You could see a (perhaps incorrect or ultimately misleading) example of it: 1. What would have to be true for us to have reliable transmission of messages over

You could see a (perhaps incorrect or ultimately misleading) example of it: 1. What would have to be true for us to have reliable transmission of messages over an inherently lossy network? 1a. some kind of method to ensure that a message got to its intended destination 2. what would have to be true to ensure that a message got to its intended destination? 2a. some kind of method of ensuring that failures don't occur, or if that is impossible, some kind of method of making intermittent failures not prevent the system from eventually functioning. 3. what would need to be true to make intermittent failures not prevent the system from functioning ... etc... Slightly misleading because I'm obviously working back from a familiar example, but I think the technique is applicable in some cases. At the very least your solution is born out of trying to make the impossible just barely possible rather than seeking to build layer by layer to achieve something possible. However, with TCP/IP you can also see how using traditional methods also work.