Yes, John has a future in this process; possibly multiple parallel/independent futures, or possibly no future at all if the device fails, or if a piano falls on him as he steps out of the booth. Possibly a future in which his consciousness will be damaged or altered, if the replication is imperfect, in the same way that his conscousness could be damaged by a serious head injury.
But really, as the future doesn’t exist yet, I think it makes more sense (although not by any means intuitively) to say ‘the future has a me in it’ than to say ‘I will be in the future’
Points to ponder:
A mind is not a chair: A static, non-conscious object like a chair can be expressed as an instantaneous particle configuration snapshot. But consciousness, and more so, self-awareness, needs a span of time to function. It may be a short span of time (to our feeble sense of time), but it’s far from instantaneous.
You receive input data from your sense organs (sight, smell, hearing, taste, various types of somatosensory nerves…). Without sensory input, you’d never gain consciousness and never have a sense of self. It takes time for the sensory input to travel form your sensory organs to your brain before qualia is felt. You need sensory input to experience qualia, but not all sensory input gives rise to qualia. Still more time is needed to engram qualia into memories (short and long). At this point I believe you are conscious of preceding sensory input. But, that’s not the end of the story.
Experiencing qualia, then having it burned into memory alone doesn’t give you a sense of self. It takes additional time (microseconds?) for your higher order consciousness to reflect on the raw feeling and memory of qualia to develop a sense of self. IOW: SA lags behind memories which lag behind qualia which lag behind raw data hitting your sense organs. Or, more simply, SA lags behind consciousness.
Not only is self-conscious thought a process that needs time to function, but it also, I believe highlights yet another difference between you and your perfect clone. Imagine your perfect clone being created at noon and you are both in sync particle-wise. At noon exactly you are conscious and self-aware. You’re conscious instantaneously at 12 because you’re experiencing qualia from the sensory input you received an instant before noon. And you’re self-aware because of the consciousness you experienced an instant or two before noon.
At the instant of noon, your newly created clone has only your memories. It will take an additional instant to receive raw sensory data and an additional instant to reflect on both of those to acquire a sense of self. That is a very small, but, I believe significant difference between you and your clone. Yes, you are both the same person to the outside world; you are both conscious and self-aware. But, at no point were you ever 100% converged (always a gap), so neither shares a future with the other.
Time Machine: How can we test the Transporter question in the real world? Easy, we just need a transporter and a time machine. On Wednesday at 12 you walk from the departure pod and arrive at the arrival pod at 12:01. Before the walk (at 11) you traveled to 12:01, then traveled back to 11. You’re asked, “what did you feel like at 12:01?” I think you’d say, “I felt the same only at a new location”.
On Thursday at 12 you get into your Transporter departure pod and arrive in the arrival pod at 12:01. At 11 before the trip, you get into the time machine and travel to 12:01, then travel back to 11. You’re asked again, “what did you feel like at 12:01?” I think you’d say, “I didn’t feel anything, I think I was dead.”
2 Trinopuses are better than 1: Let go back to when Trinopus (T1) was a blastocyst and turn him into an identical twin (late stage split). Let’s assume a perfect split down to the exact particle configuration. We also have advanced obstetrics and control for everything exactly alike. Take each embryo (T1 and T2) and place them in separate but equal sensory non-deprivation tanks. Each tank is equipped with identical devices (video, audio, tactile, etc.) to create qualia and engram memories. Remember, consciousness will not even begin for many months. The exact same sensory data is transferred to T1 and T2, they are raised like other humans, only exactly alike and synthetically.
At 20 years of age, via microphone ask the same question to both T’s: “Do you feel like one person or two?” I’m confident they will both answer “one” (and interestingly, with all being controlled equally, they should answer in unison…let’s ignore quantum uncertainty). How do you think they will answer and why?
At 21 years of age, flash a monster image on T1’s video screen, but not T2’s (this is the very first time that T1 and T2 receive different sensory input since they were a blastocyst). I believe T1 will scream, but T2 won’t. T2 won’t have any memory of the monster either. I think they will still answer the question, “do you feel like one person or two” exactly the same as they did before the monster image was shown. No difference, despite both T’s being arguably converged before the image and diverged after the image. But, were they really converged before the image? I don’t believe so. One instant in 20 years can split one person into two? I don’t think so.
I believe they diverged the moment their embryo split into two, over a year before either would become conscious. Simply by virtue of being separated (though equal), they are diverged.
I believe your memories are a big part of your consciousness (they are how you and others define yourself), but not the only part. Qualia and self-awareness are equally, if not more important than your memories alone. IOW, I believe you are more than your memories.
Slowly erase all the memories from your brain until you have no memories at all. At this point, do you feel anything? Yes, your vision will be blurred, audio will make no sense, etc. But, you feel something. To me, that’s who I am at my core. That’s what can’t be shared with anyone else. I’ll need to develop new memories to make sense of myself and my surroundings, but I can live with that. Someone else referencing my former memories has no bearing on my life and never did.
I think I would be arguing that a tranporter-booth type process captures and reproduces all ongoing processes, as well as just the matter in which they are happening. A vase that is falling and is transported at the precise moment it strikes the floor, continues to smash when it is reconstituted at the other end.
Otherwise it’s not an exact duplicate. In other worss, youre still arguing that an exact duplicate is different.
Not different in the sense that there is any measurable difference, but separate. And besides, we need to ask the vase what it feels like to be a vase. 
For clarity let’s return to the perfect clone situation. But first, let’s just consider one version of you in the universe in order to see if we agree at this base level. Step into the time machine; travel an hour into the future then return. You’re asked, “did you feel alive an hour from now?” I believe I’d answer “yes.” Do you believe you’d answer “yes”, too?
Let’s do it again, but this time someone kills you 30 minutes from now. Again travel an hour into the future and return. Same question is asked. I believe I’d answer, “no.” Would you answer “no”, too?
Now, let’s time travel in a situation where there is more than one version of you alive at the same time—you and your perfect clone separated in space (maybe a few light years apart). Everything is exactly the same at both locations (your clone is living on a mirrored Earth with every particle in sync).
Same scenario: you on this Earth are killed in 30 minutes, but your clone remains alive. Travel an hour into the future and return. Same question is asked. I believe I’d answer the same as I did before, “no.” How do you believe you’d answer?
Of course your clone would need to time travel exactly like you on his Earth to remain in sync with you, but we only care about your answer on this Earth.
Again, I believe two identical beings separated in space have no measurable differences between them. But, I also believe awareness of self is a local event (and a macro-atomic process that needs a span of time to function) that can only be felt by a conscious brain in one location. Your clone also has an awareness of self, and nothing can be measured to differentiate his SA from yours (therefore no paradox), but his likewise is local to him. Even though both can be considered completely converged in all other respects (do you consider them converged?), they have always been diverged in space. I believe this is different from me in my original body separated by time alone.
That, right there, is it exactly. Thank you.
Crikey, I couldn’t make much sense of this. Are you imagining that I think that multiple copies of an individual would still have one weird, linked mind/self between them? That has never been my argument.
I was with you up to this point, but, as far as I can tell, you’re making an unfounded assertion.
I absolutely disagree that a fuzzy line ever implies P and Not-P at the same time. It only implies that we don’t know, for sure, in advance, if 99.99% accuracy is enough, or whether we require 99.999% accuracy for “personal identity” to be duplicated.
The break-point does exist. We just don’t know where it is.
I also don’t agree that success in transmission is subjective: it can be tested objectively – at least in part – by holding interviews between the subject and his closest loved ones. If they don’t perceive any difference, then it is hard for the “anti-transportation” view to demonstrate that there is one. The subject behaves in all ways the way he did before transmission – including attesting to his own state of mind.
In the NFL, the spotting of a football might be – in fact, must be – in error, by distances of 10ths of millimeters, at least. Every once in a while, that error will lead to the erroneous declaration or denial of a first down. No one can tell us exactly what degree of accuracy is needed to eliminate all wrongful calls. An accuracy of the width of an atomic nucleus would be enough. Accuracy to the nearest inch isn’t enough.
You can’t tell me where the necessary level of accuracy is…but it does exist.
And yet, that is undeniably what you already are. You are someone else reflecting on your memories of your childhood, for example, but you are not that child, either at a macroscopic level, or in terms of the atoms of which you or the child are/were composed.
This is true: a properly working Star Trek Transporter would have to duplicate chemical processes that may be occurring at the time of the scan. Now, chemical reactions take place incredibly swiftly…but they do take time. So the Transporter has to make sure that none of these reactions are interrupted.
In my opinion, this is simply part of the premise: the transported subject (or the identical duplicate) has all the same ongoing chemical reactions. Without that, there would be a very obvious immediate difference: the original would keep breathing, while the duplicate would be stone dead!
One person, of course. That isn’t the question being debated.
The question being debated is: are they the same person. If one dies, does he “have a future” in the other? I say yes, because, being the same person, they have the “same present” in each other.
This is why the “immortality” method of storing a clone in a basement, and periodically updating him with your memories, preserves “you” if you die in an airplane crash. Techs simply awaken the clone, give him your car keys and bank account, and he goes out and lives the life you would have lived if you’d just awakened. He actually is you. You become immortal, even if you die.
Was Bill Murray, in Groundhog Day, actually dying when he jumped off a cliff and re-awakened the next morning, to replay the whole day again? (A slightly different question, as he awakened with the memories of all his previous attempts to explore that single day.)
If you awakened from sleep, and someone said, “Well, your original died, but you now have all your memories from up to three days ago – the last memory copy,” would you insist on going and living in a cave somewhere because “you” are really dead, and the new you is just a fake copy that mistakenly believes he’s you? Or would “you” say, “Huh. Well, okay, I have to play the hand I’ve been dealt. Let’s go and see what legal and moral obligations I might have gotten myself into over the last three days. Hope I didn’t buy a big house…or insult some Mafia capo! I might be dying and re-awakening a lot!”
Why not? I do. They were “the same person” up to the point where a difference was introduced. Now they aren’t identical any more. The initial difference is small, and can be minimized over time if their experiences are re-synced. To my mind, the difference is small enough, I’d be comfortable saying they are still “the same.”
As with Mijin’s views on the exactness of transporter accuracy, there is some level of difference that breaks apart “Personal Identity.” Seeing, or not seeing, an image of a monster for a second 20 years ago is, in my opinion, not so great a difference as to break personal identity.
But, remember, that wasn’t what I walked in here to debate. This is a new issue. I walked in here debating that exactly identical persons are “the same person.”
Now that the debate has wandered to "are approximately identical persons the “same person?” I have to ask: has my original contention been granted?
I believe that exact duplicates have the same qualia and self-awareness, too, so, for me, the point is moot.
This is an articulate statement of the opinion you hold…which, alas, is exactly opposite from the opinion I hold.
We are in the position of having incompatible philosophical beliefs, which, rather painfully, we cannot state with sufficient persuasion to cause either of us to say, “Oh, gosh, I see: you know, you’re right.”
Ultimately, it’s like a religious difference of opinion…or a difference in aesthetic preference. Hawaiian Pizza: good or bad? Two identical clones: one “person” or two?
Really? Other than your good word and personal conviction, why is that “undeniable?” My personal experience of being me is continuous.
It’s undeniable that most of the atoms in your body have been replaced. It’s undeniable that your body has changed on a macroscopic level since you were a child. You are someone else remembering yourself as a child.
You are words on a screen. Even if you were here, face to face with me, you could still be a bit of undigested potato. I have direct experience of me. I have no direct experience of you. Why is it, again, that your description of what constitutes “me” trumps my description of what constitutes “me?”
In response to Mijin, my view regarding acceptable rates of transmission loss in Transporting/cloning, etc. is…
Not that there is ever a rate of error at which someone both is and is not duplicated…
But that there is a rate of error at which we can’t tell whether he has truly been duplicated.
One hair on his head misplaced? Good enough. Three legs? Terrible.
But what if he develops a mild lisp? If you developed a slight lisp overnight, wouldn’t you still be “yourself?” The same should apply to a duplicate.
(That said, I would not voluntarily go into a transporter/duplicator that had such a high level of failure!)
Which part of my statement did you disagree with, specifically? Are you in fact composed of the same atoms as was your childhood self, in the same macroscopic configuration?
If not (and forgive me for assuming that), then you are, undeniably, a different physical thing from the thing you were as a child. You are a different thing, remembering the other thing you formerly were.
I agree that it’s undeniable that most of the atoms in your body have been replaced. But, most of your atoms don’t factor into this discussion because they aren’t concerned with the function of your brain. You can chop off my little toe, for example, and I’m not going to lose much of my personal identity.
What is known is that, unlike most other cells in your body, most of the neurons in your CNS do not get replaced for your entire lifespan. Some do die, and if too many die (in any number of neurological disorders), it’s accurate to say that you lose part of your self-identity. More resent research indicates that there is also a fair amount of neurogenesis that takes place in your CNS during your lifetime. But, despite some amount of neuron necrosis and neuron neogenesis, the fact remains that a core % of your CNS neurons remain intact and functional throughout your conscious life.
It’s at this cellular level of consciousness that I believe your sense of self is formed and continues throughout your life, persistently until you die. Your SA is attached to your brain and your brain only. It continues in your brain over time, whether you lose some neurons or make some new ones. You’re the same person that you were when you were a child, only older, with many new memories to reference. That’s something you don’t share with your clone—he has his own similar, but separate neurons with which to reference the same or somewhat different memories. He’s you to outside observers, but he’s not you to you.
I believe the debate stops there. Continuous CNS neuronal consciousness in a single brain is all the evidence I need to believe we live and have a future in our aging selves and we don’t have the same future in any other brain, no matter how identical it is to the original.
But, if you insist on permanence at the atomic level, the jury is still out on that question (at least I’ve found no research results to the contrary to date). I have also posed this question to more than one well-credentialed neurologist and it’s their belief that the important (non-metabolic waste) atoms of the brain do not get replaced.
Mangtout and Trinopus, it would be helpful if you answered my time machine questions. I’m pretty sure you understand what my position is, but after 10 years I’m still not 100% sure what yours is.
I would be very surprised if these neurons retain their exact atomic makeup throughout a person’s life, but really, it doesn’t matter - you’re saying that continuity is important - I agree - but I thought all along that the hypothetical teleporter/duplicator device we were talking about would absolutely have to provide continuation of ongoing processes from the ‘original’ to the ‘copy’ - a falling ball would have to bounce back up from the floor of the receiving station; a ticking clock would have to tock on arrival, and a living brain would have to complete whatever ongoing processes were started in the original - it wouldn’t be an exact copy any other way.
I had trouble following it, but I’ll have another go tomorrow.
I should think this does not need to be pointed out, but you and Mijin both make the same rhetorical demand: “You didn’t answer my question.”
I answer posts to the best of my ability. I do not always answer every single point made. I select among them, to keep my posts from becoming too long. (They’re already too long!) Please do not take my neglect of one or more of your points as a dodge, an obstruction, a concession, or any other kind of moral failure.
Also…I’m afraid I don’t completely understand your position. I have sometimes had trouble following your Time T+1 examples. Most certainly, I don’t draw the same conclusions from them that you do.
I’m doing my pitiful best, but, as far as I can tell, the conversation really is deadlocked. Mijin appears to believe that my viewpoints are logically self-contradictory, but he has not succeeded in making that claim convincing to me. I believe his views are incorrect…but I have not succeeded in making that claim convincing to him.
In times like these, I take solace from the wise words of Marchetto Cara, fl. c. A.D. 1500: “Coming from Bologna, my shoes hurt my feet.”
So John has a future no matter how different the person who walks out of the transporter is?
That would certainly have interesting implications…it would mean for example that we are all immortal as long as some human is alive somewhere. Since any human could be considered to be an imperfect transport of me.