Mind: A Brief Introduction (John R. Searle) / quote 71 of 138
Big problems decompose into simple ones
Yet another important idea, already implicit in what I have said, is that big complex problems can be broken down into little simple problems, which can be broken down into even simpler problems, until we reach the level of ultimate simplicity. Doing multiplication with several digits, for example multiplying 28 x 71, may seem to us a complex operation, but the beauty of the idea of a Turing machine is that at bottom, all such problems break down into simple maneuvers with zeros and ones.