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Teleportation is one of those technologies I would never use even if it was bullet proof. There would be no way to determine if your consciousness persists - s

• trsohmers 9y ago
  I really don't understand why people get hung up on this (with the assumption of the impossible guarantee that it is 100% safe, or "bullet proof" as you put it). I am perfectly fine with a Prestige/Star Trek transporter, as long as it is a perfect copy, I don't really care if it is the "original" meatsack or the 100th... all I would want is to make sure the original dies quickly and painlessly (preferably after it is confirmed the copy was transported safely).
  • lotsoflumens 9y ago
    The irony, as I see it, is that immediately after the transfer, the "you" that doesn't get transported might still be aware of your surroundings and understand completely what "your" fate will soon be (killed quickly). That would require an enormous amount of bravery and belief in the technology.
    • orbitingpluto 9y ago
      Your comment reminded me of a old Outer Limits episode, "Think Like A Dinosaur" where the teleportation "equation had to be balanced." After a delayed confirmation, the technician had to kill the original woman. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Like_a_Dinosaur_(The_Outer_Limits) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Like_a_Dinosaur_(The_Out...
      • lotsoflumens 9y ago
        That was a great show - but I haven't seen that episode. Maybe Netflix will revive it someday.
        • maxerickson 9y ago
          For shows like that there are usually unlicensed copies on YouTube.
        • Falling3 9y ago
          Try to find it. This is probably my favorite episode and one of the best fictional explorations of the problems involved with teleportation.
      • YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
        I've read the short story this was based on. If memory serves it was the first time I encountered the concept of throwing someone out an airlock.
  • colept 9y ago
    Because it shatters the meaning of what it means "to be." Am I a meatsack that houses consciousness or am I a complex stream of consciousness that controls a meatsack? In which case, if consciousness can be streamed, can that consciousness be hijacked? Or do I stop existing the moment it's transported? Too many uncertainties.
    • trsohmers 9y ago
      I definetly think the latter, and I'd ditch my body for a newer one in 30 years if I could. Would be pretty great if a transporter also did "tune up" of all of the frail biological bits as part of the copying process (without messing with the brain hopefully) Of course, I think that this is extremely impractical so it isn't a decision that I actually have to face. In this hypothetical scenario though, I'd much rather use the "transporter" as a cloning machine... having two of me would be pretty awesome.
  • eduren 9y ago
    I've seen similar arguments to yours (against the deconstruct-reconstruct matter teleporter), and they never seem to understand the real dilemma: It kills "you". Not the objective "you" of course, that lives on in the copy. It kills the subjective "you". By terminating the stream of consciousness, the person going into the matter teleporter dies. There's no way for the stream of consciousness to continue after that point. It's not ---------------X------------------ It's -------------------XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX--------------------------- If you're comfortable dying so that a copy of you can live the rest of your life, that's your business. But most people don't have that sort of objectivity.
    • colept 9y ago
      Well put! This is what I am most afraid of.
      • maxerickson 9y ago
        You are just carefully arranged to respond that you are afraid of it.
    • tensor 9y ago
      We don't even know if there is such a thing as subjective "you". It's purely speculation. It seems humans would desperately like to think there is such a thing though.
      • eduren 9y ago
        I agree that the base notion of a subjective "you" is problematic. But I enter discussions like these with the assumption that the person on the other end is, like me, experiencing their life subjectively. "I think, therefore I am" and such. If we reject the subjective assumption, then this whole discussion is moot (and I need to re-consider my life and become a Zen Buddhist monk off in the hills somewhere)
    • Falling3 9y ago
      I tend to agree with your conclusion but I think the reasoning is still incredibly complex and not really sound. Sleep is an obvious and frequent discontinuation of consciousness.
  • Falling3 9y ago
    Would you feel the same way if someone cloned you as an exact copy (genes, memories, mental state) and then tried to kill you? There's no difference between that and teleporting except the order of operations.
  • tzs 9y ago
    Unless the laws of physics require the quick and painless destruction of the original in order to get the information to send to the other side, I wouldn't count on it being quick and painless. All I'd count on is that it would be the cheapest method that does the job. If soundproofing the booth and killing you slowly and painfully saves them money over quick and painless, you are probably getting slow and painful. Personally, my threshold question for whether or not I would consider using a transporter is: can this technology be tweaked to make a duplicator instead of a transporter? If the answer is "yes", I'm not riding.
• lotsoflumens 9y ago
  OK - in the spirit of a nice friendly discussion on a slow news day (LoL)... What makes you believe that either copy of "you" would be diminished in any way? Also, which foundation of consciousness would be shattered?
• livingparadox 9y ago
  Would the teleported "you" be any less "you" than the "you" that wakes up tomorrow? Or after you've replaced all your cells with new cells?
  • s0rce 9y ago
    Human of Theseus?
  • partisan 9y ago
    To the outside world, it is the same person. On the inside, what if one consciousness ends and another one begins. What if you die each time and another you wakes up. Not you since you are dead. Just another person who will be you going forward. So now, the question is, does anyone even know that is what happens? New you remembers all of that and it is part of their history as a memory. Old you who actually experienced those things is unable to tell everyone that teleportation is deadly. So I guess, to answer your question, are defined by who you are to the rest of the world or are you defined by the collection of thoughts and actions that make up your experience?
  • YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
    Perhaps the teleported "me" would not be any less "me" than the "me" that wakes up tomorrow. But, surely, the non-teleported "me" would not be the "me" that got teleported, it would be the "me" that was left behind and destroyed.
• jrumbut 9y ago
  I never realized Bones from the original Star Trek might be worried about the zombie problem
• mikeash 9y ago
  There's no way to determine if your consciousness persists through sleep or unconsciousness. Really, there's no way to determine if your consciousness persists from one moment to the next. All that we know and experience is perfectly consistent with a world in which every moment in time has a different "you."
  • sgift 9y ago
    > There's no way to determine if your consciousness persists through sleep or unconsciousness. If I remember correctly, that was actually the reason that anesthetics weren't used in operations for a time after their discovery - people believed that if you were out your soul would leave your body. Luckily, we've gotten over that particular idea.
    • krapp 9y ago
      > Luckily, we've gotten over that particular idea. And if teleportation ever becomes a reality, human society will adjust its concept of "self" to adapt as well. The premise of a "persistent" self (essentially a soul) and the fear of death will seem like magical thinking and silliness.
  • YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
    Sleep doesn't involve destruction of your body, however. The kind of teleportation discussed here, does. And while you can't be sure, upon waking, whether you're the same person who fell asleep, if your body is destroyed you can be absolutely certain you won't be the person that wakes up on the other side.
    • mikeash 9y ago
      I strongly disagree with the magnitude of certainty and uncertainty you assign to these various things. We really have no idea how this stuff actually works. For all we know, your consciousness was in my body until a second ago. All we actually have to work with here is memory. Based on this, we have the illusion of continuity of consciousness. But we have no real clue if that actually happens or if it's just something we've made up.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• akerro 9y ago
  You, your memories, your brain, your character, your acting and model of thinking is nothing more than set of chemical reactions in your brain. If they can persist chemical reaction, they can persist you.
  • ue_ 9y ago
    To an extent. We know of a causative or some kind of relationship, but whether consciousness is an entirely physical phenomenon, or the concept of mind, is still up for debate, at least in philosophy. To say either way as a fact would require more than the circumstantial evidence for a purely materialist viewpoint, if we are going to accept the scientific method as the arbiter of truth, even.
• phaylon 9y ago
  The question I always ask is: If it were not "scan, destruction, reconstruction" but just "scan, reconstruction" and you end up with two identical you's first, would you be fine with simply being killed then? Inspired by an Outer Limits episode.
  • jrockway 9y ago
    Can we just keep my clone around? I think we would be good friends. Great minds think alike, they say.
    • phaylon 9y ago
      The Real Life Webcomic has (or had, years ago) quite a share of storylines about the advantages of that :)
  • logfromblammo 9y ago
    The short answer is yes, I would be okay with it. The long answer is that under no circumstance should I ever be allowed anywhere near a person-copier, whether it teleports or not, unless you would somehow enjoy being conquered and ruled by a ravening horde of me-copies. The complete lack of political corruption would almost make up for having to be around me all the time. I think most people would probably prefer an occupying clone army/bureaucracy to at least be somewhat attractive. If you think it's bad having one "2" at a party, just imagine a hundred copies of that person that are all trying too hard to go home with you or your date (or both) rather than go back to the disappointing dogpile at the clone barracks, yet again. And now imagine that instead of that happening one time at a party, it's everywhere you go, forever. Inspired by final chapters of The Forever War.
• vivekd 9y ago
  I remember watching this video once that really put the problem in a fun and thoughtful way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdxucpPq6Lc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdxucpPq6Lc