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Troubling thoughts.

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Troubling thoughts.
Post by Lord Skimper   » Sun Jun 29, 2014 10:05 am

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The Minds I, edited by Daniel C Dennett considers teleportation and its implications. Is the teleporter the same person who was teleported or a facsimile of the original. Outwardly the same person from the third person perspective, even inwardly appearing from the first person POV to step in the machine on Mars and appearing on Earth. The current version of teleporter that destroys the original and replaces them, makes it appear so. But is the original person now dead, on Mars, and a copy now alive on Earth?

I wonder about this and wonder if what makes us is an us at a specific time space stamp or are we the current version of us, the same us me you at whatever time.

Dennett in his introduction poses the question what if the mark II teleporter was fitted to the Mars explorer? It doesn't destroy the original. The new copy of you is not linked to the you on Mars. Which is you, where are you? In the Mark I are you now dead and the new Copy of you now on Earth? Is this you?

Thinking troubled thoughts i wonder in my second of strangest occurances did I die, get replaced and transported somehow to a new me? One lane and no head on collision over/later? There was no shifting lanes or blink and I was in the other lane. I just was suddenly, perhaps a bad word, instantly in the wrong lane. I then watched my head on collision happen while my brain was screaming what am I doing over in this lane. Of course the collision didn't happen as I was no longer in the lane that the green Datsun swerved into. I didn't have any knowledge of the switching lanes, it just suddenly was.

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Troubling thoughts indeed.

In the Honorverse the terminus makes me think about this. One moment one is here, then there. Is one there or is a copy of one there? Is everyone outwardly just transported or are they all troubled by the thought of being a copy? A facsimile. Their totality one moment here then the information of them recreated at the other end!
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Re: Troubling thoughts.
Post by petercharters   » Sun Jun 29, 2014 4:42 pm

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It is one of those tricky questions involving the nature of life, the existence or not of a soul, and so on. There was one Star Trek next-gen episode where Commander Riker found Lieutenant Riker, a copy of himself caused when [insert handwavium technobabble] caused the transporter beam to partially bounce and rematerialize both on the ground and on the ship. If you have two separate people who have similar memories up to a certain point and then have very, very different lives after that, then the nature of the transporter really looks odd. As does any question of en-soulification of the two duplicates. Who is the original? Is the original dead? Or is the question essentially meaningless?

As far as junction travel goes, it's not a worry. The wormholes are frozen funnels through spacetime - basically where space at point one touches space at point two, much like a bridge across a tiny but very deep canyon. You don't have to follow the ground the long way around the canyon, you just cross the bridge. the wormhole pulls you through a tiny part of space and ejects you out the other - you're not broken into some form of energy or component parts and rematerialized, you're actually physically moved.
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Re: Troubling thoughts.
Post by Daryl   » Sun Jun 29, 2014 9:19 pm

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I can't remember the name of it but there was a novella where an enigmatic alien race offered mankind the stars through individual teleports, but the hidden truth was that they sent a copy then killed the original each time.

If there were copies I'd imagine that they would be like identical twins and subsequent life experiences would differentiate them over time.
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Re: Troubling thoughts.
Post by Emo Otaku   » Mon Jun 30, 2014 2:48 am

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I remember a short story where the first human test subject used this to try and embezzle millions and blame the copy (using hypnotic suggestion to make the copy forget the plan)
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Re: Troubling thoughts.
Post by Hutch   » Mon Jun 30, 2014 2:31 pm

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Daryl wrote:I can't remember the name of it but there was a novella where an enigmatic alien race offered mankind the stars through individual teleports, but the hidden truth was that they sent a copy then killed the original each time.

If there were copies I'd imagine that they would be like identical twins and subsequent life experiences would differentiate them over time.



I do not remember the novel (but I'd be interested if someone does), but this was the basis of a long-running tale in the web-comic "Schlock Mercenary"

And FWIW, Daniel Dennett is a pretty well-known American philosopher, so if Skimper's posts are sometime mind-bending, he at least has an enviable reading list (I never made it past the third Chapter of "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon)."
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Re: Troubling thoughts.
Post by Imaginos1892   » Tue Jul 01, 2014 11:46 pm

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Here's one to keep you awake at night: are you really the same person you remember being yesterday, or do you just think you are?
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Very sad life. Probably have very sad death.
But, at least there is symmetry.
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Re: Troubling thoughts.
Post by Lord Skimper   » Tue Jul 01, 2014 11:59 pm

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Do you even think, or do only think you do. Since there is only past and a directional universal progression, which some posit may change, ones thinking isn't a thought which we newly have but rather a film which we observe. These thoughts just appear, or are they already set to be there and no matter what, don't happen until they progress to the point when they should be observed.
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Re: Troubling thoughts.
Post by viciokie   » Wed Jul 02, 2014 11:12 pm

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Lord Skimper wrote:Do you even think, or do only think you do. Since there is only past and a directional universal progression, which some posit may change, ones thinking isn't a thought which we newly have but rather a film which we observe. These thoughts just appear, or are they already set to be there and no matter what, don't happen until they progress to the point when they should be observed.



I have a little posit for you. What if each time you do the transport you somehow disturb the fabric of the universe and cause a branching of the universe at that point and different events happen for each branching. also this would be affected as well by other disturbances, time travel etc.
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Re: Troubling thoughts.
Post by petercharters   » Fri Jul 04, 2014 12:27 pm

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The "many-universes" aspects of quantum theory are bad too. The "you" now is both the "you" of an instant ago mixed with at least one other "you". Now there are two. An instant ago there was one. Identity is confusing, especially if you want to think of yourself as the "real" you.
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