A metaphysical theory of knowledge based on patterns of change.
An object is a thing that is observed. An object is defined by the set of properties associated with it, and all objects must contain at least one property to exist. A property is simply a characteristic of an object, such as redness or roundness. The set of properties that make up an object are learned from experience, where each experience with a given object causes all the properties to activate around the same time as one another, which in turn increases the interconnectivity between them. Over time the connections between properties of an object strengthen which increases the speed and accuracy of recognition.
The brain forms connections in order to make sense of the world, and it does so by relating concepts that become active around the same time. This ensures that a given situation, environment, etc. will stimulate the ideas relevant to the current situation, and avoid processing useless information. In a sense, this process helps optimize the organization and structure of the brain in order to perform efficiently and therefore succeed from an evolutionary standpoint.
At the lowest level, changes are detected in sensory inputs over space and time. Patterns of changes are stored as concepts, which in turn make up higher-level concepts, which make even higher-level concepts, and so on. All concepts are formed using patterns of change.
For example, the visual system first detects edges- areas of contrasting light values- which is a form of change-detection over two-dimensional space, i.e. the visual field. Patterns of edges make up higher-level concepts such as shapes. Shapes are represented by the relative positions of a set of edges, such that the proportional attributes of the shape are preserved.
Change that occurs over time is represented as a temporal pattern. Temporal patterns are slightly more complicated than spatial patterns, because they deal with sequences of spatial patterns. Put simply, a temporal pattern takes a sequence of spatial patterns and compares each one to the previous pattern. Cause-and-effect is intuitively understood based on the fact change in the past causes change in the present, and change in the present causes change in the future. Each observed change is the result of some past event.
One example of temporal patterns in the visual system is the detection of movement. The eye detects patterns of light, i.e. spatial patterns, at each time-step. Movement is detected by comparing the patterns observed at each time-step with those observed at the previous time-step.