this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2025
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So what would happen if the original wasn’t “destructively” scanned and was just scanned. 2 would exist. Ergo, you’re dying each time.
I’ve thought about this for over 25 years at this point. Ever since the first journeyman project game and moment where you teleport to work and it’s like you die, then come back to life, because that’s the only way it could ever work. Unless there’s some weird physics shit I don’t understand where you like slip through a wormhole or something. I don’t know I suck at that kind of physics
The body is dying but the conscousness continues, that's where the self is anyway. Done right it would be like falling asleep on the train and waking up somewhere else but legally fraught.
but I'd still be the me of theseus
I'm already the me of theseus. Am I still me? Oh fuck. Who am I?
That opens up all kinds of cans of worms. Let's say you are put into a medical coma, no thoughts, only eniugh activity to sustain life. You're scanned, and a perfect copy of you is made. You both wake up in another room, at exactly the same time. Are both versions of you equally "you?" You don't know which is which. Does the answer change if a 3rd party knows, or there is no knowledge of which is which? If all that matters is continuous stream of consciousness, then I suppose the answer would be you died in the coma, and two people with your memories were born, I suppose.
Easy there, clone mauler.
Yes and then immediately no. Their experiences diverge from that point to become two distinct people with a shared past. It's entirely irrelevant which body is "original". Continuous stream of consciousness is overrated.
Duh, that’s the inherent philosophical construct. The body dies but a consciousness continues. What “is” consciousness. Is it a “soul” that can be extracted from a corporeal form and injected into a (in this example) carbon copy? If that is the case how does one “verify” the “extraction” occurred and the process of creating a carbon copy did not create a carbon copy “soul”? To the outside observer the scenario you describe would happen but you would die on the train and you 2.0 would pick up where you left off.
Perhaps (and far far more likely) consciousness is a byproduct of extremely high quality sensory processing with the capacity for storing both long and short term memories and attending to stimuli. But even again if we created a perfect replica of this that is all it would be, a replica. It would think it’s you, but it’s not. The original you, the you it’s copied from, is dead.
To defeat this means to upend several sciences as far as I know. Biology, neuroscience, physics. A clone will always be morally distinct, and teleportation would always ultimately result in creating a clone. What the legal ramifications of this would be i dont know. Capitalism is wild and if someone did figure this out I bet money there would be a product on the market that was rushed despite not having answered these (likely unanswerable) questions and probably protected from criticism because it “revolutionizes transportation” or some shit
Cogito, ergo sum. I am not the collection of atoms I was when I was born and I am not a continuity of consciousness from before the last time I slept.
Your brain doesn't stop doing things when you sleep, because if it did, you'd not be breathing.
Irrelevant, unless you think the body is an essential element of a being.
You are rejecting modern philosophy of mind so you can embrace science fiction and (more likely) wild fantasies about defeating mortality
Again this would upend everything we know about biology, physics, and neuroscience.
If the Descartes quote is all you care about then it’s potentially a different story. Like do you want to live forever or exist forever? Different things. Elon musk is probably chasing both but okay with the latter, for example
Well I'm pretty sure it's impossible technology so it's not upending anything, but mostly I just don't think the "self" is as rare and precious as a bunch of people seem to.
That’s a different argument. Is consciousness meaningful? Yes, because I like it, but of course someone who is passively suicidal will disagree. Who is right? Debatable. That doesn’t change theory of mind though.
Edit: this is an example I don’t mean to imply you’re passively suicidal, to be clear
If, by 'teleport', we mean: a machine scans your data and sends it to be rebuilt, then I wonder: why stop at 1? You have the data, make 9001 of me!
The creation of such a machine may actually be dystopia. Human diversity may plummet, with most of us in a predetermined role as clones.
If any clone of you has a predetermined role, doesn't that apply to yourself too? Since you're the original clone
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine an infinite amount of Tom Rikers hitting on any female face – for ever."
Bobiverse it is, then.