Yes, exactly, on this part at least.
The same way you you defined “me” in the above quote, I imagine.
To be honest, I don’t fully understand this question. I am me, by definition. A copy of me is not me; it is a copy.
What I mean is, are you your body, or are you your mind? If we could remove your brain, and drop it into a clone of your body, would you still be you? If we could drop your brain into someone else’s body, would you still be you? What if we just took the information out of your brain, but not the brain itself, and dropped that into someone else’s body? I’m guessing in the first two situations, most people would feel that they’re still themselves, regardless of where their brain physically resides. From your responses in this thread, I’m thinking that in the third scenario, you’d feel that isn’t you. Am I correct in both those guesses? If I am, why is your identity intact if we move your brain around, but compromised if we move your intellect around?
But the copy of you would say the exact same thing, and rightfully so. He thinks you are the copy and he is the original.
Since he is an exact copy, the Danton in the balcony would have as much right to calling the “stage” Danton a copy as vice versa. If the copy is exact, and we don’t know how the machine works, neither has any superior claim to be the original than the other.
I believe, from a dramatic standpoint, that the “balcony Danton” is created ex nihilo by the machine and the “stage Danton” continues in existence. But there is no hard evidence that it works that way. I think it makes a more compelling story that way, though others think the ambiguity makes it more interesting.
No, you are misunderstanding. My point is that Danton believes (perhaps accurately, perhaps not) that the original Danton will continue to exist while a duplicate is created. There is only one person being created by pulling the lever. The original plus one copy equal two Dantons.
If the original Danton is split in two I agree it would be a murkier situation. But based on Danton’s comment about not knowing which he will be it’s pretty clear he believes it’s one original and a copy.
I watched the hat scene again. After Tesla makes his comment about all the hats being his, Danton just kind of stands there looking confused. It’s possible Tesla is trying to explain to him that the machine really won’t leave one original Danton left but he can’t conceive of that. Given his ego I could see how that might happen.
Again, I am not trying to explain what actually happens when the lever is pulled in any objective sense, just trying to explain what Danton thinks happens.
No, because if one is a copy it cannot also be the original any more than it can both drown and not-drown.
Yep, that’s a fair assessment of my position. And now I know how to answer your question.
The difference is that I am my brain, so moving my brain around moves me around, while copying my brain has no effect on me.
But even still, one of them is right and one is wrong. As I said before, that nobody can tell the difference is moot.
I agree, but only if we know for sure that the machine is indeed making a copy and leaving the original unchanged. I believe it is doing that, others are arguing that it isn’t, or that we can’t know. I choose to believe that it works in a very straightforward xerox-like way, but I can see the merit in exploring other possibilities.
But even though I believe the “balcony Danton” is a copy, I believe it is still fully Danton. Its “Dantonness” is located in its conciousness, which has been copied exactly.
Edit: actually, one is right and one is wrong, if, and only if, we know the machine works by making a completely new, totally separate copy that leaves the original unchanged. We don’t know that for sure.
What if your brain were split in two parts? Is 99.99% of your brain still you?
Say we anesthesize you. We pair your brain’s left hemisphere with an exact duplicate of your brain’s right hemisphere and vice versa. Two of you wake up. Do either of you still have a continuity of consciousness back to the original?
If no, then reduce the percentage that is replaced. At what point does it become yes?
For what it’s worth, I do understand this position, even though it isn’t mine. You’re saying there is, from the switch-thrower’s perspective, no transfer taking place at all. He’ll throw the switch, his brain gets one-way copied to some other place, and he keeps on being him. With that understanding, it makes sense to say that whatever else is happening in the universe, he’s the same guy. Maybe he flips the switch and a copy shows up, maybe the copy dies, maybe nothing happens at all, but in his narrative, he just flipped a switch and kept on being him.
Here’s where my problem lies in that narrative: I think that’s only coherent if he’s definitely the guy who falls into the box; in other words, if his physical integrity is intact throughout the process. That narrative is satisfying to me if the “copy” is the one that gets teleported somewhere else, because that’s the “new” version, while the bunch of matter that was the guy who threw the switch remained in place and intact. If we zoom in on the brain of the switch-thrower, and disregard everything else that happens, and say this is the guy all along.
This understanding breaks down for me when I allow for the possibility that the “original” Danton could possibly be the one who teleports. If the “copy” could possibly be the one that exists in the physical space the switch-thrower exists in, I don’t see how a distinction can be made between the two at all. The fact that Danton himself isn’t clear on what’s going to happen means that the idea of an “original” can’t really work, since each Danton’s experience is going to be defined by his physical location, and it’s a guarantee that an identical Danton is going to exist in two different locations, and in some sense each one is the result of a transfer – one is the “original” transferred to a new location, and the other is in the same location but is the result of the duplication transfer of Danton’s consciousness.
And I would say that, since that is a possibility, the notion of an original can’t really work no matter what happens. But I do understand why you’re saying that it does.
Okay, that’s a fair position. Let me throw a couple of scenarios at you:
In Lois Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga, there’s a type of gun called a neural disruptor. The gun causes no real physical damage, but it permanently disrupts the electrical patterns in the brain. The brain itself isn’t harmed, but all the information in it is wiped. The victim essentially reverts to the status of an infant. The brain is entirely intact and unchanged. The victim can still form new memories, and learn new things. But everything he knew and remembered up until the point he was shot is gone forever.
If you were shot by this gun, would you still be you?
Similarly, in the show Babylon 5, there is a form of punishment called “death of personality,” that has largely replaced the death penalty. In this process, criminals have their brains erased and have constructed personalities implanted into them. They have no knowledge of their past lives, or crimes, and are generally not even aware that they used to have a different existence.
If this process were carried out on you, would you still be you?
I actually think the most interesting answer is that the clone is always the one who teleports because it does seem more “elegant” for the reasons you describe, and it basically means Danton is doomed.
Well that is why earlier I said:
But, it’s nice to see you do seem to get what I was saying. 
Thing is, you can actually remove an entire half of a brain and still leave a fully functioning human being with all memories and personality intact.
Someday, surely, we’ll be able to take a brain half and connect it to a new spinal column (or an artificial one).
If that’s so, then we’d also be able, in theory, to take one person’s brain, split it in half, and put each half into a new body.
Each half would have the same memories and personality as the original in just the same way you yourself would have the same memories and personality even if I simply removed half of your brain from you.
So, if you are your brain, then what happens to you in this split-brain scenario? Now is it the case that both are the same person as you?
Interesting concept. If all memories, personality and brain function were intact, my answer is yes, they are both the same person, they are both me. Except now there are two of me.
… and we both want to live. So I wouldn’t want to do the transporter deal where one version dies, or the deal with one duplicate being shot.
But I thought certain brain functions were done in a particular hemisphere. Would the split cause one version of me to do arithmetic poorly, for example?
My understanding (but I bring no cites, apologies) is that when someone has half their brain removed, they have some skill deficiencies but are able to overcome them.
Please, though, someone come in and tell me I’m all off if indeed I am.
(Here’s a 2007 Scientific American article about it.)
I would say no, “you” died and two new copies were created. I do not know at what percentage this changes, but it does change at some percent. I would liken this to the “when does life begin?” question in the abortion debate.
Fantastic post, Jimmy. The third snippet above is where we diverge. I think there is no possibility the original Danton teleports because of the reasoning you gave. If he does, like in my previous post, the original dies and two new copies are created.
No, he won’t. Even if such a belief was correct (which it isn’t), an exact copy of Ellis Dee will use the exact same reasoning Ellis Dee has, and thus come to the same conclusion.
No, in the exact same sense that if you created a clone of me, the clone would not be me. This is effectively a death sentence every bit as much as a brain-dead patient on life support isn’t really alive except by technicality.
Also, it is my understanding that the memories and thought patterns of a brain compose some of the structure of the brain itself, making the hypothetical gun problematic on a philosophical level.
Definitely not. To take it further, if this were like the Dollhouse and you stored my memories and personality somewhere before wiping me, and then at a later date implanted my memories and personality back onto my brain, I would resume being me. If implanted on someone else, that someone else would not be me.
Again, I think this problematic for reasons that tend to render the hypothetical invalid. Sort of like coming at the uncertainty principle by asking if a sufficiently advanced alien species (or god himself) had the technology to ascertain to complementary values with arbitrary precision. This hypothetical measuring device is problematic because just positing it assumes a flawed view of reality; those complementary values do not exist and thus cannot be measured. The fundamental truth is clouded by the faulty hypothetical.
I’m comfortable appealing to the idea that a fundamental truth is being clouded by many of these hypotheticals. I could easily appeal to the uncertainty principle for the reason that brain duplication will never even theoretically be possible. I have been hesitant to do so, but the increasingly clever hypotheticals may force me into such a corner.
EDIT: Also, one of my highschool classmates got in a bad motorcycle accident with no helmet. His extensive brain damage drastically changed his personality to the point that he literally was a different person. In a very real sense, the guy that got on his motorcycle that day died in the accident.
Suppose you state unequivocably that 1% is your limit. Anything less than 1% is fine, anything more and you are no longer you. You are then diagnosed with a brain tumor. To remove the tumor, 2% of your brain is also removed. In past clinical trials, most patients recover fully from the surgery.
Do you bother getting surgery to remove the tumor?
After all, by your reasoning, “you” will have died after they remove the tumor even if the surgery is a complete success and you recover fully.
Alright, but doesn’t that indicate that the brain is not the source of your self? If the brain is unchanged, just the data on it erased, how is that destroying “you,” if the brain itself is what makes you “you?”
Actually, I believe that would on a technical level, not a philosophical level. But as the gun is imaginary to begin with, it can have whatever imaginary properties we wish to impute it, including the ability to erase a brain without altering its structure.
I don’t understand that at all. How is the body with the re-implanted memories still you? If that information has been wiped off the brain, rendering the body on the bench “not you,” how do you suddenly become “you” again when they’re replanted? What if they’re implanted not into your original body, but into a clone of your original body? Why would that not be “you” anymore? What if they were implanted in someone else, that “other” person went out and did a bunch of stuff, and then those memories were taken out of him and planted back in your original body?
Lastly, say you wake up in a laboratory, and you see your body on a slab next to you. You’re informed by a doctor that memories have been taken out of that body, and implanted into a new one, which is the person sitting on the operating table being told all this by a doctor. In this scenario, who are you?
I don’t quite see how the uncertainty principle applies here.