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I was objecting to your incorrect statement of how a computer works | 364 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
I was objecting to your incorrect statement of how a computer works
Authored by: Ian Al on Sunday, January 06 2013 @ 05:32 AM EST
Still, I never refuse a request to pontificate.

I take the entire repertoire of PolR as a given, so if you don't see what I am
getting at, refer there. Computers work by manipulating binary signs represented
by an electrical charge, a chemical state, a magnetic state or the presence or
absence of physical pits, depending on the medium.

They are not symbols, as the processor is incapable of 'knowing' interpretants.

The computer can compute because it uses boolean logic to approximate a
universal algorithm. The binary states are presented to the boolean logic inputs
which apply boolean algebra in order to compute, using the universal algorithm.

This is a rationalisation. The boolean logic is designed by human beings
adopting a specific sign/state convention. Without, any change to the circuitry,
a change in the sign/state convention renders the electrical design worthless
because it changes the boolean logic and the results produced.

The computer contains no software. It contains no instructions or data. It
contains only binary signs and these are abstract. Only the states representing
the signs are material.

I found this concise description in Wikipedia: 'Software is instructions for
computers'. It is wrong, but helpful. The processor cannot 'know' instructions.
It just manipulates the binary signs using boolean logic circuits.

Software only looks like instructions when signs are ordered as intended by the
computer designer and software folk perceive interpretants represented by the
sign sets. Since human beings cannot perceive the states in a computer, they
have to perceive a representation of the states which employs the computer
designer's sign/state convention. This might be a reading of the source code
that eventually results in a particular state set in the computer or it may be a
HEX reader that represents the binary states as hexadecimal encoded symbols.

There are no material referents associated with the signs and the interpretants.
The referents can only be abstract ideas in the mind of the perceiver.

They are perceiving an abstract representation of abstract signs related to
abstract state/sign conventions chosen by the computer designer. The choosing of
one out of the two possible sign/state conventions in a binary system is not an
invention because no novelty is involved in making an arbitrary choice between
two existing alternatives.

Some aspects of software fixed into a human readable medium may be protectable
by copyright. The abstract ideas expressed by the software (the software
concepts) are not protectable. The words and short phrases are not protectable.


The state sets in a computer cannot be patented or copyrighted because they are
abstract, they are not a novel invention, they are not, in the main, fixed in a
medium, they are never fixed into a human readable medium (they are only ever
represented to humans), they are laws of nature, they are prior art and they are
not novel and useful machines, methods, processes or compositions of matter.

They are not even abstract ideas. Computers don't have ideas. Only people have
ideas. People can protect creative expression fixed in a human-readable medium,
but not the abstract ideas expressed. Neither can they patent abstract ideas,
especially ones generated by viewing an abstract representation of the state set
in a computer.

---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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