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Imagine that I visit a cloning facility that can flawlessly duplicate a human, memories and all. The techs there put me in a medical gown and sedate me, and a w

Imagine that I visit a cloning facility that can flawlessly duplicate a human, memories and all. The techs there put me in a medical gown and sedate me, and a while later I wake up in an empty room. Without any additional information, I have no way to determine if I am the clone or not. I know only that there is another me in the building somewhere, having the exact same thoughts as I am having right now. In fact, I have no way to know if the cloning was even successful or not. There is no way for me to distinguish from this room if I am the clone, if the other copy was disintegrated, or if no copy was made at all. The room I'm in could be on Mars for all I know. Does it make sense for me to worry about the fate of the other potential copy if I know absolutely that nothing of my essence has been lost either way?

lhankbhl 10y ago
Look at it like this: You are placed in a box. Moments later, you are told, "We have successfully made a copy of you. We are sending it home now. You must be disposed of." Will you allow them to dispose of you? This is the question being posed, not whether a copy will have no idea if it is the original. The point is that it isn't relevant if one is a copy. No one was moved, it's only that a second person now exists and killing either is murder of a unique person. (Again, uniqueness is not a question of whether these people will think or react to situations in the same way, but rather that there are two different conciousnesses at play.)
- cakoose 10y ago
  I think the fact that the original is kept around (and asked a question) might be complicating things. For example, what if you were taken apart, your molecules were sent to Mars, and then you were reassembled exactly as they were? Would that be continuous consciousness? If so, how is that different from the cloning option if your clone were assembled on Mars and the original were completely destroyed at the very same instant? (Or maybe the original were destroyed just an instant earlier.)
  - lazzlazzlazz 10y ago
    The fact that the original is kept around is the entire point. Let's say your molecules were taken apart... and that's it. That's called "dying".
    - mickeypi 10y ago
      Yes, and if we actually had a way to disassemble and reassemble humans, the reassembled beings would tell you that the experiment works and their consciousness goes back to their first memories as a child. But the disassembled person would have been destroyed and therefore unable to share their opinion on the matter.
      - dietrichepp 10y ago
        This dodges the question. The question is not whether the original is destroyed, but whether it matters.
        mickeypi 10y ago
        Sorry, that was intended to be implied. The original would say that it matters to them but to any observer it does not.
    - gwright 10y ago
      And yet the atoms in your body are recycled over time. Your future self consists of an almost entirely different set of atoms as your current self. I'm not sure how to reconcile this with the nature of consciousness, but it certainly makes for an interesting thought experiment. https://www.quora.com/How-long-does-it-take-for-most-of-the-atoms-in-your-body-to-be-replaced-by-others https://www.quora.com/How-long-does-it-take-for-most-of-the-...
  - fossuser 10y ago
    This reminds of some of the thought experiments in Sam Harris' book Waking Up. This particular one reminds me of the teleporter example which is in this excerpt: https://www.getflashnotes.com/waking-up-by-sam-harris/ https://www.getflashnotes.com/waking-up-by-sam-harris/ (just control-f for teleporter). Basically our reasoning about identity is poorly evolved for duplicates. The closest we can come to feeling comfortable with it is going to sleep and waking back up. I think mostly because we're just used to doing that (since otherwise going to sleep and waking back up is similar to dying and coming back slightly different). Was an interesting book overall - I'd recommend it.
- snom380 10y ago
  Maybe I'm the odd one out, but if that was the original plan that I had intended, I wouldn't object to that (given that it was painless) - after all, minus that conversation the clone would be me "in spirit" if you will. If I didn't consent to the cloning, that would complicate things. Likewise, my trust in the cloning process would proably affect my decision. Or put it another way, let's say we live in a software simulation. Do you care whether our sysadmins live migrate our simulation over to a new Alien Web Services instance?
- exolymph 10y ago
  This is exactly the question I was trying to pose. Thank you for expressing it so simply and elegantly.
gyardley 10y ago
Sure, as much as it makes sense to worry about the fate of any other independent human being - and perhaps even more so, if you feel more affinity with your copies than you do with random strangers. I wouldn't use a facility that killed a stranger at random every time I used it, and I sure as hell wouldn't use a facility if it killed a living person who was identical to me. Frankly, I don't see what your 'essence' has to do with it. Killing people is morally wrong.
- khedoros 10y ago
  > Killing people is morally wrong. What about it, though? For the sake of argument, I'm not taking a position on whether it is or isn't wrong, I'm just looking for the "why". Ending a consciousness without either a defense motive or the permission of that consciousness (as in, violating the consciousness's right to life)? Depriving the world of a unique being? Causing damage to the human race by needlessly ending a human life? Release and/or destruction of a soul (or some other supernatural-ish argument)? "Killing people is morally wrong" works for all of those reasons right now (and others, depending on your favored philosophy), but some of them are invalidated if we assume that we can make an exact copy of a person at a given point in time.
  - gyardley 10y ago
    > What about it, though? Violating the consciousness's right to life. I could be missing something, of course, but whether we can make an exact duplicate of a person at a given point in time doesn't seem relevant to this. I'm curious why the answers to questions of this genre usually seem obvious to me, but clearly aren't obvious for everyone. I'm not implying any value judgement either way - perhaps I'm just a dullard. But I do wonder what the difference in mindset is.
EGreg 10y ago
This is all basic stuff. Think deeper. You go to sleep every night. When you wake up the next day, how do you know you're the same person as yesterday? What does that mean? Now consider if you didn't have memories of the past. What would make you "you"? The body would be the same but your amnesia would change things, eh? Now what if you knew next week you would lose your memories for sure, but this week you can go on an amazing vacation. Does it matter where you go? It matters to your current self but to your future self. Now think about sacrificing pleasure now so you can live a longer life. Or feel good about your life at 80. Now think about the afterlife. What if you are reincarnated with no memories of the past? We already kind of established that "reincarnated you" wouldn't care about current you. But will current you care about reincarnated you? Consider this: if a "future you" doesn't remember being "current you" how are they really different than a random person with a similar body who also has amnesia? In short, long term, is it all about the memories? What is the self preservation instinct about? Finally the big one... if there were no conscious observers at all, in what sense would anything exist? That is, if I described to you a universe that you can never detect or deduce must exist from any observations in this one, how would saying "that universe EXISTS be different than saying it DOESN'T EXIST? It seems the word itself requires concious observers. Thus, the concept of consciousness and existence may be two sides of the same amazing conundrum.
- chongli 10y ago
  You know you're the same person as yesterday because without you, there is no knowing. A clone is no more you than an identical twin is you. What makes you you is the ability to ask the question in the first place. If you were dead, there would be no question.
  - TheCoelacanth 10y ago
    I don't follow. You know based on your ability to ask the question that you currently are you and not a clone of yourself, but you don't know that the person yesterday was you and not some other person that you were cloned from.
    - 10y ago
curioussavage 10y ago
There are a few problems I see with this. Each individuals perspective is limited. That is only reason why your 'clone' might not know or care about those things. As third party observers in that situation we would know that one is a 'copy' and we (or at least I) would care (and even object) to the killing of either one. From my perspective I can see that there are two distinct unique individuals having different thoughts saying different things and doing different things. Its when the 'clones' are still alive that you can tell that you have two different people now. Since they occupy separate space they will have different perspectives and experiences and different lives.
- unclenoriega 10y ago
  > From my perspective I can see that there are two distinct unique individuals having different thoughts saying different things and doing different things. Can you though? Assuming the cloning process works, and assuming they wake up in identical rooms, why would they think, say, or do anything differently?
  - dwaltrip 10y ago
    Yes, because it wouldn't be possible to keep the environment "identical" for very long, so they would diverge. Thinking about it more... I don't even think it is remotely possible to control the "initial conditions" perfectly enough (upon waking up), so they would diverge instantly. Sure, they might act very similarly, but it would quite clear that they are separate entities.

lhankbhl 10y ago

Look at it like this: You are placed in a box. Moments later, you are told, "We have successfully made a copy of you. We are sending it home now. You must be disposed of." Will you allow them to dispose of you? This is the question being posed, not whether a copy will have no idea if it is the original. The point is that it isn't relevant if one is a copy. No one was moved, it's only that a second person now exists and killing either is murder of a unique person. (Again, uniqueness is not a question of whether these people will think or react to situations in the same way, but rather that there are two different conciousnesses at play.)

cakoose 10y ago
I think the fact that the original is kept around (and asked a question) might be complicating things. For example, what if you were taken apart, your molecules were sent to Mars, and then you were reassembled exactly as they were? Would that be continuous consciousness? If so, how is that different from the cloning option if your clone were assembled on Mars and the original were completely destroyed at the very same instant? (Or maybe the original were destroyed just an instant earlier.)
- lazzlazzlazz 10y ago
  The fact that the original is kept around is the entire point. Let's say your molecules were taken apart... and that's it. That's called "dying".
  - mickeypi 10y ago
    Yes, and if we actually had a way to disassemble and reassemble humans, the reassembled beings would tell you that the experiment works and their consciousness goes back to their first memories as a child. But the disassembled person would have been destroyed and therefore unable to share their opinion on the matter.
    - dietrichepp 10y ago
      This dodges the question. The question is not whether the original is destroyed, but whether it matters.
      - mickeypi 10y ago
        Sorry, that was intended to be implied. The original would say that it matters to them but to any observer it does not.
  - gwright 10y ago
    And yet the atoms in your body are recycled over time. Your future self consists of an almost entirely different set of atoms as your current self. I'm not sure how to reconcile this with the nature of consciousness, but it certainly makes for an interesting thought experiment. https://www.quora.com/How-long-does-it-take-for-most-of-the-atoms-in-your-body-to-be-replaced-by-others https://www.quora.com/How-long-does-it-take-for-most-of-the-...
- fossuser 10y ago
  This reminds of some of the thought experiments in Sam Harris' book Waking Up. This particular one reminds me of the teleporter example which is in this excerpt: https://www.getflashnotes.com/waking-up-by-sam-harris/ https://www.getflashnotes.com/waking-up-by-sam-harris/ (just control-f for teleporter). Basically our reasoning about identity is poorly evolved for duplicates. The closest we can come to feeling comfortable with it is going to sleep and waking back up. I think mostly because we're just used to doing that (since otherwise going to sleep and waking back up is similar to dying and coming back slightly different). Was an interesting book overall - I'd recommend it.
snom380 10y ago
Maybe I'm the odd one out, but if that was the original plan that I had intended, I wouldn't object to that (given that it was painless) - after all, minus that conversation the clone would be me "in spirit" if you will. If I didn't consent to the cloning, that would complicate things. Likewise, my trust in the cloning process would proably affect my decision. Or put it another way, let's say we live in a software simulation. Do you care whether our sysadmins live migrate our simulation over to a new Alien Web Services instance?
exolymph 10y ago
This is exactly the question I was trying to pose. Thank you for expressing it so simply and elegantly.

gyardley 10y ago

Sure, as much as it makes sense to worry about the fate of any other independent human being - and perhaps even more so, if you feel more affinity with your copies than you do with random strangers. I wouldn't use a facility that killed a stranger at random every time I used it, and I sure as hell wouldn't use a facility if it killed a living person who was identical to me. Frankly, I don't see what your 'essence' has to do with it. Killing people is morally wrong.

khedoros 10y ago
> Killing people is morally wrong. What about it, though? For the sake of argument, I'm not taking a position on whether it is or isn't wrong, I'm just looking for the "why". Ending a consciousness without either a defense motive or the permission of that consciousness (as in, violating the consciousness's right to life)? Depriving the world of a unique being? Causing damage to the human race by needlessly ending a human life? Release and/or destruction of a soul (or some other supernatural-ish argument)? "Killing people is morally wrong" works for all of those reasons right now (and others, depending on your favored philosophy), but some of them are invalidated if we assume that we can make an exact copy of a person at a given point in time.
- gyardley 10y ago
  > What about it, though? Violating the consciousness's right to life. I could be missing something, of course, but whether we can make an exact duplicate of a person at a given point in time doesn't seem relevant to this. I'm curious why the answers to questions of this genre usually seem obvious to me, but clearly aren't obvious for everyone. I'm not implying any value judgement either way - perhaps I'm just a dullard. But I do wonder what the difference in mindset is.

EGreg 10y ago

This is all basic stuff. Think deeper. You go to sleep every night. When you wake up the next day, how do you know you're the same person as yesterday? What does that mean? Now consider if you didn't have memories of the past. What would make you "you"? The body would be the same but your amnesia would change things, eh? Now what if you knew next week you would lose your memories for sure, but this week you can go on an amazing vacation. Does it matter where you go? It matters to your current self but to your future self. Now think about sacrificing pleasure now so you can live a longer life. Or feel good about your life at 80. Now think about the afterlife. What if you are reincarnated with no memories of the past? We already kind of established that "reincarnated you" wouldn't care about current you. But will current you care about reincarnated you? Consider this: if a "future you" doesn't remember being "current you" how are they really different than a random person with a similar body who also has amnesia? In short, long term, is it all about the memories? What is the self preservation instinct about? Finally the big one... if there were no conscious observers at all, in what sense would anything exist? That is, if I described to you a universe that you can never detect or deduce must exist from any observations in this one, how would saying "that universe EXISTS be different than saying it DOESN'T EXIST? It seems the word itself requires concious observers. Thus, the concept of consciousness and existence may be two sides of the same amazing conundrum.

chongli 10y ago
You know you're the same person as yesterday because without you, there is no knowing. A clone is no more you than an identical twin is you. What makes you you is the ability to ask the question in the first place. If you were dead, there would be no question.
- TheCoelacanth 10y ago
  I don't follow. You know based on your ability to ask the question that you currently are you and not a clone of yourself, but you don't know that the person yesterday was you and not some other person that you were cloned from.
  - 10y ago

curioussavage 10y ago

There are a few problems I see with this. Each individuals perspective is limited. That is only reason why your 'clone' might not know or care about those things. As third party observers in that situation we would know that one is a 'copy' and we (or at least I) would care (and even object) to the killing of either one. From my perspective I can see that there are two distinct unique individuals having different thoughts saying different things and doing different things. Its when the 'clones' are still alive that you can tell that you have two different people now. Since they occupy separate space they will have different perspectives and experiences and different lives.

unclenoriega 10y ago
> From my perspective I can see that there are two distinct unique individuals having different thoughts saying different things and doing different things. Can you though? Assuming the cloning process works, and assuming they wake up in identical rooms, why would they think, say, or do anything differently?
- dwaltrip 10y ago
  Yes, because it wouldn't be possible to keep the environment "identical" for very long, so they would diverge. Thinking about it more... I don't even think it is remotely possible to control the "initial conditions" perfectly enough (upon waking up), so they would diverge instantly. Sure, they might act very similarly, but it would quite clear that they are separate entities.