gerfinch

I dont know if this is an original thought experiment but watching star trek after 3 days without sleep lead me to it.

Imagine a teleporter.How it works:
You have two boxes.One box scans every atom in your body.The other atom uses carbon calcium water etc the other side to make a perfect copy of you.When the second "you" is complete the first one is vapourised.

The problem: Is the second you,actually you.Or is it just a perfect copy of you with all your memories.More to the point what do you feel when you step through the teleporter ? Do you siimply end ,while a double of you continues your existence ?.

The other problem:What happens if the first teleporter breaks and does vapourise the original you ? Now their are two people both of whom are you.The question posed "which is the real you".The easy answer : both.Problem of the easy answer : what do you feel as you step through.Would "you" be one of them ,the one annoyed that his machine is broken as he went nowhere or the one that was teleported and didnt notice a thing.

Note : by "you" i do not mean a soul per se.What i mean is the feeling of continuity,that i am i from one minute to the next.If anyone can add to simplify point out errors or even solve this thought puzzle please reply.

Demosthenes

I think that the reconstructed person is identical to the person who stepped into the teleporter. It doesn't matter whether the atoms making up the bodies are from different sources. The essential thing is the organization of information defining the person's identity. The reconstructed person experiences a continuity in his memories leading unbroken from the moment the person is scanned. If the person can't tell the difference, then it doesn't matter whether you aren't the 'original' or the 'copy'. In the long term, the terms probably will be quite relative.

If the teleporter fails and there are two identical people. Are they the same? Yes they are! At the first moment they stepped out the machines, they're identical. It's meaningless to make a distinction between the 'original' and the 'copy' for anything other than knowing who went into the machine(the original) and who came out(the copy). Move the two people around, and nobody will even be able to tell who's which. After the first instant of stepping out the machine, the two people will begin to diverge. They now have different perspectives and experiences. Eventually as time goes by, they will increasingly become different individuals except in the past when they shared a single thread of identical memories. They'll be, in respect, no different than other identical twins, maybe even closer.

0n0w1c

they would know the difference... they know which box they walked out of and thus they will no longer be identical.

gerfinch

Well put.I think i should have more specific.What i am concerned with is what does the person feel as he steps into the teleporter.Dieing is oblivion and the person vapourised will encounter it.As you step in,do you die,while you live at the same time.Under any test the new person will be you.That person will also have the feeling of continuity i.e. he went in and came out here.

Imagine the teleporter is just a sucicide machine and not a teleporter.Will the experiences of the first person be any different ?. As far as i can see they wont.If you try to teleport yourself in this fasion you will die,while an exact copy of will come into existence.

Demosthenes

But just after the operation is complete, they'll still be identical, at least till they step out and realize what just had happened.

What if you wiped the memory in both persons of where they came out the teleporter, then they would have no way of telling which's the original or the copy.


I'm not too clear on what you mean by. You're concerned about whether the original will feel anything of the process that the copy wouldn't feel because the information wasn't transmitted or whatever?

Like this example, suppose the teleporter uses a powerful laser to do the scanning and which will vaporize anything. At the moment of the scan, the person sees a brilliant flash of laser light. He doesn't even have time to react before the laser vaporizes his body. The vaporization is so rapid that it's complete before the nerves even have any time to transmit the fact to the brain. Maybe the only real memory of the event is seeing the flash, but even when he was seeing the flash, he was being destroyed at the same time, so it's reasonable that the copy would not possess that experience. So from the copy's point of the view, he stepped into the machine, waited and the next thing he knew, he was teleported, without any sensations whatsoever. Is it so important that the original experienced something about his vaporization and the copy didn't? Maybe that would be a good thing?

Of course that all depends on the details of how the process is actually done. In reality, we may find that it's completely different. There are dozens other thought experiments involving creations of copies from the originals using different methods. The interesting thing is that they all give the same answers.

0n0w1c

i guess the original would walk in knowing he would come to be in the other box, to him he would be the original... having the preconception of his arrival in the other box. he would think or feel he was transported, but yes, the original would be destroyed. it would be "relative suicide"?

gerfinch

Would you use the teleporter ? If the experience is the same as a sucicide machine ? And im not talking about the pain of being vapourised.Im talking about cessation of existance.Is this type of teleporter just a sucicide booth with a redeeming feature that no-one will notice your dead.

0n0w1c

since it would be relative... to the observers of the entry box, they would see my death. i would percieve nothing other than what i was told of the experience. it would be something "I" never experienced. yes, i would do it... just to answer these questions. as long as i could get back before dinner!

[ July 27, 2002: Message edited by: 0n0w1c ]</p>

Demosthenes

The big key word here is death. Or the definition of death to be precise. According to some definitions, the original's body being destroyed is death. But if all you're concerned is preserving the information, the identity, and the memories, then it can be considered not to be death, just an elaborate procedure of moving one person from point A to point B. If the information is lost, then it is death, because the information is irreplaceable and the person cannot be brought back again.

Think a bit about this, a body is constantly renewing itself. I'm sure you've all heard the statement that every 7 years the body has completely replaced itself in new cells. You may make the argument that the it isn't appliable to the brain on the grounds that neural cells do not divide. Other considerations aside such as the discovery that neural cells are indeed capable of division. A cell has to maintain itself all the time by constantly exchanging energy and matter. So even though the neural cell may not divide, it's constantly replacing itself with materials. So perhaps in 10 years, the body will have completely replaced itself not just in cells but in the atoms making up the body. So every decade we are a completely new person, and yet we still consider ourselves to be the same as the previous selves. The organization of the parts are the only thing that matter, not the underlying materials.

The reason we don't feel any difference is that it's occuring gradually over the years. What if instead of ten years, the process is compressed into 5 years? Will we feel any difference? How about one year? Two months? Ten seconds?

The definition of death is relative, in medicine, it's changing constantly to reflect the advances and the ever improving ability of the physicans to restore the person to the semblance of living. Perhaps the absolute definition of death is the irreversible loss of the identity and the memories of the person, anything else is just the matter of the capablity of the technology to prevent the loss of the information.

Demosthenes

I would use the teleporter if it was the cost-effective way of traveling over long distances. Since my experiences would still be the same after going through the teleporter, I don't consider it to be death, much less a suicide machine. It would just be an exotic way of traveling. But if it's cheaper to take the airplane, I'll take that route instead.