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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
by 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.
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It's
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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 agoWell put! This is what I am most afraid of.
- maxerickson 9y agoYou are just carefully arranged to respond that you are afraid of it.
- tensor 9y agoWe 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 agoI 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 agoI 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.
- israrkhan 9y agoconstructing a copy, and destroying the original is not True teleportation. it is just mimicking teleporation. You are destroying the original just so you can call it teleportation? A true form of teleportation will be where the original goes from point A to B, without any copy. I am not saying it is possible, just saying that copying+destroying is not Teleportation
- stouset 9y agoHow do you create a test that distinguishes between the two?
- Animats 9y agoThere's a good science fiction story which has copying-type teleportation. Everybody recognizes it's being copied and then dying, so people are reluctant to use it. But many do, because it's required by their career.
- parenthephobia 9y ago> There's no way for the stream of consciousness to continue after that point. How can you know that? How can you even know what that means? :) What is a stream of consciousness? Why wouldn't it be replicated along with the physical body? If it's separate from the physical body, why doesn't it move from the original body to the new one? If you know the answers to these questions: how do you know them?
- AstralStorm 9y agoDo you die when you go to sleep? Go under anaesthesia? But you're unconscious...
- mcbruiser3 9y agoconsciousness is not a "thing" it is a careful arrangement of matter and energy that is unique to you. replicating that arrangement does not move your consciousness, it creates a new one.
- whitemale 9y agoYour stream of consciousness is interrupted when you sleep, so with that logic you technically die every night. > But most people don't have that sort of objectivity. Where did you get that idea from? > If you're comfortable dying so that a copy of you can live the rest of your life, that's your business. You will eventually die and (hopefully) a partial copy of you(children) will continue living on and you don't even have a choice about it.