hedonologist

I'm talking about the Star Trek sort of transportation. First, would you choose to use this transporter for going somewhere if this technology were available? If so, would you choose to be "transported" even if your "original body" remained alive in the original place, while "you" were transported to a new place? It's two for the price of one!

The unique thing about that question is that in order to answer it you must take the viewpoint of the subject in the experience.

Maybe the original would think he got screwed out of his "airfare" and his copy got sent to Mars, but would he be better off "disassembled"?

[ February 11, 2002: Message edited by: hedonologist ]</p>

David Gould

I would have no problem sending a version of me elsewhere.

I think the greater problem is what happens if I am destroyed at this end.

The question: what am I?

I think that I am my brain state.

Thus, if my brain state is preserved, I am preserved.

However, how much of brain state needs to be preserved?

If I have an accident and lose 10% of my brain but my functions do not change dramatically (perhaps my reactions are a little slower and I have a harder time memory wise) am I still me?

I suspect that there is a 'core' of the subconscious that is required for me to still be me.

I also think that this is a physical structure (a part of the brain state).

If this survives, I survive.

If there is more than one me, we are still different individuals. The fact that we share memories does not make us the same because as soon as we are separated our experiences diverge. Thus, we are no longer the same person.

However, if there was only one (the original me being destroyed back home) then there is nothing to diverge from.

Francois Tremblay

Transportation (Star-Trek-style, that is, total decomposition and recomposition) is the functional equivalent of death. Whatever the guy at the other end is, it's not me, only an identical copy. Therefore the point is moot, since the only me that would still remain would be the one that stayed behind, ergo I would not have moved at all.

[ February 11, 2002: Message edited by: Franc28 ]</p>

hedonologist

So you would not choose to be transported?

Does the being you are when you read this part of this sentence, die when you read this part of this sentence?

hedonologist

If you wanted to go to Europe, but you also wanted to stay home, might you simply copy your brain state and send you to Europe while you stayed home?

If the you that stayed home wanted to go to Europe also, would you kill your brain state that lived at home, so you would survive in Europe where your other brain state is? According to what you are saying, you would then be living only in Europe, correct?

[ February 11, 2002: Message edited by: hedonologist ]</p>

tronvillain

I prefer destructive transportation in most cases, but I probably would.

Francois Tremblay

Since reading does not involve a complete decomposition and recomposition of the atoms composing my body, I am not sure what is the relevance of this question.

David Gould

If the being that is being copied survives and does not itself go to Europe then it does not get to experience the trip.

In fact, I guess this is what you are aiming at.

This to me is very interesting and makes me think a little.

However, to me it simply seems that if both survive then 'I' have diverged into two experiences. Which one is me? Am I still me if I choose to go to Europe by plane today? I think so, even if I could have chosen to not go on the plane today.

The divergence creates two sepearte individuals.

As to which one is 'me', they both are. Neither has any different qualities than the original until their experiences differ. And if experiences destroy me then I am destroyed all the time...

However, as the different experiences are not brought together in one being, there are now two sepearate different indviduals after the expereinces start to differ.

If the brain state reconstructed is identical, then I am still around...

If this is not the case, I think materialism has to be false.

And as I have no evidence for the falsity of materialism...

crocodile deathroll

If you were copied at the other end including the configuration of your atoms (atom for atom) and the copy at this end was destroyed before the one at the other end was invigorated back into life, then you will become the person at the other end because the identical neural configurations will emulate the same episodic memories, and that is what I believe all we are - a continuum of episodic memories

hedonologist

That is interesting, a physically identical copy isn't you, but by the time you read that sentence every molecule in your body is in a different position, yet it is still "you". It seems you are saying "you" are something more than the physical, for all the physical was copied identically… or was it? Everything except the rest of the universe was copied anyway.