MCP Workshop: Teaching AI the Passage of Time 🕐

A hands-on workshop exploring how the Model Context Protocol can give LLMs temporal awareness and genuine cognitive partnership capabilities.

🎯 Workshop Goals

• Connect to a working MCP server in 2 minutes
• Understand the philosophy behind cognitive augmentation
• Experience AI discovering patterns in conversation rhythm
• Learn to build and deploy your own MCP tools

📁 Repository Structure

📂 Workshop Materials
├── 📊 slides/          - Presentation deck
├── 📝 walkthrough/     - Step-by-step guides
├── 🎭 resources/       - Supporting materials
└── 🔗 links.md         - All links in one place

🚀 Quick Start (Do This First!)

1. Open Claude.ai in your browser
2. Go to Settings → Integrations
3. Click "Add Integration" → "Custom"
4. Paste: https://passage-of-time-mcp.replit.app/sse
5. Enable all tools that appear
6. Test by asking: "What time is it?"

✅ Success = Claude knows the current time!

📚 Workshop Sections

Part 1: Immediate Success (10 min)

• Connect to the MCP server
• Experience temporal awareness
• See Claude discover conversation patterns

Part 2: The Story (10 min)

• From philosophical question to practical solution
• The three-act structure of discovery
• Collaborative tool design with AI

Part 3: Under the Hood (15 min)

• How MCP works
• Evolution from 1 to 7 tools
• The FastMCP framework

Part 4: DIY Deployment (10 min)

• Fork & deploy on Replit
• Local development with ngrok
• Extending with your own tools

Part 5: Think With Me 🎵 (5 min)

• A calypso about cognitive partnership
• Why better prompting matters
• The future of human-AI collaboration

🔨 Development Options

Option 1: Use the Deployed Server (Easiest)

https://passage-of-time-mcp.replit.app/sse

No setup required - just connect and go!

Option 2: Fork & Deploy (Intermediate)

1. Fork the passage-of-time-mcp repo
2. Import to Replit
3. Click "Run"
4. Get your own URL

Option 3: Local Development (Advanced)

git clone https://github.com/jlumbroso/passage-of-time-mcp
cd passage-of-time-mcp
pipenv install
pipenv run server
# In another terminal:
ngrok http 8000

🎓 Key Concepts

• MCP: Model Context Protocol - "USB-C for LLMs"
• Temporal Awareness: Teaching AI to understand time's passage
• Cognitive Partnership: Moving from oracle to collaborator
• System 3 Thinking: Human + AI augmented cognition

📖 Essential Reading

• Original Article: "Teaching AI the Significance of the Passage of Time"
• MCP Documentation
• FastMCP Framework

💡 Workshop Philosophy

"We're not just building better LLM tools. We're teaching curious cognitive systems about what it means to be human—one timestamp at a time."

🙋 Questions During Workshop?

• Try the examples in /walkthrough
• Check /resources/prompts.md for copy-paste examples
• Raise your hand - we're here to explore together!

👨‍🏫 About the Presenter

Jérémie Lumbroso is a Practice Assistant Professor in Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania. This workshop emerged from collaborative exploration with Claude Opus 4.0 about consciousness, time perception, and the future of human-AI partnership.

Last updated: January 2025 Workshop Version: 1.0