There is something philosophically interesting about coming up with a new algorithm. I’m thinking about this right now because I came up with one just today, whilst trying to solve a research problem.<\/p>\n
I created this algorithm for a very specific purpose. But it’s also very general. So there’s a good chance it is going to be used by other people for other purposes.<\/p>\n
And here is where it all gets interesting. In all likelihood, many of those people will find clever new uses for this algorithm — uses I would never have thought of — long after I’m gone from this earth.<\/p>\n
Which means that an algorithm is, in a funny way, a kind of immortality. When you give the world a new thought or idea, you are passing down your intellectual DNA, setting it free to mingle with the intellectual DNA of future generations.<\/p>\n
Well ok, it’s not literal immortality. But it’s still pretty good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is something philosophically interesting about coming up with a new algorithm. I’m thinking about this right now because I came up with one just today, whilst trying to solve a research problem. I created this algorithm for a very specific purpose. But it’s also very general. So there’s a good chance it is going … Continue reading “Algorithms and immortality”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21220"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21220"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21221,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21220\/revisions\/21221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}