Teleportation

[alanschu]

At the same time, we are free to speculate on the effect of such a technology were it to become viable; as such:

 

alanschu, your point appears to be that in the moment of separation / cloning, there are two bodies but only one conscience; and that upon the destruction of the first body that conscience is eradicated and what is left is a clone, which, presuming that it is not a 'vegetable' and retains cognitive processes and so forth... what conscience has it been given? Does the copying of the physical also copy some sort of link in a dualist sense that means not only the creation of a second body but of a second conscience?

 

And if it does, that conscience would be like a "Save As" function on the computer.. that from that point forth there would be two consciences, though they 'share' the past. If this were to be the case the argument that the original conscience has been killed becomes tenuous. If the conscience was, in fact, 'copied', then there would be absolutely no difference between you prior teleportation adn you after teleportation save a semantic fact of copying.

 

So you're telling me that if you were cloned, you'd have control over TWO bodies?

 

I agree with you that no matter what happens, there is the destruction of a body and a conscience; the question is whether, due to the links of memory, cognitive process and so forth, a complete creation of a conscience - in other words, the artificial creation of a mind - is possible. The body itself? Hell, we do implants and stuff all the time.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'm not disputing this. I'm operating under the assumption that everything is copied. But you couldn't possibly occupy two separate people. It just doesn't make any sense.

[alanschu]

Tell me, you aren't afraid to go to sleep at night, aret you? Yet you lose consciousness for a while. How do you know that the "you" that awakes is the same "you" that went to sleep? Maybe "you" die each night, to be born anew every morning. Does this question bother you? It should. Or, to take more extreme example, during a bypass surgery the patient is technically dead for a short while. The consciousness that awakes after the surgery, is it the same consciousness that existed before the surgery? If your answer to this is "yes", then answer me this. If, during the short period while the bypass surgery patient is dead, his body is scanned, disintegrated, and re-assembled, would he still be the same patient? And, if instead of using the same matter to re-assemble his body, we used some other atoms? Would he still be the same patient?

 

You're taking the term "consciousness" too literally. I'm not talking about being conscious in the sense that you're awake and lucid. The "consciousness" is rather something that some would probably refer to as a soul (or whatever). The fact that I go to sleep doesn't mean that my consciousness has disappeared.

 

 

My answer to all those questions is yes. Nothing else seems to make sense to me. We don't think that someone who has lost their consciousness is a different person when they wake up. For a dead patient on the surgery table, it makes no difference if their body is disintegrated and re-assembled in between. They would still be just as dead, and they would still be soon revived.

 

Define dead? Because clinically dead is just when the heart stops. Which it is possible to bring someone back from, because their brain is still functioning. If someone is biologically dead (their brain is no longer functioning), you cannot bring them back to life. It's beyond our current technology. So no, they wouldn't be "just as dead" because being "dead on the operating table" isn't actually being dead. Brain activity still exists. Just like it still exists when I sleep.

 

 

The problem you have with all this, I understand where it comes from. We think self as a separate entity of our thoughts, and memories, something that "controls our consciousness", to borrow your own term. But it isn't, really. It is a product of those thoughts and memories.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Again, I'm not talking about "consciousness" as in being lucid. I'm not talking about something that "controls our consciousness." I'm talking about our soul or whatever. If your ability to "see through the eyes" of the cloned person upon teleportation exists when the original body is destroyed, then it should still exist when the original body is not destroyed. Because as far as the cloned copy is concerned, it doesn't care what you do to the original body. There's no reason to think it would be affected or not.

[Blank]

I wouldn't choose to be killed and let another person impersonate me. That is the case here. You, the you that thinks now, is choosing to die, and you will never think again. Someone else that thinks they are you will impersonate you and pretend and believe they are you, but they won't be you. You will be dead.

[metadigital]

What if, in some distant and magical future, it is possible to get the "you" out of you, and put it into something / someone else ..? "

[Blank]

Like downloading the information and putting it in another brain? It would be like the 6th day, with ARNOLD!

[Checkpoint]

What if, in some distant and magical future, it is possible to get the "you" out of you, and put it into something / someone else ..? "

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It'd be cool of we put Alan in me!

 

 

 

 

That somehow came out totally wrong.

[alanschu]

Oh, how I wish we had the new smileys.

 

In any case, preparing for the future: :naughty: