X-Message-Number: 26595
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2005 23:53:35 -0400
From: 
Subject: RBR Is Back for Action!

RBR, who has recently been informing us of his supposed full name, is back 
from retirement.  His postings are a pleasant read compared to most.

To get this minor thing out of the way, I suggest that any non-movie fans 
Google on "Richard B Riddick" to see who this person is.  So unless we have 
Vin Diesel in our midst, or a genuine other entity by the name "Richard B 
Riddick," we have yet another of those annoying Cryonet posters, such as 
myself, with an assumed handle.

Now to the point.  I just had to comment on this excerpt from one of 
today's RBR posts:

"A copy of
a thing that once existed is not that thing, for if it were, you
could create a copy of the copy, and obtain the original yet again,
but surely the word 'original' loses all of its meaning if it is
possible for two 'originals' of a thing to exist simultaneously. A
copy of an original is a copy of an original, possibly atomically
identical with it, but it is not that original. Nor is the original
the copy. That is why we call them 'original' and 'copy', and count
two things, instead of counting one."

If we are to believe the above, and RBR is actually a duplicate holder of 
the name "Richard B Riddick," being a duplicate of the movie character, 
then we have two original names, both valid, both identical.  Of course, it 
could be complained that they were independently produced.

Let's, then, take a word processor document.  We create it and save it 
named "Sovereign.doc."  Then, we print out two paper forms of it, both 
originals (no carbon paper please).  We take them to the meeting and all 
parties sign off on all documents.  Which is the "original"?

OK.  You might say the unsigned "original" in the computer is it.  So, 
let's pull it up and save it into a different directory/folder or on a 
different machine.  Our equipment provides that it gets saved under the 
same creation date, and all other possible factors that might be changed by 
some systems via a copy process.  Now we have two digital "Sovereign.doc"s, 
and submit them to a programmer for analysis.  Programmer cannot tell there 
is any difference.  He looks at every bit.  He prints both out.  They are 
identical.

So how do you identify which is the original and which is a copy?  Since 
you do not even note from the beginning which one is original and which is 
copy, what does it matter?  And yes, you have "two things," why would you 
count only one?  And why does having two originals lose the meaning of 
"original"?  If they are identical, they are originals.  What is the 
problem with that?

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=26595