From: Jeff Davis (jrd1415@yahoo.com)
Date: Thu Oct 24 2002 - 14:40:43 MDT
--- Eugen Leitl <eugen@leitl.org> wrote:
> 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,
This is one of those logical 'problems' that I see
repeated again and again on this topic. Just because
someone/everyone is unable to distinguish between two
items doesn't mean they aren't an original and a copy.
Observer ignorance/inability is a separate matter
from the facts of identity. If a tree falls in the
forest and no one is there to hear it, it still makes
the same huge crashing sound. Unless you can
establish that the laws of nature are observer
dependent, you need to retire this 'argument'.
> > 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.
Just because you don't know, or can't know, the
difference, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. What's
more, the argument seems to me not just disingenuous,
but even a bit ridiculous. To make a copy, you have
to have an original from which to make it. It is
impossible then to have the two without
creating/having, in the process of making the copy,
the means of distinguishing the two. Destroying the
evidence, or losing it, or whatever, and then claiming
in full view of everyone, some fanciful state of
affairs, is, well, pure stubbornness.
> Why do we keep having the same discussion, year,
> after year, after year?
Stubbornness?
Jeff Davis
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