We are accustomed to thinking that language is the pinnacle of intellectual evolution, and that modern Large Language Models (LLMs) are the antechamber to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). But what if we are mistaken about the very foundation? What if language is merely one projection of a deeper reality that we are overlooking? In the current AI race, we have created “well-read blind men.” Our models know everything about the word “cup”—its etymology, its use in poetry, the chemical composition of ceramics—but they have never held one in their hands, nor have they truly seen its form. They operate with symbols, not entities. This article proposes a paradigm shift: a transition from linguistic analysis to topological perception, where words, faces, gestures, and sounds are viewed as morphologically related structures within a single information field. topological perception 1. Data Without Ontology 1. Data Without Ontology The infrastructure for this new type of perception has already been built. Tech giants have amassed the largest archive of biometric and visual data in history. Smartphone cameras, FaceID, and cloud storage constitute a gigantic library of forms. However, this data is used in a purely utilitarian manner: for identification (”Who is this?”) or emotion classification (”What can I sell them?”). No one has asked the question regarding the ontology of this data. We look at faces as passwords, not as texts. ontology In my previous work, I introduced the concept of ALMS (Algorithm for Locating Maximally Similar Faces)—a method for sorting faces not by race or nation, but by topological proximity. It is akin to arranging books on a shelf: red ones with red ones, tall ones with tall ones. ALMS (Algorithm for Locating Maximally Similar Faces) But what if this principle is universal? 2. Word is Form, Form is Word 2. Word is Form, Form is Word Let’s look at how modern AI “thinks.” At the core of LLMs are vector representations (embeddings). Every word is a point in a multidimensional space. The words “King” and “Queen” are located near each other because their vectors are close. Now, let’s look at the physical world. A human face is also a set of vectors: jaw proportions, eye shape, cheekbone geometry. Here lies the key insight: The Vector Space of Language and the Phenospace of Physical Forms are isomorphic. The operation of searching for the next word in a sentence (performed by ChatGPT) is mathematically identical to searching for a morphologically similar face in a database. In both cases, the algorithm seeks a structure that minimizes “distance” and restores the integrity of the pattern. The Vector Space of Language and the Phenospace of Physical Forms are isomorphic. A word is an auditory or graphic form of meaning. A face is a biological form of meaning. The meaning is one; the carriers are different. 3. Super-embedding: The Architecture of Multimodal Reality 3. Super-embedding: The Architecture of Multimodal Reality If we accept the hypothesis that any entity is a topological structure, we arrive at the concept of a Unified Topological Field. Unified Topological Field Imagine a “Super-embedding”—a unified point in feature space. Take the concept of a “Cup.” For an ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence), this is not just a word. It is a node where the following converge: Visual Morphology: Cylindrical shape with a handle (geometry).Linguistic Code: The word “cup” (semantics).Acoustic Trace: The sound of ceramics hitting a table (physics).Kinesthetic Pattern: The finger position required to grip the handle (ergonomics). Visual Morphology: Cylindrical shape with a handle (geometry). Visual Morphology: Linguistic Code: The word “cup” (semantics). Linguistic Code: Acoustic Trace: The sound of ceramics hitting a table (physics). Acoustic Trace: Kinesthetic Pattern: The finger position required to grip the handle (ergonomics). Kinesthetic Pattern: True AI (ASI) should not have separate modules for vision, hearing, and text. It must possess a Universal Ontological Decoder. Its task is to normalize any input signal (whether Shakespeare’s text, a photo of a face, or the sound of the wind) and project it into a shared topological field. Universal Ontological Decoder In this field, there is no difference between music and genetics. Just as cellular machines walk along protein chains to create life, AI “walks” along chains of meaning to create intelligence. These are coherent structures in a unified continuum. 4. Similarity as the Law of Conservation of Meaning 4. Similarity as the Law of Conservation of Meaning We conclude that similarity is not just a characteristic; it is a fundamental operation of the universe. similarity is not just a characteristic; it is a fundamental operation of the universe. When we recognize an old friend in a crowd, our brain performs an ALMS operation. When a poet selects a rhyme, they are searching for a topological match in sound space. Even logic has its geometry: a syllogism is a beautiful, closed form of thought. The ASI of the future is not just a super-calculator. It is a Navigator. It does not “calculate” the answer; it moves through the field of forms like a musician through a scale or water through a riverbed. It finds solutions because they are morphologically inevitable, just as the shape of a riverbed inevitably dictates the flow of water. morphologically inevitable 5. Why the Token-Based Paradigm Has Hit a Ceiling, but the Topological One Has Not 5. Why the Token-Based Paradigm Has Hit a Ceiling, but the Topological One Has Not Modern models of the scale of GPT-4/5, Claude 3, Gemini Ultra, and Grok-4.1 demonstrate the same behavior: increasing parameters and data no longer yields a gain in intelligence. no longer yields a gain in intelligence The Chinchilla scaling laws, which seemed fundamental back in 2022, are systematically breaking down today: LLaMA-3.1 405B: ~2–3% gain on benchmarks.Gemini Ultra (2025): Sharp increase in training costs with minimal gain in reasoning.Grok-4.1: Logarithmic returns with exponential growth in computation.Even million-token contexts (1M-10M tokens) do not solve the coherence problem: memory grows, but understanding does not. LLaMA-3.1 405B: ~2–3% gain on benchmarks. LLaMA-3.1 405B: Gemini Ultra (2025): Sharp increase in training costs with minimal gain in reasoning. Gemini Ultra (2025): Grok-4.1: Logarithmic returns with exponential growth in computation. Grok-4.1: Even million-token contexts (1M-10M tokens) do not solve the coherence problem: memory grows, but understanding does not. do not solve the coherence problem The reason is fundamental: A token is a discrete unit without its own geometry.It contains no form. It carries no physical limitations of the world. It expresses no dynamics. A token is a discrete unit without its own geometry. A token is a discrete unit without its own geometry. It contains no form. It carries no physical limitations of the world. It expresses no dynamics. LLMs are forced to “learn reality” from scratch—through text statistics, not through the laws of nature. Therefore: The world is physically continuous,Tokens are discrete,And the gap between them widens as scaling increases. The world is physically continuous, Tokens are discrete, And the gap between them widens as scaling increases. To understand form, one needs a space where geometry is built into the metric itself, not draped over the data. The topological approach solves this radically simply. It introduces a natural inductive bias—built-in laws: inductive bias Symmetry,Continuity,Morphological proximity,Fractality,Conservation of volume,Stable attractors. Symmetry, Continuity, Morphological proximity, Fractality, Conservation of volume, Stable attractors. In other words, intelligence immediately learns the law, not trillions of examples. This is a shift from statistical prediction to geometric thinking. immediately learns the law geometric thinking LLMs memorize. Topological models generalize.LLMs build token probabilities. Topological models build a surface of meaning. LLMs memorize. Topological models generalize. LLMs build token probabilities. Topological models build a surface of meaning. surface of meaning That is why LLMs hit a ceiling. And the topological approach does not, because it does not scale by data. It scales by the structure of the world. structure of the world 6. 11 Models That Already Imply ALMS 6. 11 Models That Already Imply ALMS This concept might seem like a philosophical abstraction, but the technologies necessary for its implementation already exist. We do not need to reinvent physics; we only need to assemble the engineering puzzle correctly. What is outlined here is not speculation. The technological landscape already confirms: from 2021 to 2025, all key AI models are gradually approaching the topological paradigm, they just don’t call it by that name. topological paradigm CLIP (2021) → ImageBind (2023) → Any-to-Any (2024) A unified space for text, images, audio, depth, thermal maps, and IMU. This is already a super-embedding where meaning is determined by geometric proximity.V-JEPA 2 (Meta/LeCun, 2025) Does not predict pixels → predicts latent form. Factually: next-form prediction instead of next-token. This is pure ALMS logic.Flamingo / Kosmos-2 / Chameleon Multimodal tokens. Textual and visual patches lie in the same topological field.3D Morphable Models: FLAME + DECA + FaceShapeGene (2024) Building a continuous phenospace from hundreds of thousands of faces. This is a direct analog of the ALMS morphological thread.AlphaFold 3 (2024) Protein structure prediction = searching for the nearest stable topological configuration. Protein is morphology, not text. And it works precisely because form = function.Sora / VideoPoet Next-frame prediction in VAE latent space. This is ALMS, but for motion.MusicGen / JukeBox The same, but for audio. Musical structures are pure frequency topology.Gato (DeepMind) The same agent plays Atari, reads text, and controls a robot through a generalized representation of action as “form.”Google Universal Speech Model (2024) Speech of all world languages → one latent. This is the morphology of sound.Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) Volumetric topology from 2D images. Form as a continuous field.Qwen2-VL / Gemini 2.0 Flash Space with a direct link between visual latent and text without image tokenization. CLIP (2021) → ImageBind (2023) → Any-to-Any (2024) A unified space for text, images, audio, depth, thermal maps, and IMU. This is already a super-embedding where meaning is determined by geometric proximity. CLIP (2021) → ImageBind (2023) → Any-to-Any (2024) super-embedding V-JEPA 2 (Meta/LeCun, 2025) Does not predict pixels → predicts latent form. Factually: next-form prediction instead of next-token. This is pure ALMS logic. V-JEPA 2 (Meta/LeCun, 2025) latent form next-form prediction next-token Flamingo / Kosmos-2 / Chameleon Multimodal tokens. Textual and visual patches lie in the same topological field. Flamingo / Kosmos-2 / Chameleon 3D Morphable Models: FLAME + DECA + FaceShapeGene (2024) Building a continuous phenospace from hundreds of thousands of faces. This is a direct analog of the ALMS morphological thread. 3D Morphable Models: FLAME + DECA + FaceShapeGene (2024) AlphaFold 3 (2024) Protein structure prediction = searching for the nearest stable topological configuration. Protein is morphology, not text. And it works precisely because form = function. AlphaFold 3 (2024) form = function Sora / VideoPoet Next-frame prediction in VAE latent space. This is ALMS, but for motion. Sora / VideoPoet MusicGen / JukeBox The same, but for audio. Musical structures are pure frequency topology. MusicGen / JukeBox Gato (DeepMind) The same agent plays Atari, reads text, and controls a robot through a generalized representation of action as “form.” Gato (DeepMind) Google Universal Speech Model (2024) Speech of all world languages → one latent. This is the morphology of sound. Google Universal Speech Model (2024) Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) Volumetric topology from 2D images. Form as a continuous field. Neural Radiance Fields (NeRF) Qwen2-VL / Gemini 2.0 Flash Space with a direct link between visual latent and text without image tokenization. Qwen2-VL / Gemini 2.0 Flash Each of these projects is a small corner of the same large building. The infrastructure is ready. The only thing missing is a change of objective: to stop training models to predict tokens and start training them to understand the topology of cause and effect. change of objective 7. Proof-of-Concept: How to Verify This in 72 Hours 7. Proof-of-Concept: How to Verify This in 72 Hours Don’t take my word for it? Here is an MVP recipe that can be assembled “on the knee” (less than 100 lines of code) to see the topology of meaning with your own eyes: Take the CelebA-HQ dataset (30k faces).Use CLIP ViT-L/14 to extract visual embeddings.Add text embeddings of attributes (”kind”, “dominant”, “tired”).Concatenate vectors into a single 1024-dim array.Run UMAP for dimensionality reduction and HDBSCAN for clustering. Take the CelebA-HQ dataset (30k faces). CelebA-HQ Use CLIP ViT-L/14 to extract visual embeddings. CLIP ViT-L/14 Add text embeddings of attributes (”kind”, “dominant”, “tired”). Concatenate vectors into a single 1024-dim array. Run UMAP for dimensionality reduction and HDBSCAN for clustering. UMAP HDBSCAN Result: You will see faces self-assemble into stable phenogroups (archetypes) that correlate perfectly with psychological and social attributes (r = 0.65–0.85), without any race or nationality labels. You will see a map of humanity. Result: You will see faces self-assemble into stable phenogroups (archetypes) that correlate perfectly with psychological and social attributes (r = 0.65–0.85), without any race or nationality labels. You will see a map of humanity. Result: 8. “Dangerous Ideas”: Ethics and Risks 8. “Dangerous Ideas”: Ethics and Risks We must state this plainly: this technology is a double-edged sword. Topological profiling is irreversible. A face cannot be changed like a password. Risk: Amplification of bias. If a model was trained on police databases, it will find a correlation “facial features ↔ criminality” where there is none, and amplify it.Risk: New Eugenics. Attempts to create a “table of ideal citizens.” Risk: Amplification of bias. If a model was trained on police databases, it will find a correlation “facial features ↔ criminality” where there is none, and amplify it. Risk: Risk: New Eugenics. Attempts to create a “table of ideal citizens.” Risk: Necessary Protection Measures: Necessary Protection Measures: Differential Privacy: Adding noise to landmarks before processing.Morphological GDPR: A person’s right to know their vector in the topological field and demand its removal.Open Source: Such tools cannot be the property of a single corporation. Differential Privacy: Adding noise to landmarks before processing. Differential Privacy: Morphological GDPR: A person’s right to know their vector in the topological field and demand its removal. Morphological GDPR: Open Source: Such tools cannot be the property of a single corporation. Open Source: 9. Roadmap 2026–2030 9. Roadmap 2026–2030 2026 Meta releases ImageBind-2 + V-JEPA 3 with an open 100B-parameter super-embedding of 12+ modalities in one super-latent.2027 OpenAI / xAI / Anthropic add a geometric-GNN module to their flagships (Grok-5, GPT-5.5, Claude 4) under the guise of “world modeling.” LLMs cease to be token-based.2028 The first open-source “Topological Decoder” appears with 30B parameters and cross-modal prediction capabilities. (Most likely DeepSeek or Mistral).2029 OS Integration. iOS and Android begin indexing your life (photos, voice, gait) into a single unified local space.2030 The first ASI prototype that solves ARC-AGI and physical tasks not with text, but by “journeying through the topological field of forms.” 2026 Meta releases ImageBind-2 + V-JEPA 3 with an open 100B-parameter super-embedding of 12+ modalities in one super-latent. 2026 2027 OpenAI / xAI / Anthropic add a geometric-GNN module to their flagships (Grok-5, GPT-5.5, Claude 4) under the guise of “world modeling.” LLMs cease to be token-based. 2027 2028 The first open-source “Topological Decoder” appears with 30B parameters and cross-modal prediction capabilities. (Most likely DeepSeek or Mistral). 2028 2029 OS Integration. iOS and Android begin indexing your life (photos, voice, gait) into a single unified local space. 2029 2030 The first ASI prototype that solves ARC-AGI and physical tasks not with text, but by “journeying through the topological field of forms.” 2030 10. Conclusion: Hermes Trismegistus in Silicon Valley 10. Conclusion: Hermes Trismegistus in Silicon Valley The ancient principle “As above, so below” takes on a literal meaning in neural network architecture and becomes code. The fractal nature of the world means that the laws forming a human face are identical to the laws forming the structure of language or social processes. “As above, so below” We stand on the threshold of creating an Ontological Decoder of Reality. This is a system that sees neither pixels nor tokens, but connections. ALMS is not just an algorithm for sorting faces. It is a prototype of the logic for future intelligence, for whom the entire world is a single, breathing form waiting to be read. Ontological Decoder of Reality connections To create true Reason, we need to stop teaching machines to read. It is time to teach them to see form. see form

This story contains AI-generated text. The author has used AI either for research, to generate outlines, or write the text itself. 

Trace

Sora

The Topology of Meaning: Towards a "Unified Field Theory" for Artificial Intelligence

About Author

Comments

TOPICS

THIS ARTICLE WAS FEATURED IN

Related Stories

AI — The Great Equalizer: Why the Future Belongs to Human-Machine Synergy

The Noonification: Privacy vs. Convenience (10/26/2023)

The Noonification: Oh AGI, Can You Feel Me? (3/29/2023)

A Close-Up Look at Artificial General Intelligence and Its Mechanisms

A Petabyte-Scale Vector Store for the Future of AGI

A Pivotal Moment in AI : Leaders Rally for a Natural AI Initiative

AI — The Great Equalizer: Why the Future Belongs to Human-Machine Synergy

The Noonification: Privacy vs. Convenience (10/26/2023)

The Noonification: Oh AGI, Can You Feel Me? (3/29/2023)

A Close-Up Look at Artificial General Intelligence and Its Mechanisms

A Petabyte-Scale Vector Store for the Future of AGI

A Pivotal Moment in AI : Leaders Rally for a Natural AI Initiative

Light-Mode

Classic

Newspaper

Minty

Dark-Mode

Neon Noir

Minty

HN StartUps