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From: rtxserv@metronet.com (Bill Wallace)
Subject: Re: When is a simulation of an X an X?
Message-ID: <D34GDv.B3@metronet.com>
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 1995 15:29:54 GMT
References: <D2yqLF.AM6@metronet.com> <Pine.HPP.3.91.950127181756.4921B-100000@acg60.wfunet.wfu.edu> <1995Jan28.043841.15943@news.media.mit.edu>
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Marvin Minsky (minsky@media.mit.edu) wrote:
: In article <Pine.HPP.3.91.950127181756.4921B-100000@acg60.wfunet.wfu.edu> helen ruth etters <etters@wfu.edu> writes:

: >I suggest that the thread in question does not lead so easily out of the 
: >labyrinth. A fake Rembrandt is a simulation of a Rembrandt, but even if 
: >an observer had no independent method of determining its inauthentic 
: >status, it still is not a Rembrandt.

: Well, the best you can say is that it is *probably* not a Rembrandt.
: Because there remains an inconceivably small probablity that is has
: actually undergone a quantum exchange with the true original.  If so,
: now the one in the Museum is the fake.  Fortunately, as we are
: assuming, there's no way to tell.   

: .

Even as we view the "real" Rembrandt it is undergoing very subtle changes
such as collisions with cosmic rays, heat and light. Yet we still think
it's the same Rembrandt.

Bill
