Re: OT: How I learned to stop worrying and love software patents
Michael K. Edwards wrote:
...
On 7/24/05, Nathanael Nerode <neroden@twcny.rr.com> wrote:
...
I invite
you to question the assumption that "algorithms are mathematics". My
preferred US dictionary (American Heritage, third edition) has it that
an algorithm is "a step-by-step problem solving procedure", and goes
on to describe the computational specialization of this idea. That's
not really theoretical mathematics any more than a titration technique
is theoretical chemistry.
Algorthms are, in a general sense, semiotics, for the step-by-step
problem solving procedure processes data. When the processing is to be
done by a digital computer, the instruction set in which the algorithm
can be encoded sets and encloses, since Alan Turing's seminal work in
the 1930's, the procedure into the realm of theoretical mathematics. And
until Alonzo Church's thesis (cathegorizing this enclosure) is
disproved, this enclosure is definite.
Either way, whether specifically as theoretical mathematics (via
computers), or generally, for being semiotics, algorithms are in the
domain of "laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas"
(refer to Charles Peirce, Ferdinand de Sausurre or Umberto Eco going
back to 1867, only foourteen years later than the oldest quote allegedly
paraphrased from Diehr)
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Prof. Pedro Antonio Dourado de Rezende /\
Ciencia da Computacao (61)3072702-212 / \
Universidade de Brasilia, DF, Brasil /____\
?http://www.cic.unb.br/docentes/pedro/sd.htm
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