First of all I feel like it’s my mind holding my body together. My mind needs this otherwise everything disintegrates. The body held together in one piece seems imperative. Which is sort of odd, that the self needs the body, the material. So consequently, the anxiety over teletranspirtation.

When you say your mind, do you mean your brain, or something else? Do you think that the self is something separate from the physical, yet dependent on it, or something reducible to the physical?

Not the brain. Yes, separate but dependent.

You mention it being imperative that the body is held in one piece. Do you believe this to the most extreme extent? Say, that I cannot lose an arm without losing my self? Could I have all my limbs transplanted and remain "me"? Which parts of my body do you hold to be necessary for the survival of my self?

Interesting. I need to think about it.

I need all the parts that enable me to act the most effectively.

Other than the specifics of the mechanics, is there anything particularly different about the scenario to object to? Physically, you are differently constituted than you once were. As for your sense of identity, if there is a process of transforming yourself at time 1 to yourself at time 2 such that you experience a continuity of identity at time 2, does it matter much what that process is?

So you feel no risk to the self in the process?

I feel like that's very broad. It could be said that my kidneys are required to function "most" effectively, yet, we usually don't think of people as having died/lost their identity when they have a kidney removed.


I am inclined to agree with you: your account of the scenario is a complete one. P at T2 experiences sufficient psychological continuity with P at T1. That is what I think matters, and why I am not concerned by teletransportation. The material we are composed of changes gradually over the course of regular life. We may not have reason to think teletransportation is any worse than this. It might be viewed as merely an unusual process.

Obviously, we change the material we are composed of over the course of regular life. — Tarrasque

Yes, but this leads to death.

It could be said that my kidneys are required to function "most" effectively, yet, we usually don't think of people as having died/lost their identity when they have a kidney removed. — Tarrasque

But I would only do it if the result of not doing it was my death. I need a healthy body for my self to act. Fingers, toes, eyes, arms, etc. I can’t do without an organ. I need everything I’ve been given.

Edit: It’s not about identity for me.

And if I’m happy with organ removal, or replacement, is that a sign of the new man who’s slowly separating from the self.

If just your body's matter changing gradually leads to death, you die in this sense multiple times throughout your life, inevitably. If you are not concerned about these deaths, once every eight years or so, do you have reason to hold special concern about teletransportation?

While you do need an organ, it's less clear that you need your specific organ. You could live a perfectly fine life with a donor lung. Why not two donor lungs? Why not a donor heart, a donor liver and a donor stomach? What about just taking out your brain and moving it to a whole donor body?

If just your body's matter changing gradually leads to death, you die in this sense multiple times throughout your life, inevitably. — Tarrasque

A nice theory, but in reality the replacement slows down over time until something no longer functions and stops.

You could live a perfectly fine life with a donor lung. Why not two donor lungs? — Tarrasque

You need drugs to stop the rejection. So it’s not that simple, don’t you think? The body (self) rejects the foreigner.

To be fair, if we are considering a scenario with teletransportation, we aren't having a discussion that's constrained by the limits of technology. We could imagine flawless organ transplants, and these questions would remain about what effects they could have on our identity, if any. Questions about body transplants can be dismissed as unlikely, as most hypotheticals can, but maybe they are worthy of greater consideration.

Also, my point in bringing up cell replacement was this: at 65 years of age, you have undergone so much cell replacement that very little of your physical 20-year-old self remains. If this degree of replacement is equivalent to death, we would have to regard people as dying simply within the process of aging.

How can you be sure that it’s really you who will appear on Mars? Might it be a mere copy? — Tarrasque

Can you explain the (discernable) difference(s) you're alluding to between an an entity which was "really you" and a "mere copy"?

if we are considering a scenario with teletransportation, we aren't having a discussion that's constrained by the limits of technology. We could imagine flawless organ transplants, — Tarrasque

Sure. But perceived as flawless by the self, or science.

Also, my point in bringing up cell replacement was this: at 65 years of age, you have undergone so much cell replacement that very little of your physical 20-year-old self remains. If this degree of replacement is equivalent to death, we would have to regard people as dying simply within the process of aging. — Tarrasque

I don’t think cell replacement is the equivalent of death, it’s that the replacement is not forever or of the same quality, which eventuates in death,

I don't think there is a significant difference, as I am a reductionist about personal identity. Many people are not, and would believe that there is a meaningful distinction to be drawn between the "real them" and a copy of them. They might account for this difference as:

1. The real me is the body that contains my soul, essence, or ego, while the copy does not.
2. The real me is that body from which an unbroken spatio-temporal line can be drawn from it to my origin(in a copy's case, one cannot).
3. In the case of a copy and an original, there is some special property that is only attributable to the original. This special property is what we should be concerned with in preserving our consciousness.

Would your attitude towards the case change if the teletransporter malfunctioned, leaving Earth-you alive? Weeks later, when Mars-you returns to inhabit your home, does he have the same claim to it that you do? Does one of you have a stronger claim?

I don't think there is a significant difference, — Tarrasque

I agree. Perceived differences are either based on a subjective opinion (an attitude based on one's intuition that one's identity simply cannot be duplicated) or one believes that there's a non-physical component to identity (a soul or something similar).

Would your attitude towards the case change if the teletransporter malfunctioned, leaving Earth-you alive? — Tarrasque

No (identity is preserved whether Earth-you survives or not). But I think there would be disastrous moral and practical consequences.

Does one of you have a stronger claim? — Tarrasque

No. Both have equal claim to be "me" (thereby leading to disastrous moral and practical consequences)..

I don't think there is a significant difference, as I am a reductionist about personal identity. Many people are not, and would believe that there is a meaningful distinction to be drawn between the "real them" and a copy of them. They might account for this difference as:

1. The real me is the body that contains my soul, essence, or ego, while the copy does not.
2. The real me is that body from which an unbroken spatio-temporal line can be drawn from it to my origin(in a copy's case, one cannot).
3. In the case of a copy and an original, there is some special property that is only attributable to the original. This special property is what we should be concerned with in preserving our consciousness. — Tarrasque

All of these positions can be seen as reductionist, in that they treat personal identity as a product or manifestation of something more real or fundamental:

• Psychological continuity
• Physical (worldline) continuity
• Structural similarity
• Hidden essence (soul, etc.)

I rather think that personal identity is a psychosocial construct. Consequently, it doesn't have a strict definition and delineation, but rather relies on intuitions and conventions that are to some degree fluid and diverse. This is why even those people who don't already have a favorite philosophical theory of self never seem to have a common opinion on such esoteric thought experiments as Davidson's Swampman, teleportation, duplication, etc. Our intuitions and conventions range over common experiences, which do not cover such imaginary scenarios. When answering these hypothetical questions, people either work out the answer from a prior philosophical commitment, or else answer intuitively/conventionally. And since there is neither a prevailing philosophy nor a prevailing intuition or convention that would apply to such cases, answers vary.

“ Who is this self that we are so interested in?”

Great question, often asked. I see the self as a representation. A representation of the body, both internally and in relation to the world. This is sort of “old hat” in philosophy of mind, but getting to the thought experiment, I agree with another poster that I’d only submit to the experiment in the face of extinction, death.

I see teleportation as a complex process, and my main anxiety would be the possibility that something could go wrong, wildly or even slightly; that the person emerging from the machine would be somehow irrevocably altered in some negative way, or DOA.

All of these positions can be seen as reductionist, in that they treat personal identity as a product or manifestation of something more real or fundamental:

Psychological continuity
Physical (worldline) continuity
Structural similarity
Hidden essence (soul, etc.)

I don't think you can accurately construe a soul-based theory as reductionism about the self. In what I've read, these types of theories don't say that the self is "reducible to" the soul, rather, it just IS the soul. This is less of a reduction and more of a plain definition. The self would not be a "product or manifestation of something more fundamental," as it would just BE the soul, and the soul would be brute and irreducible. I see an argument for construing those other positions as reductionist.

I rather think that personal identity is a psychosocial construct. Consequently, it doesn't have a strict definition and delineation, but rather relies on intuitions and conventions that are to some degree fluid and diverse. This is why even those people who don't already have a favorite philosophical theory of self never seem to have a common opinion on such esoteric thought experiments as Davidson's Swampman, teleportation, duplication, etc.

I agree with you to some extent. Our society places a lot of importance on personal identity, and this leads us to form the conceptions about it that we do. I believe many people hold false beliefs about the nature of themselves, due in large part to this sort of conditioning.

And since there is neither a prevailing philosophy nor a prevailing intuition or convention that would apply to such cases, answers vary.

Which is why it is so interesting to ask the questions!

No. Both have equal claim to be "me" (thereby leading to disastrous moral and practical consequences)..

That can't be right because "me" and "you" are singular pronouns. One of the transporter people could be you, or none of them could be you, but logically, they both can't be you. For example, they could both make a claim to be "John Smith", but the only way they could have equal claim to being John Smith is if both of them are John Smith (impossible) or neither of them is John Smith (probably also impossible).

I think the problem would be if the teletransporter had a glitch and spat out two copies of you at once. Lol.

Now that's a debate.

Presumably the neurons in your brain are precisely configured ie. it's your exact "memory" or "consciousness" ... you literally enter it and exit it like walking through a door. You remember entering it and see you have now exited it.

Very metaphysical. What of the soul? Frightening to think about really. Best avoided imo.

There's a difference between teleporting an atom (or atoms) to another location and simply reproducing them in a new location. The former being something I don't believe science will ever be allowed to truly do, perhaps masking it as the former while it's truly the latter.

I guess I'd have to say you're probably better off not willingly allowing your body to be atomically disassembled. Call me crazy.

What sorts of intuitions do you have about cases like these? If the idea of teletransportation makes you uncomfortable, why is that? Is a fear of dying justified here? — Tarrasque

We have a perfect model of how this works; namely, processes in any process-based operating system such as Unix.

A process is an executing program. For example the executable code for your Chrome or Safari or whatever web browser is sitting on your hard drive not doing anything. When you click on it to run it, the operating system creates a process -- that is, a logical flow of control with a private address space -- and has it run the web browser code.

A process can create another process. They do this by means of an operation called "forking." When a process forks another process, the operating system copies over the entire memory space of the parent (as it's called) and copies of all open file handles. At that moment, the parent and the child are identical. But from that moment on, as they both run and continue to interact with their environment, their memory state will diverge.

I find this model very compelling in thinking about transporter thought experiments. Whether you transport someone by transmitting their molecular, atomic, or subatomic state; either way, it's the same principle. At the moment of transport, you have a new process with the identical state as the parent. The moment the child process or clone or transportee comes into existence, it begins an indepdendent existence. Not entirely unlike the creation of identical twins in biology.

The question of "which one is the real you?" is moot. At the moment of cloning they'll each feel like you. And as they live their lives they'll each feel like the original and not the clone. But if there is such a thing as the self, or the soul, then it must be the parent process that has claim to it.

There is no difference IMO between transporters and duplicators. Once you duplicate someone, it makes no difference if you kill the original (as in Star Trek) or now have two of you leading separate lives. But transporters themselves are logically incoherent. The transportee, or child process, is not the original, even though it subjectively thinks it is; simply because "thinking that I am me" is part of my memory state, which would be faithfully copied to my clone. You create a clone and kill the original. There is no other way to conceptualize it IMO. All you can transmit is the state of the atoms or quarks or whatever physical level you're working at. You can't transmit a soul or a self.

One of the transporter people could be you, or none of them could be you, but logically, they both can't be you. — RogueAI

That doesn't follow. It depends on how you define "you" in this context.

If "you" is the entity with all the physical and mental attributes we normally associate with RogueAI there is no logical reason why two or more of these entities couldn't exist simultaneously.

To claim that only one such entity is truly RogueAI would be an arbitrary distinction.

I don't think you can accurately construe a soul-based theory as reductionism about the self. In what I've read, these types of theories don't say that the self is "reducible to" the soul, rather, it just IS the soul. — Tarrasque

Well, that would mean that the self is a hidden essence. But what we are inquiring about and trying to explain is the manifest self as it is perceived by us via self-reflection. We don't perceive hidden metaphysical essences as such (that is why they are hidden and "metaphysical"). But some would say that they manifest themselves as our sense of self, the integrity of our experiences, the continuity of our memories, the coherence of our thoughts and volitions. (Similarly, God is said to be manifest in his creation, and therefore being in general and some of its specific features are said to be explained by a divine creation "theory.")

I agree with you to some extent. Our society places a lot of importance on personal identity, and this leads us to form the conceptions about it that we do. I believe many people hold false beliefs about the nature of themselves, due in large part to this sort of conditioning. — Tarrasque

It's not just a social construct; I think that much of our sense of self is an innate psychological mechanism. But culture and socialization shape it as well.

I would disagree about social conditioning producing false beliefs about self though. If self just is (partly) a result of conditioning, then how can it be false? I suppose our innate psychology and social conditioning can come into tension, but how is one to say which one of these is truer? How is it even possible to discover the fact of the matter?

And since there is neither a prevailing philosophy nor a prevailing intuition or convention that would apply to such cases, answers vary. — SophistiCat

Which is why it is so interesting to ask the questions! — Tarrasque

It would be interesting if there was a possibility of finding the correct answer. But I don't think that there is one. On my metaphysically thin concept of self, the self just is what we perceive as our personal identity. There isn't any true self lurking behind its outward manifestations. And therefore if you are not sure whether your personal identity would survive teleportation, for example, then there is no fact of the matter to be discovered. At least not at this time; I suppose if teleportation were to become as common as air travel, or at least as common as space flight, we would develop intuitions about it.

That doesn't follow. It depends on how you define "you" in this context.

I'm going by the definition we've all agreed on for "you" and "me" and "I". Those are singular pronouns. They can't refer to more than one person (well, "you" can, but not in the context we're using it).

I'm going by the definition we've all agreed on for "you" and "me" and "I". Those are singular pronouns. They can't refer to more than one person (well, "you" can, but not in the context we're using it). — RogueAI

Are you saying saying multiple instantiatons of people with identical self-identities could not exist because of the rules of grammar?

I can't tell whether you're objecting to my use of language or to the concept of multiple instantiations.