While the universe is fundamentally a single, interconnected whole—a dynamic tapestry woven from interacting worldsheets of fundamental strings—this tapestry is not an undifferentiated or "indifferent flow." The very physics governing these strings and their worldsheets imprints an inherent structure upon reality, creating foundational patterns and propensities even prior to complex agency.
These inherent structural propensities arise from, for example:
- The quantization of string vibrational modes, leading to a discrete spectrum of fundamental particle types with distinct properties (mass, charge, spin). This provides natural "kinds" at the most basic level.
- The specific rules governing string interactions (e.g., how worldsheets join and split), which determine the probabilities and stabilities of various configurations, effectively "texturing" the flow of reality.
- The influence of spacetime's higher-dimensional geometry (including any compactified dimensions), which shapes the fundamental forces and constants, thereby constraining all emergent structures.
Within this inherently structured, holistic flow, the distinctions, borders, and categories we commonly perceive (including concepts of individual identity, discrete objects) are nonetheless further refined, selected, and made meaningful through subjective or emergent processes.
"Subjectivity" here primarily refers to distinctions being agent-relative. They arise from the evolved, functional "inside-out lens" of information-processing agents. These agents "carve up," interpret, and assign significance to aspects of the continuous, structured flow of reality. They do so to make sense of it, navigate it, and interact with it in ways that promote their own persistence and continuity. These evolved systems are often highly attuned to the underlying physical propensities, as recognizing and utilizing these inherent "joints" or patterns in reality is generally adaptive.
Thus, the process of forming distinctions is a dialogue between the agent's needs and cognitive framework, and the pre-existing, physically-grounded structural characteristics of the universe. Certain patterns are more likely to be perceived or stabilized as distinct entities because the fundamental physics itself makes them more stable, recurrent, or energetically favorable.