Let's remove the Star Trek weirdness and simplify your professedly-unique argument into the classic one, that is nothing new, and has thoroughly been discussed.

If you could create an exact copy of one's brain, everything- memories, persona, mannerism, down to the smallest trait- and place that in a (I suppose for the sake of the experiment an exactly identical body, though otherwise would be valid yet naturally deviating) new person. Is that person the same person?

Somewhat blase for this creed of crowd but until moved to the Lounge, I'll go with it. What do you think, OP? You seemed to answer your own question after all. Absent of any sort of supernatural or metaphysical nature, the two would naturally be identical. Otherwise, no. The man is the man and the copy is the copy. Lay off the whisky, will ya.

Fiction is just that: Non-evidence, so it doesn't in any way constitute an argument one way or another.
Apparently Kirk was also split by the transporter, but not identical. So the story changes as the plot requires.

But it should, in principle, be possible to make a complete copy (à la Thomas Riker), who feels, thinks.. exactly the same as Will Riker. — Walter

This seems to be an assertion against body-soul dualism, not for it. The trek writers have always sort of somewhat presumed monism, but the subject has come up before with Dr. McCoy disliking the transporter since he considered it a copy/suicide machine. He said it always made a copy and destroyed the original. He simply chose a different convention.

Presuming that one isn't lacking something supernaturally critical (such as memories stored in the mind instead of physically), neither would know which is the original, and the designation seems to fall to convention. I might say that the transporter successfully beamed him up and mistakenly left a copy behind. The one on the planet is the copy. That's just a different convention. Identity is just an abstract convention, and the human identity convention stops working in sufficiently alien situations like say mitosis. Say I have 3 fuse strings tied at a common point. One end is lit, creating a flame. The flame gets to the junction and goes both ways down the other two fuses. Which is the original flame? Our convention doesn't answer that, and neither does physics.

You use the word 'soul', which has connotations of an entity with identity that gets held responsible in the afterlife for its choices made in life. If it doesn't hold memory, then it cannot know it is being judged, let alone why. If it does, then it will be quite obvious which Riker was the copy since the copy would have no memories. Maybe, rather than be a zombie (which you seem to assert otherwise), it would be assigned a new 'soul', which seems to absolve it of all the sins of the original, such as that time he took a leak on the captain's chair, earning him the informal title of 'number one'.


All this said, MWI interpretation says you are copied all the time, with no distinct 'original'. The convention is that each copy (and everybody that interacts with it) assumes it is the original. Is dualism then totally incompatible with MWI? I think not. If it were somehow proven, the dualists would find a way to bend their story, but the 'soul' thing would really take a hit. Which one is responsible for some random bad choice made at some point?

I like this doppelganger thing. Think most interesting question is how you would treat an identical copy of say, a family member or friend. Maybe to make it less trivial, frame in in a scenario where your friend goes off somewhere, some event happens, and they come back but there is the possibility this family member or friend could be a doppelganger. You don't know and they are otherwise identical in every single way including memories etc. They don't even know they may be a doppelganger.

Another interesting question possibly is how the transporter scenario meaningfully differs from say a scenario where someone has become clinically dead and their brain shuts down but then are brought back to life. Is there a point in such a kind of scenario where the discontinuity would render them a different person when they are resuscitated. Would other changes to the scenario make a difference like, when the brain is shut down, we replace some brain cells with different ones of an identical structure. Or maybe we scramble up the brain parts and then put them back together. Why would any of this make a difference while the brain is shut down before resuscitation?

I am not sure I see how mind-body dualism affects the scenario though.

Fiction is just that: Non-evidence, so it doesn't in any way constitute an argument one way or another.
Apparently Kirk was also split by the transporter, but not identical. So the story changes as the plot requires. — noAxioms

No. Kirk wasn't also split. Kirk was split. Riker was not. Two entirely different scenarios.

Kirk was, indeed, split in two. His yin and yang halves were separated.

Riker was duplicated. The transporter beam made the journey from the planet to the Enterprise, AND it was reflected back down to the planet. Two identical Rikers. Both are the original.

Honestly, people. How do you expect to be taken seriously when you can't get the most basic facts straight??

Honestly, people. How do you expect to be taken seriously when you can't get the most basic facts straight?? — Patterner

:rofl: :up:

*bow*

Thank you, folks. I'll be here all week.

Well, thank you for the replies.
Let me first tell you that I am an atheist and I am not in fact arguing for the existence of a soul.
However, I do wonder what exactly identity is.
Because if I get duplicated (no matter how), is it OK to kill one of the two 'me's'? After all, I am still 'the other one'.
Now, i do not know about you, but I don't really like the idea of dying and it wouldn,'t comfort me much if I was told a perfect copy of me existed.
If you truly had the choice, and you were the original you, would you prefer the copy to be destroyed or the original you.

However, I do wonder what exactly identity is. — Walter

Age old question. Is it as simple as this:



.. or something far greater? I for one hope it is indeed something far greater.

Because if I get duplicated (no matter how), is it OK to kill one of the two 'me's'? After all, I am still 'the other one'. — Walter

OK as in acceptable? Satisfactory? Again it all depends to whom. As an atheist your highest power and moral guidance is whomever happens to be stronger than you at the time.

If you truly had the choice, and you were the original you, would you prefer the copy to be destroyed or the original you. — Walter

Seems to be a bit silly as far as questions go. I've never attempted suicide, so I don't see why another me existing would encourage me to do so simply for existing. Would you?

The problem is this. What happens to your consciousness when you get transported to a planet? — Walter

How do any of the crew know that you, the one who goes into the transporter, actually is the one ending up on the planet surface? Since a copy can be made, does that mean that the one going into the transporter essentially dies and a copy is being materialized on the planet surface?

With all memories intact due to the brain structure being intact, the one ending up on the planet surface will always have the experience of being "sent there", but they will never be able to know if their individual experience and life ends when being transported.

Without a proper wormhole portal that you "go through", it's more likely that everyone who's transported essentially just dies every time they are transported. It's impossible for them to be able to know the difference.

That may be true, but in that case I sympathize with doc McCoy. I wouldn't be caught dead in a transporter.

Because if I get duplicated (no matter how), is it OK to kill one of the two 'me's'? — Walter

Why would that be ok??

Because no-one really gets killed?

Because no-one really gets killed? — Walter

How is it you think no-one really gets killed? Is there not a human being standing there? Is it not a human being because of the way it came into existence? Even if one Riker was the original and one a copy (Which was not the case. Both were originals.), like a clone, it's still a person. Thinking, feeling, wanting, acting.

Have you seen the movie The Prestige?

If we create computers, robots, or programs, that are actually conscious, then they are conscious beings. Origin doesn't matter. State of being does.

Because I am still alive. Or if you prefer, if thé Roker on the surface gets killed, the Roker on the Enterprise is still there.
Nobody seemed to care about the human being Riker who was transported dozens of times, and hence, killed and replaced by an identical copy.

That's why I would never be transported. Yes, the original is destroyed, and a duplicate is created. The duplicate doesn't have any sense of being a duplicate, but that doesn't mean anything. No reason they couldn't just create a duplicate at the destination. Although they'd certainly use it less often, not wanting hundreds of duplicates of everybody.

Might be handy in a war, though. Among other things...

But the show is the show. Roddenberry said he came up with the idea of the transporter because he couldn't figure out how to land the Enterprise. We have to pretend that, somehow, it is the same person, actually transported from A to B.

Yes, of course we have to pretend that. But the deeper problem is, if person is duplicaten, which 'part' of this person cannot be transferred to the duplicate?

Yes, of course we have to pretend that. But the deeper problem is, if person is duplicaten, which 'part' of this person cannot be transferred to the duplicate? — Walter

If you have a duplicate that's a functioning person, indistinguishable from the original, then it seems to me anything that needed to transfer did.

But if everything that needed to transfer did transfer, what would be wrong with killing the original?
I don't know how being dead feels (it may very well not 'feel' at all, but I think, no matter how accurate the duplicate would be, I would be dead.

If you're dead, just take the body away and bury it.

It is easily proven that teleportation is equivalent to death.

Assume teleportation involves the destruction of the original body A and the recreation of an identical body B at a different location.

As far as B is concerned, B is A. But what about from A's perspective? For A, his body is destroyed. Does he really care that a copy is created somewhere else? I say, he does not.

Suppose there is a glitch, and A's body is scanned, but not destroyed. The mistake is eventually caught, and the terrified A is brutally killed.

<--------A's Lifespan--------->
_________________<-----------B's Lifespan--------->
_______________(overlap)


During the overlap, A is certainly not B. After A is killed, does he magically get transported over, becoming B? By what mechanism? No, A's life ends, whether or not a B exists somewhere else in the universe.

If the teleportation fails with an overlap, it fails as the overlap becomes infinitesimally smaller, until there is no overlap at all.

TELEPORTATION IS MURDER!!!!

I agree with you.
But it still makes me wonder what exactly it is about a human being that makes it individual Will rather than individual Thomas. Which part of Will stays aboard Will and why can't it be transferred to Thomas?

If it really works the way it does in that episode, you are looking for something that isn't there. There are two copies of Riker. What makes them unique individuals is that they have different experiences, starting the moment they both materialize.

There is only the Body. Mind is a fiction constructed over time and stored in memory, having the effect of displacing Reality, but not replacing it with a new reality. So, when an organism like Riker is duplicated, although the same fictional narrative is superimposed to date, the Organism, that is the Real Riker remains the same, and the duplicate is a twin. If both were given the choice to kill the other or die, subject to their ethics, both would exercise the same drive to live and choose the other’s demise. Neither would be comforted by, "oh, well, the story lives on," and yet, that seems to be the very thing we cling to. The desire to keep the narrative "alive" and dismiss the organism is the same folly which has gotten us into this mess over what is Mind, in the first place.
A simplistic start: sensation and the natural drives, which may be summed up as the drive to live and multiply, and its aware-ing by the body is real activity involving the real consciousness of the human Organism. Perception is an activity restricted to human Mind wherein what is sensed is seized by Language, and, by forming attachments to other Language structures, converted into meaning which meaning is not derived from Reality, but constructed by these attachments, and thus, ultimately, fictional.

I think there is only one way to consistently solve these problems. Identity over time is no less illusory for conscious beings than it is for objects. Just like the Ship of Theseus, there is no fact of the matter as to whether a person is the same person at another time. There is only perception of continuity.

Therefore, when the teleporter accident happens there are two Rikers. Both experience being Riker, therefore both are. Kill one, and he dies like anyone else.

Did I really kill him of is he still alive as Thomas Riker? It seems that if there is no body-soul dualism, the latter is true. But is, in that case, before I kill him, Will's consciousness both in Wil and in Thomas? — Walter

Interesting that you suppose monism and then immediately use explicitly dualist language(consciousness in). You have to be very careful, since dualism is the default, intuitive perspective.

I think there is only one way to consistently solve these problems. Identity over time is no less illusory for conscious beings than it is for objects. Just like the Ship of Theseus, there is no fact of the matter as to whether a person is the same person at another time. There is only perception of continuity. — hypericin

Does knowing this allow anyone to see through the illusion? It does not for me. When I learn how a card trick works, I no longer see the illusion. I see what's really going on, and, when the big moment happens, it is nothing more than turning over a card.

Do you, who knows the truth of identity, think back on memories of years ago, and no longer have the illusory feeling that it was you? Do you feel that it was another identity and body that experienced those things?

If there is nothing continuous that is perceiving, how can there be perception of continuity?

Good questions. I wouldn't quite call it an illusion. Here's the way I think it works:

At any short time interval in your life, say one day, the you of today is mostly identical to the you of yesterday. Therefore, for all intents and purposes you are identical. This is true for successive days as well. We have a series of small changes which we don't regard as relevant to identity. Then, by the transitive property of identity, we regard the entire series as identical. Even though, the yous decades apart are very different.


A---B---C---...Z

A =~ B
A = B
B =~ C
B = C
A = C
...
A = Z

By this reasoning, A (say you as a baby) and Z (say you as today) are the same. And pragmatically, it is useful to regard Z as the same individual as A. In reality, Z really is the spatial lineal descendant of A. And yet, Z is also not A.

Ah, the ol' argument from fiction. You can prove just about anything if we can take fiction as evidence

Quite the trendy topic. I quote myself from this thread:

This topic has been discussed in this The Necessity of Genetic Components in Personal Identity and Reasons for believing in the permanence of the soul threads. I would recommend taking a look and then editing your OP so the discussion does not start from 0 again. :grin: — Lionino

Also this Possible solution to the personal identity problem thread has relevant posts.

Your thread seems to be more about permance of self rather than mind-body dualism.

But it should, in principle, be possible to make a complete copy (à la Thomas Riker), who feels, thinks.. exactly the same as Will Riker.
But suppose that right after the copy is made, I kill Will Riker. Did I really kill him of is he still alive as Thomas Riker? — Walter

They would be distinct in any metaphysical theory except for those of the likes of open individualism or Spinozism (maybe). In dualism, once you clone them, either one of them is soulless (possibly a p-zombie), or some spare soul in haven enters the soulless body. In physicalism, as soon as you clone them, they are distinct spatio-temporally, so they are distinct.

I wouldn't quite call it an illusion. — hypericin

You kinda did. Not exactly, but "Identity over time is no less illusory for conscious beings than it is for objects." is pretty much the same thing.

Although I understand what you're saying, I think of it differently. You're describing how a continuity is accomplished during change. I don't know exactly how it is calculated that your body's cells are continually being replaced at a rate of X, so you do not have any of the same cells you did Y years ago. I'm sure there's a way they know that. Still, the ways we identify our physical selves - things like looks/physical description, finger prints, and retinal scans - stay the same. Yes, we age, which is change. But there is continuity, which is not illusory. If we don't grant continuity in this, then what is continuity? Is the concept of continuity a sham?

But they don't know how often your consciousness is replaced. How is that measured? It's not. Not in any way. It's just an idea that, if all of your cells, all of your atoms, have been replaced, then your consciousness is as well. I don't think that's true. We can't even say exactly how consciousness is related to the physical brain, so it's difficult to know how to judge this issue. But there is also continuity, which, again, is not illusory. I clearly remember many thoughts and feelings from childhood. Some have not changed. Some have, largely due too learning things I didn't know, and experiencing things I had not yet experienced, which certainly effect how I think and feel. (The most obvious demonstration of those is that I could not have preferred chocolates to vanilla, or Bach to Mozart, before I had experienced both.) But I'm still me. There's a self that has always been there.

Is continuity only found in absolute, unchanging rigidity? The sea is (according to a race of Giants :lol:) permanence in motion. Stone is permanence at rest. But mountains show us that stone is also in motion. So where in the universe is "true" continuity to be found, against which my identity can objectively be seen as not continuous? if we want to say there's no such thing as continuity, that's fine. Maybe there isn't. But if we want to continue to use that concept, it's difficult to say where to draw the line between where it can be found and where it can't.

Still, the ways we identify our physical selves - things like looks/physical description, finger prints, and retinal scans - stay the same. Yes, we age, which is change. But there is continuity, which is not illusory. If we don't grant continuity in this, then what is continuity? Is the concept of continuity a sham? — Patterner

There are two related but different concepts here, continuity and identity. Continuity, simply meaning things remaining more or less the same over time, is real. Things really do stay the same. Not perfectly, but many features of a object or person persist over time.

Identity however is a concept that has no actual correspondence in the world. It is a human construct used to conceptually organize the world. In objective reality there is nothing corresponding to identity, which is why it is prone to paradoxes at the edge cases. It is just a concept, it is pragmatic, it does useful work, but it is ultimately a fiction. This is what I meant by "not quite an illusion". "Reification" I think is the word I was looking for. We reify the concept of identity, and treat it as if it were a real property of the world.

There's a self that has always been there. — Patterner

It is no different when it comes to conscious beings like ourselves. "Self" is the reification of identity of human beings over time. You have continuity with your earlier incarnations, features persist. It is quite useful to assign identities to individuals, formalized by naming. But there is no ghostly self inhabiting your mind from cradle to grave, which may or may not be confused and dislocated when the body is teleported. This is just reification joining forces with the dualistic instinct.

Once you abandon this error of reification, all the paradoxes of identity resolve themselves.