Author Topic: Let me............... Tel-e-port you!  (Read 84828 times)

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Offline General Battuta

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Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Still doesn't matter. A copy is a copy. It's not you, it's a copy of you.

You don't lie down on a table, go to sleep, and wake up in a computer.

You lie down on a table, go to sleep, and wake up with a copy of you on a computer. Then you die and your existance ends. THE END.
From your POV nothing changes.

Teehee. Actually, this has already happened to you hundreds of times.

Yet you believe you're you! Even though, materially, you're really just a copy of you, and all that's been preserved is the information.

It's funny that you'd be afraid of something that has already happened to  you countless times.

 

Offline StarSlayer

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Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Still doesn't matter. A copy is a copy. It's not you, it's a copy of you.

You don't lie down on a table, go to sleep, and wake up in a computer.

You lie down on a table, go to sleep, and wake up with a copy of you on a computer. Then you die and your existance ends. THE END.
From your POV nothing changes.

Teehee. Actually, this has already happened to you hundreds of times.

Yet you believe you're you! Even though, materially, you're really just a copy of you, and all that's been preserved is the information.

It's funny that you'd be afraid of something that has already happened to  you countless times.

We can have internet piracy... of people!  I'm totally torrenting Lucy Liu.
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Offline castor

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Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Still doesn't matter. A copy is a copy. It's not you, it's a copy of you.
I have to agree, sort of. Let's see..

Assume I upload myself into a "box". Immediately the boxed me and the original me start to differentiate, as they have thought processes of their own. So, as long as the original "me" exists, there are now *two* of me. But that doesn't make sense, does it? I can only be *one*. So actually, those two now *form the one*, who is me.

Ok? Now, if the original half gets destroyed, the remaining half is not the *whole* me anymore :(

 

Offline The E

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Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Geez, you people are really not up to speed on that whole uploading deal. Most of the (so far, fictional) implementations necessitate that the original is destroyed in the process (See John Scalzi's Old Man's War, or Charlie Stross' Accelerando). Thus there is only one of you around. Keeping both alive opens the door for potential abuse.
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Offline General Battuta

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Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Ah, this is a classic thought experiment! And it has an easy solution. The solution is to get rid of a silly assumption, namely that

Quote
that doesn't make sense, does it? I can only be *one*

Let's say you get a copy made at time X. The copies will immediately begin to diverge, as you suggest. Both of them, however, will be 'you', complete with your unshaken conviction that you are you and that the other one is just a copy. So, while you can be only *one*, there are now *two* of you, and both of them are the 'real' you.

This is because the process that made the copy is no different from what happens to you every day of your life: different material cycles through your body, but the overall pattern of information remains the same.

Here's a thought experiment that helps illustrate that: you have created a copy which is linked to you by a neural bridge. This bridge keeps the copy in perfect sync with your thoughts. It will only begin to diverge when the link is broken.

You are hit by a car and you die. What do you experience?

Well, one minute you're walking along. Suddenly, WHAM. You wake up in a lab in your replacement body. "Holy ****," you say. "I'm glad I had that copy."

Meanwhile, EMTs resuscitate Old You. What does Old You experience? Well, from Backup's POV, Old You walks in and looks you over and says 'wow, that's a good copy.' You think that it's going to be really awkward explaining this to your wife.

From Old You's POV, you walk in to a room, find your copy, and say 'Wow, good copy.' You think to yourself that it's going to be really awkward explaining this to your wife.

You've forked. But both of the forks are the real you. They will now develop into different people - just as you are different from the person you were five years ago.

 

Offline castor

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Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Ok, that makes sense. Everytime you're about to die, fork! (like in FOSS development...)
It sounds tough, though. To not "lose" anything (keep the *me* intact), we must be able to fork from the very last mental state at the edge of alive/dead.

 

Offline The E

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Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Still not understanding. It doesn't matter when you fork, both copies will always be you. The 'me' is intact, no matter when you do it.

Oh, and forking, and the associated issues with it, need to be resolved before you do it. Just ask yourself, since both forks are you, which fork is the one with the right to access your bank account?
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Right. While forking is not particularly hard to understand from a biological or physical standpoint, the legal and social implications are mad!

(Which is probably why so many people find it so counterintuitive.)

And The_E's right, even if your last fork is from, say, a day or a month before your accident, the backup will still be 'you'...as much as the person you were a day or a month ago is you.

 

Offline TrashMan

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Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
It's not YOU because you can only be you form one point of view. It doesn't amtter what happens to the other you if the first one gets destroyed. You're the original. The only sense of "self" you have is the original.

It doesn't matter that the other you lives on and does ****. From your point of view, you're dead. Don't you get it?
your life experince is over. The other you is his own person, not "you" you. Bob2 lives on - good for him. But you're Bob1. You're dead.


And I dont' really think the backup will be really a perfect copy of you. He will have your memories, but he will know it's not him that actually made those memories. Bob1 is the one that kissed Lucy, got the promotion and had 4 kids. Bob2 is just a copy with the memories, and he knows it. Even if you somehow automagicly copy the whole though patterns, the knowledge of being a copy is there.
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Offline General Battuta

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Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Nope, you're still missing it.

Bob1 and Bob2 are identical in the same way that you, TrashManNow, are identical to TrashManFiveYearsAgo. Actually, they're more similar. You didn't kiss Lucy five years ago; TrashManFiveYearsAgo did. And all that you share with him is that you're a copy made of new material but with the same memories. You're not the one that made the memories; TrashManFiveYearsAgo did.

The material used to make the body is different. The pattern of information is the same.

*shrug* You do this every day. It's why you're not dead even though the atoms in your body are now utterly different. You really have nothing to worry about because you've 'copied yourself' a million times.

It's the same reason the transporter in Star Trek doesn't kill you.

An easy way to untangle your misunderstanding is to say 'the copy is now BoB1', and the 'old you body' becomes BoB2, in the same way that 'you five years ago' is no longer TrashMan.

 

Offline High Max

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Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
*_*
« Last Edit: January 05, 2010, 12:10:59 am by High Max »
;-)   #.#   *_*   ^^   ^-^   ^_^

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
There are testable, empirical theories, and then there is everything else, a category that contains everything from God to the Easter Bunny to the Greek pantheon and ancient fertility gods and my childhood belief that I was a shapeshifter from Pluto.

Please don't presume to know any science when you spout ideas like 'memory being contained in DNA'. A basic knowledge of biology would tell you why that doesn't make sense.

 

Offline Turambar

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Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
There's only one way to really find out.  Someone's got to actually do it.
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Offline Mongoose

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Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
You volunteering? I'll grab the anesthesia! :p

 

Offline Scotty

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Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Trashman's argument earlier is that no matter how many copies you make, not matter how "you" they are, when one dies, he is dead.  There is no prolongation of consciousness.  For all practical intents and purposes, You #1 is just as dead as if he didn't have copies.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Sure, but since You #2 and #3 and #4 are all also equally you, consciousness is still prolonged. To you, the guy who died was the copy, and you're the real you. All the yous feel that way.

He's missing the concept of the fork. He thinks that 'the real you' somehow only goes into one branch. But all the branches receive 'the real you'.

It's based an illusion of continuity. You can easily think your way around it if you realize that the difference between You and Clone You #1 is smaller than the difference between You Today and You A Year Ago. And yet I don't think you believe that You A Year Ago was a different 'you', do you?

It's an easy and seductive argument for those new to the concept, but you pretty rapidly learn why it's wrong. It's like stepping up from Newtonian dynamics to special relativity, and learning that there is no one 'correct' reference frame.

The trick Trashman's still struggling with is realizing that there can be more than one 'real you'. That's the whole point of the process. And just because one 'real you' dies - which he does! - doesn't mean that the other one is a fake.

Of course, from the perspective of any given copy, all the other copies are basically just identical twins with the same memories after the point of divergence - but all the copies think that, and they're all correct. No reason they can't be!

(If you go back in time to hang out with yourself, which one is the real you? Well, you both are, right? Same idea.)

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

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Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
As long as one of my copies remembers what the heck i did, i don't really care one way or the other...


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Offline The E

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Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Again, I recommend some additional reading. Altered Carbon, by Richard Morgan, in particular.
If I'm just aching this can't go on
I came from chasing dreams to feel alone
There must be changes, miss to feel strong
I really need lifе to touch me
--Evergrey, Where August Mourns

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
Here, for Scotty and TrashMan: think of it this way to work yourself out of the logical trap.

You have two brains in your head. One's your backup brain, which just copies your real brain exactly. In fact, you can switch between them in real time if you like! It's great. Totally awesome, no difference at all.

One day, you die. As you've arranged, your brain gets pulled out of your head and put in a new body. You wake up. "Whoa!" you say. "Pretty ****ing weird. Lucky I got pulled out."

Remember, the two brains are interchangeable, now. Totally the same.

So you go on your way, confident that you're the real you. And you are. I don't think anybody would argue it. You live in your brain, right? And now your brain is just in a new head. It's all good.

But then, your other brain miraculously comes back to life! And now there are two you. You look back at your old body and you're like 'whoa, not me any more.' And meanwhile, you're looking at your new body and being like 'whoa, not me any more!'

Crazy, huh? And yet they're both equally you.

(You'll note that at no point did I specify which brain gets pulled out and transferred...because it doesn't matter! They're interchangeable.)

Again, I recommend some additional reading. Altered Carbon, by Richard Morgan, in particular.

Hell yeah. Great book. I wish I could spoil the awesome sequence

Spoiler:
where there are two of the main character, and they talk about just this dilemma.

 

Offline Mongoose

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Re: The Earth is uninhabitable
But then, your other brain miraculously comes back to life! And now there are two you. You look back at your old body and you're like 'whoa, not me any more.' And meanwhile, you're looking at your new body and being like 'whoa, not me any more!'

Crazy, huh? And yet they're both equally you.
So here's the real question, then...if You #1 and You #2 get wasted and wind up "experimenting," does it just count as masturbation? :p