>>73726
Well, yes, they are two different people. From the moment that the second E is created on Uranus, his experiences diverge from those of the E who remained on Earth, making them distinct individuals.

If I was the E on Earth, I'd at least be happy that my clone would still be able to do whatever I would have done if I'd continued my life, but I wouldn't exactly be thrilled about being about to die, either. It'd be a pretty weird feeling. Like leaving your legacy to someone else, I guess, except the "someone else" is basically yourself.

With this teleporter you're effectively murdering and reproducing someone every time you use it on account of stream of consciousness disjunction. E should be more horrified about his choice to use it than the existence of a nearly-identical clone.

>>73727
A rather optimistic attitude towards this situation, unlike Mr Horrifying below you. If you could extend your life span through this method of replicating yourself while the original "dies" physically, would you agree to this method?

>>73732
Well, in practice, I would be extremely hesitant about using a device of this nature because I'd be paranoid that something might go horribly wrong with it (and really, there's potential here for much worse things to happen than the fault that occurred in your scenario). However convinced the manufacturers might be that it's totally safe, people are fallible and I don't think I would be willing to put enough trust in them to go through with something of this magnitude.

However, in a hypothetical situation where I could somehow have 100% confidence that the machine works perfectly and with no margin for error, I wouldn't be opposed to the method on principle, no. I don't consider "who I am" to be confined by my physical body, and I think that would stay constant however completely my physical form were destroyed and reconstructed. I'm not sure that I'd actually want to extend my lifespan, though, but that's a whole different issue. Certainly, if I had something that I particularly needed to achieve and I knew that I wouldn't be able to do it in my natural lifespan, I might consider something like this.

Last edited at 13/09/21(Sat)09:02:28

>In terms of perspective, E will only experience falling into a deep sleep on Earth before waking up on Uranus when the body is recreated.

You guys are probably going to bash me for this, but I disagree.
From original E perspective he just die and nothing else. New E has the perspective of just have falling into deep sleep for a while before waking up on Uranus. Teleporting is effectively killing yourself and letting someone else who thinks he's you stays with your job.

>>73735
It's an interesting point, but I don't think that's quite right. The original E's perspective ends when he uses the machine. He doesn't experience dying because death ends experience. From that point, the only E that exists is the second one. Therefore, the only E that has a perspective experiences the perspective of having fallen into a deep sleep and then woken up on Uranus. The original E isn't really relevant since he doesn't actually exist any more after he uses the teleporter.

So, one E loses all consciousness, and the other is effectively the exact same person as the one who disappeared. Yes, it's technically just an illusion of continuity, but the illusion is so complete that for practical purposes it might as well actually be true.

>>73736
Practical purposes? Maybe, but as you say it is only an illusion. The point is that no matter how you try see it, E dies as soon he gets into the machine.
I would never use a machine like this because it would kill me. You get in, and you never wake up.

>>73737
Well, yes, he does die. Dying itself isn't inherently a bad thing, though, and this particular case has literally none of the negatives that normal death has. Sure, you get in and you never wake up, but it's not like you have any consciousness to be able to be aware of that. Is dying really a negative in and of itself, if the new version of you still ends up doing exactly the same things you would have done had you continued to live? Neither you nor anyone else really experiences any concrete negative consequences at all from this hypothetical variation of death.

Last edited at 13/09/21(Sat)13:05:39

>>73738
Dying is not a bad thing? Every good thing (or bad) we experience is possible because being alive. Wherever your new "you" fulfill your dreams or not should be irrelevant to you.

Sorry if I'm being too pushy with this argument, but I just can't see any difference between the first and the second scenario with the teleporter, except of course, in the latter you probably suffer a more painful dead.

lol u said anus xD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdxucpPq6Lc

are you guys talking about this

This is ultimately a fancier variant of the Ship of Theseus problem, which is only a problem inasmuch as it leads us to question the very nature of authenticity. A human body isn't comparable to the Ship of Theseus though; there is a very high chance that most or all of your cells are different than they were when you were born. Having all of your cells replaced with a bunch of new ones instantaneously shouldn't matter. There is nothing inherently "you" about the cells that comprise you, just their composition.

But I think the real question people are struggling with in this sort of example is one of consciousness and self. But we have to ask: What are "you?" Are you really anything more than a perception of continuous consciousness? Are you the same person you were 5 years ago? 10 years ago? Do you have the same desires and thoughts? Is the experience useless to you if it's nothing more than an implanted memory that never happened? How can you be sure your memories aren't? What if you got a traumatic head injury like Phineas Gage, whom friends said acted like a different man afterward?

My argument here would be that E-Prime and E-Uranus are different people, but both are E and indeed both were the same E up until the moment both regained (or gained) consciousness. Same memories, same pattern, same existence up to that point so far as their consciousness is concerned. After that point, there are now two people, one of whom is on Earth and has a fatal condition and another who is on Uranus and does not. Giving it any more thought than that necessitates involving unprovable entities. We can demonstrably prove there are two Es, but they diverge in consciousness thereafter and become distinct individuals. Experience of consciousness determines sense of self. You are "yourself" only inasmuch as you appear to think you are.

The only reason this is weird to you is because it sounds weird when you make a brain teaser out of it, in much the same way being afraid of a teleporter sounds weird to someone who isn't used to it. Yes, it kills you and reconstitutes you physically in another location. What of it? You don't notice; even if you convince yourself that the duplicate isn't you, the "you" that emerges from the device will be wrestling with the exact same doubt "you" were having, so how is it not you?

Something vastly weirder happens to you every night. If you had never slept you would probably be as terrified of losing consciousness and having your brain go into a weird scrambly subconscious mess. It's not possible for you to know that someone isn't killing you and copying your brain into a new body every night, or that your brain isn't wiping itself clean and reconstructing itself. But we all sleep and we don't have these concerns, and even if we did there's nothing we can do about it.

So take a deep breath and stop worrying about it.

>>73743

This has nothing to do with the ship of theseus problem since the materials of the two people have nothing to do with each other, only the information about the structure. You do notice being killed but you don't notice being reconstituted because that copy is a distinct instance of yourself and your consciousness doesn't magically transfer to it. Even if sleep turned out to be the same it'd just mean that death in general is extremely commonplace, not that it's not something to worry about.

>>73738
It's not a hypothetical variant of death, it's just regular death but a clone pops out afterwards.
>and this particular case has literally none of the negatives that normal death has.
You missed the somewhat important part where this only applies to everyone except the guy who just exploded in the teleporter. From your perspective, you've just committed suicide. Congratulations, you are dead. Very much and truly so.
It's only to everyone besides yourself that someone who looks and acts exactly like you continues to exist.

If you ask me, I wouldn't ever use the teleporter in the first place. I don't really feel like killing myself every time I want to get from point A to B, no matter how convenient it may be in video games where you just revive at the church or in front of the king whenever you die.
On the other hand, if other people wanted to use it, I'd say "go right ahead, makes no difference to me". It'd be a ridiculously useful mode of transport for objects or even people, so I say go ahead and build thousands of the things; just don't ever put me anywhere near one of them.

Not to mention the completion of such a machine would first require the technology for flawlessly perfect and instantaneous cloning, which if you ask me would be a much more impressive and scientifically beneficial thing than simply being able to move from one place to another very quickly.

>>73744
It's similar to the objection being made that the other being isn't you, in the same sense a fully-replaced ship is no longer the same ship. Except it is, because there's continuity. For a vessel it's the continuity of identification; for an individual it's the appearance of continuity of consciousness, which is philosophically no different from actual continuity of consciousness.

>>73745
There is no "from your perspective" of the dead original, because they're dead and their perspective ceases at the exact moment the new perspective resumes. The only way perspective can continue is in the case of the copying variant, which simply produces two "yous" that diverge immediately into two distinct individuals who share the same history.

In the case of the transportation instead of duplication, "you" continue to exist without noticing any difference. The appearance of continuity is impossible to notice, only to rationalize intellectually. It is true that the individual biological construct that is your original goes in and dies, but that doesn't matter. "You" are your consciousness. If you suffered irreversible amnesia, you wouldn't be "you" anymore; the loss of your consciousness is functionally equivalent to death. But if you woke up one day in a robot body, you'd probably argue that you were "still you," even though clearly something happened to your biological body. You can replace what constitutes you as long as your consciousness believes it remains the same.

After all, there's no way to know you weren't created by a duplication process this morning that destroyed the body that went to sleep in your best last night. There's no way to know the universe existed five minutes ago. "You" are perception and consciousness, and as long as a "you" continues to believe this, "you" are alive. The "you" that dies doesn't notice this because it no longer has consciousness. There's really no ethical issue as long as you're doing it voluntarily.

Your argument "it's only to everyone besides yourself that someone who looks and acts exactly like you continues to exist" is meritless. "Yourself" is now the duplicate, who believes himself to be you and in every identifiable way is you. The first "you" doesn't exist. So everyone who does exist agrees the duplicate is you, including the duplicate. And they're right! You're arguing against the existence of an illusion that is already in place.