Re: Immortality

From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Fri Dec 08 2000 - 12:27:02 MST


At 12:24pm -0500 12/8/00, John Clark wrote:
>Jason Joel Thompson <jasonjthompson@home.com> Wrote:
>
> > if I delete my mp3 of my favorite Metallica song, I'm fairly
>certain your
> > collection will remain unscathed.
>
>And if I make a copy and send it to you then your collection will be
>unscathed too
>because you'll get the exact same mp3 file back, it is digital after all.

I think people are getting confused between exact copies and
originals. If I paid a million dollars for the first Metallica CD
ever recorded, and then found out that I had a newly-made copy, I
would feel cheated. They may be identical, but I desire the original
not a copy. The two CD's would be indistinguishable, but would that
be good enough for me to consider my CD to be "the original"?

As usual in these debates, there are few disagreements on facts or
science. Most of the disagreements seem to be in goals or what is
"good enough" for our purposes. Since these are a matter of personal
taste, I don't think they can be solved by discussion.

-- 
Harvey Newstrom <HarveyNewstrom.com>


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