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From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Re: consciousness and the teleporter
Message-ID: <326@pyuxn.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 25-Oct-83 19:59:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxn.326
Posted: Tue Oct 25 19:59:51 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Oct-83 08:11:57 EDT
References: <12707@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs, Piscataway
Lines: 29

My own feelings on consciousness:  consciousness is understandable (though
not yet understood) as a physical/chemical process or state.  Thus, a person's
"consciousness" could conceivably be duplicated in another entity at another
location (through some sort of teleporting device as previously described).
Though the notion of a teleporting device may be beyond the scope of
current knowledge (just like the knowledge of what "consciousness" is all
about is beyond our current scope) it is irrelevant.  The duplication can
take place through local chemical/physical actions for our purposes.

If one's consciousness can be construed to be the biochemical state of one's
brain (and body) at a given moment, then the possibility exists that it can
be reconstructed according to exact specifications in "another entity".  If
*you* are the subject of this reconstruction, would the reconstructed entity
be the real you?  Not if the original "you" still exists.  Would it be
"another" you?  Only for the single moment of its conception, and in reality
not even then.  First off, changes in one's consciousness are at least
partially determined by outside influences (sensory input), so the very fact
that the other entity is in another place will result in different sensory
inputs and different subsequent states of consciousness in the future.
Secondly, the process of duplication will probably not be instantaneous.  Thus,
the duplicate will have the same state of consciousness that you *had* at
the time of "scanning" for "duplication".  However, at that moment of
conception, the duplicate entity will have the consciousness that you had;
the same knowledge, the same memories, etc.

I realize that I'm saying "this *will* happen when blah blah" somewhat
overauthoritatively.  These are just my pet theories for this week as to
the consequences of consciousness being a physical (cf. metaphysical)
phenomenon.				Rich