>What does it mean to exist independent of time and space? Nothing, as far as I can see. I was once at a UVIC philosophy seminar where this came up. I asked if, in the time of the dinosaurs, bounded linear operators already existed. Yes, I was told. I have no idea what this meant.

I think a more interesting question is if an intelligent species that lived a billion light years away from us would eventually come up with bounded linear operators (or something homomorphic to it).