I think these things are as testable as whether we'll still be ourselves tomorrow, which is the only criteria we need. If I sound poetical it's because our ideas of 'self', 'dying', 'consciousness' and so on are just poetry — dressed-up terms to disguise the fact that we're reels of film.
But surely you see the problem there: whenever terms are poetic, that means we have no real synthetic / scientific grasp on them, let alone engineeringly-wise. I see this as a gradient from "Mere Intuition - > Insight -> Poetic semantics -> Insight -> Philosophizing -> Pre-scientific terminology -> Insight -> More grounded Philosophizing -> Hypothesis -> Testability, testing, tinkering, empirical feedback -> Scientific terminology -> Technical insight -> Engineering -> Technology".
When you tell me to dismiss all this poetic language because what "we really are" (which is a phrase that should be followed by some technical thing) is
reels of film, just shows how deep into the Plato Cave's shadows we really are in discussing these things. No, we're not "reels of film", although I do get your "poetic point" - isn't it all we have at this point anyway?
I do not share your fear that living on through teleporters is like living on through your work. If you rebuild the object, you rebuild the subject. This is not just an untestable article of faith but the default conclusion of every single piece of evidence we have about the universe. I do not see any risk to the philosophical teleporter.
You are claiming that the continuation of my own Consciousness, that prima facie can be said to be stuck inside this brain of mine, can be followed through the destruction and re-building of the support of it, anywhere, any time. That's fine. What's
not fine is your claim that this is "the default conclusion". As established by whom? As tested by whom? How can you ever test this thing?
To recap, let's just focus on the testability of this. Imagine two possible metaphysics here:
1. Consciousness works like you say and you can transfer it through teleportation (let's ignore the unanswered murder aspects):
a. I go to a room, my brain and body is scanned;
b. I'm immediately executed, and the information is passed through a channell to its proper place;
c. A clone is built and all the required information is inserted;
d. This clone wakes up and you ask this clone: "
Who are you, and are you really *you*, the one who just came from the other side?"
e. The clone wll answer unequivocally "
"Of course I am, I feel myself, I am conscious, I remember I was just scanned and here I am now, now let me go to my business will you?"
2. Consciousness does *not* work like you say, but it is "copiable". In this metaphysical scenario, every time you kill a brain, you kill a Conscience:
a. I go to a room, my brain and body is scanned;
b. I'm immediately executed, and the information is passed through a channell to its proper place;
c. A clone is built and all the required information is inserted;
d. This clone wakes up and you ask this clone: "
Who are you, and are you really *you*, the one who just came from the other side?"
e. The clone wll answer unequivocally "
"Of course I am, I feel myself, I am conscious, I remember I was just scanned and here I am now, now let me go to my business will you?"
There's no way to distinguish both scenarios. There's no way to test it. And that's why you'll be left with mere beliefs. Always. But science is not dealing with beliefs. It deals with predictions and tests. Replication. Falsification.
None of what you have said meet these criteria, therefore it is not Science, it is just... your beliefs.