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| Authored by: IMANAL_TOO on Sunday, February 10 2013 @ 04:13 PM EST |
Forgot to log in in parent. From the article "Numerical competence in animals, with an insight from
ants":
"Apparently, the fact that different forms and
elements of numerical competence are spread across a wide variety of species,
both vertebrate and invertebrate, as well as that these abilities emerge early
in ontogeny, support the idea of evolutionary psychology inspired by Darwin
(1871a,b) that the human mind is a collection of special-purpose mechanisms,
each shaped by evolution to perform a particular function. A huge body of
experimental data includes demonstrations of animals’ abilities to count, to
understand numerical information and to perform simple arithmetic operations.
Not only primates but also ants, honey bees, pigeons, and even newly hatched
domestic chicks demonstrate some forms of numerical competence. More simple (but
also cognitively demanding) forms of quantity judgement, such as relative
numerousness judgements, estimation and subitising have been revealed in a
variety of species, from beetles, fish and salamanders to rodents, dogs, cats,
horses, elephants and primates."
Paper also available from
author's website.
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IMANAL
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| Authored by: Tolerance on Sunday, February 10 2013 @ 05:01 PM EST |
Dear old Kronecker rears his head again: "Die ganzen Zahlen
hat Gott gemacht; alles andere ist Menschenwerk ..."
I know about the animals who can distinguish numbers. Not to
mention, say those who can do Ameslan. Are they human? No.
Do they have minds? Yes. Are they human minds? No. Does the
fact that an animal can work with a number make that process
unpatentable? No, because the animal does not have a human
mind.
Only man's works apply here. What God or animals made
doesn't affect the SCOTUS rule; only what human minds can do
is. That is just as well. We don't have to wonder if your
number 2 is the same as a crow's number 2, or the same as
mine.
God might have made a universal number 2 which we all
perceive, or he might not. Under US law, if a human mind can
do everything in the claim, it's not patentable subject
matter. Doesn't matter that it's abstract.
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Grumpy old man[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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