Sorting Algorithms and IIH

 

I thought I'd take a break today from writing serious posts centered on practical advice and instead have a bit of fun. So, for all the Bardonists who are programmers, here is my attempt to use sorting algorithms to explain various approaches to IIH. 

Imagine that you are trying to sort a list and decide to use bubble sort. When it comes to magical training, this would be like if your approach to IIH consists solely of practicing the exercises in the book every day in the proper sequence, meaning you don't skip steps. This is a perfectly valid approach to working through IIH. Bubble sort is a respectable sorting algorithm, and you can't go wrong with it.

Now imagine that you are trying to sort a list and decide to use merge sort. When it comes to magical training, this would be like if your approach to IIH does involve practicing the exercises in the book every day in the proper sequence, but you also properly apply Christian, Buddhist, or yogic teachings in order to accelerate your advancement through the ten steps. While there's nothing wrong with bubble sort, merge sort is more efficient. Bubble sort runs in O(n^2). Merge sort runs in O(n*log n). 

Now imagine that you are trying to sort a list and write a program to implement a sorting algorithm, but you don't implement it properly and end up with an infinite loop. When it comes to magical training, this would be like if you try to work through IIH but end up stuck on Step 1 forever. 

Now imagine that you are trying to sort a list and write a program to implement bogobogosort, believing for some reason that it runs faster than merge sort. When it comes to magical training, this would be like if you adopted an extremely inefficient approach to IIH because you believed for some reason that it was actually really efficient. There are Bardonists who do this. Bogobogosort, by the way, is even more inefficient than bogosort. There are inefficient approaches to working through IIH, and then there are really inefficient approaches to IIH.

Now imagine that you are trying to sort a list and write a program to implement a sorting algorithm of your own creation, but your algorithm is flawed and will never sort the list properly. When it comes to magical training, this would be like if you try to combine IIH with other systems of training in an unintelligent way that doesn't really make sense, or even alter IIH itself in significant and unintelligent ways. Chances are, you will never succeed in working through the ten steps. Even bogosort is better than this, because even bogosort will eventually get you to a sorted list, even if it takes a while.

Now imagine that you are trying to sort a list and you think you have sorted the list, but actually it isn't sorted. Maybe it is nowhere even close to sorted. When it comes to magical training, this is like thinking you have worked through IIH when you really haven't. To borrow a term from the Eastern Orthodox tradition, this is an example of prelest. 

Now imagine that you claim to have a sorting algorithm that runs in O(1) and are selling it to programmers for a large sum of money, and many programmers buy your algorithm because they don't understand computer science well enough to see that the algorithm is flawed. When it comes to magical training, this would be like if someone claimed they could provide you with a pill, or some impossibly efficient approach to IIH, that would instantly make you a master of all the exercises in IIH and is selling it for an exorbitant price. To the best of my knowledge, there are no sorting algorithms that run in O(1) so no one who is really familiar with computer science would fall for such a scam. That said, if someone were selling a sorting algorithm that allegedly ran in O(1), I might buy it out of sheer curiosity, lol. 

Now imagine that you are trying to sort a list and somehow you actually do possess a sorting algorithm that runs in O(1) and implement it. When it comes to magical training, this would be like if you worked through IIH in a previous incarnation and found, upon trying the exercises for the first time in your current incarnation, that you were already able to do everything.