I'm not sure how putting a pork-chop around an ugly person's neck would get them a date
I found the analogy a bit odd too, but I interpreted it as the person being so ugly that you needed a pork chop to get them a date with a (literal or figurative) dog.
While you have a point, it is still a very bad business decision to ignore public ill will against your brand. I never bought one of the Sony Evil Rootkit music CDs, and I was never dumb enough to buy any of Sony's MP3-wont-players, and I don't even remember how much other crap from Sony, but it still does matter when companies generate this sort of ill will. If I walk into a store and see the Sony brand name on a TV, or on a computer, or even on a freaking coffee mug, it pisses me off and 'll walk away. I'll walk to the next product, or walk to the next aisle, or hell it might even just put me in a hostile mood long enough that I happen to have wandered over to the next store in the mall before I actually pull out my wallet to buy some other brand of TV or whatever it was that I was inclined to buy.
A week from now, or a month from now, or a year from now, I may be in a store looking to buy a cellphone or whatever. And you stand there at the counter looking at all the various options, and you have to pick one. And to some extent you look at pricing and features and styling, but generally it's a relatively close call and you pretty much go with a gut reaction which one you like and want. And even if I don't consciously recollect this Bing story, it is still going to evoke a negative taint in that gut reaction. Given an array of roughly comparable choices, that sort of gut reaction substantially controls which particular product people select.
Verizon's calculation here, or their gamble here, or their oversight here, is whether the big fat check they got from Microsoft is worth more than the ill will this move is generating. Some current customers may quit, some people may deliberately change their immediate purchasing plans over it, but that is often less significant than the long term losses to the brand from ill will and word of mouth. And when I say "word of mouth", I don't just mean people talking about this story. I mean the general tone whenever Verizon comes up in conversation or whenever their ads are viewd. The gut reaction that Verizon sucks. The guy reaction that Verizon products suck. The gut reaction that Verizon ads are notably more annoying than ordinary random ads.
It's extremely hard to put a particular dollar value on that this hostility and people wanting to boycott, but it's like Verizon bought themselves a shitload of extremely powerful negative ads. You just can't buy ads with this sort of emotional impact. You can run ads all year long filled with happy beautiful sexy people using your product on beautiful tropical beaches, and not generate the slightest fraction of the brand association as you get from authentically angry customers, or even from authentically angry not-currently-customers.
Verizon better enjoy their five-hundred-million-pieces-of-silver from Microsoft.
The problem is that we have no universally excepted definition of sentience.
Not in any way that causes a problem. Gray-scales, continuums, are a pretty pervasive thing in morality. It is pretty well understood that a human mind is qualitatively different from the mind of a rabbit, and that moral considerations regarding humans are vastly different than moral considerations regarding a rabbit.
Inflicting pain or injury or death on a rabbit is a "moral evil", but it is less significant than inflicting pain injury or death on a monkey, and far less so than inflicting pain injury or death on a person. And I use the term "sentient mind" to generalize that highest level of moral significance to hypothetical non-human "persons" such as an alien, or a genetically engineered "animal" with a human equivalent mind, or a human mind hosted on a computer, or a human equivalent artificial mind hosted on a computer.
If you try to take it to some high-level abstraction, like "Can answer questions", then babies up to several months would fail this test as being pre-sentient.
If one wants to deliberately misunderstand morality, or deliberately pervert morality, then one can certainly do so.
However I would hope we can all agree that a newborn is a "person", which may be translated as having a "human mind", which may be translated as a "sentient mind".
Yes, there is a continuum, a gray area, in the development of a fetus and the development of a mind. And as I already noted, gray areas are a pretty common thing in morality. However pointing to an area of gray does not invalidate morality and does not invalidate conclusions about black and white.
A brain dead body with a beating heart has no mind. There is no person there. A fertilized egg or an early fetus does not have a mind. There is no person there.
As you go through mid and late term development yes you go through a gray area as the brain develops, and moral considerations go through the same gray area of increasing significance.
Tip: Unless you're religious, all morality is arbitrary - and even worse, mostly relative.
Really?
The most that can be claimed by religion is that there is a One True Faith in possession of the unique "non-arbitrary" morality handed them by God. However it is usually considered obnoxious intolerant bigoted and even evil for someone to actually admit this Holier Than Thou argument, explicitly stating their position that all other religions have nothing other than fictitious arbitrary morality. The "politically correct" way to say it is as you just did, claiming Holier-Than-Thou superiority under the generic flag of religion.
That is exactly what you're doing, unless you are about to explain how you really did mean religion in general has non-arbitrary morality, explain how Native American religion and Hindu and your own religion are somehow simultaneously contradictory and non-arbitrary. Explain how you believe Native American religion and Hindu religion and all religions other your own are not "arbitrary" hear-say fiction.
It doesn't matter what religion you are. Even if we overlook the various branches within the major religions of earth, no religion has more than about 30% of the population. Even if you make the Holier-Than-Thou One True Faith claim, even in the most generous assumptions that cannot make up more than 30% or so religion. You are still saying almost all religion is fiction with arbitrary Hear-Say morality. And even worse, all that hear-Say tracing back to an arbitrary "Because I Said So" sourse who were hearing the voices of invisible people in their heads. So it's not even just Hear-Say, it's not just "Because I Said So", it's Hear-Say Because I said So from invisible voices in people's heads.
You can attempt to claim the dickish Holier-Than-Thou One True Faith thing for your own religion, but even if we assume that's true, you're still implicitly saying nearly all religion is worse than arbitrary bunkum morality.
Trying to objectively measure people's "morality" is obviously an intractable problem, but I think most people would agree that "criminal acts" is about the closest thing we can get as an objective measure of people's morality. Obviously a seriously imperfect measure, but a pretty solid objective measure. And there is an interesting statistical fact there. Atheists comprise an abnormally low percentage of the prison population, far lower than their percentage of the general population. Either atheists are all supra-geniuses criminal masterminds not getting caught, or atheists actually behave far MORE morally than theists.
You have it backwards. Religious morality is arbitrary hear-say and because-I-say-so. It's the NON-religious who have to turn to non-arbitrary foundations for morality. People who are used to relying on "Because I Said So" morality from Authority - Because I said So from parents, Because I Said So from priests, Because I-Hear-Say-God Said So, people used to relying on decrees of morality from Authority often find it unfamiliar process how to reason out non-arbitrary morality for one self, but yes it can be done. And the fact that atheists exhibit an uncommonly low rate of criminal immoral behavior is a testament to the fact that internally developing that moral system is much more effective than "Because I say So" or "Because I Say God Says So" in producing people who actually conform to moral behavior. Humans are notoriously good at rationalizing their way around rules they have been given when those rules conflict with what one wants to do. However one cannot so easily overlook the internally blatant dishonesty of trying to weasel around one's own moral conclusions.
I cannot develop a complete framework of morality for you in this post, but I can introduce part of the process and the foundation, and most specifically addressing the non-arbitrariness. Almost the entirety of a moral framework can be summed up in a single word. Almost t
Tell me precisely when the fetus stops being a fetus and starts being a baby. When you've done that, start removing stones and tell me when it's no longer a pile.
Continuums exist. That is a fact. Dealing with that fact may be "problematical". However that fact is not a "problem" in the sense of disproving something that contains that "problem".
Start killing a person's brain cells one by one and tell me when they are dead and gone. The body may remain warm and the heart may keep beating, but no reasonable person disputes that the person will be dead and gone, no reasonable person disputes that the body will cease to be a person, no reasonable person disputes that it is morally acceptable to "kill" and bury that empty human tissue. You can say "Start removing stones and tell me when it's no longer a pile", but a brain dead person is still dead and gone, is no longer a person.
You can embark on a vast genetic engineering project creating a billion DNA strands changing one DNA letter at a time and creating a billion creatures in a continuum from a mindless-fungus to a rabbit to person, however that does not "disprove" the fact that murdering a person is morally different than murdering a mindless fungus.
An egg does not contain a mind, and is not a person. A fertilized egg does not contain a mind, and is not a person. An early undeveloped fetus does not contain a mind, and is not a person.
Yes, there is a gray area as a fetus develops. No, I do not know of a specific moment when a fetus brain develops to the point where it instantaneously "switches on" as a sentient conscious mind. That gray zone in development may certainly be morally "problematical", but many many things are moral gray areas and moral continuums. Gray areas are problematical, but they are not problems per-se.
A fertilized egg is no more a "person" than a dead body. Mindless fetal tissue is no more a "person" than a brain dead adult.
Consider that my liver is never going to become a sentient being without the intercession of some advanced technology.
If we do develop such technology, are we obligated to provide every liver cell with this artificial womb because the cell has the potential to become a person?
I assume you agree the answer is obviously no. The potential for a cell/organ/tissue to become a person does not create some obligation to change it into a person.
But if a woman is pregnant, her undeveloped fetus will probably become a sentient being with no external interference at all.
For one thing, I think your concept of "no external influence" is flawed.
I'll start from the patently absurd point and walk it back. The collection of egg cells in a woman's ovaries too "will probably become a sentient being with no external interference at all", other than the woman just living her life - where "just living your life" generally includes eating and drinking and breathing and having sex. Those egg cells "will probably become a sentient being with no external interference at all" unless the woman makes a fairly conscious and fairly unusual decision not to eat, or makes a fairly conscious and fairly unusual decision not to drink, breath, have sex. I'm not aware of anyone who argues that the potential personhood of those cells creates the moral obligations we are discussion here.
Ok, obviously the eggs will not become a person unless they encounter a sperm cell. While you have not specifically stated this as your "critical moral point", this is the point where virtually everyone making your argument claims moral protections kick in. However this fertilized cell will not become a person unless it encounters and adheres to uterine cell, just as an egg cell will not become a person unless it encounters and adheres to a sperm cell. If we have an egg cell in a fertility lab petri dish, is there some obligation that we bring it into contact with sperm cells? Again I'm not aware of anyone who claims any such obligation to act to convert an egg into a person. On the other hand many or most people making your argument for some reason claim there is some moral obligation to bring the fertilized egg into contact with uterine cells to convert it into a person. In neither case will the cell become a person without an act of "external influence". On what basis do they claim there is a moral obligation to perform one of those acts of "external influence" and not the other?
Ok, so lets move it inside a woman's body. Again no one claims there is any moral obligation to bring that egg into contact with sperm cells to turn it into a person. And I assume we also agree that people are morally free to choose actions which prevent that from happening - refraining from sex or having a vasectomy or using condoms or using spermicide or whatever. But as above, most people making your argument usually claim fertilization as the point of moral obligations. But still, that fertilized egg will not become a person unless it encounters a uterine cell, and furthermore that that uterine cell would need to be in a particular "welcoming state". If there is no obligation to assist an egg cell to encounter a sperm cell, is there an obligation to assist a fertilized egg cell to encounter a welcoming uterine cell? If there is no moral obligation to refrain from actions that prevent an egg cell from encountering a sperm cell, is there some moral obligation to refrain from actions that prevent a fertilized egg from encountering a welcoming uterine cell?
Again, your position provides no foundation for asserting a moral obligation to preform certain actions (or to refrain from certain actions) in relation to a fertilized egg when there is no such obligation for equivalent actions in relation to an unfertilized egg.
Furthermore, even an implanted egg and early fetuses are conditional upon "external influences". An implanted egg and early fetus will not become a person unless the mother consumes certain nutrients in her diet,
What is actually going on there is the tacit assumption that a developing baby doesn't count as a human. If that's your argument, you should say it. Don't pussy-foot around saying what you mean because that belies a lack of faith in your own reasoning.
The fact that you have a reading comprehension problem does not mean I have any lack of faith in my reasoning abilities. I did say it, except I used the (IMO) more appropriate word "person": An early undeveloped human fetus may be "human tissue", but there is no mind there, no person there.
There is no person in a brain dead adult body. It is not murder to take that empty human tissue off of life support and bury it.
There is no person in a fertilized egg. It is not murder to toss that fertilized egg in the trash.
There is no person in an early undeveloped fetus. It is not murder to medically remove that tissue.
My reasoning is sound and well founded. When someone is injured, at what point do they cease to be morally significant and protected? At what point do they cease to be a "person"? At what point are they dead? At what point is the person gone? You can remove every part of the body piece by piece and they remain a valuable protected person so long as the functioning brain remains. A functioning brain in a jar remains a morally valuable fully protected full person. And even if the brain tissue is partially or fully dead, you still have a fully valuable fully protected person if you somehow still maintain the mind supported by computer or other artificial means. And vice versa, if you have a perfectly intact adult body but the brain is dead - if the mind is gone - then the person is dead and gone. A body with no mind is nothing but empty human tissue.
The defining factor distinguishing worthless empty tissue from a morally protected person is the presence or absence of a functioning sentient mind. A rabbit with a human-equivalent mind would be as morally significant and as morally protected as any other person. An alien with a human-equivalent mind would be as morally significant as a human person. A mind hosted in a computer opens an enormous range of complexities I can't even begin to touch on here, but the moral significance of such situations are as weighty as the moral significance of flesh-and-blood people.
The presence of a mind is what defines "person".
The presence of a mind is what invokes moral significance and moral protection.
A fertilized egg is no more a "person" than a brain dead adult body.
A fertilized egg is no more and no less "human" than a brain dead adult body.
one of your initial assumptions is "If you dispose of pre-sentient tissue in your body, an early undeveloped human or alien fetus, that is a complete non-issue."
No. That was not a starting assumption. It was a conclusion.
My starting assumption was that it was the presence of a mind that defines the presence of a person. You might also want to count it as an "assumption" that fertilized eggs and early undeveloped fetuses do not contain minds. From there it logically follows that eggs and early fetuses are not "people". It logically follows that they are morally comparable to empty corpses.
Can you imagine if Chase had to donate $1M to the Marijuana Policy Project? I'm sure the board freaked out at the thought of "chase" and "MJ" being in the same sentence and said, "do whatever is necessary to make sure we don't get that association."
If Citibank were offering a free toaster for opening a new savings account, and Chase were offering an ounce bag of weed, I can sure as hell tell you it's not my bread that's going to be getting toasted.
Hey, this makes total sense except for the fact that THE ONLY THING THE ANALOGY INTRODUCED WAS THAT THE BABY IS NO LONGER HUMAN. Well fucking done there champ, that's excellent.
Correct, he was exactly right.
So you're walking down the street when you see a HUGE ALIEN. You stab it to death hurriedly. And these self-righteous bastards want to try you for murder!
Right. If you arbitrarily stab a sentient being, human or alien, that's murder.
If you dispose of non-sentient tissue in your body, a human or alien tumor, that is a complete non-issue.
If you dispose of post-sentient tissue in your body, a brain dead human or alien, that is a complete non-issue.
If you dispose of pre-sentient tissue in your body, an early undeveloped human or alien fetus, that is a complete non-issue.
If you have a sentient adult human grafted on to your body, or a sentient adult alien grafted on to your body, or a well developed neo-sentient late term fetus grafted on to your body, then it is an issue. And the issue is that that you should try to preserve the life of both, but if the host is unwilling then you separate them if viable try to keep them both alive.
If an adult sentient human is attached to my body for life support, then it is my choice whether to offer continued assistance or not. I have the right to control my body and sever that connection if I choose, and to leave that other adult human to survive (or not) on their own. If *I* am somehow surgically grafted to an alien for life support, then I would hope the alien would be willing to go to significant lengths to help me survive, but that alien has the right to cut me off of it's body and leave me to live or die on my own.
And again as I said, it is a complete non-issue when it comes to non-sentient tissue, or pre-sentient tissue, or post-sentient tissue.
If someone's brain has been blown off by heavy artillery and the body is being sustained on life support machines, that is an empty body. It may be "human tissue", but there is no mind there, no person there. The exact same logic applies at the both ends of life. An early undeveloped human fetus may be "human tissue", but there is no mind there, no person there.
many of them have the audacity to call themselves Christian, or even Catholic. I certainly agree that many pro-lifers are self-righteous blowhards.
Yeah, you certainly proved the self-righteous blowhard thing. I'm an atheist and I found that offensive to Christians and Catholics. How much fucking self-righteous audacity does someone have to have to tell other people what faith they do or do not have?
If your desire is to follow the teachings of Christ, perhaps you should be less concerned with Judging Your Brother and more concerned with tending to Thine Own Eye.
To mis-quote Gandhi: I like your Christ, I do not like you. You are so unlike your Christ.
gateway theory, ie. that less access to child porn results in fewer child molesters, but I'd have to see the numbers before coming to conclusion.
I don't know of any numbers specifically on that, but there are solid numbers for general porn. In the last few decades there have been a number of countries that have passed laws either changing general porn from criminal to legal, or from legal to criminal. There are solid consistent statistics that rape and other sex crimes go DOWN when porn is legal and available.
(oops, I think I got carried away below, chuckle:)
I think the "programmed" calculator from your example SHOULD be patent- eligible.
Well wait... are you still claiming that the calculator becomes a new machine when you press 2 multiply multiply? Because the "new machine" thing is a critical basis for claiming patent eligibility.
The Supreme Court has said that math, algorithms, and laws of nature are not patent eligible, that they must be treated as familiar prior art. This pretty well precludes software "inventions" from being directly claimed in a patent.
Things break down to basically three categories eligible for patents, and thus basically three arguments for attempting to claim software as patent eligible. There are patents for physical objects, and there are patents for processes weirdly split into two categories. Software is obviously not a physical object, so the angle here for trying to claim software as eligible is to draft a patent claim for the software+computer, and claiming that. Obviously a common computer is an old machine not eligible for a new patent, so the claim is made that a computer plus software becomes a "new and different machine", and that since software+computer is a new and different machine this different machine is re-eligible for a new patent.
So the question here is whether you are still asserting the "new machine" thing? Does unpatentable software + ordinary old computer result in a new and different machine? Does a calculator become a new and different machine when you press two-multiply-multiply?Does unpatentable software turn an ordinary old computer into a new and different object re-eligible for a new object patent?
The second line for trying to claim software as eligible is to claim a process patent. (I'll deal with the weird split case in the next paragraph.) The Supreme Court has said "Transformation and reduction of an article 'to a different state or thing' is the clue to the patentability of a process claim". This is referring to physical articles and physical transformations. It includes processes such as tanning leather, curing rubber, extraction pure metal from raw ore, and grinding flour to a superfine state. The argument trying to claim software eligibility is that it contains the word "clue" for patentable processes. The argument is that it shows physical processes are patent eligible, but it's merely a "clue", and golly-gee-willikers we think it would be really really swell if non-physical "processes" were patentable too! And golly-gee-willikers, that it doesn't actually say that non-physical "processes" can't be eligible too! So running software is a mathematical or logical "process" to transform numbers and data, and we'll just ignore the critical clue the Supreme Court laid or to indicate "processes" means physical processes transforming physical articles.
The extra funky category of eligible processes is a processes "tied to a particular machine". Quite a few judges have written comments in their rulings basically saying "WTF?!" to this category, and that they have absolutely no clue what the hell it means and what sort of "particular machines" do and do not qualify, that they have no clue whether or not tying software to an ordinary PC would qualify, and that they have no idea how significantly or trivially the process needs to be tied to the machine to qualify, or whether this category is even meaningful at all because these "particular machines" should be handled in 'object' category and not misclaimed under the 'process' category. However despite the bafflement many judges have with this category, the Supreme Court specifically ruled on a software patent case and said "Respondents filed in the Patent Office an application for an invention which was described as being related "to the processing of data by program and more particularly to the programmed conversion of numerical information" in general purpose digital computers....The claim
Lets start with just the transistor. That was once a novel physical object for producing a physical effect. That was patentable.
Then there are circuits that can take low voltage high current DC power and convert it to high voltage low current power. That was once a novel physical object for producing a physical effect. That was patentable.
As for circuits that "are math"... circuits where the only "new contribution" is some interesting new math... circuits where anyone "reasonably skilled in the art" and with no contribution to the state of the art can un-inventively write that math down in transistors, then that's not a legitimate invention not a legitimate patent. The US Supreme Court has specifically said that math and algorithms and laws of nature must be treated as "familiar prior art" for patent purposes. That they are "discoveries", and are considered familiar prior art no matter how new that may be.
You can certainly USE math somewhere within a patentable invention, but to obtain a patent you must disclose a patentable contribution to the state of the art. Disclosing merely a mathematical contribution, or a raw law of nature, is not a patentable disclosure not a patentable contribution.
One of the hugely powerful things about the electronic revolution is the amazing state-of-the-art ability to almost mindlessly transcribe any math into a microchip circuit that will carry out that mathematical calculation on any INFORMATION fed into and output from that circuit. A circuit that achieves some physical effect like faster-than-light travel is still patentable. A circuit using plain old parts in a plain old manner merely processes information un-inventively writing math into a circuit within the state-of-the-art manner. "New" information processing, "new" calculations, that is merely "new" math and is not an invention. We can almost mindlessly uninventively transcribe math into calculating circuits. We don't need inventors for that. More mathematicians might be handy for coming up with cool new math transformations to write into microcircuits, but math doesn't get a patent.
But look at 802.11, its just a radio + DSP + faster circuits. The radio already existed and DSP is just math. The faster circuits weren't made for 802.11 per se, but certainly made it possible. In the end, 802.11 is just math.
I'm not an expert on 802.11, but to the extent anyone invented with novel non-obvious physical objects to more efficiently broadcast/detect radio waves, those are almost certainly patentable independently of 802.11. To the extent anyone invented novel non-obvious physical devices or physical processes for manufacturing smaller faster circuitry, that is almost certainly patentable independently of 802.11.
As I understand it, the "meat" of 802.11 mostly consists of a data protocol. A set of mathematical calculations for encoding and decoding the data to be sent and received. And to that extent, no, you don't get a patent for publishing some interesting new math. If you publish fundamentally mathematical manipulation of information that can be almost mindlessly transcribed into circuitry with no contribution to the state of the art, then there's no patentable invention.
Hell, the state of the art is such that the "mindless" part can usually be taken literally. In most cases you can hand the written math to a machine and the process of transcribing it into a physical microchip is completely automated. A literal mindless step to go from pure math to delivering a finished chip.
How, exactly, did this mess -- which was far from unique -- benefit anyone?
Well duh, your own post pretty much answered that. Patents crippled the US aircraft design going in to World War I. That was obviously of great benefit to the Central Powers in the war (Germany, Bulgaria, the Ottomans, and Austria-Hungary).
While 37 cars are certainly a real thing, and a piece of paper that happens to have the number 37 written on it is certainly a real thing, most people do not consider the number 37 to be an actual "real thing".
And while you can certainly write a plus sign or other math function on a piece of paper and that paper is a real object, most people do not consider addition or other math functions to be an actual "real thing".
In that sense, no, software is no more "real" then addition or averaging or the number 37. Paper or a computer disk with with numbers or mathematical functions on it is real paper and a real disk, but the numbers and math on them are not commonly considered to possess "reality" themselves.
Actually that exact statement is completely ordinary and valid mathematics when list L is finite in size, and there specifically is a math theorem dedicated to proving it is valid math when list L is finite. Moreover one of the most famous axioms in math is called the Axiom of Choice, an axiom devoted to that exact statement where L is infinite in size. It is a weird and subtle point, but for certain kinds of sets you know you have infinitely many points but but you're mathematically stuck with no way to actually single out an individual "next point" to pick. But again, that is not even a question for finite lists. That statement is ordinary boring math for finite sets L.
Many algorithms can be explained and profiled using mathematics, but they aren't a subset of mathematics.
Mathematics extends far beyond addition and multiplication:) Yes, I assure you that professional mathematicians do consider algorithms to be a field of mathematics and a subset of mathematics.
Sorting data has nothing to do with mathematics.
Ordered sets are certainly mathematical objects, and the sequence of mathematical transformations (algorithms) to reach another state with defined properties (such as "sorted from smallest to largest") certainly are mathematics.
Any algorithm to transform one set of numbers into another set of numbers is a form of mathematical function. Numbers go into a math function, math is preformed, and numbers come out of the math function.
Any programmer can confirm that everything on computers, text, images, sound, everything, inside the computer it's all literally just a series of numbers. In fact it all boils down to nothing more than lots of zeros and ones.
You can connect a computer to a keyboard and monitor and a microphone and speakers, but the computer itself is incapable of doing anything other than taking one set of numbers, preforming some math function upon them, and spiting out the result of that calculation. A keyboard shows different numbers to the computer when you press various keys, a monitor can display text and pictures based on the numbers in the computer, the microphone and speaker (via the soundcard digital conversion) either supply the computer with numbers based on the sound they detect or produce sound based on numbers from the computer, but the computer itself, and the software, is incapable of doing anything other than preform math functions upon numbers. You can sing into the microphone and some software can take the numbers from the microphone and compress them into a shorter series of numbers that we call an MP3 file, and software can take the numbers in the MP3 file and expand them into a longer series of numbers that go to the speakers and we hear as music, but the computer, the software, if preforming a pure math computation, is calculating a specific mathematical function, when it creates or plays an MP3 file. MP3 software is just a fancy math function for compressing a long series of numbers into a shorter series of numbers, and where that calculation is particularly useful when the long series of numbers is a numerical representation of sound.
The MP3 software patents, the GIF software patent, the RSA software patent, they are all patents on math functions. Math functions that calculate one set of numbers into a different set of numbers.
Software is just a sophisticated form of mathematical notation for writing and defining elaborate mathematical functions for calculating collections of numbers into other numbers. Something like a spell check program is just a fancy math function that calculates the numbers for 't' 'e' 'h' (teh) into the numbers for 't' 'h' 'e' (the). To a programmer who has studied advanced computer science theory, and to a professional mathematician, all programs are literally elaborate math functions.
Programming is part of computer science, and computer science is a subfield of mathematics. In most colleges computer science in fact a sub-department of the math department, or at least started out there. Many colleges have spun computer science off as a separate department for the simple practical reason that it has generally grown bigger than the rest of the math department, and because most programmers can get by fine without learning software theory and the mathematical foundation of the field.
In fact the central elements of what we consider programming and computer science was established by mathematicians decades before the first computer was ever built. In the early 1900's there was a lot of deep mathematical work on the concept of "computability". What does it mean for something to be "computable"? It there more than one form of "co
Slashdot Mirror
Because US TV and movie studios claim they won't accept the BBC's money if they don't.
Giggle snort.
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People still take snail-mail seriously.
Yeah, I've found it amazing how much attention my letters receive when I include escargot in the envelope.
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Nice one. Olympic score nine point seven.
You'd have gotten a perfect ten-oh for elegance had you left out the cookware quip.
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Businesses who collect our money in giant leaf-piles of money
Even worse, those businesses who collect our money in giant leaf-piles of pork chops.
Sorry :)
I hate it when a word is redundantly duplicated in a sentence like that. I especially hate it when I find myself stuck doing it.
P.S. Yes 'redundantly duplicated' was deliberately ironical. Like rain on your wedding day.
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I'm not sure how putting a pork-chop around an ugly person's neck would get them a date
I found the analogy a bit odd too, but I interpreted it as the person being so ugly that you needed a pork chop to get them a date with a (literal or figurative) dog.
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While you have a point, it is still a very bad business decision to ignore public ill will against your brand. I never bought one of the Sony Evil Rootkit music CDs, and I was never dumb enough to buy any of Sony's MP3-wont-players, and I don't even remember how much other crap from Sony, but it still does matter when companies generate this sort of ill will. If I walk into a store and see the Sony brand name on a TV, or on a computer, or even on a freaking coffee mug, it pisses me off and 'll walk away. I'll walk to the next product, or walk to the next aisle, or hell it might even just put me in a hostile mood long enough that I happen to have wandered over to the next store in the mall before I actually pull out my wallet to buy some other brand of TV or whatever it was that I was inclined to buy.
A week from now, or a month from now, or a year from now, I may be in a store looking to buy a cellphone or whatever. And you stand there at the counter looking at all the various options, and you have to pick one. And to some extent you look at pricing and features and styling, but generally it's a relatively close call and you pretty much go with a gut reaction which one you like and want. And even if I don't consciously recollect this Bing story, it is still going to evoke a negative taint in that gut reaction. Given an array of roughly comparable choices, that sort of gut reaction substantially controls which particular product people select.
Verizon's calculation here, or their gamble here, or their oversight here, is whether the big fat check they got from Microsoft is worth more than the ill will this move is generating. Some current customers may quit, some people may deliberately change their immediate purchasing plans over it, but that is often less significant than the long term losses to the brand from ill will and word of mouth. And when I say "word of mouth", I don't just mean people talking about this story. I mean the general tone whenever Verizon comes up in conversation or whenever their ads are viewd. The gut reaction that Verizon sucks. The guy reaction that Verizon products suck. The gut reaction that Verizon ads are notably more annoying than ordinary random ads.
It's extremely hard to put a particular dollar value on that this hostility and people wanting to boycott, but it's like Verizon bought themselves a shitload of extremely powerful negative ads. You just can't buy ads with this sort of emotional impact. You can run ads all year long filled with happy beautiful sexy people using your product on beautiful tropical beaches, and not generate the slightest fraction of the brand association as you get from authentically angry customers, or even from authentically angry not-currently-customers.
Verizon better enjoy their five-hundred-million-pieces-of-silver from Microsoft.
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"bing" has recently come to mean crap in English. I guess it could just be a coincidence...
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The problem is that we have no universally excepted definition of sentience.
Not in any way that causes a problem. Gray-scales, continuums, are a pretty pervasive thing in morality. It is pretty well understood that a human mind is qualitatively different from the mind of a rabbit, and that moral considerations regarding humans are vastly different than moral considerations regarding a rabbit.
Inflicting pain or injury or death on a rabbit is a "moral evil", but it is less significant than inflicting pain injury or death on a monkey, and far less so than inflicting pain injury or death on a person. And I use the term "sentient mind" to generalize that highest level of moral significance to hypothetical non-human "persons" such as an alien, or a genetically engineered "animal" with a human equivalent mind, or a human mind hosted on a computer, or a human equivalent artificial mind hosted on a computer.
If you try to take it to some high-level abstraction, like "Can answer questions", then babies up to several months would fail this test as being pre-sentient.
If one wants to deliberately misunderstand morality, or deliberately pervert morality, then one can certainly do so.
However I would hope we can all agree that a newborn is a "person", which may be translated as having a "human mind", which may be translated as a "sentient mind".
Yes, there is a continuum, a gray area, in the development of a fetus and the development of a mind. And as I already noted, gray areas are a pretty common thing in morality. However pointing to an area of gray does not invalidate morality and does not invalidate conclusions about black and white.
A brain dead body with a beating heart has no mind. There is no person there.
A fertilized egg or an early fetus does not have a mind. There is no person there.
As you go through mid and late term development yes you go through a gray area as the brain develops, and moral considerations go through the same gray area of increasing significance.
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Tip: Unless you're religious, all morality is arbitrary - and even worse, mostly relative.
Really?
The most that can be claimed by religion is that there is a One True Faith in possession of the unique "non-arbitrary" morality handed them by God. However it is usually considered obnoxious intolerant bigoted and even evil for someone to actually admit this Holier Than Thou argument, explicitly stating their position that all other religions have nothing other than fictitious arbitrary morality. The "politically correct" way to say it is as you just did, claiming Holier-Than-Thou superiority under the generic flag of religion.
That is exactly what you're doing, unless you are about to explain how you really did mean religion in general has non-arbitrary morality, explain how Native American religion and Hindu and your own religion are somehow simultaneously contradictory and non-arbitrary. Explain how you believe Native American religion and Hindu religion and all religions other your own are not "arbitrary" hear-say fiction.
It doesn't matter what religion you are. Even if we overlook the various branches within the major religions of earth, no religion has more than about 30% of the population. Even if you make the Holier-Than-Thou One True Faith claim, even in the most generous assumptions that cannot make up more than 30% or so religion. You are still saying almost all religion is fiction with arbitrary Hear-Say morality. And even worse, all that hear-Say tracing back to an arbitrary "Because I Said So" sourse who were hearing the voices of invisible people in their heads. So it's not even just Hear-Say, it's not just "Because I Said So", it's Hear-Say Because I said So from invisible voices in people's heads.
You can attempt to claim the dickish Holier-Than-Thou One True Faith thing for your own religion, but even if we assume that's true, you're still implicitly saying nearly all religion is worse than arbitrary bunkum morality.
Trying to objectively measure people's "morality" is obviously an intractable problem, but I think most people would agree that "criminal acts" is about the closest thing we can get as an objective measure of people's morality. Obviously a seriously imperfect measure, but a pretty solid objective measure. And there is an interesting statistical fact there. Atheists comprise an abnormally low percentage of the prison population, far lower than their percentage of the general population. Either atheists are all supra-geniuses criminal masterminds not getting caught, or atheists actually behave far MORE morally than theists.
You have it backwards. Religious morality is arbitrary hear-say and because-I-say-so. It's the NON-religious who have to turn to non-arbitrary foundations for morality. People who are used to relying on "Because I Said So" morality from Authority - Because I said So from parents, Because I Said So from priests, Because I-Hear-Say-God Said So, people used to relying on decrees of morality from Authority often find it unfamiliar process how to reason out non-arbitrary morality for one self, but yes it can be done. And the fact that atheists exhibit an uncommonly low rate of criminal immoral behavior is a testament to the fact that internally developing that moral system is much more effective than "Because I say So" or "Because I Say God Says So" in producing people who actually conform to moral behavior. Humans are notoriously good at rationalizing their way around rules they have been given when those rules conflict with what one wants to do. However one cannot so easily overlook the internally blatant dishonesty of trying to weasel around one's own moral conclusions.
I cannot develop a complete framework of morality for you in this post, but I can introduce part of the process and the foundation, and most specifically addressing the non-arbitrariness. Almost the entirety of a moral framework can be summed up in a single word. Almost t
Tell me precisely when the fetus stops being a fetus and starts being a baby. When you've done that, start removing stones and tell me when it's no longer a pile.
Continuums exist. That is a fact. Dealing with that fact may be "problematical". However that fact is not a "problem" in the sense of disproving something that contains that "problem".
Start killing a person's brain cells one by one and tell me when they are dead and gone. The body may remain warm and the heart may keep beating, but no reasonable person disputes that the person will be dead and gone, no reasonable person disputes that the body will cease to be a person, no reasonable person disputes that it is morally acceptable to "kill" and bury that empty human tissue. You can say "Start removing stones and tell me when it's no longer a pile", but a brain dead person is still dead and gone, is no longer a person.
You can embark on a vast genetic engineering project creating a billion DNA strands changing one DNA letter at a time and creating a billion creatures in a continuum from a mindless-fungus to a rabbit to person, however that does not "disprove" the fact that murdering a person is morally different than murdering a mindless fungus.
An egg does not contain a mind, and is not a person.
A fertilized egg does not contain a mind, and is not a person.
An early undeveloped fetus does not contain a mind, and is not a person.
Yes, there is a gray area as a fetus develops. No, I do not know of a specific moment when a fetus brain develops to the point where it instantaneously "switches on" as a sentient conscious mind. That gray zone in development may certainly be morally "problematical", but many many things are moral gray areas and moral continuums. Gray areas are problematical, but they are not problems per-se.
A fertilized egg is no more a "person" than a dead body. Mindless fetal tissue is no more a "person" than a brain dead adult.
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Consider that my liver is never going to become a sentient being without the intercession of some advanced technology.
If we do develop such technology, are we obligated to provide every liver cell with this artificial womb because the cell has the potential to become a person?
I assume you agree the answer is obviously no. The potential for a cell/organ/tissue to become a person does not create some obligation to change it into a person.
But if a woman is pregnant, her undeveloped fetus will probably become a sentient being with no external interference at all.
For one thing, I think your concept of "no external influence" is flawed.
I'll start from the patently absurd point and walk it back. The collection of egg cells in a woman's ovaries too "will probably become a sentient being with no external interference at all", other than the woman just living her life - where "just living your life" generally includes eating and drinking and breathing and having sex. Those egg cells "will probably become a sentient being with no external interference at all" unless the woman makes a fairly conscious and fairly unusual decision not to eat, or makes a fairly conscious and fairly unusual decision not to drink, breath, have sex. I'm not aware of anyone who argues that the potential personhood of those cells creates the moral obligations we are discussion here.
Ok, obviously the eggs will not become a person unless they encounter a sperm cell. While you have not specifically stated this as your "critical moral point", this is the point where virtually everyone making your argument claims moral protections kick in. However this fertilized cell will not become a person unless it encounters and adheres to uterine cell, just as an egg cell will not become a person unless it encounters and adheres to a sperm cell. If we have an egg cell in a fertility lab petri dish, is there some obligation that we bring it into contact with sperm cells? Again I'm not aware of anyone who claims any such obligation to act to convert an egg into a person. On the other hand many or most people making your argument for some reason claim there is some moral obligation to bring the fertilized egg into contact with uterine cells to convert it into a person. In neither case will the cell become a person without an act of "external influence". On what basis do they claim there is a moral obligation to perform one of those acts of "external influence" and not the other?
Ok, so lets move it inside a woman's body. Again no one claims there is any moral obligation to bring that egg into contact with sperm cells to turn it into a person. And I assume we also agree that people are morally free to choose actions which prevent that from happening - refraining from sex or having a vasectomy or using condoms or using spermicide or whatever. But as above, most people making your argument usually claim fertilization as the point of moral obligations. But still, that fertilized egg will not become a person unless it encounters a uterine cell, and furthermore that that uterine cell would need to be in a particular "welcoming state". If there is no obligation to assist an egg cell to encounter a sperm cell, is there an obligation to assist a fertilized egg cell to encounter a welcoming uterine cell? If there is no moral obligation to refrain from actions that prevent an egg cell from encountering a sperm cell, is there some moral obligation to refrain from actions that prevent a fertilized egg from encountering a welcoming uterine cell?
Again, your position provides no foundation for asserting a moral obligation to preform certain actions (or to refrain from certain actions) in relation to a fertilized egg when there is no such obligation for equivalent actions in relation to an unfertilized egg.
Furthermore, even an implanted egg and early fetuses are conditional upon "external influences". An implanted egg and early fetus will not become a person unless the mother consumes certain nutrients in her diet,
What is actually going on there is the tacit assumption that a developing baby doesn't count as a human. If that's your argument, you should say it. Don't pussy-foot around saying what you mean because that belies a lack of faith in your own reasoning.
The fact that you have a reading comprehension problem does not mean I have any lack of faith in my reasoning abilities. I did say it, except I used the (IMO) more appropriate word "person":
An early undeveloped human fetus may be "human tissue", but there is no mind there, no person there.
There is no person in a brain dead adult body.
It is not murder to take that empty human tissue off of life support and bury it.
There is no person in a fertilized egg.
It is not murder to toss that fertilized egg in the trash.
There is no person in an early undeveloped fetus.
It is not murder to medically remove that tissue.
My reasoning is sound and well founded. When someone is injured, at what point do they cease to be morally significant and protected? At what point do they cease to be a "person"? At what point are they dead? At what point is the person gone? You can remove every part of the body piece by piece and they remain a valuable protected person so long as the functioning brain remains. A functioning brain in a jar remains a morally valuable fully protected full person. And even if the brain tissue is partially or fully dead, you still have a fully valuable fully protected person if you somehow still maintain the mind supported by computer or other artificial means. And vice versa, if you have a perfectly intact adult body but the brain is dead - if the mind is gone - then the person is dead and gone. A body with no mind is nothing but empty human tissue.
The defining factor distinguishing worthless empty tissue from a morally protected person is the presence or absence of a functioning sentient mind. A rabbit with a human-equivalent mind would be as morally significant and as morally protected as any other person. An alien with a human-equivalent mind would be as morally significant as a human person. A mind hosted in a computer opens an enormous range of complexities I can't even begin to touch on here, but the moral significance of such situations are as weighty as the moral significance of flesh-and-blood people.
The presence of a mind is what defines "person".
The presence of a mind is what invokes moral significance and moral protection.
A fertilized egg is no more a "person" than a brain dead adult body.
A fertilized egg is no more and no less "human" than a brain dead adult body.
one of your initial assumptions is "If you dispose of pre-sentient tissue in your body, an early undeveloped human or alien fetus, that is a complete non-issue."
No. That was not a starting assumption. It was a conclusion.
My starting assumption was that it was the presence of a mind that defines the presence of a person. You might also want to count it as an "assumption" that fertilized eggs and early undeveloped fetuses do not contain minds. From there it logically follows that eggs and early fetuses are not "people". It logically follows that they are morally comparable to empty corpses.
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Can you imagine if Chase had to donate $1M to the Marijuana Policy Project? I'm sure the board freaked out at the thought of "chase" and "MJ" being in the same sentence and said, "do whatever is necessary to make sure we don't get that association."
If Citibank were offering a free toaster for opening a new savings account, and Chase were offering an ounce bag of weed, I can sure as hell tell you it's not my bread that's going to be getting toasted.
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Hey, this makes total sense except for the fact that THE ONLY THING THE ANALOGY INTRODUCED WAS THAT THE BABY IS NO LONGER HUMAN. Well fucking done there champ, that's excellent.
Correct, he was exactly right.
So you're walking down the street when you see a HUGE ALIEN. You stab it to death hurriedly. And these self-righteous bastards want to try you for murder!
Right. If you arbitrarily stab a sentient being, human or alien, that's murder.
If you dispose of non-sentient tissue in your body, a human or alien tumor, that is a complete non-issue.
If you dispose of post-sentient tissue in your body, a brain dead human or alien, that is a complete non-issue.
If you dispose of pre-sentient tissue in your body, an early undeveloped human or alien fetus, that is a complete non-issue.
If you have a sentient adult human grafted on to your body, or a sentient adult alien grafted on to your body, or a well developed neo-sentient late term fetus grafted on to your body, then it is an issue. And the issue is that that you should try to preserve the life of both, but if the host is unwilling then you separate them if viable try to keep them both alive.
If an adult sentient human is attached to my body for life support, then it is my choice whether to offer continued assistance or not. I have the right to control my body and sever that connection if I choose, and to leave that other adult human to survive (or not) on their own. If *I* am somehow surgically grafted to an alien for life support, then I would hope the alien would be willing to go to significant lengths to help me survive, but that alien has the right to cut me off of it's body and leave me to live or die on my own.
And again as I said, it is a complete non-issue when it comes to non-sentient tissue, or pre-sentient tissue, or post-sentient tissue.
If someone's brain has been blown off by heavy artillery and the body is being sustained on life support machines, that is an empty body. It may be "human tissue", but there is no mind there, no person there. The exact same logic applies at the both ends of life. An early undeveloped human fetus may be "human tissue", but there is no mind there, no person there.
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many of them have the audacity to call themselves Christian, or even Catholic.
I certainly agree that many pro-lifers are self-righteous blowhards.
Yeah, you certainly proved the self-righteous blowhard thing. I'm an atheist and I found that offensive to Christians and Catholics. How much fucking self-righteous audacity does someone have to have to tell other people what faith they do or do not have?
If your desire is to follow the teachings of Christ, perhaps you should be less concerned with Judging Your Brother and more concerned with tending to Thine Own Eye.
To mis-quote Gandhi:
I like your Christ, I do not like you. You are so unlike your Christ.
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gateway theory, ie. that less access to child porn results in fewer child molesters, but I'd have to see the numbers before coming to conclusion.
I don't know of any numbers specifically on that, but there are solid numbers for general porn. In the last few decades there have been a number of countries that have passed laws either changing general porn from criminal to legal, or from legal to criminal. There are solid consistent statistics that rape and other sex crimes go DOWN when porn is legal and available.
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(oops, I think I got carried away below, chuckle :)
I think the "programmed" calculator from your example SHOULD be patent- eligible .
Well wait... are you still claiming that the calculator becomes a new machine when you press 2 multiply multiply? Because the "new machine" thing is a critical basis for claiming patent eligibility.
The Supreme Court has said that math, algorithms, and laws of nature are not patent eligible, that they must be treated as familiar prior art. This pretty well precludes software "inventions" from being directly claimed in a patent.
Things break down to basically three categories eligible for patents, and thus basically three arguments for attempting to claim software as patent eligible. There are patents for physical objects, and there are patents for processes weirdly split into two categories. Software is obviously not a physical object, so the angle here for trying to claim software as eligible is to draft a patent claim for the software+computer, and claiming that. Obviously a common computer is an old machine not eligible for a new patent, so the claim is made that a computer plus software becomes a "new and different machine", and that since software+computer is a new and different machine this different machine is re-eligible for a new patent.
So the question here is whether you are still asserting the "new machine" thing? Does unpatentable software + ordinary old computer result in a new and different machine? Does a calculator become a new and different machine when you press two-multiply-multiply?Does unpatentable software turn an ordinary old computer into a new and different object re-eligible for a new object patent?
The second line for trying to claim software as eligible is to claim a process patent. (I'll deal with the weird split case in the next paragraph.) The Supreme Court has said "Transformation and reduction of an article 'to a different state or thing' is the clue to the patentability of a process claim". This is referring to physical articles and physical transformations. It includes processes such as tanning leather, curing rubber, extraction pure metal from raw ore, and grinding flour to a superfine state. The argument trying to claim software eligibility is that it contains the word "clue" for patentable processes. The argument is that it shows physical processes are patent eligible, but it's merely a "clue", and golly-gee-willikers we think it would be really really swell if non-physical "processes" were patentable too! And golly-gee-willikers, that it doesn't actually say that non-physical "processes" can't be eligible too! So running software is a mathematical or logical "process" to transform numbers and data, and we'll just ignore the critical clue the Supreme Court laid or to indicate "processes" means physical processes transforming physical articles.
The extra funky category of eligible processes is a processes "tied to a particular machine". Quite a few judges have written comments in their rulings basically saying "WTF?!" to this category, and that they have absolutely no clue what the hell it means and what sort of "particular machines" do and do not qualify, that they have no clue whether or not tying software to an ordinary PC would qualify, and that they have no idea how significantly or trivially the process needs to be tied to the machine to qualify, or whether this category is even meaningful at all because these "particular machines" should be handled in 'object' category and not misclaimed under the 'process' category. However despite the bafflement many judges have with this category, the Supreme Court specifically ruled on a software patent case and said "Respondents filed in the Patent Office an application for an invention which was described as being related "to the processing of data by program and more particularly to the programmed conversion of numerical information" in general purpose digital computers. ...The claim
Damn! I better get moving! I haven't even bought Vista yet, and then I gotta go buy Windows 7 in time to be ready for Windows 8!
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The 1980's called, they want this joke back.
The next time the 80's calls I'm just going to let it go to fucking voicemail.
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All circuits are math too.
False.
Lets start with just the transistor. That was once a novel physical object for producing a physical effect. That was patentable.
Then there are circuits that can take low voltage high current DC power and convert it to high voltage low current power. That was once a novel physical object for producing a physical effect. That was patentable.
As for circuits that "are math"... circuits where the only "new contribution" is some interesting new math... circuits where anyone "reasonably skilled in the art" and with no contribution to the state of the art can un-inventively write that math down in transistors, then that's not a legitimate invention not a legitimate patent. The US Supreme Court has specifically said that math and algorithms and laws of nature must be treated as "familiar prior art" for patent purposes. That they are "discoveries", and are considered familiar prior art no matter how new that may be.
You can certainly USE math somewhere within a patentable invention, but to obtain a patent you must disclose a patentable contribution to the state of the art. Disclosing merely a mathematical contribution, or a raw law of nature, is not a patentable disclosure not a patentable contribution.
One of the hugely powerful things about the electronic revolution is the amazing state-of-the-art ability to almost mindlessly transcribe any math into a microchip circuit that will carry out that mathematical calculation on any INFORMATION fed into and output from that circuit. A circuit that achieves some physical effect like faster-than-light travel is still patentable. A circuit using plain old parts in a plain old manner merely processes information un-inventively writing math into a circuit within the state-of-the-art manner. "New" information processing, "new" calculations, that is merely "new" math and is not an invention. We can almost mindlessly uninventively transcribe math into calculating circuits. We don't need inventors for that. More mathematicians might be handy for coming up with cool new math transformations to write into microcircuits, but math doesn't get a patent.
But look at 802.11, its just a radio + DSP + faster circuits. The radio already existed and DSP is just math. The faster circuits weren't made for 802.11 per se, but certainly made it possible. In the end, 802.11 is just math.
I'm not an expert on 802.11, but to the extent anyone invented with novel non-obvious physical objects to more efficiently broadcast/detect radio waves, those are almost certainly patentable independently of 802.11. To the extent anyone invented novel non-obvious physical devices or physical processes for manufacturing smaller faster circuitry, that is almost certainly patentable independently of 802.11.
As I understand it, the "meat" of 802.11 mostly consists of a data protocol. A set of mathematical calculations for encoding and decoding the data to be sent and received. And to that extent, no, you don't get a patent for publishing some interesting new math. If you publish fundamentally mathematical manipulation of information that can be almost mindlessly transcribed into circuitry with no contribution to the state of the art, then there's no patentable invention.
Hell, the state of the art is such that the "mindless" part can usually be taken literally. In most cases you can hand the written math to a machine and the process of transcribing it into a physical microchip is completely automated. A literal mindless step to go from pure math to delivering a finished chip.
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How, exactly, did this mess -- which was far from unique -- benefit anyone?
Well duh, your own post pretty much answered that. Patents crippled the US aircraft design going in to World War I. That was obviously of great benefit to the Central Powers in the war (Germany, Bulgaria, the Ottomans, and Austria-Hungary).
See? Patents always benefit someone! That's why they're always good! :)
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Software most certainly is real.
While 37 cars are certainly a real thing, and a piece of paper that happens to have the number 37 written on it is certainly a real thing, most people do not consider the number 37 to be an actual "real thing".
And while you can certainly write a plus sign or other math function on a piece of paper and that paper is a real object, most people do not consider addition or other math functions to be an actual "real thing".
In that sense, no, software is no more "real" then addition or averaging or the number 37. Paper or a computer disk with with numbers or mathematical functions on it is real paper and a real disk, but the numbers and math on them are not commonly considered to possess "reality" themselves.
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>Select an element p from the list L
Where is the mathematics for this part?
Actually that exact statement is completely ordinary and valid mathematics when list L is finite in size, and there specifically is a math theorem dedicated to proving it is valid math when list L is finite. Moreover one of the most famous axioms in math is called the Axiom of Choice, an axiom devoted to that exact statement where L is infinite in size. It is a weird and subtle point, but for certain kinds of sets you know you have infinitely many points but but you're mathematically stuck with no way to actually single out an individual "next point" to pick. But again, that is not even a question for finite lists. That statement is ordinary boring math for finite sets L.
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Many algorithms can be explained and profiled using mathematics, but they aren't a subset of mathematics.
Mathematics extends far beyond addition and multiplication :) Yes, I assure you that professional mathematicians do consider algorithms to be a field of mathematics and a subset of mathematics.
Sorting data has nothing to do with mathematics.
Ordered sets are certainly mathematical objects, and the sequence of mathematical transformations (algorithms) to reach another state with defined properties (such as "sorted from smallest to largest") certainly are mathematics.
Any algorithm to transform one set of numbers into another set of numbers is a form of mathematical function. Numbers go into a math function, math is preformed, and numbers come out of the math function.
Any programmer can confirm that everything on computers, text, images, sound, everything, inside the computer it's all literally just a series of numbers. In fact it all boils down to nothing more than lots of zeros and ones.
You can connect a computer to a keyboard and monitor and a microphone and speakers, but the computer itself is incapable of doing anything other than taking one set of numbers, preforming some math function upon them, and spiting out the result of that calculation. A keyboard shows different numbers to the computer when you press various keys, a monitor can display text and pictures based on the numbers in the computer, the microphone and speaker (via the soundcard digital conversion) either supply the computer with numbers based on the sound they detect or produce sound based on numbers from the computer, but the computer itself, and the software, is incapable of doing anything other than preform math functions upon numbers. You can sing into the microphone and some software can take the numbers from the microphone and compress them into a shorter series of numbers that we call an MP3 file, and software can take the numbers in the MP3 file and expand them into a longer series of numbers that go to the speakers and we hear as music, but the computer, the software, if preforming a pure math computation, is calculating a specific mathematical function, when it creates or plays an MP3 file. MP3 software is just a fancy math function for compressing a long series of numbers into a shorter series of numbers, and where that calculation is particularly useful when the long series of numbers is a numerical representation of sound.
The MP3 software patents, the GIF software patent, the RSA software patent, they are all patents on math functions. Math functions that calculate one set of numbers into a different set of numbers.
Software is just a sophisticated form of mathematical notation for writing and defining elaborate mathematical functions for calculating collections of numbers into other numbers. Something like a spell check program is just a fancy math function that calculates the numbers for 't' 'e' 'h' (teh) into the numbers for 't' 'h' 'e' (the). To a programmer who has studied advanced computer science theory, and to a professional mathematician, all programs are literally elaborate math functions.
Programming is part of computer science, and computer science is a subfield of mathematics. In most colleges computer science in fact a sub-department of the math department, or at least started out there. Many colleges have spun computer science off as a separate department for the simple practical reason that it has generally grown bigger than the rest of the math department, and because most programmers can get by fine without learning software theory and the mathematical foundation of the field.
In fact the central elements of what we consider programming and computer science was established by mathematicians decades before the first computer was ever built. In the early 1900's there was a lot of deep mathematical work on the concept of "computability". What does it mean for something to be "computable"? It there more than one form of "co