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December 30th, 2007
04:16 pm - Viewpoints
A week or two ago I was looking through some articles on www.cracked.com. Some really hilarious things, written very funny... I don't quite have enough pop-culture grounding to get all the references (I don't watch the right TV shows or movies). But also informative and interesting and occasionally thought-provoking.
So, reading the article 5 Awesome Sci-Fi Inventions (That Would Actually Suck), and number 2 is Teleporters (à la Star Trek). Why would it suck? Well, they would work, it says, like fax machines: it sends a copy and destroys the original (referencing an episode in which a Will Riker didn't get destroyed and showed up later to mess up the surviving Will Riker's life). Says the post:
Are you grasping the weirdness of this? The original is destroyed. That means when you step into a teleporter, you die. But, the rest of the world won't know you died, because a copy of you will step out of the other end of the machine. It won't be you, though, it'll be another you that happens to share your memories. To the outside observer the thing will always work fine, and the thing that steps out of the receiving end will think it worked fine. The one person who knows it didn't worked fine, can't tell anyone because they fucking died via total atomization the moment they stepped into the machine.
So, the first time Captain Kirk used the teleportation device to beam down to an alien planet, he was basically resigning himself to an immediate death and hoping that his twin would carry out the mission for him.
Now, I'd occasionally pondered this whole question as well, imagining that there are "viewpoints," and this kind of teleportation would be the end of a "viewpoint." Maybe even the "viewpoint" that is me once was you, or someone else, but our memories are only of who we are at the moment. How would you feel about uploading your consciousness, say, into a computer if it meant that your wetware brain would be roasted medium-rare? Would you use a transporter, understanding that it worked with this mechanism?
But then I considered: how do I know that this isn't precisely what happens, say, every time I go to sleep, or otherwise lose consciousness? For all I know, that "viewpoint" terminates and a new one, sharing its memories, arises the next morning. (Or does it only happen like that for unconsciousness due to, say, medical anesthesia? Maybe different kinds of sleep are different.) If you think about it, all your experience would be just the same if your "viewpoint" perished every night—or for that matter, if you changed "viewpoints" every time the number of minutes you've been alive was a prime number (the changeover doesn't even have to be during a state of unconsciousness). I think if you consider it this way, that really sort of puts an end to that kind of view. If these "viewpoints" exist, then they do not affect our experiences at all, and it is indistinguishable from the case in which they don't exist. In which case, in what sense can they be said to exist at all?
I've started thinking about it a little, pretending they did exist anyway, sometimes before going to bed. Thinking, "OK, well, this is it for this viewpoint, this scintilla of consciousness. I'll be a different me in the morning. Has this been a well-spent day, for my single day of existence?" A little sobering, but interesting nonetheless.
Also gives one something to ponder about death. If I've been "dying" frequently and never knew it, maybe it isn't so bad. Of course, there won't be anyone to take up the mantle of being me afterwards, but consciousness will still be enjoyed by other people. "I" won't have it anymore, but then, there really isn't an "I" anymore, and other people being conscious is sort of like the "me" that wakes up the next morning...
Gah. Not easy concepts to express.
I think a lot of what we humans blather on about comes down to a basic difficulty we have in understanding lack of consciousness. We really have trouble knowing what it's like not to be conscious, and considering that we spend a third of our lives that way, that's sort of puzzling, but there it is. Why is an afterlife a feature of just about every religion? Because we can't conceive of just "not being there" anymore. What happens to "you" after death? is the question; that it is an ill-posed question (due to the failure of existence of "you") doesn't seem to occur (what happens to a letter after you erase it? Well, nothing; it isn't a letter anymore).
We find ourselves anthropomorphizing all kinds of things, like pondering about "cruelty to animals." Mind you, I'm willing to believe that in general most of the "higher" organisms do have some rudiments of consciousness and can experience pain and even suffering. Certainly most mammals and birds. But is there really a concept of "cruelty" to, say, insects? Can they even be considered to suffer? Suffering is different from pain, too, since suffering implies (to me) a duration and a comparison with earlier states. There was a news story some years ago about humane treatment of fish by fishermen and the fish-packing industry. Can fish really be said to suffer? I'm not as sure about them as I am about mammals, probably because mammals are similar enough to me that they use pain-signals that I can understand viscerally.
There's more to this discussion, but I think I've reached the point where I need to respond to other people's responses to add much more.
Update 2/24/2008: Take a look at this video, which deals with some of the same issues, apparently for children from the National Film Board of Canada.
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| From: | ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) rlpowell |
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| Date: | January 11th, 2008 08:19 pm (UTC) |
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| | I seem to be nearly unique in this. | (Link) |
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I think I'm the only person I've ever met that would kill emself for a doppleganger (especially one in a fresh body without the injuries mine has) if it was necessary/appropriate to do so. I really don't have any attachment to my current stream of consciousness, but I'm still attached to *me*. That is, I want there to be something mentally identical with me running around, but I don't much care if it's the same consciousness stream.
-Robin ![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/513701/350188) | | From: | seqram |
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| Date: | January 17th, 2008 10:20 pm (UTC) |
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| | Re: I seem to be nearly unique in this. | (Link) |
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Now that I've thought about it more, as shown by the journal entry on which we are commenting, I too am less squeamish about the idea of dying to be transferred to something else. I would want the two to be simultaneous, though. I don't relish the idea of (one of me) opening my eyes and realizing I'm the "me" in the squishy body that has to be destroyed, and not the gleaming new one. I suppose that won't matter once the deed is done, though.
Another point, though, is that whatever else might happen to various forks of me, the end of this squishy-bodied one is still significant, still the end of a personal era. Whatever becomes of my forks, whatever fame and accomplishments await them, *this* one, the squishy one, is the _original_. It was in _this_ neural structure that I developed and became who I am, and that is probably more significant development than I would do in a thousand years after forking.
OK, I know that "end of an era" sounds grandiose, but everyone's life is important to themselves. Significant events in my life should be as important _to me_ as significant events in the history of the world, because (after all) I *am* my world. | From: | rlpowell |
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| Date: | January 22nd, 2008 10:20 pm (UTC) |
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| | Re: I seem to be nearly unique in this. | (Link) |
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That all seems sensible to me, FWIW. I would also prefer to continue in my squishy body, at least until I'd upgraded enough parts for it to not matter.
-Robin Да порой там публикуют довольно таки интересные статьи. _____________________________ Покажите мне человека, который не любит смотреть фильмы онлайн бесплатно! |
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