Except that's not what I did, Tom. You're being disingenuous. It's a hypothetical, which is necessary to establish what one might, or might not, be able to bring as evidence supporting it, ideas about it, attempting to falsify it.
If X, then (these); now we examine (these) and see how, or if, X breaks.
And the bottom line is, if the universe we exist within is that established by a program, there is no condition necessary such that you would have any way of telling that were the case. That would be entirely up to the Author(s.) There's no argument you can make that is sufficient to counter this, because that's the nature of any programmed system: it is what the program says it is, even if that's not something obvious, or strictly speaking, correct. Such as an arbitrary, erroneous, or simply annoying case of 1+1=3. Such as things on the macro scale not obeying the same laws as things on the micro scale. Etc.
Whether the emulation can determine it's an emulation or not is entirely irrelevant to the question of reality. It's an emulation, not reality. It might be equal to a real 6809, but it's NOT a 6809.
So? This does not, in any way, mean that the program running on it can't do everything a real 6809 can do, or that the reality for the program isn't limited to the emulation. Likewise, it doesn't mean that you, running as part of the universe program, can't do everything that program lets you do -- it's the allowed subset of the reality that you'd get to exercise. That the universe is a program is not an idea that all there is, is said program, in fact the implication has to be there is much more (only there's no possibility you're going to know about it unless it's designed so you can.)
Your statement "You can't prove a negative" must either itself be unprovable, or false. It turns out that it's false.
"You can't prove that there are no positive integer solutions to an + bn = cn for n > 2." has in fact been proven, and it only takes one example.
This is irrelevant drivel. When I say "you can't prove a negative", I mean a negative assertion such as "there is no god" or "the universe is not a program."
Yes, us intelligent types will, from time to time, use typographical cues to re-emphasize missed points. Unfortunately, you dimwitted types fail to catch the cue, and concentrate on the typography. Good luck with that. Oh look, italics!
The postulated condition was, if the program were the universe. So, if the program always returns 2+2=3, then that is, in fact, how things work in the universe. And you would know no different.
What's happening here is that you are failing to consider the proposed conditions; you're depending upon your presumptions (which, in the proposal, are supplied by the program) to detect the program, hence your claim that "the program is not the universe." However, you would be in no better position to detect such a situation than a software DNA-breeding agent would be to determine what CPU is actually running inside an emulated machine.
For instance, I've written a 6809 emulator. You can write any possible program, or chain of programs (program storage is effectively unlimited) in 6809 machine language, or any higher level language within the system, and there are exactly zero ways that program(s) could determine that it's actually running on 2010-era Intel hardware. In other words, the universe is what the program running it (the emulator) says it is, and it is trivial to demonstrate that this can be absolutely enforced.
You see, in such a circumstance, you have neither the tools or the senses to address the issue, nor is there any certainty there could be indirect means made available to you to create tools and/or senses. Because it could be designed that way, as is my emulation.
So again, if the situation is -- the universe is a program, and it's designed to not let you know that -- you are very unlikely to be in a position to prove otherwise. And again, not that I particularly think this is even slightly likely; but it's still amusing to see someone argue against the possibility. This is exactly the same kind of proof religion is immune from. You can't prove a negative. It's not just hard, it's impossible. It doesn't make the proposition any more likely, but it does completely dispose of certain arguments for impossibility. Most definitely including yours.:)
That's how science works. The "laws" are the predictions made by the hypothesis, and as long as the predictions are experimentally borne out, we have a theory which remains credible. The whole point of science is that any part of it can be replaced by a better theory, at any time, as long as those very simple ideas pertain. Sometimes it turns out that a theory has a more limited domain than we initially thought.
Science is not a collection of absolute proofs. Science is a method of fussing with what we perceive in order to construct working metaphor. Which is not to say we can't find better metaphors.
Have YOU ever been to space? Have YOU ever personally visited Antarctica? Then you cannot tell me definitively that those places exist.
...and this, ladies and gentlemen, is why religion should be avoided if at all possible. It cripples minds.
There are a lot more people who believe those people are telling the truth.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the number of people who are convinced of a thing, have absolutely no effect upon the reality of that thing. It's either real, or it isn't. Your beliefs, or the unified the beliefs of the entire human population, won't change whichever is the actual case. At all.
For instance, at one time, it was believed by the intellectual elite that the sun orbited the earth. Yet this was wrong, and further, failed to change the situation from earth orbiting sun to the opposite, because: Incorrect belief has no power to affect reality. All it does is foul up decision making, and usually quite thoroughly. Which brings us right back around to your assertions about space and Antarctica.
Information, contrary to popular belief, is not equivalent to the thing being described.
Ah, but it is, if the program interpreting it says it is. You fell right into your own trap. In this case, the map isn't what you think it is. The question is, in that situation, would you have any way of knowing that was the case? Of course not. And since you don't have the answer to that, you don't have the answer to the "is the universe a computer program" question, either.
U cannot contain neither semi decidable nor undecidable problems (which was our base assumption).
This is incorrect. Any computer can represent problems for which there are no solution, as well as problems for which the representation is wrong, including a Turing machine (it just takes longer.)
The machine is not the problem; the map is not the territory; your perceptions only metaphor, and not even (necessarily) the same metaphor as the next person who comes along.
Which is not to say that the universe is in any way likely to be a running program. Just that constructions like yours, which proclaim absolutes based upon inherently flawed understandings of what computers can and cannot do, are incoherent.
...the parent post isn't modded to plus a thousand or so.
When I was a kid - fifty years ago - I ran around with a lead bar in my pocket. I used to hold it in my fist (no, not violent) and squeeze it, because... well, because I could. That bar eventually changed shape until it fit my hand. I held that thing in my hot, sweaty palms for must have been hundreds of hours. I also held pools of mercury, double handfuls, we used to play with it; I had a huge jar that I got from an old furnace warehouse. I never tried to drink it, or eat the lead. I'm cancer free (actually, I was born with a tumor they removed, and none since then), relatively healthy except where I've broken things myself, and still smarter than any of these idiots who want to restrict everything in sight from everyone in order that they are (cough) safer. I swam and tubed in the Delaware river, unsupervised. Across it, for hours in the rapids, in still pools and from the surface to about 20 feet deep. I went caving. Deep caving. I went cliff climbing. We camped in the woods. One time, a friend, about my age, 13 or so, we got a in boat and floated down the Delaware for about a week. Holy crap was that fun. I had a chemistry set; my sister a biology set, complete with a truly awesome microscope (our dad was an SF writer with a degree in biology... he gave cool gifts from time to time.) She would get water from stagnant ponds, while I enjoyed separating H from O and enhancing various combustion events with the resulting O. My friend Mark and I used to stand at the head of the NY subway trains (this was about 6th grade) and ride them -- all day. That'd turn a token into a huge entertainment permit. We hung out at the museum of natural history. I have some great stories about that. We'd go out to Coney Island and swim. We hiked in the woods. We biked between small towns down the side of the highway. We became musicians. We drove fast (for the times) cars; I had a roadrunner and an awesome GTO. We got laid. A lot. There was a pirate radio station. Concerts. Woodstock. We drank. We did drugs. I got caught, and suffered a year of incarceration with violent, nasty kids from Philly; so I learned to fight in order to not be beaten bloody every night. Check it out... the first really bad thing to happen to me, and what caused it, supervised it, created the framework for it? It was the bloody GOVERNMENT, that's what... trying to "help." Wankers.
When I read that some... unprintable idiot... wants to keep rulers - RULERS - out of chemistry kits, because they're "potentially dangerous", it just makes me want to beat them about the head and shoulders with a wet noodle. What useless, pandering, socially destructive and chickenshit human beings these people are. I pity, really honestly pity, the kids of today, living in their figurative rubber suits with attached life preservers, GPS tags, and pocket treatise on the evils of anything that even remotely might be fun.
Here's a story for you. My mother - generally open minded, but a bit protective - took me to the hobby store in Port Jervis one time, and I expressed a wish for this huge, multi-door folded-in-on-itself-like-a-tesseract (or so it seemed to me) chemistry set. She looked at it, and told me, "no, it says it's not safe for your age group." Or something very much like that, I guess I don't remember the wording anymore. Anyway, I had a small "safe" set. So I made her a bet. I said if I could show her that the little set I had wasn't "safe", would she let me have the big set? She agreed.
So the next day, I showed up in her room (ground level on a hill), crossed my arms, and waited. Downstairs, some iron filings, Oxygen, and hydrogen reached "bang" when the glass vessels over the little alcohol burner collapsed and broke, and all of the basement windows blew out with a huge roar. I still remember the dust motes blown out of the cracks between the floorboards of my mom's bedroom dancing in the sunlight from the window.
She took me right over to get the big set. Then she made me mow the lawn all summer to pay for the windows.
Not every drug user is an addict, but every drug user is willing to violate federal law of their own free will.
So, you're saying they are patriots with a clear vision of the rights of the individual trumping the oppression inflicted by the criminals in Washington.
Yes, I can definitely see how that would lead to my selecting them over another prospective hire. People of vision; of honor; of principle.
The most important thing these reports could provide is the information whether someone has been previously employed as a legislator or judge. For in that case, I'd have solid evidence of not only incompetence, but the direct intent, with action taken, to do others harm.
For the price of a Mac mini for one TV, I could buy appliances for six TVs.
Yeah, that'd be great, then you could have six opportunities to pay for content. While having a fraction of the capabilities. In six different places. Oy.
Consumers in the United States tend not to assess the total cost of ownership
Yes, I know. Has a little something to do with their inability to detect what a raging ripoff credit cards, mortgages, and lottery tickets are; not to mention their apparent inability to even balance a checkbook.
Apple TV is as close to having a direct channel from your bank account to Apple as anything I've seen yet. But a full on computer lets you watch all manner of free stuff. I don't see the appeal of Apple TV at all.
Apple produces plenty of free upgrades. There's one waiting to install on my machine right now. It contains a new web browser, a new iTunes, and updates for my Logic Pro and Aperture software. That's the Apple equivalent of a service pack.
All you're doing is getting confused by the different naming schemes between Apple and Microsoft. Apple releases 10.X, there will generally be a lot of new features, capabilities, etc. And they'll charge you for them. Microsoft, on the other hand, releases something with a new name, and they'll charge you for that. And it will have new features, capabilities. Apple releases 10.X.X, there will generally be bugfixes, driver support, etc. And its free. Microsoft, on the other hand, releases something called a service pack, and it'll be free. And it will generally provide bugfixes, driver support, etc.
Both companies follow very similar paths. The differences that have your panties in a bunch are simply semantics.
What crap. Install Parallels. Install Windows. Install Office.
There you have it. A Mac with Office. And whatever else you think you need that runs under Windows. And you have everything the Mac offers at the same time. And for *that* matter, you can run Linux as well. Concurrently. In a window. On the same monitor, or on another one. But with network, filesystem, etc. connectivity -- even drag and drop -- to the host OS (OS X), while sharing the keyboard and mouse, etc.
If your "scientists" are bitching as you report, they ought to either (a) learn how to use a computer (and if they don't know how, I wonder at your definition of "scientist"), or (b) lynch the IT guy responsible for keeping their shit running.
OS X is far from perfect. But a Mac that's been set up by someone who even slightly knows what they're doing is, as of right now, by far the best desktop environment you can set up.
I have a huge physical library. I'm engaged in buying new books, but I'm also trying to get my favorite authors over onto my iPad (I use the Kindle app, primarily.) Most of my favorite author's older books aren't available. If they were, I'd buy them in a heartbeat.
A lot of older books have electronic rights tied up in (bad) contracts. It'll be a while before that particular stumbling block works itself out.
The tl;dl version: the bulk of the costs in publishing are not the printing and distribution. It's the editing, proof reading, and review.
That is utter nonsense. I own a literary agency, and I know exactly what the numbers are.
First of all, most proof reading and editing is done by the literary agency before the book even reaches the publisher. Also there is work done for free by readers the author collects who act as initial filters. And the agency typically gets 10...20% of what the author gets, which in turn is only a few percent of what the book brings at retail. The publishers and the store make far more per copy than the author does. And reviews are free. Marketing -- if you can get the publisher to do any -- can be expensive. But generally, they expect the author to foot that bill these days. Your own web site, your own "signing tours", your own "buzz generation"... publishers do very little right now. And they're not taking new authors worth a damn, either; if you aren't already published somewhere (short stories, etc.), we can't even get a publisher to look at you these days. And I'd really hate to tell you how many good books you haven't read for just that reason.
Editing, mainly. Most authors need one or more editors, or at least a collection of "beta readers." I own a literary agency, and I have to tell you, of the best authors we handle, there isn't a single one of them that hasn't handed us a manuscript with glaring errors in it. Some authors are terrible with spelling, grammar -- and yet are compelling storytellers.
Ideally for the authors and the readers, this will settle out as a service offered the authors, rather than an artifact of the path to a physical object, but right now, the publishers have a death grip because they control the majority of the market, which is still printed matter. There is little purpose for them (other than editing) to even exist in the realm of e-books; and that's why they're trying to use print to gather in every book's e-rights. The last thing they want is an author out there going right to the e-store and bypassing them entirely - but that's what the economics here clearly indicate is the optimum path.
Next, you do, generally speaking, need a store. If every book were sold from its own website, it'd be very inconvenient for buyers. A store where you can browse many books is better in too many ways to be overcome by individual web sites. So that middleman will continue to exist as well.
Physical book publishers are literally (sorry) in the position of buggy whip manufacturers at the very beginning of the motorcar era. Other than tabletop photo books, their reasons to exist are beginning to go away. Considering how many fine works by new authors they have prevented the public from seeing, while publishing the most awful dreck simply because an author had sold material in the past, I have to say... good.
Slashdot Mirror
Except that's not what I did, Tom. You're being disingenuous. It's a hypothetical, which is necessary to establish what one might, or might not, be able to bring as evidence supporting it, ideas about it, attempting to falsify it.
If X, then (these); now we examine (these) and see how, or if, X breaks.
And the bottom line is, if the universe we exist within is that established by a program, there is no condition necessary such that you would have any way of telling that were the case. That would be entirely up to the Author(s.) There's no argument you can make that is sufficient to counter this, because that's the nature of any programmed system: it is what the program says it is, even if that's not something obvious, or strictly speaking, correct. Such as an arbitrary, erroneous, or simply annoying case of 1+1=3. Such as things on the macro scale not obeying the same laws as things on the micro scale. Etc.
So? This does not, in any way, mean that the program running on it can't do everything a real 6809 can do, or that the reality for the program isn't limited to the emulation. Likewise, it doesn't mean that you, running as part of the universe program, can't do everything that program lets you do -- it's the allowed subset of the reality that you'd get to exercise. That the universe is a program is not an idea that all there is, is said program, in fact the implication has to be there is much more (only there's no possibility you're going to know about it unless it's designed so you can.)
This is irrelevant drivel. When I say "you can't prove a negative", I mean a negative assertion such as "there is no god" or "the universe is not a program."
Yes, us intelligent types will, from time to time, use typographical cues to re-emphasize missed points. Unfortunately, you dimwitted types fail to catch the cue, and concentrate on the typography. Good luck with that. Oh look, italics!
The postulated condition was, if the program were the universe. So, if the program always returns 2+2=3, then that is, in fact, how things work in the universe. And you would know no different.
What's happening here is that you are failing to consider the proposed conditions; you're depending upon your presumptions (which, in the proposal, are supplied by the program) to detect the program, hence your claim that "the program is not the universe." However, you would be in no better position to detect such a situation than a software DNA-breeding agent would be to determine what CPU is actually running inside an emulated machine.
For instance, I've written a 6809 emulator. You can write any possible program, or chain of programs (program storage is effectively unlimited) in 6809 machine language, or any higher level language within the system, and there are exactly zero ways that program(s) could determine that it's actually running on 2010-era Intel hardware. In other words, the universe is what the program running it (the emulator) says it is, and it is trivial to demonstrate that this can be absolutely enforced.
You see, in such a circumstance, you have neither the tools or the senses to address the issue, nor is there any certainty there could be indirect means made available to you to create tools and/or senses. Because it could be designed that way, as is my emulation.
So again, if the situation is -- the universe is a program, and it's designed to not let you know that -- you are very unlikely to be in a position to prove otherwise. And again, not that I particularly think this is even slightly likely; but it's still amusing to see someone argue against the possibility. This is exactly the same kind of proof religion is immune from. You can't prove a negative. It's not just hard, it's impossible. It doesn't make the proposition any more likely, but it does completely dispose of certain arguments for impossibility. Most definitely including yours. :)
Again, as you have failed to comprehend: It is, if the program interpreting it says it is.
That's how science works. The "laws" are the predictions made by the hypothesis, and as long as the predictions are experimentally borne out, we have a theory which remains credible. The whole point of science is that any part of it can be replaced by a better theory, at any time, as long as those very simple ideas pertain. Sometimes it turns out that a theory has a more limited domain than we initially thought.
Science is not a collection of absolute proofs. Science is a method of fussing with what we perceive in order to construct working metaphor. Which is not to say we can't find better metaphors.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the number of people who are convinced of a thing, have absolutely no effect upon the reality of that thing. It's either real, or it isn't. Your beliefs, or the unified the beliefs of the entire human population, won't change whichever is the actual case. At all.
For instance, at one time, it was believed by the intellectual elite that the sun orbited the earth. Yet this was wrong, and further, failed to change the situation from earth orbiting sun to the opposite, because: Incorrect belief has no power to affect reality. All it does is foul up decision making, and usually quite thoroughly. Which brings us right back around to your assertions about space and Antarctica.
Ah, but it is, if the program interpreting it says it is. You fell right into your own trap. In this case, the map isn't what you think it is. The question is, in that situation, would you have any way of knowing that was the case? Of course not. And since you don't have the answer to that, you don't have the answer to the "is the universe a computer program" question, either.
This is incorrect. Any computer can represent problems for which there are no solution, as well as problems for which the representation is wrong, including a Turing machine (it just takes longer.)
The machine is not the problem; the map is not the territory; your perceptions only metaphor, and not even (necessarily) the same metaphor as the next person who comes along.
Which is not to say that the universe is in any way likely to be a running program. Just that constructions like yours, which proclaim absolutes based upon inherently flawed understandings of what computers can and cannot do, are incoherent.
When I was a kid - fifty years ago - I ran around with a lead bar in my pocket. I used to hold it in my fist (no, not violent) and squeeze it, because... well, because I could. That bar eventually changed shape until it fit my hand. I held that thing in my hot, sweaty palms for must have been hundreds of hours. I also held pools of mercury, double handfuls, we used to play with it; I had a huge jar that I got from an old furnace warehouse. I never tried to drink it, or eat the lead. I'm cancer free (actually, I was born with a tumor they removed, and none since then), relatively healthy except where I've broken things myself, and still smarter than any of these idiots who want to restrict everything in sight from everyone in order that they are (cough) safer. I swam and tubed in the Delaware river, unsupervised. Across it, for hours in the rapids, in still pools and from the surface to about 20 feet deep. I went caving. Deep caving. I went cliff climbing. We camped in the woods. One time, a friend, about my age, 13 or so, we got a in boat and floated down the Delaware for about a week. Holy crap was that fun. I had a chemistry set; my sister a biology set, complete with a truly awesome microscope (our dad was an SF writer with a degree in biology... he gave cool gifts from time to time.) She would get water from stagnant ponds, while I enjoyed separating H from O and enhancing various combustion events with the resulting O. My friend Mark and I used to stand at the head of the NY subway trains (this was about 6th grade) and ride them -- all day. That'd turn a token into a huge entertainment permit. We hung out at the museum of natural history. I have some great stories about that. We'd go out to Coney Island and swim. We hiked in the woods. We biked between small towns down the side of the highway. We became musicians. We drove fast (for the times) cars; I had a roadrunner and an awesome GTO. We got laid. A lot. There was a pirate radio station. Concerts. Woodstock. We drank. We did drugs. I got caught, and suffered a year of incarceration with violent, nasty kids from Philly; so I learned to fight in order to not be beaten bloody every night. Check it out... the first really bad thing to happen to me, and what caused it, supervised it, created the framework for it? It was the bloody GOVERNMENT, that's what... trying to "help." Wankers.
When I read that some... unprintable idiot... wants to keep rulers - RULERS - out of chemistry kits, because they're "potentially dangerous", it just makes me want to beat them about the head and shoulders with a wet noodle. What useless, pandering, socially destructive and chickenshit human beings these people are. I pity, really honestly pity, the kids of today, living in their figurative rubber suits with attached life preservers, GPS tags, and pocket treatise on the evils of anything that even remotely might be fun.
Here's a story for you. My mother - generally open minded, but a bit protective - took me to the hobby store in Port Jervis one time, and I expressed a wish for this huge, multi-door folded-in-on-itself-like-a-tesseract (or so it seemed to me) chemistry set. She looked at it, and told me, "no, it says it's not safe for your age group." Or something very much like that, I guess I don't remember the wording anymore. Anyway, I had a small "safe" set. So I made her a bet. I said if I could show her that the little set I had wasn't "safe", would she let me have the big set? She agreed.
So the next day, I showed up in her room (ground level on a hill), crossed my arms, and waited. Downstairs, some iron filings, Oxygen, and hydrogen reached "bang" when the glass vessels over the little alcohol burner collapsed and broke, and all of the basement windows blew out with a huge roar. I still remember the dust motes blown out of the cracks between the floorboards of my mom's bedroom dancing in the sunlight from the window.
She took me right over to get the big set. Then she made me mow the lawn all summer to pay for the windows.
So, you're saying they are patriots with a clear vision of the rights of the individual trumping the oppression inflicted by the criminals in Washington.
Yes, I can definitely see how that would lead to my selecting them over another prospective hire. People of vision; of honor; of principle.
The most important thing these reports could provide is the information whether someone has been previously employed as a legislator or judge. For in that case, I'd have solid evidence of not only incompetence, but the direct intent, with action taken, to do others harm.
Cool! I got a "-1, moderator is stupid"!
+1 spot fucking on
"Yes, I know beauty is only skin-deep; did you think I was admiring your lungs?"
Yeah, but after the first year or so, she isn't going to share it with you anyway, so what difference does it make?
Yeah, that'd be great, then you could have six opportunities to pay for content. While having a fraction of the capabilities. In six different places. Oy.
Yes, I know. Has a little something to do with their inability to detect what a raging ripoff credit cards, mortgages, and lottery tickets are; not to mention their apparent inability to even balance a checkbook.
Math: learn it, or be burned by it.
I use a Mac Mini in my home theater.
Apple TV is as close to having a direct channel from your bank account to Apple as anything I've seen yet. But a full on computer lets you watch all manner of free stuff. I don't see the appeal of Apple TV at all.
Apple produces plenty of free upgrades. There's one waiting to install on my machine right now. It contains a new web browser, a new iTunes, and updates for my Logic Pro and Aperture software. That's the Apple equivalent of a service pack.
All you're doing is getting confused by the different naming schemes between Apple and Microsoft. Apple releases 10.X, there will generally be a lot of new features, capabilities, etc. And they'll charge you for them. Microsoft, on the other hand, releases something with a new name, and they'll charge you for that. And it will have new features, capabilities. Apple releases 10.X.X, there will generally be bugfixes, driver support, etc. And its free. Microsoft, on the other hand, releases something called a service pack, and it'll be free. And it will generally provide bugfixes, driver support, etc.
Both companies follow very similar paths. The differences that have your panties in a bunch are simply semantics.
What crap. Install Parallels. Install Windows. Install Office.
There you have it. A Mac with Office. And whatever else you think you need that runs under Windows. And you have everything the Mac offers at the same time. And for *that* matter, you can run Linux as well. Concurrently. In a window. On the same monitor, or on another one. But with network, filesystem, etc. connectivity -- even drag and drop -- to the host OS (OS X), while sharing the keyboard and mouse, etc.
If your "scientists" are bitching as you report, they ought to either (a) learn how to use a computer (and if they don't know how, I wonder at your definition of "scientist"), or (b) lynch the IT guy responsible for keeping their shit running.
OS X is far from perfect. But a Mac that's been set up by someone who even slightly knows what they're doing is, as of right now, by far the best desktop environment you can set up.
None.
You know, I just don't want to see Microsoft executives throwing chairs and getting red-faced over a cryostat...
Dynamic? The atom needs a refresh cycle?
Random Access? It is addressed by a row/column or similar structure?
Memory... ok, one bit, yes?
Doesn't "DRAM" strike anyone else as almost entirely not applicable?
I have a huge physical library. I'm engaged in buying new books, but I'm also trying to get my favorite authors over onto my iPad (I use the Kindle app, primarily.) Most of my favorite author's older books aren't available. If they were, I'd buy them in a heartbeat.
A lot of older books have electronic rights tied up in (bad) contracts. It'll be a while before that particular stumbling block works itself out.
That is utter nonsense. I own a literary agency, and I know exactly what the numbers are.
First of all, most proof reading and editing is done by the literary agency before the book even reaches the publisher. Also there is work done for free by readers the author collects who act as initial filters. And the agency typically gets 10...20% of what the author gets, which in turn is only a few percent of what the book brings at retail. The publishers and the store make far more per copy than the author does. And reviews are free. Marketing -- if you can get the publisher to do any -- can be expensive. But generally, they expect the author to foot that bill these days. Your own web site, your own "signing tours", your own "buzz generation"... publishers do very little right now. And they're not taking new authors worth a damn, either; if you aren't already published somewhere (short stories, etc.), we can't even get a publisher to look at you these days. And I'd really hate to tell you how many good books you haven't read for just that reason.
Editing, mainly. Most authors need one or more editors, or at least a collection of "beta readers." I own a literary agency, and I have to tell you, of the best authors we handle, there isn't a single one of them that hasn't handed us a manuscript with glaring errors in it. Some authors are terrible with spelling, grammar -- and yet are compelling storytellers.
Ideally for the authors and the readers, this will settle out as a service offered the authors, rather than an artifact of the path to a physical object, but right now, the publishers have a death grip because they control the majority of the market, which is still printed matter. There is little purpose for them (other than editing) to even exist in the realm of e-books; and that's why they're trying to use print to gather in every book's e-rights. The last thing they want is an author out there going right to the e-store and bypassing them entirely - but that's what the economics here clearly indicate is the optimum path.
Next, you do, generally speaking, need a store. If every book were sold from its own website, it'd be very inconvenient for buyers. A store where you can browse many books is better in too many ways to be overcome by individual web sites. So that middleman will continue to exist as well.
Physical book publishers are literally (sorry) in the position of buggy whip manufacturers at the very beginning of the motorcar era. Other than tabletop photo books, their reasons to exist are beginning to go away. Considering how many fine works by new authors they have prevented the public from seeing, while publishing the most awful dreck simply because an author had sold material in the past, I have to say... good.