"Beam me up scotty!" Existentialist question...

Johnny D. Mudd

Wibbs wrote: »

The thing is it isn't a clone, a digital copy like an MP3. I suppose in the music copying world it would be akin to having an exact copy of a CD, down to the molecules, the atoms the positions of the electrons, protons, neutrons and the very building blocks of those subatomic particles at that exact time and position in space.


Hell JD we're all talking crap here, so you're among friends so work away.

Oh, clone was the wrong word to use. Using "copy" or even just the term "new you" would have been sufficient.

That's good to hear matey cause talking crap is generally all I do anyway. That and theorise existentialist questions apparently.:D

3rdDegree

Since you would be destroyed then you are dead, with an exact copy coming out the other end. But since you are dead, there is no awareness of it, so does it really matter? The very act of you ceasing to exist makes your conscious existence irrelevant. And to all others, if you are an exact copy, it's still you. But your consciousness is gone.

As for the Church and your soul, they'd rationalise it somehow, just like they rationalised everything since "the earth is the centre of the Universe created by God, to the Big Bang was created by God". They always retreat in the face of science - but not ALL the way. Just a little with each new discovery.

Papa_Bear

I think we're gonna need a new internet protocol for this to work!

May I suggest the following name.

QPP/IP - quantum particle protocol

Or maybe the IPv6 will suffice:cool:

kneemos

A more probable form of teleportation would be whole body through different dimensions rather than breaking it down.

MarkR

Is that you, sheldon?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQZzSrAIp-E

pats22b

if you cant measure it you cant copy it - how do you measure a conciousness?
probably the ultimate form of secondary quality--[HTML]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary/secondary_quality_distinction[/HTML]

Wibbs

pats22b wrote: »

if you cant measure it you cant copy it - how do you measure a conciousness?

You don't have to. Think of consciousness as the exhaust noise and sight of a speeding motorbike. It's a product of it's existence and operation. You can take a picture, make a sound recording, make a film of the speeding motorbike but it's not quite the same. However build an exact information copy of said motorbike and voila, the sight and sound comes with the package. Ditto for transporting a person. Build the mechanism and the "noise" comes with it.

That is unless we're going down the road of considering a "soul" separate to the body. Even if that were true it's likely said soul would attach to the "new" body information state. Just like it has since you went to bed last night. Trillions of differences at the very lowest levels of matter have changed throughout your body between your head hitting the pillow(or cool toilet bowl if you were on the lash) and you waking up. Yet you're still you or the illusion of that still holds. Indeed you were unconscious for much of the night too. The you that's reading this didn't exist. This post doesn't exist to all those still in their leaba until they awake to read it(and then promptly fall asleep again).

IvySlayer

Just take a shuttlecraft if you don't feel comfortable.

Grayson

Dravokivich wrote: »

Same question can be said about the prestige as well.

I get that you lose all your weapons and perks. But it's still you.

Show Time

af_thefragile wrote: »

Far beyond in the distant future scientists have managed to create the world's first teleportation device.

The way it works is at the departure point, its super computers and scanners copy your entire molecular structure precisely to every atom. In doing so the "old you" is torn apart and destroyed (worry not cause you won't feel a thing!). This information is then sent via the internet to your destination computer and then at the arrival point, a similar super computer working in reverse, like doing the world's largest copypasta job, puts back all the atoms and molecules in the exact order to create a "new you" and so you have arrived instantly at your destination. This would be the way all humans will travel in this future to and from any destination in the world instantly!


So here's the existentialist question. Is the new you really you?
Did the real you die when you stepped into the scanner and were ripped apart? Is this new you not you but merely a clone of you or to put it in another way an impostor?

Or because the new you is 100% identical to the old you, is the new you still you?

Once the Heisenberg compensator is installed and working there should be no issue.

Blondini

9959

Show Time wrote: »

Once the Heisenberg compensator is installed and working there should be no issue.

Without doubting the actual functionality of the Heisenberg Compensator, there is still some dispute in quantum physics regarding the accuracy of the precision vectors of particles transported on a subatomic level.
I think it's foolhardy of you to assume that once the compensator is "installed and working there should be no issue", we're not talking here about a Ryanair flight from Dublin to Malaga. We're talking about people's lives, their very essence and, if I may, the possible transmigration of souls.
Please be careful in giving uniformed, cavalier advice in the future.

kylith

It'd be a handy way to colonise planets if the original wasn't destroyed. You could step into a transporter, and your clone would appear on a far-off world. You wouldn't have to risk a long space journey and you wouldn't be stuck on a planet millions of light years from your loved ones, and your clone wouldn't have a say in the matter.

kowloon

Since it's a Star Trek plot device I think it's fair to point out that they've had stories about ending up with the original person staying put and a new copy being formed on the ship. So the copy clearly isn't the same person.

Reminds me of a friend's Mother who thought to delete a file off her PC she had to copy it onto a floppy disk and throw the disk in the bin.

kneemos

kylith wrote: »

It'd be a handy way to colonise planets if the original wasn't destroyed. You could step into a transporter, and your clone would appear on a far-off world. You wouldn't have to risk a long space journey and you wouldn't be stuck on a planet millions of light years from your loved ones, and your clone wouldn't have a say in the matter.

You would need another machine on the planet to reconfigure the body

kylith

kneemos wrote: »

You would need another machine on the planet to reconfigure the body

Obviously one team would have to go and set it up, but then everyone else would be cloned in from offsite, and the set up guys could use it to go home, in a sense.

af_thefragile

I should also add this is exactly how you traven from one zone to another in Borderlands and how you respawn back to life after you are killed...!

KilOit

kowloon wrote: »

Reminds me of a friend's Mother who thought to delete a file off her PC she had to copy it onto a floppy disk and throw the disk in the bin.

So how do you delete a file then??

af_thefragile

KilOit wrote: »

So how do you delete a file then??

You use tippex?

af_thefragile

af_thefragile wrote: »

I should also add this is exactly how you traven from one zone to another in Borderlands and how you respawn back to life after you are killed...!

I love how they often make light of that in Borderlands 2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h0EeMk1cJQ

kowloon

You have to print it out and either burn it, send it to landfill or recycle. Recycling is encouraged. Did you know that for each person alive 5TB of internet are released into the atmosphere a year? The madness needs to end.