The Waveworld project is a culmination of explorations into my own psychology, studying diverse texts in philosophy and spirituality and more. This is an ongoing project, and just like my previous projects, will be done in an exploratory without a clearly defined goal.
The larger corpus of study over the years has been compiled into a paper which is submitted as preprint in PsyArxiv (early draft): A wave model of interaction between the psyche and environment
The current version of Waveworld starts from a dream I had that the universe is a large scale neural net:
"A week back I had a gripping dream that the universe is a large neural network, which I realised is also a paper published in 2020 by Vitaly Vanchurin. What I further saw was that the network is way more complex than current learning algorithms, is feedback based (like RNN etc) and that these are nested networks one within the other (ad infinitum, like fractals or holography). Finally this was a cyclical network, which hs no beginning or ending (because it was circular?!). I made a sketch of what I saw in #P5JS with the help of #ChatGPT The smaller circles are essentially nodes of the layers of a simplistic RNN and the values changes showcase the learning, but in a cyclical form such that (and I specifically asked for this) that the input and output values pass through zero at a point. Graphs of the nodes below. (The code is more of an artistic representation than an accurate one) P.S: I know this could be a blunder but I had to be authentic with my process."
I then started experimenting with the possibility of how (according to the wave model in the paper above) each entity in the universe like a human being could be a closed loop control system. I decided to create a p5js sketch with ChatGPT on the same. Using each pixel as an entity, I decided to apply the mechanics.
I then went on with multiple iterations until I stumbled on a ripple-boundary structure, because I wanted to add cymatic patterns to it. Here is an explanation of the system generated by the LLM: "In this system, each pixel inside the circle engages in a continual, local process of borrowing and lending with its immediate neighbors....those directly above, below, to the left, and to the right (with seamless wrapping at the edges). Whenever a pixel holds more value than its neighbors, it “lends” some away by sending value outward; if it holds less, it “borrows,” drawing value in from those around it. These exchanges aren’t instantaneous....each pixel’s tendency to borrow or lend lingers briefly, introducing inertia and causing waves of value to ripple and reflect across the circular domain. Over time, these simple, local borrow-lend interactions build up into rich, cymatic-like standing patterns, with energy spreading, interfering, and eventually balancing out. All of this happens with strict conservation: value is never created or destroyed, but endlessly redistributed among the pixels, demonstrating how complex, harmonious structures can emerge from the most basic, neighborly exchanges."
I tried this with multiple boundaries: square, circular and finally hexagon. I chose hexagon specifically because it had a connection with the flower of life image.
I tried this with multiple boundaries: square, circular and finally hexagon. I chose hexagon specifically because it had a connection with the flower of life image.
The Hexagonal configuration gave the most interesting patterns. It showcased flower of life intersections, star of david, triangles, and patterns reminiscent of islamic architecture
I also tried tessellating the hexagonal structure using Adobe After Effects
Now, I knew that this configuration can't just be 2D. So I also tried various configurations on a spherical ripple inside a polyhedra; starting from a cube, then to an octahedron, then a dodecahedron (platonic solids). After this I further researched specifically on the flower of life (or seed of life) pattern and tried a cuboctahedron boundary. Now since the reflections were from the faces of the cuboctahedron than the vertices, i decide to also try the dual of the cuboctahedron, the rhombic dodecahedron as a boundary. This was done using Matlab. Video of the rhombic dodecahedron below:
From the 2D animation of the hexagonal configuration; I also extracted the frames and made the mid-grays transparent. I extruded the same in the vertical axis and got a pillar shaped form, which was highly reminiscent of sound-pillars in ancient Indian temples.
The similarity could also be found with the patterns and islamic architecture:
This gave me an idea to regenerate the temple pillars and roof of mosques using the wave patterns as structure reference in a generative AI video model like Adobe Firefly or Stable Diffusion (by Stability.AI). Results below:
Simulating the 3D configuration above, I felt that the real visual of this would be discovered only if it is made into a grid (like the tessellation). Now because the rhombic dodecahedron is a space-filling polyhedron, the grid structure was tight. So I made 7 layers of the polyhedra grid (7 because of the importance of the number in nature), I then tweaked the cell sizing to get an overall hexagonal geometry. The final simulation made in Matlab, after some color correction in After Effects is what you see below:
This representation might not be accurate, but what I think is that this structure could represent the quantum probability distribution of the universe. Because interference of waves can cause holography, the probability distribution is also fractal. And solidity comes, perhaps, beyond a threshold of the probability which again could be a function of the system.
One further thought is that, although this is represented in time as an animation, the possibility that all of the probability interference waves exist at the same time can give the system a zero effect; ie. there is no cause-effect at a macro scale and at a micro scale, everything is tightly interconnected.