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Comment by xelxebar | Hacker News Reader

I think your premise might be flawed.

Are we just assuming that protons and neutrons automatically pull in the quarks, neutrinos, other leptons and force carriers as well? Does the electron have a photon dependency? What about dark matter?

If not, then the our three particles are internally inconsistent and woefully incapable of building a universe. Otherwise, our set of dependencies is essentially the whole darn universe anyway.

Same goes for atoms. Give me enough and I can build a star or particle accelerator to create whatever elements or fundamental particles I want.

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Wow, it was a simplistic passing metaphor. I was not expecting to get into the complexities of physics, but simply that if you operate at a more fundamental level, you can generally address a greater range of problems.

The point is that your metaphor is broken and incorrect. GP's point stands. Abstractions are leaky.

Even leaky abstractions can be useful, if they are taken in context. If you choose not to understand the spirit of my comment, and take its meaning literally to the point of it having no utility for you, then so be it. A significant number of upvotes suggest GP's point may be moot, and, dare I say, pedantic.

Also, the GPs suggestion of building an accelerator is as silly as someone writing an assembly compiler via a mush of SQL. It probably can be done, but it's not in the spirit of the topic!

Fair point. Abstractions, leaky or otherwise, are helpful! It does seem a bit like we've successfully abstracted the conversation into oblivion though. hehe

Anyway, I feel like your original comment and my reply are kind of doing the same thing at the meta-conversation level. We're stretching a metaphor in order to make some counterpoint argument. My intent with the excessive pedantry was to highlight the farce of conflating rough metaphor with substantive insight.

Anyway, internet conversations are hard. Thanks for engaging!

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