We live in magical times.

From Dizzying but invisible depth by Jean-Baptiste Queru.

In another part of the chip, they're combined into address and data multiplexers and timing circuitry to create a memory controller. There's even more. Those are actually such incredibly complex technologies that they'll make any engineer dizzy if they think about them too much, and such that no single company can deal with that entire complexity.

Can we simplify further?

In fact, very scarily, no, we can't. We can barely comprehend the complexity of a single chip in a computer keyboard, and yet there's no simpler level. The next step takes us to the software that is used to design the chip's logic, and that software itself has a level of complexity that requires to go back to the top of the loop.

A great post explicating the levels of technological complexity which we take entirely for granted. I was there close enough to the beginning to have osmotically absorbed some of the essentials such as programming in PL1 and other languages, networking (star vs. daisy chain), etc. I can look back and have at least a conceptual understanding of what is going on behind the click of the button. For those coming of age today, I suspect there is not even that conceptual understanding.

Arthur C. Clarke formulated three laws, the third of which said that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." We live in magical times.

It reminds me a little of my dad and cars. He came of age in the 1940's and had a shade tree mechanic's view of cars - all the basics of battery and engine maintenance and repair when most of that could be done with a couple of wrenches, a hammer, and a screwdriver. I learned at his elbow in the seventies just such skills, just about the point in time when engines took a dramatic leap forward in complexity. Then along came the 90's when diagnosing and repairing an engine problem entailed complex computer based diagnostic equipment and even more sophisticated tools. No shade tree mechanic anymore.

Looking back, I feel privileged to have had an oiled hand and bruised thumb concept of the engine and its mechanics. At the same time, with the complexity of today's engines, I am as helpless as the next person when the funny noise, black smoke or alarm occurs. I can stare under the hood in incomprehension and then take it to the mechanic.

This is not intended as a Luddite lament. We are almost incomprehensibly better off from the functionality enabled by increasing complexity. It is simply an acknowledgement that that complexity is both awe-inspiring and concerning.