12
Star Trek transporters
(lemmy.world)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023
12 points (71.4% liked)
Showerthoughts
29522 readers
815 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- Avoid politics
- NEW RULE as of 5 Nov 2024, trying it out
- Political posts often end up being circle jerks (not offering unique perspective) or enflaming (too much work for mods).
- Try c/politicaldiscussion, volunteer as a mod here, or start your own community.
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct-----
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
You don't need a distant science fiction MacGuffin for this. Every night you lay down and "die" for 8 hours or so, then your consciousness turns back on and you simply trust that it wasn't altered too much in the interim. We know very well that the way we think can change from one day to the other, so who's to say you're really the same person?
I don't think that's quite the same. Sleeping (or intoxication) is a temporary effect clouding your "normal" consciousness. Once whatever caused it goes away - assuming nothing actually changed, as you say - you're back to your old self. While sleep is "discontinuity of consciousness" in one way, a tell is that you can still remember dreams. If you've ever had (deep) general anesthesia, that time you were under can seem like it's "missing" in a way that pure sleep doesn't.
In contrast, the teleporter sort of... obliterates you, shredding you into atoms and rebuilding you later (if the matter doesn't need to "travel", at least the information is limited to light speed). It'd be no different from any other catastrophic damage to the brain.
The determining question for whether or not it's the same is this: Are you the physical matter of your brain, or the electricity running through it? In the first case, sleep isn't death. In the second case, it is. I would argue that you're closer to the electricity than the brain matter, since an unpowered brain is how we define death.
But REALLY it ultimately doesn't matter, if you think about it. An exact clone of you created after any kind of destruction of consciousness is no different than the original you had the destruction never occurred. We just intuitively really do not like that idea.
Or, since we're getting philosophical anyway, are you some sort of spiritual entity inhabiting your body and experiencing the physical world through it?
BTW - if that's the case then the transporter in the original question is definitely a death machine.