You know those sci-fi teleporters like in Star Trek where you disappear from one location then instantaneously reappear in another location? Do you trust that they are safe to use?
To fully understand my question, you need to understand the safety concerns regarding teleporters as explained in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQHBAdShgYI
spoiler
I wouldn’t, because the person that reappears aint me, its a fucking clone. Teleporters are murder machines. Star Trek is a silent massacre!
I’ve always had a hard time understanding what’s so bad about the person who arrives being a clone, never saw the downside. Yes, I 'd definitely use it. One of the biggest hurdles in my everyday life is the “going there”. When I was still working, the one thing I always complained about and what ruined my every morning was having to go there and return after. If I’d had the option to instantly teleport to work, I would have loved every day because I loved my work and I wanted to be there. Now that I’m disabled, I regularly have to cancel stuff like doctor’s appointments last minute because my chronic exhaustion is acting up and I physically can’t move my body there.
(If teleporting isn’t available, I’d settle for a ship’s computer core as a PDA)
Because you’d be dead and your clone lives on. Your consciousness ceases to exist, you will not experience anything your clone will experience. Unless they know how to teleport consciousness it will be a copy of you.
Depends on what we define as “consciousness”. If it’s just what my brain does, it doesn’t cease to exist at all because it’s rebuild in the clone. If it’s a soul, I don’t know, that’s above my paygrade.
But if the original copy isn’t destroyed, would your consciousness be split across two entities? I think the original would not see and feel what the copy does. Because it’s a twin. Sure it might be an exact copy of the original but it’s still a new and unique brain.
I had this conversation right here earlier. There is no “splitting”, it’s a copy. Like copying a file to two different harddrives and deleting the file in the “original” path. Neither of them is more real than the other.
The problem with the clone is that the original “you” died in the transporter. Are you assuming your conscious transfers?
I’m assuming it’s painless and that my clone would have my memories. That’s still “me”. “I” am the sum of the structures in my brain and what my brain does with it.
It’s “you” for other people, and even for the clone. But it’s not “you” for your your present you, this “you” dies (in startrek style teleporter)
But what difference does that make? I wouldn’t even notice.
Its the same as dying. If you’re that blase about dying then yea- makes no difference.
In death, my consciousness stops. That’s not the case here.
Your consciousness stops for you in both scenarios. In the teleporter scenario a clone lives out the rest of your life. To everyone around you its as if nothing has changed but for you, specifically, time stopped progressing at the sending-teleporter.
It is though. There’s a separate consciousness that starts around the same time, but it’s separate and a divergence from yours. A copy of your consciousness goes on, but the one you’re experiencing stops.
You’re right, instant painless death, then no regrets (I’m assuming you - like me - don’t believe im afterlife, or souls, as startrek style teleporters are incompatible with those).
But I don’t want to cease to exist just yet.