Email or username:

Password:

Forgot your password?
Top-level
mcc

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

16 comments
mhoye

@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.

JimmyChezPants

@mhoye @mcc

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.

mhoye

@jpaskaruk @mcc I like that you’ve raised the stakes here somehow by contorting chronology on top of causality.

penguin42

@jpaskaruk @mhoye @mcc Waffles are easier as they are a projection of the universe onto 2D space

mcc

@penguin42 @jpaskaruk @mhoye —wait, did you just invent a viable geometrical explanation for the dark energy problem

penguin42

@mcc @jpaskaruk @mhoye That's just equivalent to the question of where does the icecream melt away to.

mcc

@penguin42 @jpaskaruk @mhoye you're saying we can also incorporate inflatons into the theory?!

penguin42

@mcc @jpaskaruk @mhoye Primarily in the high energy phase at the start of the waffels existence.

AlgoCompSynth by znmeb

@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. 😈

Jonathan D. Cope, Esq.

@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.

AlgoCompSynth by znmeb

@Cirdan @mcc My degrees are in math but I mostly earned a living in operating systems and scientific applications programming.

Cher Tailor

@mcc What do I think of tautology? Eh, it is what it is. I could take it or leave it.

Andrew Plotkin

@mcc The algorithm than which none more optimal can be imagined

Brian Swetland

@mcc Zen Sort sounds a lot like Assume Sort. Equivalent in performance, even, but more enlightened.

DanCast

@mcc the Tautological Algorithm runs once per Planck Time. Its job is to prevent the universe from ceasing to exist.

Go Up