tanthalas

FWIW, I'm not making any claims about whether the "how" is all that matters re:IP/IS. I don't know nearly enough to make any kind of assertion like that.

I'm merely pointing out that "if I can do X and you can do X, then nothing else matters" is an argument that falls pretty flat under scrutiny. More importantly, that statement highlights a common mistake and misinterpretation of cause vs. effect in some instances.

We see it all the time in Aikido when teaching beginners -- a common phrase uttered in some classes is "the arm drops because uke is holding onto it while he's falling". And yet, invariably, some will look at the demonstration and think, "The teacher must be using their arm to push the uke into the ground!"

Back to topic - there may in fact be many ways to do X, but two people who accomplish X may not have done it using the same way. For some people, maybe they got there by repeatedly practicing "how to do X" (which in itself is necessarily doing something else, right?). For others, doing X may simply be a side effect of having pursued Y. I may go to the gym with the goal of losing weight, but perhaps one side effect that results from that is that I become able to run a 7-minute mile.