jakershaker said:
Haven't seen dualism making any kind of comeback recently and don't expect it ever will. For me the interesting discussion is outside any scenario containing assumptions about dualism anyway. I'm not expecting anyone to explain it, just to define what goes missing in the process without making up words for soul(if you mean soul just say it ^^).
Whats wrong with asking for defined arguments in this super serious discussion about a Star Trek teleporter :lol
There's been loads of arguments made, and I don't think even a single one involves dualism or anything metaphysical like that.
jakershaker said:
I'm having a hard time believing that any branch of science would regard a teleported person as a new one. It doesn't make sense in any way.
Just as a teleported rock would be the same rock.
If you can't by any way define what the difference is, if any, then it's the same.
Still waiting for good examples on how any science would manage to define any teleported object as a new object when it's in fact an object that has been reassembled.
The re-creation or copy isn't different in any way except by it not being the original person stepping into the teleporter. If we had an non-sentient object such as a rock, and used the teleporting technology to merely create a duplicate of it - would you stand there and claim that both rocks are the same rock? That if I destroyed one rock, the other would also be destroyed since they are after all the very same rock. If you realize that they are not the same rock, while they at the same time are as they have the exact same properties, then you have stumbled upon the inaccuracy and ambiguity of our language - with it's definition of "the same" being too wide of a definition.
Again, the situation created when you teleport is that an object is destroyed - while a perfect blueprint of the object is saved in the computer. The computer then create a new object with the help of this blueprint, an object that is identical to the first one. This is pretty much what scenario two teleportation entails you destroy and analyze an object down to quantum level and then you create an identical object at the end destination with the help of this blueprint. Scientifically speaking, they're not the same object at the same time that they are identical - if you break down the teleportation process then you must realize that.
In my example with the rock I am trying to show you why this is a dilemma that arises out of our use of an very imprecise language, if we use this machine just to analyze the first object without destroying it and then create an identical copy of it - are they both the same object? If we were to name the rock "Peter" and later pulverized one of the rocks - would you say that "Peter" has been destroyed? Or would you while staring at the pulverized remains of the second rock say that "Peter" hasn't been pulverized at all?
You're not really wrong at all to say that Peter hasn't been destroyed even though we just pulverized Peter, because both rocks are peter. And that is what I've been trying to explain, the words we use to denote the rocks, or the person entering and leaving the teleporter, are too "wide" semantically speaking.
Gaborn said:
Then what ARE you? Your body? So every time you cut yourself the "you" that is "you" dies? Your body naturally replaces every cell in your body every 7 years or so, so unless you're 6 or so you're not really "you" by the definition you seem to be suggesting.
I think it was Terry Pratchett that came up with the analogy of a hunting knife. It's been passed down in a family for almost 200 years. Oh sure, the blade's been sharpened over time, it even got replaced once when it snapped off. The handle too, that handle has been repaired, rebuffed, and replaced - But it's still a 200 year old knife. Or is it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned [from Crete] had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.
Yep, it's an age old argument that's been brought up in mind uploading discussions as well.
And many attempts have been made at solving this paradox:
In one sense things can be "qualitatively identical", by sharing some properties. In another sense they might be "numerically identical" by being "one". As an example, consider two different marbles that look identical. They would be qualitatively, but not numerically, identical. A marble can be numerically identical only to itself.
One solution to this paradox may come from the concept of four-dimensionalism. Ted Sider and others have proposed that these problems can be solved by considering all things as four-dimensional objects. An object is a spatially extended three-dimensional thing that also extends across the fourth dimension of time. This four-dimensional object is made up of three-dimensional time-slices. These are spatially extended things that exist only at individual points in time. An object is made up of a series of causally related time-slices. All time-slices are numerically identical to themselves. And the whole aggregate of time-slices, namely the four-dimensional object, is also numerically identical with itself. But the individual time-slices can have qualities that differ from each other.
As a four-dimensional object in spacetime, I would be destroyed at point A and reconstituted at point B. But I assume you will simply see it as your four-dimensional existance "skipping" or taking a big jump between point A and B while staying the same individual. Which would then make me have to reiterate what I previously said:
What if a person wasn't destroyed in the teleportation process, but lived on instead while the copy ended up at point B?
Would you still define A and B as the same person? And I'm not speaking of a nano- or millisecond after they'd undeniably diverge, but the exact moment A is copied and B is created.
They would in one sense be the same person, and that's just a failing of our own language to precisely define who we are. Because while they'd have identical consciousnesses, they couldn't be the same person as they'd exist as separate entities simultaneously.
The simplest way I can convey what I mean is to think of your consciousness as a river moving through time and space, parts of it being lost and others being added to the entire flow until it at one point could be considered to contain none of the original fluids from when the stream started - while remaining the same river as these changes would have taken time and the whole of the river adapted to the gradual loss and addition of water.
And even this metaphor doesn't precisely encapsulate my views on the matter, and I chalk it up to my, perhaps our, language not being precise enough. Words such as "same", "me" and "existence" are too wide and loose definitionally speaking for a discussion such as this.
Pandaman said:
no, you'd be quite convinced it worked exactly as it said on the tin.
i imagine you'd run out and tell your friends they just had to try it, you'd tell them about the doubts you had but explain how pleasantly surprised to find yourself whole and hale on the other side. you might even talk your family into using them for your next vacation.
Oh that wouldn't be me, it'd be my copy.
I would be lost, I being the conscious four-dimensional creature that steps into the teleporter.
I would at the same time step out of it and try never again to use the teleporter, because I wouldn't want to lose myself.
