Position Paper #4:

What Is a Computer Program?

For this position paper, I would like you to evaluate the following argument:

To help you evaluate this argument (which we'll look at in more detail in lecture later this semester), here are some extracts from some relevant websites:

1. From the official US Patent Office definition of "patent":
   "a property right granted by the Government of the United States of America to an inventor ‘to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States’ for a limited time in exchange for public disclosure of the invention when the patent is granted."

2. The Patent Office definition of "invention":
   "any art or process (way of doing or making things), machine, manufacture, design, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, or any variety of plant, which is or may be patentable under the patent laws of the United States."

3. The official US Copyright Office definition of "copyright" [PDF]:
   "Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States…to the authors of ‘original works of authorship,’ including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works."

4. From the same website [PDF]:
   "Copyrightable works include the following categories:
   1. literary works;
   2. musical works, including any accompanying words
   3. dramatic works, including any accompanying music
   4. pantomimes and choreographic works
   5. pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works
   6. motion pictures and other audiovisual works
   7. sound recordings
   8. architectural works

   "These categories should be viewed broadly. For example, computer programs and most ‘compilations’ may be registered as ‘literary works’; maps and architectural plans may be registered as ‘pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works.’

   "WHAT IS NOT PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT?

   "Several categories of material are generally not eligible for federal copyright protection. These include among others:

   • Works that have not been fixed in a tangible form of expression (for example, choreographic works that have not been notated or recorded, or improvisational speeches or performances that have not been written or recorded)
   • Titles, names, short phrases, and slogans; familiar symbols or designs; mere variations of typographic ornamentation, lettering, or coloring; mere listings of ingredients or contents
   • Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices, as distinguished from a description, explanation, or illustration
   • Works consisting entirely of information that is common property and containing no original authorship (for example: standard calendars, height and weight charts, tape measures and rulers, and lists or tables taken from public documents or other common sources)"

To evaluate this argument, you must state whether the argument is valid and you must state whether and why you agree or disagree with each premise.
Remember:

• Only single statements (like premises and conclusions) can be true or false.

  For our purposes, it's enough to say that a statement is true (or false) if you agree (or disagree) with it,
  because I'm not asking you to convince me that a statement really is true (or false);
  I'm only asking you to convince me that you have a good reason for agreeing (or disagreeing) with it.

• And only arguments can be valid or invalid.

  An argument is valid if it's impossible for all of its premises to be true while its conclusion is false (and it's invalid otherwise).

  For our purposes, to determine whether an argument is valid,
  you must suppose (or make believe) "for the sake of the argument" that all the premises are true
  (i.e., that you agree with all of them),
  and then consider whether you would have to logically agree with the conclusion.

  To determine whether an argument is invalid,
  try to imagine some way the world might be so that the premises are true but the conclusion is false.

• Finally, only arguments can be sound or unsound.

  An argument is sound if it's valid and all of its premises are true
  (in which case, its conclusion will also have to be true).

  For our purposes, we'll say that an argument is sound if it's valid and you really do agree with all of its premises
  (in which case, you really have to agree with the conclusion).

• You are logically obligated to believe the conclusions of sound arguments!

  So, if you ever come across an argument that you think is sound,
  but whose conclusion you don't believe,
  then either one (or more) of the premises is false,
  or it is invalid (i.e., there is some way for the premises to be true yet for the conclusion to be false),
  or both.

This means, of course, that you have to evaluate each premise and each (sub-)argument, and, as usual, I also want you to evaluate the conclusion independently of whether you think that it follows validly or doesn't follow validly from its premises.

1. For this position paper, I want to experiment with something a little bit different.

   Instead of writing a first draft of your paper, I simply want you to fill in the attached "thinksheet", which will be an outline of your argument analysis.

   You will write the paper after peer-editing the thinksheets.

2. Please bring

   5 copies

   of your filled-out thinksheet to lecture on the due date.

PhilCS 4/584, Spring 2010	NAME:
========================================================================
Thinksheet for Position Paper #4:  What Is a Computer Program?
========================================================================
Statement               |Agree?|    Why?
(abbreviated versions of|(T?F?)|   (use additional sheets if needed)
 prems & conc of arg't) |      |
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. A special-purpose    |      |                   
   computer is          |      |                   
   essentially a hard-  |      |                   
   wired computer prog. |      |                   
                        |      |                   
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Such a hardwired     |      |                   
   comp.prog. is a      |      |                   
   physical machine     |      |                   
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. Physical machines    |      |                   
   can be patented      |      |                   
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Such a hardwired     |      |                   
   comp.prog. can be    |      |                   
   patented             |      |                   
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1,2,3/.'.4 is valid    |      |                   
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. The printed text of  |      |                   
   a comp.prog. is a    |      |                   
   "lit.work" in the    |      |                   
   sense of the (c) law |      |                   
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. Lit.works can be (c) |      |                   
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. The printed text of  |      |                   
   a comprog can be (c) |      |                   
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
 5,6/.'.7 is valid      |      |                   
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. Nothing can be both  |      |                   
   patented & (c)       |      |                   
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
9. There's no comp'n'l  |      |                   
   or other diff. betw. |      |                   
   the hardwired comp.  |      |                   
   prog. & its textual  |      |                   
   counterpart...       |      |                   
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
10. Comprogs can be both|      |                   
    patented & (c)      |      |                   
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 |      |
 4,7,9/.'.10 is valid   |      |                   
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
Additional comments: