Would you use a Star Trek type transporter?

Recovering Agnostic said:
...what if they scanned me and created a copy, but wiped our memories of the process? How would either of us know which was the "real" one? And if there's no way of telling, what basis do you have for saying that the person stepping out of a transporter wouldn't be me?
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Surely this is a trivial point? If you make an exact copy of anything and then mix the two objects up, nobody could tell which was which. I can't see how that changes anything. The original would still be the original and the copy would still be the copy even if the evidence for which was which was lost.

If you make a copy of a person then both the original and the copy will be fully convinced they are the original, but if you got scanned and later on someone made an exact copy of you on Mars, do you imagine you would suddenly find yourself looking out at Mars? No. Another 'you' would be looking at Mars, presumably wondering how the hell you got there.
 
aggle-rithm said:
Not sure if anyone's mentioned it, but "Think Like A Dinosaur" is a rather disturbing short story that does a good job of exploring the ethical considerations of teleportation. It goes into the consequences of a possible transport malfunction in which, until the success of the transport can be verified, the original must be kept alive. But only until...
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Yeah, that was hideous.
 
For me you can't realistically claim to be a materialist and then be in a drama about getting in the Teletransporter. It's just talking the talk without the walking the walk.

Nick
 
Jack by the hedge said:
If you make a copy of a person then both the original and the copy will be fully convinced they are the original, but if you got scanned and later on someone made an exact copy of you on Mars, do you imagine you would suddenly find yourself looking out at Mars?
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Yes, absolutely. If materialism is true, in what way is it meaningful to answer "no" to that question? Whatever processes go into thought and identity, all of those processes are being carried out on Mars. So, yes, that would mean that "I" (as defined in any reasonable way) would be looking out on Mars.
 
Myriad said:
Here's a slight variation, especially for those who would not use the teleporter.

You and a total stranger are kidnapped by a mad scientist. The stranger is the same age and has remarkably similar physical characteristics to you.

The two of you will be forced to participate in an experiment. One of you will be placed in the Sending chamber. There, the subject's brain will be invasively scanned; the process will be painless, but will completely disintegrate the brain.

The other subject will be placed in the Receiving chamber. There, the neural connections of the subject's brain will be altered to replace all of its memories, habits, and perceptional patterns (encompassing such things as which foods you like the taste of) with those from the scanned brain in the Sending chamber. This process is rapid and physically painless.

The Mad Scientist flips a coin to decide who goes in which chamber. If it comes up heads, you will go in the Sending chamber. While the coin is in the air, what are you hoping it comes up as?

Few people would want to be in either chamber, of course. But in this case non-participation is not an option. Which chamber would you prefer to be in?

Respectfully,
Myriad
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In the receiving chamber. My personality might get changed to match the sending one, but I would still be alive, and who know maybe there is a chance the process fail and I get to keep my current personality. ETA the sending guy is defintively 100% dead no matter what.
 
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I just waved my magic wand. You may not have noticed, but this created an exact copy of you in Copenhagen*. Can you see the little mermaid? No? Why not? Your copy can see it so why can't you?

Yes, you can make the semantic argument that "you" can see it, but that's just wordplay. Open your eyes and tell me if the little mermaid is there. No. Of course not. You're still exactly where you were, staring at your screen. Nothing changed.



*Mars would have caused problems with the lack of atmosphere, and Copenhagen was my random selection of a pleasant place to accidentally materialise.
 
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Beerina said:
One could argue every time you fall unconscious, and I mean not even dreaming, which is a kind of I think therefore I am consciousness, you die.

You are relying on stored memories to inform the later-awakened consciousness on its personality and whatnot.

It's like a candle that was blown out and relit. Is it the same flame? Is that even meaningful?

So disassembly may already be overkill for killing you, even if the exact same atoms are reassembled into the exact same place.

Still, I have no problem "dying" in the sense of sleeping or this most restrcted type of teleportation. I will re-awaken, not a copy, which would awaken regardless of whether the original was destroyed or kept.
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Losing consciousness does not change the udnerlying material. See my point is that even if we change slightly with cells regeneration the underlying evolving material *is* the one bearing emerging property of the mind. When you lose cosnciousness or sleep or aare in reversible coma, the brain is still there even if does not show *obvious* sign of emerging property.

This is where we differ. You see the self as the thought, I see the thought as an emerging property of the brain, and the brain as the *required* component. There is nothing beyond the brain, no soul , no thought (again emerging property of the communication of the neurons) nothing special which get transmitted as info to the ether or whatnot. You have the brain, it works, it get slightly regenerated (as everything wear down) but it is. Destroy it, you destroyed the person. make an identical copy, you make a *new* person which has the same emerging property but isn't the original one (which died).

Let me send you abck the question. You have a cube of pure carbon. You burn it down. Then you use vapor deposition and microscope to precisely reproduce the same structure as the original cube.

Is it the same cube ? Or is it a copy of the original cube ?
 
aggle-rithm said:
Not sure if anyone's mentioned it, but "Think Like A Dinosaur" is a rather disturbing short story that does a good job of exploring the ethical considerations of teleportation. It goes into the consequences of a possible transport malfunction in which, until the success of the transport can be verified, the original must be kept alive. But only until...
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Ah! You beat me to it. Great story (a novelette, actually), won a Hugo. The process there did not destroy the individual, which was the ethical problem. Although the whole point was that humans would perhaps have seen the problem differently than the dinosaurs did.
 
Nick227 said:
For me you can't realistically claim to be a materialist and then be in a drama about getting in the Teletransporter. It's just talking the talk without the walking the walk.

Nick
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You either have a way different definition of materialist than I have or I am not using the correct definition. Materialist or betetr physicalist means for me that there is only matter , and interraction of that matter (chemistry) involved in the brain and nothing more. (if we restrictit to the themes at hand)
 
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Nick227 said:
The Teletransporter returns! I was having another Teletransporter debate of an entirely different kind in the Arts section. Anyway...

I find what you write essentially correct, but consciousness does not belong to a "you." This "you" is merely an emergent property of that consciousness. Would you not agree?

Nick
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Yes, but I do not see an identical emerging property in a copied brain as "me" even if exhibit the same property. It vbelong to a potentially infinite class of copy, but is not me. The original brain died. It does not matter if an infinity of emerging property copied into rbaina re identical. I the original will not see anymore. Somebody else with the same thought will.
 
OK let us change a bit the parameter. Imagine that for an incredible accident, random happenning of cosmic proportion, somebody in 2000 years has the same thought / emerging property as I have now, same memory, same thought. I have died 1900+ years before him.

Do you really think this would be me, that the I of now would be seeing what that person would be seeing, because essentially the teleporter experiment comes down to that.
 
Aepervius said:
You either have a way different definition of materialist than I have or I am not using the correct definition. Materialist or betetr physicalist means for me that there is only matter , and interraction of that matter (chemistry) involved in the brain and nothing more. (if we restrictit to the themes at hand)
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Yes, me too. So where's the drama about getting into a Teletransporter?

You cannot die in a correctly functioning Teletransporter. One body ceases to be and another is created. But "you" is only an emergent property of brain activity. If the body is perfectly reproduced then the "you", the "I", is identical.

Nick
 
OK let us change a bit the parameter. Imagine that for an incredible accident, random happenning of cosmic proportion, somebody in 2000 years has the same thought / emerging property as I have now, same memory, same thought. I have died 1900+ years before him.

Do you really think this would be me, that the I of now would be seeing what that person would be seeing, because essentially the teleporter experiment comes down to that.

ETA: to make it clear *I* am the brain. Not the illision of "emerging property" but the brain. Many people seems to think here they are "only" the emerging property. I do not see that so. I see myself as the mass of cell and its reaction below.

You are not the ray of light coming from the lamp, that's only an emerging property of the lamp. You are the full lamp.

PS: maybe it is a dupe post as the forum slowed to a crawl for me.
 
Aepervius said:
It does not matter if an infinity of emerging property copied into rbaina re identical. I the original will not see anymore. Somebody else with the same thought will.
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There is not in actuality an "I" that is "seeing." That is Cartesian Dualism, and of course social parlance. There is seeing and there is a story that "I am seeing". There is not in actuality an "I" that is doing the seeing. This is materialism.

Nick
 
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Nick227 said:
Yes, me too. So where's the drama about getting into a Teletransporter?

You cannot die in a correctly functioning Teletransporter. One body ceases to be and another is created. But "you" is only an emergent property of brain activity. If the body is perfectly reproduced then the "you", the "I", is identical.

Nick
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I fail to see how that is materialist. The You is not the *emergent* property. The You is the brain which is *manifested* thru the emergent property. They are in *together* and no separable. You seem to think that you can simply separate them and reconstruct a similar brain with the same emergent property. I hold that maetrialistically you can't. You make a copy but the original is lost.
 
Nick227 said:
The is not in actuality an "I" that is "seeing." That is Cartesian Dualism, and of course social parlance. There is seeing and there is a story that "I am seeing". There is not in actuality an "I" that is doing the seeing. This is materialism.

Nick
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And if the original is destroyed then the *I* stops living. The new brain copy is not an *I*. Pretending it is is going beyond materialism.
 
Aepervius said:
OK let us change a bit the parameter. Imagine that for an incredible accident, random happenning of cosmic proportion, somebody in 2000 years has the same thought / emerging property as I have now, same memory, same thought. I have died 1900+ years before him.

Do you really think this would be me, that the I of now would be seeing what that person would be seeing, because essentially the teleporter experiment comes down to that.
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According to materialism there can be no persisting self. It's a transient emergent phenomena. And one that the brain is usually hard-wired to believe in because this increases vastly the chances of survival. Belief in the existence of an enduring personal self is thus hugely favoured in evolutionary terms but, according to materialism, is nevertheless not true.

So there is no question that there is a self which is doing or experiencing thinking.

Focussing attention on thought creates the sensation that there is someone that is doing or having the thoughts, but actually they are just arising in consciousness and being focussed on by automatic processes.

Nick
 
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