Algorithms Run the World

While reviewing the course, I saw the quote "algorithms could run the world" that I wrote down in the beginning of this semester. It seemed that everything came be broken down into basic components, and every process can be divided into basic steps. 

I once read an article on a magazine; it describes the process of “learning the world” as “forming a snowball”. If we analysis the process using algorithms, it will be like this: 

First of all, we need to grab some snow on the floor. Those original snows represent the facts that people learned from visualizing the world. Secondly, we clench the snow in our hand, making it a small snowball. This process indicates that people start to realize the basic concepts of the world by manufacturing the facts. Soon we find that the small snowball is able to stickup other snows on the floor, which represents the discovery of the way that things interact with each other. All the interactions are summarized as “rules” of the world. Eventually, people roll the snowball on the snow to make bigger ones; this refers to the process of building more complicated operations by using the basic concepts and rules. 

All the algorithms follows certain rules, such as logic, theories or even common sense. Those rules may not even be 100 percent true, as long as it works under certain circumstances.