[ExI] Meaningless Symbols

Ben Zaiboc bbenzai at yahoo.com
Sat Jan 16 13:03:02 UTC 2010


Gordon Swobe <gts_2000 at yahoo.com>

> I mentioned also that the classic one-line "Hello World"
> program does not differ in any important philosophical way
> from the most sophisticated possible program. Someone made
> some scornful and ignorant comment about that. 

'Someone' said that it was one of the most ridiculous things they had ever heard.  Scornful?  certainly, and justifiably so.

Ignorant?

Only if you consider it ignorant to point out the ridiculousness of claiming that a hydrogen atom doesn't differ in any important way from a solar system, or that the operation of a spinal reflex doesn't differ in any important way from the functioning of a human brain.

As has already been pointed out, putting enough simple things together often (and perhaps inevitably) results in a completely different, complex thing, with completely different properties, which as far as we can tell, are not predictable from the properties of the simple things.

To claim that the complex thing does not differ in any important way from the simple thing is, I'll say it again, totally ridiculous.

Ben Zaiboc


      



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