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GlyphGryph posted:Are we the game cd, or the piece of software on the game cd? The physical arrangement of atoms or the information that arrangement contains? I think the problem people have (including me) with the teleportation experiment as described in the OP is that it really does seem to involve a death, even if that death "doesn't matter" because another person exactly like you reappears somewhere else at the same time. The question seems to have a lot in common with philosophical questions on the consequences if QM Many-Worlds is true. Take quantum immortality: if Many-Worlds were true then I should be able to rig up an experiment wherein based on the spin of an electron or something I die with 50% probability if the spin of the electron is up. The result of that experiment, so the story goes, is that I should always observe the spin to be down, since in the universes where the spin is up I'm dead and can't observe anything. Nevertheless, I'm not very likely to want to do this experiment, broadly for two reasons: 1. I'm pretty sure MW is true, but I'm not willing to stake my life on it. 2. I'm intentionally creating universes where I die, each time I do this experiment. That sort of feels like murder. To me this is almost identical to the teleporter problem, except we're taking it as a given that (1) above actually really does hold (we know the teleporter will work). So all that's left is objection (2). In the MW thought experiment no one really gives a poo poo about point (2) usually, and in fact it's rare in my experience that anyone brings it up. However the teleportation thought experiment brings it into sharp relief. Whereas in the MW experiment, you are guaranteed to be the "you" that lives, in the teleporter version though, it's more like you're getting a guarantee that you're the "you" that dies.
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Apr 9, 2016 15:50
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Kilroy posted:Nevertheless, I'm not very likely to want to do this experiment, broadly for two reasons: To me this experiment is utterly different, and I would absolutely not do it, because I'd be bereaving 50% of my families. And I would see them all, equally, as my family, whereas the transportation-averse might not? Oh dear clone fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Apr 9, 2016 |
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Apr 9, 2016 16:41
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Oh dear clone posted:To me this experiment is utterly different, and I would absolutely not do it, because I'd be bereaving 50% of my families. But perhaps I am more aware of this because I would see them all, equally, as my family, whereas the transportation-averse might not? Another thing worth mentioning is that the two experiments can't both work. If MW is true and if it also implies quantum immortality, then a teleporter couldn't kill you. It would break down or something would otherwise happen that prevented you from ever teleporting. So even if they are complementary in a way, they also contradict each other.
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Apr 9, 2016 17:00
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Kilroy posted:Your last statement doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't have to be one or the other. All you've presented is an additional reason not to do the quantum immortality experiment, which teleportation-averse people could also agree with. Well of course and I pointed to the no-cloning and no-teleportaion theorems earlier. Quantum teleportation on the other hand doesn't kill you and is perfectly compactible with the relative state (or ""many worlds"") formulation of quantum mechanics.
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Apr 9, 2016 17:10
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Kilroy posted:All you've presented is an additional reason not to do the quantum immortality experiment, which teleportation-averse people could also agree with. Indeed, which is why I edited my original statement before you answered. I was just a bit amazed that you did not include it in your list, or see that it makes a massive difference. quote:Another thing worth mentioning is that the two experiments can't both work. If MW is true and if it also implies quantum immortality, then a teleporter couldn't kill you. It would break down or something would otherwise happen that prevented you from ever teleporting. So even if they are complementary in a way, they also contradict each other. No, they don't. An anti-transporter would say I can never observe any worlds where the transporter worked successfully, because I'd be dead, but not that those worlds don't exist; and as far as I'm concerned, in the MW where the transporter worked successfully, I would be somewhere else. Oh dear clone fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Apr 9, 2016 |
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Apr 9, 2016 17:16
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Oh dear clone posted:Indeed, which is why I edited my original statement before you answered. I was just a bit amazed that you did not include it in your list, or see that it makes a massive difference. Anyway, I said the MW experiment feels like murder and results in death; there no need for me to belabor the point and list all the consequences that entails. It's weird to me that your biggest reason not a kill a person is that you are causing grief to the people close to them, instead of the fact that you're ending a life. I'm not trying to slight you here, either - I honestly can't emulate whatever is going on in your head. Oh dear clone posted:No, they don't. An anti-transporter would say I can never observe any worlds where the transporter worked successfully, because I'd be dead, but not that those worlds don't exist; and as far as I'm concerned, in the MW where the transporter worked successfully, I would be somewhere else.
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Apr 9, 2016 17:41
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I'm curious how you would react, if some family members took you aside and told you on no uncertain terms, that if you were to use the teleporter they would view that as a "true" death and would still mourn your loss, but also promised to treat the new you coming out the other side the same as they treat the current you. Would you still teleport?
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Apr 9, 2016 17:47
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Kilroy posted:It's weird to me that your biggest reason not a kill a person is that you are causing grief to the people close to them, instead of the fact that you're ending a life. I'm not trying to slight you here, either - I honestly can't emulate whatever is going on in your head. That's obvious, because in the transporter problem I am not ending a life, but in the MW experiment I would be, 50% of the time. quote:you're the one who has basically admitted that the teleporter counts as a death, but that it doesn't matter since your memories live on and your family still gets to have you around. So, in that case it seems you would also have to agree that (assuming QI is a thing, of course) the teleporter will never work for you. The death of this organism is a premiss of the problem, not a thing that I have 'admitted'; whether it would be the death of me is the thing we're arguing about, and my side says that it is not, for everything that matters about 'me'. (Though whether language would apply pronouns to organisms or persons in the brave new transporter-based world really doesn't matter.) It is not the end of a life, for everything that matters about a life.The teleporter would work fine for me. Oh dear clone fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Apr 9, 2016 |
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Apr 9, 2016 18:03
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Kilroy posted:I'm curious how you would react, if some family members took you aside and told you on no uncertain terms, that if you were to use the teleporter they would view that as a "true" death and would still mourn your loss, but also promised to treat the new you coming out the other side the same as they treat the current you. Would you still teleport? I don't know; it would depend on how badly I needed to travel. I would find it extremely difficult to believe that they actually would mourn my 'loss' while i was sitting there in front of them, even if they believed they would beforehand. But I suppose since many tests would have been done on the reliability of the machine, I would have more information then on people's actual reactions. Oh dear clone fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Apr 9, 2016 |
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Apr 9, 2016 18:07
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Where is the dude who was melting down? He made this thread fun.
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Apr 9, 2016 18:45
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I don't see how you would lose your personal existence. Your last memory would be stepping into the machine and your next memory would be stepping outside of the other machine. It doesn't matter that your old brain is destroyed, if you fall into a coma and some technology slowly replaced every atom and chemical in your brain with new materials that sustained it doesn't mean you wake up as a doppleganger. I guess I don't see the doppleganger as having *impostor* memories. If you see your life as say a trickle of water flowing down a mountainside, with where it was first poured marking your birth, and the still-flowing front as your personal experience of the present, duplicating yourself would be like creating a fork in the trickle with each branch drawing from the same authentic source. Creating a fork in the stream where one branch is instantly evaporated would destroy *something* but it wouldn't destroy the sense of yourself that you have had since birth to the moment of transportation. Their would still be the EXACT SAME trickle of experience and memory from your birth onward.
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Apr 9, 2016 20:49
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The only way to look at it that makes sense to me is: 1. Step into the teleporter, get vaporised, functionally equivalent copy emerges at the other end. "You" have moved from one place to another. This doesn't create a problem for our existing understanding of continuity. 2. Step into the teleporter, don't get vaporised, functionally equivalent copy emerges at the other end. There are now two people, both based on "you" as you existed at that instant. Both are people and both are individuals, as their experiences will begin to diverge from the point of duplication. Both should be regarded as valid, as they're both functional humans, assuming teleportation is a common thing, the atoms of the original probably aren't the atoms that physically experienced most of its memories anyway. So both are just as "real" as each other.
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Apr 9, 2016 23:22
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Shbobdb posted:Where is the dude who was melting down? He made this thread fun. On average, how long would the word "maaan" be stretched out if this issue was described by someone under the influence of marijuana?
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Apr 9, 2016 23:24
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If you were cloned and forced to face yourself in a battle to the death in a gladiatorial arena, would you fight? Would you win?
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Apr 9, 2016 23:29
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Control Volume posted:If you were cloned and forced to face yourself in a battle to the death in a gladiatorial arena, would you fight? Would you win? If you answer yes to the first question, the answer to the second question is also yes.
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Apr 9, 2016 23:32
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OwlFancier posted:If you answer yes to the first question, the answer to the second question is also yes. What if you kill each other?
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Apr 9, 2016 23:34
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Control Volume posted:If you were cloned and forced to face yourself in a battle to the death in a gladiatorial arena, would you fight? Would you win? I would probably win because I am a wimp and it would be very easy to beat me.
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Apr 9, 2016 23:34
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SHISHKABOB posted:What if you kill each other? Whoever dies first wins, and is you, so you win.
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Apr 9, 2016 23:35
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If you were to teleport yourself across the cosmos of space, I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together?
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Apr 9, 2016 23:36
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Control Volume posted:If you were cloned and forced to face yourself in a battle to the death in a gladiatorial arena, would you fight? Would you win? Yes and yes. Because there is no one I hate more than myself.
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Apr 9, 2016 23:36
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OwlFancier posted:Whoever dies first wins, and is you, so you win. No I mean like a at the same time kind of death. Like omg he got the killing blow, but wait hidden poisoned dagger! You look into your eyes and realize what fools you were, imagine the power you might have had working together, and die.
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Apr 9, 2016 23:47
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Control Volume posted:If you were to teleport yourself across the cosmos of space, I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together? I am the eggman.They are the eggman.I am the Walrus.
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Apr 9, 2016 23:56
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SHISHKABOB posted:No I mean like a at the same time kind of death. Like omg he got the killing blow, but wait hidden poisoned dagger! You look into your eyes and realize what fools you were, imagine the power you might have had working together, and die. I've poisoned your wine! For the good of the land. I've poisoned yours as well. Nooooooooooo!
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Apr 10, 2016 00:19
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SHISHKABOB posted:No I mean like a at the same time kind of death. Like omg he got the killing blow, but wait hidden poisoned dagger! You look into your eyes and realize what fools you were, imagine the power you might have had working together, and die. I think i would probably use my dying moments to place my testicles in my own mouth and fart on my head.
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Apr 10, 2016 01:00
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OwlFancier posted:I think i would probably use my dying moments to place my testicles in my own mouth and fart on my head. Thank you, this made my day much happier.
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Apr 10, 2016 01:04
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OwlFancier posted:I think i would probably use my dying moments to place my testicles in my own mouth and fart on my head. Ahh, the good old Eggs Benedict maneuver. A classic.
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Apr 10, 2016 01:53
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OwlFancier posted:The only way to look at it that makes sense to me is: I feel like the second point kind of shows how wrong the first is. If I'm scanned and recreated, then clone-me has an instantly different set of memories. It still has all of my memory up to the point of the scan, but it's consciousness would begin with whatever the experience of reconstruction feels like, even if it was instantaneous. I'm entirely agnostic on the question in general, but I feel like there's little difference between me and clone-me coexisting and me being destroyed and clone-me being recreated in another location. My brain and body are destroyed (rendering me dead by any materialist notion of death, and many metaphysical notions) and a new brain and body emerge on the exit end of the teleporter. Aside from arguing for some kind of metaphysical idea of a soul, which raises far more questions than answers in scenario 2, I just don't see an argument to be made that can get around that fact. If I got my body non-destructively scanned and then got put into a chamber and vaporized, the recreation of me that comes out of New-U station will be an entirely different body with no continuity to my original consciousness, and I don't see how there's any functional difference. [edit] In any case, if a civilization is advanced enough to 3D print perfect recreations of an individual organism, they'd probably go with the much less fraught option of creating stable wormholes for that kind of travel. Neither of which I actually believe will or have ever happened, honestly, but still. BUSH 2112 fucked around with this message at 06:40 on Apr 10, 2016 |
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Apr 10, 2016 06:27
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There isn't any physical difference but it is convenient to, and there is no reason not to, simply treat the first instance as being a transference of "you" to another place. I mean yes techically you are being killed and recreated but that's not really relevant, what matters is that the individual that corresponds to you exists in one place and that place is now a different place. Thus, movement. Even if you factor in a delay, so long as only one entity exists which believes it has continuity with your life, that can be treated as "you" for most intents and purposes. Maybe you with specific retrograde amnesia if necessary, but it's not hard to adapt it to conventional concepts of life continuity. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 06:54 on Apr 10, 2016 |
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Apr 10, 2016 06:42
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I bet that guy only loves his sister's duplicate because its legal to gently caress it.
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Apr 10, 2016 09:52
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I think it's easier to believe in the transference of consciousness through destructive teleportation if you believe in a soul. At least then you can pretend there's some sort of means by which your perception of your consciousness can persist. Otherwise I can't see at all how you can argue that the you that is recreated will share your perception. It may have your memories but it will be a wholly distinct being. Like, what's the difference between being broken down somewhere before a copy of you is created elsewhere and a copy of you being created elsewhere and then your present self being obliterated? The current you ceases to be in both cases and someone else identical to you who isn't you continues on in your place. But it's not you and can never be you. All the analogies that equate people with CDs and software or other objects are hosed up because people AREN'T objects and the obliteration of your consciousness SHOULD matter.
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Apr 10, 2016 21:29
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Kit Walker posted:I think it's easier to believe in the transference of consciousness through destructive teleportation if you believe in a soul. At least then you can pretend there's some sort of means by which your perception of your consciousness can persist. Otherwise I can't see at all how you can argue that the you that is recreated will share your perception. It may have your memories but it will be a wholly distinct being. Like, what's the difference between being broken down somewhere before a copy of you is created elsewhere and a copy of you being created elsewhere and then your present self being obliterated? The current you ceases to be in both cases and someone else identical to you who isn't you continues on in your place. But it's not you and can never be you. If it has your memories, it believes it has continuity with your previous life, other people are willing to agree with that, and it's the only thing that fulfills those requirements, it's you.
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Apr 10, 2016 21:33
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Okay but as we see there are plenty of people who WOULDN'T agree with that. And belief has no bearing on fact. Actually, it wouldn't even have that belief because it would know by virtue of awaking at the teleportation destination that it's a clone. Like, what if the original wasn't killed? Or if we made two copies in different locations? Which one is you?
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Apr 10, 2016 21:39
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Kit Walker posted:I think it's easier to believe in the transference of consciousness through destructive teleportation if you believe in a soul. At least then you can pretend there's some sort of means by which your perception of your consciousness can persist. Consciousness doesn't persist. The physical structures that give rise to consciousness persist, more or less, but they can be completely replaced and still be considered the same person. Teleportation doesn't do anything your body doesn't already do, except that it does it faster.
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Apr 10, 2016 21:42
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Kit Walker posted:Okay but as we see there are plenty of people who WOULDN'T agree with that. And belief has no bearing on fact. Actually, it wouldn't even have that belief because it would know by virtue of awaking at the teleportation destination that it's a clone. It can believe whatever it wants to. I believe I'm still me even though I have no recollection of what happens when I'm asleep, I just lose hours of continuity at a time, every day, I don't remember falling asleep and I don't have any sense of the passage of time because I don't dream, generally, but I don't have difficulty acting as though the things I remember are applicable to me and that I can pick up my life from where I last remember leaving it. Sure if everyone believes that teleported people aren't real people that creates a problem, but if people believe that then I don't think anyone would use teleporters. I assume if teleporters are a thing then people have accepted that the people who step out of them have continuity with the people who step into them, and it's absolutely possible for the person doing the teleporting to believe they have it. The concept of "you" is not a hard fact or a material quality, it's entirely a belief that you hold about yourself and that others hold about you. If you believe you're you, and everyone else believes you're you, you're you. That's all that there needs to be.
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Apr 10, 2016 21:44
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Here's a thought experiment: suppose we do the opposite. Let's say we completely wipe your memories, destroy your body, but somehow preserve your consciousness (which we'll say does persist, for the sake of the argument) and put it in a new body with new memories. Is that still you? Keep in mind, the new person doesn't think they're you, they don't look like you, they don't act like you, and there's no physically measureable way to tell that they're the same person who's original body got destroyed.
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Apr 10, 2016 21:52
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Here's a thought experiment: suppose we do the opposite. Let's say we completely wipe your memories, destroy your body, but somehow preserve your consciousness (which we'll say does persist, for the sake of the argument) and put it in a new body with new memories. How do you preserve a consciousness if you change everything physical? Your consciousness is an expression of your physical body.
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Apr 10, 2016 21:53
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OwlFancier posted:How do you preserve a consciousness if you change everything physical? Your consciousness is an expression of your physical body. Well, yes, that's my point. I just described reincarnation, which requires a consciousness that persists independently of any physical substrate, which is how I would define a soul. There are two positions that make sense: consciousness doesn't persist, or it does persist but is independent of the physical matter it's attached to. The only position that doesn't make sense is a consciousness that does persist but is dependent on the physical matter.
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Apr 10, 2016 21:58
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Here's a thought experiment: suppose we do the opposite. Let's say we completely wipe your memories, destroy your body, but somehow preserve your consciousness (which we'll say does persist, for the sake of the argument) and put it in a new body with new memories. No, that's not still you. That's an entirely different person.
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Apr 10, 2016 22:04
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OwlFancier posted:It can believe whatever it wants to. I believe I'm still me even though I have no recollection of what happens when I'm asleep, I just lose hours of continuity at a time, every day, I don't remember falling asleep and I don't have any sense of the passage of time because I don't dream, generally, but I don't have difficulty acting as though the things I remember are applicable to me and that I can pick up my life from where I last remember leaving it. Okay but that doesn't change the fact that you have died and your subjective ability to experience things has ceased. A million people can be wrong and they would be wrong to believe that you haven't died. Tuxedo Catfish posted:Here's a thought experiment: suppose we do the opposite. Let's say we completely wipe your memories, destroy your body, but somehow preserve your consciousness (which we'll say does persist, for the sake of the argument) and put it in a new body with new memories. This is a philosophical question rather than a scientific one. There's no way to achieve this and it's kind of a meaningless question. How do you even define consciousness? Especially if you're eliminating memories and the body. Like maybe there could be a way to transfer it if you removed the brain and put it somewhere else but without the body and memories this is meaningless.
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Apr 10, 2016 22:33
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:The only position that doesn't make sense is a consciousness that does persist but is dependent on the physical matter. Why not?
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Apr 10, 2016 22:34
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