Why is it possible to use the dereferencing operator multiple times when assigning a function to a function pointer? [duplicate]

Question

I was wondering about the specific reason for which it is possible to use multiple times the dereferencing operator * when we want to assign a function to a function pointer.
As an example, the following code perfectly compiles and runs:

#include <iostream>

void f() { std::cout << "Hello World!" << std::endl; }

int main() {
    void(*f_ptr)(void) = ***************************************f;
    f_ptr();
    return 0;
} 

Answer 1

Functions and references to functions decay to a function pointer whenever necessary. There is no dereference operator defined for functions but there is one for function pointer: the function or reference to function happily decays to a pointer just to become derefernced again.