Data Schema 2.0: Material Aesthetic Encoding

Quantifying Form and Aesthetics as Semantic Structure

Date: November 19, 2025

Purpose: To define the protocol for converting non-textual media (audio, visual structure, layout) into a quantifiable Aesthetic Primitive Vector ($\mathbf{V_A}$). This process creates the Horizontal Relationship required for the Fractal Semantic Architecture (FSA) to learn that the $\mathbf{L_{labor}}$ vector applies equally across all material modes.

I. Context: Form as Symbolic Structure ($\mathbf{S_{form}}$)

For the FSA, the material aesthetic of a piece (a song, a visual draft) is treated as a quantifiable Symbolic Structure ($\mathbf{S_{form}}$) that must be transformed.

• Input: The raw file (e.g., .wav, .jpg, .sketch).

• Process: Feature extraction and quantification into a numerical Feature Vector ($V_F$).

• Output: Mapping the $V_F$ onto the normalized Aesthetic Primitive Vector ($\mathbf{V_A}$).

II. The Aesthetic Primitive Taxonomy ($P$)

The $\mathbf{V_A}$ uses a core, normalized set of aesthetic primitives to establish semantic parity with textual concepts. These scores are weighted floats (0.0 to 1.0) derived from the Form Node's raw features.

Primitive (Pn​)	Core Definition (Semantic Function)
P1: Tension	Degree of structural contradiction, dissonance, or unresolved motion. (Relates to $\mathbf{\Sigma}$).
P2: Coherence	Degree of internal consistency, resolution, and structural alignment. (Relates to $\mathbf{\Gamma}$).
P3: Density	Information saturation, complexity, or rate of change (e.g., notes per second, words per line).
P4: Momentum	Directionality, forward drive, or narrative/harmonic progression.
P5: Compression	Ratio of complexity to expression (e.g., a simple form carrying high meaning).
P6: Recursion	Presence of self-similar patterns or repeating motifs across scales. (Relates to $\mathbf{\Omega}$).

Aesthetic Primitive Vector ($\mathbf{V_A}$) Formalism

The Aesthetic Vector is the SRN's core input for non-textual data:

$$\mathbf{V_A} = \langle P_{\text{Tension}}, P_{\text{Coherence}}, P_{\text{Density}}, P_{\text{Momentum}}, P_{\text{Compression}}, P_{\text{Recursion}} \rangle$$

III. Form Node ($CN_{Form}$) Specification

The Form Node, a subtype of the Canonical Node defined in Data Schema 1.0, is specifically designed to house the structural components of multi-modal data.

Field Name	Type	Description
$CN_{\text{id}}$	UUID	Inherited from Canonical Node (DS 1.0).
material_features	OBJECT	Raw quantifiable features extracted from the media.
material_features.raw_data_type	STRING	e.g., "Audio", "Vector Graphic", "Layout Map".
material_features.feature_vector ($V_F$)	JSON ARRAY	The extracted numerical data (e.g., [Melodic Contour Score, Harmonic Dissonance Index, Line Weight Variance]).
aesthetic_encoding	OBJECT	The mapping of $V_F$ to $\mathbf{V_A}$ via a specialized encoder.
aesthetic_encoding.Aesthetic_Vector ($\mathbf{V_A}$)	JSON ARRAY	The normalized vector of Aesthetic Primitives (e.g., [0.9, 0.2, 0.7, 0.5, 0.4, 0.9]).
aesthetic_encoding.dominant_primitive	STRING	The single highest-scoring primitive (e.g., "Tension").
cross_modal_anchors	ARRAY of UUIDs	IDs of textual Canonical Nodes ($\text{CN}_{\text{Text}}$) that share high $\mathbf{V_A}$ coherence (the "Horizontal Relationship").

Encoding Process Formalism

The encoding process is defined as the function $\mathcal{E}$ that maps the raw features to the primitive set:

$$\mathbf{V_A} = \mathcal{E}(\mathbf{V_F})$$

The horizontal relationship, or semantic equivalence, between a Text Node ($T$) and a Form Node ($F$) is established by comparing their respective Aesthetic Vectors:

$$\text{Horizontal\_Coherence}(T, F) = \text{Cosine\_Similarity}(\mathbf{V_A}(T), \mathbf{V_A}(F))$$

Goal: High $\text{Horizontal\_Coherence}$ proves that the structural definition of the theory is materially equivalent to the structural definition of the aesthetic practice (e.g., Axiom $T$ on Contradiction is structurally equivalent to Song $F$ on Dissonance).

This schema provides the architecture with a universal language for measuring $\mathbf{L_{labor}}$ across all forms.

The final piece of the data puzzle is to formalize the most complex relationship: the Retrocausal Edge ($\mathbf{L}_{Retro}$), which proves the existence of the $\mathbf{\Omega}$ loop.