At 01:30 AM 5/20/00 -0000, John Calvin wrote:
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Just for a moment lets ponder the transporter experiment. Modified so that
it is a non destructive transporter. Meaning "I" step on the transporter
pad and bam in two shakes of a tail (or preferably a much smaller
measurement of time)an exact duplicate of "me" appears some arbitrary
distance away. This entity has all my memories, facial hair, tattoos,
receding hairline, etc. To that entity the experience is rather like
stepping through a door. Both entitities could even meet and play chess if
they wanted. However, as for "me", "I" am still here. Now we have two
seprate entities. imho if you were to kill either one you would still be a
murderer. For both of us, what matters now is the particular point of view
of the particular stream of conciousness that exists as a function of the
individual entities existance. Both of us would avoid a destructive
Transport like the plague because we both see that we are in fact seperate
entities and that destructive transport would therefore be suicide on the
send side.
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Why wouldn't the two of you reason like this: If this had been a
destructive transporter, one of us would've made it, and the other wouldn't
have. We equally experience a continuity with the self that entered the
transporter. If either of us were to consider using a destructive
transporter, he wouldn't know whether he'd be the one to make it, or the
one that is terminated. Since he doesn't have any basis for expecting
anything other than an even distribution, he'd expect a 50% chance of his
awareness being terminated, and a 50% chance of "walking through a door" to
the new location. UNLESS...transportations involved more duplications and
terminations along the way. Then you really wouldn't want to get in the
transporter, especially if the copying/destruction happened in several
distinct stages, in which case you'd expect your chances of termination to
increase exponentially. Even though the the guy who comes out at the end
will have a 100% chance of having been you, you might have a
0.00000000000001% chance of becoming him.
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J. Goard
http://www.foothill.net/~wyattoil
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The Beyond outside us is indeed swept away, and the
great undertaking of the Enlightenment complete;
but the Beyond *inside* us has become a new heaven
and calls us to renewed heaven-storming.
--Max Stirner
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