Forums → WEPR → Thought Experiment
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This is a bit long, but it's just fun to think about these sort of things. Mind you, this is a hypothetical situation and is only meant for a discussion. It is possible that there is no right answer here. Just an opinion.
For Stelios, the teletransporter is the only way to travel. Previously it took months to get from Earth to Mars, confined to a cramped spacecraft with a far from perfect safety record. Stelios' TeletransportExpress changed all that. Now the trip takes just minutes, and so far it has been 100% safe.
However, now he is facing a lawsuit from a disgruntled customer who is claiming the company actually killed him. His argument is simple: the teletransporter works by scanning your brain and body cell by cell, destroying them, beaming the information to Mars and reconstructing you there. Although the person on Mars looks, feels and thinks just like a person who has been sent to sleep and zapped across space,the claimant argues that what actually happens is that you are murdered and replaced by a clone.
To Stelios, this sounds absurd. After all, he has taken the teletransporter trip dozens of times, and he doesn't feel dead. Indeed, how can the claimant seriously believe that he has been killed by the process when he is clearly able to take the case to court?
Still, as Stelios entered the teletransporter booth once again and prepared to press the button that would begin to dismantle him, he did, for a second, wonder whether he was about to commit suicide.
- 43 Replies
@ original post:
I'm not good with hypotheticals and modal phil. but my main issue is that of experiential consistency/synchronicity. This experiment assumes a certain kind of consistency but does not actually make any suggestions as to whether that person who is allegedly 'killed/not killed', well, "inhabits" that same consciousness so to speak.
I don't really care about the definitions here, as it comes down to the same thing. Simplistically speaking, for the sake of this argument, if I step into that teleporter and it 'kills' me, then I no longer experience anything thereafter and that person that walks out on the other end may as well be another being.
The real problem is that this kind of argument cannot be verified without my actually trying this myself (hence experiential). What a quandrary.
So, this was in a movie you say? Or just a train of thought? Because this sounds interesting.
I don't think he would be dead if he could come back to that original body, after all, he is just sleeping right? Just takes a scan of the cells.
I think that the essence of a human being lies in his brain. The personality of said person stepping into the transporter and the memories. If those two things remain the same and there are no physical differences then i wouldnt count it as someone dying unless there was a change in the way the person thought or acted.
What about alleged memory of other body parts? I have seen multiple reports of transplant patients taking on curious attributes of their donors, from unexpected atheltic feats to sudden criminal acts and grisly suicides.
Of course seeing as this hasn't been verified, the only evidence I have is anecdotal, but we're in the realm of thought experiment anyway.
Personally from what I've read I do not believe that neurobiology will reveal one unique component that highlights 'consciousness' in humans that we can a) identify as giving rise to consciousness b) is somehow anatomically unique to humans. Rather consciousness seems to me to be an emergent property from the integration of the development of components.
Well i have never heard of the body parts themselves having their own characteristics but i think it is still more tp do with the psychological aspect of it. Maybye their subconscious knew who/what the person was from who they recieved a body part and so enabled them to belive they could/should do the things u mentioned. Thats what i think it is but i am just speculating.
To your second point i still think the key to who someone is lies in the brain. I dont think it is all one thing.
I learned bout this in skl so correct me if i am wrong. The DNA ina ll human beings (barring people with defects) have certain codes for doing different things. All the cells in the body have all the genes all the others have except when the cells specialise they 'switch on/off' to become specific for a certain function. I think that is these 'on/off' cells in the brain which dictate who we are as they all humans must have different ones 'on/off' in the aparts of their brain controlling their personality and memory which are the two things i belive that make up who you are most.
Sort of, though I'll add that sometimes errors in signalling and other environmental influences also shape the processes and results of this.
This of course brings up the question "what is identity" and therefore the meaning of the question of what being somebody is. In a manner of speaking, what people commonly describe as "who you are" in terms of personality and behavior seems most strongly related to (executive) functions that are governed by the frontal lobe.
But the more important issue here (termed the 'hard' problems of consciousness) is exactly what gives rise to conscious behavior? Is there some kind of demonstrable causal link between a signal in the brain and behavior? Or is it the other way around, or neither of these? What kind of deterministic implications does this have? and so forth.
I say you should put them up way more often.
With the title of "Thought Experiment II" or something.
Wow, someone brought back my first thought experiment. Yea, I should put one up once a week. I'll do another one today. I think I have six or seven up.
Well the definition of consciousnes is difficult to pin down in the context we are looking at it in, however i think that if like Asherlee said in the original post that the guy with the transporter was able to question his own existence in that is he about to commit suicide then he is alive because he has the ability to question things like that.
And yes Asherlee that would be kl i have enjoyed this thread.
What about alleged memory of other body parts? I have seen multiple reports of transplant patients taking on curious attributes of their donors, from unexpected atheltic feats to sudden criminal acts and grisly suicides.I never knew muscle memory could stay with that part of the body/muscle, I thought that the muscle memory was just in your head?
take it like reconstructing a building,you knock it down ,take all the items/object in it,built on another place with the same structure,same everything and place all the items in there
i think it's the same as killing ur body,seperate it,piece it together and revive you,so indirectly you are killed.
As long as i have all my old thoughts and memory, I am me,myself and I.
And what i mean is as long as i know everything my other body knew i don't really care.
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