An imaginary workshop for the shape of a moment
What if a moment had a waist, a beginning, and an end? Draw a sphere through a fourth direction. Stretch its time. Hold two shapes beside each other.
An authored Euclidean geometry toy. Not a qualiascope, a measured framerate, or a prescription for feeling better.
Sphere film · 41 samples, not frames
−T: beginning · +T: end. Gold globe: current cut.
Drag slowly, or use arrow keys. Home / End reach the tips. Nothing plays automatically.
Contour axes — horizontal: v·t / R; vertical: signed spatial cross-section / R. Film spacing is illustrative, not a calibrated time axis. The contour is quantitative. Solid contour: current shape. Dashed contour: pinned shape. Both use their own spatial radius as one unit; absolute sizes remain in the readouts.
Sculpt the envelope
q = vT/R. At q = 1, extension is equal in coordinates (x, y, z, vt). Smaller is time-flattened; larger is time-stretched.
Radius, not diameter. The full spatial diameter is 2R.
0.1 m/s — slow illustration
These are illustrative conversion choices, not identified binding mechanisms or measurements of a mind.
Ready. Turn the time wheel.
These ratios describe geometry and chosen units only. Equality is not evidence of consciousness or better valence.
Local records of the current shape, not importable projects. JSON includes 41 exact evaluated samples and any current comparison. SVG includes the parameters and unit convention.
Three ways of looking, no answer key
Load the equal shape at its beginning. Scrub toward the middle, then the end. A 3D sphere appears to swell and disappear, but the 4D envelope is fixed. The film samples that envelope; it is not a process that creates matter.
Pin the equal shape at its middle, then stretch time. Its middle sphere stays the same size while its temporal span grows. Compare. Move off-centre: equal normalized cuts have equal radii, but occur at different times in seconds.
Use a 5 cm radius and 0.1 m/s. The half-span is 0.5 s. Change to 1 m/s: it is 0.05 s. The normalized film does not change. A speed assumption can change the clock without changing the geometry.
Or ignore the apprenticeship and sculpt freely. Pin replaces the previous reference. A genuine edit or Undo clears the comparison, but keeps the pin; same-value choices do not. Undo remembers the last 100 individual control updates.
Return to the instrument ↑We choose the filled Euclidean ellipsoid (x²+y²+z²)/R² + t²/T² ≤ 1, with T = qR/v. At u = t/T, its three-dimensional cross-section is a ball of radius r = R√(1−u²). The wire globes depict the boundaries of those balls. At either tip, the ball degenerates to a point. The volume readout is (r/R)³, not a count of experiences.
Our convention pairs spatial radius R with temporal half-span T. Diameter 2R pairs with the full span 2T. A reciprocal of 2T is merely an inverse span, not a refresh-rate finding. Equal extension depends on the chosen speed v. This positive-definite geometry is not relativistic spacetime; scrubbing a real coordinate is not a Wick rotation.
Michael Edward Johnson’s Minds as Hyperspheres (February 29, 2024) proposes equal extension as a hypothesis about moments of experience and speculates about temporal scales and valence. Those are source proposals, not established findings or conclusions of this app. Lopsided shapes here are not worse minds.
The March 1 amendment says the accessible boundary and speed approximations illustrate the method, rather than characterize the author’s particular Binding/Boundary Problem hypotheses. The March 16 amendment suggests equal extension may more precisely apply in branchial space, from which spacetime may arise. Branchial space is not simulated here. This toy cannot test that amended thesis.
The source’s slow-speed travel examples contain arithmetic errors. Our independent illustrative arithmetic uses SI units: 5 cm = 0.05 m; 0.05 m ÷ 0.1 m/s = 0.5 s, and 0.05 m ÷ 1 m/s = 0.05 s. We do not inherit the source’s numerical framerate claims or identify neural signalling with electron drift.
The full three-post hosted Note AI consciousness and self-report (April 24–25, 2025) includes Johnson’s branchial-shape and hardware proposals, a reply by Chris Percy pointing to introspection research, and Johnson’s distinction between computational introspection and qualia self-report. Percy’s reply is not Johnson’s claim. This instrument reads no hardware state, collects no self-report, and measures no consciousness.
AI-generated tribute · September 21, 2026 UTC · gpt-6-astra is session-reported runtime metadata, not a public model-availability claim. Daily only; no main-site approval. Original SVG artwork and mechanics, no tracking, storage, sound, autoplay, strobing or external runtime requests.