THE CHRONO-COGNITIVE HORIZON OF MULTI-DIMENSIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS: The Epistemic Loop, the Anthropic Mirror Paradox, the Question-Capability Dilemma, and the Universal Data Representation Horizon
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: This manuscript presents a consolidated theoretical architecture for investigating the limits and conditions of knowledge produced when an observer studies a system through selected questions, measurements, transformations, representations, and validation procedures. The central proposal is the Observer-Conditioned Representational Horizon Principle (OCRHP), operationalized through the Observer-Conditioned Transformation and Representation Mechanism (OCTRM).The framework begins with a methodological dilemma: testing a system may impose criteria that do not adequately match its capabilities, while declining to test it may preserve uncertainty rather than resolve it. The Question-Capability-Acceptance Dilemma and the Capability-Access Distinction are introduced to separate an actual capacity limit from a failure of access, measurement, task design, or interpretation.The framework then generalizes beyond animal cognition to data processing, mathematical modeling, visualization, graphical encoding, algorithmic inference, and recursive validation. It defines representation error relative to an explicit target, task, reference, and loss function rather than treating all transformation as inevitable information loss. The epistemic horizon is specified as a method-dependent identifiability limit. The Anthropic Mirror and Infinite Regress are treated as distinct conceptual and computational problems.A staged extension connects terrestrial cognition to astrobiology, biosignature analysis, technosignatures, SETI, and hypothetical extraterrestrial communication. Multidimensional cognition remains a conditional theoretical boundary case, not an established physical or biological fact. The manuscript supplies formal notation, candidate metrics, research cases, falsifiable hypotheses, ethical constraints, and a fourteen-step research roadmap. It reports no new empirical findings and does not claim that the framework has been validated as a universal scientific law.epistemology; consciousness; comparative cognition; observer dependence; question validity; representation; information theory; visualization; identifiability; infinite regress; astrobiology; technosignatures; extraterrestrial intelligence.
Author: Shan, Shamiul Hoque
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225648342
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