About
This is a short summary of Temporal Geometry's development stages
Request
The development of Temporal Geometry began with a question:
What tool should I use to visualize my experience over the last 5 or 10 years?
It is long-term planning that people have the most difficulty with, so it would seem that there should be many tools that solve this problem.
But even the modern digital calendar, we essentially use in the same way as if it were made of paper.
Problem
Turns out the problem is deeper than it seems:
We simply do not have an image of time that can represent experience over any arbitrary period of time.
The images of time we use most often are Clocks, Calendars, and Timelines, but each is limited and narrowly focused.
• Clock is limited to 12 hours;
• Timeline is limited in reflecting the cyclical nature of processes;
• Calendar is a spatial image that reflects area rather than time.
Thus, the problem is not in the tools at all, but lies beyond them.
Core idea of Article 1:
These tools are simply different projections of the same higher dimensional image of time.
Approach
The research of the resulting object began by comparing its geometry with Euclidean geometry.
The idea is to reveal the underlying logic of formalization in relation to time as it is done in relation to space.
This logic has been given the working title Temporal Geometry and is the subject of Article 2.
The purpose of Temporal Geometry is to give us (either directly or through a machine) the ability to see time, just as we see space.
Temporal Formalization
The recording of information in Temporal Geometry can be viewed as a kind of language, but its temporal nature determines the need for an interpreter .
A similar approach is already applied in bioinformatics, where language models are used to “interpret protein sequences as sentences and their constituent – amino acids – as single words”.
Gradually we can not only visualize the temporal structure of experience, but also learn to translate it into natural language.
Experience formalization and translation are addressed in Article 3. Part I.
Artificial Sensorics
The next step was to find a way to continuously record information using temporal formalization.
We gain experience using all our sensory systems, but only part of it we are able to formalize: we simply don't have the ability to be conscious of every neuron and nerve. However, this is possible in the case of Artificial Sensorics.
So, if we have the ability to gather our experience into some structure and visualize it, it is only with the help of Artificial Sensorics.
In particular, the smartphone is always near the User, which literally turns it into an artificial extension of our sensorics.
But the conditional User can also be a system whose sensorics is used: production, processing, etc.
Artificial Sensorics and Artificial Observer are the subject of Article 3. Part II.
At the Moment
So, the initial request to visualize experience of arbitrary duration revealed that:
It is not our tools that are limited, but our very understanding of time.
Only with a new understanding of time can we approach the structure of experience in a way that approximates how it arises in our own memory.
Therefore, relying on Temporal Geometry as a formalization of time, we can move on to creating a tool capable of visualizing the structure of experience:
• If the source of experience is Human, the tool becomes an artificial extension of the User's sensorics
• If the source of the experience is non-Human, the tool becomes an Artificial Observer
What's Next?
As the uncertainty around digital technologies and especially AI grows exponentially, it's clear that interaction with digital mediums has long gone beyond current understanding.
I suppose we can skip the questions like "what is AI" and consider that our interaction with ubiquitous artificial sensorics can and should be seen as an exchange of experience, as any other option will always be unequal to us. Hence the questions about our experience, its structure and, ultimately, about time itself, without which experience does not exist in principle.
There are also many more questions about Temporal Geometry, language model, interface, and ethics that require the involvement of experts in these fields.
However, the foundation must first be a new Paradigm in which we, the ordinary Users, will be both able and willing to interact safely and freely with digital technologies possessing a human experience.