Beam me up; Transporters, sleep and death

[spamandham]

Suppose the old Star Trek style transporters were real. You could step onto a platform, have your entire body disassembled even converting the individual atoms into energy and then reassembled perfectly somewhere else.

 

Would it be you that got reassembled, or would you in fact cease to exist as you were dissasembled, and a new person, who happens to share the same physique and memories came into existence?

 

Let's try another thought experiment to answer that. Suppose instead of dissasembling you, you were merely scanned, and an exact replica of you (within the bounds of Heisenberg) was put together. That person would be you from the perspective of anyone else, but clearly not from your perspective. It would be a different person. Ok, so they are formed from different atoms, is that what makes them a unique different person?

 

Experiment three. You enter the same dissasembler device, but instead of taking you apart converting your atoms to energy and then back again, it merely replaces the atoms in your existing body 1 at a time. Let's say it takes about 8 hours to replace every single atom in your body. At no time do you notice anything is happening, and from your perspective your consciousness never went out, yet when it's done, not a single atom in your body remains the same as before you entered. You are now the replica of yourself, no different than in the previous thought experiment, except for one thing, your consciousness never went out.

 

So the key to what is you is not the sum of your atomic makeup, that could be completely changed out and you would still exist, or even your memories, those could be exactly replicated elsewhere and it wouldn't be you. You are the continuity of your consciousness.

 

The you that is reading this will die tonight when you go to sleep. You will not be the one who wakes up tomorrow, that will be someone else who happens to share your memories and physical makeup.

 

Pleasant dreams.

[Ouroboros]

I have thought that same things, but you put it in a very clear and short way. Neat.

 

Sometimes I go to bed and think exactly that, I'm dying every night, to be born into a new day tomorrow.

[Amethyst]

This is an interesting idea and one I've thought about before. I think that you would be an empty shell, and they'd have to retrain you like someone with dementia or amnesia.

 

So the key to what is you is not the sum of your atomic makeup, that could be completely changed out and you would still exist, or even your memories, those could be exactly replicated elsewhere and it wouldn't be you. You are the continuity of your consciousness.

 

Interesting thought. But I think that as long as our bodies are intact, our memories are stored in our brains on a long-term basis. It's when you start taking apart those brains, molecule by molecule, that they would probably be erased. But that's just a conjecture.

 

The beauty of science fiction is that part of it can be fiction. It doesn't have to be *exactly* what would happen in real life, but it does have to be believable and have some basis in reality.

[Caretaker]

Let's try another thought experiment to answer that.  Suppose instead of dissasembling you, you were merely scanned, and an exact replica of you (within the bounds of Heisenberg) was put together.  That person would be you from the perspective of anyone else, but clearly not from your perspective.  It would be a different person.  Ok, so they are formed from different atoms, is that what makes them a unique different person?

Perhaps you should watch Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Second Chances"

[Antihero]

Suppose the old Star Trek style transporters were real.  You could step onto a platform, have your entire body disassembled even converting the individual atoms into energy and then reassembled perfectly somewhere else.

 

Would it be you that got reassembled, or would you in fact cease to exist as you were dissasembled, and a new person, who happens to share the same physique and memories came into existence?

 

Let's try another thought experiment to answer that.  Suppose instead of dissasembling you, you were merely scanned, and an exact replica of you (within the bounds of Heisenberg) was put together.  That person would be you from the perspective of anyone else, but clearly not from your perspective.  It would be a different person.  Ok, so they are formed from different atoms, is that what makes them a unique different person?

 

Experiment three.  You enter the same dissasembler device, but instead of taking you apart converting your atoms to energy and then back again, it merely replaces the atoms in your existing body 1 at a time.  Let's say it takes about 8 hours to replace every single atom in your body.  At no time do you notice anything is happening, and from your perspective your consciousness never went out, yet when it's done, not a single atom in your body remains the same as before you entered.  You are now the replica of yourself, no different than in the previous thought experiment, except for one thing, your consciousness never went out.

 

So the key to what is you is not the sum of your atomic makeup, that could be completely changed out and you would still exist, or even your memories, those could be exactly replicated elsewhere and it wouldn't be you.  You are the continuity of your consciousness.

 

The you that is reading this will die tonight when you go to sleep.  You will not be the one who wakes up tomorrow, that will be someone else who happens to share your memories and physical makeup.

 

Pleasant dreams.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I don't really find this worrying. I am not the me I was two years, or even two seconds ago. What I am is me right now in the present. I could think of me as new person another step along the (continuous?) timeline from the previous me one step back, or I could group all the remembered "me's" into some set and calling it "me", but all I have of the past me's is my memories, which exist in the present (and for all I know, they were created, along with everything else, one yoctosecond [thanks wikipedia] or less ago). I don't think the key to a personality is even a continuity of consciousness, but simply present-time existence.

[Amethyst]

I don't think the key to a personality is even a continuity of consciousness, but simply present-time existence.

 

But if this were entirely true, events that happened in your childhood wouldn't influence your personality. Only what was happening right now would.

[Isak The Newt]

So... We are just computers, and our minds are just disks... It's history is recorded onto it, and it is kept, even when shut off... and when needed can be erased... so teleportation can be set up, that our mind is transported to a different you as physical being, or we could just evolve and learned to manifest corporeals of ourselfs then move around and turn back into a physical being

 

we are robots, created to destroy planets!!!! err... we are really effective... arent we?

[Antihero]

But if this were entirely true, events that happened in your childhood wouldn't influence your personality.  Only what was happening right now would.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

But our memories are happening right now. The way I see it, all of our past, childhood included, is in the present.

[spamandham]

She turned me into a newt...

 

Welcome to xX Isak the Newt! If you haven't figured it out yet, my screen name is another python reference.

[spamandham]

But our memories are happening right now.  The way I see it, all of our past, childhood included, is in the present.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I just finished reading "A Brief History of Time" in full (finally). As I was reading about the sum over all histories hypothesis, it finally started to sink in.

 

There are two ideas working together. One is that all possibilities are in some sense actual. Thus, since maximum order is possible, it is actual in some sense. Yet, there are perhaps an unbounded number of non-maximally ordered states for the universe. In some sense each of these exists. Those that are within Plancks constants of eachother sum up to yield a single identifiable history for that infinite subset of states.

 

What is left is all possible states within uncertainty principles. Time is an illusion going from that single state of maximum order towrad the sum over histories of maximum disorder.

 

Perhaps one day science will show that I'm full of crap.

[Isak The Newt]

hahaha, i just noticed that! omg lol, i dont like spam, spam spam spam!

[Amethyst]

But our memories are happening right now. The way I see it, all of our past, childhood included, is in the present.

 

Our memories happen when we recall them, much like a computer retrieves a file. But that doesn't mean you saved that file on the computer right that second. I think there has to be another explanation. Time isn't just the present, you still have the past and present. It may not be entirely linear (there's no proof that it is, it's just the way we think of it), but some things have to happen before other things do.

 

There are two ideas working together. One is that all possibilities are in some sense actual. Thus, since maximum order is possible, it is actual in some sense. Yet, there are perhaps an unbounded number of non-maximally ordered states for the universe. In some sense each of these exists. Those that are within Plancks constants of eachother sum up to yield a single identifiable history for that infinite subset of states.

 

This makes some sense, but they're still only theories.

[Antihero]

Our memories happen when we recall them, much like a computer retrieves a file.  But that doesn't mean you saved that file on the computer right that second.  I think there has to be another explanation.  Time isn't just the present, you still have the past and present.  It may not be entirely linear (there's no proof that it is, it's just the way we think of it), but some things have to happen before other things do. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

In relation to the thought experiment on who is the person coming out of the teleporter, having be just right that second assembled - my point of view is that it is the same person that went in at the other end. Though in the case of the teleported person not being disassembled at the entrance...

 

I'm wrong. The problem being, I think, is that I've tried to invent some ego, some "me", while limiting existence to the present. Now that I think about it, either ego is an illusion, everything exists and relates only to the present, and teleporting a human is just the same as teleporting a rock - there is no conflict with who is at the other end, because it's all just a jumble of matter. Or existence is related to time, continuance etc - the sort of stuff said before me. I still have an inkling that it is the former though.

[TruthWarrior]

There was a scene in one of the Star Trek movies where the transporter screwed up that really freaked me out. I forgot which one it was though.

[Amethyst]

There was a scene in one of the Star Trek movies where the transporter screwed up that really freaked me out. I forgot which one it was though.

 

Transporter screw-up plots are one of the classic Trek cliche's.

 

Mirror, mirror did it best, IMHO.

[Caretaker]

There was a scene in one of the Star Trek movies where the transporter screwed up that really freaked me out. I forgot which one it was though. 

If you are referring to actually killing off characters, this was in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Xonak and some other crewman failed to rematerialize correctly.

 

"Enterprise, what we got back didn't live long. Fortunately."

[spamandham]

If you are referring to actually killing off characters, this was in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Xonak and some other crewman failed to rematerialize correctly.

 

"Enterprise, what we got back didn't live long. Fortunately."

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Even worse is if you get stuck in the transporter buffer and emerge ~20 years later having aged ~20 years.