Would you use a Star Trek type transporter?

[Nick227]

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 can when the emergent property is an illusion.

Dennett called it the "centre of narrative gravity". The presence and focussing on thought suggests that there is someone having the thoughts, rather as coherent peripheral activity suggests a centre. This is the so-called self, a sensation of a seeming centre created by focussing on thinking. This seeming centre will be identically recreated in the teletransporter.

Nick

 

[Aepervius]

You can when the emergent property is an illusion.

Dennett called it the "centre of narrative gravity". The presence and focussing on thought suggests that there is someone having the thoughts, rather as coherent peripheral activity suggests a centre. This is the so-called self, a sensation of a seeming centre created by focussing on thinking. This seeming centre will be identically recreated in the teletransporter.

Nick

No what you reconstructed is a brain with the identical property, but not the *same* brain.

To take my example above, the cube get destroyed you reconstruct an identical cube. But it is not the *same* cube. If you hold that the person original do not die thru the trnsaporter, then you are saying that above it is the same cube. It isn't. It is an identical cube. It is an identical brain. But it would not be ne. just a different person with the same apparent property.

This is what you seem to fail to miss. What you say is right if you look at the *property* only. but the *I* is not the property (apparence) only. It is the now-detsroyed-and-dead original brain. *I* would not see mars if I step in that trnasporter. An identical person with the identical same emergent property would see mars. *I* the original would be dead.

 

[AvalonXQ]

So you wouldn't object to being vaporized as long as there's another you somewhere?

Starting from materialism, if I am created elsewhere at the instant that my current body is vaporized, then I have effectively been relocated. Whether I object to this or not will depend on how I feel about being relocated.

 

[AvalonXQ]

No what you reconstructed is a brain with the identical property, but not the *same* brain.

Your brain today is not the same brain you were thinking with yesterday. Your brain is constantly changing; atoms and molecules and even whole cells are replaced.

Whether you are "still you" doesn't depend on which physical atoms are operating to manifest your mind; replacing the physical matter doesn't have any effect on the continuity of your consciousness. Or if it does, then the current you has very little continuity than the "you" of the past. The "original you" was lost years ago.

Continuity of objects, and in particular continuity of identy, are useful physical constructs but have no underlying material significance. Continuity of consciousness is illusory, and replacing your brain no more "destroys the original you" than going to sleep does.

 

[Myriad]

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.

That answer is fully consistent with unwillingness to use the conventional transporter. It implies that the continuity of something other than memory is more important that that of memory. Now, in the receiving chamber you do have continuity of biological life. But in theory you could also have that in the sending chamber if the mad scientist preserved the functioning of that body's other organs (heartbeat, breathing, hormonal regulation, etc.) using a life support system. And I don't think it would change your answer if he did.

So what else of value is preserved in the receiving chamber? Some kind of continuity of individual self-awareness? Does that exist, and if so does it really outvalue one's life experience accumulated in memory and perception habits?

In any case, when you come back with the memories and perceptions of loving the SO of the person in the sending chamber, will "your own" SO (and family, friends, etc.) -- that is, those of the person who was in the receiving chamber, who now knows nothing about them -- prefer it that way or wish it were the reverse?

(If pheromones were as important an aspect of intimate interpersonal relationships as some theorists think they are, our mad scientist could arrange to transfer those too...)

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[Thunderchief]

No.



And if I claimed that "you" would be the "you" on Mars, could you provide any evidence to justify considering one or the other?

Well that would be your claim, so I think it would be up to you to justify it. All I claim is that "I" walk into the Scanner on earth and that "I" walk out of it. I see no reason why the act of copying me would transfer my mind to to a brain on Mars, which would anyway be producing its own mind, Identical to mine (initially at least) but not the same mind. The mind is a product of the brain. Of course the "me" on Mars would be thinking; "Wow I was just on earth now, I'm on Mars". ;-) but its not the same me. This is not unique to the mind though, if I take a classic car and transport it to Mars the original is still on earth. the one on Mars is not the same car, even though it is identical.

The question becomes do you care? well in the case of the car I might not, but in the case of me, I definitely do.

A transporter is simply an instant perfect clone maker, if I send my perfect clone off to Mars, I am not going, my clone is.

I hope that clarifies my point of view.

Simon.

(This all assumes that a perfect copy can be made, from what I vaguely understand, you can't actually create identical atoms. correct me if I'm wrong.)

 

[Nick227]

This is what you seem to fail to miss. What you say is right if you look at the *property* only. but the *I* is not the property (apparence) only. It is the now-detsroyed-and-dead original brain. *I* would not see mars if I step in that trnasporter. An identical person with the identical same emergent property would see mars. *I* the original would be dead.

The "I" is the illusion. There is not an actual I that is seeing Mars.

There is seeing.
There is the thought "I am seeing Mars."
But there is not, in actuality, an I which is seeing Mars.

The recreated body, emerging from the Teletransporter pod on Mars, will see Mars. It's brain will create the thought "I am seeing Mars." From this thinking the illusory sense of self will be recreated.

The recreated brain will manufacture the same illusion as the original and that illusion is utterly unsubstantial.

~~

It is a deep one. Derek Parfit created the Teletransporter thought experiment in, I think, 1986 in his book Reasons and Persons. To this day, generations of people who consider themselves materialists still are adamant that they wouldn't travel and that there must be something that is lost.

It's very personal, I think. It's easy to be a materialist when you're looking at the world "out there." Parfit's Teletransporter forces you to look at just what you consider to be "you," and for most they don't seem to be along for that ride.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

To take my example above, the cube get destroyed you reconstruct an identical cube. But it is not the *same* cube.

But we're not talking about something substantial here. Try it with, say, a hoop. Put the hoop upon the ground and the eye can create the sense of it having a centre. There is no physical centre, but it can create the sense of it.

Now, destroy the hoop and recreate it. Put it back on the ground. The eye again creates the sense of it having a centre, even though there is nothing physical there.

The recreated brain will create the same thought patterns as the original. Attention on those thoughts will happen according to the same programming as the original. Thus it will create the same illusory sense of there being someone that is having the thoughts.

Nick

 

[AvalonXQ]

Well that would be your claim, so I think it would be up to you to justify it.

My claim is that there is no meaningful sense in which "you" are on Earth that "you" are not also on Mars, and giving precedence to one or other other is unjustified.

In fact, if while you were unconscious for the procedure, I moved your physical body to Mars and then created a perfect copy on Earth, there would be no way to tell the difference -- which means there is no difference. Your insistence on protecting the "original" is based on instinct and our intuition about the persistence of objects, not based on facts or evidence or the nature of the objects themselves.

 

[phunk]

Starting from materialism, if I am created elsewhere at the instant that my current body is vaporized, then I have effectively been relocated. Whether I object to this or not will depend on how I feel about being relocated.

Why does it matter that it happens at the same instant?

 

[rocketdodger]

Some information that might clear things up for a few people:

1) If you are making a copy, you don't need to destroy the original. Asking "so you are ok with vaporizing yourself?" is a stupid red herring. A more relevant question is "are you ok with merging with a previously copied self?" That question is both more subtle and far more interesting.

2) Mathematically, there is no actual continuity between present and future from the perspective of a conscious being. Our mind is by definition self contained -- it can only use information that is already present within itself. The act of sensing the environment is merely moving information from the environment to a local version in the mind. This implies that we can only know of events after they happen -- our perception of the now is merely comparing the latest information from the past with previous information from the past. And there isn't even any logical basis for perception of the transition between the now and the future.

The point? The point is that at any given time, all your mind can make use of is the previous physical states of your brain. Our entire consciousness is based on nothing but the past. Meaning, there is no loss of continuity when you make a copy -- the history of the original is identical to the history of the copy. Which makes the consciousness between them identical for a brief moment in time.

What people are really worried about, even if they don't know it, is that the original will exist for some time interval after the copy is made and thus there will be a slight divergence in the experiences between the two bodies. If you are worried about it, then don't kill yourself after the copy is made -- simple as that.

But if you think that, at the moment the copy is made, it is just a *copy*, you are wrong. A number of variations on the teleporter experiment illustrate just how arbitrary that notion is. What if you are in deep space and have no reference points and the copy materializes in front of you? How can you tell if you are the copy or the original? You can't. What if the teleporter freezes the consciousness of both the original and the copy, and then physically swaps the position of the copy and the original? How can you tell if you are the copy or the original? You can't. Mathematically, there is nothing special about either the original or the copy.

 

[phunk]

Some information that might clear things up for a few people:

1) If you are making a copy, you don't need to destroy the original. Asking "so you are ok with vaporizing yourself?" is a stupid red herring. A more relevant question is "are you ok with merging with a previously copied self?" That question is both more subtle and far more interesting.

In what way is there any merger possible in anything we've discussed in this thread?

 

[Nick227]

If I think myself about getting into the Teletransporter, and pushing the red button, there is this knee-jerk reaction in my mind like "F***, I'm going to die!"

But I do believe in materialism, and I've seen it's postulation on the nature of self backed up in meditation, so the knee-jerk reaction is no longer so strong. I can push the button. But I must admit it's still a close call.

Nick

eta: actually, who am i kidding? no way i'd push the *********** button

 

[phunk]

But if you think that, at the moment the copy is made, it is just a *copy*, you are wrong. A number of variations on the teleporter experiment illustrate just how arbitrary that notion is. What if you are in deep space and have no reference points and the copy materializes in front of you? How can you tell if you are the copy or the original? You can't. What if the teleporter freezes the consciousness of both the original and the copy, and then physically swaps the position of the copy and the original? How can you tell if you are the copy or the original? You can't. Mathematically, there is nothing special about either the original or the copy.

Which is why destroying either one, from a materialistic point of view, is murder.

 

[rocketdodger]

Why does it matter that it happens at the same instant?

It doesn't.

What matters is that the original is vaporized in the same quantum state as the copy is in when it materializes.

To be specific, the copy can also ( or should, rather ) materialize in the state corresponding to the state of the original one planck time after it is vaporized.

To be more specific, the copy can also materialize in any subsequent such state, as long as the deterministic sequence of transitions between the first post-vaporized state and the materialized state is valid. Meaning, if the teleporter vaporizes you then simulates a period of your life then materializes you, everything is still kosher.

The essential thing about consciousness is the particles in your mind following a deterministic causal sequence. As long as that causal sequence is preserved -- by any medium -- your consciousness remains the same.

 

[Thunderchief]

My claim is that there is no meaningful sense in which "you" are on Earth that "you" are not also on Mars, and giving precedence to one or other other is unjustified.

In fact, if while you were unconscious for the procedure, I moved your physical body to Mars and then created a perfect copy on Earth, there would be no way to tell the difference -- which means there is no difference. Your insistence on protecting the "original" is based on instinct and our intuition about the persistence of objects, not based on facts or evidence or the nature of the objects themselves.

You are missing the point. Of course there would be no way to tell the difference, well you would know of course, however the "me" on Mars is still the original. I am in no way saying that the copy is any less "me" but it is obviously not the original.

The point of all this is that simply the "me" that steps into the working scanner never goes to Mars, he gets destroyed and a copy is created on Mars. the copy is fine with this, however the original is dead and will never experience Mars.

Of course this may well be the case already, the "me" from 10 years ago is not possibly the same "me" typing this, all my cells have been replaced since then. (I think that's the theory anyway) We do however think a lot alike! ;-)

If I create a copy of my classic car, totally identical. park them next to each other. You could not tell which is which, however they are not the same car. They are separated by time and space and can never be the same car. Just as I can never be the "Simon" who went to Mars. I will always be the very lucky original who was not destroyed.

 

[phunk]

It doesn't.

What matters is that the original is vaporized in the same quantum state as the copy is in when it materializes.

To be specific, the copy can also ( or should, rather ) materialize in the state corresponding to the state of the original one planck time after it is vaporized.

To be more specific, the copy can also materialize in any subsequent such state, as long as the deterministic sequence of transitions between the first post-vaporized state and the materialized state is valid. Meaning, if the teleporter vaporizes you then simulates a period of your life then materializes you, everything is still kosher.

The essential thing about consciousness is the particles in your mind following a deterministic causal sequence. As long as that causal sequence is preserved -- by any medium -- your consciousness remains the same.

I can only think of one reason why it matters that the original dies instantly... so that they have no time to realize "oh crap, I've been copied but I'm still here, and I don't want to die".

 

[rocketdodger]

In what way is there any merger possible in anything we've discussed in this thread?

I told you the question was far more interesting

I expect a merger would entail somehow reconciling the neural network connectivity between the two instances, effectively teleporting both of them at the same time and modifying what is reconstructed. It can be done, but it would be pretty darn complicated.

It wouldn't be that jarring for you, though. Think about any events from your past that aren't directly related to each other. A trip you took to some city, for example. When did it happen? Was it you? I could have easily just slipped those memories into your mind, as if they were experienced by a copy of yourself, and you wouldn't know the difference.

Continuing that analogy, before I asked just now, were you thinking of those memories? I bet not. So a merge would just be like having more memories of stuff you didn't have memories of before, and you wouldn't know it, until you recalled those memories for some reason.

 

[rocketdodger]

Which is why destroying either one, from a materialistic point of view, is murder.

yes

 

[AvalonXQ]

Why does it matter that it happens at the same instant?

It doesn't, except that if you're going to wait until later to form me elsewhere, then my reaction will depend on my feelings about being relocated AND sent to the future, plus I have to factor in the possibility that something will happen and I won't get formed elsewhere at all.