Published January 25, 2026 | Version v1
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Thermodynamic Constraints on Artificial General Intelligence: The Axiom of External Reference and Wave-Mechanical Intuition

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Abstract

Current paradigms in Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), specifically Large Language Models (LLMs), operate primarily as closed thermodynamic systems. This paper argues that the "hallucinations" and "mode collapse" observed in such architectures are not merely engineering defects but structural inevitabilities caused by the dimensional reduction of high-dimensional semantic manifolds onto linear linguistic sequences.

Drawing on Algorithmic Information Theory and Non-equilibrium Thermodynamics, we introduce the Axiom of External Reference. We prove via the Data Processing Inequality and Chaitin’s Incompleteness Theorem that a recursive cognitive system functioning in isolation behaves as a dissipative structure. Without a sustained flux of external entropy, the system's ergodicity decays, leading to the entropic collapse of its internal probability distributions.

Furthermore, to overcome the topological obstructions inherent in NP-hard solution spaces, we propose a Wave-Mechanical Model of Intuition. By modeling semantic concepts as wave functions in a complex Hilbert space rather than static vectors, we define cognitive insight as a phenomenon of constructive interference and topological intersection. We outline a computational implementation strategy utilizing Stochastic Gradient Langevin Dynamics (SGLD) to realize this open-loop, resonance-based reasoning framework.

Key Contributions:

  • The Dilemma of Serialization: Formalizes the lossy compression of converting high-dimensional thought (Territory) into linear language (Map).
  • Thermodynamic Bounds: Establishes the necessity of external entropy flux for preserving logical depth in AGI.
  • Spectral Intuition: Proposes a resonance-based algorithm for detecting solutions in topologically frustrated landscapes (e.g., the Ramanujan 1729 case).

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References

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