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Post by Terrapin Station on Aug 1, 2017 20:54:35 GMT
I was gonna post this in the Trek section but it might be more fun here. The question is, once you're copied and your matter is dissembled then rebuilt in a new location, is that new you... really you? Would you have any existential concerns about using such a device? At first, you might think no based on the immediacy of the act but what if (like the prestige) I showed you your copy first. You knew that you were about to die (albeit painlessly) and be replaced by the copy (which had all your memories up to that point). Would that change your view on the transporter? As long as it had a high succes rate and there were no technical hiccups, yes, I'd get on it. It's the same thing that happens to you anyway--all of your matter is replaced over time, it just happens more quickly in the Star Trek example. You're never actually identical from one moment to another, and over a period of years, every bit of you is replaced.
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Post by SciFive on Aug 1, 2017 20:58:51 GMT
I was gonna post this in the Trek section but it might be more fun here. The question is, once you're copied and your matter is dissembled then rebuilt in a new location, is that new you... really you? Would you have any existential concerns about using such a device? At first, you might think no based on the immediacy of the act but what if (like the prestige) I showed you your copy first. You knew that you were about to die (albeit painlessly) and be replaced by the copy (which had all your memories up to that point). Would that change your view on the transporter? As long as it had a high succes rate and there were no technical hiccups, yes, I'd get on it. It's the same thing that happens to you anyway--all of your matter is replaced over time, it just happens more quickly in the Star Trek example. You're never actually identical from one moment to another, and over a period of years, every bit of you is replaced. If your entire self is replaced immediately by a copy, it's not you. It's a copy of you. You could choose to let a copy of you take over your life, but I wouldn't. No one else would know the difference, but the copy would just be a copy.
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Post by Terrapin Station on Aug 1, 2017 21:09:53 GMT
As long as it had a high succes rate and there were no technical hiccups, yes, I'd get on it. It's the same thing that happens to you anyway--all of your matter is replaced over time, it just happens more quickly in the Star Trek example. You're never actually identical from one moment to another, and over a period of years, every bit of you is replaced. If your entire self is replaced immediately by a copy, it's not you. It's a copy of you. You could choose to let a copy of you take over your life, but I wouldn't. No one else would know the difference, but the copy would just be a copy. Would you say it's you if your entire self is non-immediately replaced? To me the speed of replacement doesn't really make a difference. And actually, I'd be more likely to say that an "exact copy" done immediately is me than a gradual, far less exact copy. In other words, I'd feel more the same a minute apart as an exact copy than I would seven years apart as a very different replacement.
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Post by SciFive on Aug 1, 2017 21:51:56 GMT
If your entire self is replaced immediately by a copy, it's not you. It's a copy of you. You could choose to let a copy of you take over your life, but I wouldn't. No one else would know the difference, but the copy would just be a copy. Would you say it's you if your entire self is non-immediately replaced? To me the speed of replacement doesn't really make a difference. And actually, I'd be more likely to say that an "exact copy" done immediately is me than a gradual, far less exact copy. In other words, I'd feel more the same a minute apart as an exact copy than I would seven years apart as a very different replacement. I wouldn't feel the same. Cell replacement on an ongoing basis while the body ages naturally is not a copy of me. It's me. A copy of me right now is a copy of me. It's not me.
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Post by general313 on Aug 1, 2017 21:54:26 GMT
As long as it had a high succes rate and there were no technical hiccups, yes, I'd get on it. It's the same thing that happens to you anyway--all of your matter is replaced over time, it just happens more quickly in the Star Trek example. You're never actually identical from one moment to another, and over a period of years, every bit of you is replaced. If your entire self is replaced immediately by a copy, it's not you. It's a copy of you. You could choose to let a copy of you take over your life, but I wouldn't. No one else would know the difference, but the copy would just be a copy. Even the copy wouldn't know the difference.
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Post by SciFive on Aug 1, 2017 21:55:35 GMT
Want to hear a cute story? 5 year old goes into a lab for a required blood test to get into Kindergarten. Men have to hold him down to get the blood into a vile and it makes him cry. The nurse asks him if he'd like to see his blood and he stops crying (while nodding). He looks at his blood in the vile and he is fascinated with it. The mother jokes with him that if he's upset to lose it, they could come back in a week to put it back in. The child says that this won't be necessary because he still has a lot of other blood. In fact, he says, he still has all his baby blood. (Like baby teeth.) True story!!
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Post by SciFive on Aug 1, 2017 21:57:24 GMT
If your entire self is replaced immediately by a copy, it's not you. It's a copy of you. You could choose to let a copy of you take over your life, but I wouldn't. No one else would know the difference, but the copy would just be a copy. Even the copy wouldn't know the difference. That's the sad thing. I think there was an old movie about a scientist who fell in love with a woman and knew how to make adult clones. So he made a clone so that he could have a version of her for himself (while the original loved another man). The problem was that the clone loved the other man, too.
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Post by permutojoe on Aug 2, 2017 1:19:01 GMT
Every bit of matter in your body save for that in your teeth gets replaced over time with new molecules and atoms. There is no such thing as a "real" you other than the persisting patterns that make you up, which are preserved by the transporter. There is a continuous me that functions in my head while individual cells grow and get replaced over time. There is always a continuous me. If I am replaced by a copy, then I have died. This seems correct to me. You would die going through a transporter because your stream of consciousness would come to a sudden end. I think the fact that the original you gets vaporized shortly before the new you appears somewhere else is complicating matters. Forget a transporter and consider a machine that can scan you, determine your exact molecular makeup, and then replicate it next to you. Is the replicated version you as you're standing there looking at it? Of course not. It's a copy.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2017 1:32:29 GMT
There is a continuous me that functions in my head while individual cells grow and get replaced over time. There is always a continuous me. If I am replaced by a copy, then I have died. This seems correct to me. You would die going through a transporter because your stream of consciousness would come to a sudden end. I think the fact that the original you gets vaporized shortly before the new you appears somewhere else is complicating matters. Forget a transporter and consider a machine that can scan you, determine your exact molecular makeup, and then replicate it next to you. Is the replicated version you as you're standing there looking at it? Of course not. It's a copy. Doesn't sleep also bring stream of consciousness to an end? What if we're all replaced in our sleep by copies who have our memories up to that point? There's no right or wrong answer here given the problem is purely philosophical. It's a simple issue of being scared to step on the pad or not being scared. That being said Will Riker was copied but his twin got to live a different life on Nirvala IV for eight years (unaware that another Will had successfully got off the planet and would eventually join Enterprise).
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Post by permutojoe on Aug 2, 2017 1:44:37 GMT
Not really since you can think in your dreams. Having said that I realized after posting that the sentence I typed wasn't all that well constructed or thought out. Basically though I do think there is a right answer which the "replicator instead of transporter" bit highlights nicely.
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Post by SciFive on Aug 2, 2017 7:44:02 GMT
There is a continuous me that functions in my head while individual cells grow and get replaced over time. There is always a continuous me. If I am replaced by a copy, then I have died. This seems correct to me. You would die going through a transporter because your stream of consciousness would come to a sudden end. I think the fact that the original you gets vaporized shortly before the new you appears somewhere else is complicating matters. Forget a transporter and consider a machine that can scan you, determine your exact molecular makeup, and then replicate it next to you. Is the replicated version you as you're standing there looking at it? Of course not. It's a copy.This is exactly how I see it!!!
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Post by faustus5 on Aug 2, 2017 10:59:33 GMT
This claim has no basis whatsoever in science and can be rejected out of hand. No, it can't, because Star Trek transporters don't exist. No, your position is meaningless from a scientific perspective simply because it is meaningless from a scientific perspective. We know what the transporter does--it recreates the information that makes up your person in another location. We can already do that with small particles today--teleportation already exists in a primitive form. From the viewpoint of science, the informational structure that makes you is the only important thing about you. For you to grandstand about having died is to make a completely evidence and science free philosophical statement that has zero relevance. Your position is based on emotion and ideology, not science. If we lived in the world of Star Trek, persons like you who refused to use transporters would be considered weird eccentrics while the rest of us would go on enjoying the benefits of the technology and do better in life.
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Post by permutojoe on Aug 2, 2017 11:52:45 GMT
"From the viewpoint of science, the informational structure that makes you is the only important thing about you."
Can you point to a single scientist or scientific study/experiment/essay that asserts this? That is quite a mouthful as it applies to the question of what is the essence of a person and their uniqueness/individuality. Literally no scientific study has ever addressed this in any conclusive way that I know of. I'd love to see your source(s) for this because if you have none you are committing a pretty grave error here in insisting science has your back when it really doesn't.
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Post by SciFive on Aug 2, 2017 12:35:31 GMT
No, it can't, because Star Trek transporters don't exist. From the viewpoint of science, the informational structure that makes you is the only important thing about you. Yes, as if I'm a chair.From the outside, all that matters is that the copy of me in the new place looks like me and knows what I know. It doesn't matter at all that it isn't me. It would matter to me that it wouldn't be me, though. I wouldn't give up my life to be replaced by a copy of me that looks fine to everyone else. My stream of consciousness matters to me, although it could never possibly matter to "science" that only values a copy of me.Luckily, none of this exists yet so it's not a problem. It's just Science Fiction.
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Post by faustus5 on Aug 2, 2017 16:48:04 GMT
Yes, as if I'm a chair.From the outside, all that matters is that the copy of me in the new place looks like me and knows what I know. It doesn't matter at all that it isn't me. It would matter to me that it wouldn't be me, though. I wouldn't give up my life to be replaced by a copy of me that looks fine to everyone else. My stream of consciousness matters to me, although it could never possibly matter to "science" that only values a copy of me.Luckily, none of this exists yet so it's not a problem. It's just Science Fiction. Like I said, this is all about your emotions, not about any kind of commitment to rational reality. That's okay, just don't fool yourself into thinking your position is anything else.
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Post by SciFive on Aug 2, 2017 16:49:40 GMT
Yes, as if I'm a chair.From the outside, all that matters is that the copy of me in the new place looks like me and knows what I know. It doesn't matter at all that it isn't me. It would matter to me that it wouldn't be me, though. I wouldn't give up my life to be replaced by a copy of me that looks fine to everyone else. My stream of consciousness matters to me, although it could never possibly matter to "science" that only values a copy of me.Luckily, none of this exists yet so it's not a problem. It's just Science Fiction. Like I said, this is all about your emotions, not about any kind of commitment to rational reality. That's okay, just don't fool yourself into thinking your position is anything else. My very, very rational reality is that I want to keep existing with my own stream of consciousness. I don't want to be replaced by a copy who would live the rest of my life without me. My view is very rational indeed.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2017 1:38:27 GMT
I was gonna post this in the Trek section but it might be more fun here. The question is, once you're copied and your matter is dissembled then rebuilt in a new location, is that new you... really you? Would you have any existential concerns about using such a device? At first, you might think no based on the immediacy of the act but what if (like the prestige) I showed you your copy first. You knew that you were about to die (albeit painlessly) and be replaced by the copy (which had all your memories up to that point). Would that change your view on the transporter? Coming in late on this one but this paradox has been one of my favorites for years. A variation of this was presented to me in a philosophy class- You're asleep in bed. You stir, wake, and see two scientists with various equipment and a large coffin like tube, with what appears to be you, asleep, inside. They tell you it's regrettable you've awakened, and tell you that what they have created in the tube is an exact replica of you, down to the last atom. A complete and perfect replica. "Unfortunately," they add, "We can't have two of you running around, so we have to dispose of you." They kill you, and put the sleeping replica in your bed. Do you wake up in the morning? Part of the issue of this and the Star Trek transporter is the issue of the soul for those that believe in one. Does the soul transport as well? Where is the soul during the duration of transportation? If such a replication could occur is anyone in history actually completely non-existent, such as in the Star Trek episode The Savage Curtain where past historical figures are reconstituted to do battle with each other? If two replications were created from a transporter at two different locations of one individual, in which would the 'soul' of the original reside?
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Post by SciFive on Aug 3, 2017 1:42:10 GMT
I was gonna post this in the Trek section but it might be more fun here. The question is, once you're copied and your matter is dissembled then rebuilt in a new location, is that new you... really you? Would you have any existential concerns about using such a device? At first, you might think no based on the immediacy of the act but what if (like the prestige) I showed you your copy first. You knew that you were about to die (albeit painlessly) and be replaced by the copy (which had all your memories up to that point). Would that change your view on the transporter? Coming in late on this one but this paradox has been one of my favorites for years. A variation of this was presented to me in a philosophy class- You're asleep in bed. You stir, wake, and see two scientists with various equipment and a large coffin like tube, with what appears to be you, asleep, inside. They tell you it's regrettable you've awakened, and tell you that what they have created in the tube is an exact replica of you, down to the last atom. A complete and perfect replica. "Unfortunately," they add, "We can't have two of you running around, so we have to dispose of you." They kill you, and put the sleeping replica in your bed. Do you wake up in the morning? Part of the issue of this and the Star Trek transporter is the issue of the soul for those that believe in one. Does the soul transport as well? Where is the soul during the duration of transportation? If such a replication could occur is anyone in history actually completely non-existent, such as in the Star Trek episode The Savage Curtain where past historical figures are reconstituted to do battle with each other? If two replications were created from a transporter at two different locations of one individual, in which would the 'soul' of the original reside? Another idea - the love of your life has been killed and you are presented with an exact duplicate. Do you mourn? What if the one killed was your child? You would surely be affectionate and care for the duplicate, but wouldn't you cry about your actual child being gone?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2017 1:48:25 GMT
Another idea - the love of your life has been killed and you are presented with an exact duplicate. Do you mourn? What if the one killed was your child? You would surely be affectionate and care for the duplicate, but wouldn't you cry about your actual child being gone? I suppose the emotional response would be based partly on what the cause of death was for the 'original'. I personally don't think I would mourn if if were an exact replication/duplicate. Mourning is typically a response to loss... if they still exist, are they lost to me?
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Post by SciFive on Aug 3, 2017 1:50:03 GMT
Another idea - the love of your life has been killed and you are presented with an exact duplicate. Do you mourn? What if the one killed was your child? You would surely be affectionate and care for the duplicate, but wouldn't you cry about your actual child being gone? I suppose the emotional response would be based partly on what the cause of death was for the 'original'. I personally don't think I would mourn if if were an exact replication/duplicate. Mourning is typically a response to loss... if they still exist, are they lost to me? I would mourn the loss of the real person, especially a child. The duplicates got new lives, but the originals lost theirs.
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