teleportation/minds

egon spengler

dont think I remember this accurately but anyway, according to some scientists if you make an exact copy of yourself through teleportation with the original you being destroyed in the process you continue to exist as your mind is copied exactly so there is no discontinuity in the program that is "you". But Im not sure about this line of thought as "you" are a specific event in space time, so to make another "you" at a seperate point in space time with you dying would be mean that you no longer exist and the other you continues where you left off as a seperate entity.

Merrick

I reckon the other "you" would indeed be a different entity. Even an exact copy is still completely separate from the original. One thing can't exist in two places at once ergo the two "you's" would have to be separate, meaning that if "you" die, "you're" gone and the other "you" is simply a replacement/stand-in/follow-on.

Man, I'm confusing myself... The thought of two Merricks... AAHHH!!!

egon spengler

Merrick wrote:

I reckon the other "you" would indeed be a different entity. Even an exact copy is still completely separate from the original. One thing can't exist in two places at once ergo the two "you's" would have to be separate, meaning that if "you" die, "you're" gone and the other "you" is simply a replacement/stand-in/follow-on.

Man, I'm confusing myself... The thought of two Merricks... AAHHH!!!

ok, but extending on what Ive heard, an algorithm which is an exact copy of another algorithm is the same algorithm as the first one. If the first one was destroyed it wouldnt matter. We are effectively computers. Would not the same apply to us?

Dunners

egon spengler wrote:

We are effectively computers. Would not the same apply to us?

That seems to me to be somewhat of an over simplification. We are considerably more than just computers or algorithms in my view. I have to agree with the point made regarding teleportation though, and it's something that has bugged me about the concept since I was first introduced to it.

If teleportation was simply taking you apart, sending you along a pipe so to speak and then putting you back together I would be happy. The fact that it actually involves copying you atom for atom, building the copy and then destroying the original to me means that I would no longer exist after the event. Instead a doppleganger created by the machine would exist in my place.

Maybe alot of people would be happy to live with or ignore this concept for the benefit of the convenience such a system may provide. I however would be deeply uncomfortable with every aspect.

Here's a couple of follow-ups for you. What if the machine malfunctions and a copy is made but the original not destroyed? Which is the real you?

Further to that, could you simply use the device to create infinite copies of yourself for whatever purpose? If one was then to commit a crime who would be responsible and how would the original culprit be identified?

Who would own the "pattern" of you at the time of transport? Is it your property or that of the company or organisation that operates the transporter? Could they use it to create cheap slave labour?

Finally, what if another copy was made say 10 years later from the same pattern, is that you at that point, you now or a completely different entity?

My head hurts...

Son Goku

Here's a couple of follow-ups for you. What if the machine malfunctions and a copy is made but the original not destroyed? Which is the real you?

This may ease your concerns, but for teleportation to work at all, the original piece of matter has to be destroyed in order to imprint its information on to another piece of matter.
Essentially conservation of information.

The original cannot remain.

Dunners

Son Goku wrote:

This may ease your concerns, but for teleportation to work at all, the original piece of matter has to be destroyed in order to imprint its information on to another piece of matter.
Essentially conservation of information.

The original cannot remain.

Interesting but can you save the process so to speak that a teleportation machine must go through to create the copy?

Could I carry myself at an exact moment in time around on a CD? If so can that be used to make more copies? You could develop some sort of crazy off-site personel backup system for disaster recovery in companies

Son Goku

Interesting but can you save the process so to speak that a teleportation machine must go through to create the copy?

Could I carry myself at an exact moment in time around on a CD? If so can that be used to make more copies? You could develop some sort of crazy off-site personnel backup system for disaster recovery in companies

Basically due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, no computer system can store a copy of you, because the information can only be obtain in a very approximate manner.
The only way to save matter is to actually imprint it onto another piece of matter, because this doesn't doesn't involve a measurement.

However imprinting actually destroys the original.
In other words, teleporting is actually saving your atomic pattern to another set of material.
With the pattern removed from the original material, it just becomes a mess essentially.

(All of this is tested by the way, teleportation has been conducted.
http://photonics.anu.edu.au/pingkoy/
http://photonics.anu.edu.au/qoptics/index.html
These guys were basically the first to do it.)

Vulpiner

Wouldnt happen. Youre "new" you would be very similiar to you but it was "you" at that moment in time and would take a different path in time/space.

Also humans are completly recycled every couple of years supposedly (cells in their bodies are replaced) and the moment that different "you" takes a gulp of air, its changed frrom you.

Son Goku

Wouldnt happen. Youre "new" you would be very similiar to you but it was "you" at that moment in time and would take a different path in time/space.

For all intensive purposes teleportation will create you exactly as before or result in a mess. Those are the only possibilities. There can't be a nearly you.

Vulpiner

Son Goku wrote:

For all intensive purposes teleportation will create you exactly as before or result in a mess. Those are the only possibilities. There can't be a nearly you.

But the you that would be created would still be different to you. "You" and you would be breathing slightly different amounts of O2 given rise to slightly differing biological processes.

Granted the exact moment you are created, physically your similiar.

Son Goku

Vulpiner wrote:

But the you that would be created would still be different to you. "You" and you would be breathing slightly different amounts of O2 given rise to slightly differing biological processes.

Granted the exact moment you are created, physically your similiar.

I'd be breathing slightly different amounts of O2 if I just held my breath, something more significant than breathing different air would have to occur for me to consider the person post-teleportation a different person.

Vulpiner

Just by doing something as simple as breathing will have an effect on you and "you" It may be tiny, the processes involved, oxegenating the blood, differing amounts of CO2 and other gases, but even that or holding ones breath will make you different from each other.

Nit-picking I know but thats the way it goes.

Son Goku

Vulpiner wrote:

Just by doing something as simple as breathing will have an effect on you and "you" It may be tiny, the processes involved, oxegenating the blood, differing amounts of CO2 and other gases, but even that or holding ones breath will make you different from each other.

Nit-picking I know but thats the way it goes.

That makes me, now, a different "me" than the me a second ago. In which case teleportation wouldn't be adding anything new to the mix.

Vulpiner

Sorry. Ive been asleep. Forgot this was teleportation:o Of course youd be physically similiar and probably mentally too. To all intensive purposes you would be you in this case. Though whether or not your soul would be the same is another question

Son Goku

Vulpiner wrote:

Sorry. Ive been asleep. Forgot this was teleportation:o Of course youd be physically similiar and probably mentally too. To all intensive purposes you would be you in this case. Though whether or not your soul would be the same is another question

Yeah, true. I would say your soul would be the same, for the very reason that I can't think why not.

Vulpiner

The reason being that since you were teleported, your cells and all atoms/molecules that make you up would be exactly the same as before you teleported. Therefore, your "soul" would still be the same as from before teleportation.

Not a big believer in souls as in going to heaven, but do sort of believe your biology goes into making your "soul" whatever that is

Patricide

The problem with teleportation is if you get destroyed going in one end and the you that comes out the other end is a cloned you he would be totally unaware and think that it works without killing you, this has boggled my mind for AGES.Freaks me out really.

The Gnome

I think the root of the problem here's lies once again at the old "what is the soul?" connundrum. If the soul is simply conciousness then for all intents and purposes you would be no different after transportation. To your stream of conciousness would be continuous despite obvious time differences (Which raises and interesting question about the lenght of the transportation process. Could it be lenghtened? Could it be effectively used as a means of stasis?).

However, if the soul is something else, then the question must be raised as to what exactly it is. Will it be transported aswell? If not then what will happen upon the completion of transportation?

Actually now that I think of it transportation could be used to determine what a soul is.


Anyway never mind, I went a mad there for a second...

Son Goku

The Gnome wrote:

Which raises and interesting question about the lenght of the transportation process. Could it be lenghtened? Could it be effectively used as a means of stasis?

Theoretically it could, but in reality it would be nigh on impossible due to an effect called decoherence.

FionnMatthew

Son Goku wrote:

For all intensive purposes...

*sighs*

Vulpiner wrote:

To all intensive purposes ...

*sighs*

TheGnome wrote:

...then for all intents and purposes you...

*sighs with relief*

Son Goku wrote:

Basically due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, no computer system can store a copy of you, because the information can only be obtain in a very approximate manner.
The only way to save matter is to actually imprint it onto another piece of matter, because this doesn't doesn't involve a measurement.

However imprinting actually destroys the original.
In other words, teleporting is actually saving your atomic pattern to another set of material.
With the pattern removed from the original material, it just becomes a mess essentially.

(All of this is tested by the way, teleportation has been conducted.
http://photonics.anu.edu.au/pingkoy/
http://photonics.anu.edu.au/qoptics/index.html
These guys were basically the first to do it.)

The whole way through this thread you're talking as if the teleportation of a human is mapped and documented by scientific theory, as if all the questions have been answered already.

Teleportation of matter is one thing, but there is no guarantee that, in teleporting a human, their mind would survive the process, replete with memory and everything else. We don't even understand the way memory works - we don't know how the data is stored. Some neuroscientists believe memory isn't stored data at all, but the result of a synaptic process, relying on the continuity of the process over time. How do you teleport a syntaptic process, if your teleportation technique records you at a specific moment?

Teleportation of a human being remains a science-fiction scenario. The problem this thread has as its subject is merely a thought-experiment devised to mediate between the perennial "soul" and the mechanistic view of the mind. It's just a thought experiment.

That means :
1)It should be stated more clearly, with all of the (omitted) conditions and clauses, and the purposes behind the invention of the problem in the first place,
2)Experimental and Theoretical scientific hyperbole should not be deployed to create the impression that teleportation of a full human being, without any adverse effects, is anything more that conceivably possible, or that all of the questions are answered, and the answers neatly tucked away somewhere, so that the best, most-informed philosophers of our time had not occasion to see them when they were formulating the thought experiment (badly) described here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter_Transmission
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_transfer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_teleportation

Son Goku

*sighs*

Man, I really think wise-ass responses like this are just lame. I wasn't as clear as I should of been, but there is no reason to quote everybody who you think said something stupid and write *sigh* after it. With something like this I'll tend to accidentally write my posts within the context of Quantum Mechanics, particularly Dirac's formulation, so some of what I say might sound different to what I mean.
I like discussing this stuff and I should have been more rigorous, but there is no reason to start off with a condescending remark.

FionnMatthew wrote:

The whole way through this thread you're talking as if the teleportation of a human is mapped and documented by scientific theory, as if all the questions have been answered already.

They have. All the fundamental questions.

Teleportation of matter is one thing, but there is no guarantee that, in teleporting a human, their mind would survive the process, replete with memory and everything else. We don't even understand the way memory works - we don't know how the data is stored. Some neuroscientists believe memory isn't stored data at all, but the result of a synaptic process, relying on the continuity of the process over time. How do you teleport a syntaptic process, if your teleportation technique records you at a specific moment?

Teleportation transfers the state vector, so it would naturally encode the process, it doesn't even matter that we don't understand how the mind works. It doesn't matter how byzantine the state vector is (in fact that is the point of using them).
I'm not saying teleportation on human beings is possible, largely due to decoherence effects it probably wouldn't be, but I'm saying that there is nothing fundamental to the nature of teleportation which raises an issue here.
We know all there is to know about the nature of teleportation and there would be nothing fundamentally detrimental about it to a human being, atomic processes naturally go through discontinuous leaps like this.

Look at the last link you provided:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_teleportation
That just discusses State Vectors. That is what I'm saying, since teleportation has only to do with the state vector the problem is more achieving coherence for a sizeable length of time with objects of high self-energy.
Either it would work or it wouldn't. If it did, then it would make no difference, except you would be in a different location, if it didn't you would die.

To sum up, I don't think teleportation is a decent thought experiment "to mediate between the perennial "soul" and the mechanistic view of the mind", because of how it operates at a fundamental level, it doesn't raise any more questions than light shining on you does.
It doesn't matter if we have studied actual human teleportation or not.

FionnMatthew

*sighs*

Man, I really think wise-ass responses like this are just lame. I wasn't as clear as I should of been, but there is no reason to quote everybody who you think said something stupid and write *sigh* after it. With something like this I'll tend to accidentally write my posts within the context of Quantum Mechanics, particularly Dirac's formulation, so some of what I say might sound different to what I mean.
I like discussing this stuff and I should have been more rigorous, but there is no reason to start off with a condescending remark.

If I had quoted everybody who said something stupid, I would have still been typing my last post. I sigh with genuine dismay at the level of literacy and clarity of expression on this forum. If you are going to be delivering high-order concepts such as those found in philosophy and quantum physics, you need to be pretty exact about the language you're using to carry them. Likewise, when your expertise is elsewhere, the concepts you are using aren't necessarily familiar, so you must do a lot more explaining to bring everyone up to speed. You shouldn't just deploy a concept like "decoherence", and leave it out there, unexplained - without even any idea of why it applies. You only offered citations as a bonus, as if they weren't required in such a situation. To tell the truth - the most annoying thing was that the other people didn't see the need for further clarification and didn't ask for it; they just ran on trying to make deductions from concepts not fully explained. Which is indicative of a tendency on this forum to proceed to the fun stuff without doing the groundwork, which affords us damn all certainty, even within the bubble of speculative hypotheses we're affording ourselves.

To sum up, I don't think teleportation is a decent thought experiment "to mediate between the perennial "soul" and the mechanistic view of the mind", because of how it operates at a fundamental level, it doesn't raise any more questions than light shining on you does.

That's because you've taken a philosophical position already. You seem to believe that all that comprises a human consciousness can be traced to reliance on, or a certain identity to, things with material susbstance. This is, or is close to, the position of eliminative materialism, or at least of Property Dualism. Whereas a perennial philosopher might posit the idea that there is something extra, that the mind has its own existence apart from these things. A good exposition of the perennial view is expounded in this text. And no matter how far neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience encroach upon the perennial view, it's still (yet) a matter of opinion whether they explain away certain things, and whether they rule out the idea that consciousness - unique as it is as a phenomenon within our experience - might have more to it that just matter and processes. This is a view we cannot yet rule out on the science we have already. There is no guarantee that just because teleportation copies the state vector, that the human mind involved would survive the transfer.

For a better articulation of this thought-experiment by modifying it slightly to underline the problems expressed, I refer you all to Jim Stone's “Parfit and the Buddha: Why There are No People”, available on JSTOR.

Teleportation transfers the state vector, so it would naturally encode the process, it doesn't even matter that we don't understand how the mind works. It doesn't matter how byzantine the state vector is (in fact that is the point of using them).

Ok. What if the mind functions at a quantum level, as Bohm suggested? There are many theories of the mind based on quantum mechanics now. Would teleportation be able to transfer such a mind? I genuinely want to know this.

Gurgle

FionnMatthew wrote:

You seem to believe that all that comprises a human consciousness can be traced to reliance on, or a certain identity to, things with material susbstance...
Would teleportation be able to transfer such a mind? I genuinely want to know this.

Surely by definitation of the word teleportation the answer is yes.
Otherwise its duplication.

Heres another spin:
If some device were made which could instantaenously extract every single oxygen atom from your body and replace it with one from a tank marked 'oxygen', would that have any effect on your mind / your being you?

Extend the idea to replacing every oxygen, hydrogen and carbon atom, all at the same time.

Are you still you?

If not, why not?
Whats the difference?

FionnMatthew

Gurgle wrote:

FionnMatthew wrote:

You seem to believe that all that comprises a human consciousness can be traced to reliance on, or a certain identity to, things with material susbstance...
Would teleportation be able to transfer such a mind? I genuinely want to know this.

Surely by definitation of the word teleportation the answer is yes.
Otherwise its duplication.

You're missing out on the nature of the teleportation involved here. Essentially it is duplication, where the original is destroyed in the process. And if it is done by copying the information of the body only so far as the quantum level, then a mind whose qualia reside at levels more fundamental than those described in quantum mechanics may not be duplicable by such a process. Would not something be left out?

The which question would have appeared far more relevant in your post if you hadn't quoted me inaccurately by omitting the important bits.

When I said "such a mind", at the end of my post, I was referring to the mind Bohm posits (a mind that functions at a quantum level), which I had just mentioned, not the Property Dualist/Eliminative Materialist mind theory I was referring to earlier in my post, when characterising Son Goku's perspective.

Your quotation gave the impression that "such a mind" was the mind characterised in the first sentence you quoted, originally half a page away from the second sentence. You took two relatively unrelated sentences from my post, conflated them, and responded to the synthetic point that you had crafted. Very creative! But it's not me you're responding to. It's yourself.

Gurgle

FionnMatthew wrote:

it is done by copying the information of the body only so far as the quantum level.

I was going to link to the dictionary.com definition of quantum, but its hopelessly inaccurate:

dictionary.com wrote:

Physics.
The smallest amount of a physical quantity that can exist independently, especially a discrete quantity of electromagnetic radiation.
This amount of energy regarded as a unit.

:rolleyes:

You seem to be drifting right past my analogy about atom-swapping in your body.
Any comments on that part?

FionnMatthew

Wikipedia

Wikipedia (Click this Quote Window for Link) wrote:

Superstring theory is an attempt to explain all of the particles and fundamental forces of nature in one theory by modeling them as vibrations of tiny supersymmetric strings.

Which is a level more fundamental than that of quantum particles or units of energy, is it not?

The atom-swapping problem is similar to one expounded in the Stone article (above cited). I refer you to that.

Son Goku

FionnMatthew wrote:

You're missing out on the nature of the teleportation involved here. Essentially it is duplication, where the original is destroyed in the process. And if it is done by copying the information of the body only so far as the quantum level, then a mind whose qualia reside at levels more fundamental than those described in quantum mechanics may not be duplicable by such a process. Would not something be left out?

It's not copying. It's a form of imprinting. You are essentially imprinted on to another mass. If the mind goes deeper than the quantum mechanical level, then I don't know what will happen.
Although I really doubt the mind goes that deep.

That's because you've taken a philosophical position already. You seem to believe that all that comprises a human consciousness can be traced to reliance on, or a certain identity to, things with material susbstance. This is, or is close to, the position of eliminative materialism, or at least of Property Dualism........................
When I said "such a mind", at the end of my post, I was referring to the mind Bohm posits (a mind that functions at a quantum level), which I had just mentioned, not the Property Dualist/Eliminative Materialist mind theory I was referring to earlier in my post, when characterising Son Goku's perspective.

From where did you gather that that is what I think?
My whole point is that there is nothing that teleportation brings to the table on this discussion above any other physical effect. If the mind has a non-physical component then I don't know what teleportation will do to it, just like I don't know what gravity will do to it.
I don't discuss a non-physical component because there is no point. If it exists there is nothing I can say about it.
Teleportation is a physical process whose only discernable consequences are physical.

There is no guarantee that just because teleportation copies the state vector, that the human mind involved would survive the transfer.

Teleporting won't damage anything physically, just like an airplane flight.
There is nothing special about teleportation in regard to the human mind.

Ok. What if the mind functions at a quantum level, as Bohm suggested? There are many theories of the mind based on quantum mechanics now. Would teleportation be able to transfer such a mind? I genuinely want to know this.

Yes. Teleportation is a quantum mechanical process and so will easily function on quantum systems.

Son Goku

FionnMatthew wrote:

Which is a level more fundamental than that of quantum particles or units of energy, is it not?

String Theory is far too advanced to bring into a discussion like this.
String level effects wouldn't matter at human energy scales.

FionnMatthew

Son Goku wrote:

String Theory is far too advanced to bring into a discussion like this.

So is quantum mechanics. I realise I've gotten quite sidetracked, and I recall that the point I originally wished to make upon reading this thread was that, interesting as all the physics is, the thread and the thought experiment can work quite healthily without it. To start explaining the How of the physics behind the thought experiment is to miss the point - that the experiment actually presupposes that all of this is possible, and that it doesn't matter whether it's possible or not. We just use the situation to get us to the philosophical problem, which lies not within the domain of the empirical science, but within the remit of thought, and is a relevant problem for each and every one of us, as long as we choose to face it, rather than attempt to explain it away.

The point of the experiment is this:
If I am copied - completely, and the original me destroyed, am I discontinued?
Wherein lies the identity? Is it the diachronic or the synchronic aspect of me, or the combination of both? Am I my memories and personality, or the continuity of my awareness and body over time, both, or neither. This question cannot be answered by saying where in the brain the identity lies. It forces us to look within. We must look at consciousness from the side of consciousness, not from the side of inert matter.

Does the fact that there is another me, spontanteously generated upon my discontinuity, with the same memories, personality, who believes he is me, mean that he is actually me? Is he not identical me in every respect except that he is another centre of awareness? Were we to be coexistent, would we both be me? So even if I'm destroyed, is he me?

Sure, you can say that he resembles me, he has my memories, and he believes he's me - so to all intents and purposes he is me. But that's only from your perspective, using only external evidence. Or from his perspective using internal evidence and memory. What about me? Is not the self that was me, the ME that thought of itself as ME, is not that dead?

To say that the two are the same is to reject the fact that there is an intrinsic MEness which is the particular instance of a consciousness, and makes it different from another, which can be identical in all other respects.

If you have two computers running the same program at exactly the same time, that's two processes and not one.

If you copy a file, and leave it beside the copy on your desktop, you don't think of them as the same. There are two of them - they're just different copies. If you delete the old one, the new one doesn't become the old one, it stays itself. You might as well proceed as if it's the same one, but it's just identical to it in all (most) respects.

Leibniz's Identity of Indiscernibles doesn't apply to self-identity, because there is a black-box - another perspective only available to the person holding the identity - and to that person, were they alive, their identity with the other person from whom he is indiscernable would not be a foregone conclusion. Would they both be the same person, or two people identical in every respect except that they coexist (and the relevant corollaries to this fact - space, bifurcation of consciousness from moment of duplication, etc.)?

We don't even have to imagine the original coexisting with the copy. It is enough to think ahead to the teleportation itself. Would I want to be destroyed so that an exact copy of me, with my memories, believing he was me, could come into existence somewhere else? If I did, would I be aware anymore, or would it be a different locus of awareness? Would I discontinue?

I really don't think science explains this problem away. I can't see how the perspectival account of consciousness from within consciousness can be a subject for empirical sciences. It's not enough to play about with qualia. It's a case of taking the perspective of the self, not that of the material universe. Even if you say that the self is an illusion, you have to ask who is being deceived.

Son Goku wrote:

String level effects wouldn't matter at human energy scales.

And yet, there is a (proto-scientific) string-theory account of the mind, advocated by Dimitris Nanopoulos and Nick Mavromatos, both, interestingly, of Greek origin.


POST SCRIPT
This is the second time I wrote this. My browser froze up as I was putting the finishing touches on the first text. The content is roughly the same as the first time, but it's not as clearly worded - I couldn't remember exactly how I couched the problem - and I didn't have any more time to spend on it. If some of the examples seem a little forced, or rushed, I apologise.

Son Goku

My main contention is the use of the word teleportation. It has a precise meaning, which is not that it copies something and destroys the original. There is no discontinuity in teleportation. My main problem is involving teleportation when it doesn't actually raise these issues.

FionnMatthew wrote:

And yet, there is a (proto-scientific) string-theory account of the mind, advocated by Dimitris Nanopoulos and Nick Mavromatos, both, interestingly, of Greek origin.

It isn't scientific. It isn't even proto-scientific. I won't go into it, but I find it ridiculous that these men were paid for that.

Pocari Sweat

A professor of quantum physics was giving a lecture on the theories of teleportation and stated that a physical object cannot be formally disintegrated and re-integrated at any distance.

He went on further to say it is also more certain and within the bounds of impossibilty that a biological entity can be broken down to particle level and re-ordered elsewhere.

A student put his hand up and said what about bananas sir?

What about them he replied.

They go all soggy and decompose and if their seeds are eaten by a bird, they can re-appear thousands of miles away and re-grow back like they was just like magic.

The professor was silent.

The class was silent.

Outside was silent.

For a long, long time, everything was silent.

For the longest time.

Finally the professor cleared his throat and spoke slowly and surely...

Shut yer face ye big puff.