Transporter question, breakdown by atheists/theists.

[TXlib]

Poll question: Transporter question, breakdown by atheists/theists.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=949428&mesg_id=949428

Let's assume that the risk of failure was less than from flying (and the risk from flying is much less than the risk from driving)?

One fundamental problem I'd have with such a device is that you are torn apart at point A and reassembled at point B. Who is to say that what is reassembled at point B is not actually you, but looks, acts, thinks, and remembers exactly as you did, and thinks it IS you. The entity that was you, however, winks out of existence when you at point A are disassembled; your consciousness is extinguished, never to reappear.

[Alex146]

1. uhh WTF?

I'm not gonna be torn apart and reassembled regardless of what I think about god.

[TXlib]

5. I have a hypothesis

I suspect theists, who believe in a soul, would be more inclined to believe that their soul is transferred to point B, and so, what is reassembled is really themselves.

Atheists, I think, would regard the process with more suspicion.

[felonious thunk]

9. I agree with your hypothesis

I don't see how what comes out at the other end is you.

[damnraddem]

28. But B doesn't care, and ...

A isn't around to care.

My concern is with that 'it's safer than flying.' Yeah, you get there, but they've lost your bags. Well, what if you get there, but they've lost your face?

[Az]

15. The trouble is when you ask the thing that comes out the other side

who it is. It will totally believe it is you.

[TXlib]

20. But if you were forced through the machine

and were suspicious before, you might still conclude there is really no way to know if the current you is the same as the original you.

In Crichton's book, Timeline, he touches briefly on this dilemma, but says that people who have gone through reported experiencing consciousness the whole time, even when there was no material body to hold it.

If such a machine existed, and this was the story reported, I would still be inclined to believe that the perception of continuity of consciousness might merely have been manufactured after the fact.

[Az]

22. The person coming out the other side

would percieve no break in consciousness. Their memories would be intact. They would believe that they had been succesfully transported. The only individual in the universe that would know the difference would be you. But you would no longer exist. Just your doppleganger. Your subjective continuity would have been ended.

[damnraddem]

26. Why?

If A dies and B is assembled from the info, didn't A still die? There goes that soul.

On the other hand, B is there, with A's thoughts, thinking that she's A. So, for the atheist, what's the problem?

And why not just use the transporter every morning to get a good, strong cup of Pete's Coffee?

[Guaranteed]

78. Huh?

I'd think it'd be the other way around. A theist would think that, alright, this thing transports physical entities, but wouldn't my soul get left behind?

And an atheist would think the opposite...I ain't got a soul, so if everything physical's there, there's no problem.

[TXlib]

80. Here's how I see it:

There are three potential requirements for survival:

Continued existence of body
continued existence of mind
continued existence of soul

I think there will be no difference between atheists and theists, on average, on the debate over whether teleportation breaks the continued existence of body and mind requirements.

Atheists don't generally believe in a soul, so theists have an additional chance to consider a way for them to survive.

[cprise]

2. I am an atheist

...and would NOT wear Nurse Chappel's mini-skirt!

[Duckiesplaything]

8. I would

But on my head....

[everythingsxen]

3. Thank you TXlib!

That precisely sums up all of my own fear of transporters!

[TroglodyteScholar]

6. But...

Isn't that fear kind of irrational? I mean...you would have absolutely no way of knowing the difference, right?

[felonious thunk]

11. But if we take it to the next level, it's problematic

What if we got to the transporter and said that when we came out the other side, we'd like to have a firmer ass. So they charge you a little bit more, change your genetic code to give you a nice, firm ass, and you take your 5 second trop from NY to LA and you are still you, but with a much firmer ass. So are you still you?

[everythingsxen]

19. No, check it out..

If it is a copy of you.. is it still you?

It's like a clone of you. Would a clone of you be you? No it wouldn't.

You see as you sit there reading this, you are you because you have the perception of being.. well, you.

However if we make an exact copy of "you"; virtually identical in every way shape and form, with a complete copy of your memory.. exact in every detail.. is it you? No. Why, because your perception of existence is contained within you. Not in that copy of you. That copy has its own perception of reality.

It really does hurt your brain.

[damnraddem]

30. If the machine has to take all the info about you, transmit it, and ...

reassemble it into you, that's fine. But why does it have to disassemble you in the first place? Why won't transporter tech work like a fax: a copy goes to a destination, the original is still there at the origin?

Now, that's something to hurt your head. Not to mention your bank account. And everything else, when B came back to town to join A -- or if B came by transporter, then when C came to join A. Still, they'd both, all, be me -- and with some differences in memories, yet.

[Az]

33. The continuity really is quite important

Imagine slowing the process down and changing some of the sequences to better see what is going on.

The computer scans you in. It now has a record of every single molecule of your body. It assembles the copy of you at the remote location. Then it destroys the original. Thats you. You get zapped. Dead. Gone. Mean while there is someone running around out there that everyone thinks is you drinking your rigelian wine.

It does not matter that the assembled version believes it is you. You do not get to experience it. Something else does. It may think it is you. But you do not get to enjoy it at all.

Imagine you are sitting next to an identicle copy of yourself. They are going to kill one of you. Which one do you want it to be?

[everythingsxen]

39. Exactly Az!

That shit is *scary* with a capital S.

Imagine they "perfect" transporter technology. Everyone uses it.. Everything is fine. Yes, you step in and you appear your destination. Well your exact copy appears. In the early testing, they see that they are identical and maybe, just to make sure, ask them memory test type questions, to see if it's "really" them.

Then one day you use it. You no longer exist. Oh sure there is an exact copy of you with all your memories and whatnot, however, the person that you are right now ceases to be.

[damnraddem]

41. OK, now your conjecture has it destroy me after reading my info.

Murderer!

Why do that? You've faxed a copy of me -- why destroy the original? Oh, sure, there would be complications if you didn't -- but we're not supposed to kill to avoid complications, are we?

So, let's assume that you don't kill A when you transmit B. Aren't they BOTH me?

So now B transports back -- rather sends a copy, C. C sits down next to A, and someone tries to kill one. Which one do I want it to be: A-me or C-me? Why, neither! Let's say that you're sitting next to me and someone wants to kill one of us -- which do I want it to be? Neither! In fact, if I'm courageous, shouldn't I give up my life trying to save you? Wouldn't I have even greater likelihood of doing so if it's A-me saving C-me?

Yes, I know that you're asking a philosophical question. The thing is that it's totally conjectural, about a technology that doesn't exist. And even if a like tech is someday developed, we don't know that it would work as you conjecture.

So, why not ask about something that does exist. Someone suffers traumatic injury, goes into a coma, and then wakes up. Is it the same person? Hey, in that case, we KNOW that there have been major changes.

[everythingsxen]

44. No they aren't both you..

One of them is you, as in the you sitting there reading this. The other one is a copy that has all your memories etc. however...

It is not you. You are sitting there perceiving your own existence, your copy meanwhile is sitting there perceiving its own existence. See the problem?

[LynzM]

71. Go read Altered Carbon

It addresses the issue (ok, it's fiction, it figures into the story) of what happens when there are 2 of you who meet each other. It also addresses the issue of 'if you store all your memories digitally, and put them in another body, is it still you?'

Very interesting book, if you don't mind some sex and violence ;)

[TXlib]

72. That sounds interesting!

[guitar man]

49. Which one?

Kill the one with all this credit card and student loan debt! When they try to collect,I'll just tell them "hey,that dude's dead."

[FlaGranny]

85. That reminds me of a scifi story I read once.

Very confusing.

[Az]

29. You would have no way of knowing anything

Its like stepping into a disintegration beam. Your gone. Dead. Finito. Its only the rest of the universe that doesn't know it. You are very unaware of it because you are no longer aware of anything.

[TXlib]

87. Exactly.

[classics]

4. If it reassembles me correctly.

Then its me.

It would be difficult to convince me that a machine could do that properly though.

[commander bunnypants]

7. you lost me

:shrug:


DDQM

[Dookus]

10. No... your conciousness

DOES reappear at Point B. And since I don't believe there's a soul independent of consciousness (e.g., the sum total of what your brain does), then there's no problem.

If I pop up at Point B with the exact same body, memories, thoughts and beliefs, then nothing's been lost.

[TXlib]

12. On what do you base your opinion?

How do you KNOW it's you, and not merely a perfect copy?

[Dookus]

14. because I don't believe there *IS*

any *ME* beyond my body and brain. If both are intact, then it's me.

[TXlib]

17. So you think there would be a continuity of consciousness

as you go from point A to B?

[Dookus]

21. well it's hard to say

since this is pure hypothesis.

Continuity of consciousness, to me, is not a requirement for it to remain MY consciousness.

[damnraddem]

32. Rather, would one experience a continuity of consciousness?

What would 'have' the consciousness in between? Would there be an 'in between'?

[damnraddem]

31. How do you know that ...

it's a perfect copy?

[TXlib]

34. I'm postulating that it's a perfect copy.

Assume technology exists to do a bit-by-bit comparison of your memory and body.

[damnraddem]

38. Technology exists to get my bags to my airline destination.

That doesn't mean that they get there when I do -- or for that matter, than I do when they do.

[TXlib]

55. The point of the question isn't whether you trust technology.

It's whether you trust that the teleported you is really you.

That's why I'm postulating the technology functions perfectly.

[0rganism]

25. But what if the you at Point A ISN'T DESTROYED?

This was actually the topic of a Star Trek novel, the name of which I forget offhand. The Enterprise crew actually had this same quandary, i.e. what if what comes out at the other end of the transporter is fundamentally not-you, and made a version of the transporter which preserved the original as well. To test it, they put Spock in at Point A, and retrieve a "duplicate Spock" at nearby Point B.

Typical hilarity ensued. The novelist speculates that the Point B Spock lacked the capacity for moral reasoning that would have occurred had his soul been transferred as well. However, if we discard the inherently religious notion of an attendant soul separate from the composite body, what is to prevent raw duplication?

Anyway, although we suppose that the "trasporter" at Point B is "assembling" matter into a perfect semblance of the being that stepped into the transporter at Point A, nothing in the hypothesis seems to intrinsically require that the entity at Point A be completely disassembled.

[Xithras]

13. The bigger question...

If, by some terrible accident, the original you ISN'T destroyed...who gets the house, wife, car, and kids? ;)

[TXlib]

16. For those who would NOT use the transporter: a follow-up question:

If you lose consciousness, are you sure the entity that eventually regains consciousness is really still you?

How do you know that some subtle quantum state is not altered when you lose consciousness, so that the entity that wakes up THINKS it's you, but is really not?

[damnraddem]

37. How did you know when you woke up this morning, ...

that you were the same you who went to sleep? I can guarantee that more than a single, subtle quantum state altered while you slept.

[Az]

40. That is very true

Sleep is a tricky subject in this conversation. However it is suggestible that dream states and the continuity of processes within the brain would be sufficient to maintain identity.

The transporter question is different because it creates a second copy. Continuity of the mind is not transferred to it. It is only mimicked.

[TXlib]

56. I agree with Az

That's why I asked in my follow-up about a situation in which consciousness is actually lost.

[NewHampster]

18. Since our memories are like computers

Running on positive charged or negative charged bits of protein whatever, I fail to see how one can turn off the power and expect the system to not revert to a clean slate. You may be able to re-assemble all the parts in the right order but not the charges connecting the synapses.

Try a bulk eraser on a video tape sometime.

Leave transporters for hard goods.

[damnraddem]

36. Actually, we're not like silicon computers. We store memories chemically.

And have you noticed that when you turn your PC's power off and then reboot, it doesn't 'revert to a clean slate.' Moreover, the transporter, read the info 'in' the computer, as well as all the info about the computer, then transmitted all the info, so why should anything revert to 'a clean slate'? And how much change in the info would be necessary to make any noticeable difference?

[damnraddem]

23. I'm an agnostic, and ...

I don't know whether I'd use the transporter.

[TXlib]

24. *smack*

You deserved that, you fence-sitter!

:P

[damnraddem]

42. Smack?

Uh, thanks for the kiss.

[TXlib]

46. *smack*, as in *thwap*

[Exultant Democracy]

27. Wow, I am impressed

but I think we are going to need a few more threads on this. Like for people that are against being transported themselves, if your wife/husband used one would you still be married? Would you be willing to transport your yak?

[Az]

35. No yak transporting

For some reason they always come out insideout.

[damnraddem]

43. If your wife used a fax-transporter, ...

would you be a polygamist?

[CrownPrinceBandar]

45. What if it transported you via hyperspace?

or extra-dimensional travel? Or by using portals that "fold" space?

[TXlib]

57. Then, if I understand your question

it's no different from any other method of physical transport we have now.

I was referring to a device that makes a perfect scan of your physical body and mind, destroys the original, transmits the information at light speed to its destination, where it is reassembled into a perfect copy of you, including all your memories, beliefs, hopes, etc.

[SarahB]

47. Oh man, you!

Physics, consciousness, souls, God? Which is more puzzling really from my viewpoint? I would be willing to try it, but I would most definitely not want to be the first person to try it. I suppose it's hard for me to imagine my consciousness being extinguished and of course, if it was, I wouldn't even know. Where does the consciousness from the other me that appears come from? It's hard to conceptualize and it would be difficult to prove. You cannot prove the existence or lack of existence of one's soul.

[TXlib]

48. Interesting philosophy quiz and article about this very topic!

The quiz: http://www.philosophers.co.uk/games/identity.htm

The article: http://www.philosophers.co.uk/making_sense.htm

[lazarus]

50. lol

I used to have this argument ripped on various substances, legal and not, back in college.

Fun, fun, fun.

Good times.....

[TXlib]

58. I think the debate is more interesting sober.

It's not just a Star Trek geek question.

There are three possible requirements for the continuity, the survival, of self:

CEBINS - Continued Existence of Body Is Necessary for Survival
CEMINS - Continued Existence of Mind Is Necessary for Survival
CESINS - Continued Existence of Soul Is Necessary for Survival

Which of the above, or what combination of the above, is required for you to survive?

[Triple H]

51. What's religion have to do with this?

[TXlib]

59. See my reply above

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=949629&mesg_id=952426&page=

Survival of self can require the continued existence of body, mind, and/or soul.

For an atheist, only the first two concepts are meaningful.
For the theist, the continued existence of soul adds another dimension.

As for whether there is a religious connection, look at my poll results: theists are overwhelmingly in favor of using the teleporter, whereas atheists are more evenly split.

[Kathleen04]

52. I wouldn't use the transporter...

Things that are irreversible freak me out, so I'd have to pass on this whole transporter..old me disappearing, new me appearing thing..

Is this new me as good as the old me..or does it eventually become like a copy of a copy as you continue using this transporter and you continue to degenerate in quality?

Wait, does this new me have no consciousness?..because you said the consciousness disappears at point A..

I'd like to keep my consciousness...

Confusing. :crazy:

[TXlib]

60. reply

Assume the technology is PERFECT. You are transmitted PERFECTLY. No flaws. No degradation over time.

The new you is conscious of itself just as you are. It insists it IS you.

The question is whether the consciousness that inhabits the new you is the SAME consciousness that was in the original, or whether the consciousness of the original is extinguished.

[SOteric]

53. Sorry Tex, no help for your theories here.

The transporter described in Star Trek has the potential for creating a copy of an individual, even with the memories and belief of itself as the original. That presents a religious ethic not entirely distinct from the issues of human cloning and the soul. It adds the interesting dynamic of the soul versus an immortal soul, and wrecks havoc on the Catholic philosophies regarding the voluntary sparking/termination of a life.

[SOteric]

63. I’ve been invited to expand on my statements

And never one to stifle a verbose urge, I’ll do what I can to accommodate.

In many contemporary versions of Christian worship an ethical debate rages over the topic of cloning and the soul. For Catholicism, God alone can make the determination of when to spark a life, any life, into being. Only God can make the determination to end a life. The church does not sanction birth control, abortion, euthanasia or suicide. And supports only those fertility treatments which utilise and enhance the natural process of birth. The Catholic church holds that all living creatures have a soul, but it is God in his infinite wisdom who determines which creatures are imbued with a soul and which are imbued with an immortal soul.

If we can say that reasonably, there is some possibility, some probability or some likelihood that stepping into the ST transporter ends my existence and creates a perfect replica with my memory attached, then we technically say that I have voluntarily ended or at the very least casually risked my immortal soul, an act not unlike a suicide. And that further mankind and technology rather than God has sparked into life a being which may or may not have a soul, let alone an immortal one.

[TXlib]

65. Some additional questions:

What is the difference between a soul, and an immortal soul? I thought the concept of "soul" meant immortal.

Further, couldn't one argue that birth control, abortion, suicide, euthanasia all happen because god allows it for his/her/its purposes?

And if one accepts that there is a god, and a soul, couldn't one assume that perhaps the soul is transferred to the new body?

[SOteric]

73. Je nais se quoi

A little light reading:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14153a.htm

Not all Christians draw a distinction between soul and immortal soul, but Catholicism does. Like I said, all creatures have a soul. Even companion animals and godless heathens.

But not all creatures have an immortal soul. Debate rages, but most Catholics believe that cats and dogs have a soul, but do not enter into an afterlife. Only god and the dead know with certainty.

As for your second question, I would counter that any good Catholic would immediately see this 'argument' as a rationalisation. Birth control, abortion, suicide, etc...are to mankind's purposes. Calling them God's will by default of occurrence is just an easy way to let ourselves off the hook. If your question were simply about Christianity or Theism in general, there could be some wiggle room. But your question is about transporters and Theists and what we’d do as individuals. As an individual, I’m a practicing Roman Catholic and suicide’s impact on the immortal soul is not a negotiable aspect of my faith. If I hold exception to these tenets (and in some cases, I do) it would be more in the realm of Mark Twain’s Was it Heaven or Hell? where one argues the letter of the tenet versus the spirit of the tenet. Not whether it would be within the purview of mankind to decide God’s will based on that which has been allowed to occur.

And third, as a member in good standing of a faith that believes in the miracle of transubstantiation, I’d have to say that yes, in theory, the transferring of one immortal soul from place A to place B is possible. But also that it is an endowment from God, and only he/she/it can transfer that soul. Mankind cannot even define and find the soul, let alone guarantee it’s accurate shifting from corporeal form to form. If I accept that a transporter can move my immortal soul to a replica, or even shift it into a pattern buffer for 50 years waiting for a new version of my old duty posting to come rescue me, I have to accept that rather than a gift from a loving God, my immortal soul is a part of my cellular make-up, a tangible thing somehow tied to my DNA perhaps. I don’t see it that way. :shrug: So getting into the transporter at risk to my original self is something that I would have to regard as offering great potential peril to my immortal soul. As well as possibly the me I’ve come to know and love.

[TXlib]

81. "Was it Heaven or Hell?" -- what's that?

A short story? An essay?

I did a little Googling, and came up with bupkus.

Even companion animals and godless heathens.

Are you calling me a companion animal? :7

[TXlib]

83. Gak! A "little light reading", indeed!

I bookmarked it to read in full later.

[Mobius]

54. What about transplant patients

or people with artificial limbs? Are they any less of who they are/were after they have been "reassembled"? As far as Star Trek goes, the transporter doesn't "tear you apart". You are merely converted into a data stream , and never come apart. I feel that the humanoid soul cant be measured in photons, elements or molecules. Whatever the soul is, it stays with that data stream. Ergo you are the same person. n/t

[TXlib]

61. Transplant patients and those with artificial limbs

They are still themselves. When you undergo the operation, you are not transformed the way the teleporter does it.

There is the additional question of whether the consciousness lost under general anaesthesia is the same one that returns.

Regarding your sentiment of the transporter, what if there is a transporter malfunction, and the original isn't destroyed in transport, and a copy is created? Which one is you?

[lazarus]

62. This brings up an interesting question

Sort of along these lines, and I can't remember who first posed this:

If I cut off my leg, I can say, here I am, and there is my leg.

If I cut off my arm, I can say, here I am, and there is my arm.

But if I cut off my head, where am I? With my head, or with my body?

[TXlib]

66. If you can maintain your head alive separate from the body

then I contend you are with your head. You, meaning your perception of yourself, resides with the mind, which seems to be attached to the living brain.

[Az]

64. We have this brain we made

Its identicle to the one in your head right now. Can we replace your brain with it? Will you notice?

[TXlib]

67. I'm assuming that you can "download" the mind of the current brain

into the new one?

Yes, it's very much the same question, isn't it?

KCDem would probably claim you could replace my brain with a toaster, and nobody would notice.

[Az]

74. The Download scerio exemplifies it even better

Say a mind can be digitized. All its settings and thoughts codefied. You DL the mind and make copies. Distribute and boot. Where are you? Where are you experiencing now?

The illusion of continuity does not equal continuity. To an observer each copy will behave as if it were you. But your subjective reality will be tied to the original. You will percieve all the copies as just that. Unless of course you were destroyed in making the copy.

[Mobius]

79. I contend that perception is reality

unless you are in a Matrix being used as a human battery or something :7

[Abaques]

68. How a transporter would really work...

In actuallity, only a copy of you would be made somewhere else. What a transporter would have to do is scan the position of every molecule in your body, perhaps every proton, electron, and neutron in your body... and then make an exact duplicate from available matter at the desired location. There is no real need to destroy the original.


Far more probable would be that our brains would be scanned in a similar manner and a copy of our conciousness would be able to be sent different places.



Ok, I'm done being a science geek.

[TXlib]

69. I recall a Sci Fi story like that...

To teleport, a person would have their mind scanned and sent at light speed to their destination, where it would be downloaded into a robot. The original mind is not changed in this process, but to avoid later confusion, the original is put in suspended animation.

When the trip is over, the mind is beamed back, and the new experiences downloaded into the original person's mind, who awakes with the memories as if he'd been there himself.

Presumably, you could forego the suspended animation, but it might be disconcerting having two distinct sets of memories for what you did at any particular moment during your trip.

The subjective "you" of the original is never destroyed. Whether the robot feels a subjective self is another question; if it does, this might be destroyed when the robot's mind is beamed back. Hard to say how the copy of your mind in the robot's body might feel about that.

Anybody remember that story?

[TXlib]

70. From Fictionwise.com: Think Like A Dinosaur

It's an e-book, and it'll cost you $0.99, but it was a great story. Thanks BigMcLargeHuge, for suggesting it.

http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook57.htm

To access the e-books, you can either pay a $0.50 surcharge to use your credit card for such a small sum, or you can put $5 into your fictionwise "micropay" account, and buy more books later. I went the micropay route.

[lojasmo]

75. No way in hell

I am an athiest, though I believe I have a soul. Not a chance of me stepping in that thing.

I don't believe that the reassembled one would be me, even though it would think it is.

Thank you "Mind's I"

[TXlib]

76. "Mind's I"?

Was that a short story?

[lojasmo]

84. Book

full of questions just such as this. The first short is about this EXACT question. A woman is trapped after traveling by space to another planet. Her ship breaks down, and she only has a teleporter. The question is the same.

[Guaranteed]

77. "Who is to say that what is reassembled at point B is not actually you,

looks, acts, thinks, and remembers exactly as you did, and thinks it IS you."

I don't understand in what sense this "new" person at point B isn't me...if the person THINKS the person is me, and remembers everything just as I do, I think it IS me.

[TXlib]

82. Yes, to the external world, the new person is you.

But here is my concern:

You are experiencing self-awareness right now. You are conscious.

How can you be sure that the consciousness you experience now is not extinguished upon dematerialisation, and the consciousness that reappears at the other end is not the same as the original one.

The current you suddenly winks out, disappears into oblivion, while a simulacrum of you reappears.

The only way I'd use such a device is if I'm going to die if I don't: trapped on the top floor of a burning building, about to collapse, and they can't get me out by any other conventional means. I am going to die. Even if my fears are correct, then in at least some sense, I will survive, at least for my family.

[TXlib]

86. One person I asked about this had an interesting take on this...

He suggested that one's consciousness, one's sense of self, is rooted in the moment you are experiencing. The next moment, that "you" is gone, extinguished, and exists only in memory. In this sense, he suggests that a continuity of consciousness is only an illusion, and thus, the transporter question is immaterial.

His point of view was intriguing, but didn't sit quite right with me, although I couldn't put into words why.

Anybody have a take on this?