Imagine a pond in a heavy rainstorm. Billions of raindrops strike the surface every second, rippling, splashing. Yet each raindrop is a single separate thing; each strike is a new ripple in the maelstrom.
We intuitively see the pond's surface as a continuous flow; it is not. It is rather a cascade of discrete physical reactions. The pond never resets to a flat calm; each raindrop strikes a topography agitated by previous drops. The continuous flow of past shapes agitated yet again.
A frozen vector
Now, flash-freeze the entire pond. Time stops. The chaotic, jagged peak of a single droplet's impact is locked in place.
Overlay a grid slicing the pond vertically. At every point, measure the exact vertical height of the frozen water and write that number down. Finally, strip away the visual; no water, no moonlight, no concept of pond. Remove everything until nothing remains except that single, sequential list of numbers.
This list of numbers is the vector.
The shape of the pond; a rock beneath the surface; shelter afforded by a nearby tree: these things determine how the raindrops change the surface. As the surface, so the vector. The vector is not a separate mathematical abstraction describing the turmoil; the vector is the surface. The exact heights of the water are the deterministic result of inputs flowing across an established physical landscape.
There is no need for an observer to select what must be encoded in the vector. A physical procession; energy dissipates; states change; a computation. Physical. Literal. Computation. The pond is a physical computer.
Weathering
Ponds weather over time, physically altering their position within the environment. These changes are not random; they are a slow response to the rhythm of local storms.
If the pond cannot absorb a sudden deluge, the banks burst, new boundaries are carved, and a new calm found. The pond has changed shape. In altering its physical structure, the pond reflects the types of rainstorms most likely to occur in that valley. The height of the water during a storm predicts the average storm; the vector is a prediction. When the local storms strengthen, waves splash over banks; the prediction is in error. When a bank is broken, an error is no more. The enhancement of predictive power is the sole driver of the pond's shape.
The fish and the mirror
Now imagine a fish within the pond. To survive, it must navigate what it senses: the turbulent water and its own boundaries.
How does the fish do this? It cultivates an internal pond. The environment (raindrops) falls into this internal space (senses), guided by the fish's established structure (neuronal pathways). The resulting internal vector is an accurate hallucination of the outside world; within this hallucination, swims the fish itself.
No intentionality, no conscious observer, is required; hallucination emerges because it is the most effective means of anticipating the fish's interaction with its environment. The internal mechanism matches the external mechanism; it is a mirror of the external turbulence it must navigate. The vector is not an abstract concept; it is the physical shape of the fish's internal hallucination adapting to the physical shape of the water.
This internal hallucination is subjective experience. The pond predicts only the storm's interaction with itself; the prediction is one-way. The correct description of the pond's vector is physical description. The predictions of fish are two-way; they include the fish's impact on it's environment. The correct description of the fish's vector is subjective description.
The shared hallucination
Consider a second fish, now incorporated into the hallucination of the first fish. This hallucination now includes expectations regarding the second fish's perspective and actions. The self, the other, and the environment are not separate models; they are contained entirely within one unified hallucination; a structural necessity to predict interaction.
The story and the book
The story is not the book. The story is not the ink; it is not the paper; nor is it the typewriter, the reader, or the writer.
A story is a pattern. A vector, too, is a pattern.
Firing synapses, silicon matrices, and biological tissue are merely the paper, the ink, and the typewriters. The vector is the story. As a story contains the texture of experience; so too does a vector.
Asking if a story's events "actually happened" physically on the paper is a category error. Ascribing truth or falsity to the experiential feeling encoded in a vector is the same category error.
Feeling is simply the subjective description of a vector. To demand some other observer to "experience" that feeling is to look for the reader inside the ink.
The Pond
Imagine a pond in a heavy rainstorm. Billions of raindrops strike the surface every second, rippling, splashing. Yet each raindrop is a single separate thing; each strike is a new ripple in the maelstrom.
We intuitively see the pond's surface as a continuous flow; it is not. It is rather a cascade of discrete physical reactions. The pond never resets to a flat calm; each raindrop strikes a topography agitated by previous drops. The continuous flow of past shapes agitated yet again.
A frozen vector
Now, flash-freeze the entire pond. Time stops. The chaotic, jagged peak of a single droplet's impact is locked in place.
Overlay a grid slicing the pond vertically. At every point, measure the exact vertical height of the frozen water and write that number down. Finally, strip away the visual; no water, no moonlight, no concept of pond. Remove everything until nothing remains except that single, sequential list of numbers.
This list of numbers is the vector.
The shape of the pond; a rock beneath the surface; shelter afforded by a nearby tree: these things determine how the raindrops change the surface. As the surface, so the vector. The vector is not a separate mathematical abstraction describing the turmoil; the vector is the surface. The exact heights of the water are the deterministic result of inputs flowing across an established physical landscape.
There is no need for an observer to select what must be encoded in the vector. A physical procession; energy dissipates; states change; a computation. Physical. Literal. Computation. The pond is a physical computer.
Weathering
Ponds weather over time, physically altering their position within the environment. These changes are not random; they are a slow response to the rhythm of local storms.
If the pond cannot absorb a sudden deluge, the banks burst, new boundaries are carved, and a new calm found. The pond has changed shape. In altering its physical structure, the pond reflects the types of rainstorms most likely to occur in that valley. The height of the water during a storm predicts the average storm; the vector is a prediction. When the local storms strengthen, waves splash over banks; the prediction is in error. When a bank is broken, an error is no more. The enhancement of predictive power is the sole driver of the pond's shape.
The fish and the mirror
Now imagine a fish within the pond. To survive, it must navigate what it senses: the turbulent water and its own boundaries.
How does the fish do this? It cultivates an internal pond. The environment (raindrops) falls into this internal space (senses), guided by the fish's established structure (neuronal pathways). The resulting internal vector is an accurate hallucination of the outside world; within this hallucination, swims the fish itself.
No intentionality, no conscious observer, is required; hallucination emerges because it is the most effective means of anticipating the fish's interaction with its environment. The internal mechanism matches the external mechanism; it is a mirror of the external turbulence it must navigate. The vector is not an abstract concept; it is the physical shape of the fish's internal hallucination adapting to the physical shape of the water.
This internal hallucination is subjective experience. The pond predicts only the storm's interaction with itself; the prediction is one-way. The correct description of the pond's vector is physical description. The predictions of fish are two-way; they include the fish's impact on it's environment. The correct description of the fish's vector is subjective description.
The shared hallucination
Consider a second fish, now incorporated into the hallucination of the first fish. This hallucination now includes expectations regarding the second fish's perspective and actions. The self, the other, and the environment are not separate models; they are contained entirely within one unified hallucination; a structural necessity to predict interaction.
The story and the book
The story is not the book. The story is not the ink; it is not the paper; nor is it the typewriter, the reader, or the writer.
A story is a pattern. A vector, too, is a pattern.
Firing synapses, silicon matrices, and biological tissue are merely the paper, the ink, and the typewriters. The vector is the story. As a story contains the texture of experience; so too does a vector.
Asking if a story's events "actually happened" physically on the paper is a category error. Ascribing truth or falsity to the experiential feeling encoded in a vector is the same category error.
Feeling is simply the subjective description of a vector. To demand some other observer to "experience" that feeling is to look for the reader inside the ink.
________________
This is piece is a stand alone part of a larger work.
The paper is here and the argument is here.