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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 11 2012 @ 04:13 PM EDT |
And *every* computation that a general-purpose computer can do, could be done
with a sufficiently large piece of paper (and a sufficiently long time to do it
in).
That's because its just math!
Computation (whether its done by a person with pen and paper, or by a
general-purpose computer with electrical signals switching billions of times per
second) is just the manipulation of abstract symbols. Its purely mathematical.
All computers can really do only three things:
(1) convert signals from physical real-world sensors into electrical impulses
that represent sybmols (input),
(2) do math, i.e. carry out abstract manipulations of those symbols (through
switching and combining of the electrical impulses), and
(3) cause certain physical manifestations with its electrical impulses (such as
emitting sound from a speaker, or light from a screen, i.e. output).
Patents involving software algorithms invariably tend to cover just part (2).
But even if they didn't, parts (1) and (3) depend on the fixed hardware of your
computer. Adding software to it only allows you to change what part (2) does.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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