2.3. From Program or Source Code to Reality
While working on
a project which made me have to really go deep into PHP, sometimes putting in
16-20 hours a day just trying to debug code. The code was so delicate that a
quotation mark in the wrong place can throw off the whole program (source
code). I was fascinated by how this code produced beautiful multimedia
websites, and I began to really appreciate for the first time the relationship
between source code or a program written in a computer language was able to
produce such wondrous things when that program or source code was processed. I
noticed how changes in the source code brought about changes in the reality it
produced when processed.
I will never forget,
one day while taking a break from hours of source code debugging, I decided to
take a walk in a park along the Hudson River. As a result of studying code for
so long, as I walked, I actually began to see the underlying source code that
made the tree what it was. The source code appeared like simple instructions
and mathematical formulas repeated over and over again forming patterns and
ultimately the tree itself. I began to see the source code of everything,
flowers, birds, squirrels, and every living thing I looked at during that
momentous walk. It was more like sensing then seeing with my physical eyes,
although what I sensed did conjure up images in my mind.
My mind was racing when I got home. I began to meditate on what I had just experienced and the novelty and simplicity of it all blew me away. I also thought and realized that everything living is based on “source code” and we call this source code a term which even has the word “code” in it, the DNA Code. This was my first inkling that there was something akin to computer code and computer programs underlying reality. Yet, at the time I did not know the degree to which what we call reality is actually the result of the processing of source code or programs. This was in 2006. A whole new world was soon about to open up before me.