Memory as Framebuffer

NameDescription

Visualize what software does at runtime by treating memory itself as a graphics framebuffer. Software writes become visible video without instrumentation overhead — the runtime is sovereign, the visualizer is a downstream organ that records at any cadence (real-time or post-process). Render kernels per type produce 3D forms: bools as lamps, ints as columns, floats as fluid, strings as banners, lists as shelves, dicts as cubbyhole walls, structs as composite objects with primitive-textured surfaces, classes as objects with method-buttons. Pointers render as Superliminal-style windows/portals — transparent surfaces showing the pointed-at object live, with frame material encoding pointer kind (raw, Box, Arc, Mutex, Weak); aliasing visible as multiple windows showing the same scene; chained indirection as glass-within-glass; cycles as infinite mirror tunnels. Functions render as rooms; modules as districts; the program as a city. Navigation: walking + flight + orbit, with shift-scroll as semantic LOD-zoom across city/district/room/object/texture scales (Superliminal-style scale transmutation, not just camera distance). Time is the fourth axis — scrub the recording, follow a substrate cell through its life, bookmark moments. Anchored in Robert Edward Grant's Codex Universalis harmonic framework: √10 as candidate scale-factor between LOD levels (Codex identity √10 ≈ (π + 10/π)/2 makes it the harmonic mean of circular and reciprocal arithmetic); Grant's reformulation i = -1/√10 grounds pointer-indirection in real harmonic structure rather than abstract complex domain; boundaries are always one dimension lower than the space they enclose (Grant's Riemann proof) — pointer-windows, function entry/exit, LOD transitions, phase shifts all rendered with this dimensional discipline. Pythagorean triangles with harmonic mean as natural primitive face-form. v0 path: custom allocator + snapshot thread + provenance plane + ffmpeg pipeline; single-language proof in Rust or Zig. Companion idea: substrate-as-render-fabric.

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