^-- Up

A Minimally-biased Philosophy of Life: Physics/Theory direct to application

The particular mathematical principles on which this theory is based authorize us to jump far more directly from theory to application than is usually the case. Normally, even a theory based in math would have a longer route to validation, a route that would include distilling principles into specific predictive models, further years to test them, and perhaps decades more to validate medical benefits.

Although unusual in biology, deep mathematical principles (such as those of information theory and signal processing) have truly universal application and scale, making any theory based on them both more powerful and easier to validate. These same computational principles underlie virtually all digital technology. They make information transfer possible, and seem to be more pervasively applied and understood than quantum mechanics. Because these principles are so right and so useful, their technological vernacular (computational difficulty, bandwidth, resolution, etc.) is familiar. So I choose to use this language directly, unfiltered by more specific disciplinary terminology.

The other reason we can jump so directly to application is that the theory itself deals directly with human bodies, so its explanations can directly address the reader's own sensorimotor experience, unhindered by experimental practicalities and human-subjects protocols. Most importantly, this viewpoint proposes such straightforward guidelines for improving one's own physical grace and comfort that its "testable predictions" can take the form of informal clinical advice, as a doctor might advise his children's childhood friends. That form of direct address is unusual in contemporary scientific writing, but does have historical precedent. Direct address seems ideal for the uniquely human goal of conveying simple yet familiar insights into the minds of people interested in applying them.