I understand what you're saying but I'd like to push back a little. The loose analogy of superposition applies to a very large number of algorithms just as much

I understand what you're saying but I'd like to push back a little. The loose analogy of superposition applies to a very large number of algorithms just as much as it applies to this one. You could likewise apply it to sorting - a "Wave Function Collapsing Sort" considers all elements of a set to be in superposition, then gradually "collapses" each index to the element which matches. It does this iteratively until it either sorts incorrectly and must start over, or until it produces the correct sort. In other words, this isn't actually a superposition. You could definitely say there's entropy involved, but really this is replacing the word "uncertainty" with "superposition." If you do that, an extraordinary number of algorithms suddenly fit the template of wave function collapse. Basically anything that has a probability distribution and iterative reduction, because that's what this is (and not a wave function). I'd also say that flood fill actually looks like a flood filling a room if you see a 2-dimensional visual of it pathfinding around obstacles. Personally I don't really care about how algorithms are named, but I think flood fill is a bad example because it actually looks like a flood filling a room. > I have my own theory on why people like to complain about this particular analogy, but for the sake of not causing offence I will leave it there ;p Why even mention it then? "I'm thinking something that might be offensive so I won't say anything"; sort of undoes the whole not saying anything bit, doesn't it?