<>

This post is written in Scroll, a 2D language.

I have a new language, a 4D one, I've been working on for over a year now. I call it Ford (get it?).

I don't have much to share yet but I wanted to write about it anyway. Maybe someone is working on a similar thing and would like to collaborate.

The brain is a 4D prediction engine.

All that is selected for is our ability to predict 4D.

4D patterns in nature can be folded into lower dimensions, like reverse-origami. Folding makes ideas easier to transport.

Writing is folding 4D into 2D.

Reading is unfolding 2D back into 4D.

A single word is a point representation of a 4D concept. Fire, for example. It unfolds to 2D then to 3D and 4D.

To fold concepts from 4D to 2D and back, there is an overall causal order, though parts can be parallelized.

All sensible symbols can be unfolded to accurate predictions of the 4D world.

Symbols that don't unfold accurately are non-sense.

(Symbols that purposefully perplex are not necessarily non-sense, if intended as art)

Our modeling engines are not infinite. Our brains have limits.

At each instant we expose ~200 million cells in our eyes to light.

Perhaps a number based on physical limits like that is the ceiling for the number of voxels we can model at once.

Perhaps the true number is far smaller.

I believe thinking about the 4D nature of concepts and the folds that best get them to and from 2D may lead to more useful 2D languages.