Chapter 17 — How Step-by-Step Knowledge Can Be Stored

Knowledge is not always a collection of facts.

Sometimes knowledge is knowing what comes next.

How do you tie your shoes? How do you cook a particular dish? How do you solve a type of math problem? How do you start a car and drive somewhere?

Knowing the individual actions is not enough. You must also know their order.

STLR may provide a simple functional way to describe how this type of step-by-step knowledge can be stored.

What May Be Stored in a Tag?

No one knows exactly what information corresponds to an STLR Tag or how that information would be physically represented in the brain.

A Tag may represent an individual object or action, but it may also represent a statement or a relationship.

For example, the system might contain:

• Tag A: Step 1 — perform action x
• Tag B: Step 2 — perform action y
• Tag AB: Step 1 is followed by Step 2

Hard-Links can associate Tag A, Tag B, and Tag AB as one learned group. When the procedure is activated, all three may become active. The content represented by Tag AB tells the system that Step 1 occurs before Step 2.

In this possible organization, the Hard-Links do not need to contain the direction or order themselves. They help the related Tags activate together. The meaning of followed by is represented by Tag content.

Hard-Links Do Not Mean “Before” or “After”

A Hard-Link is a stable learned association. It does not itself represent a verb or relationship such as:

• before
• after
• follows
• causes
• belongs to
• loves

Those meanings are content and can be represented by Tags.

Directional Hard-Links may exist and may make a sequence more efficient, but direction is not required if ordering information is already represented by the activated Tags.

The Alphabet

Most people know the letters of the alphabet and can recite them in the familiar order:

A → B → C → D → … → Z

One possible STLR organization includes Tags such as:

• A
• A is followed by B
• B
• B is followed by C
• C
• C is followed by D

The system may also contain Tags representing larger familiar groups, the complete alphabet, its spoken rhythm, or the alphabet song.

Hard-Links associate these Tags and help the familiar sequence activate. They do not themselves mean followed by.

Why Going Backward Is Harder

Many people who can quickly recite A through Z cannot immediately recite:

Z → Y → X → W → … → A

The individual letter Tags are not missing. The person still knows Z, Y, X, and the other letters.

What may be missing are familiar, well-practiced Tags or groups representing the reverse relationships:

• Z is followed by Y
• Y is followed by X
• X is followed by W

When asked what comes before G, a person may have to recite the forward alphabet until reaching G and then identify F. The forward sequence provides an indirect path to the answer.

With enough backward practice, reverse relationship Tags and larger reverse groups may become stable. Backward recitation can then become much faster.

This does not prove that every neighboring pair is stored as a separate biological unit. The alphabet may also be stored through larger chunks, rhythm, sound, motor speech patterns, or overlapping combinations. STLR allows these possibilities because the exact content and size of Tags are unknown.

Practice Creates Faster Response

Suppose a person's current environment repeatedly requires this sequence:

A → D → B → F

At first, the person may need to think through each step consciously. The system must identify the current step, locate what comes next, perform the action, and check the result.

Daily practice can create or strengthen Tags representing the actions, their relationships, and larger parts of the sequence. Hard-Links can stabilize the group and make its Tags easier to activate together.

The environment provides the starting Signals and context. A Reference can help activate the appropriate learned group. As each part becomes active, the stored relationship Tags and expectation help prepare what normally comes next.

Eventually, several steps may function as one familiar unit:

A → D → B → F becomes [Perform the familiar sequence]

The smaller Tags do not need to disappear. The system may simply no longer need to activate each one through slow conscious thought.

Muscle Memory

This is similar to what people commonly call muscle memory.

The learned procedure is not necessarily stored only in the muscles. It involves the brain, nervous system, sensory feedback, motor control, and repeated practice.

A pianist, typist, athlete, cook, or driver may initially think about each action separately. After enough practice, familiar groups can activate rapidly in response to the appropriate environment.

Environmental need → repeated practice → stable action and relationship Tags → Hard-Linked group → faster response

Long Words and Sentences

A long word can be learned in a similar way.

An unfamiliar word may initially be divided into smaller pieces:

Piece 1 → Piece 2 → Piece 3 → Piece 4

A sentence can be divided into phrases:

Phrase 1 → Phrase 2 → Phrase 3 → Phrase 4

Remembering the pieces is not enough. The system must also retain content representing their learned relationships and order.

After enough repetition, the complete word or sentence may function as a larger familiar Tag or group. A person can then say it without consciously constructing every piece.

A Procedure Is More Than Its Actions

Imagine someone knows five actions:

A · B · C · D · E

But the person does not know their order.

That person knows the individual actions but does not yet know the procedure. The actual procedure might be:

A → C → B → E → D

Tags can represent the actions and relationship content such as A is followed by C or B occurs before E. Hard-Links keep the relevant Tags associated as a learned group.

A Recipe as an Ordered Group

A familiar recipe contains ingredients, tools, temperatures, actions, and relationships among those actions.

The cook may know:

• prepare the ingredients
• then heat the pan
• then add the ingredients
• then cook for a certain amount of time
• then add another ingredient
• then serve

Changing the order may change the result. The recipe is therefore not merely a collection of cooking facts. It is an ordered island of knowledge.

A Reference can help locate the recipe or its starting point. The activated action and relationship Tags then provide the learned procedure.

Expectation Follows the Stored Sequence

If Step 2 normally follows Step 1, activating the Tags for Step 1 and their relationship to Step 2 can begin preparing the Tags associated with Step 2.

The system expects Step 2 because the relevant relationship content has been learned and repeatedly activated.

Stored sequence creates expectation.

Expectation does not have to store the procedure. Tags represent the actions and ordering relationships. Hard-Links stabilize their association. Expectation appears when the learned group becomes active and begins preparing what normally comes next.

Starting From the Beginning

Sometimes we know a memorized sentence but cannot directly remember one particular phrase.

If someone asks, “What is the fourth phrase?” we may not be able to answer. But if we recite from the beginning, Phrase 4 appears when we reach the appropriate point.

The knowledge was not necessarily lost. We may simply have lacked a strong direct path to that phrase by itself. Following the familiar sequence recreated the context needed to activate it.

The alphabet example works the same way. To identify the letter before G, a person may follow the familiar forward sequence until the answer becomes available.

Sequences Can Become Larger Tags

With repetition, several smaller pieces can begin functioning as one larger unit.

A child learning a word may initially process separate sounds. Later, the whole word becomes familiar. A beginner may think through ten individual actions. An experienced person may treat several of them as one familiar action.

In STLR terms, a familiar group of Tags can become the basis for another Tag representing the larger group:

small pieces → ordered group → familiar larger Tag → part of an even larger sequence

This process can repeat many times. Sounds can form words. Words can form sentences. Actions can form procedures. Procedures can form skills.

More Than One Organization Is Possible

STLR does not require every person to store a procedure in exactly the same way.

One system might contain a Tag representing A is followed by B. Another might contain a larger Tag representing A-B-C-D. Another might rely strongly on rhythm, sound, visual patterns, body movement, or several overlapping representations.

The important proposal is not one mandatory arrangement. It is that Tags can represent both the pieces and content describing the relationships among those pieces. Hard-Links associate the related Tags and help the learned group activate.

One Simple Mechanism

A long word and a complicated procedure seem very different, but both require the system to remember pieces and their learned organization.

In STLR:

• Tags can represent actions, pieces, statements, and ordering relationships.
• Hard-Links provide stable association and help related Tags activate together. They do not themselves mean before, after, or follows.
• References help locate the appropriate learned group or starting point.
• Expectation helps prepare what is likely to come next after the group is activated.

Repeated practice can make the entire group faster and easier to activate. What initially requires conscious step-by-step thought can eventually function as one familiar response.

The pieces are different. The basic STLR components can remain the same.