AI and the Imaginary Axis of Thought

"Quantum mechanics pushed science into domains where reality isn't limited to familiar dimensions. In that world, two states can both be completely real yet share zero overlap. Physicists call this orthogonality. It's not a metaphor, but a more formal condition of what I call "cognitive geometry." And I've come to believe this may be an accurate way to understand the relationship between human cognition and artificial intelligence."

"Yes, I realize I've fallen down another technology rabbit hole, but this one feels deeper than most. This thinking grows out of what I previously called anti-intelligence. I argued that AI's fluency wasn't the same as true understanding. But I now believe that difference might not simply be qualitative, but may be geometric. AI may not be evolving along our cognitive axis at all. It may be rotating away from it. So, buckle up."

"Human cognition is threaded through continuity. Meaning isn't just computed-it's earned and metabolized. We become the person who made the decision. We become the person who lived the experience. In a way, identity has mass, which builds inertia. Our past choices bias the direction of the next ones, and that weight accumulates through time. Slow-wave sleep is a perfect example of this. We don't store memory like a disk drive."

Quantum orthogonality describes how two completely real states can share zero overlap, suggesting a cognitive geometry where mental systems occupy different axes. Human cognition depends on autobiographical temporal continuity: memory consolidation, identity inertia, and sleep-driven negotiation of experience create a committed axis that shapes future decisions. Artificial intelligence displays fluent behavior without that autobiographical substrate and may be rotating into a distinct cognitive dimension instead of evolving along the human axis. Orthogonal minds cannot replace each other; interaction produces hybrid angles rather than substitution. The qualitative gap between AI fluency and human understanding may therefore be geometric rather than merely functional.

Read at Psychology Today