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I think the same, therefore I am I? (lemmy.world)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/antiquememesroadshow@lemmy.world
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Some extra context for the curious: https://pdf.stafforini.com/parfit-1995-unimportance-identity.pdf

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[–] 21 points 5 months ago (22 children)

Personally I believe it would be. There's a lot of people that argue differently on the basis that it breaks some kind of chain of continuity, but I believe that continuity is a concept that doesn't truly "exist", or at least has no physical relevance. In my view, what your mind/consciousness/whatever is is information, found in the arrangement and behavior of the matter and energy in your body over time, and as such any time that pattern exists, you exist. The teleporter merely disrupts that pattern while recording a different set of information needed to recreate it, and then recreates it elsewhere.

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  • [–] 27 points 5 months ago (3 children)

    IF the teleporter didn't destroy your original body: Would the 'clone' still be you? Would you exist twice?

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  • [–] 7 points 5 months ago

    There would be two "yous" from a past perspective. From a future perspective, only the one that is you would be you.

    It's the same as a multiverse view, where every decision makes a split. Every branch going forward is you, but only the branch you're on is you.

    Who you are changes over time. Everything that happened in the past is still part of you, but only things that happen to you are you.

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  • [–] 12 points 5 months ago (14 children)

    The teleporter malfunctions and produces a copy of you with your continuous consciousness at the exit teleporter, while you with your continuous consciousness also remains at the entry teleporter. Which one is you?

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  • [–] 16 points 5 months ago (13 children)

    Both of them. One reason that answer may sound nonsensical is that it sounds like it'd imply you somehow perceive out of both bodies with no connection between them, but that would miss that people are a type of system that change over time in response to physical stimuli, and the two bodies are immediately getting different inputs. My view is that the two will diverge into different people as a result, but that both of those people have just as correct a claim to being the person that stepped into the machine as you have to claim that you are the same person that started reading this a few moments ago, with neither one being the "fake" or "real" version.

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  • [–] 6 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    To expand on this, all that we really have is a feeling of self-awareness, and a memory of a continuous series of events leading up to this moment. Both teleporter clones would have the same subjective-I feeling, and the memories. Which one is "real" is a meaningless distinction.

    It's like how I woke up this morning, and I have the memory of going to bed last night, but I am no longer that person who went to bed; I cannot know his mind other than in the memories that I have. Did my consciousness in this moment come from him? Clearly not! If he was conscious (which I cannot actually prove now), there was a gap of many hours. (Actually, neuroscience tells us our consciousness dips out every ~90 seconds, so our brains can attend to other tasks. As a 'fun' experiement, try to wait out an itch without scratching it, and pinpoint the moment it goes away. Or just have ADHD.)

    Same thing with the transporter clones. Each would "come to" in the moment, with the illusion of continuous, conscious experience. The original would be just as "dead" as the me that went to sleep last night.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago

    To expand on this, all that we really have is a feeling of self-awareness, and a memory of a continuous series of events leading up to this moment. Both teleporter clones would have the same subjective-I feeling, and the memories. Which one is “real” is a meaningless distinction.

    I disagree, at least if we're talking star trek transporter. For the person who stepped into the transporter, their conscious experience ends forever. The person who steps out the other side has the illusion of continuity and will understandably believe themselves to be the same person, but it won't be the same person. As I see it, the original person's life experience ended permanently when they were "destroyed" by the transporter. The fact that the copy will perceive itself to be the original doesn't change this.

    In some hypothetical where you are magically moved without being destroyed, I could accept that the same person who teleports from spot A is the same person who arrives at spot B, but so far I have heard of no technological idea of teleportation that convinces me people aren't dying every time they teleport. (I know we're just debating fiction so it's arguably meaningless, but I'd for sure be the guy in Star Trek who refused to use the transporter.)

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (7 children)

    You were married before using the teleporter, is the marriage still valid? Who should the kids call their parents? Can the kids claim either/neither of you gets to tell them what to do? Who owns the video game collection, the car, the house?

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    The legal issues of having two selves are interesting, but seperate from the moral ones. Legally, I dunno, it depends on the teleporter malfunction laws in my local area. Maybe the teleportation manufacturer becomes liable for duplicating my quality of life for one of us, like a weird technology third version of alimony/child support.

    Morally/emotionally whatevet you wanna call it, both of me would be married, as everyone present (me, myself, and my wife) participated in the wedding ceremony. My wife's vows apply to the both of us, and each of us took vows to my wife. My child gets two dads, since we both fathered her, and she gets to deal with three parents.

    I imagine we'd both just live together, and share ownership. In my jurisdiction (the real world, fairly local I'd say) there are no laws about this, and I suppose we'd share our SS number and identity, if for no other reason than neither of us wants to go to court to try to change it. I think I'd choose to switch my first and middle name, so we could differentiate, but still be us. It'd be neat.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    Easy solution: put all those things through the teleporter/duplicator

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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    One will always be the original copy, not the transported "clone" in this case. So whichever one didn't pop out of the transporter after their matter was combined on the pad, and therefore isn't 10 seconds old, is the "real" you.

    Although I would still argue that the cloned copy is ALSO you, it's still not the original.

    Of course all you have to do is ask Miles Obrien and he will tell you dark secrets starfleet doesn't want anyone in the federation to know. Transporters kill the original to prevent this scenario from happening, and only on rare occasions does it fail to delete someone, like RIKER.OG.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    Would that even be the OG Riker in your scenario? He'd have almost certainly have used the transporter many times before then.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    In the case of Riker v William, neither are the original at that point, but the one stranded was the "more" original, especially given he hadn't used a transporter in 7 (I think) years, while Riker continued as normal, dozens per month for years.

    Again, they both still are William Riker. Just one is "more" original.

    It's a real ship of theseus situation.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    What you are describing sounds a lot like a material constitution view of consciousness.

    I think that, based on what I recall of Derek Parfit, there is a distinction that could be made between the continuity of consciousness and the connectivity. In the teletransporter problem, the continuity of your mind (or at least the body that constitutes your mind) is interrupted, and therefore your previous personal identity ends and a new one is created. However, the connectivity of your mind (relation R) is maintained, as your memory can still chart the path moment to moment as it went through the transporter.

    This raises the question of which is more important, personal identity or relation R. Parfit argued that what really matters are your beliefs, memory, feelings, the things that make up your consciousness and not the body that "holds" it. Since these are maintained through relation R, you may not be "you" after going through the transporter, but everything important about you is still there.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago

    I don't have the time right at the moment to go through all of that, but a little ways in I saw the concept of mereology mentioned, so I thought I might expand on my view a bit by mentioning that I subscribe to an idea similar to what I've seen called "mereological nihilism" in that I think that, when you have a thing made up of other things, like a person or a ship or whatever else, that larger thing doesn't truly exist as a distinct object with objective significance, merely as an illusion of our perception resulting from the way our brains and language work, and that properties ascribed to it are just emergent behavior of the parts said to make it up when arranged in that way.

    As a result, in my view, the kind of personal identity you refer to simply doesn't exist in the first place, so to speak of it's continuity or lack thereof becomes meaningless, at which point the thing you call relation R is the only basis left to define a specific person by. That also makes a specific person a somewhat "fuzzy" concept without clear objective borders around where you stop and end, and how much must be changed about a copy before it ceases to be you is in my view somewhat arbitrary, without a truly objective answer and more based on you eventually finding the changes too distinct to continue to refer to as the same person as what existed before.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    This is what I think too. Our perception of continuity is not the same as our actual consciousness.

    It’s mind boggling to actually consider deeply and we may never actually know the truth to it since it’s all so subjective anyway. But it is fun to think about.

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