Stupid teleportation topic.

[Dilb]

Seems to me that you have to keep making up new definitions in order to support your notion of "person." In this case, your definitions are assuming change over time, which is exactly as zaayr has been saying all along.

I've been maintaining the same definition this entire time. I've tried restating it in half a dozen ways, none of which you seem to understand.

But of course you cannot make the assumption that they can both be read since they exist at different locations (one might be orbitting Saturn). You previously claimed that if we cannot tell the two people apart then they have the same value to the world and therefore must be considered the same person. If you're going to claim that a person is defined by his or her value to other people, then you must admit that two identical people at different locations are different, just as two identical CD's can have different value.

All of which says that in the future, they will have differnt values, which is entirely consistant with what I've been saying. The future is not now, no matter how much you'd like to think that they are necessarily connected.

At the moment of duplication, however, there is no appreciable difference in value. With our perfect duplicator, there is no cost of making a copy, right then (assuming the teleporter is free, etc etc I don't want to get into economics).

Really? Then I have a bridge to sell you (of course, it happens to be orbitting Saturn)...

As soon as the bridge becomes a medium for information, and you deliver it such that I can read the information as well as any other bridge, yes, I'd take it. Such is the shorthand I used when talking about information, and I suppose I should have clairified that.

Again, back to comparing existing human beings with non-existant human beings. We've already discussed why this is a poor analogy. If you keep insisting on coming back to it, we might think that you're desperate to make a point.

What was your reason, besides "I see a difference in this sack of flesh compared to that much smaller sack of flesh (say, a zygote)"? More importantly, how does this person suddenly gain the right for a future we can only speculate about?

A person is different from another person who might currently be completely identical aside from location because one might commit crimes in the future and the other might not. More valuable? Perhaps not. Different? Absolutely. The same person? Absolutely not.

-Bri

So in the future, we can agree they are different. Unless you can honestly claim that if they were switched by a godlike being in a instant, they would have differences (and despite your claims, thought experiments don't have to be possible to be useful in making a point), then I say they are the same person. I can say with very good certainty they will experince different influences, and will diverge into two people, each with their own value, but I still do not see them as unique people at that instant. Otherwise I might as well claim electrons are different because this electron is bound in a molecule while this electron is in a metal. I know they will act differently due to outside influences, but I say they are the same because they have no inheirent difference which means I can distinguish between them.

 

[Dilb]

It is not the history of their atoms; it is the continuity of their histories, as patterned as a person.

Which means when presented with two people at some point in time, the difference between them is the history of their atoms. If you can give me a compelling reason to not define a person by their material, but instead as a nebulous "continuity of their histories, limited only to the atoms in their body, as opposed to any other medium".

I say continuity can exist in other mediums, unless you mean to claim that their personal atoms are the only things which can form a person. Which makes no sense, because atoms are not special.

I think we all can agree that there are emergent properties to material things that supercede the properties of their components; for example, an electron has no color, nor do protons nor neutrons; yet atoms and molecules have some color reactivity, do they not?

Depending on your definition of colour, I could make the case that electrons are black reasonably well, or the same colour as a blackbody for a collection of them.

A table is nothing but atoms, yet from this precise pattern and arrangement we gain a new thing, a 'table'. So a person is both its atoms and the patterns that make up those atoms

Certainly

, and necessarily, the continuity (history) of the patterns of atoms.

I don't follow.

Not the history of the atoms themselves.

There's nothing else there. "History", as a tangible thing to affect another tangible thing "person" is either non-material or not something that I can agree should ever be part of the definition of something.

Otherwise, without recognizing continuity as part and parcel of personhood, we are free to undertake any endeavor with no moral quivocation whatsoever, since (by what you said above) we are nothing more than a series of related peoples.

Moral arguments are a horrible reason to justify a definition. What is correct is what should be asked. If we wish to maintain responsibility, there is nothing stopping us from admitting that though a "person-now" is different from the "person-before", the continuous link between these different people is enough to justify responsibility, and the use of a slightly less specific "person" term, meaning the full continuous collection of persons linked to each other through time.

Without recognizing the continuity of the person, we would be free (in theory) to deny responsibility for any past action, on the grounds that this was some different person.

And without God, people would have no reason to be moral. It could be true, but in the interest of shear practicality, if nothing else, it would be agreed otherwise. Money certainly isn't anything of actual value, it's just paper, or electric signals in a computer somewhere. The fact that something is not really valuable does not mean that money is actually worthless. The fact that people are not the same does not mean that we will abandon the concept of responsibility.

I notice you're still employing an error in thought, in spite of the correction offered earlier: the idea that person A and person B both 'split from' past person - and as demonstrated earlier, that thinking is incorrect.

Saying "you're wrong" is not a demonstration. My definition of a person does not assume that a person is chained to their atoms, which I feel adds nothing to a person, and shouldn't be in the definition.

 

[Z]

Dilb, simply stated, your definition of 'person' is erroneous.

If a person is not 'chained to their atoms', then what you are supposing is that 'person' is not a material thing. Thus, a dualist definition of 'person'.

Further, your definition of 'person' rests upon the axiom that only a third-person observation of 'person' is required when identifying a 'person', which in turn implies that any individual instances of 'person' which are not readily identifiable, given the tools available, as different must be the same. This would mean that genetically identical twins must necessarily be the same person as well, provided their development has not resulted in significant and detectable divergence. It denies the first-person aspect of 'person' as used by myself and others, the historical perspective of personhood, and any non-observable divergence which may occur, as well as simple spacetime issues of individuality. Such a definition, for example, might lead you to deny that someone is not the same person in spite of a major apparent change of memory and personality; after all, if the change is on a level not detectable by your current abilities, to you they must be the same person. I'm afraid your definition is also too over-simplified to apply to reality; nor is your strawman of 'history of atoms' sufficiently complex, either.

At any rate, whatever definition you choose to supply, the fact remains that two distinct individuals exist after duplication; one is the same individual as has existed prior to duplication, and the other is not. Both may share all the same mental processes; but they still would not be the same person, just as two atoms sharing all the same properties are not the same atom. For example, if we have two hydrogen atoms and two oxygen atoms, we cannot claim they are the same oxygen atom, or else we could claim complete binding of all atoms once on of them binds, in spite of the fact the second does not. Of course, you would then claim they are two different atoms; but if the one splits off again you would claim they were the same atom again. This makes the concept of same-ness meaningless and irrelevant, actually.

None of this, of course, addresses the curious fact that some part of a human being remains unchanged throughout the life of the being...

 

[Bri]

I've been maintaining the same definition this entire time. I've tried restating it in half a dozen ways, none of which you seem to understand.

Well, I'm fairly sure that I do understand your explanations, but I don't agree with them. They require you to keep adding new qualifiers to your definitions in order to account for each new scenario presented to you. At one time you claimed that only the information is important, not the physical being, and that two identical pieces of information are both the same regardless of how that information is stored. By that definition, a CD-ROM containing information about the configuration of all of your atoms at any given point in time would be YOU. Furthermore, from that point after the CD-ROM would be as much you as you are, and would therefore have equal rights to your job, your wife, your kids, and your life. You then had to add the stipulation that the CD-ROM doesn't count as a "person" because it isn't changing over time. Of course, a definition of a person changing over time is zaayr's definition, not yours. You'll also have to add a new stipulation to explain why the CD-ROM isn't a person if a single bit of information is changed back and forth from a 0 to a 1 several times each second. It is now changing, so does it now have exactly the same rights to your life that you have?

All of which says that in the future, they will have differnt values, which is entirely consistant with what I've been saying. The future is not now, no matter how much you'd like to think that they are necessarily connected.

We often attribute value to the future of something. An example are the CD's we were talking about. The one orbitting Saturn, although exactly the same in every way isn't as useful to you as the one in your hand. Only one of their futures can involve you listening to the music contained on it, even though they are exactly the same and will always be exactly the same except for their location. So why do you place different values on them? Because of the differences in their potential futures. Unless you want to claim that you'd honestly pay the same price for a CD that is orbitting Saturn as you would for one that you actually have the chance of listening to.

What was your reason, besides "I see a difference in this sack of flesh compared to that much smaller sack of flesh (say, a zygote)"?

We aren't talking about zygotes here. We're talking about a person that hasn't been conceived yet, and therefore doesn't exist at all. There is a significant difference between a person who doesn't exist and a person who does, and I'm afraid that if you cannot see any difference then we are indeed at an impasse. I suspect that you know the difference.

More importantly, how does this person suddenly gain the right for a future we can only speculate about?

Don't we do this all the time? Isn't murder a crime? Would it be reasonable to kill a baby and then say "I shouldn't be punished because the baby hasn't done anything important yet, so no big loss to the world." Of course we place value on people's future contributions, and people always have a right to their future especially since we can only speculate about it! In fact, in some countries only in severe cases where we can say with some certainty what a person's future will be can we legally allow them to die.

So in the future, we can agree they are different. Unless you can honestly claim that if they were switched by a godlike being in a instant, they would have differences (and despite your claims, thought experiments don't have to be possible to be useful in making a point), then I say they are the same person.

Again, you'll have to tell me why if a godlike being were to switch two identical twins and we were unable to no longer correctly identify them that they would cease to be separate people. I don't see the connection you're attempting to make here. Switching two people may make them unidentifiable, but doesn't make them indistinguishable. As long as they exist in different locations, we can always distinguish between the two, even if we cannot identify which is which. After they are switched, as before, they have different futures and therefore different future contributions to the world.

Of course, we are also ignoring the more important issue of whether they consider themselves to be two separate people, which I would imagine wouldn't change after being switched.

I can say with very good certainty they will experince different influences, and will diverge into two people, each with their own value, but I still do not see them as unique people at that instant.

You don't even see them as unique people after they diverge? In the past, you admitted that they were indeed unique people after divergence, but you held that both had equal rights to the life claimed by the original before duplication.

Otherwise I might as well claim electrons are different because this electron is bound in a molecule while this electron is in a metal. I know they will act differently due to outside influences, but I say they are the same because they have no inheirent difference which means I can distinguish between them.

You can always distinguish between two identical objects. If you can't, then I'll sell you that CD that is orbitting Saturn right now, and I'll sell it to you for a bargain!

-Bri

 

[Dilb]

Well, I'm fairly sure that I do understand your explanations, but I don't agree with them. They require you to keep adding new qualifiers to your definitions in order to account for each new scenario presented to you. At one time you claimed that only the information is important, not the physical being, and that two identical pieces of information are both the same regardless of how that information is stored.

By that I was assuming the information could be accessed, and in a timely matter. Practicality rarely comes up in philosophical discussions.

By that definition, a CD-ROM containing information about the configuration of all of your atoms at any given point in time would be YOU.

I will agree that if I am turned into a cd-rom, and can regain conciousness either in a new body or by some computer simulation, I want that cd-rom to be considered me.

Furthermore, from that point after the CD-ROM would be as much you as you are, and would therefore have equal rights to your job, your wife, your kids, and your life. You then had to add the stipulation that the CD-ROM doesn't count as a "person" because it isn't changing over time.

I do count it as a person. It's just a very odd sort of person, who is only me from the past, and not active, thus not diverging. It hasn't diverged, so I don't feel it uniquely has the right to live, but it rather an iteration of me.

Of course, a definition of a person changing over time is zaayr's definition, not yours. You'll also have to add a new stipulation to explain why the CD-ROM isn't a person if a single bit of information is changed back and forth from a 0 to a 1 several times each second. It is now changing, so does it now have exactly the same rights to your life that you have?

At which point we have to discuss the mechanics of being a person, and I really don't know how to quantify that. Here's a guess:

Changes in a cd would not be part of the developement of a conciousness as it reacts and responds to its environment, but simple physical changes. The difference between a "simple physical change" and a "concious reaction" is not a clearly marked line, any more than the line when a fetus becomes a person.

We often attribute value to the future of something.

Only when we can accurately predict it.

An example are the CD's we were talking about. The one orbitting Saturn, although exactly the same in every way isn't as useful to you as the one in your hand. Only one of their futures can involve you listening to the music contained on it, even though they are exactly the same and will always be exactly the same except for their location. So why do you place different values on them? Because of the differences in their potential futures. Unless you want to claim that you'd honestly pay the same price for a CD that is orbitting Saturn as you would for one that you actually have the chance of listening to.

No, it's because when we get into cases like this, the practicalities do matter. I would pay the same price to have either of them delivered to me, is what I meant.

We aren't talking about zygotes here. We're talking about a person that hasn't been conceived yet, and therefore doesn't exist at all. There is a significant difference between a person who doesn't exist and a person who does, and I'm afraid that if you cannot see any difference then we are indeed at an impasse. I suspect that you know the difference.

I know the difference, I have a different definition of "person" than you. If you want to believe that every iteration of a person has the right to life, that's an acceptable position, and not one that I think I have a truely compelling arguement against.

Don't we do this all the time? Isn't murder a crime? Would it be reasonable to kill a baby and then say "I shouldn't be punished because the baby hasn't done anything important yet, so no big loss to the world."

Disgustingly, I do have difficulty giving a good arguement for that sort of case. But ethics is not my forte. If pressed, I'd say something about "emotional attachement".

Of course we place value on people's future contributions, and people always have a right to their future especially since we can only speculate about it! In fact, in some countries only in severe cases where we can say with some certainty what a person's future will be can we legally allow them to die.

Again, you'll have to tell me why if a godlike being were to switch two identical twins and we were unable to no longer correctly identify them that they would cease to be separate people.

Because if we can't correctly identify them, we have to admit that no difference exists, purely in the person, at that moment. Otherwise we then require that by definition a person be at a particular location, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I think what we mean by "person" does not need to include everything about the body they are in, including their location.

don't see the connection you're attempting to make here. Switching two people may make them unidentifiable, but doesn't make them indistinguishable.

I think that if they are unidentifyable, then we have to admit that "original" and "clone" do not actually mean anything about the person, but are instead observations about the history of the atoms. This history can be used, but it wouldn't be a part of the person's body, rather it's stored in something else. They are "indistinguishable" assuming a godlike being is moving them around on us. Alternatively, it means there is no practical difference between the godlike being actually teleporting the "original", or having the "clone" at the destination.

Of course, we are also ignoring the more important issue of whether they consider themselves to be two separate people, which I would imagine wouldn't change after being switched.

I agree they would see themselves as different for any time afterwards. The question is, like zaayrdragon and I are arguing about, would they see themselves as different in the past?

You don't even see them as unique people after they diverge?

That's poor phrasing on my part. I meant I don't see them as different at the moment of duplication, only afterwards.

 

[Dilb]

Dilb, simply stated, your definition of 'person' is erroneous.

If a person is not 'chained to their atoms', then what you are supposing is that 'person' is not a material thing. Thus, a dualist definition of 'person'.

No, I say they can be in anything. A person can exist in different mediums, or as different iterations. You insist that only the original atoms can contain the person.

If you have the original and a clone in a room, the only difference between them is their location, which I think is unrelated to what a person is, and the history of their atoms. You claim that the history definitly means that one is the original and the other just a clone. Despite the fact that it is possible for that information to be lost, and despite the fact that everything the person needs to be themselves in right there in that room, you claim it makes a real difference.

Further, your definition of 'person' rests upon the axiom that only a third-person observation of 'person' is required when identifying a 'person', which in turn implies that any individual instances of 'person' which are not readily identifiable, given the tools available, as different must be the same.

Yeah, that's how I go about most things. I can't tell the difference, and I have no compelling reason to assume a difference exists, I assume they're the same.

This would mean that genetically identical twins must necessarily be the same person as well, provided their development has not resulted in significant and detectable divergence.

True. I don't see much of a difference between that blastocyst and this blastocyst. For two identical people who show up with amnesia, I do have compelling reason to suspect a difference exists, becaues we don't have perfect duplicators, and even if we did we also have identical twins who could get amnesia.

It denies the first-person aspect of 'person' as used by myself and others, the historical perspective of personhood, and any non-observable divergence which may occur, as well as simple spacetime issues of individuality.

None of which bother me.

Such a definition, for example, might lead you to deny that someone is not the same person in spite of a major apparent change of memory and personality; after all, if the change is on a level not detectable by your current abilities, to you they must be the same person. I'm afraid your definition is also too over-simplified to apply to reality; nor is your strawman of 'history of atoms' sufficiently complex, either.

If it's an aparent change in personality, it's pretty observable, isn't it? My current abilities are not limited to just "we this x-ray looks the same, I guess".

At any rate, whatever definition you choose to supply, the fact remains that two distinct individuals exist after duplication; one is the same individual as has existed prior to duplication, and the other is not.

One has the same atoms, one doesn't. I do not see the necessary link between "atom history" and "person".

Both may share all the same mental processes; but they still would not be the same person, just as two atoms sharing all the same properties are not the same atom. For example, if we have two hydrogen atoms and two oxygen atoms, we cannot claim they are the same oxygen atom, or else we could claim complete binding of all atoms once on of them binds, in spite of the fact the second does not. Of course, you would then claim they are two different atoms; but if the one splits off again you would claim they were the same atom again. This makes the concept of same-ness meaningless and irrelevant, actually.

I'd claim that hydrogen atoms are identical and interchangable, actually. I'd hardly claim there is only one hydrogen atoms. But just like all hydrogen-1 atoms have the same behaviour to any test, and thus are both hydrogen, the original and clone would have the same behaviour to any test, thus I think they are the same person.

None of this, of course, addresses the curious fact that some part of a human being remains unchanged throughout the life of the being...

Do you really want to claim that a "person" is stored in neurons in the brain? And are you sure atoms aren't changed in the cells? Membranes, proteins, DNA; all break, are repaired, are replaced.

 

[Bri]

I know the difference, I have a different definition of "person" than you. If you want to believe that every iteration of a person has the right to life, that's an acceptable position, and not one that I think I have a truely compelling arguement against.

I think therein lies the crux of the argument. Each "iteration" (as you call it) has a right to live. Why? The same reason a newborn baby has a right to live. The same reason that we can't kill one twin, even if we cannot identify which is which. Because their potential futures have value to us, and each different potential future has additional (though possibly equal) value to us.

Disgustingly, I do have difficulty giving a good arguement for that sort of case. But ethics is not my forte. If pressed, I'd say something about "emotional attachement".

As a human being, you know that murder is inethical because a baby's potential holds value to us. You cannot therefore argue that two otherwise identical people with different potential futures hold the same value as only one of them. They certainly don't to the people in question. Two identical people have two separate (though identical) consciousnesses rather than sharing the same consciousness.

So, I'm just not certain I see why you feel the need to use a different word "iteration" instead of "person." The only reason to hold onto such a definition is to insist that two "iterations" both must have equal rights to the life of the original (as if the original split by cell division rather than being copied). The only difference between your definitions of "iteration" and "person" is that iterations once shared the same configuration of atoms. It seems to me that this definition assumes the same knowledge of "history" that zaayr has been asserting and you've been trying to avoid.

-Bri

 

[Z]

I see the problem with the Dilb-person is that he's attempting to discuss two similar things, not the singular thing. He's suggesting that 'person' is a categorical label which, under all NORMAL circumstances, would refer to any unique individual; but which, for some reason, would no longer apply if a perfect copy existed of said individual (the unique aspect, that is). It's like he's removing the term 'copy', 'clone', or 'duplicate' and trying to replace these with a broad-based, slanted version of 'person' in order to support the notion that two of the same pattern of being ARE the same being. After all, what he's as much as said above is that person A and person B are THE same person... in other words, we have one person (in two iterations). Yet above, he mentions that he wouldn't say we have one atom, just two atoms of the same kind. So why not two persons of the same kind? One of whom is the original and one of whom is the duplicate? And what possible materialist explanation could cover the concept that individual (or instance, or iteration) A would become aware of existence via the senses and cognition of individual B? And if that's NOT what's being suggested, how can we suppose that individual A IS individual B?

In fact, the two cannot be synonymous for the simple reason that an event that affects one does in no way affect the other. Dilb would suggest that this instance causes A and B to be no longer the same person... we ALL agree with that, of course. But he refuses to admit WHICH person is affected by the event - him, or a duplicate of him? In point of fact, if you are in a room, and secretly duplicated, and everything remains identical until someone walks into the clone's room stark naked, you would never experience that event. Only the duplicate would - and you are not that duplicate. The two of you may have been the exact same type of person up until divergence, but you would not experience the event that caused divergence, in this example. Further, unless you were to go to GREAT lengths to prevent discovery, at some point the original is going to discover something that tells him he is still on Earth, just as the duplicate is going to discover something that tells him he is on Mars, and at this point each one will have verification of their status (clone or original).

It's just a fact... unless you can demonstrate how to move your personal, private cognition from one mass of atoms to another, with no deceptions like destroying the original mass, etc, you cannot convince an absolute physicalist that duplication would equal teleportation.

As it is, I'm with Ian on the subject in the much broader sense, that a duplicator could never duplicate the immaterial soul (assuming, of course, that souls are immaterial things), and would thus be impossible anyway.

BTW - about brain atoms, no- most atoms in the human brain are not replaced. Brain cell repair happens far more rarely than you seem to think, and the normal cycle of material usage (of feeding & excreting) doesn't touch on large sections of the neuron. Granted, I've never seen a comprehensive life-long study of the atomic structure of every single neuron, but the present research does suggest that large areas of the brain remain almost unchanged over long periods of time - and that the cells themselves are never completely replaced in most of the brain, for the entire lifetime of the human.

So some of those atoms in your brain were there when you first started being you... who's to say that 'whatever it is that you are' isn't locked up in some pattern of those particular atoms?