The Star Trek Transporter Enigma

[rocketdodger]

Please correct me if I am wrong, but you seem to think if we can describe consciousness as an algorithm (or as the product of an algorithm?) that this means running the same program on two identical sets of hardware somehow means one mind in two bodies. I just don't get why this should be so, if we stick to the computer analogy then we dont think of two instances of the same program executing as being the same instance even if they are identical in everyway.

But we *do* think of them as the same instance in the split second that the second system is initialized with the history of the first.

Think about it. You have instance A running for a time. You pause execution. You initialize a second computer with all the memory of the first. Then you unpause execution on the first and begin execution on the second. For that first instant, before the programs have even begun to run, are they not conceptually the same instance? Is the initial memory of the second system not still the deterministic result of the first system's partial run?

That is what I am getting at -- if you are a system, and your memory is the deterministic result of the running of some other system, then as a system are you not somehow an extenstion, rather than a copy, of that other one?

 

[rocketdodger]

It isn't really. I can not feel now what I felt a second ago except as a memory. I can remember almost drowning when I was a child, but I can not feel the water over my head. I can not connect to that past except as a recreation from memory.

But the teleported body has just as much of this connection as "recreation from memory" as the original body does. So why is it somehow a different person?

It seems arbitrary to me. If both bodies have the same connection to the past identity of the person, then why can't we say the teleported person is actually the original, and the body at the source just becomes the new instance? Or why can't we say the original person is just destroyed and both bodies are new instances?

Why can't we say that every planck time we are destroyed and replaced with a new instance that is initialized with the memory of the previous one? Would that not be an existence indistinguishable from the one we lead now?

 

[rocketdodger]

Memory? Physical location? But even if we say there is no actual connection then how does this help your argument?

Because if there is no actual connection then initializing a second brain with the exact state of the first and turning it "on" is enough to give that second person just as much claim to identity as the first. See the post immediately prior to this one.

 

[westprog]

But you are assuming the conclusion -- that there are two observers!!

Yes, according to the rules of the Special Theory Of Relativity. An observer has a location. He doesn't have two simultaneous locations. If that were possible, then the whole theory collapses, and we would have no model of reality. Hence I tend not two consider the hypothesis very seriously.

Of course "observer" in the sense used in physics doesn't exactly correspond with the meaning in everyday use, but it's close enough in this case.

 

[westprog]

But we *do* think of them as the same instance in the split second that the second system is initialized with the history of the first.

Think about it. You have instance A running for a time. You pause execution. You initialize a second computer with all the memory of the first. Then you unpause execution on the first and begin execution on the second. For that first instant, before the programs have even begun to run, are they not conceptually the same instance? Is the initial memory of the second system not still the deterministic result of the first system's partial run?

That is what I am getting at -- if you are a system, and your memory is the deterministic result of the running of some other system, then as a system are you not somehow an extenstion, rather than a copy, of that other one?

No. Because every system is the result of some other previous system.

Let's take a practical example. I do a hibernate on my laptop. I then do a bitwise copy of the disc, which I load into another laptop, which I give to a friend. Is the same software on both discs? Yes, of course. Are they the same instance of the software? Of course they aren't. I can't access the instance I've just given my friend. The identity of the software - which is only conceptual in the first place - does not mean that the instances are equivalent. They clearly aren't equivalent because we can't use them in the same way.

 

[westprog]

Because if there is no actual connection then initializing a second brain with the exact state of the first and turning it "on" is enough to give that second person just as much claim to identity as the first. See the post immediately prior to this one.

So? Nobody AFAIAA has claimed that the person at either end is more or less of a person than the other one. The issue is whether they are the same person, in some way. If they are the same person then they don't have a claim to identity.

 

[westprog]

But the teleported body has just as much of this connection as "recreation from memory" as the original body does. So why is it somehow a different person?

It seems arbitrary to me. If both bodies have the same connection to the past identity of the person, then why can't we say the teleported person is actually the original, and the body at the source just becomes the new instance? Or why can't we say the original person is just destroyed and both bodies are new instances?

Why can't we say that every planck time we are destroyed and replaced with a new instance that is initialized with the memory of the previous one? Would that not be an existence indistinguishable from the one we lead now?

It doesn't particularly matter which is the original - though that might well be a legal and practical consideration. What matters is that we now have two people where previously we had one.

This shouldn't be impossible to deal with. That's how human beings come into existence at the moment.

 

[blobru]

This is an interesting position. You are saying that my subjective experience of myself is in fact not what makes me conscious?

It's what makes consciousness so much fun to talk about, and so tricky. My subjective experience is my consciousness. It "makes me conscious" in the sense that it's proof that I am conscious: that I satisfy a definition (to be "conscious" is to be having subjective experience: "I think, therefore I am"). But what "makes" me conscious in the sense of what causes it is physics, at least according to any physicalist theory of mind (idealists, dualists, etc. may beg to differ, of course).

 

[openingmind]

They wouldn't be the same person.

A human body is not a closed system. The two versions, although anatomically identical and possessing the same personality, from the moment of transport would exist in two different environments which would shape them -- even if subtly -- in different ways.

Here's a thread I have going with similar questions:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187297

What is a person? That's one big question here. One answer is: A person, in addition to mass of particles, is an experience of those particles.

I find it highly likely that after the time of transport, the two versions would begin having different thoughts and feelings. The content of their consciousnesses might be very similar, but I very much doubt that the content would be exactly the same.

What is a self (in other than gross particle terms) if it isn't what we think and feel? The two versions would be having different thoughts and feelings and would therefore be different selves.

The Transporter Enigma is disturbing to us because, if such a thing happened, the differences wouldn't be apparent at a glance or even with cursory investigation. We would have two humans that (might) seem no different to us than two ants, but whatever the consciousness of an ant is, it's mostly certainly different from ant to ant. Ants probably have nothing at all resembling a human thought, but they have perceptions that they react to. To us, if we drop a bit of cookie on sidewalk, all the ants reactions to it are "the same," but are they?

We can debate whether the differences among the ants' reactions, even if accessible to us, are meaningful; but the differences between two human duplicates would definitely be meaningful to them whether we could see them or not.

 

[Chris L]

But the teleported body has just as much of this connection as "recreation from memory" as the original body does. So why is it somehow a different person?

He or she is made up of different atoms and exist in a different location. Think of it in terms of creating a perfect clone, right down to the memories. Both people think of themselves that person. Both would be totally convinced of their identity as that person. That doesn't make them the same person.

The person stepping into the transporter does indeed cease to exist. He or she is killed. A copy (or clone) of that person is created at a distant location and the outside world (again, because it moves the story along) treats the duplicate as the same person. That doesn't mean they really are.

 

[westprog]

He or she is made up of different atoms and exist in a different location. Think of it in terms of creating a perfect clone, right down to the memories. Both people think of themselves that person. Both would be totally convinced of their identity as that person. That doesn't make them the same person.

The person stepping into the transporter does indeed cease to exist. He or she is killed. A copy (or clone) of that person is created at a distant location and the outside world (again, because it moves the story along) treats the duplicate as the same person. That doesn't mean they really are.

I don't really care about the issue of who is the real person. The important issue is that if there's a person at each end, there are two people.

 

[rocketdodger]

He or she is made up of different atoms and exist in a different location. Think of it in terms of creating a perfect clone, right down to the memories. Both people think of themselves that person. Both would be totally convinced of their identity as that person. That doesn't make them the same person.

The person stepping into the transporter does indeed cease to exist. He or she is killed. A copy (or clone) of that person is created at a distant location and the outside world (again, because it moves the story along) treats the duplicate as the same person. That doesn't mean they really are.

Why are the atoms, and the location, important? You just stated that the only actual connection with your past self is through memory. If the memory is retained, why does anything else matter?

 

[rocketdodger]

I don't really care about the issue of who is the real person. The important issue is that if there's a person at each end, there are two people.

Really?

I thought the issue was the idea that if you destroy the "original" in the instant of teleportation that the personhood of the "original" is also destroyed.

If the real person can arbitrarily be the "copy," then what is the issue with destroying the "original" ?

 

[westprog]

Really?

I thought the issue was the idea that if you destroy the "original" in the instant of teleportation that the personhood of the "original" is also destroyed.

If the real person can arbitrarily be the "copy," then what is the issue with destroying the "original" ?

I already said - I don't consider the question of which is the original and which the copy as being particularly interesting. There are two people. If you destroy one of them, a person has been killed.

 

[bencg]

But we *do* think of them as the same instance in the split second that the second system is initialized with the history of the first.

Think about it. You have instance A running for a time. You pause execution. You initialize a second computer with all the memory of the first. Then you unpause execution on the first and begin execution on the second. For that first instant, before the programs have even begun to run, are they not conceptually the same instance? Is the initial memory of the second system not still the deterministic result of the first system's partial run?

That is what I am getting at -- if you are a system, and your memory is the deterministic result of the running of some other system, then as a system are you not somehow an extenstion, rather than a copy, of that other one?

No.

When we copy the software the copies are clearly *not* linked in any way. You can say if you want that they are conceptually the same, and we might agree on that if that means they are identical; but they are 2 seperate instances.

 

[bencg]

But the teleported body has just as much of this connection as "recreation from memory" as the original body does. So why is it somehow a different person?

It seems arbitrary to me. If both bodies have the same connection to the past identity of the person, then why can't we say the teleported person is actually the original, and the body at the source just becomes the new instance? Or why can't we say the original person is just destroyed and both bodies are new instances?

Because it seems obvious that there is a big difference between one person continuing to exist compared to cloning that person and killing the original, even if the clone thinks it is the original! Now I'll agree that from a 3rd party POV there might be no difference, and an unknowing clone would also not be able to tell, but from the point of view of the guy who gets killed there is a difference.

Why can't we say that every planck time we are destroyed and replaced with a new instance that is initialized with the memory of the previous one? Would that not be an existence indistinguishable from the one we lead now?

This is what I meant by you conflabulating the philosophical position. You can say this, and its true in itself, but it would only be indistinguishable to reality because the mechanism would be hidden from us. If this were actually somehow true then it would mean you are being killed every planck time, the fact that the new you is unaware of this would be disturbing but the new you is still a different instance, even in the event that no-one could tell.

 

[bencg]

I already said - I don't consider the question of which is the original and which the copy as being particularly interesting. There are two people. If you destroy one of them, a person has been killed.

Exactly, musings about identity aside this is pretty simple really.

 

[westprog]

Exactly, musings about identity aside this is pretty simple really.

You have to go into all kinds of convoluted mystical weirdness in order to even start to think that two people miles apart are actually the same person.

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

He or she is made up of different atoms and exist in a different location. Think of it in terms of creating a perfect clone, right down to the memories. Both people think of themselves that person. Both would be totally convinced of their identity as that person. That doesn't make them the same person.

The person stepping into the transporter does indeed cease to exist. He or she is killed. A copy (or clone) of that person is created at a distant location and the outside world (again, because it moves the story along) treats the duplicate as the same person. That doesn't mean they really are.

Why does a transformation into a different form of energy/matter/information constitute end of existence?

 

[Bill Thompson 75]

But the teleported body has just as much of this connection as "recreation from memory" as the original body does. So why is it somehow a different person?

It seems arbitrary to me. If both bodies have the same connection to the past identity of the person, then why can't we say the teleported person is actually the original, and the body at the source just becomes the new instance? Or why can't we say the original person is just destroyed and both bodies are new instances?

Why can't we say that every planck time we are destroyed and replaced with a new instance that is initialized with the memory of the previous one? Would that not be an existence indistinguishable from the one we lead now?

How could a multi-step process occur in a single unit of planck time?