Teleportation

[Just thinking]

I agree. I'm postulating that consiousness, and the concept of self, is an emergent property of the physical layout and electrochemical reactions that take place inside our brains.

I think I understand all the points you've made, and I appreciate your corrections on my misunderstanding of sleep. However, I'm uncertain as to the argument you're making regarding reincarnation. Could you clarifiy that for me? Thanks.

Regarding that sleep issue ... I didn't know the bit about not be unconscious until recently myself, so don't feel bad.

As for the reincarnation bit, perhaps it's a bit different than the religious aspect, but essentially it amounts to living again after dying --- and if a Star Trek style transporter actually disintegrates all of your atoms, I can only see that as dying, since you would be considered dead if you didn't re-integrate, right? So what's the difference if you re-integrate in 5 microseconds or 10,000 years after the disintegration?

 

[Just thinking]

... Now if we destroy the person in a coma, then recreate them distantly and take them out of a coma, the original person never knew they died, but the recreated person believes they're the original, and they've been moved and just woke up.

Let's consider two hypothetical scenarios:

1) A person goes to sleep in a small bedroom --- the walls and ceiling are light blue. While asleep, he is scanned and a duplicate is made in an adjoining room; it's exactly like the original except the walls are light orange. He too is asleep in an identical bed and has never been awake since his very recent creation. An alarm goes off and awakes both subjects up at the same time. To the person who went to sleep in the room with blue walls, what color walls will he see upon awakening?

2) This scenario is almost exactly like the previous one, except that the sleeping person in the blue room is completely disintegrated just before the duplicate is made and placed in the orange room. Now ... again, to the person who went to sleep in the room with blue walls, what color walls will he see upon awakening? Will he even awake?

 

[athon]

Let's consider two hypothetical scenarios:

1) A person goes to sleep in a small bedroom --- the walls and ceiling are light blue. While asleep, he is scanned and a duplicate is made in an adjoining room; it's exactly like the original except the walls are light orange. He too is asleep in an identical bed and has never been awake since his very recent creation. An alarm goes off and awakes both subjects up at the same time. To the person who went to sleep in the room with blue walls, what color walls will he see upon awakening?

2) This scenario is almost exactly like the previous one, except that the sleeping person in the blue room is completely disintegrated just before the duplicate is made and placed in the orange room. Now ... again, to the person who went to sleep in the room with blue walls, what color walls will he see upon awakening? Will he even awake?

I'm not sure where this came from. If they both awoke before, what makes scenario 2 different that the individual should possibly not awaken now?

Athon

 

[TheAnachronism]

Let's consider two hypothetical scenarios:

1) A person goes to sleep in a small bedroom --- the walls and ceiling are light blue. While asleep, he is scanned and a duplicate is made in an adjoining room; it's exactly like the original except the walls are light orange. He too is asleep in an identical bed and has never been awake since his very recent creation. An alarm goes off and awakes both subjects up at the same time. To the person who went to sleep in the room with blue walls, what color walls will he see upon awakening?

2) This scenario is almost exactly like the previous one, except that the sleeping person in the blue room is completely disintegrated just before the duplicate is made and placed in the orange room. Now ... again, to the person who went to sleep in the room with blue walls, what color walls will he see upon awakening? Will he even awake?

If I understand correctly (though I probably don't), you seem to be saying that from that moment on, the two people (original and clone) would continue to exist as two different people for all intensive purposes, because they are exposed to two different environments and/or situations and will thus react differently. The difference in wall color would be a sort of "butterfly effect."

Is that correct?

If so, then the decision to teleport would potentially make us a different person than we would be if we didn't teleport. But I don't understand how that would necessarily differ from our daily lives -- ie if I pick up that glass of orange juice and drink it, will I be a different person than if I didn't?

 

[Phaedrus74]

Let's consider two hypothetical scenarios:

1) A person goes to sleep in a small bedroom --- the walls and ceiling are light blue. While asleep, he is scanned and a duplicate is made in an adjoining room; it's exactly like the original except the walls are light orange. He too is asleep in an identical bed and has never been awake since his very recent creation. An alarm goes off and awakes both subjects up at the same time. To the person who went to sleep in the room with blue walls, what color walls will he see upon awakening?

2) This scenario is almost exactly like the previous one, except that the sleeping person in the blue room is completely disintegrated just before the duplicate is made and placed in the orange room. Now ... again, to the person who went to sleep in the room with blue walls, what color walls will he see upon awakening? Will he even awake?

1) Both persons believe they went to sleep in the tiny blue room. Only because we have the "luxury" of an archimedian position do you get this puzzle. The question is (and I believe it was already raised) is "What constitutes a person?" If you insist on physical identity as a criterium (which is in itself not unproblematic) the person that went to sleep in the blue room wakes up in the blue room.

2) Under those circumstances (physical indentity as criterium for identity of 'personhood') you would also be justified in claiming that that person who went to sleep in the blue room died. You would have a h#ll of a time explaining that to the person waking up in the orange room though.

My personal view is that restricting identity of 'personhood' to physical identity (or the pattern inscribed therein) bypasses the fact that your existence as a person and the continued indentification of you as that person relies not only on the contiguous existence of your physical manifestation, but also on the fact that your 'neighbours' (in the biblical sense ) recognize you as that person.

Returning to your examples:
1) The friends and family of our intrepid person in the blue room are going to be mighty confused about the identity of the person in the orange room (assuming they don't know what has happened).

2) The friends and family of our intrepid person in the blue room are not going to be confused at all about the identity of the person in the orange room (assuming they don't know what has happened).

 

[sol invictus]

So, you've replicated the individual. That person would have the same memories and think 'I am me' just as the other would. As time progressed, each incarnation would experience slightly different observations, and possess divergent memories. They could not be considered to be the same person now.

Why not? Our concept of identity certainly allows for gradual changes like that - otherwise you'd be someone else tomorrow than you are today.

 

[jmontecillo01]

Does a soul exist?

I have been thinking about this for a long time now. I concluded that for every second we live, a part of us die.

That would be the same for teleportation. If we can rearrange molecules to create an exact replica of ourself and our thoughts, then that duplicate is not us anymore. That also means tgat there is no reason why we cannot retain the original.

To say that the new copy is the old one, we would have to assume that soul exists. That that soul is then transferred to the clone leaving the original without thoughts and memories.

 

[tkingdoll]

I teleported home one night
With Ron and Sid and Meg
Ron stole Meggy's heart away
While I got Sidney's leg.




Well, someone had to post it.

 

[CurtC]

This scenario is the one that I've been assembling in my head, as a pretty convincing disproof of the concept of a "soul." The question wouldn't be whether the duplicate person is the same person, but whether that second person is indeed a human with full consciousness. I think anyone with views this side of Interesting Ian's would agree that the second person does indeed have just as much of a soul as the rest of us.

Which would make most people agree that what they think of as a soul is really just an emergent property of an arrangement of atoms. Once you have that agreement, it's pretty hard to think of a way to argue that a soul could survive death.

Combine this with the argument that everything we know of brain science tells us that who we are, is just a property of a physical brain, and I just don't see how someone's concept of a dual soul could survive this chain of logic. On the other hand, I haven't actually tried it out on any non-materialists.

The final step - if there is no separate soul that survives death, then how do you justify Christianity? I think I could at least introduce some serious cognitive dissonance with this.

 

[hammegk]

Idealists are monists, though.

True.

Idealism simply says what happens in our heads is reality, and what happens 'out there' is different and not real.

No, idealism says thought, rather than energy/matter, exists. It says nothing about minds, human or otherwise, although a superficial look at Berkeley might make one "think, so to speak" otherwise.

 

[Jimbo07]

It was an Outer Limits episode called "Think Like a Dinosaur". I can't post links yet, so you will have to Google the title for more info.

Thankee much.

My wife doesn't really like science fiction, but she will take horror in small doses and so she got into watching Outer Limits informally. I remember one episode where a guy joins a religious cult in the woods, but can't get out. It's revealed that the whole colony has been scooped up onto an alien spaceship with no hope of ever returning to Earth.

 

[Big Les]

I was waiting for this one.

So, you've replicated the individual. That person would have the same memories and think 'I am me' just as the other would. As time progressed, each incarnation would experience slightly different observations, and possess divergent memories. They could not be considered to be the same person now.

Sci-fi has this one covered also - Commander Riker's transporter-clone Thomas. They lived separate lives after the accident (naturally enough).

 

[Darat]

Why not? Our concept of identity certainly allows for gradual changes like that - otherwise you'd be someone else tomorrow than you are today.

Strictly speaking we are all "different" people form moment to moment, however there is a continuation from moment to moment.

When you are duplicated the duplicate will start to experience different stimulus from the original so they will start to diverge. Albeit it would probably take a lot of time and lot of differences in the environment they experience before there would be much change in what we consider personality between the two.

 

[Darat]

Anyone wanting to read a good and entertaining novel that explores these types of questions try "Kiln People" by David Brin.

 

[Just thinking]

I'm not sure where this came from. If they both awoke before, what makes scenario 2 different that the individual should possibly not awaken now?

Athon

Please try and be specific with whom you are referring ... when you inquire as to why the individual should not awaken, are you referring to the one who went to sleep in the blue room? ... or the newbie in the orange room? ... or both? Because if you are referring to the one in the blue room, then why didn't he awaken in the orange room in the first scenario?

 

[Just thinking]

If I understand correctly (though I probably don't), you seem to be saying that from that moment on, the two people (original and clone) would continue to exist as two different people for all intensive purposes, because they are exposed to two different environments and/or situations and will thus react differently. The difference in wall color would be a sort of "butterfly effect."

The colors of the room are to help simplify if any at all continuance of consciousness is experienced by a person being teleported. Does he die and another person begin to exist (with all memories of the original), or does he actually continue as the first person who simply finds himself waking up somewhere other than where he went to sleep?

If so, then the decision to teleport would potentially make us a different person than we would be if we didn't teleport. But I don't understand how that would necessarily differ from our daily lives -- ie if I pick up that glass of orange juice and drink it, will I be a different person than if I didn't?

No ... you wouldn't (IMHO) be a different person, just the same person with a different past (world-line). I also chose to have the teleportation take place while asleep so that both would have (and continue to have) exactly the same experiences for a time, until they awake. After all, once asleep and immune to any external experiences, both should continue to process brain activity in identical manners as long as they are asleep.

 

[Just thinking]

... Returning to your examples:
1) The friends and family of our intrepid person in the blue room are going to be mighty confused about the identity of the person in the orange room (assuming they don't know what has happened).

2) The friends and family of our intrepid person in the blue room are not going to be confused at all about the identity of the person in the orange room (assuming they don't know what has happened).

Are you claiming that the person's identity is connected to how others view him? If so, then let's place this experiment on a deserted island with no hope of rescue.

 

[Darat]

The colors of the room are to help simplify if any at all continuance of consciousness is experienced by a person being teleported. Does he die and another person begin to exist (with all memories of the original), or does he actually continue as the first person who simply finds himself waking up somewhere other than where he went to sleep?

...snip...

You need to establish first of all if your question actually is a meaningful question. So you need to provide a definition for what you mean by (as just examples) "he" and "person". I suspect that as soon as you provide actual definitions your question will either be meaningless or answer itself.

 

[Just thinking]

You need to establish first of all if your question actually is a meaningful question. So you need to provide a definition for what you mean by (as just examples) "he" and "person". I suspect that as soon as you provide actual definitions your question will either be meaningless or answer itself.

OK ... would the person who went to sleep in the blue room wake up in the orange room (in the second scenario) just as he would have had the teleportation not occurred, and because someone moved him without awakening him? Or would he experience death as any other person that dies from disintegration who is not teleported?

 

[Phaedrus74]

... Returning to your examples:
1) The friends and family of our intrepid person in the blue room are going to be mighty confused about the identity of the person in the orange room (assuming they don't know what has happened).

2) The friends and family of our intrepid person in the blue room are not going to be confused at all about the identity of the person in the orange room (assuming they don't know what has happened).

Are you claiming that the person's identity is connected to how others view him? If so, then let's place this experiment on a deserted island with no hope of rescue.

The difference of setting wouldn't matter a great deal with respect to the point I was making:
Indentity conditions for 'personhood' are not limited to physical bodies and/or the patterns described therein, the beliefs about the identity of the subject(s) in question by the persons involved (the subjects and the people they know) also crucial for indentification.

In the first example (set on a deserted island) you would have two individuals believing they went to sleep in a blue room. One of them wakes up in a blue room, one of them wakes up in an orange room. Without recourse to an 'outside' perspective they would have no means to decide which one of them was the 'original' and which one was the 'copy'.

In the second example you would have one person going to sleep in a blue room and waking up in an orange room (slightly puzzled I imagine). In this case the person in question would have no reason to suppose (s)he was not the person that went to sleep in the blue room (barring access to an outside perspective of course).

The question of identity in this case boils down to what you believe to be primary: the physical body of the subject, or the belief of the subject regarding his/her identity. Neither of these positions is without problems.

[There is an argument by Donald Davidson about "Swampman" that treats this matter. See: Davidson, Knowing One's Own Mind, (1987)]