The Star Trek Transporter Enigma

[blobru]

I like the terminology, but I think it misses a key idea. There is but one real class: The Universe and all its interacting parts. As soon as we delineate a subset and define that as a class, we are already moving away from reality.

The arguments point out ways that we have moved. Context, historicity and so on emerge as things we took for granted that are now made relevant. The conflict comes in when I point out how the model differs from reality which is the big class.

When you run the experiment with the number 2, I would have to agree that typing a 2 here and erasing the 2 over there gives me all that I desire, but I'm used to using Mathematics as a class separate from the real universe. It did, however, take training before I glommed this at some point in my childhood.

So, yeah, in a sense, this 2 just popped into existence and no other, perfectly identical copy will ever grace this sentence at the same time and in the same manner as the one above. Except, of course, you know the one above that you are looking at now isn't the same as the one I typed, and the one I typed isn't the same as the one that appears on my keyboard. Context does matter, each instance holds a separate place in the Universal Class.

I think I see what you mean, not sure; however, it (class) is irrelevant from a materialist pov, because from a materialist pov there are no classes until we think of them. Just because the entire "Universe" is the highest-level descriptive class possible doesn't make it any more "real" or relevant than any part of it that we might organize into its own class.

 

[Elind]

This issue was the basis of the 2006 movie "the Prestige".

However I don't really know why anyone sees a paradox anywhere. Either a person is duplicated elsewhere, cloned in full, and either the original is "killed" for some principle, or not. Where's the paradox?

Alternatively, every atom of their body is actually physically transported somewhere (disassembled on the way or not) by a fictional process. Where's the paradox?

 

[Nick227]

The transporter dilemma seems to trade on a simple, yet deep confusion of class and instance (and latterly perhaps, of the implications of materialism and idealism).

Let's say that I am conscious.

I have to say, Blobru, that I find this a rather dubious statement to start things off with. Are you saying that there is a self which is conscious? Personally, to keep things more in line with materialism, I find it more accurate to state that there is consciousness, and that self is an aspect of that consciousness, rather than that consciousness is an attribute of self.

Now, with this in mind, if we look at your argument that one instance of consciousness is unique and a copy is simply different, then this is underdeniably true. Yet every instance of consciousness is inevitably constantly changing. Thus, as I see it, by your argument, for me to now walk away from the computer is equally as destructive as being Teleported. Going to sleep is effectively murder by your reasoning, as I see it. Because there is not a self which is conscious, but rather that self is another aspect of consciousness, so consciousness is not tied, in materialist terms, to anything. It simply is and it is constantly changing.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

This issue was the basis of the 2006 movie "the Prestige".

However I don't really know why anyone sees a paradox anywhere. Either a person is duplicated elsewhere, cloned in full, and either the original is "killed" for some principle, or not. Where's the paradox?

Alternatively, every atom of their body is actually physically transported somewhere (disassembled on the way or not) by a fictional process. Where's the paradox?

Well, I find paradox usually emerges around certain words that are used in Transporter debates. "I" for instance. Or perhaps "murder", "killing", "self." It's normal to consider that killing someone is wrong. Yet, if there is no actual experiencing self, as materialist philosophy must assert, then killing via Transporter becomes paradoxical. Yes, someone has been killed, and yes they are still here. So our traditional use and understanding of some words now creates a paradox with Transporter discussions.

Nick

 

[marplots]

I think I see what you mean, not sure; however, it (class) is irrelevant from a materialist pov, because from a materialist pov there are no classes until we think of them. Just because the entire "Universe" is the highest-level descriptive class possible doesn't make it any more "real" or relevant than any part of it that we might organize into its own class.

What I was getting at was that you can't make an actual class without doing some damage. It's the same way with modeling for an experiment. You try to distill out those features that are important and leave off the ones that aren't.

But in the 'exact copy' transporter scenario, the features included or left out are what make it uncomfortable. For instance, the business of appearing at a different location. Because part of what defines me as unique is my location, that can be enough of a difference to make a difference for some people.

I think what I meant then was that if the class is detailed enough, it will have only one member, based on location, history and so on. That's what makes the argument work, that part about uniqueness, regardless of how 'same' you make it.

 

[blobru]

I have to say, Blobru, that I find this a rather dubious statement to start things off with. Are you saying that there is a self which is conscious?

No. There is something that has the property "conscious". Call it "blobru" (or substitute an appropriate pronoun, whatever, so long as it uniquely labels the same matter for everyone).

Personally, to keep things more in line with materialism, I find it more accurate to state that there is consciousness,

This is idealism, Nick. "Consciousness" is a process which, according to materialism, depends on changes in material states. It is not a disembodied process, nor equivalent to the description of a material process.

To place a description, idea, pattern, algorithm, process, what-have-you of "consciousness" prior to the matter of which it is a property is not "to keep things more in line with materialism"; it is to explicitly abandon materialism for idealism (as traditionally defined in philosophy).

and that self is an aspect of that consciousness, rather than that consciousness is an attribute of self.

Nick

"Self", depending on how you define it, may be an aspect of consciousness, just as consciousness is an attribute of certain subsets of material things (those which instantiate conscious processes), according to materialism, at least.

What I was getting at was that you can't make an actual class without doing some damage. It's the same way with modeling for an experiment. You try to distill out those features that are important and leave off the ones that aren't.

But in the 'exact copy' transporter scenario, the features included or left out are what make it uncomfortable. For instance, the business of appearing at a different location. Because part of what defines me as unique is my location, that can be enough of a difference to make a difference for some people.

I think what I meant then was that if the class is detailed enough, it will have only one member, based on location, history and so on. That's what makes the argument work, that part about uniqueness, regardless of how 'same' you make it.

It's still a class, whether it has one, zero, or more than one members. A class is still a description. And a description is not identical with what it describes (unless it is entirely abstract and self-referential: true, aspects of consciousness involve self-reference, but an abstract, symbolic description of "consciousness" isn't yet [an active process of] consciousness: that requires a material instance of the abstract class, under materialism, at least).

 

[Earthborn]

If two materially, algorithmically identical thermometers in different places are recording, conscious of, the same temperature at a given moment, have I lost anything by destroying one of them?

What if you have gained a thermometer where you didn't have one before, and then lost one by destroying it? You have lost something, and you have gained something identical. What have you lost in total? Nothing.

 

[blobru]

What if you have gained a thermometer where you didn't have one before, and then lost one by destroying it? You have lost something, and you have gained something identical. What have you lost in total? Nothing.

The recording of temperature by the lost/destroyed thermometer (its particular "consciousness", so to speak).

 

[Elind]

Well, I find paradox usually emerges around certain words that are used in Transporter debates. "I" for instance. Or perhaps "murder", "killing", "self." It's normal to consider that killing someone is wrong. Yet, if there is no actual experiencing self, as materialist philosophy must assert, then killing via Transporter becomes paradoxical. Yes, someone has been killed, and yes they are still here. So our traditional use and understanding of some words now creates a paradox with Transporter discussions.

Nick

Semantics!

There's more than transporter debates that hinge on semantics, as opposed to logic... On the other hand, is not our logic based on semantics?

My semantics is best.

 

[Earthborn]

The recording of temperature by the lost/destroyed thermometer

Assuming an electronic thermometer that records its measurements, you gained a thermometer that has recorded the exact same thing as the thermometer you lost. In total, you didn't lose anything, just as you haven't lost anything if you cut a computer file in one folder, and paste it in another.

 

[Nick227]

No. There is something that has the property "conscious". Call it "blobru" (or substitute an appropriate pronoun, whatever, so long as it uniquely labels the same matter for everyone).

That consciousness emerges from a physical system does not mean that subjectively it belongs to that system. Or, perhaps better, you can say that it belongs to that system as long as you don't believe that this holds for all situations. To claim that in the Transporter someone's subjectivity is being destroyed is merely to use a phrase that functions socially, not one that has physical meaning. Because every subjective aspect of that someone is being replicated. Meaning, the notion of a physical experiencer will be replicated.

This is idealism, Nick. "Consciousness" is a process which, according to materialism, depends on changes in material states. It is not a disembodied process, nor equivalent to the description of a material process.

Consciousness is a material process for sure. But if you associate consciousness with something or someone, you also have to be careful. Because this association, in the sense of there being an experiencing entity, does not match reality. I say "my consciousness" but this does not mean that there is an actual experiencer or owner that is in any way separated from this consciousness itself. There is no actual owner. Merely data that claims the existence of one... and this will be replicated.

What you are asserting to be lost in the Transporter is not real. It is merely an idea, and this idea of loss will be replicated. Blobru#2 will believe it just the same as Blobru#1 but it remains just an idea of loss.

Nick

 

[blobru]

Assuming an electronic thermometer that records its measurements, you gained a thermometer that has recorded the exact same thing as the thermometer you lost. In total, you didn't lose anything, just as you haven't lost anything if you cut a computer file in one folder, and paste it in another.

The lost thermometer and the identical replacement would have recorded the same temperatures, have the same "memory" (in identical computer files, if you like). But there will be no more temperature reading at the spot where the thermometer was destroyed. The ongoing "consciousness" of that temperature at that place from the instant of destruction onwards ceases when the lost thermometer is destroyed, replaced by a different "consciousness", of the temperature (which may or may not be identical) at the place the replacement is created.

Which is why weather stations don't arbitrarily destroy a thermometer in Cairo, say, just because a thermometer in Honolulu may happen to be recording and have always recorded identical temperatures. The ongoing record of temperature in Cairo is still meaningful, even if by chance the temperature were never to differ from Honolulu, if merely to establish the two distinct, ongoing processes are "conscious" of the same temperature.

A common rejoinder: what if the original and copy are in the same place/time? If the destruction and replacement occur in the exact same place, then you have lost the "consciousness" of the temperature for the time it takes for the first thermometer to be destroyed and replaced with an identical. If the destruction and replacement are said to occur in the same place and are somehow "instantaneous", that is, take 0 time, you have defined a square circle, a difference that can't exist, by definition: events of instantaneous destruction and replacement, events without duration, are not events.

Two consciousnesses with identical memories returning identical values are only the same consciousness if we conflate contents with process, the markings on the thermometer with the bulb. The disappearance of an ongoing process situated in a particular time and space, whether thermometer or human, means something (a "bulb", a "brain", a particular instance of consciousness which can be situated in particular time and space) is always lost.

 

[blobru]

That consciousness emerges from a physical system does not mean that subjectively it belongs to that system.

No, it means that objectively it belongs to that system, as a property of that system.

Or, perhaps better, you can say that it belongs to that system as long as you don't believe that this holds for all situations. To claim that in the Transporter someone's subjectivity is being destroyed is merely to use a phrase that functions socially, not one that has physical meaning. Because every subjective aspect of that someone is being replicated. Meaning, the notion of a physical experiencer will be replicated.

And the replication of the "notion" works fine under idealism, where ideas, notions, descriptions, algorithms are at least as real as the things they are notions of. Not so good under materialism, however. (I haven't used the phrase "subjectivity", whatever its social functions, that I'm aware of).

Consciousness is a material process for sure. But if you associate consciousness with something or someone, you also have to be careful. Because this association, in the sense of there being an experiencing entity, does not match reality. I say "my consciousness" but this does not mean that there is an actual experiencer or owner that is in any way separated from this consciousness itself. There is no actual owner. Merely data that claims the existence of one... and this will be replicated.

"The experiencing entity", the "self", etc., are just convenient labels. The philosophical issue is matter's role in the active process of consciousness. Materialism maintains that matter is essential to the instantiation of an idea, here a descriptive class called "consciousness"; that separate consciousnesses are properties (proper to, belong to) separate instances of the class of consciousness, of conscious things. Two instances of the same class, even with identical properties, are still distinct, under materialism. Destroying one instance also destroys the instantiated properties of that instance, its mass, its shape, its color... including its consciousness. (Note: under idealism, since the properties are prior to the instance, the properties persist, and nothing is 'really' lost).

What you are asserting to be lost in the Transporter is not real. It is merely an idea, and this idea of loss will be replicated. Blobru#2 will believe it just the same as Blobru#1 but it remains just an idea of loss.

Nick

I'm asserting that the material instance (and its attendant processes), distinct in time and/or space if nothing else, is lost. "Blobru#2" may not care, but blobru#1 is plenty worried, until persuaded otherwise.

 

[!Kaggen]

This has become an interesting example of the how modern I-am-a-materialist have gone from semantics (the actual context) being primary at the beginning of the scientific revolution to syntax (the rules) being primary.

The famous medieval pin head discussion has progressed from the amount of angels to the pin head itself to the amount of information that can be stored on a pin head.

Language is our only way of expressing anything.
Its a human invention whether it is a perfectly logical language or children's gibberish. Both have the same purpose of communication.
The former attempts to eliminate the context by perfecting its syntax in the false hope of a time and space free truth and the later is an attempt in semantics with the goal of expressing the pure context of the here and now.

I interpret the obsession with eliminating context and replacing it with space and time free logic as a deep seated desire for immortality. We are not satisfied with the immortality of our genes, but we want our thoughts to also become immortal.

The question I have is why use the transporter model of human to human transfer of consciousness.

Nick/Rocket Dodger would you climb into a transporter that transferred your consciousness from your current biological body onto one of Pixy Misa's SRIP computers which had an algorithm that could model human consciousness and passed all the necessary Turing tests etc... and we then destroyed your body and your consciousness continued on as a computer?

Personally I think our thoughts are passed on into the future through communication with other humans all the time and we achieve immortality of consciousness in this way.
Of course free will comes into play here as we cannot physically force others to pass on our thoughts through the generations.
The fact that this does not satisfy our ego, is not a problem for science to overcome by developing algorithms to physically achieve thought immortality, but for our thoughts to become worthy of immortality through the free choice of those who follow.

 

[Earthborn]

But there will be no more temperature reading at the spot where the thermometer was destroyed.

Yes, that's kind of the whole point of teleportation: you want to experience a different place.

Which is why weather stations don't arbitrarily destroy a thermometer in Cairo, say, just because a thermometer in Honolulu may happen to be recording and have always recorded identical temperatures.

Here's where your thermometer analogy doesn't help you. If a recording thermometer in Caïro and one in Honolulu are constantly recording the same thing, that meteorologists will probably destroy both of them, because they are malfunctioning and not recording the local conditions at all. They also don't have a problem with replacing their instruments, because they care more about the recording (or "conciousness if you will") than they do about the physical instruments doing the recording!

A common rejoinder: what if the original and copy are in the same place/time?

Makes no difference.

If the destruction and replacement occur in the exact same place, then you have lost the "consciousness" of the temperature for the time it takes for the first thermometer to be destroyed and replaced with an identical.

Yes, there will be a bit of time lost. If you teleport from Earth to Mars, your consciousness may not exist for 20 minutes. You trade in time for movement through space. It's basically travel at lightspeed.

A electronic recording thermometer probably only records once every few seconds. If you can destroy and recreate it within that time, nothing is lost. Perhaps there is a shortest time between perceptions by the brain as well; at least we do know that visual consciousness is down every time you blink.

events of instantaneous destruction and replacement, events without duration, are not events.

Perhaps. They are only not events, because you wouldn't know the difference; and you wouldn't know the difference between being destroyed and replaced by a perfect copy, or continued existence.

 

[Jupiter 7]

Lawrence Krauss's 'The Physics of Star Trek' has much to say on this question, but the fundamental question being asked by this thread yet remains. The simple answer is, until you personally use a transporter yourself, you can never know the answer. Even after using it, you might proclaim to know the answer - but how could you or any of the rest of us know it was the same you? This truly is an enigma as there can be no answer that will absolutely uncover the truth (if there is such a thing) as to what has actually happened.

 

[blobru]

But there will be no more temperature reading at the spot where the thermometer was destroyed.

Yes, that's kind of the whole point of teleportation: you want to experience a different place.

Of course. And to do that, I'll need to survive the teleporation. So the question remains: if one material thing and all its attributes are destroyed at one place, does replacing it with another materially identical thing with identical attributes somewhere else mean the original and all its attributes, including consciousness, have somehow been "undestroyed", and survived the journey?

It seems to me, that under materialism, the answer should be "no" (the attributes cease when the matter they are attributed is destroyed; a material copy is a separate instance of that identity class with separate attributes, even if entirely identical); however, under idealism, the answer may be... "maybe".

Which is why weather stations don't arbitrarily destroy a thermometer in Cairo, say, just because a thermometer in Honolulu may happen to be recording and have always recorded identical temperatures.

Here's where your thermometer analogy doesn't help you. If a recording thermometer in Caïro and one in Honolulu are constantly recording the same thing, that meteorologists will probably destroy both of them, because they are malfunctioning and not recording the local conditions at all.

You're introducing occupational concerns into a hypothetical. There is no reason, hypothetically, that two places can't be assumed to have identical temperatures. If this were an empirical, then yes, the stupid thermometers are probably broken. But to reason that the thermometers must be malfunctioning in a hypothetical where the temperatures are assumed to be the same doesn't make sense. The temperatures have to be assumed to be the same, or course, to complete the analogy between the thermometer hypothetical and the teletransporter hypothetical.

Sorry, I haven't been following this or the other transporter threads too closely, they all kind of lump together for me like the last version of Brindle-fly to crawl out of the teleporter in Cronenberg's "The Fly", so maybe other arguments have tended more to practical concerns, and that's where the confusion arose. I'm strictly concerned with the philosophy behind it, the "thought-experiment", for now, and thinking that through. (It's my suspicion that teleporting consciousness by material reinstantiation is vacillating between two ontogies: idealism and materialism. And that's a big no-no; or at least needs a whole buncha 'splainin to make it a yes, I think. I guess. Ah, who the hell knows, really...)

They also don't have a problem with replacing their instruments, because they care more about the recording (or "conciousness if you will") than they do about the physical instruments doing the recording!

But it's irrelevant whether they care more or less about the instrument, so long as they care. Destroying the thermometer in one place because it's recording identical temperatures to a thermometer somewhere else seems a precise parallel to the transporter, destroying someone somewhere because someone somewhere else is recording the same experience. If we care at all about destroying one of the identical thermometers because we lose its uniquely situated recording potential, then we must care about destroying one of the identical someones because we lose his or her uniquely situated recording potential. It doesn't matter whether we care more or less about the recording than the someone; that we care at all about the someone, about their uniquely situated consciousness, is enough to invalidate the claim that nothing is lost via teleportation. Clearly something, a uniquely situated someone with a unique potential for experience, is lost, it seems.

A common rejoinder: what if the original and copy are in the same place/time?

Makes no difference.

If the destruction and replacement occur in the exact same place, then you have lost the "consciousness" of the temperature for the time it takes for the first thermometer to be destroyed and replaced with an identical.

Yes, there will be a bit of time lost. If you teleport from Earth to Mars, your consciousness may not exist for 20 minutes. You trade in time for movement through space. It's basically travel at lightspeed.

You (your material body and its consciousness) ceasing to exist for any length of time, under materialism, sounds an awful like like death.

A electronic recording thermometer probably only records once every few seconds. If you can destroy and recreate it within that time, nothing is lost. Perhaps there is a shortest time between perceptions by the brain as well; at least we do know that visual consciousness is down every time you blink.

Thanks. This seems a valid objection. No "consciousness", in that sense, would be lost, no. But the next recording would be made by the copy, not the original. Should someone on the scene want to take a visual reading of the temperature simply by looking at the level of mercury or whatever, there is nothing there during the replacement phase, so any unscheduled interactions with outside observers are lost, because the "unconscious" thermometer is materially absent.

I'm not sure about the brain. But again, these are practical details; as this is a hypothetical, we can make the gaps between conscious perception in the hypothetical brain (or thermometer) arbitrarily small, even make it effectively continuous, and still call it consciousness. That is, there is nothing about continuous perception that disqualifies it as consciousness. In theory, the hypothetical teleporter should work on any hypothetical consciousness, even continuous.

Practically, though, it's an interesting objection.

events of instantaneous destruction and replacement, events without duration, are not events.

Perhaps. They are only not events, because you wouldn't know the difference; and you wouldn't know the difference between being destroyed and replaced by a perfect copy, or continued existence.

That's true even if the teleporter doesn't work as advertised. My copy wouldn't know the difference. And I wouldn't be around to know the difference.

 

[Nick227]

No, it means that objectively it belongs to that system, as a property of that system.

Yes.

And the replication of the "notion" works fine under idealism, where ideas, notions, descriptions, algorithms are at least as real as the things they are notions of. Not so good under materialism, however. (I haven't used the phrase "subjectivity", whatever its social functions, that I'm aware of).

But because consciousness emerges from a physical process, replication of the physical will replicate consciousness. That is the whole point. It has nothing to do with idealism that I can see.

"The experiencing entity", the "self", etc., are just convenient labels.

Well, "the experiencing entity" is a social construct, created by ancilliary processing. It has virtually nothing to do with science or philosophy, aside of fields concerned with social antropology and similar.

I'm asserting that the material instance (and its attendant processes), distinct in time and/or space if nothing else, is lost. "Blobru#2" may not care, but blobru#1 is plenty worried, until persuaded otherwise.

The material instance is lost. And this creates concern when one considers that there is some self which is experiencing and which is going to cease its experiencing when the Teleport button is pushed. But this so-called experiencing entity cannot actually exist under materialism. There is only subjectivity - immediate, in the moment, and containg within it all notions of an experiencing self. And this will all be replicated.

Imagine you were to get up from your computer and walk with eyes closed into an adjacent room. You turn around a few times, like in a child's game, and then open your eyes to be confronted with your copy. But is it the copy? It claims to be the original and you the copy. How would you be able to decide which body has been in existence for all those years and which came into existence only a few seconds previous?

Nick

 

[Nick227]

So the question remains: if one material thing and all its attributes are destroyed at one place, does replacing it with another materially identical thing with identical attributes somewhere else mean the original and all its attributes, including consciousness, have somehow been "undestroyed", and survived the journey?

No, for sure it doesn't. One set is gone, kaput, no longer around.

But this is not the question. The question is "Would you travel?" It's more personal. And, if you claim to be a materialist and you answer "No" then how do you justify the apparent disparity? What is it that concerns you? What is it that you believe would be lost?

Nick

 

[Aepervius]

(SNIPPED)

But because consciousness emerges from a physical process, replication of the physical will replicate consciousness. That is the whole point. It has nothing to do with idealism that I can see.

The material instance is lost. And this creates concern when one considers that there is some self which is experiencing and which is going to cease its experiencing when the Teleport button is pushed. But this so-called experiencing entity cannot actually exist under materialism.

No, you simply are confusing materislism with something else. I think blobru said it better than my pityful attempt to say it.

Udner materislism, the consciousness *is* an emerging property of the matter. Once you destroy that matter , all the same emerging property are destroyed with it. It does not matter if 1 nanosecond or 1 billion year later you reconstruct an identical subset of matter with an indetical set of property. It won't be the *same* person, only an identical copy. From the POV of the first person, there is no further consciousness. Forever. The second person, starts with memory, but only starts. From an external POV it would be non differentialble between the copy and the original.

I dunno if it is idealism or something else, but certainly not materialism.