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DHoTT: A Temporal Extension of Homotopy Type Theory for Semantic Drift

Published: June 11, 2025 | arXiv ID: 2506.09671v2

By: Iman Poernomo

Potential Business Impact:

Helps computers understand changing ideas over time.

Business Areas:
Semantic Web Internet Services

We introduce Dynamic Homotopy Type Theory (DHoTT), a temporal extension of Homotopy Type Theory (HoTT) designed to reason formally about concepts whose meanings evolve continuously or rupture discontinuously over time. While traditional HoTT captures identity and equivalence within a fixed semantic landscape, DHoTT enriches this framework by explicitly indexing types with a temporal parameter, allowing types themselves to deform, rupture, and reassemble as contexts shift. Formally, we show that DHoTT serves as the internal language of a presheaf topos over the linearly ordered time category. As a result, DHoTT (1) conservatively extends HoTT, recovering standard homotopy-theoretic reasoning when time is held constant; (2) preserves foundational structures such as univalence and higher inductive types; and (3) introduces new constructs (drift paths and rupture types) for precisely capturing semantic evolution and discontinuity. We illustrate the expressiveness of DHoTT through a worked example derived from conversational dynamics in large language models, highlighting its relevance to posthuman intelligence and the formal modeling of evolving meaning.

Page Count
28 pages

Category
Computer Science:
Logic in Computer Science