I *am *post teleportation guy. I’m also pre teleportation guy. They’re the same person, so of course they have the same perspective.
I can sort of understand the consciousness of a stalk of broccoli remaining unaffected while being in dematerialized transport mode, because, well…a stalk of broccoli has no consciousness to affect. But how can can this work for a conscious mind? From what is the consciousness emerging during transport if there are no intact neurons? To imply consciousness is attached to a stream of non-configured particles is to invoke a very non-materialistic uniqueness to particles that most pro-transports (and anti-transporters) shy away from.
…and, how can someone grab onto creatures while he is dematerialized—he’s got no hands to grab with?!?
A point to contend with: if the person in the arrival pod is rematerialized from the dematerialized particles of the person in the departure pod, could not arrival guy (theoretically) also be rematerialized from a separate set of similar particles? If not, why not? What is unique about the disassembled particles of the departure guy? The answer should be “nothing”, unless you add something metaphysical. Therefore, if you can assemble arrival guy from any set of particles, you should also be able to assemble multiple copies of him. Go into the departure pod and come out the arrival pod as 10 people? Not only 10 people, but 10 people who share the same sense of self, such that departure guy made the correct bet that he would not die subjectively when dematerialized? And, some of you find this not the least bit paradoxical?
I lightly scanned the Star Trek Transporter link from Post #8, but the only type of transporter that has even a chance of maintaining your sense of self through transport, IMHO, is the folded-space type. This looks like the only type that can assure one and only one person comes out of the arrival pod and can maintain the departed persons subjective self. Any method that can even theoretically allow multiple copies of a single consciousness to exist for even an instant is hereby forbidden by the laws of the universe…and, me.
I am the Walrus!
The teleportation = death people I think always suffer from this concept that somehow being “part of” a stream of consciousness in a “certain way” is what makes you “alive” or “dead.” That just makes no sense.
For portions of your sleep time each night you have very little “active” brain function, you aren’t really dreaming or thinking about things. You’re just “out.” If that isn’t a point when a stream of consciousness has been severed, I don’t really know what it is.
The very first time, many years ago, I was made aware of this “teleportation debate” my initial reaction was “yeah, if I’m destroyed and an exact replica of me is created elsewhere, “I” die, and who cares what my replica does?” But very shortly after I said that, it sort of hit me, “wait a minute, the guy who just thought that is gone too.” I was getting hung up over this concept that what makes me “alive” is somehow the “physical way” that I’m connected to my preceding stream of consciousness. But that really makes no sense. Whether I pass through time like “normal” by moving around on my legs or just sitting and watching a clock, or if I’m being teleported as disassembled molecules, I can’t stop moving through time.
If we’re so hung up on “the guy who enters the teleporter ceases to exist because he is destroyed, and there is no way to actually prove it because the copy will have all of his memories” then I don’t see any difference from “normal life.” I’m a guy who has all the memories of the guy from five minutes ago who made an earlier post, but I am not at the same point in time. So how is that different than if I had been teleported somewhere in that interim versus just sitting here at my computer?
This is the best point any of the pro-transporter people have made. There really is no definitive way that I can know that I am not dead-and-reborn every time my consciousness is interrupted. Because if true, I’m now post-teleporter guy, right?
The problem is, we have a pretty good reason to believe consciousness has been completely interrupted in the transporter scenario – the vaporized remains of your brain. In the other possible interrupted-consciousness scenarios, we really don’t know that consciousness ever fully ceased – it could have continued in a dream state, or a low-functioning coma state, or whatever.
I’m here to tell you that I was in the departure pod along with you and I’m now looking down from heaven cursing my post-teleported self for stealing my life and poking my wife. Your pre-teleported self just hasn’t regained consciousness, yet. And, I’m sorry to say, when you do, you won’t be looking down…you ended up someplace warmer. 
Nope, sorry that does not follow. What if you were duplicated into 50 copies? They’re all the same person. Do they all have the same perspective? Nope!
Don’t blame me. I just watched the ep, I didn’t write it. Broccoli is Lt Barclay’s (unwanted) nickname.
18 hours of static, that’s all I got to say about that.
MOTHERFUCKING BOARD SOFTWARE! I have a half a dozen quoted posts and they don’t show up in the edit window. And now I tried to manually copy/paste and got some weird error and lost the post I was constructing! :mad::mad:
This debate hinges on a philosophical position that we just do not have enough information to answer. It deals with the nature of life and self and identity and awareness. It deals with how the brain works, whether there is a soul, and if this soul is a construct of the brain matter or merely imposed and linked to the brain matter from some outside source. Is the self a quantum state wholly defined by the brain structure? Is it separate from the neural pattern that it is linked to? Does deconstructing the pattern break the string? Does reconstructing the pattern reconstruct the identity?
It also deals with the exact nature of the proposed teleportation, whether there is one set of molecules or different molecules. Is it a discontinuous process or continuous process, i.e. does it scan and deconstruct, transport, then reassemble? Is it a scan, and then the deconstruct and reconstruct happen simultaneously? Is awareness active through the process, or broken? In other words, are you aware of stepping into the send chamber, aware of some weird travel sensation and being in both places, then aware of the receiving chamber? Or is it more of a blink and you’re someplace new, with no feeling of the move? Or is it a “go to sleep” and then “wake up” sensation?
Fundamentally, without answers to those questions, there are going to be two camps who just don’t agree. One set sees the process as a continuous flow, that the pattern at the other end is the same as the pattern at the sending end, that there’s no way to externally differentiate or ID the identities as different, so it is the same thing. The other camp sees the internal perspective of the sendee and how that probably comes to an end.
[QUOTE=Cartoonacy]
And then there was The Prestige, in which…
[snip]
I haven’t read the book, but what I found interesting about the movie is that there was no hint of science fiction until the second half.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, the science fiction was oddly introduced. Before that point, it was all about stage magicians and their fued and non-mystical techniques. Then there’s the introduction of Tesla.
Also amusing, reading the article from CalMeacham, the use of the cat in the transporter was likely an homage.
Well, you may feel the dead me has no regrets, but what about regretting ending his experiences when he could continue having experiences? Sure, he might not get that trip to Pluto, but he can still eat a pizza.
[QUOTE=Trinopus]
Why are you guys so hung up on guns? Shoot the duplicate. Use a disrupter on the duplicate. What is it with you guys and violence?
[/quote]
Trying to illuminate the violence of the process of “deconstruction” or “scanning” or “dematerialization” or whatever. The point is to highlight the factor of termination. We can use a completely painless form of death if that makes it less squicky without losing the point, the sendee is being killed.
If the transporter failed that way, there is now a new you at the receiving location. You argue that the new you is the same as the old you, so the spare body is the one at the sending location. Now you can argue that by virtue of making the duplication it breaks the very argument for the continuity of the self, that that splitting makes the new you where the normal process does not. I’m not sure how effective that is or if it’s dismissing the counterargument without justification. But you do seem to be overlooking the new duplicate, which is the point of the example as described.
[QUOTE=Shakes]
But here’s the thing, we keep referring to the “stream of conscience” and the default position seems to be that the one left behind is “you”. I disagree, I say the “SOC” is both here AND there. Kind of like Schrodinger’s cat of consciousnesses.
[/QUOTE]
Is it a dual interlocking consciousness? Is it two incarnations of the same identity? Is it a process of being awake and aware the whole way through, feeling both states? Or is it a break like falling asleep?
I think others are using stream of consciousness to mean something different than stream of awakeness. Something more akin to mental processes. Again, what is the nature of identity and self?
[QUOTE=Chronos]
How about this: What if, instead of creating a duplicate and blasting you, what if it created a duplicate and instantly blasted that duplicate? Would that do anything objectionable to you?
[/QUOTE]
Well, it would be objectionable in the sense of needlessly killing a person. It wouldn’t be killing my current identity, but it would be killing a person closer than a twin. It’s not directly affecting the sent me.
[QUOTE=Miller]
At which step in our serious of increasingly unlikely lifesaving technologies have we stopped saving people’s lives, and started just making new ones?
[/QUOTE]
The best answer I can currently give you is based upon inadequate information, but the best we can supply right now. I would say the point you cease brain activity, you shift from saving life to bringing back someone new.
[QUOTE=MrDibble]
As for the “you’d get shot with a disruptor” hypothetical, the difference there is the time lag - the me that gets shot has already diverged from the me that got sent, of course I’m not going to commit suicide. The perception of divergence is what matters to me.
[/QUOTE]
The perception of divergence may be the one element we can discern. It may ultimately be the only place we can make any determinations.
Are we talking about transporters, here, or duplicators? They’re not the same thing, and the transporters depicted on Star Trek can’t be used as duplicators without some seriously bizarre circumstances that violate the laws of quantum mechanics.
Another way to think of it is that a brain is a computer. In every way that really matters, the human brain is very similar to an electronic computer.
A computer has a processor. Electricity goes through the processor and it can essentially “think” based on its instruction set and commands that are issued and etc.
A computer has various other components, chief for our example is data storage. Our computer stores data on a hard disk. We know exactly how hard disk data works because humans have designed them, the changes in the magnetization on the film on the disks represent a type of binary data that a computer can read. We don’t understand human memory nearly so well, but we know enough that it’s quite comparable.
Human memories are not part of the present processing of information or “living” in the present moment. But they can be referenced or can inform what you are doing in the present tense. We can retrieve memories somewhat on demand, and we have quite powerful ability to retrieve information contextually that otherwise we’d never think about. That means it is “written” in some way semi-permanently in that it persists even when it is not part of our active thoughts at all.
Say this electronic computer is currently running an application, a spreadsheet with numbers and headings and such. Its processor is doing calculations and other background tasks necessary to keep the system running in addition to allowing the spreadsheet application to update its display, to return results of calculations and etc. As long as the processor does not physically break, and electricity continues to flow into it, it can continue to think about this spreadsheet. We are periodically “saving” the spreadsheet to storage. So that if we close it out and don’t think about it again for years, we can retrieve it at will (much more completely and reliably than human long term memories are retrieved.)
If the human brain, which is certainly a type of organic computer, is an analog to this electronic computer, then the teleportation = death folks are basically saying if the flow of electricity to that process ever stops, then the person (or computer) dies. When you restart it, and reassemble in place everything you were doing, and continue to work on the same spreadsheet, that’s just a perfect copy of what you were doing, it isn’t the same electronic energy and display and etc as it was before the power was cut.
Technically that is actually true. But just like time, electricity continuously is flowing into a computer. Even if you never shut the computer down and it never loses its flow of electricity, each moment different electricity is flowing through it.
It’s only the ability of the processor to access storage and work with other built in structures in the computer that the computer is able to keep working over time on the same spreadsheet. But this is very similar to how I only have the knowledge and training I have because of my access to my memories.
This stream = self argument, is saying that the self is defined by its uninterrupted streamed connection with its past. But if it wasn’t clear from my example with electricity flowing through a computer, my point is that whether it’s a brain or a computer, you’re never working with the same exact energy and each moment that passes you exist in the present tense only, the previous moment is gone forever.
The brain uses energy to fire messages over synapses in a way that allows thinking, cognition etc. Just as electricity flows through a processor to allow it to perform calculations. We use a different type of energy transmission and have mostly chemical synapses using neurotransmitters instead of purely electrical switches, but the idea is the same. As long as the brain keeps transmitting signals around we continue to think and be alive.
You can damage the brain in a way that destroys all memory of who you once were, but allows for cognition to continue. If you do that, have you died? Or are you still alive just severely brain damaged? If we were living in the future, and we had found a way to “backup” human memories, and a doctor replaced the damaged brain tissue and then “restored” from memory backup your lost memories, would you have died and been rebuilt? Or were you injured in a way that made you lose your memories, and then were given them back?
What is that makes you “you”, is it just the simple fact that there has been an “uninterrupted” period of synpatic activity, and whatever else happens as long as that is never interrupted, you’ve not died? If that is really the answer, what if we found a way to bring people back from brain death? Someone’s heart has stopped, the brain loses its energy supply and under current medicine you die. All signaling in the brain stops, all active biological processes stop, very quickly decay begins. But say we’re in the far future, we can protect the body from further damage or decay and rush you to a futuristic ER. Your heart is repaired, and using technology of the future doctors are able to restart the signaling process in your brain. Are you a new person, in the same physical “husk” as the you that had died? Or are you still the same person, brought back to life?
Since it ends, it doesn’t exist any longer, and thus is of no consequence to him or to anyone else.
What were your life experiences for the 14 billion years before you were born?
True. However, if such a device came into existence, the issue could be approached scientifically, and not on a religious basis. After a few years, (I trow) the pragmatic interpretation would largely win out, as more and more people used it, and showed absolutely no differences.
So Trinopus… you’re going to die sooner or later in any case, right–and it will be a matter of “no consequence” to then be dead forever after? Why don’t you kill yourself?
There was an OT episode (but I can’t remember which) while something happens in the transporter room while Kirk is in the midst of transporting. He and the others on the platform react to it, and talk about it later. (“That Which Survives,” I think.)
As I mentioned in the other thread, there are two interpretations in quantum physics for electron tunneling. One is that the electron simply “is” on the other side of the barrier. The other is that a virtual electron-positron pair pop out of nowhere, the positron annihilates the electron, but the other electron wanders off on the other side of the barrier.
The virtue (so to speak) of this virtual event is that it cannot be observed. Neither interpretation can be proven. It is perfectly valid to say “the electron crossed the barrier.”
Exactly; in a world with replicators and duplicators, such words as “identity,” “same,” “real,” and “me” all need to be redefined. This happens in the real world as science advances. The word “species” had to be redefined (slightly) in light of the discovery of biological evolution. Does an electron have a measurable “width?” Quantum physics has forced us to re-assess the question.
Exactly. The argument is self-contradictory. It’s “You’ll be dead, and then how do you think you’ll feel? Hm?”
There is an easy way to tell, you just need a time machine. Zip your pre-teleported self into the future just as your post-teleported self steps out of the transporter, then punch him in the nose. If you both say ouch, you know you didn’t die. If you lose consciousness before you arrive, you know you died (just remember to set the time machine to auto-return, so you can reverse-resurrect and change you travel plans).
Agreement. Scientific discoveries force re-assessment of “common sense” now and then.
Yes…and no. I would go to the transporter operator and say, “Let’s do this again and get it right,” knowing that he would simply disintegrate me without a second full transport cycle. This gets rid of the supernumerary “me,” the one that I don’t want. I don’t want to be the guy left behind at the dock, watching the ship go away. I want to be the guy on the ship, looking back at the shore.
And, in that example, I am the guy on the ship, looking back at the shore! I did successfully transport. I stepped off the platform at the destination.
So, back at the origin point, I can happily say “Beam me again” knowing it really means “disintegrate me” because I know I am at the destination. I got through okay! Now let’s get rid of the pointless extra unwanted “doppelganger” that’s left behind!
You see? Which one is the “doppelganger” is solely a matter of opinion and intent. Since my intent was to transport to Lisbon, the “me” left behind is the unwanted extra stupid useless waste of matter. Disintegrate it. It will “feel” to me exactly like a successful transport.
(Or, who knows. Maybe I’d say, "Hold off on that for a bit. I can get some shopping done. Won’t my “real self” be surprised when “I” get back, and find the freezer full? Why waste the additional manpower? Then, when I’ve made some profit out of the accident, I can have myself disintegrated, and that, simply to avoid absurd legal complications involving property rights.)
Well, we know it duplicated Riker.
But your point gets to the heart of the issue: There literally is no difference between transporting and copying because there is nothing “uniquely you” about the elementary particles that constitute your body. So if we break you down to your elementary particles and beam them to your destination for reconstitution, all we’re really doing is paying lip service to the idea that you die when you get dematerialized.
There is no reason whatsoever to physically beam your particles. The net effect is the same as if we reconstituted a copy of you from a particle reserve at the destination site.
That’s the fundamental point. Even if we beamed your particles, it’s not “you” that’s being reconstituted, it’s a copy of you.