• Factually, people need to use manmade mathematics and manmade mathematical symbols to represent fundamental aspects of the world.

It is in this context that we should be thinking about a “time” category in the world: in the context of a world where the most basic aspects are creativity/ free will and knowledge/ consciousness.

The only way to attempt to symbolically represent these creative and knowledge aspects of the world is with manmade logical connective/ algorithmic symbols.

Lorraine Ford
The most fundamental aspects of the world are, not a mathematical structure, but what created, knows and moves the mathematical structure.

Once the world created its own categories, and then created relationships between the categories, and then created numbers and assigned the numbers to the categories, then there were logical consequences, known only to the source of logic and knowledge, i.e. low-level consciousness.

(The high-level, executive-level, need-to-know consciousness of living things should be distinguished from fundamental, low-level consciousness.)

E.g., once the world created a space category, with 3 dimensions (X, Y, and Z), with associated numbers, and with inter-dimensional relationships such that Pythagoras' theorem holds true, then the number pi is seemingly a logical consequence, known to the source of logic and knowledge, i.e. known to low-level consciousness.

It is in this context that we should be thinking about a “time” category in the world: in the context of a world where the most basic aspects are creativity/ free will/ agency and logic/ knowledge/ consciousness.

Lorraine Ford
There are no such things as free-floating, objectively existing, Platonic numbers, that the real-world system somehow, mysteriously, knows about and utilises.

Like anything, numbers can only be known about because of real-world relationships that exist between real-world categories, relationships that connect numbers into the real world.

So, real-world numbers can only exist as real-world relationships between real-world categories, where the numerator and denominator categories cancel out, leaving a thing (a number) that has no category.

Real-world pi too, can only exist because of real-world relationships that exist between real-world categories. In this case, pi is a deduction that relies on the existence of inter-dimensional relationships in the space category, inter-dimensional relationships such that Pythagoras' theorem holds true.

Real-world pi is not a free-floating, objectively existing, Platonic number, but a calculation which approaches a limit; real-world pi is a logical deduction that relies on the existence of inter-dimensional relationships in the space category, relationships such that Pythagoras' theorem holds true.

It is in this context that we should be thinking about a “time” category in the world: in the context of a world where low-level logic/ knowledge/ consciousness exists.

Lorraine Ford
How long can science continue to get way with promulgating the myth that at the foundations of the world exists a mathematical structure?

The point I’m making is that clearly, something created the structure, something knows the structure, and something moves the structure, BUT IT ISN’T A GOD, with all the nonsensical intellectual baggage that exists around ideas of a God: it is the world itself that did it. At the foundations of the world exists something creative and conscious.

This is the type of world we live in: creative and conscious, but with structure.

While physicists continue to think in terms of a mathematical structure at the foundations of the world, a mathematical structure that miraculously moves itself, they will continue to be confounded by time, and by human (and animal) consciousness and creativity.

Lorraine Ford
Re the abovementioned creativity:

I think I should add that the creativity of the universe is, obviously, very limited when it comes to the individual small parts of the universe (particles, atoms, molecules) creating some aspects of their own “bodily” outcomes (as opposed to 100% of outcome numbers being fully determined by law of nature relationships).

It is only when it comes to organisms, and organisms working together, that creating some aspects of one’s own personal bodily outcomes becomes significant (e.g. moving one’s own body parts to write or speak words, moving one’s own body parts to plan for and make weapons, moving one’s own body parts to fire guns).

However, I think physicists would rather eat their own feet rather than admit to the fact that we live in a type of world where people really, really, genuinely do, freely create their own bodily outcomes; we live in a type of world where people, and people working together, really, really, genuinely do, CAUSE outcomes like wars.

The physics “measurement problem” only occurs because physicists refuse to believe that we could live in a type of world where matter really does have a level of control over its own outcomes.

Lorraine Ford
Re physics “measurement problem”, and what physics is actually saying about the type of world we live in:

People are not fooled by what physics (and much of philosophy) is saying about the world.

People have the impression that physics is saying that every child killed or maimed in war was inevitable, only because that in fact is what most physicists are, in effect, saying about the world, with their equations, and their quasi-religious view that matter is fully puppeted by the equations.

Physicists are fully aware of what they are saying about the world. I guess that there are some people who are too young or naïve to fully grasp what physics (and much of philosophy) is saying about the type of world we live in.

Because of their quasi-religious beliefs, physicists can’t accept that we live in a type of world where matter (particles, atoms, molecules, and living things including people) really does have a level of control over its own outcomes, i.e. matter can jump its own numbers.

When physicists (and philosophers) start facing facts about the type of world we live in, they can then start to consider the nature of the “time” category.

I see time simply as a measure of duration.

Here is a conclusion of a recent paper I submitted to Synthese:

"While time has been called the fourth dimension in many circles, I submit that motion, being more intrinsically connected to space and dependent on the lower dimension, should be more seriously considered by the scientific community as the fourth spatial dimension. Beyond that, as force is intrinsically dependent on motion, it could be seen as a fifth and final spatial dimension that defines physical reality. Further still, the complexities of force and motion replicated in different forms of pathways and histories seem to point to the concept of possibility, which is a non-spatial concept that exists within the consciousness of living beings and leads to the existence of other core existential concepts such as will and choice."

Lorraine Ford

Force causes change, and force and motion are dependent on each other. I still think my concept of motion as a fourth dimension of space makes sense. Space is needed for motion to happen. I hope you read the whole article. I went on to explain that force could be the 5th spatial dimension, because force needs and causes motion, which happens in space.

I didn't simply relabel time as duration, I noted that time is the measurement of duration-- of motion.

"If indeed such things as dimensions actually exist" Yes dimensions exist. They are defined as a measurable extent of some kind. It's pretty basic understanding if you are expected to comprehend the nature of my paper. Motion and force are measurable qualities that happen in the spatial world.

Can everyone agree or not? Change isn’t a vague, imprecise concept. What is meant by “change” is “number change”, where the numbers apply to categories like force or position or energy, and these categories and numbers in turn apply to matter, where, looked at from the point of view of matter, these categories and associated numbers “are true”.

It is only the numbers that change; the various categories stay the same, and the various mathematical relationships between the categories (represented by equations) stay the same.

Categories can’t morph into other categories, and equations can’t morph into other equations. But also, numbers are not the types of things that can morph into other numbers: in order to change, the numbers that apply to categories can only “jump” or be “jumped” via the assignment of new numeric values to the categories, whereby other numbers also jump due to the mathematical relationships between the categories.

Number change can only consist of number jumps, where, as opposed to the idea of a gooey blancmange of smoothly morphing numbers, definite number “jumps” are the only way to delineate time, where time is seen as nothing more than the recognition that change has occurred. Looked at from the point of view of matter, what “is true” is that change has occurred, i.e. what “is true” is that time has advanced.

The idea of time as an independently existing “dimension” is completely superfluous: time as an independently existing “dimension” doesn’t exist. Time can only exist as a recognition, from the point of view of matter, that change has occurred.