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

af_thefragile · 09-11-2012 8:41pm #1

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?

09-11-2012 8:43pm

You've never seen Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory, have you?

senorwipesalot · 09-11-2012 8:43pm

Affirmative.

BBDBB · 09-11-2012 8:43pm

Best excuse not to pay your mortgage Ive heard in ages

Big Bottom · 09-11-2012 8:45pm

That could never happen because you cant move your mind through the computer even if you can move your brain.

So the new you would be a zombie.

karl_m · 09-11-2012 8:49pm

What gives us a mind, or better yet, the ability to think? having a functioning brain? If so then we would have a mind with full memory.

Ronin247 · 09-11-2012 8:49pm

And the lesson today is

Dravokivich · 09-11-2012 8:51pm

Same question can be said about the prestige as well.

sxt · 09-11-2012 8:53pm

Your are different , but no more different than a person that is constantly biologically ageing is different to their previous "self"

galwayrush · 09-11-2012 8:53pm

How much does your dealer charge OP?:)

Lollers · 09-11-2012 8:54pm

For me the brain is the seat of true consciousness, if it reformed perfectly then you would be the same, if not ...

im invisible · 09-11-2012 8:54pm

we cannae do it capt'n, we doont have the power

af_thefragile · 09-11-2012 8:54pm

Lots of questions yet no answers so far...
Looks like After Hours follows the Socratic method of learning...

Shryke · 09-11-2012 8:55pm

You will of course cease to exist. Your copy will continue to exist and will fully believe he is the original and will not give a damn the real you is dead, as he will be you and not give a crap about yourself.

OK so this idea has been covered a lot. Scientists have already made claims of teleportation and the way you describe it is how it was carried out, not on anything organic but a break down and reconstruction occurred creating an exact duplicate. I don't remember details. It was a couple of years back.

China Meiville covered this really well in one of his novels. He's a very good British writer that does off kilter and exceptionally well written gritty neo fantasy type novels. A character in one book had the ability to teleport but late on into his career ended up studying what teleporting actually meant. The original destroyed, the copy living on. He ended up entirely mental and haunted by all of the ghosts of his other selves.

The Prestige carried on the same idea. The book by Christopher Priest to much better effect in the end imo.

The big problem with teleporting someone is sending a persons mind state. Shooting off grey matter is one thing but neural pathways are a bit complicated. If technology existed to do that then the next step would be getting yourself a new body or maybe cloning a younger version of your own. Teleporting a mind state would be as simple as transferring data.
This is dealt with in a few different ways in various novels. Richard Morgan does a good job with the Kovacs books and obviously the untouchable greatness of Iain M. Banks.

Some recommended reading for you OP.

larchielads · 09-11-2012 8:56pm

Well you said you'd be torn apart and destroyed I think destroyed being the operative word then no it would not be the real you as you said you'd be destroyed.
But if it ripped your atoms down without destroying them and sent those exact same atoms thru the Internet to said destination then physically it is the real you as long as you retained your exact memories and not a copy of your exact memories then I think it's all def the real you.
And I say not a copy of your memory because you can rip music from a cd and burn to another but it's not the exact same cd even with the same exact data on it.
Simples

karl_m · 09-11-2012 8:57pm

I think it'll still be "you", because you'll be sent electronically, it'll be all your own molecular structure with your own genetic code unique to you. It's like you rip up a piece of bread, put it in a box, carry it to a table, and re-arrange it. It's still the same piece of bread, granted you'd be "ripped up" drastically more. Then again I'm twenty, I've no fooking idea.

09-11-2012 8:57pm

Lollers wrote: »

For me the brain is the seat of true consciousness, if it reformed perfectly then you would be the same, if not ...

Don't worry, we'll be on to the soul soon, come in Philos.

af_thefragile · 09-11-2012 9:05pm

larchielads wrote: »

Well you said you'd be torn apart and destroyed I think destroyed being the operative word then no it would not be the real you as you said you'd be destroyed.
But if it ripped your atoms down without destroying them and sent those exact same atoms thru the Internet to said destination then physically it is the real you as long as you retained your exact memories and not a copy of your exact memories then I think it's all def the real you.
And I say not a copy of your memory because you can rip music from a cd and burn to another but it's not the exact same cd even with the same exact data on it.
Simples

Information is carried digitally (in bits and bytes) via the internet so everything that was the old you has been copied and your structure has been converted into digital information for the computers to understand and work with. The new you is an exact 100% reconstruction of the "old you" at the point you stepped into the scanner. Down to the very atom. So everything from your neuronal network to the food you've eaten is replicated to the exact copy of the "old you" by the world's most advanced knitting machine!

And as a poster previously mentioned, your bodies are constantly changing so its literally like taking a snap shot of your body and then replicating it in another place. Your body will simply continue on from where it left off...

monkeysnapper · 09-11-2012 9:13pm

Look!!!!! Just pay the friggin tv licence, they,ve heard all the excuses and none of them work

crazy cabbage · 09-11-2012 9:47pm

Good Question

No religion is going to like this becouse it would mean that your soul would be left behind in the body that is destroyed. This would be becouse your soul isn't make up of atoms or whatever so cant be copied over.

Are you the same person though? Lets say all your hopes and dreams and memories and experiences and your physical body are copied perfectly. Then weather your the same person depends weather on not your subscribe to the concept of the soul. If you do believe in the soul then i think you would say you can't be the same person. If you don't believe the the soul then i think you would think you are the same person.

what is the actual answer. I haven't the fogiest idea....

09-11-2012 9:54pm

There was an interesting question similar to this, with regards to time travel.

If there is a past me, a present me and a future me, then which one is the real me?

Shryke · 09-11-2012 9:59pm

Deleted User wrote: »

There was an interesting question similar to this, with regards to time travel.

If there is a past me, a present me and a future me, then which one is the real me?

Could you re-phrase that? Do you mean a past, present and future version of yourself existing in the one place and time?

09-11-2012 10:01pm

Shryke wrote: »

Could you re-phrase that? Do you mean a past, present and future version of yourself existing in the one place and time?

At their own individual times - but if you were all together, then it raises that question. Who is the real you if you are all you?

karl_m · 09-11-2012 10:07pm

Put if you were all together you would then be in the present, in all your consciousness, so the present you would be the real you, which would be all three? Then again, no fooking idea,

Shryke · 09-11-2012 10:16pm

Deleted User wrote: »

At their own individual times - but if you were all together, then it raises that question. Who is the real you if you are all you?

You answered it right there. They're all you. If you want to get into alternate realities we can start getting tricky but the answer would be the same imo.

Wibbs · 09-11-2012 10:19pm

sxt wrote: »

Your are different , but no more different than a person that is constantly biologically ageing is different to their previous "self"

This pretty much. One could argue the "real" you without talk of teleportation is in a constant state of flux with only the continuation of memory to provide the impression of a constant "you". Against that are people who through brain injury(strokes etc) can sometimes end up with no memory at all, or very short term memory. They can't recall family members or anything that happened 20 minutes ago, but still the (possible) illusion of them still being them is preserved.

When it comes to teleportation, it's not "just" a copy of cells and squishy bits, it's not a souped up digital copy, it would be a copy of your exact quantum state/information at that particular time. In other words you in as complete a form as the you reading this, as complete a copy as the universe would recognise. Unless a "soul" exists beyond the quantum information of the universe you would be transported with no loss of continuation of the you. YOu'd step in transport and step out. Put it another way... go make a cup of tea or coffee, or get a beer. When you go through the door into the kitchen, your quantum state has changed in billions of ways, yet it's still you that comes back to enjoy the tea/coffee/beer.

IIRC this would require that the original quantum you to be destroyed in the process. Where it would get interesting is if that wasn't the case. Forget transportation for a moment. Imagine we get to the point of being able to duplicate this lowest level of the universe state of matter. You make an exact copy of you. What next? Would you both experience the same consciousness, until some sort of external change shift would occur, or would the second the copy was made changes would also happen and you'd be two different you's? Real oddball shíte alright.

poppyvally · 09-11-2012 10:36pm

Shryke wrote: »

You will of course cease to exist. Your copy will continue to exist and will fully believe he is the original and will not give a damn the real you is dead, as he will be you and not give a crap about yourself.

OK so this idea has been covered a lot. Scientists have already made claims of teleportation and the way you describe it is how it was carried out, not on anything organic but a break down and reconstruction occurred creating an exact duplicate. I don't remember details. It was a couple of years back.

China Meiville covered this really well in one of his novels. He's a very good British writer that does off kilter and exceptionally well written gritty neo fantasy type novels. A character in one book had the ability to teleport but late on into his career ended up studying what teleporting actually meant. The original destroyed, the copy living on. He ended up entirely mental and haunted by all of the ghosts of his other selves.

The Prestige carried on the same idea. The book by Christopher Priest to much better effect in the end imo.

The big problem with teleporting someone is sending a persons mind state. Shooting off grey matter is one thing but neural pathways are a bit complicated. If technology existed to do that then the next step would be getting yourself a new body or maybe cloning a younger version of your own. Teleporting a mind state would be as simple as transferring data.
This is dealt with in a few different ways in various novels. Richard Morgan does a good job with the Kovacs books and obviously the untouchable greatness of Iain M. Banks.

Some recommended reading for you OP.

Have you a ghost writer, or are you REALLY this good?

bnt · 09-11-2012 10:57pm

This was the subject of the very first story that Arthur C. Clarke got published: Travel By Wire! came out in 1937. He didn't take the idea very seriously, it has to be said. From the summary:

There are some accidents and hiccups in the system. Not very many of them - they lost only one client in six million - but when they did happen, they were "very peculiar indeed". Occasionally transmitters would breakdown while a customer was being scanned, or two wires would get crossed, blending the two passengers. Earthing along the line could cause the traveller to just fade away. If a person hit an area of high resistance while in transit, they would come out a bit lighter than when they went in. This effect, under controlled conditions became a popular way for massively obese people to lose weight.

As the story ends the narrator reveals a secret:
I don't travel by wire! You see, I helped invent the thing!

Johnny D. Mudd · 09-11-2012 11:02pm

Well I guess the problem is that if the you that came out of the scanner is not you but a clone of you, you would presumably occupy the body of this clone of you meaning you would still consider that clone to be you as you would still occupy that body and would still exist as you. Despite your old self being apart, you still exist in reality as your new self. If you didn't, your clone would presumably be another individual you but that clone would essentially be an entirely different entity who is not you and thus you would not be able to comprehend your non-existence as a person. You mentioned being split by atoms and molecules on one end and being put together again on the other end. Even though you don't physically exist for the time it takes to be transported from one end to the other, those molecules and atoms are still the make up of you as a human, containing every piece of information about you not just as a body, but as a person. Therefore as long as you exist as atoms and molecules, you still exist as a person.

That is entirely difficult to try to put forth in any kind of comprehensible way and it's probably crap anyway. It's crap isn't it?

Shryke · 09-11-2012 11:21pm

poppyvally wrote: »

Have you a ghost writer, or are you REALLY this good?

I'm not sure what you mean..

Wibbs · 09-11-2012 11:28pm

Johnny D. Mudd wrote: »

Well I guess the problem is that if the you that came out of the scanner is not you but a clone of you

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.

That is entirely difficult to try to put forth in any kind of comprehensible way and it's probably crap anyway. It's crap isn't it?

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

Johnny D. Mudd · 09-11-2012 11:31pm

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 · 09-11-2012 11:44pm

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 · 10-11-2012 4:25am

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 · 10-11-2012 7:36am

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

MarkR · 10-11-2012 8:03am

Is that you, sheldon?

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

pats22b · 10-11-2012 8:21am

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 · 10-11-2012 8:36am

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 · 10-11-2012 8:39am

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

Grayson · 10-11-2012 9:45am

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 · 10-11-2012 9:57am

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 · 10-11-2012 10:50am

10-11-2012 11:36am

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 · 10-11-2012 2:56pm

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 · 10-11-2012 3:33pm

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 · 10-11-2012 4:41pm

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 · 10-11-2012 4:46pm

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 · 10-11-2012 5:19pm

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 · 10-11-2012 5:34pm

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 · 10-11-2012 5:37pm

KilOit wrote: »

So how do you delete a file then??

You use tippex?

10-11-2012 6:56pm

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

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

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