"It means that it has history attached to it and that it's traveled in time"
For this statement to be true, or even meaningful, there has to be a meaningful referent for "it", and that referent has to have continuity of identity if the word "history" is to be meaningful. In this case "it" is a painting, which is a physical object. But physical objects do NOT have continuity of identity.
Put this another way: consider the following two scenarios:
1. Take every atom in the Mona Lisa and replace it with a different atom of the same element and isotope in the same physical location.
2. Take the Mona Lisa and grind it up into sawdust.
I think you will agree that the end result of #1 can me more reasonably regarded as "still the Mona Lisa" than #2. And yet #1 is "different atoms, same arrangement" while 2 is "same atoms, different arrangement." So it's not the atoms that matter, it's the arrangement.
A vase owned by Djengis Kahn is worth more than the same type of vase owned by some no-name.
In other words it's not the atoms or the arrangement that matter but the history of the object. It's not the inherent value of the object but the value of the history of the object we assign to it.
I.e. the one shipped from earth is more valuable than the one replicated no matter the level of fidelity because I know the difference.
Again it's not the object that is valuable it's you deciding it's valuable. Living in a world like that we would find other ways to ensure that we track the authenticity to the extent we can. So value will always be ensured because it's created in the brain not in the object.
> You can't but that doesn't change much because it's still from earth
How do you know that? You just conceded that there's no way to know if the thing was replicated before being loaded onto the cargo ship. How do you know that it wasn't replicated on the cargo ship shortly before arrival?
> Living in a world like that we would find other ways to ensure that we track the authenticity
No, you wouldn't. That's the whole point. In a world with replication technology, the whole concept of "authenticity" becomes every bit as meaningless for physical objects as it already is for digital ones.
> So value will always be ensured because it's created in the brain not in the object.
This is essentially saying that you will always be able to find suckers. Which may be true, but I would hope that any member of a space-faring species would have a basic understanding of physics, cognitive bias, and logical fallacies.
I am saying that there will be fraud but also plenty of normal decent people who do not cheat, just like today.
I could hire someone to make sure there was no replicator on the ship just as an example. There could be procedures in place on earth to make sure its still the original.
You are completely disregarding the human part which is why you end up with the conclusion you do.
The only reason humans care about old things is that at the moment they are still hard to replicate, and that makes them scarce. As soon as it's easy to make something that is equivalent to an old thing in every measurable way they will no longer be scarce and their value will plummet just like everything else that can be mass-produced.
The diamond market was created to begin with, just because the market is going down doesn't mean that the value of a diamond is which any visit to a diamond store would tell you and certain historic diamonds certainly haven't gone down in price.
You can't recreate the history of an original ming dynasty vase just because you can replicate it down to it's atomic structure that's the point.
You can't see this because you keep thinking about the object as having value. It never had value it's us who attach value to things and we will continue to do that even if we can replicate, in fact that would just increase the price even more for originals.
I don't think so.
> You are assuming that there would be built no legitimate business which would not make it their thing to send original objects to earth.
No, I'm not assuming that. I'm presenting an argument for that. Not the same thing.
The argument is: in the presence of perfect replication technology, it is no longer possible to track the provenance of objects (and it is certainly not possible across interstellar times and distances).
If you think it's possible, tell me how you would do it. Suppose I own an original and you want to buy it. How can I convince you that what I am handing over to you is in fact "the original" and not a perfect copy?
Humans apply value. Today the Mona Lisa has no value inherent you can say that someone who pays 400milion for a painting is being scammed even if it's original.
But even if you can replicate the atomic structure the human perception of the value of the original does not go away and that means there is a market for that.
Claiming that it's not possible to send something created from earth which itself would be valuable even if it was something which was replicated on earth without being scammed is simply misrepresenting humans and that's the important part here humans, not the object.