Do transporters kill?

[Stark]

Well, you're certainly conscious of the swirly part. But the swirly part at the end is generally shown to be 'later' (ie you don't disappear and reappear simultaneously) and nobody seems to be conscious during this period. Barclay saw stuff during the swirly period, I think.

[Simon_Jester]

But like you said, the answer to my question lies in the realms of philosophy, faith, and opinion, not causality, reason and logic.

I'm still holding out hope in this case that we can wrestle philosophy over into the reason-and-logic realm...

The problem with that argument is that you seem to see a continus line of exsistance between the clone and the original, that they are infact the same being.

No, I'm not.

You see, what I'm asking is why a discontinuity in your existence is automatically the end of your existence, with no possibility of recovery. Is someone who blinks out of the universe and, by all measurable appearances, blinks back into it five seconds later really dead? Did they, in fact, die? Obviously, yes, people who die are dead, but the whole question revolves around the issue of whether the person has actually died.

I mean, my consciousness has discontinuities in it all the time; I've got to sleep sooner or later. In principle, I could even wake up in a different room with no memory of how I got there. Does that mean I can't prove that I'm still the same person? The body I now reside in is identical to the old one, and my memories are identical, but how do I really know that I'm not just a clone, with the "real me" being dead in a ditch somewhere?

If identity has any concrete meaning, there has to be some way to measure it. There are plenty of ways to measure the difference between a corpse and a living person, or between a person and a patch of air where that person used to be before they got disintegrated, or between two people who have different bodies or minds. But there's no way to measure the difference between the guy who steps onto the transporter pad and the guy who appears on the planet's surface.

If we say that the guy who appears on the planet is not the same guy who stepped into the transporter, then how are we to tell the difference? And if we say that it isn't the same guy, and that the original is forever dead, how are we to say that we are the same people we were before we went to bed last night?

The fact that there is a clone at the end is just that a CLONE. Wether the clone sees itself as the original is immaterial because it is not the original. The original is crisped on the transporter pad, and what in the patern buffer is only data and energy. Is the clone functionaly like the original, yes. Is it actualy the original, no. Unfortuantely arguments based on the soul of the individual cannot be proven or disproven based on what little we actualy know about such things.

I'm not even making an argument about souls; I'm making an argument about identity, which is a very different thing. So what I'd like to ask you is:

What, exactly, is the definition of "me?" Is "me" an abstract sentient algorithm? A brain? A body-brain combination? Some kind of ethereal identifier tag, like having an XTML tag hanging off my body saying "this is Simon Jester?"

Given a suitably rigorous definition of "me," what is your reasoning when you say that a transporter-generated copy of "me" is not "me?"

Are you prepared to accept the secondary implications of your own argument?

So is movement of the soul restricted by c, or what?

Why not? I see no problem with this. I mean, it's presumably a massless 'particle' of some sort...

Of course, in a universe with canonical methods for sending messages faster than c (subspace), maybe souls move through subspace and can travel at whatever speeds are possible in that exotic medium. I don't know.

But if they exist at all, the idea that they are limited to a finite speed doesn't bother me all that much. It's not traditional, but I don't really give a toss for what the traditions are in this case.

But seriously, assuming that soul exists, and assuming it tries to go to your body because it isn't taken along by the transporter, how long does it take to get there?

This would be very difficult to check. And, of course, there may not be anything there to look for... though if Spock can be revived from the dead through a mechanism involving souls, that's strong evidence for their existence. I haven't seen that movie; do I remember it correctly?

What happens if you have an accident and you get transporter duplicates? Does each duplicate only get half a soul?

That would explain one incident early in the run of TOS, where exactly that seemed to happen. On the other hand, other cases indicate a soul undergoing some kind of mitosis-like process, wherein it splits into multiple identical copies that get "assigned" to multiple identical bodies.

[Dave]

But seriously, assuming that soul exists, and assuming it tries to go to your body because it isn't taken along by the transporter, how long does it take to get there?

This would be very difficult to check. And, of course, there may not be anything there to look for... though if Spock can be revived from the dead through a mechanism involving souls, that's strong evidence for their existence. I haven't seen that movie; do I remember it correctly?

IIRC, that was the Wrath of Kahn. Memory Alpha
Spock shoved his 'katra' (soul) into McCoy via mind-meld before going to fix the broken reactor so they could get away. Spock died of radiation poisoning. Spock's body was buried in space with an empty torpedo casing, and landed on a planet that was undergoing terraforming. His body was regenerated, and lived, but it had no mind . His now living body was taken, with McCoy, to Vulcan, where a ceremony was performed and (via a three-way mind meld) Spock's soul was transfered from McCoy to his body.

So there you go.

[Stark]

Arguably he just backed himself up and the 'katra' stuff is just witch-doctor nonsense.

[Dave]

Arguably he just backed himself up and the 'katra' stuff is just witch-doctor nonsense.

Well, yes, I just pulled it off of Memory Alpha -- but we're talking about souls anyway, witch-doctory is to be expected.

[SapphireFox]

You see, what I'm asking is why a discontinuity in your existence is automatically the end of your existence, with no possibility of recovery. Is someone who blinks out of the universe and, by all measurable appearances, blinks back into it five seconds later really dead? Did they, in fact, die? Obviously, yes, people who die are dead, but the whole question revolves around the issue of whether the person has actually died.

A transporter does not blink you out of the universe it dematerializes or disintegrates the body destroying it by any standard. It's destroy the body... 5 seconds... copy paste clone on the end location. How can you argue that a disintegrated body is not dead?

I mean, my consciousness has discontinuities in it all the time; I've got to sleep sooner or later. In principle, I could even wake up in a different room with no memory of how I got there. Does that mean I can't prove that I'm still the same person? The body I now reside in is identical to the old one, and my memories are identical, but how do I really know that I'm not just a clone, with the "real me" being dead in a ditch somewhere?

A perceptual discontinuity is NOT a physical discontinuity. Just because a mind is in a state of rest does not mean it is not working or even physically there.

As for how you would know you are not a clone and your original is not dead... you don't, like the clone produced by the transporter it has no way of knowing that it is not the original and indeed perceives itself to be such and acts accordingly.

If identity has any concrete meaning, there has to be some way to measure it. There are plenty of ways to measure the difference between a corpse and a living person, or between a person and a patch of air where that person used to be before they got disintegrated, or between two people who have different bodies or minds. But there's no way to measure the difference between the guy who steps onto the transporter pad and the guy who appears on the planet's surface.

If we say that the guy who appears on the planet is not the same guy who stepped into the transporter, then how are we to tell the difference? And if we say that it isn't the same guy, and that the original is forever dead, how are we to say that we are the same people we were before we went to bed last night?

If you find a way to measure a perception of an identity then let me know. I'm sure that one can measure the one off one bit errors in a process like this. As for how we know we are who we think we are... (you are walking into one of those great philosophical questions kind of thing) in this case we don't. Look at the example of the two Rikers, did either of them perceive that they were not the original until they met each other?

I'm not even making an argument about souls; I'm making an argument about identity, which is a very different thing. So what I'd like to ask you is:

What, exactly, is the definition of "me?" Is "me" an abstract sentient algorithm? A brain? A body-brain combination? Some kind of ethereal identifier tag, like having an XTML tag hanging off my body saying "this is Simon Jester?"

Given a suitably rigorous definition of "me," what is your reasoning when you say that a transporter-generated copy of "me" is not "me?"

Are you prepared to accept the secondary implications of your own argument?

I believe that identity is as much a matter of body and soul as it perception, damage one and you damage the whole. Destroy one and the identity changes irreparably.

Exactly what "secondary implications" are you referring to?

[Rama]

By the same argument, though, future-you is not you. At this instant in time that you read this, Rama has had a particular set of experiences. Tomorrow, Rama will have had a different set of experiences that will have slightly changed Rama's personality and attitudes. For that matter, Rama may even fall unconscious at some point in between, suffering a discontinuity in his awareness of the universe. Hell, Rama could fall unconscious and wake up somewhere with no idea how he got there!

Facetious comparison.

Both falling asleep and falling unconscious are merely a suspended state of sensory activity; in the case of being asleep I can still respond to external stimuli and still experience the environment on an albeit decreased level. However neither example is indicative of a total discontinuation of activity (total brain death) in which I ceased to exist for eight hours a night, in fact you could observe me for those eight hours and determine that whilst I toss and turn in my sleep and possibly have the occasional dream, I don't physically disintegrate and reintegrate elsewhere, neither do I die in an other respect; and when I awake, my memories are simply a continuation of my own organic recollection at all previous points.

To suggest that either of the mentioned activities is tantamount to permanent brain death is just bizarre.

And yet in real life, there is no doubt that you are still you, not a new and different person, no matter what you experience. Rama does not need to be an identical clone of past-Rama in order to be Rama.

Except you've facetiously misconstrued the original point. The clone version of me is still me to an external observer, it has all of my memories and will no doubt continue along the same branch of experiences that would have occurred to me if I had gone on living, but my individual consciousness is essentially gone. Effectively replicated yes, but I'm still dead.

But in that case, how do we know that you're the same person every day when you get up in the morning? How do we rule out the idea that there are actually a string of 6000+ Ramas, each of which only lived roughly sixteen hours before falling asleep, dying, and being replaced?

I don't think there is a medical professional anywhere in the world today who believes that a partially suspended state of awareness of external stimuli (partially mind you - if I kicked you in your sleep you would respond, now try doing that to a corpse) is tantamount to total brain death; your pseudo-scientific bullshit aside though, there would be many people who would agree that having your physical form disintegrated, processed into information and an recreated elsewhere using raw material only available at that site would in essence be killing the first organism.

[Simon_Jester]

A transporter does not blink you out of the universe it dematerializes or disintegrates the body destroying it by any standard. It's destroy the body... 5 seconds... copy paste clone on the end location. How can you argue that a disintegrated body is not dead?

How can you argue that a man is dead when, by all appearances, he walks up to you and taps you on the shoulder ten seconds later?

The entire question of whether transporters kill revolves around our definition of death, and I think you're prematurely assuming one that proves that the answer is "yes."

If someone dies in a fire, they aren't coming back, yes, they're dead. If someone disintegrates and reintegrates, I think it's not trivial to say whether or not they are still dead. "Dead" is supposed to involve an irreversible operation, after all, and a disintegrate-reintegrate operation implies reversibility.

As for how you would know you are not a clone and your original is not dead... you don't, like the clone produced by the transporter it has no way of knowing that it is not the original and indeed perceives itself to be such and acts accordingly.

If "the original is alive" is not a question to which the original can know the answer... I'm not sure the question of whether the original ever died is meaningful.

If you find a way to measure a perception of an identity then let me know. I'm sure that one can measure the one off one bit errors in a process like this. As for how we know we are who we think we are... (you are walking into one of those great philosophical questions kind of thing)

Yes, I know. But if we can't define "me" in terms that allow for the possibility of a diagnosis of whether or not I am me, then it's absurd to make strong claims about what a transporter does one way or the other.

Does it kill me? Maybe, but surely the answer depends on what, exactly, "I" am.

I believe that identity is as much a matter of body and soul as it perception, damage one and you damage the whole. Destroy one and the identity changes irreparably.

OK. So...

1) What is your take on the Ship of Theseus? Is the ship still the same ship after all its parts have been individually replaced? If not, at what point does it stop being the original ship?

2) As noted, what if the parts that get replaced are used to build another ship? Is that ship also the original ship? If not, why not?

3) Having invoked the term "soul," would you be willing to offer a definition of it?

Exactly what "secondary implications" are you referring to?

Secondary implications vary depending on the precise nature of your argument. Since I'm not quite clear on the details of your argument, I don't know the answer to your question.

Facetious comparison.

Since I was citing only the discontinuity of consciousness, I don't really agree. Of course, sleep is not death, because we define identity in terms of more than just the awareness of one's surroundings.

But I was trying to illustrate that if we aren't careful about how we define death, states that are not normally considered "dead" end up defined as being dead.

To suggest that either of the mentioned activities is tantamount to permanent brain death is just bizarre.

If a brain returns to life, by all appearances, in a state indistinguishable from that it occupied before "permanent death..." is it still dead? Death is supposed to be physically non-reversible. A death that can be undone may not really be a death, any more than you are necessarily dead when your heart stops beating... which was once a reasonable definition of "dead," but is no longer.

Except you've facetiously misconstrued the original point. The clone version of me is still me to an external observer, it has all of my memories and will no doubt continue along the same branch of experiences that would have occurred to me if I had gone on living, but my individual consciousness is essentially gone. Effectively replicated yes, but I'm still dead.

All right. What is your working definition of "I," then?

[Marcus Aurelius]

I don't think there is a medical professional anywhere in the world today who believes that a partially suspended state of awareness of external stimuli (partially mind you - if I kicked you in your sleep you would respond, now try doing that to a corpse) is tantamount to total brain death; your pseudo-scientific bullshit aside though, there would be many people who would agree that having your physical form disintegrated, processed into information and an recreated elsewhere using raw material only available at that site would in essence be killing the first organism.

Not really a specialty of medical doctors, but more like philosophers. However, I know of no philosopher who would say that ordinary sleep is completely similar to death, although the "stream of consciousness" is certainly interrupted at least in deep (i.e. slow wave) sleep and no memories are formed. The essence of consciousness is the sequential nature of thoughts combined with memories of previous thoughts and sensory observations. Without them you can no longer say "Cogito ergo sum". So in that sense deep sleep is somewhat similar to death. Drug induced general anaesthesia is even closer to a death-like state as far as the conscious mind goes. Without ascribing magical properties to your original biological matter, I can't see how a temporary unconsciousness during the transportation process would be no different from a general anaesthesia as long as all the original information is preserved and there are no moments of doubled consciousness.

I would also like to point out that saying "many people think this" does not support your argument in a logical and scientifically valid way. My explanation to it is that "many people" think that souls do exist. If you definitely do not believe in souls, you will have to think that there is something special, or dear I say magical, about the matter your body happens to consist of at this moment. Of course many people do not realize that all the matter in our bodies changes all the time in any case, it just happens more slowly and not immediately.

[Darth Hoth]

Personally I say they don't kill. Since the person that goes in is the same as the person who goes out no one has died. As long as the information (memories and the like) is identical then the matter it is made out of is unimportant. The Stargate in SG1 works the same way, if Trek transporters kill then so does it.

It does? I know the novelisation of the film said it was some sort of weird "matter-transmitter" effects, but from what went on onscreen I always assumed that the Stargate was a wormhole - although with all of Carter's bullshit about subspace and other technobabble a "wormhole" in the Stargateverse is apparently not a real wormhole in any way ( ), but whatever . . .

Although I missed most of seasons 5, 6, 7, and 8, so I might have missed some development there.

On the topic of the thread, I agree with Stark.

[Simon_Jester]

Not really a specialty of medical doctors, but more like philosophers. However, I know of no philosopher who would say that ordinary sleep is completely similar to death, although the "stream of consciousness" is certainly interrupted at least in deep (i.e. slow wave) sleep and no memories are formed.

I wouldn't say sleep is completely similar to death either.

I'm limiting my entire argument about sleep to the question of whether interruption of consciousness implies death. Whether a discontinuity in your physical existence implies death is a different question.

But as far as consciousness goes, any argument based on "my mind is not running during the transport, therefore I've died" is obviously wrong, because it could equally well be applied to deep sleep, which, I emphasize, is NOT like death.

I would also like to point out that saying "many people think this" does not support your argument in a logical and scientifically valid way. My explanation to it is that "many people" think that souls do exist. If you definitely do not believe in souls, you will have to think that there is something special, or dear I say magical, about the matter your body happens to consist of at this moment. Of course many people do not realize that all the matter in our bodies changes all the time in any case, it just happens more slowly and not immediately.

To be fair, this is the philosophical problem raised by the Ship of Theseus, which I cited earlier. It goes like this:

The ancient Athenians had a ship that they claimed belonged to their founding hero, Theseus. They kept it as a museum piece for centuries. But since it was made out of wood, they kept having to replace rotten planks in order to maintain the ship.

Now obviously, at some point every part of the ship had been replaced at least once. When this point was reached, was the ship still the Ship of Theseus? If not, when did it stop being the Ship of Theseus?

And for extra credit: Imagine that the shipwrights who replaced the parts of the old ship kept collecting those parts as they put in the replacements. Then, they use the old boards to assemble a new ship, made 100% out of the parts that made up the original ship back when Theseus owned it.

Now, how many Ships of Theseus are there? Two (the reconstructed original and the one that's had all its parts replaced)? Zero (because one ship is made of all-new parts, and one ship was taken apart and put back together)? One? And if one, which one?

[SCRawl]

Not really a specialty of medical doctors, but more like philosophers. However, I know of no philosopher who would say that ordinary sleep is completely similar to death, although the "stream of consciousness" is certainly interrupted at least in deep (i.e. slow wave) sleep and no memories are formed.

I wouldn't say sleep is completely similar to death either.

I'm limiting my entire argument about sleep to the question of whether interruption of consciousness implies death. Whether a discontinuity in your physical existence implies death is a different question.

It isn't the mere interruption of consciousness that's an issue. It's that one conscious being stops and another one takes its place after being disassembled and reassembled. I find it difficult to get around the idea that taking my body apart piece by piece won't kill me, and that putting it back together again will return "me" to consciousness, even if the thing that replaces me is completely indistinguishable from the pre-disassembly version.

To be fair, this is the philosophical problem raised by the Ship of Theseus, which I cited earlier. It goes like this: *snip*

The big difference here is that the ship has no perceptions or consciousness to be respected. As an entity it is merely the sum of its parts, whereas a thinking person is clearly more than that.

[SapphireFox]

How can you argue that a man is dead when, by all appearances, he walks up to you and taps you on the shoulder ten seconds later?

Appearances are just that appearances if I put on a holographic image masker and looked like someone that had just died but you didn't know he had died and taped you on the shoulder would you not think I was he? Just because a copy looks and acts like the original does not mean it's the original.

The entire question of whether transporters kill revolves around our definition of death, and I think you're prematurely assuming one that proves that the answer is "yes."

If someone dies in a fire, they aren't coming back, yes, they're dead. If someone disintegrates and reintegrates, I think it's not trivial to say whether or not they are still dead. "Dead" is supposed to involve an irreversible operation, after all, and a disintegrate-reintegrate operation implies reversibility.

If you think that my answer is premature it's because I had asked myself this question a long time ago.
As for the disintegrate/reintegrate issue. To use an example, if you had crashed your car and it had been destroyed completely yet you survived (with only a few major injuries) and then the next day I gave you a new car the same make, model, age, and repair history. Would you say it was the original car and if so WHY?

If "the original is alive" is not a question to which the original can know the answer... I'm not sure the question of whether the original ever died is meaningful.

If you are making all this fuss about identity.... how can this question have no meaning to you? If it doesn't
have meaning then what's the point of identity in this case?

OK. So...

1) What is your take on the Ship of Theseus? Is the ship still the same ship after all its parts have been individually replaced? If not, at what point does it stop being the original ship?

2) As noted, what if the parts that get replaced are used to build another ship? Is that ship also the original ship? If not, why not?

3) Having invoked the term "soul," would you be willing to offer a definition of it?

1&2: Short answer, Hybridization. Long answer the more parts you add the more the ship becomes hybridized to such a point where it is no longer a ship but the vessel of the original's spirit. That point I think would lie above 50% where it would become more new than original. As for 2 the answer is no it is not the original because the spirit would be released from the whole and all you would have left at the end is a spirit diminished reconstruction. Mind you the pieces would still contain a fragment of spirit from the original ship, the whole would be changed/altered from the experience.

3:Believe me I would love to be able to define a soul but it is one of those things that defies definition or explanation. That said I will try and explain what my belief of soul is. A soul is the spiritual essence and representation of a person, animal, object, or place. Like the body is the manifestation of someone or some things physical essence, the soul is the collected manifestation of someone or some things spiritual essence. Both combine with the mind's perception to form our true identity.

In short .... Body = physical, spirit = soul, mind = perception, Body+Soul+Perception=Identity

Secondary implications vary depending on the precise nature of your argument. Since I'm not quite clear on the details of your argument, I don't know the answer to your question.

So you are asking a question when you don't even know what the question is!

[Buritot]

To be fair, this is the philosophical problem raised by the Ship of Theseus, which I cited earlier. It goes like this: *snip*

The big difference here is that the ship has no perceptions or consciousness to be respected. As an entity it is merely the sum of its parts, whereas a thinking person is clearly more than that.

Huh. There is your argument - a transporter supposedly assembles you 100% like it scanned and disassembled you. If we were talking about a machine or other non-living things, it would be the same. You however apply a characteristic to a person/consciousness/identity that can't - by your definition - be recreated. Ever. This seems to be what makes you favour the kill option.

As for the whole death part: Suppose a person dies (flatlining ECG/EEG). You hit the person repeatedly in the crotch. Due to some unforeseen events (CPR, or whatever you choose) the person is revived. It was by all definitions dead - no consciousness, no sensory observations. Is it another person, or the same?

[Xess]

Personally I say they don't kill. Since the person that goes in is the same as the person who goes out no one has died. As long as the information (memories and the like) is identical then the matter it is made out of is unimportant. The Stargate in SG1 works the same way, if Trek transporters kill then so does it.

It does? I know the novelisation of the film said it was some sort of weird "matter-transmitter" effects, but from what went on onscreen I always assumed that the Stargate was a wormhole - although with all of Carter's bullshit about subspace and other technobabble a "wormhole" in the Stargateverse is apparently not a real wormhole in any way ( ), but whatever . . .

Although I missed most of seasons 5, 6, 7, and 8, so I might have missed some development there.

I could be remembering it wrong but later seasons do describe the gate as breaking you down into a matter stream of some sort and then sending that through a wormhole to be put back together by the receiving gate. In one episode Teal'c got stuck in the gate's "pattern buffer" and had to be popped back out without using a wormhole. At any rate ring transporters and likely Asgard transporters do work the same as Trek transporters, only far more reliably.

[Simon_Jester]

Appearances are just that appearances if I put on a holographic image masker and looked like someone that had just died but you didn't know he had died and taped you on the shoulder would you not think I was he? Just because a copy looks and acts like the original does not mean it's the original.

But if the copy is physically indistinguishable from the original in all ways, which is what we're looking at here... how are you to say that he's not the original? What is the difference between this person tapping you on the shoulder and the original?

If it was just you wearing an image masker, that would be easy to answer, because I could deactivate the masker and say "Ah-ha, this is not my good buddy Joe! This doesn't even look much like Joe! This is SapphireFox!" But if we're talking about a perfect duplicate, I think the question is less obvious and trivial than you make it out to be.

If you think that my answer is premature it's because I had asked myself this question a long time ago.

Then I would be happy to hear your reasoning in full.

As for the disintegrate/reintegrate issue. To use an example, if you had crashed your car and it had been destroyed completely yet you survived (with only a few major injuries) and then the next day I gave you a new car the same make, model, age, and repair history. Would you say it was the original car and if so WHY?

That would depend heavily on how you went about replacing it. For example, if it had the same registration number, the same weird little marks on the interior, the same set of dents that my own car has picked up from my poor driving skills... I'd be seriously tempted to say it was my original car. If you credibly told me that you had somehow taken apart my original car and in some sense used it to assemble this new one, I'd be even more tempted.

Ultimately, I think I'd resist the temptation, though. But there's a reason for that. A car is purely a physical object, a specific combination of metals and organic substances. It has a blueprint, a physical description, but the blueprint exists purely for the sake of giving us a way to examine it.

An intelligent being is a bit more complicated. You see, my definition of "me" is such that "I" am basically a decision-making algorithm that happens to run in the brain of a large hairless ape. If you could transfer that algorithm to a new ape, then as far as I'm concerned "I" am still alive, even if the original ape has been smashed into tiny little pieces. This is because the me-algorithm is an abstraction, something that could hypothetically exist independent of the platform it happens to run on, much like any other computer program. Erasing the program from memory in one computer and reinstantiating it somewhere else doesn't destroy the program.

This is also why I'm willing to believe that there could be multiple mes (just as there is more than one of Microsoft Office, because it runs on millions of computers), or partial-mes that contain only some of the algorithm that is "me."

And in that context, the idea that transporters kill me, or that transporter-clones are not somehow "me," seems absurd. At least, it does to me.

If "the original is alive" is not a question to which the original can know the answer... I'm not sure the question of whether the original ever died is meaningful.

If you are making all this fuss about identity.... how can this question have no meaning to you? If it doesn't have meaning then what's the point of identity in this case?

Because if we cannot define "still alive" in a way that allows us to answer the question "Am I still alive?" then asking whether someone beamed through a transporter is "still alive" is pointless. Maybe they are, and maybe they aren't, but we can't tell because we have no useful way to evaluate whether the property "still alive" applies to anything.

1&2: Short answer, Hybridization. Long answer the more parts you add the more the ship becomes hybridized to such a point where it is no longer a ship but the vessel of the original's spirit. That point I think would lie above 50% where it would become more new than original. As for 2 the answer is no it is not the original because the spirit would be released from the whole and all you would have left at the end is a spirit diminished reconstruction. Mind you the pieces would still contain a fragment of spirit from the original ship, the whole would be changed/altered from the experience.

So... to take another example, let's use P. G. Wodehouse's typewriter. Wodehouse was a great humorist who used a typewriter for many decades, replacing parts of the typewriter as they broke.

By the end of his career, Wodehouse had replaced every single part of his original typewriter at least once.

How many typewriters did Wodehouse own? One typewriter that was progressively modified one bit at a time? Two typewriters (the one he started with, and the new one made entirely of replacement parts)? Some fractional number such as 2.36 (if he used enough parts over his career to assemble 2.36 complete typewriters)?

3:Believe me I would love to be able to define a soul but it is one of those things that defies definition or explanation. That said I will try and explain what my belief of soul is. A soul is the spiritual essence and representation of a person, animal, object, or place. Like the body is the manifestation of someone or some things physical essence, the soul is the collected manifestation of someone or some things spiritual essence. Both combine with the mind's perception to form our true identity.

All right, but now we're very deep in the metaphysical woods, and the wolves are starting to howl.

Invoking terms like "spiritual essence" makes it very questionable whether your arguments about identity are transferable. If I don't have the same idea about the nature of the soul that you do, then arguments that are persuasive to you might not be persuasive to me, without either of us being demonstrably wrong... because the concept of the soul is non-falsifiable.

=============

It isn't the mere interruption of consciousness that's an issue.

No, it's not, but that is part of the issue.

It's that one conscious being stops and another one takes its place after being disassembled and reassembled. I find it difficult to get around the idea that taking my body apart piece by piece won't kill me, and that putting it back together again will return "me" to consciousness, even if the thing that replaces me is completely indistinguishable from the pre-disassembly version.

I see your point. On the other hand, maybe we need to get used to the idea that for sufficiently advanced technology, certain forms of death might be reversible operations- raising the dead is already possible in some trivial senses of the word "dead," and may become easier as time goes on.

If we accept the existence of some ethereal property that defines my identity (like the aforementioned XTML tag), then yes. Taking you apart, putting all the bits back together, and giving the reassembled body a jump-start won't necessarily restore the original you. I can replace all your parts, but maybe I can't restore the XTML tag.

On the other hand, most of modern science sneers at the idea of such a thing existing, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

The big difference here is that the ship has no perceptions or consciousness to be respected. As an entity it is merely the sum of its parts, whereas a thinking person is clearly more than that.

Ah-HA! You see, that's the rub; I'm not sure that this is as clear as you think it is. Is there a part of me that does not exist in the material universe and therefore cannot be restarted when the material bits of me are replaced?

Let's extend the thought experiment: replace the Ship of Theseus with the Computer of Theseus. Or better yet, the AI-running Supercomputer of Theseus. If we replace all the physical bits of the computer, is the AI dead? If not, was the AI ever alive?

If the original AI is not dead, and I would argue that it isn't, what's the difference between the way the AI runs on a computer and the way "you" (your mind, your awareness, your consciousness, whatever) run on your brain and body?
So you are asking a question when you don't even know what the question is! [/quote]

[SCRawl]

To be fair, this is the philosophical problem raised by the Ship of Theseus, which I cited earlier. It goes like this: *snip*

The big difference here is that the ship has no perceptions or consciousness to be respected. As an entity it is merely the sum of its parts, whereas a thinking person is clearly more than that.

Huh. There is your argument - a transporter supposedly assembles you 100% like it scanned and disassembled you. If we were talking about a machine or other non-living things, it would be the same. You however apply a characteristic to a person/consciousness/identity that can't - by your definition - be recreated. Ever. This seems to be what makes you favour the kill option.

That's pretty much it, yeah.

As for the whole death part: Suppose a person dies (flatlining ECG/EEG). You hit the person repeatedly in the crotch. Due to some unforeseen events (CPR, or whatever you choose) the person is revived. It was by all definitions dead - no consciousness, no sensory observations. Is it another person, or the same?

As someone observing the situation from the outside, I would have no way of knowing the difference, so the question has no meaning for me. Indeed, the same is true for the transporter question -- the only difference would be for the individual who stepped on the transporter pad who suddenly stopped existing after he dematerialized, and he isn't talking.

To answer your question a little more meaningfully, I don't see the same limitations for your situation as I do with the person who gets disassembled and reassembled. There is no physical discontinuity -- the same structures within the brain are intact, after all, and still functional. The fact that it stopped working for a short time doesn't seem as significant to me, though I'm not exactly an expert on the physical limitations of brain survival under such circumstances.

[Simon_Jester]

Appendix to my last post:

So you are asking a question when you don't even know what the question is!

No, I'm asking a generalized question, one that I know will apply to any likely answer of my earlier questions, and that I fully intend to make specific when I get the chance. Which I started doing above.

That's why I brought up Wodehouse's Typewriter and the (hypothetical) Supercomputer of Theseus. Those are meant to probe the secondary implications. So were my comments on your belief about souls.

[Marcus Aurelius]

To answer your question a little more meaningfully, I don't see the same limitations for your situation as I do with the person who gets disassembled and reassembled. There is no physical discontinuity -- the same structures within the brain are intact, after all, and still functional. The fact that it stopped working for a short time doesn't seem as significant to me, though I'm not exactly an expert on the physical limitations of brain survival under such circumstances.

The big question here is obviously why do you think the physical discontinuity matters? All the neural connections and even chemical and electrical states are perfectly copied by the magic-tech of the transporter. No information is lost. What is so special about the particular molecules that make up the "original" that you consider the "clone" less than or somehow different from the original. Why is this situation different from the gradual replacement of molecules that is normal part of every living thing's metabolism?

[SapphireFox]

Appendix to my last post:

So you are asking a question when you don't even know what the question is!

No, I'm asking a generalized question, one that I know will apply to any likely answer of my earlier questions, and that I fully intend to make specific when I get the chance. Which I started doing above.

That's why I brought up Wodehouse's Typewriter and the (hypothetical) Supercomputer of Theseus. Those are meant to probe the secondary implications. So were my comments on your belief about souls.

Until can give specifics a question like that holds little meaning to me and until I get some specifics to respond to I can't answer that question.

SapphireFox wrote:
Appearances are just that appearances if I put on a holographic image masker and looked like someone that had just died but you didn't know he had died and taped you on the shoulder would you not think I was he? Just because a copy looks and acts like the original does not mean it's the original.
Simon_Jester wrote:
But if the copy is physically indistinguishable from the original in all ways, which is what we're looking at here... how are you to say that he's not the original? What is the difference between this person tapping you on the shoulder and the original?

If it was just you wearing an image masker, that would be easy to answer, because I could deactivate the masker and say "Ah-ha, this is not my good buddy Joe! This doesn't even look much like Joe! This is SapphireFox!" But if we're talking about a perfect duplicate, I think the question is less obvious and trivial than you make it out to be.

You appear to have completely missed the point. That something that appears to be original is not necessarily the original. Just because what appears to be your good buddy Joe doesn't mean that it is your good buddy Joe. Just because it's a duplicate don't mean that it is the original.

Then I would be happy to hear your reasoning in full.

I have been explaining it to you this whole time. The concept of "Soul Fragmentation" did not pop out of thin air.

That would depend heavily on how you went about replacing it. For example, if it had the same registration number, the same weird little marks on the interior, the same set of dents that my own car has picked up from my poor driving skills... I'd be seriously tempted to say it was my original car. If you credibly told me that you had somehow taken apart my original car and in some sense used it to assemble this new one, I'd be even more tempted.

Ultimately, I think I'd resist the temptation, though. But there's a reason for that. A car is purely a physical object, a specific combination of metals and organic substances. It has a blueprint, a physical description, but the blueprint exists purely for the sake of giving us a way to examine it.

An intelligent being is a bit more complicated. You see, my definition of "me" is such that "I" am basically a decision-making algorithm that happens to run in the brain of a large hairless ape. If you could transfer that algorithm to a new ape, then as far as I'm concerned "I" am still alive, even if the original ape has been smashed into tiny little pieces. This is because the me-algorithm is an abstraction, something that could hypothetically exist independent of the platform it happens to run on, much like any other computer program. Erasing the program from memory in one computer and reinstantiating it somewhere else doesn't destroy the program.

This is also why I'm willing to believe that there could be multiple mes (just as there is more than one of Microsoft Office, because it runs on millions of computers), or partial-mes that contain only some of the algorithm that is "me."

And in that context, the idea that transporters kill me, or that transporter-clones are not somehow "me," seems absurd. At least, it does to me.

Now you seem to be going back to the "soul is me" concept which is an unquantifiable. As for your program example it is a false premise because the original is not the one on your hard drive it is only copied from the CD you purchased, a copy is not the original. As for your idea that "you" is based on solely on an unquantifiable I (or anyone else for that matter) can't prove that you are you let alone a clone that is claiming the same thing. Are you prepared to accept that kind of consequence? That identity (as you see it) can not be proven.

[/quote]Because if we cannot define "still alive" in a way that allows us to answer the question "Am I still alive?" then asking whether someone beamed through a transporter is "still alive" is pointless. Maybe they are, and maybe they aren't, but we can't tell because we have no useful way to evaluate whether the property "still alive" applies to anything.[/quote]

Still alive is not the question, it's whether death occurs. You claim that the disintegration that anyone who is a medical professional would say is fatal is not because there is a clone produced at the end of the process. The fact of the clone is immaterial to the fact of the disintegration. Disintegration KILLS period, that the clone believes itself to be the same person that stepped onto the transporter pad holds no true bearing on this fact.

So... to take another example, let's use P. G. Wodehouse's typewriter. Wodehouse was a great humorist who used a typewriter for many decades, replacing parts of the typewriter as they broke.

By the end of his career, Wodehouse had replaced every single part of his original typewriter at least once.

How many typewriters did Wodehouse own? One typewriter that was progressively modified one bit at a time? Two typewriters (the one he started with, and the new one made entirely of replacement parts)? Some fractional number such as 2.36 (if he used enough parts over his career to assemble 2.36 complete typewriters)?

My answer still has not changed. See previous answer.

All right, but now we're very deep in the metaphysical woods, and the wolves are starting to howl.

Invoking terms like "spiritual essence" makes it very questionable whether your arguments about identity are transferable. If I don't have the same idea about the nature of the soul that you do, then arguments that are persuasive to you might not be persuasive to me, without either of us being demonstrably wrong... because the concept of the soul is non-falsifiable

Which is why I argued against that use as a definition earlier. I only described my belief in soul at YOUR behest. As for the wolves my friends don't bite... much.

[SCRawl]

If we accept the existence of some ethereal property that defines my identity (like the aforementioned XTML tag), then yes. Taking you apart, putting all the bits back together, and giving the reassembled body a jump-start won't necessarily restore the original you. I can replace all your parts, but maybe I can't restore the XTML tag.

On the other hand, most of modern science sneers at the idea of such a thing existing, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

I'm not talking about something like a soul, whatever that might be. I refer to consciousness. I have, or at least I think I have, consciousness -- I have awareness, an identity, and at least the illusion of free will. Most people will agree that this, at least, exists. If it turns out to be an illusion after all, then my point falls away, as does the position I have taken in this argument.

The big difference here is that the ship has no perceptions or consciousness to be respected. As an entity it is merely the sum of its parts, whereas a thinking person is clearly more than that.

Ah-HA! You see, that's the rub; I'm not sure that this is as clear as you think it is. Is there a part of me that does not exist in the material universe and therefore cannot be restarted when the material bits of me are replaced?

That's one of the neat mysteries of the human mind: where does it exist? If you grant that we have free will and consciousness, then it has to exist somewhere. That's what I mean by "greater than the sum of its parts", at least subjectively. (I say "subjectively" because I'm the only one to whom that consciousness is important. The guy who walks off the transporter pad is just as conscious, he just isn't me.)

Let's extend the thought experiment: replace the Ship of Theseus with the Computer of Theseus. Or better yet, the AI-running Supercomputer of Theseus. If we replace all the physical bits of the computer, is the AI dead? If not, was the AI ever alive?

If the original AI is not dead, and I would argue that it isn't, what's the difference between the way the AI runs on a computer and the way "you" (your mind, your awareness, your consciousness, whatever) run on your brain and body?

If you grant that the AI on the supercomputer was conscious, then the operation you suggest would, it seems to me, disrupt that consciousness in the same way that a transporter process would disrupt mine. The AI after the operation would still, as I suggested above, be just as conscious, but that discontinuity would have ended the being that existed before its hardware was disassembled. Everyone interacting would notice no difference. If the AI wasn't conscious, then it doesn't matter.

[SCRawl]

To answer your question a little more meaningfully, I don't see the same limitations for your situation as I do with the person who gets disassembled and reassembled. There is no physical discontinuity -- the same structures within the brain are intact, after all, and still functional. The fact that it stopped working for a short time doesn't seem as significant to me, though I'm not exactly an expert on the physical limitations of brain survival under such circumstances.

The big question here is obviously why do you think the physical discontinuity matters? All the neural connections and even chemical and electrical states are perfectly copied by the magic-tech of the transporter. No information is lost. What is so special about the particular molecules that make up the "original" that you consider the "clone" less than or somehow different from the original. Why is this situation different from the gradual replacement of molecules that is normal part of every living thing's metabolism?

According to what I've read, the copying job done by the transporters is supposedly even more detailed than what you've described: it is supposed to take everything down to their quantum states, Heisenberg be damned.

I'll try to answer your big question. As I've stated elsewhere, the copy is effectively identical to the original; it will continue to act exactly the same as the original would have. Further, I will concede that there is no difference between the way the copy and original would behave given the same stimuli. If for the purposes of an experiment, two identical people were created in the same manner as Riker was duplicated, and placed in completely identical environments with the identical stimuli, they would not be distinguishable after any length of time you care to discuss. But the copy is still just a copy. The original dies and the copy carries on in the same manner, believing itself to be the original. Stark's point seems perfectly valid to me.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm not talking about something like a soul, whatever that might be. I refer to consciousness. I have, or at least I think I have, consciousness -- I have awareness, an identity, and at least the illusion of free will. Most people will agree that this, at least, exists. If it turns out to be an illusion after all, then my point falls away, as does the position I have taken in this argument.

But is consciousness not a physical phenomenon? Is it an ethereal property, or a material property? If it is a material property, then a materially perfect duplicate should also have a perfectly duplicated consciousness. If it is an ethereal property, all bets are off, but new questions arise.

That's one of the neat mysteries of the human mind: where does it exist? If you grant that we have free will and consciousness, then it has to exist somewhere. That's what I mean by "greater than the sum of its parts", at least subjectively. (I say "subjectively" because I'm the only one to whom that consciousness is important. The guy who walks off the transporter pad is just as conscious, he just isn't me.)

Again, I'm not sure of this. I think the human mind definitely exists, as a program running on the brain-computer. But if you make a materially perfect copy of a computer, all the programs are still there on the new computer, insofar as a program exists as an abstract concept. Which is why I think my transporter-clone is me, and would still be me even if the original me had not been destroyed- again, just as there can be more than one of Microsoft Office.

If you grant that the AI on the supercomputer was conscious, then the operation you suggest would, it seems to me, disrupt that consciousness in the same way that a transporter process would disrupt mine. The AI after the operation would still, as I suggested above, be just as conscious, but that discontinuity would have ended the being that existed before its hardware was disassembled. Everyone interacting would notice no difference. If the AI wasn't conscious, then it doesn't matter.

But if interruption of consciousness is the key point that determines whether an individual is dead, then we're stuck trying to explain how sleep is different from dying. Which it is, obviously, but HOW?

============

Until can give specifics a question like that holds little meaning to me and until I get some specifics to respond to I can't answer that question.

I know. The question AS ASKED was a placeholder, a sign to "watch this space," because I would predictably have more questions. I did not intend that you to give a precise response, nor did I expect you to get indignant on the assumption that I was intending that you do so.

You appear to have completely missed the point. That something that appears to be original is not necessarily the original. Just because what appears to be your good buddy Joe doesn't mean that it is your good buddy Joe. Just because it's a duplicate don't mean that it is the original.

Of course not, but how do we distinguish between duplicates and originals when there is no testable difference? If we cannot do so, how are we justified in making positive claims about whether a given entity is a duplicate or an original?

Then I would be happy to hear your reasoning in full.

I have been explaining it to you this whole time. The concept of "Soul Fragmentation" did not pop out of thin air.

Yes, I know. I was trying to encourage you to explain, not complaining that you had not done so.

Now you seem to be going back to the "soul is me" concept which is an unquantifiable.

You talk about souls even more than I do; I question the proposition that you are in a good position to object this way. I can at least hope to quantify "me-the-algorithm," because such an algorithm could theoretically be written out in terms of, say, programming language. In principle.

As for your idea that "you" is based on solely on an unquantifiable I (or anyone else for that matter) can't prove that you are you let alone a clone that is claiming the same thing. Are you prepared to accept that kind of consequence? That identity (as you see it) can not be proven.

On the contrary. I am me and the clone is me. Of course, we will tend to diverge over time, until we are different enough that we can no longer both be said to be the same "me," but that will take a while.

"Me-ness" isn't necessarily a property that must be applied to one and only one entity, not as far as I'm concerned.

Still alive is not the question, it's whether death occurs. You claim that the disintegration that anyone who is a medical professional would say is fatal is not because there is a clone produced at the end of the process. The fact of the clone is immaterial to the fact of the disintegration. Disintegration KILLS period, that the clone believes itself to be the same person that stepped onto the transporter pad holds no true bearing on this fact.

Since "still alive" is the precise inverse of "is dead," they're the same question. If the answer to "Is X still alive?" is "yes," the answer to "Is X dead?" is "no," and vice versa.

Disintegration kills, yes. Why can't reintegration un-kill? Imagine the transporter hiccuped and reassembled you from the same atoms you were originally made of, in a precise reversal of the process that killed you down to the subatomic level. What part of you has not been restored, that you can say you are now "dead" when you were previously "alive?"

My answer still has not changed. See previous answer.

So... Wodehouse owned two typewriters? Or could Wodehouse have owned a non-integer number of typewriters?

Which is why I argued against that use as a definition earlier. I only described my belief in soul at YOUR behest.

You invoked it for your own argument; I think I have a right to ask you to define your own terms.

[SCRawl]

I'm not talking about something like a soul, whatever that might be. I refer to consciousness. I have, or at least I think I have, consciousness -- I have awareness, an identity, and at least the illusion of free will. Most people will agree that this, at least, exists. If it turns out to be an illusion after all, then my point falls away, as does the position I have taken in this argument.

But is consciousness not a physical phenomenon? Is it an ethereal property, or a material property? If it is a material property, then a materially perfect duplicate should also have a perfectly duplicated consciousness. If it is an ethereal property, all bets are off, but new questions arise.

Better minds than mine have asked the question, and have come up empty. It seems to be an emergent property of sufficiently complex brains. Anyways -- yeah, broken record, I know -- I'm not saying that the copy isn't just as conscious as the original. It's just that it's a copy. Stark's thought experiment rings true for me.

That's one of the neat mysteries of the human mind: where does it exist? If you grant that we have free will and consciousness, then it has to exist somewhere. That's what I mean by "greater than the sum of its parts", at least subjectively. (I say "subjectively" because I'm the only one to whom that consciousness is important. The guy who walks off the transporter pad is just as conscious, he just isn't me.)

Again, I'm not sure of this. I think the human mind definitely exists, as a program running on the brain-computer. But if you make a materially perfect copy of a computer, all the programs are still there on the new computer, insofar as a program exists as an abstract concept. Which is why I think my transporter-clone is me, and would still be me even if the original me had not been destroyed- again, just as there can be more than one of Microsoft Office.

But a piece of software like Office can't think -- it can only execute instructions. And it still doesn't invalidate the idea that the copy is still just a copy. The software that runs on the hardware inside my skull effectively boils down to the same thing, but I'd like to think that there's more to it than that, since I seem to have free will and self awareness.

If there's a transporter accident causing -- let's say me, for the sake of argument -- to both re-materialize at my destination and remain on the transporter pad, then are both "me"? If one of them subsequently dies, then is anything lost?

If you grant that the AI on the supercomputer was conscious, then the operation you suggest would, it seems to me, disrupt that consciousness in the same way that a transporter process would disrupt mine. The AI after the operation would still, as I suggested above, be just as conscious, but that discontinuity would have ended the being that existed before its hardware was disassembled. Everyone interacting would notice no difference. If the AI wasn't conscious, then it doesn't matter.

But if interruption of consciousness is the key point that determines whether an individual is dead, then we're stuck trying to explain how sleep is different from dying. Which it is, obviously, but HOW?

We're using different definitions of "conscious" in this case. As someone else pointed out earlier, the sleeping person's brain is still functioning, is still continuously self aware. The fact that a subset of brain functions are temporarily suspended for maintenance purposes does not mean that the system has completely stopped.

(By the way: careful with the quote tags next time, please.)

[Simon_Jester]

Better minds than mine have asked the question, and have come up empty. It seems to be an emergent property of sufficiently complex brains. Anyways -- yeah, broken record, I know -- I'm not saying that the copy isn't just as conscious as the original. It's just that it's a copy. Stark's thought experiment rings true for me.

I do understand the reasoning, and as long as we're breaking records, I'd just like to reiterate my reasoning in simplest form:

If a mind identical to mine emerges from a process, in a body identical to mine, I know of no way to say with confidence that the product of the process is not "me." I agree that a transporter that disintegrates me kills me, but since the process is by all appearances perfectly reversible (since it reintegrates... someone identical to me on the other end), I see no reason to assume that the transporter cannot equally well un-kill me, thus bringing the original me back to life.

Normally, of course, disintegration is not survivable and you can't bring people back from the ashes... but that's the difference between real life and Star Trek, apparently.

But a piece of software like Office can't think -- it can only execute instructions. And it still doesn't invalidate the idea that the copy is still just a copy. The software that runs on the hardware inside my skull effectively boils down to the same thing, but I'd like to think that there's more to it than that, since I seem to have free will and self awareness.

Why can't a sufficiently complicated program have free will and self awareness, though, assuming we use reasonable definitions of those terms that are consistent with the observed nature of the universe?

If there's a transporter accident causing -- let's say me, for the sake of argument -- to both re-materialize at my destination and remain on the transporter pad, then are both "me"? If one of them subsequently dies, then is anything lost?

I would argue that they are both "you," and that if one of them dies, one of "you" is lost. There's another you, a slightly different version of you, but a you still died. Just as if I destroy a computer running Microsoft Word, a Microsoft Word is gone, but the program Microsoft Word still exists, both as an abstract entity and in millions of instances running on computers around the world.

We're using different definitions of "conscious" in this case. As someone else pointed out earlier, the sleeping person's brain is still functioning, is still continuously self aware. The fact that a subset of brain functions are temporarily suspended for maintenance purposes does not mean that the system has completely stopped.

(By the way: careful with the quote tags next time, please.)

Sorry. I'm usually better than that.

But I question whether a sleeping brain is truly self-aware (except during dreams). It responds to stimuli, yes, but so does an amoeba. Amoebas are not normally considered to be self-aware, nor are some multicelled organisms with actual brains (like ants). The fact that there are neurons in your skull that are engaged in electrical activity does not mean that your "consciousness" is proceeding normally.