There are multiple ways to represent signals and information in a way that helps us see patterns and generate insights we wouldn’t normally be able to get.
For example, using our standard means of perception we can hear / feel the heartbeat, its speed and intensity, but we cannot really perceive its variability (HRV), which is an indicator of how adaptive our system is.
Similarly, when we look at the stock market, we might be able to understand that the price of an asset is not really changing, but there are other derivate parameters that look at the nature of change and tell us whether there are more subtle, imperceptible shifts happening in the nature of that change.
For instance, on the image below the price reached a certain stable point, but an additional graph that represents the nature of price volatility reveals that big perturbations now follow the same pattern as the small ones (so we can expect bigger shift to happen). This wouldn’t be so obvious from the price chart alone.
Similar charts and spectrograms are used in many different fields of science for prediction, better understanding of phenomena, and ability to see the invisible.
Interestingly, they often represent derivative measurements that explore not the phenomena itself but, rather, some adjacent metrics that better indicate the nature of change. For example, measuring acceleration, not speed; extracting the distances between the hear beats rather than the heartbeat itself; estimating which frequencies are more present in a spectrum, etc.
I’m particularly interested in how we can apply this to our own physical and cognitive processes in order to explore ethical and aesthetic implications of this approach.
Observed in this manner, charts and visual representations of physical processes can be seen as mandalas, which can be used for activating a certain way of thinking, perception, and to transcend common understanding of reality.
Currently, I use it in SelfSense practice for choreography and movement / adaptability feedback and in InfraNodus to detect interesting patterns of thought and to guide attention to less represented clusters of ideas.