The Teletransporter Problem

[Juma]

Of course, if you stab me, and I later die from the wounds, you have killed me. But the me that dies is not the same me that was stabbed; Nobody is the same person they were five minutes earlier.

Or to put it another way, the person who has been killed is the person who has your identity.

A person, or rather, a person's mind, is a series of states of consciousness that share a personal identity.

What the heck is then "identity"?
Why not say share the same body?

 

[bilby]

Or to put it another way, the person who has been killed is the person who has your identity.

A person, or rather, a person's mind, is a series of states of consciousness that share a personal identity.

What the heck is then "identity"?
Why not say share the same body?

Because you don't share the same body with your five-year-old self; but you do share the same identity.

 

[Juma]

What the heck is then "identity"?
Why not say share the same body?

Because you don't share the same body with your five-year-old self; but you do share the same identity.

I do share the same body. Not the same atoms.

 

[bilby]

Because you don't share the same body with your five-year-old self; but you do share the same identity.

I do share the same body. Not the same atoms.

Really? You still look like a five year old? I find that claim dubious.

 

[Juma]

I do share the same body. Not the same atoms.

Really? You still look like a five year old? I find that claim dubious.

Why would i look like a five year old? My body has grown a lot since then. (Yes i'm being deliberately ignoramus but your use of "identity" is not clear in this case)

 

[Togo]

The point of my argument is that you have to compare to actual life (hence, in my inital post in this thread, "Me I don't see any significant difference with actual life").

But that wasn't your argument. That was the other Speakpigeon, the one who used to exist a few days ago.

And this is the problem I think. You're trying to claim that the new version of you on Mars is the same person because it has the same memories, but that ignores any concept of objective truth and falsehood. A person who takes peyote and thinks they are a falcon doesn't actually turn into a falcon, despite their conscious impressions otherwise, and the understanding that they haven't turned into a falcon is fundamental to our understanding of that event and that experience. Similarly, we must have the capacity to be wrong about how our conscious experience of reality effects reality. So when we have an original, and a duplicate, the idea that they have the same internal experience doesn't in itself prevent one from being the duplicate, and one the original, and if they both claim to be the original, one of them is still, in fact, wrong.

In the case where the two versions overlap, it seems obvious that the person who walked into the booth, who then walks out of the booth, talks to mars, and then dies, is not the same person as the one on Mars. They may be identical at the point of creation, but that isn't enough to make them the same person.

Try this variant. Actually, the booth operating lies to you. No copy of you is made on Mars. Does that change anything that happens to you, either in terms of your subjective experience or the physical progression of events?

The guy who goes to bed, a kind of sleep machine to transfert you to tomorrow morning, may die in his sleep.

He may well do. And in each case, you cease to exist. What you're suggesting is that the fact that a duplicate has been created is enough to change that, and I'm not seeing it.

If not, on what basis can you argue that having a copy appear on Mars changes anything for the guy getting disintegrated down on earth?

The guy who awakes in the morning can do nothing for the guy who went to sleep yesterday and is no more.

But he is the guy who went to sleep. As a point of brute fact, that is what happened. Change is not the same as death. Or to put it another way... we change all the time. Duplication appears to be qualitatively different. What reason do we have for treating the two as the same?

And yes, I'd regard identity as being something separate from both physical form and conscious continuity.

 

[bigfield]

Or to put it another way, the person who has been killed is the person who has your identity.

A person, or rather, a person's mind, is a series of states of consciousness that share a personal identity.

What the heck is then "identity"?
Why not say share the same body?

The body could theoretically be replaced. For example, imagine a Ship of Theseus hypothetical where the nervous system and sensory apparatus are replaced, piece by piece, by synthetic electronics. The end product would be a robot/computer that possesses a personal identity that previously belonged to a human body.

Similarly, the materials of the human body are replaced, albeit on a molecular level, preserving the apparatus that is the human body.

 

[Juma]

What the heck is then "identity"?
Why not say share the same body?

The body could theoretically be replaced. For example, imagine a Ship of Theseus hypothetical where the nervous system and sensory apparatus are replaced, piece by piece, by synthetic electronics. The end product would be a robot/computer that possesses a personal identity that previously belonged to a human body.

Similarly, the materials of the human body are replaced, albeit on a molecular level, preserving the apparatus that is the human body.

Your point being?

 

[Speakpigeon]

All any of this tells me is that you see no relevant difference between life and death.

Then read again and try to understand what I said because personally I make a difference between life and death.

That's fine; I'm not going to waste any time persuading you otherwise, as it has nothing to do with the problem we're discussing.

Maybe it has nothing to do with the problem you have in mind but didn't put out in the OP. I myself can only address the OP and if you can't see the connnection it is just to bad for you.

If there is never a case in which the permanent cessation of someone's consciousness is a problem, then the teletransporter thought experiment doesn't apply. But I doubt anyone, including you, actually operates in the world based on that premise.

I made a distinction early on between the problem as seen rationally and the problem as we may feel it relates to us, more instinctively so to speak. I guess this distinction was lost on you.

Anyway, you can't make the horse drink water etc.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Or to put it another way, the person who has been killed is the person who has your identity.

A person, or rather, a person's mind, is a series of states of consciousness that share a personal identity.

Me I would say that it is the same person, i.e. a body together with its objective mind, that awakes every morning, and is recognised as such by other people (other persons). Of course there are major differences between the states of this same person at different moments, even when there is physical continuity of the body, but the main point is that the person is seen from an objective perspective, including its mind. States of consciousness are only seen through the subjective perspective and if consciousness is duplicated, as hypothesised here, then the double has the same subjective perspective as the original, at least initially, even though their bodies and possibly minds may be different and on different planets.
But that's just a matter of vocabulary.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

But that wasn't your argument. That was the other Speakpigeon, the one who used to exist a few days ago.

And this is the problem I think. You're trying to claim that the new version of you on Mars is the same person because it has the same memories, but that ignores any concept of objective truth and falsehood.

No the problem may be that we are talking about different things. Because of your claim here I just realised I've lapsed in my use of the word "person".

So, without going to much into the details, I'm not interested as to whether something is the same person as something else. It all depends on how in detail you want to construe what fundamentally a person is. If you think of a person as a social construct for example, the law may have to decide whether these are the same person or not. So instead, me, I started from the claim in the OP that the original and the double "do not share a single consciousness", which wouldn't be true from the subjective perspective, at least initially, because the machine is assumed to have produced a perfect duplicate mind of the mind of the original person.

A person who takes peyote and thinks they are a falcon doesn't actually turn into a falcon, despite their conscious impressions otherwise, and the understanding that they haven't turned into a falcon is fundamental to our understanding of that event and that experience. Similarly, we must have the capacity to be wrong about how our conscious experience of reality effects reality. So when we have an original, and a duplicate, the idea that they have the same internal experience doesn't in itself prevent one from being the duplicate, and one the original, and if they both claim to be the original, one of them is still, in fact, wrong.

That's only true if you have specified in the appropriate way what a "person" is, something the OP hasn't done.

Me I started from the premise that the OP was about the subjective perspective of the person, on the situation. Within that perspective, and on rational grounds, there's no difference between being the original's mind and consciousness and being the double's mind and consciousness, unless you think there is something else to consciousness not processed by the machine, which seems not to be the case of PyramidHead. I also pushed the envelope by assuming that the double and the original could be kept identical throughout their lives. Here again, their minds and consciousnesses being identical, there would be no difference from a subjective perspective and no rational argument for preferring being the original rather than being the double. I also accepted that as soon as there would be a difference, for example beyond the initial duplication process, or if the original is left alive for a while, then of course you have two different subjective perspectives.

In the case where the two versions overlap, it seems obvious that the person who walked into the booth, who then walks out of the booth, talks to mars, and then dies, is not the same person as the one on Mars. They may be identical at the point of creation, but that isn't enough to make them the same person.

And their subjective perspectives at this point is indeed different so obviously one will believe he is the guy on the Earth and the other will believe is the guy on Mars. Yet, if the machine could somehow maintain their mind identical they would still have no rational ground to decide which one they are.

If not, on what basis can you argue that having a copy appear on Mars changes anything for the guy getting disintegrated down on earth?

The guy who awakes in the morning can do nothing for the guy who went to sleep yesterday and is no more.

But he is the guy who went to sleep.

That's a matter of convention. The law may have to decide on this, it's not a fundamental issue. It's a social issue.

As a point of brute fact, that is what happened. Change is not the same as death. Or to put it another way... we change all the time. Duplication appears to be qualitatively different. What reason do we have for treating the two as the same?

Moment-to-moment change is not the same as death but that doesn't make the mind of some person today identical to the mind of the same person yesterday. The question wasn't whether moment-to-moment change is or not the same as death but whether change from moment-to-moment within the same person is substantially different from change between the original and the double. If the person pressing the button inside the booth is not immediately killed then we have two people with identical minds and initially identical subjective perspective on reality (consciousness). Whether two such identical consciousnesses are the same or not, I don't think we know the answer to that and the OP didn't specify the terminology used.

And yes, I'd regard identity as being something separate from both physical form and conscious continuity.

Good for you but that's a metaphysical view.

PyramidHead expressed a similar view in the OP:

Note that it may still be true that both beings can legitimately claim to be the same person: they both have the same physical makeup as of minutes ago, so they share all the same memories, opinions, scars, personality traits, etc. But since it is obvious that, after the duplicate is created, being the button-pusher involves a vastly divergent set of first-person experiences compared to being the duplicate, they do not share a single consciousness. After the duplication event, even if the button-pusher is not destroyed, his first-person perspective will never represent what it is like to be the duplicate.

Rationally speaking, I don't know if there is such a thing as a person, persisting over time and change. To be sure I guess I have the same feeling that there is as you guys probably do but I don't seem to know it as a fact and I doubt very much you do either.
EB

PS. I also noted in my first post that this was only arguments on a rational level. What I do in real life is probably something else altogether.

 

[Togo]

No the problem may be that we are talking about different things. Because of your claim here I just realised I've lapsed in my use of the word "person".

Fair enough, let's untangle.

So instead, me, I started from the claim in the OP that the original and the double "do not share a single consciousness", which wouldn't be true from the subjective perspective, at least initially, because the machine is assumed to have produced a perfect duplicate mind of the mind of the original person.

Ok, I think we just have a difference in what we think is going on.

I'm picturing a machine that creates an exact duplicate, instantaneously, both duplicates then operating independently. As such, the two copies have different information streams coming in from their senses, and have no privileged information about what is going on in the other's head. Note that in this scenario, there are two different consciousnesses. They are separate, have different inputs, and don't share information. Although they may identical at the time of creation, they would swiftly diverge.

You appear to be picturing a machine that creates and maintains a duplicate, keeping it the same in every respect. The duplicate consciousness is not independent of the machine, and isn't functional in the same way. It's not evolving and changing itself, it's being constantly updated and kept in line with the original.

I'd suggest that the structure of the original problem strongly implies the former over the latter. That may just be because I've encountered this thought experiment before in that form, but I don't believe so. The second interpretation seems to contain too many problematical assumptions- not least that the duplicate isn't conscious in any way except subjective experience, which is somewhat begging the question.

Whether two such identical consciousnesses are the same or not, I don't think we know the answer to that and the OP didn't specify the terminology used.

I think whether the consciousnesses share an identity depends on the nature of the duplication, not the degree of similarity between them.

And yes, I'd regard identity as being something separate from both physical form and conscious continuity.

Good for you but that's a metaphysical view.

No, it's a definition. Whether they are distinct in practice is a metaphysical view, but I am insisting they are distinct in concept.

Rationally speaking, I don't know if there is such a thing as a person, persisting over time and change. To be sure I guess I have the same feeling that there is as you guys probably do but I don't seem to know it as a fact and I doubt very much you do either.

Obviously, it depends on how you define a person. Either it meets those criteria or it doesn't. I think the basis for supporting 'person' as a metaphysical class is actually quite strong, but I agree it's not something that is likely to be establishable empirically.

PS. I also noted in my first post that this was only arguments on a rational level. What I do in real life is probably something else altogether.

Understood.

 

[fromderinside]

Entanglement?

 

[Speakpigeon]

Entanglement?

Assuming this is a genuine contribution to the debate, given that it is your second attempt to suggest the relevance of QM, my view is that this is not an empirical issue and therefore it is irrelevant whether it is or not possible to build a machine capable of creating entangled copies of people.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Fair enough, let's untangle.

So instead, me, I started from the claim in the OP that the original and the double "do not share a single consciousness", which wouldn't be true from the subjective perspective, at least initially, because the machine is assumed to have produced a perfect duplicate mind of the mind of the original person.

Ok, I think we just have a difference in what we think is going on.

I'm picturing a machine that creates an exact duplicate, instantaneously, both duplicates then operating independently. As such, the two copies have different information streams coming in from their senses, and have no privileged information about what is going on in the other's head. Note that in this scenario, there are two different consciousnesses. They are separate, have different inputs, and don't share information. Although they may identical at the time of creation, they would swiftly diverge.

Sure, that's the scenario. However, you are describing an objective point of view. From the subjective point of view, there is no difference at the point of duplication and after that there is (ordinary) continuity.

You appear to be picturing a machine that creates and maintains a duplicate, keeping it the same in every respect. The duplicate consciousness is not independent of the machine, and isn't functional in the same way. It's not evolving and changing itself, it's being constantly updated and kept in line with the original. I'd suggest that the structure of the original problem strongly implies the former over the latter. That may just be because I've encountered this thought experiment before in that form, but I don't believe so.

My alternative scenario with the machine maintaining identical the original and double was meant to show that the inevitable change occurring in the case of the original scenario was not essential to the issue.

The second interpretation seems to contain too many problematical assumptions- not least that the duplicate isn't conscious in any way except subjective experience, which is somewhat begging the question.

???

Whether two such identical consciousnesses are the same or not, I don't think we know the answer to that and the OP didn't specify the terminology used.

I think whether the consciousnesses share an identity depends on the nature of the duplication, not the degree of similarity between them.

Ok, that's a thought, but we don't know either way.

And yes, I'd regard identity as being something separate from both physical form and conscious continuity.

Good for you but that's a metaphysical view.

No, it's a definition. Whether they are distinct in practice is a metaphysical view, but I am insisting they are distinct in concept.

Well, you said "identity", not "the concept of identity".

And since you always insist that concepts live in some abstract dimension of their own yours is still a metaphysical one.

Rationally speaking, I don't know if there is such a thing as a person, persisting over time and change. To be sure I guess I have the same feeling that there is as you guys probably do but I don't seem to know it as a fact and I doubt very much you do either.

Obviously, it depends on how you define a person. Either it meets those criteria or it doesn't. I think the basis for supporting 'person' as a metaphysical class is actually quite strong, but I agree it's not something that is likely to be establishable empirically.

My point is that the OP didn't define the concept of person and I personally don't know what persons may be if anything. Existing views are all metaphysical so your guess is just as good as mine.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

Entanglement?

Assuming this is a genuine contribution to the debate, given that it is your second attempt to suggest the relevance of QM, my view is that this is not an empirical issue and therefore it is irrelevant whether it is or not possible to build a machine capable of creating entangled copies of people.
EB

The OP was a hypothetical. Clearly being the same is critical. Entangled amplifies that notion to the point to where 'the same' = 'identical' relation throughout existence with no demonstration of other than joint freedom from other entities. They were 'born' in a singular event. They will 'die' at the same time with identical or opposite attributes.

 

[Kharakov]

What the heck is then "identity"?
Why not say share the same body?

Because you don't share the same body with your five-year-old self; but you do share the same identity.

That explains it....

 

[Clivedurdle]

Is Jesus resurrecting the same problem?

 

[Speakpigeon]

Is Jesus resurrecting the same problem?

Absolutely.

Obviously, you'd need to specify the scenario in the appropriate way. But I will assume that God is just the kind of machine that does the trick in the OP. If anybody can, He can certainly make perfect duplicates and in the particular case of Jesus He would make certain there's not mishap. What we don't know is whether Jesus possesses the same kind of consciousness as we do but assuming so then it's a no brainer.
EB

 

[Clivedurdle]

Isn't this another argument against xianity, this time accepting the resurrection but commenting it has no effect?