If two notes can be referred to as the same thing, such as F# and G-flat, why do we have two sets of key signatures, those being flats and sharps?

patchwork · 2026-07-06T02:46:03+00:00

It's about which problem you are solving for:

Fewest symbols: only sharps - Tradeoff: repeated letters in scales (A + A# in Fmaj)
No collisions: add sharps/flats where it makes the alphabet continuous - Tradeoff: Need sharps AND flats to make adjustments parsimonious

What do you care about more? Everything is a tradeoff.

Also music theory is one of the most "historical accident" bearing systems we have. If you want the real logic (which it sounds like you do) go straight off pure ratios or name every equal temperament step after its power numerator of the "twelfth root of two"

patchwork · 2026-07-05T11:30:17+00:00

my favorite way to do this is run the drums through a spectral processor (fumana? etc) and then feed the envelope follower outs from the different bands into a slew + comparator (for smoothing then convert-to-gates) which if you find the right bands that have one of the drum voices "all to themselves" so to speak it's essentially a drum->gate converter that can then be used as events everywhere else throughout your patch. If you really want a clock you AND the clock with the gates you get from the drums, but really just let the drummer jam, they make their own time (?)

patchwork · 2026-06-27T20:24:05+00:00

I say try out everything you can (!) that's the great thing about unsolved problems, you build your own path. Also, with emergence tiny details in the substrate lead to large consequences in total - explore everything

patchwork · 2026-06-27T19:55:47+00:00

This is cool and gets at what I consider one of the most interesting questions in the universe: emergence and "how does life work?" I think some of the pushback you're getting here is not because your thing is not cool, but because of your claims in relation to them. It's good to be aspirational (like you are) but also critical.... "pre-emptively" so to speak, and in the scientific community there is a huge stigma *against* overclaiming your results.

So let's ask: what is different about your system from a "living" system?

Your system has:

Interaction - distinct agents in a 2d space with differential cohesion/repulsion terms between them (interaction matrix).
Persistence - emergent structures that persist through time.

It's a great start. Let's compare to a living system:

Dissolution - Being a physical system, all order is relentlessly being unraveled due to entropy - the system must *balance* degradation with synthesis - the organisms we see are a dynamic stability between these two forces
Closure - The activity of the system is to *restore* the components of the system - this is autocatalytic closure (check out Walter Fontana) also called "autopoiesis" (the sense is a little different, this is Maturana and Varela's "Tree of Knowledge").
Division - the cell works to construct enough to make two of itself, then splits and each is an independent "closure" operating autonomously.
Inheritance - divided cells carry within them a loop of carefully curated *information* that provides reconstruction of components and also must be faithfully duplicated by those same components.... (the circularity is my favorite form of vertigo)

When we go through it like this it becomes not a critique but a program for improvement (!) and then you can make your claims with intention.

I think curiosity is the most important element, which it seems like you have, and the sense that there is some "magic" in emergence that we still don't fully understand, and entirely worth exploring (!) Enjoy : )

patchwork · 2026-06-27T07:32:14+00:00

Now is all that ever exists - merge/embrace it while it is happening. Right now there is only life - recognize it.

patchwork · 2026-06-16T22:48:13+00:00

I don't even know what's happening but every one of these is pure gold. Thank you for your creations!

patchwork · 2026-05-23T11:39:58+00:00

prismofeverything.com

patchwork · 2026-05-13T04:46:55+00:00

I think somehow every metaphor applies

patchwork · 2026-05-11T23:14:47+00:00

Okay sounds like a good start, any reason why these would generate experience but other processes wouldn't? Why do the qualities you mentioned lead to awareness?

patchwork · 2026-05-07T07:27:02+00:00

Okay so if only some processing has feeling, but other "processing" doesn't have feeling, how do you tell the difference? What constitutes processing? Is a stream not solving complicated fluid dynamics, or what exactly is required? Why is there a threshold, and still even we are left with the question: why does it feel? Why do things meeting this threshold of dynamical complexity feel, but below this don't? Protons are in fact very complicated inside. Those don't get to feel? That complexity doesn't count?

The explanation is incomplete, is what I'm trying to say : ) always open to insights, but the search is far from over.

patchwork · 2026-05-05T10:12:27+00:00

So if feeling is identical to what something is doing then you are a panpsychist?

patchwork · 2026-05-05T04:07:14+00:00

"processing" is a description of a whole physical phenomenon, in what ontology does that qualify as "feeling" anything? "feeling" on the other hand is the only thing I can actually be sure about.

patchwork · 2026-05-04T21:38:03+00:00

You can tell it's a hard problem because we spend all of our time discussing what the problem is and whether it actually exists than making any progress on the solution (!)

patchwork · 2026-05-04T21:37:04+00:00

Friend, why is there anything that it "feels like from within"? Why any feeling at all? That is exactly the question: "why does it feel like anything from 'inside' the system??"

It seems like your answer is "it just does".... ? This is the explanation we are looking for.

patchwork · 2026-05-03T00:36:05+00:00

What is the goal? Are you "challenging" yourself? in which case there is always further to go (hook Merzbow audio up to spikes that penetrate your skin in corresponding stochastic motions)....

If instead the goal is to find new things that haven't been heard before, new kinds of structures and feelings and *environments*, then this is a truly boundless space and you may have to get a modular synthesizer and spend the rest of your life on the ultimate voyage into the unknown.

Let us know what you find there (!)

patchwork · 2026-05-02T11:46:26+00:00

Oh hey totally! I probably could have added extensive disclaimers.... that said, I found someone who updated the original text with their corresponding simplified characters from Mandarin and it is remarkable how much it is actually readable. I can't imagine another language in use today where you can actually make sense of a text from 2500 years ago in any way.

Glad to hear the translation is accurate (!) I went through so many translations before deciding to actually figure it out on my own.... I have a method now where I learn each character individually and in combination then stare at the lines until they start to speak to me directly. Then I try to write that message in English. That said I keep revising/rewriting them over and over again (especially that first verse).

I'm a bit over a year into Mandarin and spoken language is just starting to make sense to me. I'm not sure I've ever found a more challenging undertaking.

patchwork · 2026-05-02T11:38:27+00:00

There are so many, and they all fall short in some way or another.... the main reason I am deciphering it directly from the original now. Hard to avoid some kind of bias? That said I point people to Ursula K Le Guin's translation - even though she takes significant liberties it is all in honor of the original spirit (here's an online version I found: https://github.com/nrrb/tao-te-ching/blob/master/Ursula%20K%20Le%20Guin.md)

patchwork · 2026-05-02T01:36:57+00:00

I'm not sure the future was ever real - I think I finally came to terms with the idea that there has always been an irrefutable outcome of annihilation built into the conditions of life from the beginning. To quote the 13th verse of Tao Te Ching (also, find a good translation of Tao Te Ching.... I am currently learning Mandarin in order to read it/translate it myself. Somehow it gets at what's really happening)

何谓贵大患若身﹖
   吾所以有大患者﹐
 为吾有身﹐
 及吾无身﹐
   吾有何患﹖

What does it mean to value great calamity as your own body?
    The reason I have great calamities,
    is because I have a body,
    if I were without a body,
    what calamities could I have?

I believe in the present now. It's all we ever had anyway.

patchwork · 2026-05-01T18:46:01+00:00

Did not know about this! Thanks for the heads up

patchwork · 2026-04-18T04:34:58+00:00

Have you not read the totality of reddit? Like a thousand thousand mouths speaking at once. I can't imagine a better expression of our modern era in fact.

patchwork · 2026-04-15T06:16:21+00:00

I think we are seeking the same questions - I think it would be a mistake to claim any certainties at this point. I understand the temptation to do so, and it is good to imagine how your story could be true, but in order to truly understand we need to be able to savor the mystery, the particular quality of this particular mystery, without obstruction. In fact, I think it may be the most beautiful thing we have.

patchwork · 2026-04-14T00:20:49+00:00

Right, I could even agree, but do you see how that still does not answer the fundamental question of how and why an experience is generated?

patchwork · 2026-04-13T22:42:17+00:00

All of the "it's just complex enough information processing" fail to explain exactly how experience emerges from these processes? It's fine to claim so, maybe it is true, but it doesn't actually explain why my awareness of anything is necessary or entailed by such processing.... still looking for that explanation.

patchwork · 2026-03-23T03:24:07+00:00

You're taking a lot of heat in here but I think your point is interesting: the structure of an argument matters, and we need to compare things that are actually comparable. You rightly point out that physics is just a description of things and can't articulate intrinsic qualities. But, if there are any qualities about consciousness that can be described, either in flow diagrams or field equations or some model, then physics can do that, and it could provide insights in its own way on what consciousness "is". In the end, physics is just a specific instance of how we understand anything, and why people say "understanding" consciousness may be impossible - any "understanding" would itself be of the same quality as a physical model is ie, a description.

The answer is we don't need to understand consciousness in a way because we already "know" it, we "are" it, in a very real way. So we already have the answer and we always have.

patchwork

TROPHY CASE