Sorry about that ridiculous watermark.
Me with brain chip implants, especially those with non-libre software
“But what if it kills you, but no one can tell?”
this is pascal’s wager for nerds
Pascal’s wager argues that if there are 2 different and non provable outcomes to a belief, you should believe the one that has better consequences for you.
In this case there are no divine consequences of being destroyed and reassembled in another location.
This is probably more of a ship of Theseus question.
The point of Pascal’s wager is how non provable beliefs can’t be logically reasoned one way or the other. Like how there is no objective original and duplicate ship of theseus.
People arguing over the danger of the transporter is a lot like trying to reason any unsolvable paradox, and especially like arguing over having faith. Better than roko’s basilisk, though, that’s pascal’s wager for scuzzy tools.
Assuming the first time is voluntary there’s potentially divine consequences to suicide.
-A man can’t step into the same teleporter twice.
Proverbs for the 24th century
McCoy is a doctor, not an engineer
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Hyperion suggests that you do not think about the fact that this is only a digital reconstruction of your original body, which died the first time you respawned. Do NOT think about this!
I don’t think transporters in star trek kill people, I just think they move them through subspace and the transporter malfunctions are subspace oddities
They shred your body down to its atoms, and re-assemble it somewhere else. If we have any sort of soul, or inner ghost, it almost certainly dies when your body is shredded.
This is why I want monsters Inc style linked door-wormholes. It’s less… Reconstituted flesh.
Less room for duplicates, more room for halfsies I guess
I’ll take the small chance of being cut in half over the guaranteed murder box, thanks.
Or Portal’s… well, portals.
That’s the Iconian gateway system, and it’s pretty boss.
I hear the testers for those get cake.
With mint frosting
Good news, I’m pretty sure holes in reality are more likely than the reconstitution beam.
Personally, as long as it’s provably safe, I’m fine with it.
As far as I’m concerned, if my consciousness is intact, and my body is a carbon copy, that’s me. I place more weight on my consciousness being me than those specific atoms being me.
Besides, we all shed all of our atoms and replace them with new ones dozens of times throughout our lives. So we’ve already died in that way, I guess? But then again, it doesn’t happen all at once, it’s more of a
ShipBody of Theseus type of thing.99.9% of the time you’d be right. But what if it accidentally made a copy of you. You can argue that you’re still you and rhe other is an independent person, but who gets the rights as the “real” you? All your possessions, bank accounts, debts, job, etc. ?
I see what you mean, but in my mind the chances of that would be so astronomically low that I personally wouldn’t be put off by it. To me it’s a bit like asking “what if the plane blows up?” or “what if the plane gets taken over by terrorists?”
Like yeah it’s a possibility, but if the risk is low enough I’m still gonna go ahead with it for the convenience factor.
Like I believe in death in the first place, let’s beam on down.
Existential Comics’ “The Machine” feels highly relevant here
I am neither an emergent property nor atoms, I simply am…
I personally never took much seriousness in the whole “What if your bed is a death machine!?!” idea
There’s too much continuity for that to make sense, I mean, I remember most of my dreams, so I can basically account for everything… And many of my dreams are effected by outside stimuli…
There are parts of your sleep that you’re basically unconscious and nearly impossible to wake.
The dreams could be a whole life being uploaded to your brain, hence the weirdness, until it’s initialized and you wake up.
A whole life uploaded from… where?
From them of course! :D
Yeah, the comic’s story and message are beautiful, but the “sleep kills you” argument is poorly thought out, and based on a shallow understanding of what continuity actually means. It’s not about consciousness, it’s about continuity. The processes in the brain that make up your mind don’t stop as soon as you fall asleep.
There’s an argument to be made about how you’re never the same person that you were even just a moment ago, because you’re constantly changing. That’s also shallow and lazy, and ignores the continuity we’re talking about.
There’s an argument to be made that from your perspective, continuity isn’t broken. That’s also shallow and lazy, because it treats the perception of continuity as if it’s the same thing as real continuity. As far as your clone is concerned, continuity wasn’t broken. But I was never worried about whether my clone will die when I go in the teleporter, you know?
We don’t even know that the brain makes the mind, it could easily be the other way around.
No, we do know that the brain makes the mind. Physical changes to the brain can make predictable changes to the mind, but your thoughts don’t change the structure of your brain.
While your first point is true, your second is not. It’s actually been found that if you change the way you think about stuff, your brain actually changes. It’s this little thing called neuroplasticity and it’s fucking wild. - https://www.healthline.com/health/rewiring-your-brain
We’ve also observed intelligence and seeming awareness from things like fungus, which don’t even have brains.
Yeah, I’m aware of that. Vasanas are a related topic. But these are results of physical interactions between neurons in your brain. There’s nothing nonphysical about your mind that creates or alters matter supernaturally. My point stands, the mind is, as far as a naturalistic philosophy is concerned, an emergent property of complex interactions in the brain.
If my thought moved the neurons as opposed to my neurons making the thought as demonstrated by neuroplasticity, than the brain cannot be the origin.
That comic really came out with a banger on day 1
Damn right, goes hard!
Not to mention, if we have the technology to construct human bodies and minds on the other side of that teleporter, what is to stop them from modifying the machines to change your brain (or body). I have lost any trust I once had in any government or company to believe them if, hypothetically, they tell me they have the know-how to change my opinion of Coca Cola upon reconstruction.
Cory Doctorow vibes.
You might like Glasshouse by Charles Stross.
Typical McCoy. Calls turbolifts elevators and transporters teleporters.
“Old man yells at matter stream.”
Ever wonder if that transporter tech was used to rebuild you better, stronger, smarter, faster?
Better, stronger, smarter, faster?
More than ever Hour after hour
Work is never over.
Well we know the pattern buffer can hold a person indefinitely (SNW doc’s daughter) and they have bio filters that remove any bug changing the genome pattern you beamed down with…that’s all defensive, I’m sure the tech could be turned up to 11 but then you’re flying near Khan’s territory
Can’t remember the exact story, but Larry Niven used that idea. Basically, you teleported from one side of the room to the other, but left all the poisons your cells had built up behind. The hero does this accidentally, then notices himself growing healthier over time.
In another universe, Relg phased Silk through stone and found the cure for the common cold as the illness couldnt pass through with them…for some reason
No idea what series/game you are talking about.
Enlighten us
The Belgariad books by David Eddings
Thanks.
Might want to check out this series. Jackie Chan meets the Godfather meets the Green Lantern. One a planet that’s reached 1950s level technology, one small nation has a monopoly on a substance called ‘jade.’ It enables a few people to perform extraordinary feats.
Thanks ill look it up!
Enjoy
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I think McCoy was more afraid of accidents than existential factors.
The fact that two Rikers existed is all the proof I need to be full Luddite. Save your death machines for the next person, thanks!
And they treat the one on the planet like he’s a copy when he’d logically be the original with the one on the Enterprise being the duplicate.
They are both copies. They explain that the guy operating the transporter was losing him, so he used a second beam to try to compensate. On beam made it through, the other bounced off the st uff in the atmosphere that was causing the problem and rematerialized him on the planet. I’m pretty sure this explanation was in the episode in order to establish that both Rikers are equally real.
I think that makes both Rikers equally fake, not real.
Equally fake and equally real are the same thing.
This one Trinitys
Equally fake and equally real are equal?
Beg to differ.
The Queen gives birth to twin boys. It’s a stormy night and the midwife isn’t sure which is older. They are equally the ‘real’ king.
Two counterfeit dollar bills are equally fake.
If one counterfeit dollar buys a soda, does it matter who’s king?
This is a semantics argument. The way the person you’re talking to means it, two things being equally fake also means that they’re equally real, because they are both just as real as the other (that is, not).
Except that that explanation means Tom was made with the original Riker materials and Will was made from matter reserves on the ship using the original Riker as a template.
Ship of Theseus
No, USS Enterprise NCC 1701-D. But I can see why that would be confusing.
Both beams were pulling in genuine Will Riker. Presumably they are both a mix of the original material and additional material formed by the transporter. That or the transporter is violating the law of conservation of energy.
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Well shoot! I’d never thought about that and now I’m mad!
Give Tom Riker his promotion!
