# Transporters and the destruction of the self: What am I missing here? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 24, 2012, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894 "2012-02-24T23:36:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**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, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894/121 "2012-03-01T02:00:49Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > We shouldn’t get too hung up on whether they are the same individual or not, since they would have been divided; they could with justification be called a ‘dividual’, which is a perfectly cromulent word… > [DIVIDUAL Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dividual) . . . My point to a t. In a world with duplicating machines, we would need a new philosophical vocabulary to describe events. Simply asserting, “But he isn’t real” doesn’t cut the mustard. (Any more than Roger Penrose scored the points he thought he did when arguing against machine intelligence, and demanding the machine tell us “How does it feel?” To Penrose, that was a winning point, but to those of us who accept the Strong AI hypothesis – that machines can achieve true intelligence – it was just a childish quip, glib but vacuous.) ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894/122 "2012-03-01T04:21:09Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Assertion noted. Do you have anything to back it up? It’s simple logic. Either the two people share a consciousness (a “hive mind” if you will) or they don’t. If they don’t, this means that what person B experiences does not affect person C, and what person C experiences does not affect person B. Do you dispute this? If the experiences of each does not affect the other, that means that person B’s death does not mean person C has died, and person C’s continued life does not mean person B continues to live. This means that if you are copied and then destroyed (or destroyed and then copied), _you are still dead_. > [@](#): > > In fact, after thinking about this last night, I decided that winning the lottery would, in practice, “destroy” my and produce a very different “me” that would go forward in a totally different way than the original “myself” would have. > > The same is true if, say, my home town were hit by a large earthquake. It would change my point of view, my consciousness, my life. All of my plans would be changed. Many of my ethical values would be challenged. It would be a “life altering” experience, vastly more profound than simply using a Star Trek Transporter to go and visit Paris for an afternoon. You are treating analogy and metaphor as if they were fact. An earthquake that you survived has not literally destroyed your life - it has inconvenienced you. A teleporter _has_ destroyed you - it has torn you apart at the atomic level, at which point you die. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894/123 "2012-03-01T04:48:48Z")
> [@Waenara](#): > > So in the story, a person arrives at the station and is scanned to be transported, but there is a glitch and it seems like the receiving end didn’t get the info. So they take the person out of the pod to wait until they can fix the glitch. Then they get confirmation that the scan _did_ go through and a copy was successfully made on the other end. So the human manning the station on this end has the difficult job of killing the original on this end. Sounds similar to a major plot point in The Prestige. ---
**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, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894/124 "2012-03-01T04:51:40Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > It’s simple logic. Either the two people share a consciousness (a “hive mind” if you will) or they don’t. If they don’t, this means that what person B experiences does not affect person C, and what person C experiences does not affect person B. Do you dispute this? No… I just don’t see how it serves to rebut the claim that both persons are, in fact, the “real” Emilio James Olmos. We’ve duplicated the body, the memories, the personality, the reflexes, the moral values… How have we failed to duplicate the person? Yes, they have different experiences starting now, immediately after the duplication. But my point is, we, as individuals, have “different” life experiences depending on the contingencies of what happens in the next five minutes. If I’m still “me” after the lottery, or an earthquake, why am I not still “me” immediately after being duplicated in a new place? Yes, they are two separate persons. They’re also both EJO. In what way is one “the real he” and the other not? > [@](#): > > If the experiences of each does not affect the other, that means that person B’s death does not mean person C has died, and person C’s continued life does not mean person B continues to live. This means that if you are copied and then destroyed (or destroyed and then copied), _you are still dead_. Yes; both. Both alive and dead. One copy was created, and, for that moment in time, there were two EJOs. Or yous. Or mes. Then one is destroyed…or not. Doesn’t make an ounce of difference to my argument. While both are alive, both are the “real” me. Hell, there might be 50,000 “real me” running around. (I promise not to use this technique to overload the message boards with sock puppets!) > [@](#): > > You are treating analogy and metaphor as if they were fact. An earthquake that you survived has not literally destroyed your life - it has inconvenienced you. A teleporter _has_ destroyed you - it has torn you apart at the atomic level, at which point you die. Well, I’m using the metaphor to indicate that the existence of the individual does, in fact, survive vast dislocations of “point of view.” If I’m still “me” after, say, a massive heart attack or stroke, then certainly I’m still “me” after being duplicated in exact perfect detail, on a Transporter stage in Paris… Even if, at the same time, another “me” appears on a Transporter stage in London! I do apologize if I seem to be too “definite” or “certain” in my opinions, by the way. This is a silly sin in a discussion of something wholly speculative. As I said earlier, somebody invent the doggone thing already, and then we can find out! ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894/125 "2012-03-01T04:54:55Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > You are treating analogy and metaphor as if they were fact. An earthquake that you survived has not literally destroyed your life - it has inconvenienced you. A teleporter _has_ destroyed you - it has torn you apart at the atomic level, at which point you die. What if it puts you back together? Open heart surgery tears you apart at a more macro level. And it’s more inconvenient and invasive than stepping on a transporter and reappearing somewhere else. Really, it sounds like for a teleporter to be completely non-controvertial, it would need to be some sort of wormhole portal you walk through. Not a 3d fax machine that creates an exact copy of you somewhere else while instantly and painlessly destroying the original. ---
**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, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894/126 "2012-03-01T09:36:45Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > What if it puts you back together? Open heart surgery tears you apart at a more macro level. And it’s more inconvenient and invasive than stepping on a transporter and reappearing somewhere else. It does nothing to your brain however, and that is considered the seat of consciousness. * * * Let me try another attempt at this: If I were to stick a pin in myself, I would feel pain. If I were to stick a pin in you, I would not feel pain. Now, what if we give you 90% of my memories? Well, nothing has changed about stimuli and pain response: I could still stick a pin in you and feel nothing. Right? Now what if you have 100% the same memories as me, and are identical to me _to the quark_? Does my consciousness suddenly branch out, and a pin in either of us will make us both feel pain? No, of course not. My consciousness is still bound to this body. And that’s how I define “me”: _my_ consciousness and the entity that it is bound to. I could lose all my memories, change my appearance completely, and I’d still be me. Conversely, making X clones of me doesn’t duplicate my consciousness. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894/127 "2012-03-01T11:46:57Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > It’s simple logic. Either the two people share a consciousness (a “hive mind” if you will) or they don’t. If they don’t, this means that what person B experiences does not affect person C, and what person C experiences does not affect person B. Do you dispute this? You said that if they don’t share a consciousness, then B’s experiences don’t affect C. If you accept that, then\* you accept that if B’s experiences affect C, then they share a consciousness. Since pre-copy person’s experiences do affect post-copy person, it follows from what you’ve claimed here that pre-copy person and post-copy person _do_ share a consciousness. \*By the general principle that when A -\> B is true, then -B -\> -A is also true. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894/128 "2012-03-01T12:06:33Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Your copies continued existence doesn’t change the fact that you died, with everything that entails. What does that entail then? How is this any different than dying and being revived? This is the crux of your position, so expand upon it. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894/129 "2012-03-01T12:12:31Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > It does nothing to your brain however, and that is considered the seat of consciousness. > > * * * > > Let me try another attempt at this: > > If I were to stick a pin in myself, I would feel pain. If I were to stick a pin in you, I would not feel pain. > > Now, what if we give you 90% of my memories? > Well, nothing has changed about stimuli and pain response: I could still stick a pin in you and feel nothing. Right? > > Now what if you have 100% the same memories as me, and are identical to me _to the quark_? Does my consciousness suddenly branch out, and a pin in either of us will make us both feel pain? > No, of course not. My consciousness is still bound to this body. And that’s how I define “me”: _my_ consciousness and the entity that it is bound to. I could lose all my memories, change my appearance completely, and I’d still be me. Conversely, making X clones of me doesn’t duplicate my consciousness. That is fair enough, but you have to consider that other people define “you”, as a specific set of behaviours and mannerisms attached to a specific physical entity. A copy of you down to the quark IS you as far as everyone else is concerned. That brings us back to semantic word games again. WHAT is the difference? What makes the new you not “you”? The moment of disconnection? Then who is the new you? Just asserting “some other guy who thinks he’s me” isn’t good enough. To any other human in existence you would be identified as “you” no matter how many times you went through the process. Your “clone” :rolleyes: Would also identify himself as you, and be baffled that anyone would be asserting differently as his perception would be identical in memories and continuity to “yours”. ---
**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, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894/130 "2012-03-01T12:23:47Z")
> [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > That is fair enough, but you have to consider that other people define “you”, as a specific set of behaviours and mannerisms attached to a specific physical entity. A copy of you down to the quark IS you as far as everyone else is concerned. That brings us back to semantic word games again. WHAT is the difference? What makes the new you not “you”? The moment of disconnection? Then who is the new you? Just asserting “some other guy who thinks he’s me” isn’t good enough. To any other human in existence you would be identified as “you” no matter how many times you went through the process. Your “clone” :rolleyes: Would also identify himself as you, and be baffled that anyone would be asserting differently as his perception would be identical in memories and continuity to “yours”. Well it sounds like we agree here. Of course the clone would think he was me. Of course everyone else would too. But he wouldn’t be me. Stick a pin in him, and I wouldn’t feel pain. Indeed, I wouldn’t feel anything because I’d be dead. There’s a temptation in these kinds of thought experiments to assume a third-person perspective because it hides all the problems. But we aren’t p-zombies, consciousness is a real phenomenon and it is meaningful to discuss what happens to _my_ consciousness. Answer: it’s destroyed. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894/131 "2012-03-01T12:30:41Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Well it sounds like we agree here. Of course the clone would think he was me. Of course everyone else would too. But he wouldn’t be me. Stick a pin in him, and I wouldn’t feel pain. Indeed, I wouldn’t feel anything because I’d be dead. > > There’s a temptation in these kinds of thought experiments to assume a third-person perspective because it hides all the problems. But we aren’t p-zombies, consciousness is a real phenomenon and it is meaningful to discuss what happens to _my_ consciousness. Answer: it’s destroyed. Suppose I concede the point. So what? (channeling my inner four year old) Currently, the destruction of any given individual is tragic and possibly criminal because they are unrecoverable. In this case though, that is not true. So the objection must lie in the moment of destruction then. What is lost or what is quantifiable that we can demonstrate that the new person is “not you” other than in an abstract, semantic sense? ---
**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, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894/132 "2012-03-01T12:51:10Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Well it sounds like we agree here. Of course the clone would think he was me. Of course everyone else would too. But he wouldn’t be me. Stick a pin in him, and I wouldn’t feel pain. Indeed, I wouldn’t feel anything because I’d be dead. I’m not sure this is altogether different from saying “stick a pin in me today and I don’t feel it yesterday” ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894/133 "2012-03-01T12:59:38Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > There’s a temptation in these kinds of thought experiments to assume a third-person perspective because it hides all the problems. But we aren’t p-zombies, consciousness is a real phenomenon and it is meaningful to discuss what happens to _my_ consciousness. Answer: it’s destroyed. This is it in a nutshell. The (in)ability of observers to tell the copy and the original apart is just another distraction from the core issue. Bravo! ---
**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, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894/134 "2012-03-01T13:40:53Z")
> [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > Currently, the destruction of any given individual is tragic and possibly criminal because they are unrecoverable. I disagree with this premise. We don’t consider such an action to be immoral/illegal merely because it is unrecoverable from a third-person perspective. It’s mainly because it’s taking away what is most precious to me: my life. In the transporter hypothetical, this same crime is still happening. > [@Mangetout](#): > > I’m not sure this is altogether different from saying “stick a pin in me today and I don’t feel it yesterday” Well, as I’ve pointed out already, some people dispute that we have continuity of consciousness _now_. So that’s one way out of this problem I suppose. This would not be my personal view however. I would see that as another example of declaring something an illusion simply because it’s not understood yet. I’m not saying that there necessarily _is_ continuity, just that we should take it seriously until we have a model explaining the nature of the illusion, if that’s what it is. ---
**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, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894/135 "2012-03-01T13:45:02Z")
_Nobody_ - including the copy - can tell the difference. And the same could be happening to us every second without us noticing (if they’re right that consciousness is not a continuous phenomenon anyway) ---
**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, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894/136 "2012-03-01T13:57:03Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Nobody - including the copy - can tell the difference Right. No-one living can tell the difference _and_ I died. Those two propositions are not exclusive. > [@](#): > > And the same could be happening to us every second without us noticing (if they’re right that consciousness is not a continuous phenomenon anyway) Could be. That’s one hypothesis. There is no consensus however that this hypothesis is true (indeed, I would say it is a minority view). ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894/137 "2012-03-01T14:38:34Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > my life. What is that, and why is it superlatively precious to you? ---
**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, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894/138 "2012-03-01T14:44:52Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Right. No-one living can tell the difference _and_ I died. > Those two propositions are not exclusive. But I don’t think it’s all that different to saying that the ‘you’ of yesterday can’t tell what’s happening to you today. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894/139 "2012-03-01T14:45:48Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > What is that, and why is it superlatively precious to you? Do you eat when you are hungry? Do you take pains not to step out in front of moving cars? Asking him what his life his and why it is precious to him when the very fact that you are alive to post indicates you are protective of your own is rather facile. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894/140 "2012-03-01T14:51:59Z")
Going back a bit; [QUOTE=Mangetout] In the real world, people don’t split in two (well, not completely - although this is interesting), so we have not developed a way to think about what that would mean, or rather, we have built a paradigm that assumes singular continuity, in which we are somewhat trapped. [/quote] > [@eburacum45](#): > > Split-brains, eh; I wonder if you could split a person in two, and reconstruct the other half of the body for each original half. You would end up with two people who both include part of the orginal person. > > This would be a bit like binary personality fission; tricky to do in reality, but it would make an interesting thought experiment. In case anyone’s interested, I found a discussion of exactly this thought experiment here (warning- this is a philosophy site) > **[Personal Identity | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy](https://iep.utm.edu/person-i/)** from there > [@](#): > > The fission outcomes Y1 and Y2 are both psychologically continuous with X. According to the psychological approach, therefore, they are both identical with X. By congruence, however, they are not identical with each other: Y1 and Y2 share many properties, but even at the very time the fission operation is completed differ with regards to others, such as spatio-temporal location. Consequently, fission cases seem to show that the psychological approach entails that a thing could be identical with two non-identical things, which of course violates the transitivity of identity. Some commentators have attempted to save the psychological approach by appeal to the so-called “multiple occupancy view,” that is, the claim that, despite appearances, X was two people, namely Y1 and Y2, all along There’s one answer- you were really two people all along… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transporters-and-the-destruction-of-the-self-what-am-i-missing-here/613894.md?page=8)