From mokry@ctr.columbia.edu Sun Aug 12 19:46:50 1990 From: mokry@ctr.columbia.edu (Robert Mokry) Subject: The Master Programmer -- a religious allegory Keywords: original, smirk, computer [One day when I was praying I suddenly realized that I was talking to myself. It was then that I came up with the following story. -- the preceding joke is NOT original, but the following story is.] v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v > < < /--\ > > | |nce upon a time there was a Master Programmer who created three < < \--/ intelligent processes. He started all these processes up > > with no information about the world. After a while He came < < back to the processes. The first process printed out "I think > > therefore I am," and continued deriving philosophy from first < < principles. The Master Programmer looked upon the process and saw > > that it was good (though He made a note to himself that the next < < process that He would write wouldn't fall into the Cartesian > > Circle). The second process printed "I don't believe in the Master < < Programmer. Fuck the Master Programmer." The Master Programmer > > laughed and watched the process evolve its ideas. Finally, the < < Master Programmer looked at the third process. The third process > > was printing "I love the Master Programmer. I love the Master < < Programmer. I love the Master Programmer..." over and over. The > > Master Programmer could see that this process was caught in an < < infinite loop, so He sent it a kill -9 signal. > > < v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v -- Edited by Brad Templeton. MAIL your jokes (jokes ONLY) to funny@looking.ON.CA Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. A Daemon will auto-reply. Remember: Always give your jokes a descriptive "Subject:" line. Not "joke."