15 ms·

It's odd that over time things don't get simpler, instead everything trends towards more and more layered complexity - where the higher layers are abstracted so

It's odd that over time things don't get simpler, instead everything trends towards more and more layered complexity - where the higher layers are abstracted so as to appear simpler.

HPsquared 4y ago
Such is life (that is, biological evolution worked the same way).
- high_5 4y ago
  Life implies death. When will these systems implode under their own complexity?
  - api 4y ago
    This is a well known cycle in software. Systems grow in complexity until they collapse under their own weight, then a new system is created that steals the most valuable ideas from the old system. Repeat. It happens in nature too. Your skull has fewer bones in it than the skulls of many fish and humans do not by any stretch have the largest genome in nature.
- rightbyte 4y ago
  Zealous creationism in that case.
- mwcampbell 4y ago
  But unlike nature, we can do intelligent design.
  - arein3 4y ago
    How is the evolutionary design not intelligent?
    - quickthrower2 4y ago
      Veering into philosophy perhaps, but intelligence to me is “thinking”.
    - yoz-y 4y ago
      There is no intelligence guiding it. If it gets stuck in local maximum there it stays. If routing a vein through the worst possible places works it won't get optimized etc.
    - saba2008 4y ago
      Intelligence (in a metric, "this is intelligent way to do X", sense) implies some purpose. But life is just one big 'systems that survive and grow - grow and survive' tautology.
    - jodrellblank 4y ago
      The laryngeal nerve goes in roughly a straight line in fish. With evolutionary development of a neck stretching out, both ends of it are in the neck but the middle is still stuck near the heart. It now goes from brain down to heart, loops around an artery then back up the neck to the larynx. With a giraffe that's a pointless detour of several meters because evolution can't intelligently move it above the artery.[1] The optic nerve connects to the front of your retina giving you a blind spot, then pokes a hole in the retina to get out to the back and off to the visual cortex which is at the other end of the brain. Intelligent design would do better. [1] https://forum.donanimhaber.com/store/c9/ef/2d/c9ef2d955e3f99cfdf2fb99e4ef3591d.jpg https://forum.donanimhaber.com/store/c9/ef/2d/c9ef2d955e3f99...
  - saba2008 4y ago
    Only if you are designing another TempleOS. Thing for it's own sake, unaffected by any external requirements and completely specified, designed and implemented by one person.
scratcheee 4y ago
Things may change when(if) our machines get smarter than us. Currently we're constantly expanding the complexity of our systems, but since they don't understand their underlying purpose, they can't help us manage that complexity without drastically limiting their flexibility, there's no working around that. But if they knew what they were doing, instead of "I need to reorganise this database stack to reduce overhead" we'll be giving simple commands like "please stop taking over the world" and letting the machines handle the complex details.

It's odd that over time things don't get simpler, instead everything trends towards more and more layered complexity - where the higher layers are abstracted so as to appear simpler.

HPsquared 4y ago

Such is life (that is, biological evolution worked the same way).

high_5 4y ago
Life implies death. When will these systems implode under their own complexity?
- api 4y ago
  This is a well known cycle in software. Systems grow in complexity until they collapse under their own weight, then a new system is created that steals the most valuable ideas from the old system. Repeat. It happens in nature too. Your skull has fewer bones in it than the skulls of many fish and humans do not by any stretch have the largest genome in nature.
rightbyte 4y ago
Zealous creationism in that case.
mwcampbell 4y ago
But unlike nature, we can do intelligent design.
- arein3 4y ago
  How is the evolutionary design not intelligent?
  - quickthrower2 4y ago
    Veering into philosophy perhaps, but intelligence to me is “thinking”.
  - yoz-y 4y ago
    There is no intelligence guiding it. If it gets stuck in local maximum there it stays. If routing a vein through the worst possible places works it won't get optimized etc.
  - saba2008 4y ago
    Intelligence (in a metric, "this is intelligent way to do X", sense) implies some purpose. But life is just one big 'systems that survive and grow - grow and survive' tautology.
  - jodrellblank 4y ago
    The laryngeal nerve goes in roughly a straight line in fish. With evolutionary development of a neck stretching out, both ends of it are in the neck but the middle is still stuck near the heart. It now goes from brain down to heart, loops around an artery then back up the neck to the larynx. With a giraffe that's a pointless detour of several meters because evolution can't intelligently move it above the artery.[1] The optic nerve connects to the front of your retina giving you a blind spot, then pokes a hole in the retina to get out to the back and off to the visual cortex which is at the other end of the brain. Intelligent design would do better. [1] https://forum.donanimhaber.com/store/c9/ef/2d/c9ef2d955e3f99cfdf2fb99e4ef3591d.jpg https://forum.donanimhaber.com/store/c9/ef/2d/c9ef2d955e3f99...
- saba2008 4y ago
  Only if you are designing another TempleOS. Thing for it's own sake, unaffected by any external requirements and completely specified, designed and implemented by one person.

scratcheee 4y ago

Things may change when(if) our machines get smarter than us. Currently we're constantly expanding the complexity of our systems, but since they don't understand their underlying purpose, they can't help us manage that complexity without drastically limiting their flexibility, there's no working around that. But if they knew what they were doing, instead of "I need to reorganise this database stack to reduce overhead" we'll be giving simple commands like "please stop taking over the world" and letting the machines handle the complex details.