New initiative aims to improve the quality of patents (NewsForge) [LWN.net]

What is a language

Posted Feb 18, 2006 23:46 UTC (Sat) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link]

Well, there *is* that guy trying to get a movie plot patented: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/04/movie_plotline_pa...

Human languages

Posted Feb 19, 2006 1:01 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

Sorry, they are not the same. Computer languages are used by programmers to communicate with machines, not with other programmers. They are severely limited in their semantics, and are not equivalent to human (or "natural") languages. E.g. there's no way to say the pronoun "I" in any computer language I know.

Human languages

Posted Feb 19, 2006 1:41 UTC (Sun) by mst@mellanox.co.il (guest, #27097) [Link]

> Computer languages are used by programmers to communicate with machines,
> not with other programmers.

Thats a mistake, I think. The reason we use high-level computer languages
at all is to make the program easier to understand to other programmers.

> They are severely limited in their semantics, and are not equivalent to
> human (or "natural") languages.
Are all human languages equivalent between themselves?

> E.g. there's no way to say the pronoun "I" in any computer language I know.

/* I disagree. */

Human languages

Posted Feb 19, 2006 2:19 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

Thats a mistake, I think. The reason we use high-level computer languages at all is to make the program easier to understand to other programmers.

So, when you write software that you know that nobody else will see, do you write it in assembly? Or directly into machine code? You may argue that you write for yourself at a later time, which would make us think (probably erroneously) that you write all of your throw-away code in assembly or machine code. When in fact it is the opposite: throw-away prototypes are written in the highest-level language that you can.

I rather think that high level languages are there to make machines understand us. Computers are very picky about what they will accept, and a program is apparently the only way to make them listen. High-level languages make them understand a wider range of expressions, more similar to the way we think (or rather to the concepts we use).

Are all human languages equivalent between themselves?

Good point. Yes, to the degree that different expressions in a language are equivalent (which, according to Lakoff and Johnson in "Metaphors We Live By", is not much).

Yes because you can always define a new term and use it in the term of a conversation. And then you can use that to define a new term, and so on.

No because each word carries virtually unlimited connotations, and it is therefore impossible to use the same combination of connotations in any two given phrases. But then these connotations are subtly different to every speaker and to every listener, so either communication is hopeless or somehow it works. Different languages represent an even bigger difficulty; visit your local airport and judge for yourself if communication still works.

> E.g. there's no way to say the pronoun "I" in any computer language I know.
/* I disagree. */

LOL. $ME remains unconvinced.

Human languages

Posted Feb 19, 2006 5:44 UTC (Sun) by regelatwork (guest, #5146) [Link]

> E.g. there's no way to say the pronoun "I" in any computer language I
know.

((Person) this).disagree(); // ;)

Human languages

Posted Feb 20, 2006 8:26 UTC (Mon) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]

> They are severely limited in their semantics, and are not equivalent to
> human (or "natural") languages.
Are all human languages equivalent between themselves?

No they are NOT equivalent. Even among European similar languages - borgeouis and burgerlich - at face value they mean the same thing but are understood completely differently.

Just as with pronounciation and hearing, where it is well known that what and how you hear is hard-wired into the adult brain, so I would expect language to be the same. Your culture programs your brain to the point that the finer features (at least) of other cultures are, simply, incomprehensible because your brain has no concept of what they take for granted.

Cheers,
Wol

Human languages

Posted Feb 19, 2006 4:41 UTC (Sun) by jstAusr (guest, #27224) [Link]

Communication is to exchange ideas or information. A computer doesn't express ideas, it can only change state. If software languages were primarily useful for changing state within the computer there would be no need for software language wars because the computer cannot express a preference. It doesn't care if it is stuck in an endless loop or doing something that a human would consider useful.

When you perceive that you are communicating with the machine you are really communicating with a programmer, that has in some way anticipated your wants and needs. If the machine had a preference I am sure that it would be loudly objecting to the needless changes of state that it is forced to perform.

Doesn't the "I" argument prove that the communication is between the humans and not with the machine? The state of the machine has no concept of self.

I have seen numerous times when programmers are trying to express an idea and resorting to code to express the idea because that is their common language. I still maintain that patent laws are restricting programmers ability to communicate with each other in their common language.

Human languages

Posted Feb 19, 2006 13:11 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

You argue if I'm not mistaken that computer languages are a variety of artificial languages, those designed by people to perform the role of natural languages but in more systematic, rigorous or precise ways. They also lack the concept of "I" among other things. E.g. they are mostly declarative, and only include interrogative and exclamative sentences as an afterthought; forget about other, more primitive modalities like votive (to express a wish) or imperative (to express a command).

Computer languages are not declarative; they are imperative in nature. Some interrogative (conditional) statements are contemplated; no other modalities are found. This is attributable to the fact that the programmer is telling the machine to "change state", as you put it; sometimes depending on external conditions. There is no point in complicating the language with any other constructs; explanations to other programmers are in fact done in natural language embedded in comments.

When my team meets and we discuss what must be done, we use a variety of means like natural language, drawings, gestures and so on. We may resort to code, as you said, in combination with natural language explanations to communicate certain complex algorithms. This only means IMHO that we have learnt to think like the machine does, a very necessary skill for a programmer. Something like translating

"pick every yello bird"

to this (in C):

for (i = 0; i < birds_total; i++) {
  if (birds[i].color != YELLOW)
    continue;
    ...
}

which we do effortlessly after years of practice. It does not mean it is our best way to communicate, but it does remove some ambiguities; after all computer languages are anything but ambiguous because we are talking to a machine.

Even software patents (those I've seen) are written in natural language in preference to computing languages, maybe with some pseudo-code excerpts.

Doesn't the "I" argument prove that the communication is between the humans and not with the machine? The state of the machine has no concept of self.

I don't follow you. If machine state is all that matters, then it's proof that we are just communicating with it. When I talk with my fellow humans, I need pronouns.

Human languages

Posted Feb 19, 2006 14:15 UTC (Sun) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

Computer languages are not declarative; they are imperative in nature. Some interrogative (conditional) statements are contemplated; no other modalities are found.

There do exist declarative languages, Prolog being the classic example, but Lex and Yacc grammers are too. The difference being that you state what you are looking for and the computer goes and finds it for you. To write a Sodoku solver in Prolog takes a dozen lines, since you only have to describe what a solution looks like, not how to get there. Ofcourse, an efficient solver is a different issue, but not that much harder.

Your example "pick every yellow bird" is not good because the translation does not contain the same info. The code describes how it is stored and how to check if it is yellow which your english statement neglected to mention. Your statement in Prolog would simply translate to yellow(Bird) and voila, Bird is a yellow bird. Or at least a yellow something, you'd possibly need to say bird(Bird) to make sure you're getting a bird.

Arguing that it's not a real language because there is no "I" is silly because you only use pronouns where it would otherwise be ambiguous. Pronouns are just shortcuts to indicate what/who you mean. When you start putting computers together you can clearly see there is a concept of self (localhost) and other. "this" and "self" are pronouns because they are alternate names for what you are actually operating on. In computing what you are operating on is not usually ambiguous that pronouns like "I" are needed, but they do exist.

Human languages

Posted Feb 19, 2006 17:24 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

There do exist declarative languages, Prolog being the classic example [...]

You are of course right, thanks for the correction.

Arguing that it's not a real language because there is no "I" is silly because you only use pronouns where it would otherwise be ambiguous. Pronouns are just shortcuts to indicate what/who you mean.

Right again. The exceptions are the pronouns "I" and "you"; they represent the speaker and the listener, and not any other notion that has been mentioned, identified or defined previously, as other pronouns. In fact they change automatically as the conversation progresses, when the listener becomes the speaker and viceversa. That's why I picked "I" as an example of the differences between natural and computer languages: no programming language has the notion of "I" because there is no "speaker", and that is because they are not used to engage in a dialog. It is not a programmer talking to another, it is a programmer instructing a machine.

Human languages

Posted Feb 19, 2006 17:04 UTC (Sun) by jstAusr (guest, #27224) [Link]

But machines need the ideas and thoughts of programmers to give the illusion that the user is interacting with the machine. We aren't talking to the machine, we are interacting with the recorded thoughts and ideas of humans.

In your code verses english example, as kleptog has stated, the instructions are not the same (Kitty is hoping birds_total doesn't contain kitty_stomach). So in some cases the software form is better than the human form, which I believe you stated in a different way.

Human languages

Posted Feb 19, 2006 23:53 UTC (Sun) by james (subscriber, #1325) [Link]

I'd argue that 127.0.0.1 is a pretty good approximation to "me".

Human languages

Posted Feb 20, 2006 7:44 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

The loopback interface, represented as 127.0.0.1 or localhost in TCP/IP, only works as a very odd "me": it can only be used to send and receive messages from itself. I know I certainly don't identify that with "me" when I write

ping localhost

because I am the one writing the command. "localhost" could represent the computer, or rather some sort of myself; but then I don't usually assign personalities to computers, except to curse them when they are running Microsoft Office.

Network protocols in many ways resemble ritualized dialogs: each party must "say" the agreed words for the conversation to proceed. Even in this case there is no "I" and "you"; instead the convention uses Alice, Bob and friends as test subjects. Probably clearer this way, as the personal pronouns keep changing values depending on who is talking.

Human languages

Posted Feb 20, 2006 16:27 UTC (Mon) by BlindOracle (guest, #36027) [Link]

Humans use I to refer to a speciifc instance of humanity, when talking about its self. Many languages have the same type of concept. That concept is often expressed by the use of "this" or "self".

Given the domain differences, I'd say, handily, that's close enough.

Human languages

Posted Feb 20, 2006 17:54 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

Close enough for what? For the sake of argument?

this or self is a very solipsistic notion of "I" or "me", since this.doSomething() just represents an object calling its own method. Even worse, it would command "oneself" to do something, as if you told your hand to do something. This particular use is not contemplated in natural languages, and for good cause.

What is a language

Posted Feb 19, 2006 3:46 UTC (Sun) by Arker (guest, #14205) [Link]

Computer languages are subsets. They don't have all the features you have to have in a
general purpose human language. They're simply specialised mathematical languages.

Since patenting math is explicitly forbidden by law, it may be difficult to see why we're
having this problem. A little research shows that it actually originates from a string of,
'activist' rulings I shall say, to be polite. This is an example of judges setting the law aside
and legislating from the bench, whether because of ignorance or corruption I couldn't say.

What is a language

Posted Feb 19, 2006 3:48 UTC (Sun) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]

All patents are written in a human language. Patents don't stop communucation between people, they merely limit the usability of that information. If somebody developed a flying car or a program to control it, patents would prevent me from making a similar device or software, but not from learning about those inventions or telling others about them.

Objections against software patents are usually based on their low effectiveness in stimulating inventors compared to their monopolistic effect.

What is a language

Posted Feb 19, 2006 17:49 UTC (Sun) by jstAusr (guest, #27224) [Link]

The flying car would fly to the extent it could fly because of natural laws. The human design is there but it flies because of physical laws no further interaction with the designer is needed or possible.

The program that controls the flying car requires constant interaction with the pre-recorded ideas of the person(s) that wrote the program. If the program fails to perform as expected it is because the human(s) didn't provide enough correct information for a proper interaction. If the structure of the flying car fails it is caused by physical laws.

I agree that software patents don't stop communication. But software patents do restrict a legitimate form of communication.

What is a language

Posted Feb 19, 2006 13:35 UTC (Sun) by smitty_one_each (subscriber, #28989) [Link]

> I don't understand the difference between software language patents and human language patents.

You're going to patent English,
Or perhaps a poem therin?
'Tis a cartel out to cash-fish,
That common corporate sin.

New initiative aims to improve the quality of patents (NewsForge)

Posted Feb 20, 2006 5:17 UTC (Mon) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link]

> what we are trying to do with patents ... is reward large
> investment ... by providing a temporary monopoly ...
> We need to understand that is an anti-capitalistic practice at its core

The only thing patents are against, is a radical economic freedom which
has never existed and never been advocated except by fanatics who read
Ayn Rand.

Patents are *not* against capitalism, they are a founding practice of
capitalism. The accumulation of capital comes from 'rights' granted and
protected by government for the sake of the prosperity of a nation, be
they the right to possess and exploit real property (which I presume you
would count as a capitalist practice), the right to exploit labour (serf,
bond, slave or wage), the right to collect taxes, the right to convey
goods between two places or, like a modern technology patent, the right
to trade in a particular class of goods (though the earliest patents in
this class were for commodities like shoemaking and luxury imports, not
for original ideas).

Each of these rights secures prosperity for a class of people at the
expense of the freedom of others. Most of them have been repudiated at
some time or place for the sake of freedom. And once removed, many of
these monopolies have been restored, for the sake of prosperity (but in
the name of freedom).

Ultimately all questions of government come down to the choice of what
(and whose) exclusive rights to protect and which freedoms to deny.
Complete economic freedom, where no exclusive rights are protected,
instantly becomes kleptocracy, so protecting nothing is not an option.

I am not impugning the honour of all people by saying kleptocracy is
inevitable in the absence of a state apparatus. I claim, from every
historical example, that when an overarching state fails to protect
people more-or-less equally, sufficient opportunists will take enough
from the unprotected that it is opportunists, and not honourable people,
who have material power.

> ... so all the discussion of how this relates to "free markets"
> needs to be re-framed in the context of a "social policy"

*All* discussion of free markets needs to be reframed in the context of
social policy. There is no free market in anything. There never was and
never will be. Without the protection of exclusive rights, there is no
market *at all*. A market is a child and a tool of policy, no more.

Opportunistic or institutionalized?

Posted Feb 20, 2006 18:04 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

Beautifully written. I would just like to point out that an overarching state does not always protect the powerless; more often than not the state protects and institutionalizes the practice of kleptocracy by people with material power, to the detriment of the common good and prosperity.

Opportunistic or institutionalized?

Posted Feb 21, 2006 0:33 UTC (Tue) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link]

> Beautifully written.

<blush/>. Re-reading my post I wonder if I should have signed off with
</troll>, since it's such a digression. Never mind.

The original point I was trying to make is that even real property rights
(absolutely fundamental to a capitalist economy) are a state-granted
monopoly, protected (and taxed and subsidised!) according to the politics
of the state. Patents and the like are no different in moral terms.

I'm neither pro-patent nor anti-property, by the way. I simply point out
that both are equally subordinate to political priorities.

> I would just like to point out that an overarching state
> does not always protect the powerless;

Indeed it does not. I can think of very few states which weren't founded
in dubious circumstances, and none at all which don't entrench injustice
and inequality to some degree. Obviously some provide more equality and
some more freedom than others -- there's a minimisation problem for you!

> ...to the detriment of the common good and prosperity.

I was far too generous, ascribing benevolence to states in general :-)

I didn't mean to claim that states are a positive good, merely a
necessary evil. I'm an anarchist by temperament and a socialist because
I consider the protection of an organised state (of some kind) to be a
precondition for almost every kind of worthwhile activity.

Right on target

Posted Feb 21, 2006 11:25 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

I'm not either suggesting that the State is always out to rob us; the idea of "free market" was precisely invented as a means to improve the common good, since anybody might trade and prosper under the protection of the State, and not just a few. However, this idea has been subverted in modern times -- it is now considered that a handful of companies controlling a given segment is "free market", when it is in fact an oligopoly.

I think your comment is right on target; after all, this patent regime is just another form of kleptocracy: those that have a lot (of patents) want to steal (in this case extort) from those who have less (patents), and they have come to be protected by the State (USPTO, and the EPO in the UE if we are not careful). This perspective is more useful IMHO than any free market rhetoric.

making state monopolies competitive

Posted Feb 21, 2006 12:58 UTC (Tue) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link]

Good article. One of the most detrimental state granted monopolies concerns the organisation and issuance of currency, which leads to other monopolies, particularly in connection with how taxes are raised and spent. Once the need for a proportion of trade and income (i.e. taxes) to be spent on generally shared social objectives (e.g. education, policing, road maintenance) is accepted, the question then arises as to how you downsize, decentralise, distribute, and make competitive the state monolith corporation (i.e. the oversized executive branch of government) that raises and spends taxes. If this question is of interest my Kay Tax paper: http://copsewood.net/writings/kaytax.html attempts to find the beginnings of an answer to it. This paper also addresses the question of the monopoly of currency issuance in line with Hayek's monetary denationalisation proposal.

Copsewood Tax (complete digression...)

Posted Feb 22, 2006 3:58 UTC (Wed) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link]

Wow. I had never *considered* the possibility of endorsing and using
local currencies in such a way. It's like a complete makeover of the
idea of a market -- an 'invisible hand' approach to parecon!?

I'm not convinced, but the idea deserves close examination.

I don't like the neologism 'denationalisation', it sounds too much like
what happened to the British railways. Issuance of currency by private
banks is fine, as long as the banks are sound ... and of course they
aren't always, so the currency is always backed by government fiat (as in
Scotland, where private banks always retained the right to issue notes,
but the currency is pegged to that of the Bank of England). Your scheme
to empower LETTs might better be termed 'devolution' or 'localisation',
though those names also have existing connotations.

Somehow I doubt that any currency will remain interest free whose use is
actively encouraged by the taxation system. But it's possible :-)

Copsewood Tax (complete digression...)

Posted Feb 23, 2006 18:48 UTC (Thu) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link]

My use of the term denationalisation referred to the title of a
Hayek tract called: "Denationalisation of Money: An Analysis of the Theory and Practice of Concurrent Currencies, Hobart Paper, London: Institute of Economic Affairs. (1978)" .

His proposal is for private banks to issue competive currencies. My preferred legal organisation of competing currencies is based more on mutual lines, closer to how the UK Building Societies (financial organisations with mutual constitutions which originally only provided housing finance, but now provide a full range of banking services) or credit unions are organised.

Hayek did not explore the inherently decentralising effects upon the state of raising and spending taxes using small parallel currencies. Also interest-free mutually-based currencies are inherently feasible if the history of the Swiss Wir bank ( http://www.wirbank.com ) is anything to go by.

The Kay Tax

Posted Feb 24, 2006 11:15 UTC (Fri) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

Hmm, interestng idea but I don't think it's workable. We just helped a whole pile of currencies out of the world with the Euro and now people want to reintroduce more? The big issues I see with it are:

1. Currency Exchange services. Exchanging currencies costs money and is useless overhead. Obviously the exchange rates will need to float otherwise you end up with the same issues the fixed exchange rate system had early last century. This in turn means that communities that don't have much to sell to other communities with pay proportionally more for imports like washing machines (how many washing machine factories are there still?). The value of a currency is determined largely by it's import/export ratio.

2. Commodities and assets. Things like shares, houses, bonds, gems and minearals all have huge markets and thus will gravitate to the currency with the largest reach. In fact, people may demand this because they don't want their assets becoming worthless just because the currency it was in is doing badly.

That's said, the WIR example does show it can work. It's not clear what the competetive advantage is, presumably lack of taxes. But that page also shows the many growing pains associated with it, showing clearly they have all the same issues as normal currencies. They survived with strong leadership, the kind that is so rare these days.

It's an interesting idea. I'd like to see a much more worked out version taking into account commodities and the effects on people working and earning money in a different place to where they live and spend it.

The Kay Tax

Posted Feb 24, 2006 15:05 UTC (Fri) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link]

Thanks for your comments.

"1. Currency Exchange services. Exchanging currencies costs money and is useless overhead. Obviously the exchange rates will need to float otherwise you end up with the same issues the fixed exchange rate system had early last century. This in turn means that communities that don't have much to sell to other communities with pay proportionally more for imports like washing machines (how many washing machine factories are there still?). The value of a currency is determined largely by it's import/export ratio."

Unless the entire world agrees to having one reserve bank, having multiple currencies in the world is a fact of life. The UK has chosen to stay out of the Euro and has been doing consistently better than France, Germany, Spain & Italy which went into it, and in my view this is partly because we stayed outside. I don't see the overhead of exchange as useless in economics, any more than having cell walls is useless in biology. The energy needed to transfer nutrients through cell walls is costly. The benefit is that if one cell goes bad the rest of the multi-cell organism can generally dispose of it and recycle or expel its components. The facts that cells have a greater degree of autonomy, smaller size and operate in parallel makes these simpler so there is less to go wrong and greater reliability in the organism containing them. Programming has to be modular for similar reasons.

"2. Commodities and assets. Things like shares, houses, bonds, gems and minearals all have huge markets and thus will gravitate to the currency with the largest reach. In fact, people may demand this because they don't want their assets becoming worthless just because the currency it was in is doing badly."

It's also a fact of economic life that mobile capital goes to where it is taxed least. This is a greater factor destabilising democracy than the prices of gems, metals and minerals. Houses, land and small independant businesses are more difficult to move, so are more easily taxed and thereby subsidise larger concentrations of capital. (Globalisation and larger scale commercial organisation have various other subsidies).

I don't propose the Kay Tax as a solution to the footloose capital problem. This possibly puts a cap on the proportion of GNP ( 60% - 70% ? ) that could be handled by the proposed system (of community currences [CCs] including within-currency taxes with rates preferring smaller currencies) without other policy (e.g. http://www.simpol.org ) directly relevant to tackling the mobile capital Dutch auction tax problem. Longer term the health of the planet depends upon eliminating subsidies to globalisation and the effect of this will be to demerge many industries (e.g. hotel chains, restraunt chains, retail chains) where there are no inherent technical economies of scale, just artificial subsidies to the corporatisation and globalisation of these industries.

Outlawing lending money at interest (i.e. usury) would also make the local accumulation of productive capital more attractive for pension savings, as productive investments will then no longer have to generate returns better than interest on money to attract capital. Also the more viable local and regional CCs will initially be more focussed to providing useful short-medium term exchange media than long-term value storage.

As this discussion is off-topic here and could usefully continue I have
started a Mailman list for it:

http://copsewood.net/mailman/listinfo/kaytax

Hope this helps.