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The Philosophical Perspective | 756 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
The Philosophical Perspective
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, July 23 2012 @ 09:55 AM EDT
I agree with everything you say in your latest post, but I
would point out that software patents do not try to patent
computer hardware. They are trying to patent a new
"machine" (I think the courts might have used the term
"virtual machine" had they known it) consisting of hardware
PLUS programming. That is the value of the Chinese Room
thought-experiment: even though the man in the room
(analogous to the CPU) cannot possibly do anything other
than semantic-free symbolic manipulations, it raises the
question of whether the complete system (man plus rules, CPU
plus programming) can do semantics. If it can, then a focus
on the limitations of the CPU does not do much to
distinguish the complete system from other types of machines
(such as human brains). Though I admit, I've forgetten why
(in)ability to do semantics would be relevant to
patentability.

I'm having fun with the Chinese room... sadly I have to work
for a living right now...

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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