Resolution of Transporter Problem

[rocketdodger]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_number

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_number

For those still having difficulty with the idea that quantity and identity are different things.

Can you please explain why you think the distinction between cardinals and ordinals is relevant to the discussion at hand?

Sometimes your communication is too terse even for me =)

 

[Malerin]

I've done that. It wasn't all that special.

I specified what the three countries are. It is impossible for one person to simultaneously be standing in China, France, and the U.S.

Though in this hypothetical situation it would be 3 person's existing in 3 different countries, and all 3 person's would have an equally valid claim at being "you".

RD thinks all three persons ARE you, which is a much stronger position than that all three would have a claim of being you. But let's take your viewpoint: you step in the transporter and three copies of you step out. Which is you? They are either all of them you, some of them you, one of them you, or none of them you. The answer that makes the most sense is that none of them are you, just as a perfect forgery of the Mona Lisa is not the Mona Lisa- it is an exact duplicate.

1 does not equal 3, but 1 times 3 does equal 3. In the situation you describe the teletransporter has become a multiplier.

Yes, I agree with you. That's the problem for RD: one person steps in, three people step out. It's ridiculous to claim that the moment before teleportation you were one person and the moment after you are now three people. I have no idea why someone can't see the absurdity of this except that they don't want to admit they're wrong. If the teleporter created a million copies of you you are now a million people? What if one of them dies? Are you dead? What if one wins a lottery? Are you rich? What if one duplicate murders another? Suicide?

 

[Malerin]

People aren't numbers, for sure. But information can be represented numerically and for me materialism indicates that consciousness is information. I don't know that the book analogy is so good as for me the book is constantly changing.



Generally, I don't think that many of the moral or other evolutionary-derived positions we take on murder and death are so useful when considering the Teletransporter thought experiment. As soon as the notion or possibility of duplicating humans comes up so a lot of these positions will inevitably be challenged. I don't think they can be relied on to give useful information.

I don't see a compelling reason to give up our common sense belief that torching a person is much different than torching a book. Do you really they they could be the same?

For me this is a language and terminology thing. One person is one instance of one person until the possibility of duplication comes about. With duplication so there can be multiple instances of the same person. Of course we now need to agree just what "person" means. But I hold to the same point I made above. You can't always use the same terms or logical positions.

If your position ends in an absurdity, then it probably needs to be reexamined. One person cannot have a million minds or points of view or occupy a million different locations, but that's what you are claiming would happen if the transporter spat out a million duplicates of you.

Not really. For me personally the complexity comes about when one considers just what the relationship between consciousness and a conscious entity really is. There is not a "place in the brain where things become conscious" so when we assert that a thermostat "is conscious" there are complexities here in considering just what this statement truly means.

I have evidence that I (and other people) are conscious self-aware beings. I have no evidence a toaster can be conscious or self-aware, nor do I have any reason to think it is. If I'm such a bumpkin for thinking this, I'm sure you'll bamboozle me with all sorts of scientists who advocate for conscious toasters. What, exactly, is this based on? Something Dennet said?

According to materialism there is no "you" that is reading this statement - such a position is merely constructed by brain processing. It is not a priori valid. Thus if we say a toaster is conscious just what does this really mean?

That's why I'm not a materialist. I know there is a "me" reading this statement, and a theory that claims there is no personal identity and disagrees with my Cartesian certainty in my own existence is not going to be very compelling.

Like I say, it is complex. But I doubt scorn is going to help anyone along much. Why do you believe such notions are worthy of scorn?

The same reason atheists always talk scornfully of teapots orbiting Jupiter. Perhaps if they only thought about it a bit more...

 

[rocketdodger]

That's the problem for RD: one person steps in, three people step out. It's ridiculous to claim that the moment before teleportation you were one person and the moment after you are now three people.

I am claiming you would be the same consciousness in three different places.

I have no idea why someone can't see the absurdity of this except that they don't want to admit they're wrong.

You are making it very clear that you have no idea.

If the teleporter created a million copies of you you are now a million people?

You are now the same consciousness in a million places.

What if one of them dies? Are you dead?

No, you are simply then in a million - 1 places.

What if one wins a lottery? Are you rich?

That makes no sense, since the instant after duplication each copy ceases to be the same as the original and is thus a separate person.

What if one duplicate murders another? Suicide?

That makes no sense, since the instant after duplication each copy ceases to be the same as the original and is thus a separate person.

Perhaps if you would stop fighting a strawman, Malerin, and actually read what people write, you would start to grasp things. Things like me being very explicit that the consciousness is only shared across each copy during the instant of teletransportation -- a thing which, I might add, nullifies all the stupid strawman questions you have been asking.

 

[Gate2501]

Last night, I got a bit liqoured up, and somehow came to what I feel was a startling revelation in regards to this problem.

I was thinking about how I know that my own self awareness is this continuous *thing*, and I realized something. That judgement is always from an "after the fact" perspective, because it can only be made in the present. Therefore, it is as useless(or useful), as the perspective of the new copies "after the teleport" perspective.

In other words, my own experience of continuity in self-awareness, is as worthless as evidence for unbroken local self-awareness, as the opinion/perspective of the teleported(new copy), not the teleportee(the original).

Does this make sense to any of you, or was I just a bit too drunk?

I now feel like I debunked my own evidence for assuming unbroken local self-awareness.

I really don't know what to think anymore, but this thread(and whiskey) is really helping me sort some of this out and refine my thoughts on the matter.

 

[rocketdodger]

Last night, I got a bit liqoured up, and somehow came to what I feel was a startling revelation in regards to this problem.

I was thinking about how I know that my own self awareness is this continuous *thing*, and I realized something. That judgement is always from an "after the fact" perspective, because it can only be made in the present. Therefore, it is as useless(or useful), as the perspective of the new copies "after the teleport" perspective.

In other words, my own experience of continuity in self-awareness, is as worthless as evidence for unbroken local self-awareness, as the opinion/perspective of the teleported(new copy), not the teleportee(the original).

Does this make sense to any of you, or was I just a bit too drunk?

I now feel like I debunked my own evidence for assuming unbroken local self-awareness.

I really don't know what to think anymore, but this thread(and whiskey) is really helping me sort some of this out and refine my thoughts on the matter.

Yes, this is essentially why cyborg wants us to mourn his former selves. You are spot on and I am glad you realized this.

My argument in the OP, however, doesn't rely on this property of our self-awareness. Even if it was truly continuous my argument should still be valid.

 

[Whiplash]

What's clear is that your perspective is utterly dualistic. You are completely enmeshed in duality as only a diehard idealist could be. Not that there's anything wrong with this, but then why not just come out and say that you can't duplicate yourself because it would confuse the soul, or whatever. I mean, be honest.

I find this interesting. I know nothing about these dualism and materialism things, I will have to read up on them to be more in line with what you guys are talking about. But you mentioned the soul, and I had wanted to bring the soul into this. I had been speculating (to myself) if the problem that some people had with some of the arguments was that it was too close to the admission of their being a soul or recognition of a soul.

I don't personally think that enters into it. For me, a transfering of the brain itself to a new body would be enough to ensure continuation. It's not a spiritual thing at all.

 

[Earthborn]

I specified what the three countries are.

Just messing with ye...

It is impossible for one person to simultaneously be standing in China, France, and the U.S.

Unless of course China opens up an embassy in a US military base in France... But that's another story.

RD thinks all three persons ARE you, which is a much stronger position than that all three would have a claim of being you.

I don't think is trying to say anything different than I did. Not only do all three have a claim, more importantly all three have an equally valid claim. They are equally right when they say that they are "you".

The answer that makes the most sense is that none of them are you

I think the answer that makes the most sense is that before there was only one of you, and after there are three of you. It doesn't mean that all three of you are a single person, but rather that a single person was multiplied by three.

You seem to get hung up on the word "you", which unfortunately in the English language does not change when it becomes plural, like it does in many other languages including some English dialects. That makes the discussion somewhat misleading. Your example starts with a "you" and results in a "y'all".

If the teleporter created a million copies of you you are now a million people? What if one of them dies? Are you dead? What if one wins a lottery? Are you rich? What if one duplicate murders another? Suicide?

All interesting themes for a science fiction story (probably already done to death), but not really valid philosophical arguments. And they are easily answerable: if one of them dies, the others are still alive. If one of them wins a lottery it all depends on what sort of property law exists in a society where people can get a million copies of themselves; if for the law they are the same person all the copies will have to share. If they are recognised as separate individuals, the one who wins the lottery may keep it all to himself and be rich, while the others are not. Something similar is true when one murders another: it depends on how murder is defined under the law that happens to exist in such a society.

 

[Earthborn]

That's why I'm not a materialist. I know there is a "me" reading this statement, and a theory that claims there is no personal identity and disagrees with my Cartesian certainty in my own existence is not going to be very compelling.

"I think, therefore I am" is a nice argument in favour of one's existence, but is not proof that this "I" can only be singular and cannot possibly be duplicated. And the concept that it can is not limited to materialism; non-materialist metaphysics may also allow this to happen.

For example, if there was any truth to Rupert Sheldrake's theory of morphogenic resonance, the whole problem with the teletransporter would be easily solved; the person stepping out of the receiver would so strongly resonate with the morphogenic field of the person who stepped into the sender, that it would be perverse to claim that it has a different "consciousness", which is a morphogenic field and therefore spanning all space. If the machine produces duplicates, each duplicate will resonate very strongly with the morphogenic field of the "original" and therefore share a consciousness (which is true of everything to some degree according the theory) until their lives diverge into ways that make them less similar and therefore resonate less with each other.

 

[Z]

So when you die, does your morphogenic field go to heaven?

Sorry, Sheldrake's 'morphogenic field' is SOOOOO dualistic in nature!

 

[Malerin]

Just messing with ye...

Unless of course China opens up an embassy in a US military base in France... But that's another story.

LOL.

I don't think is trying to say anything different than I did. Not only do all three have a claim, more importantly all three have an equally valid claim. They are equally right when they say that they are "you".

Which is the problem. Before you step into the transporter, "you" refers to one person (as we are used to). After teleportation "you" now refers to three people? Make no mistake, there are three seperate people standing in front of you. Each has his own mind, self-awareness, consciousness, occupies a unique point in space, etc.

I think the answer that makes the most sense is that before there was only one of you, and after there are three of you.

That doesn't make any sense at all. How can there be three of me? By definition, "you" and ""me" picks out a particular person. If you stood in front of a group of people, looked around vaguely, and said, "I want you to step forward." they would naturally ask, "Which one of us?" You're trying to argue that before teleportation, we are correct in our usage of "I" (that it picks out one person), but after teleportation, "I" is synonmous with "we". That is to say that "I" can now refer to multiple people. You might have a point if the three duplicates somehow shared a group mind and point-of-view and could use the word "we" in some bizzare but understandable context (like the Borg), but that is not the case. The three duplicates are three seperate distinct people, each with their own mind, consciousness, and point of view. When one of them is hungry, he will say "I am hungry". He will not say "we are hungry". Teleportation does not magically change the conventions of language.

It doesn't mean that all three of you are a single person, but rather that a single person was multiplied by three.

Right, which gives you three distinct people: Copy A, B, and C. Personal identity is not some kind of pixie dust that can be spread to each duplicate that steps out of the transporter. The three duplicates, no matter how much you want them to be one person, will go merrily about their lives, each behaving as if they are a unique individual. If duplicate A screws up on a job, do you think his boss is really going to be confused about who to fire? Or that he'll try to fire all three of them, even though the other two don't even work for him? That is where this loopy idea leads.

You seem to get hung up on the word "you", which unfortunately in the English language does not change when it becomes plural, like it does in many other languages including some English dialects.

"You" is simply a singluar pronoun which takes the place of a person's name. Which language are you thinking of that has a plural pronoun which refers to a single person? "Y'all" is short for "you all" which refers to a group of people.

That makes the discussion somewhat misleading. Your example starts with a "you" and results in a "y'all".

Which is not a problem. We start with one person ("you"). That person is destroyed and copied three times. We now have three seperate people ("You all"). What you're trying to do is have "you" refer to one person prior to teleportation, and then have "you" refer to multiple people after teleportation.

All interesting themes for a science fiction story (probably already done to death), but not really valid philosophical arguments. And they are easily answerable: if one of them dies, the others are still alive.

Because they're seperate people with seperate identities. If "you" referred to all three of them, and one of them died "you" would suffer what, 1/3 of a death?

If one of them wins a lottery it all depends on what sort of property law exists in a society where people can get a million copies of themselves; if for the law they are the same person all the copies will have to share. If they are recognised as separate individuals, the one who wins the lottery may keep it all to himself and be rich, while the others are not.

How else would you do it other than recognize them as seperate individuals? Suppose one of the duplicates commits a crime. Do they all go to jail? Of course not. Suppose one gets a speeding ticket. Do they all pay the fine? One owes back taxes. Do they all chip in? One needs a check-up. Do they all go to the doctor? One screws up on the job. Do they all get fired?

If personal identity can apply to more than one person, you're forced to give extremely counter-intuitive responses to these questions: Jail time for every duplicate if one of them commmits a crime; all duplicates must pay a fine if one of them speeds; a cancer diagnosis of one duplicate affects all of them; the firing of one duplicate from his job results in unemployment for all duplicates. Of course we know that if Duplicate A accidentally runs someone over, all the other duplicates will not be charged with manslaughter. That alone should tell you that personal identity cannot apply to more than one person. I'm really surprised we're still arguing this point.

Under materialism, teleportation of personal identity suffers from two fatal problems. At the start of teleportation, a malfunction that makes a copy of a person without destroying the original leaves the person understandably anxious about completing the process and hopping into a nearby incinerator. A malfunction at the far end that results in more than one person being created from the scanned information runs into the personal identity problems illustraed above: personal identity, applied to more than one person, makes no sense and gives extremely counter-intuitive results.

 

[rocketdodger]

That doesn't make any sense at all. How can there be three of me? By definition, "you" and ""me" picks out a particular person. If you stood in front of a group of people, looked around vaguely, and said, "I want you to step forward." they would naturally ask, "Which one of us?" You're trying to argue that before teleportation, we are correct in our usage of "I" (that it picks out one person), but after teleportation, "I" is synonmous with "we". That is to say that "I" can now refer to multiple people. You might have a point if the three duplicates somehow shared a group mind and point-of-view and could use the word "we" in some bizzare but understandable context (like the Borg), but that is not the case. The three duplicates are three seperate distinct people, each with their own mind, consciousness, and point of view. When one of them is hungry, he will say "I am hungry". He will not say "we are hungry". Teleportation does not magically change the conventions of language.

If your image is being shown on multiple monitors by a television camera, are all those images different people? Of course not -- even though they occupy different spacetime coordinates.

If your holgram is being shown in multiple locations by a holgraphic camera, are all those holograms different people? Of course not, for the same reason.

Extend those examples to a very powerful "camera" that records and transmits all information about your person, re-instantiating it at multiple locations with a fidelity so high that it becomes impossible to tell which is the original. Are all those instances different people?

If you could just put your epic battle against the strawmen on pause for a second, you might see that you are completely ignoring the only part of the whole teletransporter scenario that can make sense -- the other instances are only the same person for an instant.

If you don't think that matters -- that restricting the interval we are examining to an instant won't change the outcome -- then why are none of your counterexamples over that interval?

 

[rocketdodger]

I'm really surprised we're still arguing this point.

I'm really surprised you still think we are suggesting that two clearly different instances could possibly be the same person.

Will the strawmen ever let you rest, Malerin? Do they torment you in your dreams?

 

[Nick227]

Last night, I got a bit liqoured up, and somehow came to what I feel was a startling revelation in regards to this problem.

I was thinking about how I know that my own self awareness is this continuous *thing*, and I realized something. That judgement is always from an "after the fact" perspective, because it can only be made in the present. Therefore, it is as useless(or useful), as the perspective of the new copies "after the teleport" perspective.

In other words, my own experience of continuity in self-awareness, is as worthless as evidence for unbroken local self-awareness, as the opinion/perspective of the teleported(new copy), not the teleportee(the original).

Does this make sense to any of you, or was I just a bit too drunk?

I now feel like I debunked my own evidence for assuming unbroken local self-awareness.

I really don't know what to think anymore, but this thread(and whiskey) is really helping me sort some of this out and refine my thoughts on the matter.

Yes, if you ask me, this is the guts of it. It appears that there is a continuous self observing or experiencing what's going on around us. For me, materialism dictates that this cannot be so.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

I don't see a compelling reason to give up our common sense belief that torching a person is much different than torching a book. Do you really they they could be the same?

For me, this is just another of the emotionally manipulative arguments that one inevitably runs into when discussing the Teletransporter. It appears that there is a whole phase where the person cannot bear to see what is actually clear apparent and must thrash around trying to intellectually justify what is rationally a very weak position.

You claim that if consciousness is information then a person is no different from a book. Thus, this can't be true as we destroy books legally but not people. You need a teletransporter to take you back to Middle Ages Britain, Malerin. You would like it there. I'm sure you would find a nice role stirring up mob violence against witches sometime around 1538.

If your position ends in an absurdity, then it probably needs to be reexamined. One person cannot have a million minds or points of view or occupy a million different locations, but that's what you are claiming would happen if the transporter spat out a million duplicates of you.

You just don't understand it yet. You can't use terms like "you" in such fixed manner when considering duplication. You have to examine rationally what the term "you" even truly means before you can do this.

In materialism, as I see it, "you" is entirely just an aspect of consciousness. Consciousness does not innately have possession. It is not "your consciousness" that these words appear in, rather both "you" and these words appear.

That's why I'm not a materialist. I know there is a "me" reading this statement, and a theory that claims there is no personal identity and disagrees with my Cartesian certainty in my own existence is not going to be very compelling.

Yes, this much is clear. It is very clear that you have neither the awareness nor the disposition to examine these assumptions the brain is making.

It's a lump of flesh and bone, Malerin. Just how do you propose that it could innately have a personal identity? This is what's ridiculous, if you ask me. This is what's ludicrous. It creates a sense of personal identity, and it creates a sense of self to which to ascribe this sense of personal identity. This is rational.

Nick

 

[Earthborn]

Make no mistake, there are three seperate people standing in front of you. Each has his own mind, self-awareness, consciousness, occupies a unique point in space, etc.

Very likely, yes.

By definition, "you" and ""me" picks out a particular person.

That's only true because you are never copied in such a way

Teleportation does not magically change the conventions of language.

A society that allows people to copy themselves will probably need to change its conventions of language. No biggie, since languages constantly change with new societal developments.

The three duplicates, no matter how much you want them to be one person, will go merrily about their lives, each behaving as if they are a unique individual.

Quite likely, yes.

If duplicate A screws up on a job, do you think his boss is really going to be confused about who to fire? Or that he'll try to fire all three of them, even though the other two don't even work for him? That is where this loopy idea leads.

That is only where your misunderstanding of this loopy idea leads.

"You" is simply a singluar pronoun which takes the place of a person's name. Which language are you thinking of that has a plural pronoun which refers to a single person?

None that I am aware of.

"Y'all" is short for "you all" which refers to a group of people.

Yes, and after the multiplying teleportation what was once a single person is turned into a group of people.

What you're trying to do is have "you" refer to one person prior to teleportation, and then have "you" refer to multiple people after teleportation.

No, what I am trying to do is explaining to you that asking which one is "you" is an invalid question.

How else would you do it other than recognize them as seperate individuals? Suppose one of the duplicates commits a crime. Do they all go to jail?

It is possible to imagine a future society in which criminal behaviour is considered a mental illness that requires not punishment but medical treatment. Such a society would require the same treatment to all duplicates, because being perfect duplicates the neurological flaw that caused one of them to commit the crime exists in all three.

Suppose one gets a speeding ticket.

I think we'll have selfdriving cars before we have teleporters.

One owes back taxes. Do they all chip in?

If they are nice to eachother, sure why not?

One needs a check-up. Do they all go to the doctor?

Since all three are duplicates of eachother, many medical problems that develop in one is also likely to develop in the other two. So, yes, I would think they better all go to the doctor.

One screws up on the job. Do they all get fired?

Depends on what caused that one to screw up. If it is a personality flaw, it is likely true for all three. If it is because of the conditions on the job then it may be true of only one of them.

If personal identity can apply to more than one person, you're forced to give extremely counter-intuitive responses to these questions:

Just because answers are counter-intuitive (to you) does not mean they are necessarily wrong. It just means that it is something you don't any experience with.

Under materialism, teleportation of personal identity suffers from two fatal problems.

They are not fatal problems because they don't disprove anything. The only problem associated with it is trying to wrap your head around it.

At the start of teleportation, a malfunction that makes a copy of a person without destroying the original leaves the person understandably anxious about completing the process and hopping into a nearby incinerator.

Who says he needs to? And who says teleportation will be an acceptable mode of human transport before such malfunctions have been eliminated?

 

[cyborg]

Can you please explain why you think the distinction between cardinals and ordinals is relevant to the discussion at hand?

Sometimes your communication is too terse even for me =)

Cardinals and ordinals are both numbers but one describes set size and the other to order.

As I said quantity and identity are not the same thing but this is still a mistake being made here. Not really anything much more too it - I can count 3 people and 1 person at the same time depending on what it is I am counting.

 

[Z]

If your image is being shown on multiple monitors by a television camera, are all those images different people? Of course not -- even though they occupy different spacetime coordinates.

If your holgram is being shown in multiple locations by a holgraphic camera, are all those holograms different people? Of course not, for the same reason.

Extend those examples to a very powerful "camera" that records and transmits all information about your person, re-instantiating it at multiple locations with a fidelity so high that it becomes impossible to tell which is the original. Are all those instances different people?

If you could just put your epic battle against the strawmen on pause for a second, you might see that you are completely ignoring the only part of the whole teletransporter scenario that can make sense -- the other instances are only the same person for an instant.

If you don't think that matters -- that restricting the interval we are examining to an instant won't change the outcome -- then why are none of your counterexamples over that interval?

This is a particularly poor analogy. An image of me is not me, any more than the reflection of me in the mirror is me... a photograph of me is not me, a camera recording is not me, a hologram is not me - and a clone is not me. Each is an illusion or representation based on recorded data of me, but is not me.

It's not an 'epic battle against a strawman' - it's simple fact - unless you're now going to start claiming that every photograph, film clip, and hologram of you is somehow 'you' as well.

What is it like, to sense the world from a 2-D image?

 

[Malerin]

In the process of writing a reply, I saw Z's post, which is superior to what I wrote. I would just add, using RD's "logic", if you smash a mirror you happen to be looking into, you've just committed suicide?

 

[Z]

In the process of writing a reply, I saw Z's post, which is superior to what I wrote. I would just add, using RD's "logic", if you smash a mirror you happen to be looking into, you've just committed suicide?

NO no no no no no - each shard could show a reflection of you - so you've just reproduced numerous yous.

...given RD's logic.