“Look at any photograph or work of art. If you could duplicate exactly the first tiny dot of color, and then the next and the next, you would end with a perfect copy of the whole, indistinguishable from the original in every way, including the so-called ‘moral value’ of the art itself. Nothing can transcend its smallest elements”—CEO Nwabudike Morgan, “The Ethics of Greed”, Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri
That is because many people not only value the molecular setup of things but also their causal history, what transformations things underwent.
In that case, its history would be that it started off as atoms, was transformed into bits, and then was transformed back into atoms again. If the transformation were truly lossless, people familiar with this fact wouldn’t care. Now, this specific example sounds silly because we have no such technology applicable to the Mona Lisa. But consider something like a mass-produced CD. You could take a CD in Europe, losslessly rip it, destroy the CD and copy the bits to America, then send them to a factory to stamp another CD. The resulting variation would be identical to that between the original CD and one of its siblings in Europe. People are familiar with the technologies involved, and they value CDs only for their bits, so the copy really is as good as the original.
(Here I have even taken pains to state that the copy is not a burned CD-R, nor that the original was signed by a band member, or any such thing.)
But I would care if that happened to some sort of artifact I value.
“During World War II, the medals of German scientists Max von Laue and James Franck were sent to Copenhagen for safekeeping. When Germany invaded Denmark, chemist George de Hevesy dissolved them in aqua regia, to prevent confiscation by Nazi Germany and to prevent legal problems for the holders. After the war, the gold was recovered from solution, and the medals re-cast.”—Wikipedia
Here is an example. Imagine there was a human colony in another star system. After an initial exploration drone set up a communication node and a molecular assembler on a suitable planet, all other equipment and all humans were transmitted digitally an locally reassembled.
Now imagine such a colony would either receive a copy of the Venus figurine digitally transmitted and reassembled or by means of a craft capable of interstellar travel. If you don’t perceive there to be a difference then you simply don’t share my values. But consider how much resources, including time, it took to accomplish the relocation in the latter case.
The value of something can encompass more than its molecular setup. There might be many sorts of sparkling wines that taste just like Champagne. But if you claim that simply because they taste like Champagne they are Champagne, then you are missing what it is that people actually value.
To try to better understand your value system, I’m going to take what I think you value, attempt to subdivide it in half, and then reconnect it together, and see if it is still valuable. Please feel free to critique any flaws in the following story.
The seller of the Venus tells you “This Venus is the original, carried from Earth on a shuttle, that went through many twists and turns, and near accidents to get here.” and there was recently a shuttle carrying “untransportium.” so that is extremely plausible and he is a trustworthy seller. You feel confident you have just bought the original Venus.
However, later you find out that someone else next door has one of those duplicates of the Venus. He got it for much much cheaper, but you still enjoy your original. You do have to admit you can’t tell them apart in the slightest.
Then later than that, you find out that a unrelated old man who just died had been having fun with you two by flipping a coin, and periodically switching the two Venuses from one house to the other when it came up tails. He cremated himself beyond recovery, so can’t be revived and interrogated, and you have confirmed video evidence he appears to have switched the Venuses multiple times in a pattern which resembles that of someone deciding on a fair coinflip, but there doesn’t appear to be a way of determining the specific number of switches with any substantial accuracy (video records only go back so far, and you did manage to find an eyewitness who confirms he had done it since before the beginning of the video records). A probabilistic best guess gives you a 50-50 shot of having the original at this point.
Your neighbor, who doesn’t really care about the causal history of his Venus, offers to sell you his Venus for part of the price you paid for the original, and then buy himself another replica. Then you will be as certain as you were before to have the original (and you will also have a replica), but you won’t know which of the two is which.
Is it worth buying the other Venus at all if you don’t particularly value replicas?
In relation to a percent of the original, how much would you feel comfortable paying?
I guess another way of expressing what I’m trying to figure out is “Do you value having the original itself, or being able to tell the original apart from replicas, and if so can you split those two apart (in the way I tried to in the story) and tell me how much you value each?”
“Do you value having the original itself, or being able to tell the original apart from replicas, and if so can you split those two apart (in the way I tried to in the story) and tell me how much you value each?”
The value of both, one of them being the original, would be a lot less than the original. I’d pay maybe 40% for both. The value of just one would reduce to a small fraction. I wouldn’t be interested to buy it at all. The reason is the loss of information.
Requoting:
“Look at any photograph or work of art. If you could duplicate exactly the first tiny dot of color, and then the next and the next, you would end with a perfect copy of the whole, indistinguishable from the original in every way, including the so-called ‘moral value’ of the art itself. Nothing can transcend its smallest elements”—CEO Nwabudike Morgan, “The Ethics of Greed”, Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri
In that case, its history would be that it started off as atoms, was transformed into bits, and then was transformed back into atoms again. If the transformation were truly lossless, people familiar with this fact wouldn’t care. Now, this specific example sounds silly because we have no such technology applicable to the Mona Lisa. But consider something like a mass-produced CD. You could take a CD in Europe, losslessly rip it, destroy the CD and copy the bits to America, then send them to a factory to stamp another CD. The resulting variation would be identical to that between the original CD and one of its siblings in Europe. People are familiar with the technologies involved, and they value CDs only for their bits, so the copy really is as good as the original.
(Here I have even taken pains to state that the copy is not a burned CD-R, nor that the original was signed by a band member, or any such thing.)
“During World War II, the medals of German scientists Max von Laue and James Franck were sent to Copenhagen for safekeeping. When Germany invaded Denmark, chemist George de Hevesy dissolved them in aqua regia, to prevent confiscation by Nazi Germany and to prevent legal problems for the holders. After the war, the gold was recovered from solution, and the medals re-cast.”—Wikipedia
Here is an example. Imagine there was a human colony in another star system. After an initial exploration drone set up a communication node and a molecular assembler on a suitable planet, all other equipment and all humans were transmitted digitally an locally reassembled.
Now imagine such a colony would either receive a copy of the Venus figurine digitally transmitted and reassembled or by means of a craft capable of interstellar travel. If you don’t perceive there to be a difference then you simply don’t share my values. But consider how much resources, including time, it took to accomplish the relocation in the latter case.
The value of something can encompass more than its molecular setup. There might be many sorts of sparkling wines that taste just like Champagne. But if you claim that simply because they taste like Champagne they are Champagne, then you are missing what it is that people actually value.
To try to better understand your value system, I’m going to take what I think you value, attempt to subdivide it in half, and then reconnect it together, and see if it is still valuable. Please feel free to critique any flaws in the following story.
The seller of the Venus tells you “This Venus is the original, carried from Earth on a shuttle, that went through many twists and turns, and near accidents to get here.” and there was recently a shuttle carrying “untransportium.” so that is extremely plausible and he is a trustworthy seller. You feel confident you have just bought the original Venus.
However, later you find out that someone else next door has one of those duplicates of the Venus. He got it for much much cheaper, but you still enjoy your original. You do have to admit you can’t tell them apart in the slightest.
Then later than that, you find out that a unrelated old man who just died had been having fun with you two by flipping a coin, and periodically switching the two Venuses from one house to the other when it came up tails. He cremated himself beyond recovery, so can’t be revived and interrogated, and you have confirmed video evidence he appears to have switched the Venuses multiple times in a pattern which resembles that of someone deciding on a fair coinflip, but there doesn’t appear to be a way of determining the specific number of switches with any substantial accuracy (video records only go back so far, and you did manage to find an eyewitness who confirms he had done it since before the beginning of the video records). A probabilistic best guess gives you a 50-50 shot of having the original at this point.
Your neighbor, who doesn’t really care about the causal history of his Venus, offers to sell you his Venus for part of the price you paid for the original, and then buy himself another replica. Then you will be as certain as you were before to have the original (and you will also have a replica), but you won’t know which of the two is which.
Is it worth buying the other Venus at all if you don’t particularly value replicas? In relation to a percent of the original, how much would you feel comfortable paying?
I guess another way of expressing what I’m trying to figure out is “Do you value having the original itself, or being able to tell the original apart from replicas, and if so can you split those two apart (in the way I tried to in the story) and tell me how much you value each?”
The value of both, one of them being the original, would be a lot less than the original. I’d pay maybe 40% for both. The value of just one would reduce to a small fraction. I wouldn’t be interested to buy it at all. The reason is the loss of information.