I am a Software Engineer, and I’ve worked in the Video Game industry since 2005. For most of my career, I have centered my work around building Animation Systems, and working with Animators.
I believe that Games have the potential to become the most effective Storytelling platform in human history.
Stories add meaning to our lives, and have the power to reveal and unlock our true identities. My daily grind is fueled by a personal quest to fully achieve the latent Storytelling potential in Games. Because of this Noble Quest, my work continually seems to dial in toward this critical cross section of technical problems related to Animation, Dialogue, and Cinematic Production. I lovingly refer to this cross section of discipline as Story Tech.
I’ve worked on quite a few games! Most of my early work was shovel-ware, but there are several recognizable titles which I’ve significantly touched in one way or another.
Games have the potential to become the most effective Storytelling platform in human history.
My educational background is in Theoretical Physics. In High School I gained a deep love of physics which superseded my earlier interests in programming. I went on to earn both a Bachelors and a Masters degree in Physics.
My Bachelors thesis was a description of inertia. This description works well, and only requires two fundamental features:
- Relativistic Waves, i.e. Light.
- A container which holds the waves, i.e. a Light Box.
My Masters thesis sought to answer where these Relativistic Waves came from. To find this answer, I formulated an 8-dimensional Algebra, and created a special class of functions called:
Analytic Spinors is the term I use to generally describe this idea. Here’s some of the cool things that I got from Analytic Spinors:
- Unlike the abstract dimensions of String Theory, my 8 dimensions are all describable in terms of simple geometric ideas, observably manifesting in the real world.
- All of ElectroMagnetic phenomena are the result of two conditions: The speed of light is constant, and the field is infinitely smooth and continuous. All the other interesting aspects of ElectroMagnetic interactions are results of the algebraic properties of spacetime.
- The Algebra is “comfortably quantum”, meaning that extending it to define quantum phenomena is straightforward. Certain Quantum Mechanical relationships are shown to be algebraic properties of spacetime, rather than anything specifically “quantum”.
- The form of the equations suggest what processes might be at play when reality emerges from possibility.
8 dimensions are all describable in terms of simple geometric ideas
I will often troll my friends with comments like: “I don’t believe in the Big Bang”, or “I don’t believe in Black Holes”. These sentences are imprecise statements about specific points of skepticism that I have with both of those ideas. It turns out that I have various forms of skepticism for most scientific ideas. When it comes to science, my skepticism has served me very well.
My study of Physics, my exposure to Video Games, and my particular passion for Storytelling, has produced a surprisingly effective incubator for exploring philosophy.
I’m not an academic or professional philosopher, but what small exposure I do have to previous endeavors shows that the model that I use for myself, to make sense of all of this mess, is strongly reflected in the philosophical works of some of the greatest philosophers of our time.
Here are some features of my philosophy:
- The Universe is fundamentally just One thing, a single Possibility Space, but we can approximate it by picturing a collection of independent things that share a class of properties which I abstractly call Identity.
- Identity can be classified on 2 separate axes. Meaning vs. Significance, and Individual vs. Collective.
- Reality emerges from Possibility Space through a recursive interaction between the Future and the Past, called a Transaction.
- Free Will is possible because Transactions are not strictly Deterministic, and because Transactions can be influenced by Consciousness.
- SuperNatural phenomena are possible, because the Universe is not Deterministic. What we usually think of as Natural is the result of Determinism, i.e. cause and effect, in that order. SuperNatural phenomena are a result of what I call SuperDeterminism, i.e. cause and effect, possibly reversed in order.
- With a clear understanding of Identity and Free Will, we can build a concise model of Conflict. Conflict resolution can take 4 forms: I eat you; You eat me; We build a wall; We are One.
Reality emerges from Possibility Space through a recursive interaction between the Future and the Past, called a Transaction.
A Paradigm Shift might be described as a kind of transformation, where who and what you were Before is not easily comparable with who and what you are After. I have experienced Two such Paradigm Shifts in my life.
Getting Married.
Having Children.
My family is an important enough part of who I am, that I believe that I would fundamentally and actually be a different person without them. This isn’t just due to the influence that they have on my life, it is because they have become my life.
I can’t talk about family without also talking about religion. Religion is an immensely important aspect of my family life, and I consider my religious community to be a kind of extension of my family. My Atheist friends like to believe that people need religion in order to justify things that are hard to explain in the absences of Science. Some of my religious friends think people need religion in order to have specific spiritual experiences, to find spiritual truth, and to grow spiritually. I’m definitely not trying to replace Science with Religion, and I’m pretty certain that folks with many different world views are responsive to spiritual experiences, and have access to spiritual truth.
I think of my religion is something deeper. It is the foundation and origin story of my family.
If there are things about my Morality that are Relative, my religion is what they are relative to. My religion is part of the history and development of my consciousness. It is the rock upon which I am building my personal and family Identity. My personal religion is indirectly about a search for God, and more immediately about the creation and salvation of my family. That’s where I think God is actually to be found.
My personal religion is indirectly about a search for God, and more immediately about the creation and salvation of my family. That’s where I think God is actually to be found.