The Martial Unity

In addition to different media of communication via various senses, they could also be categorized in terms of the biological aspects. They could be divided into implicit and explicit non-verbal communication. The former were changes in a person that were non-muscle in nature; i.e., they were not movements in the body caused by the muscular system. To put more simply, they were, for example, not caused by moving a muscle in the arm.

These changes included variations in body temperature, heart rate, perspiration, and respiration. Non-verbal communication could also be thought of as voluntary and non-voluntary.

With so many facets and aspects of non-verbal communication, categorizing it in his head when he recorded it mid-fight was extremely important.

Thus, one of the most important requirements of the system of thought for Project Telepath was categorization and organization.

Rui had already spent some time developing a set of protocols when handling information in his Mind Palace.

It involved dividing the non-verbal communication that he perceived into finer data points and then tagging each data point with its respective category. Since these categories were not strictly mutually exclusive, it was possible for each data point to have multiple tags such as 'voluntary non-verbal communication,' 'explicit non-verbal communication,' and 'visual, non-verbal communication.'

This allowed him to perform more sophisticated statistical operations on the various datasets formed by data points of a given dataset. Only when he had a robust and sophisticated organization of data to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of thought could he begin pattern recognition of intent.

This was the easier part. Pattern recognition of intent was, in some ways, expanding the existing pattern recognition system of the VOID algorithm to include non-verbal communication of the intent at its inception in the subconscious mind.

In other words, the only reason it didn't exist before was because the inception of intent was never conveyed before.

That had now been solved thanks to putting his opponent in a trance.

A new dimension of data had presented itself, and he would need to create a corresponding system of thought to process it.

"It is best distinguished from the pattern recognition system of the VOID algorithm, however," Rui realized. "There are important distinctions between the existing pattern recognition system and the new system of thought I am creating."

For one, the existing pattern recognition system detected patterns in actions exclusively. This new system of thought detected patterns between subconscious non-verbal communication and intent at its inception. Naturally, intent conveyed what movements would be made, but that was derivative.

Thus, the existing pattern recognition was of physical patterns, while the new one was of psychological patterns.

This difference was enough for Rui to distinguish it as wholly separate.

"I should come up with a proper name for it, one worthy of a system of thought so profound," Rui muttered. "Hmmm…"

It needed to contain several keywords that were important to it. The non-verbal communication and intent were both subconscious; thus, that was a good start. It was a system of thought that worked on data that was procured through observation; that, too, was a good word to add.

What was being evaluated was language. Subconscious non- verbal language, but a language nonetheless. Thus, language was a good word to add as well.

On top of that, the communication was unilateral. It was unidirectional. His opponent was put in a trance, causing them to communicate their intent subconsciously and non-verbally unilaterally.

"Subconscious Observational Unilateral Language System," Rui decided. "Or, the SOUL System, for short."

The fact that the acronym turned out to be a word with some significance was, well, purely a coincidence.

Regardless, the SOUL System currently existed only in name. He hadn't even finished working on the processing protocols for raw subconscious non-verbal communication data. He certainly had not finished the development process of the Intent Evaluation model that would actually allow him to read subconscious intent at its inception.

However, he had completed the overall structure of the SOUL System.

The first step in the activation of the system would be processing and categorizing data into various categories, painstakingly tagging every data-point with multiple tags.

The second step was to form an association between a particular set of subconscious non-verbal communication data and its corresponding intent, as retroactively measured by actions taken. He would continue doing this hundreds, thousands, and millions of times.

Then, it was a matter of counting the number of associations between a given set of subconscious non-verbal communication taken and intent. If it turned out that there were recurring associations between particular communication and intent, then he could be certain he had found out what said communication meant.

Given how fast Martial Artists fought, they could have an astronomical amount of data very quickly, allowing them to form tons of associations and flag the most recurring pairs as having cracked those parts of the language.

The third step involved taking the more recurring and strongly associated pairs and integrating them into the predictive model.

The moment his opponent's subconscious non-verbal communication matched that of anything in the predictive model, he could pull up the strongly associated intent and be relatively certain that it was his opponent's intent.

This part was very similar to the decoding of ancient languages and their scripts. If a particular symbol, say '$', was associated with money over and over, then linguists would infer the presence of money if they ever saw '$' somewhere else.

The SOUL System was doing a far more complex and sophisticated version of that with communication and intent.

"Man, this is going to take a while," Rui murmured inwardly to himself.

Thankfully, he could heavily borrow from the VOID algorithm, cutting down a project that would otherwise take many years. If not for that, there was no chance in hell he could ever finish such a sophisticated project before his father passed away. As long as he was efficient in his development process, he could finish it with plenty of time to spare.

Or, at least, so he hoped.

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