Teleportation

[Just thinking]

So... would using a transporter be suicide and/or assisted suicide?

It all depends on who turns it on.

One argument that seems to gather some validity is the fact that after transportation no one can tell the difference between an exact copy and the original (whether the original is destroyed or not); hence they are the same --- but to me this is both wrong and irrelevant.

Take for example a unique coin --- only one if its kind in existence. It gets duplicated, so now there is a perfect copy (in another room). As long as they are kept separate one can tell which is which. But place them both in a closed box and give it a shake --- once opened, no one can tell which is the original. But guess what ... there is still an original and duplicate in the box. And just because no one can tell them apart with any testing doesn't negate that fact.

 

[hodgy]

A very nice summary and conclusion. (Not to mention illustration). I agree fully.

Thanks.

So... would using a transporter be suicide and/or assisted suicide?

As it stands today, it would be a bleeding miracle

 

[jmercer]

It all depends on who turns it on.

One argument that seems to gather some validity is the fact that after transportation no one can tell the difference between an exact copy and the original (whether the original is destroyed or not); hence they are the same --- but to me this is both wrong and irrelevant.

Take for example a unique coin --- only one if its kind in existence. It gets duplicated, so now there is a perfect copy (in another room). As long as they are kept separate one can tell which is which. But place them both in a closed box and give it a shake --- once opened, no one can tell which is the original. But guess what ... there is still an original and duplicate in the box. And just because no one can tell them apart with any testing doesn't negate that fact.

Nicely put.

Let's take someone who is transported to another room, but the original happens to remain intact. The two of them meet in a third room, the lights go out, everyone mills around... and now who is the original?

The answer is... the original is still the original. And unless the first two rooms were identical, and the original and copy were unconscious during the process... then they, at least, know who the original and who the copy is.

Proving it might be a slightly different problem.

 

[Dilb]

The exact copy and same past arguments are red herrings, the new person is still a new person.

Suppose that the copy could be exact (i.e. the duplication process is perfect) - on this basis you provided the argument above. Now suppose that it is not perfect - maybe something trivial like transportees get blue hair. For your argument - does this matter and if so, how / why? If the blue hair is an acceptable compromise,what further compromises are allowable? At what point does the copy stop being 'you'?

I don't know exactly, and who would? But if someone kidnapped you and dyed your hair blue against your will, are you a different person?

But besides that, if the duplicator doesn't work, it doesn't work. This discussion doesn't mean anything. The point is if it were perfect (and it conceivably could be), how does that affect your sense of self?

Before my conception I share the same past as my Father. In your example, the copy does not share the same physical past as the original. It's physical past is the engineering of the duplication machine and the use of it to manufacture the copy. True, the copy is made with a memory that is a copy of the original's memory but it is not the same memory.

But your father's consciousness is incredibly different than your consciousness. It's like saying "this apple is different than that orange". You'd never dream of claiming that you and your father have the same consciousness.

For what philosophers call monists (not duelists), the only thing that defines a consciousness is the information of a person: their memories, habits, knowledge, and so forth. You don't share any of that with your father. What you share with your father is DNA, which is unrelated. For the perfect duplicate, you do share all this information. If you want to define a person in the way that people would recognize, the copy and the original are have the same consciousness.

You can imagine all sorts of fantastical situations (teleporters, time travel, wormholes in the space-time continuum, etc) where the fine distinctions you are drawing wouldn't apply (time travellers don't have a consciousness which is continuous in time, for example), but no one would ever say "well that's just a doppelganger, not the original".

If the original is destroyed then what is achieved is not really transportation but an illusion of transportation that an outside observer (but not the 'transportee', for he is dead) can experience. If the original is not destroyed then the illusion fails and you have simply created a remote copy of yourself. In the Prestige the duplication machine is used precisely for this purpose - to create an illusion of transportation.

I haven't seen the prestige, but my point is while this sort of teleportation would only really be a trick, as far as a person, and not their body is concerned the difference doesn't matter. To the person before the transportation, they will wake up somewhere else.

 

[Dilb]

And just because no one can tell them apart with any testing doesn't negate that fact.

Pragmatism, in general, says that that sort of distinction is meaningless. You're saying that something which doesn't exist in the testable universe somehow exists to tell these things apart.
If you want to accept that, I can't really argue with it, but it's certainly not something that I'm going to believe is inherently true. In fact, things like the different statistics of identical particles leads me to think it's not true.

 

[Just thinking]

Pragmatism, in general, says that that sort of distinction is meaningless. You're saying that something which doesn't exist in the testable universe somehow exists to tell these things apart.
If you want to accept that, I can't really argue with it, but it's certainly not something that I'm going to believe is inherently true. In fact, things like the different statistics of identical particles leads me to think it's not true.

Ahhh, but you left out the first part .... one CAN tell them apart, and quite easily. As long as they are in separate rooms (the original's room and the duplicate's room) they are unique to those ends. You seem to be implying that once they become blindly intermixed this level of uniqueness somehow disappears --- I argue that there is still the original and duplicate; I did nothing to change their physical identities, only your ability to tell them apart.

Perhaps it's nothing more than semantics, but I posit that there is a distinction (with a difference) between using the words "identical" and "same". (And it's getting a tad confusing because some are using them to mean the same thing.) The two coins are identical, but they are not the same. When a witness looks at a line-up and points to a person she felt assaulted her and says, "That is the same person that hit me", we know that implies that exact person. But if she were to say "That one is identical to the one who hit me", we're not as convinced, are we?

BYW ... do you believe the two coins have identical world-lines (past/future)?

 

[hodgy]

I don't know exactly, and who would? But if someone kidnapped you and dyed your hair blue against your will, are you a different person?

Of course not but that is not the point that is being made. Someone kidnapping me is clearly not the same as someone making a copy of me.

But besides that, if the duplicator doesn't work, it doesn't work. This discussion doesn't mean anything. The point is if it were perfect (and it conceivably could be), how does that affect your sense of self?

The point is that the fact that the copy is 100% (vs < 100%) identical (using Just Thinking's useful distinction of meaning here) is just arbitrary. Forget the blue hair - if the duplication process caused the loss of 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000001% of the memory of the duplicate (compared to the original) do you still think it means the original is not dead?

- If yes: at what degree of degradation would the original be considered dead (of course this question is intended to show that the figure is arbitrary, not to elicit an actual figure).

- If no: why? Imagine the tiniest possible difference between the original and the copy, something insignificant (1 slightly altered memory or whatever). Why does this this change your position so fundamentally?

But your father's consciousness is incredibly different than your consciousness. It's like saying "this apple is different than that orange". You'd never dream of claiming that you and your father have the same consciousness.

Of course, and I am not trying to say that I share my Father's consciousness. In the original context I was drawing attention to your claim that the original and duplicate shared the same past and I was making the point that all you are really saying is that they have duplicate memories. Your logic (which I dispute) tries to run along these lines:

- Individual A and Individual B have exactly the same memories.
- Therefore (for all pragmatic purposes) they are the same person.

I do not think you can make that leap.

For what philosophers call monists (not duelists), the only thing that defines a consciousness is the information of a person: their memories, habits, knowledge, and so forth. You don't share any of that with your father. What you share with your father is DNA, which is unrelated. For the perfect duplicate, you do share all this information. If you want to define a person in the way that people would recognize, the copy and the original are have the same consciousness.

I am not a dualist, I believe that consciousness is a product of the physical structure and processes of the brain. This position is entirely consistent with my argument. The duplicate does not 'share' the original's consciousness, he has a copy of it.

I accept that there could be a definition of the term 'share' that would allow you to use it in this context but if you do so you need to keep this definition clearly in mind. As soon as we start to replace your term 'share' with something more precise your argument starts to look less compelling.

 

[Dilb]

Ahhh, but you left out the first part .... one CAN tell them apart, and quite easily. As long as they are in separate rooms (the original's room and the duplicate's room) they are unique to those ends. You seem to be implying that once they become blindly intermixed this level of uniqueness somehow disappears --- I argue that there is still the original and duplicate; I did nothing to change their physical identities, only your ability to tell them apart.

But again, we're asking about their identity, not their bodies. Would you be a different person if you were standing 5 feet to the right? I don't think the consciousness should depend on every single tiny little detail of the entire universe. If we could lose the only information that can tell the people apart, how important could that information have been to defining who that person was?

Perhaps it's nothing more than semantics, but I posit that there is a distinction (with a difference) between using the words "identical" and "same". (And it's getting a tad confusing because some are using them to mean the same thing.) The two coins are identical, but they are not the same. When a witness looks at a line-up and points to a person she felt assaulted her and says, "That is the same person that hit me", we know that implies that exact person. But if she were to say "That one is identical to the one who hit me", we're not as convinced, are we?

BYW ... do you believe the two coins have identical world-lines (past/future)?

That's getting into a tricky problem, because you're asking about matter. Consciousness is just information contained in the shape of physical objects, the arrangement of matter in the brain. The arrangement of matter in the coin shares the same world line before, and a different lines after.

As for the matter, I couldn't really say. With particles, we have the situation that there really isn't a difference between identical particles. For example, we know that normally, when we flip 2 coins we get the 4 results with equal probability
HH HT TH TT
because in practise they aren't actually identical coins, just very similar. But if we could use perfectly identical things, like some sort of single-photon-coin (and things like that do exist), then we get 3 results with equal probability
HH HT TT
because HT and TH don't represent different things. This leads to physically real differences, like in the measured heat capacity of solids. And because HT and TH can't be distinguished, tracing out world-lines for individual particles isn't as clear cut.

 

[Dilb]

Of course not but that is not the point that is being made. Someone kidnapping me is clearly not the same as someone making a copy of me.

It's entirely my point. Who you are doesn't rely on your hair colour. Whether it changes because of a dye job or a slightly bungled xerox shouldn't matter.

The point is that the fact that the copy is 100% (vs < 100%) identical (using Just Thinking's useful distinction of meaning here) is just arbitrary. Forget the blue hair - if the duplication process caused the loss of 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000001% of the memory of the duplicate (compared to the original) do you still think it means the original is not dead?

- If yes: at what degree of degradation would the original be considered dead (of course this question is intended to show that the figure is arbitrary, not to elicit an actual figure).

- If no: why? Imagine the tiniest possible difference between the original and the copy, something insignificant (1 slightly altered memory or whatever). Why does this this change your position so fundamentally?

You agree choosing and exact figure is arbitrary, so what's your point? I could equally well point out that you have probably lost and created a heck of a lot more of your memory in the last 5 minutes than 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000001%, and yet you still think you are the same person. Why doesn't the duplicate get this same privilege?

I only bring up perfect duplicates because that way you can't fall back on saying "oh, but there is a tiny difference, we'll use that". Defining who a person is shouldn't rely on trivial little details which you ignore daily.

- Individual A and Individual B have exactly the same memories.
- Therefore (for all pragmatic purposes) they are the same person.

I do not think you can make that leap.

Why not? What else makes a person? Tracing out the physical continuity of their body makes much less sense to me than actually using the part that makes them who they are.

I am not a dualist, I believe that consciousness is a product of the physical structure and processes of the brain. This position is entirely consistent with my argument. The duplicate does not 'share' the original's consciousness, he has a copy of it.

I accept that there could be a definition of the term 'share' that would allow you to use it in this context but if you do so you need to keep this definition clearly in mind. As soon as we start to replace your term 'share' with something more precise your argument starts to look less compelling.

But what is the difference between the original and a copy of information? Why does it matter? How is this number:
15
different than this number:
15
?

 

[Dan O.]

At the risk of injecting real physics into a hypothetical situation, hasn't it already been proven at the quantum level that teleportation is possible and duplication is not? (see: quantum teleportation)

Although we could theoretically create an assemblage of atoms in the same positions as the original, those atoms could not carry the same state information as the original unless the state of the original atoms was destroyed in the process. The question then becomes: are we only the macro assemblage of the atoms that make our bodies or is our "self" intertwined with the quantum state of those atoms?

 

[This is The End]

Specific facts can be lost forever. Certain details of the past can never be recovered in the future.

Though the coins from the two coins analogy have distinctions in the past as being “original” and “copy”, once placed in the box (shuffle) their futures will forever be 50/50.

Why see the coins from after the shuffle (future) the same as before the shuffle (past), yet not see the coins from before the shuffle (past) the same as after the shuffle (future)?

Only when we involve time does the present (therefore the future as well) lose significance to the past.


More specifically:

What would be the value of remembering a time when the coin origin information was still recoverable?

 

[hodgy]

It's entirely my point. Who you are doesn't rely on your hair colour. Whether it changes because of a dye job or a slightly bungled xerox shouldn't matter.

I am sure that you know that I proposed the hair-colour idea as a simple example of a difference in from original to duplicate. I am sure you know that using it in any other way than an arbitrary example is irrelevant.

You agree choosing and exact figure is arbitrary, so what's your point? I could equally well point out that you have probably lost and created a heck of a lot more of your memory in the last 5 minutes than 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000001%, and yet you still think you are the same person. Why doesn't the duplicate get this same privilege?

I was going to make this exact point but you made it for me! So, the original survives and physically travels to where the duplicate was created - who now is more 'you'?

I only bring up perfect duplicates because that way you can't fall back on saying "oh, but there is a tiny difference, we'll use that". Defining who a person is shouldn't rely on trivial little details which you ignore daily.

Well, to progress the argument, please answer the question (the one about the difference between perfect an imperfect duplicates).

Why not? What else makes a person? Tracing out the physical continuity of their body makes much less sense to me than actually using the part that makes them who they are.

I assumed you were a monist and that you believe that consciousness is emergent from physical properties. I assumed that you consider consciousness a by-product of the physical world.

On reflection - you seem to believe that there is a metaphysical connection between a mind and a faithful copy of a mind - can you provide evidence of why I should believe that?

But what is the difference between the original and a copy of information? Why does it matter? How is this number:
15
different than this number:
15
?

Well - I can subtract 10 from the original number to leave 5 and it will not affect the copied number.

 

[Dilb]

I was going to make this exact point but you made it for me! So, the original survives and physically travels to where the duplicate was created - who now is more 'you'?

'You', in this case refers to you before duplication. They are both so similar, and continuously connected, that it doesn't make sense to say one is more really the-continuation-from-the-past-you.

Well, to progress the argument, please answer the question (the one about the difference between perfect an imperfect duplicates).

Like I said, I don't have a definite answer. What "you" are isn't an iron clad, yes/no, 100% or 0% answer. You aren't the person you were 5 minutes ago, but you think of yourself as the same person because the changes are so small. Why should some changes (like the changes involved in living for 5 minutes) not affect who you are, but other changes (like having your mind copied into a new body) totally change who you are.

I assumed you were a monist and that you believe that consciousness is emergent from physical properties. I assumed that you consider consciousness a by-product of the physical world.

On reflection - you seem to believe that there is a metaphysical connection between a mind and a faithful copy of a mind - can you provide evidence of why I should believe that?

What metaphysical connection? I'm saying the mind can be reduced to information, even just a single huge number if you wanted to (like how everything on your hard drive could be described with just a single huge binary number). Whether this information is stuck in a particular body, or goes from one body to another, doesn't change the information. The number 15 is the number 15, regardless of whether I write it in ink or pencil. The "number of your mind" can be written in your original body, or written into a new body, and it's the same mind.

Well - I can subtract 10 from the original number to leave 5 and it will not affect the copied number.

I've never said you don't have two instances, two things which can change independently. I've just said that there's no reason to preferentially trace one back in time to the original. Both the copy and the original are different that the you before the copy, and just like we can trace a series of small changes to say the original corresponds to the same person as the you back in time, the copy corresponds to the same you back in time.

 

[vIQleS]

I suspect that the time interval is irrelevant. Whether you waited a microsecond or ten years to produce it, the newly created person would certainly have just as much claim to being me as I do now. For every purpose except my actually experiencing its consciousness, it would be me.

I'm pretty sure that ST covered this as well, although i haven't been able to find the episode details: Scotty gets recovered from a dyson sphere where he's been sitting in a transport buffer for like 100 years or something.

Is this real or did i just imagine this?

ETA:Obviously i don't mean real - i mean was this an episode etc

 

[Dilb]

I'm pretty sure that ST covered this as well, although i haven't been able to find the episode details: Scotty gets recovered from a dyson sphere where he's been sitting in a transport buffer for like 100 years or something.

Is this real or did i just imagine this?

ETA:Obviously i don't mean real - i mean was this an episode etc

Google reveals all!

 

[hodgy]

'You', in this case refers to you before duplication. They are both so similar, and continuously connected, that it doesn't make sense to say one is more really the-continuation-from-the-past-you.



Like I said, I don't have a definite answer. What "you" are isn't an iron clad, yes/no, 100% or 0% answer. You aren't the person you were 5 minutes ago, but you think of yourself as the same person because the changes are so small. Why should some changes (like the changes involved in living for 5 minutes) not affect who you are, but other changes (like having your mind copied into a new body) totally change who you are.



What metaphysical connection? I'm saying the mind can be reduced to information, even just a single huge number if you wanted to (like how everything on your hard drive could be described with just a single huge binary number). Whether this information is stuck in a particular body, or goes from one body to another, doesn't change the information. The number 15 is the number 15, regardless of whether I write it in ink or pencil. The "number of your mind" can be written in your original body, or written into a new body, and it's the same mind.




I've never said you don't have two instances, two things which can change independently. I've just said that there's no reason to preferentially trace one back in time to the original. Both the copy and the original are different that the you before the copy, and just like we can trace a series of small changes to say the original corresponds to the same person as the you back in time, the copy corresponds to the same you back in time.

I think we are both right in certain ways. Of course I think I am righter than you )) but I can see some logic in both arguments. Anyway - Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (or Yuletide or whatever atheist / Muslim / Wiccan / Buddhist terminology you favour).

 

[Dilb]

I think we are both right in certain ways. Of course I think I am righter than you )) but I can see some logic in both arguments. Anyway - Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (or Yuletide or whatever atheist / Muslim / Wiccan / Buddhist terminology you favour).

If I have at least convinced you that I've a certain logic to my statements, well, that's great, and I don't think I've anything more to say.

As an atheist (if you're wondering), I hope you had a Merry Christmas too, and have a happy New Year.

 

[The Gnomon]

As I recall, there were some failed transporter occasions in Star Trek, including one in which the "transportee" was not reconstructed at the receiving site. Within the Star Trek universe, this was considered death. Keep in mind, however, the Star Trek universe is only one instance in the multiverse, and may have different rules than ours.

 

[Just thinking]

But again, we're asking about their identity, not their bodies. Would you be a different person if you were standing 5 feet to the right? I don't think the consciousness should depend on every single tiny little detail of the entire universe. If we could lose the only information that can tell the people apart, how important could that information have been to defining who that person was?

Well first off, I believe their bodies do define their identities --- as I think that the duality of mind/body is not real. As for being a different person if I move 5 feet to one side, no ... I'm not a different person, just the same person in a different location. Finally, it depends on just exactly what that tiny bit of lost information is. (And losing information does not mean the two now somehow become the same; they're just indistinguishably different.) Losing what was your only clue as to defining them apart in this case was being able to place a specific world-line to a specific coin. Since these coins did have different world-lines (something clearly known beforehand of the mixing) they each had (and continue to have) that unique quality that in-and-of-itself makes them different. And if you think the exact past of an individual is not important, considerer that the person prior to being duplicated committed a crime --- should the duplicate be held responsible if you can't tell them apart?

That's getting into a tricky problem, because you're asking about matter. Consciousness is just information contained in the shape of physical objects, the arrangement of matter in the brain. The arrangement of matter in the coin shares the same world line before, and a different lines after.

No ... the matter in the duplicate has no world line prior to being created by duplication --- or certainly not the same as the original ... after all, there used to be only the original, which dictates a single world line.

As for the matter, I couldn't really say. With particles, we have the situation that there really isn't a difference between identical particles. For example, we know that normally, when we flip 2 coins we get the 4 results with equal probability
HH HT TH TT
because in practise they aren't actually identical coins, just very similar. But if we could use perfectly identical things, like some sort of single-photon-coin (and things like that do exist), then we get 3 results with equal probability
HH HT TT
because HT and TH don't represent different things. This leads to physically real differences, like in the measured heat capacity of solids. And because HT and TH can't be distinguished, tracing out world-lines for individual particles isn't as clear cut.

As true as the above is, I think it doesn't equate to macro-world events and objects; just as Schroedinger's Cat isn't suppose to be extrapolated into the macro world. So although world-lines for single particles may be tricky to lay out, it's really not that hard for coins or people.

 

[Just thinking]

I think we are both right in certain ways. Of course I think I am righter than you )) but I can see some logic in both arguments. Anyway - Merry Christmas and Happy New Year (or Yuletide or whatever atheist / Muslim / Wiccan / Buddhist terminology you favour).

And a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you as well!