Thoughts on objects and their underlying structure

Image for a moment two sheets of paper. On the first we have a design of a Web page. On the second we have the code (all of it) needed to generate that page.

If we were to overlap the sheets of paper, so that the design covered the code, let us imagine that the overlapping sheet's background would turn transparent.

With this in mind, we could overlap the two sheets of paper equally, with the right side of the design's sheet overlapping the left side of the code's sheet.

Now really, these two have absolutely no physical dimensions at all, in particular, no thickness; they're just a stream of bytes.

So while before, when we imagined/saw them as sheets with a thickness of 0.5mm, they have a thickness of 0. This also means that by overlapping the two we no longer have 0.5 *2, but 0 + 0.

Since the two overlap in how we perceive them (due to the transparency), they seem to become one, which, again, because they have no dimension, 1 + 1 = 1.

Or, is it really that we can remove the left side of the equation and simply say 1?

To some extent the two are different and separate. Yet, looking at it from another perspective, they are the same; it's merely our perspective that changes. Or perhaps the depth at which we know/understand the thing.

With the exception of abstract methods (and not even then), I find that I tend to think with both perspectives in mind.

Since they say that the gods can look at a thing and know everything about it, this seems to be a good place to be, even if it's only with code, and not physical objects.