if possible; I'm planning on streaming the levels/pack on this Thursday around 7:00 PM (12:30 AM UTC)

would I be correct in assuming that we are not allowed to enter a level using the experimental shimmier version for this contest?

mobius On Time part 1

Think of two events in the past year in your life. Which came first? Now ask yourself how do you know which came first. The answer may seem obvious "I just know". But I'll bet the only reason you know is because you're comparing the two memories. If you have nothing to compare it to; it becomes difficult.

Think of some examples; for myself; I recently was looking at my phone and at a text message I sent to a friend. I was shocked when I saw that the date of the text was almost a year ago. It was fresh in my mind; before seeing the date I was thinking I had sent that... maybe a few months ago? Surely not that long ago. But now I know; now it's there, cemented in my mind. And any illusion that it was a few months ago is gone. But when I reflect on the event itself it still feels fresh in my mind. When I really think about it; I don't feel any kind of obvious  chronological identifier that goes with these or any memories. Every time I'm thinking about the past the only way I have of ordering events is to compare multiple events. And it is possible to mix them up and confuse ourselves very easily. Especially as people get older and our memories get "poorer".
Don't people often say things like "Feels like she was just born yesterday... now she's ten years old."
I've had arguments with my parents about this; they asserted that my sister got married after this other person moved into town. I swore it was the other way around. After looking at pictures the truth was rectified.

I think most will agree with this at least: the brightest memories are often not the most recent. The memories that are best recalled are the most important or emotional. Most of you reading this probably don't remember what you ate for lunch a week from today. (Unless you eat the same thing everyday, in which case you may not really remember; you're just coming to a logical conclusion ) But you may remember what you ate for lunch on the first day of school or at your's or some relatives wedding.

My point is that is seems to me like our sense of past is not very stable at all, even though people like to say it is. We tend to think of time and life as being very linear and simple, past to present to future. But the closer you look at the universe it is not so linear, not so simple. What makes up your past is not just your memories either but emotional and logical patterns/habits and customs you garner as you live. A person can be injured and lose their entire memory of even who they themselves are (amnesia) yet still function like a normal person (more or less).

The other minor thing I want to discuss briefly here is memory of dreams. According to a neurologist I listened to they think during sleep the chemical that is responsible for making stable memories is not being produced; hence why we rarely are able to remember our dreams, or they are quickly forgotten. The dream state seems to be focused on pumping out imagery and feelings but not on logic and memory.

Yet have you ever been doing something during the day and suddenly the memory of a long distant dream comes up? This suggests to me that the actual data memory of that dream was always there (never lost) but the access to it or ability to recall it was lost until found again. This happens with real life memories as well; suggesting that we may always contain all memory of everything that has ever happened to us but not necessarily the ability to recall it on demand. Which makes sense when you think about it; memory of everything without exclusion in theory could take up a lot of brain power and leave no room for other activity. It would make doing simple everyday tasks difficult; having to parse through everything just to find the important things. Indeed this is in simple terms what autism is. People like the famous 'Kim Peak' who have incredible memory (supposedly of every book he's ever read) have trouble socially and taking care of themselves in society without help.

Next class we will discuss the various theories of the concept of time, time travel and the passage of time versus the opposing so called 'block universe' theory.

I just uploaded again to fix two minor issues; the outtakes rank should not have existed (it was only the levels that had gotten replaced) and Nin10do'Addict's style was missing from the folder.

UPDATE on 12/30/2018

See original post for download links. Music pack has also changed.

all changes are listed in the changelog (included in the main folder for download)
Also includes updates to styles needed.

As I'm still reading this book "Time Machines" I'm learning new interesting things constantly and feel inadequate to make a blog about this quite yet. In the meantime;
here's another interesting topic.

The Omnipotence Problem

I first heard this on TV, probably a Science show like "Through the Wormhole" or the like. I've read the argument in different ways and this is a simplified version of it.

Consider the thought experiment:

Let's say we want (and are somehow able) to build a super computer and we want to make it omnipotent. As in; it knows everything, from the beginning of the universe to the end. Every detail of every atom, event in time etc, everything.

Assume it's 'brain' will work at least in some fashion similar to our computers today; that is; data is written to some sort of disc or object that must take up physical space in the universe. Never mind that this space is incredibly small, by even decades old computer standards data on a disc is tiny. That point is that it is finite. If this is the case; then building this omnipotent super computer is impossible.

Here's why:
First there is the fact that the universe may be infinite. And if it is; then this computer must also be infinite in size in order that it's brain containing the data be large enough to hold all the data, meaning it would fill up the universe. This could lead to some interesting arguments but we can ignore this really, because there is another reason this is impossible, even if the universe is infinite;
-In order for the computer to be able to contain data on everything; in must also contain data on itself.
-Every piece of data that is information on itself; is added material to itself; which it in turn must have information on; if it will be truly omnipotent. Therefore you must add more material to store that data, which is must know about so you must add more, and so on. An infinite recursion. Meaning you could never achieve true omnipotence.

A possible argument against this:
After one iteration of this (storing data on the data recursion) doesn't it become redundant? I guess the question comes down to: Is it safe to assume that from that point on it will always be identical therefore you can 'cheat' and forgo storing that data?
The question also comes down to the difference between power and omnipotence. Obviously a super computer of this nature will be extremely powerful; but everything is relative. The interesting take away point is that truly, honestly knowing everything, at least in this way, is impossible.

thanks for all the advice here

I recently upgraded my old Windows 7 desktop; installed (free upgrade) Windows 10 and added/replaced the hardware;

GTX 970--4 GB Nvidia graphics card, a Shark 600W PS, and added a second SSD hard drive. (still have a 1TB HDD). The SSD really is super fast! I can download multi-GB stuff in no time at all! I don't care about noise, personally I never found my HDD loud or bothersome in the slightest. I did have to fashion  my own method of securing the SSD into my PC. (I didn't feel like buying a custom caddy to install and was too impatient to figure that out anyway). All I did was drill new holes into the existing HDD caddy. The SSD is so small!
The graphics card is working just fine for all my games! I can play anything now, no problems I'm glad I didn't spend more money on a 1060 or above, didn't seem to be necessary.
My only remaining concern is the heat. The GTX is huge; larger than what I expected, so the inside of the PC is now getting pretty cramped. The PS has a fan on the internal side of it (instead of on the outside like old one's I'm used to). I currently have it so it's directly facing the fans on the graphic card. Meaning there is a linear air flow from their to the PS and out; just not sure that is the best set up. The only other option is having it face a vent on the ceiling of the PC; drawing air from outside, but this really blocks air flow from the card. I can always adjust things later if I really have to.

Someday down the road--if I have the need-- I might upgrade the CPU and RAM but as of now there's really no need. Everything is fast enough for me. So now I have a 10+ year old PC going strong and performing up-to-date

Sorry I forget to respond to this way back;

For game programming, pseudo randomness with seeded algorithm is unpredictable enough.

If security matters, you can buy stronger randomness. Random.org takes it from atmospheric noise (weather measurements) and even better would be atomic decay, that's as random as you can get.

Quote

It appears that if we have answers, have knowledge and can predict or understand outcomes, we don't call it random. If we lack knowledge or understanding or simply remove ourselves from understanding the whole picture; the result is we don't know how the outcome was arrived at, thus we call this outcome random or chance.

Who is "we"? Many say that atomic decay is random. Some say that Downward Reduction is random, but I claim that learning some principles gives a huge edge on Downward Reduction.

-- Simon

"we" is everyone https://www.dictionary.com/browse/chance?s=t
for our purposes (our very limited lives) pseudo-randomness is of course good enough. I argue in light of the truth (the truth I'm arrogantly asserting) there is only pseudo-randomness or 'fate'. Fate in this sense; by my definition is just an act that is normal and we understand why it happened, and how and everything about it (at least that matters for the game we're playing).

Downward Reduction is not random. First there is skill then different strategies which cause unexpected behavior; but then highly unexpected things may happen due to lag, which is another form of "chance"; that is we cannot predict it accurately at present, but in theory we could.
So in a summary; it can be thought of as pseudo-random.

I don't really like discussing this issue at length as it really seems like some people either 'get it' or they don't. There's no in between or arguing that seems very useful. There's a truth that I became aware of at some point in my life; and since then I cannot unlearn it. It's not an opinion or a belief. It's a deeply embedded truth. But what is truth? I don't know

Anyway just for the record;
I believe that chance, purpose, free will, choice, control, progress, and more are all concepts that exist only in our minds. They serve a purpose and are 'real' in the sense that they exist in our society. But our society itself is only a thing of the mind. The deeper question that really gets to the point and to interesting territory is;

What is the mind?

The road to answer that question is, I assure you, far stranger than you can imagine. I'll make a blog post on this eventually.

--------

On time, part 3.
https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=2910.msg63579#msg63579

Since reading a lot about various things have enlightened me a bit on this topic; I'd like to return to it. If you're really interested I highly recommend the book "Time Machines" by Paul Nahin.

I haven't changed my opinion on my # 1 or 3 explanations. But in my #2 explanation; I now believe this explanation is not so silly or impossible.

The main problem/confusion is the difference between affecting the past and altering it. You can conceivably travel backward in time and affect things (maybe you build one of the great pyramids), but you didn't change anything. You build the pyramid; you always did, there always was a pyramid. There are no 'multiple timelines' here.* There is just one timeline, with you going back to the past and affecting it. So nothing is 'changing'. Everything is as everyone would've remembered.
For our purposes in real life; this means that either nobody's ever time traveled in history; or we aren't able to tell that it's happened.
(possible explination for building of the pyramids and other impressive ancient structures?) If you want to read more on that; I recomend looking into things like the Roman Temple of Jupiter or the 'stone of the pregnant woman'.

 An excellent example is the movie 12 Monkeys.


*I feel like the invocation of multiple time lines brings in the multiple universe theory again. Which as I stated in my ealier post; I find nothing wrong with; just that it doesn't really explain the difficulties with time travel itself.]

This all also suggests (perhaps demands) a different view of time. Somewhere I think I said that it feels like we don't have the brain capacity to really understand this; or require a new way of thinking in order to. I may have recently gained a very different view point, just the type which can explain this. But it is not easy to articulate into words.


Part 4; with thoughts and questions on the nature of time and consciousness itself coming soon.