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Is signal matter?
Judging from history of physics patent offices must have a deep connection with fundamental research. Yesterday I looked at the argument in Microsoft v. ATT where lawyers discuss if software can be patented.
The law allows only four categories to be patentable: "process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter." Therefore, to find out if software is patentable lawyers ask Is software matter and if so why?
Here's another link where a discussion of patent issues lead to some fundamental discussion on matter. The case is in re Nuijten. In this case the question is Can signals be considered to be matter.
In Microsoft v. AT&T lawyers discussed the notion of matter without invoking any theoretical or scholastic physics concepts. In Nuijten physics clichés are invoked in the comments.
It would be interesting to hear what physicist friends think about the materialistic properties of signals? Is signal matter?
Today, coming home in the subway I saw an ad by the City celebrating the immigrant culture in New York. The poster said "Call 311 for further information" in about a dozen languages. For me English, German and French were signals because I understood their "meaning." The rest I perceived as languages. I could guess that they all meant the same in different languages but they made sense to me only in general as languages.
So for the signal to be considered signal it needs to be perceived as signal. In other words, Newtonians look at a falling stone and see Newton's Soul emanating from the earth pull the stone. For Newtonian physicists Newton's Soul is material even if it is soul. Matter soul duality exists because of the assumption of Newtonian atomic materialism anyway.
To me the motion of the falling stone has nothing to do with Newton's Soul and I don't perceive it. Newton's Soul is not signal for the stone either.
Imagine Galileo. Galileo does not perceive Newton's Soul because Galileo does not know about Newton's Soul. Similarly, as humans, we may be looking at an infinity of signals but because we are not receiving them for us they are not signals.
But the funny thing is standard is the thing so something non-existent such as Newton's Soul becomes a thing because physicists have turned it into a standard.
I can easily guess that, if any physicist cares to comment on the issue of matter as discussed by lawyers he or she will simply list a table of authorities and assert that his or her table of authorities is the absolute and true answer.
Some examples from quotes invoking physics notions:
Stepback writes:
The photon came out of the electron. The electron is matter. Therefore the photon is some emission of matter like stuff. I heard of one crazy patent examiner who claimed that the photon and electron are all manifestations of a same continuum of stuff. That patent examiner expressed his idea as e=mc^2. …
John Spevacek replies:
Gosh Stepback, I guess when I got my physics degree we were using different textbooks. They never taught me that the photon comes OUT of the electron and they taught me that the existence of a continuum of stuff had been disproven.
Malcolm Mooney writes:
E=Mc2 - signals are energy and matter is convertible into energy; therefore, signals are matter in a different form - don't let me get into quantum physics.
And, why is the question of matter is a question which is thought to be answered by physics? Physics is incapable of answering this question because physicists are bound by Newtonian doctrine which says that the world is atomic and materialistic.