Star Trek Teleportation

Author: keithprosser

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#31
secularmerlin
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@Wylted
It is clear. It renders the concept of individual self mostly meaningless but it is clear. Also I see no reason to accept that either wylted a or wilted b is wylted in the first place.
#32
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@secularmerlin
Maybe not, but they need to be held accountable for his murders, I'm not sure if that would violate double jeapordy laws though.
#33
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@Wylted
What do you mean by I need to be held accountable? Do you mean that it serves some utility to hold them accountable? Do you mean that it would prevent further murders for them to be held accountable?

#34
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@secularmerlin
Wyled A and Wylted B are the continuation of Wylted. If I wasn't duplicated twice at some future point would you agree that I should be punished if I commit murder? If so why would that change merely because there is now a wylted A and B, both of those wylted's are still murderers?

If you are making an argument that murderers shouldn't be punished, that is a different story. I think punishing them does set an example that prevents other people from murdering and removes dangerous people from society.

It's kinda like Roko's basalisk, in that we have to make the rational choice for people, to not murder. If we carry through on punishments it offers a person in the past an opportunity not to murder if we are in fact just a thought and they are running our actions through a computer simulation to see if we will punish them for their actions.

You see, like a Roko's Basalisk but concerning the past.
#35
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@Wylted
I am arguing that punishment is meaningless if it does not accomplish anything. So we are punishing them in order to prevent murder?
#36
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@secularmerlin
Yes, you responded in like 3 minutes. That was not enough time for you to read up on roko's basalisk so you could properly understand my point. Did you read up on roku's basalisk at some prior point or did you just prematurely respond before trying to understand my point?
#37
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punishment prevents murder.
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#38
keithprosser
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@secularmerlin
i suppose no one would object to teleporting inanimate cargo (which would include complex mechanisms such  as computers), so any objection to teleporting a person must be based on the idea that a human being is not 'merely' a complex mechanism.

A Christian who belives in the reality of the soul could well baulk at teleporting, but i think a monist materialist shouldn't really have a problem.
 
#39
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@Wylted
The theory is a utilitarian one yes? We follow through on punishment not because of misguided idea of justice or revenge but because if we do not we invite further murder. I did not look up Rome's basilisk but your context is clear.

#40
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@keithprosser
You could teleport a complex computer but it would.not be the same complex computer. That my brain is entirely physical does not mean that it is not my brain and it does not make.an identical brain into mine. I would.not consent to be teleported specifically because I don't believe in the concept of souls and so the thing that appeared on the pad on the other end would not be me in any sense.

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#41
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@secularmerlin
A teleported computer is not 'the same computer' as the original, but it is not immediately apparent the difference has any significance.  indeed, a computer moved by teleporting may be more like how it started out than one sent by DHL!

I view the 'self' as something produced by the operation of a brain, somewhat as an electric current is produced by a dynamo.   If you disasemble a dynamo and re-assemble it, i don't think it maes sense to say it thereby produces a different current - at least no more different than if a dynamo is stopped and restarted.
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#42
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@Wylted
I will enjoy delving into the 'lesswrong' world you have made me aware of! 
I just hope i can do so without becoming a convert...
#43
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@keithprosser
II'm no convert, just a scavenger who takes information from many places. It is possible
#44
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Teleportation has been already been demonstrated in real life through quantum entanglement. So far only information has been teleported using elementary particles, but scientists believe the principle can be used for teleportation of larger and more complex bodies as technology advances.

Such phenomena were the subject of a 1935 paper by Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen,[1] and several papers by Erwin Schrödinger shortly thereafter,[2][3] describing what came to be known as the EPR paradox. 

Entanglement is considered fundamental to quantum mechanics, even though it wasn't recognized in the beginning. Quantum entanglement has been demonstrated experimentally with photons,[13][14][15][16]neutrinos,[17] electrons,[18][19] molecules as large as buckyballs,[20][21] and even small diamonds.[22][23] The utilization of entanglement in communication and computation is a very active area of research.


But the question remains. Would a human soul teleport?



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#45
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@ethang5
It's debatable if 'quantum teleportation' has much to do with 'star trek teleportation'.  To quote wikipedia,

"Although the name is inspired by the teleportation commonly used in fiction, quantum teleportation is limited to the transfer of information rather than matter itself. Quantum teleportation is not a form of transportation, but of communication: it provides a way of transporting a qubit from one location to another without having to move a physical particle along with it."

Either way I get theimpression that for most reliously inclined peoplehe soul is not of a form amnable to an engineer manipulating it mechanically.

I would say that if 'soul' in the religious sense exists it would not be picked up by a teleporters scanners, so not transcribed into data and not reconstituted at the end - that is assuming teleporters operate on anything like the principles of engineering we understand today.

 
#46
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@keithprosser
Even if I would be the same person I do not consent to have all of my organs removed and put into an android copy of myself and I don't necessarily accept that I would be.
#47
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@keithprosser
I don't see that this issue is overly different. 
#48
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@keithprosser
It's debatable if 'quantum teleportation' has much to do with 'star trek teleportation'.  To quote wikipedia,

Yeah, and since I didn't mention star trek, the only one to "debate" it would be you.

"Although the name is inspired by the teleportation commonly used in fiction, quantum teleportation is limited to the transfer of information rather than matter itself.
You say this not understanding the full scope of the potential behind it. Yes, today we can only teleport information, but that isn't fully true. After we collapse diamond A here, the B diamond sharing the entanglement "becomes" A. That is a type of teleportation.

That is why Schrödinger's cat is neither dead or alive till it is observed.

Quantum teleportation is not a form of transportation, but of communication: it provides a way of transporting a qubit from one location to another without having to move a physical particle along with it."

That is because you have convinced yourself that a skim of a pop science website is an education. Today, scientists have only been able to entangle particles (and recently, a few homogenous particles) but the principle theoretically should work with larger, more complex blocks of matter.

If scientists could entangle the particles of your body with other particles, the other particles should "become you" upon the observation of the original you. It isn't you being teleported, but all the data that makes the particles you. We are not there yet, but it is a theoretical fact.

The interesting question is, if we duplicated a human being exactly down to the particle level, would that duplicate be you? If yes, then consciousness is just a function of the matter making up your body. If no, then consciousness is the function of something other than just matter.

I would say that if 'soul' in the religious sense exists it would not be picked up by a teleporters scanners, so not transcribed into data and not reconstituted at the end - that is assuming teleporters operate on anything like the principles of engineering we understand today. 
Exactly. We would be able to test the belief of the materialist.
#49
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@secularmerlin
I'm not sure that philosophical zombies are "terrifying" despite the emotion the word "zombie" evokes. I think people confuse it with things like sociopaths, who feel no emotion. Depsite the fact that they have no qualia, by definition philosophical zombies are indistinguishable from normal people. So it's not a case where it's this potential threat lying in wait, pretending to be a real person, but rather that there is absolutely and literally nothing you can do to distinguish them from being a real person. They're not going to suddenly "snap" and stop acting like a real person.

So the situation would be, you have two Rikers, one is the "real" Riker and the other is a duplicate that has no qualia of his own. But, for all intents and purposes, he is going to act exactly like Riker would (given his experiences) in any given situation. Nothing to be scared of.
#50
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@Wylted
If the transporter takes you from a state of being alive to a state of not being alive, I'm fine with saying that it "kills" you even if that is only temporary.
#51
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@drafterman
You misunderstand my trepidation. I do not fear philosophical zombies but rather fear dying and being replaced by one during a routine transporter trip. This would still be my concern if I was provably a philosophical zombie before hand.
#52
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@secularmerlin
The scenario isn't that you are replaced with a philosophical zombie, but that the transporter creates one in addition to you.
#53
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@drafterman
That would be just fine with me. Live and let live, but I don't personally want anything to do with star trek style transporters
#54
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@secularmerlin
Want to be terrified? It is just a short couple of jumps between transporters and sleeping at night.
#55
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@drafterman
Indeed I am a different person now than before I wrote this post. Now I am the person who wrote this post before I was not.
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#56
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@secularmerlin
I think 90% of philosophy is providing justification - or at least rationalisation - of one's gut feelings!

#57
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@keithprosser
I'm not sure there are any justifications. 
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#58
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@secularmerlin
Then there is nothing to argue!
#59
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@keithprosser
Because I firmly stand by the idea that I am dying at one second divided by the speed of light in m/s, I believe that there is then no difference when I teleport for that 'me' is as parasitic to the former me as the current me is to the guy who was typing this message to begin with. He's dead now and so am I by the time you read this.

So, yes you kill yourself when you teleport but that's not at all a valid reason to not do it. It would be a complete waste of a superpower if you never teleported out of the fear of not living in a continuous bodily form. You're a character in a real-life story; stop worrying about being there on every page of the damn book.
#60
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I would never get in one of those things. Hell no.
I don't need to know the math behind it. Big NOPE.