Comment by fellowniusmonk

Loops and functions can be physically represented as a stand alone, they can be physically carved onto a mechanical surface and observed.

They don't smuggle anything in conceptually, their abstraction doesn't leave anything critical to their structure out. They are real and can be physicalized as stand alone objects.

I see you've never tried to teach a software class to children or other learners, historically recursion is _very_ poorly taught by those who already understand the concept, but I'm not saying you have to care about that, a lot of people think there are too many programers already.