Hypothetical question for atheists
Posted on: January 16, 2008 - 3:23pm
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Hypothetical question for atheists
Transporter technology and research is coming along quite nicely, I believe they're currently transporting atoms at the moment
Hypothetically when this is capable of transporting a person from say here to mars, it works along the principles of reading and destroying the original and creating a perfect copy at the other end, again hypothetically assuming this was 100% safe and perfectly capable of transporting a person
? would you do it
Yes ?
No ?
If no, why not ? are you not just a bunch of atoms in a particular sequence or do you believe you are more ? 
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If it was 100% perfect with no complications then I'd be fine.
When I say no complications, that includes the 'original' not being destroyed because having two of me over a single identity... that would just be confusing...
Going to provide me a way to breathe on Mars or are you just trying to get rid of me?
We're not atomically identical from moment to moment, so that's no problem. I'm not a dualist, so that's not a problem. Yeah, sounds good.
Oh, oh, wait a sec, you just sent us to a planet without a survivable atmosphere. Damn youuuuuuuu!
I also didn't read jc's post first... damn itttttttt....
Arrr it works by destroying the original, ie you, then a perfect copy is made at the other end, you version 2
The original you dies
The copy of you survives
No, because I'm in no rush to die.
You can say 'aren't you just a bunch of atoms in a particular sequence', but so what? I don't care if everyone else gets to keep interacting w/a fellow just like me, I would still be destroyed in the process, regardless of if a copy of me would still continue.
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid
Yes, since a copy of me is me, in every possible sense, in this scenario, there is no reason not to do it. Well, there might be reasons such as I don't trust that it will work or something like that, but if I could be 100% certain of no complications then it would make no sense to wory about identity or any such thing. As someone alluded to in another response we could basically consider this to be happening to us constantly and, from a materialist's perspective, it doesn't change anything about our existence.
“Philosophers have argued for centuries about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but materialists have always known it depends on whether they are jitterbugging or dancing cheek to cheek" -- Tom Robbins
As long as the operating system of choice is not Microsft Windows. It would give new possibilites to the blue screen of death.
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I echo the responses of others.
The atoms that comprise your body now are not the atoms that comprised your body when you were 12. You truly are what you eat. And even though the probability might be remote, a molecule of water in your eye might contain a hydrogen atom that was a part of a water molecule that once escaped Marilyn Monroe's bladder. You never know.
It's not just about the atoms, it's also about their relationship to one another. And in the case of the brain, I suppose it would be about electrical charges and the like.
I can imagine them transporting an object from here to there, but I have trouble imagining them transporting a human and having them turn out the same on the other side. It would be like taking a bucket full of pennies and then pitching them all into a transporter, and then not only having every single penny reemerge on the other side, but also having the "new" pennies following the exact some trajectories as the old pennies.
Or to put it another way... it's like trying to transport a lamp without cutting off its access to electricity. I don't see how that could be done. I'm afraid that it would allow life to continue, but that it would instead "reset" our bodies or minds.
On the other hand, that would be a positive alternative to suicide. =D
I probably wouldn't trust them at first, but it would be for safety reasons, not metaphysical ones.
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
Heh, blue screen of gib.
Actually, that would probably make it reddish...
--
maybe if this sig is witty, someone will love me.
I'm in, no problem. Beam me up scotty.
I seriously don't think I'm really the same conscious entity that I was when I was 5, though I remember that guys thoughts.
Maybe we really actually die every night and wake up a completely new consciousness every day.
I think life is an illusion pretty much. So I'd do it.
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
Let's say that you have a Tiger tank in Berlin. You then build an exact copy of it in Moscow, and destroy the one in Berlin. Does that mean that the Tiger tank in Berlin get transported to Moscow? No, it just means that there's now instead an exact copy of the original in Moscow. The same would apply for me - I would be destroyed and an exact copy of me would be created on Mars.
I'm not just a bunch of atoms in a particular sequence, I'm these specific atoms in this specific sequence.
"Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There's too much fraternizing with the enemy."
By that reasoning, you cease to be yourself every time the atomic content of your body gets turned around. IIRC, it takes about a year.
As long as the brain is able to reconstruct memories, would there be a discontinuity?
Yeah, but... that's not exactly what I meant, though I admit I that my last sentence does kind of suggest it.
What I meant was that just because the exact same type of atoms would be put in the exact same way doesn't make it me. It just makes it an exact copy of me.
"Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There's too much fraternizing with the enemy."
I completely understand what you are saying, but sometimes I wonder if that's any different from what happens naturally to everyone with our atoms being replaced.
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
Just because someone else can remember being me doesn't mean I'm not dead. The discontinuity comes from the cessation of the original, not the backwards-compatibility of the copy. If I photocopy a piece of paper, then burn the original, I don't have the original. I have a copy.
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid
The real question here is this: If you can transport someone to mars and destroy the original, could you transport someone to mars and keep the original.
I know a lot of people who wish they could skip work... or, "Damn, I wish there were more hours in the day!"
If there were two of you, there'd technically be 48 hours in the day... not to mention that keeping two girlfriends would be significantly easier, and who'd ever know if you decided to swap every now and again.
Interestingly, I do know two girls who are very hot identical twins, and I happen to know they tried the switcheroo once. I hear it didn't end well. But I digress...
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
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Books about atheism
[Hypothetically:] I own a network of teleportation points in prime, and I mean primo, locations. You can use them for free, and I guarantee you will arrive in a state identical to the one you leave with, my uncertainty compensators are the best. All I ask is that I be given non-exclusive limited ownership rights of an additional copy, for strictly personal use. Would you like to use my service?
Kafir: I can't agree to your terms of service, as any copy of me would be a human being, possessed of a full set of his own natural rights. You'd have to negotiate with him.
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid
It would be interesting to see if you come out yourself on the other end. Are your memories intact? Are your beliefs and ethics the same? Then again, how would you know if you changed? Oh, and one other thing. This thing isn't made in China is it?
"Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society." Thomas Jefferson
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No
The original would live if it wasn't purposefully destroyed. Even if another me lives on the original has committed suecide by choosing to be destroyed. I don't philosophically oppose suecide but it's not something I'm going to do.
My second and much stronger reason is totally irrational. To accept that the copy is me is to accept that I essentially die every moment. Not just as someone suggested above that I die and am replaced every night but every moment, down to the smallest possible measurement of time. I am just an electrical and chemical state of my brain it is somehow experiencing it's own state through a feedback mechanism. In the next moment there is a new state resulting fom the earlier state. An illusion of being a continuous conscious being is created through memory which records the experience of previous states, particularly those most recent.
As a sentient being with strong self-preservation instincts I cannot accept that, even if it is true.
Oh, a lesson in not changing history from Mr. I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!
It would be interesting to see if you come out yourself.
Yeah, that's a really good point. Plenty of people wish they'd thought of that. If we consider ethics, beleifs or even what a person's favourite drink is, as manifistations of a physical brain, then I wonder if an atom by atom, with all momentums preserved , wholly identical copy of a person might have different ideas and opinons? Where do ideas and opinons come from originally anyway?
Where would one be during the journey time mars? In some cases it would be longer than a qua(r)ter of (an) hour.
Is there a continuity to being, and continuing to be, the original you? What, if not your memories, confirms your identity from moment to moment? Transporting the pattern of a person would be the total exchange of atoms in a moment, which is something we already do, albeit very slowly. I think the difficulty is in having two of ourselves, because it's counterintuitive to imagine a functionally identical copy, with a legitimate claim to the same memories, experiences, identity. But I wonder whether this problem is an artifact of dualism, as I don't know where an actual problem lies -- what settles a claim to a human identity between two identical copies.
Is this entire thread making anyone else think of "Bladerunner" and "The Prestige"?
But yeah I would do it as long as I (copy...whatever) could survive on mars.
"I, on the other hand, do not feel it necessary to construct a lofty meaning for myself. I prefer the style of the butterfly myself. I will eat what I want, flit about aimlessly, and enjoy the sunshine. Then, I will die. " - Nero, RRS Forum User
No. I would never sell myself into slavery and the copy would be me just as much as the original was. There would be two separate entities both of whom were me but who, from the point in time the copy was made, would experience reality from different position, or perspectives, so would no longer be exactly identical. This wouldn't change the fact that there would be no discontinuity from either of their perspectives so from the perspective of the copy given into slavery I would be me as a slave. I have no desire to be a slave.
Another problem is that the copy would think he had agreed to give you a copy of him and if you made a copy of him that copy would think he had agreed to give you a copy of him etc... So there would never be an entity from whose perspective it would realize it had been given to you as a slave.
“Philosophers have argued for centuries about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but materialists have always known it depends on whether they are jitterbugging or dancing cheek to cheek" -- Tom Robbins
As magilum says it is only memories that confirms one's identity from moment to moment. It's the only thing it can be regardless of whether one subscribes to a dualist or monist ontology.
The photocopy analogy doesn't really apply because there are very real differences between a photocopy and an original. If you were to take the subatomic particles of a document and construct an atomically identical document, then burn the original, that would be analgous to the OP. In such a scenario to say that the copy is not the original is meaningless. What, would you suggest, is the missing component of identity?
The legal implications would be a bitch. From either particular perspective, the copy or the original, it would probably be like losing half your stuff as both would have equal claim to ownership both having equal claim to the identity of Mr. Vessel Vesselton, or whatever.
“Philosophers have argued for centuries about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but materialists have always known it depends on whether they are jitterbugging or dancing cheek to cheek" -- Tom Robbins
Well, I wouldn't want to fight the demons that would come out of the portals to hell created by the teleporters...
"What right have you to condemn a murderer if you assume him necessary to "God's plan"? What logic can command the return of stolen property, or the branding of a thief, if the Almighty decreed it?"
-- The Economic Tendency of Freethought
I would do it if there was significant reason to... for example, a gigantic asteroid is 90 seconds from impaling Earth. Otherwise, no.
And yet, my memories are not stored in my atoms. My atoms, on which I have no proprietary claim, are transient, and so, cannot be said to be 'me' any more than the lo mein I had last night can be said to be 'me'. I may be what I eat, but what I eat is not me.
Instead, I would say that the continuity arises precisely from avoiding that which is stipulated as necessary in this: the wholesale destruction of your functioning cellular structure. That it can later be reconstructed or duplicated is irrelevant. That the atomic structure is identical is irrelevant. What is relevant is: the original is destroyed. The process by which a duplicate is fashioned is meaningless. That there is another 'me' wandering around is of no concern to the original 'me', because the original 'me' has been killed. He has not slowly replaced the atomic content of his cells through natural process, he has not slowly copied the genetic material in his body and destroyed the worn out original copies through normal life function, he has been killed. Regardless of whether a duplicate is made, the original has been made to cease functioning.
Instead of looking at the situation backward, ie: 'will the other person remember being me?', look at it in the direction you will experience it: Will the consciousness that is you actually transfer to the new location, or will it be a different consciousness that merely remembers being you? Will you move, or will you die, and someone else just like you be fashioned?
I say you die, and even if the rest of the world gets to keep interacting with another me, I am not in any way inclined to cease functioning just so they can.
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid
And I have no beef with that copy of me claiming to be me, because so far as that copy will know, it is me. I'd still be dead, though.
Continuity of integrity and life function. When we sleep, our brains don't stop. Our consciousness is not simply the state of the cells, molecules, and atoms, it is the activity of them. A perfect image of our head, atom by atom, isn't who you are. Who you are is what's going on with each of those atoms, molecules, cells, how they influence one another, etc etc. All this can be inferred from the image, but it is not the image.
By stopping that, and destroying the integrity of our consciousness, you kill us. That you can make another one just like me out of the parts doesn't mean a damn thing. I still died, and have been snuffed out from my perspective, and I don't give a damn how the rest of the universe might feel about the usefulness of doing that to me, if someone were to try it, I'd do my level best to kill them before allowing it.
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid
From one perspective. But the copy you is indistinguishable from the original from an identity standpoint. So you are not dead. You are simply occupying a different point in spacetime.
At any specific, indivisible point in time our consciousness is simply the state of our constiuent parts as activity requires traversing time.
At any given point it is who you are at that point in time unless there is some immaterial aspect of you.
Again, this only applies to who you are from moment to moment not who you are at moment X.
But your consciousness is simply the parts that make up your consciousness, the sum of the state of the individual components of your physical being at any given moment in time. If at the sub atomic level identity loses meaning, as there is no distinguishing difference between any two components of the larger object, then there can be no identity distinction between any two objects formed of the exact same constituent parts. Therefor the copy you would be you just as actually as the original was you.
From the original you's perspective, but not from the copy you's perspective which is the exact same perspective up to the instant after the copy you has been formed from the original you. From the copy you's perspective you would still be you just occupying a different point in spacetime than you had occupied a moment before. It would be no different than if I instantaneously disappear and reform from a quantum fluctuation.
I promise I won't try it.
“Philosophers have argued for centuries about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but materialists have always known it depends on whether they are jitterbugging or dancing cheek to cheek" -- Tom Robbins
... Hold on, atheists will have to also 'convert' the Satanists, who hate God, but believe in him... Hahaha, good luck. They will proably use your body in some ritual.
Hahaha!
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But that's exactly my point. It's not that there's an 'immaterial' aspect of any of us, it's that consciousness doesn't occur except in movement through time. Life is not the matter. Life is the processes acting upon that matter. We exist in the electrochemical reactions. Consciousness is not the state of the matter that makes up your body, brain included, but the processes acting upon that matter, the reactions occuring.
And yes, from the copy's perspective, it is me. But I'm not the copy. I'm the original. I'm the one getting destroyed, so really, no thanks. I have no desire to stop experiencing existance just so someone just like me can start to experience it.
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid
Interesting. What is it about the process you think gives it continuity beyond, say, memory?
Memory is a record. It's evidence of implied continuity, not continuity itself. If memory can be duplicated, which we're positing it can here, then it's no more reliable as direct evidence of continuity than a cleverly-edited motion picture made up of manipulated individual frames.
The processes acting upon the matter of our bodies is, in effect, the change over time, the only dimension in which we cannot perceive the cessation of movement. It's also the dimension upon which 'continuity' is dependant, since we are, at least under our own power as technology exists now, limited to one direction movement through time. So if these processes are the change/time upon our bodies, then the continuance without interruption of those processes is the very continuity that memory records.
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid
I don't know if this has been addressed, but the way transporter technology works -at least when I looked into it when the technology was at the stage of transporting photons- is that once the information that made that photon that photon is put onto another photon the original ceases to exist (you can't have two identical photons in existence) and the one onto which the information from the original was copied also ceases to exist... leaving what would be the original as it was exactly the original's information that was copied. If that sounds convoluted, it is.
If that's the case, sign me up when this technology becomes capable of transporting a human.
Alright... did some quick reading and that's definitely NOT how the teleportation of a human would happen, least ways not anytime soon. Apparently only photons and atoms can be transported by the above mentioned method. I don't want to be 'inexactly' transported and have a copy of my around and what about the me me?, so untill the above mentioned technology gets better, I'll keep myself myself.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
This sounds a bit circular to me. Any being could be given the impression of continuity, so there's the question of whether actual continuity is what defines the individual. For this to be so, it has to be established that such continuity is to be taken for granted at the experience we currently know. I could have ceased to exist, or I could have not existed until this very moment; it's only the coherence of my memories that keeps me from complete disorientation.
I am sorry but this really burns me.
Let me postulate a question to you:
IF IF IF IF IF technology could lead to you getting laid on every attempt without complications, would you do it?
This is just a si-fi version of theism. If you actually believe that it is possible to transport a human like the human voice can be recorded and transported via phone, please give me some of what you are smoking. If you believe this crap you might as well believe that a dissimbodied being "transported" his sperm into a girl.
Just because you dont subscribe to mainstreem hocus pokus doesnt mean I will give you a pass because you are an atheist with a si-fi fetish.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Depends on the meaning of "attempt." Have you seen those auctions where someone can bid just by raising an eyebrow?
I think your comparison is flawed. Theism isn't a hypothetical question about a possible future situation, it's a declaration about a current reality that attempts to bypass valid standards of verification.
That is my point . This IS a declairation, just like alchemy and chronology. It is even more insidious than theist apologetics because it postulates the absurd and uses buzz words to pass it off as fact.
This is not like when the The Wright brothers postulated air flight. You are suggesting that every atom and neucleous of such can be mapped out and scanned like a Xerox. That is bullshit.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
The only declaration I see is that atoms have been transported, and the implication that more complex things will follow. You want to call Rev on this? Go right ahead. It's still hypothetical -- even if atoms have been "transported," it doesn't necessarily follow that a viable technology is within reach. But let's stick to specific complaints, here. What you're doing is arguing from personal incredulity.
Treating humans like xerox copies is in the same catigory of fantastical claims and absurdities as virgin births and ouiji boards. I think someone wants to mentally jack off over Rodenberry's coincedental concept of a hand held communication divice. Newton uncovered gravity, but also postulated immpossible absurdities with his tinkering with achemy. This is no different.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
This is a thought experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_experiment
The point is not whether or not it is possible. It is to consider the implications of a hypothetical. In this case I believe this thought experiment is intended to explore the illusion of continuity of consiousness.
A thought experiment is a valid tool and have even been used to examine concepts in physics. Schrodinger's Cat is probably the most well known.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat
Nothing can be gained from actually performing this experiment. You'd end up with either a dead or a grumpy cat and will have no useful data about quantum mechanics. The point is to consider the implications of the idea that at the quantum level things only resolve to a particular state at the moment they are observed. Up to that moment they exist as a superpostion of all possible states.
Oh, a lesson in not changing history from Mr. I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!
You're repeating the same fallacy, Brian (argument from incredulity) and heaping naked assertions onto it. Like I said -- and won't repeat after this -- this is a hypothetical scenario that doesn't hinge on a reality, and the basis for it is open to specific questioning. You just seem to want the question to go away for the sake of your interpretation of skepticism.
If, as I believe this thought experiment implies, we are not the continuous conciousneses we experience ourselves as but are simply a series of self-aware states connected by memory what does this imply for our concept of justice?
Can you morally punish a future state for the actions of a past state? The future state is only the result of the past states it is not responsible for the actions of those states. If anything past states are more deserving of punishment for the actions of future states as it's the past states that cause the action of the future state (ignoring the inherent problems with pre-emptive punishment).
Another way to look at it is, if you give an innocent man the memories of a murderer is it right to lock that man up? What is the difference between having the memories of a murderer and having had previous states actually commit murder?
There is still the deterence aspect, but is it fair?
Oh, a lesson in not changing history from Mr. I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!
I am not intrested in postulating absurdities. Your post remindes me of "Revenge of The Nerds #2" When the nerds and Ogar were stranded on the beach and smoked pot together"
Ogar, "Guys, what if C-A-T. acutually spelled D-O-G.?
For every "trycorder" guess that coincedently leads to cell phones there are Kingons and Tribbles that will never be a reality.
Henry Ford built one of the first popular automobiles. But he would not, BACK THEN, know how to build the modern Lamberginni. He also could have speculated about a vehical that turned mice into Tigers. He could have speculated about a vehical that made rabbits into cigars. The only thing he got right is that a motor could be fasioned to move 4 wheels. Whatever happened beyond that was not his.
This "thought" experement is meaningless, "what if". My problem with this "what if" is that the Dumb and Dumber Jim Cary idiots will jump at this and say, "So you're saying there's a chance".
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Brian37
I'd also like to point out that the special theory of relativity began entirely as the result of thought experiments. It was later tested and refined based on measurements but it started with a hypothetical.
Einstein started with the idea that the speed of light is a constant. He asked questions like "What happens if I'm moving at half the speed of light and shine a light? Will the light be travelling at 1.5 times the speed of light relative to a stationary observer?" Since the speed of light is constant this is not possible. Relative to both him and the observer the light must be travelling at the speed of light.
Based on this and other thought experiments he developed a series of equations that describe how things behave when in motion. Effects generally not directly obervable at the speeds we're capable of travelling. These equations have since been tested and found to hold true.
Would you have told Einstein "Cut it out with the sci fi nonsense. You cannot travel that fast so this idea is stupid."?
Oh, a lesson in not changing history from Mr. I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!
Again, you're looking at it from the angle of the past tense. Once the moment passes, how can we ever know it was anything beyond our memory? I'm looking at it from the viewpoint of present experience as we move forward. I don't see how the existance of a copy that think it's me in any way alters the fact that in order to make that copy, I have to die, and I don't much want to.
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid