Ever since I read QED a few years ago, I’ve wanted to write a Quantum Ray-Tracing package that would use a discrete version of this summation over arrows to render scenes composed of a 3D grid of particles. It would have the advantage that certain classical ray-tracing problems having to do with questions of what, exactly, is a surface and its normal would go away. It would also correctly render diffraction gratings, butterfly wings and oil slicks, just given their physical arrangements.
On the negative side, it would require some serious R&D into rendering algorithms to get the computation times down to acceptable levels. Alas, I’ve never had the leisure to spend that kind of time on the problem.
I must admit I found the previous articles on Zombies somewhat tedious as I find the entire concept of philosophical Zombies to be specious. Still, now I’m glad I read through it all as I can see why you were so careful to lay down the foundations you did.
The question of what changes one can make to the brain while maintaining ‘identity’ has been been discussed many times on the Extropians list, and seldom with any sort of constructive results.
Today’s article has already far exceeded the signal to noise ratio of any other discussion on the same topic that I’ve ever seen, so I am really looking forward to seeing where you go from here.