Beyond Archimedean Intelligence: Toward an Intrinsic p-Adic Theory of Learning
Contemporary machine learning is founded almost entirely on Archimedean mathematics: data are embedded in real vector spaces, similarity is measured by Euclidean-type metrics, learning is formulated through real-valued loss functions, and optimization is driven by differential or gradient-based methods. Recent work has shown that p-adic and ultrametric methods can enrich neural architectures, hierarchical representation, classification, and information processing. Rather than constructing a p-adic analogue of existing neural networks, we advocate a more fundamental viewpoint. We propose that a genuinely non-Archimedean theory of learning should be derived intrinsically from the topology, geometry, algebra, and measure structure of ultrametric spaces. To this end, we formulate the Principle of Intrinsic Non-Archimedean Learning and introduce an axiomatic framework in which information states are organized by nested ultrametric balls, learning is represented by hierarchical refinement and redistribution of information, and scale is determined by valuation depth. In this framework, neurons, layers, activation functions, gradients, and backpropagation are not assumed to be primitive concepts but possible computational realizations of a deeper mathematical theory. We prove a basic structural result showing that, on \(\Zp\) refinement depth coincides with common-prefix depth and that the finite quotients \(\mathbb Z/p^N \mathbb Z \) preserve the rooted ball hierarchy through level N. Consequently, hierarchy is not an auxiliary structure to be learned but is already encoded in the intrinsic geometry of the underlying information space