Intelligence is high-dimensional coherence.
Living systems maintain more internal complexity than any external observer can track. This is not a bug. It's the mechanism.
The brain doesn't compute by enumeration. It evolves through a space too vast to follow from outside. This isn't a metaphor—it's a mathematical constraint with implications for AI, consciousness, and the limits of science itself.
The Core Claim
Intelligence and life arise from high-dimensional coherent dynamics—systems that maintain many degrees of freedom moving together, beyond what external observers can track.
This applies at every scale: neurons, immune cells, ecosystems, societies. It's not a human monopoly. It's what happens when internal complexity exceeds external bandwidth.
The papers prove this creates hard limits on observation, control, and falsification. Biology doesn't just happen to be complex—it exploits the regime where external tracking fails.
Why It Matters
For AI
Digital substrates may have hard capability ceilings—not because of algorithms, but because of dimensional poverty. One global clock vs. 1014 continuous degrees of freedom.
For Consciousness
Subjective experience may require volumetric field dynamics, not just graph connectivity. You can't simulate your way to qualia on a substrate that can't support the dimensionality.
For Science
Some phenomena are unfalsifiable—not because they're unreal, but because observers are low-dimensional projections of high-dimensional truth. Epistemic humility, calibrated to the gap.
Observation Creates Code
DNA, proteins, neural signals—all are low-dimensional codes that represent high-dimensional physical processes.
Codes emerge from dimensional collapse. The high-dimensional state of a neural population becomes a discrete spike train. The continuous molecular dynamics of a cell become a sequence of gene expression states.
This isn't information loss—it's information creation. The code carries meaning precisely because it discards the high-dimensional details. Tap the visualization to induce 4D rotation, then slide to collapse dimensions.
The Research
Intelligence as High-Dimensional Coherence
The foundational paper. Intelligence arises from maintaining high-dimensional internal dynamics that collapse to coherent outputs.
Minimal Embedding Dimension
You need at least 3 dimensions for continuous cyclic dynamics. Below that, trajectories collide.
Timing Inaccessibility
Brains are 100,000× more efficient than silicon because they defer thermodynamic costs.
Coupling-Induced Rank Transitions
When systems couple, genuinely new properties become measurable. A mathematical definition of emergence.
The Argument
The logical flow in one page. From thesis to proof to implications.
Read the argument →Research Papers
3 published, 6 under review, spanning biology, math, neuroscience, and philosophy.
View papers by role →Interactive Simulations
Play with the ideas. Dimensional collapse, coherence dynamics, information costs.
Explore simulations →