[lit-ideas] What is information?
- From: "Peter D. Junger" <junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Literature and Ideas List <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2006 11:30:40 -0400
I am writing a paper---heave been for several years---arguing
for various reasons that computer programs are not patentable
and should not be.
One problem is that according to the Patent Act, processes are
expressly patentable. On the other hand, it has always been
understood that mental processes are not patentable. (The
patentable processes are the ones that make some material
change like curing rubber.)
Now all that computers process is information---and all they do is
process information---in accordance with algorithms that can also,
in theory, be implemented by human beings using only head and hand
(i.e., brains and paper and pencils). And the information that
they process takes the form of a string or stream of binary digits
that we can, perhaps, interpret as being meaningful, although
computers can't, having no ability as of yet to deal with
meanings.
Now I think that it should be pretty clear that the processing of
information is the equivalent of a mental process and that
for all practical purposes it is a mental process. (I used to
know the algorithm for finding square roots using paper and
pencil, now I know the algrorithm for finding them by using
a computer.) Back in the good old days, "computer" was a
job description, so even then, if you had a computer working
for you you did not have to compute things yourself.
I've hit a strange problem though; I can't find any easily
understood---or, at least, easily quotable---definition of
"information" in the sense that computers process it. It
isn't matter or energy, but cannot exist separately from
them. It's a pattern. It is not meaning, but only
information can be meaningful. If you accept a mind/body
duality, then information is going to end up on the mind
side of things---or at least I think it is.
I am familiar with Shannon's communication theory and I may
even understand a little of it. And I will happily cite him.
But what I really need is a nice, simple quotation explaining
that information is a pattern. Or something like that.
Maybe one of you could write such an explanation.
--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
EMAIL: junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx URL: http://samsara.law.cwru.edu
NOTE: junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx will soon cease to exist
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