Ideophysical Dynamism

Despite the fact that we have learned to harness the power of creation to degrees that would astonish and terrify our ancestors; I would argue that we don’t have as tight of a grip on the process as we think we do.

Previous to the physical construction of an idea, there is a fairly extensive amount of mental simulations that take place in the minds of the inventors. Such mental simulations can vary wildly when it comes to one’s understanding of the physical world. For instance, children often construct machines and devices that fall quite short of functional. I recall constructing a time machine as a child. I had a cardboard box, across which I had printed the words, “Time Machine” in thick black permanent marker. I had constructed a flux capacitor and mounted it to the back, and I had drawn out a control panel for the selection of dates and times. Obviously my time machine did not function as I had hoped. My understanding of the universe was, and continues to fall short of what is needed to travel through time. This example outlines the basic concepts that is ‘Ideophysical Dynamism’.

So why is this important? Why do we care? We know that if something isn’t built correctly it’s not going to work. So what’s the point of all of this?

Ideophysical Dynamism is the dynamic interplay between the world of the mind and the physical world. When one lacks a proper understanding of the physical world, we can expect consistent failures. Often, these failures are used to better understand the world in order to refine the next creation. When this sort of analysis is employed by inventors and scientists, knowledge is gained about the world we live in. Sometimes, however, these failures are minimal and don’t fully impact the creation’s functionality; so, the failures go unnoticed, the creation is mass produced, and we all use a product that is far from optimal.

This variance and scale of adherence to reality is the definition of ‘ideophysical dynamism’. Something that has a high ideophysical coupling is something that was created by minds that have a keen understanding of the physical world as it relates to their creation. Their creations can be said to have a high level of ideophysical coupling. Occasionally, their understanding of what they want to create is so high that their very first prototype comes out of assembly working perfectly. However, a creation on the order of my childhood time machine has a very low, practically non-existent ideophysical coupling. The mental simulations lack the understanding required to fabricate a functioning system.

From here on out, let us refer to ideophysical dynamism/dynamics as simply IPD.

IPD applies to more than just physical creations. It applies to the meta-physical world of rules and instructions. Board games, card games, and field games all require rules to play. There are rules for video games and software as well as rules laid out by laws or through common agreements. Each one is fascinating to dissect and consider their IPD coupling and the implications thereof.

So why is this important? Why do we care? We know that if something isn’t built correctly it’s not going to work. So what’s the point of all of this? Well, let’s take a closer look. When a rule, or a law, or some symbolic utility has a low IPD coupling; it becomes extremely malleable; easy to twist, bend, manipulate, and ultimately abuse. Unfortunately, when something is easy to abuse, it is a short matter of time before it will be. The problem is: whether a friend keeps cheating at chess, or whether an international treaty allows for the invasion of a smaller country based on vague and biased data; the resulting dysfunction always leads to disadvantage and suffering.

Let us take a quick look as to why this is. Consider gravity for a moment. Even if we could manipulate gravity, it would be in accordance with the knowledge and principles necessary to do so. Any attempt to abuse gravity would simply result in adhering to other fundamental principles. Sure you can build a ditch and cover it to make a trap; however this is utility, not abuse. But what if gravity had a low IPD coupling. What if it was a rule that we just made up. And if you wanted, you could fly off to wherever you wanted to go. What if we only stuck to earth because if you were caught flying about you would get a ticket for breaking “The Law of Gravity”? Now it becomes something that has no real-world mechanism behind it. During a football game, the skilled cheater could break this law to catch a throw that would normally be out of reach. The criminal would use flying to flee a crime scene. And the hero, the person who only breaks the law to help others; would eventually get caught and charged. Hopefully you can now run through your own scenarios and you can evaluate for yourselves that man-made rules that have a low IPD coupling can be extremely dangerous on almost any account.

For the purpose of supplementing some of my other articles, as well as to further explain why IPD is an incredibly important, yet utterly overlooked piece to the puzzle of human culture, creation, and advancement; I will detail a few interesting IPD couplings we routinely adhere to, and routinely break. These are: enforced laws, game rules, and money.

Let us first look at enforced laws. Specifically, traffic laws. Among the vast sea of current laws, traffic laws have an unusually high IPD coupling. Traffic laws must, by their very nature, be of a high IPD coupling. If they didn’t outline real world ideas like what happens when two large, speeding bodies collide with each other, then they would have very little purpose. The system of roads and vehicles we have designed is a very real, high IPD coupling system. The engines really run, the roads really do make driving easier, and the lights really do change color to coordinate the direction speeding bodies can move through an intersection. These systems were designed by engineers who know the physical world extremely well. And, sure, you can run a red light and get away with it. Why? Because traffic laws are not coupled 100% with the reality of the system. Which also means that running a red light carries a chance with it that you could get hit and get seriously injured. Traffic laws are routinely broken according to the driver’s mental calculation of the cost/benefit ratio given their current circumstance; even with the knowledge that breaking a traffic law can, and often does, hurt others as well.

Let us now consider board games. Board games are an interesting example. Breaking these rules has no real life coordinate other than possibly getting booed or losing trust with others. One can often cheat and easily get away with it. But because there is no real-life benefit (unless your gambling; but if you’re gambling, the consequences can quickly materialize physically) there is usually very little incentive to cheat other than to inflate one’s own ego.

Finally, let us take a look at money. Money is unique in that it has an extremely low IPD coupling. Money is constantly and extravagantly abused despite the fact that it has been intimately intertwined with everything we do as humans. It controls everything we do and think, and it is intimately connected to social status and self esteem. Previously, money had a somewhat higher IPD coupling under the gold standard. However, because money is no longer backed by gold, and due to the fact that the difference between $10 and $10,000,000 is a simple flip of less than a kilobyte’s worth of binary digits; the IPD coupling of money has been driven to nearly nothing. The repercussions of abusing money have so drastically fallen from the immediate effects of devaluing a high priced item, that the abuse of money has even become an attractive endeavor. It could very well be to everybody’s benefit if we went back to the drawing board and rethought money. If we were to find some way of raising the IPD coupling of money, and thereby lowering its propensity for abuse; the effect would echo across the world with the potential of solving a large majority of the problems of today.

The deconstruction of money and the conception of IPD was a peak revelation for me. These ideas were the catalysts that started me down the road to the founding of Phobos Technologies LLC and the planned development of The AI STEM Drive.

I would recommend looking at life through IPD colored glasses. After sufficient experience and analysis, it will become vividly clear that there are several areas in our day to day life that are just screaming out at us to be optimized and fixed.

Thomas Wright
Owner / Phobos Technologies LLC