The Geometry of Time: How Cognition Emerges from Persistence Across Temporal Scales

This paper examines cognition through the broader problem of persistence across time. Building upon Living Information Theory, Persistence Geometry, Control Before Cognition, and Regulated Entropy Injection Theory, it proposes that cognition emerges when systems must maintain viable trajectories across temporal horizons that exceed the limits of reactive regulation. Within this framework, persistence is treated as a property of trajectories rather than states, control emerges through the regulation of future accessibility, and cognition emerges through mechanisms that support prediction, memory, compression, and adaptive navigation. A central contribution of the paper is the introduction of temporal coarse-graining as a process through which systems construct compressed representations that preserve information relevant to future viability. Evidence from reinforcement learning, ecosystem learning, developmental biology, morphogenesis, bioelectric memory, and resilience science is examined within a common framework. The resulting synthesis proposes a general definition of cognition as the adaptive navigation of temporally extended possibility spaces in service of persistence and generates a series of testable predictions regarding learning, memory, adaptation, and cognition across biological and non-neural systems.