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Facts aren't dogma. | 202 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Religious dogma?
Authored by: Wol on Saturday, February 02 2013 @ 09:40 AM EST
Sorry, but as far as pretty much EVERY well known computer scientist, and
professors of mathematics, is concerned it is considered not as dogma, but as
proven fact!

Software, inasmuch as it exists as source code or object code or executable
code, IS MATHS. Software code == maths. The form that code takes is irrelevant
to the equation.

If you're confused as to the distinction between "being" and
"doing", then maybe you could argue otherwise - what software DOES is
often not maths (except that it's what a *computer* does, not the software
itself).

The trouble most people have is they demand certainty, they demand mathematical
precision. That's all very well, but the world (as shown by Heisenberg, Godel,
Schrodinger, Planck et al) just does not work that way.

Hardware is patentable. Software is not. The problem is that at the interface
between the two things is fuzzy - why should a circuit enabled in hardware be
patentable, but the same in software logic gates not be? But if you deny the
existence of the Schrodinger's cat, it doesn't change reality. That is the only
place that a line *can* be drawn, and if it gives weird results a la Planck and
Heisenberg, then live with it. That's reality!

Cheers,
Wol

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Facts aren't dogma.
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, February 05 2013 @ 06:31 PM EST
Software is mathematics. It was invented by mathematicians as a type of
mathematics. Everyone who's actually studied it realizes it's mathematics.

In fact, that's the line between software and not-software: when it starts
involving stuff other than mathematical algorithms, it's not pure software any
more.

When you start talking about patenting the use of a piece of software together
with particular hardware to achieve a physical effect, you're outside the realm
of pure software. Frequently this is an obvious result, but at least you're
outside the realm of pure software.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Re:Dogma
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, February 10 2013 @ 03:05 AM EST
Some of us could be accused of being dogmatic about the Earth being 'round',
too. That a flat Earth is the official story causes no end of frustration, and,
from that perspective, proponents of the middle ground 'Pizza Theory'* are
merely seen as substituting one error for another.

*Credit to the Wizard of ID

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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