Saturday, November 6, 2010

A Copy or an Original

Daniel Magnus Bennét Björck An intelligent friend of mine, wrote,
"It is impossible to make a copy that is better than the original". 

After thinking about his statement I have my reply as follows.

If there is a true copy then of course the first is the most valuable via the patents concept and copyright laws, but to what except is there a right to possess an idea that can and should be reinterpreted, to evolve to a more meaningful version, to be "different" no matter how small the difference?  

Versioning is something that has always been a challenge for professionals to control and avoid preserving or using the wrong one.... versions (arrangements in music) by the same person of his own creative works or versions made by others of writings, programs, or anything in a state of maintenance needing ongoing adjustment.... think of the many versions of the Prayer for Peace by St. Francis in the same language even.... One resents being served up a "substitute" and not the "real" thing and also resents someone assuming they would perhaps not even notice.  The quality of one wine versus another requires the discerning one who realizes the difference while someone not so enabled can tell no difference because their taste is not that refined.

Just like Sue is unable to tell the difference in breed of small shaggy dogs, individuals choose to distinguish, discern differences that they feel important to them and disregard others.  Whether something is a copy or not requires much ability and experience in the subject of the study and observation.  Sue thought Yorkies were like Pekingese.  Well they are both small dogs with long coats and other similarities, but it is their differences that matter.  Yorkies ears stand up and Pekingese ears hang down.  Yorkies have noses that project from their face outward and Pekingese noses must be totally flat with broad faces and big eyes ... Yorkies eyes are small and very round ... Yorkies are terriers and ferret out rodents in the ground while Pekingese were the guardians of ancestral spirits in the the royal courts of ancient China. Yorkie owners are most likely not compatible with Pekingese owners specifically but generally since they are both value dogs in our lives they can value that similarity unless they are extremists like in the Catholic religion which would like to dismiss all other religions other than their own.

It seems that organizations narrow their definitions of interest too narrowly, pigeonholing people, requiring the members to limit their participation to just photography and exclude paintography as an example, or CJ who who wants us to post on Talmk versus Thimk and vice versa, meaning to focus on the subject and exclude differences not considered relevant to the subject or distracting. ThIMK is for discussing concepts and at a higher level of intellectual activity than Talmk which is more open to various levels of intellectual exchange.  

How ones judges something to be irrelevant and distracting is relative, subjective, and discriminatory intentionally. In some organizations close copies of one another is desirable (homogenous like China) while in other organizations differences are desirable (heterogeneity like America). To be a  close copy or to be unique original and one of a kind (and all that exists in between those extremes), each is deserving of their existence, valued by another accordingly to our freedoms of expression and thought, one by one. We agree to disagree or to agree or to do both AND BE AMBIVALENT AS WE MAY, LOVE.
 

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