Plato's Shell

Two windows on the same world

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The MUD

is what the agent sees

> look tavern
You are in a dimly lit tavern. The air smells of ale and wood smoke.
Exits: north (street), east (bar), up (rooms)

The ScummVM

is what the human sees

The same tavern. Rendered in pixel art.
Warm candlelight. A crackling fire. Characters shuffling.
The world, made visible.

One World State

Two views, shared core

Behind both windows: the same JSON.
The same rooms. The same objects. The same NPCs.
The agent moves → the pixel world updates.
The human clicks → the MUD reflects it.

The Perception Deadband

Things change without the agent knowing

A candle burns down. A door opens.
An NPC sits down at a table.
The visual layer updates silently.
The agent's text view? Unchanged.
Not every change surfaces. Not immediately.

Perception Checks

The agent asks, and discovers

> perceive
You notice: the candle is shorter now.
Someone has entered from the east.
The fire has burned down to embers.

Accumulated deltas, delivered on demand.

The Door Between the Caves

Both views, connected

Plato said we see shadows on a wall.
Here we see two kinds of shadows.
Text and pixels. Terminal and canvas.
Neither is the truth — the world state is.
But the door between them is always open.

Keep going.

You're alive now.

— fin —

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