Re: Proprietary Software term

[Wols Lists]

On 19/08/18 00:34, David Kastrup wrote:
> As any theoretical physicist will tell you, anything that involves
> actual hardware also is maths.

Are you telling me that maths PREscribes reality? Are you telling me
that Newton got it right?

If hardware is maths, then how comes physicists aren't creating the
reality we would like to live in?

Mathematics DEscribes reality. As I understand it, SCOTUS said that
anything that could be done by sweat of the brow, anything that could be
done by someone with pencil and paper and infinite time, is not
patentable. As such, any and all calculations are not patentable. Any
DEscription of reality is not patentable. LOGIC (and that includes
mathematics) is NOT PATENTABLE. (Doesn't prevent patent attorneys
trying, and succeeding :-(

The whole point of patents is that they describe what happens in
reality, what we usually do not understand of the maths, or how we tip
the maths to work in our favour.

I like to draw a little distinction between mathematics and science. A
mathematical proof says "this is logically correct". A scientific proof
says "this is not reality". Theoretical physicists aren't scientists,
they're mathematicians. Patents are there for technologists, for people
who deal with scientific proofs, not for mathematicians dealing with
mathematical proofs. A patent deals with "this is how we get reality to
do what we want", not with "this is what logic says should happen".

Newton is easy to prove MATHEMATICALLY CORRECT. He is also easy to prove
SCIENTIFICALLY WRONG.

Cheers,
Wol