ddb@mrvax.DEC (DAVID DYER-BENNET MRO1-2/L14 DTN 231-4076) (08/07/84)
Nick Graham's analysis of the strictly materialistic case is too simple,
I think. Even without postulating a soul (not that there's any reason
not to), it may be that a crude matter duplicator gets things pretty
close to right, but doesn't quite reproduce all the subtleties of a real
object (electric charge distribution? isomers?); this would still make it
useful for gross objects, might make it useful for duplicating food
(depending on the level of accuracy) and even complex electronics (since
they get their state reset when power comes on), but perhaps not good
enough to duplicate a living body and keep it living. This, of course,
would lead a good percentage of the people in this hypothetical world
to believe that the problem was with duplicating the soul or life-force
or something, even though it would also prevent duplication of animals,
which in Christian theology don't have souls.
Let's see, doesn't Damon Knight's A for Anything deal with matter
duplication?
-- David Dyer-Bennet
-- {decvax|ihnp4|purdue|allegra}!decwrl!rhea!mrvax!ddb