Gregory's ServerThe Tautological Algorithm is the only currently known O(0) algorithm, and is an algorithm for creating a universe. The algorithm works on the principle that in order to be invoked, there must already exist a universe for it to be invoked in, and it supplies this pre-existing universe as output.
 31 comments
 @mcc On the one hand this combination of "in order to create an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe" and the practice of reducing an unsolved problem to an equivalent already-solved problem is far too dangerous, you should not have shared this with the internet, it is access to the raw fire of logic that antecedes creation and this power should not belong in mere mortal hands, but on the other hand the pie is by definition delicious.  I was planning to make waffles in a few, do I also need to invent a universe first for waffles? I never have before, maybe that's why all this chaos is happening. They were good waffles though. @jpaskaruk @mcc I like that you’ve raised the stakes here somehow by contorting chronology on top of causality.  @jpaskaruk @mhoye @mcc Waffles are easier as they are a projection of the universe onto 2D space @penguin42 @jpaskaruk @mhoye —wait, did you just invent a viable geometrical explanation for the dark energy problem @mcc @jpaskaruk @mhoye That's just equivalent to the question of where does the icecream melt away to. @mcc @jpaskaruk @mhoye Primarily in the high energy phase at the start of the waffels existence.  @mcc I've argued before that "computer science" ought to be broken up, with the pieces given to philosophy, numerical mathematics, and engineering. The Tautological Algorithm and Zen Sort clearly belong in philosophy. 😈 @AlgoCompSynth @mcc That kind of dichotomy stumps me. I was taught mathematics from an engineering perspective. My brainy mathematics oriented daughter thinks of mathematics in terms of sets of numbers, theorems, and proofs. Engineering equations bore her. I wish I'd had her math perspective in my youth. But, it may have been beyond my grasp.   @mcc Zen Sort sounds a lot like Assume Sort. Equivalent in performance, even, but more enlightened.   @mcc If you only want to create a single world (resting on the backs of four elephants), that's the Turtlogical Algorithm...  The existence and implementation of an unnamed algorithm that executes in O(sqrt(-1)) time is Pure Imagination    @mcc This is great. I believe I, or rather Emma, unknowingly used a variant of this algorithm in Emma Goldcoin: https://github.com/wgmyers/egx @mcc see also BeOS's `is_computer_on()` https://www.haiku-os.org/legacy-docs/bebook/TheKernelKit_SystemInfo.html#is_computer_on  @mcc isn’t it just an identity function on the Abelian group of all the universes? @mcc this can be easily proven by applying the Abelian-non-Abelian classifier to all of them. Or, alternatively, it can be derived from the second axiom of Abelian logic, which explicitly states that everything is Abelian unless proven otherwise.    @mcc In Haskell, the Tautological Algorithm is written "return () :: IO ()" See https://stackoverflow.com/questions/32672814/where-is-the-realworld-defined for more details.  “...they discovered only a small asteroid inhabited by a solitary old man who claimed repeatedly that nothing was true, though he was later discovered to be lying.” |
The Tautological Algorithm exists in a class of "ontology-oriented" algorithms, containing such algorithms as the Zen Sort, which sorts a list by deciding its current contents are the definition of "order" and therefore it is already sorted. Other algorithms in the class are asymptotically slower, however, clocking in at O(1), because it takes a nonzero amount of time to decide that the list is sorted. The Tautological Algorithm meanwhile by definition is already complete at the time it is used