X-Message-Number: 23821 Date: Tue, 06 Apr 2004 12:44:20 -0700 From: Mike Perry <> Subject: Teleportation Conundrum Eric Morgen, #23816, refers to a "teleportation conundrum" (http://www.betterhumans.com/Resources/Encyclopedia/article.aspx?articleID=2004-01-22-3). Basically, future technology is able to transmit information about you to Mars and rebuild an exact copy of you there, meanwhile destroying the earthbound original. Do "you" survive? If the answer is yes, then what if there is some mistake and the original is not destroyed? You then have two claimants to being "you"--so which is the "real" you (if any)? My answer would be to accept that "you" do survive, but also, that an individual could fission into two or more people, each with more-or-less equal claims of being "original." (To go a little further, if somehow the two could be psychologically identical, that is to say, exact copies experientially, I would consider this to be one individual multiply instantiated. The one person would, in this case, be in more than one place at once. But this one would fission into more than one as soon as any experiential differences developed among the different instantiations.) I would also view any person as just one possible continuer of past versions of him-/herself, rather than the only possible continuer, with the expectation that other continuers may well exist too. This last conclusion, bizarre though it may seem, may be forced on us if certain scientific theories hold up, such as the many-worlds formulation of quantum theory. There our reality is constantly splitting into near-copies, and we along with it. One person is constantly becoming many, each equally "original." Something to think about. I also think Eric does a good job pointing out difficulties with David Pizer's unique awareness sensor (UAS) theory. In fact we do have a replacement of the matter in our brains, in the course of normal metabolism. After a few years there is hardly any of the original material left, yet what is there, including the new material, is usually thought to constitute the same person. (A person can be tried for a crime decades after the event, for instance, and I haven't heard of anyone getting off the hook by claiming they were only a replica of the one who did it.) Eric also brings up the somatic theory of personal identity, similar to but possibly more general than the UAS theory, in which the person remains the same as long as the physical and psychological changes are no more than gradual. So the person would remain the "same" under a slow exchange of matter, even if the original material was finally completely replaced, so long as there were no long periods of unconsciousness during the process. (Perhaps this is allowed in the UAS theory too.) If someone became comatose for a long enough time, though, and then recovered, there could be a nearly complete exchange of matter while the subject was unconscious. Would they still be the "same"? If they would, it would seem to imply that the same person would also result from replacing the whole, original body with a copy. There is a case that approximates the long-term coma victim, described at http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-07-09-coma-usat_x.htm. Terry Wallis was near-comatose for 18 years yet finally recovered normal consciousness, in 2003. He thought Reagan was still President, and so on. Was he the "same" person he was in 1984, before the auto accident that caused his problem? Was he less the 1984 self in 2003 than someone else who had normal awareness during the intervening years, even though his sense of being his earlier self may have been much greater and more immediate? Personally, I think the somatic theory is barking up the wrong tree, because, for instance, it would identify as the "same" someone who could be very different from an earlier original, so long as the changes were gradual. This brings up an interesting thought experiment. Say that ETs with advanced technology have conscripted you for some studies they intend to perform. They will hand you over to one of two groups of their researchers, the psychologists or the physiologists, the choice being up to you. The psychologists will gradually transform you into someone with completely different memories and personality, with no recollections of being "you," but with no sudden jumps in the process either, whether physical or psychological. The physiologists will just anesthetize you and perform experiments on your body until it eventually is sacrificed without regaining consciousness. Before doing this, though, they will make an exact copy, and when all is done, activate that copy, which will be in full possession of your memories and faculties, and feel it is fully you. Assuming all operations are painless, and other factors equal, which alternative would you choose? My choice without hesitation would be the physiologists. Mike Perry Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=23821