3 ms·

Yep, it would be murder - except that in this thought experiment, I stepped into the transporter of my own free will, and thereby expressly consented to the des

Yep, it would be murder - except that in this thought experiment, I stepped into the transporter of my own free will, and thereby expressly consented to the destruction of one of my selves in the immediate future. It becomes much more interesting if someone is forcibly transported; then I think the moral answer depends on what the transportee believes about their consciousness. Do they believe they'll be murdered, or not? Then I think there's a fair argument to say that the forcible transport is morally evil, or neutral, depending on the two cases.

colordrops 9y ago
"one of my selves" - the flaw in your logic is revealed by this phrase.
- Smaug123 9y ago
  Not to me, it isn't. Care to elaborate? (Pointing out "there is a flaw in your logic" to someone who has a flaw in their logic is rarely very helpful unless you actually point out the flaw too.)
  - colordrops 9y ago
    Who are you if you aren't an individual? How can you have multiple selves? What entity is doing the possessing of multiple beings? Do you believe in a soul?
    - Smaug123 9y ago
      "Individual" is a word that is usually a pretty descriptive one, but breaks down a bit in this kind of situation; likewise "self". As clarified elsewhere in the thread, we use "self", "me", and so on, to express several different notions: "who I am right now", and also "who I was in the past" and "who I will be in the future". Nothing is possessing multiple beings, except in the sense of my final paragraph in this comment. "I" is merely a pattern expressed on a physical substrate: a computation being executed, if you like. I don't believe I have some kind of essence that is not completely expressed by my physical state. If you want a neat shorthand for my position: I am to my body as Mac OS is to the computer I'm currently typing on. There can in principle be different incarnations of Mac OS running on different computers (indeed, there are thousands! Every Mac is running a different incarnation of Mac OS right now), but the one which is running on the computer I'm currently using is unique because it's diverged from the master copy that was imprinted on it by the install process. In that sense, Mac OS is the abstract entity possessing multiple computers, though each instance of that entity is different from all the others; Mac OS has multiple "selves". In the teleporting-by-copy analogy, "take a backup image" is the process of scanning matter ready for transmission and disassembly; "install that backup onto a new computer" is the process of recreating my body; "destroy the original computer" is the process of destroying the original body.
      - colordrops 9y ago
        You are still alluding to the concept of a non-physical layer of reality, the concept of the platonic ideal. There is no "abstract MacOS" floating out in the ether that all your computers have diverged from, unless you believe in a soul or platonic ideal. There are only individual computers with operating systems that happen to look similar to our flawed senses. The abstraction that they are all instantiations of some original is in your head, not a fundamental aspect of reality. Abstractions are a feature of the mind. Furthermore, the human body is not digital, and not encoded in numbers. You can't completely copy all properties - you would have to change some properties, for instance location in space. Is something more "you" or less "you" based on how much it has diverged from the original? Thats just absurd.
  - Someone 9y ago
    If I told you ”I’ll delete you, but don’t worry, we have a backup” would you be worried? I would, even if I knew that backup existed and were convinced you would restore it, and even if that backup already had been restored, and probably even if those copies shared a “self”, because destroying one could destroy part of the memories of the combination.
brador 9y ago
Can a "pattern recorded on a physical substrate" consent? What does this even mean?
- Smaug123 9y ago
  What does it mean for you to consent? It means that. According to the worldview I have been expounding, I'm "just" a really complicated program running on wildly convoluted wetware. Whatever it means for a person to consent to something, is what it means for that pattern to consent.

colordrops 9y ago

"one of my selves" - the flaw in your logic is revealed by this phrase.

Smaug123 9y ago
Not to me, it isn't. Care to elaborate? (Pointing out "there is a flaw in your logic" to someone who has a flaw in their logic is rarely very helpful unless you actually point out the flaw too.)
- colordrops 9y ago
  Who are you if you aren't an individual? How can you have multiple selves? What entity is doing the possessing of multiple beings? Do you believe in a soul?
  - Smaug123 9y ago
    "Individual" is a word that is usually a pretty descriptive one, but breaks down a bit in this kind of situation; likewise "self". As clarified elsewhere in the thread, we use "self", "me", and so on, to express several different notions: "who I am right now", and also "who I was in the past" and "who I will be in the future". Nothing is possessing multiple beings, except in the sense of my final paragraph in this comment. "I" is merely a pattern expressed on a physical substrate: a computation being executed, if you like. I don't believe I have some kind of essence that is not completely expressed by my physical state. If you want a neat shorthand for my position: I am to my body as Mac OS is to the computer I'm currently typing on. There can in principle be different incarnations of Mac OS running on different computers (indeed, there are thousands! Every Mac is running a different incarnation of Mac OS right now), but the one which is running on the computer I'm currently using is unique because it's diverged from the master copy that was imprinted on it by the install process. In that sense, Mac OS is the abstract entity possessing multiple computers, though each instance of that entity is different from all the others; Mac OS has multiple "selves". In the teleporting-by-copy analogy, "take a backup image" is the process of scanning matter ready for transmission and disassembly; "install that backup onto a new computer" is the process of recreating my body; "destroy the original computer" is the process of destroying the original body.
    - colordrops 9y ago
      You are still alluding to the concept of a non-physical layer of reality, the concept of the platonic ideal. There is no "abstract MacOS" floating out in the ether that all your computers have diverged from, unless you believe in a soul or platonic ideal. There are only individual computers with operating systems that happen to look similar to our flawed senses. The abstraction that they are all instantiations of some original is in your head, not a fundamental aspect of reality. Abstractions are a feature of the mind. Furthermore, the human body is not digital, and not encoded in numbers. You can't completely copy all properties - you would have to change some properties, for instance location in space. Is something more "you" or less "you" based on how much it has diverged from the original? Thats just absurd.
- Someone 9y ago
  If I told you ”I’ll delete you, but don’t worry, we have a backup” would you be worried? I would, even if I knew that backup existed and were convinced you would restore it, and even if that backup already had been restored, and probably even if those copies shared a “self”, because destroying one could destroy part of the memories of the combination.

brador 9y ago

Can a "pattern recorded on a physical substrate" consent? What does this even mean?

Smaug123 9y ago
What does it mean for you to consent? It means that. According to the worldview I have been expounding, I'm "just" a really complicated program running on wildly convoluted wetware. Whatever it means for a person to consent to something, is what it means for that pattern to consent.