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Old 12-08-2003, 02:35 AM   #1 (permalink)
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Teleportation

I stole this...

You are going to be teleported to Mars. You will step into a scanner here on earth which will destroy your brain and body, while recording the exact states of all your cells. This information will then be transmitted to a replicator on Mars. Travelling at the speed of light, the message will take three minutes to reach its destination. The replicator will create, out of new matter, a brain and body exactly like yours. The person on Mars will look like you, think like you, in fact be indistinguishable from you. He or she will certainly feel as though they have merely fallen asleep on Earth and then woken up on Mars. This method is 100 per cent reliable.

Question is do you still exist?
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Old 12-08-2003, 03:09 AM   #2 (permalink)
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I say yes, for a number of reasons.

The most basic is that I'm constantly exchanging matter with my environment -- I'd guess that there are very few atoms in my body that were there (and certainly not in the same place) a few years ago.

Does that mean I become someone new every few years? Of course not.

Another line of reasoning is that there is absolutely no difference between a basic particle here and a basic particle taken from somewhere else -- they have no memory. If I took a book and copied it, the letters in the copy would have different origin but would be the same letters -- the story would continue to exist in its original form.
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Old 12-08-2003, 03:33 AM   #3 (permalink)
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The very point in this is that the brain and states of all your cells are the same.

Your essence is not the matter that makes you up, it is you that makes up the matter.

I'm sure that we all came from many different places, and are made up of water from the Pacific, Carbon from a dead animal, or its feces, and all other sorts of elements.
That doesnt make us who we are.

The very thing that separates us from a complicated rock or goo of bio-matter is that we have experience, and we have purpost (arguable, yes, but I will assume an animal purpose solely of procreation and survival for this example).

Somehow, I think I made my point, although I've just lost mental momentum, so I'll stop now.
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Old 12-08-2003, 04:34 AM   #4 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally posted by John Henry
I stole this...

You are going to be teleported to Mars. You will step into a scanner here on earth which will destroy your brain and body, while recording the exact states of all your cells. This information will then be transmitted to a replicator on Mars. Travelling at the speed of light, the message will take three minutes to reach its destination. The replicator will create, out of new matter, a brain and body exactly like yours. The person on Mars will look like you, think like you, in fact be indistinguishable from you. He or she will certainly feel as though they have merely fallen asleep on Earth and then woken up on Mars. This method is 100 per cent reliable.

Question is do you still exist?
Oh, man! I've been thinking about this on and off as far back as I can remember.

I don't really have an answer. I suppose scientifically I believe that mind and body are the same thing, so if your body were copied, so too would be your mind.

Which raises the question: what if you could be cloned instantly? What happens to your consciousness?
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Old 12-08-2003, 05:36 AM   #5 (permalink)
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Okay. Interesting answers so far.
So if they make a copy of you on Mars and destroy the one on Earth, the one on Mars is you.

Fair enough.


Now let me rephrase Sledge's question:

What if they copied you in the same way, but this time, they didn't destroy the original?

Would you both be you?
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Old 12-08-2003, 08:42 AM   #6 (permalink)
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This is actually a long standing controversy in the philosophical world. The question, while likely to predate him, really became interesting when Des Cartes came out with his whole 'Cogito ergo sum' theory. In the Cartesian frame of reference, its easy to prove that you exist and are you so long as you keep thinking. However, if you stop thinking, even for a second, there is no guarantee that the person who starts thinking again is the person who was thinking before. So, physically, unless you plan on stepping intact through a wormhole as your teleportation, you are going to have a finite amount of transit time in your discombulated form. So, if you want to define thought as being a purely physical process, you have a bit of a problem, because your neurons are most assuredly not able to transmit their electrochemical impulses when separated.

The real problem is not the definition of thought but the definition of identity. This is what I mean: logically speaking, you can't ask what if questions about identity. In the world of logic, we can create an infinite number of possible combinations of the state of the universe (as a logical space not a physical space). So it is natural to ask, is there a link between yourself in this universe and all the other possible universes. In other words, if you were of the opposite gender would you still be you, or if you had a different color of hair would you still be you, or if you were taller or had a different favorite color, and on and on. There are two problems of note here. One, in logic, x=x is a tautology, meaning it is always true, but the question we are asking is what if x!=x, which makes no sense because it can't happen. On a more tangible level, the problem is that for any difference that you may have with bizarro you will express itself physically sooner or later, and after that point you and bizarro you will be accruing different memories, which is what most people associate with their identity. So, basically, if you want to talk about YOU in a non-physical way you have to pretty much admit that you can't really define what makes you you.

Peace be with you
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Old 12-08-2003, 11:16 AM   #7 (permalink)
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I love this dilemma.

I believe tha base of the dilemma is the soul. In this case one can define a “soul” as a part of our identity which science may not understand and therefore not replicate. This is what people fear.

I would say that oneself = the mind.

Therefore if the mind is perfectly replicated along with memories, personality and soul (if one exists) then the person remain the same.

The body is not important. The person will change based on the new point of reference i.e. the being without a body or in a new body. But it can be argued that we always change because our point of reference always changes. This change of bodies happens naturally as we age. One certainly can’t say that the past self is the same as the present self. There is a part of the past self in the present self but the whole is not exactly the same.

Does the person die? Yes they cease to exist, but that doesn’t matter. People have near death experiences and no one would doubt that they are not the same person. One could point out that their mind continues functioning in a near death experience. This is not important because if one was replicated the mind would simply pause.

If the original person does not get destroyed then there would two very similar people. There would not be two identical people, as their experiences would vary from a relative point of reference beginning the moment the clone was created. The same way twins, while looking the same are two totally different people even if they mimic each other in every way, because their frame of reference is different and their thoughts vary even more.

We can bring up this same dilemma without destroying the body. The same question could be applied to a person in a state of suspended animation. Suppose one’s molecular functions are frozen somehow. Even though the body is not destroyed the mind is not functioning. I don’t think that any one of us would argue that we would still be the same person once we are animated again.

I hope I expressed myself clearly enough.

Cheers.
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Old 12-08-2003, 12:17 PM   #8 (permalink)
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I would say that I would still exist, because what would be important to me in making that decision is that I still perceive in the same way in which I did on Earth. My body may be destroyed and rebuilt 'archetype' of sorts, but the critical definition of existance for me is perception. Of course, if perception defines existance, does someone who does not perceive truly exist? Sure they do, but they don't know that.

Complicated question indeed!
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Old 12-08-2003, 02:08 PM   #9 (permalink)
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I don’t think that any one of us would argue that we would still be the same person once we are animated again
For sanity's sake, true. However, philosphers tend to toe that line and often cross it. Wittgenstein comes to mind.
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Old 12-08-2003, 03:30 PM   #10 (permalink)
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Here cloney cloney cloney... dats my little clone.. your so cute... AHHHH it fricken bit me!!!!!!
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Old 12-08-2003, 04:19 PM   #11 (permalink)
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Do I believe that it will be *me* stepping out of the teleporter on mars?
No, but then again, I don't believe that it will be *me* who will finish this sentance!
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Old 12-08-2003, 04:40 PM   #12 (permalink)
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anything and everything never "stops" existing.
 
Old 12-08-2003, 06:15 PM   #13 (permalink)
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I believe it was einstein that said, to find the solution to a problem, you cannot look for the answer on the same level.

The reason I bring that up, because if you try to answer this question in the way it was asked, then yes YOU will exist on a physical scale,...but to look deeper, on another level, your SOUL does not exist anymore.

Now with that said...there is no life without a soul, so what would appear on mars would be a lifeless body.
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Old 12-08-2003, 07:13 PM   #14 (permalink)
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No, but then again, I don't believe that it will be *me* who will finish this sentance!
Amen, brother.
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Old 12-09-2003, 02:31 AM   #15 (permalink)
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Originally posted by CS733t
Now with that said...there is no life without a soul, so what would appear on mars would be a lifeless body.
Wouldn't that mean that bacteria, plants, funghi etc. were all dead?

Surely the soul is just a hypothetical, metaphysical entity, which is mistakenly extrapolated from the behaviour of sentient, physical beings.

That is to say that, when something dies, the behaviour we mistakenly ascribe to its soul (fallacy no. 1) stops, so we assume this means the soul has left it (fallacy no. 2).

You've then made the assumption that the soul is something non-physical (fallacy no. 3?) and would therefore not be replicated when the physical being was reconstructed, which would somehow leave the body dead.

IMHO that's a bit tenous.
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Old 12-09-2003, 05:57 AM   #16 (permalink)
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Seems to me that both of you would be you in the instant of animation, But would change with every experience and become different personas' within moments as they followed individual paths. Both alive and kicking, sure would be interesting to ask yourself"how do you feel".
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Old 12-09-2003, 07:57 AM   #17 (permalink)
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I've been thinking about that for a while, and I'm not sure I'd be up for that. I believe that, whether you're talking about the destruction and replication of the body or downloading your brain onto a computer, consciousness is what you have. For example, if, as you got die, you had cloned another body, then had your brain "downloaded" into the new body, which would pick up where you left off, you would still be no more immortal than any other figure in history. Sure, the legacy of you as a person would continue, and your brain + a new body might behave and think exactly as you have, but your consciousness ends the second your body gets destroyed.
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Old 12-09-2003, 09:21 AM   #18 (permalink)
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This is a semantic argument. The only reason "you" exist is because you have a consciousness attached to your physical state that you identify as self. By that definition, a replication is not you unless it comprised of the same matter and energy. If other matter and energy is used to create a replica then it is not you, even though the new entity may think it is.
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Old 12-09-2003, 10:46 AM   #19 (permalink)
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Re: Teleportation

The replicator will create, out of new matter, a brain and body exactly like yours.


Read the book by David Brin named Kiln People. It deals with a similar issue. In the book you are able to copy yourself into "dittos" that are like you but only last 24 hours. Fascinating book that brings out some of your questioned concepts.
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Old 12-09-2003, 12:07 PM   #20 (permalink)
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A lot of this was dealt with in the continuity of consciousness: an illusion? thread.
Pity the search engine is down!
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Old 12-09-2003, 06:57 PM   #21 (permalink)
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You will not exist. You will be dead. The moment your body is broken down into atoms, whatever is supposed to happen after death is what you will experience, just as if you were to get hit by a truck, or fall out of a tall building.

A copy of you will be created, who will feel as if nothing changed. This copy will pretty much BE you, in every respect - except that YOU are dead, and the copy is not.

Here's a pretty good (IMHO) argument against continuity of consciousness: What if the teleporter was set to "read-only" mode, as in it reads in your atoms, but doesn't actually destroy them? A perfect clone would be recreated. Is that clone you? What if someone then takes a gun and shoots the real you. Has the clone become any more you? Obviously the answer is no.
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