Gladly. So are you going to address the questions I posed?
Not location itself, but perhaps being definitely located; bearing a certain set of relations to the world; and so on. So, take the origami bird again: there is one thing, and one thing only, that answers to the description: ‘is an origami bird that has been folded by me and has been sitting on my desk until I burned it’. Its being burned is that objects end; by extension, my being teleported and reconstituted elsewhere is my end, with a different instance of HMHW-ness coming into being elsewhere (or not—in fact, the question of whether there is another instance coming into being elsewhere has no bearing at all on this particular instance, so from its point of view, ‘destruction’ and ‘destruction and re-creation’ are exactly the same thing).
There is another thing, though identical to whatever level you deem relevant, that answers to the description ‘has been folded by you according to my instructions, and then sat on your desk (or whatever you chose to do with it)’. That thing is not the same one as my origami bird: I can refer to it differently, and what I do to my bird has no effect on yours (if I set mine on fire, yours won’t burst into flames).
Or consider two cakes made from the same recipe: even if they are identical to whatever relevant level, eating one does not make the other vanish. You can give one of those cakes to Mijin, and the other to me; you won’t thereby have given us the same cake. There are two distinct individuations of the same kind of thing; two different realizations of the same recipe; two instantiations of the same arrangement of molecules. That both share the same structure doesn’t mean that you get to have your cake and eat it!
Nobody’s contesting that two things that are physically identical are, indeed, physically identical. The question is whether that definition of identity is the right one when it comes to personal identity. Your pointing towards the physical identity of the two instances assumes that this is indeed the right notion of identity, and hence, begs the question.
Nope. This isn’t a formal debate, this is “In My Humble Opinion.” I’ll engage with you, but I won’t dance to your music. I’m not bound to answer your charges in court. You don’t have subpoena power.
If something you say strikes me as uninteresting, I’ll just skip over it. You have (and have exercised) the same power.
In my opinion, yes, I have. By my definition, they are the same cake.
Also, if you eat one, and Mijin does not eat the other, then they aren’t identical any more.
Agreed. There are two, philosophically distinct, definitions of “identity” in play. I’m arguing for one; you appear to be arguing for the other. This difference in definitions makes the Star Trek Transporter question impossible to answer, because it lets me say, “Yes, I am transported” and lets you say “No, I’m killed and a duplicate is substituted for me.”
Neither of us is wrong; we’re just using different definitions.
Nope; I’m just stating my opinion regarding which definition I support.
By the same reasoning, you’re guilty of circular reasoning when you said that Mijin and yourself aren’t given the same cake. Since that’s the conclusion you are arguing for, citing it as an argument is circular reasoning.
I would prefer to say, charitably, that we’re stating our beliefs as clearly as possible. Saying, “This is what I believe” is not circular.
And here I thought you’d wanted to stop playing games! Well, have it your way, I guess.
So, you’re saying that one and the same object can have contradictory properties? Like, being here and not being here? That you can count one and the same object, and arrive at the result two (or more)? That I can both do and not do something to one and the same object?
All of this strikes me as highly counterintuitive, and I’d have to say that any definition of identity leading to such consequences simply doesn’t seem to be a good one—especially if there are perfectly good definitions of identity that don’t suffer these pathologies.
But how can one both do and not do something to one and the same thing? Before I eat my cake, they’re both the same, yes? And if I do something to a thing, then that happens to that thing. But not on your proposal: it would both happen to it—thereby changing—and not happen—thereby staying the same.
But this is not what you do if you answer my argument that the notion of physical identity may not be the right one—as in e.g. the example with the successors of my remote double—by simply asserting that, since we’re physically identical, his successors are mine, since exactly that is in question.
Yes: location is not a property that negates identity. You can have two identical objects, which, almost necessarily, will be in different places.
Otherwise, the word “identical” is wholly annulled, having no meaning at all. No two items can ever be “identical” by dint of existing side by side, rather than in the same exact location.
Yes. If they are identical, then they are “the same.”
But be careful with what you do to them. If you eat one cake, and do not eat the other cake, they will have ceased to be identical any longer. When you have made a difference between them…they will be different.
Well, sure. That’s because our intuitions have been formed in a universe in which identical objects are rare, or, perhaps more to the point, relatively simple. We mass-produce such things as pennies, but not people.
They, however, suffer pathologies of their own, and break down when examining the Star Trek Transporter. Anybody who claims that Jim Kirk is 100 times dead, and is a 100 times imposter, only imagining that he is Jim Kirk is suffering from a philosophical pathology of his own.
I don’t understand what you’re saying here. Once you eat one, but not the other, they cease to be identical. One “same” cake can have two entirely different successors.
Your successors are his; nevertheless, the two sets of successors do not need to be identical. Once identity is broken, the two can go on their own separate future paths. Identity is hardly a permanent property.
Not really, since in everyday life “identical” just means intrinsic qualities and necessarily implies that we’re comparing two separate objects.
This can be demonstrated by the fact that we use a plural pronoun: They are identical. So we have two objects, with identical intrinsic properties. Why do we count two? Because we can see two different values of an extrinsic property, location.
I think it’s better we keep to more precise terms such as qualitatively identical, intrinsically identical etc. I think “the same” is too imprecise and is being used to mean different things.
This is one of the themes of this thread: that you point out that once there’s a difference, then there’s a difference, and then go on to express exasperation that people keep suggesting otherwise.
Of course, no-one is suggesting otherwise. We’re positing situations where objects are intrinsically identical and then breaking that state in some way, just like with the transporter.
Very obviously, nobody is claiming that once two objects are no longer identical, then they are identical.
The dispute, alas, is exactly the converse: that some people are saying that two objects which are identical, are not identical.
Specifically, that someone who has gone through the Transporter is “no longer himself” but “someone else who thinks he is the original.”
That’s the key issue at dispute, and it seems to me that it is beyond any possible resolution by use of language or logic – much like the abortion debate. The fundamental underlying concepts are simple too (mutually) alien.
Since when? At the point of “transporting” we have an entity on the source pad, and an entity on the destination pad, and they are intrinsically identical.
What has “gone through” the transporter? And once again, does this mean I can transport across an impossible barrier (e.g. to a physically separate universe) as long as there’s an entity intrinsically identical to me?
And…we’re stuck again. I do not consider the two scenarios to be comparable.
One depends on a cosmic coincidence, and there is no communication or transportation. It just “sorta happened.”
But the other does very much depend on communication/transportation. The Star Trek Transporter sends a signal (of some variety) and directly causes the appearance of the person at the destination point.
I don’t accept that one can be used as an argument against the other.
(As I said earlier: some kid in Pakistan coincidentally writes the same thing I just wrote, by nothing more than coincidence. So what? That just means that coincidences happen. It doesn’t prevent me from sending him my essay by email.)
We’re just hopelessly bogged down here, and language can’t help us. We really, really, really aren’t using words the same way.
It does? Because this requirement only came up after I mentioned the multiverse hypothetical.
Previous to that (and indeed since then) you have been repeating this idea that being identical is all that matters. But here, just in this context, being identical is insufficient, because there needs to have been a data transmission.
I’ll also note that you are tacitly agreeing that there can be circumstances in which there are two identical entities that are wholly separate.
Now, allowing this requirement of data transmission, let’s consider the question of what constitutes a data transmission. If I try to send to you the data for Captain Kirk, but the transmission is interrupted, and only 60% of the data gets sent, but your guesses of the remaining 40% happen to be right, does that “count” as transmission? Is Kirk transported?
So you keep saying. Personally I would prefer it if you tried to answer more of the questions being put to you, before giving up.
Correct: I had no way to envision such an hypothetical. Once you brought it up, I had to respond to it.
Count it as a success: you made me refine my definition, to accommodate a new condition I had not previously considered. I have done so.
No: you’re mistaking two different threads of reasoning.
If you and the cosmically coincidentally identical “you” are both truly identical, then you are both “you.” You both have the same thoughts, at the same time, with the same perceptions, etc. Separated by cosmic gulfs, you are both “the same.” That’s part of the definition I hold of the word “identical.”
“You” and “he” are wholly separate. But you are both the same. That’s what the word means.
Meanwhile, I dismiss the concept because it is not very interesting. Again and again, someone in Pakistan writes the same sentence I just wrote, with no possible means of his ever having read it.
So what? That doesn’t impugn the fact that all of us send messages, deliberately, which have no dependence on coincidence at all.
Your model doesn’t tell us anything. It conveys zero real useful information. It is unrelated to the question of the Transporter and personal identity.
We’ve discussed this already. Yes, some data loss is acceptable; no, 40% data loss is not acceptable. I’m sure a “real life” transporter has some non-zero rate of data loss; I’m also sure it would be low enough to be tolerable, or else no one would travel that way.
You, personally (and I!) are losing tens of thousands of cerebral neurons every day. Does that mean you are no longer the person you were yesterday? It’s a bummer, but, hey, I drive the freeways, and take a bigger risk every day of my life. If a transporter kills off “only” 100 cerebral neurons, it’s doing me less harm than a cup of coffee.
I am answering questions to the best of my ability. I’m also clearly not changing anyone’s mind – and you guys are not changing mine. I think the case is hopeless, and, like the abortion debate, it depends on fundamental beliefs about reality, life, personhood, and the like.
(And I do reserve the right to skip over parts of incoming posts. This post has already become uncomfortably long. As a mercy to others, let’s not insist of exponential post growth.)
The danger of course with “refining” a hypothesis in this way, is if we are adding an extra, ad hoc, requirement merely to avoid our hypothesis / model being falsified. Note that you can defend any hypothesis, forever, if you’re allowed to throw in such ad hocs.
And I do think that’s what you’ve done here. Because it’s not just that you didn’t mention this requirement before, but you still have not given any reason why this requirement should exist. Indeed, it sits very uncomfortably next to your previous claims that being identical would be sufficient.
You’ve started your response with “no”, then repeated back what I just said.
In certain scenarios you are saying that two entities can be identical but wholly separate. Whereas in the transporter scenario you have said the two entities are one and the same.
No the previous hypothetical was to do with errors; how similar the entity on the destination pad needs to be.
Here, we’re saying that the person at the destination pad 1) is causally linked to the person on the source pad: data has been sent 2) is identical to the person on the source pad.
And you’re saying that this is now not a successful transport. So, let me ask: how are you defining data transmission? Why does the universe care what proportion of Kirk’s makeup was guessed, if he’s identical?
I prefer to think of it the way the discovery of monotremes challenged evolutionary theory. It didn’t demolish it; it merely forced it to accommodate the new data. I had never thought of coincidental identity before, so had no place for it in my beliefs.
One more indication how hopeless this is!
I apologize for being unclear. I think that the phrase “wholly separate” is one we now have to wrestle with, because I don’t think you’re using it the same way I am. The fact of physical separation does not negate identity. I went through that with Half Man Half Wit. Separate locations do not negate identity, or else the word can have no meaning for us here.
I’m taking these as the same thing. Yes, in practical Star Trek terms, there will not be 100% identity, just 99.99+ per cent. The difference is due to transmission error.
I am not saying “this is now not a successful transport.” I’m saying exactly the opposite: it may not be 100%, but it’s still completely within acceptable limits. It is a successful transport. The guy who comes out is Jim Kirk, even more closely resembling him than I resemble the guy I was two hours ago.
This leaves the realm of philosophy and enters the realm of engineering. If I knew how to “define data transmission,” I’d build the doggone thing and be rich as Crassus.
It’s admirable, in some sense, that you’re willing to bite even the bullet of logical contradiction to defend your stance, but it also means that to you, it’s an article of faith, not a reasoned conclusion. Thus, no amount of reasoning could ever convince you of abandoning it, since all that reasoning can do is to show you the unpalatable consequences of your view, of which surely the most unpalatable should be its leading to logical contradictions—since then, by explosion, it entails everything, and is equal to statements like ‘2 + 2 = 5’, ‘the moon is made of green cheese’, etc. So if you’re actually willing to accept statements of the form ‘A and not-A’ (e.g. ‘I lift the bird and I don’t lift the bird’) to be truths entailed by your stance, then you’re indeed right that reasoned debate is useless on the matter, as you will believe it despite all reason.
I already clarified that I don’t mean that for something to be identical to itself, it forever has to be in the same place. Indeed, I have given a perfectly adequate definition of identity—token identity—which can accommodate changes in position, and even composition, without lapsing into logical nonsense by leading to cases in which two objects, that can be separately pointed to, manipulated, and so on, are ‘really’ only one object—a mistake that comes from failing to distinguish between type- and token-identity.
Again, that’s the question that’s at issue. Two things can well be type-identical, but simply be two different instantiations of the same type, and hence, not be the same. Indeed, believing them to be the same leads to absurdities.
Of course, I’m not contesting that. The problem is, how can I do something to one of them, and not to the other, while both are the same? If I have one copy of a book, and I burn it, then it gets burned; and everything that is the same as this book, that is identical to it, should meet the same fate—otherwise, it just wasn’t the same as that book, but maybe a different printing. Being ‘the same as’ lacks all meaning if it doesn’t mean that the one thing can be substituted for the other in every proposition. So, consider the case of Hesperus and Phosphorus. At any given point, I can substitute one for the other—I can say ‘Hesperus is Venus’ just as well as ‘Phosphorus is Venus’, because they are the same thing. I can not say, for instance, ‘Hesperus is covered by dense clouds’, while ‘Phosphorus is not covered by dense clouds’. That’s what it means for both Hesperus and Phosphorus to be the same thing, as opposed to merely being the same kind of thing.
But you maintain that there are propositions in which I can’t substitute an identical object, and that nevertheless, these objects are the same—i.e. I can say ‘I eat my cake’, but not ‘I eat Mijin’s cake’, even though, according to you, ‘my cake = Mijin’s cake’. So you claim that even though two things are identical, A = B, they are nevertheless not freely substitutable. So for one thing, even if one buys your stance, it’s not clear that a teleported James Kirk would be in all respects equal to the original—‘James Kirk is the captain of the Enterprise’ could hold for one, but not the other.
Moreover, whenever I count one and the same thing, the answer will be one, because there is only one thing (all other things that are identical to that thing being that thing). But I can count my and Mijin’s cake, and arrive at two.
But I can still spend one penny, and not another; so while they are the same kind of thing, they are different instances thereof.
So you assert, but it is perfectly consistent to hold this belief; just as consistent as holding the belief that your any my origami bird are different (because different propositions are true of either), that my and Mijin’s cake are different, or that two pennies can be spent individually, and so on. It’s not a pathology to assert that Kirk has been replaced by a different instantiation of himself—it’s just a consequence, even though it may be one you don’t like. But it is pathological to have an identity relation that does not allow for free substitution and leads to logically contradictory propositions.
Again, that’s the thing in question. If something is truly identical to something else, then it should be freely substitutable; so then, that the same thing can’t both have and not have that particular set of successors.
You’re imagining a notion of ‘sameness’ that nevertheless leaves the possibility of difference—but it seems inescapable to me that two things are the same if and only if they do not differ. And if they don’t differ, I can’t point to the one, as opposed to the other; every sentence in which I use the one, I can substitute the other salva veritate; everything I do to one, I do to the other; and so on.
The main issue seems to get buried in elaborate side arguments when debating “teleportation.” But, the issue really is quite simple.
Can you be conscious/self-aware/have a personal identity in more than one location at the same time? If “yes”, then it follows that teleportation could be a safe mode of travel. If “no”, then teleportation is absolutely not a safe mode of travel. It’s that simple.
To say that successful teleportation doesn’t necessarily need to involve being conscious in more than one location at the same time is to not fully understand the question.
I believe the “proof” that you can only be conscious at one location at a time is self-evident. Despite claims of traveling outside one’s body with hallucinogens, psychoses and whatnot, in reality, from the time you become conscious sometime after birth, until the day you die, your consciousness has been perpetually tethered to the matter of your brain. It’s what all sane people “feel” and experience every waking moment and there is no scientific evidence to the contrary.
There’s really not even a good reason for why you should have the ability to be conscious in more than one location. Why or how would consciousness (or any other physiological process) evolve that way?—it’s more complicated and unnecessary for the survival of the individual or species.
The claim that you can be conscious in more than one location at the same time (and can therefore teleport safely) is an extraordinary position in need of extraordinary evidence to back it up. This evidence simply doesn’t exist. The burden of proof lies with those making the extraordinary claims.
In classical physics terms, I believe consciousness should be thought of as a local event. Simply having another exact configuration of particles in a different location doesn’t magically turn a local event into a non-local event. All of a sudden your consciousness involves action-at-a-distance? Why? Sure, you can shoehorn quantum entanglement or whatnot into a possible mechanism for this to occur, but c’mon…really?
Oft times the counter arguers posit that since no particle is privileged and an exact configuration of the same type of particles mandates that there be no measurable difference between the duplicates. That’s all fine and dandy, and it’s true, but that has nothing to do with the locality or non-locality of an object or it’s physiological properties. However, for some reason, the pro-teleporters believe that it does.
Let’s look at both possibilities regarding you and your un-diverged duplicate:
You and your duplicate think exactly alike and you share consciousness. There is no measurable difference between the two of you.
You and your duplicate think exactly alike, but you don’t share consciousness. There is no measurable difference between the two of you.
What’s the common thread between these two scenarios? That’s right, there’s no measurable difference between the subjects in either case (the only difference is subjective and felt only by the subjects, but it’s not a difference that can be measured by any outside observer). Neither scenario breaks physical law.
So why not choose to believe the scenario that appears self-evident? That feels intuitive? That’s more in line with Occam’s Razor? The one that doesn’t allow conscious action at a distance and successful teleportation? Sure it’s the boring scenario, but you can get your fantasy fixes via comic books.
I’m not really sure that’s the “necessary and sufficient” equivalent.
The Star Trek Transporter can be seen as neither of the two situations you describe. The person’s consciousness is only at one place at one given time – yet that form of teleportation is a safe mode of travel.
The consciousness disappears from one place and appears in another.
The dispute is over whether the original consciousness has been “destroyed” or merely “transported.” Some people insist on the former – rather vehemently, as we have seen – and other people (myself) say that the latter is a possible valid interpretation.
(I don’t say it is the only interpretation; just that it is one valid way of looking at it.)
Consciousness is a process, not a physical thing; the persistent reification of consciousness is the problem here.
You can run a computer program on any suitable computer, and even interrupt it, copy it and start to run the same program on a separate computer elsewhere. Why is consciousness any different? Is this the ‘intuitive’ perception Tibby or Not Tibby is referring to?
The difficult part is creating an identical computer elsewhere, and copying all the information in the human consciousness. This is almost certainly impossible, so the thought experiment is likely to remain that- an exercise in thought alone.
But if it could be done, then consciousness** must** be transferred, simply because the transported entity is defined as being identical. There can be no other conclusion consistent with the premises of the thought experiment.
Well, first of all, it’s a highly contentious position that consciousness is in some way simply ‘information processed in the brain’, or something similar. I personally think it’s incoherent—information is a mind-dependent entity; trying to use it as a foundation for mind is circular. But that’s of course a different debate.
Furthermore, this is question-begging: it’s just as intelligible to hold that the transferred entity is a different instance of the same kind of thing, even for a message, or a computer program. There’s no fundamental difference here to the case of the two origami birds—the folding instructions here being simply a pattern of ones and zeros in memory, say. It doesn’t follow that because this pattern is the same, the thing it constitutes is the same—as is evidenced by the fact that it can be differently referred to: I can talk about my origami bird, as opposed to your origami bird, and if I can do that, then there needs to be something by virtue of which I can do that, that differs between the two instantiations of the ‘origami bird’-kind.
But if there is such a difference, then it’s not clear if two such instantiations, despite being of the same kind, are ‘the same’ in the sense relevant for personal identity, as there is obviously a sense in which they are different (in which they’re ‘that bird’ as opposed to ‘this bird’).
I agree that consciousness is a process, but I argue that self-awareness is a process that emerges from other processes.
By intuitive perception I mean the feeling that you will wake up in the same body you went to sleep in, not in some other body, or in multiple locations.
Consciousness is different from a computer program because self awareness isn’t the software. I’m not claiming it’s some kind of woo; the physics police won’t arrest it for breaking physical law. It’s simply a law-abiding higher-order process that sparks on from and resides upon the lower order processes of the software. When we develop conscious computers, I expect they will abide by the same rules.
Naw, we’ll have conscious, self aware computers soon enough. Why do they need “human” consciousness, when they can have computer consciousness?
I argue that consciousness must not be transferred from human to human, human to computer, computer to computer, raccoon to chimp, or anything else. And maybe when we do have a conscious computer, he’ll be smart enough to say, *“damn, I shouldn’t have gotten into that Star Trek transporter.” *
Ok, I’m not sure if this will clarify my position more, or if it will further muddy the waters, but I’ll give it a shot:
Let’s take a twist on Lemur866’s Ship of Theseus. Imagine a talented brain surgeon with a supply of synthetic CNS neurons at his disposal. These synthetic neurons have the ability to exactly mimic and configure themselves as the organic neurons they replace.
The surgeon scrubs into OR#1 and one by one, over time, he removes each of your neurons and replaces it with a synthetic neuron. Enough time is given between dissection and implantation to allow each synthetic neuron to configure and become functional. When all of your original neurons have been replaced, the surgeon stitches you up and you wake up in Recovery.
Are you conscious? There’s no reason to think you wouldn’t be conscious, so yes. Do you have the same personal identity that you had before surgery? I argue, “yes.”
But, the surgeon isn’t done, yet. He now scrubs into OR#2, where the tabled patient is a decerebrated clone of you. He has a mason jar on the Mayo stand filled with[del] mayonnaise[/del] all of your still viable neurons that were removed in OR#1. One by one, he builds a brain in the clone’s skull to the exact configuration of the original. When the operation is complete, he’ stitched up and wakes up in Recovery.
Is the clone conscious? …I’m not sure. He may not be conscious, yet, but I believe he will become conscious at some point. When he does gain consciousness, will he have the personal identity of the original you? I argue, “no.”
If one of the patients must die in Recovery, which do you choose, OR#1 you, or OR#2 you? I’d choose OR#2 you, if it was me (actually, “not” me).
How can this be? OR#1 you has no original brain parts, yet he retains the original personal identity? OR#2 you has all of the original brain parts, yet he develops a unique personal identity. That seems counter-intuitive…until you think about it.
Recall that you don’t gain consciousness until months after birth, long after your brain becomes functional in utero. Consciousness isn’t the hardware, but, it’s not the software, either. It’s an emergent process that supervenes on the fully functional hardware and software. As such, it’s locked into one brain and remains there even if that brain changes over time, as long as the core brain processes upon which consciousness resides remain intact and functional. That’s what makes self awareness a local event. For it not to be would be a paradox.