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Cliches you can't stand

In my opinion the objective answer to the question of identity is that there isn't one. "Identity" in my opinion is an arbitrary human concept, that only exists in our own minds. Whether two copies of a person are the same person or not is a matter of opinion, not fact; there's no "true answer" to find.

SpeckofStardust said:
Inflation would argue that more of the same thing devalues both however.
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It can both decrease and increase value. A single molecule of water is basically useless, but a glass of trillions of them is something you can drink to save alive.

Or look at aluminum; it used to be a precious metal, but with better methods of extraction the value of an individual chunk of aluminum became quite small - but at the same time the aggregate value of aluminum in all its various uses is much larger, and has grown far beyond merely being used as rare ornamentation.
 
Valmond said:
And they are still not the same coin.
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If you can't physically distinguish them, down to the molecular level, how do you prove this? You can no longer, for example, point to one as the original and say the other isn't. In every way that actually matters, in every way that can be measured, they are the same coin.
 
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Night said:
If you can't physically distinguish them, down to the molecular level, how do you prove this? You can no longer, for example, point to one as the original and say the other isn't. In every way that actually matters, in every way that can be measured, they are the same coin.
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I can point to one and then the other and say that that one's more to the right of that one, which they couldn't be if they were the same coin. Like if you wanna quibble about which one is the original and noone's been keeping track of that, sure, there's no way to know. But like this whole "are different things really different things?" is just ridiculous.
 
Guys, this is getting ridiculous. Back to the topic.

(Also you'll never solve this, that argument is a classic philosophical argument for a reason.)
 
If you were in a vegetative state for 7 years and then they managed to reactivate your brain pathways and wake you up, are you still you?

Obviously yes, even though there was interruption of consciousness, displacement of location and afaik materially speaking no continuance of physical matter between you 7 years ago and you now.

Speeding up this process does not change the fundamentals, to my mind.
 
If we make a copy of you, and then shoot you leaving the copy, is that copy you?
And does the answer change if we just make a blueprint of you, shoot you, and then make a copy later?
 
I am, somewhat sceptical, that most people would allow themselves to be killed, as long as someone will make a copy of them later.
But we are getting of topic of transporters and wether or not they kill people.
 
Valmond said:
I am, somewhat sceptical, that most people would allow themselves to be killed, as long as someone will make a copy of them later.
But we are getting of topic of transporters and wether or not they kill people.
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I mean, Star Trek went through their own stories about transporters and self, the most memorable of which were the two Rikers and Tuvix.
 
Valmond said:
I am, somewhat sceptical, that most people would allow themselves to be killed, as long as someone will make a copy of them later.
But we are getting of topic of transporters and wether or not they kill people.
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Consider why these people would be hesitant.

1) Is it because they don't want to suffer from being killed
2) Is it because they don't trust you
3) Is it because they don't want to miss the intervening times

All those concerns don't apply to the identity question, they're just technical details of the teleporter.

LIke if you offered me the opportunity to be put in a coma and then awake later, I would decline, even though I think I would still be the same person.
 
10ebbor10 said:
Consider why these people would be hesitant.

1) Is it because they don't want to suffer from being killed
2) Is it because they don't trust you
3) Is it because they don't want to miss the intervening times

All those concerns don't apply to the identity question, they're just technical details of the teleporter.

LIke if you offered me the opportunity to be put in a coma and then awake later, I would decline, even though I think I would still be the same person.
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4) because they don't really consider a copy of themselves, themselves.
Because the situation would be more or less the same if you made a copy, and then killed one of them on the premise that nobody will die because, well, there's still one left.
 
Valmond said:
4) because they don't really consider a copy of themselves, themselves.
Because the situation would be more or less the same if you made a copy, and then killed one of them on the premise that nobody will die because, well, there's still one left.
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In Hime-chan no Ribbon, the copy of the main character realizes herself as such, as she realizes her temporality. True, their characters differ
 
From what I understood (from this thread) on how the Star Trek's teleportation works, isn't it similar to Soma, where instead of having your mind straight uploaded into a computer, it was instead a "Copy+Paste" job -- the person doing the uploading, outside of the computer is still there, but there's now another "you" inside the computer, an entirely separate being.

Honestly, I would be pretty fucking spooked. I wouldn't even touch it ever. It's a pretty horrible teleportation method. Like, if I step into the teleportation device, I will be dead -- the SoothingCoffee that comes out of the other end is not me. Sure, they might be the absolute same, down to the genetics, and psychology. SoothingCoffee might continue, but that SoothingCoffee wouldn't me, because I'm fucking dead.
 
SoothingCoffee said:
Sure, they might be the absolute same, down to the genetics, and psychology. SoothingCoffee might continue, but that SoothingCoffee wouldn't me, because I'm fucking dead.
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Why? What is the thing that's being lost?

cB557 said:
I can point to one and then the other and say that that one's more to the right of that one, which they couldn't be if they were the same coin. Like if you wanna quibble about which one is the original and noone's been keeping track of that, sure, there's no way to know. But like this whole "are different things really different things?" is just ridiculous.
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The point of things being identical is that they are the same, by definition.
 
SoothingCoffee said:
Me. I'm lost -- I'm dead. I don't give a damn about the SoothingCoffee that comes out from the other end, about how identical he is to me, because that SoothingCoffee is not me -- why? Because I'm dead.
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Thought experiment: let's the machine, instead of duplicating you or whatever, just puts... puts you on hold. Like you're frozen in carbonite, or whatever analogy you wish. You're then reanimated some arbitrary period of time later. Would you still think "you" are dead and that the person being awakened is someone else?
 
Vyslanté said:
Thought experiment: let's the machine, instead of duplicating you or whatever, just puts... puts you on hold. Like you're frozen in carbonite, or whatever analogy you wish. You're then reanimated some arbitrary period of time later. Would you still think "you" are dead and that the person being awakened is someone else?
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Being put on hold, be it through freezing, or time stasis, or sleeping pills, or some other way.
Is, to my mind, distinctly different from "pulled apart at subatomic level", to be later copied, which is what transporter does.
 
The problem with the "teleporter problem" or whatever is that it's not actually a teleporter everyone's talking about. It's a magic copy machine. The whole death problem is irrelevant; your magic copy machine just doesn't function as a means of transportation in the first place. If I want to take a vacation on Mars, your copy machine can put a copy of me on Mars, but I'll still be stuck here, on Earth, not having my Mars vacation. Why would I want that to happen? The best the copy machine can do is beam over a copy of post-vacation Derpmind back over to Earth, but from my perspective I'll still not have experienced going on my expensive Mars vacation. Plus now there's three Derpminds, one of which is stuck on Mars, and now we have to feed ourselves when only one of us has a job and a bank account. Completely inconvenient, not as advertised, 0/10.

Just because the magic copy machine can create a copy remotely isn't nearly as important as the fact it's a magic copy machine. That's nuts, yo! Do I want to make a twin sister? Would we get along with each other? Is your job willing to pay for a second you? How complicated is the paperwork you have to file so the two (or three, or more) of you have your own government-recognized identities?

Yes, you can also use this copy machine to make copies 1,000 miles away or whatever. But the practical use of this is, like, if the costs of normal transportation are super high (not just skipping a plane ticket), and even then why would you ever blow up the original? Because it's convenient? Whatever nonsense you believe about identity, you're still killing a person who'd otherwise be able to go about their life if you'd just be willing to accept that you have a magic copy machine, rather than pretending it's a space-warping transportation device.
 
Trying to move on from this debate.


I am really starting to dislike armies not mattering in your stories, or when they are taken seriously my sod is broken because the protagonists have spent half there time mocking the army because they were being incompetent.
 
Yeah, you don't need to constantly fetishize the military but if you're trying to have them lose to hype up a threat then it's best for them to actually be competent for it to be effective.

If they're just pitiful redshirts then the monster killing a bunch of them isn't really threatening, it's just sad or irritating.
 
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One thing about Star Trek transporter arguments always confused me. People talk about continuity of consciousness but, well... hasn't it actually been showed many times through the show that continuity of consciousness is maintained? That people are fully conscious, if a bit fuzzy, in the middle of getting beamed?
 
DestinyPlayer said:
One thing about Star Trek transporter arguments always confused me. People talk about continuity of consciousness but, well... hasn't it actually been showed many times through the show that continuity of consciousness is maintained? That people are fully conscious, if a bit fuzzy, in the middle of getting beamed?
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Yeah, not only do we see Barclay able to see while being beamed, he actually acts, grabbing an object, in one episode.
 
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