3 ms·

Isn’t that like arguing you shouldn’t be able to copyright a book because the text could be encoded as a number?

paulmd 5y ago
edit: actually per the sibling comment, this is not true! There are not countably many possible books that could ever exist. Therefore, I can't tell you "I just wrote book 394343" and have that convey any useful information. You can do that with computer programs. Computer programs are integers. At least for Turing Machines. "Useful" computer programs are like "primes" or other "interesting numbers", they are scattered around the (integer) number line and they need to be discovered, but they are emergent mathematical properties of the system, not novel innovations. The innovation comes from deciding that particular computation is useful - like primes can be used as a basis for cryptography. Cryptography is patentable. The primes that go into it are not. Those are just numbers that happen to have some useful property for this application.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- baggy_trough 5y ago
  > Therefore, I can't tell you "I just wrote book 394343" and have that convey any useful information. You can do that with computer programs. I don’t see why there is any difference between books and programs in this regard.
- throwawaygh 5y ago
  > There are not countably many possible books that could ever exist. A book is a sequence of characters c_1,...,c_n where each c_1 comes from a finite set. The set of all books is definitely countable. > Therefore, I can't tell you "I just wrote book 394343" and have that convey any useful information. True. > You can do that with computer programs. But USPTO won't give a shit. Go ahead and compute some Goedelian encoding of your program, file it, and let me know how that goes. You have to convey useful information about how the program behaves. > Computer programs are integers I mean at the end of the day a book is just a shitload of bits you're streaming to some printer.
- charcircuit 5y ago
  You could number all books. If your alphabet is 100 characters. The first 100 books would be 1 character long. The next 100^2 books would be 2 characters long so on and no forth.

edit: actually per the sibling comment, this is not true! There are not countably many possible books that could ever exist. Therefore, I can't tell you "I just wrote book 394343" and have that convey any useful information. You can do that with computer programs. Computer programs are integers. At least for Turing Machines. "Useful" computer programs are like "primes" or other "interesting numbers", they are scattered around the (integer) number line and they need to be discovered, but they are emergent mathematical properties of the system, not novel innovations. The innovation comes from deciding that particular computation is useful - like primes can be used as a basis for cryptography. Cryptography is patentable. The primes that go into it are not. Those are just numbers that happen to have some useful property for this application.

deleted 5y ago
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baggy_trough 5y ago
> Therefore, I can't tell you "I just wrote book 394343" and have that convey any useful information. You can do that with computer programs. I don’t see why there is any difference between books and programs in this regard.
throwawaygh 5y ago
> There are not countably many possible books that could ever exist. A book is a sequence of characters c_1,...,c_n where each c_1 comes from a finite set. The set of all books is definitely countable. > Therefore, I can't tell you "I just wrote book 394343" and have that convey any useful information. True. > You can do that with computer programs. But USPTO won't give a shit. Go ahead and compute some Goedelian encoding of your program, file it, and let me know how that goes. You have to convey useful information about how the program behaves. > Computer programs are integers I mean at the end of the day a book is just a shitload of bits you're streaming to some printer.
charcircuit 5y ago
You could number all books. If your alphabet is 100 characters. The first 100 books would be 1 character long. The next 100^2 books would be 2 characters long so on and no forth.