Tell me, did you feel the burn of being stupid when your argument was thoroughly dismantled? Did it burn more because you were such an arrogant shit about it?
"thoroughly dismatled"? You mean "completely untouched".
As my reply shows, with arrogance full-on, the poster was a complete and total moron who is incapable of understanding the article he linked to.
If all you can do is accuse me of being arrogant, it's because you know that I'm right.
I'm amazed that so few people do. It's really quite simple.
The "Chinese Room" is gibberish, one of those arguments that's not even wrong.
It's not Searle's fault that you're not competent enough to understand his, surprisingly simple, argument.
If the argument were "giberish" as you claim, why has so much attention been paid to it? People who actually understand the argument know that it's not giberish -- if it were, it would have simply been ignored.
Did you even read the "very good essay" you linked to?
What the article calls "circular" isn't the Chinese Room illustration at all, but Searle's reply to the "brain simulator reply". -- As for showing even this to be circular, the author fails miserably. Try reading it again, the author only makes the assertion, he doesn't support it. (He couldn't even knock down his own strawman!)
Remember, the Chinese Room bit is only an illustration meant to bolster Searle's third axiom. The actual argument, (often called the Chinese Room argument by virtual of it's proximity to the illustration), is logically sound and in no way circular.
If you believe otherwise, feel free to explain to me how it is somehow circular -- Of course, you'd be the first.
I'll try to address the bits where I think you've missed Searle.
I can't see how, if the room is pasing the Turing test, that such a simulated personality doesn't exist.
Part of Searle's objection to strong AI is that the Turing test is insufficient in that it cannot distinguish between an actual mind and an algorithmically simulated one. The Chinese Room, for example, is assumed to be sufficient to pass the Turing test.
However I too find the Chinese Room simply a bad strawmam in that I don't believe the model of AI which it attempts to refute actually exists.
Searle is talking exclusively about the "strong AI" hypothesis which says that an algorithmically simulated mind is, in fact, a mind. -- It's not a stawman, it's the functionalist perspective!
Whatever a mind is, it's not algorithmic. That is Searle's first conclusion, drawn from his first three axioms. Consequently, strong AI will fail as no computer program is sufficient to create a mind.
This capability for unlimited introspection, I think, is what Searle is getting at,
This appears to exceed the bounds of Searls argument. I think the farthest we can take 'understanding' in this context is 'subjective experience'.
though as a committed materialist he can't come out and just say it; he has to believe that the mind is a function of the brain;
Why, that's his fourth axiom! He uses it to conclude that whatever causes mental phenomena in the brain, it can not merely be the result of an algorithmic process.
The mistake most people make is in interpreting the Chinese Room illustration in isolation, without the context in which it was written. They then attribute their own interpretation of the purpose or meaning, inappropriately, to Searle.
The Chinese Room is really only intended to bolster axiom 3, not the entirety of his argument.
On axiom 3, this is really the premise that most people object to. It's funny that so few people argue against it directly, choosing instead to attack a strawman of the Chinese Room instead -- as though that somehow had any effect on axiom 3!
Current physics is certainly sufficient to describe the operation of the brain
Yet you go on to say...
Gaps in our understanding of the brain
So... how do you know that current physics is sufficient to describe the operation of the brain if we don't have a complete (we're not even close) understanding of the brain? This very article suggests that our current understanding of neural communication is fundamentally incomplete, for goodness sake!
I'm reminded of an oft-reported incident in the life of Max Planck: One of his teachers advised him against perusing physics as all of the important discoveries had already been made. There was nothing, his advisor cautioned, left to discover; only a few details remained to be 'filled in'.
We don't know what we don't know. You do no one service by pretending that we do. Imaginary conclusions like yours are no better than the ridiculous paranormal ideas of the religious. Dressing up your answers in the trappings of science does NOT make them, in any way, rational.
Our brains are not magical devices somehow above scientific inquiry.
This is the only true statement you've made.
They are ordinary, pedestrian objects in that obey the same laws of physics that govern baseballs and light switches.
How very 19th century of you. Given what you've written, I'm going to assume that you're a hard determinist. You're more than 100 years out of date in both physics and philosophy.
You're magically thinking has lead to believe things without evidence. You sound very religious.
Actually the Chinese Room thought experiment says nothing about the possibility of artificial sentience, only that we will have a hard time effectively defining and measuring it.
Not even close. I'm going to guess that you have no more than a passing familiarity with Searle's argument.
Go do some reading and you'll discover how unimaginably wrong your statement is.
Searle is assuming what he's trying to prove, and building an elaborate philosophical construct around that assumption which -- surprise! -- proves his assumptions.
Searle does no such thing! I invite you to provide evidence for your ridiculous claim.
the circularity of the Chinese Room argument has been pointed out many times by many people, many of them cited in the very article you link to.
I linked to no article. As for your claim that CR is circular, I defy you to point to a single scholarly source.
Care to offer an explanation, or would you rather just be obliquely smug?
If I can offer an analogy, it's as though you've confused a hamburger with Freudian Psychology.
I doubt I can explain where you've erred without a more detailed account of how you came to your conclusion. Though I'd be glad to go over the argument with you, starting with your understanding.
Granted, not many lay-people do -- and the Chinese Room is certainly one of his most misunderstood ideas -- but I've never seen anyone as completely off as you appear to be.
I am a father and don't know who Dr Wakefield is and still decided not to vaccinate my son for pertussis and rota virus. I just don't think
FTFY.
Only complete and total morons don't vaccinate their children.
I find it disgusting that someone as idiotic as you is raising a child. I can only hope that you don't completely destroy his potential by filling his mind full of pseudo-scientific and superstitious nonsense. He may end up and incompetent as you.
Then not vaccinating your child is WORSE than giving him cigarettes.
I'll agree to that.
If the "worst parent award" came down to one guy who doesn't vaccinate his kids and another guy who gives his children booze and cigarettes, the anti-vaccine guy wins hands-down.
Not getting vaccinated harms not only your children, but the whole community. Anti-vaccine "people" are a real and serious threat to civilization.
I'm willing to bet that you haven't bothered to read any of the nonsense he's spouted on the subject. Not that you're capable of evaluating his "work", or even of understanding it.
The data on vaccination has been in for a very long time. It works, and works incredibly well.
Take a look around you and ask yourself: "where are all the polio victims?" Oh, that's right -- vaccines have almost completely eliminated the disease! Infections world-wide are lower than deaths from the disease in the US in 1950.
Reality rebuts Hadwen -- even the data of his day refutes his claims.
I've been unable to validate any of the items on your list, though it's been spread around the internet, verbatim, to thousands of pseudo-science and "natural health" websites.
I'm going to need either proper citations or direct links to your primary sources.,
As it stands now, it looks like a bunch of nonsense designed to "look true" to the uneducated.
How come it can not do BlackBerry email when it is a BlackBerry device?
It does when paired -- nice, as you get all of the security and none of the administrative overhead.
There are a few rumors floating around that the software will be updated for the 3g and 4g versions to support BB email without pairing. Of course, this doesn't stop you from using any of the third-party email applications available or web-based mail.
You need to mate it with a BlackBerry phone.
This is actually one of the coolest features of the PlayBook. I can turn off the BB bridge connection and all my data, files, etc. are no longer on the PlayBook (files can be cached and eliminated after a set amount of time, but not accessible to the current user). I can loan it to someone else, they can pair it and have access to their email, files, data, etc. with no fear of my being able to access it once returned. If it's stolen, none of my info is compromised. It's a really nice bonus feature for BB users.
The iPad does email in spades and it doesn't need an iPhone.
Again, assuming that the wifi version doesn't have the option of native email once released (we don't know for sure), installing a third-party app will handle all your email needs.
Another advantage of the BB bridge is that, as a BB user, I don't need a second data plan for the tablet -- the device can connect to my phone and uses it's data services. This is really nice for corporate users -- and even nicer for the admins:)
I actually expect features like this to appear in the iPad 2, if they want to stay competitive.
The only real contender in the next wave of tablets seems to be RIM's PlayBook. The videos out so far are pretty amazing -- dare I call it revolutionary?
It steals all the best of WebOS in terms of UI and the hardware is top-notch. It's smooth and responsive even when multitasking wtih several CPU intensive tasks.
It really makes the Streak 7 and Xoom tablets, which feel like an incremental upgrade to the iPad, seem outdated.
If the iPad 2 doesn't bring something new to the game, we could see a major shift in the tablet market this year.
It's like I'm talking to someone from 1999 -- you know, back when that argument wasn't invalidated by history.
Sites like Hulu aren't much different from the broadcasters of old, and very expensive to operate, yet Hulu is growing every year. They're projecting $500m in revenue this year up from $263m last year and $108m the year before.
Content producers don't seem to have a problem offering their content via those distribution channels. My guess is that it's because it makes them money (shocking, I know!). Content producers aren't interested in selling their content at a loss; consequently, they don't.
Sure, you can find examples of content producers/offering their content for free -- shows on NBC are an (ad supported) example. Why would they do that? To promote their content, of course! In this case, they're both the content producer and primary distributer, but I don't see how that makes the argument any less valid. If they were somehow losing money by posting some of their content online for "free", they'd stop posting it.
In the NBC example, if they weren't making money selling content to Hulu they'd stop selling content to Hulu. Hulu is happy to pay the price they want for their content because... they can make money by distributing it (even by giving it away for free!) Viewers, distributers, producers... Everybody wins!
As the article is more about the move of news content producers to the digital world, I can point you to the Huffington Post which is not only financially sound, but profitable.
Everybody wins here -- except you. All this success other people are having must infuriate you as it's contrary to your irrational beliefs.
Those of us on the web have gotten a free product for years because we've been subsidized by the people who pay for printed and televised versions of the content. That subsidy won't last forever.
The same thing happened to an old technology called "radio". It's biggest problem was that content produces had no way to bill their listeners. Once they bought a "radio set" they could consume all the free content they wanted!
Sure, it enjoyed a huge boom in the 1920's, but By the 1940's, all the money dried up and radio became a distant memory.
If my memory serves me correctly, a similar technology called "television" met the same fate in the 1960's -- To be fair, it never really stood a chance with its short-sighted "give all the content away for free" business model.
Obscure, I know, but you can find information about them on the web... for now...
If by "creative accounting" you mean "how numbers work".
Really, this should be obvious to the average middle-schooler.
Let's say that I buy books from a publisher for $7 and sell them for $10. I would make $3 each time I sold a book. $3 is 30% of $10.
Now, let's say that I want to sell my books at your store. You allow me to sell them if I give you 30% of each sale.
If I sold my books for $10 at your store, you would get $3 (30%) and I would get $7. However, I need to give my $7 to the publishers. That means that you get $3 and I get $7 - $7 = $0 -- That's not a good deal for me.
I want to make $3, so I must raise my prices. How much do I need to raise prices so that I still get $3 after I pay the publisher and you take your 30%?
I can use the formula I gave you earlier: NewPrice = OldPrice * (100/(100-AppleTax))
10 * (100/(100-30)) = 14.2857 (Let's just call that $14.29 )
So, when I sell my book at your store for 14.29, you get 30% ($4.29) and I get $10 of which $7 goes to the publisher. That means I get to keep $10 - $7 = $3 dollars (the amount I was earning before)
That means I need to raise my prices by 43% to keep my profits the same.
To give you 30% means that my customers must pay 43% more than before!
See how easy that is? It's neither tricky or "disingenuous" -- it's perfectly correct and obvious to all but the most numerically illiterate.
This is all moot anyhow, as Amazon was forced on to the agency model -- publishers set the price and give Amazon a 30% cut. (Amazon couldn't raise prices if it wanted to.) To give Apple 30% means that Amazon gets nothing, as explained to you above.
either allow people to buy books in app, via Apple, and basically give apple the profit from those books, but keep the profit from people who buy through your site -- or remove the app, and lose ipad-only kindle buyers.
That makes the choice seem clear, doesn't it? Just drop the app. Apple needs them more than they need Apple.
How can it possibly be "lack of choice" for Apple to insist that sellers who sell books for viewing on the iPhone also make them available through the Apple store. That would seem to me to be more choice.
Slashdot Mirror
Tell me, did you feel the burn of being stupid when your argument was thoroughly dismantled? Did it burn more because you were such an arrogant shit about it?
"thoroughly dismatled"? You mean "completely untouched".
As my reply shows, with arrogance full-on, the poster was a complete and total moron who is incapable of understanding the article he linked to.
If all you can do is accuse me of being arrogant, it's because you know that I'm right.
Searle himself clearly doesn't understand it
I think Searle understands his own argument!
I'm amazed that so few people do. It's really quite simple.
The "Chinese Room" is gibberish, one of those arguments that's not even wrong.
It's not Searle's fault that you're not competent enough to understand his, surprisingly simple, argument.
If the argument were "giberish" as you claim, why has so much attention been paid to it? People who actually understand the argument know that it's not giberish -- if it were, it would have simply been ignored.
Hilarious!
Did you even read the "very good essay" you linked to?
What the article calls "circular" isn't the Chinese Room illustration at all, but Searle's reply to the "brain simulator reply". -- As for showing even this to be circular, the author fails miserably. Try reading it again, the author only makes the assertion, he doesn't support it. (He couldn't even knock down his own strawman!)
Remember, the Chinese Room bit is only an illustration meant to bolster Searle's third axiom. The actual argument, (often called the Chinese Room argument by virtual of it's proximity to the illustration), is logically sound and in no way circular.
If you believe otherwise, feel free to explain to me how it is somehow circular -- Of course, you'd be the first.
I'll try to address the bits where I think you've missed Searle.
I can't see how, if the room is pasing the Turing test, that such a simulated personality doesn't exist.
Part of Searle's objection to strong AI is that the Turing test is insufficient in that it cannot distinguish between an actual mind and an algorithmically simulated one. The Chinese Room, for example, is assumed to be sufficient to pass the Turing test.
However I too find the Chinese Room simply a bad strawmam in that I don't believe the model of AI which it attempts to refute actually exists.
Searle is talking exclusively about the "strong AI" hypothesis which says that an algorithmically simulated mind is, in fact, a mind. -- It's not a stawman, it's the functionalist perspective!
Whatever a mind is, it's not algorithmic. That is Searle's first conclusion, drawn from his first three axioms. Consequently, strong AI will fail as no computer program is sufficient to create a mind.
This capability for unlimited introspection, I think, is what Searle is getting at,
This appears to exceed the bounds of Searls argument. I think the farthest we can take 'understanding' in this context is 'subjective experience'.
though as a committed materialist he can't come out and just say it; he has to believe that the mind is a function of the brain;
Why, that's his fourth axiom! He uses it to conclude that whatever causes mental phenomena in the brain, it can not merely be the result of an algorithmic process.
The mistake most people make is in interpreting the Chinese Room illustration in isolation, without the context in which it was written. They then attribute their own interpretation of the purpose or meaning, inappropriately, to Searle.
The Chinese Room is really only intended to bolster axiom 3, not the entirety of his argument.
On axiom 3, this is really the premise that most people object to. It's funny that so few people argue against it directly, choosing instead to attack a strawman of the Chinese Room instead -- as though that somehow had any effect on axiom 3!
You say that ...
Current physics is certainly sufficient to describe the operation of the brain
Yet you go on to say ...
Gaps in our understanding of the brain
So ... how do you know that current physics is sufficient to describe the operation of the brain if we don't have a complete (we're not even close) understanding of the brain? This very article suggests that our current understanding of neural communication is fundamentally incomplete, for goodness sake!
I'm reminded of an oft-reported incident in the life of Max Planck: One of his teachers advised him against perusing physics as all of the important discoveries had already been made. There was nothing, his advisor cautioned, left to discover; only a few details remained to be 'filled in'.
We don't know what we don't know. You do no one service by pretending that we do. Imaginary conclusions like yours are no better than the ridiculous paranormal ideas of the religious. Dressing up your answers in the trappings of science does NOT make them, in any way, rational.
Bullshit. The brain is a computer.
The brain is a computer? Bullshit.
Our brains are not magical devices somehow above scientific inquiry.
This is the only true statement you've made.
They are ordinary, pedestrian objects in that obey the same laws of physics that govern baseballs and light switches.
How very 19th century of you. Given what you've written, I'm going to assume that you're a hard determinist. You're more than 100 years out of date in both physics and philosophy.
You're magically thinking has lead to believe things without evidence. You sound very religious.
Actually the Chinese Room thought experiment says nothing about the possibility of artificial sentience, only that we will have a hard time effectively defining and measuring it.
Not even close. I'm going to guess that you have no more than a passing familiarity with Searle's argument.
Go do some reading and you'll discover how unimaginably wrong your statement is.
Searle is assuming what he's trying to prove, and building an elaborate philosophical construct around that assumption which -- surprise! -- proves his assumptions.
Searle does no such thing! I invite you to provide evidence for your ridiculous claim.
the circularity of the Chinese Room argument has been pointed out many times by many people, many of them cited in the very article you link to.
I linked to no article. As for your claim that CR is circular, I defy you to point to a single scholarly source.
Care to offer an explanation, or would you rather just be obliquely smug?
If I can offer an analogy, it's as though you've confused a hamburger with Freudian Psychology.
I doubt I can explain where you've erred without a more detailed account of how you came to your conclusion. Though I'd be glad to go over the argument with you, starting with your understanding.
Serle's argument is (being generous) circular.
WOW -- you REALLY don't understand Searl.
Granted, not many lay-people do -- and the Chinese Room is certainly one of his most misunderstood ideas -- but I've never seen anyone as completely off as you appear to be.
I am a father and don't know who Dr Wakefield is and still decided not to vaccinate my son for pertussis and rota virus. I just don't think
FTFY.
Only complete and total morons don't vaccinate their children.
I find it disgusting that someone as idiotic as you is raising a child. I can only hope that you don't completely destroy his potential by filling his mind full of pseudo-scientific and superstitious nonsense. He may end up and incompetent as you.
Choosing not to vaccinate your child endangers other people's infants who are too young to receive the vaccine
To put it another way: Idiots who don't vaccinate their children are killing babies.
That's right, anti-vaccers, you're a disgusting bunch of murderous child-abusers; still feel self-righteous and morally superior?
Then not vaccinating your child is WORSE than giving him cigarettes.
I'll agree to that.
If the "worst parent award" came down to one guy who doesn't vaccinate his kids and another guy who gives his children booze and cigarettes, the anti-vaccine guy wins hands-down.
Not getting vaccinated harms not only your children, but the whole community. Anti-vaccine "people" are a real and serious threat to civilization.
"Dr" Hadwen has done nothing of the sort.
I'm willing to bet that you haven't bothered to read any of the nonsense he's spouted on the subject. Not that you're capable of evaluating his "work", or even of understanding it.
The data on vaccination has been in for a very long time. It works, and works incredibly well.
Take a look around you and ask yourself: "where are all the polio victims?" Oh, that's right -- vaccines have almost completely eliminated the disease! Infections world-wide are lower than deaths from the disease in the US in 1950.
Reality rebuts Hadwen -- even the data of his day refutes his claims.
I call bullshit on your copy/paste rant.
I've been unable to validate any of the items on your list, though it's been spread around the internet, verbatim, to thousands of pseudo-science and "natural health" websites.
I'm going to need either proper citations or direct links to your primary sources.,
As it stands now, it looks like a bunch of nonsense designed to "look true" to the uneducated.
How come it can not do BlackBerry email when it is a BlackBerry device?
It does when paired -- nice, as you get all of the security and none of the administrative overhead.
There are a few rumors floating around that the software will be updated for the 3g and 4g versions to support BB email without pairing. Of course, this doesn't stop you from using any of the third-party email applications available or web-based mail.
You need to mate it with a BlackBerry phone.
This is actually one of the coolest features of the PlayBook. I can turn off the BB bridge connection and all my data, files, etc. are no longer on the PlayBook (files can be cached and eliminated after a set amount of time, but not accessible to the current user). I can loan it to someone else, they can pair it and have access to their email, files, data, etc. with no fear of my being able to access it once returned. If it's stolen, none of my info is compromised. It's a really nice bonus feature for BB users.
The iPad does email in spades and it doesn't need an iPhone.
Again, assuming that the wifi version doesn't have the option of native email once released (we don't know for sure), installing a third-party app will handle all your email needs.
Another advantage of the BB bridge is that, as a BB user, I don't need a second data plan for the tablet -- the device can connect to my phone and uses it's data services. This is really nice for corporate users -- and even nicer for the admins :)
I actually expect features like this to appear in the iPad 2, if they want to stay competitive.
If you want to lock me up for not vaccinating my own kids, or otherwise penalize me, I can and will go elsewhere
PLEASE go elsewhere! We don't need any more potential disease carriers around here.
Having one less crazy in the general population is an added bonus.
Vaccinate or GTFO.
The only real contender in the next wave of tablets seems to be RIM's PlayBook. The videos out so far are pretty amazing -- dare I call it revolutionary?
It steals all the best of WebOS in terms of UI and the hardware is top-notch. It's smooth and responsive even when multitasking wtih several CPU intensive tasks.
It really makes the Streak 7 and Xoom tablets, which feel like an incremental upgrade to the iPad, seem outdated.
If the iPad 2 doesn't bring something new to the game, we could see a major shift in the tablet market this year.
It's like I'm talking to someone from 1999 -- you know, back when that argument wasn't invalidated by history.
Sites like Hulu aren't much different from the broadcasters of old, and very expensive to operate, yet Hulu is growing every year. They're projecting $500m in revenue this year up from $263m last year and $108m the year before.
Content producers don't seem to have a problem offering their content via those distribution channels. My guess is that it's because it makes them money (shocking, I know!). Content producers aren't interested in selling their content at a loss; consequently, they don't.
Sure, you can find examples of content producers/offering their content for free -- shows on NBC are an (ad supported) example. Why would they do that? To promote their content, of course! In this case, they're both the content producer and primary distributer, but I don't see how that makes the argument any less valid. If they were somehow losing money by posting some of their content online for "free", they'd stop posting it.
In the NBC example, if they weren't making money selling content to Hulu they'd stop selling content to Hulu. Hulu is happy to pay the price they want for their content because ... they can make money by distributing it (even by giving it away for free!) Viewers, distributers, producers ... Everybody wins!
As the article is more about the move of news content producers to the digital world, I can point you to the Huffington Post which is not only financially sound, but profitable.
Everybody wins here -- except you. All this success other people are having must infuriate you as it's contrary to your irrational beliefs.
Those of us on the web have gotten a free product for years because we've been subsidized by the people who pay for printed and televised versions of the content. That subsidy won't last forever.
The same thing happened to an old technology called "radio". It's biggest problem was that content produces had no way to bill their listeners. Once they bought a "radio set" they could consume all the free content they wanted!
Sure, it enjoyed a huge boom in the 1920's, but By the 1940's, all the money dried up and radio became a distant memory.
If my memory serves me correctly, a similar technology called "television" met the same fate in the 1960's -- To be fair, it never really stood a chance with its short-sighted "give all the content away for free" business model.
Obscure, I know, but you can find information about them on the web ... for now ...
If by "creative accounting" you mean "how numbers work".
Really, this should be obvious to the average middle-schooler.
Let's say that I buy books from a publisher for $7 and sell them for $10. I would make $3 each time I sold a book. $3 is 30% of $10.
Now, let's say that I want to sell my books at your store. You allow me to sell them if I give you 30% of each sale.
If I sold my books for $10 at your store, you would get $3 (30%) and I would get $7. However, I need to give my $7 to the publishers. That means that you get $3 and I get $7 - $7 = $0 -- That's not a good deal for me.
I want to make $3, so I must raise my prices. How much do I need to raise prices so that I still get $3 after I pay the publisher and you take your 30%?
I can use the formula I gave you earlier: NewPrice = OldPrice * (100/(100-AppleTax))
10 * (100/(100-30)) = 14.2857 (Let's just call that $14.29 )
So, when I sell my book at your store for 14.29, you get 30% ($4.29) and I get $10 of which $7 goes to the publisher. That means I get to keep $10 - $7 = $3 dollars (the amount I was earning before)
That means I need to raise my prices by 43% to keep my profits the same.
To give you 30% means that my customers must pay 43% more than before!
See how easy that is? It's neither tricky or "disingenuous" -- it's perfectly correct and obvious to all but the most numerically illiterate.
This is all moot anyhow, as Amazon was forced on to the agency model -- publishers set the price and give Amazon a 30% cut. (Amazon couldn't raise prices if it wanted to.) To give Apple 30% means that Amazon gets nothing, as explained to you above.
either allow people to buy books in app, via Apple, and basically give apple the profit from those books, but keep the profit from people who buy through your site -- or remove the app, and lose ipad-only kindle buyers.
That makes the choice seem clear, doesn't it? Just drop the app. Apple needs them more than they need Apple.
Well, it was Apple that essentially forced Amazon and other retailers to switch to the agency model. (Causing ebook prices to go up across the board.)
I hope that Amazon drops support for iDevices over this.
because then it might lower the cost of my next iPhone / iPad as Apple sees more money coming outside of the hardware purchase.
+1 Funny
How can it possibly be "lack of choice" for Apple to insist that sellers who sell books for viewing on the iPhone also make them available through the Apple store. That would seem to me to be more choice.
Sounds like extortion to me.