Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site topaz.RUTGERS.EDU Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!pyramid!pyrnj!topaz!AI.MAYANK From: AI.MAYANK@MCC.ARPA Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Re: Matter Transmission. Message-ID: <3984@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> Date: Thu, 10-Oct-85 23:07:19 EDT Article-I.D.: topaz.3984 Posted: Thu Oct 10 23:07:19 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 12-Oct-85 06:42:14 EDT Sender: daemon@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 42 From: Mayank Prakash >no. you're the one trying to get me into a disintigrator. you'll >have to explain to me how the copy of me you're going to make is >going to have my consciousness in it. not a copy of my consciousness, >but *my* consciousness. so far all you've said is "it looks like >a cow. it acts like a cow. it must be a cow." all i've >been saying is "it might be a cow, but it isn't the same cow." > >my point is simple. for my money, from the point of view of the No, your point is not simple. What *is* your consciousness, and how is it to be distinguished from a copy of it? Before I can explain to you how a copy of you may have your consciousness, in fact before we can communicate with each other at all, we must come to an agreement as to the meaning of terms that we use. I find your interpretation of the word *consciousness* very vague and meaningless (and perhaps, a little romantic), and therefore I want to understand more clearly what is it that you mean by it. >original, the experience will be the same regardless of whether >or not the recording device is connected: he will walk into >a disintigrator and die. all you guys are claiming that if >the recorder is disconnected, he'll die, but if it is connected >he won't die. sounds implausible to me. You are getting confused because there are two things involved here - a transportation mechanism, and a life support system. If the first fails, you don't go anywhere, if the second fails, you die. The only difference is that they are both well integrated with each other in this case, so failure of one is also failure of the other. To consider an analogy, you walk into a spaceship, and make a trip to, say, the moon. If the transportation mechanism (the rockets, the navigation equipment etc.) breaks down, you end up in some SF location. If the life support system fails, you die. If both are run by the same computer, then your dead body reaches some unknown realms of space. The transporter is not much different. (Witness Captain Kirk and his crew that has survived numerous such trips). -mayank. -------