From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Thu Oct 24 2002 - 06:03:30 MDT
On Wed, 23 Oct 2002, Jeff Davis wrote:
> Each has a different history. One is "the original".
> It is unique. It is the first of its kind. It is
> 'unprecedented'. It's history runs from its moment of
> origin, up to the present.
Please show you how you can tell which is the original, without resorting
to external storage. (Space is unlabeled. Trajectory tracking requires
external storage of information).
Analogy: Two CDs from the same master containing OpenBSD contain the same
software. If the bit pattern would flip synchronously on both of them it
would be still the same pattern.
> The other is the nth copy of "the original". Its
> history begins from the moment of its production.
> Part of that history is the origin of its 'design'.
> For any copy of something, by the very definition of
> copy (duplicate, xox, etc), its pattern, its form and
> function, its design, its specifications require, and
> are completely dependent upon, an original (in the
> general case, or "the" original, in a specific case)
> (with the exception of a copy of an (n-x)th copy;
> n>x).
This is meaningless, as long as you can't provide a measurement procedure
allowing you to tell two copies apart.
Why do we keep having the same discussion, year, after year, after year?
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:17:45 MST