[ExI] THE MIGHTY ORIGINAL

[Ben Zaiboc]

PJ Manney <pjmanney at gmail.com> wrote:
 
> I don't care how many portraits of Stein you're
> going to make in your
> nanofabber.  The history of the original in the Met,
> held in Picasso's
> and Stein's hands and so important in art history,
> can't be replicated
> and will retain its value -- as long as no one mixes
> the two up and
> there are people with the ego to stoke and means to
> own it.  ;-)


Let me just check that I understand this correctly.

If an art dealer makes a molecularly-precise copy of a
famous artwork, so that the two are literally
completely indistinguishable, and mixes them up so
that even he doesn't know which is the original, he
has thereby destroyed something?

Presumably this is only true if he admits to doing it.
 If he never admits to it, and nobody ever finds out,
the something is not destroyed.

Or am I missing something?

Ben Zaiboc