[JadeNB]

The repetition of the end of lou1306's comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44190054) "By the way, I highly suggest Borges's 'Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote' as a great story on the topic of authorship :)" has to be a joke ... right?

[kgwgk]

Good question! Is Pierre Menard's Quixote a repetition of Cervantes' or is it a completely different work that just happens to contain the same words?

[JadeNB]

> Is Pierre Menard's Quixote a repetition of Cervantes' or is it a completely different work that just happens to contain the same words?

I think that that is not the right question. It is a repetition of Cervantes's work by design, at least if one takes, as I do, 'repetition' to mean saying or writing the same words in the same order. I think the question is whether it is therefore the same work, or a different work that contains the same words.