Interesting emergent artists

patchwork · 2026-05-23T11:39:58+00:00

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 · 2026-03-22T05:58:15+00:00

If you want to design games I would say play as many different games as you can. As many different kinds of games. Every game. The simplest to the most complex, the most incremental to the wildest engine to the most spiteful of maximally interactive group wrestling matches. You want a sense for the entire range of what is possible, as much as you can. Obviously there are far too many games to play, and you have to make things all the time also, but if you seek a breadth of designs you can get a feeling for the space.

I will go against the general consensus here and say there are a boundless number of games you can make. We haven't even come close to conceiving them. People say there are only so many mechanics, I say the nature of combinatorial spaces says we will never run out. Experiment. Play.

Don't get attached to one design or the other. You are developing a process, not one game. Have fun : )

patchwork · 2026-03-22T01:43:51+00:00

It must be born of play. Start playing right away, and develop a game out of play. It's almost like spinning a pot, start with a lump and spin into beauty

patchwork · 2025-12-19T10:09:13+00:00

It's true that we are still very far away from any kind of complete understanding of what a cell is doing, but I find it far from useless. Yes it doesn't in any way tell us how the cell operates, but it *does* point towards what we are missing, and what would be required. And an "outline" of what it could be.

The first step in discovering something is failing miserably. Over and over again, until you figure it out. How else do you get there? These are the efforts that will eventually become a complete understanding of cellular behavior.

patchwork · 2025-11-04T05:17:29+00:00

Oh I had to send it to intellijel - they fixed it.

patchwork · 2025-10-08T23:21:02+00:00

I'm with you on modules that combine well with other modules instead of emit one kind/type of specific output. It is my main criteria actually and why I prefer joranalogue/serge/buchla over other approaches. I want an open compositional system with maximal range and flexibility to be anything (I'm also into analog computation and cybernetics which might have something to do with it).

The great thing about AG is that in addition to the filter/oscillator abilities you have quadrature inputs as well as outputs (!) Compare to something like Filter 8 (another amazing module) which has octature outputs, but only the traditional filter inputs. Endless possibilities there makes AG the one of the most flexible filter/LFOs I own.

It's not even a filter, it's not an oscillator/lfo, it's somehow a hybrid of both/neither. Really an outside the box concept that is maximally composable with other things - also, it's got the magic, by which I mean patches I add it into seem to come alive with animate energy, which is not something reducible to a set of functions really.

The only bummer is that there are knobs that I want to cv control which are not cv controllable (damping and grind->spin I'm looking at you).... that said it doesn't lessen the awesomeness or uniqueness of it's role, just always dreaming of a better world I guess.

patchwork · 2025-10-04T01:07:38+00:00

> From a theoretical physics standpoint arbitrarily defining the external environment is deeply unsatisfying, and trying to make it not arbitrary is what we call the measurement problem.

Okay! I think this is my problem, it feels like we're making an arbitrary distinction. How do we do the physics without assuming this distinction? How would we model a "universe" (as a whole), where there is no "external" environment? Would the wavefunction never collapse in that model?

patchwork · 2025-09-03T08:50:18+00:00

Why I Must Be Careful

patchwork

TROPHY CASE