[Patents] natural forces

[Gregory Aharonian srctran@world.std.com]

Hartmut writes:
>The basis of modern democracy lies in the distinction between information
>and matter.

Nonsense.  At least for Americans, the basis of modern democracy is rights
such as one-person one-private vote, the protection due citizens under
the Constitution and Bill of rights, checks and balances in government.

The distinction between information and matter has little to d with
democratic rights, and in fact it is questionable whether such a
distinction philosophically exists.  Under statistical physics,
information/entropy is relatable to energy, and under relativity,
energy is relatable to matter.  Under physics then, information is
relatable to matter, for example, the many discussions about what
happens to the information inherent in matter when the matter is
sucked down a black hole (is the information lost from the universe,
or is it stored somehow in the black hole, and potentially accessible
when the black hole evaporates?).

Combine the equality of information and matter in physics, with the
automata equality of hardware and software in mathematics, and you
end up with a pretty weak case for this distinction Hartmut uses as
a basis for having a distinction between patenting of hardware and
software.

So if I have to choose between well-defined modern physics and mathematics
and the non-well-defined decisions of a German court no one seems to
care to publish in English, I choose mathematics and physics.

And more strongly believe that those against software patents are
against hardware patents, and therefore all patents, as well.  Their
arguments apply generally, against all sorts of patents, not just
hardware.  Software is a more publicly visible target, but it is
all patentability that is under attack.  The distinctions are not
supportable with modern science.

Greg