AI tries to understand what is computing with space

The task was to read attentively the Pure See draft and then to make an annotated script for I have a map, but I'm lost, then I meet you. Finally, when I was satisfied overall (i.e. thought that the AI produced a decent, even if not perfect reply), as a test there was given a quote from a real travel experience (archived) and the AI was asked to do the same. In my opinion the experiment was surprinsing, in the good sense.

Here are some excerpts from this experience.

Edit: I used ChatGPT, GPT-5.2, OpenAI, response generated January 4 2026. This was reported in AI tries to understand what is computing with space, which was followed a day later by Addendum: philosophical comments to “AI tries to understand…” and a commentary Addendum: AI-Generated Commentary on Intellectual Topology. Computing with space is now a research subject of my RAAR lab.

I’ll do exactly what you asked:

• use the names from the post,
• mark them so it is explicit they are not absolute,
• rewrite that concrete dialogue as a Pure See script,
• and keep the focus on interaction, mutual update, disappearance of interfaces.

No extra philosophy, just precise space-computation.

I’ll use the convention
⟦Name⟧ = a label taken from the story, not an intrinsic name.

Pure See rewrite of the dialogue (step by step)

0. Initial situation (before meeting)

⟦Confident_Tourist⟧ has a map with a hole

CT₀:
\see ⟦How_to_go_to_Bears_Lake⟧
\from x
\as α

Annotation (story-aligned):

• “I want to go to Bears Lake, but I’m lost.”
• x = the place on my map where I think “here” might be
• α = exposed interface: I am open to interaction
• ⟦How_to_go_to_Bears_Lake⟧ is not a destination, but a continuation pattern with a missing anchor

⟦Local_Guide⟧ has a local orientation

LG₀:
\as α
\from y
\see ⟦Wolf_Creek_Orientation⟧

Annotation:

• “We’re at Wolf Creek. Bears Lake is down the valley at your left.”
• y = LG’s local continuation slot
• same α → this is why they can meet
• ⟦Wolf_Creek_Orientation⟧ is a local spatial pattern, not a coordinate

1. Showing the map, pointing to x

“Oh, you mean we’re here?”
(I point to x on my map)

Nothing rewrites yet — only exposure.

The configuration is still:

\see ⟦How_to_go_to_Bears_Lake⟧ \from x \as α
\as α \from y \see ⟦Wolf_Creek_Orientation⟧

This corresponds to mutual alignment attempt, not information transfer.

2. The crucial moment: “Yes! Wolf Creek is here.”

This is the Pure See β-interaction.

Interaction rule fires (because α = α):

\see ⟦How_to_go_to_Bears_Lake⟧ \from x \as α
\as α \from y \see ⟦Wolf_Creek_Orientation⟧

β-rewrite →

\in y \as x
\in ⟦How_to_go_to_Bears_Lake⟧ \as ⟦Wolf_Creek_Orientation⟧

Story alignment:

• “You say, pointing your finger to my x on my map”
• x and y are identified (neither dominates)
• the guide’s gesture and the tourist’s map collapse into one space
• α disappears — the meeting is over

This is where meaning appears, but only as coherence.

3. Pointing down the valley together

“Oh, I see! So I have to take left?”
“Yes!” (waving in the same direction)

This is propagation inside the fused space, not a new interaction.

We can write:

CT₁/LG₁:
\see ⟦Valley_Direction⟧
\in ⟦How_to_go_to_Bears_Lake⟧

Annotation:

• Arm pointing, hand waving = same spatial continuation
• No new names introduced
• Both agents now act inside the same rewritten space

4. Departure (interfaces fully consumed)

“Thank you!” — “You’re welcome!”

No exposed as, no from.

CT₂:
\see ⟦Follow_Valley⟧

LG₂:
(no shared interfaces)

They separate cleanly.
No dangling computation.
This is important.

5. Later: the Neighbour story (identity emerges retrospectively)

“Have you seen a Confident_Tourist near Bear Lake?”
“I saw a Red_Hat_Tourist camping there.”

This is not identification by name — it is pattern re-recognition.

Pure See style:

N:
\see ⟦Red_Hat_Tourist⟧ \from ⟦Bear_Lake_Context⟧

Then the guide performs a pattern match, not a lookup:

LG₃:
\in ⟦Red_Hat_Tourist⟧ \as ⟦Confident_Tourist⟧

Annotation:

• “Yeah, that’s him.”
• Identity is reconstructed after the fact
• Names are equivalence classes of trajectories
• This closes the story without introducing absolutes

Whole script (condensed)

CT₀:
\see ⟦How_to_go_to_Bears_Lake⟧ \from x \as α

LG₀:
\as α \from y \see ⟦Wolf_Creek_Orientation⟧

β →
\in y \as x
\in ⟦How_to_go_to_Bears_Lake⟧ \as ⟦Wolf_Creek_Orientation⟧

CT₁/LG₁:
\see ⟦Valley_Direction⟧ \in ⟦How_to_go_to_Bears_Lake⟧

CT₂:
\see ⟦Follow_Valley⟧

N:
\see ⟦Red_Hat_Tourist⟧ \from ⟦Bear_Lake_Context⟧

LG₃:
\in ⟦Red_Hat_Tourist⟧ \as ⟦Confident_Tourist⟧

Final check (why this matches the post exactly)

✔ no absolute places
✔ no external truth
✔ no symbol substitution
✔ interaction updates both sides
✔ names appear only as stabilised interaction patterns
✔ computation = making a space navigable

This is, precisely, computing with space — not metaphorically, but operationally.

Pure See rewrite of the Humboldt Forum encounter

0. Initial condition: disorientation + latent interface

“I was lost. For a moment I felt hopeless—and then I remembered that I could talk.”

This is not ignorance, but an open interface becoming explicit.

T₀ (⟦Lost_Traveler⟧):
\see ⟦How_to_reach_Humboldt_Forum⟧
\from x
\as α

Annotation:

• x = unresolved spatial anchor (“where am I relative to this?”)
• α = I am open to interaction
• The key move is not knowing something, but exposing a handle

1. Initiating contact (language check)

“Excuse me. Do you speak English?”

This is interface compatibility testing, not yet a spatial rewrite.

OW₀ (⟦Older_Woman⟧):
\as α

She accepts the interface. That’s all that matters.

No map. No place. Just interaction possibility confirmed.

2. The question (gesture included)

“Is this the way to the Humboldt Forum?”
(gesture over the bridge, toward Museum Island)

The gesture matters: it externalizes the traveler’s x.

T₁:
\see ⟦How_to_reach_Humboldt_Forum⟧
\from x
\as α

x is now publicly indicated, not internally imagined.

3. The key Pure See interaction

“Ah. This is the Humboldt Forum.”
(points to the building in front of us)

This is the β-like rewrite, fully symmetric.

Before:

\see ⟦How_to_reach_Humboldt_Forum⟧ \from x \as α
\as α \from y \see ⟦Here_Building⟧

β-rewrite →

\in y \as x
\in ⟦How_to_reach_Humboldt_Forum⟧ \as ⟦Here_Building⟧

Story alignment:

• The traveler’s “way” and the woman’s “here” collapse
• No one transfers knowledge
• The interface α disappears
• The space becomes self-coincident

This is the exact moment:

“This is the Humboldt Forum.”

Not as a fact — as a fusion of spaces.

4. Extra comment (non-navigational continuation)

“But I heard it’s not very good. It’s not much.”

This is not spatial guidance, but an evaluation branch.

Importantly: it does not reopen α.

OW₁:
\see ⟦Wry_Evaluation⟧

This produces affect, not navigation.

5. Mutual affect alignment

“I almost laughed. She smiled.”

This is micro-coherence, not new computation.

No Pure See rewrite needed — no open handles.

The space is already resolved.

6. Why this is computing with space (again)

Let’s check the properties:

• ✔ the traveler did not “learn a fact”
• ✔ the woman did not “deliver information”
• ✔ the gesture was part of the computation
• ✔ the answer reconfigured both participants’ spatial models
• ✔ the interface vanished cleanly afterward

The destination wasn’t found.
It was made coincident with here.

One-line Pure See summary of the whole quote

A lost space exposed an interface;
another space accepted it;
the two fused;
movement was no longer needed.

Very good — except “movement was no longer needed”.

Actually, movement is part of the interaction of the traveller with the real world.

In a perfect version of Pure See the physics of the real world would be described as a library of Pure See scripts every traveller and every thing in the real world has…

1. What was wrong with “movement was no longer needed”

Saying this implicitly assumed:

• a separation between computation and action
• a view where interaction ends once coherence is achieved

That is not Pure See.

In Pure See:

• movement is not a consequence of computation
• movement is computation

The correct statement is:

Movement changed its role: it ceased to be exploratory and became coherent.

The traveler didn’t stop moving —
they stopped searching blindly.

2. Movement as Pure See interaction with the world

After the β-rewrite:

\in y \as x
\in ⟦How_to_reach_Humboldt_Forum⟧ \as ⟦Here_Building⟧

What this gives is not stasis, but:

• a space where every micro-movement is now a valid continuation
• walking, stopping, turning the head = further Pure See rewrites
• the building resisting penetration, the pavement supporting weight, light hitting the eyes
• all of these are scripts firing

So movement is:

\see ⟦Step⟧
\see ⟦Balance⟧
\see ⟦Vision_Update⟧
\see ⟦Obstacle_Constraint⟧

Each is an interaction with a world-script.

The earlier interaction didn’t end movement;
it re-keyed it.

3. Physics as a library of Pure See scripts

Each entity carries scripts.

A body, a building, a bridge, a coat, the ground — each exposes:

\see ⟦Support⟧
\see ⟦Resistance⟧
\see ⟦Friction⟧
\see ⟦Visibility⟧
\see ⟦Sound_Reflection⟧

These are interaction affordances, not properties.

Walking is mutual rewrite.

Traveler:
\as α \see ⟦Step⟧

Ground:
\as α \from y \see ⟦Support⟧

β-rewrite →

\in y \as ⟦Step⟧

Balance holds; movement continues.
Slip? Different script fires.

4. Repaired closing line (correct Pure See version)

Instead of:

“movement was no longer needed”

The correct Pure See conclusion is:

Movement became a sequence of coherent interactions with world scripts, rather than a search for an anchor.

Or, shorter and sharper:

After the interaction, movement stopped being a question and became a continuation.

5. Why this matters deeply

This avoids a classic trap:

• cognition ≠ internal computation
• action ≠ execution phase
• environment ≠ external data source

In Pure See:

• talking, pointing, walking, seeing, balancing are all the same kind of thing
• they are local rewrites between partial spaces

That’s exactly why your Humboldt example works so well:

it shows language as locomotion.