Stupid teleportation topic.

[Z]

Let's say that, instead of destroying the original, the company that owns the 'transporter' decides that having two of anyone is a damned nuisance, and instead has the original placed in cryogenic storage. In this scenario, would you so rapidly take the teleporter? And if not, why not?

 

[Belz...]

Yes, but the real question here isn't 'can consciousness be copied' but 'is a copy the exact same as the original in all aspects'? Would the continual and dynamic awareness from the point of origin continuous still continue into the duplicate, in such a way that the awareness (original) didn't simply cease?

That's an interesting question. Say you replicate someone's EXACT molecular arrangement, would they be the "same" ? Well, I wouldn't think so, because I doubt seriously that, would someone make such an exact copy of me while I'm alive, my consciousness would mystically occupy both bodies. Of course, our "particular arrangement of molecules" is constantly changing, so our consciousness is changing as well.

So I won't be stepping into any transporter any time soon (no, I didn't mean Jason Statham.)

 

[Beerina]

If God had intended man to teleport, he would have given us each a Scotty.

Trek teleporters disassemble you, beam your atoms (or, in more recent series, your subatomic quark-level particles) down, and reassemble them in their exact configuration.

It doesn't make sense, but I'd have no problem with this kind of teleporter, even though how it differs in physics from reassembling using local atoms is a semantic game at best.

Still, I know that if I'm disassembled and never reassembled, I am dead. That a copy of me is now created, thinks it is me, and goes on living doesn't do me one bit of good. They could copy me without disassembling me, and the new copy will think exactly the same thing. Should I go die now and expect I'll magically awaken in the new body? Hell no!


Then again, if consciousness is like a candle flame, instantiated by the brain, when a candle goes out, then is re-lit, is it the same flame? Well, ssssssorta...

Maybe when you wake up in the morning, it is a completely new flame that's fed and formed by memories, brain structure, etc. the same way the wax is fed into wick to generate the new flame.

And how would you tell the difference? Is there even a difference? Once I go unconscious, in a sense I am dead -- if I never wake up, what do I care that there's a brain, ready and waiting, to "ignite" a consciousness fed by my memories?

 

[DanishDynamite]

Yeah - I remember these conversations well...

Oh, btw - DD, I'm coming over there to shoot you now. I have a perfect duplicate of you in storage and in order to give him the $1,000,000 waiting for him, you have to die first. But you won't mind, of course, since they're both 'you'.

Only problem is you couldn't have a perfect copy of me in storage. A duplicate will only be me immediately after duplication. They then diviate.

 

[DanishDynamite]

Exactly, but philosophically speaking, wouldn't teleportation by copy/delete be unethical? Just because it happened instantaneously and we keep one copy, it's still murder.

If I continue, how could I have been murdered?

 

[DanishDynamite]

Let's say that, instead of destroying the original, the company that owns the 'transporter' decides that having two of anyone is a damned nuisance, and instead has the original placed in cryogenic storage. In this scenario, would you so rapidly take the teleporter? And if not, why not?

Now you are getting into an ethical discussion, basically unrelated to the question at hand. You might have well had asked my view on a clone of mine being grown without my knowledge and what my view would be on that.

 

[HeyLeroy]

This reminds me of the Steven Wright bit, something like:
One day I woke up and found that someone had stolen everything in my house and replaced it with an exact duplicate. I said to my mom, "Someone stole everything in the house and replaced it with an exact duplicate!"
My mom said, "Do I know you?"

 

[Roboramma]

If the teleporter had a three second lag after creating the duplicate and before destroying the original, would you still use it? Would it make a difference if the lag was extended to an hour? A day? A year?
If you wouldn't, why not?

 

[Z]

Now you are getting into an ethical discussion, basically unrelated to the question at hand. You might have well had asked my view on a clone of mine being grown without my knowledge and what my view would be on that.

No, it's exactly the same question at hand. The difference is, the original survives slightly longer, and we're not hand-waving so that we can pretend that we've teletransported anywhere.

Now, mind answering the question?

BTW - you're right on the deviation issue, of course - another proof that the teletrans would be a foolish thing to do.

 

[Melendwyr]

Only problem is you couldn't have a perfect copy of me in storage. A duplicate will only be me immediately after duplication. They then diviate.

But the deviation might not be relevant to the properties that we consider important. A glass of water is a glass of water - it doesn't much matter to us what the precise arrangements of the water molecules are at any given moment.

 

[shells-on-my-eyelids]

Has anyone mentioned Derek Parfit yet?

Using the delayed teleportation 'tool' for speculation on the nature of consciousness is to be attributed to him (at least in terms of academic philosophy).

To all human beings on Earth I heartily reccommend the book 'Into the Silent Land' by Paul Broks, an English Neuroscientist musing through anecdotes and stories on the nature of consciousness. In the style of Oliver Sacks he allows the experiences of his brain damaged patients to inform his speculation on what constitutes a consciousness when the brain is broken.

Anyway, my point is that he uses the teleportation scenario at the end of his book and it is well worth reading. I won't sum it up but I have to admit that by the end of it I was myself considering that if an exact replica of me existed in the world able to carry on my work and my love, and protect the people I care about then death wouldn't be so bad. My 'self' would carry on in him (or at least I could convince myself it would and make my termination more palatable).

 

[DanishDynamite]

No, it's exactly the same question at hand. The difference is, the original survives slightly longer, and we're not hand-waving so that we can pretend that we've teletransported anywhere.

Now, mind answering the question?

OK, I'll answer, but I don't see the relevance of my ethical views on the question at hand. Anyway, here was your question:

Let's say that, instead of destroying the original, the company that owns the 'transporter' decides that having two of anyone is a damned nuisance, and instead has the original placed in cryogenic storage. In this scenario, would you so rapidly take the teleporter? And if not, why not?

No, I wouldn't use the teleporter as I wouldn't want one of me to be stuck in a cryogenic freezer.

BTW - you're right on the deviation issue, of course - another proof that the teletrans would be a foolish thing to do.

Could you explain this proof?

 

[DanishDynamite]

But the deviation might not be relevant to the properties that we consider important. A glass of water is a glass of water - it doesn't much matter to us what the precise arrangements of the water molecules are at any given moment.

A copy of me in storage would not have had the experiences I have had since I was copied. It would therefore not be me.

 

[gnome]

Have you got some reason you want my atoms scrambled all over space, boy?

I've been reading Frederick Pohl's "Farthest Star"... which touches on this issue exactly... with the twist that the original is not destroyed. People sell their physical design for a duplicate of themselves to be constructed remotely on dangerous space missions.

I don't think I'd want to... as much as I can accept the intellectual ideas around it... if, for example, my duplicate would have to give up my possessions (for I certainly don't wish to share)--I would be afraid that I would wind up in the duplicate's shoes at the moment of duplication. There are two beings, and both of them have the memories and experiences of the time up until duplication. SOME version of me has to wind up the shmoe... and I don't like the idea.

Think of: "Theodore" Riker in Star Trek.

I might change my mind if it were my only chance for survival.

 

[DanishDynamite]

Have you got some reason you want my atoms scrambled all over space, boy?

I've been reading Frederick Pohl's "Farthest Star"... which touches on this issue exactly... with the twist that the original is not destroyed. People sell their physical design for a duplicate of themselves to be constructed remotely on dangerous space missions.

Well, again this seems to me to be an ethical question and not really the question at hand. The question being asked, as I understand it, is whether an exact duplicate of me will be me (at the time of duplication). My answer to this is yes because all that makes me me, is the type of matter I'm composed of and their current state.

If someone makes a copy with the same states, there I will be looking out of its eyes.

I don't think I'd want to... as much as I can accept the intellectual ideas around it... if, for example, my duplicate would have to give up my possessions (for I certainly don't wish to share)--I would be afraid that I would wind up in the duplicate's shoes at the moment of duplication. There are two beings, and both of them have the memories and experiences of the time up until duplication. SOME version of me has to wind up the shmoe... and I don't like the idea.

Try and think of this as a thought experiment, an experiment not affected by mundane concerns like ownership rights, corrupt Transporter companies, etc.

 

[Z]

If someone makes a copy with the same states, there I will be looking out of its eyes.

And this is exactly where you are wrong. You will never see out of the copy's eyes. Never. No matter if the original is killed or survives, no matter what conditions or circumstances, YOU will never experience through the sensory input of the duplicate... because you do not share a continuous, dynamic existence with the duplicate. At no point are you connected in any way to this twin. For that is all the duplicate would be - a twin. A brother, perhaps, and nothing more.

Now, it is true that the duplicate itself will feel exactly as you felt up to that point; that the duplicate will share memories and feelings and thoughts up to that point; that the duplicate's internal ID will be the same as yours, up to that point; but the continuous and dynamic awareness you possess never magically transfers from A to B. There's nothing TO transfer. It would be foolish - indeed, suicidal - to use the teletrans.

You keep balking at discussing ethical ramifications in these duplications experiments, but the fact is, we're not talking ethics; we're adjusting the conditions in reasonable ways to demonstrate that at no point, EVER, are you magically transferred into a duplicate. And if you would balk at being placed in cold storage, or being killed a week later, or being used as a slave after your duplicate was made - then why wouldn't you balk at the teletrans problem?

Another simple question: if, at the exact moment of duplication, the original was staring at a large letter "O" and the duplicate, a large letter "X", what would YOU see at the instant of duplications? An X? An O? Both, superimposed?

Think about it.

 

[DanishDynamite]

And this is exactly where you are wrong. You will never see out of the copy's eyes. Never. No matter if the original is killed or survives, no matter what conditions or circumstances, YOU will never experience through the sensory input of the duplicate... because you do not share a continuous, dynamic existence with the duplicate. At no point are you connected in any way to this twin. For that is all the duplicate would be - a twin. A brother, perhaps, and nothing more.

Now, it is true that the duplicate itself will feel exactly as you felt up to that point; that the duplicate will share memories and feelings and thoughts up to that point; that the duplicate's internal ID will be the same as yours, up to that point; but the continuous and dynamic awareness you possess never magically transfers from A to B. There's nothing TO transfer. It would be foolish - indeed, suicidal - to use the teletrans.

You keep balking at discussing ethical ramifications in these duplications experiments, but the fact is, we're not talking ethics; we're adjusting the conditions in reasonable ways to demonstrate that at no point, EVER, are you magically transferred into a duplicate. And if you would balk at being placed in cold storage, or being killed a week later, or being used as a slave after your duplicate was made - then why wouldn't you balk at the teletrans problem?

Another simple question: if, at the exact moment of duplication, the original was staring at a large letter "O" and the duplicate, a large letter "X", what would YOU see at the instant of duplications? An X? An O? Both, superimposed?

Think about it.

Sorry, but you are the one that doesn't seem to get it. There is no YOU except in so far as there is a machinery for generating a YOU. If such a machinery exists, you exist. Otherwise you don't.

It is really very, very simple.

In regard to your question, I don't understand it. What I see after being teleported is whatever is at the place where I arrive. One minute I'll be looking at Copenhagen (assuming there is a window) the next I'll be looking at Mars.

 

[DreadNiK]

I agree this question is really asking 'what is the definition of self?'

Philosophically, I believe everyone is a different person with every passing moment, so an instantaneous switch of you for an identical copy would effectively be teleportation of the 'self.'

Realistically, I'm don't want to die (yet), and being destroyed sounds quite like dying.

 

[hammegk]

... Win (a non-materialist, BTW) ...

Nah, he was a dualist.

If teleportation is the complete entanglement of everything at the subatomic level ... umm, no not even then. I'd want to know more about dimensions 4 - 10 and any effects/affects for 1-3 & t that might be lurking there.

 

[Z]

Sorry, but you are the one that doesn't seem to get it. There is no YOU except in so far as there is a machinery for generating a YOU. If such a machinery exists, you exist. Otherwise you don't.

Very good. And if that machinery is destroyed, you cease to exist. If that machinery is duplicated, another being is formed, one who is the same as you. A clone - a twin. You don't form. HE (or she) does.

It is really very, very simple.

Agreed.

In regard to your question, I don't understand it. What I see after being teleported is whatever is at the place where I arrive. One minute I'll be looking at Copenhagen (assuming there is a window) the next I'll be looking at Mars.

That's not what I'm asking. I'm asking, at the moment of duplication (not teletransportion, etc) which do you see - an X or an O, or both? Simple question - what's the answer?