Bigthink - Idea Comments Feed

Comment on: If a person was teleported, is that person the same person, or a clone?

Bigthink — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 01:14:22 +0100

By the way you can say absolutly whatever you want reguardless of the section. Iwas simply making a distiction between our lines of thought not saying that you are going in the wrong direction. Soplease my friend state whatever is on your mind

Comment on: If a person was teleported, is that person the same person, or a clone?

Bigthink — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 01:12:38 +0100

Ya this is the science section but the question i find relates more to personal identity then the posibilities of teleportation. Becaue it asks would it be you? Perhaps im simply overphilosophising the wuestion and it was meant in a scientific way i just wanted to expres my view bcause this is one of my favorite topics.

Comment on: If a person was teleported, is that person the same person, or a clone?

Bigthink — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:48:09 +0100

Skeptic -- I think you have summed up the different approaches quite well. But hey... this is the "Space & Time" playground, so I should be allowed my rant.

Turning slightly philosophical, I go back to my original suggestion that you would not be "you", but rather, A REPLICANT. Because the original "you" might be destroyed in the process, I don't think it naturally follows that the process pops "you" out the other end.

[ Footnote: I feel more comfortable arguing the scientific case ]

Comment on: If a person was teleported, is that person the same person, or a clone?

Bigthink — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 23:16:19 +0100

I get your meaning cosmos. IT seems to me we are taling about slightly diferent things, you are talking about science and what can survive us being reconstructed from diferent atoms acording to a patern and what cant. Im talking more about the phylosophy of human identity.

Here is how ive read this same question put. You catch god on her good day and she grants you one wish. You think about it and decide that you want to see the world in 3000 years. She sayos ok, you go on about living your life die 3000 years passes. God no gathers up some material and rebuilds you is it you? What would be nessasary for it to be you.

I think this way of puting the question takes it a bit out of the scientific posibility, and into the relm of philosophy. Because if we supose an allmighty being that can reconstruct aything all your emotions and memories would be intact.

Comment on: If a person was teleported, is that person the same person, or a clone?

Bigthink — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:22:38 +0100

Sorry Skeptic -- I've become a victim of the irreversible SEND-button. Please replace "replacement" with "replication" and this should better represent what you meant.

Better restate this - it's getting a bit lost...

If memory is contained within a physical-arrangement of atoms, then it would be valid to assume this memory would travel with the transportee.

If memory goes along for the ride, are emotions embedded in there as well? Consider these emotions as a STATE, much the same as sub-atomic particles have spin. I'm probably posing more questions than proposing answers, but that may not be totally unexpected in a forum like this.

Comment on: If a person was teleported, is that person the same person, or a clone?

Bigthink — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:28:38 +0100

I tend to thinc that ther is no me, i am a bunch of particles that replace themselves acording to a code, i am if you will a matrix, easily econstructable given such percice technology.

Comment on: If a person was teleported, is that person the same person, or a clone?

Bigthink — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 20:25:49 +0100

I did not say replacement of ataoms would destroy memory. Memory, if it is posible to reconstruct us precicly would be intact.

The question i was rasing is weather its out memory, or our matter or something elese that defines who we are.

Amnesia may or may not be the change of state we can ot et say because we have not defined state thats what the question posed is. If our state or identity lies in our memories or experiences then amnesia is a change of state. If it lies in matter then replacement of mater is a change of state.

Remember what im propossing is completly hypothetical, so lets asume that a machine can acuratly reconstruct your atoms with all the memories emotions and inclinations intact. Would it still be you?

Comment on: If a person was teleported, is that person the same person, or a clone?

Bigthink — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 07:10:59 +0100

For me, this is probably the most thought-provoking stuff I've come across in BigThink, and I've been around a bit.

Cannot agree with Skeptic that the replacement of all our atoms would destroy our memory - take the case of digital-computers where the STATE can be replicated by an arrangement of atoms.

In addition, amnesia is a loss of contact with information, not a change-of-state [ and by inference, a change of person ].

Biological-science is not yet at the point where it can describe the process in the brain relating to feelings and emotions. When it can, we will be better placed to answer the question of whether or not this information would survive a teleportation.

Comment on: If a person was teleported, is that person the same person, or a clone?

Bigthink — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 05:42:17 +0100

This my friends is a question of personal identity. What is it that makes us us. Does the physical matter that makes us up determine our personal identity. Is it our memories and experiences. Or is it something called a soul. Or perhaps there is no such thing as personal identity, we are just atoms put togather in a patern and the patern may be recreated.

In a respoce to the first, our bodies rebuild cells all the time out of foreighn matter that enters our bodies. Hence the matter that one was morn containing is complelty replaced by the time he dies. That means personal identity can not lie in physical matter.

Memories and experiences? Perhaps however that would mean that a man with amnesia, is no longer the same person.

Dont have much to say about the soul argument. I think its self explainable.

And finally that we are just a patern of atoms that can be recreated with no concequence, qand personal identety is a myth.

That last one is what im inclined to think (not by any means sure of). Ironically enough i said i dodescribe myself whyle dnying that there is such thing as i.

Comment on: If a person was teleported, is that person the same person, or a clone?

Bigthink — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 03:00:13 +0100

Something else keeps me awake at night...

Where do we end up in an attempt to teleport beyond the range the equipment?

Comment on: If a person was teleported, is that person the same person, or a clone?

Bigthink — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 02:28:16 +0100

This is an uncomfortably cheesy question that depends on what you mean by teleportation. Reading the quantum state of an atom INESCAPABLY changes the state of that atom to the effect that reading all the information stored in my body is not physically possible. Assuming a molecular copy (disregarding atomic states) of my body was produced, complete with the quaternary structure of all of my proteins still intact, I should imagine it would be a lifeless corpse that resembled me down to the finest detail. The smallest mis-arrangement of any ions would cause irreparable damage to the tissue they are a part of. Due to quantum limitations, this would leave all vital organs, especially the brain, dead on arrival.

The "clone" distinction is meaningless here.

Comment on: If a person was teleported, is that person the same person, or a clone?

Bigthink — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 01:09:40 +0100

Even though the teleportation of humans may forever remain out of reach [ except as a method of saving cemetery-space ], it is extremely interesting to contemplate how the more-obscure quantities might be retained - memory, emotions, etc. This really gets to the heart of what might make us special [ absolutely no religious-connotation intended ].

Comment on: If a person was teleported, is that person the same person, or a clone?

Bigthink — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 00:05:55 +0100

Drex, teleportation is in fact a reality, as in June 2002 the Australian National University successfully achieved a quantum teleportation of a laser beam. In October 2006 The University of Copenhagen successfully teleported a microscopic object containing trillions of atoms. It was teleported half a meter.

This isn't a fictional science, its already been tested and proven in reality, today, here and now.

Comment on: If a person was teleported, is that person the same person, or a clone?

Bigthink — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 23:50:24 +0100

Why are we thinking that the concept of teleportation is a reality? How can this purely fictional act be related in any way to the act of suicide? I'm just not understanding the thought process here..

Comment on: If a person was teleported, is that person the same person, or a clone?

Bigthink — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 22:45:32 +0100

I don't believe the result would be the original-person or a clone. It would be a REPLICANT.