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| Authored by: PolR on Sunday, October 14 2012 @ 11:18 PM EDT |
Furthermore, referencing the bolded part above, is it really
actually the software that is manipulating the symbols, or is any manipulation
of symbols a result of changes in hardware state resulting from the execution of
the instructions contained in the aforementioned software.
I
suggest you read again the part of the article discussing the difference between
a bit and a voltage. It is under the title "Computations Don't Process
Electrons, Computations Process Symbols". Symbols are abstract ideas distinct
from their physical representations.
Hardware doesn't process symbols. It
processes voltages and similar electronic phenomenons.
Put another
way, if the software is merely a sequence of detailed instructions.
This is true only in imperative programming. In other computing
paradigms software is not instructions at all.
It may only
describes symbol manipulations but cannot actually perform the manipulations
without the instructions being followed. That's the reason I contend that
mathematics does not "process" anything, it requires a medium by which its
descriptions or instructions can be performed or calculated.
I
must remind you of a further point. Mathematicians expect the algorithm to be
executed. Actually performing this task is part of mathematics regardless of the
nature of the computing agent. This is a mathematical process called a
computation. Saying otherwise is tantamount to say actually solving equations or
actually doing arithmetical calculations is not mathematics. I suppose you
recall how much of that you have done in math classes, don't you?
What is
this computing agent? I have also answered this question. In a pencil and paper
calculation it is a human doing the work. In a computer it is a circuit which
is dedicated to computing a universal algorithm called the instruction
cycle.
You should pay attention to the concepts of universal algorithm and
instruction cycle. If the argument is that it is the hardware and hardware alone
which is patentable then we reach the unavoidable conclusion that the hardware
of a stored program computer is not new. There is only one process in the
computer, always the same. This process is the execution of the instruction
cycle.
However, an understanding clearly exists that software can
instruct machines in ways that becomes useful to the operator, hence the obvious
presence of meanings in data. That such instructions can be transformed into
something more than the sum of it's parts, into something more then a
mathematical model as a result of its execution.
Which
transformation would that be? Do you mean something physical? The instructions
are data. They are input to the instruction cycle. No transformation occurs.
There is only input is given to a known algorithm. The dedicated circuit just
computes the algorithm for which it has been designed as it always does.
Or
perhaps you mean that since the data has meaning the instructions become somehow
different? Do you mean something like 12 apples + 26 apples is a different
computer instruction than a plain 12 + 26? In both cases the bits in the
computer are exactly the same. There are no apples in this computer. This is the
very point of the calculator riddle.
See also the point that actually
carrying out the computation is mathematics. The argument is not about making a
model of the computation. The argument is about the computation itself. A
computation in its mathematical sense is something which can be physically
executed.
Furthermore, those higher level symbols that are
interpreted by the operator can only be his interpretation of the machine state
as a result of the software if and when the software is executed, and that's
when the meanings described by the software become apparent to the operator and
when the patent covers more then just the math.
This logic applies
as is to a pencil and paper calculation. Do I understand you correctly? You are
arguing that the digital equivalent of pushing a pencil on paper is patentable
because the operator of the computer can read meanings into the symbols. What is
patentable about this?
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