Teleportation/Moveable Consciousnesses

[TronX33]

So, after watching Star Trek, reading science fiction, etc, I have a interesting question. I will use Star Trek as an example. Their premise fr teleportation is that the entity is deconstructed and analyzed, then is created from materials to match exactly the original entity at the destination, complete with memories. This should also apply to moving around consciousnesses, except that it is only the mind and memories that are deconstructed and re-assembled. My question is this: If yo were teleported/have your consciousness transported, even if the destination has a copy of you with the exact same everything, even memories, is it really you? Are you, yourself dead, and your personality is assumed by a perfect copy? Share your thought please, I would like to hear what you guys think.

[GeneralVeers]

Consider the fact that the body you currently live in is no longer the one you were born with.

Not one single cell in your entire body survived from the day you were born. Every last one has died and been replaced, many times. So when you get right down to the basics......you're already just a copy.

(watch, one type of cell such as bone cells turns out that they DO survive from your birth, because that's just the way my luck runs.....)

Edited September 20, 2015 by WedgeAntilles

[baggers]

Consider the fact that the body you currently live in is no longer the one you were born with.

Not one single cell in your entire body survived from the day you were born. Every last one has died and been replaced, many times. So when you get right down to the basics......you're already just a copy.

(watch, one type of cell such as bone cells turns out that they DO survive from your birth, because that's just the way my luck runs.....)

Yeah-yeah.

First, answer the question "what is consciousness".

[Tex_NL]

Yeah-yeah.

First, answer the question "what is consciousness".

Exactly. What is consciousness?

We can't see it, we can't measure it. We can't even without a doubt proof it exists.

[Nibb31]

(watch, one type of cell such as bone cells turns out that they DO survive from your birth, because that's just the way my luck runs.....)

And also, funnily enough, neurons. There are no neurons added to your cerebral cortex after birth. Any cerebral cortex neurons that die are not replaced.

[Shpaget]

If I'm eating my steak and drop the knife on the floor, I just take another one and continue eating. I'm not concerned if it's the same knife or a perfect copy. If it cuts the meat just as well as the original, I'll take it.

If my body works after exiting teleporter just like it used to before entering it, I don't care.

[baggers]

If I'm eating my steak and drop the knife on the floor, I just take another one and continue eating. I'm not concerned if it's the same knife or a perfect copy. If it cuts the meat just as well as the original, I'll take it.

If my body works after exiting teleporter just like it used to before entering it, I don't care.

That's the point of view of society or humanity about your "you", yes.

It don't matter at all for your boss or even your wife if a perfect copy is send home when your "old" is trashed or used as laboritory experiements.

But for "you"?

Note that for what we know about how brain function, consciousness is not "movable".

A man is "conscious" when some high-energy consuption process can be tracked in the neuronal web.

And is unconscious when no process are active. ( flat encephalogram )

So, a perfect copy of yourself is as conscious and sentient as yourself. And the "conscious process" in each brain are not relateds.

Edited September 20, 2015 by baggers

[More Boosters]

This is one of the most fundamental questions regarding teleportation, is qualia preserved? I believe it's not a valid scientific question, for now, to begin with as many established theories say that it is impossible. It's sort of like asking what if I take something that can never be moved but move it. Something that can never be moved doesn't exist (or simply not discovered yet) so how can we know what would happen if we were to move it?

Even if it was possible, I'd say it is not preserved by the copy-and-reassemble method. But it wouldn't matter. The original consciousness that was you would no longer exist, but your personality, aspirations, dreams, capabilities, everything relevant basically would live on. The new you would work just the same and your current consciousness would be akin to the body cells that die and get replaced; you're gone but nothing changes.

However I do think you would still be you if we somehow figured out to freeze people to absolute zero without killing them, making the particles completely stationary and then somehow translated them to a different point in space. Again, it's not even a hypothesis and I'm not even an expert on any of this so I really doubt this topic is something we can discuss beyond a philosophical level.

[Shpaget]

What is the difference to "you" between 1) walking in a teleporter and exiting on another side, knowing that you are disintegrated on entry and built up again on the other side, (assuming you notice no difference and are in fact a perfect copy) and 2) going to bed and waking up in the morning noticing no difference?

In both cases you are unconscious for a period of time and feel no different afterwards.

As far as you know aliens might be probing you while you're asleep, disintegrating and rebuilding you every night.

We most certainly do not know that consciousness is not movable. The fact that we don't know how to move it doesn't make it immovable.

A perfect copy of myself is as far as I'm concerned still me.

[More Boosters]

What is the difference to "you" between 1) walking in a teleporter and exiting on another side, knowing that you are disintegrated on entry and built up again on the other side, (assuming you notice no difference and are in fact a perfect copy) and 2) going to bed and waking up in the morning noticing no difference?

In both cases you are unconscious for a period of time and feel no different afterwards.

As far as you know aliens might be probing you while you're asleep, disintegrating and rebuilding you every night.

We most certainly do not know that consciousness is not movable. The fact that we don't know how to move it doesn't make it immovable.

A perfect copy of myself is as far as I'm concerned still me.

Yes but is the qualia yours? Take for instance the enter-a-vat-and-a-copy-rolls-out kind of cloning in sci-fi,no growth involved. It's still an exact copy of you. Then you die. Is your clone still you? Even if it is, does it still not lack your point of view to the world?

While you're both alive, do you have two bodies and two points of view? Do you get to just jump through points of view?

[lajoswinkler]

And also, funnily enough, neurons. There are no neurons added to your cerebral cortex after birth. Any cerebral cortex neurons that die are not replaced.

They are replaced, but not by division. Replacement occurs by metabolism. Molecules get replaced all the time.

[Shpaget]

Yes but is the qualia yours? Take for instance the enter-a-vat-and-a-copy-rolls-out kind of cloning in sci-fi,no growth involved. It's still an exact copy of you. Then you die. Is your clone still you? Even if it is, does it still not lack your point of view to the world?

While you're both alive, do you have two bodies and two points of view? Do you get to just jump through points of view?

At the moment of clone generation those two individuals become separate, but both consider themselves as "me". Each has its own point of view, why would they share it or jump from one to another? Do identical twins share points of view and jump around? Both are individuals with separate experiences. The only difference is that they became separated further back in time than the clones we talk about.

[More Boosters]

At the moment of clone generation those two individuals become separate, but both consider themselves as "me". Each has its own point of view, why would they share it or jump from one to another? Do identical twins share points of view and jump around? Both are individuals with separate experiences. The only difference is that they became separated further back in time than the clones we talk about.

Precisely, so disassembling yourself, storing yourself as data and reconstructing somewhere else doesn't result in you being teleported, it results in a copy of yourself created elsewhere. Thanks for making my point for me.

[YNM]

I guess it depends on what our consciousness is actually.

At one (extreme) side is a computer-like consciousness. Process isn't the consciousness - it's the things inside the RAM-equivalent. If you can copy the state of the RAM then a clone computer (with clone hardware and more importantly the ROM, so the precise same database) would execute the same task as the original. Whenever one "clone" the physical body, it preserves the ROM (as each disk should sort of have the same dents and whatnot) and then it tells the RAM. This kind of thing is exploited in various films, even one exploits this for mind time-travel.

The other (extreme) is where the process is the consciousness. You can't copy someone this way - I mean, even in a computer, a processor is useless when no pulse of electrons is flowing in it, which renders cloners should also clone the velocity of each electron. And AFAIK, we can't do that together with precise placing of each electron. You after teleportation would have it's mind empty upon deploying, and only restarts after stimuli kicks in (like, seeing the environtment). The reason why computer won't have this as a problem is because as long as the voltage is there, the RAM will send things to the processor (for example, sometimes your computer can survive through a blackout near a second, it most likely will crash though amd restarts).

Doesn't mean that anything between the two is impossible, though. Certainly that'd complicate things a bit while making us certain which way we should do it.

[Shpaget]

Which I don't care about, since the moment that being is recreated and all my memories and thought processes transfered into it, I will notice no difference and still consider myself - myself.

[Kryten]

Which I don't care about, since the moment that being is recreated and all my memories and thought processes transfered into it, I will notice no difference and still consider myself - myself.

If that's fine with you, can we just make a robot and programme it so it considers itself you and notices nothing otherwise? Same result for a lot less effort.

Edited September 20, 2015 by Kryten

[WestAir]

Which I don't care about, since the moment that being is recreated and all my memories and thought processes transfered into it, I will notice no difference and still consider myself - myself.

In my opinion I think that you die. (Cut to black. Roll credits. Fin.) I think you'll see nothing different than you would if you were hit in the face by a hydrogen bomb.

The new you is a newly created consciousness that thinks its you, but there is absolutely no continuation of consciousness from the original you. It's a new consciousness like your offspring would have.

That's how I see it. This method of immortality ironically kills you. It does keep a useful copy around forever, though.

Edited September 20, 2015 by WestAir
Causality made me.

[AngelLestat]

The key here is to understand what is "you", no matter how perfect is a copy from you, is easy to know is not you, because you are here, and that thing is there. So it can not be you.

[Shpaget]

If that's fine with you, can we just make a robot and programme it so it considers itself you and notices nothing otherwise? Same result for a lot less effort.

As long as "now I" don't feel unreasonable discomfort, I'm fine with it.

In my opinion I think the you that you are now dies. Cut to black. Roll credits. Fin. You see nothing more than you would if you were hit in the face by a hydrogen bomb.

The new you is a newly created consciousness that thinks its you, but there is absolutely no continuation of consciousness from the original you. It's a new consciousness like your offspring would have.

That's how I see it. This method of immortality ironically kills you. It does keep a useful copy around forever. Though.

Let's take a real world example of what actually happened to me. I was in a traffic accident, banged my head real hard and don't remember 15 minutes before the accident and a few hours afterwards. Otherwise, as far as I can perceive them, my though processes are the same, my other memories are all intact and I continue. If there had been no physical injury and doctors running around me covered in blood, I would know nothing about the incident and continue to live my life as if nothing happened. Imagine that situation. You live your life with just a small period of time your memories can't account for. Why would that bother you? Clone or not? I may be a clone, so what?

The key here is to understand what is "you", no matter how perfect is a copy from you, is easy to know is not you, because you are here, and that thing is there. So it can not be you.

Granted. So what?

Me: "It is not me. I am not it. It is it. I am me."

It: "It is not me. I am not it. It is it. I am me."

We are two independent individuals.

[WestAir]

The point is that unlike in the car crash, you would actually die.

You understand that, right? You're not going to wake up in a new body, you're going to die.

[Shpaget]

From my current point of view, that could have happened.

Like I said in my previous post, the current "me" could be a clone as far as current "me" perceives it.

So what? That doesn't bother me.

[More Boosters]

From my current point of view, that could have happened.

Like I said in my previous post, the current "me" could be a clone as far as current "me" perceives it.

So what? That doesn't bother me.

Whether or not it bothers you is irrelevant.You're dead. Gone. It's just a copy of you now. If you're okay with getting destroyed as long as a copy of yourself exists in the world, that's fine but it doesn't change that you yourself will be gone.

[Shpaget]

So what?

[WestAir]

So what?

It's just that most people have a sense of self preservation and wouldn't want to be killed pointlessly. You're rationalizing your death so from that perspective your sacrifice makes complete sense, however most of us would be hesitant to die in this manner.

[Aethon]

? You're not going to wake up in a new body, you're going to die.

Why is this assumption made? Who says the original needs to die?

You step into the teleportation booth, you are scanned ( insert teleportation voodoo here ) and at the other end and identical facsimile of you, down to the quantum state of your original atoms is created. Now there are two of you. There is no reason to destroy the original just to duplicate it's quantum state elsewhere.

My prediction would be, after the distant copy of you finishes their business, far you will be the one destroyed- or maybe not.