If a person is cloned by a transporter there are two of that person
Yes, thank you! Finally! That’s what I’ve been trying to explain this entire time!
Well you can fuck yourself if it pleases.
That’s not very nice, and it makes me sad that you resort to insults rather than more sincere arguments in the face of criticism. And just when we were getting somewhere. Oh well, have a nice day.
I could dispute that
Yeah, well, in Strange New Worlds the doctor’s daughter isn’t even aware she’s being put through a transporter until he tells her, so… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (also, spoiler warning)
starts up again, indistinguishable from before
It is distinguishable by its history, which is known. Understanding that two things that are identical are still two different things and not the same thing seems like a very basic cognitive ability developed pretty early in childhood, and I should probably remember what the technical term for it is, I’m sure there is one. It’s also universally understood and accepted that genuine things are more valuable than their replicas, even if the replicas are so good that their lack of documented history is the only thing that distinguishes them from their genuine models. (This is why genuine antiques with known provenance are far more expensive than even perfect fakes.) As such, I find it very difficult to believe you’re arguing in good faith here.
with every right to call itself “me”.
Oh really? Okay, another thought experiment: Let’s say someone creates a perfect clone of you. Does that clone now have rights to your property? Is it okay if he/she sleeps with your spouse?
I would love my children if they suddenly were twins.
But would you be okay with your child being taken away and replaced with a duplicate? If you’re being honest, you should be. Nothing’s changed from your point of view, it’s the same person. Right?
If I copy information from one substrate to another, and do so with no changes, I don’t have any new information.
But you have a different instance of it. If there were no distinction, copyright wouldn’t exist.
The pattern buffer serves the same function of redundancy.
No, because people are not conscious in the pattern buffer.
The pattern of synapse connections firing is what thinks it’s “you” and the transport duly preserves that pattern.
Yes, but consciousness is not a pattern, it’s an activity, and that activity gets interrupted. Saying that the consciousness continues is like saying that an aircraft that made a flight, landed, and then made another flight really only made one continuous flight. It’s the activity that we’re talking about, and the interruption divides that activity into two distinct instances, even though it’s the same object performing them.
If a loved one took a transporter trip I’d love them just the same when they got back though.
That’s not what I asked. The transporter destroys the original person, which makes it easy to pretend that the clone is that person. The point of my question is that you know that the original is still around somewhere out there. So I ask again: Would you be okay with your loved one being replaced by a perfect clone that looks and acts exactly the same, identical down to the last atom, while knowing that the original still exists elsewhere? Or would you consider that new version to be an impostor?
how does one know that the duplicate doesn’t somehow inherit the original consciousness, and some new one with the memories and personality of it doesn’t get immediately generated in the original body?
Consciousness is brain activity. New brain = new activity = new consciousness.
Yup, pretty much. It’s a shame Star Trek recognizes and points out this problem but then chickens out of it actually having any consequences.
If a consciousness thinks it’s continuous that consciousness is continuous.
No, it’s simply mistaken.
The substrate your consciousness dances on also changes all the time. Molecules arranged around the galaxy or cells dying and being replaced pose the exact same quandary, and the solution to both would seem to be “who cares”?
The difference is that molecules and cells don’t all disappear at once. Consciousness is brain activity, and the brain has redundancy that allows that activity to continue uninterrupted even while small parts are being swapped out. When you destroy the whole thing, though, the activity stops.
The arrangement of cells and neurons known as “You” goes in, the arrangement of cells and neurons known as “You” comes out.
Would you be okay with your child (or some other loved one) being forcibly taken away and replaced with a perfect clone? If what you’re saying is true, you should be, since according to you they’re not just a copy, they’re literally the same person.
Easy, build the clone without destroying the original, then test if they share perceptions and memories. Show one a playing card and ask the other what card it was or something. Proving that two people don’t have the same consciousness is pretty trivial, and I don’t know of any philosophical schools that would dispute that.
Yes, but having a baby doesn’t exculpate you of murder. It doesn’t cancel out.