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> It always could do them, it just wasn't told to. "A board, spring and wires could always trap a mouse, they just weren't configured to do so." How is progra

> It always could do them, it just wasn't told to. "A board, spring and wires could always trap a mouse, they just weren't configured to do so." How is programming a computer different from assembling existing components in a new arrangement to make a new machine? > otherwise changing and programming the state of your brain to know and do things it could not before. Not a neuroscientist, and this risks derailing the thread, but isn't that exactly how brains and learning work? This has also been observed at the macro level, e.g. that study where London cabbies' brains were found to have enlarged portions that dealt with spatial processing.

AnimalMuppet 12y ago
A board, spring, and wires is a bit different from a programmable computer, because the computer was designed to be programmable. Putting a program in changes the computer's state, true, but it's changing it to a state that it was designed to be able to achieve. That difference ruins your mousetrap analogy.
DannyBee 12y ago
""A board, spring and wires could always trap a mouse, they just weren't configured to do so." How is programming a computer different from assembling existing components in a new arrangement to make a new machine?" You are not "assembling existing components in a new arrangement with a computer". Also, if I gave you a board, a spring, and wires, you could not trap a mouse with them. You actually have to physically change them to accomplish anything. The spring won't stick to the board by itself, etc. You are also taking things that were previously limited in some way (a board is not elastic, etc), and assembling them into a new thing that is not so limited. When you program a computer, you are not changing the computer in any way, shape, or form. It was never limited. By programming it, you are doing exactly what it was built to do: Be programmable. You are simply picking a subset of the things it could already do, and saying "do this subset". The computer, no matter how hard you program it, will never trap a mouse. It is the building of the computer that was the hard part. You, on the other hand, are always operating entirely within the existing limits of the computer. "Not a neuroscientist, and this risks derailing the thread, but isn't that exactly how brains and learning work? This has also been observed at the macro level, e.g. that study where London cabbies' brains were found to have enlarged portions that dealt with spatial processing. " Yes, this is exactly how they work. That's my point. By your argument, you can replace "computer implemented" with brain implemented, and end up with the same patentable result. Given that, i'm arguing there is nothing special, at all, about computers, or implementing things using them, any more than thinking about things or learning to play guitar. Enlarging the center for spatial processing in cabbies is something the brain was meant to do. The cabbies did not create it out of whole cloth. They did nothing but exercise their normal skill in spatial reasoning, and their brain did all the actual work. Programming a brain does not make them do new things they could not do. It simply tells them what task to perform. IE There are a set of tasks they can both perform. That set of tasks is fixed at creation, both of brains, and computers. You cannot make lasers shoot of your eyes no matter how hard you try. Much like a brain implemented invention, a computer one is just picking a certain task the computer already could do.
- AnthonyMouse 12y ago
  > You are also taking things that were previously limited in some way (a board is not elastic, etc), and assembling them into a new thing that is not so limited. I think you have this part of it backwards. The fact that you can assemble a board and some metal into a mouse trap shows that the component parts weren't limited. Computers are the opposite. They're extremely limited -- they can't physically do anything, they can only perform calculations. Software is capable of nothing but specifying what calculations to perform. Here's a great example of the absurdity that occurs when you allow the narrow thing computers do to be the subject of a patent. Suppose that the text of a particular software patent consists of source code implementing the invention. If software can be patented then that patent would infringe itself. All you would need to constitute an embodiment of the "invention" would be a prior art general purpose computer and the patent's text. Imagine an infringement suit against the Patent Office (or Google Patents) for storing the patent's text on a computer capable of executing it.
  - greyfade 12y ago
    > Computers are the opposite. They're extremely limited -- they can't physically do anything, they can only perform calculations. Software is capable of nothing but specifying what calculations to perform. I think this is the heart of your argument here. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) The problem is that in terms of calculation, computers are not limited. In fact, that was proven not once, but twice, in 1939. Any computation that can be performed can be done with any general-purpose computer. The Church-Turing Thesis proves that that computer need not even be specialized: it only requires the ability to manipulate symbols deterministically in some general manner. What these patents cover is, in fact, only those computations with the aid of a general-purpose computer, and the only reason those patents have been allowed is by this fallacious argument that a general-purpose computer somehow becomes a special-purpose computer when it is programmed. This is not how computers work. A general-purpose computer does not become special-purpose merely by assigning some numbers to a pool of memory any more than an FPGA becomes an ASIC by uploading a ROM image. It is still a general-purpose computer, and its nature does not change. If, perhaps, by programming a computer, the program magically became a new, immutable physical wiring, your argument might have merit. But we do not live in a world of magic.

AnimalMuppet 12y ago

A board, spring, and wires is a bit different from a programmable computer, because the computer was designed to be programmable. Putting a program in changes the computer's state, true, but it's changing it to a state that it was designed to be able to achieve. That difference ruins your mousetrap analogy.

DannyBee 12y ago

""A board, spring and wires could always trap a mouse, they just weren't configured to do so." How is programming a computer different from assembling existing components in a new arrangement to make a new machine?" You are not "assembling existing components in a new arrangement with a computer". Also, if I gave you a board, a spring, and wires, you could not trap a mouse with them. You actually have to physically change them to accomplish anything. The spring won't stick to the board by itself, etc. You are also taking things that were previously limited in some way (a board is not elastic, etc), and assembling them into a new thing that is not so limited. When you program a computer, you are not changing the computer in any way, shape, or form. It was never limited. By programming it, you are doing exactly what it was built to do: Be programmable. You are simply picking a subset of the things it could already do, and saying "do this subset". The computer, no matter how hard you program it, will never trap a mouse. It is the building of the computer that was the hard part. You, on the other hand, are always operating entirely within the existing limits of the computer. "Not a neuroscientist, and this risks derailing the thread, but isn't that exactly how brains and learning work? This has also been observed at the macro level, e.g. that study where London cabbies' brains were found to have enlarged portions that dealt with spatial processing. " Yes, this is exactly how they work. That's my point. By your argument, you can replace "computer implemented" with brain implemented, and end up with the same patentable result. Given that, i'm arguing there is nothing special, at all, about computers, or implementing things using them, any more than thinking about things or learning to play guitar. Enlarging the center for spatial processing in cabbies is something the brain was meant to do. The cabbies did not create it out of whole cloth. They did nothing but exercise their normal skill in spatial reasoning, and their brain did all the actual work. Programming a brain does not make them do new things they could not do. It simply tells them what task to perform. IE There are a set of tasks they can both perform. That set of tasks is fixed at creation, both of brains, and computers. You cannot make lasers shoot of your eyes no matter how hard you try. Much like a brain implemented invention, a computer one is just picking a certain task the computer already could do.

AnthonyMouse 12y ago
> You are also taking things that were previously limited in some way (a board is not elastic, etc), and assembling them into a new thing that is not so limited. I think you have this part of it backwards. The fact that you can assemble a board and some metal into a mouse trap shows that the component parts weren't limited. Computers are the opposite. They're extremely limited -- they can't physically do anything, they can only perform calculations. Software is capable of nothing but specifying what calculations to perform. Here's a great example of the absurdity that occurs when you allow the narrow thing computers do to be the subject of a patent. Suppose that the text of a particular software patent consists of source code implementing the invention. If software can be patented then that patent would infringe itself. All you would need to constitute an embodiment of the "invention" would be a prior art general purpose computer and the patent's text. Imagine an infringement suit against the Patent Office (or Google Patents) for storing the patent's text on a computer capable of executing it.
- greyfade 12y ago
  > Computers are the opposite. They're extremely limited -- they can't physically do anything, they can only perform calculations. Software is capable of nothing but specifying what calculations to perform. I think this is the heart of your argument here. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) The problem is that in terms of calculation, computers are not limited. In fact, that was proven not once, but twice, in 1939. Any computation that can be performed can be done with any general-purpose computer. The Church-Turing Thesis proves that that computer need not even be specialized: it only requires the ability to manipulate symbols deterministically in some general manner. What these patents cover is, in fact, only those computations with the aid of a general-purpose computer, and the only reason those patents have been allowed is by this fallacious argument that a general-purpose computer somehow becomes a special-purpose computer when it is programmed. This is not how computers work. A general-purpose computer does not become special-purpose merely by assigning some numbers to a pool of memory any more than an FPGA becomes an ASIC by uploading a ROM image. It is still a general-purpose computer, and its nature does not change. If, perhaps, by programming a computer, the program magically became a new, immutable physical wiring, your argument might have merit. But we do not live in a world of magic.