That interacting with the smallest parts of our universe changes them from behaving like continuous waves to discrete objects.
It was weird enough a century ago when it was first figured out, along with all the associated weirdness like information erasure reverting behavior back to behaving like a wave.
But now we are regularly building procedurally generated worlds where continuous seed functions deterministically placing world geometry convert to discrete voxels when interacted with in order to track state changes.
TL;DR: The building blocks of our universe behave much like how we currently build randomly generated virtual worlds where free agents can interact with them. It’s wild this isn’t being discussed more than it is.
Is there anyway you could clarify this for someone who is not knowledgeable about coding? My understanding is that procedurally generated worlds have a seed, which is a specific string of characters that will generate the same world each time when fed into the procedural algorithm.
continuous seed functions deterministically placing world geometry convert to discrete voxels when interacted with in order to track state changes.
So yes, you are correct about the seed aspect, but what I’m talking about is the function the seed is fed into.
Those functions are generally continuous. For example, a mountain in Minecraft as a non-blocky mathematical curve.
These continuous curves are then converted into voxels (volumetric pixels) like Minecraft’s blocks. Then if you interact with them, it records the difference between what the function would generate normally and the changes. This saves on memory as it only records the interactions.
Given the seed function is deterministic, the same coordinates of space and time in the world will result in the same world geometry. Then you just layer on the discrete changes from free agents and you have the appearance of a fully interactive world.
Put another way, on the debate about free will, the details in how our universe behaves is exactly how you would design a world where you had free agents. If you were designing a world without free will, you wouldn’t need to convert to discrete units at the point of interactions, as the interactions would also be deterministic and could be calculated by the seed function, even to the point of continuous fidelity (i.e. no blocks/particles, just waves).
Fantastic explanation. I can totally see the connection you were drawing now.
Convincing me that free will exists might be a bridge too far, but you’ve definitely opened a new avenue of inquiry in my mind.
When utilizing this procedural generation technique in our games, it allows us to use much less memory and processing power because the world can be continuously recreated with relatively little computational complexity. Is that roughly correct?
If so, aside from being a possible argument regarding the existence of free will, this comparison could also be used to support the idea that we live in a simulated reality, a la the Matrix. Gnarly
Kind of. It has more to do with tracking state interactions by free agents than memory though.
Imagine a continuous curve like a SVG. Now imagine a user nudges it to add a dent to the curve. Keeping track of exactly where the user changes it, particularly as the number of changes adds up, becomes very difficult if you are tracking those changes as an alteration to 0.65434567… to 2.25677743… on it. But if instead you convert it to discrete units, now you are only tracking a change from 1 to 2 rounding to the nearest discrete unit.
A bit like how artists can go vector to pixels easily and make changes to the pixels but getting it back into a vector is a nightmare.
And yes, it can’t directly address whether free will exists, as part of why we design worlds the way we do may be because of the foundational ways our world works.
It’s more to the point of if we are in a simulation it appears to be designed in such a way that free will exists within the simulation.
(Free will as a consequence of the design details necessitates it having been designed as such.)
A bit like how artists can go vector to pixels easily and make changes to the pixels but getting it back into a vector is a nightmare.
This is another great analogy.
Fascinating, compelling ideas that are new to me. I could have trawled reddit for 10,000 years and never found content like this. Thanks for taking the time to explain, you’re a very good communicator.
That interacting with the smallest parts of our universe changes them from behaving like continuous waves to discrete objects.
It was weird enough a century ago when it was first figured out, along with all the associated weirdness like information erasure reverting behavior back to behaving like a wave.
But now we are regularly building procedurally generated worlds where continuous seed functions deterministically placing world geometry convert to discrete voxels when interacted with in order to track state changes.
TL;DR: The building blocks of our universe behave much like how we currently build randomly generated virtual worlds where free agents can interact with them. It’s wild this isn’t being discussed more than it is.
Is there anyway you could clarify this for someone who is not knowledgeable about coding? My understanding is that procedurally generated worlds have a seed, which is a specific string of characters that will generate the same world each time when fed into the procedural algorithm.
This is the part I don’t understand.
So yes, you are correct about the seed aspect, but what I’m talking about is the function the seed is fed into.
Those functions are generally continuous. For example, a mountain in Minecraft as a non-blocky mathematical curve.
These continuous curves are then converted into voxels (volumetric pixels) like Minecraft’s blocks. Then if you interact with them, it records the difference between what the function would generate normally and the changes. This saves on memory as it only records the interactions.
Given the seed function is deterministic, the same coordinates of space and time in the world will result in the same world geometry. Then you just layer on the discrete changes from free agents and you have the appearance of a fully interactive world.
Put another way, on the debate about free will, the details in how our universe behaves is exactly how you would design a world where you had free agents. If you were designing a world without free will, you wouldn’t need to convert to discrete units at the point of interactions, as the interactions would also be deterministic and could be calculated by the seed function, even to the point of continuous fidelity (i.e. no blocks/particles, just waves).
Fantastic explanation. I can totally see the connection you were drawing now.
Convincing me that free will exists might be a bridge too far, but you’ve definitely opened a new avenue of inquiry in my mind.
When utilizing this procedural generation technique in our games, it allows us to use much less memory and processing power because the world can be continuously recreated with relatively little computational complexity. Is that roughly correct?
If so, aside from being a possible argument regarding the existence of free will, this comparison could also be used to support the idea that we live in a simulated reality, a la the Matrix. Gnarly
Kind of. It has more to do with tracking state interactions by free agents than memory though.
Imagine a continuous curve like a SVG. Now imagine a user nudges it to add a dent to the curve. Keeping track of exactly where the user changes it, particularly as the number of changes adds up, becomes very difficult if you are tracking those changes as an alteration to 0.65434567… to 2.25677743… on it. But if instead you convert it to discrete units, now you are only tracking a change from 1 to 2 rounding to the nearest discrete unit.
A bit like how artists can go vector to pixels easily and make changes to the pixels but getting it back into a vector is a nightmare.
And yes, it can’t directly address whether free will exists, as part of why we design worlds the way we do may be because of the foundational ways our world works.
It’s more to the point of if we are in a simulation it appears to be designed in such a way that free will exists within the simulation.
(Free will as a consequence of the design details necessitates it having been designed as such.)
This is another great analogy.
Fascinating, compelling ideas that are new to me. I could have trawled reddit for 10,000 years and never found content like this. Thanks for taking the time to explain, you’re a very good communicator.
Thanks!
If you are interested in content like this, I created a community on !simulationtheory@lemmy.world for things like this.
Been a bit busy lately so haven’t posted much there, but I plan to when the opportunity presents.
Awesome, I’m in. Looking forward to more discussion in the future.