Essence Atoms – A Semantic Meaning Representation System with a Built-in Ledger
Introducing Essence Atoms
Essence Atoms is a semantic meaning representation system. The Essence Agent within applications built using the Essence Skills (e.g. Synergy, Maven, Engage, Jewel and many others) processes Essence Atoms for generating self-optimizing, highly parallelized, machine-level instructions, in real-time.
Skills are Interaction Methods
The Essence Platform uses Essence Atoms to provide the world with a powerful tool that enables anyone to choose preferred Skills (containing Essence Atoms and other instructions) like Natural Language Processing (NLP), Natural Language Dialog (NLD), visual programming via drag-n-drop, and a universal language support system as interaction methods. Interactions via Skills get interpreted and translated into machine instructions (binaries, assembly, compute kernels, shader, etc.), not programming languages, in real-time.
Skills are made by combining; 1) Essence Atoms identified during product development and at runtime; 2) Prepackaged written code (Powers) such as, AI algorithms, APIs, drivers, emulators, browser engines, virtual machines and Essence Atoms that describe their code behaviors; 3) Real-time inputs from users that are mapped to Essence Atoms; 4) machine instructions generated by the Essence Agent based upon the previous 3 inputs.
Nebulo – A New Ledger System
Essence Atoms are used by the Agent to construct a new ledger system that we call Nebulo, in real-time. Translatable data structures are formed from Atoms to represent a wide variety of data models. Atoms and data can be stored on a ledger that is distributed or centralized or private or hybrid combinations of the three. Nebulo allows massive worlds to be constructed with levels of detail control. Granular details associated with data, Atoms, and every aspect of experiences are allocated their own unique identifier (like a context-routed URL).
Nebulo can work with other ledger systems, like blockchains, with many added benefits that are unique to the Essence Platform and wantware. Learn more about Nebulo.
Wantware is not Software
The output of our process is wantware, not software. Wantware is a modality change that means the majority of what is within the Essence packages (we call Aptivs) is not code. The contents are Essence Atoms, natural language expressions of wants, required fixed code, and media, which the Essence Agent translates and transforms into machine instructions, in real-time.
Imagine a future when machines receive instructions through any one of many ways of signaling intent, which are mapped to Essence Atoms, and machine level instructions are generated. This approach reduces the need for programming languages, while unlocking ideas for the majority of people in the world instead of the few. Discoveries in big data processing, AI/ML, web, hardware optimization for rapidly scaling high performance computing anywhere, and broadly applicable signal transforms, are indicators of discoveries to come.
The Essence Elements were designed with the goal in mind of accounting for the fullness of what computing can do. A comprehensive set of 256 elements can be combined to map human meanings to machine behaviors. Accounting for behaviors associated with concepts such as, anger, fear, like, dislike, belief, sad, happy, culture, and empathy is not a consideration that engineers have historically made on a broad system-wide basis. These and so many other aspects of real and imaginary worlds are easily represented in wantverses (Essence worlds), without the need for code. It is a human-centered approach, by design from the start.
Many of the 256 elements reflect behaviors that are difficult to retrofit into legacy platforms. Without functional equivalents in programming languages, each coder is left to figure out how to implement wanted behaviors. The results are typically subject to the programming language(s) chosen, and the knowledge and skills of the coders. That implies that what is wanted may not be developed, if coders don’t know how to create it or complexity makes the solution cost prohibitive. By leaving many desired behaviors to coders to implement, there is great inconsistency between different approaches across the software industry. Essence Elements offers a solution that can work with different developers and their mindsets, and different cultures that have their own shared expressions of meanings. Future-proofing is and added benefit of regenerative machine instructions that have self-optimization as a system-wide goal of wantware. Software has built-in obsolescence.
“Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols, in particular as they communicate things spoken and unspoken. Common examples of semiotics include traffic signs, emojis and emoticons used in electronic communication, and logos and brands used by international companies to sell us things—”brand loyalty,” they call it.
But signs are around us all the time: consider a set of paired faucets in a bathroom or kitchen. In your kitchen, the left side is almost certainly the hot water tap, the right is the cold. Twenty years ago or so, taps even had letters designating the temperature of the water—in English, H for hot and C for cold. But in Spanish it was C for hot (caliente) and F for cold (frio). Modern taps have no letter designations at all or are included in one tap—but even with one tap, the semiotic content of faucets is still tilt or turn left for hot water, and right for cold. The information about how to avoid being burned is a sign: you know which direction to tilt.”
Read more of the article by Richard Nordquist on this topic.
Essence® translates all inputs (e.g. video, audio, text, natural and programming languages, etc.) into symbolic representations in real time. The many advantages of this approach stem from the ability to generate machine instructions that map directly to the translated inputs. Instead of waiting for programmers to write code in a specific language (which takes time and is inherently deterministic), Essence® bypasses that step by deriving meanings (what the user or system designer wants to happen), then translating them into machine instructions in real time. At MindAptiv, we like to refer to this as software becoming wantware.
“Computational semiotics is an interdisciplinary field that applies, conducts, and draws on research in logic, mathematics, the theory and practice of computation, formal and natural language studies, the cognitive sciences generally, and semiotics proper. A common theme of this work is the adoption of a sign-theoretic perspective on issues of artificial intelligence and knowledge representation. In semiotics, a sign is anything that communicates a meaning that is not the sign itself to the interpreter of the sign.”
Source: Wikipedia
Programming languages are the primary ways that humanity instructs machines. They are complex, highly structured meaning representations systems. In the real world, we use signs, symbols, semantics, syntactics and pragmatics to communicate meaning.
In the field of chemistry, we have the periodic table. In particle physics, there’s the standard model. There are many other meaning representation systems, which do not stand alone.
Programming languages use compilers and linkers to translate fixed code into machine readable and executable instructions. Essence Elements are a way of providing the Essence Agent with what it needs in order to do the translation of expressed meanings (using many methods) into machine behaviors.
We simply and powerfully bypass the programming language step, whenever possible, pragmatic, and allowed to do so. The benefits are improvements in accessibility, security, interoperability, performance acceleration, scalability, quality of regenerative instructions over written code, efficiencies (lower energy, space, development time and costs), and many more. This approach offers a degree of future-proofing, given the regenerative process of instructing machines.
Most importantly, the barriers to realizing ideas becomes much lower, without sacrificing transparency and explainability. In other words, wantware enables the democratization of computing.
Ways Humanity Communicates Meaning
If the Essence Elements descriptions and how they are organized look like what is needed to understand and speak human languages, it is because the elements are intended to be enunciated to assist with writing them. However, the point of creating Skills is so that no one must use these elements to understand, tweak, edit, and create software.
The Essence Agent automatically does the mappings between human expressed intents and machine behaviors. As a secondary benefit, mapping Essence Elements to all languages becomes far easier given the semantic basis of our approach. We are excited about the universal language support and creative potential that our approach makes possible. It’s about providing pragmatic ways of communicating. To us, that means any way that you choose to signal intent.
The Semantic Periodic Chart for Computing
Software has been developed without the Semantic Periodic Chart for Computing. However, we intend to use it to show how both the software process and the results of it are about to undergo a pivotal change. Detailed descriptions of the chart follow the graphical image version below.





A sample app showing wantware using NLP (Natural Language Processing), NLD (Natural Language Dialogue), transforming meaning into different representations (non-technical, technical, and machine instructions) that results in a working app.
Wantware for the Masses
We are very excited about the future of computing powered by wantware. Wantware would not be possible without Essence Atoms. We could not fully unleash the power of our technology without Skills that enable the masses to access the power of Essence Atoms. After 2 years of focusing on Skills, we are now in the final stage of enabling humanity with wantware. This is a great time to explore strategic relationships that will provide world changing capabilities.
Products in Development