For all purposes, once the second, teleported, you has a new frame of reference you are no longer the same being.As Kalias said, if you don't destroy the original and you don't have the same consciousness (which would be amazing if you did) you're not the same person.
And the comment on sleep: That's why I said chance. If you have the oppurtunity to experience your surrounding at any time, by magically springing to life, then it can be you. If you instantly transport somewhere, with no possible chance for a recollection between the two points, then it's not really you because you don't have all your body's experiences.
Even in Chrichton's Timeline, the people being destroyed held their consciousness throughout the whole process, so they're the same people. There's even a comment something along the lines of, "You seem to maintain consciousness even while you're being destroyed, and we're not quite sure why this is." Where during the teleportation one of them sees themselves shrinking and moving through the process of teleportation.
The problem is, you wouldn't be able to tell people if you teleported with your original consciousness. When it ends it has no means to signal that it has ended and just been copied.
I see this as closely linked with the afterlife, because if your consciousness can be maintained without your body (but being as you'd have no means of communication you could inform no one - but we all know we alone have consciousness so we know it's there) then your consciousness may ascend to a higher place of being or it may wander the Earth for eternity with the ability to percieve only itself...or something. Or, I'd guess it could be like that one movie, What Dreams May Come, where heavan is whatever your mind wishes it to be. So maybe consciousnesses can interact when they're seperated from a material shell.
[That is, two dead people might be able to communicate through their consciousness, but 1 dead and one alive would be seperated by the shell of living perceptions.]
Of course, that's all speculation and pretty much completely irrelevant aside from trying to show how consciousness could work.
Problem with the "What if someone didn't delete the original" concern: it isn't possible to NOT delete the original. Read the article I referred to. If you teleport something, the original is destroyed because you have to gather information about it.
Edit: All this talk about consciousness and the soul... what it boils down to it your brain. Your self-awarness is the product of electrical impulses and chemical reactions. These are recreated when you're teleported. There is nothing magical going on, your sense of self is all in your brain.
EpidemicDark Force GorgeJoin Date: 2003-06-29Member: 17781Members
edited October 2004
But the real deal about this is, how does this mean to us human in 2004, can we even call ourselves, I? How far must the spectrum deviate until we are someone else? Are we someone else with each frame of action we take? So as move abit we become a new being, so why not take the full step and announce a conceptual union of all matter in the universe.. (in terms to this question posed, as conceptually as numbers, relation etc..)
This new being wouldn't at all be you, seeing as you (aswell as your conciousness) died during the breaking down of your original body. The new being would think it was the same one that was teleported in the beginning, and people around it would still think it was you...but the truth is...you would be dead. This would just be a new living being, with your memories.
*edit* And as for this whole, your body naturally replacing itself over time...It is still you when it happens, because it occurs over time, and its YOUR body that does it. Not a machine reconstructing a copy of your body in another galaxy.
Also, what would happen if the new you, in another galaxy, happened upon this thought one day? He would look like you, feel like you, act like you, and think like you...but he wouldn't be you. What if he started to feel like he was living a lie, or someone elses life?
*edit2* Also, this new being in a new galaxy, or wherever, wouldn't be you...because he/she/it never experienced those memories...which makes them no different than a neat little make believe story, for that being anyway.
<!--QuoteBegin-UltimaGecko+Oct 14 2004, 04:44 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (UltimaGecko @ Oct 14 2004, 04:44 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> And the comment on sleep: That's why I said chance. If you have the oppurtunity to experience your surrounding at any time, by magically springing to life, then it can be you. If you instantly transport somewhere, with no possible chance for a recollection between the two points, then it's not really you because you don't have all your body's experiences. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> but I don't remember everything I did as a small child, but what happened to me then still has implications in my day to day life. I travelled through childhood and I don't remember things from it, but I still did it.
Anyway you, albeit in the form of energy or information, would still have to travel across space to your destination, wouldn't you? So just because you don't experience it doesn't mean you wouldn't have travelled it. For instance if I fall asleep on a long car trip and wake up with no memory of the last 5 hours and I'm at my destination and the driver wakes me up, the fact that I have no memory of the transportation doesn't mean it didn't occur.
<!--QuoteBegin-marce+Oct 13 2004, 09:28 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (marce @ Oct 13 2004, 09:28 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-UltimaGecko+Oct 14 2004, 04:44 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (UltimaGecko @ Oct 14 2004, 04:44 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> And the comment on sleep: That's why I said chance. If you have the oppurtunity to experience your surrounding at any time, by magically springing to life, then it can be you. If you instantly transport somewhere, with no possible chance for a recollection between the two points, then it's not really you because you don't have all your body's experiences. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> but I don't remember everything I did as a small child, but what happened to me then still has implications in my day to day life. I travelled through childhood and I don't remember things from it, but I still did it.
Anyway you, albeit in the form of energy or information, would still have to travel across space to your destination, wouldn't you? So just because you don't experience it doesn't mean you wouldn't have travelled it. For instance if I fall asleep on a long car trip and wake up with no memory of the last 5 hours and I'm at my destination and the driver wakes me up, the fact that I have no memory of the transportation doesn't mean it didn't occur. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Again, that's why I said chance (just for effect this time: <b><i>chance</i></b>). While you may not remember everything from your childhood, you had the chance to remember it. Just because your memory works selectively, doesn't mean you transported from one spot to the other.
Same thing with the trip. Just because you were woken at the end doesn't mean you couldn't have woken up at any of those other spots.
With the teleporter in this question, you have absolutely no chance to have the experiences between the two points of movement (but transporters that move your physical body around, say like a Star Trek-esque one that moves your specific molecules as a group, would give you a [very slim] chance of knowing what's going on during transport). It's your molecules being pulled apart to get the information to reconstruct you out of different molecules somewhere else.
Here's an interesting question. What would happen if they used this same machine to rebuild your body. Say the machine destroys your arms and legs and then rebuilds them for you. Are you still you? How about if it destroys everything but your head and then builds it back? Are you still the same person? How about if it destroys everything except your brain and the brain stem and then brings it back. Would you say you are the same person? What if we switched it around, destroyed the head and left the body and then rebuilt the head? Are you the same or is that going too far? People have been known to come back from being brain dead so is the brain any more significant than any other part of your body when it comes to reconstruction?
For the spiritual people, if the soul is not attached to any particular body part then it shouldn't matter, right? For the agnostics and atheists it shouldn't matter in any case right?
If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, and its quantum state is an exact copy of the quantum state of a duck who's sub-atomic state has been irreversibly disrupted, then its a duck.
<!--QuoteBegin-Mantrid+Oct 14 2004, 03:27 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Mantrid @ Oct 14 2004, 03:27 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, and its quantum state is an exact copy of the quantum state of a duck who's sub-atomic state has been irreversibly disrupted, then its a duck. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> well, that brings into play the idea duck, as opposed to a specific duck.
I think it was aristotle that proposed there being an "idea duck" which is sort of the essence of duck.
that wasn't a very good explanation, was it? essence of duck?
Lets say I tell you to draw a duck. You pick up the pen and paper, and draw an animal with webbed feet, a strange beak-ish mouth, feathers etc. It is a duck, but it isn't any specific duck.
you could say that the exact copy of the duck would also be a duck, without question, but whether or not it would be the same duck is exactly what we've already being tossig back and forth for the last page or so. We recognise that the human on the other end of the copying would, obviously, be a human, but even if it has the same thought processes and memories, we aren't sure that it would be the same duck. I mean person.
Your example of a duck is interesting because it forces us to look at the problem from the external point of view. To everyone else it would seem like it was exactly the same duck as before, and for all intents and purposes it is.
I hold here a conical flask filled with a clear fluid known as Di-Hydrogen Monoxide (<!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->).
I teleport this conical flask on side A of the desk to the other end of the desk at side B but do not destroy the original flask.
The flask is still at side A but it's copy is at side B. It can be said to be the same flask as it has the precise configuration of the flask at side A, but it is no more then another copy. If flask A were to be destroyed catastropically in an unexpected discorporation, flask B would STILL be the copy. It still has the properties of flask A, and it still has all the required components of flask A but it is still it's own flask. It cannot be said to be flask A because flask A no longer exists.
However, if I put in an imaginary fluid within this flask, one that could not be replicated by any means but rather approximated, what comes out the other end is something like, but not entirely is, what went in. It could never be said to be one and the same for it is not.
The teleportation presented is more akin to cloning then it would seem.
Now if you were doing a site to site transport, where every part of you is flung across the universe and reassembled, thats another can of worms. The soul is traditionally not bound to the material of flesh. If the flesh dies, the soul is released.
It could be akin to the flask scenario. If the teleporter cannot transport the liquid within, what comes out the other side is an empty flask and a short circuiting entry point as the water splashes everywhere.
Of course, what an uproar it would be if a man could be teleported with his soul intact. Still it does beg the question of what a person without a soul would act like and how one can quanitify whether one was soulless or not...
<!--QuoteBegin-marce+Oct 14 2004, 02:28 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (marce @ Oct 14 2004, 02:28 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Anyway you, albeit in the form of energy or information, would still have to travel across space to your destination, wouldn't you? So just because you don't experience it doesn't mean you wouldn't have travelled it. For instance if I fall asleep on a long car trip and wake up with no memory of the last 5 hours and I'm at my destination and the driver wakes me up, the fact that I have no memory of the transportation doesn't mean it didn't occur. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> If you are "transferring" via measurement you are not travelling at all, you are making a copy.
If I looked at a radio, wrote down a schematic absolutely perfectly down to the smallest detail... then burnt it, only to walk across the room and construct the radio from the schematic, again perfectly, you could -not- call it the same entity, it is a different entity with the same properties.
Measurement means destruction, you can probably destroy to an extent... but some need to be transferred for the entity to exist... this is why the rebuilding of cells naturally is fine, the original stuff that is important is connected to the new object and becomes integrated... however if you were to be completely destroyed and instantly rebuilt in the same position, to exact specifications... it would be a different entity.
Now if you were to actually -convert- all that is important and needs to be transferred into energy... and then send that... it may be possible.
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Just so you lot know where I stand with my previous posts, all are based entirely in logic, any and all references to anything relating to the spiritual are simply examples for illustrative purposes.
Oh... and Marce, I think you are confusing experience with perception... you don't need to see... or even realise something is happening to have experienced it.
<!--QuoteBegin-relsan+Oct 14 2004, 04:20 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (relsan @ Oct 14 2004, 04:20 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> What would happen if they used this same machine to rebuild your body. Say the machine destroys your arms and legs and then rebuilds them for you. Are you still you? How about if it destroys everything but your head and then builds it back? Are you still the same person? How about if it destroys everything except your brain and the brain stem and then brings it back. Would you say you are the same person? What if we switched it around, destroyed the head and left the body and then rebuilt the head? Are you the same or is that going too far? People have been known to come back from being brain dead so is the brain any more significant than any other part of your body when it comes to reconstruction?
For the spiritual people, if the soul is not attached to any particular body part then it shouldn't matter, right? For the agnostics and atheists it shouldn't matter in any case right? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Staying away from the spiritual side, you can destroy some of your body and rebuild it as much as you like... but certain specific things -must- remain... which parts these are doesn't really matter, just assume they are there, you can destroy the rest all you like... but the moment you touch something that holds your consciousness it is no longer you... you could place these important pieces into the body of an elephant and it will still be you.
Unless of course you believe your consciousness is stored in the body as a whole or a copy in every cell, in which case it may be you could copy the majority and send a small amount... or it may be you need to send the whole thing... depending on quite how it would work.
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As an aside, as consciousness is the main word here... just because you remain the same entity doesn't mean you are the same object. If memories are not a part of conciousness itself you could completely rewrite memories and they would still be the same person... though how this consciousness would be transferred to action would likely be different... it would be like forgetting all you know and learning an entire new life... you're still you... but you don't do the same things... it's hard to explain...
For example... my actions are not the same as those of 5 years ago... new, changing and losing experiences have altered how my consciousness, my self, reacts.
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<span style='color:gray'>One further note... I know I may be coming across as if I feel I am stating absolute fact... I know that my theories may be incorrect... I just find it far far easier to write in such a way... after all I don't need to write "may" "could be" and "it is possible" after and before every sentence.
I don't even know if I believe what I am writing myself, currently I'm acting as a stream of consciousness with only logic as its guide.</span>
<!--QuoteBegin-Mantrid+Oct 13 2004, 11:43 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Mantrid @ Oct 13 2004, 11:43 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Problem with the "What if someone didn't delete the original" concern: it isn't possible to NOT delete the original. Read the article I referred to. If you teleport something, the original is destroyed because you have to gather information about it.
Edit: All this talk about consciousness and the soul... what it boils down to it your brain. Your self-awarness is the product of electrical impulses and chemical reactions. These are recreated when you're teleported. There is nothing magical going on, your sense of self is all in your brain. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> As I appear to have missed this one...
"Consciousness and the soul", would follow the same rules as anything else with regards to teleportation, if you copy it instead of tranferring it... you have made a copy and it is not you.
This even applies if you consider them ethereal things which you cannot grasp... if you make a copy of a soul then you have two entities and one is not the other, despite being exact copies.
Consider cloning, consider twins. At one point they were exactly the same... but they are not the same entity, they are not the same conciousness stretched across two people. (Unless they are... you hear some odd stories every now and then.) They can look at each other and realise that they are not the same part of existence, they are exactly the same... but one is not the other, they are a copy, the same goes for teleportation via measurement.
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<span style='color:gray'>Please excuse me for the multiple posts, however I find this information easier to digest when split up to address each point... and what better way to have it split than a new post? Even with text dividers mid-post a long reply merges together into a single mass, difficult to read.</span>
Would the teleporter create the exact same electrical impulses when it copies you?
And anyway, the copy would not be the same person. It would look exactly the same and think exactly the same, but <i>you</i> would die and have no knowlage of the copy.
True, but remember that the moment both copies are made, neither one knows about the copy. One of them learns about it and perhaps the other does not, making the first real difference between them other than distance inbetween.
This is a likely method of teleportation and no I would have 0% worries about it if it could rebuild me near instantly and safely. Think of it this way:
Conciousness and your being of existence is like a flame. As long as you can keep the flame going you are alive. You can swap out the one torch and pass the flame onto a new one and if dones quickly or gradually you'll not even notice.
As a matter of fact you brain looses and regrows neurons all the time. Your entire body is replaced over a period of time. Muscles cycle at about two weeks, bones cycle at about 5 years, some epithelial cells cycle ever few minutes. I owuld prefer a gradual transference to a instant but if the instant was quick enough I probably wouldn't notice.
Well in a way, it is as if someone cloned you like in 6th day (if you've seen it), and then someone takes an axe to you and kills you, the original copy. This, according to you, would be fine because your consciousness would live on so you would be him?
If some one replicated multiple exact copies each copy would think it was the original and in the eyes of the law they should be equally the same. How equally? To where if the orginal had murdered someone and then terminated himself only later to be cloned the copy would still be guilty if the prosecution could prove that the copy has the same mind/consiousness that the orginal did. Am I loosing you here?
Example: I zap your head right now with a massive electrical charge which momentarily kills all neuron activity. You are technically dead. (well the other cells in you body are still working but for a moment your existence as a being has ceased) You neurons reset and begin communication again and you come back into being. From you point of view you only got zapped and are now waking up with a major headache.
Example: I anethisize you or put you in a cryogenic state so soemething. You "go to sleep" and wake up to find lots of time has passed. True deep meditation is very similar. (I have achieved this twice thus far in my life so I know what I'm talking about) Conciousness if overrated. People have a fear of dying because they have a fear of loosign their conciousness and existence forever. Ok let's say you die. Boom. All brain activity gone the torch got wet and the fire went out... or did it? You see this is getting a bit into religion but while I myself don't believe in a traditional view of an afterlife I do believe we become one with nature on a higher plane of existence than our puny little human animal minds worried about survival all the time can comprehend. There are things about existence we cannot possibly understand. Just take a concept like infinity, sure we can label it but can we really describe it beyond just applying a new phrase or label? No. The body is also overrated. I have no qualms if my sentience was transmitted fully from my current body into some android body. And a dead, empty body is little more than organic waste. It's just and empty shell. As a matter of fact I think burrials and elaborate cermonies for the body are funny because of this.
So to answer your question the way I thought you meant it Hawkeye: If I make a duplicate with out removing the orginal copy at the same quick instant or if the change was not gradual then yes from the persective of the orginal I am being killed and from the copies perspective he is the original and just switched into a new body. However if the change is fast enough then I would not know that I switched bodies, I'd walk over to my old lifeless body and wonder but from my perception I just switched out of it.
i wonder if it would be useful to define "individual life" in this; for me, qualifying as an individual life demands a continuity in presence of both a self-contained body and a self-contained mind (in the case of those creatures that have consciousness).
Perdition put my point best I think. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> Thanks
So just because an equivalent being runs on binary electric pulses rather than ATP you think it has no rights or soul?
I find that unbelievably insulting. Go ahead murder a sentient AI or humanoid android in the Federation and I'll enjoy getting to be the juda in the Arena. And I thought you were one of those pro-life people too... Jeeze.
What about a collective mind, like the Borg or Kharaa a combined sentience. So they have no soul?
No I feel that any being has a soul if it can love or be loved. Love is a holy mystery for that reason. Not trying to delve into my religious beliefs but I believe that God has empowered the nature with entropy (choice). Humans had conciousness so we have choice and with that comes the derrived 5th universal force called chi or "God" in which we have the fundamental opposites we call good and evil. In addition this has a situation where nothing is pure evil or pure good. In fact powerful evil force concentrations can be stunningly beautiful. It often may seem that evil is all around but there is a powerful conversion action which is amazingly powerful, love.
Could you love an android or AI wheee? I know I could. It doesn't really matter what you are, just who you are.
Anyways I realized we just got way off topic wheee.
Passing the flame of my being even if it's not the same body will still be me.
<!--QuoteBegin-wizard@psu+Oct 14 2004, 04:05 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (wizard@psu @ Oct 14 2004, 04:05 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> You look down at the ground. What color is the soil? Red or brown? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> You were not transfered and rather just duplicated in two locations as you suggested. In that case both feel that they are the real one.
We were talking about teleportaion, not duplication/cloning here.
Here's an idea:
If someone made illegal copies of you, completely identical. Would you be happy with a new friend or would you try to kill each other?
I wouldn't consider any teleportation method that requires dematerialization. However I have heard a method considered where they transfer you molecule by molecule and put you back together at the destination. Maybe that would be better.
<!--QuoteBegin-relsan+Oct 14 2004, 05:07 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (relsan @ Oct 14 2004, 05:07 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I wouldn't consider any teleportation method that requires dematerialization. However I have heard a method considered where they transfer you molecule by molecule and put you back together at the destination. Maybe that would be better. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Then you won't ever like teleportation. Because that is the only method.
And, again, don't worry about a copy appearing somewhere, BECAUSE IT ISN'T POSSIBLE. You can teleport, you can not replicate. Its just not possible.
<!--QuoteBegin-Mantrid+Oct 15 2004, 03:13 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Mantrid @ Oct 15 2004, 03:13 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Because that is the only method. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> I think it is a little bold to say that.
Comments
And the comment on sleep: That's why I said chance. If you have the oppurtunity to experience your surrounding at any time, by magically springing to life, then it can be you. If you instantly transport somewhere, with no possible chance for a recollection between the two points, then it's not really you because you don't have all your body's experiences.
Even in Chrichton's Timeline, the people being destroyed held their consciousness throughout the whole process, so they're the same people. There's even a comment something along the lines of, "You seem to maintain consciousness even while you're being destroyed, and we're not quite sure why this is." Where during the teleportation one of them sees themselves shrinking and moving through the process of teleportation.
The problem is, you wouldn't be able to tell people if you teleported with your original consciousness. When it ends it has no means to signal that it has ended and just been copied.
I see this as closely linked with the afterlife, because if your consciousness can be maintained without your body (but being as you'd have no means of communication you could inform no one - but we all know we alone have consciousness so we know it's there) then your consciousness may ascend to a higher place of being or it may wander the Earth for eternity with the ability to percieve only itself...or something. Or, I'd guess it could be like that one movie, What Dreams May Come, where heavan is whatever your mind wishes it to be. So maybe consciousnesses can interact when they're seperated from a material shell.
[That is, two dead people might be able to communicate through their consciousness, but 1 dead and one alive would be seperated by the shell of living perceptions.]
Of course, that's all speculation and pretty much completely irrelevant aside from trying to show how consciousness could work.
Edit: All this talk about consciousness and the soul... what it boils down to it your brain. Your self-awarness is the product of electrical impulses and chemical reactions. These are recreated when you're teleported. There is nothing magical going on, your sense of self is all in your brain.
*edit* And as for this whole, your body naturally replacing itself over time...It is still you when it happens, because it occurs over time, and its YOUR body that does it. Not a machine reconstructing a copy of your body in another galaxy.
Also, what would happen if the new you, in another galaxy, happened upon this thought one day? He would look like you, feel like you, act like you, and think like you...but he wouldn't be you. What if he started to feel like he was living a lie, or someone elses life?
*edit2* Also, this new being in a new galaxy, or wherever, wouldn't be you...because he/she/it never experienced those memories...which makes them no different than a neat little make believe story, for that being anyway.
but I don't remember everything I did as a small child, but what happened to me then still has implications in my day to day life. I travelled through childhood and I don't remember things from it, but I still did it.
Anyway you, albeit in the form of energy or information, would still have to travel across space to your destination, wouldn't you? So just because you don't experience it doesn't mean you wouldn't have travelled it. For instance if I fall asleep on a long car trip and wake up with no memory of the last 5 hours and I'm at my destination and the driver wakes me up, the fact that I have no memory of the transportation doesn't mean it didn't occur.
but I don't remember everything I did as a small child, but what happened to me then still has implications in my day to day life. I travelled through childhood and I don't remember things from it, but I still did it.
Anyway you, albeit in the form of energy or information, would still have to travel across space to your destination, wouldn't you? So just because you don't experience it doesn't mean you wouldn't have travelled it. For instance if I fall asleep on a long car trip and wake up with no memory of the last 5 hours and I'm at my destination and the driver wakes me up, the fact that I have no memory of the transportation doesn't mean it didn't occur. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again, that's why I said chance (just for effect this time: <b><i>chance</i></b>). While you may not remember everything from your childhood, you had the chance to remember it. Just because your memory works selectively, doesn't mean you transported from one spot to the other.
Same thing with the trip. Just because you were woken at the end doesn't mean you couldn't have woken up at any of those other spots.
With the teleporter in this question, you have absolutely no chance to have the experiences between the two points of movement (but transporters that move your physical body around, say like a Star Trek-esque one that moves your specific molecules as a group, would give you a [very slim] chance of knowing what's going on during transport). It's your molecules being pulled apart to get the information to reconstruct you out of different molecules somewhere else.
For the spiritual people, if the soul is not attached to any particular body part then it shouldn't matter, right? For the agnostics and atheists it shouldn't matter in any case right?
well, that brings into play the idea duck, as opposed to a specific duck.
I think it was aristotle that proposed there being an "idea duck" which is sort of the essence of duck.
that wasn't a very good explanation, was it? essence of duck?
Lets say I tell you to draw a duck. You pick up the pen and paper, and draw an animal with webbed feet, a strange beak-ish mouth, feathers etc. It is a duck, but it isn't any specific duck.
you could say that the exact copy of the duck would also be a duck, without question, but whether or not it would be the same duck is exactly what we've already being tossig back and forth for the last page or so. We recognise that the human on the other end of the copying would, obviously, be a human, but even if it has the same thought processes and memories, we aren't sure that it would be the same duck. I mean person.
Your example of a duck is interesting because it forces us to look at the problem from the external point of view. To everyone else it would seem like it was exactly the same duck as before, and for all intents and purposes it is.
I teleport this conical flask on side A of the desk to the other end of the desk at side B but do not destroy the original flask.
The flask is still at side A but it's copy is at side B. It can be said to be the same flask as it has the precise configuration of the flask at side A, but it is no more then another copy. If flask A were to be destroyed catastropically in an unexpected discorporation, flask B would STILL be the copy. It still has the properties of flask A, and it still has all the required components of flask A but it is still it's own flask. It cannot be said to be flask A because flask A no longer exists.
However, if I put in an imaginary fluid within this flask, one that could not be replicated by any means but rather approximated, what comes out the other end is something like, but not entirely is, what went in. It could never be said to be one and the same for it is not.
The teleportation presented is more akin to cloning then it would seem.
Now if you were doing a site to site transport, where every part of you is flung across the universe and reassembled, thats another can of worms. The soul is traditionally not bound to the material of flesh. If the flesh dies, the soul is released.
It could be akin to the flask scenario. If the teleporter cannot transport the liquid within, what comes out the other side is an empty flask and a short circuiting entry point as the water splashes everywhere.
Of course, what an uproar it would be if a man could be teleported with his soul intact. Still it does beg the question of what a person without a soul would act like and how one can quanitify whether one was soulless or not...
Whoah, I think I just overdosed on philosophy D:
If you are "transferring" via measurement you are not travelling at all, you are making a copy.
If I looked at a radio, wrote down a schematic absolutely perfectly down to the smallest detail... then burnt it, only to walk across the room and construct the radio from the schematic, again perfectly, you could -not- call it the same entity, it is a different entity with the same properties.
Measurement means destruction, you can probably destroy to an extent... but some need to be transferred for the entity to exist... this is why the rebuilding of cells naturally is fine, the original stuff that is important is connected to the new object and becomes integrated... however if you were to be completely destroyed and instantly rebuilt in the same position, to exact specifications... it would be a different entity.
Now if you were to actually -convert- all that is important and needs to be transferred into energy... and then send that... it may be possible.
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Just so you lot know where I stand with my previous posts, all are based entirely in logic, any and all references to anything relating to the spiritual are simply examples for illustrative purposes.
Oh... and Marce, I think you are confusing experience with perception... you don't need to see... or even realise something is happening to have experienced it.
For the spiritual people, if the soul is not attached to any particular body part then it shouldn't matter, right? For the agnostics and atheists it shouldn't matter in any case right? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Staying away from the spiritual side, you can destroy some of your body and rebuild it as much as you like... but certain specific things -must- remain... which parts these are doesn't really matter, just assume they are there, you can destroy the rest all you like... but the moment you touch something that holds your consciousness it is no longer you... you could place these important pieces into the body of an elephant and it will still be you.
Unless of course you believe your consciousness is stored in the body as a whole or a copy in every cell, in which case it may be you could copy the majority and send a small amount... or it may be you need to send the whole thing... depending on quite how it would work.
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As an aside, as consciousness is the main word here... just because you remain the same entity doesn't mean you are the same object. If memories are not a part of conciousness itself you could completely rewrite memories and they would still be the same person... though how this consciousness would be transferred to action would likely be different... it would be like forgetting all you know and learning an entire new life... you're still you... but you don't do the same things... it's hard to explain...
For example... my actions are not the same as those of 5 years ago... new, changing and losing experiences have altered how my consciousness, my self, reacts.
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<span style='color:gray'>One further note... I know I may be coming across as if I feel I am stating absolute fact... I know that my theories may be incorrect... I just find it far far easier to write in such a way... after all I don't need to write "may" "could be" and "it is possible" after and before every sentence.
I don't even know if I believe what I am writing myself, currently I'm acting as a stream of consciousness with only logic as its guide.</span>
Edit: All this talk about consciousness and the soul... what it boils down to it your brain. Your self-awarness is the product of electrical impulses and chemical reactions. These are recreated when you're teleported. There is nothing magical going on, your sense of self is all in your brain. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
As I appear to have missed this one...
"Consciousness and the soul", would follow the same rules as anything else with regards to teleportation, if you copy it instead of tranferring it... you have made a copy and it is not you.
This even applies if you consider them ethereal things which you cannot grasp... if you make a copy of a soul then you have two entities and one is not the other, despite being exact copies.
Consider cloning, consider twins. At one point they were exactly the same... but they are not the same entity, they are not the same conciousness stretched across two people. (Unless they are... you hear some odd stories every now and then.)
They can look at each other and realise that they are not the same part of existence, they are exactly the same... but one is not the other, they are a copy, the same goes for teleportation via measurement.
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<span style='color:gray'>Please excuse me for the multiple posts, however I find this information easier to digest when split up to address each point... and what better way to have it split than a new post? Even with text dividers mid-post a long reply merges together into a single mass, difficult to read.</span>
And anyway, the copy would not be the same person. It would look exactly the same and think exactly the same, but <i>you</i> would die and have no knowlage of the copy.
Conciousness and your being of existence is like a flame. As long as you can keep the flame going you are alive. You can swap out the one torch and pass the flame onto a new one and if dones quickly or gradually you'll not even notice.
As a matter of fact you brain looses and regrows neurons all the time. Your entire body is replaced over a period of time. Muscles cycle at about two weeks, bones cycle at about 5 years, some epithelial cells cycle ever few minutes. I owuld prefer a gradual transference to a instant but if the instant was quick enough I probably wouldn't notice.
Example: I zap your head right now with a massive electrical charge which momentarily kills all neuron activity. You are technically dead. (well the other cells in you body are still working but for a moment your existence as a being has ceased) You neurons reset and begin communication again and you come back into being. From you point of view you only got zapped and are now waking up with a major headache.
Example: I anethisize you or put you in a cryogenic state so soemething. You "go to sleep" and wake up to find lots of time has passed. True deep meditation is very similar. (I have achieved this twice thus far in my life so I know what I'm talking about) Conciousness if overrated. People have a fear of dying because they have a fear of loosign their conciousness and existence forever. Ok let's say you die. Boom. All brain activity gone the torch got wet and the fire went out... or did it? You see this is getting a bit into religion but while I myself don't believe in a traditional view of an afterlife I do believe we become one with nature on a higher plane of existence than our puny little human animal minds worried about survival all the time can comprehend. There are things about existence we cannot possibly understand. Just take a concept like infinity, sure we can label it but can we really describe it beyond just applying a new phrase or label? No. The body is also overrated. I have no qualms if my sentience was transmitted fully from my current body into some android body. And a dead, empty body is little more than organic waste. It's just and empty shell. As a matter of fact I think burrials and elaborate cermonies for the body are funny because of this.
So to answer your question the way I thought you meant it Hawkeye:
If I make a duplicate with out removing the orginal copy at the same quick instant or if the change was not gradual then yes from the persective of the orginal I am being killed and from the copies perspective he is the original and just switched into a new body. However if the change is fast enough then I would not know that I switched bodies, I'd walk over to my old lifeless body and wonder but from my perception I just switched out of it.
Thanks
You walk up to a teleporter. It does its little teleport mumbojumbo and poof! There are now two copies of you. One on Earth and one on Mars.
You look down at the ground. What color is the soil? Red or brown?
I find that unbelievably insulting. Go ahead murder a sentient AI or humanoid android in the Federation and I'll enjoy getting to be the juda in the Arena. And I thought you were one of those pro-life people too... Jeeze.
What about a collective mind, like the Borg or Kharaa a combined sentience. So they have no soul?
No I feel that any being has a soul if it can love or be loved. Love is a holy mystery for that reason. Not trying to delve into my religious beliefs but I believe that God has empowered the nature with entropy (choice). Humans had conciousness so we have choice and with that comes the derrived 5th universal force called chi or "God" in which we have the fundamental opposites we call good and evil. In addition this has a situation where nothing is pure evil or pure good. In fact powerful evil force concentrations can be stunningly beautiful. It often may seem that evil is all around but there is a powerful conversion action which is amazingly powerful, love.
Could you love an android or AI wheee? I know I could. It doesn't really matter what you are, just who you are.
Anyways I realized we just got way off topic wheee.
Passing the flame of my being even if it's not the same body will still be me.
You were not transfered and rather just duplicated in two locations as you suggested. In that case both feel that they are the real one.
We were talking about teleportaion, not duplication/cloning here.
Here's an idea:
If someone made illegal copies of you, completely identical. Would you be happy with a new friend or would you try to kill each other?
/grrrr@self
Then you won't ever like teleportation. Because that is the only method.
And, again, don't worry about a copy appearing somewhere, BECAUSE IT ISN'T POSSIBLE. You can teleport, you can not replicate. Its just not possible.
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I think it is a little bold to say that.
Show me another method.