Beam me up, Scotty!
Mar. 25th, 2012 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
foliumnondefluetYou know on Star Trek, they had this transporter technology? You could de-materialize on one and, and re-materialize on the other. It was easier on the budget than using shuttles all the time.
I never quite trusted the transporter. They made it appear like you were somehow "beamed" across the distance, but for as long as I remember theorizing about it (way back when the original Enterprise was boldly facing the foil-wrapped potato of the week), I thought that was a lie. I reasoned that what the technology really did is scan you, and then create a sub-atomically exact replica at the other end, while destroying the original. The replica, having exactly the same brain down to the electron level, would of course have the memory of being at that other place just before, so the replica would think it was still you. Nobody else would notice a difference. But what about the consciousness of the "original"? In my view, that consciousness was "killed" when dematerializing.
When I first watched the shows, I vaguely believed in "souls" and I worried that the soul wouldn't transport along, and you'd end up with a p-zombie on the other end.
Assuming for the sake of the discussion that consciousness arises from the brain activity, without interference by something like an "immortal soul" - would destruction and replacement with an identical copy constitute "Death" or not? As long as what defines our identity (our memories, beliefs, feelings, etc) continues to exist and to have agency, should we say we continue living, even if as a series of exact copies without continuous consciousness? The question is not whether the copy has the same "Self", but whether a discontinuity in consciousness would constitute "death".
If memories and such are only electrochemical patterns in the brain, then the copy *will* be the same as me at the time of creation, share all my beliefs and perspectives etc. After that, we would be different because we start having different experiences (in the case where the original were to survive somehow). If the original is destroyed, there's only one "me" left... If your consciousness somehow got transported along, you'll be "I was there, now I'm here, I have all my memories, all is well... I need to shave." If the original consciousness "died", the copy wouldn't feel any different from the previous situation, because it would also "remember" having the consciousness of the original, so it would not be able to say whether it was the same or not. The original consciousness would of course not be able to go "hey, it seems I'm dead" because it would be too dead for that... It's an unanswerable question, I suppose - even by going through the experience you wouldn't know the difference. Like when you wake up after going under anesthesia; how can you be sure you're the same "you"? I think we can't consciously experience death; where we are, death is not. Where death is, we are no more. So the surviving copy doesn't remember being dead, because being dead isn't an experience, and the destroyed original isn't around to argue.
And perhaps continuous consciousness is all an illusion anyway, and we already *are* existing as a series of copies without ever noticing? I think we could be a sequence of serial copies now without noticing. How do you know your consciousness is the same as that of the person you were a minute ago? You remember being that person, and you didn't notice an interruption in consciousness but you have no solid *proof* that such a break did not take place - perhaps what we think of as continued consciousness is a series of flashes that only appears continuous because of how our memory works... It's something like how we can't prove that we aren't really a brain in a jar.
I'm assuming that you can't in any way "know" or "experience" your own non-existence - because you don't exist to experience it. So in my view, if the original consciousness ends, it won't "know" this. That's what I mean with neither the original or the copy being able to "know" whether consciousness was successfully transferred or not.
By virtue of still being here, "we" must of course be the latest, most current copy. The next copy will not be "us", but it will think it is "us", because it will have all the memories of the current copy up to the point of it becoming the next copy. For all I know I may have seamlessly become a next copy since after I started writing this reply. The previous copy has died, but I can't know that. And if death is nothingness, equal to the total absence of experience, then it doesn't "know" either.
I think the only way the use of the transporter can be justified is by believing that "continued consciousness" is an illusion and that "you" are equal to "your memories". So that somehow it makes no difference whether it's a copy or the original.
In the show they have on several occasions created duplicates of people with the transporter, but they always cheated (in my opinion) by making it obvious who the copy was (the evil twin, or two Kirks with half a personality each) and not having two identical copies. Usually in such fictional situations they end up merging/killing one of the two. But if your friends love you, wouldn't they think two of you was better than one? In my opinion, both copies would have equal rights to the name and personal assets. And if your goal in life is other than purely selfish, wouldn't you welcome the help of a like-minded comrade?
I never quite trusted the transporter. They made it appear like you were somehow "beamed" across the distance, but for as long as I remember theorizing about it (way back when the original Enterprise was boldly facing the foil-wrapped potato of the week), I thought that was a lie. I reasoned that what the technology really did is scan you, and then create a sub-atomically exact replica at the other end, while destroying the original. The replica, having exactly the same brain down to the electron level, would of course have the memory of being at that other place just before, so the replica would think it was still you. Nobody else would notice a difference. But what about the consciousness of the "original"? In my view, that consciousness was "killed" when dematerializing.
When I first watched the shows, I vaguely believed in "souls" and I worried that the soul wouldn't transport along, and you'd end up with a p-zombie on the other end.
Assuming for the sake of the discussion that consciousness arises from the brain activity, without interference by something like an "immortal soul" - would destruction and replacement with an identical copy constitute "Death" or not? As long as what defines our identity (our memories, beliefs, feelings, etc) continues to exist and to have agency, should we say we continue living, even if as a series of exact copies without continuous consciousness? The question is not whether the copy has the same "Self", but whether a discontinuity in consciousness would constitute "death".
If memories and such are only electrochemical patterns in the brain, then the copy *will* be the same as me at the time of creation, share all my beliefs and perspectives etc. After that, we would be different because we start having different experiences (in the case where the original were to survive somehow). If the original is destroyed, there's only one "me" left... If your consciousness somehow got transported along, you'll be "I was there, now I'm here, I have all my memories, all is well... I need to shave." If the original consciousness "died", the copy wouldn't feel any different from the previous situation, because it would also "remember" having the consciousness of the original, so it would not be able to say whether it was the same or not. The original consciousness would of course not be able to go "hey, it seems I'm dead" because it would be too dead for that... It's an unanswerable question, I suppose - even by going through the experience you wouldn't know the difference. Like when you wake up after going under anesthesia; how can you be sure you're the same "you"? I think we can't consciously experience death; where we are, death is not. Where death is, we are no more. So the surviving copy doesn't remember being dead, because being dead isn't an experience, and the destroyed original isn't around to argue.
And perhaps continuous consciousness is all an illusion anyway, and we already *are* existing as a series of copies without ever noticing? I think we could be a sequence of serial copies now without noticing. How do you know your consciousness is the same as that of the person you were a minute ago? You remember being that person, and you didn't notice an interruption in consciousness but you have no solid *proof* that such a break did not take place - perhaps what we think of as continued consciousness is a series of flashes that only appears continuous because of how our memory works... It's something like how we can't prove that we aren't really a brain in a jar.
I'm assuming that you can't in any way "know" or "experience" your own non-existence - because you don't exist to experience it. So in my view, if the original consciousness ends, it won't "know" this. That's what I mean with neither the original or the copy being able to "know" whether consciousness was successfully transferred or not.
By virtue of still being here, "we" must of course be the latest, most current copy. The next copy will not be "us", but it will think it is "us", because it will have all the memories of the current copy up to the point of it becoming the next copy. For all I know I may have seamlessly become a next copy since after I started writing this reply. The previous copy has died, but I can't know that. And if death is nothingness, equal to the total absence of experience, then it doesn't "know" either.
I think the only way the use of the transporter can be justified is by believing that "continued consciousness" is an illusion and that "you" are equal to "your memories". So that somehow it makes no difference whether it's a copy or the original.
In the show they have on several occasions created duplicates of people with the transporter, but they always cheated (in my opinion) by making it obvious who the copy was (the evil twin, or two Kirks with half a personality each) and not having two identical copies. Usually in such fictional situations they end up merging/killing one of the two. But if your friends love you, wouldn't they think two of you was better than one? In my opinion, both copies would have equal rights to the name and personal assets. And if your goal in life is other than purely selfish, wouldn't you welcome the help of a like-minded comrade?
