To Use AI as Dice of Possibilities with Timing Computation
Pith reviewed 2026-05-09 18:57 UTC · model grok-4.3
The pith
A verb-based paradigm with timing computation lets AI discover patient trajectories and deduce counterfactual timings purely from data.
A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.
Core claim
The paper claims that replacing noun-based modeling with a verb-based paradigm, together with explicit definitions of timing computation and possibility, enables AI to treat the future as an open temporal space. When applied to longitudinal EHR data from 3,276 breast cancer patients, this framework produces automatic discovery of clinically significant patient trajectories and counterfactual timing deductions, all in a purely data-driven manner that requires no prior domain knowledge.
What carries the argument
The verb-based paradigm equipped with timing computation and a formal definition of possibility, which shifts AI from static object descriptions to dynamic action sequences that carry temporal structure.
If this is right
- Longitudinal health records can yield meaningful patient pathways without expert annotation.
- Counterfactual timing deductions become feasible directly from observed sequences.
- The same data-driven process could apply to any other longitudinal dataset for trajectory analysis.
- AI systems could model future possibilities more explicitly by treating verbs and their timings as primary elements.
Where Pith is reading between the lines
- The approach might reduce dependence on labeled training data in other sequential domains such as finance or logistics.
- Extending the timing definitions to non-medical time series could test whether the paradigm generalizes beyond healthcare.
- If the verb-based structure holds, it would imply that many current AI limitations stem from representational choices rather than data volume.
Load-bearing premise
That the verb-based paradigm and timing computation produce clinically significant trajectories and counterfactuals from raw data without any hidden domain knowledge or post-hoc adjustments.
What would settle it
Running the same method on the 3,276 breast cancer EHR records and finding that the discovered trajectories lack clinical significance or that the process implicitly relies on domain knowledge would falsify the central claim.
Figures
read the original abstract
The dominant noun-based modeling paradigm has fundamentally constrained AI development, precluding any adequate representation of the future as an open temporal dimension. This paper introduces a verb-based paradigm, together with precise definitions of \emph{timing computation} and \emph{possibility}, that enables AI to function as an effective instrument for realizing the grammar of our thought. Applied to longitudinal EHR data from 3,276 breast cancer patients, the framework empirically demonstrates: (1) automatic discovery of clinically significant patient trajectories, and (2) counterfactual timing deduction. Both results are purely data-driven, require no prior domain knowledge, and, to our knowledge, represent the first such demonstrations in the machine learning literature.
Editorial analysis
A structured set of objections, weighed in public.
Referee Report
Summary. The paper introduces a verb-based paradigm for AI modeling, along with definitions of timing computation and possibility, to represent the future as an open temporal dimension. Applied to longitudinal EHR data from 3,276 breast cancer patients, it claims to empirically demonstrate (1) automatic discovery of clinically significant patient trajectories and (2) counterfactual timing deduction, with both results being purely data-driven, requiring no prior domain knowledge, and representing the first such demonstrations in the ML literature.
Significance. If the methods and formal definitions can be provided and validated, the work could introduce a novel paradigm shift in temporal reasoning for AI, with implications for dynamic modeling in healthcare analytics. The purely data-driven claim for trajectory discovery and counterfactuals, if substantiated without embedded knowledge, would be noteworthy for its potential to reduce reliance on curated features in EHR analysis.
major comments (3)
- [Abstract] Abstract: The abstract asserts empirical results on 3,276 patients demonstrating automatic discovery of clinically significant trajectories and counterfactual timing deduction, but supplies no methods, validation details, error bars, baselines, or statistical tests. This prevents verification of the claims against the data.
- [Framework description] Framework description (verb-based paradigm, timing computation, and possibility): The central results are described as purely data-driven, yet they rest on newly introduced definitions whose precise form, equations, or algorithms are not shown. Without these, it is impossible to assess whether the definitions of timing computation and possibility embed the desired outcomes by construction, as is common in custom temporal formalisms.
- [Empirical demonstration] Empirical demonstration section: No algorithm for trajectory extraction from raw EHR events, no procedure for counterfactual deduction, and no mapping from events to 'possibility' or 'timing' are provided. Labeling trajectories as 'clinically significant' without explicit clinical features or post-hoc interpretation typically requires domain knowledge; the absence of this concrete mapping undermines the no-prior-domain-knowledge claim.
minor comments (2)
- The manuscript would benefit from pseudocode, formal mathematical definitions, or a reproducibility appendix for the key components to allow independent verification.
- Consider adding references and comparisons to existing literature on temporal data mining, patient trajectory modeling in EHR, and counterfactual reasoning in ML to contextualize the novelty claim.
Simulated Author's Rebuttal
We thank the referee for the constructive comments and the recognition of the potential significance of the verb-based paradigm. We agree that the current manuscript version requires expanded detail on the formal definitions, algorithms, and empirical procedures to enable verification. We will revise accordingly and address each point below.
read point-by-point responses
-
Referee: [Abstract] Abstract: The abstract asserts empirical results on 3,276 patients demonstrating automatic discovery of clinically significant trajectories and counterfactual timing deduction, but supplies no methods, validation details, error bars, baselines, or statistical tests. This prevents verification of the claims against the data.
Authors: We acknowledge that the abstract, due to length limits, omits methodological specifics and statistical information. In the revised manuscript we will augment the abstract with a brief outline of the timing computation approach, the validation strategy, and references to the statistical tests, baselines, and any error measures reported in the main text. revision: yes
-
Referee: [Framework description] Framework description (verb-based paradigm, timing computation, and possibility): The central results are described as purely data-driven, yet they rest on newly introduced definitions whose precise form, equations, or algorithms are not shown. Without these, it is impossible to assess whether the definitions of timing computation and possibility embed the desired outcomes by construction, as is common in custom temporal formalisms.
Authors: The initial submission presented the definitions at a conceptual level. We will revise the framework section to supply the explicit mathematical formulations and algorithmic descriptions of timing computation and possibility. These additions will make clear that the definitions provide a general mechanism applied to data rather than presupposing specific trajectories or counterfactuals. revision: yes
-
Referee: [Empirical demonstration] Empirical demonstration section: No algorithm for trajectory extraction from raw EHR events, no procedure for counterfactual deduction, and no mapping from events to 'possibility' or 'timing' are provided. Labeling trajectories as 'clinically significant' without explicit clinical features or post-hoc interpretation typically requires domain knowledge; the absence of this concrete mapping undermines the no-prior-domain-knowledge claim.
Authors: We will add a dedicated subsection detailing the algorithm that extracts trajectories by applying timing computation directly to raw event sequences. The counterfactual deduction procedure and the event-to-possibility/timing mapping will be specified step by step. Clinical significance will be justified through purely data-driven criteria (e.g., recurrence patterns and outcome correlations observable in the 3,276-patient cohort) without the use of external clinical features or prior knowledge during discovery; any post-hoc interpretation will be clearly separated from the automated process. revision: yes
Circularity Check
No circularity identified; derivation chain not exhibited in accessible text.
full rationale
The paper introduces a verb-based paradigm along with definitions of timing computation and possibility, then reports empirical results on EHR data as purely data-driven and free of prior domain knowledge. No specific equations, algorithms, or derivation steps are quoted in the abstract or referenced full-text placeholder that would allow inspection for self-definition, fitted-input prediction, or reduction of outputs to inputs by construction. The central claims therefore remain self-contained assertions without any load-bearing step that reduces to its own inputs.
Axiom & Free-Parameter Ledger
axioms (1)
- domain assumption A verb-based paradigm with precise definitions of timing computation and possibility enables AI to represent the future as an open temporal dimension.
invented entities (3)
-
verb-based paradigm
no independent evidence
-
timing computation
no independent evidence
-
possibility
no independent evidence
Reference graph
Works this paper leans on
-
[1]
Capture Timing-Attention of Events in Clinical Time Series , author=. 2026 , eprint=
work page 2026
-
[2]
Communications of the ACM , volume=
The seven tools of causal inference, with reflections on machine learning , author=. Communications of the ACM , volume=. 2019 , publisher=
work page 2019
-
[3]
A comparison of machine learning methods for survival analysis of high-dimensional clinical data for dementia prediction , author=. Scientific reports , volume=. 2020 , publisher=
work page 2020
-
[4]
Survtrace: Transformers for survival analysis with competing events , author=. Proceedings of the 13th ACM international conference on bioinformatics, computational biology and health informatics , pages=
-
[5]
Proceedings of the AAAI conference on artificial intelligence , volume=
Deephit: A deep learning approach to survival analysis with competing risks , author=. Proceedings of the AAAI conference on artificial intelligence , volume=
-
[6]
BMC medical research methodology , volume=
DeepSurv: personalized treatment recommender system using a Cox proportional hazards deep neural network , author=. BMC medical research methodology , volume=. 2018 , publisher=
work page 2018
-
[7]
International conference on machine learning , pages=
Causal transformer for estimating counterfactual outcomes , author=. International conference on machine learning , pages=. 2022 , organization=
work page 2022
-
[8]
Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence , volume=
InferBERT: a transformer-based causal inference framework for enhancing pharmacovigilance , author=. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence , volume=. 2021 , publisher=
work page 2021
-
[9]
arXiv preprint arXiv:2210.15417 , year=
Dynamic survival transformers for causal inference with electronic health records , author=. arXiv preprint arXiv:2210.15417 , year=
-
[10]
Time2Vec: Learning a Vector Representation of Time
Time2vec: Learning a vector representation of time , author=. arXiv preprint arXiv:1907.05321 , year=
work page Pith review arXiv 1907
-
[11]
Statistics in medicine , volume=
Evaluation of the bias in using the time to the first event when the inter-event intervals have a Weibull distribution , author=. Statistics in medicine , volume=. 1999 , publisher=
work page 1999
-
[12]
ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR) , volume=
Machine learning for survival analysis: A survey , author=. ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR) , volume=. 2019 , publisher=
work page 2019
-
[13]
International journal of mathematics and mathematical sciences , volume=
Handling censoring and censored data in survival analysis: a standalone systematic literature review , author=. International journal of mathematics and mathematical sciences , volume=. 2021 , publisher=
work page 2021
-
[14]
European Journal for Philosophy of Science , volume=
Individualisation and individualised science across disciplinary perspectives , author=. European Journal for Philosophy of Science , volume=. 2024 , publisher=
work page 2024
-
[15]
BMC medical research methodology , volume=
Application of machine learning in predicting survival outcomes involving real-world data: a scoping review , author=. BMC medical research methodology , volume=. 2023 , publisher=
work page 2023
-
[16]
Statistical Analysis and Data Mining: The ASA Data Science Journal , volume=
Survival analysis with electronic health record data: Experiments with chronic kidney disease , author=. Statistical Analysis and Data Mining: The ASA Data Science Journal , volume=. 2014 , publisher=
work page 2014
-
[17]
Operations Research for Health Care , volume=
Comparing Markov and non-Markov alternatives for cost-effectiveness analysis: Insights from a cervical cancer case , author=. Operations Research for Health Care , volume=. 2019 , publisher=
work page 2019
-
[18]
A Multi-state Non-Markov Framework to Estimate Course of Chronic Disease Progression , author=. medRxiv , pages=. 2024 , publisher=
work page 2024
-
[19]
arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.12640 , year=
Limited resource allocation in a non-Markovian world: the case of maternal and child healthcare , author=. arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.12640 , year=
- [20]
-
[21]
LSTM and GRU neural networks as models of dynamical processes used in predictive control: A comparison of models developed for two chemical reactors , author=. Sensors , volume=. 2021 , publisher=
work page 2021
-
[22]
Lstm and gru neural network performance comparison study: Taking yelp review dataset as an example , author=. 2020 International workshop on electronic communication and artificial intelligence (IWECAI) , pages=. 2020 , organization=
work page 2020
-
[23]
Journal of biomedical informatics , volume=
Deep learning for temporal data representation in electronic health records: A systematic review of challenges and methodologies , author=. Journal of biomedical informatics , volume=. 2022 , publisher=
work page 2022
-
[24]
Journal of biomedical informatics , volume=
Learning from heterogeneous temporal data in electronic health records , author=. Journal of biomedical informatics , volume=. 2017 , publisher=
work page 2017
-
[25]
IEEE journal of biomedical and health informatics , volume=
Deep EHR: a survey of recent advances in deep learning techniques for electronic health record (EHR) analysis , author=. IEEE journal of biomedical and health informatics , volume=. 2017 , publisher=
work page 2017
-
[26]
Healthcare informatics research , volume=
Detailed clinical models: representing knowledge, data and semantics in healthcare information technology , author=. Healthcare informatics research , volume=. 2014 , publisher=
work page 2014
-
[27]
Computer methods and programs in biomedicine , volume=
Temporal data representation, normalization, extraction, and reasoning: A review from clinical domain , author=. Computer methods and programs in biomedicine , volume=. 2016 , publisher=
work page 2016
-
[28]
Moving beyond medical statistics: A systematic review on missing data handling in electronic health records , author=. Health Data Science , volume=. 2024 , publisher=
work page 2024
- [29]
- [30]
-
[31]
Emergence and causality in complex systems: a survey of causal emergence and related quantitative studies , author=. Entropy , volume=. 2024 , publisher=
work page 2024
-
[32]
Complexity science: the study of emergence , author=. 2022 , publisher=
work page 2022
-
[33]
Journal of biomedical informatics , volume=
A practical perspective on the concordance index for the evaluation and selection of prognostic time-to-event models , author=. Journal of biomedical informatics , volume=. 2020 , publisher=
work page 2020
-
[34]
Korean Journal of Radiology , volume=
Review of statistical methods for evaluating the performance of survival or other time-to-event prediction models (from conventional to deep learning approaches) , author=. Korean Journal of Radiology , volume=
-
[35]
The c-index is not proper for the evaluation of-year predicted risks , author=. Biostatistics , volume=. 2019 , publisher=
work page 2019
-
[36]
British journal of cancer , volume=
Survival analysis part I: basic concepts and first analyses , author=. British journal of cancer , volume=. 2003 , publisher=
work page 2003
-
[37]
Cardiovascular disease and breast cancer: where these entities intersect: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association , author=. Circulation , volume=. 2018 , publisher=
work page 2018
-
[38]
Pitt, David , title =. The. 2022 , edition =
work page 2022
-
[39]
Scaling Learning Algorithms Towards
Bengio, Yoshua and LeCun, Yann , booktitle =. Scaling Learning Algorithms Towards
-
[40]
Causality: Objectives and Assessment , pages=
Distinguishing causes from effects using nonlinear acyclic causal models , author=. Causality: Objectives and Assessment , pages=. 2010 , organization=
work page 2010
-
[41]
NPJ digital medicine , volume=
Deep representation learning of electronic health records to unlock patient stratification at scale , author=. NPJ digital medicine , volume=. 2020 , publisher=
work page 2020
-
[42]
SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization , volume=
The remarkable effectiveness of time-dependent damping terms for second order evolution equations , author=. SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization , volume=. 2016 , publisher=
work page 2016
-
[43]
Ordinary Differential Equations/Motion with a Damping Force , year =
- [44]
-
[45]
Can recurrent neural networks warp time?
Can recurrent neural networks warp time? , author=. arXiv preprint arXiv:1804.11188 , year=
-
[46]
Statistical analysis with missing data , author=. 2019 , publisher=
work page 2019
-
[47]
Mathematical and Scientific Machine Learning , pages=
Gating creates slow modes and controls phase-space complexity in grus and lstms , author=. Mathematical and Scientific Machine Learning , pages=. 2020 , organization=
work page 2020
-
[48]
Empirical Evaluation of Gated Recurrent Neural Networks on Sequence Modeling
Empirical evaluation of gated recurrent neural networks on sequence modeling , author=. arXiv preprint arXiv:1412.3555 , year=
work page internal anchor Pith review arXiv
-
[49]
Recurrent neural networks for multivariate time series with missing values , author=. Scientific reports , volume=. 2018 , publisher=
work page 2018
-
[50]
Risk prediction of heart diseases in patients with breast cancer: A deep learning approach with longitudinal electronic health records data , author=. Iscience , volume=. 2024 , publisher=
work page 2024
-
[51]
Causal emergence: When distortions in a map obscure the territory , author=. Philosophies , volume=. 2022 , publisher=
work page 2022
-
[52]
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , volume=
Quantifying causal emergence shows that macro can beat micro , author=. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , volume=. 2013 , publisher=
work page 2013
-
[53]
When the map is better than the territory , author=. Entropy , volume=. 2017 , publisher=
work page 2017
-
[54]
Measuring information integration , author=. BMC neuroscience , volume=. 2003 , publisher=
work page 2003
-
[55]
Causality, feedback and directed information , author=. Proc. Int. Symp. Inf. Theory Applic.(ISITA-90) , pages=
-
[56]
Physical review letters , volume=
Measuring information transfer , author=. Physical review letters , volume=. 2000 , publisher=
work page 2000
-
[57]
Learning representations by back-propagating errors , author=. nature , volume=. 1986 , publisher=
work page 1986
- [58]
-
[59]
XXXII: Laplace, Fisher, and the discovery of the concept of sufficiency , author=
Studies in the history of probability and statistics. XXXII: Laplace, Fisher, and the discovery of the concept of sufficiency , author=. Biometrika , volume=. 1973 , publisher=
work page 1973
-
[60]
Human-like systematic generalization through a meta-learning neural network , author=. Nature , pages=. 2023 , publisher=
work page 2023
-
[61]
IEEE transactions on pattern analysis and machine intelligence , volume=
Meta-learning in neural networks: A survey , author=. IEEE transactions on pattern analysis and machine intelligence , volume=. 2021 , publisher=
work page 2021
- [62]
-
[63]
The next decade in AI: four steps towards robust artificial intelligence , author=. arXiv preprint arXiv:2002.06177 , year=
-
[64]
Are emergent abilities of large language models a mirage?arXiv preprint arXiv:2304.15004, 2023
Are emergent abilities of Large Language Models a mirage? , author=. arXiv preprint arXiv:2304.15004 , year=
-
[65]
ACM Turing award lectures , pages=
Computer science as empirical inquiry: Symbols and search , author=. ACM Turing award lectures , pages=
-
[66]
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A , volume=
Symbols and grounding in large language models , author=. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A , volume=. 2023 , publisher=
work page 2023
-
[67]
Journal of Mathematical Psychology , volume=
A tutorial on Fisher information , author=. Journal of Mathematical Psychology , volume=. 2017 , publisher=
work page 2017
-
[68]
Confounding and collapsibility in causal inference , author=. Statistical science , volume=. 1999 , publisher=
work page 1999
-
[69]
Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application , volume=
Granger causality: A review and recent advances , author=. Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application , volume=. 2022 , publisher=
work page 2022
-
[70]
and Osindero, Simon and Teh, Yee Whye , journal =
Hinton, Geoffrey E. and Osindero, Simon and Teh, Yee Whye , journal =. A Fast Learning Algorithm for Deep Belief Nets , volume =
-
[71]
Modelling non-linear economic relationships , author=. OUP Catalogue , year=
-
[72]
Journal of motor behavior , volume=
Reducing knowledge of results about relative versus absolute timing: Differential effects on learning , author=. Journal of motor behavior , volume=. 1994 , publisher=
work page 1994
-
[73]
Journal of motor behavior , volume=
Effects of an auditory model on the learning of relative and absolute timing , author=. Journal of motor behavior , volume=. 2001 , publisher=
work page 2001
-
[74]
Understanding timelines: Conceptual metaphor and conceptual integration , author=. Cognitive Semiotics , volume=. 2009 , publisher=
work page 2009
-
[75]
Artificial Intelligence , volume=
A survey of inverse reinforcement learning: Challenges, methods and progress , author=. Artificial Intelligence , volume=. 2021 , publisher=
work page 2021
- [76]
-
[77]
The book of why: the new science of cause and effect , author=. 2018 , publisher=
work page 2018
-
[78]
A survey on trajectory data mining: Techniques and applications , author=. IEEE Access , volume=. 2016 , publisher=
work page 2016
-
[79]
Australian journal of ecology , volume=
Partitioning the variation among spatial, temporal and environmental components in a multivariate data set , author=. Australian journal of ecology , volume=. 1998 , publisher=
work page 1998
-
[80]
Knowledge and information systems , volume=
A survey of methods for time series change point detection , author=. Knowledge and information systems , volume=. 2017 , publisher=
work page 2017
discussion (0)
Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.