# Stasis fields and the destruction of the self **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 29, 2012, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stasis-fields-and-the-destruction-of-the-self/614390 "2012-02-29T20:55:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stasis-fields-and-the-destruction-of-the-self/614390/21 "2012-03-01T21:35:09Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > . . . In terms of this hypothetical, the answer “of course you are the same person” has interesting implications also. For one thing, it implies immortality, given unbounded time. . . . Well, a limited kind of immortality… The system scans me now, at epoch zero. When I die, say in 2080, they activate a new duplicate from that scan. But the duplicate doesn’t have any of my memories or experiences from 2012 - 2080. He wakes up in a brave new world, but he has lost a whole lot of what “I” learned in those years. To some degree, he could pick it up from my journals. I guess, if I awakened in 2080 with a big diary of what I had done in those years, I’d pay pretty close attention to it. It seems like a strange, disjointed kind of immortality, with parts that overlap and other parts that are empty gaps. It’s immortality for the epoch zero version of me. ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stasis-fields-and-the-destruction-of-the-self/614390/22 "2012-03-01T22:15:15Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Later, UPS loses the parcel that has all the Carbon atoms in it - but the enterprising pixies have excellent documentation, so they just time-freeze a bunch of new ones and when they reassemble the subject, they use carbon atoms that in every way match the originals. Leave out the freeze ray, and isn’t this happening all the time, with all of us? Molecules are being replaced, lost, added to and reorganized. We call that life. How can we say that changes to the body, if they happen as part of normal biological processes, don’t constitute a change of self, but if done by pixies or a transporter, it does? If change=non-self, then self would be an instantaneous fleeting thing, with a new self being created every time an atom in the body changed. ---
**Author:** ![curioushat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9e5f3/32.png) [@curioushat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curioushat)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stasis-fields-and-the-destruction-of-the-self/614390/23 "2012-03-01T22:17:21Z")
> [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](#): > > Leave out the freeze ray, and isn’t this happening all the time, with all of us? Molecules are being replaced, lost, added to and reorganized. We call that life. > > How can we say that changes to the body, if they happen as part of normal biological processes, don’t constitute a change of self, but if done by pixies or a transporter, it does? If change=non-self, then self would be an instantaneous fleeting thing, with a new self being created every time an atom in the body changed. If you were to make an exact carbon copy of a human then it would be the same human. It would have the same sense of self and same memories. A human being is not something metaphysical it is just a complex arrangement of atoms and molecules that humans are not fully capable of understanding. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stasis-fields-and-the-destruction-of-the-self/614390/24 "2012-03-01T22:22:39Z")
> [@curioushat](#): > > If you were to make an exact carbon copy of a human then it would be the same human. It would have the same sense of self and same memories. “The same human” can’t look himself in the eyes without a mirror. ---
**Author:** ![curioushat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9e5f3/32.png) [@curioushat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curioushat)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stasis-fields-and-the-destruction-of-the-self/614390/25 "2012-03-01T22:24:08Z")
> [@Cheshire\_Human](#): > > “The same human” can’t look himself in the eyes without a mirror. Is this a proverb you heard somewhere? Clearly the humans would become different humans the instant they are placed in different environmental situations (the minute one leaves statis) ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stasis-fields-and-the-destruction-of-the-self/614390/26 "2012-03-01T22:43:46Z")
> [@curioushat](#): > > If you were to make an exact carbon copy of a human then it would be the same human. It would have the same sense of self and same memories. It would have the same memories but not the same sense of self. Once again: imagine you duplicate your brain X times. Is your consciousness now distributed across X people? If you stick a pin in any of them, do you all feel pain? > [@](#): > > A human being is not something metaphysical it is just a complex arrangement of atoms and molecules that humans are not fully capable of understanding. When it comes to the conscious bit we’re nowhere near understanding. Since the computer was invented we have a model for how an arrangement of atoms can think (although it’s still debatable whether the syntactic operations of a computer are equivalent, epistemologically, to what a brain does). But there’s no model for how an arrangement of atoms can feel; can have subjective experience. While it’s wide open like this I wouldn’t conclude anything with certainty. But it seems fanciful to me to imagine that my consciousness hops or is distributed or whatever, whenever something indistinguishable to me is made. But, being more specific, there are some philosophers and scientists that hypothesize that the brain utilizes quantum phenomena including entanglement (e.g. Penrose’s Orch-OR). If this is the case, then it may be the mind is unduplicatable even in principle. ---
**Author:** ![curioushat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9e5f3/32.png) [@curioushat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curioushat)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stasis-fields-and-the-destruction-of-the-self/614390/27 "2012-03-01T22:52:45Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > It would have the same memories but not the same sense of self. > Once again: imagine you duplicate your brain X times. Is your consciousness now distributed across X people? If you stick a pin in any of them, do you all feel pain? NO, this is not the case. The instant after the second brain is created, it becomes a different person. However, at the instant it is created, it is the same person. > [@](#): > > When it comes to the conscious bit we’re nowhere near understanding. > Since the computer was invented we have a model for how an arrangement of atoms can think (although it’s still debatable whether the syntactic operations of a computer are equivalent, epistemologically, to what a brain does). I’m not sure why you think that we will be able to understand consciousness. Humans are limited by their own ability. Plus, we can’t physically see at the atomic level (readily) > [@](#): > > But there’s no model for how an arrangement of atoms can feel; can have subjective experience. While it’s wide open like this I wouldn’t conclude anything with certainty. But it seems fanciful to me to imagine that my consciousness hops or is distributed or whatever, whenever something indistinguishable to me is made. Your consciousness does not hop. The same person would be created and then immediately diverge into two separate people. The instant after it is created, they would start to respond to different stimuli, and thus, become a different person. No, don’t conclude anything with certainty. However, do conclude that science does not understand this and may very well never will, but there’s no reason to believe that it is anything different than any other arrangement of atoms. > [@](#): > > But, being more specific, there are some philosophers and scientists that hypothesize that the brain utilizes quantum phenomena including entanglement (e.g. Penrose’s Orch-OR). If this is the case, then it may be the mind is unduplicatable even in principle. Great, all that means is that we as humans will never have the capability of duplicating brains. That doesn’t mean that equivalent brains are not equivalent people. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stasis-fields-and-the-destruction-of-the-self/614390/28 "2012-03-01T22:58:39Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > You cannot cut someone who is in temporal stasis. It’s one thing to suggest applying a force to the field as a whole - with the contents hidden in an unchanging “black box” until the field is dispersed, but if it is _possible_ to make relative movement occur within the field itself (whether by heating it up or cutting it apart), it is not temporal stasis. Stasis fields and pixies, as hypothetical entities, can be defined with whatever properties are useful for the thought experiment. If you read between the lines, this is another line of inquiry at the transporter thing - I’m just trying a different way to express the idea of carefully, yet instantaneously taking something apart, then carefully, instantaneously rebuilding it somewhere else in exactly the same configuration as before, either out of the same matter, or suitably identical replacement matter. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stasis-fields-and-the-destruction-of-the-self/614390/29 "2012-03-01T23:43:15Z")
> [@curioushat](#): > > NO, this is not the case. The instant after the second brain is created, it becomes a different person. However, at the instant it is created, it is the same person. I think you’re mixing up the two different [forms of identity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_(philosophy)) here: qualitative versus numerical identity. If we both go out and buy a brand new car, and we pick the same model and colour, then we have the “same” car in the qualitative sense. But numerically, there are two cars. OTOH I can make whatever change I like to my car and it remains the “same” car in the numerical sense. No-one disputes that a duplicate brain would have duplicate properties to mine. But what’s at issue here is whether it is the same consciousness, in the numerical sense, as the original. > [@](#): > > I’m not sure why you think that we will be able to understand consciousness. I haven’t claimed such a thing. > [@](#): > > Great, all that means is that we as humans will never have the capability of duplicating brains. The point of what I was saying was to caution against making assumptions about a phenomenon we don’t yet understand. Some of the people in this thread (and the sister thread) have just asserted “well, the brain is just atoms, so obviously it can be duplicated”. I was pointing out that such assumptions may be flawed. > [@](#): > > That doesn’t mean that equivalent brains are not equivalent people. _Equivalent_ is a good way to put it. A copy is equivalent to the original. It is not the same entity or consciousness however. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stasis-fields-and-the-destruction-of-the-self/614390/30 "2012-03-01T23:55:12Z")
Just as a nitpick, I’d like to point out that Niven’s stasis fields are _not_ discontinuous: Time still passes within the field, just really, really slowly. In fact, the way they release the alien from his stasis field is to put him inside another, weaker stasis field for several hours of outside-time, giving him a second or so of inside-time (stasis fields can’t be nested). ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stasis-fields-and-the-destruction-of-the-self/614390/31 "2012-03-02T01:44:17Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > For the sake of inquiry\*, let’s divert from Niven’s fictional stasis device and assume that in this one, time _ **does** _ pass. All activity is magically suspended, but the passage of time continues (in the same way that time presumably also passes in a matter-less vacuum). How exactly would this make any difference? Whether you describe time as stopped or not is completely aritrary and irrelevent. The person is being suspended; in either case the universe simply passes him or her by (metaphorically). I still hold that you’re describing a difference of viewpoint, not fundamental change. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stasis-fields-and-the-destruction-of-the-self/614390/32 "2012-03-02T03:00:45Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Just as a nitpick, I’d like to point out that Niven’s stasis fields are _not_ discontinuous: Time still passes within the field, just really, really slowly. In fact, the way they release the alien from his stasis field is to put him inside another, weaker stasis field for several hours of outside-time, giving him a second or so of inside-time (stasis fields can’t be nested). Vinge’s Bobblers on the other hand supposedly just plain stop time, and can’t be removed before their preset duration. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stasis-fields-and-the-destruction-of-the-self/614390.md?page=1)