gcthomas
New member
Can I add that inanity to the 'stripe program' responses? it's a great one!
Display.exe: Posted to document the date of my invention
- Thread starter Bob Enyart
- Start date
Can I add that inanity to the 'stripe program' responses? it's a great one!
Numbers will do that.
:chuckle:
I don't see how the output of the program does what Bob said it would do. It appears to just be creating a picture out of pixels.
csuguy
Well-known member
I see what the program does now. It just takes a document of some fixed size and it systematically goes through and alternates every single pixel one at a time, until it has exhausted all pixel combinations. By doing so you iterate through every single possible image that could fit onto that area - meaning book pages, sheet music, source code, etc.
An interesting little program but I don't think it demonstrates the finiteness of man's creativity. All it really demonstrates is the finiteness of how many different images can be produced over a given area with a specific resolution. And it seems to be black and white only at that - so it can't reproduce works of art, which are a major area of human creativity. Granted, it would not be terribly difficult to rewrite the program so that it alternates through all color combinations as well.
An interesting little program but I don't think it demonstrates the finiteness of man's creativity. All it really demonstrates is the finiteness of how many different images can be produced over a given area with a specific resolution. And it seems to be black and white only at that - so it can't reproduce works of art, which are a major area of human creativity. Granted, it would not be terribly difficult to rewrite the program so that it alternates through all color combinations as well.
csuguy
Well-known member
I will now use Bob's idea to prove that man's creativity is INFINITE rather than finite.
First off, let us look at what his program actually does. It constructs a rectangular area of pixels, starting with all pixels at a value of zero. It then proceeds to alternate through all possible pixel combinations for that fixed area. By doing so, he is able to produce an image of everything that would fit onto that rectangular area. His program is currently only operating with black and white, but that is simple to overcome so let us ignore that limitation.
Now, Bob argues that this program will eventually produce anything that man's creativity can produce. It will eventually produce any book, any program, and (if we allow the addition of color) even any 2D work of art. His argument relies upon the idea that his program's output is not limited to the present image - but rather all images that it produces. He can thus go through and combine select images to form a whole idea.
This is a key assumption of Bob, for without the ability to combine the outputs produced by Display.exe - he would be extremely limited by what he could represent. For, if he limited himself to any given size canvas - I could think of an image that requires one more column of pixels and or rows. He could say his canvas is an infinite size - but that would defeat his goal: to demonstrate the finiteness of man's creativity. Therefore he limits the canvas size and combines the resulting images.
However, he does not take into account the fact that the manner in which we connect ideas is, in fact, a form of creativity. And thus I will demonstrate that man's creativity is infinite through this very oversight.
First, I will provide a simpler program for you all. I won't provide the code here (though I can if someone really wants it) but I will rather describe it in simple terms. Let us assume there is a program whos only goal is to alternate the color of a single pixel through all colors.
Now, using Bob's earlier assumption - I can produce anything that his program produces by freely combining the results of my one pixel program. However, what limits the number of connections I can make? Nothing - I can keep linking each color to itself infinitely to produce an infinite series of new images.
Thus Bob inadvertently provides proof of the infinite nature of man's creativity. Thank you Bob
First off, let us look at what his program actually does. It constructs a rectangular area of pixels, starting with all pixels at a value of zero. It then proceeds to alternate through all possible pixel combinations for that fixed area. By doing so, he is able to produce an image of everything that would fit onto that rectangular area. His program is currently only operating with black and white, but that is simple to overcome so let us ignore that limitation.
Now, Bob argues that this program will eventually produce anything that man's creativity can produce. It will eventually produce any book, any program, and (if we allow the addition of color) even any 2D work of art. His argument relies upon the idea that his program's output is not limited to the present image - but rather all images that it produces. He can thus go through and combine select images to form a whole idea.
This is a key assumption of Bob, for without the ability to combine the outputs produced by Display.exe - he would be extremely limited by what he could represent. For, if he limited himself to any given size canvas - I could think of an image that requires one more column of pixels and or rows. He could say his canvas is an infinite size - but that would defeat his goal: to demonstrate the finiteness of man's creativity. Therefore he limits the canvas size and combines the resulting images.
However, he does not take into account the fact that the manner in which we connect ideas is, in fact, a form of creativity. And thus I will demonstrate that man's creativity is infinite through this very oversight.
First, I will provide a simpler program for you all. I won't provide the code here (though I can if someone really wants it) but I will rather describe it in simple terms. Let us assume there is a program whos only goal is to alternate the color of a single pixel through all colors.
Now, using Bob's earlier assumption - I can produce anything that his program produces by freely combining the results of my one pixel program. However, what limits the number of connections I can make? Nothing - I can keep linking each color to itself infinitely to produce an infinite series of new images.
Thus Bob inadvertently provides proof of the infinite nature of man's creativity. Thank you Bob
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noguru
Well-known member
I did see that. But I am still not sure he is accurate in his claims that it can reconstruct the source code of a program strictly based on the compiled machine instructions. For it to do that it would also have to referrence every compiler (cobol, rpg, assembly, basic...) known to man. Not sure that would be something worthwhile anyways. Though I have used utilities that can take a compiled object and produce the source code from which they were compiled. They are not exact in their production. They often make assumptions based on programming standards, and there are often many ways to program the same exact function for obvious
csuguy
Well-known member
His program doesn't take a program name as an argument. All it does is produce pictures. He argues that by iterating through all possible images for a given area and resolution it will also iterate through the source code for any given program. This is not false but it relies upon the assumption that he can combine the various images of his program. For you would be hard pressed to fit a program's source code onto a single page. See my previous post where I tackle Bob's argument and use his assumption to show that man's creativity is infinite rather than finite.
noguru
Well-known member
Then that is certainly not reconstructing the source code of a compiled object into whatever language the original program was.
I personally have worked on programs that are over 6,000 lines long (200 pages at 30 lines per page). Granted that was in the heyday of legacy programming and prior to object oriented programming standards. In one project I reduced the lines of code from about 8k to about 2k and added more functionality to the program in the process. This use to be a major issue in MIS because one could not just increase the horsepower of a machine when necessary back then.
csuguy
Well-known member
Yes - his claims are highly exaggerated.
I currently work as a Software Programmer - trust me programs have not gotten any smaller. To the contrary - 200 pages would be nothing compared to the software I currently work with.
noguru
Well-known member
I was a programmer/analyst for 16 years. I worked on programs written in COBOL, RPG3, RPG4, RPGILE, JCL, CLP, Basic, Dbase, Foxpro...Most of my work was surrounding canned business applications software packages (GL, AP, AR, MRP, Wholesale Distribution...) as well as interface programs between various platforms. Though I did do work at 2 software houses for about 5 years of that time.
csuguy
Well-known member
Only the followers of Bob took it seriously. Although I did find the use of programming to make a theological point interesting.
I guess at that point I rest my case.
P.S. This pastor worship you see often in these bizarre little places like DBC reminds me of the Thurber short "The Owl Who Was God." Look it up, seriously. Isn't a lengthy read.
zippy2006
New member
Diagonalization ftw :thumb:
It's just a gimmick, a silly attention-grabber. The program takes no input, it just spews pixel combinations until all have been accounted for.
Apparently a pixel permutation on a 1600x1200 display with 24-bit color would result in 16,777,216 ^ 1,920,000 images, which is a number with around 16 million digits. Then once you have these [16 million digit number] images, the representation and storage of which would be perfectly impossible, you could sort through them and try to identify meaningful images, at which point you could only identify things you already know, hence no new knowledge. :chuckle: Like I said: a dramatic gimmick based on an unoriginal pixel permutation. When Bob inevitably adds the "video function" these results will increase exponentially.
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So you are a follower of Bob? You and noguru?
csuguy
Well-known member
No I'm not a follower of Bob - and I never once took his claim seriously. I did enjoy the use of software to make a theological point though - that's new.
csuguy
Well-known member
Actually, the program fails to accomplish its only real purpose: demonstrate the finiteness of man's creativity. (Feature #4 in the OP). Also, being in black and white only, it fails Feature #2 - displaying the pages from any and every book.