X-Message-Number: 13700
From: Joseph Kehoe <>
Subject: me
Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 17:44:32 +0100

> The transporter doesn't solve the problem.  The way I view it, every time
> someone transports, they are killed at the point that they are 
disassembled.
> An exact copy is apparently created somewhere else.  Since it behaves
> exactly like the original, no one else is alarmed and since the original 
is
> dead, there's no one to complain.  Kirk died a thousand deaths.
>
> But if we stay in our original form to avoid the copy dilemma, how long
> could we survive with our organic brains? How far could we really evolve? 
As
> has been mentioned by Fred C., we'd soon fall far behind those who do
> upload. I don't know the solution.  Wish I did though.

Philosophically this problem has been around for a long time (since before 
Socrates)
"I can never step into the same river twice"

Every day old cells die and are replaced by new ones.  Does this mean I am 
not the same person that I was ten years ago.  Have I died in the meantime? 
 I have learnt a lot and in a sense I am not the person that I was ten 
years ago but it is still me.  Surely uploading is the same idea?

The fact is that we change each day we live.  The only way we can stop 
changing is by dying (as far as we know).

Try the following:
1. The disassembler takes me apart and reassembles me exactly in the exact 
same place immediately (same molecules same configuration)
Is it me?

2. What if there is a half second delay before I am put back?
3. 2 minute delay?
4. no delay but moves me one micrometer left?
5. 1 meter left?

6. I go into a disassembler - It takes me apart and moves all my molecules 
next door where it reassembles me exactly (same molecules same 
configuration)
Is it me?

7. I go into a disassembler - It takes me apart and reassembles me next 
door using some new molecules (same configuration - some different 
molecules)
Is it me? (if not when is it not me - 10% different molecules, 20%,50%)

8. The disassembler just takes my blueprint leaves me where I am and makes 
an exact copy next door
Are they me?

Where am I?

If I make an exact copy of me then it is by definition me.  As soon as it 
starts to have different experiences then the two copies diverge and become 
two different people. This seems logical to me.  The only reason it is hard 
to accept is that it challenges our notions of what it means to be me.  We 
cannot point at a static object and say there I am (much as we want to).

Is it an accident that we all thought that brain cells were there forever 
and new ones never grew or just an attempt to be able to point to a 
concrete object and say this is me (western scientists have long said I am 
my brain)?  Now we find out that they are continuouslly changing so  where 
am I?  If I am just the process and not the hardware then our whole world 
view may have to be altered!

Of course, I could be wrong but...
Joseph.

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