Ruthie Blum interviewed George Gilder in the Jerusalem Post late last month. Here’s a sample from the interview:
RB: How do you explain how this “incredibly improbable world could exist”?
GG: Creation. I see creation in economics; I see creation in computer science. You can know everything there is to know about the physics and chemistry of a microchip, without having the slightest inkling of what function it’s performing, let alone what content it is processing. The same goes for network theory. You can know every electron or atom across a fiber-optic network, without having any idea of what contents are being transmitted.
In network theory, you have seven layers of abstraction. Those same seven layers also apply, in slightly different form, to a computer system. Both are exhaustively and intelligently designed, with elaborate and extraordinarily complex equipment, which itself is exhaustively designed, and not intelligible unless you know the “source code.” The theory that governs design in the microchip – invented 28-9 years ago by Carver Mead and Lynn Conway – is called “hierarchical design.” It is a top-down design, the crux of which is that it is independent of its material embodiment.
SOURCE: Jerusalem Post.