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Oh, that one's easy. At the state of current science, we're pretty much sure that the Star Trek transporter doesn't kill the traveller. The "copy" is the orig
by loup-vaillant 11y ago
Oh, that one's easy. At the state of current science, we're pretty much sure that the Star Trek transporter doesn't kill the traveller. The "copy" is the original, in fact. Basically, this is because we're kinda made of particles, and the origin of the quarks you're made up of doesn't matter. As in, current physics don't even have a notion of the identity of a particle.
The part where it gets weird is, if you don't destroy the "original", you end up with two originals.
More (much more) details here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/r9/quantum_mechanics_and_personal_identity/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/r9/quantum_mechanics_and_personal_id...
- WalterBright 11y ago> pretty much sure Are you willing to risk your life on "pretty much sure" ? Especially when there's no experiment you can devise to test it?
- WalterBright 11y agoYou downvoters have my blessing to go use it. Not me!
- AgentME 11y agoIf there's no conceivable experiment to test whether it's just a copy, then it seems like the copy isn't any different than the original.
- loup-vaillant 11y agoI'm not talking about interpretation of quantum mechanics here. Just standard physics, of the kind we can test for —did test for. If the Star Trek transporter is shown to work (it has transported healthy monkeys so far, and did nothing weird with flies), I would totally step on it. I would feel uneasy of course, but no more so than if I stepped into a rocket.