> You haven't described how to write a
program for any
particular purpose
Why should I show that? This is not relevant to the
topic of this article.
I think that is precisely
relevant to the topic of the article.
Invention is all about synthesis,
not analysis. You can analyze
something all you want and show that it consists
exclusively of mathematics,
or
atoms, or electrons, or grease, or candy, or
shaving cream, or whatever. But
analysis is not
invention -- invention is
related to synthesis, not analysis.
Also I don't see how Shannon
theory of information is
relevant to the topic of this article. You have not
explained the connection.
The problem of transmitting
information is governed by Shannon's
theory, and block coding is a way of
coding information to enable one to
approximate the capacity of a given digital
transmission channel. In fact,
block coding takes information symbols,
which may be bits or a finite
number of bits, and transforms them into channel
symbols, of which
there are also a finite number, and, to allow the
channel symbols to
be converted back into information symbols, by
some well-chosen
metric, the encoded channel symbols are as distant from one
another as
possible.
Thus, this problem perfectly fits into your
paradigm. It's all
about mapping one set of symbols into another and back to
the original. The
mapping can be done with special purpose hardware or with a
general purpose computer. But there is absolutely nothing in any theorem
that
tells you what
algorithm to use for the mapping. Moreover, the particular
algorithm may not
be useful if it takes longer to perform the coding and
decoding than is
available to transmit and receive the data.
The
invention of algorithms that perform such mappings is where
synthesis and
invention takes hold. No amount of analysis can come up with
perfect codes,
and you can't say that these codes occur in nature. They are
invented by
humans. And that is where your adoration of the Turing machine
ceases to be
relevant, and the point at which your arguments about why
computer programs
should not be patentable cease to be persuasive. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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