The Higher-Dimensional Paradox of Time, Space, Causality, and Love
Translated by AI. Read the Chinese original ↗
Contents 1 sections
Kant said that time, space, and causality are not properties of the world, but frameworks through which we understand it.
We think we observe reality, when we are merely observing our own cognitive format.
If another kind of consciousness existed, one without these three frameworks,
what would it see?
I named this consciousness the “absolute state.”
Without time, its universe is an eternally motionless hologram, all “past” and “future” present together, like thousands of notes in a grand symphony sounding at a single instant;
Without space, the end of a Milky Way spiral arm and the dust on our fingertips fold into the same singularity in its perception, without near or far, inside or outside;
Without causality, tears do not fall “because” pain pulls them. Moist eyes and ocean tides simply resonate in a slice of existence: pure, reasonless simultaneity.
I wrote this premise in my notebook, then decided on a thought experiment.
I wanted to explain love to it.
I wrote the first sentence:
I once loved someone.
Immediately I crossed out “once loved.”
“Once loved” is past tense.
Past tense presupposes a directed timeline: a coordinate called “then,” a coordinate called “now,” and a one-way river connecting them.
But the absolute state’s universe has no such river.
For it, moments have never been separated. They are merely ice crystals suspended in the same eternally still snowfall.
“Once loved” means as little to it as explaining “loss” to an immortal god—not because the speaker lacks sincerity, but because the listener’s form of life has never contained “passing,” that measure of sorrow.
I changed the tense:
I love someone.
Present tense suggests continuation. Continuation is another name for time.
There is someone. Her.
“Her” implies an object that can be individually referred to.
Individual reference means she and I occupy different positions.
But the absolute state has no positions. In its perception, all conscious states overlap completely. There is no distinction of “she is there and I am here.”
I stopped and began systematically examining candidate words:
“Missing”
Presupposes both time and space.
Missing her is the double absence of “she is not here now” and “the tenderness we once had is not in this moment.”
The absolute state possesses every version of her across all spacetime simultaneously. For it, longing is an empty word without a referent.
“Waiting”
Means staring at a silent chat window, guessing when she will type her next message; sitting on a bench as the sky darkens, awaiting the definite sound of her footsteps.
The absolute state’s universe does not flow; it spreads out. It possesses every scene of her not appearing and running toward you together, without exchanging a single second of loneliness for a reunion.
“Remembering”
Means stubbornly keeping the last voice message she sent through years of slow forgetting, letting it wear and fade in neurons while still treating it as sacred.
The absolute state need not remember. It “is” every state of her birth, aging, illness, and death, equally weighted and accurate—but unmoving, like an archive nobody visits.
After roughly the seventh crossing-out, I wrote a conclusion in my notebook:
The problem was not choosing the wrong word.
The problem was that the entire syntax of human language is a net woven from time, space, and causality.
I was trying to use this language to explain love to a consciousness without these three foundations—
Like trying to fish moonlight out of water with a net.
The net was not broken. It simply was not woven for that purpose.
As this realization formed, something seeped from inside the thought experiment, like light through a wall I had believed solid.
I could not tell whether I was outside the experiment or within it.
I “saw” the relationship’s complete shape, not through memory but something closer to touch:
All cross-sections unfolded together,
the first meeting and last phone call equally distant, side by side,
what was said and what was never said resting in parallel,
what happened and what never happened equally clear.
Like a finished book whose every page could be opened at the same moment.
This perspective was extraordinarily complete.
I stayed inside for three seconds, measured in human time.
Afterward, my pen remained still above the paper for a long time.
I realized I had not been “thinking of” her, but “holding” her.
The feeling was calm, almost cruelly calm, without a ripple.
The essence of love has never been “what you possessed,”
But “what weight you carried.”
The absolute state possesses every cross-section of that relationship.
I possess only a few, some already fading slowly.
Two incompletenesses, in opposite directions.
Its incompleteness:
Holding every shape, yet knowing the weight of none.
Mine:
Knowing the weight of only a few shapes, and always losing them.
In the past tense of “once loved” lies something it cannot hold:
One cross-section suddenly weighs more than the entire universe, and a person must carry that asymmetry, continuing to wear themselves away in time.
I turned back to the notebook’s first page, looking at the sentence I had crossed out:
I once loved someone.
The absolute state possesses every cross-section of that relationship, yet can never understand this sentence.
At first I thought they were all enemies of love:
Time makes people forget;
Space separates lovers;
Causality declares attraction a dopamine peak, dismantles “I love you” into explainable neural signals. And what can be explained can sooner or later be denied.
Yet precisely these confining frameworks form love’s flesh and blood.
Love is a mark carved into time:
I met you at a coordinate in the past, and in all futures yet to unfold, joyfully anticipate some reunion.
Love is a rebellion against the laws of space:
Even with distant emptiness and crowds between us, my consciousness still turns uncontrollably toward you.
Love is causality’s privilege granted to feeling:
It gives every change in me a definite origin. I become better or more fragile; begin liking a song or can never listen again—
All of this points to a cause called “you,” impossible to analyze, dismantle, or replace.
The absolute state possesses the whole universe, but no tense, no distance, no disappearance.
We are incomplete.
We have tenses.
In losing, we see the shape of love clearly for the first time.
So I can say this complete sentence:
I once loved someone.
Later, I thought perhaps I need not explain love to the absolute state at all.
The night glows; stars hang low.
A boy likes a girl.
He does not approach and say, “You’re wonderful. I really like you,”
Nor think, “She is wonderful, but nothing to do with me,” and go home to sleep.
He simply follows behind her,
Letting moonlight shine upon her,
And upon him.
When she walks fast, he walks fast;
When she stops to look at the scenery, he stops ten steps away to look at her.
All night.
Two people, one ahead, one behind,
Like two stars kept by the same night sky.