Easy- p-zombies don’t, and can’t, exist.
Super cheap/not taking much energy teleportation of objects, even small objects only, would save the world rather than destroying it.
You could set up an air conditioning system by teleporting heated air into space, then teleporting it back cold. On a larger scale, this system could balance and cancel out the earth’s heat retention issues. It would also give cheap heating in cold places/times by teleporting the warm air from a warmer area to a colder one on Earth (or if there isn’t enough, send a tiny amount of the air close to the sun very briefly and bring it back hot).
Of course this is probably why it’s impossible for it to ever happen (does it violate laws of physics to be able to do this? I don’t think so but it conceivably might).
This argument is a red herring, I think. Yes, perhaps there is some reference frame in which yesterday is still tomorrow, but we’re not in it, neither can we get to it. Do you think it’s even remotely possible that part of our consciousness lives in, or is dependent upon. a different observational frame of reference?
The basis of his argument seems to be ‘forget about memory.’ This does not work in this case - memory, plus the physical structure of your brain and body, is all you are. No-one in this thread has given any idea as to what else a consiousness might be.
Duplicate those two things, or teleport them, and everything that you are is also teleported or duplicated. You can’t get round that by deliberately forgetting about memory for the sake of argument.
Disagree: several times. Knowledge of all things is not necessary to have useful functional knowledge. I don’t need to know the billionth decimal place of pi in order to mill a circular rod for an engineering project. The two nickels are not distinguishable by any test available to the participants in the debate.
Your last sentence is only a claim. I say their different locations is a product of the duplicating machinery, but is not a “history” of the objects themselves.
In my pocket, I have two nickels. One has been to Atlanta, Georgia, and back again the California. The other hasn’t. How is this “history” imprinted on the coin? Can you tell the two apart? Do you have a test that can say, “Why, yes, this nickel has been on a 4,000 mile journey?”
Specifically, we are arguing that a duplicating or transporting technology changes the age-old “common sense” notions that our species evolved with. This sometimes happens with technological changes. The comparison with two .jpg files pertains (in my opinion.) I’ve copied one to a storage location, say Photobucket. The other is still on my home computer. Which one is the “original?” The question is now meaningless: they are the same data file.
(In practice, data files have date attributes. But a transporting/duplicating app could easily alter these.)
No, and I haven’t made such a claim (indeed my “millions of years” argument is based on an assumption of the opposite).
What I am saying to you is this. You keep saying that causal histories don’t matter, that the past is gone and it makes no difference if I got from A to B directly, or via C.
But clearly it “matters” to the universe, which contains all reference frames. (And note there is no discrete cutoff between this reference frame and that, or number of reference frames; they form a continuum).
And in case you say “well it might matter objectively, but not in your subjective viewpoint”, say, the subjective is a window on the objective world (we assume). It is not separate to it.
Huh? They have a different location because they a different set of events have happened to them. That’s not a claim, it’s part of the premise.
It’s irrelevant, but we’d still call them two nickels, always have been, always will be separate.
As I’ve said many times already here, we use whatever metaphor we like for computer files. Moving, duplicating, instancing…we use whatever we like because it doesn’t matter what we call it.
For entities that have subjective viewpoints, and consider some things to matter…now the distinction matters.
I don’t think removing memory was crucial to his argument at all, hence why it came near the end as an aside. It was “let’s put this complicating factor to one side for a moment”.
I think that certain people are getting misled here by the memory aspect; that someone believes that they have had all of my experiences happen to them.
Let’s say we can artificially write memories. If I lived several years as superman, then sure I could later be convinced that those events never happened to me; the inconsistency in how powerful my abilities are would give me some reason for doubt.
And likewise, I could be convinced that my memories of Mijin never actually happened to me. I’d remember walking on to a transporter pad, then instantly being 500 light years away. I’d be happy to conclude that I am a Mijin, but not the same entity as on Earth.
I wrote a fairly lengthy rebuttal, but, really, it’s nothing you haven’t heard before, and I’m pretty sure you’d have disagreed with it anyway.
So, like, hey, everybody: this is getting repetitious and tiring and borderline rude. We’re talking past each other, and getting nowhere. We all disagree, right?
Wanna kill it and move on? I’m for some Ovaltine.
What? We’ve only just begun. I’ll take that glass of Ovaltine, though…with a McVities Digestive biscuit.
I’m not going to say that. I’m going to say: please explain exactly how it matters. By what mechanism does history still exist (or have a measurable persistent effect) now, to actual humans?
Sure, whatever. My position in here was never “The Duplicate position is right, the Move position is wrong”.
I was defending Duplicate purely because some posters here were claiming that this position assumes the existence of souls, which it does not. Or, bizarrely, that Duplicators believe that a copy of Kirk is not alive 
But I also defended Move earlier in the thread.
It’s a well-known, unsolved, philosophical problem.
It matters because it means that there are two entities, one here, one there. Entirely separate.
This sort of amnesia occurs to everyone, almost every night; we dream, then the next morning we forget the content of those dreams. Nevertheless the process of dreaming is an important part of the process that makes us what we are.
I think that means that - assuming we could ‘write’ artificial memories at will - those artificial memories would become an important part of you. Even if you later ‘forget’ those memories as if they were an induced dream, they would still be necessary if we wanted to make a complete reconstruction of you.
If we reconstructed you as a complete copy but removed all residual memories of any dreams you may have had, that would not be a full copy. Similarly if we reconstructed you with any artificial memories removed, that would also not be a full copy. Especially if you had already come to the conclusion that those memories were artificial - that process could be an important part of your personal development.
That is my position also. Personally, even if this technology were available, I doubt that I would avail myself of it.
I don’t think anyone was disputing that when you make two of something, you have two.
The key point is: does your consciousness require real-time continuity of something or other. It’s trivial to prove that you have some kind of material continuity at the moment, but is it actually required? And if so, how and why? - since the current state of a system is all that actually exists at the current time (in the frame of reference local to that system).
Indeed, and they were always separate entities. And, as such, they always had separate consciousnesses. Shared memories of past events is an illusion for all but one entity.
Case: Earth Kirk (K1), 40 years old; Alien Kirk replicate (K2), 20 seconds old.
Alien Scientist: Good morning K2, can you tell me who you are, where you live and how old you are?
K2: James Kirk, Earth, 40 years old.
Alien Scientist: What would you say if I told you that you were only 20 seconds old?
K2: I’d say you were nuts.
Alien Scientist: Do you notice anything odd?
K2: Yes, 30 seconds ago the atmosphere turned chartreuse, there appears to be 5 moons and everyone here looks like a rhinocerous. (Turns to his trusted Lieutenant Commander who was also replicted). Data, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.
Data: I agree, Captain…a rhinocerous? That’s imposerous!
Alien Scientist (to other alien scientists): I’m going to run this replication experiment again, but this time I’m going to test K2 the instant he’s replicated to find out if he, at any time, was K1.
Test results: from the instant of creation, K2’s sensory perception and point of view was entirely centered on this planet, never Earth…and yet, he clearly remembers being K1 on earth for many years, long before he was created—these results are so confusing!
Let’s run the experiment again, but this time we will replicate K1* (Earth Kirk with traumatic head injury resulting in amnesia to the point of only living in the present, like this guy: repost: case study, PDF file).
Test results: from the instant of his creation, K2*’s sensory perception and point of view was entirely centered on our (alien) planet, never Earth. Interestingly, the atmosphere on our planet, unlike Earth’s, cures amnesia instantaneously, so K2, from the beginning, had intact short and long term memory ability. At no time does he recall being someone named Kirk, on Earth. His consciousness (SA, Sensory Perception and Memories) all match and indicate that K2 was always a separate individual, objectively and subjectively from K1—these results are not at all confusing!
Again, it’s long term memories that make this thought experiment confusing. If you take them out of the equation, the paradoxical element vanishes. Put long term memory back into the equation, and you have to dig a little deeper and realize that, still, the replicate never really shared a consciousness with anyone, from the instant he was created—separate SA, separate POV, separate sensory perception and separate (new) memories. At any point in time, could you kill K2 and accurately claim that you killed a version of K1? No. K2’s feeling of being K1 is entirely in the past, as a memory—a past in which K2 was not even physically in existence. The only way to kill the K2 version of K1 (remember, as soon as he sees through new eyes and lays down new memories, he is in no way K1) would be to travel into the past in your time machine and shoot him. But, what would you shoot? Only K1 existed then.
Conclusion: I think it’s obvious that any two conscious beings are separate beings from the moment of each of their creation both physically and subjectively (with regard to SA, Sensory Perception, POV and short term memory). Yet, many claim they are the same beings, based solely on a single subset of consciousness: long term memory. I believe SA is a higher order mental process that analyzes and acts upon sensory perception POV and long and short term memory to form the perception of reality for the individual. But, SA may be “fooled” by long term memory into believing it was someone in the past that it never really was, and that can confuse the person in the present, until they figure out their brain is playing mind games on them.
Is a sentient/sapient being with amnesia not a conscious being? Is a replication of a sentient/sapient being with amnesia not a conscious being? You don’t need long term memory to be conscious, IMHO.
Please explain the practical difference, at the time of remembering, between a ‘real’ memory and an illusory one.
I think the need for constraints here – a practical difference, and at the time of remembering (i.e. subjective only), implicitly concedes that there are differences.
And, as I said upthread, sure I could reason that my memories didn’t actually happen to me and were, say, implanted by Rekall. This is (one) sense in which we can talk about memories being illusions. I don’t agree with this idea of (paraphrasing) “well, the past is the past, so you should consider your memories real now”
Not really. I mean, obviously there are differences at the time of the event - the important question is whether those differences have some kind of persistent effect. If they don’t persist, then even though they were differences, they can’t possibly matter to who you are now. If they *do *persist, please explain how.
I realise you don’t agree, but why? What persistent difference is there between ‘real’ and ‘fake’ memories?